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This car cannot display without mentioning Gordan Murray. Gordan was born in 1946 in Durban, South Africa.After studying mechanical engineering in Durban he left for England and hopefully a job with Lotus.But this was not to be and extraordinary BT46B fan car. After an unsuccessful year with Brabham in 1986 he moved to Mclaren. Here again the main focus would be formula one cars,but in 1988 he got a chance to work on one of his personal passions. To built a car that would be the fastest and most involved car in the world. The Mclaren F1 announced to the public in March 1989 with the first customer car being delivered on Christmas Eve 1993.Production continued until 1997 with each car taking over 6000 hours to produce. only 100 cars were ever produced.
Without my camera in hand for the day, had to last resort it with the iPhone 6S. Meanwhile, hanging out with my good friends having a couple drinks
Pearl, the Pirates of the Caribbean Attractionista, has been fully deboxed. She is without her pirate hat and sidekick parrot. She is standing, supported by a Kaiser stand (not included).
Pearl is the Pirates of the Caribbean Attractionista. In photos she has very yellow skin. In real life, her skin isn't quite as yellow. She has blue eyes, purple eyeshadow, and full dark pink lips. As with Gracey, Pearl looks better without the her hat, which doesn't stay on her head very well anyway. A major deficiency is that she has a major case of bedhead. Her red hair is very curly and very flattened in the back, because of the way it was put in the box. It is very stiff with hair product, so I didn't try to fluff it up. Therefore her hair only looks really good from the front. She has orange plastic earrings. Her necklace and bracelet are sewn in place to her clothing, so isn't removable. She has a combo shirt and vest, with separate wrist bands. She has a crimson sash/belt, and a Pirate flag skirt. She has blue and white striped tights, and knee high dark brown boots. She has a sidekick parrot named Jolly Roger, who has a pirate hat like Pearl's.
I got the newly released Disney Parks Attractionista dolls today at World of Disney in Disneyland this past Sunday, August 2, 2015. They are posable 12 1/2'' dolls by Disney Parks, and cost $29.95 each. There are four of them: Maddie (Mad Tea Party), Gracey (Haunted Mansion), Pearl (Pirates of the Caribbean) and Celeste (Space Mountain). Each of them comes with headgear and a sidekick.
They come in boxes that are much larger than those for the regular Disney Parks or Disney Store Princess dolls, and larger than the DL60 11 1/2'' doll as well. The Attractionista box is 17''H x 9''W x 3''D, versus 13''H x 7''W x 2.5''D for the DL60 doll, and 13''H x 6''W x 2''D for a DS Classic doll.
I bought one of each doll. I will post photos of them boxed, during deboxing, and fully deboxed. I will also pose them with other comparable dolls.
© 2010 Paul L. Csizmadia All Rights Reserved No Use Allowed without Permission
The Coast Guard Cutter 'Apalachee' (WYT-71) enjoys a little morning sun on the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio.
Apalachee was commissioned on 26 November 1943. She was the first of her class to enter service, and was assigned to Baltimore, where she served through 1984. She was used for law enforcement and search and rescue patrols, fire fighting and light icebreaking when needed.
From 11 to 12 June 1965 she assisted in fighting the fire aboard the Columbian motor vessel Ciudad de Nieva near Baltimore. On 13 February 1968 she assisted in fighting a fire on Pier 5 in Baltimore. On 4 June 1969 she assisted in fighting the fire aboard the motor vessel Provence Town, again near Baltimore.
She transferred to Portland, Maine on 17 September 1984 where she served until she was decommissioned on 11 April 1986.
The U.S. Coast Guard Tug Association brought the former Coast Guard Cutter Apalachee (WYTM-71) to Cleveland in June of 2009 to be restored and presented as a maritime and Coast Guard museum ship. The Apalachee is a 110-ft icebreaking tug and the sister ship to the USCGC Kaw, which hailed from Cleveland for many years; the latter having provided icebreaking services for, among many others, the steamship William G. Mather, a museum ship currently in Cleveland, for many years.
It is hoped that the Apalachee will become an important attraction to Cleveland’s Lakefront revitalization project. As a USCG museum, a platform for educational opportunities, and a working venue for organizations such as the Sea Scouts, Navy Sea Cadets, Coast Guard Auxiliary, Coast Guard and Navy reserves, the Apalachee will become an important destination in Cleveland’s already growing harbor front attractions.
The Enterprise is without a doubt the strangest ship in the Territorial Fleet. While most designs used by the TN are homegrown small- to mid-sized, highly adaptable vessels capable of rapid deployment to fill a multitude of roles, the Enterprise is gigantic, slow, and decidedly not of Republic (or even human) origin. Found adrift and unpowered, the origins of this former derelict are unknown. Carbon-dating places it around 5000 years old, and while the titanium alloy used in its construction is not exotic, its sheer cost boggles the mind. The elements used to power it's engines are extremely rare and also costly, perphaps another reason why the Republic never attempted to build a copy.
The Enterprise is by far the largest ship in the Territorial Navy, more than four times the tonnage of a Claymore-class cruiser. To call the Enterprise slow is slightly misleading. Its FTL seems to be slower than standard Slingshot drives, and its sublight speed is likewise unimpressive. However, the Enterprise uses a unique singularity drive which allows it to make miniature FTL jumps inside of a solar system.
While the technology has been succesfully reverse-engineered, it is too large and expensive to practically fit aboard any vessel. A modified, less powerful version was eventually created and is used as the -Cuttthoat-class's F-Zero drive.
The Enterprise offers a unique capability for the Territorial Navy. It is the only battleship-sized vessel in the Fleet, with enough hangar space to house multiple space wings, fulfilling the role of a sort of super-carrier. Unlike other Republic ships, all its weapons are energy-based, mostly lasers with a smattering of plasma. Its shield are extremely weak, only strong enough to deflect astral debris, but its armour is immensely strong, able to shrug off devastating amounts of firepower.
The Enterprise has multiple sections that can detach themselves from the main hull, exposing additional hangers for rapid deployments. It is suspected that these had other uses for its original creators, but none can tell exactly what. The Enterprise is not attached to any Territorial Fleet Group, instead serving as the flagship of its own Enterprise Task Force, which may serve on its own or be attached to a fleet as needs require.
Service aboard the Enterprise is seen as a tremendous honour, and the ship is beloved thoughout the Holy Terran Republic. It has a reputation for good luck. When attacked by a Concordat attack group in 2388, the "Big E" was heavily damaged, and destruction seemed imminent as a Concordat battleship closed in on the wounded ship.
It was at this moment that laser battery #1 fired a burst straight through the enemy's core, annihilating it. Later, the shot was calculated to require more than 200% the maximum energy capacity of the charge banks. Even more strangely, post-battle investigation revealed that all power conduits to the turret had been severed before the shot was taken. None of the gunnery officers could testify to having taken the shot.
There are numerous eyewitness accounts of "ghostly figures" see throughout the ship. Sometimes they are credited with saving a crewman from a scenario where certain death seems the only possible outcome. It is no wonder that the highly superstitious Territorials believe that the spirits of the Marines who died securing the ship return occasionally to protect them. Some believe it is the ghosts of the original creators of the ship.
Morale aboard the Enterprise is consistently among the highest in the entire fleet. Its current commander is Captain Desjani, who serves under Admiral Geary, who is in overall command of the Enterpise Task Force.
Average number of yearly missions undertaken by ship class:
Rapier-class: 31
Claymore-class: 22
Taffy-class: 156
RTS Enterpise: 40
"And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles."
~Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Secret Garden)
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Dal punto di vista storico sono stati i Saraceni ad occuparsi intensamente dell’olivicoltura in terra salentina, secondo quanto attestato da Bonaventura da Lama, il quale, nel 1724, fa riferimento ai fatti avvenuti tra il 769 ed il 963, un arco temporale in cui l’area oggi denominata Salento venne popolata da boschi di ulivi; si devono ai Saraceni anche l’introduzione del torchio per la produzione di olio e la coltivazione della varietà Cellina. Probabilmente quelli che sono giunti ai nostri giorni non sono gli ulivi originariamente impiantati dai Saraceni, come presumibile dalle continue modifiche subite dal paesaggio. I maestosi uliveti che popolano i paesaggi salentini contemporanei possono essere il risultato di impianti ed innesti su olivastri realizzati dai monaci basiliani e dalle popolazioni che con loro giunsero nel Salento dal Peloponneso, dalla Morea e dalle isole dell’arcipelago greco.
Degne di particolare menzione sono le piante secolari, colossali e maestose, veri monumenti naturali attualmente oggetto d’attenzione e tutela grazie ad una legge regionale. La Puglia intera, nonché il Salento, vengono spesso ricordati dai turisti di passaggio, nonché dai visitatori abituali per le bellezze naturalistiche: il mare, le lunghe spiagge e gli oliveti. Distese di tronchi deformati dal tempo, tutti uguali eppur diversi nella struttura, nella forma, nella chioma ormai imponente, gli ulivi secolari si stagliano sul panorama salentino, conferendogli odori e colori tipici e, ormai, tradizionali. L’albero di ulivo è, certamente, uno dei simboli per eccellenza del Salento: ne sono stati stimati circa 50-60 milioni su tutto il territorio e molti di essi sono secolari. Le caratteristiche geologiche, nonché la scarsa necessità di cure, fanno sì che gli ulivi resistano per anni, lustri, e, addirittura, secoli, alle intemperie, alla forza distruttrice del vento e della pioggia e all’insopportabile caldo torrenziale delle estati salentine. Chi li guarda resta spesso incantato e ammaliato nel pensare che quegli alberi, probabilmente, potrebbero raccontare più storie e tradizioni di un libro di “culacchi”. Ma è soprattutto la loro forma che lascia a bocca aperta, grandi e bambini: la pianta cresce molto lentamente e col passare del tempo il tronco si trasforma, diventando sempre più contorto, piegandosi su se stesso e, dopo lungo tempo, spaccandosi nel mezzo. È in questo momento che diviene casa per molteplici razze d’animaletti, di varia taglia. La corteggia assume diverse sfumature di colore a seconda dell’età del tronco, nonché della penetrazione della luce solare che brucia e secca il legno; laddove il sole non batte, infatti, il legno tende a restare più umido e, talvolta, a marcire.
Sebbene l’aspetto caratteristico degli ulivi, in special modo di quelli secolari, sia il tronco, non bisogna dimenticare che il vero elemento essenziale si cela nella grande chioma: miriadi di palline piccole e scure dalle quali ricavare l’oro verde del Salento, l’olio d’oliva, ormai esportato e conosciuto in tutto il mondo.
Al di là del valore commerciale, questi alberi hanno un valore storico e, per taluni aspetti, anche affettivo e per questo devono essere costantemente tutelati e salvaguardati da eventuali disboscamenti od espianti: spesso, infatti, i privati scelgono di adornare le proprie ville espiantando ulivi secolari che, se non ricollocati in un terreno idoneo, rischiano di seccare. Ma, ancora, soprattutto negli ultimi anni, con l’avvento di una condizione di crisi economico-finanziaria, spesso si sceglie di disboscare intere aree prima destinate alla coltivazione di alberi di ulivo per lasciar posto a nuove colture più produttive o, peggio, all’installazione di impianti tecnologici.
Copyright © 2014 Ruggero Poggianella Photostream
All rights reserved. Please, do not use my photos/videos without my written permission.
Please note that the fact that "this photo is public" doesn't mean it's public domain or a free stock image. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited. If you wish to use any of my images for any reason/purpose please contact me for written permission. Tous droits reservés. Défense d'utilisation de cette image sans ma permission. Todos derechos reservados. No usar sin mi consentimiento.
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Dalla non fortunatissima berlina derivò, nel 1965, un'elegante e sportiva coupé, che divenne un enorme successo commerciale, grazie alla bellezza della linea e, in un secondo tempo, all'impulso derivante dalle numerose vittorie nelle gare di rally, culminate con la conquista del Campionato Internazionale Rally 1972 (Antesignano del Campionato del Mondo Rally che sarà istituito l'anno successivo). Disegnata da Piero Castagnero, che s'ispirò (secondo le sue dichiarazioni) al motoscafo Riva, la Fulvia Coupé è una berlinetta sportiva a 2 posti più 2, dall'aspetto elegante, dalle finiture curate (come la plancia rivestita in vero legno) e dalle prestazioni sportive. In realtà, sono piuttosto evidenti le similitudini del frontale e della linea di fiancata, con il prototipo presentato da Giovanni Michelotti al Salone di Torino del 1961, su meccanica Fiat 1300/1500. Realizzata sul pianale accorciato (il passo era di 2330mm, cioè di 150mm più corto) della berlina, la compatta coupé Lancia era spinta, al momento del debutto da una versione di 1216 cm³ da 80 CV del V4 a di 12º53'28". L'alimentazione era a due carburatori a doppio corpo Solex, mentre il cambio (a 4 marce) aveva la leva a cloche tra i sedili. Grazie al peso contenuto in 950kg, la piccola sportiva raggiungeva i 160 km/h. Incoraggiata dall'ottima tenuta di strada e dalle doti telaistiche della vettura, la Lancia introdusse subito (1966) un potenziamento a 88 CV del motore sulla versione HF alleggerita con cofani e portiere in una speciale lega d'alluminio e magnesio denominata Peraluman. La carrozzeria venne alleggerita, grazie all'eliminazione dei paraurti, alla semplificazione dell'allestimento interno, all'utilizzo di lamiere più sottili nelle parti non strutturali e all'adozione di lunotto e vetri posteriori in plexiglas. Esteticamente la Coupé HF era riconoscibile per la banda verniciata giallo/blu su cofani e tetto e per l'elefantino sui parafanghi anteriori nonché la verniciatura in Amaranto di Montebello. Con l'introduzione del motore 1298 da 87 CV della Rallye 1,3 il motore della coupé 1,2 venne portato a 1231 cm³ per uniformare il ciclo di produzione e l'offerta della motorizzazione 1,2 venne mantenuta per motivi esclusivamente fiscali. Le nuove motorizzazioni vennero modificate nell'angolo di bancata, riducendolo a 12º45'28", per ottenere un alesaggio maggiore. Era il preludio al lancio di una vera versione sportiva da far correre nei Rally, che avvenne l'anno successivo con la presentazione della versione Rallye 1,3 HF. Le novità apportate all'HF, rispetto alla versione standard, furono molte e sostanziali e grazie ad una serie di modifiche (pistoni, albero motore, rapporto di compressione, carburatori), la potenza crebbe a 101cv. I successi di categoria ottenuti dalla HF, ispirarono la versione Rally 1.3 S che, con propulsore potenziato a 93 CV e dotato di radiatore dell'olio, prese il posto della versione standard nel 1968. Intuendo le potenzialità della vettura, che però non poteva competere, coi suoi 1298 cm³, per il titolo assoluto, Cesare Fiorio, responsabile del reparto corse Lancia, ottenne, nonostante le risicate risorse finanziarie, il benestare per sviluppare ulteriormente l'HF. Il risultato fu la Rallye 1,6 HF del 1969 (detta anche "Fanalone", per via della coppia di fari più interna più grandi di quella esterna): 1584 cm³, 120cv (160cv la versione da corsa), 850kg, cambio a 5 marce, assetto da corsa (camber negativo), sterzo diretto e cerchi in lega con pneumatici maggiorati. La "fanalone" permise alla Lancia di aggiudicarsi numerosi rally ed il Campionato del Mondo del 1972. Nel frattempo la Lancia era stata acquisita dalla Fiat, che non vedeva di buon occhio gli elevati costi di produzione dei modelli in listino. La Fulvia Coupé era all'apice della carriera e non era pensabile dismetterla, ma occorreva, secondo Fiat, intervenire per ridurne i costi produttivi, migliorando i profitti unitari. Fu questo il principale scopo del restyling del 1970. A livello estetico i cambiamenti erano minimi (nuova mascherina più sottile e lineare, paraurti con fascia protettiva in gomma nera), mentre sotto il profilo tecnico si segnalava l'adozione del cambio a 5 marce anche sulla Coupé 1.3 S (con motore di 1298 cm³ da 90 CV) ed un notevole miglioramento dell'impianto frenante ed un aggiornamento della geometria delle sospensioni anteriori. I risparmi, però, erano realizzati sui materiali interni (il legno della plancia era impiallacciato su un supporto d'alluminio) ed esterni (vennero eliminate le parti in peralluman che però compaiono casualmente su alcune vetture). Oltre alla Coupé 1.3 S, la gamma includeva la Coupé 1600 HF (1584 cm³, 115 CV) e la 1600 HF Lusso. La prima aveva carrozzeria priva di paraurti, sedili sportivi, allestimento semplificato; la seconda, aveva dotazioni più raffinate come i sedili con poggiatesta, i deflettori sulle portiere, insonorizzazione completa. Le Coupé 1600 HF erano entrambe dotate di cerchioni Cromodora in lega leggera e la carrozzeria è caratterizzata da parafanghi allargati che le distinguono dalle 1,3s. Per celebrare la vittoria del Rallye di Montecarlo del 1972 venne allestita una serie di Coupé 1,3s con livrea analoga alla vettura da corsa. Anche questa vettura presenta i passaruota allargati similmente alla Coupé 1600 HF. Tuttavia i lamierati della Fulvia Montecarlo sono differenti rispetto a quelli delle Coupé 1600 HF.
