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Headshot portraiture from The Great Scavenger Meetup 2017 While posting the image of Sam, I also have to take a moment to express my sincere thanks and gratitude to her for the amazing help she provided that enabled me to teach my class in Vegas and that resulted in the images of all of these Scavengers. Sam brought strobes, triggers, modifiers, stands, a projector, and her awesome self to this, and I absolutely could not have done any of this without her. Travelling internationally with all that stuff is a nightmare, Sam stepped up and offered her gear for me to use, and her help in setting up and tearing down. I know that bringing everything out was very stressful for her and I thank her from the bottom of my heart for making this happen. Love you much, young lady!! via 500px ift.tt/2Ce5i6j
Outside of the Town Hall theater on West 43rd Street in Manhattan, a crowd of smiling and optimistic people Friday overflowed into the one-way street. Delivery trucks and yellow taxi cabs creeped by, their engines engaged in a shouting match with Bennet Weiss, a man who bore a fleeting resemblance to the Democratic presidential candidate they were all there to support.
"We don't have billions of dollars! All we have are people wearing Bernie pins," Weiss yelled, a large black umbrella covered in Bernie Sanders campaign pins at his feet, catching drops of sweat from his brow. The Occupy Wall Street protester-turned-Sanders supporter urged the crowd to wear the pins at all times with no exception -- even in the shower -- and gave them away freely to anyone who said they didn't have enough cash to afford to pay the suggested donation.
That's the kind of populist support Sanders' campaign has steadily been attracting since the U.S. senator from Vermont formally announced his candidacy in late April. Friday was no exception, with passion-filled people who think Sanders has proved himself the worthy champion of causes they care about the most, such as income inequality, climate change, Wall Street reform and further healthcare reforms. But, perhaps most importantly, they also think he can win the White House.
"Absolutely" he can win, said Joe Trinolone, 30, a former finance industry worker from Long Island, New York, who is studying mathematics at St. Joseph's University. "I mean, he's winning right now."
Sanders, during a fundraising speech Friday, ticked through the policies he cares about and areas of change he wants to see in Washington should he become president. At each turn, his blend of outrage, optimism and sly sarcasm brought raucous cheers from the crowd of 1,100. He rejected recent Wall Street Journal criticism of the high price tag of his proposals, including making public colleges and universities free, lowering so-called real unemployment by pumping funding into infrastructure repairs for the nation’s roads and bridges and implementing a universal healthcare system.
Instead, he pointed to European nations that already have those programs. He implored the crowd to think about what many of them were already talking about: that taking on the big-money interests in the United States that impede those sorts of policy changes is a shared moral obligation.
“Welcome to the revolution,” Sanders said, describing what he believes must happen to American politics. “We can accomplish all of this and more.” And the crowd ate it up.
When asked why they support Sanders, many described his candidacy as a movement. They love his policies, and have a hard time thinking of much they don’t like about him. They especially like that he has been a consistent voice during his time in Washington. That’s a big perceived difference between Sanders and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. Those "feeling the Bern" were split on whether they would consider voting for her if she becomes the nominee. Many were newcomers to political action but felt compelled to join the fray when they heard Sanders and his message.
“I’ve never been excited about a politician my entire life,” said Meira Marom, 34, a Brooklyn third-grade teacher with a master's degree in creative writing. When Marom started seeing social media posts about Sanders and reading about him, she decided to stop focusing her personal time on writing for herself. She now writes and publishes something about Sanders every day -- Dr. Seuss themes every Sunday, poems and parodies. “I decided this is the most worthy cause to put my rhymes to use.”
Sanders has seen an unexpected rise in the polls since he joined the race for the Democratic nomination shortly after the current national front-runner Clinton announced her candidacy. While Sanders was trailing Clinton by 21.4 percent in national averages of polls compiled by Real Clear Politics, a look at early nominating states like Iowa and New Hampshire paints a different picture of vulnerability for Clinton and strength for Sanders.
The two candidates are tied in Iowa, which constitutes a dramatic drop for Clinton and an impressive surge for Sanders, who has been distancing himself from Clinton in New Hampshire at the top of the Democratic pack since Aug. 25, when he jumped past her in the state for the first time. He currently leads there by 10.5 points.
The candidates are noticeably different in many ways, from policy prescription to fundraising strategy.
Clinton has moved leftward since announcing her candidacy, but she is still threatened by the populist appeal of Sanders, who has long championed the causes that seem to be coming into grace for the Democratic Party. While the candidates currently hold some very similar positions on issues such as immigration reform, gay rights, gun control and campaign finance reform, Sanders has been able to stake out positions to the left of Clinton on other issues that excite some vocal voters.
Among them are his strong anti-war and anti-government surveillance positions as well as his distaste for President Barack Obama's Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal. Sanders also has been a vocal critic of Wall Street and champion of financial reforms, and his stance on those issues has drawn attention to Clinton's cozy relationship with Wall Street executives and the huge paychecks she has received for speeches to large banks since leaving the U.S. State Department. For some Sanders supporters, though, the perception that Sanders has been a consistent proponent of these liberal policies, and cares about them more than winning, is key.
“It’s the message that supporting Bernie Sanders is not just voting on a horse in the race” that attracts Brian Dillon, a 28-year-old self-employed Web designer and developer for e-commerce, said Friday. Dillon has voted just one time in his life, but he has been organizing meetings to drum up support for Sanders.
Sanders's fundraising portfolio also is the reverse of Clinton's. While the former secretary of state is expected to spend somewhere north of $1 billion should she win the primary and head into the general election for 2016, the same has not been said of Sanders. Currently, Clinton has raised, through her campaign committee and super PACs associated with the campaign, $47.5 million, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. Sanders, on the other hand, has raised just shy of $16.5 million, according to CRP data.
Their most startling difference in fundraising, however, can be seen in the size of the donations they're receiving. The Clinton campaign received 82 percent of its donations from large contributors, and her top industry donors, not including retired people, so far have been lawyers, business services and the financial industry.
In contrast, Sanders relies much more on small donations, which are defined as donations totaling $200 or less. So far, 69 percent of his contributions have come from small donors, and the biggest industries that have given to his campaign have been from the education, legal and healthcare sectors.
Who are those small donors? The types of people who showed up Friday. Some said they donate $25 to $30 a month to Sanders. Some said they have donated several hundred dollars since he jumped into the presidential race. Nearly all of them mentioned they don't earn a ton of money personally. One in particular, Machumu Sakulira, said he donated $500 before attending Friday’s event.
There is “no way” he would support a Clinton ticket, said Sakulira, a 31-year-old senior political science student at the University at Buffalo. He got on a bus Thursday night at 11 p.m. and arrived in New York at 7 a.m. for the Sanders speech. He said he was going back Friday night. “Bernie represents my interest. My vote is a moral choice, I don’t give it to somebody who doesn’t deserve it.”
www.ibtimes.com/election-2016-bernie-sanders-nyc-fundrais...
Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (Russian: Алексе́й Макси́мович Пешко́в or Пе́шков;[1] 28 March [O.S. 16 March] 1868 – 18 June 1936), primarily known as Maxim Gorky (Russian: Макси́м Го́рький), was a Russian and Soviet writer, a founder of the socialist realism literary method, and a political activist.[2] He was also a five-time nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature.[3] Around fifteen years before success as a writer, he frequently changed jobs and roamed across the Russian Empire; these experiences would later influence his writing. Gorky's most famous works were The Lower Depths (1902), Twenty-six Men and a Girl (1899), The Song of the Stormy Petrel (1901), My Childhood (1913–1914), Mother (1906), Summerfolk (1904) and Children of the Sun (1905). He had an association with fellow Russian writers Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov; Gorky would later mention them in his memoirs.
Gorky was active with the emerging Marxist social-democratic movement. He publicly opposed the Tsarist regime, and for a time closely associated himself with Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov's Bolshevik wing of the party. For a significant part of his life, he was exiled from Russia and later the Soviet Union. In 1932, he returned to the USSR on Joseph Stalin's personal invitation and lived there until his death in June 1936.
Contents
1 Life
1.1 Early years
1.2 Political and literary development
1.3 Capri years
1.4 Return from exile
1.5 Povolzhye famine
1.6 Second exile
1.7 Death of Lenin
1.8 Return to Russia: last years
1.9 Apologist for the gulag
1.10 Hostility to gays
1.11 Conflicts[citation needed] with Stalinists
1.12 Death
2 Depictions and adaptations
3 Selected works
3.1 Novels
3.2 Novellas
3.3 Short stories
3.4 Drama
3.5 Non-fiction
3.6 Collections
4 See also
5 Notes
6 Sources
7 Further reading
8 External links
Life
Early years
Born as Alexei Maximovich Peshkov on 28 March [O.S. 16 March] 1868, in Nizhny Novgorod, Gorky became an orphan at the age of eleven. He was brought up by his grandmother[2] and ran away from home at the age of twelve in 1880. After an attempt at suicide in December 1887, he travelled on foot across the Russian Empire for five years, changing jobs and accumulating impressions used later in his writing.[2]
As a journalist working for provincial newspapers, he wrote under the pseudonym Иегудиил Хламида (Jehudiel Khlamida).[4] He started using the pseudonym "Gorky" (from горький; literally "bitter") in 1892, when his first short story, "Makar Chudra", was published by the newspaper Kavkaz (The Caucasus) in Tiflis, where he spent several weeks doing menial jobs, mostly for the Caucasian Railway workshops.[5][6][7] The name reflected his simmering anger about life in Russia and a determination to speak the bitter truth. Gorky's first book Очерки и рассказы (Essays and Stories) in 1898 enjoyed a sensational success, and his career as a writer began. Gorky wrote incessantly, viewing literature less as an aesthetic practice (though he worked hard on style and form) than as a moral and political act that could change the world. He described the lives of people in the lowest strata and on the margins of society, revealing their hardships, humiliations, and brutalisation, but also their inward spark of humanity.[2]
Political and literary development
Anton Chekhov and Gorky. 1900, Yalta
Gorky's reputation grew as a unique literary voice from the bottom strata of society and as a fervent advocate of Russia's social, political, and cultural transformation. By 1899, he was openly associating with the emerging Marxist social-democratic movement, which helped make him a celebrity among both the intelligentsia and the growing numbers of "conscious" workers. At the heart of all his work was a belief in the inherent worth and potential of the human person. In his writing, he counterposed individuals, aware of their natural dignity, and inspired by energy and will, with people who succumb to the degrading conditions of life around them. Both his writings and his letters reveal a "restless man" (a frequent self-description) struggling to resolve contradictory feelings of faith and scepticism, love of life and disgust at the vulgarity and pettiness of the human world.[citation needed]
In 1916, Gorky said that the teachings of the ancient Jewish sage Hillel the Elder deeply influenced his life: "In my early youth I read...the words of...Hillel, if I remember rightly: 'If thou art not for thyself, who will be for thee? But if thou art for thyself alone, wherefore art thou'? The inner meaning of these words impressed me with its profound wisdom...The thought ate its way deep into my soul, and I say now with conviction: Hillel's wisdom served as a strong staff on my road, which was neither even nor easy. I believe that Jewish wisdom is more all-human and universal than any other; and this not only because of its immemorial age...but because of the powerful humaneness that saturates it, because of its high estimate of man."[8]
He publicly opposed the Tsarist regime and was arrested many times. Gorky befriended many revolutionaries and became a personal friend of Vladimir Lenin after they met in 1902. He exposed governmental control of the press (see Matvei Golovinski affair). In 1902, Gorky was elected an honorary Academician of Literature, but Tsar Nicholas II ordered this annulled. In protest, Anton Chekhov and Vladimir Korolenko left the Academy.[9]
Leo Tolstoy with Gorky in Yasnaya Polyana, 1900
From 1900 to 1905, Gorky's writings became more optimistic. He became more involved in the opposition movement, for which he was again briefly imprisoned in 1901. In 1904, having severed his relationship with the Moscow Art Theatre in the wake of conflict with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, Gorky returned to Nizhny Novgorod to establish a theatre of his own.[10] Both Konstantin Stanislavski and Savva Morozov provided financial support for the venture.[11] Stanislavski believed that Gorky's theatre was an opportunity to develop the network of provincial theatres which he hoped would reform the art of the stage in Russia, a dream of his since the 1890s.[11] He sent some pupils from the Art Theatre School—as well as Ioasaf Tikhomirov, who ran the school—to work there.[11] By the autumn, however, after the censor had banned every play that the theatre proposed to stage, Gorky abandoned the project.[11]
As a financially successful author, editor, and playwright, Gorky gave financial support to the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), as well as supporting liberal appeals to the government for civil rights and social reform. The brutal shooting of workers marching to the Tsar with a petition for reform on 9 January 1905 (known as the "Bloody Sunday"), which set in motion the Revolution of 1905, seems to have pushed Gorky more decisively toward radical solutions. He became closely associated with Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov's Bolshevik wing of the party, with Bogdanov taking responsibility for the transfer of funds from Gorky to Vpered.[12] It is not clear whether he ever formally joined, and his relations with Lenin and the Bolsheviks would always be rocky. His most influential writings in these years were a series of political plays, most famously The Lower Depths (1902). While briefly imprisoned in Peter and Paul Fortress during the abortive 1905 Russian Revolution, Gorky wrote the play Children of the Sun, nominally set during an 1862 cholera epidemic, but universally understood to relate to present-day events. He was released from the prison after a European-wide campaign, which was supported by Marie Curie, Auguste Rodin and Anatole France, amongst others.[13]
In 1906, the Bolsheviks sent him on a fund-raising trip to the United States with Ivan Narodny. When visiting the Adirondack Mountains, Gorky wrote Мать (Mat', Mother), his notable novel of revolutionary conversion and struggle. His experiences in the United States—which included a scandal over his travelling with his lover (the actress Maria Andreyeva) rather than his wife—deepened his contempt for the "bourgeois soul" but also his admiration for the boldness of the American spirit.[citation needed]
Capri years
In 1909–1911 Gorky lived on the island of Capri in the burgundy-coloured "Villa Behring".
