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Brilliant line, great work by Will. I did the RH finish after this as wasnt sure what was what, get pocket with the LH and head right. "The Lash Out?" the right finish was a bit harder. My grade calibrater is malfunctioning at the moment.
[14:49] Amara turned the corner, walking into the restaurant and passing Leigh and Ayr as she moved to the counter. "Afternoon you two. Nick, I'd like a medium pie with broccoli, ham, olives, and extra cheese. To go."
[14:50] Leigh Parx (Kayleigh Jigsaw) just cracked up laughing. "That ain't a man. An' if you're bein' nice 'nuff ta listen, don't see why I can't do somethin' nice in return. Do you?" Leigh wasn't counting on Ayr fixing her problems, but she did know he usually managed to at least make things seem better. "Aight." Her attention shifted to the NPC waiter for a moment. "One pie with whatever meats ya'll got and a water. Plus whatever he wants despite what he says." She'd jerk her head slightly in Ayr's direction at the words. Amara got a nod. "Hey, boss. Lost your tail?"
[14:52] Ayr Bosatsu looks over to Amara when she walks in, chewing on the thoughts Leigh had given him. "I wanted to pick a Better time to do this, and it seems a bit abrupt to do it here and now. But," he'd clear his throat, "Amara I'd like you to Be Beta for a while. Since gage has surrendered her position we've been in need of a new one and few have stepped forward to offer their names. More than a few people have mentioned -your- name though. I'd like you to give it a try for a month and a bit, see how you feel with it." Looking down at his boots he'd huff slightly, "I'm getting too old for these lil heart-string moments."
[14:58] Amara was caught between blushing and crying at the announcement. She really had her heart set on just being the lead medic, but she felt rather humbled that others though her a capable Beta. "I'd be honored, Ayr, and I'll do my best. Count on it." She leaned against the counter for support as she smiled at Leigh. "My tails are fine thanks. Are you alright though after what happened yesterday?"
[15:07] Leigh Parx (Kayleigh Jigsaw) nodded. "Whatcha mean what happened? Only thing that rankled me any was when it seemed like you were undermining my doing my job." She'd shrug a bit. "Might wanna buy that lady a strap-on and some therapy though? She was compensatin' pretty hard for somethin'. You're welcome to join us." She'd think for a moment before pulling a business card from her pocket and holding it out to Amara.
[15:09] Ayr Bosatsu looks at Amara a long moment, even as Leigh speaks to her. His head nodded somewhat, mind scratching back like a broken record to his younger years. Lolling his head forward he'd plant his chin on the desk, stifling proud tears as his heart strings got plucked and played - so much so he could only manage a nod in return to her comment. Quickly standing up to try and shake himself out of it he'd make for the counter and order himself a drink with a lump in his throat, "Cola."
[15:14] Amara took the business card and read it over, taking a seat at the table while she waited for her pie to be made. "I do apologize for Lana; Ashagi's been going through some difficult times. Several employees have been attacked or mauled, and we have no idea who's behind them." She sighed, putting the card away knowing it would be useful later. "Her lover was attacked. Arwen was shot...and Adagio..." Amara bit her lip, stopping the sentence short. "She just didn't want someone else to be hurt on her watch. Nothing more."
[15:17] Mitka Dover walks in quietly stopping at the table nodding to the pack and leigh"you all been served?"
[15:21] Leigh Parx (Kayleigh Jigsaw) shrugged as the NPC put her water on the table. She'd keep her attention mostly focused on those she was with, for now. "Still, yer my boss. I'd rather see ya have someone competent if ya need someone. The way she was actin' ain't gonna do nothin' but end up gettin the people she's tryin' ta protect hurt." Her attention would then shift back to Ayr as she watched him. "So first thing I wanna ask ya is this. Am I a lady?" Yup, true Leigh fashion had the question seeming like it came out of nowhere.
[15:24] Ayr Bosatsu nods when Mitka comes in, pulling out his phone quietly. "Well," he scratched behind his ear. "Sometimes I wonder. You seem to be pretty much immune to any guy coming onto you," his eyes drifted to the left and the child outside. The one who gave him birthday cake, "...!" Scrabbling up quickly he'd look at Mitka then point at the child, screaming at the top of his lungs - "Get that child -whatever- she wants to eat, 'cause I'm frontin' the bill!" As his finger pointed at her it wiggled, so much tension and sincerity in his tone that it could not be misunderstood for a sudden paroxysm of drug-fuelled insanity. "...Yes, though, I think you fall under the class of things known as 'woman'." Sinking back down to the table he'd look about bashfully. "..She bought me cake...and i blew her off, sorta..So i feel hella bad."
[15:27] Amara nods. "Just waiting on my pizza to be made, Mitka. I'd like a glass of water though." She folded her arms just above her stomach and sighed. "I will look into a personal bodyguard, don't worry. Can't exactly afford injuries right now, but I need to stay close to the city more often than at ho-" She jumped back when Ayr suddenly proclaimed free food for a random child outside, eyes widened in surprise. "Woah...Ayr, don't scare me like that...please."
[15:29] Sally-Jean almost jumped when she heard someone yell at the top of their lungs.. OOhhh it was Mister Ayr! She'd look around to see if there was any other child he could be talking about.. didn't look like it so she'd sheepishly walk into the resturant, giving the adults a shy smile and a wave before going to the counter, smiling at Nick. " can I try some spaghetti and meatballs?" she'd ask quietly before glancing at the adults once more and taking her seat in one of the booths.
[15:29] Leigh Parx (Kayleigh Jigsaw) tilted her head curiously considering the words. "So you'd say I'm a woman, but not a lady? Explain, please." She glanced over her shoulder to see the child he'd indicated.
[15:31] Ayr Bosatsu nods profusely when the child wanders in, "AHHH! You can have it all! Will make sure I pay you back for the cake i didn't give you on your birthday!" Standing up again he'd knock over his chair, pointing at the NPC dude to chop chop to it. "...Food..Whatever she wants, all of it paid by me." Thumbing his chest he'd nod sharply and pick up his chair, "I mean. Women generally tend to respond to sexual advances. You don't from what I've seen. You got boobs and probably a ...you know," he made finger gestures akin to scissors, "..but uhm...You don' got the personality of a lady. You're a tom-boy, unashamedly so." Torn between Leigh, Amara and the kid he'd nod and point a techno viking-esque finger at Nick.
[15:33] Mitka Dover reaches into her top to grab her vibrating phone o ut , reads the message, and sets the phone down.She would grab a peice of paper and chucks it at Ayr's head mumbling
[15:35] Mitka Dover would also grab Amara the glass of water and walsk over setting it downi nfront of her.She sees the pizza done and brings it too over at the same time"there ya go, eat up Mara...your eating for two."
[15:37] Amara didn't know which to laugh at first - Ayr's eccentric manner as far as feeding a child, his definition of what it means to be a lady, or his inability to proper refer to female genitalia. "A lot of things define a lady, Ayr, not just her physical attributes or her response to sexual advances. It's how she carries herself." She smiled at the food and drink being delivered and handed Mitka payment. "Oh don't remind me - I don't even like olives, but that's all I've been craving for three days straight."
[15:39] Mitka Dover swats Ayr upside the head mumnbling something under her breath"told you i'd swat you for that ayr..."she closes her phone after sending a text back.She loosk at amara"it's been red meat for me.....and skittles"
[15:39] Sally-Jean blinked widely at the highly animated Ayr. She'd tilt her head even, blinking a few more times before speaking up. " Are.. are you okay Mister Ayr?" she'd tap her fingers against her bottom lip. " Maybe there was too much sugar in the cake.." She'd say softly before covering her mouth in a giggle when paper is thrown at him. She'd then widen her eyes as he dashed off like the flash.. she'd look to the adults and shrug her shoulders. " Maybe he needs a nap.. they used to make the younger kids take naps when they got all sugar crazy." she'd nod her head once before staring at her table.
[15:40] Leigh Parx (Kayleigh Jigsaw) just blinked. "So that makes me not a lady?" She'd consider this for a few moments before leaning back in her chair and putting her boots up on the edge of the table in Ayr's direction. If he looked, he'd get a nice view of the silky black panties barely covering her. "Alright, so where would you say I rank in the food chain? And feel free to contribute any of your thoughts to this, Amara. It would be welcomed." Her ankles crossed after a moment as an NPC brought out the pie she'd ordered right behind Mitka bringing Amara's. She fished her credits from her pocket and passed them to the guy delivering her meal.
[15:45] Amara shook her head at the young girl. "No dear, in all honestly, he's like that naturally sometimes. No sugar required." She nibbled on a slice of the cheesy pizza before gesturing for Leigh to help herself if she wanted a bite. "I think you're one of the more honest with yourself females on this island. It doesn't seem like you care what others think of you as long as you're at peace with yourself. You aren't walking around in heels or anything, but I'm not sure tomboy is the right term."
[15:45] Nikolay Fedoseev had turned around deciding he needed a slice and a moments break before heading back out on patrol.. he was in a significantly better mood since fighting with eli last night.. Heading in he just hears leighs comments glancing in her direction to see her sitting with ehr legs up and not crossed in a skirt half her ass hanging out... though he missed the panty shot... Trying to keep his face straight he cant help a small smirk... thank god she's not his daughter.
[15:47] Sally-Jean nodded slowly. " Ohhhh.." She'd say before smiling. She'd sit quietly as she waiting for Sam to cook up her spaghetti and meat balls. kind of listening to the grown ups, but at the same time trying to hide it.. as to not get into trouble for eavesdropping.
[15:52] Leigh Parx (Kayleigh Jigsaw) dropped her right hand to her lap lightly playing with the edge of her skirt as she continued to leave her feet on the table. "But lady isn't either?" Her left hand snagged a slice of pizza and she took a bite. She'd chew before studying Amara curiously. "But lady isn't the right term, either?" Her tongue ran over her teeth in thought before she took a second bite curiously waiting to see what the response would be.
[15:59] Amara nodded to Nik as he strolled in, giving him an acknowledging nod while she ate. "How's the leg fairing, Mr Fedoseev?" Moving on to her second slice, she thought about how to answer. "There are too many definitions for lady, Leigh. It could be a female of high society. To some it's just a proper woman. To others it's any female that looks like she bathes and uses makeup. Feminine is not a term I'd use in your case, but I see you are a lady purely due to your confidence. You don't help to get your shit done." She took one more bite of the pizza. "Not sure a 'lady' would flash her knickers though..." she winked.
[16:03] Ayr Bosatsu Clatters back into the restauraunt with a crash. "I needed my hat," he muttered and looked to LEigh and Amara, leaving them to talk as he sunk down into the booth next to lil Sally. "You eating properly?"
[16:05] Nikolay Fedoseev turned away form nick after ordering a coffee to glance at amara and then to ayr wondering what the man will do after the shit al stired up last night.. Watching him walk back in tosit with another girl he looks to amara.. "its doing good... this is the second one i've had put on... " he'd glance to leigh arching a brow as he is now in the right position to see her flicking her skirt up with ehr fingers.. giving a half amused snort he shakes his head.. "I'm not even going to touch that one... "
[16:06] Sally-Jean looked up. she was about to tell him she was still waiting for her food when Nick brought a medium sized plate of spaghetti and meatballs. Her eyes would widen and she'd smile " I'm about to!" she'd smile at N ick and give him thanks before leaning towards Ayr. " never had Meatballs and Spaghetti before.. so Imma try it." she'd stab a meatball with her fork, about to take a bite before asking. " Did you like your cake? I didn't know what kind you liked.. so I got cheesecake.. because everyone likes cheesecake.. I think.. and the toy fox and toy leopard where new, all clean and stuff."
[16:11] Leigh Parx (Kayleigh Jigsaw) just flashed the Judge a sweet smile. "Touch what?" She'd tilt her head back and look at Ayr upside down. "You gonna help me eat this pizza and finish our talk?" Her head was righted as she finished the slice in her hand. "So where would you say I rank on the food chain, all things considered?" Leigh wasn't sure who would know how much about her, even her boss. Well, she knew Ayr would know, but he seemed occupied with the other kid. A smirk crossed her features as she considered Amara's comment on the panty flashing. "I'm wearing knickers?"
[16:19] Ayr Bosatsu ((posts since it's been 8 mins and he fig's P.O don't matter here. )) leans over when she does to listen attentively. "Mm..I like meatballs and spaghetti, though I don't make a very good one." His head tilted towards Leigh, realizing he'd almost seen her underwear before scrabbling off. "..Battle Axe is calling," he muttered to Sally and pressed his hands onto the table. "Sáte do.." Dusting off his hands he'd bow to the child, "I really appreciate the Cake. Thank you for thinking of me and giving me it. I'll set up a tab here for you so you can get free nomz whenever you need it. Feel I owe you that much, 'N here's my number if you get a phone and you need some help cha," and thus he did meander back to his chair with a thunk, leaving behind his calling card. A piece of paper with a goofy looking Fox and his number.
[16:20] Amara giggled at Ayr. "All that commotion for a hat?" She knew she probably should not sound so surprised; it's Ayr after all. "It's your second leg? Maybe you should see Imrie or the folks at Straylight for a stronger limb, Nik." She glanced back to Leigh, leaned over to check, then asked, "Black...silk or satin I think. Are my eyes mistaken then?" Amara had seen Leigh in less so this hardly bugged her. "You're closer to the tomboy side of the scale than the overly girl side, Leigh. Still wearing skirts and other feminine attire, so calling you a tomboy outright isn't correct, but you aren't walking about half nude."