Quando, alla fine del 1972, la Fulvia berlina venne tolta di listino, la Coupé vendeva ancora bene e rimase in produzione. Per non far concorrenza alla nuova Beta Coupé, tuttavia, nel 1973 la gamma venne ridotta alla sola versione 1.3 da 90 CV che, per l'occasione, venne sottoposta ad leggero aggiornamento che ne trasformò il nome in Fulvia 3. I ritocchi, ancora una volta, erano mirati ad aggiornare l'estetica ed aggiornarne la sicurezza sebbene riducendo i costi: la mascherina divenne in plastica nera conformemente alla moda dell'epoca, il volante in materiale sintetico imbottito, vennero adottate cinture di sicurezza fisse a 3 punti ed i poggiatesta; il pomello della leva del cambio in legno (come sulla Beta Coupé e sulla Stratos) e un cruscotto con strumenti a sfondo bianco al posto di quelli neri della seconda serie. Il restyling segnò anche l'abbandono delle competizioni, dove venne (molto degnamente) sostituita dalla plurivittoriosa Stratos. Dalla 3 vennero prodotte anche le versioni Montecarlo e la Safari, invariate nella meccanica. La produzione cessò definitivamente nel 1976, quando venne lanciata la versione 1300 della Beta Coupé.
La Fulvia Coupé venne prodotta in 140.454 esemplari, di cui 6.419 HF. Certamente quando si parla di Fulvia coupé e in particolare delle versioni HF non si può non dire che queste versioni nacquero innanzitutto per la grande opera di Cesare Fiorio e di ciò che il suo allora ancora piccolo staff di uomini creato "in un angolo dei capannoni Lancia" era riuscito a fare con la nascita della "Squadra Corse HF Lancia". Con poche risorse ha portato con grande successo le prime Fulvia coupé, elaborate dall'ing. Ettore Zaccone Mina, nelle competizioni e via via ottenuto risultati tali che persino la dirigenza Lancia dell'Ing. Fessia, che da sempre mal vedeva la Lancia nelle competizioni, si dovette piegare a quello che fu la più grande via di comunicazione internazionale che trovò il marchio dai tempi delle gare volute da Gianni Lancia negli anni cinquanta e poi miseramente abbandonate. Grazie a questa serie eccezionale di vittorie sulle strade di mezzo mondo la Fulvia coupé infatti divenne ben presto una delle auto di serie più vittoriose e poi desiderate dai giovani non solo italiani tanto che per la prima volta forse una versione coupé superava nelle vendite la versione berlina da cui derivava. Questo fu strabiliante e certamente inaspettato allora in Lancia, tanto che questa strada, supportando la Squadra Corse di Fiorio, è stata poi seguita negli anni successivi anche con la dirigenza Fiat fino alle ultime Delta Integrale passando per Stratos, Rally 037, Beta Montecarlo Turbo, LC1 e LC2, Delta S4, con una serie incredibile di vittorie e popolarità per il marchio tanto da essere ancora oggi quello con il più alto numero di vittorie nei Rally mondiali, nonostante la chiusura della Squadra Corse sia avvenuta nei primi anni novanta quando era ancora considerata la più forte del mondo battendo case tedesche, francesi e giapponesi in queste competizioni.
La decisione, per volere di una nuova dirigenza Fiat che di nuovo mal vedeva la Lancia nelle competizioni, disperdette un patrimonio di Know-how di decenni, relegando negli anni successivi a questo ruolo, ma in gare su pista, la sola Alfa Romeo (marchio acquistato da Fiat pochi anni prima) che però non ha mai raggiunto un pari veicolo promozionale di vendita e popolarità in questi anni come raggiunto dalla Lancia in precedenza con le sue auto da competizione nei più popolari Rally.
I was without a phone from noon til 6, CRAZY.
Today was pretty much, sit-stand-clap-shout-sit-stand. Just a lot of that, oh and I got to look at Adam Levine for an hour ;) That's a bonus.
My niece got tickets for The Voice, so my sister, her and myself went! We had to leave our phones in the car so we couldn't take ANY pictures :c
It was awesome, (minus the whole sit-stand-shout-clap and repeat) We sat right behind the band, so we saw the back of peoples heads (whoever stood on stage, that is) I had a full view of Adam, Gwen, Pharrell and Blake though! (they were in their phones a lot) Dolly Parton sang, and it was amazing. So was Cassadee Pope (even tho I couldn't understand any of her singing...) Also SUPER happy that Jordan Smith is in the top four!
OH we also saw Mario Lopez, SO handsome. Everyone is so pretty and ugh, I wish I had my phone to take pictures.
342 out of 365
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A cathedral without a bishop: St. Stephan in Vienna
In order to fully fulfill the function of a capital in its medieval understanding, Vienna lacked a decisive factor: Vienna was indeed a major city, but not the seat of a bishopric, but was subordinate to the Prince-Bishop of Passau in ecclesiastical matters. St. Stephen, the most important church in the city, had only the rank of a parish church.
Therefore, the first attempts to found a diocese in Vienna date back to the time of the Babenbergs. Also the under Ottokar II Přemysl after the fire of 1258 begun generous new building of the Saint Stephen's church in the late Romanesque style pursued this goal.
The Habsburgs' representational aspirations also focused on St. Stephen after they had taken control of Austria. Albrecht I began in 1304 with the construction of a new choir. The highlight, however, was reached under Duke Rudolf IV. This ambitious Habsburg wanted to turn Vienna into an important royal residence and St. Stephen as the "Capella regia Austriaca" into the court church of the Austrian sovereign princes, the sacral center of the country.
The background for this lay in the competition with the dynasty of Luxembourg: Emperor Charles IV was just about to expand his residence Prague to a metropolis of European importance. One of his measures was the elevation of Prague to the Archbishopric of 1344, which prompted the great expansion of St. Vitus' Cathedral on Prague's Hradcany.
Rudolf's plan to make St. Stephen the seat of a bishop failed because of the resistance of Passau, because the bishop rightly feared a reduction of his diocese. Nevertheless, Rudolf found a way to give St. Stephan a special rank. In 1359 he obtained the papal confirmation for the founding of a collegiate, an association of 24 dressed in cardinal red robes priests, which was headed by a provost in a bishop-like costume. By subordinating the collegiate directly to the Pope, it was beyond the Passau influence. Thanks to complicated ecclesiastical chess moves he finally succeeded in 1365 to transfer his foundation to St. Stephen, which increased the importance of the church.
This was also reflected in the structural design of the church. In 1359 Rudolf IV began with a large-scale expansion, which was to bear all the symbols of a ruling church: a princely gallery above the west portal was framed by two-storey Duke's chapels, in which the relic treasure was kept. A princely tomb was erected as the tomb of the rulers of the country and finally four towers were planned, which was actually a building prerogative of a bishop's church. By integrating parts of the late Romanesque predecessor building (the main portal and the westwork called "Giant Gate") into his concept, Rudolf gave his building program historical depth.
With the death of Rudolf, the interest of the Habsburgs in St. Stephen palpably came to an end, and the citizens of Vienna took the initiative for the further expansion of the church. Only with Frederick III., who saw his example in Rudolf IV, did a Habsburg take part in the expansion of the church. Friedrich ordered the beginning of the work on the north tower. However, his high tomb in the Apostle Choir of the Dome, which is another notable example of the dynastic program of the Habsburgs in the late Middle Ages, is particularly reminiscent of this Habsburg.
Frederick III. finally managed to bring the prestige matter of his ancestor Rudolf to a successful end: 1469 Frederick III succeeded in to bring about the Pope to elevate Vienna to a diocese. Although the Viennese diocese initially had only a minimal extension - it was smaller than the current urban area - but the Habsburgs had imposed their own will: The Cathedral of St. Stephen had finally a bishop.
Eine Kathedrale ohne Bischof: St. Stephan in Wien
Um im mittelalterlichen Verständnis die Funktion einer Hauptstadt vollends zu erfüllen, fehlte Wien eine entscheidende Sache: Wien war zwar eine bedeutende Großstadt, aber nicht Sitz eines Bistums, sondern unterstand in kirchlichen Belangen dem Fürstbischof von Passau. St. Stephan, die wichtigste Kirche der Stadt, hatte nur den Rang einer Pfarrkirche.
Daher datieren die ersten Versuche einer Bistumsgründung in Wien bereits in die Zeit der Babenberger. Auch der unter Ottokar II. Přemysl nach dem Brand von 1258 begonnene großzügige Neubau der Stephanskirche im spätromanischen Stil verfolgte dieses Ziel.
Auf St. Stephan konzentrierten sich auch die Repräsentationsbestrebungen der Habsburger, nachdem sie die Herrschaft in Österreich übernommen hatten. Albrecht I. begann bereits 1304 mit dem Bau eines neuen Chores. Der Höhepunkt wurde jedoch unter Herzog Rudolf IV. erreicht. Dieser ehrgeizige Habsburger wollte Wien zu einer bedeutenden Residenzstadt und St. Stephan als “Capella regia Austriaca”, als Hofkirche der österreichischen Landesfürsten, zum sakralen Zentrum des Landes machen.
Der Hintergrund dafür lag in der Konkurrenz mit der Dynastie der Luxemburger: Kaiser Karl IV. war gerade dabei, seine Residenz Prag zu einer Metropole europäischer Geltung auszubauen. Eine seiner Maßnahmen war die Erhebung Prags zum Erzbistum 1344, was den Anstoß gab für den großartigen Ausbau des Veitsdomes am Prager Hradschin.
Rudolfs Plan, St. Stephan zum Sitz eines Bischofs zu machen, scheiterte zwar am Widerstand Passaus, denn der Bischof fürchtete zu Recht eine Verkleinerung seiner Diözese. Dennoch fand Rudolf einen Weg, St. Stephan einen besonderen Rang zu verleihen. 1359 erwirkte er die päpstliche Bestätigung für die Gründung eines Kollegiatstiftes, einer Vereinigung von 24 in kardinalsrote Gewänder gekleideten Priestern, denen ein Probst in bischofsähnlicher Tracht vorstand. Indem er das Kollegiat direkt dem Papst unterstellte, war es dem Passauer Einfluss entzogen. Dank komplizierter kirchenrechtlicher Schachzüge gelang es ihm schließlich 1365 seine Stiftung auf St. Stephan zu übertragen, was die Bedeutung des Gotteshauses erhöhte.
Dies schlug sich auch in der baulichen Gestalt der Kirche nieder. 1359 begann Rudolf IV. mit einem groß angelegten Ausbau, der alle Symbole einer Herrscherkirche tragen sollte: Eine Fürstenempore über dem Westportal wurde von doppelstöckigen Herzogskapellen eingerahmt, in denen der Reliquienschatz verwahrt wurde. Eine Fürstengruft als Grablege der Herrscher des Landes wurde angelegt und schließlich waren vier Türme geplant, was eigentlich ein bauliches Vorrecht einer Bischofskirche war. Indem Rudolf Teile des spätromanischen Vorgängerbaues (das als “Riesentor” bezeichnete Hauptportal und das Westwerk) in sein Konzept integrieren ließ, gab er seinem Bauprogramm historische Tiefe.
Mit dem Tod Rudolfs erlosch das Interesse der Habsburger an St. Stephan spürbar, die Wiener Bürgerschaft übernahm die Initiative für den weiteren Ausbau der Kirche. Erst mit Friedrich III., der in Rudolf IV. sein Vorbild sah, beteiligte sich wieder ein Habsburger am Ausbau der Kirche. Friedrich veranlasste den Beginn der Arbeiten am Nordturm. An diesen Habsburger erinnert vor allem jedoch sein Hochgrab im Apostelchor des Domes, ein weiteres bemerkenswertes Beispiel für das dynastische Programm der Habsburger im Spätmittelalter.
Friedrich III. gelang es schließlich auch, die Prestigeangelegenheit seines Ahnen Rudolf zu einem erfolgreichen Ende zu bringen: 1469 erreichte Friedrich III. beim Papst die Erhebung Wiens zum Bistum. Die Wiener Diözese hatte zwar zunächst nur eine minimale Ausdehung – sie war kleiner als das heutige Stadtgebiet – aber die Habsburger hatten ihren Willen durchgesetzt: Der Dom zu St. Stephan hatte endlich einen Bischof.
Martin Mutschlechner
www.habsburger.net/de/kapitel/eine-kathedrale-ohne-bischo...
Here she is without her hat.
This clone majorette doll is a bit of a mystery.
Though tall like a Barbie, she has a flat chest and a face rather like Skipper's, and she has flat feet. Her body is unmarked, but the back of her head is marked "A.E. 1964"
The mark "A.E." was used by a lot of companies. Prominently Allied Eastern and Allied Grand, as well as some other companies. Also, Canadian-produced Tammy Type dolls used this mark, and her face does resemble some of the Tammy family dolls. I thought maybe her outfit was mom-made, but I think its factory produced. Her boots are marked "Hong Kong." Her face and arms are soft vinyl, and her body and legs are cheap hollow hard plastic.
She seems like she once had hair (there are some blonde bits left) but it appears to have been shorn to accommodate her majorette hat.
If I had to guess, I would say some parts left over from the production of some other doll were purchased by some factory, who dressed her in the majorette costume and sold her that way. That's purely speculation, however.
I bought her at an antique mall for a couple of dollars.
Griffith Park Observatory was one of the primary shooting locations for 'Rebel Without a Cause' (the switchblade fight and game of "chicken"). 'Rebel' made James Dean a legend, even though the 1955 movie was released nearly a month after his Sept. 30, 1955, death in a car crash.
St Andrew, Holborn, is a Church of England church on the northwestern edge of the City of London, on Holborn within the Ward of Farringdon Without.
History
Roman and medieval
Roman pottery was found on the site during 2001/02 excavations in the crypt. However, the first written record of the church itself is dated as 951 (DCCCCLI) in a charter of Westminster Abbey, referring to it as the "old wooden church", on top of the hill above the river Fleet.[2] The Charter's authenticity has been called into question because the date is not within the reign of the King Edgar of England who is granting it. It may be that this is simply a scribal error and that the date should be '959' (DCCCCLIX). A 'Master Gladwin', i.e. a priest, held it after the Norman Conquest and he assigned it to St Paul's Cathedral, but with the proviso that the advowson be granted at 12 pence a year to the Cluniac Order's, St Saviour's foundation of what was to become Bermondsey Abbey. This assignment dates between 1086 and 1089. In about 1200 a deed was witnessed by James, the Parson, Roger, his chaplain, Andrew, the Deacon and also Alexander his clerk. In 1280 one Simon de Gardino bequeathed funds towards the building of a belfry, it is assumed this would be stone and that there were due to be bells to be cast for it.[3]
In the Early Middle Ages the church is referred to as St Andrew Holburnestrate and later simply as St Andrew de Holeburn.[4]
In 1348, John Thavie, a local armourer, "left a considerable Estate towards the support of the fabric forever", a legacy which survived the English Reformation, was invested carefully through the centuries, and still provides for the church's current upkeep. In the 15th century, the wooden church was replaced by a medieval stone one.[5] On the 8th of July 1563, during a severe storm, the steeple of the church was struck and badly damaged by lightning.[6]
16th to 18th century
The medieval St Andrew's survived the 1666 Great Fire of London, saved by a last minute change in wind direction,[7] but was already in a bad state of repair and so was rebuilt by Christopher Wren anyway.[8] In what is his largest parish church, he rebuilt from the foundations (creating the present crypt) and gave the existing medieval stone tower (the only medieval part to survive) a marble cladding. Its rector from 1713 to 1724 was Henry Sacheverell.
Thomas Coram, founder of the Foundlings' Hospital (first set up in a house in Hatton Garden) is buried here, his remains were translated from his foundation in the 1960s. The organ casing (an organ played by Handel), the pulpit and the font is also from the Foundlings' Hospital Chapel's Bloomsbury site.
The church of St George the Martyr Holborn was built between 1703 and 1706, as a chapel of ease for the parish. It became a parish church in its own right in 1723.[9]
19th century
The opening of Holborn Viaduct, 1869
In 1808, writer William Hazlitt married Sarah Stoddart, with Charles Lamb as his best man, and Mary Lamb as a bridesmaid. The twelve-year-old Benjamin Disraeli, the future Prime Minister, was received into the Christian Church in 1817.