From 1906 to 1913, Gorky lived on the island of Capri in southern Italy, partly for health reasons and partly to escape the increasingly repressive atmosphere in Russia.[2] He continued to support the work of Russian social-democracy, especially the Bolsheviks and invited Anatoly Lunacharsky to stay with him on Capri. The two men had worked together on Literaturny Raspad which appeared in 1908. It was during this period that Gorky, along with Lunacharsky, Bogdanov and Vladimir Bazarov developed the idea of an Encyclopedia of Russian History as a socialist version of Diderot's Encyclopedia. During a visit to Switzerland, Gorky met Lenin, who he charged spent an inordinate amount of his time feuding with other revolutionaries, writing: "He looked awful. Even his tongue seemed to have turned grey".[14] Despite his atheism,[15] Gorky was not a materialist.[16] Most controversially, he articulated, along with a few other maverick Bolsheviks, a philosophy he called "God-Building" (богостроительство, bogostroitel'stvo),[2] which sought to recapture the power of myth for the revolution and to create a religious atheism that placed collective humanity where God had been and was imbued with passion, wonderment, moral certainty, and the promise of deliverance from evil, suffering, and even death. Though 'God-Building' was ridiculed by Lenin, Gorky retained his belief that "culture"—the moral and spiritual awareness of the value and potential of the human self—would be more critical to the revolution's success than political or economic arrangements.
Return from exile
An amnesty granted for the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty allowed Gorky to return to Russia in 1913, where he continued his social criticism, mentored other writers from the common people, and wrote a series of important cultural memoirs, including the first part of his autobiography.[2] On returning to Russia, he wrote that his main impression was that "everyone is so crushed and devoid of God's image." The only solution, he repeatedly declared, was "culture".
After the February Revolution, Gorky visited the headquarters of the Okhrana (secret police) on Kronversky Prospekt together with Nikolai Sukhanov and Vladimir Zenisinov.[17] Gorky described the former Okhrana headquarters, where he sought literary inspiration, as derelict, with windows broken, and papers lying all over the floor.[18] Having dinner with Sukhanov later the same day, Gorky grimly predicated that revolution would end in "Asiatic savagery".[19] Initially a supporter of the Socialist-Revolutionary Alexander Kerensky, Gorky switched over to the Bolsheviks after the Kornilov affair.[20] In July 1917, Gorky wrote his own experiences of the Russian working class had been sufficient to dispel any "notions that Russian workers are the incarnation of spiritual beauty and kindness".[21] Gorky admitted to feeling attracted to Bolshevism, but admitted to concerns about a creed that made the entire working class "sweet and reasonable-I had never known people who were really like this".[22] Gorky wrote that he knew the poor, the "carpenters, stevedores, bricklayers", in a way that the intellectual Lenin never did, and he frankly distrusted them.[22]
During World War I, his apartment in Petrograd was turned into a Bolshevik staff room, and his politics remained close to the Bolsheviks throughout the revolutionary period of 1917. On the day after the Bolshevik coup of 7 November 1917, Gorky observed a gardener working the Alexander Park who had cleared snow during the February Revolution while ignoring the shots in the background, asked people during the July Days not to trample the grass and was now chopping off branches, leading Gorky to write that he was "stubborn as a mole, and apparently as blind as one too".[23] Gorky's relations with the Bolsheviks became strained, however, after the October Revolution. One contemporary remembered at how Gorky would turn "dark and black and grim" at the mere mention of Lenin.[24] Gorky wrote that Lenin together with Trotsky "have become poisoned with the filthy venom of power", crushing the rights of the individual to achieve their revolutionary dreams.[24] Gorky wrote that Lenin was a "cold-blooded trickster who spares neither the honor nor the life of the proletariat. ... He does not know the popular masses, he has not lived with them".[24] Gorky went on to compare Lenin to a chemist experimenting in a laboratory with the only difference being the chemist experimented with inanimate matter to improve life while Lenin was experimenting on the "living flesh of Russia".[24] A further strain on Gorky's relations with the Bolsheviks occurred when his newspaper Novaya Zhizn (Новая Жизнь, "New Life") fell prey to Bolshevik censorship during the ensuing civil war, around which time Gorky published a collection of essays critical of the Bolsheviks called Untimely Thoughts in 1918. (It would not be re-published in Russia until after the collapse of the Soviet Union.) The essays call Lenin a tyrant for his senseless arrests and repression of free discourse, and an anarchist for his conspiratorial tactics; Gorky compares Lenin to both the Tsar and Nechayev.[citation needed]
"Lenin and his associates," Gorky wrote, "consider it possible to commit all kinds of crimes ... the abolition of free speech and senseless arrests."[25]
In 1921, he hired a secretary, Moura Budberg, who later became his unofficial wife. In August 1921, the poet Nikolay Gumilev was arrested by the Petrograd Cheka for his monarchist views. There is a story that Gorky hurried to Moscow, obtained an order to release Gumilev from Lenin personally, but upon his return to Petrograd he found out that Gumilev had already been shot – but Nadezhda Mandelstam, a close friend of Gumilev's widow, Anna Akhmatova wrote that: "It is true that people asked him to intervene. ... Gorky had a strong dislike of Gumilev, but he nevertheless promised to do something. He could not keep his promise because the sentence of death was announced and carried out with unexpected haste, before Gorky had got round to doing anything."[26] In October, Gorky returned to Italy on health grounds: he had tuberculosis.
Povolzhye famine
In July 1921, Gorky published an appeal to the outside world, saying that millions of lives were menaced by crop failure. The Russian famine of 1921–22, also known as Povolzhye famine, killed an estimated 5 million, primarily affecting the Volga and Ural River regions.[27]
Second exile
Gorky left Russia in September 1921, for Berlin. There he heard about the impending Moscow Trial of 12 Socialist Revolutionaries, which hardened his opposition to the Bolshevik regime. He wrote to Anatole France denouncing the trial as a "cynical and public preparation for the murder" of people who had fought for the freedom of the Russian people. He also wrote to the Soviet vice-premier, Alexei Rykov asking him to tell Leon Trotsky that any death sentences carried out on the defendants would be "premeditated and foul murder."[28] This provoked a contemptuous reaction from Lenin, who described Gorky as "always supremely spineless in politics", and Trotsky, who dismissed Gorky as an "artist whom no-one takes seriously."[29] He was denied permission by Italy's fascist government to return to Capri, but was permitted to settle in Sorrento, where he lived from 1922 to 1932, with an extended household that included Moura Budberg, his ex-wife Andreyeva, her lover, Pyotr Kryuchkov, who acted as Gorky's secretary for the remainder of his life, Gorky's son Max Peshkov, Max's wife, Timosha, and their two young daughters.
He wrote several successful books while there,[30] but by 1928 he was having difficulty earning enough to keep his large household, and began to seek an accommodation with the communist regime. The Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was equally keen to entice Gorky back to the USSR. He paid his first visit in May 1928 – at the very time when the regime was staging its first show trial since 1922, the so-called Shakhty Trial of 53 engineers employed in the coal industry, one of whom, Pyotr Osadchy, had visited Gorky in Sorrento. In contrast to his attitude to the trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries, Gorky accepted without question that the engineers were guilty, and expressed regret that in the past he had intervened on behalf of professionals who were being persecuted by the regime. During the visit, he struck up friendships with Genrikh Yagoda, the corrupt and murderous head of the Ogpu and two other Ogpu officers, Semyon Firin and Matvei Pogrebinsky, who held high office in the Gulag. Pogrebinsky was Gorky's guest in Sorrento for four weeks in 1930. The following year, Yagoda sent his brother-in-law, Leopold Averbakh to Sorrento, with instructions to induce Gorky to return to Russia permanently.[31]
Death of Lenin
After the death of Lenin in 1924, Gorky wrote the following:
Vladimir Lenin, a big, real man of this world, has passed away. His death is a painful blow to all who knew him, a very painful blow! But the black line of death shall only underscore his importance in the eyes of all the world - the importance of the leader of the world’s working people. If the clouds of hatred for him, the clouds of lies and slander woven round him were even denser, it would not matter, for there is no such force as could dim the torch he has raised in the stifling darkness of the world gone mad. Never has there been a man who deserves more to be remembered forever by the whole world. Vladimir Lenin is dead. But those to whom he bequeathed his wisdom and his will are living. They are alive and working more successfully than anyone on Earth has ever worked before.[32]
Return to Russia: last years
Avel Enukidze, Joseph Stalin and Maxim Gorky celebrate 10th anniversary of Sportintern. Red Square, Moscow USSR. Aug 1931
Gorky's return from Fascist Italy was a major propaganda victory for the Soviets. He was decorated with the Order of Lenin and given a mansion (formerly belonging to the millionaire Pavel Ryabushinsky, which was for many years the Gorky Museum) in Moscow and a dacha in the suburbs. The city of Nizhni Novgorod, and the surrounding province were renamed Gorky. Moscow's main park, and one of the central Moscow streets, Tverskaya, were renamed in his honour, as was the Moscow Art Theatre. The largest fixed-wing aircraft in the world in the mid-1930s, the Tupolev ANT-20 was named Maxim Gorky in his honour.
He was also appointed President of the Union of Soviet Writers, founded in 1932, to coincide with his return to the USSR. On 11 October 1931 Gorky read his fairy tale "A Girl and Death" to his visitors Joseph Stalin, Kliment Voroshilov and Vyacheslav Molotov, an event that was later depicted by Viktor Govorov in his painting. On that same day Stalin left his autograph on the last page of this work by Gorky: "Эта штука сильнее чем "Фауст" Гёте (любовь побеждает смерть)"[33] ["This piece is stronger than Goethe's Faust (love defeats death)]".
Apologist for the gulag
In 1933, Gorky co-edited, with Averbakh and Firin, an infamous book about the White Sea-Baltic Canal, presented as an example of "successful rehabilitation of the former enemies of proletariat". For other writers, he urged that one obtained realism by extracting the basic idea from reality, but by adding the potential and desirable to it, one added romanticism with deep revolutionary potential.[34] For himself, Gorky avoided realism. His denials that even a single prisoner died during the construction of the aforementioned canal were refuted by multiple accounts of thousands of prisoners who froze to death not only in the evenings from the lack of adequate shelter and food, but even in the middle of the day.[35]
On his definitive return to the Soviet Union in 1932, Maxim Gorky received the Ryabushinsky Mansion, designed in 1900 by Fyodor Schechtel for the Ryabushinsky family. The mansion today houses a museum about Gorky.
Hostility to gays
Gorky strongly supported efforts in getting a law passed in 1934, making homosexuality a criminal offense. His attitude was coloured by the fact that several leading members of the Nazi Sturmabteilung, or Brownshirts, were overtly homosexual. Writing in Pravda on 23 May 1934, Gorky claimed "exterminate all homosexuals and fascism will vanish."[36]
Conflicts[citation needed] with Stalinists
By the summer of 1934, Gorky was increasingly in conflict with the Soviet authorities. He was angry that Leopold Averbakh, whom he regarded as a protege, was denied a role in the newly created Writers Union, and objected to interference by the Central Committee staff in the affairs of the union. This conflict, which may have been exacerbated by Gorky's despair over the early death of his son, Max, came to a head just before the first Soviet Writers Congress, in August 1934. On 11 August, he submitted an article for publication in Pravda which attacked the deputy head of the press department, Pavel Yudin with such intemperate language that Stalin's deputy, Lazar Kaganovich ordered its suppression, but was forced to relent after hundreds of copies of the article circulated by hand. Gorky's draft of the keynote speech he was due to give at the congress caused such consternation when he submitted it to the Politburo that four of its leading members – Kaganovich, Vyacheslav Molotov, Kliment Voroshilov, and Andrei Zhdanov – were sent to persuade him to make changes.[37] Even in its toned-down version – very unusually for the Stalin era – he did not praise Stalin, did not mention any of the approved writers turning out 'socialist realist' novels, but singled out Fyodor Dostoevsky for "having painted with the most vivid perfection of word portraiture a type of egocentrist, a type of social degenerate in the person of the hero of his Memoirs from Underground. ... Dostoyevsky in the figure of his hero has shown the depths of whining despair that are reached by the individualist from among the young men of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who are cut off from real life."[38]
Death
With the increase of Stalinist repression and especially after the assassination of Sergei Kirov in December 1934, Gorky was placed under unannounced house arrest in his house near Moscow. His long-serving secretary Pyotr Kryuchkov had been recruited by Yagoda as a paid informer.[39] Before his death from a lingering illness in June 1936, he was visited at home by Stalin, Yagoda, and other leading communists, and by Moura Budberg, who had chosen not to return to the USSR with him but was permitted to stay for his funeral.