Quien quiera que cultive la fantasía en el arte, está un poco loco... el problema estriba en hacer interesante esa locura... con un toque de luz y color.
Modelo: Judit Darné
Left-hand one is misbehaving. Right-hand one is better.
So that's annoying. New machine, set up with Marlin on RAMPS, the z-axis was always on (so the motors weren't released between layers). I thought that wasn't a bad idea, but it turns out that driving two motors (the z motors) continuously makes the stepper drivers go up to 110C, and they do a thermal cutout. Or at least, that's what it seems like. It manifests as the motors just not moving. When doing a "move 10mm" on the z-axis, it'll move, then just pause for a couple of seconds, before coming back on.
I have changed the row #define DISABLE_Z false in Marlin (Configuration) to true, and so it goes off between layers. I don't really trust microsteps to pickup where they left off, but at least it can print now. Also am going to add a fan to the electronics.
For great photographs and the low down on the G20 Summit, Protests and Demonstrations visit www.ravishlondon.com/g20
The world faces a problem: recession and a spiraling fall in trade. The Economist puts it like this, “Trade is contracting again, at a rate unmatched in the post-war period. This week the World Trade Organisation (WTO) predicted that the volume of global merchandise trade would shrink by 9% this year. This will be the first fall in trade flows since 1982. Between 1990 and 2006 trade volumes grew by more than 6% a year, easily outstripping the growth rate of world output, which was about 3% (see chart 1). Now the global economic machine has gone into reverse: output is declining and trade is tumbling at a faster pace. The turmoil has shaken commerce in goods of all sorts, bought and sold by rich and poor countries alike.” According to the Economist, “The immediate cause of shrinking trade is plain: global recession means a collapse in demand. The credit crunch adds an additional squeeze, thanks to an estimated shortfall of $100 billion in trade finance, which lubricates 90% of world trade.”
According to the Guardian, “On Thursday 2 April Gordon Brown is going to host the G20 summit in London. Leaders from 22 countries will be at the summit. The G20 is an organisation for finance ministers and central bankers, who in the past met once a year to discuss international cooperation in finance. There are 19 countries who are members: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. The 20th member is the European Union, which is represented by whichever country holds the EU presidency (currently, it's the Czech Republic). These countries represent 90% of global GDP, 80% of world trade and two thirds of the world's population. The IMF and the World Bank also attend G20 meetings, although technically the London event isn't a normal G20 meeting.”
This G20 meeting will be for the leaders of all G20 countries. According to the Guardian the policy agenda developed by the last G20 meeting “did not in fact go much beyond pre-existing international initiatives that had recently been developed in more technocratic international bodies.” According to the Guardian, “On the London summit website, the British government has explained what it hopes to achieve. At the summit, countries need to come together to enhance global coordination in order to help restore global economic growth. World leaders must make three commitments:
• First, to take whatever action is necessary to stabilise financial markets and enable families and businesses to get through the recession.
• Second, to reform and strengthen the global financial and economic system to restore confidence and trust.
• Third, to put the global economy on track for sustainable growth.
Gordon Brown has argued that the world must avoid protectionism. According to the Economist, “The World Bank says that, since the G20 leaders last met in November in Washington, DC, 17 of their countries have restricted trade. Some have raised tariffs, as Russia did on second-hand cars and India did on steel. Citing safety, China has banned imports of Irish pork and Italian brandy. Across the world, there has been a surge in actions against “dumping”—the sale of exports, supposedly at a loss, in order to undermine the competition. Governments everywhere are favouring locally made goods.” The Economist also says, “Kei-Mu Yi, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, argues that trade has fallen so fast and so uniformly around the world largely because of the rise of “vertical specialisation”, or global supply chains. This contributed to trade’s rapid expansion in recent decades. Now it is adding to the rate of shrinkage. When David Ricardo argued in the early 19th century that comparative advantage was the basis of trade, he conceived of countries specialising in products, like wine or cloth. But Mr Yi points out that countries now specialise not so much in final products as in steps in the process of production.”
Protectionism in itself sounds bad – but it is a policy option available and used in all political economies – including the most liberal. Protectionism can also lead to a more self-sustainable economy, and can lead to the internal development of an economy, which means the economy is less reliant and dependent on external sources of finance. Development will be slower, but it can be more secure and sustainable. It is likely that if countries do operate protectionist policies it will be a short-term opportunist and populist response to workers and unions, but it could be seen as an alternative economic model of development. It worked in Brazil and Argentina during the 1960s and 1970s for a while, until a more neo-liberal and external finance model was preferred.
The Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was reported on Channel 4 News to have told Mr Brown the crisis was caused by "white blue eyed people". This overtly racist remark has been noted, but there has been no visible backlash. It is interesting how the whole agenda about racism never applies to the dominant one, i.e. you can racially slur white people, and white people with blue eyes without anyone batting an eye lid, whereas if you racially slur other ethnic groups you can find yourself battered. I find this state of affairs deeply offensive to the human race in general, and very patronizing to those groups who don’t come from the dominant ethnic group (i.e. its almost to say the whole anti-racist thing is a way of patting you on the head and saying there, there – because when it comes to racism we don’t really give a shit – see the way we couldn’t give a f*** if you slur our own dominant white ethnic group).
The reality is that the summit will represent a reshuffling of position, support and dependencies between the world’s twenty richest countries. Spectators are expecting China to come out feeling puffed up and proud, given that China has faired relatively in recent years, or so we are led to believe. Meanwhile national demonstrations seem to be focusing our attention to the fact that a different way of working is needed. In fact it will be work as usual – the question is who will come out on top.
In anticipation of the G20 summit a demonstration was held in London. 10,000 were predicted to attend the demonstrations. The police reported 35,000. I was there at the demonstration and I don’t believe I saw 35,000 people walk past Big Ben – and I saw it from start to finish. As one commentator, on the Guardian observed, “Apart from the small contingent of student SWP calling 'One solution, Revolution' and about 20 anarchists making noise the spirit was generally depressed and lacking any anger or sense of direction.” Cognitator joked, “Perhaps the police were adding their number to the protesters. As opposed to taking them away as per usual.”
According to the Guardian, “The Put People First march yesterday was organised by a collaboration of more than 100 trade unions, church groups and charities including ActionAid, Save the Children and Friends of the Earth. The theme was "jobs, justice and climate" and the message was aimed at the world leaders who will be gathering for the G20 summit here this week.”
The march started on the Embankment. When I arrived there I walked around desperately finding somewhere where I could have a piss for free. I tried Starbucks and Costa Cofee, but they seemed to have no toilets, I even tried the stamp collectors fayre a subterranean culture of badly dressed old people, with poor eyesight and even worse posture, which was momentary distraction from my full bladder, but which did not provide the answer to my pressing problem as the toilet door was locked and for staff only. Stephen Moss writing for the Guardian said, “Westminster is not a great place for someone like me, who has a weak bladder, to go on a march. The public loos there cost an outrageous 50p a go. The Socialist Worker magazine-seller next to Embankment tube station is on to this in a flash. "50p to have a piss – a lesson in capitalism," he is soon shouting. Later, I'm pleased to see someone has punched a hole in the wooden sign advertising the price.” In the end I walked all the way to the National Portrait Gallery where you can always be assured a good quality toilet seat.
The Guardian continued, “The marchers, estimated at 35,000 by police, accompanied by brass bands and drummers and a colourful assortment of banners and flags, walked the four miles from Embankment to Hyde Park, where speeches from comedian Mark Thomas and environmental campaigner Tony Juniper, and music from the Kooks, made for a party-like atmosphere.”
The Guardian reported, “A group of fewer than 200 anarchists joined the march and were kept isolated and surrounded by police. Chants of "Burn the bankers!" were the closest anyone came to any show of aggression.’ Yes I witnessed this, it was clear that the anarchists, dressed in black, some of them with scarves covering their faces, generally looked cool as fuck, like some post-nuclear vigilante gang, their black signifying the dark depressing reality from which humanity starts, and the point from which they wish to depart. Whether the police presence was heavy is debatable but they certainly had a line of police accompanying them, whereas no other group were honored with such a presence. Of the anarchists Stephen Moss says, “I fall in with some anarchists halfway through the march – a delightful young Greek called Alex and an Italian, who is happy to talk about Bakunin, but is, I sense, a little suspicious of me. The anarchists march together – with the police flanking them in a way they don't with the rest of the march – and I am intrigued that they never shout slogans or bang drums. Their mission is a serious one.” Moss goes on, “Alex tells me a reporter from the Sunday Times has already approached him to ask why anarchists wear masks. "Work it out for yourself – you're a journalist," he'd told him. "People always ask why we wear masks; they never ask about our ideology," he complains. In essence, that ideology is: power corrupts; all elites will be corrupt; so government should be by the people, for the people – a mass movement of the type they claim is emerging in South America. Hezbollah is also mentioned favourably, a movement they see as developing organically. "Organic" is a key word for anarchists, and it would save a lot of aggro and bad press if they were called organicists rather than anarchists.” Good point. But who wants to be called an organicist? And in any case everything is organic really – its just that some organisms develop in a way we or anarchists done like and some do. To call anarchists, organic is to miss the point, anarachists are like Christian, they dream of a reality which transcends human nature as it is and known. Structure, corruption, self-interest and greed underpin all human activity – the question is not how we can do away with it, but how can we manage it in a fair way.
Stephen Moss wrote about the variety of organizations on the march. He said, “Socialist Worker has a three-point strategy: "Seize their wealth," "Stamp out poverty," "End all wars." Sounds good, but I can't work out exactly who "their" refers to. The Socialist party is hot on slogans, colder on the mechanism by which they are put into practice. The likely outcome to the current crisis still appears to be government by Etonians.” Most of these movements are nothing to do with instituting political change. The people involved in them do not want to genuinely change things. Instead what these groups function as is self-help groups for people, for whatever reason, feel that they have been wronged in life, probably at a personal level, and feeling quite hopeless about their personal wrongs, they want to transpose their personal woe on to a faceless, unintelligible other – the government, the state, the capitalist, the rich and the greedy. Its not so much that socialist workers and anarchists want to change things, they know they are completely ineffectual, and too screwed up and traumatized, too aggressive, unintelligent and incapable of engaging people into a different way of organizing; they just want to shout out to people ‘we hurt’. Fair enough.
The TUC don’t seem to be turning up to do anything more than saying ‘there there’ to threatened workers, and stating the downright bloody obvious to the government. Their message is “The importance of this summit cannot be underestimated. Unemployment and deprivation will grow massively over the next two years unless governments work together. People need to know that there is an international solution to this crisis. If the summit suggests that there is not, many will turn to nationalist and protectionist politics with all that implies for the global economy and world peace.” Mind you they do go on to say that, “But while the immediate response to the crisis will be at the forefront of the leaders' minds, the unprecedented Put People First coalition shows there is a huge appetite for a new economic direction. Thirty years of the increasing dominance of the neo-liberal agenda has got us into this mess. The summit must show that the next 30 years need to be about a renewed era of economic growth based on a much fairer share of the proceeds. One that is environmentally sustainable and one that does not end in the burst of yet another financial bubble.” But what are they really saying? Nothing much.
There is of course something about how all of this is just about having a laugh, getting a kick, getting an emotional fix. There’s something very similar to the way that some of the more violent groups get ready for a rumble with the police and football hooliganism. Football hooligans are much more honest about the emotional kick they get from fighting. The protestors pretend that they are doing it for the people. Whatever the so called reasons, it is clear that a lot of protestors enjoy confrontation. They are much more focused on the enemy and combating the enemy than they are on creating peaceful societies. So Stephen Moss makes the interesting observation, “When the march eventually gets to Hyde Park, the anarchists refuse to join the "TUC bureaucrats" for the official rally and hold their own open-platform meeting at Speakers' Corner, dominated by elderly men in hats who talk less about Bakunin than about beating up the BNP and confronting the police on the streets of Whitechapel. It's all a bit depressing (and expletive-filled – I take serious exception to the denunciation of "Oxbridge cunts"), though I like the fact that the elderly men refuse even to use a megaphone – only the ordinary human voice is organic enough.” The media and police have both hyped the April 2009 marches as like the possible end of the British way of life, of democracy, of capitalism. Nothing could be further from the truth, but its like we all want to will it to happen – we all are looking for excitement – war may be bad but peace is fucking boring – I once read.
The Guardian also reported, “Thomas told the Observer he believed the protest marked "the start of a grassroots movement". He added: "This is a moment. This is the first time people have had a chance to come out on to the streets in a big way." But this is nonsense. This was just an opportunity for a plethora of groups, amongst whom there are more differences, and the only thing that can unite them is a general concern for jobs, justice and climate, which incidentally are three themes that unite most of the country, and all the main political parties, to catch the government at a weak moment, and hope to build up support for whatever cause they have, on the back of the anger and desperation amongst people at this time.
