One of the lessons learned in World War II was the value of radar in intercepting aircraft: Chain Home radar used during the Battle of Britain proved invaluable to the Royal Air Force in getting its fighters in the air to fend off Luftwaffe attacks. Ground radar, however, was generally limited to line-of-sight, thus the curvature of the Earth prevented long-range detection.

 

To put large ground radars aloft required a bigger aircraft, and in June 1949, the US Navy acquired two Lockheed L-749 Constellation airliners, adding an APS-45 height-finder radar above the fuselage and an APS-20 search radar below it. Despite the ungainly appearance of the aircraft, flight performance was not overly handicapped and the experiment was deemed a success. Initially designated PO-1W, the Navy changed the designation to WV-2 in 1952, as production aircraft were based on the larger, longer-ranged L-1049 Super Constellation; though it was officially named Warning Star by Lockheed, its crews used the phonetic alphabet to coin a more long-lasting nickname: Willy Victor. The usefulness of an airborne early warning aircraft was apparent to the USAF as well, and in 1953, it acquired WV-2s diverted from Navy production, designated EC-121D.

 

The initial purpose of both the WV-2s and EC-121s was to operate the “ocean barrier,” along the coasts of the United States, providing early warning of any Soviet attack from the sea or against Alaska or Hawaii. Typically up to five aircraft from either or both services would be on station at any given time, and EC-121s were forward deployed to Japan and Iceland as well. These aircraft were used extensively during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, tracking Soviet ships approaching the blockade line, as well as monitoring Cuban air activity over the island itself. As satellites began to take over the early warning role, the barrier patrols were discontinued in 1965.

 

It would be in Vietnam that the AEW concept first proved itself. At the beginning of Operation Rolling Thunder in 1965, there were significant gaps in American radar coverage of North Vietnam, and 7th Air Force requested a detachment of EC-121Ds be deployed to Southeast Asia under Operation Big Eye. Orbiting over Laos, the EC-121s did provide some assistance to USAF strike crews, while US Navy WV-2s did the same over Tonkin Gulf; the first successful EC-121 controlled intercept took place in July 1965 and resulted in the downing of two MiG-17s.

 

However, as the EC-121 had been designed to detect targets over water, the mountains of North Vietnam provided plenty of hiding places for North Vietnamese MiG fighters, communications between fighters and controllers was poor, and the APS-70 height finder did not have the range from Laos to reach the vital “Pak Six” area over Hanoi, which limited Big Eye EC-121s primarily to raid warning. Moreover, the air conditioning system on the EC-121 had never been designed for a tropical environment, and eight-hour missions in a sweltering hot fuselage were distinctly uncomfortable.

 

Beginning in April 1967, USAF strike forces began noticing a distinct improvement in the EC-121s’ raid warning and interception coordination, as their callsign shifted to College Eye. Unbeknownst to most of the USAF, the EC-121s had been secretly fitted with QRC-248 sensors that homed in on the Identification Friend/Foe (IFF) signals sent out by North Vietnamese MiGs. College Eye EC-121s still could not give altitude, but they could instantly warn the force when MiGs were taking off and their general direction of attack.

 

Now with the callsign Disco, EC-121Ts could, in theory, provide instant detection, warning, and coordination for American fighters; Disco was, however, limited by its radar setup, the need to route information through the ground-based Teaball system, and the secretive nature of its equipment. Rarely was Disco able to give real-time warning. When the system worked, however, it was very effective. 25 MiG kills were made with College Eye/Disco assistance, while rescue coordination by EC-121s led to the recovery of 80 downed Americans. Despite 98,000 combat hours, no EC-121s were lost during the Vietnam War to enemy action.

 

The limitations of the EC-121 and its increasing age (there were no losses over Vietnam, but accidents elsewhere cost both services no less than 31 aircraft) meant that, following the end of American involvement in Vietnam, a more advanced replacement was required: the US Navy had already begun with the introduction of the E-2 Hawkeye, while the USAF began experimenting with the EC-137D, which became the E-3 Sentry. The EC-121 was gradually withdrawn, with the last EC-121T of the USAF leaving Air Force Reserve units in 1979. 232 aircraft were built and 12 survive in museums.

 

This EC-121T, 52-3417, is the oldest surviving Warning Star left, and has a personal connection to myself and one of my friends. It entered service as an RC-121D, before the designation was switched to an EC-121D and it was upgraded to an EC-121T. It may have served with the 552nd AWCW at McClellan AFB, California and possibly saw service in Vietnam as a College Eye or Disco AWACS. As the EC-121s began to be replaced by the E-3 Sentry, 52-3417 was reassigned to the 915th AWCG (Reserve) at Homestead AFB, Florida. It was retired in 1976, but in 1981, the Helena Vo-Tech (now the University of Montana-Helena College of Technology) obtained 52-3417 as a ground instructional trainer. It would remain at Helena for the next 36 years.

 

In 2008, the college no longer had a use for 52-3417, as it was long obsolete, and offered it to any museum willing to clean it up and move it. The Evergreen Air Museum in McMinnville, Oregon took up the challenge: not only would they clean it, they would restore 52-3417 to flyable status and ferry it from Montana to Oregon. The museum had nearly completed work on it when Evergreen International, the museum's patron, went bankrupt. Work halted on 52-3417, and it seemed that it was stuck again. Finally, in 2017, the Castle Air Museum acquired the aircraft. It was not flown, however, but rather dismantled and moved by rail. It was reassembled and went on display in 2019.

 

52-3417 is still showing the effects of being in Montana winters for 36 years: its markings are faded, though they still show the 915th's crest on the tail and "AFRES" on the fuselage. Plans are to restore the aircraft at some point to its former glory, but at least it is now at a museum.

 

For me, this picture is the culmination of almost a decade trying to get a shot of 52-3417! I saw it many times when Dad and I, or friends, would pass through Helena, but either I never had a camera or I couldn't get a good shot. The last time I made the try was in 2017, but a snowstorm blocked my view, and it was moved to Castle afterwards. Finally, in May 2021, I got this picture. For my friend Nate, who was the driver on the 2021 trip, this was a bit more personal: he had worked on this aircraft during his time at Vo-Tech in the early 1980s.

 

SN/NC: Ocimum basilicum, Lamiacaeae Family

 

Basil is an important economic crop producing annually 100 tonnes of essential oil worldwide and with a trade value as a pot herb of around US$15 million per year. It is also widely used in systems of indigenous medicine.

 

Planta denominada vulgarmente como albahaca o alhábega, es una hierba aromática anual de la familia de las lamiáceas nativa de Irán, India, Pakistán y otras regiones tropicales de Asia, que lleva siendo cultivada varios milenios

 

Nomes comuns no Brasil: manjericão, basilico, manjericão roxo, manjericão folha-de-alface, basilico, manjericão, alfavaca, alfavacão, basilicão, erva-real, quioiô, remédio-de-vaqueiro.

Uma das ervas mais populares da culinária internacional, o Ocimum basilicum L., popularmente conhecido como manjericão, alfavaca, basilicão ou até quioiô (Bahia), chegou ao Brasil por intermédio da imigração italiana, cujas receitas de pesto e pizza marguerita estão entre as mais populares. Aromática, de alto valor nutricional (estão presente nas folhas bons níveis de Ferro, Vit. A, Cálcio, Magnésio e Vit. C, entre outras), ganhou o gosto popular e disseminou-se país a fora, inclusive como planta medicinal.

 

Plante appelée vulgairement comme Basil ou alhábega, est une plante aromatique annuelle de la famille des Lamiaceae natifs de l'Iran, l'Inde, le Pakistan et d'autres régions tropicales de l'Asie, qui a été cultivé depuis plusieurs millénaires

 

Pianta chiamata volgarmente come basilico o Alhábega, è una erba aromatica annuale della famiglia dei nativi Lamiaceae di Iran, India, Pakistan e altre regioni tropicali dell'Asia, che è stata coltivata per diversi millenni.

 

Plant genoemd schamen zoals basilicum of Alhábega, is een jaarlijkse aromatische kruid van de familie van de inheemse Lamiaceae van Iran, India, Pakistan en andere tropische regio's van Azië, die al verscheidene duizenden jaren gecultiveerd

 

Pflanze genannt vulgarly als Basilikum oder Alhábega, ist eine jährliche aromatische Kräuter der Familie der einheimischen (Lamiaceae) des Iran, Indien, Pakistan und anderen tropischen Regionen Asiens, die seit mehreren Jahrtausenden kultiviert wurde

 

نبات يسمي الفرج والريحان أو الحبيده ، هو عشب العطرية السنوية للاسره من الهنود الحمر من إيران والهند وباكستان وغيرها من المناطق المدارية في اسيا ، والتي تم زراعتها لعده آلاف من السنهين

Value @ Bridgetown 3/22/14

Vineland NJ. Vacant store. Great light...

Crayon sur papier. Traces de gommage .

Nancy, musée des Beaux-Arts.

mban.nancy.fr/.

www.culture.gouv.fr/public/mistral/joconde_fr?ACTION=CHER...

Very Old machine it is one of the effects of the English colonization of Egypt

 

Are currently in one of the old houses whos owned by one of the very poor Egyptians in a very very poor area.

 

The most IMPORTANT ISSUE is that no one knows its there and no one knows the value of this ...ARCHEOLOGICAL...MACHINE...

 

...UNTIL NOW !!!

 

...IMAGINE THAT ...?!?!?!

Edward Dawutey, Waste Water Treatment Plant Technician, tests treated water at our Tema factory in Ghana.

'Alternating' contrasts and values- this quilt hangs in my studio. It is still one of my favorite quilts. Pattern by Kathy Doughty Vintage Spins . Prompt 129 'alternating ' cy365

 

Farmer Anton Roets measures irrigation at Goue Akker Farm, which supplies milk to the Nestlé factory in Mossel Bay, South Africa.

The history of the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts/Contemporary Art

1863 / After many years of efforts by Rudolf Eitelberger decides Emperor Franz Joseph I on 7 March on the initiative of his uncle Archduke Rainer, following the model of the in 1852 founded South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum, London), the establishment of the "k. k. Austrian Museum for Art and Industry" and apponted Rudolf von Eitelberger, the first professor of art history at the University of Vienna, to director. The museum should be serving as a specimen collection for artists, industrialists, and public and as a training and education center for designers and craftsmen.

1864/ on 12th of May, opened the museum - provisionally in premises of the ball house next to the Vienna Hofburg, the architect Heinrich von Ferstel for museum purposes had adapted. First exhibited objects are loans and donations from the imperial collections, monasteries, private property and from the kk polytechnic in Vienna. Reproductions, masters and plaster casts are standing value-neutral next originals.

1865-1897 / The Museum of Art and Industry publishes the journal Communications of Imperial (k. k.) Austrian Museum for Art and Industry .

1866 / Due to the lack of space in the ballroom setting up of an own museum building is accelerated. A first project of Rudolf von Eitelberger and Heinrich von Ferstel provides the integration of the museum in the project of imperial museums in front of the Hofburg Imperial Forum. Only after the failure of this project, the site of the former Exerzierfelds (parade ground) of the defense barracks before Stubentor the museum here is assigned, next to the newly created city park on the still being under development Rind Road.

1867 / Theoretical and practical training are combined with the establishment of the School of Applied Arts. This will initially be housed in the old gun factory, Währinger Straße 11-13/Schwarzspanierstrasse 17, Vienna 9.

1868 / With the construction of the building at Stubenring is started as soon as it is approved by Emperor Franz Joseph I. the second draft of Heinrich Ferstel.

1871 / The opening of the building at Stubering takes place after three years of construction, 15 November. Designed according to plans by Heinrich von Ferstel in the Renaissance style, it is the first built museum building on the ring. Objects from now on could be placed permanently and arranged according to main materials. / / The Arts School moves into the house on Stubenring. / / Opening of Austrian art and crafts exhibition.

1873 / Vienna World Exhibition. / / The Museum of Art and Industry and the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts are exhibiting together at Stubenring. / / Rudolf von Eitelberger organizes in the framework of the World Exhibition the worldwide first international art scientific congress in Vienna, thus emphasizing the orientation of the Museum on teaching and research. / / During the World Exhibition major purchases for the museum of funds of the Ministry are made, eg 60 pages of Indo-Persian Journal Mughal manuscript Hamzanama.

1877 / decision on the establishment of taxes for the award of Hoftiteln (court titels). With the collected amounts the local art industry can be promoted. / / The new building of the School of Applied Arts, adjoining the museum, Stubenring 3 , also designed by Heinrich von Ferstel, is opened.

1878 / participation of the Museum of Art and Industry and the School of Art at the Paris World Exhibition.

1884 / founding of the Vienna Arts and Crafts Association with seat in the museum. Many well-known companies and workshops (led by J. & L. Lobmeyr), personalities and professors of the arts and crafts school join the Arts and Crafts Association. Undertaking of this association is to further develop all creative and executive powers the arts and crafts since the 1860s has obtained. For this reason are organized various times changing, open to the public exhibitions at the Imperial Austrian Museum for Art and Industry. The exhibits can also be purchased. These new, generously carried out exhibitions give the club the necessary national and international resonance.

1885 / After the death of Rudolf von Eitelberger is Jacob von Falke, his longtime deputy, appointed manager. Falke plans all collection areas als well as publications to develop newly and systematically. With his popular publications he influences significantly the interior design style of the historicism in Vienna.

1888 / The Empress Maria Theresa exhibition revives the contemporary discussion with the high baroque in the history of art and in applied arts in particular.

1895 / end of the Directorate of Jacob von Falke. Bruno Bucher, longtime curator of the Museum of metal, ceramic and glass, and since 1885 deputy director, is appointed director.

1896 / The Vienna Congress exhibition launches the confrontation with the Empire and Biedermeier style, the sources of inspiration of Viennese Modernism .

1897 / end of the Directorate of Bruno Bucher. Arthur von Scala, Director of the Imperial Oriental Museum in Vienna since its founding in 1875 (renamed Imperial Austrian Trade Museum 1887), takes over the management of the Museum of Art and Industry. / / Scala wins Otto Wagner, Felician of Myrbach, Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffmann and Alfred Roller to work at the museum and school of applied arts. / / The style of the Secession is crucial for the Arts and Crafts School. Scala propagated the example of the Arts and Crafts Movement and makes appropriate acquisitions for the museum's collection.

1898 / Due to differences between Scala and the Arts and Crafts Association, which sees its influence on the Museum wane, Archduke Rainer puts down his function as protector. / / New statutes are written.

1898-1921 / The Museum magazine art and crafts replaces the Mittheilungen (Communications) and soon gaines international reputation.

1900 / The administration of Museum and Arts and Crafts School is disconnected.

1904 / The Exhibition of Old Vienna porcelain, the to this day most comprehensive presentation on this topic, brings with the by the Museum in 1867 definitely taken over estate of the " k. k. Aerarial Porcelain Manufactory" (Vienna Porcelain Manufactory) important pieces of collectors from all parts of the Habsburg monarchy together.

1907 / The Museum of Art and Industry takes over the majority of the inventories of the Imperial Austrian Trade Museum, including the by Arthur von Scala founded Asia collection and the extensive East Asian collection of Heinrich von Siebold .

1908 / Integration of the Museum of Art and Industry in the Imperial and Royal Ministry of Public Works.

1909 / separation of Museum and Arts and Crafts School, the latter remains subordinated to the Ministry of Culture and Education. / / After three years of construction, the according to plans of Ludwig Baumann extension building of the museum (now Weiskirchnerstraße 3, Wien 1) is opened. The museum receives thereby rooms for special and permanent exhibitions. / / Arthur von Scala retires, Eduard Leisching follows him as director. / / Revision of the statutes.

1909 / Archduke Carl exhibition. For the centenary of the Battle of Aspern. / / The Biedermeier style is discussed in exhibitions and art and crafts.

1914 / Exhibition of works by the Austrian art industry from 1850 to 1914, a competitive exhibition that highlights, among other things, the role model of the museum of arts and crafts in the fifty years of its existence.

1919 / After the founding of the First Republic it comes to assignments of former imperial possession to the museum, for example, of oriental carpets that are shown in an exhibition in 1920. The Museum now has one of the finest collections of oriental carpets worldwide .

1920 / As part of the reform of museums of the First Republic, the collection areas are delineated. The Antiquities Collection of the Museum of Art and Industry is given away to the Museum of Art History.

1922 / The exhibition of glasses of classicism, the Empire and Biedermeier time offers with precious objects from the museum and private collections an overview of the art of glassmaking from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. / / Biedermeier glass serves as a model for contemporary glass production and designs, such as Josef Hoffmann.

1922 / affiliation of the museal inventory of the royal table and silver collection to the museum. Until the institutional separation the former imperial household and table decoration is co-managed by the Museum of Art and Industry and is inventoried for the first time by Richard Ernst.

1925 / After the end of the Directorate of Eduard Leisching Hermann Trenkwald is appointed director.

1926 / The exhibition Gothic in Austria gives a first comprehensive overview of the Austrian panel painting and of arts and crafts of the 12th to 16th Century.

1927 / August Schestag succeeds Hermann Trenkwald as director .

1930 / The Werkbund (artists' organization) Exhibition Vienna, A first comprehensive presentation of the Austrian Werkbund, takes place on the occasion of the meeting of the Deutscher Werkbund in Austria, it is organized by Josef Hoffmann in collaboration with Oskar Strnad, Josef Frank, Ernst Lichtblau and Clemens Holzmeister.

1931 / August Schestag finishes his Directorate .

1932 / Richard Ernst is the new director .

1936 and 1940 / In exchange with the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Art History), the museum at Stubenring gives away part of the sculptures and takes over craft inventories of the collection Albert Figdor and the Kunsthistorisches Museum.

1937 / The Collection of the Museum of Art and Industry is re-established by Richard Ernst according to periods. / / Oskar Kokoschka exhibition on the 50th birthday of the artist.

1938 / After the "Anschluss" of Austria by Nazi Germany, the museum was renamed "National Museum of Decorative Arts in Vienna".