It was on the church's steps in 1828 that the surgeon William Marsden found a homeless girl suffering from hypothermia, and sought help for her from one of the nearby hospitals. However, none would take her in, and she died in Marsden's arms; the horror of the experience inspired him to establish the Royal Free Hospital for the poor and destitute. Today the hospital is located in Hampstead.
In the mid 19th century, the Holborn Valley Improvement Scheme bought up the church's North Churchyard (with many of the bodies re-interred in the crypt) and in the City of London Cemetery in Ilford (the latter also being the destination for the bodies from the crypt when it was cleared in 2002–2003) to make way for the Holborn Viaduct, linking Holborn with Newgate, which was opened by Queen Victoria in 1869.[10]
As part of this improvement scheme the Church received compensation to replace its assets and the Gothic architect Samuel Sanders Teulon was commissioned to build a new Rectory and Court House on the South side of the church — this now operates as the offices for the Foundation, the associated Charities and the Archdeaconry of Hackney, as well as the Rectory and the Conference Rooms. Teulon incorporated into the Court Room, the building's main room, a 17th Century fireplace.[11] This was from the 'Quest Room' for the 'below Bars' part of the parish i.e. that lying outside the City boundary sited as part of a block of buildings in the middle of the main street. This block was removed as part of the Holborn Viaduct improvements and explains why Holborn is so wide at this point.[12]
In Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist Bill Sykes looks up at this church's tower (an episode referenced by Iris Murdoch in Under the Net, though from where her character stands such a view is almost impossible).
20th century to present
During the London Blitz, on the night of 7 May 1941, the church was bombed and gutted by German bombs, leaving only the exterior walls and tower.[13] However, instead of demolition which sometimes occurred in similar cases, it was decided after a long delay that it would be restored "stone for stone and brick for brick" to Wren's original designs.
The church re-opened in 1961 as a non-parochial Guild Church intended for serving the local working rather than resident community which had declined as had the City's population as a whole.
In January 2005 a new large icon was installed, made for the site by the Monastic Family Fraternity of Jesus in Vallechiara [1]. The church runs a selection of recitals and lectures, as well as weekly services and evening concerts.
The church was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950.[14]
In August 2010, St Andrew Holborn's Icon Cross became motorised, allowing the large icon of Jesus on the Cross to be raised and lowered for services.
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Zoey reading the Cat in the Hat, one of her favorites. She wanted to hop on top of the changing dresser (which normally has a changing pad on top) after I had done some newborn shots of my son Max, I wasn't going to say not to her :-)
D700, Sigma 35mm f/1.4 @ f/4, 1/80th, iso 200.
Strobist:
1 sb-700 up high and just over my right shoulder in a medium sized reflective umbrella at 1/5th power
1 sb-600 bare with wide angle diffuser far off to the left and behind me bouncing off the ceiling for a little fill at 1/25th power
Both triggered with CLS
Graffiti (plural; singular graffiti or graffito, the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).
Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions
"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".
The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.
The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.
Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.
Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:
Wet with cool dew drops
fragrant with perfume from the flowers
came the gentle breeze
jasmine and water lily
dance in the spring sunshine
side-long glances
of the golden-hued ladies
stab into my thoughts
heaven itself cannot take my mind
as it has been captivated by one lass
among the five hundred I have seen here.
Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.
Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.
There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.
Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.
The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.
In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:
During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".
Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.
While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’
Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.
An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.
Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983
Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture
Main article: Commercial graffiti
With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.
In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".
Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.
Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.
Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.
Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.
There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.
The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.
Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.
Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis
Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.
Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.
Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"
Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal
In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.
Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.
Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.
Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.
With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.
Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.
Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.
Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.
Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.
Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.
Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.
Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.
The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.
I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.
The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.
Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.
Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.
In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".
There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.
Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.
A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.
By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.
Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.
In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.
A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.
From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.
Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.
Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.
In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.
Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.
In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.
In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."
In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.
In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.
In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.
In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.
In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.
The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.
To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."
In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.
In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.
Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".
Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)
In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.
Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.
Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.
In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.
Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.
Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.
To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.
When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.
I've never been able to take a photo of the moon like this before. I still had Paul's 90-300mm lens so I was thrilled to try it. It was actually quite light out, but without a tripod I needed a fast shutter speed so now it looks like this was quite late at night. I wish I still had his lens actually - the moon on Saturday night was amazing. I tried my best to get it, but I struggled really.
27th June:
My Mom woke me up this morning before she went to London & gave me a huge hug. Then I went back to sleep. & aaaah it was freaking hot today. My Dad got me up with the promise for bacon for breakfast - vegetarian, of course, so I was quite happy to get up. Then he needed to run down to town to get some netting for some of the plants to grow up, & he had to go then because it closed early on a Sunday. & he needed to get some more things from Tesco. So he ended up cooking me bacon for lunch, which worked out well because I took ages to get dressed. & my Dad makes the best sandwiches. It doesn't matter what filling I choose, he always makes them way better than me. & I cannot stress how gorgeous it is when he makes me a vegetarian bacon sandwich. On a side note, it really irritates me when people say you shouldn't call it bacon if it's vegetarian - it's just a name people!!
Anyway, I went out to sunbathe on the blankets for a while. I read some of The Sunday Times, & then about 20 pages of To The Lighthouse. I've already decided I don't like it. Who knows, maybe my opinion will change later on. Hugh popped home with Luke for a little while, then they went over to the AC to watch the England vs. Germany game. I moved inside & opened the doors again so that the sun could reach me, but I could move into the shade when it was just way too hot. My Dad kept me up to date with the footie - 4-1. Ouch. & things probably would have been different if the ref. had allowed that second goal by England.
I just read for the afternoon (not To the Lighthouse though) until it got cooler & I went to chat to my Dad out in the garden. I had helped put up the netting earlier in the day, & now I wanted to help out with the watering. You know those people who enjoy playing with fire? Well I enjoy playing with water. It's just awesome. I started out with the watering can & did the new plants my Dad had just put down on the patio, & then the pansies, & the tub of yellow & purple flowers - I don't know what they're called. Then I got to go & water the plants on the 3rd level with the hosepipe. I think there was a row of fuchsia, & then parallel to that some little green things. I water the green things first with this drippy setting, & then used the jet on the fuchsia, but aimed at the soil, not them. I experimented with the types of spray you could get with the hosepipe, as in jet, mist, cone, flat. I planned to wait until my Dad had come back onto this layer, but still on the other side of the fence, & then aim the spray up so it went over the fence & got him. But I had my back turned & he was next to me before I could get him. & then my Dad gave me his flip-flops so I could walk on the gravel path & do the roses on the other side, so I used the jet. & there was a row of little colourful flowers in front of the roses, but their name escapes me. The hosepipe kept getting stuck on rocks though, & the flow of water would lessen so I'd have to go & unstick it. I'd aim the hosepipe up into the air then, or facing the fence, but it would either fall down on me, or hit the fence & come back at me. It wasn't awful though, it was just spray, so it was quite fun.
While I was playing with the hosepipe my Dad brought my phone down & asked if I'd text Hugh (he was charging his) as we wanted to get on with our evening, but he didn't text back. After I'd finished watering the bottom level my Dad asked me to water the rose beds on the second level while he went to call Hugh. Apparently his phone was off. But I did manage to briefly get a little bit of water on my Dad until he ran back up to the top layer. I was going to advance on him, but he went & stood in front of the Garden Room doors, which he pointed out was also right in front of my laptop, so I couldn't spray him anymore. I did manage to get him while watering the new bed we have planted on the top layer though. I waited until he was turned away from me, then aimed the hosepipe up in the air but angled at him. By the time it got him I had the hosepipe facing away, though it was obviously me. I got him a few more times after that until he threatened to not let me have Chinese tonight.
Hugh got home after I'd finished watering & said he'd left his phone at home. My Dad ordered take away & then I read until he went out to get it. When he got back we watched the Doctor Who finale which was lovely. & we haven't had Chinese in ages, so that was nice. With last week's Doctor Who I totally predicted that the mystery centurion would be Rory (although I'll admit I did originally say it would be John Barrowman), & then I said the box would have the Doctor in it! Actually, they were using it to imprison the Doctor in, but my point is that when they said they were going to use/were using it it to imprison something deadly & powerful in it that I knew they meant him. Though it was totally cheesy that all his enemies banded together. But back to this week - I really liked it, the more I think about it. & the Doctor telling his story to little Amy. I didn't get it when he was talking about how he 'borrowed' the Tardis, & then I was like "OH" when Amy remembered it in her wedding rhyme. I'm not going to say everyone episode of this series was great, as they had some seriously awful ones in there, but I loved the characters so much that it sort of makes up for it.
We watched BB afterwards & then my Mom called for a quick chat. Afterward my brother & I went downstairs & I took a picture of him for my Dad to use on a form he needs to send in for parental consent or something. Then we were going to watch a movie together before he goes camping, but ended up just having Two & a Half Men on. My Dad came down & we all basically hung out while getting on with our own things. I was going to bake something for Hugh, but we didn't have any sugar. I realised I did have one of those "add eggs & you're done" boxes, but we only had one & needed 3. Eventually I remembered the 5 minute chocolate cake, which only requires one egg, so I made that & used brown sugar. He didn't really like it, but I thought it was okay.
He went up to bed & I helped him pack. He had to unscrew his cooking stuff, & the smell of gas in his room was awful. We chucked open the windows & it was gone pretty quickly, but eew. & then he went to bed & I read (but once again, not To the Lighthouse) until I eventually went to sleep going up to 3am.
Armed soldiers without identifying insignia keep guard outside of a Ukrainian military base in the town of Perevevalne near the Crimean city of Simferopol on March 17, 2014 in Perevevalne, Ukraine. Voters on the autonomous Ukrainian peninsular of Crimea voted overwhelmingly yesterday to secede from their country and join Russia.
Cave Without A Name, Kendall County, Texas - One of Texas' hidden treasures, in February 2009 the Cave Without A Name was designated an official Natural Landmark!
Despite the innumerable caves and caverns that dot the Texas landscape, there are only a handful of caves that are open to touring by the public. Running along the interstate, it's easy to spot the billboards for Natural Bridge Caverns, Inner Space Caverns, Cascade Caverns - but very few people have ever heard of the Cave Without A Name. In fact, despite living less than an hour away for over ten years, I had no knowledge of it until recently. Yet this little cave is just as interesting as any of the larger, more travelled tourist stops.
Located about ten miles northeast of Boerne at the end of twisty-turny Hill Country roads near the Guadalupe River, the Cave Without A Name led an unremarkable existence until the 1920's. Much like Longhorn Caverns, the cave was used by bootleggers during Prohibition. The cave was opened in 1939 as a tourist attraction, the name chosen by a local boy who decided the caves were too beautiful for a name.
For decades, the Cave Without A Name remained an obscure, out-of-the-way spot, known mostly by locals and advertised by small hand-made signs on the highway. Tragedy struck when the manager of the cave (and the owner's son) passed away while exploring a nearby complex known tragically as Dead Man's Cave for drainage channels. Despite this loss, the cave remains open.
Then in February 2009, the Cave Without A Name was designated an official National Landmark by the National Park Service, along with five other historic sites around the country. Fewer than 600 locations have been designated as National Landmarks since the inception of the program, and only six within the past decade.
At the end of Kreutzberg Road, there is a small visitor's center and gift shop. Stairs lead down to the caverns below, well-lit with several impressive speleological formations - stalagmites, stalactites, soda straws, flowstone, ribbons, rimstone. It's a short tour, but easy and level without difficulty, the tour group size is usually small and it is easy to get up close to the formations (but don't touch - it's still a live cave). Longer 'adventure tours' are available (the website says they have been suspended due to high water, but that was written in 2007 before the area's record drought). Definitely worth the visit for anyone interested in caves or spelunking. Pictures taken April 6, 2008.
For more information on the Cave Without A Name:
- Texas Speleological Survey Entry.
This photograph is free for use on the internet under the 'Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial' license. You are free to copy, distribute, transmit and/or adapt this photograph without seeking permission first, as long as you provide attribution to the photograph (preferably by linking to this web page, or including the phrase 'Copyright Matthew Lee High'), and as long as the the photo is not used for commercial purposes. For more information about Creative Commons licenses, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/deed.en.
The Postcard
A postally unused postcard published by the Bodleian Library and printed at the Oxford University Press.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was born on the 4th. August 1792, was one of the major English Romantic poets.
A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achievements in poetry grew steadily following his death, and he became an important influence on subsequent generations of poets, including Robert Browning, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Thomas Hardy, and W. B. Yeats.
American literary critic Harold Bloom describes Shelley as:
"A superb craftsman, a lyric poet without
rival, and surely one of the most advanced
sceptical intellects ever to write a poem."
Shelly's reputation fluctuated during the 20th. century, but in recent decades he has achieved increasing critical acclaim for the sweeping momentum of his poetic imagery, his mastery of genres and verse forms, and the complex interplay of sceptical, idealist, and materialist ideas in his work.
Among his best-known works are "Ozymandias" (1818), "Ode to the West Wind" (1819), "To a Skylark" (1820), the philosophical essay "The Necessity of Atheism" written alongside his friend T. J. Hogg (1811), and the political ballad "The Mask of Anarchy" (1819).
Shelley's other major works include the verse drama The Cenci (1819) and long poems such as Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude (1815), Julian and Maddalo (1819), Adonais (1821), Prometheus Unbound (1820) - widely considered his masterpiece - Hellas (1822), and his final, unfinished work, The Triumph of Life (1822).
Shelley also wrote prose fiction and a quantity of essays on political, social, and philosophical issues.
Much of his poetry and prose was not published in his lifetime, or only published in expurgated form, due to the risk of prosecution for political and religious libel.
From the 1820's, his poems and political and ethical writings became popular in Owenist, Chartist, and radical political circles, and later drew admirers as diverse as Karl Marx, Mahatma Gandhi, and George Bernard Shaw.
Shelley's life was marked by family crises, ill health, and a backlash against his atheism, political views and defiance of social conventions. He went into permanent self-exile in Italy in 1818, and over the next four years produced what Leader and O'Neill call:
"Some of the finest poetry
of the Romantic period".
His second wife, Mary Shelley, was the author of Frankenstein.
Shelley died in a boating accident in 1822 at the age of 29.
Percy Bysshe Shelley - The Early Years
Shelley was born at Field Place, Warnham, West Sussex. He was the eldest son of Sir Timothy Shelley (1753–1844), a Whig Member of Parliament for Horsham from 1790 to 1792 and for Shoreham between 1806 and 1812, and his wife, Elizabeth Pilfold (1763–1846), the daughter of a successful butcher.
Percy had four younger sisters and one much younger brother. Shelley's early childhood was sheltered and mostly happy. He was particularly close to his sisters and his mother, who encouraged him to hunt, fish and ride.
At the age of six, he was sent to a day school run by the vicar of Warnham church, where he displayed an impressive memory and gift for languages.
In 1802 he entered the Syon House Academy in Brentford. Shelley was bullied and unhappy at the school, and sometimes responded with violent rage. He also began suffering from the nightmares, hallucinations and sleep walking that were periodically to afflict him throughout his life.
Shelley developed an interest in science which supplemented his voracious reading of tales of mystery, romance and the supernatural. During his holidays at Field Place, his sisters were often terrified by being subjected to his experiments with gunpowder, acids and electricity. Back at school he blew up a fence with gunpowder.
In 1804, Shelley entered Eton College, a period which he later recalled with loathing. He was subjected to particularly severe mob bullying which the perpetrators called "Shelley-baits".
A number of biographers and contemporaries have attributed the bullying to Shelley's aloofness, nonconformity and refusal to take part in fagging. His peculiarities and violent rages earned him the nickname "Mad Shelley".
His interest in the occult and science continued, and contemporaries describe him giving an electric shock to a master, blowing up a tree stump with gunpowder and attempting to raise spirits with occult rituals.
In his senior years, Shelley came under the influence of a part-time teacher, Dr James Lind, who encouraged his interest in the occult, and introduced him to liberal and radical authors.
Shelley also developed an interest in Plato and idealist philosophy which he pursued in later years through self-study. According to Richard Holmes, Shelley, by his leaving year, had gained a reputation as a classical scholar and a tolerated eccentric.
In his last term at Eton, his first novel Zastrozzi appeared and he had established a following among his fellow students. Prior to enrolling at University College, Oxford in October 1810, Shelley completed Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire (written with his sister Elizabeth), the verse melodrama The Wandering Jew and the Gothic novel St. Irvine; or, The Rosicrucian: A Romance (published 1811).
At Oxford Shelley attended few lectures, instead spending long hours reading and conducting scientific experiments in the laboratory he set up in his room. He met a fellow student, Thomas Jefferson Hogg, who became his closest friend.
Shelley became increasingly politicised under Hogg's influence, developing strong radical and anti-Christian views. Such views were dangerous in the reactionary political climate prevailing during Britain's war with Napoleonic France, and Shelley's father warned him against Hogg's influence.