The protest ended up in Hyde Park. I didn’t go, it was too cold and rainy, and although I did aim to walk there via a short-cut through Victoria, I ended up taking refuge in Westminster Cathedral, where I saw another procession, of Catholic priests and altar boys, who were holding a service for the Union of Catholic Mothers. I listened to the Catholic priests, they sounded much more happy and at peace with themselves and their surroundings, than the rankerous socialist bile spitting leaders.
People are blaming the bankers, but there is in actual fact no-one to blame for this. The this needs to be qualified too. The ‘this’ is the fact that people are loosing their jobs, consumption will have to be reduced. It is ironic that it is precisely that people are facing the prospect of lower consumption that they are out on the streets protesting against greedy bankers, it is not so much the greed of the bankers that people resent, so much as the increased consuming power of the bankers that they are envious of. The bankers are not to blame for working within a system, which promoted risky investments, a system which was encouraged and deregulated by politicians who realized that whilst the bubble was growing there were huge financial gains to be made from encouraging bankers to reap the rewards both for themselves but through the state through taxation, and politicians who were encouraged by the people who voted them in, who probably formed the majority of people marching in demonstration and protest today, who voted in the governments believing the deregulation of banks not to be a serious enough issue to vote against a government for, and realizing that even if it was a risk, whilst the bubble was growing, they were happy enough to see their elected government ensuring that the country got a share of the pie. We all contributed to this fucking mess – if you can call it a mess – its only a mess for those who no longer have jobs and cannot consume so much – by voting in the government, who deregulated the banks and encouraged the lending of our money several times over to riskier and riskier ventures which in actual fact were not producing anything of material benefit, but were instead relying on house prices going up and up, as more people poured their money into it. Now we are in deep shit, because Gordon Brown has poured what little remaining money we have, and we have on credit into the black hole – it has simply disappeared.
There are some people who are saying the bankers should pay for the crisis they created. It doesn’t work like that – it works by people putting their money into a bank – and entrusting the bank to invest it wisely. Where the bank looses the money – the original investor looses the money. This creates a motivation on behalf of the investor to invest wisely, e.g. on the basis of what we know right now investing in Barclays rather than Lloyds TSB or the Royal Bank of Scotland. However reality begins to change once one’s livelihood is threatened – now it is solely the banker’s responsibility to have invested the money wisely, the public who invest their money into the banks are seen to be helpless, powerless twits, whose securities should have been looked after by a paternalistic and caring banking sector. So for example, according to Fox New, “Berlin police estimated that around 10,000 people gathered in front of the capital's city hall and more than 1,000 in Frankfurt, Germany's banking capital, for similar demonstrations under the slogan: "We won't pay for your crisis." Its not a crisis – its just that there are now lots of personal crises – the public didn’t bother to check whether their banks were investing their money properly or wisely and now they are paying for it. But the banks aren’t responsible for this – they really aren’t.
We have two problems. The first was created by the fact that banks lent out our money several times over – so we thought the country was several times as wealthy as it actually was. This led to inflationary pressures especially in the housing market – where the same money was lent to several different people – all investing in housing leading to unrealistic housing prices. We now realize we have a fraction of the wealth we thought we had. This creates deflationary pressures – i.e. where everyone has less money prices are reduced. This problem can be solved by creating a soft deflationary landing to a level where the price of labor and goods reflects the value of the money we have not the value of the money we have and we loaned. This means everyone has to accept lower wages – we can either do this peacefully based around a consensus and agreement between corporations, banks, trade unions or governments – or we can do it aggressively – letting perfectly good companies whose workers refuse to take pay cuts go to the wall – and then watch as millions of unemployed people try to reform and reorganize new companies and enterprises.
The second problem is that banks are no longer making such risky investments – so they are not looking to lend their money on to others – which means there is less money to be lent to people – which means less activity and less economy. We have to get used to less activity – but at least the activity will be invested in activities which are genuinely producing material benefit for people – not leading to an apparent generation of wealth – which is the artificial effect of lending x amount of money to people ten times, making it seem that we are ten times as rich as previously – when actual fact we are equally as wealthy – but with prices ten times as high. We should have also let the banks go to the wall – and started again with a heavily regulated banking sector – which was not allowed to lend out peoples’ money irresponsibly. No-one wants to have to feel the pain from this – i.e. the rich bankers who keep their pensions and bonuses, the people who have banked with them who want to keep their savings, and the businesses who are funded by the banks who want to hang on to their business and jobs. So what Gordon Brown is doing, is in the name of the people, funneling money into the banking system, paying for the debts, and thus, keeping the bankers sweet, keeping the investors sweet, keeping the businesses sweet. Who looses out? All of us – the poor! They never really had anything to loose in the first place, however whilst Gordon Brown borrows money to give to the banks so they can lend to businesses and pay bankers bonuses and salaries, we move a step closer to becoming bankrupt – i.e. not being able to borrow any more money because no-one believes we can pay it back. Once we become bankrupt, social services and welfare will be cut.
According to Gaby Hinsliff, “Many economists believe a recovery now requires bursting that artificial bubble and rebalancing the economy so that Chinese consumers are encouraged spend a little more - reducing America's trade deficit - and Americans a little less. Malloch Brown suggests Britons, too, will need to relearn the art of saving.”
According to the Guardian, “But Scotland Yard is expecting a greater challenge on Wednesday 1 April, dubbed "Financial Fools Day", with a series of protests aiming to cause disruption in the Square Mile and elsewhere.” The Guardian says, “On 1 April an alliance of anti-capitalist groups called G20 Meltdown is organising a carnival headed by "Four Horsefolk of the Apocalypse", which will converge in front of the Bank of England. Anarchists are planning to target the second day of the summit at ExCel. Other groups mounting demonstrations include Climate Camp, the Stop the War Coalition, and Government of the Dead. An alternative summit will be held a few hundred yards from the ExCel centre at the University of East London.”
The alternative G20 summit website provides the following manifesto: Can we oust the bankers from power? Can we get rid of the corrupt politicians in their pay? Can we guarantee everyone a job, a home, a future? Can we establish government by the people, for the people, of the people? Can we abolish all borders and be patriots for our planet? Can we all live sustainably and stop climate chaos? Can we make capitalism history? YES WE CAN!
According to the Daily Telegraph, “The G20 conference will lead to a London "lockdown" next week, with parks, roads and businesses closed to keep world leaders safe, Government officials are warning.” The media are really building this up, as an attempt to build readership and sell advertising. Its interesting how a force created by the desire to advertise and promote consumption causes papers to distort and promote a threat and confrontation to the very system upon which it is built. The Daily Telegraph article continues, “Protesters with armed with buckets and spades are among several thousand people who are planning to bring chaos to the heart of central London.Last night it emerged that City workers were being advised to "dress down" next week to avoid drawing attention to themselves.”
To anyone really wanting revolution bear in mind these words from Stephen Moss, “Changing society is hard, and usually starts with a split in the elite. The English civil war and the French revolution both began with a fissure in the governing classes; their falling-out created the space for populist movements to develop. For a grassroots movement to effect change is enormously difficult. It was only possible in Russia in 1917 because of the devastation wrought by war.”
The reality of the demo was perhaps best summer up by ‘one789’ who said, “My experience of the demo, in talking to people and observing, is that no one had any real clue of why they were there. They recognise 'blame the bankers' to be futile and a distraction, think capitalism 'is rubbish' and 'want change', but say nothing beyond that.I at least expected a high degree of frustration and anger, but more than anything what came across was disillusionment and confusion. But then, that's what you get I suppose from such a middle-class yummy-mummy bleeding-heart rally.”
As rabbit95 said, “Be glad we live in a society free enough to protest and where, apart from the police possibly taping your presence at such a demo, there will be no comeback.”
www.londonsummit.gov.uk/en/summit-aims/summit-progress/
www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13362...
www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13362027
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/29/g20-protests-london
www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2009/mar/28/g20-protest-...
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/video/2009/mar/28/g20-su...
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/28/g20-protest
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/29/g20-summit-globalisa...
www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/25/g20-q-a
news.google.co.uk/news?q=G20+summit+London+2009&oe=ut...
www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/g20-summit/5050...
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/29/g20-summit
www.londonsummit.gov.uk/en/global-update/cp-china/active-...
www.londonsummit.gov.uk/en/summit-aims/summit-progress/qu...
www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/domestic_politics...
www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/international_pol...
For great photographs and the low down on the G20 Summit, Protests and Demonstrations visit www.ravishlondon.com/g20
Lessons learned over Europe and the Pacific showed that the B-24 was vulnerable to attacks from the front—a problem it shared with the B-17. In the field, B-24 crews jammed as many machine guns as possible into the glasshouse nose of the B-24D, but this was not the solution. Consolidated experimented with various kinds of modifications until settling on a redesigned nose with a manned turret. This would cause some loss of aerodynamics on an aircraft already known for its difficult handling, but it at least would give the B-24 better defense from forward attacks. The redesign also made the nose roomier, added chin windows for the bombardier, enlarged the dorsal and tail turrets for better visibility, and enclosed the waist positions. The wet wing used by the B-24D was deleted in favor of self-sealing fuel tanks, eliminating the B-24’s tendency to catch fire.
Production shifted to the B-24H in late 1943, but there was a shortage of the electrically-powered Emerson nose turret, and so a hydraulically-powered Sperry turret was used on the B-24J. If that was not confusing enough, Consolidated also produced a lighter version, the B-24L, with no ball or tail turrets, leaving it to individual groups to install heavier turrets, flexible mounts, or no armament at all. All three were produced at once, and all three were used in increasingly heavy combat over Europe. The B-24 would not only become the most produced bomber of World War II, it would be the most produced American combat aircraft in history—no less than 18,482 Liberators would come off the line by the end of the war.
B-24Js and like variants would see heavy service worldwide, replacing the B-17 entirely in the Pacific and supplementing it over Europe. B-24s would bomb both Berlin and attack the southernmost Japanese home islands. Besides acting as strategic bombers, Liberators would also act as antisubmarine maritime patrol aircraft for the RAF, the USAAF, and the US Navy as the PB4Y-1; the latter would also be converted to primitive cruise missiles in Operation Aphrodite against German V-weapon sites in Belgium. One Aphrodite mission would claim the life of Joseph Kennedy Jr., older brother of future President John F. Kennedy. By 1945, it was possible to find B-24s literally everywhere, from Alaska’s cold Aleutians to sunny Brazil, from China to Italy.
After the end of World War II, the USAAF rapidly scrapped nearly its entire B-24 fleet, but a few soldiered on in the 1960s, mainly in India, where they operated as maritime patrol aircraft. Others served as seed aircraft for postwar airliners, including Qantas of Australia. By 1968, however, nearly all B-24s had disappeared from inventories worldwide; today, only 14 complete Liberators are left, with two aircraft flyable.
"Bungay Buckaroo's" odyssey is a fascinating one. Built for the USAAF as 44-44175, it never entered service as a B-24J, and instead was modified in the US as an antisubmarine warfare aircraft; it was then diverted through Lend-Lease to RAF Coastal Command as a Liberator GR.VI, with the serial KH304. It was sent to India to serve with 354 Squadron at RAF Cuttack against Japanese shipping and submarines operating in the Bay of Bengal and Java Sea. When the war ended, KH304 and a hundred other B-24s were simply abandoned in place by the RAF as it began its withdrawal from India. After India gained its independence, it took the 100 aircraft and used them to build 36 complete B-24s, giving the nascent Indian Air Force aircraft to use as bombers, maritime patrol aircraft, and strategic reconnaissance. KH304 became HE877, and joined 6 Squadron at Poona.
HE877 would give the IAF 20 years of yeoman service; its record included supporting Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's first summit of Mount Everest. When India finally retired its B-24s in 1968, it was an incredible boon to warbird collectors: B-24s were extremely rare in 1968, and operational ones nearly unheard of. (Of the surviving 14 B-24s, half came from India.) The Pima Air and Space Museum was one of many who were interested in acquiring a B-24, and HE877 was donated to the museum by the Indian government. A team of USAF aircrew ferried it back to Arizona in 1968, a journey that took three days.
Since HE877 was still in good shape, the museum was able to restore it; the only large piece it lacked was a belly turret. It went on display as a B-24 of the 446th Bomb Group, based at RAF Bungay, UK; this group had the distinction of making the first airstrike of D-Day. It wears "Bungay Buckaroo" on the left side; on the right, as a tribute to India, it retains the markings of 6 Squadron IAF. This was another aircraft I had used a picture of as part of my master's program, so I was very happy to see it in person.
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Primaire présidentielle écologiste, série complète : www.flickr.com/photos/sebastienduhamel/sets/7215762989588...
Albums Écologie, Éducation, Société et Politiques : www.flickr.com/photos/sebastienduhamel/collections/721576...
Projets/Reportages Fondation Nicolas Hulot : www.flickr.com/photos/sebastienduhamel/collections/721576...
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Nicolas Hulot : "J’ai décidé d’être candidat"
Déclaration de candidature à l’élection présidentielle, le 13 avril 2011 à Sevran.