The sudden death of Gorky's son Maxim Peshkov in May 1934 was followed by the death of Maxim Gorky himself in June 1936 from pneumonia. Speculation has long surrounded the circumstances of his death. Stalin and Molotov were among those who carried Gorky's coffin during the funeral. During the Bukharin trial in 1938 (one of the three Moscow Trials), one of the charges was that Gorky was killed by Yagoda's NKVD agents.[40]
In Soviet times, before and after his death, the complexities in Gorky's life and outlook were reduced to an iconic image (echoed in heroic pictures and statues dotting the countryside): Gorky as a great Soviet writer who emerged from the common people, a loyal friend of the Bolsheviks, and the founder of the increasingly canonical "socialist realism".
Depictions and adaptations
The Gorky Trilogy is a series of three films based on the three autobiographical books: The Childhood of Maxim Gorky, My Apprenticeship, and My Universities, directed by Mark Donskoy, filmed in the Soviet Union, released 1938–1940. The trilogy was adapted from Gorky's autobiography.[41]
The German modernist Bertolt Brecht based his epic play The Mother (1932) on Gorky's novel of the same name.
Gorky's novel was also adapted for an opera by Valery Zhelobinsky in 1938. In 1912, the Italian composer Giacomo Orefice based his opera Radda on the character of Radda from Makar Chudra. Our Father is the title given to Gorky's The Last Ones in its English translation by William Stancil.
The play[clarification needed] made its New York debut in 1975 at the Manhattan Theater Club, directed by Keith Fowler.
In 1985 Enemies was performed in London with a multi-national cast directed by Ann Pennington in association with Internationalist Theatre. The cast included South African Greek actress Angelique Rockas and Bulgarian Madlena Nedeva playing the parts of Tatiana, and Kleopatra respectively.[42] Tom Vaughan of The Morning Star affirmed "this is a great revolutionary play, by a great revolutionary writer, performed with elegance and style, great passion and commitment".[43] BBC Russian Service was no less complimentary.[44]
Selected works
Main article: Maxim Gorky bibliography
Source: Turner, Lily; Strever, Mark (1946). Orphan Paul; A Bibliography and Chronology of Maxim Gorky. New York: Boni and Gaer. pp. 261–270.
Novels
Goremyka Pavel, 1894. Published in English as Orphan Paul[45]
Foma Gordeyev (Фома Гордеев), 1899. Also translated as The Man Who Was Afraid
Three of Them (Трое), 1900. Also translated as Three Men
The Mother (Мать), 1907. First published in English, in 1906
The Life of a Useless Man (Жизнь ненужного человека), 1908
A Confession (Исповедь), 1908
Okurov City (Городок Окуров), 1908
The Life of Matvei Kozhemyakin (Жизнь Матвея Кожемякина), 1910
The Artamonov Business (Дело Артамоновых), 1927
Life of Klim Samgin (Жизнь Клима Самгина), unfinished:[46]
The Bystander, 1927
The Magnet, 1928
Other Fires, 1930
The Specter, 1936
Novellas
The Orlovs (Супруги Орловы), 1897
Creatures That Once Were Men (Бывшие люди), 1897
Varenka Olesova (Варенька Олесова), 1898
Summer (Лето), 1909
Great Love (Большая любовь), 1911
Short stories
"Makar Chudra" (Макар Чудра), 1892
"Old Izergil" (Старуха Изергиль), 1895
"Chelkash" (Челкаш), 1895
"Konovalov" (Коновалов), 1897
"Malva" (Мальва), 1897
"Twenty-six Men and a Girl" (Двадцать шесть и одна), 1899
"Song of a Falcon" (Песня о Соколе), 1902. Also referred to as a poem in prose
Drama
The Philistines (Мещане), translated also as The Smug Citizens and The Petty Bourgeois (Мещане), 1901
The Lower Depths (На дне), 1902
Summerfolk (Дачники), 1904
Children of the Sun (Дети солнца), 1905
Barbarians (Варвары), 1905
Enemies, 1906.
The Last Ones (Последние), 1908. Translated also as Our Father[47]
Children (Дети), 1910. Translated also as The Reception (and called originally "Встреча")
Queer People (Чудаки), 1910. Translated also as Eccentrics
Vassa Zheleznova (Васса Железнова), 1910, 1935 (revised version)
The Zykovs (Зыковы), 1913
Counterfeit Money (Фальшивая монета), 1913
The Old Man (Старик), 1915, Revised 1922, 1924. Translated also as The Judge
Workaholic Slovotekov (Работяга Словотеков), 1920
Somov and Others (Cомов и другие), 1930
Yegor Bulychov and Others (Егор Булычов и другие), 1932
Dostigayev and Others (Достигаев и другие), 1933
Non-fiction
Chaliapin, articles in Letopis, 1917[48]
Untimely Thoughts, articles, 1918
My Recollections of Tolstoy, 1919
Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Andreyev, 1920–1928
V.I. Lenin (В.И. Ленин), reminiscence, 1924–1931
The I.V. Stalin White Sea – Baltic Sea Canal, 1934 (editor-in-chief)
Literary Portraits [c.1935].[49]
Poems
"The Song of the Stormy Petrel" (Песня о Буревестнике), 1901
Autobiography
My Childhood (Детство), Part I, 1913–1914
In the World (В людях), Part II, 1916
My Universities (Мои университеты), Part III, 1923
Collections
Sketches and Stories, three volumes, 1898–1899
Creatures That Once Were Men, stories in English translation (1905). This contained an introduction by G. K. Chesterton[50] The Russian title, Бывшие люди (literally "Former people") gained popularity as an expression in reference to people who severely dropped in their social status
Tales of Italy (Сказки об Италии), 1911–1913
Through Russia (По Руси), 1923
Outside of the Town Hall theater on West 43rd Street in Manhattan, a crowd of smiling and optimistic people Friday overflowed into the one-way street. Delivery trucks and yellow taxi cabs creeped by, their engines engaged in a shouting match with Bennet Weiss, a man who bore a fleeting resemblance to the Democratic presidential candidate they were all there to support.
"We don't have billions of dollars! All we have are people wearing Bernie pins," Weiss yelled, a large black umbrella covered in Bernie Sanders campaign pins at his feet, catching drops of sweat from his brow. The Occupy Wall Street protester-turned-Sanders supporter urged the crowd to wear the pins at all times with no exception -- even in the shower -- and gave them away freely to anyone who said they didn't have enough cash to afford to pay the suggested donation.
That's the kind of populist support Sanders' campaign has steadily been attracting since the U.S. senator from Vermont formally announced his candidacy in late April. Friday was no exception, with passion-filled people who think Sanders has proved himself the worthy champion of causes they care about the most, such as income inequality, climate change, Wall Street reform and further healthcare reforms. But, perhaps most importantly, they also think he can win the White House.
"Absolutely" he can win, said Joe Trinolone, 30, a former finance industry worker from Long Island, New York, who is studying mathematics at St. Joseph's University. "I mean, he's winning right now."
Sanders, during a fundraising speech Friday, ticked through the policies he cares about and areas of change he wants to see in Washington should he become president. At each turn, his blend of outrage, optimism and sly sarcasm brought raucous cheers from the crowd of 1,100. He rejected recent Wall Street Journal criticism of the high price tag of his proposals, including making public colleges and universities free, lowering so-called real unemployment by pumping funding into infrastructure repairs for the nation’s roads and bridges and implementing a universal healthcare system.
Instead, he pointed to European nations that already have those programs. He implored the crowd to think about what many of them were already talking about: that taking on the big-money interests in the United States that impede those sorts of policy changes is a shared moral obligation.
“Welcome to the revolution,” Sanders said, describing what he believes must happen to American politics. “We can accomplish all of this and more.” And the crowd ate it up.
When asked why they support Sanders, many described his candidacy as a movement. They love his policies, and have a hard time thinking of much they don’t like about him. They especially like that he has been a consistent voice during his time in Washington. That’s a big perceived difference between Sanders and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. Those "feeling the Bern" were split on whether they would consider voting for her if she becomes the nominee. Many were newcomers to political action but felt compelled to join the fray when they heard Sanders and his message.
“I’ve never been excited about a politician my entire life,” said Meira Marom, 34, a Brooklyn third-grade teacher with a master's degree in creative writing. When Marom started seeing social media posts about Sanders and reading about him, she decided to stop focusing her personal time on writing for herself. She now writes and publishes something about Sanders every day -- Dr. Seuss themes every Sunday, poems and parodies. “I decided this is the most worthy cause to put my rhymes to use.”
Sanders has seen an unexpected rise in the polls since he joined the race for the Democratic nomination shortly after the current national front-runner Clinton announced her candidacy. While Sanders was trailing Clinton by 21.4 percent in national averages of polls compiled by Real Clear Politics, a look at early nominating states like Iowa and New Hampshire paints a different picture of vulnerability for Clinton and strength for Sanders.
The two candidates are tied in Iowa, which constitutes a dramatic drop for Clinton and an impressive surge for Sanders, who has been distancing himself from Clinton in New Hampshire at the top of the Democratic pack since Aug. 25, when he jumped past her in the state for the first time. He currently leads there by 10.5 points.
The candidates are noticeably different in many ways, from policy prescription to fundraising strategy.
Clinton has moved leftward since announcing her candidacy, but she is still threatened by the populist appeal of Sanders, who has long championed the causes that seem to be coming into grace for the Democratic Party. While the candidates currently hold some very similar positions on issues such as immigration reform, gay rights, gun control and campaign finance reform, Sanders has been able to stake out positions to the left of Clinton on other issues that excite some vocal voters.
Among them are his strong anti-war and anti-government surveillance positions as well as his distaste for President Barack Obama's Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal. Sanders also has been a vocal critic of Wall Street and champion of financial reforms, and his stance on those issues has drawn attention to Clinton's cozy relationship with Wall Street executives and the huge paychecks she has received for speeches to large banks since leaving the U.S. State Department. For some Sanders supporters, though, the perception that Sanders has been a consistent proponent of these liberal policies, and cares about them more than winning, is key.
“It’s the message that supporting Bernie Sanders is not just voting on a horse in the race” that attracts Brian Dillon, a 28-year-old self-employed Web designer and developer for e-commerce, said Friday. Dillon has voted just one time in his life, but he has been organizing meetings to drum up support for Sanders.
Sanders's fundraising portfolio also is the reverse of Clinton's. While the former secretary of state is expected to spend somewhere north of $1 billion should she win the primary and head into the general election for 2016, the same has not been said of Sanders. Currently, Clinton has raised, through her campaign committee and super PACs associated with the campaign, $47.5 million, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. Sanders, on the other hand, has raised just shy of $16.5 million, according to CRP data.
Their most startling difference in fundraising, however, can be seen in the size of the donations they're receiving. The Clinton campaign received 82 percent of its donations from large contributors, and her top industry donors, not including retired people, so far have been lawyers, business services and the financial industry.
In contrast, Sanders relies much more on small donations, which are defined as donations totaling $200 or less. So far, 69 percent of his contributions have come from small donors, and the biggest industries that have given to his campaign have been from the education, legal and healthcare sectors.
Who are those small donors? The types of people who showed up Friday. Some said they donate $25 to $30 a month to Sanders. Some said they have donated several hundred dollars since he jumped into the presidential race. Nearly all of them mentioned they don't earn a ton of money personally. One in particular, Machumu Sakulira, said he donated $500 before attending Friday’s event.
There is “no way” he would support a Clinton ticket, said Sakulira, a 31-year-old senior political science student at the University at Buffalo. He got on a bus Thursday night at 11 p.m. and arrived in New York at 7 a.m. for the Sanders speech. He said he was going back Friday night. “Bernie represents my interest. My vote is a moral choice, I don’t give it to somebody who doesn’t deserve it.”
www.ibtimes.com/election-2016-bernie-sanders-nyc-fundrais...
Optimistically headboarded Peckett 0-4-0ST no 2111 'Lytham St Anne's' fair belts along with the Midland Railway Centre vintage train.
- Pigeons are a common sight in the UK and are often seen as pests due to their reputation in urban areas and it's easy to forget them as doting parents. As I was working today I watched this Wood Pigeon spend twenty minutes or so struting about the lawn inspecting numerous twigs and sticks which might pass the judgement of his nesting partner, discarding many as either not the correct length or thickness. Clearly impressed with this selection it ultimately proved too much to manage and more appropriate building material was eventually chosen. Thurnham Court, Devizes.
An overly optimistic photographer was waiting for one more ray of sun.
He told me he had seen photos of the arch lit from the underneath at sunset. Well, he may have to wait there till a different time of the year, because on that day the sun definitely was not going to jump up a little higher in the sky just to humor him!.