In the winter of 1810–1811, Shelley published a series of anonymous political poems and tracts: Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson, The Necessity of Atheism (written in collaboration with Hogg) and A Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things.
Shelley mailed The Necessity of Atheism to all the bishops and heads of colleges at Oxford, and he was called to appear before the college's fellows, including the Dean, George Rowley. His refusal to answer questions put by college authorities regarding whether or not he authored the pamphlet resulted in his expulsion from Oxford on the 25th. March 1811, along with Hogg.
Hearing of his son's expulsion, Shelley's father threatened to cut all contact with Shelley unless he agreed to return home and study under tutors appointed by him. Shelley's refusal to do so led to a falling-out with his father.
Shelley's Marriage to Harriet Westbrook
In late December 1810, Shelley had met Harriet Westbrook, a pupil at the same boarding school as Shelley's sisters. They corresponded frequently that winter, and also after Shelley had been expelled from Oxford.
Shelley expounded his radical ideas on politics, religion and marriage to Harriet, and they gradually convinced each other that she was oppressed by her father and at school.
Shelley's infatuation with Harriet developed in the months following his expulsion, when he was under severe emotional strain due to the conflict with his family, his bitterness over the breakdown of his romance with his cousin Harriet Grove, and his unfounded belief that he might be suffering from a fatal illness.
At the same time, Harriet Westbrook's elder sister Eliza, to whom Harriet was very close, encouraged the young girl's romance with Shelley. Shelley's correspondence with Harriet intensified in July, while he was holidaying in Wales, and in response to her urgent pleas for his protection, he returned to London in early August.
Putting aside his philosophical objections to matrimony, he left with the sixteen-year-old Harriet for Edinburgh on the 25th. August 1811, and they were married there on the 28th.
Hearing of the elopement, Harriet's father, John Westbrook, and Shelley's father cut off the allowances of the bride and groom. Shelley's father believed that his son had married beneath him, as Harriet's father had earned his fortune in trade, and was the owner of a tavern and coffee house.
Surviving on borrowed money, Shelley and Harriet stayed in Edinburgh for a month, with Hogg living under the same roof. The trio left for York in October, and Shelley went on to Sussex to settle matters with his father, leaving Harriet behind with Hogg.
Shelley returned from his unsuccessful excursion to find that Harriet's sister Eliza had moved in with Harriet and Hogg. Harriet confessed that Hogg had tried to seduce her while Shelley had been away. Accordingly Shelley, Harriet and Eliza soon left for Keswick in the Lake District, leaving Hogg in York.
At this time Shelley was involved in an intense platonic relationship with Elizabeth Hitchener, a 28-year-old unmarried schoolteacher of advanced views, with whom he had been corresponding. Hitchener, whom Shelley called the "sister of my soul" and "my second self", became his confidante and intellectual companion as he developed his views on politics, religion, ethics and personal relationships.
Shelley proposed that Elizabeth join him, Harriet and Eliza in a communal household where all property would be shared.
The Shelleys and Eliza spent December and January in Keswick where Shelley visited Robert Southey whose poetry he admired. Southey was taken with Shelley, even though there was a wide gulf between them politically, and predicted great things for him as a poet.
Southey also informed Shelley that William Godwin, author of Political Justice, which had greatly influenced him in his youth, and which Shelley also admired, was still alive. Shelley wrote to Godwin, offering himself as his devoted disciple. Godwin, who had modified many of his earlier radical views, advised Shelley to reconcile with his father, become a scholar before he published anything else, and give up his avowed plans for political agitation in Ireland.
Meanwhile, Shelley had met his father's patron, Charles Howard, 11th. Duke of Norfolk, who helped secure the reinstatement of Shelley's allowance.
With Harriet's allowance also restored, Shelley now had the funds for his Irish venture. Their departure for Ireland was precipitated by increasing hostility towards the Shelley household from their landlord and neighbours who were alarmed by Shelley's scientific experiments, pistol shooting and radical political views.
As tension mounted, Shelley claimed he had been attacked in his home by ruffians, an event which might have been real, or a delusional episode triggered by stress. This was the first of a series of episodes in subsequent years where Shelley claimed to have been attacked by strangers during periods of personal crisis.
Early in 1812, Shelley wrote, published and personally distributed in Dublin three political tracts: An Address, to the Irish People; Proposals for an Association of Philanthropists; and Declaration of Rights. He also delivered a speech at a meeting of O'Connell's Catholic Committee in which he called for Catholic emancipation, repeal of the Acts of Union and an end to the oppression of the Irish poor. Reports of Shelley's subversive activities were sent to the Home Secretary.
Returning from Ireland, the Shelley household travelled to Wales, then Devon, where they again came under government surveillance for distributing subversive literature. Elizabeth Hitchener joined the household in Devon, but several months later had a falling out with the Shelleys and left.
The Shelley household settled in Tremadog, Wales in September 1812, where Shelley worked on Queen Mab, a utopian allegory with extensive notes preaching atheism, free love, republicanism and vegetarianism. The poem was published the following year in a private edition of 250 copies, although few were initially distributed, because of the risk of prosecution for seditious and religious libel.
In February 1813, Shelley claimed he was attacked in his home at night. The incident might have been real, a hallucination brought on by stress, or a hoax staged by Shelley in order to escape government surveillance, creditors and his entanglements in local politics. The Shelleys and Eliza fled to Ireland, then London.
Back in England, Shelley's debts mounted as he tried unsuccessfully to reach a financial settlement with his father. On the 23rd. June 1813, Harriet gave birth to a girl, Eliza Ianthe Shelley, but in the following months the relationship between Shelley and his wife deteriorated.
Shelley resented the influence that Harriet's sister had over her, while Harriet was alienated by Shelley's close friendship with an attractive widow, Harriet Boinville, and her daughter Cornelia Turner.
Following Ianthe's birth, the Shelleys moved frequently across London, Wales, the Lake District, Scotland and Berkshire to escape creditors and to search for a home.
In March 1814, Shelley remarried Harriet in London to settle any doubts about the legality of their Edinburgh wedding and to secure the rights of their child. Nevertheless, the Shelleys lived apart for most of the following months, and Shelley reflected bitterly on:
"My rash & heartless union with Harriet".
Shelley's Elopement with Mary Godwin
In May 1814, Shelley began visiting his mentor William Godwin almost daily, and soon fell in love with Mary, the sixteen-year-old daughter of Godwin and the late feminist author Mary Wollstonecraft.
Shelley and Mary declared their love for each other during a visit to her mother's grave in the churchyard of St. Pancras Old Church on the 26th. June 1814. When Shelley told William Godwin that he intended to leave Harriet and live with Godwin's daughter, his mentor banished him from the house, and forbade Mary from seeing him.
Shelley and Mary however eloped to Europe on the 28th. July 1814, taking Mary's step-sister Claire Clairmont with them. Before leaving, Shelley had secured a loan of £3,000, but had left most of the funds at the disposal of Godwin and Harriet, who was now pregnant. The financial arrangement with Godwin led to rumours that he had sold his daughters to Shelley.
Shelley, Mary Godwin and Claire made their way across war-ravaged France where Shelley wrote to Harriet, asking her to meet them in Switzerland with the money he had left for her.
However, hearing nothing from Harriet in Switzerland, and being unable to secure sufficient funds or suitable accommodation, the three travelled to Germany and Holland before returning to England on the 13th. September 1814.
Shelley spent the next few months trying to raise loans and avoid bailiffs. Mary was pregnant, lonely, depressed and ill. Her mood was not improved when she heard that, on the 30th. November 1814, Harriet had given birth to Charles Bysshe Shelley, heir to the Shelley fortune and baronetcy.
This was followed, in early January 1815, by news that Shelley's grandfather, Sir Bysshe, had died leaving an estate worth £220,000. The settlement of the estate, and a financial settlement between Shelley and his father (now Sir Timothy), however, was not concluded until April the following year.
In February 1815, Mary gave premature birth to a baby girl who died ten days later, deepening her depression. In the following weeks, Mary became close to Hogg who temporarily moved into the household.
Shelley was almost certainly having a sexual relationship with Claire at this time, and it is possible that Mary, with Shelley's encouragement, was also having a sexual relationship with Hogg. In May Claire left the household, at Mary's insistence, to reside in Lynmouth.
In August 1815 Shelley and Mary moved to Bishopsgate where Shelley worked on Alastor, a long poem in blank verse based on the myth of Narcissus and Echo. Alastor was published in an edition of 250 in early 1816 to poor sales and largely unfavourable reviews from the conservative press.
On the 24th. January 1816, Mary gave birth to William Shelley. Percy was delighted to have another son, but was suffering from the strain of prolonged financial negotiations with his father, Harriet and William Godwin. Shelley showed signs of delusional behaviour, and was contemplating an escape to the continent.
Lord Byron
Claire initiated a sexual relationship with Lord Byron in April 1816, just before his self-exile on the continent, and then arranged for Byron to meet Shelley, Mary and her in Geneva.
Shelley admired Byron's poetry, and had sent him Queen Mab and other poems. Shelley's party arrived in Geneva in May and rented a house close to Villa Diodati, on the shores of Lake Geneva, where Byron was staying. There Shelley, Byron and the others engaged in discussions about literature, science and "various philosophical doctrines".
One night, while Byron was reciting Coleridge's Christabel, Shelley suffered a severe panic attack with hallucinations. The previous night Mary had had a more productive vision or nightmare which inspired her novel Frankenstein.
Shelley and Byron then took a boating tour around Lake Geneva, which inspired Shelley to write his "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty", his first substantial poem since Alastor.
A tour of Chamonix in the French Alps inspired "Mont Blanc", which has been described as an atheistic response to Coleridge's "Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamoni". During this tour, Shelley often signed guest books with a declaration that he was an atheist. These declarations were seen by other British tourists, including Southey, which hardened attitudes against Shelley back home.
Relations between Byron and Shelley's party became strained when Byron was told that Claire was pregnant with his child. Shelley, Mary, and Claire left Switzerland in late August, with arrangements for the expected baby still unclear, although Shelley made provision for Claire and the baby in his will.
In January 1817 Claire gave birth to a daughter by Byron who she named Alba, but later renamed Allegra in accordance with Byron's wishes.
Shelley's Marriage to Mary Godwin
Shelley and Mary returned to England in September 1816, and in early October they heard that Mary's half-sister Fanny Imlay had killed herself. Mary believed that Fanny had been in love with Shelley, and Shelley himself suffered depression and guilt over her death, writing:
"Friend had I known thy secret grief
Should we have parted so."
Further tragedy followed in December 1816 when Shelley's estranged wife Harriet drowned herself in the Serpentine in Hyde Park. Harriet, pregnant and living alone at the time, believed that she had been abandoned by her new lover. In her suicide letter she asked Shelley to take custody of their son Charles but to leave their daughter in her sister Eliza's care.
Shelley married Mary Godwin on the 30 December 1816, despite his philosophical objections to the institution. The marriage was intended to help secure Shelley's custody of his children by Harriet and to placate Godwin who had refused to see Shelley and Mary because of their previous adulterous relationship.
After a prolonged legal battle, the Court of Chancery eventually awarded custody of Shelley and Harriet's children to foster parents, on the grounds that Shelley had abandoned his first wife for Mary without cause, and was an atheist.
In March 1817 the Shelleys moved to the village of Marlow, Buckinghamshire, where Shelley's friend Thomas Love Peacock lived. The Shelley household included Claire and her baby Allegra, both of whose presence was resented by Mary. Shelley's generosity with money and increasing debts also led to financial and marital stress, as did Godwin's frequent requests for financial help.
On the 2nd. September 1817 Mary gave birth to a daughter, Clara Everina Shelley. Soon after, Shelley left for London with Claire, which increased Mary's resentment towards her step-sister. Shelley was arrested for two days in London over money he owed, and attorneys visited Mary in Marlowe over Shelley's debts.
Shelley was part of the literary and political circle that surrounded Leigh Hunt, and during this period he met William Hazlitt and John Keats. Shelley's major work during this time was Laon and Cythna, a long narrative poem featuring incest and attacks on religion.
It was hastily withdrawn after publication due to fears of prosecution for religious libel, and was re-edited and reissued as The Revolt of Islam in January 1818. Shelley also published two political tracts under a pseudonym: A Proposal for putting Reform to the Vote throughout the Kingdom (March 1817) and An Address to the People on the Death of Princess Charlotte (November 1817).
In December he wrote "Ozymandias", which is considered to be one of his finest sonnets, as part of a competition with friend and fellow poet Horace Smith.
Shelley in Italy
On the 12th. March 1818 the Shelleys and Claire left England:
"To escape its tyranny civil and religious".
A doctor had also recommended that Shelley go to Italy for his chronic lung complaint, and Shelley had arranged to take Claire's daughter, Allegra, to her father Byron who was now in Venice.
After travelling some months through France and Italy, Shelley left Mary and baby Clara at Bagni di Lucca (in today's Tuscany) while he travelled with Claire to Venice to see Byron and make arrangements for visiting Allegra.
Byron invited the Shelleys to stay at his summer residence at Este, and Shelley urged Mary to meet him there. Clara became seriously ill on the journey, and died on the 24th. September 1818 in Venice.
Following Clara's death, Mary fell into a long period of depression and emotional estrangement from Shelley.
The Shelleys moved to Naples on the 1st. December 1818, where they stayed for three months. During this period Shelley was ill, depressed and almost suicidal: a state of mind reflected in his poem "Stanzas written in Dejection – December 1818, Near Naples".
While in Naples, Shelley registered the birth and baptism of a baby girl, Elena Adelaide Shelley (born on the 27th. December 1818), naming himself as the father and falsely naming Mary as the mother.
The parentage of Elena has never been conclusively established. Biographers have variously speculated that she was adopted by Shelley to console Mary for the loss of Clara, that she was Shelley's child to Claire, that she was his child to his servant Elise Foggi, or that she was the child of a "mysterious lady" who had followed Shelley to the continent.
Shelley registered the birth and baptism on the 27th. February 1819, and the household left Naples for Rome the following day, leaving Elena with carers. Elena died in a poor suburb of Naples on the 9th. June 1820.
In Rome, Shelley was in poor health, probably suffering from nephritis and tuberculosis which later was in remission. Nevertheless, he made significant progress on three major works: Julian and Maddalo, Prometheus Unbound, and The Cenci.
Julian and Maddalo is an autobiographical poem which explores the relationship between Shelley and Byron, and analyses Shelley's personal crises of 1818 and 1819. The poem was completed in the summer of 1819, but was not published in Shelley's lifetime.
Prometheus Unbound is a long dramatic poem inspired by Aeschylus's retelling of the Prometheus myth. It was completed in late 1819 and published in 1820.
The Cenci is a verse drama of rape, murder and incest based on the story of the Renaissance Count Cenci of Rome and his daughter Beatrice. Shelley completed the play in September, and the first edition was published that year. It was to become one of his most popular works, and the only one to have two authorised editions during his lifetime.
Shelley's three-year-old son William died in June, probably of malaria. The new tragedy caused a further decline in Shelley's health, and deepened Mary's depression. On the 4th. August she wrote:
"We have now lived five years together;
and if all the events of the five years
were blotted out, I might be happy".
The Shelleys were now living in Livorno where, in September, Shelley heard of the Peterloo Massacre of peaceful protesters in Manchester. Within two weeks he had completed one of his most famous political poems, The Mask of Anarchy, and despatched it to Leigh Hunt for publication. Hunt, however, decided not to publish it for fear of prosecution for seditious libel. The poem was only officially published in 1832.
The Shelleys moved to Florence in October, where Shelley read a scathing review of the Revolt of Islam (and its earlier version Laon and Cythna) in the conservative Quarterly Review. Shelley was angered by the personal attack on him in the article which he erroneously believed had been written by Southey. His bitterness over the review lasted for the rest of his life.
On the 12th. November, Mary gave birth to a boy, Percy Florence Shelley. Around the time of Percy's birth, the Shelleys met Sophia Stacey, who was a ward of one of Shelley's uncles, and who was staying at the same pension as the Shelleys.
Sophia, a talented harpist and singer, formed a friendship with Shelley while Mary was preoccupied with her newborn son. Shelley wrote at least five love poems and fragments for Sophia including "Song Written for an Indian Air".
The Shelleys moved to Pisa in January 1820, ostensibly to consult a doctor who had been recommended to them. There they became friends with the Irish republican Margaret Mason (Lady Margaret Mountcashell) and her common-law husband George William Tighe. Mrs Mason became the inspiration for Shelley's poem "The Sensitive Plant", and Shelley's discussions with Mason and Tighe influenced his political thought and his critical interest in the population theories of Thomas Malthus.
In March Shelley wrote to friends that Mary was depressed, suicidal and hostile towards him. Shelley was also beset by financial worries, as creditors from England pressed him for payment and he was obliged to make secret payments in connection with his "Neapolitan charge" Elena.