Changeons de cap,
Depuis 35 ans, je parcours le monde et je l’ai vu changer. J’ai exploré ses beautés, j’ai partagé ses bonheurs. En même temps, j’ai mesuré l’aggravation simultanée des inégalités et des destructions de la nature. L’humanité est devenue la proie d’une épidémie de crises qui accable le plus grand nombre. Les équilibres sociaux chancellent, ceux du climat et du vivant s’effondrent. Les hommes et les femmes de ce temps sont désemparés. Ils craignent pour leur emploi, leur sécurité, leur environnement, leur santé et l’avenir de leurs enfants. La marche triomphante du progrès prend les allures d’un immense malentendu. En France aussi les conditions de vie se dégradent. Les difficultés s’accumulent. La précarité devient un sentiment prégnant. C’est, pour beaucoup de nos compatriotes, la peur quotidienne du chômage, du déclassement, de l’exclusion, c’est l’angoisse des factures et des fins de mois difficiles, le piège de l’endettement, le stress de la compétition, le mal être récurrent, la perte des repères, la dissolution du lien collectif et des solidarités.
L’urgence et le devoir nous obligent à changer de cap.
Un autre monde est non seulement possible, il est nécessaire. La créativité humaine ne fait pas défaut. Fixons lui des priorités sans confondre progrès et performance. L’économie, la technologie, l’argent lui même, ne sont pas des fins mais des moyens. Leur donner du sens, c’est la seule expression de la modernité. La volonté, les compétences, la citoyenneté, la générosité, l’envie d’agir et le désir de changer sont partout. Je le sais, j’y puise mon énergie. Le changement est déjà en marche dans la société civile. Il faut l’encourager, le légitimer, l’accompagner par la cohérence de l’action publique en fixant ensemble de nouvelles priorités qui rompent avec le capitalisme sauvage.
Ouvrons maintenant la porte de l’avenir en engageant la transformation écologique et sociale de la société.
J’ai pour ma part franchi un cap. Jusqu’ici je crois que mon mode d’engagement a été utile. En conscience, j’estime qu’il doit passer maintenant à une autre étape. J’ai donc décidé d’être candidat à l’élection présidentielle et de mettre au service du changement le capital de confiance que j’ai pu accumuler auprès des Françaises et des Français. Dans ce moment de gravité et de complexité que traverse notre pays, je n’ai pas d’autre ambition que de contribuer à ouvrir la voie d’une société nouvelle, écologique et sociale. Je le ferai avec modestie mais détermination, sans arrogance mais avec toute ma volonté et mon énergie.
L’heure est maintenant au changement de cap pour refonder l’espoir. Changer de cap, c’est d’abord s’appuyer sur le meilleur de l’humanité : la solidarité, le partage, la justice, la démocratie, la tolérance, la modération, la sobriété, la diversité, le juste échange. Changer de cap, c’est libérer la société et les esprits des diktats d’un mode production et de consommation contaminé par l’illusion de la croissance quantitative, s’émanciper d’un monde happé par la frénésie du toujours plus et par la compétition agressive, s’affranchir du profit et du marché sans limite, réhabiliter l’esprit public.
Changer de cap, c’est engager dès maintenant une transition vers la société nouvelle, écologique et sociale, à travers un train de mesures clés et concrètes que je développerai au cours de ma campagne. Je proposerai au débat, pour que chacun s’en empare et en devienne l’acteur, une transformation progressive des activités et des comportements. Les solutions existent pour améliorer l’emploi, mieux redistribuer les richesses, installer une croissance qualitative et sélective. Des leviers existent pour engager d’autres manières de produire, de s’alimenter, de se loger, de se déplacer, pour encourager les innovations et les investissements, économiser l’énergie et les ressources naturelles, déployer la fiscalité plus équitablement et plus efficacement. Des moyens existent pour faire décroître l’empreinte écologique, protéger la santé, soustraire les biens communs à la spéculation, remettre la finance à sa place, tisser les solidarités ici et avec les pays du Sud, fortifier la démocratie.
Changer de cap, c’est enfin concourir à l’apaisement de la société en rassemblant les énergies plutôt qu’en encourageant les affrontements. Les postures de division chronique sont désormais un luxe indécent face à l’urgence et à la complexité des enjeux. La société est fatiguée des idéologies creuses. J’invite chacun à prendre sa part dans la mutation en veillant évidemment à une répartition juste et équitable des efforts. Aux peurs et aux pulsions identitaires qui désagrègent les liens du vivre ensemble, il faut opposer un projet de société constructif et partagé. Le meilleur atout pour réussir le changement, c’est la diversité.
Dans ce défi majeur, je sais que la France ne détient qu’une partie des solutions. Mais je sais aussi qu’elle a les moyens de se montrer novatrice et audacieuse, notamment dans l’espace européen qui est devenu notre biotope commun. La France et l’Europe peuvent devenir le centre d’émergence d’un nouveau modèle de développement et retrouver ainsi un éclat de référence et de fierté dans le monde.
L’élection présidentielle va mettre nos concitoyens et nos concitoyennes en situation de responsabilité. Dans un an, il s’agira de choisir : prolonger le statu quo d’un système périmé en s’entêtant dans un modèle de développement qui n’est plus la solution mais le problème ou engager la dynamique du changement vers une société nouvelle, écologique et sociale.
Soyons clairs : je le dis sans dogmatisme ni agressivité, le projet d’un nouveau modèle de développement est de mon point de vue incompatible avec les politiques que le pouvoir en place et sa majorité développent en France. Ma candidature s’inscrit dans le sens de l’intérêt général. Elle se situe donc à l’opposé des choix qui privilégient inégalités et exacerbation des peurs et qui sacrifient les priorités écologiques et sociales.
Cela ne vaut pas pour autant blanc-seing pour ceux qui, à gauche ou au centre, se proposent de diriger le pays. Dans mon esprit, il n’y aura aucun soutien automatique à qui que ce soit. L’exigence écologique et sociale ne peut plus s’accommoder de quelques corrections à la marge ou de compromis politiciens, elle suppose de la part des partenaires la prise en compte sincère des nouveaux paramètres et un niveau de réponse approprié. Seule compte à mes yeux une volonté indéfectible de partager l’immense chantier écologique et social. C’est à cette unique condition de cohérence politique que nous pourrons engager avec d’autres le contrat de la métamorphose.
Répondre aux crises et aux angoisses, c’est proposer un modèle de développement qui bâtisse l’avenir et retrouve l’espoir. Pour le porter, je sollicite le soutien de l’ensemble des écologistes et notamment de mes amis d’Europe Ecologie-Les Verts, mais aussi plus largement de toutes celles et de tous ceux qui ne se résignent pas au déclin conjoint de l’humanité et de la nature. J’en appelle à celles et ceux qui savent qu’on ne peut plus s’exonérer de toute limite, notamment des limites physiques de la planète. J’en appelle à celles et à ceux qui refusent de s’abandonner à la fuite en avant productiviste et aux délires ultra libéraux, de consentir aux inégalités et à la régression sociale, de subir un endettement massif, d’exacerber les tensions entre les peuples, les cultures et les religions.
J’en appelle aux citoyens et aux citoyennes pour qu’ils se rassemblent et se mobilisent afin de transformer une volonté individuelle en énergie collective.
Au service d’un mouvement tourné vers l’avenir, je souhaite que ma candidature devienne un levier pour agréger les énergies autour d’un nouveau modèle de développement dont les impératifs écologiques et sociaux soient le moteur. Je souhaite ainsi favoriser l’émergence d’une nouvelle majorité politique pour mettre en œuvre ce changement de cap et cette refondation de l’espoir.
Ensemble, décidons du monde que nous voulons dans les champs du possible. Ensemble, construisons l’alternative qui ne soit pas seulement une alternance de pouvoir. Ensemble, bâtissons l’avenir.
Nicolas Hulot - 13 avril 2011 à Sevran
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Fukushima a complètement bouleversé Nicolas Hulot qui annoncera sa candidature le 13 avril 2011.
L'effet Fukushima y est pour beaucoup. Mais ce n'est pas la seule raison.
Ses fidèles le répétaient en choeur, Nicolas Hulot ne s'exprimerait pas jusqu'à son annonce de candidature, qui devrait avoir lieu le 13 avril à Sevran (Seine-Saint-Denis). Mais voilà: la catastrophe de la centrale de Fukushima a tout changé.
Dans la forêt amazonienne, l'animateur de TF1 a interrompu un tournage d'Ushuaïa pour donner une interview, le 13 mars, sur France Inter. Les ravages de l'atome valaient bien une exception. "On voit bien que, quand il y a une paille dans le système, on est complètement dépassé par les événements, s'est-il alarmé en direct de l'Amérique du Sud. [...] Le nucléaire, en l'état, ne peut pas être la réponse à nos besoins énergétiques
"Fukushima a complètement bouleversé Hulot", constate son fidèle ami Jean-Paul Besset. Naguère, Hulot était loin d'être hostile au nucléaire. Il en reconnaissait les limites, mais aussi les atouts - son faible rejet de CO2 dans l'atmosphère. "Le nucléaire [...] ne représente pas l'avenir énergétique de la planète, expliquait-il en 2006 dans L'Express. Mais il ne faut pas fermer la porte à la quatrième génération de réacteurs, qui pourrait donner de meilleurs rendements et produire moins de déchets."
Dans son fameux Pacte écologique, soumis à tous les candidats à la présidentielle en 2007, il n'y avait pas un mot, ou presque, sur le nucléaire. "A aucun moment, il n'a été question d'y faire figurer le moratoire sur l'EPR", note l'eurodéputé Vert Yannick Jadot, à propos d'une des principales revendications écologistes.
Fier de son positionnement par-delà les clivages habituels, Hulot se voulait pondéré sur le sujet. "Choisir de renoncer aux EPR, c'est risquer de substituer, aux risques inhérents au nucléaire, une augmentation d'émission de gaz à effet de serre", argumentait-il dans Le Figaro en 2003. L'icône médiatique est influencée depuis longtemps par le spécialiste de l'environnement Jean-Marc Jancovici. Un défenseur affirmé de l'énergie nucléaire, qui siège parmi les experts de la Fondation Nicolas Hulot.
EDF est un des principaux contributeurs de sa fondation
"Son évolution prouve qu'il n'est pas fermé sur ses certitudes", avance le député Vert François de Rugy. Prise de conscience d'un écologiste authentique? Avec, même, un brin d'opportunisme électoral? Hulot le sait, les thèses apparaissant comme pronucléaires ne passent pas du tout auprès de l'électorat vert.
Ses détracteurs ne se privent pas déjà de rappeler que sa fondation compte EDF, rétorque Hulot, lequel ne jure que par sa liberté de parole.
En février dernier, un rapport parlementaire semblait en douter. "Des liens troubles existent avec les grandes entreprises qui financent [les fondations sur l'environnement], voire qui siègent à leur conseil d'administration, notaient les députés Geneviève Gaillard (PS) et Jean-Marie Sermier (UMP), sans apporter pour autant la moindre preuve précise. [...]
Dès lors, comment interpréter, par exemple, la position très mesurée de Nicolas Hulot sur l'énergie nucléaire?
Récemment, Le Canard enchaîné semait un peu plus le trouble en révélant qu'Hulot, de retour d'Amazonie, s'était empressé de rencontrer discrètement, le 29 mars, le PDG d'EDF, Henri Proglio, pour discuter du financement de la fondation pour 2011.
Le présentateur d'Ushuaïa cherche à la quitter, après l'annonce de sa candidature, en laissant les caisses pleines. Selon nos informations, il a obtenu, à la suite de ce rendez-vous, une première subvention de 360 000 euros. En 2010, EDF avait versé 480 000 euros à sa Fondation pour la nature et l'homme. Pour Hulot, clairement, a sonné l'heure des choix.
Marcelo Wesfreid
communaute.lexpress.fr/journaliste/marcelo-wesfreid
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Séquence politique pour Nicolas Hulot.
A 55 ans, l’écologiste le plus populaire et le plus cathodique de France doit déclarer sa candidature à la présidentielle de 2012 mercredi prochain. Pour préserver «sa valeur ajoutée et ne pas réduire son périmètre à celui d’un parti», il se présentera comme le candidat «de l’autonomie de l’écologie politique» (dixit un proche). Avec un pied dehors et un pied dans Europe Ecologie-les Verts (EE-LV). Objectif : «créer une lame de fond» pour noyer la candidature d’Eva Joly. Ou, à défaut, renégocier le cadre de la primaire arrêté le week-end dernier par EE-LV et jugé «trop restreint» et défavorable par son entourage.
Après les «séquences émotion» en ULM à la télévision, la séquence du «pacte écologique» signé par 750 000 personnes - dont Ségolène Royal et Nicolas Sarkozy -, lors de la campagne présidentielle de 2007 ; après le naufrage dans les salles du Syndrome du Titanic, son documentaire sur l’impact social de la crise écologique, et le crash de «sa» taxe carbone et du Grenelle de l’environnement, cette fois il ne se dérobera pas. «J’ai franchi un cap psychologique», confiait Hulot à Libération fin janvier. «Je serai incapable d’expliquer quel est l’argument qui m’a fait franchir ce cap», ajoutait-il, mardi. «Il y a ce qui s’est passé au Japon et au Brésil.
Pendant quinze jours, j’ai partagé la vie du chef Raoni. Il m’a convaincu de m’engager», raconte celui qui vient d’achever en Amazonie le tournage de ce qui sera le dernier numéro d’Ushuaïa, l’émission de TF1 qui, en vingt ans, a développé son image et sa conscience d’écologiste. Un autre élément a emporté sa décision : la poussée de Marine Le Pen et du national-populisme, «le fait que dans cette campagne nauséabonde nos sujets ne soient pas pris en compte à leur échelle», explique-t-il.
