As I was posting today's review ("The Zoo on the Road to Nablus"), I was feeling a bit defensive. I couldn't help asking myself: Am I subjecting Monitor readers to too many books about animals?
I am an animal lover, pure and simple, so for me personally, the answer is no. The other answer I could give would be to point to reader response – which seems to indicate that many if not most of our readers share my enthusiasm for good stories about animals. When these books are good, they are often very good – well written and able to teach us much about ourselves as well as to help us better understand the members of the animal kingdom.
However, to further reassure myself, I thought I'd try a little numerical analysis. So I calculated. I've been the Monitor's Book editor for almost 3 years now. In that time, I have written full reviews of 100-plus different books. Of those, only nine have been books mainly focused on animals. So, no, I haven't gone over the top.
But as I counted, what was more interesting to me than the numbers was the variety of content. The "protagonists" of those nine books have included an elephant ("Jumbo: The Greatest Elephant in the World" by Paul Chambers, a chimpanzee ("Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human" by Elizabeth Hess), a donkey ("The Wisdom of Donkeys" by Andy Merrifield), stray dogs ("Street Dogs" by Traer Scott), tigers ("Tigers in Red Weather" by Ruth Padel), a pig ("The Good Good Pig" by Sy Montgomery), reindeer ("The Reindeer People" by Piers Vitebsky), and – of course – a book about a dog named Marley.
If you, like me, love a good animal story, you might want to check out yesterday's NPR piece in which Seattle librarian par excellence Nancy Pearl recommends good dog books. Or, if you want to find some friends with whom to enjoy these books, you could check out the Shelfari animal lovers home page (it appears their group presently has 33 members).
Or you could remember to check back here next week (after you've finished reading "The Zoo on the Road to Nablus," of course) when I will be reviewing "Dog Man: An Uncommon Life on a Faraway Mountain" by Martha Sherrill. I'm only 2/3 of the way through as of today, but I'm enjoying it greatly. It's really more a story about a man than about his dogs, but it is the story of how his love for dogs shaped his life.
Now that's a topic on which I might write my own book someday.


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Q: Python - Get command output cannot be decoded I'm currently working on a project where I need to run a command in powershell, and part of the output is not in English (Specifically - Hebrew).
For example (a simplified version of the problem), if I want to get the content of my desktop, and there is a filename in Hebrew:
import subprocess
command = "powershell.exe ls ~/Desktop"
print (subprocess.run(command.split(), stdout=subprocess.PIPE).stdout.decode())

This code will raise the following error (Or something similar with a different byte value):
UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf8' codec can't decode byte 0x96 in position 19: invalid start byte

Tried to run it on a different computer, and this was the output:
?????

Any idea why is that and how can I fix it? Tried a lot of things I saw on other questions, but none of them worked for me.

A: Note: The following Python 3+ solutions work in principle, however:

*

*Due to a bug in powershell.exe, the Windows PowerShell CLI, the current console window switches to a raster font (potentially with a different font size), which does not support most non-extended-ASCII-range Unicode characters. While visually jarring, this is merely a display (rendering) problem; the data is handled correctly; switching back to a Unicode-aware font such as Consolas reveals the correct output.

*By contrast, pwsh.exe, the PowerShell (Core) (v6+) CLI does not exhibit this problem.

Option A: Configure both the console and Python to use UTF-8 character encoding before executing your script:

*

*Configure the console to use UTF-8:

*

*From cmd.exe, by switching the active OEM code page to 65001 (UTF-8); note that this change potentially affects all later calls to console applications in the session, independently of Python, unless you restore the original code page (see Option B below):
chcp 65001

*From PowerShell:
$OutputEncoding = [Console]::InputEncoding = [Console]::OutputEncoding = [System.Text.UTF8Encoding]::new()

*Configure Python (v3+) to use UTF-8 consistently:[1]

*

*Set environment variable PYTHONUTF8 to 1, possibly persistently, via the registry; to do it ad hoc:

*

*From cmd.exe:
Set PYTHONUTF8=1

*From PowerShell:
$env:PYTHONUTF8=1

*Alternatively, for an individual call (v3.7+): Pass command-line option -X utf8 to the python interpreter (note: case matters):
  python -X utf8 somefile.py ...

Now, your original code should work as-is (except for the display bug).

Option B: Temporarily switch to UTF-8 for the PowerShell call:
import sys, ctypes, subprocess

# Switch Python's own encoding to UTF-8, if necessary
# This is the in-script equivalent of setting environment var.
# PYTHONUTF8 to 1 *before* calling the script.
sys.stdin.reconfigure(encoding='utf-8'); sys.stdout.reconfigure(encoding='utf-8'); sys.stderr.reconfigure(encoding='utf-8')

# Enclose the PowerShell call in `chcp` calls:
#   * Change to the UTF-8 code page (65001),
#   * Execute the PowerShell command (which then outputs UTF-8)
#   * Restore the original OEM code page.
command = "chcp 65001 >NUL & powershell ls ~/Desktop & chcp " + str(ctypes.cdll.kernel32.GetConsoleOutputCP()) + ' >NUL'

# Note:
#  * `shell=True` ensure that the command is invoked via cmd.exe, which is
#     required, now that we're calling *multiple* executables and use output
#     redirections (`>NUL`)
print(subprocess.run(command.split(), stdout=subprocess.PIPE, shell=True).stdout.decode())

[1] This isn't strictly necessary just for correctly decoding PowerShell's output, but matters if you want to pass that output on from Python: Python 3.x defaults to the active ANSI(!) code page for encoding non-console output, which means that Hebrew characters, for instance, cannot be represented in non-console output (e.g., when redirecting to a file), and cause the script to break.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Touch Screen Display Maintenance Method
In the rapid development of science and technology today, professional touch screen display has been widely used. In the mall, the hotel, the office hall and even some downtown sections of the street, touch screen display for our work life provides a great convenience, but also more and more people can not do without it. Now cost-effective touch screen display life is not short, but its maintenance is still worthy of our attention.
The following describes the use of touch screen display "4 do not" maintenance method.
First, do not use the touch screen for a long time in high temperature environments
Do not use it for long periods of time at high temperatures. When the ambient temperature is as high as 40 ° C, it will cause the capacitive screen drift of the touch screen, which will cause direct scrapping of the touch screen display, causing economic loss to the company or the individual.
Second, do not let the strong magnetic field close to the touch screen display
Touch Screen Monitor Use must avoid the electromagnetic field, because the magnetic field will cause the temporary failure of the capacitive screen (serious and may even cause permanent damage). Need to pay attention to audio and other items with magnetic, do not let it close to the touch screen display.
Third, do not let it have a serious electrostatic effect
Electrostatic effect is easy to breakdown capacitor screen, although the touch screen display capacitive screen surface of the glass have been a certain anti-static treatment, Touch Screen Monitor but can only withstand a certain intensity of static electricity, so the choice of touch screen display protective film must pay attention, Touch Screen Monitor Try to choose a strong anti-static protective film.
Four, do not let the oil, sweat touch the touch screen
Because the oil, sweat, etc. touch the touch screen will be covered in the above to form a dense conductive layer caused by screen drift, so the touch screen display should be away from oil and sweat.
Electronic products in the use of convenience at the same time we need to love it from the details of it, high-quality touch screen display is no exception. Consumers in the use of touch-screen display when the above note 4 points, good maintenance touch screen display, so that the excellent performance of the machine to give full play, both to extend its life and reduce the unnecessary economic losses.
Touch screen display technology is a new type of human-computer interactive input mode, Touch Screen Monitor compared with the traditional keyboard and mouse input, touch screen input more intuitive. With the identification software, touch screen can also achieve handwriting input. The touch screen consists of a detection part mounted on the front of the display screen and a touch screen controller. Touch Screen Monitor When a finger or other object touches a touch screen mounted on the front of the display, the touched position is detected by the touch screen controller and sent to the host via an interface such as an RS-232 serial port.
You can let the user as long as the fingers gently touch the computer screen icon or text can be achieved on the host operation, so get rid of the keyboard and mouse operation, Touch Screen Monitor so that human-computer interaction more straightforward. Mainly used in public places hall information query, leading office, video games, song a la carte, multimedia teaching, ticket / train ticket pre-sale and so on. Products are mainly divided into capacitive touch screen, resistive touch screen and surface acoustic wave touch screen three categories.
Previous:Capacitive Touch Screen Works Next:The Starter Has High Reliability