Meanwhile, Shelley was writing A Philosophical View of Reform, a political essay which he had begun in Rome. The unfinished essay, which remained unpublished in Shelley's lifetime, has been called:
"One of the most advanced and
sophisticated documents of political
philosophy in the nineteenth century".
Another crisis erupted in June when Shelley claimed that he had been assaulted in the Pisan post office by a man accusing him of foul crimes. Shelley's biographer James Bieri suggests that this incident was possibly a delusional episode brought on by extreme stress, as Shelley was being blackmailed by a former servant, Paolo Foggi, over baby Elena.
It is likely that the blackmail was connected with a story spread by another former servant, Elise Foggi, that Shelley had fathered a child to Claire in Naples and had sent it to a foundling home. Shelley, Claire and Mary denied this story, and Elise later recanted.
In July, hearing that John Keats was seriously ill in England, Shelley wrote to the poet inviting him to stay with him at Pisa. Keats replied with hopes of seeing him, but instead, arrangements were made for Keats to travel to Rome.
In early July 1820, Shelley heard that baby Elena had died on 9 June. In the months following the post office incident and Elena's death, relations between Mary and Claire deteriorated, and Claire spent most of the next two years living separately from the Shelleys, mainly in Florence.
That December Shelley met Teresa (Emilia) Viviani, who was the 19-year-old daughter of the Governor of Pisa and who was living in a convent awaiting a suitable marriage. Shelley visited her several times over the next few months, and they started a passionate correspondence which dwindled after her marriage the following September. Emilia was the inspiration for Shelley's major poem Epipsychidion.
In March 1821 Shelley completed "A Defence of Poetry", a response to Peacock's article "The Four Ages of Poetry". Shelley's essay, with its famous conclusion "Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world", remained unpublished in his lifetime.
Following the death of Keats in 1821, Shelley wrote Adonais, which is considered to be one of the major pastoral elegies. The poem was published in Pisa in July 1821, but sold few copies.
Shelley went alone to Ravenna in early August to see Byron, making a detour to Livorno for a rendezvous with Claire. Shelley stayed with Byron for two weeks and invited the older poet to spend the winter in Pisa. After Shelley heard Byron read his newly completed fifth canto of Don Juan he wrote to Mary:
"I despair of rivalling Byron."
In November Byron moved into Villa Lanfranchi in Pisa, just across the river from the Shelleys. Byron became the centre of the "Pisan circle" which was to include Shelley, Thomas Medwin, Edward Williams and Edward Trelawny.
In the early months of 1822, Shelley became increasingly close to Jane Williams, who was living with her partner Edward Williams in the same building as the Shelleys.
Shelley wrote a number of love poems for Jane, including "The Serpent is Shut out of Paradise" and "With a Guitar, to Jane". Shelley's obvious affection for Jane was to cause increasing tension between Shelley, Edward Williams and Mary.
Claire arrived in Pisa in April at Shelley's invitation, and soon after they heard that her daughter Allegra had died of typhus in Ravenna. The Shelleys and Claire then moved to Villa Magni, near Lerici on the shores of the Gulf of La Spezia.
Shelley acted as mediator between Claire and Byron over arrangements for the burial of their daughter, and the added strain led to Shelley having a series of hallucinations.
Mary almost died from a miscarriage on the 16th, June, her life only being saved by Shelley's effective first aid. Two days later Shelley wrote to a friend that there was no sympathy between Mary and him, and if the past and future could be obliterated he would be content in his boat with Jane and her guitar.
That same day he also wrote to Trelawny asking for prussic acid. The following week, Shelley woke the household with his screaming over a nightmare or hallucination in which he saw Edward and Jane Williams as walking corpses, and himself strangling Mary.
During this time, Shelley was writing his final major poem, the unfinished The Triumph of Life, which Harold Bloom has called:
"The most despairing poem he wrote".
The Death of Shelley
On the 1st. July 1822, Shelley and Edward Williams sailed in Shelley's new boat the Don Juan to Livorno where Shelley met Leigh Hunt and Byron in order to make arrangements for a new journal, The Liberal.
After the meeting, on the 8th. July, Shelley, Williams and their boat boy sailed out of Livorno for Lerici. A few hours later, the Don Juan and its inexperienced crew were lost in a storm. The vessel, an open boat, had been custom-built in Genoa for Shelley.
Mary Shelley declared in her "Note on Poems of 1822" that the design had a defect, and that the boat was never seaworthy. In fact, however, the Don Juan was overmasted; the sinking was due to a severe storm and poor seamanship of the three men on board.
Shelley's badly decomposed body washed ashore at Viareggio ten days later, and was identified by Trelawny from the clothing and a copy of Keats's Lamia in a jacket pocket. On the 16th. August, his body was cremated on a beach near Viareggio, and the ashes were buried in the Protestant Cemetery of Rome.
When news of Shelley's death reached England, the Tory London newspaper The Courier printed:
"Shelley, the writer of some infidel poetry,
has been drowned; now he knows whether
there is God or no."
Shelley's ashes were reburied in a different plot at the cemetery in 1823. His grave bears the Latin inscription Cor Cordium (Heart of Hearts), and a few lines of "Ariel's Song" from Shakespeare's The Tempest:
'Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea change
Into something rich and strange'.
When Shelley's body was cremated on the beach, his presumed heart resisted burning, and was retrieved by Trelawny. The heart was possibly calcified from an earlier tubercular infection, or was perhaps his liver.
Trelawny gave the scorched organ to Hunt, who preserved it in spirits of wine and refused to hand it over to Mary. He finally relented, and the heart was eventually buried either at St Peter's Church, Bournemouth or in Christchurch Priory. Hunt also retrieved a piece of Shelley's jawbone which, in 1913, was given to the Shelley-Keats Memorial in Rome.
Shelley's Political, Religious and Ethical views
-- Politics
Shelley was a political radical who was influenced by thinkers such as Rousseau, Paine, Godwin, Wollstonecraft, and Leigh Hunt. He advocated Catholic Emancipation, republicanism, parliamentary reform, the extension of the franchise, freedom of speech and peaceful assembly, an end to aristocratic and clerical privilege, and a more equal distribution of income and wealth.
The views he expressed in his published works were often more moderate than those he advocated privately, because of the risk of prosecution for seditious libel and his desire not to alienate more moderate friends and political allies. Nevertheless, his political writings and activism brought him to the attention of the Home Office, and he came under government surveillance at various periods.
Shelley's most influential political work in the years immediately following his death was the poem Queen Mab, which included extensive notes on political themes. The work went through 14 official and pirated editions by 1845, and became popular in Owenist and Chartist circles. His longest political essay, A Philosophical View of Reform, was written in 1820, but not published until 1920.
-- Nonviolence
Shelley's advocacy of nonviolent resistance was largely based on his reflections on the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon, and his belief that violent protest would increase the prospect of a military despotism.
Although Shelley sympathised with supporters of Irish independence, he did not support violent rebellion. In his early pamphlet An Address, to the Irish People (1812) he wrote:
"I do not wish to see things changed now,
because it cannot be done without violence,
and we may assure ourselves that none of
us are fit for any change, however good, if
we condescend to employ force in a cause
we think right."
In his later essay A Philosophical View of Reform, Shelley did concede that there were political circumstances in which force might be justified:
"The last resort of resistance is undoubtably [sic] insurrection. The right of insurrection is derived
from the employment of armed force to counteract
the will of the nation."
Shelley supported the 1820 armed rebellion against absolute monarchy in Spain, and the 1821 armed Greek uprising against Ottoman rule.
Shelley's poem "The Mask of Anarchy" (written in 1819, but first published in 1832) has been called:
"Perhaps the first modern statement of
the principle of nonviolent resistance".
Gandhi was familiar with the poem, and it is possible that Shelley had an indirect influence on Gandhi through Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience.
-- Religion
Shelley was an avowed atheist, who was influenced by the materialist arguments in Holbach's Le Système de la Nature. His atheism was an important element of his political radicalism, as he saw organised religion as inextricably linked to social oppression.
The overt and implied atheism in many of his works raised a serious risk of prosecution for religious libel. His early pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism was withdrawn from sale soon after publication following a complaint from a priest. His poem Queen Mab, which includes sustained attacks on the priesthood, Christianity and religion in general, was twice prosecuted by the Society for the Suppression of Vice in 1821. A number of his other works were edited before publication to reduce the risk of prosecution.
-- Free Love
Shelley's advocacy of free love drew heavily on the work of Mary Wollstonecraft and the early work of William Godwin. In his notes to Queen Mab, he wrote:
"A system could not well have been
devised more studiously hostile to
human happiness than marriage."
He argued that:
"The children of unhappy marriages
are nursed in a systematic school of
ill-humour, violence and falsehood".
Shelley believed that the ideal of chastity outside marriage was "a monkish and evangelical superstition" which led to the hypocrisy of prostitution and promiscuity.
Shelley believed that "sexual connection" should be free among those who loved each other, and last only as long as their mutual love. Love should also be free, and not subject to obedience, jealousy and fear.
He denied that free love would lead to promiscuity and the disruption of stable human relationships, arguing that relationships based on love would generally be of long duration and marked by generosity and self-devotion.
When Shelley's friend T. J. Hogg made an unwanted sexual advance to Shelley's first wife Harriet, Shelley forgave him of his "horrible error" and assured him that he was not jealous. It is very likely that Shelley encouraged Hogg and Shelley's second wife Mary to have a sexual relationship.
-- Vegetarianism
Shelley converted to a vegetable diet in early March 1812 and sustained it, with occasional lapses, for the remainder of his life. Shelley's vegetarianism was influenced by ancient authors such as Hesiod, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Ovid and Plutarch, but more directly by John Frank Newton, author of The Return to Nature, or, A Defence of the Vegetable Regimen (1811).
Shelley wrote two essays on vegetarianism: A Vindication of Natural Diet (1813) and "On the Vegetable System of Diet" (written circa 1813–1815, but first published in 1929).
William Owen Jones argues that Shelley's advocacy of vegetarianism was strikingly modern, emphasising its health benefits, the alleviation of animal suffering, the inefficient use of agricultural land involved in animal husbandry, and the economic inequality resulting from the commercialisation of animal food production. Shelley's life and works inspired the founding of the Vegetarian Society in England (1847) and directly influenced the vegetarianism of George Bernard Shaw and perhaps Gandhi.
Reception and Influence of Shelley's Work
Shelley's work was not widely read in his lifetime outside a small circle of friends, poets and critics. Most of his poetry, drama and fiction was published in editions of only 250 copies which generally sold poorly. Only The Cenci went to an authorised second edition while Shelley was alive – in contrast, Byron's The Corsair (1814) sold out its first edition of 10,000 copies in one day.
The initial reception of Shelley's work in mainstream periodicals (with the exception of the liberal Examiner) was generally unfavourable. Reviewers often launched personal attacks on Shelley's private life and political, social and religious views, even when conceding that his poetry contained beautiful imagery and poetic expression.
There was also criticism of Shelley's intelligibility and style, Hazlitt describing it as:
"A passionate dream, a straining
after impossibilities, a record of fond
conjectures, a confused embodying
of vague abstraction".
Shelley's poetry soon however gained a wider audience in radical and reformist circles. Queen Mab became popular with Owenists and Chartists, and Revolt of Islam influenced poets sympathetic to the workers' movement such as Thomas Hood, Thomas Cooper and William Morris.
However, Shelley's mainstream following did not develop until a generation after his death. Bieri argues that editions of Shelley's poems published in 1824 and 1839 were edited by Mary Shelley to highlight her late husband's lyrical gifts and downplay his radical ideas. Matthew Arnold famously described Shelley as a "beautiful and ineffectual angel".
Shelley was a major influence on a number of important poets in the following decades, including Robert Browning, Swinburne, Hardy and Yeats. Shelley-like characters frequently appeared in nineteenth-century literature, such as Scythrop in Peacock's Nightmare Abbey, Ladislaw in George Eliot's Middlemarch, and Angel Clare in Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles.
Twentieth-century critics such as Eliot, Leavis, Allen Tate and Auden variously criticised Shelley's poetry for deficiencies in style, "repellent" ideas, and immaturity of intellect and sensibility.
However, Shelley's critical reputation rose from the 1960's as a new generation of critics highlighted Shelley's debt to Spenser and Milton, his mastery of genres and verse forms, and the complex interplay of sceptical, idealist and materialist ideas in his work.
American literary critic Harold Bloom describes him as:
"A superb craftsman, a lyric poet
without rival, and surely one of the
most advanced sceptical intellects
ever to write a poem".
According to Donald H. Reiman:
"Shelley belongs to the great tradition
of Western writers that includes Dante,
Shakespeare and Milton".
John Lauritsen and Charles E. Robinson have argued that Shelley's contribution to Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein was extensive, and that he should be considered a collaborator or co-author.
However Professor Charlotte Gordon and others have disputed this contention. Fiona Sampson has said:
"In recent years Percy's corrections, visible
in the Frankenstein notebooks held at the
Bodleian Library in Oxford, have been
seized on as evidence that he must have
at least co-authored the novel. In fact, when
I examined the notebooks myself, I realised
that Percy did rather less than any line editor
working in publishing today."
Thoughts From Percy Shelley
"The soul's joy lies in doing."
"I have drunken deep of joy, And
I will taste no other wine tonight."
"A poet is a nightingale, who sits in
darkness and sings to cheer its own
solitude with sweet sounds."
"War is the statesman's game, the
priest's delight, the lawyer's jest,
the hired assassin's trade."
"Soul meets soul on lovers' lips."
"Fear not for the future,
weep not for the past."
"Our sincerest laughter with some
pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs
are those that tell of saddest thought."
"O, wind, if winter comes, can
can spring be far behind?"
Kamera: Nikon FM
Linse: Nikkor-S Auto 55mm f1.2 (1970)
Film: Rollei P&R 640 @ box speed
Kjemi: Rodinal (1:25 / 13:30 min. @ 20°C)
-Friday 23 February 2024: Even more countries speaking on the legality of Israel’s occupation of Palestine in the International Court of Justice in Den Haag today. Namibia, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Indonesia, Qatar, United Kingdom, Slovenia, Sudan, Switzerland, Syria and Tunisia.
I have to say, the UK’s presentation was just abhorrent.
Instead of focusing on that, today I would like to highlight and remark on the supreme eloquence of Pakistan and also the strong and morally impressive presentation by Namibia.
I also want to share a personal note. If you did not see yesterday’s presentations in Den Haag, then you should see - and feel - the most emotional address to the court by Ali Ahmad Ebraheem S. Al-Dafiri of Kuwait.
Yesterday, I too held a lecture but for international students; touching on the german occupation of Norway. As I was lecturing, even I could feel it when I was mentioning that during the 5 years of nazi occupion that we had to endure, Norway suffered ’only’ 12.000 war-related deaths - 600 of whom were jews. Compare that to the 57 years Palestine has endured Israeli occupation and the 30.000 Palestinians that Israel has killed in Gaza in the last 4 months alone.
I was really struggling to keep my composure at this point.
International Court of Justice: Day 5 hearing on the legal consequences of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories (publ. 23 February 2024) [Video]
International Court of Justice: Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem [Transcripts and Documents]
Mr AL-DAFIRI: [KUWAIT] (22 February 2024)
I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
1. Mr President, honourable Members of the Court, it is a great honour to appear before you as the Agent of the State of Kuwait in these proceedings. Kuwait deeply appreciates the extraordinary efforts taken by the Court to allow this hearing to proceed smoothly, in light of the great number of participants. The current advisory proceedings are of extreme importance to the Palestinian people, Kuwait, the international legal order and the international community as a whole.
2. Kuwait has always advocated that peace fosters the observance of law and vice versa. Adherence to the UnitedNations Charter is an indispensable prerequisite for the definitive establishment of international peace. Indeed, peaceful relations are founded on accepted rules and as such, peaceful relations among States are based on the provisions of the United Nations Charter. These include, notably, the principle of non-use of force and the peaceful settlement of disputes. These rules apply to all States. Respect for these fundamental rules contributes to the consolidation of international peace.
3. Regrettably, the above-mentioned foundational rules have not been upheld in the case of Palestine. The conflict between Palestine and Israel, hereafter referred to as the “occupying Power”, is an illegal occupation conflict, involving on one side an occupying Power equipped with all military means, and on the other side an occupied nation without defensive capabilities, facing daily expulsion, human rights violations and all sufferings associated with any occupation situation.
4. Over the past decades, the situation between the Palestinians and the occupying Power has been extremely tense, resulting in serious human rights law and humanitarian law violations committed by the latter. Various intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations have documented these violations by publishing comprehensive reports. This climate of violence compromises any possibility of reasonably discussing the issues at stake. This is further exacerbated by the recent developments in Gaza. The occupying Power has waged an illegitimate war on the Palestinians in Gaza characterized by numerous international law violations. The ongoing flagrant violations have been highlighted in a series of statements issued, amongst others, by the United Nations Secretary-General, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special Procedures of the United Nations Human Rights Council.