En 2007, Nicolas Hulot avait entretenu le suspense jusqu’au bout annonçant qu’il ne serait pas candidat après avoir énuméré ses raisons de l’être. Pas de surprise cette fois. Son entourage et lui-même ont distillé les fuites pour installer sa candidature, depuis sa réapparition à Lyon, le 13 novembre lors de la fusion d’Europe Ecologie et des Verts. Reste à ne pas louper l’atterrissage en terre politique inconnue. De nombreuses interrogations subsistent sur la ligne et le cadre de sa candidature.
La cérémonie
D’où l’importance de l’annonce de la candidature. Une déclaration solennelle. «Il va délivrer son message et puis taïaut», raconte l’eurodéputé Jean-Paul Besset, ex-plume du pacte écologique et directeur de campagne officieux. Lequel a peaufiné les détails de cette grand-messe mercredi à Paris avec l’avocat Pascal Durand, chargé de la coopérative, Annabelle Jaeger et Matthieu Orphelin, élus régionaux d’EE-LV en Paca et Pays-de-la-Loire, chacun étant passé par la Fondation Nicolas Hulot.
Où aura-t-elle lieu ? «Ils m’ont dit sous le sceau du secret que ça serait à Sevran, et je l’ai lu dans le Canard enchaîné!» rigolait hier Daniel Cohn-Bendit. Sauf revirement de dernière minute l’événement devrait donc se tenir dans cette ville de Seine-Saint-Denis, l’une des plus pauvre et endettées de France. L’impétrant y sera accueilli par Stéphane Gatignon, un des seuls maires de banlieue à avoir quitté le PCF pour Europe Ecologie. Tout un symbole. «Cela fait des années que Hulot parle de la nécessité de trouver des solutions économiques et sociales. L’écologie, il la voit à travers la misère des gens. Il faut être de mauvaise foi comme Dany pour le réduire à une vision environnementaliste du monde», plaide Durand.
Un site Internet sera lancé dans la foulée sous la forme d’un appel «Pour un autre monde» avec Nicolas Hulot 2012. Avec signatures à la clé. Dans les semaines à venir, le candidat devrait multiplier des rencontres de terrain hors caméra et participer à des chats. Objectif : s’imposer face à Eva Joly. «Il faudra trouver un compromis pour qu’Eva sorte par le haut. Peut-être sous la forme d’un ticket», envisage Denis Baupin, un autre de ses fervents soutiens.
Le bras de fer de la primaire
Le week-end dernier, lors du conseil fédéral, les cadres d’EE-LV ont joué le repli sur soi à tous les étages. «Un retour en arrière sur l’esprit d’ouverture d’EE-LV depuis deux ans» se désespéraient plusieurs responsables. «Le samedi, Cécile Duflot et Jean-Vincent Placé ont verrouillé l’appareil pour garder la mainmise sur le congrès en juin. Et, le dimanche, ils ont laissé faire sur les primaires. Cécile s’est bornée à réclamer un débat sur un mode doux !» critique un dirigeant. Résultat : une alliance de circonstance entre les amis d’Eva Joly et les nouveaux convertis, «plus verts et sectaires que les Verts», selon le député François de Rugy, a abouti à fixer les primaires en juin pour que le projet soit incarné avant l’été. Quand Hulot voulait septembre pour dérouler une campagne plus courte. Mais c’est la décision de réserver aux 12 000 adhérents et aux 2 000 coopérateurs actuels le droit de désigner le candidat qui a mis le feu aux poudres. «Si c’est en juin ce sera sans moi», a d’abord tonné Hulot par SMS dimanche. Avant de se radoucir. «Les arguments du timing s’ils ne m’arrangent pas, sont rationnels, reconnaît-il, en revanche, donner l’impression d’évoluer en circuit fermé est un signal tragique.» Les amis d’Eva Joly, eux, rappellent que Hulot s’est engagé à participer à la primaire pour qu’il n’y ait pas deux candidatures écologistes. Les pro-Hulot rétorquent que les décisions du week-end«lui ont rendu sa liberté».
La tentation du cavalier seul
Pour calmer le jeu, dès dimanche soir, Duflot a téléphoné à Cohn-Bendit pour proposer de réduire de 20 à 5 euros le droit d’inscription à la coopérative. Hier, François de Rugy a plaidé pour «l’élargissement du corps électoral». Jean-Vincent Placé a souhaité que le prochain conseil fédéral du 14 mai «ouvre davantage» la primaire. Dominique Voynet, candidate des Verts en 2007 et dont la campagne avait été parasitée par les hésitations de Hulot, a martelé sur Canal + que ce dernier était le «bienvenu à EE-LV». Autant d’initiatives destinées à éviter «le scénario catastrophe d’une double candidature écologiste».«Ce serait dramatique pour Hulot et pour nous. Le seul bénéficiaire en serait Nicolas Sarkozy», dénonce Yannick Jadot, directeur de campagne de Joly. Bien décidé à faire porter à Hulot le chapeau de la division.
«Nicolas ne veut pas faire cavalier seul, EE-LV est son biotope», assure Besset. Pas question néanmoins pour l’ex-animateur et ses proches de mettre la main «dans la tambouille». D’où leur refus de participer, ce matin, à une commission de conciliation sur les primaires. Comptant engranger des signatures sur leur site Internet, ils pourraient exiger dans un second temps la fusion de ce fichier avec celui de la coopérative d’EE-LV.
Ses soutiens
Outre Yves Cochet et Denis Baupin «tous deux aussi catastrophistes que Hulot mais fascinée par sa pédagogie et sa popularité, ironise un proche de Joly, Hulot bénéficie de la neutralité bienveillante de Cécile Duflot, toujours du côté où il y a le plus de lumière». Plusieurs figures écologistes devrait annoncer leur soutien à Hulot dans la foulée de sa déclaration. Comme José Bové ou Dominique Voynet, dont le directeur de cabinet est déjà sorti du bois. Tous attendent néanmoins qu’il donne des gages sur sa ligne politique : appellera-t-il à battre la droite au soir du premier tour ? Une étude sur les électorats potentiels des deux candidats montre que Nicolas Hulot, «le catho de droite» selon son expression, devenu écologiste habité, ratisse des électeurs de Nicolas Sarkozy et du centre (lire ci-contre).
La ligne politique
Pour qui roule Hulot ? Ces derniers mois, il a multiplié les contacts et les entrevues. De Dominique Strauss-Kahn à son ami Jean-Louis Borloo. «Borloo a tenté en vain d’obtenir le soutien de Hulot à son éventuelle candidature à la présidentielle», confie un de ses proches. L’intéressé est revenu de son rôle de lobbyiste auprès du pouvoir UMP. «Paradoxalement, la droite en a plus fait pour l’écologie que la gauche. Maintenant elle n’ira pas plus loin. Pire, elle va revenir en arrière», estimait-il fin janvier. Si à ses yeux «le clivage gauche-droite est obsolète», Hulot s’estime «obligé de respecter ce schéma». Et si la «gauche n’a pas fait sa conversion», il est «logique de négocier avec elle pour montrer qu’elle peut aller plus loin que le greenwashing».
Mercredi, Hulot devrait se situer sur une ligne autonome, prêt à jouer le rapport de force avec le PS au soir du premier tour. Depuis plusieurs mois, il a lu et relu Lester Brown, Tim Jackson, Edgar Morin et Patrick Viveret, à la recherche d’un chemin «entre la décroissance, hérésie pour les économistes et la croissance qui hérisse les écologistes». Reste à faire miroiter aux électeurs le profit qu’ils pourraient tirer à court terme des changements à opérer pour s’engager dans la conversion écologique. Là est son pari. «Si, dans un mois et demi, il a fait des interventions sur le terrain et les médias et que cela se répercute dans les sondages, il aura réussi», estime Cohn-Bendit. Refusant de choisir entre «Eva» et «Nicolas». Mais appréciant le «fait que Hulot est un média a lui tout seul».
Matthieu Ecoiffier.
www.liberation.fr/auteur/1870-matthieu-ecoiffier
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Le film "Le Syndrome du Titanic" : vimeo.com/64741962
Le Syndrome du Titanic est un film documentaire réalisé en 2008 par Nicolas Hulot et Jean-Albert Lièvre, sorti le 7 octobre 2009
fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Syndrome_du_Titanic
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Le film "Une Vérité qui Dérange" : www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZ4izGzj9r0
Une vérité qui dérange (An Inconvenient Truth) est un documentaire américain de Davis Guggenheim sorti en 2006. Traitant du changement climatique, il est basé en grande partie sur une présentation multimédia que Al Gore, ancien vice-président des États-Unis et prix Nobel de la paix en 2007 (partagé avec le GIEC) a préparé pour sa campagne de sensibilisation sur le réchauffement planétaire
fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Une_vérité_qui_dérange
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Photographie de Sébastien Duhamel, professionnel de l’image : www.sebastien-duhamel.com/présentation-références/
Derniers sujets photos : www.flickr.com/photos/sebastienduhamel/collections/721576...
Classeurs photos : www.flickr.com/photos/sebastienduhamel/collections
Albums photos : www.flickr.com/photos/sebastienduhamel/sets/
Tournages : vimeo.com/137495739
www.dailymotion.com/user/Sebastien_Duhamel/1
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Photo / Conditions : www.sebastien-duhamel.com/conditions-tarifs/
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I'm quite sure all of you have been caught up doing something and a thought comes into your head and you for some unknown reason feel the need to scratch your head. And your holding something or if your Italian, talking to someone........ And you don't really, really want to put down or stop talking..........
Well.... There is another way. ...
Seeeeeeeeeee......... Yoga can be used for practical things other than exercise and meditation.
Tuttles ❤️❤️❤️💋🌹🐒🐒
Aston Martin
The company was founded in 1913 by Robert Bamford and Lionel Martin as Bamford & Martin Ltd.
The Aston Martin name came into existence in 1914 following one of Lionel Martin’s successful runs at the Aston Hill Climb in Buckinghamshire, England.
1921-1926
Financial problems plagued the company over the next decade with the business forced to close in 1925 only to be rescued by a group of investors in 1926, forming Aston Martin Motors Ltd, and one year later the AM monogram was replaced with the iconic Aston Martin wings.
1947 saw the dawn of the ‘David Brown era’ as the business was acquired by the English industrialist.
Frequently acclaimed as the most beautiful car in the world, the Aston Martin DB5 entered production in 1963.
The following year saw the birth of a relationship that has left an indelible mark on popular culture, as the DB5 was chosen to be James Bond’s car of choice in the classic film ‘Goldfinger.’
Vehicle make: ASTON MARTIN
Date of first registration: April 1963
Year of manufacture: 1963
Cylinder capacity (cc): 3670 cc
CO₂Emissions: Not available
Fuel type: PETROL
Export marker: No
Vehicle status: Tax not due
Vehicle colour: SILVER
Vehicle type approval: Not available
Wheelplan: 2 AXLE RIGID BODY
Revenue weight: Not available
Aston Martin DB5
The Aston Martin DB5 is a British luxury grand tourer that was made by Aston Martin and designed by the Italian coachbuilder Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera. Released in 1963, it was an evolution of the final series of DB4. The DB series was named honouring Sir David Brown (the owner of Aston Martin from 1947 to 1972).
Although not the first in the DB series, the DB5 is famous for being the most recognised cinematic James Bond car, first appearing in the James Bond film Goldfinger (1964).
Design
The principal differences between the DB4 Series V and the DB5 are the all-aluminium engine, enlarged from 3.7 L to 4.0 L; a new robust ZF five-speed transmission (except for some of the very first DB5s); and three SU carburettors.
This engine, producing 282 bhp (210 kW), which propelled the car to 145 mph (233 km/h), available on the Vantage (high powered) version of the DB4 since March 1962, became the standard Aston Martin power unit with the launch in September 1963 of the DB5.
Standard equipment on the DB5 included reclining seats, wool pile carpets, electric windows, twin fuel tanks, chrome wire wheels, oil cooler, magnesium-alloy body built to superleggera patent technique, full leather trim in the cabin and even a fire extinguisher. All models have two doors and are of a 2+2 configuration.
Like the DB4, the DB5 used a live rear axle.
At the beginning, the original four-speed manual (with optional overdrive) was standard fitment, but it was soon dropped in favour of the ZF five-speed.
A three-speed Borg-Warner DG automatic transmission was available as well.
The automatic option was then changed to the Borg-Warner Model 8 shortly before the DB6 replaced the DB5.
Standard coupé:
* Engine: 3,995 cc (243.8 cu in) Inline-6
* Power: 282 bhp (210 kW) at 5,500 rpm (210) Net HP
* Torque: 288 lb·ft (390 N·m) at 3,850 rpm
* Weight: 1,502 kg (3,311 lb)
* Top Speed: 143 mph (230 km/h)[8]
* 0–60 mph (97 km/h) Acceleration: 8 s
James Bond's DB5
Two Aston Martin DB5s were built for production, one of which had no gadgets.