1939-1945 / The museums are taking over numerous confiscated private collections. The collection of the "State Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna" is also enlarged in this way.

1945 / Partial destruction of the museum building by impact of war. / / War losses on collection objects, even in the places of rescue of objects.

1946 / The return of the outsourced objects of art begins. A portion of the during the Nazi time expropriated objects is returned in the following years.

1947 / The "State Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna" is renamed "Austrian Museum of Applied Arts".

1948 / The "Cathedral and Metropolitan Church of St. Stephen" organizes the exhibition The St. Stephen's Cathedral in the Museum of Applied Arts. History, monuments, reconstruction.

1949 / The Museum is reopened after repair of the war damages.

1950 / As last exhibition under director Richard Ernst takes place Great art from Austria's monasteries (Middle Ages).

1951 / Ignaz Schlosser is appointed manager.

1952 / The exhibition Social home decor, designed by Franz Schuster, makes the development of social housing in Vienna again the topic of the Museum of Applied Arts.

1955 / The comprehensive archive of the Wiener Werkstätte (workshop) is acquired.

1955-1985 / The Museum publishes the periodical ancient and modern art .

1956 / Exhibition New Form from Denmark, modern design from Scandinavia becomes topic of the museum and model.

1957 / On the occasion of the exhibition Venini Murano glass, the first presentation of Venini glass in Austria, there are significant purchases and donations for the collection of glass.

1958 / End of the Directorate Ignaz Schlosser

1959 / Viktor Griesmaier is appointed as the new director.

1960 / Exhibition Artistic creation and mass production of Gustavsberg, Sweden. Role model of Swedish design for the Austrian art and crafts.

1963 / For the first time in Europe, in the context of a comprehensive exhibition art treasures from Iran are shown.

1964 / The exhibition Vienna 1900 presents Crafts of Art Nouveau for the first time after the Second World War. / / It is started with the systematic processing of the archive of the Wiener Werkstätte. / / On the occasion of the founding anniversary grantes the exhibition 100 years Austrian Museum of Applied Arts using examples of historicism insights into the collection.

1965 / The Geymüllerschlössel is as a branch of the Museum angegliedert (annexed). Gleichzeitig (at the same time) with the building came the important collection of Franz Sobek - old Viennese clocks, emerged between 1760 and the second half of the 19th Century - and furniture from the years 1800 to 1840 in the possession of the MAK.

1966 / In the exhibition Selection 66 selected items of modern Austrian interior designers (male and female ones) are merged.

1967 / The Exhibition The Wiener Werkstätte. Modern Arts and Crafts from 1903 to 1932 is founding the boom that continues to today of Austria's most important design project in the 20th Century.

1968 / On Viktor Griesmaier follows Wilhelm Mrazek as director.

1969 / The exhibition Sitting 69 shows on the international modernism oriented positions of Austrian designers, inter alia by Hans Hollein.

1974 / For the first time outside of China Archaeological Finds of the People's Republic of China are shown in a traveling exhibition in the so-called Western world.

1979 / Gerhart Egger is appointed director .

1980 / The exhibition New Living. Viennese interior design 1918-1938 provides the first comprehensive presentation of the art space in Vienna during the interwar period.

1981 / Herbert Fux follows Gerhart Egger as Director.

1984 / Ludwig Neustift is appointed interim director. / / Exhibition Achille Castiglioni: Designer. First exhibition of the Italian designer in Austria

1986 / Peter NOEVER is appointed as Director and started building up the collection of contemporary art.

1987 / Josef Hoffmann. Ornament between hope and crime is the first comprehensive exhibition on the work of the architect and designer.

1989-1993 / General renovation of thee old buildings and construction of a two-storey underground storeroom and a connecting tract. A generous deposit for collection and additional exhibit spaces arise.

1989 / Exhibition Carlo Scarpa. The other city, the first comprehensive exhibition on the work of the architect outside Italy.

1990 / exhibition Hidden impressions. Japonisme in Vienna 1870-1930, first exhibition on the theme of the Japanese influence on the Viennese Modernism.

1991 / exhibition Donald Judd Architecture, first major presentation of the artist in Austria.

1992 / Magdalena Jetelová domestication of a pyramid (installation in the MAK portico).

1993 / The permanent collection is re-established, interventions of internationally recognized artists (Barbara Bloom, Eichinger oder Knechtl, Günther Förg, GANGART, Franz Graf, Jenny Holzer, Donald Judd, Peter Noever, Manfred Wakolbinger and Heimo Zobernig) update the prospects, in the sense of "Tradition and Experiment". The halls on Stubenring accommodate furthermore the study collection and the temporary exhibitions of contemporary artists reserved gallery. The building in the Weiskirchnerstraße is dedicated to changing exhibitions. / / The opening exhibition Vito Acconci. The City Inside Us shows a room installation by New York artist.

1994 / The Gefechtsturm (defence tower) Arenbergpark becomes branch of the MAK. / / Start of the cooperation MAK/MUAR - Schusev State Museum of Architecture Moscow. / / Ilya Kabakov: The Red Wagon (installation on the MAK terrace plateau).

1995 / The MAK founds the branch of MAK Center for Art and Architecture in Los Angeles, in the Schindler House and at the Mackey Apartments, MAK Artists and Architects-in-Residence Program starts in October 1995. / / Exhibition Sergei Bugaev Africa : Krimania.

1996 / For the exhibition Philip Johnson: Turning Point designs the American doyen of architectural designing the sculpture "Viennese Trio", which is located since 1998 at the Franz-Josefs-Kai/Schottenring.

1998 / The for the exhibition James Turrell. The other Horizon designed Skyspace today stands in the garden of MAK Expositur Geymüllerschlössel. / / Overcoming the utility. Dagobert Peche and the Wiener Werkstätte, the first comprehensive Personale of the work of the designer of Wiener Werkstätte after the Second World War.

1999 / Due to the Restitution Act and the Provenance Research from now on numerous during the Nazi time confiscated objects are returned .

2000 / Outsourcing the federal museums, transforming the museum into a "scientific institution under public law". / / The exhibition of art and industry. The beginnings of the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna are dealing with the founding history of the house and the collection.

2001 / As part of the exhibition Franz West: No Mercy, for which the sculptor and installation artist developed his hitherto most extensive work the "Four lemurs heads " are placed at the Stubenbrücke located next to the MAK. / / Dennis Hopper: A System of Moments.

2001-2002 / The CAT Project - Contemporary Art Tower after New York, Los Angeles, Moscow and Berlin in Vienna is presented.

2002 / Exhibition Nodes. symmetrical-asymmetrical. The historic Oriental Carpets of the MAK presents the extensive rug collection.

2003 / Exhibition Zaha Hadid. Architecture. / / For the anniversary of the artist workshop, the exhibition The Price of Beauty. 100 years Wiener Werkstätte takes place. / / Richard Artschwager: The Hydraulic Door Check. Sculpture, painting, drawing.

2004 / James Turrell MAKlite is since November 2004 permanently on the facade of the building installed. / / Exhibition Peter Eisenmann. Barefoot on White-Hot Walls, large-scaled architectural installation on the work of the influential American architect and theorist.

2005 / Atelier Van Lieshout: The Disziplinatornbsp / / The exhibition Ukiyo-e Reloaded for the first time presents the collection of Japanese woodblock prints of the MAK in large scale.

2006 / Since the beginning of the year the birthplace of Josef Hoffmann in Brtnice of the Moravian Gallery in Brno and the MAK Vienna as a joint branch is run and presents special exhibitions annually. / / The exhibition The Price of Beauty. The Wiener Werkstätte and the Stoclet House brings the objects of the Wiener Werkstätte to Brussels. / / Exhibition Jenny Holzer: XX.

2007/2008 / Exhibition Coop Himmelb(l)au. Beyond the Blue, is the hitherto largest and most comprehensive museal presentation of the global team of architects .

2008 / The 1936 according to plans of Rudolph M. Schindler built Fitzpatrick-Leland House, a generous gift from Russ Leland to the MAK Center LA, becomes using a promotion that granted the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department the MAK Center, the center of the MAK UFI project - MAK Urban Future Initiative. / / Julian Opie: Recent Works / / The exhibition Recollecting. Looting and Restitution examines the status of efforts to restitute expropriated objects from Jewish property of museums in Vienna.

2009 / The permanent exhibition Josef Hoffmann: Inspiration is in the Josef Hoffmann Museum, Brtnice opened. / / Exhibition Anish Kapoor. Shooting into the Corner / / The museum sees itself as a promoter of Cultural Interchange and discusses in the exhibition Global:lab Art as a message. Asia and Europe 1500-1700 the intercultural as well as the intercontinental cultural exchange based on objects from the MAK and from international collections.

2011 / After Peter Noevers resignation Martina Kandeler-Fritsch takes over temporarily the management. / / Since 1 September Christoph Thun-Hohenstein is director of the MAK.

www.mak.at/das_mak/geschichte

Gentlepersons:

 

The Kodachrome Pictures:

 

These recently uploaded Kodachrome pictures have no artistic value. They were just uploaded to be representative of consumer Kodachrome picture recording during about 70 of the 75 years that Kodachrome was commercially available to the public. Unlike in today’s digital world it took time, money and effort to make a Kodachrome slide. We took fewer pictures, trying to stretch resources, but some are still frivolous.

 

I’m 97 (2016) and all tuckered out. I probably will not post much more. The ratio of today’s digital pictures that are kept for any length of time and/or printed is much less than the film photos taken in days past. History will be lost. Meanwhile you get to be bored by some old Kodachromes, Anscochromes, a Dufaycolor and perhaps an old black&white or so.

 

The Camera:

 

Most of these pictures are not very sharp. They were taken with an Argus AF 35mm miniature Bakelite camera bought in 1938 at the USNA by saving much of my small student stipend for about six months. It had a Cooke style three element lens of marginal quality for its day of laughable quality compared with any of today’s SLR lenses. It had slightly better resolving ability than today’s ever more scarce disposable film cameras. The AF was an Argus upgrade which enabled the camera to focus at different lengths from about 1.5 feet to infinity. Most consumer cameras of that day were what we call medium format today. Most of the cheaper consumer grade cameras were little more than box- cameras with single element non-focusing meniscus lenses. The larger film hid much of the softness. The then newer miniature cameras had to do better because of the smaller film exposure size.

 

The Film:

 

Kodachrome was my favorite film. My first roll in the late 30s was such a marvel to a young man. I had tried Dufaycolor which did pretty good, but if it had to be projected you had to ignore the lines of color which made up the image. Kodachrome was so much more colorful to boot. It was extremely sharp and almost grainless compared to other color and B&W processes.

 

Kodachrome was unique in American film history. Except for a licensee who used Kodachrome’s older process for a few years, nobody made anything like it. Most color films had all the color in the film. Kodachrome picked up color from the processing baths. Also unlike modern slide films which use chemical energy to reverse the negative image, Kodachrome used filtered lights to re-expose within the processing machine. Kodachrome evolved over the years, and was usually the clearest, sharpest grain free color film one could buy. That is until Kodak made a decision to reduce the budget to improve the product in favor of other products and offerings. Fuji Velvia soon eclipsed it in resolution and could be processed locally in regular E-6 mini-machines.

  

The Scanner, a Nikon IV ED:

 

The Nikon IV ED was rated by the manufacture to scan at 2900 PPI. Unlike most other scanners testing with a glass plate USAF 1951 with the resolution chart metal deposited on it, showed both vertical and horizontal resolution to be very close to that figure. When scanning a chart at maximum resolution one has to be concerned with registration between the lines on the chart and the pixel placement of the sensor. Exact registration is a hit and miss, re-trial exercise. With film the scanned bits of silver and dye clumps are randomly scattered without the need to have perfect alignment. I’d rate the IV ED at or very near 2900 PPI on film. Most scanners are over rated by 50-100%

   

City of London 9 Gracechurch Street The Crosse Keys JD Wetherspoon English Pub Cod Fish and Chips Friday with a pint of Guinness Great Value at £11.75

www.jdwetherspoon.com/pubs/all-pubs/england/london/the-cr...

Jeff McMullen, Wayne Muir, (standing) Naomi Wolfe, Ken Ralph, Annette

Schneider (seated)

 

“Closing the Space Between Us”

 

Easing the Crisis in Indigenous

Health and Education

 

Jeff McMullen

 

2007 Annual Aquinas Lecture

Australian Catholic University Ballarat

Jim-baa-yer Indigenous Unit

Friday 14th September 2007

 

I am torn as I stand here tonight between sharing what I know is happening to Aboriginal communities and wanting to be there as the sun rises tomorrow.

 

In Barunga, a Jawoyn community in southern Arnhem Land, they will walk tomorrow along a heavily trodden sandy track through the trees to bury a very young man who died way too soon. He is the son of an Aboriginal teacher, Lorraine Bennett, a woman my family thinks of as one of our favourite people in the world. My words tonight are in honour of this young life and of his wonderful mother who has taught so much to so many other children, even mine.

 

When my son, Will, now 12, and daughter, Claire, now 13, were considerably younger they sent Lorraine books, the right books, the ones she said she needed. This inspiring teacher with the beautiful smile used those books to start the first preschool in Wugularr, 120 kilometres south of Katherine.

 

Lorraine works now for the Sunrise Health Service Aboriginal Corporation which has the huge job of bringing health to people scattered across vast distances in Arnhem Land. Lorraine directs the early learning and health education project supported by Ian Thorpe’s Fountain for Youth trust. She understands that if we are to create a brighter and more hopeful life for all Australian children then we need to create the change that can only come through education. If we are to overcome the crisis in Aboriginal communities around this country we have to educate ourselves to understand the truth.

 

Over fifty years of world wandering has deepened my appreciation of the extraordinary journey made by Aboriginal people to be here today as the world’s oldest continuous culture.

 

I am not romanticising the past but it is essential to acknowledge the strength, the beauty and the value of Australia’s Indigenous cultures to understand the scale of the crisis afflicting so many of our 460,000 Indigenous people.

 

Wherever you live in Australia you need to find out the longer timelines of the history of this land and its people to understand what is happening now.

 

Here in Victoria, it was plagues of sickness following European occupation that ravaged the Wathawurrung people on this land of theirs. Not since the arrival of those European illnesses has Aboriginal culture as a whole faced such a grave threat.

 

There is a genuine emergency today in the heartland of this country but it is not mentioned once in over 500 pages of legislation rushed through our Federal Parliament to try to legitimise the illegitimate takeover of the rights of Aboriginal communities. Eerily, it is hard to find mention of children in those 500 pages of legislation.

 

The federal intervention, approved by both major political parties, almost completely misreads the real trauma and the greatest threat to Aboriginal lives.

 

What is killing most Aboriginal people 17 to 20 years before their time is a plague of chronic illness known as Syndrome X. This is a new Black Death cutting the heart out of several generations of Aboriginal people. It is both physical and mental sickness on such a scale that Aboriginal communities are now shrouded in a seemingly endless procession of funerals and mourning.

 

In the 1980’s, travelling widely in the remote communities, I used the phrase “a health emergency” to describe for governments and our nation the accelerating plague of diabetes, renal disease, strokes, hypertension and heart disease. Syndrome X has been gathering terrible force. Governments, state and federal, have held numerous inquiries, health strategies have been plotted time and again, but no Government has invested adequately in the integrated program of health, housing, work and, in particular, education that can end this preventable cluster of chronic illnesses.

 

Look at it this way. Over 70% of your family’s good health is determined by your socio-economic status : your education, the money you earn at work, the quality of your home and the health care you access. Aboriginal people, on the UN’s measurement, have the second worst quality of life on earth, outdone in squalor and disadvantage only by the poorest rural Chinese.

 

Here in the midst of a Golden Age for most Australians, when the wealth of this Aboriginal Land has built an astonishing federal surplus of over 17 billion dollars this year, we still have hundreds of thousands of Aboriginal people, the owners of this Land, living in dire poverty. They are by far the most disadvantaged of Australia’s two million people living below the poverty line. I have seen children who wander around looking for food. Thousands of children are not even enrolled for school and many teenagers wander aimlessly. Whole communities have been denied their human right to adequate food, housing, health and education. As a result we are now witnessing the very rapid disintegration of so many Aboriginal families, in remote, rural and urban communities.

 

Aboriginal people have barely wiped the tears from their eyes when there’s news of another death, especially young men who see no future in their own country, ashamed middle aged men in the grip of alcohol and illness who know they can’t support their families and broken men who die in the long grass or sometimes in a police cell.

 

Just a few years ago at Barunga we buried one of the Jawoyn’s great modern leaders. The late Bangardi Lee was just 53, young enough to be my brother. But in these parts I meet few Aboriginal men my age. Mr Lee died after suffering but never complaining about his handful of Syndrome X chronic illnesses. This thoughtful man knew that education was the key to a better chance of health for all of his community and he had asked Ian Thorpe and myself to lend a hand to try to improve the staggering 93% illiteracy in this zone of distress. As he was lowered into the ground, in the Aboriginal custom we pressed our sweat onto the coffin and I whispered a promise that I would do as he asked and do what we could until these children, the Children of the Sunrise, had the same opportunity as my own.

 

When my mother was a country child, growing up on the land near Singleton in the Hunter Valley, she lived opposite a shanty settlement of very poor Aboriginal families. She told my brothers and I that as she walked barefoot to school she came to see that it was wrong that Aboriginal children were then denied a chance to learn in that same school. In my family we felt the same way to know that in the whole of the Northern Territory only 62 Aboriginal children completed high school in government schools in 2004 as we worked with Ian Thorpe to build an early learning and health education program. My son, Will and daughter, Claire, were unsettled when they learned that Aboriginal children had so little. They, too, knew it was wrong. It was the unfairness they couldn’t bear.

 

“I know why these kids find it so hard when they start school”, Will said. “They never see a book at home.” Yes, bookless homes, scores of communities without a library or a pre-school this is part of our failure. Claire and Will truly could not imagine a childhood without books, without that world of pure joy and discovery that is opened up through reading.