5. The unprecedented violence in Gaza is a result of 57 years of illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories and it must stop.
The late Emir of the State of Kuwait, His Highness Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah (1929-2020) summarized this situation in 2018 by stating:
“We ask the whole world, why the Palestinian people plight continues? Why do we ignore and do not implement Security Council resolutions? Why is the international community incapable of resolving this cause? Why does the victim continue to be portrayed as the killer according to Israel’s norms? Why does Israel always escape punishment? Why have all these souls been lost amid absence of the world conscience?”
6. Mr President, distinguished Members of the Court, it is in this context that Kuwait appears for the first time before the Court, following the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of resolution 77/247, requesting the Court to deliver an advisory opinion on two legal questions. The first question asks the Court to evaluate the legality of the occupying Power’s specific policies and actions within its occupation of the Palestinian territories, while seeking the Court’s determination of the corresponding legal ramifications. The second question addresses a core issue: has the occupation become illegal? Kuwait will demonstrate the illegality of this occupation, underscoring the necessity of its cessation.
7. Mr President, honourable Members of the Court, my distinguished colleagues will now address these issues in greater depth.
[…]
The PRESIDENT: I shall now give the floor to the representative of Namibia, Honourable Ms Yvonne Dausab. You have the floor, Madam.
Ms DAUSAB: [NAMIBIA] (23 February 2024)
1. Mr President, Madam Vice-President, Members of the Court, it is a special honour to appear before you today on behalf of the Republic of Namibia.
2. With your kind indulgence, I wish to first pay tribute to our late president Dr Hage Geingob (1941-2024), who passed away on 4 February 2024 and will be laid to rest this weekend. President Geingob was a key figure in our struggle for independence. He was a committed anti-apartheid and anti-colonial freedom fighter, who stood up against injustice and oppression wherever it occurred. It is therefore fitting that, in one of his last public statements, he said that “[n]o peace-loving human being can ignore the carnage . . . waged against Palestinians in Gaza”.
3. President Geingob was the representative of the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) and its petitioner to the United Nations from 1964 to 1971. It was during this period that the General Assembly condemned and declared “the policies of apartheid and racial discrimination” as a “crime against humanity”. Consequently, the General Assembly also appropriately terminated the Mandate in South West Africa.
4. Mr President, Members of the Court, I stand before you as a representative of a country where Germany brutally carried out the first genocide of the twentieth century against the Herero and the Nama peoples. A country that has known only too well the pain and suffering of occupation, colonialism, systematic discrimination, apartheid, and their entrenched consequences. It is because of this history that Namibia considers it a moral duty and sacred responsibility to appear before this Court on the question of the indefensible occupation of Palestine by Israel.
5. The parallels between Namibia and Palestine are striking and painful. Both were integral parts of the mandate system established after World War I. And in both cases, the so-called “sacred trust of civilisation”, which aimed to guide these nations towards self-determination and independence, was utterly betrayed. Instead of achieving self-government, both Namibians and Palestinians suffered the loss of human dignity, life, liberty and the outright theft of their land and natural resources. Hundreds of thousands of their people were violently expelled from their homes or forced into exile, joining the ranks of the world’s refugees.
6. Upon the dissolution of the League of Nations in 1946, the white minority South African régime refused to place Namibia (then South West Africa) under the United Nations Trusteeship and sought to illegally annex our territory as a fifth province, implementing racist homeland policies and apartheid laws targeting Black Africans.
7. Today, Palestinians have had to endure the seizure of their land and property, illegal settlements, unlawful killings, forced displacement, drastic movement restrictions, the denial of refugees’ right to return and of equal nationality and citizenship. The lived reality of the people of Palestine evokes painful memories for many Namibians of my generation. Namibians still experience the entrenched and structural impact of inequality, as a direct consequence of colonialism and the prolonged unlawful occupation.
8. Mr President, Members of the Court, this Court’s four Advisory Opinions on South West Africa played a vital role in our liberation struggle. In its 1971 Opinion, the Court confirmed the right of self-determination as a legal imperative with decisive consequences for States, paving the way for our independence 19 years later in 1990.
9. It is because of Namibia’s experience with apartheid and its long fight for self-determination that we cannot look the other way in the face of the brutal atrocities committed against the Palestinian people.
10. Mr President, Members of the Court, we ask you not to look away, either. Rather, we appeal to you: once again, end a historic and ongoing injustice by upholding the fundamental rights of a dispossessed people who have endured 57 years of a suffocating occupation. Today, Palestinians are enduring collective punishment in the besieged Gaza Strip, with civilians being killed in continuous and indiscriminate bombardments at a scale that is unprecedented in recent history. This state of affairs — this “hell on earth” — represents a stain on the collective conscience of the world.
11. Civilized nations cannot, and must not, accept images of children covered in blood with gaping wounds; of men and women crying in despair because of the helplessness they feel.
12. However, in the midst of the ongoing tragedy, I wish to say the following to the people of Palestine: this advisory opinion is an important moment in your long fight for independence. And I leave you with the words of our Founding President and Father of the Namibian Nation, Dr Sam Nujoma (b. 1929): “a people united, striving to achieve a common good for all members of society will always emerge victorious.”
13. Mr President, Members of the Court, I thank you, and I now respectfully ask that Professor Phoebe Okowa be called to address the legal questions before the Court.
The PRESIDENT: I thank Ms Dausab. I now give the floor to Professor Phoebe Okowa. You have the floor, Professor.
Ms OKOWA: [NAMIBIA] (23 February 2024)
I. INTRODUCTION
1. Mr President, Madam Vice-President, Members of the Court, it is a great honour for me to appear before you in these proceedings, and a special privilege to do so on behalf of the Republic of Namibia. Our presentation is in three parts.
2. First, I will make two general observations on why the Court should answer the request in its entirety, and why Israel’s occupation is illegal.
3. Then, I will focus on Israel’s policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory that grossly violate its obligations under international law, specifically the prohibition of apartheid and racial discrimination, and the principle of self-determination.
4. Finally, I will address the legal consequences that arise for Israel, for third States and for the United Nations on account of these violations.
A. The Court can and should answer the request in its entirety
5. As a threshold matter, Namibia reiterates, as do the overwhelming majority of States in these proceedings, that the Court has jurisdiction to render the requested advisory opinion, and that there are no compelling reasons for the Court to decline the request.
B. Israel’s occupation is illegal under international law
6. Namibia notes that there is also wide consensus among the participants on “the legal status of the occupation”. Namibia makes only four brief observations.
7. First, in so far as the law of occupation envisages any belligerent occupation as a temporary measure, immediately following military operations, Israel’s prolonged— or permanent— occupation breaches the law of occupation. It is a de facto annexation in all but name.
8. Second, Israel’s occupation, in and of itself, is unlawful under general international law. This is because it violates the Charter of the United Nations and peremptory norms; specifically, the prohibition on territorial acquisitions through illegal use of force, the principle of self-determination, and the prohibition of apartheid.
10. Finally, the continuation of the illegal occupation does not absolve Israel of its obligations and responsibilities under international law. This is consistent with your own conclusions in the Namibia Advisory Opinion that “[p]hysical control of a territory, and not sovereignty or legitimacy of title, is the basis of State liability for acts affecting other States”.
II. ISRAEL’S POLICIES AND PRACTICES IN THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY VIOLATE THE PROHIBITION OF APARTHEID AND THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-DETERMINATION
A. Israel is bound by the prohibition of apartheid under international law
11. In both its written and oral submissions, Namibia focuses on the prohibition of apartheid and of racial discrimination. This is, in part, on account of Namibia’s history, as one of the few countries that were subjected to this egregious form of systematic and institutionalized racial discrimination.
12. We also do so on account of the fundamental importance of the Court’s 1971 Namibia Opinion, where this Court declared that the policies of apartheid “constitute a denial of fundamental human rights” and are “a flagrant violation of the purposes and principles of the [United Nations] Charter”.
13. But above all, we do this because, notwithstanding the egregious nature of apartheid — as a State delict, as a violation of a peremptory norm and as a crime — it has received virtually no clarification beyond the specific circumstances of southern Africa. An advisory opinion on threshold questions of apartheid will therefore assist the General Assembly in respect of its own action, in identifying the key elements of the illegality and in formulating appropriate responses to Israel’s discriminatory practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
14. Specifically, we invite the Court to clarify three aspects of the obligation.
15. First, we respectfully ask the Court to make it clear that the prohibition of apartheid is not limited to southern Africa in the last century. It extends to Israel’s policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territory today. Article 3 of CERD places all States parties, including Israel, under an obligation to prevent, prohibit and eradicate apartheid “in territories under their jurisdiction”. This is also the conclusion of the CERD Committee. The 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, negotiated after the end of apartheid in South Africa, also recognized apartheid as a crime against humanity without temporal or geographical restriction16.
16. Second, the Court should also confirm that the prohibition of apartheid binds all States as a peremptory norm. In your decision in the case under CERD brought by Qatar against United Arab Emirates, you acknowledged the “universal character [of CERD] is confirmed by the fact that 182 States are parties to it”. The International Law Commission and its Special Rapporteur on jus cogens (as Judge Tladi then was) have also expressly recognized the peremptory character of the prohibition of apartheid.
17. Finally, Namibia invites the Court to clarify the definition of apartheid. Namibia aligns itself with other participants that the definition in Article 2 of the Apartheid Convention incorporates the three key elements of the delict under international law.
18. First, the State must engage in one or more “inhuman acts”. Crucially, these take the form of violations of fundamental human rights within an institutionalized framework of systematic oppression and domination.
19. Second, these inhuman acts must be directed against a “racial group” or its members.
20. Finally, the State must commit these inhuman acts “for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination” by one racial group over the other and “systematically oppressing them”.
B. Israel’s policies and practices constitute apartheid
21. Other participants have already made extensive statements on the discriminatory and inhuman acts carried out against the Palestinians as a racial group. These policies and practices are too many to enumerate in the time available. They include laws that discriminate in matters of citizenship, ownership and transfer of property, and freedom of movement. The systematic and excessive use of force against Palestinian civilians, the arbitrary killings and mass incarceration of Palestinians, including children; the illegal settlements; the discriminatory residency regulations; and, crucially, the denial of a Palestinian identity by refusing to recognize them as a people with a right to determine their own political destiny and to pursue social, economic and cultural development.
22. Namibia’s submission will focus on the final requirement: the purpose of establishing, maintaining domination and systematic oppression.
First, the term “domination” signifies a pervasive, all-encompassing, serious form of control over a group.
Second, “oppression” implies prolonged cruelty, reflecting a sustained violation of human rights.
Third, “systematic” implies the organized nature of violent acts and the improbability of their random occurrence.
23. Namibia shares the view of other participants that Israel’s policies and practices meet the evidentiary standard for establishing the State delict of apartheid. The Israeli Government’s openly articulated aim is to ensure Jewish Israeli control of all facets of Palestinian life, as evidenced by legislation affirming Israel as the nation State of the Jewish people, with unique self-determination rights reserved for Jewish individuals only.
24. It is clear from all the available evidence that these discriminatory practices are not accidental or fortuitous but are designed for the specific purpose of privileging Jewish Israelis over Palestinians. The fact that the practices in question may have other collateral objectives, such as maintaining security, is irrelevant. It will suffice if the primary motive is discriminatory, even if it also serves ancillary purposes.
C. Israel’s apartheid practices violate the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination
25. It follows in Namibia’s submission that Israel’s policies and practices are inconsistent with the prohibition of apartheid as a State delict under international law. Furthermore, these discriminatory practices, in the context of prolonged occupation of the Palestinian territories, violate the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.
26. As other Participants have highlighted, these discriminatory policies and practices are directed at fragmenting the Palestinian people. These elaborate systems of administrative controls undermine group cohesiveness by dividing the Palestinian people into a number of administrative “domains” or groups, with varying degrees of rights. This strategic fragmentation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory into Bantustans makes Palestinian life burdensome and in many cases unbearable, forcing them to leave their homes.
27. Perhaps the epitome of discriminatory laws negating the Palestinian right of self-determination is the 2018 Basic Law, passed with constitutional status, which boldly declares that Israel is the nation of the Jewish people and that Jewish settlement is a national value.
III. LEGAL CONSEQUENCES OF ISRAEL’S VIOLATIONS OF ITS OBLIGATIONS UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW
28. I will now turn to the final part of my submission. I will first examine the legal consequences of Israel’s violations, irrespective of the status of the occupation. Second, I will examine the legal consequences arising out of the illegal status of the occupation.
A. Legal consequences of Israel’s violations of its obligations under international law
29. First, Israel must bear consequences for its violations. This is the most elementary requirement of the law on State responsibility. As others in these proceedings have highlighted, this includes the obligations of cessation and the duty to make reparation for more than five decades of harms inflicted on the Palestinian people.
30. The Government of Israel has a legal duty to dismantle all the vestiges of systematic racial discrimination and oppression that permeates all aspects of Palestinian life in the occupied territories.
31. As the State of Palestine itself said on Monday, Israel must bring to an end the annexation of Palestinian land, dismantle existing settlements and recognize the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination in a viable State of their own.
32. Second, States are under an obligation not to recognize Israel’s breaches of peremptory norms of general international law vis-à-vis the Palestinian people. At the same time, the obligation of non-recognition is matched by a parallel and positive duty of recognition — of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination realized through a viable and independent State of Palestine.
33. Here we ask the Court to pay particular attention to the historical context of these proceedings. Admission to the United Nations, unlike the League of Nations, was not automatic. It was conditioned on the State accepting to uphold the values and principles contained in the Charter, including self-determination. The admission of Israel was no exception.
34. In the Wall Opinion, you observed that when Israel proclaimed its independence, it did so “on the strength of” the partition plan resolution of the General Assembly. As is well known, that plan envisaged two States, one Arab and one Jewish. The Israeli Declaration of Independence makes this plain, by recognizing “the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State”. If that logic applied to the self-determination and statehood of the Jewish people, it must by the same token also apply to the self-determination and statehood of the Palestinian people.
35. We further ask the Court to consider whether there may be circumstances where political discretion in matters of recognition gives way to a positive duty of recognition, especially when it is necessary to safeguard a peremptory norm. And here, Namibia aligns itself with Jordan’s Written Submission that all States are also under an obligation to recognize the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including by exercising that right within a viable and independent State of Palestine.
B. Legal consequences of Israel’s illegal occupation
36. Since Israel’s policies and practices violate peremptory norms of international law, the occupation itself is unlawful. This entails consequences for Israel, for third States and, for the United Nations.
37. In the Namibia Opinion, you already set out the legal consequences of unlawful occupation. There, you said that, once the Court is faced with an illegal situation, “it would be failing in the discharge of its judicial functions if it did not declare that there is an obligation, especially upon Members of the United Nations, to bring that situation to an end.”
38. In that Opinion, you recognized the clear obligation on South Africa to put an end to the illegal occupation and withdraw its administration from the territory. The same consequences must of necessity attach to the illegal occupation by Israel of the Palestinian territories.
39. Cessation cannot be contingent on external factors such as the successful outcome of negotiations, as pointed out by some participants in these proceedings. A withdrawal contingent on the outcome of political negotiations effectively gives Israel a veto over the future of the Palestinian people.
40. Namibia invites the Court to set a strict time-limit within which Israel must be asked by the General Assembly to bring the occupation to an end, without conditions. Failure to set a strict time-limit has the perverse effect of being treated as acquiescence in the present occupation, and permission for it to continue indefinitely.
41. Of course, Israel has defied this Court and ultimatums issued by the United Nations organs many times. But it is precisely for this kind of egregious violations of peremptory norms that a régime of countermeasures was contemplated in the now widely accepted International Law Commission’s draft Articles on State Responsibility. Equality before the law is a cardinal principle of the Charter of the United Nations. No State — not Israel — should be exempt from the comprehensive régime of sanctions.
42. Moreover, Namibia reaffirms the position held by the majority of participants that all States are under an obligation not to recognize, assist, support, or contribute to the continuation of the unlawful occupation. This is also in line with your own settled jurisprudence.
43. In the Wall Opinion, you confirmed that the obligations of third States include the “obligation not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the [illegal] situation”. That all States must refrain from all forms of assistance, including transfer of arms, and political support that de facto perpetuates the occupation.
44. In Namibia’s view, this means, in particular, that all States are under an obligation to ensure that companies under their jurisdiction or control do not trade in Israeli goods or with Israeli companies originating from or linked to Israel’s illegal occupation.
45. Mr President, Members of the Court, I thank you for your kind attention. This concludes Namibia’s oral submissions. Thank you.