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


For this project I worked with several associate designers to solve the unique challenge of quantifying the impact that pre-sales mocks and pitches for RFPs had on monthly revenue within the company. To solve this we collected data over several months on which RFPs were sold through to clients with the inclusion of a custom mock for a rich media concept. The next challenge was to visualize the collected data and organize it in a way that was easy to present to various stakeholders. The end result was this report which we sent out on a monthly basis.


There has been an average of 2.5 goals scored per game over the last 5 matches in the English Premier League where Watford have been at home, and Swansea have been away.
In the head to head battle, Watford and Swansea have met 3 time(s) in the last 5 seasons in the English Premier League, with Watford winning 66.666666666667% of home matches, with 5 goals being scored in 3 matches.
* Match Data is based on Watford at home and Swansea away from home.


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The 'InBetween' Review: NBC Drama Offers a Few Intriguing Mysteries
Each episode unravels like a mystery. There's a police case at the forefront but there are also little mysteries surrounding Bishop's visions and what they ultimately symbolize.
'Blood & Treasure' Review: Bland Action Drama Lacks Intrigue
The new CBS drama Blood & Treasure attempts to bring an Indiana Jones-type figure to the small screen but doesn't know exactly how to tell his story.
'The Code' Review: Solid CBS Drama Focuses on Military Law
The title of the new CBS drama The Code refers to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a set of rules that governs the behavior of members of the Armed Forces.
"UglyDolls" Review
The new family film UglyDolls attempts to bring the well-known dolls to life in a story that fits their unique aesthetics. The dolls — known for their original looks and their quirky names — have been sold for over a dozen years and they continue to enchant young fans.
"The Redemption Project with Van Jones" Review
"I've spent half my life working with the criminal justice system and I've seen lives devastated by violence," says Van Jones in the introduction of his new CNN program. Entitled The Redemption Project with Van Jones, the documentary series focuses on the pain and potential of victim-offender dialogues.
"The Curse of La Llorona" Review
The story of La Llorona — which means the Weeping Woman — is a simple but effective Mexican folk tale. There are multiple versions of this story but in one of the best-known ones, a mother becomes so desolate and psychotic after discovering her husband's infidelity that she drowns her own children.
"Breakthrough" Review
Hitting theaters a few days before Easter, the new drama Breakthrough tells the story of a miraculous event. In 2015, a 14-year-old boy fell through the frozen façade of a Missouri lake and nearly lost everything. When he was pulled out of the ice and brought to the hospital, few people thought he would recover.
5 Great Faith-Based Movies from the last 15 years
Since the amazing success of The Passion of the Christ in 2004, Hollywood has become more open to offering faith-based features.


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February 12, 2018I Never Saw That
If you are a fan of what we do, PLEASE consider contributing financially by clicking the link below. You'll be rewarded, and thank you so very much.
January 19, 2018I Never Saw That
In 1994, Jen was sent to a "therapeutic boarding school" in The Middle of Nowhere, Montana. (She had some issues.) That meant a lot of things, but one is that Jen missed two full years of popular culture when she was 16-18 years old. Join Jen and her husband Micah and revisit your old faves as they travel back to the mid-90s to watch, listen to, and talk about what Jen missed.
Listen to our first episode to understand what this podcast is about and why we're time traveling back to the mid-90s.
July 15, 2019Funny Papers
As described in episode 69 NICE.
July 15, 2019Podcast
Episode 69. Nice.
CW: We talk about rape in this one, and the brutal, gratuitous rape scene from the movie we watched.
Aside from that, get ready for some bad acting, even worse dancing, and lots of boobs!
http://media.blubrry.com/ineversawthat/p/www.ineversawthat.com/audiofiles/69-NICE.mp3
July 8, 2019Funny Papers
As described in episode 68 The Secret World of Alex Mack.
This is Sadie! I have taken over the podcast. This episode is about The Secret World of Alex Mack. My mom and I talked about this show. I loved it! Alex has really cool powers and I really like her best friend Raymond. It was really fun to talk to my mom about The Secret World of Alex Mack. I hope you enjoy it!
https://media.blubrry.com/ineversawthat/p/www.ineversawthat.com/audiofiles/68-The-Secret-World-of-Alex-Mack.mp3
As described in episode 67 Getting Even With Dad.
See You In The Funny Papers – Special Edition!
June 24, 2019Funny Papers
This is a special edition of See You In The Funny Papers. Featuring Nuts & Bolts by Judd Winick from The Real World: San Francisco. It's not exactly chronological with the rest of these but it it's a special edition! Deal with it!
As described in episode 66 The Real World San Francisco.
66 The Real World San Francisco
June 24, 2019Podcast
CW: This episode contains discussion of homophobia and AIDS.
It's the last week of PRIDE month, and we are embracing our MTV generation roots by joining the seven housemates of The Real World San Francisco. This 1994 season was what made The Real World the hit it became, and we chose it in honor of housemate Pedro Zamora, a gay man who was living with AIDS at the time and died shortly after filming.
http://media.blubrry.com/ineversawthat/p/www.ineversawthat.com/audiofiles/66-The-Real-World-San-Francisco.mp3
As described in episode 65 The Watermelon Woman.
65 The Watermelon Woman
We're back with another episode for our month of Pride-themed content that is queer as fuck. This week we talk about the 1996 film "The Watermelon Woman" written, directed by, and starring Cheryl Dunye.
We also dig into Jen's thoughts about queerness and how it relates to her experience in Montana.
And of course, the show opens with a fan-favorite segment about a fan-favorite comic. It's a classic!
http://media.blubrry.com/ineversawthat/p/www.ineversawthat.com/audiofiles/65-The-Watermelon-Woman.mp3