 

Yet every Australian literacy study confirms that by Year 3 many Indigenous children have fallen eighteen months behind the national literacy and numeracy standards. The strugglers continue to deteriorate and by grade seven lag five years behind. How will these Australian children make their way through life with the literacy level of a six-year-old?

 

If they can’t read or write properly how will they ever find their way out of the maze of poverty and poor health? How will they get a driver’s licence to move with freedom in the wider world or ever hold down a well paying job? Almost certainly non-readers will become dependent on others for simple but sometimes critical functions. In the Jawoyn communities, Bangardi Lee used to say how distressing it was for his people to turn to outsiders, even to write letters begging for help from Canberra.

  

Closing the gap in life expectancy between Aboriginal people and the rest of Australians is our greatest national challenge. The key is to close the gap in education.

 

It is no coincidence that in regions like Arnhem Land where the median age of death of Aboriginal men is around 46, much lower than the national average of around 56 for Indigenous men, you also find these illiteracy rates as high as 93%. The explanation lies in the complex chain of factors that produce disadvantage beginning at birth and developing into a loss of control over individual lives and even the destiny of whole communities.

 

In the case of some children the disadvantage starts in utero. American scholar, Paul E. Barton, found that of fourteen major factors contributing to the racial gap in educational achievement, eight of them occurred before the child reached school. Of great interest to me was Barton’s finding that hunger, nutrition and low-birthweight were important contributors. He is not alone in these findings.

 

Syndrome X, that cluster of illnesses devastating Aboriginal lives, was for a long time explained by some as the consequence of a weak gene. I heard the same racial excuse used thirty years ago to explain the disproportionate amount of these illnesses among Native Americans or African-Americans I was filming at the time for Four Corners. But this theory has been shattered in recent years. Professor John Bertram of Monash University and a team that included the Menzies School of Health Research in the NT and the University of Mississippi examined autopsies of those who had died of the Syndrome X illnesses. They found a fascinating constant. It crossed over races but it hovered around hunger and poverty. The common factor was being born a dangerously low birth weight baby.

 

Young Aboriginal mothers are often malnourished and have untreated infections. In utero their unborn baby develops too few nephrons in the kidney. These are the tiny filters. You don’t catch up on nephrons. The hand you are dealt at birth is what you will live and die with. With too few nephrons the kidney of the Aboriginal child struggles and overcompensates, with an increased risk of scarring and ultimately early kidney disease, then premature death. I wear another hat as a Trustee of Jimmy Little’s Foundation which is committed to helping Aboriginal people on dialysis get back to their country when they are battling through the last years of their lives. Australian hospitals are now seeing the start of an avalanche of patients requiring costly dialysis but many Aboriginal people won’t get this treatment and they too will die years before their time.

 

This is the epitaph we chisel on their tombstones. Born into disadvantage and died that way.

 

A leading Aboriginal scholar, Professor Ted Wilkes and Dr Fiona Stanley of the Telethon Institute report in their landmark Western Australian assessment of Aboriginal health a disturbing pattern of hunger, poor nutrition and a high incidence of smoking and drinking even while those young Aboriginal mothers were pregnant. 49 per cent of Indigenous mothers smoked through pregnancy and 23 per cent continued to drink alcohol. These are two more of the major causes of those dangerously low birth-weight babies.

 

What distressed the researchers the most was that apparently the health education message had never reached these young people or had been ignored. If you work in education we need to make a far more vigorous and creative effort, with messages shaped by Indigenous people, to help especially young teenage mothers understand that it is not only their health that is threatened. It is the future of their child, including the child’s intellect and ability to learn.

 

This kind of education is not part of the Federal Government’s intervention in the Northern Territory.

The Federal Government has never adequately funded the vital screening and prevention programs to prevent the epidemics of illness and disease. Led by the ex-Army Captain, Mal Brough, some troops lend a hand on logistics but they should be building up the vital services that have never been provided in so many of these communities. The Volunteer GP’s are now paid by the Federal Government to complete health checks to establish an audit of a health disaster that has been assessed numerous times. They will not be there long enough to provide real treatment. When they go home the pattern of chronic illness will remain.

 

The Northern Territory Intervention patronisingly ignores the good work by Aboriginal medical services, staffed by black and white Australians who can never get the adequate primary health care funding they need.

Mal Brough’s Intervention is a show of concern but it offers very little treatment for the conditions or illnesses of poverty that afflict these children.

Most of these children will never access the pharmaceutical benefits scheme because there are chemist shops in Aboriginal communities. They will not access the medical benefits scheme either because there may be only one GP for a vast area of the Northern Territory.

 

According to the National Rural health Alliance the number of Australian-trained GP’s choosing

to bring care to the seven million Australians living in the bush has plummeted.

 

The Aboriginal Health Services need more nurses, dentists and other health professionals. Their patients are about five times sicker than other Australians.

Aboriginal children have ailments hardly seen in our cities in thirty years, including the world’s highest rate of acute rheumatic heart fever, scabies, anaemia and other diseases of poverty, and otitis media, middle ear infections which cause serious loss of hearing and become a life long learning disability for over 80% of the Jawoyn children. These infections, which are detected in babies as young as three months spread rapidly in overcrowded houses, often with ten, fifteen or more people crowded together, sleeping on old mattresses. There’s broken plumbing, stoves and fridges often don’t work and there’s no one with a real plan to help them find their way out of this maze of poverty and bad health.

 

Patrick Dodson has stated firmly that only the Federal Government has the level of funding required to change this health disaster. This year, the Aboriginal Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commissioner, Tom Calma decided to lead the Close the Gap campaign to focus our nation on this task at the start of a long federal election season. Cathy Freeman, Ian Thorpe and virtually every significant health organization in this land have joined forces to communicate a hopeful and positive message that within a decade we can make true progress and that with the will and the national commitment we will see that the ten thousand Aboriginal children born this year finally move towards a genuine equality of opportunity.

 

The Australian Medical Association, using estimates shaped by the health economist John Deeble, has estimated that an additional $460 million dollars a year is urgently required for primary health care in Aboriginal communities. I have pleaded for the past six years with the Federal Government to create the emergency level of aid that is required to deal with this genuine emergency. Kevin Rudd has put a couple of hundred million dollars on the table for an increased commitment to Indigenous Health. If the Prime Minister wants to see change in the lives of abused and neglected Aboriginal children he should now make a stronger commitment to provide the required level of Primary Health Care. I am not interested in more blaming. Let’s stop talking and get this done. In that prized future fund we have the bounty. Now we must have the belief. Let me share with you the proof that it can be done.

 

A good deal of research, especially by the Canadian scientist, Dr Fraser Mustard, has established that for every additional year of education provided to a whole community of young teenage women, we will add up to four years life expectancy to their first child.

 

Professor Ken Wyatt, formerly head of Aboriginal Health in NSW and now in charge of Western Australia’s Aboriginal health policy, adds another great incentive. Increasing the education of those young women by a single year can also reduce the danger of infant mortality when they give birth by between 7 and 10%. This is what I think of when I say, “Literacy is for life”.

 

What more motivation or sense of purpose can we want to create a very different kind of intervention : primary health care, managed and delivered by well funded Aboriginal health organizations, and education on a revolutionary scale that we have never provided Aboriginal children. Guaranteed pre-school education for all Australian children would be a great place to start. Go Kevin 07! But come on John! If you are going to fight out this election Prime Minister and offer a plan for the future, radically boost the investment in early learning.

 

Indigenous children are so disadvantaged that we need a literacy brigade of well educated people to rapidly lift the rate of learning. After I made this proposal two years ago at the Garma National Education Conference in the Northern Territory, the Minister for Indigenous Affairs responded by inviting the so called Grey Panthers to visit some remote communities in their caravans. This, as every teacher knows, is simply not enough.

 

The most disadvantaged students, in fact, require the highest standards of teaching. Some retired teachers and principals would have those talents and many others with appropriate cultural training could support these badly undermanned schools. The real champions of Indigenous education like Dr Chris Sara believe that the first step is to retrain principals to retrain their teachers to believe that Aboriginal children can reach the same standard of learning as the rest of Australian children.

But as with health workers, we need to fund an adequate education force equal to the great national task ahead of us.

 

I escorted the Federal Education Minister to one of the remote communities to show her that this can be done.

At Ian Thorpe’s Fountain for Youth Trust we have had some good support from the Federal Education department for our seven year effort to help improve the health and education of all Australian children.

 

Ian has been a true champion, visiting many of the remote communities, encouraging the children, their parents and their teachers. He is a strong man, with a big heart and a very fine mind. When asked how long he will persist in this work, he says, until we get the job done.

 

Charles Perkins told me many years ago that for Aboriginal people the road to equality would be a very long and hard one. We have to remain relentless and find the best in one another. Aboriginal people have been teaching me this for years.

 

Our strategy at Ian Thorpe’s Fountain for Youth trust is to focus on the well being of the young mothers, with early learning for their infants and a highly successful program of support for literacy at the primary school level.

 

Our Literacy Backpacks are tackling those bookless homes and supporting the NT teachers by closing the space between the school and the home. First we raise funds from the public. $200 can fund a child’s Literacy Backpack for a year’s worth of good reading. We seek support from companies like Credit Suisse Australia, Kessler and Vodafone to help resource a good school library with books tailored to the Accelerated Learning strategy favoured in the remote area schools. We enrol the kids in the Scholastic or Wombat Book club so they have the same encouragement and enjoyment as my children did as they make their own selections of reading. Instead of forcing truant kids to walk around picking up rubbish and other punitive, humiliating versions of this so called “tough love” approach of the NT intervention, the teachers we work with give the children an incentive to learn, to find themselves in the book. If the kids make good progress they get vouchers to purchase any book they like from the Katherine Bookshop. It’s owner, another spirited woman who believes in education, says many of these Aboriginal families are now saving and spending hundreds of dollars to provide more books for their children.

 

In the Literacy Backpacks the children take home a selection of reading for the whole family, for their younger brothers and sisters as well. They also carry home Aboriginal newspapers like the Koori Mail and the National Indigenous Times. Magazines on nutrition, cooking and baby care are very popular among the women. It’s incentive. It’s what these families are looking for and when children see their parents reading a newspaper or a magazine about contemporary Indigenous issues they know that learning is not a “gubba thing” just for white fellas..

 

To see people reading in those once bookless homes is a great satisfaction for teachers like Lorraine Bennett. Many of these Aboriginal schools in the Jawoyn communities are seeing significant measurable increases in the reading performances of the children.

 

Some of the girls used to ask my daughter Claire, “What are you going to do next ? “Well high school first,” she’d say. “I want to run fast like Cathy Freeman, swim fast like Ian, and then go to University like mum and dad.” I like to see our kids together, the boys running wild with Will and sharing their stories. Australian children sharing dreams.

 

Most of these children have never been far from their homelands. Learning and finding out what they truly need to know, those life empowering skills, will allow them to travel and come home. The greatest sense of progress is to hear children we know now talk of going to high school in Darwin or Cairns. It’s always hard to leave home and not every kid can handle that journey. Many Aboriginal leaders would love to see new residential high schools built to let children from several different communities share their school week together and then go home for a long weekend. At the moment scholarships and a very long journey is the only way. If they can make it, their mothers and fathers glow with pride.

 

It is so important to most of these parents to see that Indigenous culture is as prized as everything else in the school syllabus. Ian Thorpe’s Trust supports Aboriginal people to train the children in music, art and dance. Where possible these talents can flow into viable work and business that allows people a real chance to move from away from life limiting welfare dependency. In Wugularr, the Aboriginal actor, Tom Lewis, and local men organised the rebuilding of a Cultural Education Centre where young people are now trained in many forms of cultural expression usually shown off proudly at the annual Walking with Spirits festival.

 

In Queensland I have collaborated with the Aboriginal educator, Ernie Grant, on his “My Land, My Tracks” project. This is a teaching aide to help orient children to find out who they really are and how they fit into the longer timelines of Australian history. My experience with communities like Yarrabah and Kuranda, near Cairns, indicates that all forms of learning rapidly improve when Aboriginal children are more secure in their cultural knowledge and can value and respect their elders and their heritage. With Ernie Grant I share a passion to see Indigenous Studies elevated in importance in all levels of Australian education. As much as I learned at University I have made an effort throughout my professional lifetime to expand and deepen my appreciation of what it really means to live in this Aboriginal land. This can be a personal journey for every Australian.

 

What is missing in the Federal Government’s intervention into Aboriginal community life is any real empathy, any sense that we are walking with them, listening and learning. I am sorry but the words do matter and there is a coldness and insensitivity about this new policy of assimilation. There has been little meaningful consultation with the Aboriginal community leaders. Some were so upset they travelled to Federal Parliament but still couldn’t meet with those planning this radical upheaval. Very few Aboriginal people that I know in the Northern Territory agree that traditional lands should be under federal control through five year leases, evolving possibly into 99 year leases. Most are opposed to ending the permit system. Many more are fearful that John Howard’s Northern Territory plan, in the name of protecting children, is attempting to take over most aspects of running their families and communities.

 

In the name of ending welfare dependency we see the return to white management and clearly discriminatory practices. It is hard to see how this punitive approach will provide the training or even the right atmosphere for Aboriginal people to make their own moves to something better.

 

Claiming to “save their children” does not disguise the truth that this policy once more treats Aboriginal parents as incapable of looking after their children. It shames men and women, all of them, regardless of their behaviour. It is a return to the Mission mentality of subservience and inferiority. I thought we had agreed to leave that behind.

 

We must be honest here. The NT legislation is blatant discrimination. One set of rules for someone else. The legislation set aside the provisions of the Racial Discrimination Act. It also ignores the recommendations of the UN Committee against Discrimination urging Australia to uphold the right of Indigenous people to consultation in the decision making about their lives. The First Australians do have a right to autonomy that is once more being denied. Yet once more we are hearing that old misguided argument made when Aboriginal children of the Stolen Generation were denied their rights. We have to save the children, is again the cry.

 

The NT Intervention is an ideological power-play by a Prime Minister who has never believed that Aboriginal people have an exceptional, sacred right to their Land,

the entitlement of Native Title legally established by the High Court. This is a Prime Minister, according to his biography, that told his Treasurer that he would not walk in a Reconciliation March with Cabinet. I have tried to work cooperatively with several of Mr Howard’s federal ministers and know some want far better than this for Aboriginal people. But our federal parliament in a failure of will and judgement has ridden along with this intervention and watched the steady erosion of Aboriginal rights for over a decade.

 

The Federal Government’s refusal to say SORRY effectively ended Reconciliation. The Governments 10 Point Plan undermined Native Title. This was followed by the denial of the Indigenous Right to Self-Determination, the abolishment of ATSC and the isolation of Indigenous leaders who do not support assimilation. Then came the cultivation of a new Conservative agenda to remove or weaken the teaching of Aboriginal culture in schools. For an animist people who see the Land as their Mother the final and greatest insult is to see the Federal Government take control of the community land on which they live.

 

After many lifetimes of denial of who Aboriginal people really are, came many more lifetimes of struggle to win respect for their Culture and see them treated as equals.

 

It is a shameful Big Lie to present the abuse of these rights as in the best interests of Aboriginal people.

The NT intervention is replete with treachery and a looming sense of greater tragedy to come if it is allowed to continue as planned. Thankfully the outcry from many has softened the initial order for mandatory sexual inspections of Aboriginal children.

But the health organizations that do the hard work of caring for all of these children say nothing has yet been done to fund that essential primary health care or education on the scale required.

 

After all of the battles for justice and civil rights, that long road trudged by true Australian heroes like Jack Patton and William Ferguson, the historic claims by Vincent Lingiari, Eddie Mabo, the Wik people and others, are we now going to watch in silence as Aboriginal people once more see their lives taken over by

Government managers.

 

It is forty years since the moral force of Australians expressed clearly in the 1967 referendum our belief in human equality.

 

It is time to speak up and insist that whomever wins the coming federal election our federal government must invest some of that future fund in the real future of a great society, health and education for our children.

 

These are the Children of the Sunrise.

   

SOURCES

 

1. “No Excuses – Closing the Racial Gap in Learning. Stephen and Abigail Thernstrom. Simon & Schuster. New York. 2003.

2.“My Land, My Tracks”. Ernie Grant. Innisfail & District Education Centre. Innisfail.1998.

3.“Preliminary findings in a multiracial study of kidneys in autopsy”. Hoy, W.E., Douglas-Denton, R.N., Hughson, M.D., Cass, A.,Johnson,K., Betram, J.F., Kidney Journal International. 83, 31-37. June 2003.

4.“Benefits of Swimming Pools in Two Remote Communities in Western Australia”. (Includes Aboriginal childhood illness assessment) Lehmann,L., Tennant,M., Silva,D., McAullay,D., Lannigan,F., Coates,H. and Stanley,F. British Medical Journal (2003) 7412, 415-419.

5. “Public Report Card, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health: Time for Action”. Australian Medical Association. www.ama.com

6.“Parsing the Achievement Gap”, Paul E. Barton.

Analyses 14 factors contributing to the Racial

gap in Learning. Published by The Policy

Information Centre of the Educational Testing

Service. New York. 2003.

7. Western Australia Aboriginal Health Survey. Dr

Fiona Stanley, Assoc. Professor Ted Wilkes et

al. Telethon Institute for Child health

Research. Perth. WA.

8. Details of Health Education, Early Learning at

the Women Centres & Literacy Backpack

Projects available from Ian Thorpe’s Fountain

for Youth Trust. PO Box 402, Manly, NSW.

1655. Telephone : 02-89669422.

www.ianthorpesfountainforyouth.com.au

  

ITALIA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA: Over 5000 Italian artifacts | valued at $58 million USD Recovered - A record haul of rare antiquities? Or A farce | publicity stunt by the MIBACT's Min. Dario Franceschini?; see: the MIBACT, THE NEW YORK TIMES & THE GUARDIAN, U.K., (21 January 2015).

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For the wordpress version of this article, use the following link: wp.me/pPRv6-2G5

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Rome – 21 January 2015. With the recent announcement by Dario Franceschini, Italy’s Minister of Culture, that the “Carabinieri’ - Italy’s paramilitary police force, recovering roughly 5,361 vases, bronze statues, frescoes and other items valued at about $58 million, allegedly stolen by art dealer Gianfranco Becchina.