The strange thing to his right is a shrub, though it looks more like a lying matted wild boar.
"Mesa Arch is perched on the east rim of the Island in the Sky plateau (or mesa) high above the middle fork of Buck Canyon. The view through the arch, looking out towards the distant and often snow-covered La Sal Mountains, is one of the most photographed in the park, especially at sunrise."
The Island in the Sky district of the Canyonlands National Park, Utah. November 2019
(Everything about this shot - from the angle to shoot it at, to perfecting the pose, to choosing the right body position - was a pain in my ass but I really liked the idea of this shot & do love the outcome so I guess it's worth it ;3)
Brief History of Mt Gambier – the second city of SA after Adelaide (region population nearly 35,000, urban 28,000).
Lieutenant James Grant aboard the Lady Nelson sighted and named Mt Gambier in 1800 after a Lord of the Admiralty. The first white man to traverse the area was Stephen Henty of Portland in 1839 when he sighted the Blue Lake. He returned with cattle and stockmen in 1841. He later claimed that had he known the lake and volcano he had discovered in 1839 was in SA he would have immediately applied for an 1839 Special Survey. But Henty thought he was squatting on land in NSW and he was not an official SA settler so the government ordered him off the land in 1844. Thus the first official white settler of the South East and the Mt Gambier district became Evelyn Sturt, brother to Captain Charles Sturt, who took up an occupational license in March 1844 and a property he named Compton just north of the present city. In April 1844 Governor Grey and a party of assistants including the Assistant Surveyor General Thomas Burr and artist George French Angas explored the South East naming Robe and doing the first surveys. Evelyn Sturt became the first to have an occupational license to squat and the first purchase freehold land near Mt Gambier which he did in 1847- a section of 77 acres when 80 acres was the norm. He left the district in 1854 selling his freehold land to Hastings Cunningham who in 1855 subdivided some of this land thus creating the town of Gambierton. The town lands were adjacent to the site of the first police station selected near what is now Cave Gardens by the government in 1845. A small bush inn also operated at this spot. The first streets were named after early locals such as Evelyn Sturt, Compton, Ferrers and Crouch (built the first general store before the town was created) etc. The town grew quickly because of the mild climate, fertile soils, plentiful water and the influx of settlers from across the border in what was to become the colony of Victoria. Cunningham himself was a great benefactor and donated land for the first school in 1856. In 1861 the town name was changed by act of parliament to Mt Gambier. The Hundred of Mt Gambier (along with three other hundreds) was declared in 1858 and began the closer settlement of the South East.
Unlike other areas of SA the South East was seen as paradise for pastoralists and the optimistic pastoralists flocked to the area with their flocks in 1845. The large runs locked up the land and prevented farmers from settling in the region except for the fertile lands around Mount Gambier. Here small scale farmers had small properties and grew potatoes, hops, and later had dairy cows as well as growing wheat and oats. Land acts in the early 1870s designed to break up the big runs only partially succeeded in the South East where most station owners bought up their lands freehold. It was after 1905 before the big pastoral estates were really broken up for farmers and closer settlement, except for near Mt Gambier. Apart from Evelyn Sturt the other early white settlers of the South East in 1845 were Alexander Cameron at Penola, John Robertson at Struan, William Macintosh and George Ormerod at Naracoorte, the Austin brothers at Yallum Park (later John Riddoch), the Arthur brothers (nephews of Governor Arthur of Van Diemen’s Land) at Mt Schanck( now Mt Schank) and the Leake brothers at Glencoe. In fact in 1845 nineteen leasehold runs were taken up in the South East with a further thirty runs in 1846 and most had several 80 acres sections of freehold land near the main homestead. Most had got to the South East from Casterton and Portland in Victoria as the swamps near the coast were too difficult to traverse except for the country near Robe. Many of the estates were huge. Evelyn Sturt on the Compton/Mt Gambier run had 85 square miles as well as his freehold land; Robertson had 135 square miles at Struan; George Glen (and William Vansittart) of Mayurra had 110 square miles; the SA Company had 159 square miles on the Benara run; the Leake brothers had 194 square miles on Glencoe; Hunter had 56 square miles on Kalangadoo; Neil Black of Noorat Victoria had 45 square miles on Kongorong run and 101 square miles at Port MacDonnell and the Arthur brothers had a huge run at Mt Schanck. By 1851 almost 5,000 square miles of the South East was occupied by Occupational License and most licenses were converted to 14 year leases in that year. A third of all leasehold land in SA was taken up in the South East because of its higher rainfall and suitability for pastoralism and a third of all sheep in the colony were in the South East. When Hundreds were declared in the South East in the late 1850s and early 1860s pastoralists bought up the land. In one case John Riddoch of Yallum Park owned the entire Hundred of Monbulla. Another pastoralist W. Clarke who had purchased Mt Schancke station from the Arthur brothers in 1861 owned SA land valued at £1.25 million when he died in 1874 and he had 120,000 acres freehold in Victoria, 75,000 acres freehold in SA( Mt Schank) and 50,000 acres freehold in each of NSW and Tasmania! Mt Schanck was changed in Schank in 1917 when German place names in SA were changed as Schank without the second “c” is an old English name!
In the 1850s Mt Gambier was a shanty village as the South East was a region of large pastoral estates and little agricultural farming and very low population numbers. It was far from Adelaide and remote and it was only after the Princeland episode in 1862 with the threat of possible secession to a new state that the Adelaide government began to invest in the South East and really encourage settlement there. The Border Watch newspaper was established in 1861, the Mt Gambier Hotel opened in 1862 and the Mt Gambier Council was formed in 1863.By the early 1860s Mt Gambier had almost 1,000 residents making it one of the largest towns in SA after the copper mining centres of Burra, Kadina and Moonta. By the 1881 SA census Mt Gambier had 2,500 residents making it the biggest town outside of Adelaide. In 1865 four iconic historic buildings were erected-the Courthouse, the Gaol, Christ Church Anglican and the Post Office and Telegraph Station. The flourmill which later became the Oat Mill opened in 1867 as wheat farmers had now taken up lands around the Mount. Mt Gambier was growing into a fine prosperous looking town with churches, stores, banks, hotels and fine residences. In the 1870s the rural population increased dramatically with tenant potato farmers on Browne’s Moorak estate and intensive hop growing in several localities such as Yahl and OB Flat and Glenburnie etc. Also in 1876 the first commercial forestry was started at the behest of George Goyder. A tree nursery was established on the edge of Leg of Mutton Lake in 1876 on a site selected by George Goyder himself. A stone cottage for the first nurseryman Charles Beale was constructed and it survived until demolished in 1969 but the nursery closed in 1929. The nursery propagated eucalypts, Oak, Elm, Ash, Sycamore, and North American pines. Pinus radiata was first grown at Leg of Mutton Lake and was being dispersed to other areas by 1878. Pinus canariensis was also grown in the 1880s. Pinus radiata is now the most commonly grown commercial forest tree in SA and Australia. Also in the 1870s the first hospital was erected and Dr Wehl, the town’s doctor for many years was in residence.
In the mid 1880s the first rail line was laid as the railway lines pushed out from Mt Gambier to Naracoorte. The service to Naracoorte began in 1887 and connected on with the line to Bordertown and Adelaide. By 1897 a railway connected Mt Gambier to Millicent and the port at Beachport. The railway line across the border to Heywood and Melbourne was not completed until 1917 as the SA government resisted a line that would take goods and passengers from Mt Gambier to Port Melbourne rather than to Port Adelaide. Mt Gambier railway station used to be a hive of activity with daily trains to Adelaide and an overnight sleeper services several times a week. Passenger trains to Mt Gambier from Adelaide stopped in 1990 after Australian National took over the SA railway network. Freight services stopped in 1995 and the railway line and station was formally closed. The railyards and other buildings were cleared in 2013.
The Buandik Aboriginal People.
The Buandik people are commemorated in a city street but by little else. Yet they were resilient and determined fighters opposed to the white settlement of the South East. Their occupation of the Mt Gambier district stretches back to around 20,000+ years but their dated occupation from archaeological sites goes back to about 11,000 years with their myths and legends including stories about volcanic activity at Mt Gambier. The last volcanic explosions were about 4,000 years ago. Both Mt Schank and Mt Gambier were important places to the Buandik for ceremonies, hunting, access to water and stone implement making. A government report in 1867 noted that the Buandik people in government care were few in number mainly sickly and elderly. The younger people had presumably moved out into the white community. But back in the 1840s the Buandik were a force to be reckoned with. There are no common stories of Aboriginal massacres but white pastoralists certainly retaliated when sheep were stolen. On Mt Schank station the Buandik were so troublesome that shepherds would not venture out to care for sheep alone and the Arthur brothers gave this trouble as their reason for them selling the run in 1845. In 1845 the government established a police station at Mt Gambier, which the Protector of Aboriginals visited, to ensure that pastoralists did not massacre the Buandik.
William Vansittart and Vansittart Park.
Vansittart Park has been a focal point of Mt Gambier since 1884 for activities such as family picnics, political rallies and speeches, bike racing, band rotunda concerts, bowling greens, sport oval, grandstand (1927) and Anzac memorial services. But who was William Vansittart? He was an Anglican reverend from England (Vansittart is a noble and political Anglo-Irish family in the UK) who arrived in SA in 1847 as a young bachelor. He was never licensed as a minister in SA but he developed his passions for making money and horse racing here. He mixed with the elite of Adelaide like Sir Samuel Davenport, the Governor and was a friend of Hurtle Fisher and he was Master of the Hounds. In 1850 he purchased 35 acres at Beaumont where he built Tower House and 80 acres at Mt Gambier. He imported a thoroughbred horse from Hobart called Lucifer. Ironic that a minister of religion would have a horse called Lucifer! His horses raced in Adelaide, Salisbury, Gawler, Brighton and Clare as well as in Mt Gambier and Penola. In 1851 he also took over the 110 square mile 14 year lease of Mayurra run with George Glen of Millicent. In 1852 he returned to England for a short time and on his return he purchased more freehold land bringing his estate to around 800 acres. Not long after in 1854 his horse shied, he was thrown against a tree and died of head injuries but he died intestate with an estate worth over £10,000. Glen bought out his share of Mayurra; the Beaumont house and property was sold in 1867 as were his race horses and his brother Captain Spencer Vansittart eventually inherited the Mt Gambier property. In accordance with William’s wishes 115 acres were set aside to provide income for a scholarship for boarders at St Peters Boys College which happened from 1859. Later in 1883 Spencer Vansittart offered 20 acres to the Mt Gambier Council for a memorial park at the “nominal” sum of £400 which hardly seems “nominal”. The Council raised a loan and purchased the land and the park is still enjoyed by the city’s residents and visitors. Captain Spencer’s widow sold the last package of 300 acres of land in 1912 thus ending the Vansittart links with Mt Gambier. The Vansittart scholarship is still available for boarders from the South East and is operated by a group of College trustees.
Some Historic Buildings in Mt Gambier and a town walk.
Your town walk is basically straight ahead along Penola Road towards the Mount itself which becomes Bay Road( the bay is at Port MacDonnell) once you cross Commercial Street which is the Main Street. There are just a few diversions to the left as you face the Mount. The coach will collect you at the Mount end of the walk near the Old Courthouse.
If you a good walker check out the fine houses in Jardine Street at numbers 1, 7, 9, 11, 12, 17 and 22. They range from cottages to Gothic and turreted mansions including the home of Jens the hotelier. This detour will add another 10 minutes to the walk if you elect to do it.
1.Catholic Covent. Sisters of Mercy setup a convent school in 1880. This wonderful convent was not built until 1908 in local dolomite stone & limestone quoins. Note the fine stone gables with small niches for statuary, the well proportioned arched colonnades and upstairs oriel windows – the projecting bay windows with stone supports. This is one of the finest buildings in Mt Gambier. The convent closed in 1986. Now Auspine.
2.Wesleyan Methodist Church Hall/Sunday School. Across the street is pink dolomite neo-classical style Wesleyan Methodist Sunday School Hall. Hundreds of children attended Sunday School in those days. It opened in 1904. It is now commercial offices. (If you want to walk up Wyatt Street beside the Sunday School and turn right at second street which is at Gray you will see the old two storey Methodist Manse at 101 Gray St. It was built in 1868 and sold 1941. As you turn into Gray Street the Salvation Army Hall is on your left. Allow 10 minutes for this detour before returning to Penola Road).
3.Methodist Church now Liberty Church. A Gothic large church built in 1862 by the Wesleyans. Opened by minister from Portland. Additions made 1877 with new entrance. The old lecture hall and Sunday School was beneath the church. Note the buttress on corners and sides. Became Uniting Church 1977 and closed 1994 when services moved to St Andrews Presbyterian Church. Behind the church (walk through the car park) in Colhurst Place is LLandovery two storey mansion now a B&B. Built 1878 for a flour and oat miller who had his mill in Percy Street.
4.St Paul’s Catholic Church. This impressive Gothic church with huge tower with crenulations was opened in 1884 and will be open today. There are 1966 extensions to the rear of it. The Presbytery is behind the church facing Alexander St. it was built in 1901 when the church was free of building debt. The first thatched bush church was built in another location in 1855. From 1857 the priest was Father Julian Tenison Woods, explorer, academic, horseman etc. A second church opened in 1861 in Sturt St and is now demolished. It closed in 1885 as this church opened. The bells came from Dublin. The church fence and gates built 1936.