Beatrice has been a member of the Care Coordination workgroup for over a year. Her dedication to her patients, going above and beyond what is expected of a care coordinator, and consistent drive to improve DAWN are why she was nominated.
All too often, we forget the members of the team who work behind the scenes to make sure the DAWN Clinic is successful. Kelsey has managed our lab results and orders for over a year. She excelled in this position be cause she was reliable, proactive, and had superior attention to detail. For this, we recognize Kelsey as our August member of the month.
Since joining DAWN last fall as a first year medical student, Nick has been an advocate for our patients and other volunteers. He, along with Josten, have been the driving forces to initiate our Pulmonary Speciality Clinic after identifying the need for speciality care.
We recognize Josten as out Member of the Month because of her initiative and hard work for DAWN. Along with Nick, they lead the initiative to create the Pulmonary Speciality Clinic. In addition, Josten has shown herself as a leader in the clinic taking on other roles. She is always happy and always approachable which has been recognized by out patients.
From the start, Amanda expressed a true passion for primary care that is rarely seen in anyone. As a first year pharmacy student she fearlessly took on the daunting task of re-building and recruiting for the medication access group. Not only was she successful but she thrived and has persevered as she traversed some major barriers involved in her projects. In addition, Amanda has shown the mark of a true leader which is evident when her passion and professionalism is shown on every member of her workgroup. We look forward to seeing her future projects as she continually strives to improve and maximize patient care at DAWN.
Hardik Patel, or Kumar as most know him, has been an essential asset to the Care Coordination team. He embodies what we hope all volunteers strive for – he is driven, kind, hard working, and above all else, a leader. When things need to get done, he never hesitates to jump in and even helps teach new comers how they can best assist. He is the definition of a team player. Kumar shows proficiency in patient-provider communication with excellent interpersonal skills he makes the patient feel comfortable while also helping the provider feel confident in his ability to care for their patient. This month alone he has been recognized for his comprehensive documentation, continued participation, and leadership skills. This is why Kumar is a new Care Coordination Workgroup Leader as well as this Month's Member of the Month.
Deanne Bihler is an exemplary member of Primary Care Progress. Most students wait to contribute until they are competent to volunteer in their school's workgroup. Deanne didn't let that hold her back. She joined testing and started sharing her phlebotomy skills (and her veins) with other students. Fast forward a few months and Deanne has taken on co-leadership roles in the testing group and the supply group. Of course she shows up to volunteer in the nursing student role and goes the extra mile by helping to orient new nursing students. And unlike the majority of PCP volunteers who study at Anschutz, Deanne commutes to the clinic from the nursing school's south campus in Parker. If everyone brought this much energy to the clinic, we'd need to be open another night.


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Margie Lee Johnson
Margie Lee Johnson, a long-time resident of Coolidge, left us all on November 12 for a better place. Not that she had a bad place here, having remodeled her and Doc's home to her personal tastes some years ago, a home that was featured in Sunset magazine. When she did leave however, she took her satin pillow which accompanied heron every travel, including rafting the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. We know this because even now we can find it nowhere; she must have taken ot with her one last time.
Margie was 98 years of age (almost 99-a Christmas baby) when she left us. She was proceeded in death by her former husbands, Clay "C.V." Hanna and Chalmers "C.D." (Doc) Johnson, both of Coolidge. She is survived by her three sons: Court, Howard, and Mark Hanna; Four step-children: Linda, Pam, Debbie, and Scotty Johnson; six grandchildren and five great grandchildren. Margie also had six siblings, four brothers and two sisters, all of whom predeceased her. All will feel her loss but at the same time know she faced the end unafraid and on her own terms. All in all, quite an accomplishment following a good, honorable and long life.
Margie was never one to make a fuss... well there was the matter of the super-secret fruit cake recipe for "Little Puds" which would have certainly taken the culinary world by storm-but alas, she evaded revealing to anyone. Other than that, Margie expects no fuss to be made over her now. In honoring her wishes in this, no ceremonial gathering is planned. Should anyone feel the need to honor her life, maybe do so by cooking up your favorite recipe and sharing it with family and friends.


At Blinds & Designs serving the greater San Francisco area, we're proud to carry the full line of Hunter Douglas window fashions, from shutters and blinds to shades and shadings and more. If you've got a window to cover, odds are, we can offer you the right solution. And that includes for specialty shaped windows, which can sometimes present a challenge to homeowners. If you're looking to treat an oddly shaped window, speak with one of our consultants today. We'll be happy to help you find a covering that meets your needs.
Hunter Douglas offers solutions for practically any window in your home. Simply begin by determining your goals. You might decide you want to control light, add privacy, or enhance your décor. No matter your desired result, our professional staff can help you get inspired by showing you an array of styles, colors, and options that will not only take care of your needs but stay within your budget constraints too. Below are some common shapes and the solutions we recommend.
These beauties add talk value, a sense of comfort, and nostalgia to a room. Because of the striking architectural statement they make, we usually recommend treating these windows with Provenance® Woven Woods, Heritance® Hardwood Shutters, Silhouette® Window Shadings, or Vignette® Modern Roman Shades.
Always a show-stopper, these windows draw the eye because. They provide interesting light and can dress up an otherwise boring flat wall. We tend to recommend NewStyle® Hybrid Shutters, Pirouette® Window Shadings, or Duette® Honeycomb Shades.
Like any improvement for your home, window coverings can be a major investment. Hunter Douglas offers a complete catalog of blinds, shades, sheers, and shutters at a price point you can afford. They're all available in a variety of styles, colors, features, and more, and you can select the best product based on your design preferences, functional needs, and budgetary requirements.