 

Although, the operation “OPERAZIONE TESEO” lead by the 'Carabinieri’, may seem as a success to Min. Dario Franceschini of the MIBACT. One has to question the both the timing of Min. Franceschini announcement of the recovery of the artifacts, as well as the overall scope of Sig. Becchina long-term looting of artifacts throughout Southern Italy and Sicily. This is also considering, the announcement of several recent initiatives by Min. Franceschini regarding the new management & administration of various departments of the MIBACT, now open to foreigners (1); and the announcement of the opening of the future new Museum of antiquities in Herculaneum, Italy? (2).

 

As for Sig. “Gianfranco Becchina and his wife, Ursula Juraschek,” according to THE GUARDIAN, U.K., 21 Jan. 2015, Sig. becchina, is “accused by prosecutors of being part of an antiquities trafficking network that involved “tombaroli” tomb raiders in southern Italy, dealers and buyers around the globe (3). Yet, Mr. Gianfranco Becchina & Mrs. Ursula Juraschek, have been actively running a successful Italian Villa in Sicily, selling olive oil, and a variety of Sicilian (Italian [reproduced]) pottery and other related art-works (4). Although, the official MIBACT report mentions the following: “…Attraverso l’esame della mole di dati investigativi acquisiti, si individuarono a Basilea alcuni magazzini riconducibili a Becchina ed a sua moglie.” One has to question as to whether of the “Carabinieri’ searched ‘Becchinia’s Villa in Sicily? (5). This is considering Mr. Becchina, rather alleged lengthy career as an art collector, international antiquities dealer and olive oil producer, including his well-known activities as illegal antiquities trader (6).

 

Between 2011-14, in the regions surrounding the City of Naples, Italy; particularly that of the 'Caserta' region located to the north-east of the city. This region has been the focus of a great deal of looting of countless Italian artifacts; with the region has been dubbed as the “Archaeological Supermarket of the Camorra," the criminal organization responsible for stealing or looting items ranging from (i.e.), ancient Roman artifacts (7) to Renaissance painting or related artworks taken from the abandoned and neglected churches and monastery’s located the city of Naples and the surrounding region (8).

 

During this time, the Camorra Italian Criminal organization is also actively involved in the looting of artifacts from the ancient ruins of Pompeii; as well as illegally dumping deadly 'asbestos | amianto' waste within Pompeii's ruins, one Italy's and world's most visited archaeological sites (9). The dumping of deadly 'asbestos | amianto' waste (well known to & documented by the former and current administrations of the MIBAC[T]) located within the ruins of Pompeii, has already killed between 24-26 Italian scholars, administration personal and custodians assigned to Pompeii, as well caused a number of other cancer related illnesses among the site's workers and their families (11).

 

The illegal looting operations by Sig. Gianfranco Becchina, the 'Camorra' criminal organization, and other Italian looters, has been well documented in both the Italian & foreign media resources, etc., i.e., “Italy’s great plunder | Il grande sacceggiatore dell’ Italia,” THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (06/02/2006), p. 29 (12) & the Heritage News of Italy: "See Naples before it dies of neglect - Reports and protests highlighting shoddy state of Italy's Unesco World Heritage site's," The Art Newspaper (29/01/2013) (13).

 

With the recent announcement of the recovery of the 5000 or so Italian artifacts [valued at $58 Million USD] from the warehouse in Switzerland, while this may be a very impressive and probably the largest recovery of Italian artifacts in the modern history of Italy. One has to ask whether or not this is simply a farce or publicity stunt on behalf of Min. Franceschini & the MIBACT, when considering so many of Italy's archaeological sites, museums, libraries & archival collections located throughout Rome, Pompeii, Naple's and elsewhere throughout Italy are horribly neglected, abondoned, unprotected and in such a state of unbelievable disarray (14).

 

What good is it for Min. Franceschini & the MIBACT to hype up the recovery precious stolen Italian artifacts and other works of arts, etc., when the key professional Italian work force (i.e., Italian - archaeologists; restoration architects; art-historians; archivists; museum curator and custodians) are all underpaid and under-employed and lack the financial resources to preserve, safeguard, and enhance the archaeological sites [& museum collections] from where these artifact & works of art where original stolen throughout Southern Italy and Sicily?

 

Remarkably, the 1000s or so Italian (underpaid | under-employed) archaeologists required to preserve, safeguard, and enhance Italy's archaeological heritage, particularly those fortunate to find work in Italy as of 2014-15, these professional archaeological | scholars (with either an equivalent B.A., or M.B.A., degree (or both) by United States Academic Standards) are only paid hourly wages of roughly 5 Euro or $5.60 USD per hour, as noted in: ITALIA ARCHEOLOGICA e RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA: “Solo in Italia gli archeologi restano senza lavoro,” = Il rapporto “Discovering the Archaeologists of Italy 2012-14,” LINKIESTA (27|10|2014)] (15). Likewise, too many of Italy's unemployed professional archaeologists; restoration architects; art-historians; archivists; museum curator and custodians, unfortunately sit at home as they watch their Italian national archaeological treasures being leased to foreign universities or museums, which is also a farce or publicity stunt on behalf of Min. Franceschini & the MIBACT. Most notably that of the City of Rome’s Mayor Ignazio Marino’s recent agreement “The Hidden Treasures of Rome,” project (signed in September [2014]) and officially announced in December 2014; in which 100s or so artifacts from the Capitoline Museum of Rome (i.e., the Museum of Roman Civilization) have been sent to the University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri (USA) to be studied, documented, and catalogued (16).

 

In January 2016, a year from now, it will be interesting to see whether or not these 5000 or so artifacts and other art works recovered in the Swiss warehouse, and as to whether or not detailed plans or related projects have been developed by the MIBACT in Rome, allowing that these artifacts | works of art to be studied, documented, and catalogued by Italy's archaeologists and other related scholars, and put on display for public enjoyment?

 

____________________________

 

FONTE | SOURCES:

 

A). ANFORE E VASI GRECI, MAXI RECUPERO DA 50 MLN EURO. Oltre 5 mila reperti ritrovati da carabinieri Tpc, è record, MIBACT | ROMA (21|01|2015).

 

Il pezzo più prezioso è forse una splendida anfora corinzia del VI secolo a.C. decorata con figure nere che raccontano il mito di Teseo, un capolavoro trafugato con tutta probabilità da una necropoli etrusca. Ma ci sono anche centinaia di altri vasi, anfore, kylix. E’un bottino composto da oltre 5 mila reperti archeologici, il più grande mai recuperato in un'unica operazione, per un valore totale di circa 50 milioni di euro, quello ritrovato dai carabinieri dei beni culturali al termine di una complessa indagine internazionale coordinata dal procuratore aggiunto della Repubblica di Roma Giancarlo Cataldo. I dettagli dell'operazione, sono stati resi noti questa mattina a Roma , dal generale Mariano Mossa, comandante dei carabinieri Tpc, in una conferenza stampa al Museo Nazionale Romano delle Terme di Diocleziano, alla presenza del ministro dei beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo Dario Franceschini, del procuratore aggiunto Capaldo e dell'ambasciatore della Confederazione Svizzera in Italia Giancarlo Kessler .

 

B). MIBACT - Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo | Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale | COMUNICATO STAMPA “OPERAZIONE TESEO”, [PDF], pp. 1-2.

 

PDF = wp.me/pPRv6-2G5

 

FONTE | SOURCE:

 

-- MIBACT | ROMA (21|01|2015).

www.beniculturali.it/mibac/export/MiBAC/sito-MiBAC/Conten...

 

B.1). MIBACT - Anfore, vasi e statue: recuperati 5mila reperti trafugati. "E' il più grande ritrovamento della storia", LA REPUBBLICA (21|01|2014) [FOTO 1 di 37].

 

E' un tesoro composto da oltre 5 mila reperti archeologici, il più grande mai recuperato in un'unica operazione, per un valore totale di circa 50 milioni di euro, quello ritrovato dai carabinieri dei Beni culturali al termine di una complessa indagine internazionale coordinata dal procuratore aggiunto della Repubblica di Roma Giancarlo Capaldo. I reperti provenienti da scavi clandestini in Puglia, Sicilia, Sardegna, Calabria e Lazio, di epoca compresa tra il VIII secolo a.C. e il III secolo d.C. sono rimpatriati da Basilea.

 

FONTE | SOURCE:

 

-- LA REPUBBLICA (21|01|2014) [FOTO 1 di 37].

 

roma.repubblica.it/cronaca/2015/01/21/foto/archeologia_re...

 

C). ITALY - Italy: Looted Antiquities Are Recovered, THE NEW YORK TIMES & By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (JAN. 21, 2015).

The authorities have unveiled what they said was a record haul of rare antiquities illegally looted from Italy and discovered during raids on Swiss warehouses belonging to a Sicilian art dealer. The police estimated the value of the 5,361 vases, bronze statues, frescoes and other items at about $58 million. Gen. Mariano Mossa of the Carabinieri, Italy’s paramilitary police force, called it “by a long shot the biggest recovery in history in terms of the quantity and quality of archaeological treasures.” The works, from the eighth century B.C. to the third century A.D., were found during an investigation into the art dealer Gianfranco Becchina, based in Basel. Prosecutors accuse him and his wife of being part of a huge trafficking network that involved tomb raiders in southern Italy, and dealers and buyers worldwide.

 

FONTE | SOURCE:

 

-- THE NEW YORK TIMES (JAN. 21, 2015).

 

www.nytimes.com/2015/01/22/world/europe/italy-looted-anti...

 

D). ITALY - Record €50m hoard of looted Italian antiquities unveiled by police - Centuries-old vases, statues and frescoes to be returned to museums after being seized from Switzerland-based art dealer, THE GUARDIAN, U.K., (21 January 2015).

 

A record haul of rare antiquities illegally looted from Italy and discovered during raids on the Swiss warehouses of an accused Sicilian art dealer was unveiled by authorities on Wednesday.

 

Police estimated the value of the 5,361 vases, bronze statues and frescoes at about €50m (£38m).

 

The works, dating from the eighth century BC to the third century, were laid out at the Terme di Diocleziano National Roman Museum and may go on public display before being returned to museums in southern Italy.

 

“This is by a long shot the biggest recovery in history in terms of the quantity and quality of the archaeological treasures,” the Carabineri general Mariano Mossa said.

 

The items were found during an investigation into Basel-based art dealer Gianfranco Becchina and his wife, Ursula Juraschek, also known as Rosie, who were accused by prosecutors of being part of an antiquities trafficking network that involved “tombaroli” tomb raiders in southern Italy, dealers and buyers around the globe.

 

Becchina remained free because the charges against him had expired, police said.

 

The investigation showed how dealers would forge provenance papers for the antiquities and create fictitious histories for them, so that museums and private collectors could in theory buy them in good faith, police said.

 

Police said that as a result, Italian authorities now had detailed documentation of Becchina’s inventory, including photos and receipts, that were also found in the warehouses.

 

David Gill, professor of archaeological heritage at University Campus Suffolk and author of the Lootingmatters blog, said the documentation will likely point to objects that were now in top museums and would certainly be on the Italians’ list for repatriation.

 

For over a decade, Italy has been on a campaign to reclaim treasures that were looted from its soil and sold to top museums and private collectors.

 

FONTE |SOURCE:

 

-- THE GUARDIAN, U.K., (21 January 2015).

 

www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/21/looted-italian-anti...

______

 

s.v.,

 

I). FABIO ISMAN HA STUDIATO IN ESCLUSIVA L’ARCHIVIO DI GIANFRANCO BECCHINA - Un milione di oggetti clandestini. I 140 faldoni sequestrati al re del traffico illecito di reperti archeologici contengono una straordinaria quantità di informazioni attraverso le quali si possono ricostruire gli impressionanti intrecci e le dimensioni della Grande razzia compiuta in Italia e del commercio internazionale di antichità. Con tanto di nomi e cognomi di coloro che hanno portato nei principali musei del mondo oggetti scavati clandestinamente, da Il Giornale dell'Arte numero 309, maggio 2011.

 

ilgiornaledellarte.com/articoli/2011/5/107938.html

 

II). $58 Million Trove of Looted Antiquities Uncovered in Raid, ARTNET-NEWS (22|01|2015).

 

A joint investigation involving Swiss and Italian police has uncovered a massive Swiss-Italian antiquities smuggling ring. Police seized 5,361 vases, bronze statues, and frescoes worth an estimated €50 million ($58 million) during a raid on a number of Swiss warehouses, the Guardian reports.

Unveiling the spoils of the investigation, the head of the Italian military police, Carabinieri General Mariano Mossa said, “This is by a long shot the biggest recovery in history in terms of the quantity and quality of the archaeological treasures." The artworks date from the 8th century BC to the 3rd century BC and were displayed for journalists at the Terme di Diocleziano National Roman Museum.

 

The treasures were found during an investigation into the dealings of the Sicilian art dealer Gianfranco Becchina and his Swiss wife Ursula Juraschek. The pair are allegedly part of a smuggling ring that sourced antiquities from illegal excavations in southern Italy, sent them for restoration in Switzerland, and sold them around the world with forged provenance documents.

 

The arrest could have far-reaching implications for museums. According to Trafficking Culture, Becchina reportedly sold works to a number of illustrious institutions including the Ashmolean, the Louvre, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Metropolitan Museum, the Princeton University Art Museum, the Toledo Museum of Art, and the J. Paul Getty Museum. In 2005, the Getty was forced to return three valuable looted artifacts in light of revelations about one of Becchina's associates.

 

Becchina has been suspected of smuggling since 1994 when Italian police discovered a photograph of a Paestan red-figure krater by Asteas in the wreckage of a car belonging to the convicted antiquities smuggler Pasquale Camera. The Getty Museum had bought the krater from Becchina, alerting investigators that he may too be involved in illegal antiquities sales.

 

In 2002, Swiss and Italian police seized 140 binders containing over 13,000 documents including shipping records, invoices, and thousands of polaroid photos during a raid on Becchina's Basel warehouse and gallery, Palladion Antique Kunst, Chasing Aphrodite reported. In 2011, he was convicted of being an important middleman in the illegal antiquities trade. He appealed the conviction, but the seizure of his archives was upheld.

 

According to police the charges against Becchina expired, allowing him to remain a free man. However, in the latest raids, police have secured even more documents including photos and receipts that could finally land Becchina behind bars.

 

FONTE | SOURCE:

 

-- ARTNET-NEWS (22|01|2015).

 

news.artnet.com/art-world/58-million-trove-of-looted-anti...

 

III). Art dealer Gianfranco Becchina and his wife, Ursula Juraschek, in: Greek ruins..... what country are we in? BLOG - Around the Globe with Kay (01 June 2011).

 

A fun day of touring the Greek ruins of Selinunte, pottery shopping, and a cooking class at Becchina Estate. Joining us for lunch was none other than the Gianfranco Becchina - art collector, international antiquities dealer and olive oil producer. What a wonderful host! He shared lunch with us, ending with his home made green limoncello (the strongest liqueur I've had the pleasure of tasting) and then gave us a tour of his gardens and olive oil facilities. Great day!

 

Fonte | Source:

 

-- BLOG - Around the Globe with Kay (01 June 2011).

kay-kaystravels.blogspot.com/2011/06/greek-ruins-what-cou...

IV). Becchina Estate - Antica Tenuta Pignatelli, Via Santissima Trinita, 91022 Castelvetrano, Sicily, Italy [01|2015]. TRIPADVISOR =

 

"...Within immense red walls, these within Castelvetrano's city limits, lies this authentic and elegant Antica Tenuta Principi Pignatelli, and the Frantoio Olio Verde which produces an olive oil you can sometimes get at Dean and Deluca. Father Gianfranco (antiquitarian/agriculturalist) and daughter Gabrielle (art historian/chef extraordinaire) Becchina preside over sixty acres of Nocellara del Belice olive groves (thousands of trees up..."

 

FONTE | SOURCE:

 

-- Becchina Estate - Antica Tenuta Pignatelli, Via Santissima Trinita, 91022 Castelvetrano, Sicily, Italy [01|2015]. TRIPADVISOR =

 

www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g665937-d1413477-Reviews...

 

V). ITALY - Becchina: More Revelations from North American Museums? in: David Gill, 'Looting Matters', (29 January 2013).

North American museum directors and their curatorial staff know all too well the way that the Medici Dossier has shown how past acquisitions have damaged institutional reputations. Of course, more revelations from the Medici Dossier are likely to appear.

 

FONTE | SOURCE:

 

-- David Gill, 'Looting Matters', (29 January 2013).

 

lootingmatters.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/becchina-more-revel...

 

-- Note: "Becchina", in: David Gill, 'Looting Matters', (22January 2013).

 

lootingmatters.blogspot.com/search/label/Becchina

____________________________

 

NOTES | FONTE | SOURCE:

 

(1). ITALIA - Franceschini nomina tre donne al Consiglio superiore dei Beni culturali, IL SOLE 24 ORE (08|04|2014).

wp.me/pPRv6-2FM

 

(2). POMPEI - ERCOLANO ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITECTTURA: Ercolano, la firma di Renzo Piano sul nuovo museo archeologico finanziato dal magnate Packard | architetto Jane Thompson, LA REPUBBLICA | NAPOLI (21|01|2015).

 

wp.me/pPRv6-2FM

 

(3). See below: to THE GUARDIAN, U.K., 21 Jan. 2015

(4). See below: Art dealer Gianfranco Becchina and his wife, Ursula Juraschek, in: Greek ruins..... what country are we in? BLOG - Around the Globe with Kay (01 June 2011).

 

(5). See below: Becchina Estate - Antica Tenuta Pignatelli, Via Santissima Trinita, 91022 Castelvetrano, Sicily, Italy; TRIPADVISOR [01|2015].