5.The Mount Gambier Club. Across the street is the Club. It was built in 1904 for a local distiller as chambers for lease. The wealthy pastoralists of the South East formed an exclusive men only club in 1913 and it has used the upper floor of Engelbrecht’s chambers ever since. They purchased the whole building in 1920. The Club is a beautifully proportioned classical style building with pediments, balustrades, window entablature, and perfect symmetry. Look down the sides and you can see it is made of Mt Gambier limestone blocks.
6.Mt Gambier Caledonian Hall. Next door is the Scots Club. Its prominence signifies the Scottish links of many Gambier residents. The hall was opened in 1914 and opened by the former Prime Minister Sir George Reid, another Scot. It has classical features but is rather ugly and neglected these days. It is now a night club.
7.The Trustees Building. Next to the Caledonian is the Trustee Building erected in 1958. Its blue and bone tiled façade is typical of 1950s architecture yet the rectangular appearance has a slight classical look about it. It is on the SA Heritage Register. Accountants now occupy it.
8.Turn left into Percy Street and go along here beyond KFC for one town block to the next corner for the Oatmills (now a coffee shop and cinemas). Milling and brewing were two of Mt Gambier’s prime 19th century industries. The 4 storey complex here was started in 1867 for Welsh Thomas Williams who eventually had five flour mills. His mill was called Commercial Flourmills. A new owner converted the mill from wheat milling to oat milling. A new oatmill was built in 1901 and operated until 1975 producing Scottish porridge oats. The mill has now been restored with café, shops and cinemas. Return to Penola Rd.
9. Mt Gambier Hotel. No hotel could have a more remarkable origin than the Mt Gambier. An African American John Byng built a weatherboard hotel near here in 1847. The third licensee Alexander Mitchell, another Scot, took it over and moved the hotel to this corner site in 1862 as an impressive two storey hotel which was unusual at that time. The western wing was added in 1883 and balconies affixed in 1902.
10.Cross towards the Mount with the traffic lights then turn left into Commercial Street East.
11.Mt Gambier Town Hall. Marked as the Riddoch Gallery this fine Venetian Gothic style building is impressive with its coloured stone work contrasting well with cement rendered horizontal lines and vertical panels around windows and doors. The upper windows are mullioned with stone divisions between the glass. It was built in 1882 with the clock tower added in 1883 after a donation. The first Council meeting was in 1863 with Dr Wehl as chairman held in a hotel. Later the Council hired a room at the Foresters Hall and then they purchased this site in 1868 with a weatherboard room. This was used until 1882.
12.Mt Gambier old Institute. The Literary Institute was formed in 1862 and a foundation stone laid for a reading room/hall in 1868 by John Riddoch. The single storey institute opened in 1869. The upper floor was added in 1887, so that it would match the new Town Hall. It is built in a similar style- Venetian Romanesque as the windows and rounded and not arched as with a gothic structure.
13.Captain Gardiner Memorial Fountain 1884. The fountain was presented by Captain Robert Gardiner the grandfather of Sir Robert Helpman (his name was originally Helpmann). The fountain was made in Melbourne .Gardiner was also a benefactor of St Andrew’s Presbyterian -he donated the pipe organ in 1885.
14.Jens Hotel. After demolishing an earlier hotel (the 1847 hotel of John Byng) Johannes Jens had the first section of his Jens Hotel built on this corner in 1884. An almost identical eastern wing was erected in 1904 and the Spanish Art Deco section in 1927. Turn right here and go behind the Town hall to the Cave Gardens.
15.Cave Gardens. This spot was an early water supply. A garden was created in 1893 and then improved and reconstructed in 1925. This sink hole has recently been upgraded again and it is lit at night.
16.Post Office. This important communications centre was erected in 1865 as a telegraph office/post office. This is till one of the finest buildings in Mt Gambier and a rare example of the Georgian style for the city. . The single storey side wings were added in 1906 in a sympathetic style. It is still the main city Post Office.
17.Norris Agency Building. This superb Italianate building was completed in 1900 as chambers for businessmen. Owner was Alexander Norris who died in 1917. The façade is pink dolomite with cement quoins and unusual lined decoration work above the windows and door each contained within a triangular classical pediment.
18.Farmers Union Building. Another classical style building built when this style was out of fashion in 1914.Erected for Farmers Union as a large two storey building. It has none of the grace of the Norris building next door. FU was formed in 1888 in Jamestown by Thomas Mitchell, a Scot and others to provide cheap rates for grains, seeds and superphosphate but in the early 1900s they branched into products for dairy farmers and the marketing of milk products. The Mt Gambier district had plenty of dairy farmers. It is now owned by a Japanese company Kirin but it still markets its chocolate milk drinks as Farmers Union. Upper floor has double pilasters (flattened pillars) with top volutes but little other decoration.
19.Savings Bank Building on the corner. The former Savings Bank in Gothic style is unusual for commercial premises in Mt Gambier. It is constructed of weathered local limestone and was built in 1906. Note the different cut stone for the foundations, simulated turrets on the corners and by the door to break the façade appearance and the stone line above the lower window which then divides the façade into equal thirds.
20.Macs Hotel. This hotel was built in 1864 and is largely unchanged except that the upper floor was added in 1881. The first licensee was a Scot named John MacDonald. The double veranda supports are very elegant.
21.Roller flourmill now a painted hardware store. Built 1885 as a steam flourmill in pink dolomite. Note the small 12 paned windows set in much larger indented niches in the walls on the northern wall. (Sturt St.)
22.Christ Church Anglican Church and hall. Dr Browne of Moorak donated half the money for the construction of Christ Church in pink dolomite and with an unusual gabled tower. Church and tower completed in 1866. Adjacent is the Jubilee Hall built in 1915, destroyed by fire in 1951, and rebuilt exactly the same in weathered local limestone blocks with the original foundation stone still in place. It has the single Gothic window in the street facing gable and a crenulated square tower. Adjoining it is the 1869 Sunday School with the narrow double pointed Gothic windows. It was extended in 1892. The lychgate is more recent as a memorial to a regular church goer, Margaret French who died in 1927.
23.The old railway station just visible along the rail lines to your right. The first rail line was to Beachport in 1879 and the second to Naracoorte (and so to Adelaide) in 1887. Portland and Melbourne line opened 1917. A spur line to Glencoe was completed in 1904. First station was erected in 1879. It was demolished for the erection of the current station in 1918 which is similar in design to those in Tailem Bend, Bordertown, Moonta etc. Bluebird rail cars started on the Mt Gambier run in 1953 when the old 3’6” gauge line to Wolseley was converted to 5’3”. The last passenger service to Adelaide finished in 1990 and the station closed for freight in 1995. The railyards were cleared in 2013 and the future of the station is bleak. The rail lines to Beachport and Glencoe closed in 1956/57.
24.The Old Courthouse, 42 Bay Rd. It has a great low wall suitable for sitting on. This well designed Georgian style Courthouse opened in 1865 and the similarly styled side wings were added in 1877. The front veranda, which is not Georgian in style, was added in 1880. In 1975 the Courthouse was granted to the National Trust for a museum. The adjoining new Courthouse opened in 1975 at the same time. Note the “blind” windows to the façade but the same rounded Georgian shaped, 16 paned windows on the sides.
The Blue Lake, Mt Schank and Volcanoes.
The jewel in the crown of Mt Gambier is undoubtedly the volcanic cone, the crater lakes especially the Blue Lake and the surrounding Botanic Gardens and parklands. The Botanic Garden on the north side was approved in 1872 but nothing happened about plantings and care until 1882. The first pleasure road through the saddle between the Blue Lake and the Valley Lake was created in the 1861 as a more direct road to the then newly created international port named Port MacDonnell. That is why the road is called the Bay road. Surveyor General George Goyder explored the lake surrounds himself in 1876 when he selected the site for the government tree nursery. Later the government established the first sawmill on the edge of the crater reserve near Moorak homestead in the early 1920s. The Centenary Tower was initiated in 1900 to celebrate the centenary of Captain Grant sighting Mt Gambier. It took several years to complete and was opened by the Chief Justice of SA Sir Samuel Way in 1907 but it was completed in 1904. The whole complex is a maar geomorphological formation which originated during a volcanic era about 28,000 years ago but in a second phase of volcanic activity 4,000 to 6,000 years ago the cones and lakes of Mt Gambier were created along with the cones of Mt Schank and Mt Burr near Millicent. Mt Gambier was the most recent volcanic explosion in Australia. The crater lakes are: Blue Lake, Valley Lake, Leg of Mutton Lake and Browne’s Lake (dry). The Blue Lake is linked to the aquifers beneath the deep layers of limestone which underlay the entire South East. Blue Lake is about 72 metres deep and some of the water in it is estimated to be about 500 years old but it is mixed with rain runoff each year as well. The Lake provides the water supply for Mt Gambier. Deep in the lake are examples of the oldest living organisms on earth- stromatalites. The lake changes colour from grey to vivid blue each November and reverts in the following April. The change in colour is related to the position of the sun and reflected light from suspended particles in the lake which reflect blue green light rather than brown grey light. Secondly the suspended matter only occurs because the water near the surface rises in temperature in the spring and it is this which causes the particles to precipitate out of the water. The precipitated matter settles on the bottom of the lake ready for a new cycle the following spring. Like the Blue Lake various sink holes in the district have linkages to the underlying aquifer through the layers of limestone too and they include Cave Gardens, Umpherstone, Piccaninni Ponds, etc.
Moorak Station and Tenison Woods College.
Moorak station as originally known as Mount Gambier Station established by George Glen in the 1840s. The leasehold was later taken over by David Power who in turn sold it to Fisher and Rochford who in turn sold the estate as freehold to the Scottish Dr William Browne who had established Booborowie run with his brother in 1843 north of Burra. The Browne brothers dissolved their partnership around 1865 and John went to live at Buckland Park and William took up residence at Moorak. William had purchased Moorak Station in 1862 and built the grand Moorak homestead in impressive Georgian style onto a smaller house there. William died in 1894 and the Moorak Estate passed to his son Colonel Percival Browne who was to disappear on the ill-fated voyage of the new steamer the Waratah in 1909 which disappeared during a storm off Durban, South Africa. Also on that voyage was Mrs. Agnes Hay (nee Gosse) of Mt Breckan Victor Harbor and Linden Park Estate Adelaide and some 200 other poor souls. Around 1909 the Moorak Station was subdivided for closer settlement and in the 1920s the Marist Brothers purchased the homestead with a little land for their and monastery and opened the Marist Brothers Agricultural College for boys in 1931. That college in turn merged with the Mater Christi College in 1972 to become Tenison College. (Mater Christi College had been formed in 1952 by the merger of the St Josephs Convent School (1880) and St Peters Parish School but the primary section of St Peters broke away in 1969 from Mater Christi College and formed a separate St Peters Primary School. This primary school in turn merged with Tenison College in 2001 to form Tenison Woods College!) The College name commemorates the work of Father Julian Tenison Woods who arrived in Mt Gambier in 1857 to work in Penola and Mt Gambier. It was he who encouraged Mary MacKillop to take her vows and establish her Sisters of St Joseph.
Dr Browne’s manager of Moorak Estate in 1868 introduced hops as a viable crop in the South East and large quantities were grown for about 20 years. Other early experimental crops grown included tobacco, cotton and flax. Dr Browne and Moorak were also important in the potato industry. Dr Browne leased around 830 acres to 20 tenants for the express purpose of growing potatoes. He was keen to emulate the British aristocracy although he was a good Scot with being a manorial style landlord with tenant farmers. Potatoes were also grown from the early years at Yahl, OB Flat and Compton near Mt Gambier. The potatoes were carted down to Port MacDonnell and shipped to Adelaide for consumers. As one of the major wool producers of Australia William Browne contributed roughly half of the funds for the erection of Christ Church Anglican in Mt Gambier. The Moorak estate consisted of around 11,000 acres of the most fertile volcanic soil in SA with another 2,000 acres in a nearby property, German Creek near Carpenter’s Rocks. Dr Browne ran Silky Lincolns on Moorak for their wool as Merinos did not fare well on the damp South East pastures. About 2,000 acres was in wheat, about 2,500 acres was tenanted to other farmers and around 4,000 acres were in lucerne, clover, rye and other pasture grasses. William Browne returned to live in England in 1866 so his sons could attend Eton and military training colleges there. He made regular trips to SA about every second year to oversee his many pastoral properties here. When he died in 1894 he left 100,000 acres of freehold land in SA to his children who all resided here as well as leasehold land. He was an extremely wealthy man. Son Percival took control of Moorak. Before Percival’s death Moorak Estate was partly purchased by the SA government in 1904 for closer settlement when they acquired around 1,000 acres. After Percival’s death a further 6,300 acres was acquired for closer settlement and the remainder of the estate was sold to other farmers. The government paid between £10 and £31 per acre for the land. Percival Browne was highly respected in Mt Gambier and a reserve around the Blue Lake is named after him. The fourth of the crater lakes of Mt Gambier is also named Browne’s Lake after the family but it has been dry for decades. In 1900 Colonel Browne planted the ring of English Oaks around what was to become the oval of the Marist Brothers College.