[…]
The Court adjourned from 11.20 a.m. to 11.40 a.m.
The PRESIDENT: Please be seated. The sitting is resumed. I now call upon the delegation of Pakistan to address the Court and invite His Excellency Mr Ahmed Irfan Aslam to take the floor.
Mr ASLAM: [PAKISTAN] (23 February 2024)
PART I
1. INTRODUCTION
1. Mr President, Members of the Court, it is an honour to appear before you on behalf of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in these most important of proceedings. These proceedings take place as a whole people struggle to survive through relentless bombardment, the very people who have endured daily persecution for over half a century. And yet, these proceedings inspire hope. They inspire hope because they present an opportunity. They afford this Court an opportunity to develop jurisprudence to advance essential principles of international law that preserves and advances the very basic human right of liberty and dignity.
2. Pakistan has always been a defender of the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination. It was Pakistan that proposed the General Assembly’s first resolution, on the first day of the Six-Day War, relating to Israel’s invasion of Jerusalem and the measures taken by Israel to change the status of the city. Since then, Pakistan has continued to engage on these important questions of international justice and it remains committed to contribute and play its part.
3. Against this background, I will deal initially with five points and then make some technical legal arguments that Pakistan considers to be of particular importance in these proceedings. First, the question of self-determination. Second, the question of occupation and annexation. Third, systematic racial discrimination and apartheid. Fourth, the question of the City of Jerusalem and its holy places, and finally, the two-State solution.
2. SELF-DETERMINATION
4. Mr President, Members of the Court, I come to my first point. The Palestinian people have, as the Court itself has recognized, the right to self-determination. This right, which is codified in the two United Nations Human Rights Conventions, is “one of the essential principles of contemporary international law”. All States have a legal interest in protecting that right, which has the status of jus cogens. Israeli measures that severely impede the exercise by the Palestinian people of the right to self-determination are in breach of Israel’s obligations to respect that right. Pakistan strongly believes in the inherent right of people to live freely and in the justice of struggle for freedom from alien subjugation under the right of self-determination.
3. OCCUPATION AND ANNEXATION
5. I turn to my second point: the question of Israel’s occupation and annexation. It has always been the position of the United Nations that it “cannot condone a change in the status juris resulting from military action contrary to the provisions of the Charter. The Organization must, therefore, maintain that the status juris existing prior to such military action be re-established by a withdrawal of troops, and by the relinquishment or nullification of rights asserted in territories covered by the military action”.
6. Thus, after the Six-Day War, the Security Council determined in resolution 242 (1967) that Israel must withdraw its armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict. In resolution 476 (1980), the Security Council reaffirmed “the overriding necessity for ending the prolonged occupation of Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967”.
7. Israel’s occupation is no longer, if it ever was, a military occupation; it is annexation. In East Jerusalem, the annexation is de jure; in the rest of the territory, it is de facto. But the formal characterization matters little. To use the words of the Court in the Wall case, the occupation is today, “notwithstanding the formal characterization . . . tantamount to de facto annexation”. This now applies to the entire territory. This may have been the intention all along. Prime Minister Ben-Gurion affirmed in 1950 that “the Israeli Empire must comprise all the territories between the Nile and the Euphrates”, and this was to be achieved as much by invasion as by diplomacy. More recently, Prime Minister Netanyahu has declared that his Government will be “applying Israeli sovereignty over all the communities formed through the transfer of Israeli settlers and not one residential community will be uprooted”.
8. Through its settlement policy, Israel has sought to create “irreversible facts on the ground”. It has aimed to create physical facts which in practical terms make it as difficult as possible to bring an end to its prolonged occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Notwithstanding, the Security Council has reaffirmed that the settlements constitute “a flagrant violation under international law”.
9. As this Court said in the Namibia case: “A binding determination made by a competent organ of the United Nations to the effect that a situation is illegal cannot remain without consequence.” As in that case, in answering the legal questions now referred to it, the Court is not concerned with the question of what practical steps would be required to cease the occupation.
10. It is worth recalling, however, that even greater practical issues have been overcome in other contexts, such as when the French Government withdrew a million settlers from Algeria in 1962. The French settlers were more numerous than the Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem taken together. France’s settlements in Algeria were not only more numerous: they were also “far older and better established than Israel’s West Bank colonies”.
4. SYSTEMATIC RACIAL DISCRIMINATION AND APARTHEID
11. I come to my third point, regarding systematic racial discrimination. Israel’s policies and practices amount to systematic racial discrimination and apartheid. Israel has imposed a system of racial discrimination against the Palestinian people since 1967. It is a system that distinguishes - deliberately and systematically — along ethnic and religious lines between the Palestinian population and Jewish Israeli settlers illegally transferred into the territory. The purpose of domination and oppression may be inferred from Israel’s pattern of conduct against the Palestinians.
5. THE HOLY CITY OF JERUSALEM AND ITS HOLY PLACES
12. I turn to my fourth point: Jerusalem and its holy places. The Holy City of Jerusalem is unique in that it is sacred to all three Abrahamic religions. Under the historic status quo, it is the right of Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities freely to access and worship at their holy places in the city. Ottoman decrees set out these rights in the nineteenth century. The régime was later confirmed in multilateral and bilateral instruments. The historic status quo has today developed into a so-called “objective régime”, which captures the point that it is characterized by a permanence which the instruments that established it do not themselves necessarily enjoy. Every State interested therefore has the right to insist upon compliance with this régime.
13. Under Israel’s prolonged occupation, Christians have not been free to access or worship in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and Muslims have not been free to access or worship at Haram al-Sharif and in the Al Aqsa Mosque, to name only some prominent sites. The rights under the historic status quo must immediately be restored. This issue is of great importance to Pakistan, which is home to the second largest Muslim population in the world.
6. THE TWO-STATE SOLUTION
14. And now I come to my final point of the first part of my statement. Pakistan believes that the two-State solution must be the basis for peace. In the Wall case, this Court observed that the two-State solution was to be encouraged
“with a view to achieving as soon as possible, on the basis of international law, a negotiated solution to the outstanding problems and the establishment of a Palestinian State, existing side by side with Israel and its other neighbours, with peace and security for all in the region”.
Pakistan supports this call.
15. On 26 October 2023, Pakistan was pleased to vote in favour of the General Assembly resolution which reaffirmed that: “a just and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can only be achieved . . . in accordance with international law, and on the basis of the two-State solution”. Two months later, on 22 December 2023, the Security Council reiterated its unwavering commitment to the vision of the two States, consistent with international law and relevant United Nations resolutions.
16. And these— and numerous other— resolutions by the political organs of the United Nations make clear, a two-State solution, and negotiations leading to it, must be consistent with international law. “Negotiations”, Judge Al-Khasawneh of this Court observed in the Wall case, “are a means to an end and cannot in themselves replace that end”. He continued to say that the discharge of fundamental international obligations cannot be made conditional upon negotiations.
17. In this regard, the Court’s advisory opinion in these proceedings will be most important. Far from impeding negotiations and the achievement of a just and lasting two States, the Court’s advisory opinion will further assist such efforts, by making it possible for the parties to make progress on the sound basis of international law and international legitimacy.
PART II
ISRAEL CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO BENEFIT FROM ITS OWN WRONGS
18. Mr President, Members of the Court, I now turn to more technical legal arguments of my submissions.
19. The Court has heard various competing submissions this week with respect to question (b) of the request, but there can be little doubt as to the central importance of three matters:
(a) First, the role of the rules on the use of force in governing the unlawfulness of a given occupation itself.
(b) Second, the series of General Assembly and Security Council resolutions that have consistently and expressly called for Israel’s withdrawal and referred to “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war”, which is a corollary of those rules.
(c) Third, the Court’s Advisory Opinion on Namibia is a helpful reference point for the Court.
20. Pakistan hopes to assist the Court by suggesting a slightly different way of looking at things, which leads to the conclusion that Israel’s occupation is unlawful and unlawfulness must have consequences.
A. The principle that no State can profit from its own wrong
21. In this respect, Pakistan considers that a useful touchstone for the Court is the general principle that no State can benefit from its own wrong.
22. As Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice (1901-1982) explained:
“The general principle is that States cannot profit from their own wrong . . . and similarly that rights and benefits cannot be derived from wrong-doing. This admits of no doubt. It is a wide general principle having many diverse applications under international law . . . of course these principles apply not merely as regards treaty obligations but to general international law obligations also.”
23. Notably, in the Wall case, Israel accepted that this principle is “as relevant in advisory opinions as it is in contentious cases”. The principle is particularly important where, as here, the wrongs at issue are of the most serious kind.
B. The principle in the context of the applicable law
24. Second, the principle in the context of applicable law. This principle is one of the underpinnings of the prohibition on the acquisition of territory either by force or through the denial of self-determination. The wrongs are obvious and no benefit in terms of lawful possession or a legal entitlement to administer the territory could be derived.
25. As to this case, if the Court agrees with Pakistan and with many other States that Israel is in continued breach of these fundamental primary obligations, it cannot allow Israel to benefit from its own ongoing wrongs by somehow avoiding the natural consequences that must follow under this law of State responsibility. These include the obligations of cessation and non-repetition which require immediate and unconditional withdrawal, as well as the obligations of non-recognition and non-assistance for all other States.
26. As to the applicable primary rules, it is customary international law and the Charter that govern the illegality of a given occupation at any point in time. As a separate matter, international humanitarian law governs the conduct of an occupying Power with respect to the occupied population.
27. But if the occupation itself is unlawful, that carries legal consequences for Israel and for all States under the secondary rules of State responsibility. Those legal consequences are in no way displaced by separate consideration of the lawfulness under international humanitarian law of particular conduct in the course of the occupation, much less by hope for a negotiated solution. Any other approach would effectively permit Israel to benefit from its own wrongdoing.
28. For the same reason, there is no scope for an argument that other States, in their dealings with respect to Israel or the Occupied Palestinian Territory, could somehow put to one side the question of the unlawfulness of the occupation itself. They could not, for example, elect instead to focus exclusively on the different questions of whether specific Israeli measures were absolutely necessary to meet legitimate security requirements such that those measures are not unlawful under international humanitarian law.
C. The principle in the context of the Namibia Advisory Opinion
29. Mr President, Members of the Court, any conclusion could not be reconciled with the Court’s Opinion on Namibia. There are certain clear parallels with the present case. The General Assembly had condemned South Africa’s occupation of Namibia, characterizing this as an “occupation” that engaged the Geneva Conventions, and the Security Council had expressly called for South Africa’s withdrawal.
30. In a later resolution, after condemning South Africa’s non-compliance with the earlier resolutions, the Security Council had also declared that “the continued presence of the South African authorities in Namibia is illegal”. This is to be understood as a reference to illegality under the rules on the use of force. Notably, the United States voted in favour of this resolution. With respect to Palestine, however, it now appears to wish to limit those rules to governing the lawfulness of “the initial resort to force” “leading to an occupation” only. Of course, that could not be correct, including because it would allow an aggressor to benefit from an ongoing attempt to acquire territory through annexation.
31. Indeed, in its 1971 Advisory Opinion, the Court itself concluded that, “the continued presence of South Africa in Namibia [is] illegal”. The Court held that South Africa was under an obligation to withdraw immediately and that all States were under an obligation to recognize the illegality of the occupation.
32. In reaching this conclusion, the Court found that South Africa’s application of the apartheid régime to occupied territories amounted to disowning the Mandate. In this connection, the Court relied on a context specific expression of the general principle that no State can benefit from its own wrong, stating “[o]ne of the fundamental principles governing the international relationship thus established is that a party which disowns or does not fulfil its own obligations cannot be recognized as retaining the rights which it claims to derive from the relationship”.
33. South Africa had claimed it had an independent right to administer the territory by reason of its “long occupation”. Evidently, the Court disagreed. Three points follow from this.
34. First, the Court in Namibia case implicitly recognized that neither the fact of an occupation nor the law of occupation confer upon the occupying Power any legal entitlement to administer the territory. Any contrary view would allow an occupying Power to benefit from its unlawful use of force.
35. Second, the Court made a positive finding that South Africa’s occupation was unlawful. In Namibia, there was a binding Security Council decision to that effect. The Security Council has made no such Security Council decision with respect to Palestine. But this in no way displaces or impedes the Court’s judicial function in determining this legal question for itself.
36. Third, the Court plainly did not consider that South Africa’s continued status as an occupying Power made any difference.
37. As Judge Greenwood has explained, the basic position under the law of occupation is that an occupying Power has the “liberty to govern within certain limits without being guilty of a violation of the ius in bello”. The occupying Power is required to administer the territory as a temporary conservator or trustee for the benefit of the occupied population. Acting in that capacity, the occupying Power has certain liberties to take measures in good faith in the best interests of the occupied population or, where absolutely necessary, to meet its own legitimate security interests. This, of course, is a separate question to the unlawfulness of the occupation itself.
38. As to the position under the law of occupation, again, it is helpful to recall the Namibia case. The Court’s context specific expression of the principle was that “a party which disowns or does not fulfil its own obligations cannot be recognized as retaining the rights which it claims to derive from the relationship”. Pakistan considers that this has relevance when considering whether an occupying Power should be recognized as retaining liberties to administer the occupied territory. In this case, if one were to zoom in exclusively on Israel’s conduct as an occupying Power, the only conclusion could be that Israel has disowned its basic duties. Its policies and practices of occupation deny the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and amount to systematic racial discrimination and serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights. Plainly, they cannot be said to be absolutely necessary to meet Israel’s own security interests. They serve Israel’s other interests, including its goal of acquiring the territory.
D. Conclusion
40. Mr President, Members of the Court. I conclude. With the general principle that no State can be benefit from its own wrong firmly in mind, it cannot be right that, as some States have suggested, the Court should refrain from finding that the occupation itself is unlawful or that there is no obligation to withdraw. This would be to allow Israel to profit from its own continued grave wrongs. And, to adopt the Court’s words in Namibia, the Court “would be failing in the discharge of its judicial functions”. Such abdication of responsibility would not encourage or facilitate the achievement of a negotiated solution on the basis of international law. More generally, the Court would be sending out a clear signal to other States that they too might be allowed to benefit through the prolonged unlawful occupation of the territory of another State.
41. Mr President, Members of the Court, these proceedings are a great moment in law, they are a great moment in history. We all have a collective opportunity to develop jurisprudence in a way that advances the cause of humanity. I wish you good luck in your deliberations. Thank you.
The PRESIDENT: I thank the delegation of Pakistan for its presentation.
The Grass Yellow butterflies, Eurema sp, are very hard to differentiate from one another without complete visible markings of the upperside and underside of the wings.
It's hiding under the leaf might suggests that this is a Eurema andersonii andersonii, but unable to confirm.
Ref:
butterflycircle.blogspot.my/2009/04/grass-yellows-of-sing...
ⓒRebecca Bugge, All Rights Reserved
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From the tomb of the Piurni family, Chiusi, Italy
#Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek was founded by the brewer Carl Jacobsen, a man who had a vivid interest in contemporary Danish and French art - and ancient art too. He had a great collection which he, and his wife Ottilia donated to the public, in two deeds in 1888 and 1889. The collection seen today still reflects these intentions.
The museum contains over 10 000 objects of art - ancient and somewhat more modern.
The museum today consists of four buildings - the oldest being the Dahlerup building, named after its architect Vilhelm Dahlerup, who was the master behind what is still the main entrance to the museum. His complex was symmetrical with three wings, around an open court-yard. He was very influenced by earlier eras, and for example the façade is in a style which should be called Italian Renaissance - though 400 years too late. His interior was in turn influenced by both roccoco, and the Imperial Rome. This was inaugurated in 1897.
The second building was made by Hack Kampmann, and fittingly called the Kampmann building. Kampmann was a classicist, and his creation differed greatly from the other. But the second building was built to fit with the already existing one, forming a closed courtyard in the middle, which was covered with glass and would form one of the most famous sights of the place, the Winter Garden. This was opened to the public in 1906.
In 1996 the latest addition to the museum was opened to the public, the Henning Larsens building, by the architect of the same name.
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" No Surrender " 1985 Film - A seedy night club is double booked by The Orange Lodge and Catholics in fancy dress .
No Surrender is a dark humour Alan Bleasdale film.
Set in Liverpool in the 1980's, it has many sub plots going on at the same time involving 2 sets of pensioners (one Catholic and the other Protestant), a band who can't play, a magician who can't do magic, an underworld gangland boss torturing the previous manager, a group of very old mentally handicaped patents and enough bad language to make a Chubby Brown show look PG!!!!
A normal night out these days.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkxnDSjF0jo
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpv0zNozIG4&feature=related People more than old enough to know better !