 

(6). See below: FABIO ISMAN HA STUDIATO IN ESCLUSIVA L’ARCHIVIO DI GIANFRANCO BECCHINA - Il Giornale dell'Arte numero 309, maggio 2011.

 

(7). ITALIA BENI CULTURALI: Viaggio nell' antica citta' di Cales nel Casertano - Il supermercato archeologico della Camorra - rivederli in musei all’estero. CORRIERE DELLA SERA (24/07/2012). VIDEO [06:43].

 

www.flickr.com/photos/imperial_fora_of_rome/8449217815/

 

www.flickr.com/photos/imperial_fora_of_rome/8450303110/

 

(8). NAPOLI BENI CULTURALI: Lo scempio delle chiese di Napoli: duecento chiuse e abbandonate -Viaggio choc tra gioielli dell'arte dimenticati, depredati, in rovina, a volte addirittura pericolosi. Molte sono diventate negozi, officine o abitazioni. Altre addirittura discariche, Corriere della Sera, (21/01/2013) [Video 04:29].

 

www.flickr.com/photos/imperial_fora_of_rome/8452111971/

 

www.flickr.com/photos/imperial_fora_of_rome/8453202932/

 

-- ITALIA ARCHEOLOGIA e BENI CULTURALI: LAZIO, SICILIA e SARDEGNA - Italia preda tombaroli boom di scavi illegali - nell` ultimo anno sono cresciuti del 32%, LA NOTIZA (03|03|2014) p. 9.

www.flickr.com/photos/imperial_fora_of_rome/13630985575/

 

(9). Pompeii faces doom (again): Can a massive EU bail-out save the ancient city from neglect, rain and Mafia meddling?, THE INDEPENDENT, U.K., (31 May 2014).

 

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pompeii-faces-doo...

 

ROMA ARCHEOLOGIA, ARCHITETTURA e BENI CULTURALI: Marino: "Non so dove mettere la spazzatura". Torna il rischio Napoli Capitale prigioniera di un rebus giuridico, LA REPUBBLICA (04|04|2014). Foto: "Naples in ruins," THE INDEPENDENT [U.K], (21/04/2013).

 

www.flickr.com/photos/imperial_fora_of_rome/13674793555/

 

(10). POMPEI – Dr. Prof. M. Beard & Prof. A. W. Hadrill, ‘It would be useful if you both spoke up openly about the 25 Italian scholars & custodians who have died from “amianto” poisoning in Pompei (03|2014). Dr. David Meadows | rogueclassicism (03 |2014).

 

wp.me/pPRv6-1WS

 

-- POMPEI ARCHEOLOGIA e BENI CULTURALI: Scavi di Pompei chiusi, una class action dagli Stati Uniti, IL MATTINO (13/06/2013), ‘AMIANTO NEGLI UFFICI,’ IL MATTINO. (11/06/2013), & Pompeii Pompeianorum | FACEBOOK (14/06/2013).

 

wp.me/pPRv6-1Hr

 

(11). POMPEI ARCHAEOLOGIA e BENI CULTURALI: “AMIANTO NEGLI UFFICI, I SITI ARCHEOLOGICI CHIUSI PER PROTESTA,” POSITANO NEWS & IL MATTINO, (11/06/2013), & IL GAZZETTINO VESUVIANO (10/06/2013). Foto: L’architetto Dott.ssa Maria Pirozzi 1 di 25 vittime degli uffici di amianto, IL GIORNALE DELL’ ARTE.COM (29/12/2011).

 

wp.me/pPRv6-1GF

 

-- POMPEII ARCHEOLOGIA: Soprintendenza speciale di Napoli e Pompei & Amianto negli scavi, Notizie – IL GIORNALE DELL”ARTE (02/2010 – 04/2013).

 

wp.me/pPRv6-1zn

 

(12). ITALIA ARCHEOLOGIA: "Italy's great plunder | Il grande sacceggiatore dell' Italia," THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (06/02/2006), p. 29.

 

wp.me/pPRv6-1ir

 

-- ITALIA BENI CULTURALI: “VANISHING ACTS – See Naples before it dies.” NEWSWEEK (10/04/2006), p.52.

 

(13). “Heritage News Italy: "See Naples before it dies of neglect - Report and protests highlight shoddy state of Unseco World Heritage site's,"The Art Newspaper (29/01/2013), in: Grande Progetto Pompei – UNESCO, EU, & MIBAC (02/2013): But, NAPLES’ – The Other Forgotten and Neglected Architectural Cultural Heritage: The Art Newspaper (29/01/2013), Corriere Della Sera (21/01/2013 [Video 04:29]), & LA REPUBBLICA (23/11/2012). [FOTO 1 DI 34 & pdf].

 

wp.me/pPRv6-1j2

 

(14). For the abandon and neglect of Pompeii, Naples, and Rome, see the following:

 

-- 14.1). Pompeii, Foto & News articles =

www.flickr.com/photos/imperial_fora_of_rome/sets/72157625...

 

-- 14.2). Naples, Foto & News articles =

www.flickr.com/photos/imperial_fora_of_rome/sets/72157632...

 

-- 14.3). Rome I & II, Foto & News articles =

www.flickr.com/photos/imperial_fora_of_rome/sets/72157600...

www.flickr.com/photos/imperial_fora_of_rome/sets/72157634...

 

(15). ITALIA ARCHEOLOGICA e RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA: “Solo in Italia gli archeologi restano senza lavoro,” [= Il rapporto “Discovering the Archaeologists of Italy 2012-14,”] LINKIESTA (27|10|2014).

 

wp.me/pPRv6-2rD

 

-- ITALIA ARCHEOLOGIA: A. Pintucci and E. Cella (edd.), translation by D. Pate, "Discovering the Archaeologists of Italy 2012-14", Confederazione Italiana Archeologi (2014), [PDF], pp. 1-197.

 

www.flickr.com/photos/imperial_fora_of_rome/15138616858/

 

(16). ROMA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA. The Capitoline Museum & the University of Missouri – The Hidden Treasures of Rome: Two separate anti-govt. protests held in Italian capital city. PRESSTV [Video] (02|12|2014).

 

wp.me/pPRv6-2wp

 

-- Rome’s La Sapienza University - Italian Students Languish in University While Joblessness Soars, BLOOMBERG NEWS (09/06/2013).

 

www.flickr.com/photos/imperial_fora_of_rome/9004560347/in...

 

Value @ Bridgetown 3/22/14

 

Ahmad ibn ‘Ali ibn Yusuf al-Buni (Arabic: أحمد البوني‎) (died 1225) was a well known Sufi and writer on the esoteric value of letters and topics relating to mathematics, sihr (sorcery) and spirituality, but very little is known about him. Al-Buni lived in Egypt and learned from many eminent Sufi masters of his time.[1]

He wrote one of the most famous books of his era, the Shams al-Ma'arif al-Kubra (Sun of the Great Knowledge, Arabic شمس المعارف الكبرى) which is one of the most widely read medieval treatises on talismans, magic squares and occult practices. This work rivals the Picatrix in importance. This book was later banned by orthodox Muslims as heretical, but continues to be read and studied.

Instead of sihr (Sorcery), this kind of magic was called Ilm al-Hikmah (Knowledge of the Wisedom), Ilm al-simiyah (Study of the Divine Names) and Ruhaniyat (Spirituality). Most of the so-called mujarrabât ("time-tested methods") books on sorcery in the Muslim world are simplified excerpts from the Shams al-ma`ârif.[2] The book remains the seminal work on Theurgy and esoteric arts to this day.

In c. 1200, Ahmad al-Buni showed how to construct magic squares using a simple bordering technique, but he may not have discovered the method himself. Al-Buni wrote about Latin squares and constructed, for example, 4 x 4 Latin squares using letters from one of the 99 names of Allah. His works on traditional healing remains a point of reference among Yoruba Muslim healers in Nigeria and other areas of the Muslim world.[3]

Ahmad al-Buni also left a list of other titles that he wrote. Unfortunately, very few of them have survived.

Al-Buni states in his work Manba’ Usul al-Hikmah (Source of the Essentials of Wisdom) that he acquired his knowledge of the esoteric properities of the letters from his personal teacher Abu Abdillah Shams al-Din al-Asfahâni. He in turn received it from Jalal al-Din Abdullah al-Bistami, who in turn received it from Shaykh al-Sarajani, who received it from Qasim al-Sarajani, who received it from Abdullah al-Babani, who received it from Asîl al-Din al-Shirazi, who received it from Abu al-Najîb al-Sahruwardi, who received it from, Mohammad ibn Mohammad Al-Ghazali al-Tusi, who received it from Ahmad al-Aswad, who received it from Hamad al-Dînuri, who received it from the master al-Junayd al-Baghdadi, who received it from Sari al-Din al-Saqati, who received it from Ma’ruf al-Karkhi, who received it from Dawûd al-Jili, who received it from Habîb al-A’ajami, who received it from Imam Hasan al-Basri.

Al-Buni states in the same work that he acquired his knowledge of magical squares from Sirâj al-Dîn al-Hanafi, who acquired it from Shihab al-Dîn al-Muqaddasi, who acquired it from Shams al-Dîn al-Farisi, who acquired it from Shihab al-Dîn al-Hamadani, who acquired it from Qutb al-Dîn al-Diyâ’i, who acquired it from Muhyiddîn Ibn Arabi, who acquired it from Abu al-'Abbas Ahmad ibn al-Turîzi, who acquired it from Abu Abdillah al-Qurashi, who acquired it from Abu Madîn al-Andalusi.

He also states that he acquired additional knowledge about the esoteric art of letters and the magical squares from Mohammad 'Izz al-Dîn ibn Jam’a, who acquired it from Mohammad al-Sirani, who acquired it from Shihab al-Dîn al-Hamadani, who acquired it from Qutb al-Dîn al-Dhiya’i, who acquired it from Muhyiddîn Ibn Arabi.

Al-Buni also states that he acquired his occult knowledge from Abu al-'Abbas Ahmad ibn Maymûn al-Qastalâni, who acquired it from Abu Abdillah Mohammed al-Qurashi, who acquired it from Abu Madîn Shu'ayb ibn Hasan al-Ansari al-Andalusi, who received it from Abu Ayyub ibn Abi Sa'id al-Sanhaji al-Armuzi, who received it from Abi Muhammad ibn Nur, who received it from Abu al-Fadhl Abdullah ibn Bashr, who received it from Abu Bashr al-Hasan al-Jujari, who received it from al-Saqati, who received it from Dawûd al-Tâ’i, who received it from Habîb al-A'jami, who received it from Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Sîrîn, who received it from Malik ibn Anas.

Al-Buni also made regular mention in his work of Plato, Aristotle, Hermes, Alexander the Great, and obscure Chaldean magicians. In one of his works, he recounted a story of his discovery of a cache of manuscripts buried under the pyramids, that included a work of Hermetic thinkers.

His work is said to have influenced the Hurufis and the New Lettrist International.[4]

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“How can Artificial Intelligence enable growth for SMEs”? Looking forward to hearing presentation on this topic for local SME's. datavaluehub.com/about-us/

 

Two of the 31 000 schoolchildren in Peru who are learning about healthy eating in an enjoyable way through Nestlé’s “Crecer Bien” programme. Crecer Bien is a Nutritional Education Programme at Public Schools that contributes to reducing

malnutrition levels through an educational strategy that introduces nutritional and hygiene habits as pivots in children’s education.

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(c) Dr Stanislav Shmelev

 

I am absolutely delighted to let you know that my new album, 'ECOSYSTEMS' has just been published: stanislav.photography/ecosystems

It has been presented at the Club of Rome 50th Anniversary meeting, the United Nations COP24 conference on climate change, a large exhibition held at the Mathematical Institute of Oxford University and the Environment Europe Oxford Spring School in Ecological Economics and now at the United Nations World Urban Forum 2020. There are only 450 copies left so you will have to be quick: stanislav.photography/ecosystems

 

You are most welcome to explore my new website: stanislav.photography/ and a totally new blog: environmenteurope.wordpress.com/

 

#EnvironmentEurope #EcologicalEconomics #ECOSYSTEMS #sustainability #GreenEconomy #renewables #CircularEconomy #Anthropocene #ESG #cities #resources #values #governance #greenfinance #sustainablefinance #climate #climatechange #climateemergency #renewableenergy #planetaryboundaries #democracy #energy #accounting #tax #ecology #art #environment #SustainableDevelopment #contemporary #photography #nature #biodiversity #conservation #coronavirus #nature #protection #jungle #forest #palm #tree #Japan #Europe #USA #South #America #Colombia #Brazil #France #Denmark #Russia #Kazakhstan #Germany #Austria #Singapore #Albania #Dubai #UAE #UK #Italy #landscape #new #artwork #collect #follow #like #share #film #medium #format #Hasselblad #Nikon #CarlZeiss #lens

The Thar Desert, also known as the Great Indian Desert or Marusthali (Land of the dead), is a large, arid region in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent that forms a natural boundary between India and Pakistan. It is the world's 9th largest subtropical desert. This desert spreads over about 2,340,000 km2, with 85% in India and the remaining part in Pakistan. It covers more than 2,000,000 km2 in Rajasthan and extends into Gujarat, Punjab, and Haryana.

 

GEOGRAPHY

The Thar Desert extends between the Aravalli Hills in the north-east, the Great Rann of Kutch along the coast and the alluvial plains of the Indus River in the west and north-west. Most of the desert is covered by huge shifting sand dunes that receive sediments from the alluvial plains and the coast. The sand is highly mobile due to strong winds occurring before the onset of the monsoon. The Luni River is the only river integrated into the desert. Rainfall is limited to 100–500 mm per year, mostly falling from July to September.

 

Salt water lakes in the Thar Desert include the Sambhar, Kuchaman, Didwana in Rajasthan and Kharaghoda in Gujarat. These lakes receive rain water during monsoon and evaporate during the dry season. The salt is derived by the weathering of rocks in the region.

 

DESERTIFICATION CONTROL

The soil of the Thar Desert remains dry for much of the year and is prone to wind erosion. High velocity winds blow soil from the desert, depositing some on neighboring fertile lands, and causing shifting sand dunes within the desert. Sand dunes are stabilised by erecting micro-windbreak barriers with scrub material and subsequent afforestation of the treated dunes with seedlings of shrubs such as phog, senna, castor oil plant and trees such as gum acacia, Prosopis juliflora and lebbek tree. The 649 km long Indira Gandhi Canal brings fresh water to the Thar Desert. It was conceived to halt spreading of the desert to fertile areas.

 

There are few local tree species suitable for planting in the desert, which are slow growing. Therefore, exotic tree species were introduced for plantation. Many species of Eucalyptus, Acacia, Cassia and other genera from Israel, Australia, US, Russia, Zimbabwe, Chile, Peru and Sudan have been tried in Thar Desert. Acacia tortilis has proved to be the most promising species for desert afforestation and the jojoba is another promising species of economic value found suitable for planting in these areas.

 

PROTECTED AREAS

There are several protected areas in the Thar Desert:

in Pakistan:

the Nara Desert Wildlife Sanctuary covers 6,300 km2;

the Rann of Kutch Wildlife Sanctuary.

in India:

the Desert National Park covers 3,162 km2 and represents the Thar Desert ecosystem, it includes 44 villages. Its diverse fauna includes the great Indian bustard (Chirotis nigricaps), blackbuck, chinkara, fox, Bengal fox, wolf, and caracal. Seashells and massive fossilized tree trunks in this park record the geological history of the desert;

the Tal Chhapar Sanctuary covers 7 km2 and is an Important Bird Area. It is located in the Churu District, 210 km from Jaipur, in the Shekhawati region. This sanctuary is home to a large population of blackbuck, fox and caracal such as partridge and sand grouse;

Jalore Wildlife Sanctuary is a privately owned sanctuary 130 km from Jodhpur, where Asiatic wildcat, leopard, jirds, desert fox and herds of Indian gazelle live.

 

BIODIVERSITY

FAUNA

Stretches of sand in the desert are interspersed by hillocks and sandy and gravel plains. Due to the diversified habitat and ecosystem, the vegetation, human culture and animal life in this arid region is very rich in contrast to the other deserts of the world. About 23 species of lizard and 25 species of snakes are found here and several of them are endemic to the region.

 

Some wildlife species, which are fast vanishing in other parts of India, are found in the desert in large numbers such as the blackbuck (Antilope cervicapra), chinkara (Gazella bennettii) and Indian wild ass (Equus hemionus khur) in the Rann of Kutch. They have evolved excellent survival strategies, their size is smaller than other similar animals living in different conditions, and they are mainly nocturnal. There are certain other factors responsible for the survival of these animals in the desert. Due to the lack of water in this region, transformation of the grasslands into cropland has been very slow. The protection provided to them by a local community, the Bishnois, is also a factor. Other mammals of the Thar Desert include a subspecies of red fox (Vulpes vulpes pusilla) and the caracal.

 

The region is a haven for 141 species of migratory and resident birds of the desert. One can see eagles, harriers, falcons, buzzards, kestrel and vultures. There are short-toed eagles (Circaetus gallicus), tawny eagles (Aquila rapax), greater spotted eagles (Aquila clanga), laggar falcons (Falco jugger) and kestrels. There are also a number of reptiles.

 

The Indian peafowl is a resident breeder in the Thar region. The peacock is designated as the national bird of India and the provincial bird of the Punjab (Pakistan). It can be seen sitting on khejri or pipal trees in villages or Deblina.