Moorak.
There is a memorial by the station to William Browne as founder of the Coriadale Sheep Stud. The great Moorak woolshed was demolished in 1939. The Union church which opened in 1920 was used by the Methodists and the Anglicans. It is now a private residence. Moorak hall was opened in 1926. New classrooms were added to the Moorak School in 1928 and the first rooms opened in 1913. The cheese factory in Moorak opened in 1913 as a cooperative and was sold to Farmers Union in 1949. They closed the factory in 1979. Most of the cheese produced at Moorak went to the Melbourne market. The first cheese maker at Moorak was trained at Lauterbach’s cheese factory at Woodside. Moorak was one of a circle of settlements around Mt Gambier that had butter/cheese factories. These towns were: Kongorong; Glencoe East; Glencoe West; Suttontown; Glenburnie; Mil Lel; Yahl; OB Flat; Moorak; Mt Schank; and Eight Mile Creek.
Yahl.
In the 1860s this tiny settlement was a tobacco, hop and potato growing district and it persisted with potatoes up until recent times. Today Yahl is little more than a suburban village of Mt Gambier with a Primary school with approx 120 students. The old government school was erected in 1879. It had a Methodist church built in 1880 which operated as a church until 1977 and it had a large butter factory which had opened in 1888. The butter and cheese factory was taken over by the OB Flat cheese factory in 1939 and the two operated in conjunction with each other. The OB Flat cheese factory closed in 1950 and all production moved to Yahl. The factory finally closed in 1971. The township of Yahl also had a General Store and a Salvation Army Hall which was built in 1919.
Sink Holes: Umpherston Gardens and Cave Gardens.
James Umpherston purchased land near Mt Gambier in 1864 which included a large sink hole or collapsed cavern with a lake in the bottom. He was born in Scotland in 1812 and came to SA in the 1850s with his brother William. William purchased his first land at Yahl in 1859. James Umpherston was a civic minded chap being a local councilor, a parliamentarian in Adelaide for two years and President of the Mt Gambier Agricultural and Horticultural Society for 13 years. When he retired from civic life and farming in 1884 he decided to create a garden in his sinkhole. He beautified it and encouraged visitors and even provided a boat in the lake for boat rides. Access was gained by steps and a path carved into the sinkhole walls. However after he died in 1900 the garden was ignored, became overgrown and was largely forgotten in 1949 when the Woods and Forests Department obtained the land for a new sawmill at Mt Gambier. By then the lake had dried up as the water table had fallen over the decades. In 1976 staff, rather than the government, decided to restore the Umpherstone gardens. The cleared out the rubbish that had been dumped in the sinkhole, restored the path access, trimmed the ivy and replanted the hydrangeas and tree ferns. In 1994 the Woos and Forests Department handed over the land around the sinkhole to the City of Mt Gambier. It was added to the SA Heritage Register in 1995.
unfortunately i had no time to mount my zoom lens, so the always mounted 50mm gave its best for another time
A MKU3A visit to the Chinese New Year in London.
My old photostream is at www.flickr.com/photos/emaybe/
A positive attitude is important, but it is only part of the story. Understanding how to surmount pain, doubt, and failure is a vital component in winning the game of life.
- Chin-Ning Chu
Flowers - A single flower can be my garden... a single friend, my world. --
Flowers have a simple architectural beauty that radiate optimistic hue and are associated with the sun, warmth, and feelings of friendship and optimism.
Because of their varied and colorful appearance, flowers have long been a favorite subject of visual artists. Some of the most celebrated paintings from well-known painters are of flowers, such as Van Gogh's sunflowers series or Monet's water lilies.
Flowers can also be dried, freeze dried and pressed to create permanent, three-dimensional pieces of flower art.
I love to photograph, smell, see, and be around beautiful flowers. I hope they make your day too!
All rights reserved ©Pix.by.PegiSue
Pix.by.PegiSue www.flickr.com/photos/pix-by-pegisue/
Your optimistic eyes
Seem like paradise
To someone like
Me
I want to take you
In my arms
Forgetting all I couldn't do today
Black Celebration.
Depeche Mode/Gore
OM4
Vivitar 19/3.8
Fomapan 100@200
No filter
Rodinal R09 1:100 60mins@20c
I hope group members are not getting totally fed up with my snow and weather pictures. I am optimistically hoping that towards the end of April all the snow will be gone, so for now, I'm purposely making use of the natural white around me for my April white pictures.
Capturing falling snow in a picture is a bit tricky. Only just managed to get some hint of it here.
Выставка “Этюды оптимизма”
Параллельная программа европейской бьеннале современного искусства
“Манифеста 10″, Санкт Петербург, 2014
“Optimistic studies” exhibition
Parallel program of European biennale of Contemporary Arts
“Manifesta 10″, Saint-Petersburg, 2014
Автор фотографии: Владислав Ефимов
As it would turn out for Charleston in 2017, the last place where the eclipse would be in the USA, there was rain that happened right as the event came around.
A toy car dumped in a local pond. The reflection completes its smile, seems like an optimistic type.
184. My middle name is: Hoenugget.
183. My great grandma's nickname: Nana (I hate the other one)
182. I was born in: TN
181: I am really: Optimistic >_>
180. My cellphone company is: Verizon
179. My eye color is: Black
178. My shoe size: A women's 11.
177. My ring size is: Who knows. ;P
176. My height: 5'something
175. I'm allergic to: Nothing
174. My first job: Havent had one yet, suckas. ;P
173. My first car: Havent had any. .___.
172. My bed is: Well I have a bunk bed with random blankets on it.
171. My pet: 7 kitties.
170. My best friend: Avabumpbe! :D
169. My favorite shampoo: Lol, whatever my mom buys, but I prefer scented kinds, like strawberries. Yeah, those smell nice.
168. AIM name: Dont have one.
167. Piggy banks are: For 5-year-old's.
166. In my pockets: Various chapsticks and lipglosses. And my phone.
165. On my calender: Nothing really. I dont care. Lol. ;P
164. Marriage is: Trouble for everyone. e_e
163. My mom is: She's very close to me, even though she grounds me a lot for dumb reasons, I wouldnt have anything without her.
162. The last CDs I bought were: Gorillaz albums
161. The last video I watched: Jenna Marbles video. Lol.
160. How many cousins I have: A lot. e_____e
159. Do you have any siblings? An older sister and an older brother who is a lumberjack. Lol. (Only Ava would understand)
158. Are your parents divorced? Yuppers.
157. Are you taller than yo momma? Nupe. -.- My whole family is tall.
156. Do you play instruments? I want to but my mom refuses to let me.
155. What did you do yesterday? Go to art class alone because mah best friend, Ava, is out of town. D;
~Belive in~
154. Love at first site? Yus.
153. Luck? Um, sometimes.
152. Fate? I have a different definition of fate. e.e
151. Yourself? Not really. :P
150. Aliens? Yup.
149. Heaven? I believe that Im going to come back as a different life form. I'm Buddhist.
148. Hell? ^^
147. God? Buddha.
146. Horoscopes? Not really but I read them.
145. Soulmates? My friends. Forever and Always.
144. Ghosts? Yushhhh.
115. Six flags or Disney? Disney.
114. Yankees or Red socks? I really dont care.
~Here's what I think About~
113. War: Bull Shissa.
112. George Bush: An old white guy.
111. Gay marrige? I support gay rights. Theres nothing wrong with happiness.
110: Presidentiol election: I really do not care.
109. Abortion: I dont care. ;P
108. MySpace: Lol, I hacked my sisters. Dead.
107. Reality TV: Never watched it.
106. Parents: I love my dad and my mom even though theyre a real pain sometimes.
105. Backstabbers: Call me when you grow up.
104. eBay: _>
86. Got your nails done: First week of summer.
85. Went to a wedding: Um like in 12 years.
84: Broke a bone: Never! Wooh.
83: Got a piercing: 3rd grade.
82. Broke a law: A while ago when I was with Ava. Lol Walmart.
81. Texted: Just now.
~Misc~
80. Who makes you laugh most? Ava. XDDDD
79. Something I really miss when I leave home: My phone charger and the loneliness of being locked in my room.<3
78. The last movie I saw: Napoleon Dynamite for the 1700000000000 time.
77. The thing I am looking for most: Self peace.
76. The thing I am not looking forward to: Going to a new school.
75. People call me: Annoying, loud, funny. Yup.
74. The most difficult thing to do: Take math tests.
73. When getting a speeding ticket: HAH, never got one.
72. My zodiac sign: An Aquarius.
71. The first person I talked to today: My mom.
70. First time you had a crush? Hmmm, Ive never really had a crush. Every guy I know hates me.
69. The one person you can't hide anything from: Ava and Ally.
68. Last time you said something you were thinking: LOL.
67. Right now I'm talking to: Ava!
66. What are you going to be when you grow up? A Liger.
65. I have/will get a job: When I turn 16 hopefully.
64. Tomorrow: I will be doing nothing Soon to be green.
53. TV show I watch: I watch anime online.
52. Favorite website: Google+ Facebook and Flickr.
51. Dream Vacation: London or Africa.
50. The worst pain you were in: When ever I see or hear my grandma's name.
49. How do you like your steak cooked? I dont like steak.
48. My room is: Pink and yellow.
47. Favorite celebrities: Gorillaz, Blur. Nuff said.
46. Where would you like to be? With Ava.<3
45. Do you want kids? No, then Id have to spend money on them. Unless my husband did.
44. Ever been in love? Well not really with a person.
43. Your best friend? Ava, and Ally.
42. More guy friends or girl friends? Girl. I go to an all girls school but Im moving to a co-ed school next year. .____. Im scurred.
41. One thing that makes you feel great is: When I get B's or higher in math.
40. One person you wish you could see right now: Ava and Ally. I miss them.
39. One place you'd like to move: Africa or London.
38: I wish I was a personal: e_e No idea.
~Favorites~
37. Candy: Jujubees.
36. Vehicle: Geep.
35.President: I dont give a crap.
34. City visited: LA
33.Cellphone provider: Verizon?
32. Athelete: Dont care. Lol.
31. Actress: I dunno.
30. Actor: JON HEDER, CAN I MARRY YOU?
29. Singer: Gorilllllazzzzzzzzz and Blur. So basically Damon Alabrn, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Emilie Autumn.
28. Bands: Gorillaz and Blur.
27. Clothing store: I dont care.
26. Grocery store: Lol Target?
25. TV show: NAPOLEON DYNAMITE/
24. Movie: NAPOLEON DYNAMITE.
23. Website: Flickr, Google+, Facebook.
22. Animal: CATS, AND CATS ONLY.
21. Theme park: Ahhh Universal Studios. <3 So fun.
20. Holiday: Christmas and Halloween.
19. Sport to watch: I hate watching sports.
18. Sport to play: Tennis.
17. Magazine: ...Dont read them.
16. Book: Vampire Knight.
15. Day of the week: Friday.
14. Beach: Beaches disgust me. I prefer private swimming pools.
13. Concerts atended: Well Ive only been to a Miley Cyrus concert and a Heart concert. e_e
12. Thing to cook: Pffft, I dont cook.
11. Food: FRUIT<3
10. Resturant: Um...?
9. Radio station: My earbuds.
8. Yankee Candle scent: I like the smell of coconuts.
7. Clogne: Rihanna perfumeeeee.
6. Flower: Japanese Cherry Blossoms<3
5. Color: Yellow!<3
4. Talk show host: Lol No one.
3. Comedians: I like my friends who are funny. e3e
2. Dog breed: I. HATE. DOGS. A LOT.
1. Are you happy this is over: Oh, sure.
Available at HypeForType: www.hypefortype.com/affair.html
Type designers are crazy people. Not crazy in the sense that they think we are Napoleon, but in the sense that the sky can be falling, wars tearing the world apart, disasters splitting the very ground we walk on, plagues circling continents to pick victims randomly, yet we will still perform our ever optimistic task of making some little spot of the world more appealing to the human eye. We ought to be proud of ourselves, I believe. Optimism is hard to come by these days. Regardless of our own personal reasons for doing what we do, the very thing we do is in itself an act of optimism and belief in the inherent beauty that exists within humanity.
As recently as ten years ago, I wouldn't have been able to choose the amazing obscure profession I now have, wouldn't have been able to be humbled by the history that falls into my hands and slides in front of my eyes every day, wouldn't have been able to live and work across previously impenetrable cultural lines as I do now, and wouldn't have been able to raise my glass of Malbeck wine to toast every type designer who was before me, is with me, and will be after me. As recently as ten years ago, I wouldn't have been able to mean these words as I wrote them: It’s a small world.
Yes, it is a small world, and a wonderfully complex one too. With so much information drowning our senses by the minute, it has become difficult to find clear meaning in almost anything. Something throughout the day is bound to make us feel even smaller in this small world. Most of us find comfort in a routine. Some of us find extended families. But in the end we are all Eleanor Rigbys, lonely on the inside and waiting for a miracle to come. If a miracle can make the world small, another one can perhaps give us meaning.