A large part of the scheme was the redevelopment of the Bull Ring, which has been an important feature of Birmingham since the Middle Ages, when its market was first held. It has been developed into a shopping centre twice, first in 1964, but its Brutalist architecture became much disliked by the public and the building was seen as a major part of Birmingham's "concrete jungle" image. Realising the need for major changes to the city centre, an alliance of investment and development companies was formed called the Birmingham Alliance who put the finance together to design and construct the new £500 million Bull Ring shopping centre, which was completed in 2003. It is amongst the busiest shopping centres in the United Kingdom with 36.5 million visitors in 2004. It houses one of only four Selfridges department stores and the largest Debenhams outside London.
One Snowhill was the first building in the development. The accountancy firm KPMG has 118,400 square feet (11,000 m2) of office space in the building on a 20-year lease on floors 7 to 11. Following this, Barclays Commercial Bank agreed to move its Midlands headquarters to One Snowhill. They are to take up 98,000 square feet (9,104 m2) of space on floors three to six on a 15-year lease with its own dedicated reception and meeting suite. 1,000 sales and operations staff will move into the office building. The pre-let to Barclays is believed to be the reason why they were comfortable to refinance the loan for the construction of the building. Snowhill One was completed in 2009.
The coalition government has given funding approval for the extension of the Midland Metro from Birmingham Snow Hill Station, passing through the shopping district to Birmingham New Street Station. The £127 million state-of-the-art, electrically powered light rail system will also provide quick and easy access to Birmingham's business district and the Jewellery Quarter. Track laying was due to start in 2013 with a completion date of 2015 however following a number of delays the extension was finally opened on 30th May 2016. The extension is forecast to boost the regional economy by £50 million a year and create up to 1,300 sustainable new jobs. This extension has now been carried out and there are other extensions planned for the future by TfWM.
Regal Tower is a proposed skyscraper to be constructed on the corner of Broad Street and Sheepcote Street in Birmingham, England. The proposal consists of a 56 storey tower, measuring 200.5 metres (658 ft) tall, housing retail units, a luxury hotel, residential apartments and car parking. Provision has been made for 256 serviced apartments, although these could become additional hotel space. It is estimated it will cost £125million to construct, and when completed, it will become the tallest building in the city at 200m.
The City Park Gate scheme located immediately adjacent to Moor Street Station will deliver over 450,000 sq ft (42,000 m2) of Grade A offices, a 200-room hotel, 250 residential apartments, and 15,000 sq ft (1,400 m2) of retail. The scheme will also include a major new public square. An outline planning application for the development, designed by MAKE architects, received consent on May 10, 2007. Construction is expected to begin in early 2008.
In mid-2010, city planners approved proposals for a nine storey, 174 bed hotel beside the existing Masshouse building. The Hotel La Tour group plans to open the four star in February 2012, creating 100 full and part-time jobs in the area. The development will include a restaurant, bar, gym and conference facilities.
Eastside is the proposed location for the terminating station for High Speed 2 (HS2). It is expected that once HS2 is complete journey times from London into Birmingham City Centre will be reduced to 45 minutes with the potential to bring £1.5 billion of investment into the region.
The City of Birmingham Stadium is a proposed multi-purpose stadium in the Saltley area of Birmingham for Birmingham City F.C., to replace the current St Andrews Stadium in Bordesley Green. The original proposal was the centrepiece of a larger scheme to create a £300 million sports village on a 60-acre (240,000 m2) site, however, plans for the sports village fell through when plans for a proposed supercasino for the site also fell through. The stadium plans will rejuvenate a contaminated site currently used by Birmingham Wheels.
↑ "Birmingham Mail report on Stage 2".
↑ "Aerial View of New Street Station 1963". Birmingham City Council. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2007-09-23.
↑ "Central Library - from old to new". Birmingham City Council. Archived from the original on 2007-07-02. Retrieved 2007-09-23.
↑ Scrivens, Louise (2003-02-13). "Tackling congestion in Birmingham". BBC News. Retrieved 2007-09-23.
↑ Phil Jones, Urban Morphology Research Group (2002). "Bigger is Better? Local authority housing and the strange attraction of high-rise, 1945-70" (pdf). University of Birmingham. Retrieved 2007-09-23.
↑ Bayley, Stephen (2008-06-29). "Article reviewing the Architectural regeneration of Birmingham City Centre". London: Guardian. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
↑ Reyburn, Ross (2008-12-02). "Article describing Birmingham's Big City Plan". London: Guardian. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
↑ Michael J. Thomas; Peter Brand (2005). Urban Environmentalism: Global Change and the Mediation of Local Conflict. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-30480-6.
↑ "The Birmingham City Centre Masterplan: The Visioning Study" (PDF). Birmingham City Council. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
↑ "Article describing Birmingham's Big City Plan". Birmingham Post. Retrieved 26 January 2010.
↑ "Birmingham Unitary Development Plan Chapter 15 - City Centre" (pdf). Birmingham City Council. Retrieved 2008-01-11.
↑ "Eastside". Birmingham City Council. Retrieved 2008-01-11.
↑ "Designated Areas of the City Centre". Big City Plan. Archived from the original on 24 January 2010. Retrieved 26 January 2010.
↑ Kennedy (2004). Remaking Birmingham: The Visual Culture of Urban Regeneration. Routledge Ltd. pp. 17–18. ISBN 0-415-28839-8.
↑ WSP Group: Birmingham Bullring UK Archived June 20, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
↑ Re-New Street: Change at New Street Archived December 18, 2005, at the Wayback Machine.
↑ "Work set to start on New Street Station".
↑ Marshall Taylor (2007-06-04). "Ballymore Gains Approval for Birmingham Project". Commercial Property News. Archived from the original on 2008-06-14. Retrieved 2007-12-08.
↑ Neil Nickolds (2008-02-03). "Ballymore ploughs through at Snowhill". Emporis. Archived from the original on 2008-03-15. Retrieved 2008-03-15.
↑ Steve Pain (2008-07-21). "Barclays to move Midland HQ to Snowhill complex". Birmingham Post. Archived from the original on 25 July 2008. Retrieved 2008-07-29.
↑ "Barclays to refinance Snowhill". Property Week. 2009-05-09. Retrieved 2009-08-31.
↑ "Ballymore Gains Approval for Birmingham Project". Skyscraper News. Archived from the original on 12 February 2010. Retrieved 2010-02-01.
↑ "Starwood Hotels announce Birmingham's first 5-star hotel". Europe Real Estate. 2008-01-25. Retrieved 2010-02-01.
1 2 St Chad's Intersection / Snow Hill Queensway roadworks Archived May 17, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
↑ Edward Chadwick. "Relief for Birmingham as Midland Metro is spare the axe".
↑ "Library of Birmingham". Capita Symonds. Archived from the original on 5 March 2010. Retrieved 2010-02-17.
↑ Robert Booth (2009-04-03). "Library of Birmingham plans unveiled as recession opens a new chapter for civic buildings". The Guardian. London.
↑ Highways Agency Press Statement Archived July 18, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.
↑ "Details Page for Planning Application - 2009/04215/PA". Birmingham City Council. 2009. Retrieved 2009-09-28.
↑ Tower Block Modernism vs. Urban Morphology: An analysis of Lee Bank, Birmingham Archived February 27, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
1 2 "Eastside City Park - news and information". Birmingham City Council. 2008. Archived from the original on 2008-06-09. Retrieved 2008-11-09.
↑ "Birmingham Beorma Quarter tower block plan panned".
↑ "LSH plays integral role in £15m redevelopment of Birmingham Coach Station". LSH.
↑ "Green light for coach station rebuild". Birmingham Mail. 2006. Retrieved 2006-06-16.
↑ "£150m makeover for Irish quarter unveiled". The Birmingham Post. 2007-08-15. Retrieved 2007-09-20.
↑ "Birmingham's new hospital named".
↑ Fort Dunlop website Archived May 18, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.