 

VEGETATION

The natural vegetation of this dry area is classed as Northwestern thorn scrub forest occurring in small clumps scattered more or less openly. Density and size of patches increase from west to east following the increase in rainfall. The natural vegetation of the Thar Desert is composed of the following tree, shrub and herb species:

 

trees and shrubs: Acacia jacquemontii, Balanites roxburghii, Ziziphus zizyphus, Ziziphus nummularia, Calotropis procera, Suaeda fruticosa, Crotalaria burhia, Aerva javanica, Clerodendrum multiflorum, Leptadenia pyrotechnica, Lycium barbarum, Grewia tenax, Commiphora mukul, Euphorbia neriifolia, Cordia sinensis, Maytenus emarginata, Capparis decidua, Mimosa hamata

herbs and grasses: Ochthochloa compressa, Dactyloctenium scindicum, Cenchrus biflorus, Cenchrus setigerus, Lasiurus scindicus, Cynodon dactylon, Panicum turgidum, Panicum antidotale, Dichanthium annulatum, Sporobolus marginatus, Saccharum spontaneum, Cenchrus ciliaris, Desmostachya bipinnata, Eragrostis species, Ergamopagan species, Phragmites species, Tribulus terrestris, Typha species, Sorghum halepense, Citrullus colocynthis

 

The endemic floral species include Calligonum polygonoides, Prosopis cineraria, Acacia nilotica, Tamarix aphylla, Cenchrus biflorus.

 

PEOPLE

The Thar Desert is the most densely populated desert in the world, with a population density of 83 people per km2. In India, the inhabitants comprise Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs. In Pakistan, inhabitants include Sindhis and Kolhis.

 

About 40% of the total population of Rajasthan live in the Thar Desert. The main occupation of the people is agriculture and animal husbandry. A colourful culture rich in tradition prevails in this desert. The people have a great passion for folk music and folk poetry.

 

Jodhpur, the largest city in the region, lies in the scrub forest zone. Bikaner and Jaisalmer are located in the desert proper. A large irrigation and power project has reclaimed areas of the northern and western desert for agriculture. The small population is mostly pastoral, and hide and wool industries are prominent.

 

The desert's part in Pakistan also has a rich multifaceted culture, heritage, traditions, folk tales, dances and music due to its inhabitants who belong to different religions, sects and castes.

 

THAR IN ANCIENT LITERATURE

The Indian epics describe this region as Lavanasagara (Salt-ocean). The Ramayana mentions Lavanasagara (the Salt-ocean) when Rama goes to attack Lanka with the army of vanaras. Rama uses his agneyashtra-amogha to dry up the sea named drumakulya situated on north of Lavanasagara. A fresh water source named Pushkar surrounded by Marukantara was created.

 

According to Jain cosmology, Jambūdvīpa is at the centre of Madhyaloka, or the middle part of the universe, where the humans reside. Jambūdvīpaprajñapti or the treatise on the island of roseapple tree contains a description of Jambūdvīpa and life biographies of Ṛṣabha and King Bharata. Jambūdvīpa continent is surrounded by ocean Lavanoda (Salt-ocean).

 

The Sarasvati River is one of the chief Rigvedic rivers mentioned in ancient Hindu texts. The Nadistuti hymn in the Rigveda (10.75) mentions the Sarasvati between the Yamuna in the east and the Sutlej in the west, and later Vedic texts like Tandya and Jaiminiya Brahmanas as well as the Mahabharata mention that the Sarasvati dried up in a desert.

 

Most scholars agree that at least some of the references to the Sarasvati in the Rigveda refer to the Ghaggar-Hakra River, while the Helmand River is often quoted as the locus of the early Rigvedic river. Whether such a transfer of the name has taken place, either from the Helmand to the Ghaggar-Hakra, or conversely from the Ghaggar-Hakra to the Helmand, is a matter of dispute.

 

There is also a small present-day Sarasvati River (Sarsuti) that joins the Ghaggar.

 

The Mahabharata mentions the Kamyaka Forest situated on the western boundary of the Kuru Kingdom (Kuru Proper + Kurujangala), on the banks of the Saraswati River.[clarification needed] It lay to the west of the Kurukshetra plain. It contained within it a lake called the Kamyaka lake (2,51). Kamyaka forest is mentioned as being situated at the head of the Thar desert, near the lake Trinavindu (3,256). The Pandavas, on their way to exile in the woods, left Pramanakoti on the banks of the Ganges and went towards Kurukshetra, travelling in a western direction, crossing the rivers Yamuna and Drishadvati. They finally reached the banks of the Saraswati River.[clarification needed] There they saw the forest of Kamyaka, the favourite haunt of ascetics, situated on a level and wild plain on the banks of the Saraswati (3-5,36) abounding in birds and deer (3,5). There the Pandavas lived in an ascetic asylum (3,10). It took 3 days for Pandavas to reach the Kamyaka forest, setting out from Hastinapura, on their chariots (3,11).

 

In the Rigveda we also find mention of a River named Aśvanvatī along with river Drishadvati. Some scholars consider both Saraswati and Aśvanvatī the same river.

 

The human habitations on the banks of rivers Saraswati and Drishadvati had shifted to the east and south directions prior to Mahabharata period. During those days The present day Bikaner and Jodhpur areas were known as Kurujangala and Madrajangala provinces.

 

The Desert National Park, Jaisalmer has a collection of fossils of animals and plants of 180 million years old.

 

DESERT ECONOMY

AGRICULTURE

The Thar is one of most heavily populated desert areas in the world and the main occupations of people living here are agriculture and animal husbandry. Agriculture is not a dependable proposition in this area - after the rainy season, at least 33% of crops fail. Animal husbandry, trees and grasses, intercropped with vegetables or fruit trees, is the most viable model for arid, drought-prone regions. The region faces frequent droughts. Overgrazing due to high animal populations, wind and water erosion, mining and other industries result in serious land degradation.

 

The agricultural production is mainly from the Kharif crops. The Kharif crops are the crops that are grown in the summer season and are seeded in the months of June and July. These crops are harvested in the months of September and October and include bajra, pulses such as guar, jowar (Sorghum vulgare), maize (zea mays), sesame and groundnuts. In past few decades the development of canals, tube wells etc. has changed crop pattern. Now the desert districts in Rajasthan have started producing rabi crops like wheat, mustard, cumin seed etc.The people have started to grow cash crops too.

 

Thar region of Rajasthan is the main opium producer and consumer area. There are mainly two crop seasons. The water for irrigation comes from wells and tanks from underlying water sources deep below the surface. The Indira Gandhi Canal irrigates northwestern Rajasthan. The Government of India has started a centrally sponsored scheme under the title of Desert Development Programme based on watershed management with the objective to check spreading of desert and improve the living condition of people in desert.

 

LIVESTOCK

n the last 15–20 years, the Rajasthan desert has seen many changes, including a manifold increase of both the human and animal population. Animal husbandry has become popular due to the difficult farming conditions. At present, there are ten times more animals per person in Rajasthan than the national average, and overgrazing is also a factor affecting climatic and drought conditions.

 

A large number of farmers in Thar desert depend on animal husbandry for their livelihood. Cows, buffalos, sheep, goats, camels, and oxen consists of major cattle population. Barmer district has the highest cattle population out of which sheep and goats are in majority. Some of the best breeds of bullocks such as Kankrej (Sanchori) and Nagauri are from desert region.

 

Thar region of Rajasthan is the biggest wool-producing area in India. Chokla, Marwari, Jaisalmeri, Magra, Malpuri, Sonadi, Nali and Pungal breeds of sheep are found in the region. Of the total wool production in India, 40-50% comes from Rajasthan. The sheep-wool from Rajasthan is considered best for carpet making industry in the world. The wool of Chokla breed of sheep is considered of superior quality. The breeding centres have been developed for Karakul and Merino sheep at Suratgarh, Jaitsar and Bikaner. Some important mills for making Woolen thread established in desert area are: Jodhpur Woolen Mill, Jodhpur; Rajasthan Woolen Mill, Bikaner and India Woolen Mill, Bikaner. Bikaner is the biggest mandi (market place) of wool in Asia.

 

The live stock depends for grazing on common lands in villages. During famine years in the desert the nomadic rebari people move with large herds of sheep and camel to the forested areas of south Rajasthan or nearby states like Madhya Pradesh for grazing the cattle.

 

The importance of animal husbandry can be understood from the organization of large number of cattle fairs in the region. Cattle fairs are normally named after the folk-deities. Some of major cattle fairs held are Ramdevji cattle fair at Manasar in Nagaur district, Tejaji cattle fair at Parbatsar in Nagaur district, Baldeo cattle fair at Merta city in Nagaur district, Mallinath cattle fair at Tilwara in barmer district. Live stock is very important to the Thar desert people.

 

AGROFORESTRY

Forestry has an important part to play in the amelioration of the conditions in semi-arid and arid lands. If properly planned, forestry can make an important contribution to the general welfare of the people living in desert areas. The living standard of the people in the desert is low. They can not afford other fuels like gas, kerosene etc. Fire wood is their main fuel, of the total consumption of wood about 75 percent is firewood. The forest cover in desert is low. Rajasthan has a forest area of 31150 km2. which is about 9% of the geographical area. The forest area is mainly in southern districts of Rajasthan like Udaipur and Chittorgarh. The minimum forest area is in Churu district only 80 km2. Thus the forest is insufficient to fulfill the needs of firewood and grazing in desert districts. This diverts the much needed cattledung from the field to the hearth. This in turn results into the decrease in agricultural production. Agroforestry model is best suited to the people of desert. Some Institutes have done good work in Agroforestry.

 

The scientists of Central Arid Zone Research Institute (CAZRI), have successfully developed and improved dozens of traditional and non-traditional crops/fruits, such as Ber trees (like plums) that produce much larger fruits than before (lemon-size) and can thrive with minimal rainfall. These trees have become a profitable option for farmers. One example from a case study of horticulture showed that in situation of budding in 35 plants of Ber and Guar (Gola, Seb & Mundia variety developed in CAZRI), using only one hectare of land, yielded 10,000 kg. of Ber and 250 kg. of Guar, which translates into double or even triple profit.

 

Arid Forest Research Institute, (AFRI) situated at Jodhpur is another national level institute in the region. It is one of the institutes of the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education ( ICFRE ) working under the Ministry of Environment & Forests, Govt. of India. The Objective of the Institute is to carry out scientific research in forestry in order to provide technologies to increase the vegetative cover and to conserve the biodiversity in the hot arid and semi arid region of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Dadara & Nagar Haveli union territory.

 

The most important tree species in terms of providing a livelihood in Thar desert communities is Prosopis cineraria.

 

Prosopis cineraria provides wood of construction class. It is used for house-building, chiefly as rafters, posts scantlings, doors and windows, and for well construction water pipes, upright posts of Persian wheels, agricultural implements and shafts, spokes, fellows and yoke of carts. It can also be used for small turning work and tool-handles. Container manufacturing is another important wood-based industry, which depends heavily on desert-grown trees.

 

Prosopis cineraria is much valued as a fodder tree. The trees are heavily lopped particularly during winter months when no other green fodder is available in the dry tracts. There is a popular saying that death will not visit a man, even at the time of a famine, if he has a Prosopis cineraria, a goat and a camel, since the three together are some what said to sustain a man even under the most trying condition. The forage yield per tree varies a great deal. On an average, the yield of green forage from a full grown tree is expected to be about 60 kg with complete lopping having only the central leading shoot, 30 kg when the lower two third crown is lopped and 20 kg when the lower one third crown is lopped. The leaves are of high nutritive value. Feeding of the leaves during winter when no other green fodder is generally available in rain-fed areas is thus profitable. The pods have a sweetish pulp and are also used as fodder for livestock.

 

Prosopis cineraria is most important top feed species providing nutritious and highly palatable green as well as dry fodder, which is readily eaten by camels, cattle, sheep and goats, constituting a major feed requirement of desert livestock. Locally it is called Loong. Pods are locally called sangar or sangri. The dried pods locally called Kho-Kha are eaten. Dried pods also form rich animal feed, which is liked by all livestock. Green pods also form rich animal feed, which is liked by drying the young boiled pods. They are also used as famine food and known even to prehistoric man. Even the bark, having an astringent bitter taste, was reportedly eaten during the severe famine of 1899 and 1939. Pod yield is nearly 1.4 quintals of pods/ha with a variation of 10.7% in dry locations.

 

Prosopis cineraria wood is reported to contain high calorific value and provide high quality fuel wood. The lopped branches are good as fencing material. Its roots also encourage nitrogen fixation, which produces higher crop yields.

 

Tecomella undulata is one more tree species, locally known as Rohida, which is found in Thar Desert regions of northwest and western India. It is another important medium sized tree of great use in Agroforestry, that produces quality timber and is the main source of timber amongst the indigenous tree species of desert regions. The trade name of the tree species is Desert teak or Marwar teak.

 

Tecomella undulata is mainly used as a source of timber. Its wood is strong, tough and durable. It takes a fine finish. Heartwood contains quinoid. The wood is excellent for firewood and charcoal. Cattle and goats eat leaves of the tree. Camels, goats and sheep consume flowers and pods.

 

Tecomella undulata plays an important role in the ecology. It acts as a soil-binding tree by spreading a network of lateral roots on the top surface of the soil. It also acts as a windbreak and helps in stabilizing shifting sand dunes. It is considered as the home of birds and provides shelter for other desert wildlife. Shade of tree crown is shelter for the cattle, goats and sheep during summer days.

 

Tecomella undulata has medicinal properties as well. The bark obtained from the stem is used as a remedy for syphilis. It is also used in curing urinary disorders, enlargement of spleen, gonorrhoea, leucoderma and liver diseases. Seeds are used against abscess.

 

ECOTOURISM

Desert safaris on camels have become increasingly popular around Jaisalmer. Domestic and international tourists frequent the desert seeking adventure on camels for anything from a day to several days. This ecotourism industry ranges from cheaper backpacker treks to plush Arabian night style campsites replete with banquets and cultural performances. During the treks tourists are able to view the fragile and beautiful ecosystem of the Thar desert. This form of tourism provides income to many operators and camel owners in Jaisalmer as well as employment for many camel trekers in the desert villages nearby. But also people from various parts of the world come here to see pushkar mela and oasis.

 

INDUSTRY

Rajasthan is pre-eminent in quarrying and mining in India. The Taj Mahal was built with white marble mined from Makrana in Nagaur district. The state is the second largest source of cement in India. It has rich salt deposits at Sambhar. Jodhpur sandstone is mostly used in monuments, important buildings, residential buildings, and such. This stone is termed "chittar patthar". Jodhpur has also got mines of red stone locally known as ghatu patthar used in construction. Sandstone is found in Jodhpur and Naguar districts. Jalore is biggest centre of granite processing units.

 

Lignite coal deposits are there at places Giral, Kapuradi, Jalipa, Bhadka in Barmer district; Plana, Gudha, Bithnok, Barsinghpur, Mandla Charan, Raneri Hadla in Bikaner district and Kasnau, Merta, Lunsar etc., in Nagaur district. Lignite based Thermal power plant has been established at Giral in Barmer district. Jindal group is working on 1080 Megawatt power project in private sector at village Bhadaresh in Barmer district. "Neweli Lignite Barsinghpur Project" is in progress to establish two thermal power units of capacity 125 megawatts each at Barsinghpur in Bikaner district. Reliance Energy is working on establishing power generation through underground gasification technique in Barmer district with an outlay of about 30 billion rupees.

 

There is large storage of good quality petroleum in Jaisalmer and Barmer districts. The main places with deposits of petroleum are Baghewal, Kalrewal, and Tawariwal in Jaisalmer district and Gudha Malani area in Barmer district. Barmer district has started petroleum production on commercial scale.

 

Barmer district is in the news due to its large oil basin. The British exploration company Cairn Energy started production of oil on a large scale. Mangala, Bhagyam and Aishwariya are the major oil fields in the district. This is India's biggest oil discovery in 22 years. This promises to transform the local economy, which has long suffered from the harshness of the desert.

 

The Government of India initiated departmental exploration for oil in 1955-56 in the Jaisalmer area, Oil India Limited's discovered natural gas in 1988 in the Jaisalmer basin. Also known for their fine leather messenger bags made from wild camels native to the area.

 

The Thar desert seems an ideal place for generation of electricity from wind power. According to an estimate Rajasthan state has got a potential of 5500 Megawatt wind power generation as such it is in the priority of the state govt. Rajasthan State Power Corporation has established its first wind power based power plant at Amarsagar in Jaisalmer district. Some leading companies in the field are working on establishing wind mills in Barmer, Jaisalmer and Bikaner districts. Solar energy also has a great potential in this region as most of the days during a year are cloud free. Solar energy based plant has been established at Bhaleri in Churu district to convert hard water into drinking water.

 

SALT WATER LAKES

There are a number of salt water lakes in Thar desert. These are Sambhar, Pachpadra, Tal Chhapar, Falaudi and Lunkaransar where Sodium chloride salt is produced from salt water. The Didwana lake produces Sodium Sulphate salt. Ancient Archaeological evidences of habitations have been recovered from Sambhar and Didwana lakes which shows their antiquity and historical importance.

 

WATER & HOUSING IN THE DESERT

Water scarcity plays an important role in shaping life in all parts of Thar. Natural (tobas) or man-made (johads), both types of small, intermittent ponds, are often the only source of water for animals and humans in the true desert areas. The lack of a constant water supply causes much of the local population to live as nomads. Most human settlements are found near the two seasonal streams of the Karon-Jhar hills. Potable groundwater is also rare in the Thar desert. Supplies are often sour due to dissolved minerals, and are only available deep underground. Wells that successfully bear sweet water attract nearby settlement, but are difficult to dig, possibly claiming the lives of the well-diggers.

 

According to 1980 housing census in Pakistan, there were 241,326 housing units of one or two very small rooms. The degree of crowding was six persons per housing unit and three persons per room. For most of the housing units (approximately 76 per cent), the main construction material of outer walls is unbaked bricks whereas wood is used in 10 per cent and baked bricks or stones with mud bonding in 8 per cent housing units. A large number of families still live in jhugis or huts which are housing units formed with straws and thin wood-sticks. The wind storm proves these jhugis unsustainable all the times. But the poverty leaves no other option to these jhugiwalas (people living in jhugis).

 

The river Luni is the only natural water source that drains inside a lake in the desert. It originates in the Pushkar valley of the Aravalli Range, near Ajmer and ends in the marshy lands of Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, after travelling a distance of 530 km. The Luni flows through part of Ajmer, Barmer, Jalor, Jodhpur, Nagaur, Pali, and Sirohi districts and Mithavirana Vav Radhanpur region of Banaskantha North Gujarat. Its major tributaries are the Sukri, Mithri, Bandi, Khari, Jawai, Guhiya and Sagi from the left, and the Jojari River from the right.