The Aston Martin DB5 is one of the most famous cars in the world thanks to Oscar-winning special effects expert John Stears, who created the deadly silver-birch DB5 for use by James Bond in Goldfinger (1964). Although Ian Fleming had placed Bond in a DB Mark III in the novel, the DB5 was the company's latest model when the film was being made.
The car used in the film was the original DB5 prototype, with another standard car used for stunts. To promote the film, the two DB5s were showcased at the 1964 New York World's Fair, and it was dubbed "the most famous car in the world",and subsequently sales of the car rose.[12] In January 2006, one of these was auctioned in Arizona; the same car was originally bought in 1970 from the owner, Sir Anthony Bamford, by a Tennessee museum owner.[13] A car, mainly used for promoting the movie, is now located in the Louwman Museum, Netherlands.
The first DB5 prototype used in Goldfinger with the chassis number DP/216/1 was later stripped of its weaponry and gadgetry by Aston Martin and then resold. It was then retrofitted by subsequent owners with nonoriginal weaponry. The Chassis DP/216/1 DB5 was stolen in 1997 from its last owner in Florida and is currently still missing.
Within the universe of James Bond, the same car (registration BMT 216A) was used again in the following film, Thunderball, a year later.
A different Aston Martin DB5 (registration BMT 214A) was used in the 1995 Bond film, GoldenEye, in the which the car is Bond's personal vehicle. Three different DB5s were used for filming. A variation of the registration number (BMT2144) was used on the BMW 750IL in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and was set to make a cameo appearance in the Scotland-set scenes in The World Is Not Enough (1999), but these were cut in the final edit. Yet another DB5 appeared in Casino Royale (2006), this one with Bahamian number plates and left-hand drive (where the previous British versions had been right-hand drive).
Another silver-birch DB5 with the original registration BMT 216A is used in the 23rd James Bond film, Skyfall, during the 50th anniversary of the release of the first James Bond film Dr. No.
In the film "M" (Judi Dench) describes the car as "not very comfortable". The DB5 is destroyed in the film's climactic finale. It is seen again in Spectre, firstly in Q's underground workshop in various stages of rebuild, and at the film's ending, fully rebuilt, with Bond driving away with it.
On 1 June 2010, RM Auctions announced the upcoming auction of a DB5 used in both Goldfinger and Thunderball. The owner (Jerry Lee, president/owner of WBEB Radio in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) originally bought the car from the Aston Martin company in 1969. At the auction, the DB5 was sold for £2.6 million.
In popular culture
Although the DB5 is often credited as being the first car James Bond drives in the movies, it is in fact not. The first "Bond car" was a 1962 Sunbeam Alpine Series II used in the very first movie Dr. No. The DB5 is however unquestionably the most recognised cinematic James Bond car.
It was also used by actor Roger Moore, as he played a James Bond parody character in the film The Cannonball Run. Moore plays Seymour Goldfarb, Jr., a man who believes himself to be both Roger Moore and James Bond, who participates in a madcap, cross-country road race. The registration number BMT 216A, and the original bond car in its original dark red paintjob also appear in "The Noble Sportsman", a 1964 episode of "The Saint" TV series starring Roger Moore.
The 1983 reunion telefilm The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E.: The Fifteen Years Later Affair includes a brief cameo by George Lazenby as "JB", a white-tuxedoed British man shown driving an Aston Martin DB5, who assists Napoleon Soloduring a car chase. "It's just like On Her Majesty's Secret Service," enthuses a female character at the conclusion of the cameo. This special came out in 1983, the same year as Octopussy and Never Say Never Again.
It appears in several video games such as 007 Racing, Driver San Francisco (Deluxe Edition), James Bond 007: Agent Under Fire, From Russia with Love, and James Bond 007: Blood Stone. The From Russia with Love movie was released in 1963, one year before Goldfinger (in which the DB5 used the first time), but the video game used the car.
It appeared in animated form in James Bond Jr. in the very first episode "The Beginning". In the episode it was able to transform into a plane and could be driven by remote control. The car was destroyed in a plane crash and its remains recycled into a red sports car, which the PAL VHS cover identifies as the "Aston Martin Super".
A version of the car appeared in Grand Theft Auto: London 1969, being called a "James Bomb".
Leonardo DiCaprio was seen driving one in Catch Me If You Can, imitating Bond (even down to the suit) in Goldfinger.
In 2003, it appears in the action comedy film Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, driven by Bernie Mac's character, Jimmy Bosley. It is only seen once in which Bosley is driving a witness, Max Petroni (portrayed by Shia LaBeouf) to his mother's house, to be safe from the O'Grady Crime Syndicate.
The 2004 French spy comedy film, called Double Zéro (directed by Gérard Pirès) also showed a DB5. It can be seen once in the film, when the two main characters go to meet the parody of Q.
In 2011, an Aston Martin DB5 appeared in heavily stylized form as "Finn McMissile", a British secret agent voiced by Michael Caine in the 2011 Pixar film Cars 2. The car character was a homage to the Bond DB5 although has also been known to bear resemblance to the Volvo P1800, as used by the fictional British secret agent Simon Templar in The Saint.
In 2013, Grand Theft Auto V featured a car called the "JB 700" that heavily alluded to being a DB5, or was based on the DB5; specifically the one used by James Bond. Need for Speed: Most Wanted released a DLC named "Movie Legends" that featured the car.
The music video for the Usher song Burn, features a DB5. The exact same car with the same registration number appears a number of times in the short lived TV series Fastlane, it later turned out to be fake.
In the 2015 TV series Thunderbirds Are Go a DB5 can be seen as Lady Penelope gets into Fab 1 in the first episode Ring Of Fire.
I have just noticed this at our local bus stop. Just two days into the new busway service, Grant Palmer have had to alter their route around the Beecroft Estate in Dunstable because of badly parked cars. This means that the Co-op supermarket, Post Office and other shops are no longer served by bus. This parking problem was obviously anticipated as double yellow lines were recently painted on certain stretches of road. Odd then that the service was pulled so soon.
I walk this way to said Post Office every afternoon and have wondered why I havn't yet seen one of the new Scanias along here yet; now I know!!
Reino:Animalia
Filo:Arthropoda
Clase:Insecta
Orden:Coleoptera
Familia:Coccinellidae
Género:Hippodamia
Especie:H. convergens
Lugar de captura: La sabanita de Loma del Toro, Sierra de Bahoruco
Por: Cimarron mayor Panta.
CámaraCanon EOS 7D
Exposición0,017 sec (1/60)
Aperturef/8.0
Lente100 mm
Velocidad ISO640
Tendencia de exposición-1/3 EV
FlashOn, Fired ( el flash interno de la cámara)
No trípode( a pulso)
No ring flash
no tubo de extensión.
NO LUZ ( SOLO NEBLINA Y MALDICIONES DE PARTE DE NOSOTROS JAJAJAJA)
LOS RATAMALAS METIDOS EN PROBLEMAS Y NO ERAN MATRIMONIALES! SOLOS EN EL CORAZON DE LA SIERRA DE BAHORUCO, SIN SENAL TELEFONICA Y CON UNA MARIQUITA RIENDOSE DE NOSOTROS.
Yo confieso mi ignorancia en ambos sentidos. Con respecto a la Mariquita y peor aún con eso de hacer un macro jajajaja.
No niego que tenía toda la ilusión del mundo te tener una mariquita en mi galería, pues me muero de envidia cuando veo esas mariquitas de mis amigos en flickr.
Tenía mas de 45 años que no veía personalmente una mariquita y el único recuerdo que tenía fue una que ví una vez siendo pequeño en el campo. Así que me quedé con el concepto de que las mariquitas vivían en la tierra, pues me pasé un buen rato jugando con ella y cubriéndola con tierra pulverizada para verla emerger en una enramada en el campo y que era el taller de carpintería de mi padre.
Recientemente cruzando la Sierra de Bahoruco llegamos a la Sabanita de Loma del Toro,el punto más alto de la sierra encantada. Al ver aquella pequeña sabana cubierta de flores cimarronicas, como no desmontarse a estirar las patas??
Rapidamente tomamos los 500 mm porque vimos unas mariposas azules y yo le dije a Dax … segurito que son endémicas jajajajaja. Mierda, vamos hacerla con el lente de macro Panta.
Siiii vamos hacerle unos macros asesinos y rajapupilas Dax.
Tu sabes como se hace un macro??? Yooooooo, ni idea tengo de como se hace y tu? Pues yo tampoco ratamala.
No importa, vamos a inventar busca el lente.
Y ahí comenzó nuestra odisea jajajjajaja y la ratamala de Nicolas ubicándonos a las mariquitas que por primera vez entendía en mi caso que viven en las flores y no en la tierra como yo pensaba hoy!!
Ufffff que bajo a muerto tienen estas condenadas jajajajja. Era lo único que Nicolas decía!
Coño Dax y como es que tú no sabes como se hace un macro?? Panta, yo nunca he hecho uno, pues yo tampoco.
Las primeras fotos se las hice a las maripositas azules y aquello parecía un esperpento.
Dax, pero me salen todas movidas y no les veo los ojos ni ná de ná.
Nicolás conseguimos una mariquita y ponla aquí en esta flor de pechuguita jajajajajjajaja.
No hubo manera de hacer algo que sirviera.
Probamos en todos los modos habidos y por haber, todos los ISOS Y F posibles.
Pusimos el lente en modo manual y terminamos azules de tanto detener la respiración. Para colmo caminaban las marditas y si no era la brisa el problema.
Corre que ahí viene la neblina jajajajaja.
Date rápido para que me preste el lente a mi decía Dax.
Dax, esto es una desgracimación que no tiene nombre. O me salen desenfocadas o no me sale nada.
El mardito lente no enfoca a pesar de estar en autofocus. Ponlo en manual, ok lo pondré en manual.
Pero esto si es dificil esta desgracia. Por un mm que uno se eche hacia atrás o hacia delante la mariquita se desenfoca. Coño vamos a usar un trípode. Déjate de pendejada y de complicar las cosas. Vámonos a pulso cimarronico.
Sácale el flash a la camara que a lo mejor hay poca luz. Yo creo que así sin luz y sin sol es mucho mejor!
Dax no te dá verguenza ratamala que no sepamos hacer un mardito macro y tenemos tres horas aquí y a lo mejor los zorzales están con una lombriz colgando del pico en la gramita y nosotros de huevones ??
Ya yo sé lo que está pasando. Arvelo me dijo que todo era en modo manual. Pues pongamos todo en manual a ver que pasa.Ahora todo es peor ratamala.
Para la respiración y Colá, agarra la mata para que no se mueva jajajajajjajaa. Dax, estoy azul de no respirar y esta desgracia me está matando. Esto es peor que hacer fotos de aves.
Dejemos esta desgracimación. Zapatero a sus zapatos. Dax, yo necesito esa mariquita de mis sueños, ayudame mardito hacerla.
Panta, hemos perdido tres horas.
Ya se lo que vamos hacer. Tomemos los 500 mm y vamos a fusilar a estas marditas que no se van a reír de nosotros.
Desde que lleguemos a la capital vamos a emplazar a los marditos cimarrones de como es que se hace un macro, aunque le he preguntado mil veces y siempre vienen a darnos una clase repletas de teorías, que si el flash, que si el tubo de extensión, el ring flash y finalmente nunca han dicho nada en concreto de como se hace un macro ( me refiero a un setting especifico en nuestras cámaras)
Así terminamos azules de tanto aguantar la respiración, yo con 395 fotos de las cuales una me quedó una aceptable, 5 mediocres y 395 para el zafacón.
Como jodí tanto con esta criaturita no me queda más remedio que mostrarla y hacer el cuento de una crónica del fracaso esperado.Ojalá algún fotógrafo o amigo se digne en decirnos como se hace un macro ( números en nuestras camaras) que estoy muy viejo para cursos y para ir a la escuela.
Pasamos trabajo, pero tenemos ya una mariquita roja en nuestras manos.
Abrazos.
Cimarron mayor Panta.
by Alfredo Fernandes
Alfi Art Production, Divar
41st Tiatr Competition A group of Kala Academy supported by TAG
13.10.2015
more here
joegoauk-tiatr.blogspot.in/2015/10/41st-tiatr-competition...
Nevil Cardozo and Evarist de Arambol
The problem with fall weather of course is the variability and this week sure proved that point with only one decent day for photography. So I finally finished up Monday's shots and here is one last picture of a LeConte's Sparrow from that shoot.
I love autumn, the colors of the season, and how nicely this little sparrow fits the colors of the season.
LeConte's Sparrows observed at Prairie Green Geneva Park District in Geneva, IL
Acne, the utmost common skin complaint in the United States., can be a basis of worry for every teen-age. And more, the rate of acne is growing in grownups, too.Acne is caused by impassable hair follicles and oil (sebaceous) glands of the skin, frequently caused by hormonal deviations. The word acne mentions to not only pimples on the face, but nodules, cysts, and blackheads as well. Some individuals get acne on other portions of their body too, such as the chest and back.
Sunburns happen when there is too much contact to ultraviolet (UV) sunlit from the sun or sunlamps. The skin goes red, sore, burning to the touch, and may even peel away. It's tough to see how much time is harmless in the sun, however, even with sunblock shield. Repetitive sunburns, particularly as a kid, can increase the danger for skin cancer later in life. Typically sunscreen needs to be reapplied every 2 hours, but you may just need to keep yourself out of the sun, too.