Conference epiSTEME-4 is the fourth in a series of biennial conferences aimed at reviewing research world-wide in science, technology and mathematics education. It is being organised by the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, a National Centre of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India. Science, technology and mathematics education (STME) have, in recent decades, emerged as lively new research areas. This research, inspired by issues of learning and teaching, has clear uniting themes in the cognitive, pedagogical, historical, philosophical and socio-cultural aspects of the sciences.? The epiSTEME conferences occupy a unique position among conferences and bring together researchers in these foundational areas as well as from the domains of science, design and technology and mathematics education. Conference epiSTEME-4 continues this tradition of interdisciplinary exchange.
The name epiSTEME connotes, at one level, a systematic study of knowledge, while as an acronym it suggests a meta-view of science, technology and mathematics education. The previous epiSTEME conferences, held in 2004, 2007 and 2009, have catalysed collaborative programmes among researchers and educational practitioners in India and abroad. Within India, they have helped to initiate and foster linkages between theory, empirical research and the work of grassroots organisations.
Three broad strands of research that impact STME will form the core of epiSTEME-4. Themes have been identified under each strand to reflect active research topics and areas of interest. Leading scholars will be invited to give overviews of some of the themes within each strand. Paper and poster sessions will complement the review talks. Pre and post conference workshops are being planned, the details of which will be announced later. The strands and themes are presented below.
Papers are invited on the themes listed above. Submissions must be made online in the form of full papers of 6-8 pages (maximum of 8 pages including references). Details and a template for submission may be downloaded from the conference webpage. All submissions go through a double-blind review process. Accepted papers are published in the Proceedings, distributed during the conference and can be downloaded from the conference site (http://www.hbcse.tifr.res.in/episteme). Review talks along with the discussions are documented in a series of volumes called The epiSTEME Reviews.