 

The Ghaggar is another intermittent river in India, flowing during the monsoon rains. It originates in the Shivalik Hills of Himachal Pradesh and flows through Punjab and Haryana to Rajasthan; just southwest of Sirsa, Haryana and by the side of talwara jheel in Rajasthan, this seasonal river feeds two irrigation canals that extend into Rajasthan. It terminates in Hanumangarh district.

 

The Rajasthan Canal system is the major irrigation scheme of the Thar Desert and is conceived to reclaim it and also to check spreading of the desert to fertile areas. It is world's largest irrigation which is being extended in an attempt to make the desert arable. It runs south-southwest in Punjab and Haryana but mainly in Rajasthan for a total of 650 kilometers and ends near Jaisalmer, in Rajasthan. After the construction of the Indira Gandhi Canal, irrigation facilities were available over an area of 6770 km² in Jaisalmer district and 37 km² in Barmer district. Irrigation had already been provided in an area of 3670 km² in Jaisalmer district. The canal has transformed the barren deserts of this district into rich and lush fields. Crops of mustard, cotton, and wheat now flourish in this semi-arid western region replacing the sand there previously.

 

Besides providing water for agriculture, the canal will supply drinking water to hundreds of people in far-flung areas. As the second stage of work on the canal progresses rapidly, there is hope that it will enhance the living standards of the people of the state.

 

DESERT FOR RECREATION

Thar Desert provides the recreational value in terms of desert festivals organized every year. Rajasthan desert festivals are celebrated with great zest and zeal. This festival is held once a year during winters. Dressed in brilliantly hued costumes, the people of the desert dance and sing haunting ballads of valor, romance and tragedy. The fair has snake charmers, puppeteers, acrobats and folk performers. Camels, of course, play a stellar role in this festival, where the rich and colorful folk culture of Rajasthan can be seen.

 

Camels are an integral part of the desert life and the camel events during the Desert Festival confirm this fact. Special efforts go into dressing the animal for entering the spectacular competition of the best-dressed camel. Other interesting competitions on the fringes are the moustache and turban tying competitions, which not only demonstrate a glorious tradition but also inspire its preservation. Both the turban and the moustache have been centuries old symbols of honor in Rajasthan.

 

Evenings are meant for the main shows of music and dance. Continuing till late into the night, the number of spectators swells up each night and the grand finale, on the full moon night, takes place by silvery sand dunes.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Stirling Road, Larbert, Stirlingshire

August 2018

The Škoda Rapid Convertible

(cabriolet) was remarkable value for money when sold in the UK in the Mid-1980s. Converted for Škoda (UK) from standard cars by Ludgate Designs in Kent, the (now rare) convertible was considerably cheaper than other new soft-topped cars on the market. It was a good drive, too. Autocar described the car as "the poor man's Porsche", and they are now sought after vehicles. This - probably the best one surviving - was taking part in this years SALT Rally, and was snapped at the Three Swans Hotel, Market Harborough.

The SALT Rally 2012 (SALT SIX) was held around Market Harborough. The SALT Rallies are for vehicles built in the Cold War period, and the events tour Cold-War related venues. Most of the participating vehicles come from the Soviet Bloc, but there is no political element, implied or actual in the SALT ethos.

 

Visit the Communist Classic Cars Panorama!

  

Camera: Nikon F5

Lens: Nikkor 28-80mm zoom

Film: Kodak Ektar 100

On March 12, 1938 - one month before the referendum on the "Homecoming to the Reich" - the German emigrant and guest director Carl Ebert enters the Vienna Burgtheater. The porter already raises his arm to the Hitler salute. The first Jewish actors are already on leave. Ebert rehearses Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: "The leading Nazi among the soloists visited me on the decoration rehearsal and assured me that he vouched for a humane treatment of the> poor Jews etc.< at the Burgtheater." It is the heroic actor Carl Hennings, since 1933 member of the NSDAP and the SA banned in Austria. He plays the conspirator Cassius in the production.

For Alfred Eduard Frauenfeld, formerly NSDAP Gauleiter of Vienna, begins at the same time a special propaganda campaign. He should win artists who say yes to the "Anschluss" of Austria. Frauenfeld writes to celebrities and evaluates their answers according to their propaganda value. The poets Karl Heinrich Waggerl, Josef Weinheber and Richard Billinger are in the list "Poets profess to return to the Reich". Not the most well-known, but the most loyal yes-man is the Styrian dialect poet Hans Kloepfer. He writes a Styrian mountain farmer salutation: "He writes himself Hitler, and he loves us so much, / as far in the whole world / we do not find a more dear man."

On March 11, 1938, the popular actor Paul Hörbiger welcomes guests in his Berlin house: the comedian Theo Lingen, the operetta film star Willi Forst and the director E. W. Emo, who four years later turn the film Vienna 1910 - a transfiguration of the anti-Semitic Viennese mayor Karl Lueger as a Hitler precursor. It's going to be a dramatic evening. Hörbiger in his memoirs I've played for you: "toward evening we heard about the banned Austrian station the speech of the resigning Chancellor, Kurt von Schuschnigg... hours later, Hitler's German troops illegally marched into Austria. "Hörbiger is wrong in one point: listening to foreign broadcasters is only forbidden later.

Truth and legend often mingle when it comes to memories of the Nazi era. This also applies to the arts and culture: after 1945, many Austrian poets, actors and musicians have presented themselves as anti-fascists and resisters. Others were convicted as Nazi collaborators - burdened by witnesses who had themselves cooperated with the Nazis. Because today important documents are no longer visible, it is easy to transfigure your own biography in retrospect. One thing is clear, however, given the existing documents: a large part of the Viennese art scene has euphorically applauded the Anschluss.

The musician line-up includes Ferdinand Großmann, director of the Vienna Boys' Choir. Similarly, the General Music Director Karl Böhm, who had conducted the Meistersinger in 1937 at the beginning of the Nuremberg NSDAP Reichsparteitag: "Whoever does not approve of this Führer's action with a one hundred percent YES, does not deserve to bear the honorary name of a German!"

As a follow-up advocate, Frauenfeld also lists the arch-comedian Paul Hörbiger ("agreeing to vote 'yes' for me is a clear and distinct matter'), his brother Attila and Attila's wife Paula Wessely. While, for example, Rudolf Forster (in the film Vienna 1910 in the role of Mayor Lueger) completely ignores the Nazi period in his memoirs, Hörbiger constantly presents himself as a Nazi opponent. However, Hörbiger's memories of the Nazi years and Goebbels' simultaneous diary entries are scarce to reconcile. The Minister on 13 November 1935 on a celebration in the presence of Hitler: "The leader is all cheerful. And everyone stays until 6 o'clock in the morning. Hörbiger and Ullrich sing to the accordion. A great activity. "Hörbiger, on the other hand, wants to have teased Goebbels several times. For example, at the banquet after the Burgtheater premiere of Romeo and Juliet on November 30, 1940. Hörbiger: "It was the last time I met Goebbels." Goebbels, on March 15, 1942, wrote in a diary: "I'm going to visit the Burgtheater and watch a performance of (Ferdinand) Raimund the millionaire farmer with Hörbiger in the title role. "The Minister enthuses about Hörbiger's art of playing and continues:" After the performance I sit with the actors, especially with Hörbiger, Martha Rohs and a young one actress Nicoletti together. We talk a lot about theater and art issues. The Viennese actors are relatively well aligned politically. «

 

Am 12. März 1938 – einen Monat vor der Volksabstimmung über die »Heimkehr ins Reich« – betritt der deutsche Emigrant und Gastregisseur Carl Ebert das Wiener Burgtheater. Der Portier hebt bereits den Arm zum Hitlergruß. Die ersten jüdischen Schauspieler sind schon beurlaubt. Ebert probt Shakespeares Julius Cäsar : »Der führende Nazi unter den Solisten besuchte mich auf der Dekorationsprobe und versicherte mir, daß er für eine humane Behandlung der ›armen Juden etc.‹ am Burgtheater sich verbürge.« Es ist der Heldendarsteller Carl Hennings, seit 1933 Mitglied der in Österreich verbotenen NSDAP und der SA. Er spielt in der Inszenierung den Verschwörer Cassius.

Für Alfred Eduard Frauenfeld, ehemals NSDAP-Gauleiter von Wien, beginnt zur selben Zeit ein spezieller Propagandaeinsatz. Er soll Künstler gewinnen, die zum »Anschluss« Österreichs Ja sagen. Frauenfeld schreibt Prominente an und bewertet deren Antworten nach ihrem Propagandawert. In der Liste »Dichter bekennen sich zur Heimkehr ins Reich« stehen die Poeten Karl Heinrich Waggerl, Josef Weinheber und Richard Billinger. Nicht der bekannteste, aber der treuherzigste Jasager ist der steirische Mundartdichter Hans Kloepfer. Er verfasst einen Steirischen Bergbauerngruß : »Schreibm tuat er sie Hitler, / und uns so guat gsinnt, / wia ma weit in der Welt / net an liabern wo findt.«

Am 11. März 1938 begrüßt der Volksschauspieler Paul Hörbiger in seinem Berliner Haus Gäste: den Komiker Theo Lingen, den Operettenfilmstar Willi Forst und den Regisseur E. W. Emo, der vier Jahre später den Film Wien 1910 drehen wird – eine Verklärung des antisemitischen Wiener Bürgermeisters Karl Lueger als Hitler-Vorläufer. Es wird ein dramatischer Abend. Hörbiger in seinen Erinnerungen Ich hab für euch gespielt : »Gegen Abend hörten wir über den verbotenen österreichischen Sender die Rede des demissionierenden Bundeskanzler Dr. Kurt von Schuschnigg. … Stunden später marschierten Hitlers deutsche Truppen widerrechtlich in Österreich ein.« Nur in einem Punkt irrt Hörbiger: Das Hören ausländischer Sender wird erst später verboten.

Wahrheit und Legende vermischen sich oft, wenn es um Erinnerungen an die NS-Zeit geht. Das gilt auch für den Kunst- und Kulturbetrieb: Nach 1945 haben sich viele österreichische Dichter, Schauspieler und Musiker als Antifaschisten und Widerständler dargestellt. Andere wurden als NS-Kollaborateure verurteilt – belastet von Zeugen, die selbst mit den Nazis kooperiert hatten. Weil heute wichtige Dokumente nicht mehr einsehbar sind, fällt es leicht, die eigene Biografie im Nachhinein zu verklären. Eines ist aber angesichts der vorhandenen Dokumente klar: Ein großer Teil der Wiener Kunstszene hat den »Anschluss« euphorisch bejubelt.

In der Musiker-Aufstellung ist Ferdinand Großmann aufgeführt, Leiter der Wiener Sängerknaben. Ebenso der Generalmusikdirektor Karl Böhm, der 1937 zum Auftakt des Nürnberger NSDAP-Reichsparteitags die Meistersinger dirigiert hatte: »Wer dieser Tat des Führers nicht mit einem hundertprozentigen JA zustimmt, verdient nicht, den Ehrennamen Deutscher zu tragen!«

Als »Anschluss«-Befürworter führt Frauenfeld weiters den Erzkomödianten Paul Hörbiger (»ist für mich mit ›JA‹ zu stimmen eine klare und deutliche Angelegenheit«), dessen Bruder Attila sowie Attilas Ehefrau Paula Wessely. Während zum Beispiel Rudolf Forster (im Film Wien 1910 in der Rolle des Bürgermeisters Lueger) in seinen Memoiren die NS-Zeit komplett verschweigt, stellt sich Hörbiger permanent als Nazigegner dar. Hörbigers Erinnerungen an die NS-Jahre und Goebbels’ zeitgleiche Tagebucheinträge sind jedoch kaum in Einklang zu bringen. Der Minister am 13. November 1935 über eine Feier in Anwesenheit Hitlers: »Der Führer ist ganz aufgeräumt. Und alle bleiben bis 6 Uhr morgens. Hörbiger und die Ullrich singen zum Schifferklavier. Ein toller Betrieb.« Hörbiger hingegen will mehrfach gegen Goebbels gestichelt haben. So beim Festessen nach der Burgtheater-Premiere von Romeo und Julia am 30. November 1940. Hörbiger: »Es war das letzte Mal, daß ich mit Goebbels zusammengetroffen bin.« Goebbels dagegen am 15. März 1942 im Tagebuch: »Ich besuche abends das Burgtheater und sehe mir eine Aufführung des Reimundschen Bauer und Millionär mit Hörbiger in der Titelrolle an.« Der Minister schwärmt von Hörbigers Spielkunst und fährt fort: »Nach der Vorstellung sitze ich noch mit den Darstellern, vor allem mit Hörbiger, Martha Rohs und einer jungen Schauspielerin Nicoletti zusammen. Wir sprechen viel über Theater- und Kunstfragen. Die Wiener Darsteller sind verhältnismäßig gut politisch ausgerichtet.«

www.zeit.de/2007/11/OE-3_Reich/seite-3

Thought this was a unique find. A trailer for the now defunct Value City discount department stores. The department stores are gone although the furniture stores still exist.

Different times, different values.

Nestlé employees at Solon test the latest products to come off the Lean Cuisine production line.

Website:

www.museudooriente.pt/

www.museudooriente.pt/?lang=en

 

PORTUGUESE PRESENCE IN ASIA

english

The unifying concept underpinning this wide reaching exhibition was the

construction of an Oriental utopia by the Portuguese, from the 15th century right through to contemporary times based on trade, proselytism and the interchange of cultures. Given the boundaries to the collection theme allusive to the Portuguese presence in Asia, an enormous effort was therefore put into conceptualising and staging a narrative that would serve to maximise its unquestionable values and offset any shortcomings.

The visitor is welcomed into the central area on level 1 dedicated to Macau, a territory formerly under Portuguese administration and where the Fundação Oriente was founded in 1988. The large exhibition area is dominated by the four magnificent Chinese folding screens belonging to the collection. The oldest displays a Portuguese nau sailing the China Sea and flanked by another, essentially decorative in nature, bearing the coat of arms of the Gonçalves Zarco family and another inscribed with “do Coromandel”, with interesting Christian iconography echoing the school of painting founded by the Jesuits in Japan and that later spread to Macau. The fourth highly rare screen, displaying representations of the cities of Canton and Macau, is located next to the section dedicated to the iconography of the Cidade do Nome de Deus de Macau, with exhibits particularly focusing on the 17th and 18th centuries complemented by pieces from the 19th.

A granite statue, a crude depiction of a Dutchman, recalls the failed attempt to conquer Macau by Holland in 1622. This exhibition section also features a number of paintings and engravings from the period known as “China Trade” (18-19th centuries), both by Western and by Chinese artists.

A small set of designs and a charming painted miniature recall the extensive twenty seven year stay in Macau of the famous painter Georges Chinnery (1774-1852). This exponent of romantic Oriental landscapes left a sizeable legacy of urban, natural and human landscapes across the territory just as its final period of splendour as a key trading post between China and the West came to a close. On visits to Praia Grande or the sampans next to the A-Má Temple, the artist captured surprising instants of daily life dominated by the presence of the Chinese population going about their affairs against a backdrop influenced by a nostalgic European presence.

The role of Macau in international trade is extensively documented in the opposite section with highlights including the collection of porcelain bearing coats of arms laid out with the plates, dishes, terrines or jugs forming a dragon. Furthermore, there is a significant selection of examples of “China Trade” gouaches portraying the production and trade in tea and porcelain as well as Chinese fans so highly appreciated in the West.

Moving onto the eastern sector of level 1, leading onto the staircase, we encounter the following sections:

• And among remote people was founded/ A new kingdom held in great exaltation. Portuguese presence in Asia, in which, “guided” by the words of Camões in his epic Os Lusíadas in addition to those of Fernão Mendes Pinto in Peregrinação and based on a carefully selected range of objects (furniture, textiles, gold jewellery, painting and ivory pieces), complemented by maps and scale models, the establishment and expansion of the Portuguese Empire in the Orient is set out. Centred around Goa, this section features cities and strongholds, the social and cultural interchange resulting from the dialogue and confrontation between cultures and religions. Within this scope, of particular importance are an 18th century treatise written by a Goan on Hindu gentiles along with a set of watercolours making up an album portraying the traditional characters, professions and military authorities in India,

• The Far East, which testifies to the Portuguese discovery of the culture of the Middle Empire and the lucrative trade in luxury products that came about while also incorporating the role of the missionaries that would accompany the traders and soldiers and who first founded the Christian Church in China, as well as those martyred for their faith. The profitable interchange with Japan throughout the 16th and 17th centuries is brilliantly encapsulated by two folding screens and the Namban lacquered pieces, among the most significant pieces in the entire collection,

• The mother of pearl route: from the Holy Land to Oriental Asia, a collection made up of devotional pieces and “remembrances”, of small and medium size, destined either for export or the local Christian community with crucifixes and fixed crosses to the fore in a collection built up over decades by the sculptor Domingos Soares Branco and acquired by the Fundação Oriente.

With this section over, the visitor again returns to the central area of the Macau section and enters the western wing given over to the following:

• East Timor, peoples and cultures, a very rich collection that documents, through pieces related either to the daily reality and the genealogic traditions or to the sacred, the unity and diversity of the cultures presented in addition to the close ties these peoples held and still hold with Portugal. The seed remover and the bench are located in the daily world of working instruments while the bracelets, necklaces, insignias of power or circumcision knives project us into the worlds of ceremony and ritual and developed through the various types of mask present. The various types of cloth woven by Timorese women illustrate the genealogical traditions within community while the decorative doors and panels of homes or votive statues takes us into the microcosm of Timorese homes with their succession of storeys — from ground level, home to animals and lesser spirits, up to the quarters of the living before rising to the area given over to the worship of ancestors.

• Collecting the Art of East Asia contains a collection of terracotta and other antique Chinese, Japanese and Korean pieces acquired by the Fundação Oriente complemented by loans from Machado de Castro National Museum in Coimbra, enriched by the bequests of the poet Camilo Pessanha and the politician and writer Manuel Teixeira Gomes.