Lot of us have had contact dermatitis - when we touch things that progresses into a skin reaction. Contact dermatitis is a kind of eczema, and can come from plants, jewelry, latex gloves, and cleaners like bleach, shampoos and soaps. To stop contact dermatitis, avoid the thing when possible. To evade symptoms, antihistamines and colloidal oatmeal baths are frequently useful. If your doctor doubts you have contact dermatitis.
Anybody who has a kid knows about the mutual problem of diaper rash
A wet or soiled diaper wearing on too long can be cause of red sore bumps and rash in the diaper part, the bottoms, genitals, and skin bends.
Urine and stool can breakdown skin, and substances in a disposable diaper can melt out and cause the skin.
It's an unlucky fact, but your feet are prone to fungal contagions. Athletes’ foot can principal to extreme itching, soreness, and cracked skin on the feet and in among the toes. A kind of fungi called dermatophytes are normally found in warm, soggy areas like pool decks, bath stalls, and locker rooms.
Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is the utmost common type of skin cancer in the United States. BCC raises in the upper basal cells of your skin but hardly extents and is treatable. You may be prone to BCCs if you use to spend lots of time in the sun or use a tanning bed habitually.
Hives are the aware swellings (raised, red, itchy areas) that can happen on the skin. Common reasons of hives include medicine, nutrition, and bug bites or wounds. Pursue urgent treatment if your hives cover a big area of your body, your throat or face area is swelling, or they causing you to breathing. Hives typically go away in 3 to 5 hours; though, in specific people hives may persevere for months or years. A drug used to give allergic asthma, omalizumab (Xolair injection), was permitted in 2014 to treat chronic urticaria in persons with no reply to antihistamines.
Read more:https://medium.com/@menaturals890/what-are-7-common-skin-problem-82ff73a365ab
LADY HERBERT EN ÁVILA. Jose Luis Pajares.
A mediados del siglo XIX el mayor problema de aquellos viajes por España era remediar los muchos imprevistos del día a día. Lady Herbert era una buena planificadora y lo primero que hizo fue buscar a otras mujeres, no meras amigas sino a escritoras profesionales, para que la acompañasen. Era importante que además tuviesen las mismas creencias religiosas y el mismo nivel cultural, de modo que formasen un sólido grupo. Las elegidas fueron George Eliot, Annie J. Harvey, Matilda Betham, William Augustus Tollemache, y Frances Dickinson. Las cinco aceptaron la propuesta y se dispusieron a preparar lo necesario para organizar el transporte y alojamiento de aquel elenco femenino que, dadas las normas del vestir de la época, necesitaba un buen cargamento de baúles. La expedición requería dedicación y fondos suficientes para recorrer las ciudades y regiones elegidas.
Todas ellas eran adineradas, gozaban de buena posición, además de tener influencias políticas y religiosas, lo que les permitió encontrar apoyo logístico durante la expedición. Según recoge Blanca Krauel en el estudio sobre este grupo a su paso por Andalucía: “Viajan sobre todo en tren, recurren a sus cónsules cuando pueden y chapurrean el español. Se alojan en hoteles confortables pero caros si se tiene en cuenta la comida que ofrecen”. Sin embargo, el viaje no era simplemente de placer, visitan monumentos y museos, pero también se interesan por las libertades sociales y religiosas que por entonces eran constante motivo de discusión política. Son abiertamente liberales y les preocupan temas como la sanidad y la creación de hospitales o la implicación republicana en algunos sectores sociales.
Supieron también elegir el momento, aquel peregrinaje no hubiese sido posible sin los nuevos ferrocarriles españoles, algunos tramos habían sido inaugurados pocos años antes, a falta aún de muchas infraestructuras. Al emprender el viaje Herbert va contando en tercera persona las peripecias por las que tiene que pasar el grupo, “A las cuatro de la mañana las echaron, tiritando de frío, en una estación al borde del camino, donde debían tomar el tren a Ávila; pero luego, para su consternación, un mozo adormilado les dijo que habían tomado el tren de las seis y que no habría ninguno hasta las diez de la mañana siguiente, de modo que todas las esperanzas de llegar a Ávila a tiempo para iglesia (y esto era un domingo) estaban a su fin.” Como se ve, perder la misa dominical representaba un verdadero contratiempo para estas mujeres creyentes.
PARADA Y FONDA
Antes de subir a los incómodos vagones de madera conducidos por una ruidosa locomotora, se queja de que “la estación no tenía sala de espera, sólo una especie de pasillo con dos duros bancos. Después de un desayuno limpio y abundante, comenzó nuestra cabalgada en tren hacia Ávila, donde llegaron a la una”. La línea hasta Ávila se inauguró en 1863, estas pasajeras fueron de los primeros viajeros que la recorrieron. Al llegar las seis mujeres debieron ser recogidas por la única diligencia que hacía el trayecto entre la estación y un hospedaje, al que Lady Herbert califica como “fonda”. Esa fonda era la única que entonces ofrecía ese servicio, el mozo y el conductor se encargaban de ayudar a los viajeros a bajar del convoy y cargar con sus equipajes desde las mismas vías. El carruaje tirado por caballos acercaba a los clientes hasta la lejana ciudad, sin tener que arrastrar maletas y bultos por el polvoriento Camino de La Estación.
ALOJAMIENTO MUY TOLERABLE
Tras visitar al vicario al poco de su llegada, este llegó a ofrecerles el palacio episcopal como alojamiento, algo que Elizabeht declinó: "Nuestro grupo era demasiado numeroso para aceptar esta hospitalidad y ya habían encontrado un alojamiento muy tolerable en una pequeña fonda frente a la catedral; pero aceptaron gustosos el ofrecimiento de su amable y cortés secretario de actuar como su acompañante, especialmente para la inspección de la casa y el convento de Santa Teresa al día siguiente". Nada dice de otros lugares como Sto. Tomás o la Muralla, sino "especialmente la inspección" de la casa y el convento, es decir, un acompañante que les permita entrar en dependencias de frailes y clausuras carmelitas, algo que solo podía conceder una autoridad religiosa.
EL INGLÉS
Aunque no lo nombra la escritora especifica bien que su alojamiento estaba "frente a la catedral”, por esta situación se trataba, sin duda, de la “Fonda del Inglés” un establecimiento que curiosamente acaba de abrir un compatriota suyo, John Smith, contratista de ferrocarriles que había participado en la construcción de la línea desde Madrid, la misma por donde habían llegado.
Mientras avanzaban las obras del tren hasta la ciudad, Smith vivió en la plaza de Santa Ana, en una de la casas que por entonces estaban más próximas a la futura estación. www.flickr.com/photos/avilas/6770203585/in/photolist-2jFf...
Antes de concluir los trabajos se dio cuenta de que no existía un solo hotel en Ávila; sabiendo que a partir de entonces vendrían multitud de pasajeros y habiendo comprobado como en Inglaterra ese adelanto había transformado las ciudades donde llegaba, se propuso levantar un alojamiento digno de los nuevos viajeros. Con unos ahorros y vendiendo al padre de Santayana la casa que le había servido de alojamiento, compró una finca en la céntrica plaza de la Catedral .
Pidió un préstamo para empezar a levantar el edificio, que él mismo diseñó, llegando a usar algunos materiales desechados de la línea férrea y poniendo algunos railes como vigas. (En la reciente demolición del edificio se encontraron esos antiguos railes de ferrocarril, todavía conservados en la estructura del hotel Continental).
Aquel establecimiento resultó ser algo más confortable que viejas posadas como la Estrella o el Rastro, solo dispuestas entonces para arrieros y mulas. Las posadas dejaban mucho que desear para las gentes cosmopolitas, en algunas era natural que los primeros viajeros del XIX llevasen consigo una cesta y un cántaro para conseguir alimentos para la cena, ya que la costumbre era que el cliente tenía que conseguir su propia comida y que la posada les permitirle cocinar, cobrando luego el gasto.
John hablaba español, llevaba años aprendiéndolo en Ávila, ciudad que conocía bien, se quedó vivir en ella en lugar de ir a Madrid, donde residía el resto de ingenieros. Era cercano y pronto los abulenses le conocieron como "el Inglés", razón por la que puso el mismo nombre a la fonda. A pesar de la penosa situación por la que pasaba la ciudad quiso que los visitantes que llegaban a ella se sintieran cómodos, lo arriesgó todo sin recibir subvenciones ni ayudas. Él fue el verdadero pionero del turismo en Ávila, sin embargo, ha quedado en el más completo olvido.
A partir de su apertura la Fonda del Inglés acaparó prácticamente todos los viajeros que se apeaban en la ciudad. Aunque “pequeño” para ellas el establecimiento contaba ya con confortables habitaciones y colchones, restaurante y personal de servicio; su éxito daría lugar a sucesivas reformas, de modo que décadas después ofrecía todas las comodidades, alcanzando la máxima categoría cuando pasó a ser el Hotel Inglés, nombre que conservó hasta la guerra civil, que se rebautizó como Continental.
www.flickr.com/photos/avilas/4976912147/in/photolist-2jFf...
CIUDAD DE NOBLEZA EJEMPLAR
Cuenta Herbert que lo primero que se encontraron nada más salir de aquella fonda fue la Catedral, “que es una hermosa construcción gótica, iniciada en 1107. Son bellos también la torre, el claustro y el pórtico con columnas agrupadas de la Catedral. Desde lo alto del claustro hay una magnífica vista sobre la rica vega de abajo, y también desde el singular extremo este de la Catedral, construido como la muralla de la ciudad”. Luego describe Ávila piedra a piedra a lo largo de las páginas del libro. “Es una ciudad castellana fortificada, de nobleza ejemplar, repleta de curiosos monumentos”. Su relato no copia otros textos, procura mantener criterios objetivos y, aunque como escritora viajera seguramente conocía el “Handbook for Travellers in Spain and Readers at Home” de Richard Ford y las notas de viaje de George Borrow, no cae en sus clichés hispanofóbicos.
TERESA DE SANGRE REAL
Los días que pasaron en la ciudad les dio para conocer monumentos, iglesias y hasta los conventos por dentro y por fuera, incluidos los de clausura. En el interior de San José describe las huertas y ermitas que levantó la propia Teresa o los milagros y desgracias que la ocurrieron en las mismas celdas y escaleras por las que ellas pasaban, algo altamente emotivo para estas mujeres, admiradoras de la santa que más reverenciaban. Las monjas les relatan las desgracias y martirios que padeció la Madre, asegurándolas que, como ellas, también su fundadora procedía de noble abolengo, un error de bulto que le contaron o que ella confundió al transcribir que “los padres de Santa Teresa eran ambos de sangre noble e incluso real”, lo que no solo no es cierto sino que, como hoy se sabe, el padre era de origen judío. Este tipo de malentendidos piadosos también afectó a otras viajeras como Dorothy Giles que, fascinada por Teresa de Cepeda, aseguraba que "no está enterrada en Ávila sino en Alba, cerca de Burgos, en cuyo convento murió”. (Dorothy Giles. The road through Spain. Philadelphia: The Penn Publishing Company, 1929)
MEJOR QUE LAS ANDALUZAS
De los abulenses cuenta que le llaman más la atención que los vistosos tipos de Andalucía: “Este es casi el único lugar donde nuestras viajeras han visto en España cómo las mujeres vestían el antiguo traje regional. En Granada, Córdoba y Sevilla, los hombres conservan sus pintorescos vestidos; pero sus esposas rara vez lo hacen. Aquí las mujeres están todas vestidas con enaguas de tela de color amarillo brillante de tono canario, con tela roja 'aplicada' en patrones, en la falda, corpiños verdes o rojos, hilos de perlas y cabello en rollos circulares en el costado de la cabeza, con alfileres en cada uno.”
En una jornada les da para visitar lugares de punta a punta de la ciudad, lo que da lugar a un interrogante que Herbert, tal vez por prudencia, quiere obviar. Se sabe que el propio Smith gustaba hacer de cicerone con sus clientes; unas veces con la diligencia de la fonda y otras a pie, llevaba a sus huéspedes por la ciudad, haciéndoles un recorrido por los lugares de mayor interés, enseñándoles personalmente iglesias y monumentos, pero también lugares menos accesibles para otros viajeros. Admiradas por lo que están viendo suben a la torre de la Catedral, rodean luego las “murallas” y lo más excepcional, suben a ellas. Herbert relata que “Desde las torres de la muralla (de las cuales hay ochenta y ocho) se ve la vista del puente,” alabando “las grandes murallas almenadas que rodean la ciudad, que es muy hermosa”.
LA VENTANA Y LOS RINOCERONTES
A la mañana siguiente, después de la misa mayor en la Catedral, la autora señala que una de la mujeres preparó con el vicario general la visita a la casa en la que nació Santa Teresa, donde les esperaría su representante. En el camino desde la fonda pasan por “el hermoso palacio de la Medina Celi” (se refieren al palacio de los Dávila cuyo propietario, Pedro Dávila, era Duque de Medinaceli) La autora toma nota de cada detalle de la portada “que tiene los emblemas de la familia con trece bolas (roeles) sobre la puerta, y cuatro de esos curiosos rinocerontes de granito, o ´toros´, como los llama la gente, que se encuentran aquí y allá en España, cuyo origen es tan disputado por los eruditos”. Esos toros, o rinocerontes como ella les llama, efectivamente existían a la puerta del palacio, como puede verse en algunos grabados. www.flickr.com/photos/avilas/4974685474/in/photolist-2jFf...