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4 Comments Posted on November 27, 2016 November 26, 2016 Ancient History, Guest Posts, Persons of Interest, Religion, Sex, Vice
Saints and Whores: Thaïs, Mary, Pelagia, and Mary of Egypt
Saint Thais. Jusepe de Ribera
Between 303 and 311CE, the Roman Emperors Diocletian and Galerius masterminded the last Great Persecution, a final attempt to exterminate Christianity altogether. It failed. By 322, Christianity had successfully transitioned, thanks to the conversion of Constantine, from being a hunted sect to becoming the undisputed state religion of the Roman Empire. The dizzying speed of this change, of Christians moving from being hunted down and burned at the stake to being installed in the corridors of power, had a vast effect on the history of the Catholic Church, the history of Europe, and on the imagination of countless people.
As a persecuted people, Christians had developed a mythology where the martyr was the ultimate heroic figure. But now it was easy to be a Christian, and no more martyrs were appearing. In the Middle East, particularly, where Christians had always been persecuted the hardest, Christian hardliners began to isolate themselves in the wilds as the first Christian hermits, monks and nuns. A literature began to spring up around them.
The Lives of the Fathers (Vitae Patrum) was collected in 1602 by Heribert Rosweyde, but it compiles texts written between the fourth and seventh centuries about these lonely desert saints. Book One ends with the biographies of eleven women. Four of these Latin stories, the lives of Saints Thaïs, Mary, Pelagia and Mary of Egypt, have the suffix meretrix.
It means whore. The word gets translated in Latin dictionaries as "prostitute" or "harlot" or "courtesan" even, but in Latin it is a swear word. It's a slur. Men throw it at women from the classical period on. For example, in 54 BCE it was one of the slurs addressed to the Roman socialite Clodia by the lawyer Cicero in his speech Pro Caelio – he used it nine times, but then Pro Caelio is the quintessential text of Latin misogyny. Meretrix has that exact force that the more polite translations of words like it just don't. It is an insult. It is a blot on the language. And part of the business of translation is to translate things with their appropriate force.
But what does it even mean? What did they do to cause the label to be applied to them, even after they were saints, so that through posterity, in the Catholic and Orthodox calendars, they would continue to receive the name: whore, meant as an insult?
The story of Thaïs appears to have been written at some time in the fifth century, but is set in 350s, since it features Paphnutius, a real figure active between the 320s and the 350s. Paphnutius visits Thaïs, reputedly the most beautiful of Alexandria's courtesans, and pretends to buy her for sex. He browbeats her into repenting and publicly humiliating herself; he takes her to a convent where he seals her in a cell with her own effluent and orders her to pray a simple mantra of repentance; three years later he comes back and lets her out.
He tore down the threshold that blocked her in, but she insisted that she remain
imprisoned there, even though the door was open.
"Come out!" he said. "God has forgiven your sins!"
"I bear witness to God," she said, "because of whom I am in here, that all of my sins appear to me as if on a tray before my eyes, and I can't stop seeing them."
"It wasn't your punishment that removed your sins," Paphnutius cried, " but the fact that you always have the guilt of them in your mind."
– Anon, The Life of Saint Thaïs the Whore. 3
He lets her out and she refuses, until he tells her she has been saved by her own self-loathing, and then she comes out, and, broken, she dies shortly afterwards.
It's only a page long. I close my eyes and I see Thaïs kneeling in her own piss and shit, blank-eyed, head-lolling, starved, only kept alive by the mantra she is forced to repeat to such an extent that when the ritual is broken, she dies in two weeks. It's a legitimate horror.
While (although she's still on the calendar, 8th October) authorities think she's fictional, of all the stories in the Lives of the Fathers, this is the one that could happen, and the one that most captured future imaginations. Anatole France's novel Thaïs approaches the story critically and was adapted for stage and film. Michele Roberts's account of her in her novel Impossible Saints is as bleak and brutal as the source material.
The story of Mary dates to about 370. Mary is the niece of a hermit called Abraham, orphaned, who lives with him in his little house in the desert. Mary is pestered into having sex with a nameless monk and is so consumed by guilt at having sex once that she thinks she might as well just go and do it for money, so she runs away and goes to work in a brothel. Abraham goes to get her back and they tearfully reconcile; he forgives her for everything. Saint Mary is also remembered on October 8th.
The account of Pelagia comes from the fifth century, but is again set in the fourth. A bishop sees an actor pass in the street.
Saint Pelagia
As all of us were admiring his holy teaching, look, all of a sudden the most famous actress of Antioch passed us by, the best of the ballerinas and comediennes. She was riding on a donkey, and she was dressed so ostentatiously that you couldn't see anything of her beneath all the gold and gems and pearls. Even her feet were covered in gold and pearls. She had a train of boy and girl slaves with her, all dressed in expensive clothes, each with a golden collar, some in front and some behind. No one could ever have enough of her loveliness. She passed by us, and the air was filled with musk, and some of the sweetest fragrances in the whole world.
–Jacob the Deacon, The Life of Saint Pelagia the Whore, 2
She is specifically what the Romans called a mima. Now in ancient theatre of the respectable kind, the comedies and tragedies, all the actors were men. Female actors did the mimes, the sacred fertility shows, and these were bawdy, and had nudity, and included simulated sex acts. Writers of antiquity tell us that these shows included actual sex acts, and that the women who performed in these shows were sex workers too, but we don't know if that's true. This story assumes that being an actor makes her a stripper and a porn star too. The title, added later, just labels her a whore and is done with it.
The actor, Pelagia, converts to Christianity; Satan visit her and tries to get her to recant.
He said, "Why are you doing this to me, Lady Pelagia? Why are you playing the part of my personal Judas?"
– Life of Saint Pelagia the Whore, 9
She refuses, and runs away in one of the bishop's cloaks. Three years later, the narrator asks to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Nonnus asks James to send his regards to a hermit who lives nearby called Pelagius.
I found the hermit on the Mount of Olives, where Jesus had prayed, in a modest little shack, closed off on all sides, except for a little window in the wall. I banged on the shutter of the little window, and she opened it and at once recognised me, but I didn't recognise her. How could I have possibly recognised her since when I saw her before she was indescribably beautiful, and now her face had wasted away from her starving herself? Her eyes looked like ditches in her face.
–Life of Saint Pelagia the Whore, 14
It is of course Pelagia. Shortly after she dies. When it's discovered that the miracle-worker was in fact a young woman, the assembled people marvel, and the moral is that she's saved because she became a man. Her day, again, is October 8th.
Mary of Egypt's story, written by Sophronius, probably in the 630s but is again set some time in the late fifth century. Zosimas of Palestine, supposedly the world's best monk, meets a naked old woman in the desert, who, although reluctant initially to speak, tells her story.
Her skin was completely black, all tanned by the heat of the sun, and the hair on her head was white like the clouds, and short, and like wool. And it fell no farther than the nape of her neck.
-Sophronius, Life of Saint Mary of Egypt the Whore, 7
Mary of Egypt. Jose de Ribera
She says she's from Egypt. She was promiscuous from a young age. That's it. She slept with anyone who asked.
I took nothing from anyone for it; now that I was mad with passion… I fulfilled my sexual needs for free. I was evil! And don't think I took nothing because I was rich – no, I lived by begging, and sometimes working as a weaver.
-Life of Saint Mary of Egypt the Whore, 13
So in fact, she was explicitly not a sex worker. She just liked sex.
She one day decided, she says, to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and worked her way across by sleeping with all the men on the boat. At Jerusalem, she found herself barred from the temple by an invisible wall. She prayed for forgiveness and a vision of the Virgin Mary told her to go to the desert. She bought three loaves of bread and retreated into the desert. The bread miraculously kept her going for fifteen years.
Illiterate, she now knows the Bible by heart. She levitates, walks across rivers. Zosimas visits her a couple more times and on the second time finds her dead. An angelic lion appears and writes her name on the ground: Mary of Egypt. The lion buries her.
The Orthodox church in particular honours Mary of Egypt in the week before Easter. They say the moral of her story is that even the greatest of sinners can become miracle workers.
But what was her sin, exactly? She liked sex. She slept around. In the society I live in, it is no big deal. But back then, that made her the worst. It earned her the label, whore.
And in all of these stories, all of which are supposed to be about redemption, the slur sticks in the title (and I don't think it's an accident that the three of them share a feast day). In the same way that Ebenezer Scrooge isn't remembered as a byword for the redemptive power of Christmas, these four women get "whore" attached on the top line of the permanent record. It never goes away.
Howard David Ingham is a writer, poet and artist. He has an MPhil in Late Latin Literature and once got hired by the British Government to do something secret. He writes regularly at Chariot. His book, The Age of Miracles is still funding on Kickstarter.
Christianity Howard David Ingham Prostitution Religion Saint Mary Saint Mary of Egypt Saint Pelagia Saint Thais
2 Comments Posted on November 23, 2016 December 5, 2018 19th Century, Disease, Guest Posts, Medical History, Sex, The Regency, Victorian