Given the extent of the Chinese ceramics collection, covering the most diverse period and techniques, the exhibition documents the typological evolution of funereal terracotta works, with examples dating back to the Neolithic period and running through to the Ming dynasty, as well as ceramics and porcelain both for practical daily purposes and pieces made for export.

The display further contains a small but significant set of bronzes in the majority deriving from the Camilo Pessanha Collection, some of them highly rare either due to their age or their artistic quality. A set of images, of various origins, and paintings in the Pessanha Collection provide a point of reference to the most erudite of Buddhist and Taoist artistic expression.

Courtesy of the painting and costumes in the Pessanha Collection, it is possible to evoke the office and artistic tastes of a 19th century Chinese man of letters with all his “cherished items”, libation recipients, screens and folding screens, objects of devotion and the roles and albums of traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy in addition to their respective means of execution.

From the notable collection of Chinese snuff flasks built up by Manuel Teixeira Gomes, the second largest in Europe, there is a representative selection of existing different types. The same level is reached with the Japanese collection of the same type: inrô (small and portable personal containers), netzuke (to close the inrô and mask shaped mostly with depictions of the leading characters from Nô Theatre) and tsuba (sword hand guards), covering a broad chronological period and which in the case of Japan are complemented by three monumental sets of armour and other ceramics, bronzes, painting and furniture.

Concluding this section, there is a display of Korean pieces: a lacquered wooden box set with mother of pearl incrustations and an interesting set of watercolours from the late 19th century by the Korean artist Kim Jun-geun, known by his artistic name of Kisan, depicting the clothing, costumes and festivals of Korea and produced for European and American markets.

 

português

 

O conceito gerador deste grande módulo expositivo foi a construção de uma utopia oriental pelos Portugueses, desde o século XV até aos nossos dias, baseada no comércio, na missionação e no encontro de culturas. Dados os referidos condicionalismos da colecção alusiva à presença portuguesa na Ásia, houve que fazer um enorme esforço de conceptualização e de encenação narrativa para de algum modo potenciar os seus indiscutíveis valores e minorar as suas fraquezas.

O visitante é acolhido no espaço central do piso 1, que é dedicado a Macau, território outrora sob administração portuguesa onde foi fundada a Fundação Oriente, em 1988. Este amplo espaço é dominado pela exposição de quatro magníficos biombos chineses da colecção: o mais antigo representa uma nau portuguesa nos mares da China e encontra-se ladeado por outros dois, um de carácter essencialmente decorativo, decorado com as armas da família Gonçalves Zarco, e um outro, dito “do Coromandel”, com interessante iconografia cristã, eco da escola de pintura criada no Japão pelos Jesuítas, que mais tarde se estenderia a Macau. O quarto biombo, raríssimo exemplar decorado com as representações das cidades de Cantão e de Macau, encontra-se junto à secção dedicada à iconografia da Cidade do Nome de Deus de Macau, com exemplares que remontam aos séculos XVII e XVIII e se estendem pelo século XIX.

Uma estátua em granito, representando toscamente um holandês, evoca a tentativa frustrada de conquista de Macau pelos Holandeses, em 1622. Neste módulo expositivo destacam-se ainda várias pinturas e gravuras do chamado período “China Trade” (séculos XVIII-XIX), tanto de autores ocidentais como de autores chineses.

Um pequeno conjunto de desenhos e uma encantadora pinturinha lembram a prolongada presença de vinte e sete anos em Macau do famoso pintor britânico Georges Chinnery (1774-1852), expoente do paisagismo romântico no Oriente, que deixou um notável registo das paisagens urbana, natural e humana do território no derradeiro período do seu esplendor como entreposto entre a China e o Ocidente. Nas vistas da Praia Grande ou das sampanas junto ao Templo de A-Má surpreendem-se instantâneos do quotidiano que envolvem dominantemente a presença da população chinesa nas suas tarefas, em cenários marcados por uma nostálgica presença europeia.

O papel de Macau no comércio internacional está extensivamente documentado na secção oposta, salientando-se a colecção de porcelana brasonada, formando, na disposição de pratos, travessas, terrinas ou jarras, um dragão. Contudo, não deixam de ser significativas as séries de gouaches “China Trade” que representam o fabrico e o comércio do chá e da porcelana, assim como os leques chineses, muito apreciados no Ocidente.

Passando ao sector nascente do piso 1, fronteiro ao acesso por escada, sucedem-se os seguintes módulos:

 

• E entre gente remota edificaram/Novo reino que tanto sublimaram. Presença portuguesa na Ásia, em que, “guiados” pelas palavras de Camões n’ Os Lusíadas mas também pelas de Fernão Mendes Pinto na Peregrinação, se procura documentar, a partir de uma criteriosa selecção de objectos (mobiliário, têxteis, ourivesaria, pintura e marfins), complementada por mapas e maquetas, o estabelecimento e a construção do Império Português do Oriente, centrado em Goa, com as suas cidades e praças-fortes, as suas sociedade e cultura miscigenadas, em que se deu o diálogo e o confronto entre culturas e religiões. Neste particular destacam-se um exemplar setecentista de um tratado escrito por um goês sobre o gentilismo hindu, assim como as aguarelas de um álbum que representa tipos populares, profissões e autoridades militares da Índia;

• Ásia Extrema, em que se evidencia a descoberta, pelos Portugueses, da cultura do Império do Meio e do lucrativo comércio de produtos de luxo que com ele poderiam realizar, não esquecendo o papel dos missionários que acompanhavam os comerciantes e os soldados e deram início à Igreja Católica na China, inclusive os que sofreram o martírio pela Fé. O frutuoso encontro com o Japão nos séculos XVI e XVII é brilhantemente ilustrado por dois biombos e por lacas namban que estão entre as mais relevantes peças de toda a colecção;

Findo este sector, o visitante atravessa, de novo, o espaço central dedicado a Macau e entra no sector poente, em que se desenvolvem outros dois módulos:

• Timor-Leste, povos e culturas, colecção muito rica que documenta, através de peças relacionadas quer com as vivências quotidianas e as tradições linhagísticas quer com o sagrado, a unidade e a diversidade das culturas em presença, assim como os estreitos laços que esses povos souberam manter com Portugal. O descaroçador e o banco situam-nos no mundo quotidiano dos instrumentos de trabalho, enquanto as pulseiras, os colares, as insígnias de poder ou as facas de circuncisão nos projectam no universo cerimonial e ritual, tal como acontece com as diversas máscaras presentes. Os vários tipos de panos tecidos pelas mulheres timorenses ilustram os patrimónios linhagísticos das comunidades, enquanto as portas e os painéis decorativos das casas ou a estatuária votiva nos projectam no microcosmo da casa timorense com a sua sucessão de andares — do nível térreo, morada dos animais e dos espíritos inferiores, passando pela residência dos vivos, até ao lugar de culto dos antepassados.

• O coleccionismo de arte do Extremo Oriente, constituído pela colecção de terracotas e de outras antiguidades chinesas, japonesas e coreanas que foi adquirida pela Fundação Oriente, a que se acrescentaram os acervos em depósito provenientes do Museu Nacional de Machado de Castro, em Coimbra, em que se destacam os legados do poeta Camilo Pessanha e do político e escritor Manuel Teixeira Gomes.

Atendendo ao elevado número de exemplares de cerâmica chinesa dos mais diversos períodos e técnicas, é possível documentar a evolução tipológica das terracotas funerárias, com exemplares que remontam ao Neolítico e se estendem até à dinastia Ming, assim como da cerâmica e da porcelana de uso quotidiano, nela incluindo alguma de exportação.

Expõe-se também um pequeno mas significativo conjunto de bronzes provenientes, na sua maioria, da Colecção Camilo Pessanha, alguns deles de grande raridade pela sua antiguidade e pela qualidade artística. Um grupo de imagens de vária proveniência e algumas pinturas da Colecção Pessanha permitem referenciar a expressão artística mais erudita do budismo e do taoísmo.

Graças à pintura e ao traje da Colecção Pessanha, evoca-se o ambiente do gabinete e o gosto artístico de um letrado chinês de oitocentos, com as “preciosidades”, as taças de libação, os ecrãs e os biombos, os objectos devocionais ou os rolos e álbuns de pintura tradicional chinesa e de caligrafia, bem como os respectivos apetrechos de execução.

Da notável colecção de frascos de rapé de fabrico chinês de Manuel Teixeira Gomes, a segunda maior da Europa, apresenta-se uma significativa selecção das diferentes tipologias que a constituem. O mesmo se passa com as peças japonesas da mesma proveniência: os inrô (pequenos contentores portáteis pessoais), as netzuke (fechos dos inrô em forma de máscara, com personagens, na sua maioria, do Teatro Nô) e as tsuba (guarda-mãos de espada), peças de cronologia alargada, a que se acrescentam, ainda no âmbito do Japão, as três monumentais armaduras e outros objectos de cerâmica, bronze, pintura e mobiliário.

Concluindo este módulo, expõem-se também peças coreanas: uma caixa em madeira lacada com incrustações de madrepérola e uma curiosa série de aguarelas de finais de oitocentos da autoria do pintor coreano Kim Jun-geun, conhecido pelo nome artístico de Kisan, sobre trajos, costumes e festas da Coreia, realizadas para o mercado europeu e americano.

 

_______________________________________________________-

english

The Museum of the Orient (Portuguese: Museu do Oriente) in Lisbon, Portugal celebrates the history of Portuguese exploration with a collection of Asian artifacts. The museum opened in May, 2008, and is located in a refurbished industrial building on the Alcântara waterfront. The collection includes Indonesian textiles, Japanese screens, antique snuff bottles, crucifixes made in Asia for Western export, and the Kwok On Collection of masks, costumes, and accessories.

português

O Museu do Oriente está instalado no edifício Pedro Álvares Cabral, antigos armazéns da Comissão Reguladora do Comércio do Bacalhau em Alcântara, Lisboa.

O museu reúne colecções que têm o Oriente como temática principal, nas vertentes histórica, religiosa, antropológica e artística.

A exposição permanente engloba 1400 peças alusivas à presença portuguesa na Ásia e 650 peças pertencentes à colecção Kwok On.

O museu é da responsabilidade da Fundação Oriente e foi inaugurado no dia 8 de Maio de 2008.

A actual directora é Maria Manuela d'Oliveira Martins.

Foi classificado como Monumento de interesse público (MIP) pelo IGESPAR em 15 de junho de 2010.

 

Once had a Gold Circle which later was Value City before becoming Burlington Coat Factory. In 1996 - 1997 part of the Gold Circle building was demolished / re-purposed for Circuit City and Dollar General.

 

5114 Salem Avenue in Trotwood, Ohio

To the surprise of nobody who's ever talked to me, I have eclectic tastes when it comes to collectibles. Yeah, I'll get the things that are generally universally liked, but ultimately shock value and general tastelessness (by puritan US standards) are what kind of guide my collecting path.

 

About a year ago, there was a company with a dream - Big Firebird Toy - and that dream was to make a transforming Arcee figure that was more Senran Kagura than G1 Autobot. Her name would be Nicee, and would share enough characteristics with her licensed namesake so you could help Hot Rod live out his high school fantasies including a familiar alt mode and a very G1 Arcee head.

 

People complained, of course, but in this day and age, what else is new? At least this wasn't Flametoys where they were selling licensed figures... this was the Wild Wild West of Third Party Transformer figures. I'll admit the window dressing was might attractive, but the Engineer in me also wanted to know.. just how would they pull off such an ambitious design?

 

At any rate, preorders were placed and all was well for a while.

 

First it was COVID causing mayhem and delaying production of everything across the board. Then, rumour has it that Hasbro started actually cracking down on Chinese bootlegs of their figures, and so Big Firebird Toy dropped the Arcee head, and just stuck with their own original content. That all passed, and I finally received my copy of the figure.

 

So just how did they do? Lets look at the Big Firebird Toy EX-01: Nicee figure.

 

I ordered mine from TF-Direct, who were the lowest price point at the time. Prices have since jumped up from the $95 USD I paid, which included EMS shipping, but a cursory glance at eBay shows you should still be OK. The figure came in it's own brown shipper, with an art box contained within which houses all the fun stuff.

 

A quick glance at the art box should very quick establish that no... this is not a kids figure. It's not quite Skytube hentai PVC material, but it is at least Teen territory. Also nice is the Pink foiled letters.

 

I also have to giggle at the security seal and the quality assurance foil sticker because, well... China.

 

Nicee is packed in robot mode, and comes in a single layered tray with her accessories. By the time things are said and done, the box is gigantic, effectively 12" x 12" x 4", like something out of the old Toys R Us MP boxes. Accessories include an extra Aheago head, a breast plate with soft rubbery breasts, a laser pistol, an energy arrow, a sword, part of her chasis, the handle for her bow, and six additional hands. Naturally, she has a set of instructions, as well as a nifty art card.

 

Nicee is a gorgeous figure, and I'm not just talking curves. I had two major concerns - crappy paint work, and crappy build. I've done the best I can on my photos, but one of things I couldn't make out on other photos I've seen is the fact that Nicee has a nice pearl finish on all her painted parts. Try as I might, I could not find any areas of overspray or bleeding, with the only bad paint being a fibre or something being embedded into the forehead of my Aheago head. Even the pink on the wheels are pearl finish. Now, I would ADD some colours to a few areas, such as the blade of the sword and maybe to the face to make the lips turn out better, but that's another discussion - what paint work you do get is pretty damn good and is generally resistant to most forms of contact.

 

I'm not saying you should break out the sand paper, but you can at least be assured you don't have to worry about actually handling the figure without gloves.

 

Build quality is a bit tougher to explore, but to put aside any immediate worries, overall things are very good. Nicee has rubber tires, which is becoming more and more of a rare thing. There are some die cast metal parts, though these in high stress structural components. The plastics they used feel like the same stuff you'd get on a Takara Tomy MP figure, but perhaps a bit thinner, maybe due to the sheer number of curved parts on this figure.

 

The finish on these parts is, without a doubt, phenomenal. very few rough surfaces or mould lines found. My mind is blown at how well the pieces fit together, and that truly the finished product matched the CG renders almost perfectly. QC with regards to accuracy of tabs and slots is almost perfect, but isn't quite up to Takara Tomy standards, so it can be a bit of pain to get things aligned correctly but it can be done, at least, and the parts come together with tolerances that wouldn't be out of place on an MP figure.

 

Joints in general tend to be a bit on the stiff side, especially the neck and head joints, which can make posing Nicee a bit of a headache..

 

Finally I feel the hands should have used the more popular method of connection, that is having the ball on the wrist joint itself and the socket on the hand, as opposed to the opposite. This would make things connect more securely, as well as improve range of motion here.

 

Nicee herself is 19 cm tall, which puts here out of MP scale, as she's supposed to be slightly smaller than Hot Rod. On the plus side, she's that much more visually impressive and has that much more shelf presence.

 

Articulation is impressive, and is in line with what I'd expect from an MP figure. You get full ankles (two separate points of movement), double jointed knees, thigh twist, hips with pull down for greater range of motion, waist, mid torso, shoulders with lateral movement (so arms can come closer together), bicep swivel, single jointed elbows, wrists, neck, and head. Provided you can get the joints to cooperate, you can put the figure into many, many poses, though for next time Big Firebird Toy, double jointed elbows, please.

 

For all the effort put into the design of this figure, I feel that Big Firebird Toy put their C Team on weapons duty. The sword is a bit bland, but more importantly, there's one hand dedicated to holding both the Sword and the Bow, and neither of them are really held that well. The laser pistol is perhaps the only weapon where they did some homework as there's almost no way that gun will ever get loose from that hand, and I wish that they had given her a second pistol, in addition to more useful hands.

 

Another thing that might cool your enthusiasm for Nicee is that she is somewhat of a Partsformer, like most of the current mainline Transformers. In order to achieve a certain body shape, designers just made unwanted parts removable and convertible into accessories for the main figure.

 

In Nicee's case, that piece of the car body turns into a shield that is pegged in a way that you either can move the forearm it's attached to, or you hold it like a gun because there's no proper handle. Then there's the bow.... oh that bow.

 

It's made up of the front of the vehicle mode, which usually hangs on to her behind her neck, giving Nicee those wing looking things. Conversion to a bow involves plugging in a plastic piece that gives it a handle, then squeezing it into the hand that is meant for the sword. It's very, very awkward to say the least, and the fact there's no real dedicated hand for holding the arrow is also a major pain.

 

Oh right, in the event you don't fancy a bow, you can convert most of the parts into a skirt for... reasons, which unfortunately leaves you with a completely useless panel as well as reduced articulation.

 

Finally, coming full circle we have transformations, though before I go on I should probably mention that you swap out the breast plates by popping up the shoulders and head and replacing the part.

 

Conversion into vehicle mode isn't really that complicated once you decipher the instruction manuals mentions of degrees and misspelt words. To their credit, there is a link to a transformation video, which I didn't watch, but I'll presume is more helpful than the instructions. The overall methodology is kind of like TM2 Blackarachnia where you stretch out the body, wrap the legs around the body and cover the entire thing in a shell. IIRC the Generations version had this method and maybe even the other 3P Arcee I have, the Occular Max Zinnia.

 

I guess I should also mention there was controversy about how the vehicle mode had the visual making of a Vagina or something. I dunno.. I don't looking for the meaning of life in my cups of coffee, and I don't go looking for Vaginas in my vehicle modes.

 

So in conclusion, the base figure itself is very good, and I'm impressed with the excellent paint work and overall production values of the figure. Weapons really is where the ball was dropped, and even then things could have been saved if the variety of hands was greater and if the bow/shield had actual proper handles so they could do their job. But all-in-all, this is much better than any novelty figure has the right to be.

 

So if you're an open minded transforming robot fan, I'd highly recommend you give Nicee a try.

A farmer delivers milk to a Nestlé collection centre close to our factory in Shuangcheng, China.

  

by isleta lakes

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