And sometimes a miracle happens for a split second, then gets buried until a crazy type designer finds it. I was on my honeymoon in New York City when I first stumbled upon the letters that eventually started this Affair. A simple, content tourist walking down the streets formerly unknown to me except through pop music and film references. Browsing the shops of the city that made Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, and a thousand other artists. Trying to chase away the tourist mentality, wondering what it would be like to actually live in the city of a billion tiny lights.
Tourists don't go to libraries in foreign cities. So I walked into one. Two hours later I wasn't in New York anymore. I wasn't anywhere substantial. I was the crazy type designer at the apex of insanity. La La Land, alphabet heaven, curves and twirls and loops and swashes, ribbons and bows and naked letters. I'm probably not the very first person on this planet to be seduced into starting an Affair while on his honeymoon, but it is something to tease my better half about once in a while.
To this day I can't decide if I actually found the worn book, or if the book itself called for me. Its spine was nothing special, sitting on a shelf, tightly flanked by similar spines on either side. Yet it was the only one I picked off that shelf. And I looked at only one page in it before walking to the photocopier and cheating it with an Argentine coin, since I didn't have the American quarter it wanted.
That was the beginning. I am now writing this after the Affair is over. And it was an Affair to remember, to pull a phrase. Right now, long after I have drawn and digitized and tested this alphabet, and long after I saw what some of this generation’s type designers saw in it, I have the luxury to speculate on what Affair really is, what made me begin and finish it, what cultural expressions it has, and so on. But in all honesty it wasn't like that. Much like in my Ministry Script experience, I was a driven man, a lover walking the ledge, an infatuated student following the instructions of his teacher while seeing her as a perfect angel. I am not exaggerating when I say that the letters themselves told me how to extend them. I was exploited by an alphabet, and it felt great.
Unlike my experience with Ministry Script, where the objective was to push the technology to its limits, this Affair felt like the most natural and casual sequence of processions in the world – my hand following the grid, the grid following what my hand had already done – a circle of creation contained in one square computer cell, then doing it all over again. By contrast, it was the lousiest feeling in the world when I finally reached the conclusion that the Affair was done. What would I do now? Would any commitment I make from now on constitute a betrayal of these past precious months? I'm largely over all that now, of course. I like to think I'm a better man now because of the experience.
Affair is an enormous, intricately calligraphic OpenType font based on a 9x9 photocopy of a page from a 1950s lettering book. In any calligraphic font, the global parameters for developing the characters are usually quite volatile and hard to pin down, but in this case it was particularly difficult because the photocopy was too gray and the letters were of different sizes, very intertwined and scan-impossible. So finishing the first few characters in order to establish the global rhythm was quite a long process, after which the work became a unique soothing, numbing routine by which I will always remember this Affair. The result of all the work, at least to the eyes of this crazy designer, is 1950s American lettering with a very Argentine wrapper. My Affair is infused with the spirit of filete, dulce de leche, yerba mate, and Carlos Gardel.
Upon finishing the font I was fortunate enough that a few of my colleagues, great type designers and probably much saner than I am, agreed to show me how they envision my Affair in action. The beauty they showed me makes me feel small and yearn for the world to be even smaller now – at least small enough so that my international colleagues and I can meet and exchange stories over a good parrilla. These people, whose kindness is very deserving of my gratitude, and whose beautiful art is very deserving of your appreciation, are in no particular order: Corey Holms, Mariano Lopez Hiriart, Xavier Dupré, Alejandro Ros, Rebecca Alaccari, Laura Meseguer, Neil Summerour, Eduardo Manso, and the Doma group. You can see how they envisioned using Affair in the section of this booklet entitled A Foreign Affair.
The rest of this booklet contains all the obligatory technical details that should come with a font this massive. I hope this Affair can bring you as much peace and satisfaction as it brought me, and I hope it can help your imagination soar like mine did when I was doing my duty for beauty.
Boy, it was this kind of day when you look back at it, you think...oh yeah Inferno.
Despite the detailed manual (in german), we were pretty optimistic on our chances to complete the process.
Fools that we were ! I don't know why we decided to lunch at Interlaken with a couple of french pals, but from that point the race for the park was on...In Oberhofen (T1 road bike park, checking in), everything was going smoothly in this heavenly haven. we were kind of just amazed by the "swissness" of the place, clinical neatness, yeah... anything has a place and a place for anything. We are French don't forget, land of revolution and some endemic allergies to rules (especially littering).
While we were heading to the next park (T2 - Mountain bike, Grindelwald), I saw a women running, some frantic discussion with the staff that I did not hear however it was definitely not a small talk, her body gesture was suggesting a sort of emergency. We continue our recon of the water exit path when clearly people in front of us next to the shore were literally freezing, (hum...not moving). Something weird was happening, this kind of moment that your unconscious mind know before it hits the frontal lobes. I through a glance above the parapet and there was this French guy with his swim goggles on in the water asking loudly (in french) where ? And then he dived...F...k drowning situation here, I called my buddies, swimmer gear now !
Don't panic, everybody was calling the rescue services (kudo for mobile phone era), check.
everyone out of the water (except the french rescuers) check.
the first guy pulled out a man (80 kg minimum) from the blue, not an easy task especially if the drown man was down under 5 meters. It feels that he knew how to proceed, my friends Jean Francois, Cyril and Raphael helped him out to put
the poor guy next to the wall. Unfortunately, it was not on waterfree environment, a shallow water was enough to perform CPR.
The guy started to vomit, that is good, no water in the lungs, some pulses were even there. The crowd (ok only 10 people max, it was sort of strange to know that 50 meters away triathlete were unaware of this situation) was encouraging the guy, come on, hang in there, fight dammit, as if he was racing against ...death ?
Unfortunately they lost the pulse, and then we went silenced, just like if we were praying in our head. Cyril shouted at me, Where is that bloody oxygen ?
Ok, it should have been here (the mandatory equipment in Switzerland should include an oxygen tank, did the women explain properly the situation to the person in charge of the swimming pool ?) time to move, I ran to the swimming pool and gosh...where did my proficient English go ? Finally, the women in charge at the swimming pool was looking into it at...snail pace. Frustration, that was my state of mind.
I came back to the scene, and they were still performing CPR, then a person from the swimming pool came with a defibrillator...ok, no oxy, and you know what ? can't perform a defib in shallow water. So they have to drag the body 50 meters to a dry location. In the meantime, some people succeeded to have crucial info on the timing. 5 minutes that was the time his girlfriend realized he was missing, 2 more minutes the diver needed to find him. 7 minutes accrued, it was still worth a try but it was a lot of minutes for the brain without O2.
The defib said ...continue to CPR (thank you dude !), time is an elastic concept and this kind of situation proved it, where are the goddamn rescue ? They came by boat and road, and installed a security perimeter, started to CPR with a stronger stance, but still no recovery. We were sort of depressed I have to confess, nothing we can do at this point, the slight pre race pressure we could have was gone for sure. We were meditating on the fragile line of life of our existence. Of course we need to prove our mortality through all kind of stuff (Inferno triathlon is one of them) but just a simple lack of air reminds us our condition.
Inferno or paradisio ? We have to move on, leave the drama, persuading ourselves that we did our best.
that's the best I can say about events in today's world; if I felt otherwise, my pessimism might get the best of me
An optimistic sign points to a construction fence.
Decatur (Winnona Park), Georgia, USA.
15 March 2019.
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▶ (Temporary) northern terminus of the East Decatur Greenwayhiker/biker trail, at Derrydown Way and E. Freeman Street, just east of nearly completed Avondale MARTA (Metropolitan Atlanta Regional Transit Authority) mixed-use "transit oriented development."
▶ The trail will eventually terminate just northwest of this spot at "a state of the art pedestrian/cyclist plaza," providing connection to MARTA transit and the PATH Stone Mountain Trail.
****************
▶ Completed in late 2019. See it in 2021: here.
▶ How it appeared in 2017: here.
▶ The other end of the trail: here.
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Psychological resilience is defined as an individual's ability to successfully adapt to life tasks in the face of social disadvantage or other highly adverse conditions.Adversity and stress can come in the shape of family or relationship problems, health problems, or workplace and financial worries, among others. Resilience is the ability to bounce back from a negative experience with "competent functioning". Resilience is not a rare ability; in reality, it is found in the average individual and it can be learned and developed by virtually anyone. Resilience is a process, rather than a trait to be had. It is a process of individuation through a structured system with gradual discovery of personal and unique abilities. A common misconception is that resilient people are free from negative emotions or thoughts, and remain optimistic in most or all situations. To the contrary, resilient individuals have, through time, developed proper coping techniques that allow them to effectively and relatively easily navigate around or through crises. In other words, people who demonstrate resilience are people with optimistic attitudes and positive emotionality; they are, in practice, able to effectively counter negative emotions with positive emotions. Compare the pressures you face in a typical week with a few years ago: have they increased? Now think about the years ahead: are the pressures likely to keep growing? If you’re answering 'yes', this could be a good time to review and renew your strategies for resilience. Alan Heeks has many years’ experience of exploring how people can raise their wellbeing and resilience through contact with nature.Resilience is generally thought of as a "positive adaptation" after a stressful or adverse situation. When a person is "bombarded by daily stress, it disrupts their internal and external sense of balance, presenting challenges as well as opportunities." Resilience is the integrated adaptation of physical, mental and spiritual aspects in a set of "good or bad" circumstances, a coherent sense of self that is able to maintain normative developmental tasks that occur at various stages of life. The Children's Institute of the University of Rochester explains that "resilience research is focused on studying those who engage in life with hope and humor despite devastating losses". It is important to note that resilience is not only about overcoming a deeply stressful situation, but also coming out of the said situation with "competent functioning". Resiliency allows a person to rebound from adversity as a strengthened and more resourceful person. “One of the themes that emerges from these groups is that people feel increasingly depleted by everyday life and work, and it’s getting worse.