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Order
forums.icnorthwest.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=14740&a... Do you think the Orange Lodge should pay for the July 12 policing costs?
thathideousman.blogspot.com/2011/03/book-notes-orange-ord...
www.southportvisiter.co.uk/southport-news/southport-south... Southport Orange Parade organisers given a clear message after 16 people were arrested
www.qlocal.co.uk/southport/news_list/Orange_Lodge_March_I...
www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2011/07... See Comments
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Camera Model : NIKON D1X forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1021&messag...
Software : Adobe Photoshop : Bibble Pro 4.10.1 RAW NEF File : Alien Skin Exposure : Digital Kodak Kodachrome 64 :
Lens : Nikon AF Nikkor 28-70mm f/3.5-4.5 www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/287035af.htm www.photozone.de/nikon--nikkor-aps-c-lens-tests/240-nikko...
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The church (in Swedish Lunds Domkyrka) was originally built in the beginning of the 12th century in the Romanesque style - the high altar, dedicated to St Lawrence (Sankt Laurentius), was consecrated in 1145. But the church has been altered several times after this, leaving only the apse in its original form. The first of these alterations came as early as after a fire in 1234 in which the church suffered severely. There were also some major renovations made in the 1510s by German artist Adam van Düren. But the most substantial alterations were made by Carl Georg Brunius and Helgo Zettervall in the 19th century when the church was given what they thought was a more clean, medieval look - ignoring later additions to the church, but also ignoring how the church originally had looked like (most notable of these changes being the two western towers where the original towers were torn down and replaced by completely different looking towers of the 19th century gone medieval type).
Part of a large zhe155 stencil pasteup in Phonebooth,Paris/france
thankz 2 urbanhearts,streetart without borders project!!
youtu.be/6M-MtZkZOzw?t=2s Full Feature
Starring Marshall Thompson, Kynaston Reeves, Michael Balfour, Kim Parker, Stanley Maxted, Gil Winfield, Shane Cordell, Terry Kilburn, James Dyrenforth, Peter Madden, Meadows White, and Lala Lloyd. Directed by Arthur Crabtree.
In December 1958 Eros Films, Ltd. had another British B sci-fi movie touring American. Fiend Without A Face (FwoF) ran as the B feature to "Haunted Strangler." Both were British productions being marketed in America by MGM. This is another example of the blurry line between sci-fi and horror. FwoF itself exists in that blurry zone. Mysterious, invisible "mental vampires" killing their victims takes up the bulk of the film. The final showdown with the creatures is classic monster movie. Yet, the tie-in to the customary misguided scientist and atomic energy keep FwoF in the sci-fi orbit.
Synopsis
A Canadian farmer is killed just outside of an American Air Force base in remote Canada. The villagers were already up in arms over the mere presence of the base (jets frightened their cows) so are convinced there is a mad GI on the loose. Major Jeff Cummings befriends the slain farmer's sister, Barbara. The base tests their super radar system again, but like before, it falters just as it seems to be succeeding. Something is draining off the atomic energy. More murders stir up the towns folk to revolt. Jeff is certain that a reclusive genius, Professor Walgate, is the key. Yet more murders occur, each preceded by a rhythmic thumping and squishing sound. Eventually, Walgate confesses that he was working on Thought Materialization -- telekinesis. He needed more power, so fabricated an energy hijacking device to siphon off the air base's transmitted power. (that's why the tests always failed) The extra power worked, but created separate beings rather than intensifying Walgate's own thoughts. The invisible beings escaped his lab and began to 'feed' on townsfolk by sucking out their brains. They need the reactor's power to exist. Jeff rushes to blow up the control room. The reactor is going into overload, so the beings become visible. Dozens of the brain and spinal cord things surround the house. They break in, kill a few people, but can also be killed. Many are. Just as one of the beings has got Barbara, the reactor is shut down. It falls limp. The brain things dissolve into foam. Jeff kisses Barbara. The End.
The monster murder mystery element is fairly well played so it keeps interest up. Once visible, the brain-things have some interest too. As a monster movie, it has some merit. Killer brain-creatures are quirky enough to stay interesting.
The Cold War provides a backdrop, but isn't the focus. The Air Force base's mission is early radar detection of Soviet aircraft coming over the pole. One could see the brain-things as manifestations of deadly atomic energy. (the invisible killer)They seem to fit better the usual science-gone-wrong theme.
Dr. Walgate fills the archetypal role of the naive scientist. He meant well with all his research and work. But, like many naive scientists who had gone before him, his assumptions prove wrong. His work gets away from him and becomes a force of destruction, not one of good for mankind. It has been fairly customary for the naive scientist to die at the hands (or whatever) of his creation. Walgate makes the noble sacrifice at the end, letting the creatures attack him while Jeff gets away.
The brain-creatures are akin to the "Id Monster" in Forbidden Planet. Man's most basic thoughts, if given independence, prove primal and ruthless. As a nuclear cautionary tale, the brain-creatures, man's primal thoughts, prove deadly if given atomic power. The stop-motion animation of the brain-creatures is not too bad. It's not Harryhausen, but it works.
We're told that the brain-creatures suck out the brains and spinal cord of their human victims. So, it interesting that the brain-creatures are depicted as brain shaped. They have a segmented spinal column which they use inch-worm-style for locomotion. They ARE what they eat.
The brain-creatures break the atomic reactor's control rods so people can't shut it down (the creatures need the radiation to exist). It is curious that screenwriters solve the problem with good old dynamite. Jeff blows up the control room to shut down the reactor. ?? The reactor core was already out of control. Why would less control help?
Bottom line? Most of FwoF is a fair horror flick with "mental vampires" and agonizing victims. Things get more interesting when the brain-creatures surround the house. Sure, the movie has its flaws, but is an entertaining 50s sci-fi. 4
© Copyright 2012 Francisco Aragão
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© TODOS OS DIREITOS RESERVADOS. Usar sem permissão é ilegal.
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Portuguese
O Largo de São Sebastião é um importante ícone para o cenário histórico e cultural de Manaus, relacionado diretamente com o ciclo econômico da Borracha que abrange o final do século XIX e início do século XX. Uma vez que o Turismo deve ter por finalidade a intensificação das relações humanas, além do consumo visual do lugar, surge a necessidade de um levantamento histórico a respeito dos patrimônios que compõe o Centro Histórico de Manaus, relevantes para a reafirmação da identidade cultural da população manauense, uma vez que a sociedade interpreta os diferentes períodos históricos por meio da valorização dos patrimônios que integram o seu contexto social. Sendo assim, por meio de um levantamento bibliográfico e documental, e a partir de um recorte temporal e espacial, o Largo de São Sebastião é apresentado dentro dos seus simbolismos, de sua relevância histórica e cultural e da sua importância para o Turismo na cidade de Manaus.
A HISTÓRIA DO LARGO
Em decorrência do ciclo econômico da Borracha, que já se fazia presente na exportação regional desde 1827, Manaus deveria se apresentar moderna, limpa e atraente .
Então, com a justificativa de modernizar e embelezar a cidade, os governantes da época passaram a se preocupar mais com a aparência do lugar, tendo em vista a atração de mais investimentos e a visibilidade internacional da então Tapera de Manaus .
Foi assim que Manaus rendeu-se a influência da Belle Époque, movimento que surgiu na França, entre o final do século XIX e o início do século XX, e visou a melhoria da qualidade de vida e estruturação das cidades.
É importante salientar também que as obras urbanísticas as quais Manaus foi submetida na época possuem influência direta do complicado traçado urbano aplicado pelo prefeito de Paris, o Barão Haussman, na própria cidade de Paris.
É nesse período de transformações urbanísticas e culturais marcantes que convém falar da praça, mais precisamente do Largo de São Sebastião, como espaço de sociabilidade e palco de importantes manifestações caracterizadoras de uma sociedade e dentro de um contexto histórico definido.
Ao falar do Largo de São Sebastião, imediatamente faz-se necessário abordar também os patrimônios que estão intimamente ligados a sua história e que se constituem como referências turísticas para a cidade de Manaus, como: o Teatro Amazonas, a Igreja de São Sebastião e o Monumento de Abertura dos Portos do Amazonas ao Comércio Mundial.
Inicialmente, o local onde hoje se situa a Praça de São Sebastião era uma pequena roça de propriedade do Tenente-coronel Antônio Lopes de Oliveira Braga e ficava localizado entre as ruas do Progresso, da Feliz Lembrança e de Gonçalves Dias.
No dia 7 de setembro de 1867, o médico Dr. Antônio Daví Vasconcelos de Canavarro, então Diretor das Obras Públicas, mandou preparar o referido terreno para que fosse erguido no mesmo uma coluna de pedra, de seis metros de altura e com quatro faces lisas, em homenagem ao ato de abertura do rio Amazonas ao comércio mundial.
Por volta de 1898, tornou-se necessário construir outro monumento em vista da necessidade de embelezamento do Praça de São Sebastião, já que a coluna apresentava em processo de deterioração. Mário Ypiranga (1972, p. 45) afirma ser o dia 5 de setembro de 1900 a data provável de inauguração oficial do Monumento de Abertura dos Portos do Amazonas ao Comércio Mundial.
O artista italiano Domenico de Angelis é o autor do monumento atual, porém, não foi o mesmo quem executou o projeto, uma vez que era normal o artista italiano contar com uma equipe de apoio. Domenico de Angelis não chegou a ver o monumento como um todo instalado no Largo de São Sebastião, uma vez que o mesmo faleceu em março de 1900, ou seja, antes da inauguração do monumento.
Mário Ypiranga tece algumas críticas com relação ao Monumento de Abertura dos Portos do Amazonas ao Comércio Mundial, já que o mesmo não apresenta nenhum traço característico da região amazônica, a não ser o escudo do Amazonas. O calçamento em torno do Monumento de Abertura dos Portos do Amazonas ao Comércio Mundial foi executado por Antônio Augusto Duarte, que calçou a praça com paralelepípedos de granito de origem portuguesa nas cores pretas e brancas, uma alusão ao encontro das águas negras do rio Negro com as águas barrentas do rio Solimões.
Anos antes da instalação do Monumento de Abertura dos Portos do Amazonas ao Comércio Mundial, tem-se a inauguração do Teatro Amazonas, considerado o símbolo mais importante do auge do ciclo econômico da Borracha na região amazônica.
Em 1883, o presidente José Paranaguá sugeriu a construção do Teatro no terreno que se localizava em frente a Praça Paysssandu, uma vez que o local apresentava-se ventilado e localizava-se bem no centro da cidade.
Porém, a existência do igarapé do Espírito Santo no local tornava o terreno impróprio para receber tal obra. Assim, foi escolhido o terreno localizado em frente a Praça de São Sebastião, que pertencia ao tenente coronel Antônio Lopes Braga. O local foi desapropriado em 1884 para o início da construção do teatro, por ordem do Presidente José Paranaguá.
A cor original do Teatro Amazonas é um assunto que gera polêmicas entre autores e pesquisadores da área. Otoni Mesquita afirma que o uso da cor rosa era freqüente nas fachadas dos prédios do século XIX. Além disso, a fachada divulgada em 1893 apresentava a 3 O ato de abertura do rio Amazonas ao comércio mundial deu-se em 7 de dezembro de 1866 pelo então Imperador do Brasil D. Pedro II. cor rosa, o que pode ter definido a escolha da mesma cor. Porém, o autor Mário Ypiranga Monteiro diz que a pintura cor-de-rosa do teatro é recente e de autoria do engenheiro Victor Troncoso.
Outro tema norteado por dúvidas e simbolismos é a cúpula de ferro do Teatro Amazonas. No acervo do teatro é possível encontrar um projeto metálico da cúpula, datado de 1894 e de autoria do desenhista Willy von Bancels, o mesmo autor da planta da cidade de 1893.
A armação de ferro é de origem européia e as telhas envernizadas foram importadas da região francesa da Alsásia. A grandiosidade da cúpula, que apresenta as cores verde, amarela, azul e branca, uma alusão direta a Bandeira Nacional, era uma forma de lembrar aos barcos estrangeiros que aportavam em Manaus que os mesmos estavam em terras brasileiras. É válido lembrar que na época era possível observar o Teatro Amazonas de quase todas as partes da cidade.
A construção da cúpula no alto do Teatro Amazonas foi alvo de inúmeras críticas na época. Tal fato é ratificado em vários documentos oficiais datadas da época, onde é possível até mesmo encontrar editais chamando concorrentes para a demolição da cúpula.
Após inúmeras paralisações no andamento das obras de construção do Teatro Amazonas, em virtude de vários motivos, o mesmo foi inaugurado oficialmente em 31 de dezembro de 1896. Consequentemente, a edificação atual do Teatro Amazonas não corresponde ao projeto original.
Assim como o Monumento de Abertura dos Portos do Amazonas ao Comércio Mundial e o Teatro Amazonas, a Igreja de São Sebastião tem uma importância fundamental para a história do Largo de São Sebastião. Tal fato é ratificado pelo próprio nome do largo, na época de concepção apenas praça, influenciado diretamente pela presença da igreja no local.
Otoni Mesquita afirma que a referência mais antiga a respeito da construção da Igreja de São Sebastião é datada de novembro de 1868, conforme os relatórios da província. A construção da Igreja de São Sebastião é datada de 1888, na qual a direção é atribuída a Gesualdo Machetti. Durante todo o período de edificação da igreja, verificam-se várias paralisações nas obras e modificações no projeto arquitetônico.
Porém, a partir de 1911, a queda dos preços da Borracha provocou o fechamento dos seringais na Amazônia. A economia do látex entrou em declínio principalmente no ano de 1913 e, em 1920, foi confirmada a falência da Borracha na região. Assim, os delírios de uma sociedade cuja economia baseou-se unicamente na produção da Borracha, um dos principais erros dos governantes da época, transformaram-se em angústias e decepções, refletidas na decadência de muitas famílias importantes na cidade de Manaus e nas ruínas de muitos patrimônios ao longo do tempo.
Fonte : Revista Eletrônica Aboré Publicação da Escola Superior de Artes e Turismo – Edição 03/2007
ISSN 1980-6930
MEMÓRIAS DO LARGO DE SÃO SEBASTIÃO
Jhonathan Nogueira Martiniano. e Elizabeth Filippini.
http://noamazonaseassim.com/a-historia-do-largo-de-sao-sebastiao/
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All Rights Reserved © 2017 Frederick Roll ~ fjroll.com
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St Michael's Church, Bath viewed from Northgate Street. It was the first church to be found outside the city walls and is therefore also known as St Michael's Without.
Abellio London took over route 117 from Metroline from 3rd September 2011.
Seen on the 117 here in Church Street, Ashford, is an old specification 10-reg Enviro200, without the revised front and rear styling, and without the revised interior too - though what it does have is an offside emergency exit door! The 117 is meant to be run with brand new 11-reg examples.
It's 8534 (YX10 FEM).
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© Copyright 2013 Francisco Aragão
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Portuguese
O Jardim das Tulherias
"Fim de tarde no parque das Tulherias" por Adolph von Menzel.
Quando o grande espaço vazio entre as alas do norte e do Sul do Louvre, agora familiar aos visitantes modernos, foi revelado em 1883, o pátio do Louvre abria-se pela primeira vez para um eixo histórico contínuo. O Jardin des Tuileries (Jardim das Tulherias) está rodeado pelo Louvre (a Este), o Sena (a Sul), a Place de la Concorde (a Oeste) e a Rue de Rivoli (a Norte). Mais a Norte fica a a Place Vendôme.
O Jardim das Tulherias cobre cerca de 63 acres (25 hectares) e ainda segue de perto um desenho realizado pelo arquitecto paisagista André Le Nôtre, em 1664. O seu plano de espaçosos jardins formais prolongam a perspectiva através de piscinas que se reflectem uma na outra numa vista contínua, ao longo de um eixo central, a partir da fachada Oeste, o qual foi estendido pelo Axe historique (Eixo histórico).
Na esquina Noroeste dos jardins fica localizada a Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume (Galeria nacional de Jeu de Paume), um museu de arte
English
When the large empty space between the northern and southern wings of the Louvre now familiar to modern visitors was revealed in 1883, for the first time the Louvre courtyard opened into an unbroken Axe historique. The Tuileries Garden (French: Jardin des Tuileries) is surrounded by the Louvre (to the east), the Seine (to the south), the Place de la Concorde (to the west) and the Rue de Rivoli (to the north).
The straight line which runs through the Place de la Concorde and the Arc de Triomphe to La Défense was originally centred on the façade of the Tuileries, a similar line leading across the entrance court of the Louvre. As the two façades were placed at slightly differing angles, this has resulted in a slight 'kink' on the site of the palace a feature ultimately dictated by the curved course of the River Seine.
Tuileries Garden
The Tuileries Garden covers about 63 acres (25 hectares) and still closely follows a design laid out by the royal landscape architect André Le Nôtre in 1664. His spacious formal garden plan drew out the perspective from the reflecting pools one to the other in an unbroken vista along a central axis from the west façade, which has been extended as the Axe historique.
Wikipedia