Hysteria and Medicinal Masturbation: The 19th Century Origins of the Vibrator
Yes. You did just read the words 'medicinal masturbation' although it certainly was never called that in the 19th century! But more of that later. To start this little article, I need to talk to you about first about 'hysteria', a medical condition which was recognised and widely believed for two thousand years. The condition was blamed for causing all manner of maladies in women from nervousness and stomach pain to lunacy.
It was probably the Egyptians who first believed it was a medical problem, but we have to blame the Ancient Greeks for all of the nonsense which came later. The term comes from hystera, the Greek word for uterus, and eminent Greek physicians who followed the teachings of Hippocrates had some funny ideas about this particular female organ.
Aretaeus of Cappodocia describes it thus:
"In the middle of the flanks of women lies the womb, a female viscous, closely resembling an animal; for it moves itself hither and thither in the flanks… it is altogether erratic. It delights, also, in fragrant smells, and advances towards them; and it had an aversion to fetid smells and flees from them; and, on the whole the womb is like an animal within an animal."
Scary indeed.
Hysteria, or wandering womb, was caused when this fidgeting strange little animal was not sufficiently 'irrigated with male seed.' Left to wander too far, it could interfere with the delicate female brain. Hippocrates believed hysteria needed to be treated with smells, foul ones at the nose and perfumed ones around the nether regions, to coax the nomadic beastie back into the pelvis, and recommended regular coupling with a vigorous man. Male seed, after all, would prevent it wandering in the first place.
This ridiculous theory persisted through time. By medieval times they had mixed the flawed science with religion as they did with so many things. Hysteria was the Devil's work and needed to be treated with prayer or penance. Persistent hysterics might even have to be executed for their lustful, unruly, wayward wombs.
By the 17th century as science began to usurp the power the church had over medicine, treating hysteria rather than punishing it became the norm. But with physicians estimating at least three quarters of the female population suffered sporadically from the malady, treating it became a daily part of every doctor's life.
It was, in many ways, like lancing a boil. Every physician worth his salt knew that if the poison could be drawn from a festering carbuncle, within a few days the surrounding skin would be back to normal. Hysteria simply needed expunging. If smelling salts or a brisk gallop across the fields on the back of a horse did not work, the most effective way to do that was 'pelvic massage'- a very scientific term for masturbation. The subsequent 'Hysterical Paroxysm' would quickly relieve all of the patient's symptoms. Thanks to the medieval church, masturbation was still considered a sin in the 19th century and one which would very likely send you blind, but if it was a bonafide medical procedure, there was nothing wrong with it. In fact, it was positively encouraged! As a result, doctors earned a fortune doing it for the masses who required it.
This practice was not only widely accepted by the prim and proper 19th century society, it was lauded for its health-giving benefits and the most skilled physicians were inundated with repeat business. Unfortunately, it was time consuming and hard work. Physicians from the time complained about the toll it was taking on their poor wrists and arms. Some women, they lamented, took almost an hour to achieve the necessary hysterical paroxysm, and with so many patients in dire need of their services, the poor fellows were physically exhausted. Some even complained of such persistent symptoms, which today would be called repetitive strain injury, they were unable to work. It went without saying that if a hysteria doctor was not in any shape to be working then he could not reap the bountiful financial benefits from the huge proportion of women suffering from wandering wombs! Something had to be done.
This led to a variety of labour-saving devices being created with the express
purpose of mechanically 'alleviating' hysteria while saving the doctors' joints in the process. And they invented some corkers.
George Taylor's steam powered manipulator involved a coal fired engine in one room connected to a peculiar table-like contraption in another. In the middle of the table was a convenient hole which the hysterical woman sat astride, while the steam made a metal ball vibrate in the cavity. As beneficial as many patients found it, the doctors complained about the amount of coal they had to shovel in the engine, so it's time was scandalously cut short. There were several hand-wound devices but as they also required the physician's energy to vibrate, the hunt was on for something easier.
Vigor & Co's Horse-Action Saddle could be used in the privacy of one's own home. As could the hilariously named 'Chattanooga'. I could not for the life of me find a picture of that one, but learned it was almost five feet tall and so cumbersome they mounted it on wheels.
Finally, in 1869, Dr Joseph Mortimer Granville, a man horrified at the idea of using his hands to perform pelvic massage, patented the first electromagnetic vibrator, The Percussor (a term used now for the sort of tools doctors use to test reflexes). The Precussor was the modern precursor to today's buzzing buddies and was known affectionately–and to its inventors mortification–as 'Granville's Hammer' because it was exactly the right tool for the job!
By the late 19th century and in the early part of the 20th century, a huge variety of vibrating personal massagers came on the market to treat women and they were even widely advertised in newspapers and periodicals, claiming all manner of health benefits and directly aimed at women. They didn't hide from what it did either. One advertisement in the Sears catalogue of 1903 called a vibrating massager "a delightful companion… that will throb within you"!
Since then, even though the theory of hysteria has been debunked and forgotten, the world continues to feel the good vibrations of Granville's invention. I just wish I could find a way to put all of this into one of my books!
Virginia Heath writes witty, fast-paced Regency romantic comedies with a modern twist for Harlequin Historical. The Discerning Gentleman's Guide is out now.
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Hysteria Masturbation Medical History Vibrators Virginia Heath Wandering Womb
10 Comments Posted on November 20, 2016 October 31, 2016 Art, Guest Posts, Sex, The Renaissance, Vice
Prostitution in Renaissance Italy: The "Necessary Evil"
A 15th-century depiction of a brothel. You can imagine the man walking in saying, "Well, at least the prostitutes are women."
In the wake of the fourteenth-century plague, which killed over half of Italy's populations, cities were faced with a crisis. To make matters worse, Italian men seemed uninterested in repopulating the peninsula, struck by a sin worse than death—same-sex attraction. Fifteenth-century preacher Bernardino of Siena railed that "even the Devil flees in horror at the sight of this sin."
Italian cities responded by encouraging prostitution. In 1403, the government of Florence opened an office to promote prostitution in order to prevent the worse sin of sodomy. Venice legalized prostitution in 1358 and created a brothel district in the commercial heart of the city, the Rialto.
Cesare Vecellio's "Public Whore" waves a flag and wears high-heeled chopines. (1598)
Prostitution was a reality of life in Renaissance Italy. But in spite of its legality, Renaissance Italians had a mixed opinion of the profession. The medieval church had declared prostitution a "necessary evil," drawing on St. Augustine of Hippo's proclamation that "If you do away with whores, the world will be consumed with lust." Thomas Aquinas likewise declared in the thirteenth century that "If prostitution were to be suppressed, careless lusts would overthrow society." Aquinas likened prostitution to a sewer in a palace—if you took it away, the building would overflow with pollution. Or, more specifically, "Take away prostitutes from the world and you will fill it with sodomy."
Prostitutes, then, served as receptacles of sin, protecting the rest of society from male lust. And, in particular, they kept male passions focused on women, rather than other men.
But legalization did not mean prostitution was an esteemed profession. It was heavily regulated, as cities passed laws to ensure that honorable citizens could avoid the corrupting influence of prostitutes. Venetian prostitutes had to wear a yellow scarf in public. In 1384, Florence passed a law forcing prostitutes to wear bells on their heads, gloves, and high-heeled shoes.
Let's talk for a minute about these special shoes—they were called chopines, and they likely originated with Venetian prostitutes. These heels could be up to twenty-four inches high (and I thought four inch heels were tricky!). Patrician women were so enamored with the style that laws forcing prostitutes to wear the shoes were passed to discourage "good" women from donning them. Those efforts failed.
Pietro Bertelli's flip-up courtesan shows off the woman's chopines as well as her undergarments. (c. 1588)
Renaissance prostitution was meant to channel male lust in appropriate directions, and as such, prostitution reinforced gender norms. Venice, for example, encouraged women to run brothels, because men relying on the earnings of prostitutes inverted normal gender relations. The city worried that men who lived off of women's earnings would become dangerously lazy and fall into a life of crime. In an ironic twist, this attitude put a great deal of power in the hands of "matrons," who were integrated into Venetian business at multiple levels.
Expensive, educated courtesans were also able to use their position to enhance their independence. Tullia d'Aragona, a sixteenth-century Roman courtesan, published multiple books and owned many houses. Another famous courtesan, Veronica Franco of Venice, was a published poet of great distinction. When King Henry III of France visited Venice in 1574, the city hired Franco to entertain him. These two women were widely admired for their works, and had a degree of freedom unmatched by their married cousins. Another courtesan, Angela del Moro, served as the model for Titian's Venus of Urbino.
Titian's Venus of Urbino, thought to portray his companion Angela del Moro, a Venetian courtesan.