EL INCÓGNITO GUÍA
Llega a contar también la popular anécdota sobre ese palacio: “También hay una curiosa inscripción en bajorrelieve bajo la ventana principal del palacio, en español antiguo y pintoresco, cuyo significado en inglés sería: ´Cuando una puerta se cierra, otra se abre´, probablemente aludiendo a alguna conocida leyenda ahora olvidada” (1). Si no existían guías turísticos alguien tuvo que aportarlas sobre la marcha estos datos "olvidados", nada asequibles a simple vista por mucha historia del arte que supieran. Siendo además católicas no era lo más adecuado relatar que un varón, con su mismo idioma y dueño del lugar donde pernoctaban, les acompañaba. Aunque Elizabeth era traductora de otros idiomas se sabe que apenas “chapurreaba español”, tampoco pudieron consultar libro alguno para documentarse, en esa época aún no se habían publicado el Martín Carramolino (1872), la guía de Valverde (1886) o el Cuadrado (1884) textos que más tarde serían referencia de la historia abulense para escritores y viajeros.
Lo que es seguro es que Elisabeth y sus compañeras se alojaron en la fonda del Inglés y que, aunque no era uno de los lujosos hoteles a los que estaban acostumbradas, al menos tuvieron la suerte de que Smith les acogiese en aquellos días en que quedaron encantadas con Ávila y los abulenses.
_____
(1 )"the meaning of which in English would be:"When one door shuts, another opens,’ probably alluding to some family legend now forgotten."
The entire Randall Park Mall site looks like it is on its way to becoming a lake. The low lying areas of the parking lots, the receiving area of the old Macy's, and the bottom of the abandoned hotel are all underwater.
The Randall Park Mall was opened in 1976 and was briefly the largest shopping center in the world, topping in at 2 million square feet. JCPenney, Horne's, Sears, May Company, and Higbee's were the original anchor stores. Sadly, the mall had a decline which led to its closure in 2009. Burlington Coat Factory (former Horne's) is the only "anchor" at the site. The Power Sport institute and a furniture liquidation center are the only other remaining businesses here. The rest of the mall has been left to rot. I wish I could get to go inside of this mall for pictures especially since it is planned to be demolished for an industrial park soon.
Randall Park Mall - North Randall, Ohio
Flickr is a mess in Firefox. It started midday on Monday. I thought it was just another problem with the system (note the uploading problems on Monday), but eventually I realized that the site was showing up just fine in IE.
So what in the world is going on? I deleted the Flickr cookies, but that didn't change anything. The css files seem to come up fine on their own, but it looks like they're not being pulled in when rendering the basic pages.
Any ideas? Thanks!
In the end, clearing the cache worked. It's something I really didn't want to have to do, but after trying several other things, it was the only idea I had left.
I’ve been wanting to take a city break in summer, rather than in the cold months for a while, so rather than heading for the Lake District for a week of toil on the fells when Jayne could get a week off, we took off from Liverpool for Paris. Flight times were nice and sociable but it meant we were on the M62 car park at a busy time in both directions – it’s a shambles! I’ve stopped over in Paris a dozen times – on my way to cycling in the Etape du Tour in the Alps or Pyrenees – and had a few nights out there. Come to think about it and we’ve spent the day on the Champs Elysees watching the final day of the Tour de France with Mark Cavendish winning. We hadn’t been for a holiday there though and it was a bit of a spur of the moment decision. Six nights gave us five and a half days to explore Paris on foot. I had a good selection of (heavy) kit with me, not wanting to make the usual mistake of leaving something behind and regretting it. In the end I carried the kit in my backpack – an ordinary rucksack – to keep the weight down, for 103 miles, all recorded on the cycling Garmin – and took 3500 photos. The little Garmin is light and will do about 15 hours, it expired towards the end of a couple of 16 hour days but I had the info I wanted by then. This also keeps the phone battery free for research and route finding – I managed to flatten that once though.
What can I say – Paris was fantastic! The weather varied from OK to fantastic, windy for a few days, the dreaded grey white dullness for a while but I couldn’t complain really. We were out around 8.30 in shorts and tee shirt, which I would swap for a vest when it warmed up, hitting 30 degrees at times, we stayed out until around midnight most nights. It was a pretty full on trip. The security at some destinations could have been a problem as there is a bag size limit to save room in the lifts etc. I found the French to be very pragmatic about it, a bag search was a cursory glance, accepting that I was lugging camera gear, not bombs around, and they weren’t going to stop a paying customer from passing because his bag was a bit over size.
We didn’t have a plan, as usual we made it up as we went along, a loose itinerary for the day would always end up changing owing to discoveries along the way. Many times we would visit something a few times, weighing the crowds and light etc. up and deciding to come back later. I waited patiently to go up the Eiffel Tower, we arrived on Tuesday and finally went up on Friday evening. It was a late decision but the weather was good, the light was good and importantly I reckoned that we would get a sunset. Previous evenings the sun had just slid behind distant westerly clouds without any golden glory. It was a good choice. We went up the steps at 7.30 pm, short queue and cheaper – and just to say that we had. The steps are at an easy angle and were nowhere near as bad as expected, even with the heavy pack. We stayed up there, on a mad and busy Friday night, until 11.30, the light changed a lot and once we had stayed a couple of hours we decided to wait for the lights to come on. This was a downside to travelling at this time of year, to do any night photography we had to stay out late as it was light until 10.30. The Eiffel Tower is incredible and very well run, they are quite efficient at moving people around it from level to level. It was still buzzing at midnight with thousands of people around. The sunset on Saturday was probably better but we spent the evening around the base of the Tower, watching the light change, people watching and soaking the party atmosphere up.
Some days our first destination was five miles away, this is a lot of road junctions in a city, the roads in Paris are wide so you generally have to wait for the green man to cross. This made progress steady but when you are on holiday it doesn’t matter too much. Needless to say we walked through some dodgy places, with graffiti on anything that stays still long enough. We were ultra-cautious with our belongings having heard the pickpocket horror stories. At every Café/bar stop the bags were clipped to the table leg out of sight and never left alone. I carried the camera in my hand all day and everywhere I went, I only popped it in my bag to eat. I would guess that there were easier people to rob than us, some people were openly careless with phones and wallets.
We didn’t enter the big attractions, it was too nice to be in a museum or church and quite a few have a photography ban. These bans make me laugh, they are totally ignored by many ( Japanese particularly) people. Having travelled around the world to see something, no one is going to stop them getting their selfies. Selfies? Everywhere people pointed their cameras at their own face, walking around videoing – their self! I do like to have a few photos of us for posterity but these people are self-obsessed.
Paris has obviously got a problem with homeless (mostly) migrants. Walk a distance along the River Seine and you will find tented villages, there is a powerful smell of urine in every corner, with the no alcohol restrictions ignored, empty cans and bottles stacked around the bins as evidence. There are families, woman living on mattresses with as many as four small children, on the main boulevards. They beg by day and at midnight they are all huddled asleep on the pavement. The men in the tents seem to be selling plastic Eiffel Tower models to the tourists or bottled water – even bottles of wine. Love locks and selfy sticks were also top sellers. There must be millions of locks fastened to railings around the city, mostly brass, so removing them will be self-funding as brass is £2.20 a kilo.
As for the sights we saw, well if it was on the map we tried to walk to it. We crossed the Periphique ring road to get to the outer reaches of Paris. La Defense – the financial area with dozens of modern office blocks – was impressive, and still expanding. The Bois de Boulogne park, with the horse racing track and the Louis Vuitton Centre was part of a 20 mile loop that day. Another day saw us in the north east. We had the dome of the Sacre Couer to ourselves, with thousands of tourists wandering below us oblivious of the entrance and ticket office under the church. Again the light was fantastic for us. We read that Pere Lachaise Cemetery or Cimitiere du Pere Lachaise was one of the most visited destinations, a five mile walk but we went. It is massive, you need a map, but for me one massive tomb is much the same as another, it does have highlights but we didn’t stay long. Fortunately we were now closer to the Canal St Martin which would lead us to Parc de la Villette. This was a Sunday and everywhere was both buzzing and chilled at the same time. Where ever we went people were sat watching the world go by, socializing and picnicking, soaking the sun up. As ever I wanted to go up on the roof of anything I could as I love taking cityscapes. Most of these were expensive compared with many places we’ve been to before but up we went. The Tour Montparnasse, a single tower block with 59 floors, 690 foot high and extremely fast lifts has incredible views although it was a touch hazy on our ascent. The Arc de Triomphe was just up the road from our hotel, we went up it within hours of arriving, well worth the visit.
At the time of writing I have no idea how many images will make the cut but it will be a lot. If I have ten subtly different shots of something, I find it hard to consign nine to the dark depths of my hard drive never to be seen again – and I’m not very good at ruthless selection – so if the photo is OK it will get uploaded. My view is that it’s my photostream, I like to be able to browse my own work at my leisure at a later date, it’s more or less free and stats tell me these images will get looked at. I’m not aiming for single stunning shots, more of a comprehensive overview of an interesting place, presented to the best of my current capabilities. I am my own biggest critic, another reason for looking at my older stuff is to critique it and look to improve on previous mistakes. I do get regular requests from both individuals and organisations to use images and I’m obliging unless someone is taking the piss. I’m not bothered about work being published (with my permission) but it is reassuringly nice to be asked. The manipulation of Flickr favourites and views through adding thousands of contacts doesn’t interest me and I do sometimes question the whole point of the Flickr exercise. I do like having access to my own back catalogue though and it gives family and friends the chance to read about the trip and view the photos at their leisure so for the time being I’m sticking with it. I do have over 15 million views at the moment which is a far cry from showing a few people an album, let’s face it, there’s an oversupply of images, many of them superb but all being devalued by the sheer quantity available.
Don’t think that it was all walking and photography, we had a great break and spent plenty of time in pavement bistros having a glass of wine and people watching. I can certainly understand why Paris is top of the travellers list of destinations.
Graffiti (plural; singular graffiti or graffito, the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).
Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions
"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".
The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.
The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.
Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.
Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:
Wet with cool dew drops
fragrant with perfume from the flowers
came the gentle breeze
jasmine and water lily
dance in the spring sunshine
side-long glances
of the golden-hued ladies
stab into my thoughts
heaven itself cannot take my mind
as it has been captivated by one lass
among the five hundred I have seen here.
Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.
Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.
There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.
Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.
The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.
In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:
During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".
Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.
While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’
Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.
An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.
Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983
Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture
Main article: Commercial graffiti
With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.
In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".
Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.
Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.
Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.
Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.
There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.
The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.
Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.
Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis
Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.
Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.
Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"
Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal
In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.
Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.
Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.
Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.
With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.
Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.
Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.
Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.
Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.
Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.
Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.
Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.
The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.
I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.
The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.
Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.
Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.
In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".
There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.
Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.
A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.
By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.
Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.
In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.
A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.
From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.
Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.
Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.
In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.
Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.
In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.
In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."
In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.
In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.
In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.
In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.
In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.
The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.
To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."
In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.
In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.
Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".
Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)
In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.
Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.
Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.
In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.
Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.
Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.
To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.
When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.
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This is another project I have been working on entitled, "the walls we build".
north end, boise, id
taken 19 september 2024
mamiya 7ii
mamiya 65mm f/4
kodak portra 160
Scanned with dslr
Home developed
cinestill cs41
3 min 30 sec
Despite the snow, 47416 is on time as it heads a diverted Newcastle - Poole service down the now closed Leamside line near Washington. February 1984.
Problems with uploading today! Photos obviously not being seen - no views. Flickr is apparently working to fix the upload issue.
Wednesday, 10 June 2020: our temperature around 2:00 pm is 20C (windchill 20C). Sunrise is at 5:21 am, and sunset is at 9:50 pm. Sun and cloud.
Yesterday, 9 June 2020, I drove SE of the city to the Frank Lake area. Though the gate has been open for a while, the water level is higher than I have ever seen it in years. Really not worth the drive at the moment, as the blind is boarded up to prevent people going in there while social-distancing is in effect. The boardwalk is totally under water and the blind looks like it is floating out in a lake. I stayed on the road, rather than walk across the grass to get closer - had visions of suddenly sinking down into flooded grass. Presumably the water level of the whole area will eventually lower. The only photos I took was when I was driving along the gravel road.
I did see one interesting thing along the gravel road - a Brown-headed Cowbird doing a head-down display. This was something I had never seen before and I was totally unaware that Brown-headed Cowbirds have this behaviour. Many times, I have seen several of these highly gregarious birds sitting together on a fence railing, with their heads all pointing upwards at the exact same angle. When I first saw this bird, it had its back to me and it was lying flat on a rock. It looked iridescent and reminded me a little of a Tree Swallow. Then it stood up and eventually put its head down and spread its wings. There were several other Cowbirds flying around. Nice to learn something new!
After checking out the blind area from my car, I drove around the lake, finding just a handful of birds to photograph. Nothing unusual, but I enjoyed seeing and photographing 'anything' right now : ) From there, I drove north and out on to the main highway back to the city.
The weather was absolutely gorgeous - blue sky with masses of white clouds. Pretty windy, but I was in my car most of the time, so it didn't matter.