"There are many reasons for this, including the many hours spent with smartphones and screens, which mean that they are constantly overloaded with too much information, and alarming news from across the globe. Medical School quotes many research studies showing how long hours in front of screens put people in a continual state of alert, which makes it hard for them both to concentrate, and also to relax. An example of what we can learn from nature is composting: in woods, as in organic farms and gardens, the major source of future growth is waste, dead matter which can be transformed into nutrition for future growth.Resilience is generally thought of as a "positive adaptation" after a stressful or adverse situation.[8] When a person is "bombarded by daily stress, it disrupts their internal and external sense of balance, presenting challenges as well as opportunities." Resilience is the integrated adaptation of physical, mental and spiritual aspects in a set of "good or bad" circumstances, a coherent sense of self that is able to maintain normative developmental tasks that occur at various stages of life. The Children's Institute of the University of Rochester explains that "resilience research is focused on studying those who engage in life with hope and humor despite devastating losses". It is important to note that resilience is not only about overcoming a deeply stressful situation, but also coming out of the said situation with "competent functioning". Resiliency allows a person to rebound from adversity as a strengthened and more resourceful person. You could do the same: imagine recycling negative feelings and anxious thoughts, and using their energy to give you insights and growth. Another theme which emerges for some people at the wood is their concerns for the state of the world, climate change, and damage to the environment. Many people feel helpless about such problems, and simply stuff their worries down. Alan said: “I find that these deep, denied worries affect a lot of people, and sap their energy and resilience. We offer a range of processes, such as composting and deep ecology, to help people face these anxieties, and find a more positive outlook.” The way to positive change for the state of our world begins with dreams. He points out that dreams, in the sense of inspiring visions, and myths, in the sense of prevailing beliefs, have a huge influence in our world. It believes that the wisdom of Gaia, planet earth, can team up with the inventiveness of humans, to find solutions even to the current threats. The mega-crisis represents a mega-opportunity. You could look at it as a chance for humans to grow dramatically in resilience, and in their connection with Nature. We have to dare to dream: if we can at least carry a vision of the future we hope for, it starts to gather momentum.” He provides organic growth approaches for people and their work that help to build resilience. Jane has many years’ experience of working with mindfulness, deep ecology and other approaches to wellbeing, and is part of the Wisdom Tree team.Resilience is generally thought of as a "positive adaptation" after a stressful or adverse situation.[8] When a person is "bombarded by daily stress, it disrupts their internal and external sense of balance, presenting challenges as well as opportunities." Resilience is the integrated adaptation of physical, mental and spiritual aspects in a set of "good or bad" circumstances, a coherent sense of self that is able to maintain normative developmental tasks that occur at various stages of life.The Children's Institute of the University of Rochester explains that "resilience research is focused on studying those who engage in life with hope and humor despite devastating losses". It is important to note that resilience is not only about overcoming a deeply stressful situation, but also coming out of the said situation with "competent functioning". Resiliency allows a person to rebound from adversity as a strengthened and more resourceful person.Three notable bases for resilience, self-confidence, self-esteem and self-concept, all have roots in three different nervous systems—respectively, the somatic nervous system, the autonomic nervous system and the central nervous system. An emerging field in the study of resilience is the neurobiological basis of resilience to stress. For example, neuropeptide Y (NPY) and 5-Dehydroepiandrosterone (5-DHEA) are thought to limit the stress response by reducing sympathetic nervous system activation and protecting the brain from the potentially harmful effects of chronically elevated cortisol levels respectively. In addition, the relationship between social support and stress resilience is thought to be mediated by the oxytocin system's impact on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. "Resilience, conceptualized as a positive bio-psychological adaptation, has proven to be a useful theoretical context for understanding variables for predicting long-term health and well-being".There is some limited research that, like trauma, resilience is epigenetic—that is, it may be inherited—but the science behind this finding is preliminary.Studies show that there are several factors which develop and sustain a person's resilience: The ability to make realistic plans and being capable of taking the steps necessary to follow through with them
Confidence in one’s strengths and abilities
Communication and problem-solving skills
The ability to manage strong impulses and feelings
Resilience is negatively correlated with personality traits of neuroticism and negative emotionality, which represents tendencies to see and react to the world as threatening, problematic, and distressing, and to view oneself as vulnerable. Positive correlations stands with personality traits of openness and positive emotionality, that represents tendencies to engage and confront the world with confidence in success and a fair value to self-directedness.There is significant research found in scientific literature on the relationship between positive emotions and resilience. Studies show that maintaining positive emotions whilst facing adversity promote flexibility in thinking and problem solving. Positive emotions serve an important function in their ability to help an individual recover from stressful experiences and encounters. That being said, maintaining a positive emotionality aids in counteracting the physiological effects of negative emotions. It also facilitates adaptive coping, builds enduring social resources, and increases personal well-being. Formation of conscious perception and monitoring one's own socioemotional factors is considered as a stablity aspect of positive emotions.[citation needed] This is not to say that positive emotions are merely a by-product of resilience, but rather that feeling positive emotions during stressful experiences may have adaptive benefits in the coping process of the individual. Empirical evidence for this prediction arises from research on resilient individuals who have a propensity for coping strategies that concretely elicit positive emotions, such as benefit-finding and cognitive reappraisal, humor, optimism, and goal-directed problem-focused coping. Individuals who tend to approach problems with these methods of coping may strengthen their resistance to stress by allocating more access to these positive emotional resources.Social support from caring adults encouraged resilience among participants by providing them with access to conventional activities.Positive emotions not only have physical outcomes but also physiological ones. Some physiological outcomes caused by humor include improvements in immune system functioning and increases in levels of salivary immunoglobulin A, a vital system antibody, which serves as the body’s first line of defense in respiratory illnesses. Moreover, other health outcomes include faster injury recovery rate and lower readmission rates to hospitals for the elderly, and reductions in a patient’s stay in the hospital, among many other benefits. A study was done on positive emotions in trait-resilient individuals and the cardiovascular recovery rate following negative emotions felt by those individuals. The results of the study showed that trait-resilient individuals experiencing positive emotions had an acceleration in the speed in rebounding from cardiovascular activation initially generated by negative emotional arousal, i.e. heart rate and the like.A study was conducted among high achieving professionals who seek challenging situations that require resilience. Research has examined 13 high achievers from various professions, all of whom had experienced challenges in the workplace and negative life events over the course of their careers but who had also been recognized for their great achievements in their respective fields. Participants were interviewed about everyday life in the workplace as well as their experiences with resilience and thriving. The study found six main predictors of resilience: positive and proactive personality, experience and learning, sense of control, flexibility and adaptability, balance and perspective, and perceived social support. High achievers were also found to engage in many activities unrelated to their work such as engaging in hobbies, exercising, and organizing meetups with friends and loved ones. Several factors are found to modify the negative effects of adverse life situations. Many studies show that the primary factor is to have relationships that provide care and support, create love and trust, and offer encouragement, both within and outside the family. Additional factors are also associated with resilience, like the capacity to make realistic plans, having self-confidence and a positive self image,developing communications skills, and the capacity to manage strong feelings and impulses. Temperamental and constitutional disposition is considered as a major factor in resilience. It is one of the necessary precursors of resilience along with warmth in family cohesion and accessibility of prosocial support systems. There are three kinds of temperamental systems that play part in resilience, they are the appetitive system, defensive system and attentional system. Another protective factor is related to moderating the negative effects of environmental hazards or a stressful situation in order to direct vulnerable individuals to optimistic paths, such as external social support. More specifically a 1995 study distinguished three contexts for protective factors:personal attributes, including outgoing, bright, and positive self-concepts; the family, such as having close bonds with at least one family member or an emotionally stable parent; and the community, such as receiving support or counsel from peers. Furthermore, a study of the elderly in Zurich, Switzerland, illuminated the role humor plays as a coping mechanism to maintain a state of happiness in the face of age-related adversity. Besides the above distinction on resilience, research has also been devoted to discovering the individual differences in resilience. Self-esteem, ego-control, and ego-resiliency are related to behavioral adaptation. For example, maltreated children who feel good about themselves may process risk situations differently by attributing different reasons to the environments they experience and, thereby, avoid producing negative internalized self-perceptions. Ego-control is "the threshold or operating characteristics of an individual with regard to the expression or containment"[49] of their impulses, feelings, and desires. Ego-resilience refers to "dynamic capacity, to modify his or her model level of ego-control, in either direction, as a function of the demand characteristics of the environmental context"Maltreated children who experienced some risk factors (e.g., single parenting, limited maternal education, or family unemployment), showed lower ego-resilience and intelligence than nonmaltreated children. Furthermore, maltreated children are more likely than nonmaltreated children to demonstrate disruptive-aggressive, withdraw, and internalized behavior problems. Finally, ego-resiliency, and positive self-esteem were predictors of competent adaptation in the maltreated children. Demographic information (e.g., gender) and resources (e.g., social support) are also used to predict resilience. Examining people's adaptation after disaster showed women were associated with less likelihood of resilience than men. Also, individuals who were less involved in affinity groups and organisations showed less resilience.
Certain aspects of religions and spirituality may, hypothetically, promote or hinder certain psychological virtues that increase resilience. Research has not established connection between spirituality and resilience. According to the 4th edition of Psychology of Religion by Hood, et al., the "study of positive psychology is a relatively new development...there has not yet been much direct empirical research looking specifically at the association of religion and ordinary strengths and virtues".In a review of the literature on the relationship between religiosity/spirituality and PTSD, amongst the significant findings, about half of the studies showed a positive relationship and half showed a negative relationship between measures of religiosity/spirituality and resilience. The United States Army has received criticism for promoting spirituality in its new [Comprehensive Soldier Fitness] program as a way to prevent PTSD, due to the lack of conclusive supporting data. In military studies it has been found that resilience is also dependent on group support: unit cohesion and morale is the best predictor of combat resiliency within a unit or organization. Resilience is highly correlated to peer support and group cohesion. Units with high cohesion tend to experience a lower rate of psychological breakdowns than units with low cohesion and morale. High cohesion and morale enhance adaptive stress reactions.
Well, if you give up
You'll get what you deserve
Paramore
Mi único propósito para este año es ser más optmista
Outside of the Town Hall theater on West 43rd Street in Manhattan, a crowd of smiling and optimistic people Friday overflowed into the one-way street. Delivery trucks and yellow taxi cabs creeped by, their engines engaged in a shouting match with Bennet Weiss, a man who bore a fleeting resemblance to the Democratic presidential candidate they were all there to support.
"We don't have billions of dollars! All we have are people wearing Bernie pins," Weiss yelled, a large black umbrella covered in Bernie Sanders campaign pins at his feet, catching drops of sweat from his brow. The Occupy Wall Street protester-turned-Sanders supporter urged the crowd to wear the pins at all times with no exception -- even in the shower -- and gave them away freely to anyone who said they didn't have enough cash to afford to pay the suggested donation.
That's the kind of populist support Sanders' campaign has steadily been attracting since the U.S. senator from Vermont formally announced his candidacy in late April. Friday was no exception, with passion-filled people who think Sanders has proved himself the worthy champion of causes they care about the most, such as income inequality, climate change, Wall Street reform and further healthcare reforms. But, perhaps most importantly, they also think he can win the White House.
"Absolutely" he can win, said Joe Trinolone, 30, a former finance industry worker from Long Island, New York, who is studying mathematics at St. Joseph's University. "I mean, he's winning right now."
Sanders, during a fundraising speech Friday, ticked through the policies he cares about and areas of change he wants to see in Washington should he become president. At each turn, his blend of outrage, optimism and sly sarcasm brought raucous cheers from the crowd of 1,100. He rejected recent Wall Street Journal criticism of the high price tag of his proposals, including making public colleges and universities free, lowering so-called real unemployment by pumping funding into infrastructure repairs for the nation’s roads and bridges and implementing a universal healthcare system.
Instead, he pointed to European nations that already have those programs. He implored the crowd to think about what many of them were already talking about: that taking on the big-money interests in the United States that impede those sorts of policy changes is a shared moral obligation.
“Welcome to the revolution,” Sanders said, describing what he believes must happen to American politics. “We can accomplish all of this and more.” And the crowd ate it up.
When asked why they support Sanders, many described his candidacy as a movement. They love his policies, and have a hard time thinking of much they don’t like about him. They especially like that he has been a consistent voice during his time in Washington. That’s a big perceived difference between Sanders and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. Those "feeling the Bern" were split on whether they would consider voting for her if she becomes the nominee. Many were newcomers to political action but felt compelled to join the fray when they heard Sanders and his message.
“I’ve never been excited about a politician my entire life,” said Meira Marom, 34, a Brooklyn third-grade teacher with a master's degree in creative writing. When Marom started seeing social media posts about Sanders and reading about him, she decided to stop focusing her personal time on writing for herself. She now writes and publishes something about Sanders every day -- Dr. Seuss themes every Sunday, poems and parodies. “I decided this is the most worthy cause to put my rhymes to use.”
Sanders has seen an unexpected rise in the polls since he joined the race for the Democratic nomination shortly after the current national front-runner Clinton announced her candidacy. While Sanders was trailing Clinton by 21.4 percent in national averages of polls compiled by Real Clear Politics, a look at early nominating states like Iowa and New Hampshire paints a different picture of vulnerability for Clinton and strength for Sanders.
The two candidates are tied in Iowa, which constitutes a dramatic drop for Clinton and an impressive surge for Sanders, who has been distancing himself from Clinton in New Hampshire at the top of the Democratic pack since Aug. 25, when he jumped past her in the state for the first time. He currently leads there by 10.5 points.
The candidates are noticeably different in many ways, from policy prescription to fundraising strategy.
Clinton has moved leftward since announcing her candidacy, but she is still threatened by the populist appeal of Sanders, who has long championed the causes that seem to be coming into grace for the Democratic Party. While the candidates currently hold some very similar positions on issues such as immigration reform, gay rights, gun control and campaign finance reform, Sanders has been able to stake out positions to the left of Clinton on other issues that excite some vocal voters.
Among them are his strong anti-war and anti-government surveillance positions as well as his distaste for President Barack Obama's Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal. Sanders also has been a vocal critic of Wall Street and champion of financial reforms, and his stance on those issues has drawn attention to Clinton's cozy relationship with Wall Street executives and the huge paychecks she has received for speeches to large banks since leaving the U.S. State Department. For some Sanders supporters, though, the perception that Sanders has been a consistent proponent of these liberal policies, and cares about them more than winning, is key.
“It’s the message that supporting Bernie Sanders is not just voting on a horse in the race” that attracts Brian Dillon, a 28-year-old self-employed Web designer and developer for e-commerce, said Friday. Dillon has voted just one time in his life, but he has been organizing meetings to drum up support for Sanders.
Sanders's fundraising portfolio also is the reverse of Clinton's. While the former secretary of state is expected to spend somewhere north of $1 billion should she win the primary and head into the general election for 2016, the same has not been said of Sanders. Currently, Clinton has raised, through her campaign committee and super PACs associated with the campaign, $47.5 million, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. Sanders, on the other hand, has raised just shy of $16.5 million, according to CRP data.
Their most startling difference in fundraising, however, can be seen in the size of the donations they're receiving. The Clinton campaign received 82 percent of its donations from large contributors, and her top industry donors, not including retired people, so far have been lawyers, business services and the financial industry.
In contrast, Sanders relies much more on small donations, which are defined as donations totaling $200 or less. So far, 69 percent of his contributions have come from small donors, and the biggest industries that have given to his campaign have been from the education, legal and healthcare sectors.
Who are those small donors? The types of people who showed up Friday. Some said they donate $25 to $30 a month to Sanders. Some said they have donated several hundred dollars since he jumped into the presidential race. Nearly all of them mentioned they don't earn a ton of money personally. One in particular, Machumu Sakulira, said he donated $500 before attending Friday’s event.
There is “no way” he would support a Clinton ticket, said Sakulira, a 31-year-old senior political science student at the University at Buffalo. He got on a bus Thursday night at 11 p.m. and arrived in New York at 7 a.m. for the Sanders speech. He said he was going back Friday night. “Bernie represents my interest. My vote is a moral choice, I don’t give it to somebody who doesn’t deserve it.”
www.ibtimes.com/election-2016-bernie-sanders-nyc-fundrais...