Legalized prostitution reinforced gender norms, but in limited cases it provided opportunities for women to assert power. As madams or courtesans, women could own property, publish, and achieve social acclaim. Yet for the majority of Renaissance Italian prostitutes, it was a hard life, and often not one they chose. Prostitutes were exploited by the brothels and by the cities, often treated no better than the sewers to which Aquinas likened them. They existed on the margins, their exploitation justified for the "greater good" of society.
Sylvia Prince is a history professor and author. Her debut novel, The Lion and the Fox, is set in the cutthroat world of Renaissance Florence, and follows Niccolo Machiavelli as he solves the murder of a Medici. It also features male and female prostitutes, as well as a female brothel owner. Find out more at Sylvia's website www.sylviaprincebooks.com and find her on Facebook and Twitter @sprincebooks.
Brackett, John K. "The Florentine Onesta and the Control of Prostitution, 1403-1680." Sixteenth Century Journal, v. 24, no. 2 (Summer 1993), pp. 273-300.
Clarke, Paula C. "The Business of Prostitution in Early Renaissance Venice." Renaissance Quarterly, v. 68 no. 2 (Summer 2015), pp. 419-464.
Mormondo, Franco. The Preacher's Demons: Bernardino of Siena and the Social Underworld of Early Renaissance Italy
Bubonic Plague Italy Prostitution Renaissance Sylvia Prince Titian Venice
7 Comments Posted on November 17, 2016 November 16, 2016 16th Century, 17th Century, 18th Century, 19th Century, Elizabethan England, Georgian Britain, Guest Posts, London, Politics, The Regency
Lies, Spies, and Unsung Heroes: Espionage and the British Empire
Engraving of Elizabeth I with William Cecil (left) and Francis Walsingham (right)
We've loved our spy fiction for over 100 years. The early years of the twentieth century saw the start of the genre, with Kim, by Rudyard Kipling, several books by Joseph Conrad, The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Orczy, even some of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Sexy heroes, thrilling encounters, mysterious beautiful women, and ghastly villains. Spy novels had it all. How things have changed.
Disreputable and dishonest
In the past, spying was a murky hidden business, and spies despised as liars who sold their honour. The British Secret Service was not founded until the twentieth century, and before that spies were seen as dishonest and disreputable. Yet without them, the history of England would be very different.
Henry VIII and Elizabeth I both had spymasters whose extensive spy networks helped keep their royal majesties on their throne.
Sir Anthony Standen—torn between loyalties
Standen's alias: Pompeo Pellegrini
One of those spies was a Catholic refugee from Protestant England, whose reports on the Spanish Armada allowed the English to attack the Spanish Fleet at Cadiz. Sir Francis Drake fired ships and sunk galleys, putting the invasion off for years.
Poor Sir Anthony Standen. His love for England and his love for his faith conflicted, and — although he eventually returned to his home country — he was not welcomed by a grateful nation. Indeed, though he was sent on further spying missions, he was also imprisoned for a time in the Tower of London.
It is an interesting juxtaposition: his sterling work for the Crown did not (in the eyes of some) prove his patriotism, but rather his lack of moral fibre. He spied, therefore he could not be trusted.
Spying at home as well as abroad
Walsingham and his successors were as likely to spy on Englishmen as on enemies from abroad. William Pitt the Younger, in more than tripling the amount spent by the government on spying and infiltration of potentially rebellious organisations, was walking in well-trodden footsteps. The budget passed through the hands of a few civil servants at home, and ambassadors and military commanders abroad, with no more accounting than this oath.
I A.B. do swear, That the Money paid to me for Foreign Secret Service, or for Secret Service in detecting, preventing, or defeating, treasonable, or other dangerous Conspiracies against the State…, has been bona fide, applied to the said Purpose or Purposes, and to no other: and that it hath not appeared to me convenient to the State that the same should be paid Abroad. So help me GOD.
A secret part of the Post Office opened, read, and copied mail, especially mail from foreign governments. And both amateur and professional informers reported on their neighbours.
Systematic spying
Napoleon employed a network of spies, under the Minister of Police, Joseph Fouche, who had survived the two previous regimes and would survive the Empire to serve the restored monarchy.
The English system was much more ad hoc. Spies, yes, and many of them, but probably no central co-ordination, though William Savage makes a good argument for the central role of The Alien Office.
Overseas, diplomats and military commanders took the fore. We know the names of some of the diplomatic spymasters who plotted against Napoleon: William Wickham in Switzerland, Francis Drake* in Munich and later Italy.
Colquhoun Grant by George Jones (1815-1820), National Portrait Gallery. Grant was a British army soldier and intelligence officer during the Napoleonic Wars.
Noble spies
Wellington had 'exploring officers', who would have challenged you to a duel had you dared to call them spies. They were officers and gentlemen, and if they did creep behind enemy lines to collect information, they wore their uniforms to do so. Wearing a disguise or other forms of deception would be beneath their code of civilised behaviour.
But Wellington (and other military leaders) also had other intelligence gatherers who were less particular. Did some of them include members of the great aristocratic families of England? If so, we would not expect to find out from the records. Such a secret would reflect badly on those families, and would never be disclosed.
Spies of romance
So we are free to imagine that the romantic heroes and heroines of our modern stories might represent some, at least, of the spies whose reports on Napoleon's troops, movements, and intentions saved England from invasion. Or who uncovered plots at home.
Prudence Virtue, heroine of my book Revealed in Mist, is a spy in the service of the mysterious Tolliver. Recruited after a love affair turned sour, she infiltrates the houses of the ton to uncover secrets and help defend the State. Or so Tolliver claims.
Jude Knight
Jude Knight's writing goal is to transport readers to another time, another place, where they can enjoy adventure and romance, thrill to trials and challenges, uncover secrets and solve mysteries, delight in a happy ending, and return from their virtual holiday refreshed and ready for anything.
Since publishing Candle's Christmas Chair in December 2014, Jude's name has seldom been off Amazon bestseller lists for one or more books. She is a member of Romance Writers of New Zealand, and of the Beau Monde chapter of Romance Writers of America. You can visit her at http://www.judeknightauthor.com
Revealed in Mist is out December 13, 2016.
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Ioffe, Alexander: Espionage During the Napoleonic Wars. The Dear Surprise.
Rice, Patricia: Spies in Regency England. Word Wenches
Savage, William: The C18th British Secret Service under Pitt. Pen and Pension.
Secrets and Spies, National Archives Exhibition.
*The diplomat, not to be confused with Sir Francis Drake. -Ed.
Duke of Wellington Espionage Francis Walsingham Jude Knight Napoleonic Wars Sir Anthony Standen Spies Spy Fiction
4 Comments Posted on November 15, 2016 16th Century, Elizabethan England, Guest Posts, Reviews, Sex, The Renaissance, Vice
Review: Homosexuality in Renaissance England by Alan Bray
I write mysteries set in Elizabethan England featuring Francis Bacon as my primary sleuth. No one knows for sure — no love letter from Bacon to another person has survived. He isn't likely to have written such things, in my opinion, because he was a courtier practically from birth and knew better than to write down anything that could be used against you later. But most historians believe he was a man who preferred men, sexually. The evidence is slender; such as there is I discussed on my blog.
Based on that slender evidence, my version of Francis Bacon is decidedly gay, to use the modern term. So I need to understand what that would have meant in his time. Toward that end, there is no better resource than Alan Bray's excellent Homosexuality in Renaissance England (1996, Columbia University Press.)
This book is not only a clear-eyed, detailed resource on the stated topic, but also a fine example of historical writing, on both technical and stylistic grounds. Read this together with Alan Haynes' Sex in Elizabethan England and you'll learn the difference between history and literature-based speculation. Bray's thesis is that a study of homosexuality ought properly to belong in a general study of interfamilial relations.
He begins quite correctly with a discussion of his sources. He notes that most of our ideas about homosexuality in early modern England derive from Havelock Ellis' provocative 1897 Sexual Inversion. Ellis was trying to create a new culture; he was not writing a history book. It's not much help for those of us who try to cleave to the actual as much as possible.
The slippery slope
Bray notes on page 9, "There was an immense disparity in this society [early modern England] between what people said — and apparently believed — about homosexuality and what in truth they did." Thank goodness! What people said was pretty horrible. Diatribes and sermons of the time displayed a persistent association between unnatural acts, homosexual sex and bestiality. Boys + goats = demonic debauchery.
Strictly speaking, nobody ranted about homosexuality, because the term wasn't coined until the late nineteenth century. The earlier term was 'sodomite;' gritty and biblical, meant to be shocking. Like 'atheist,' the word had more to do with outlawry and social nonconformity, — behaving in a manner contrary to the laws of man, God, and nature — than with sex. Nobody you liked and respected was ever a sodomite. It was a word you hurled at someone you were trying to injure.
Turned upside down
There was plenty of ranting, some of it truly vile. The odious Sir Edward Coke thought buggery was treason against the King of Heaven. (Coke was one of Bacon's lifelong rivals; for this and other reasons I despise him.) Bray reviews the rantings and discusses the reasons people were so fearful about overturning God's laws. If you go too far, you risking turning the whole world upside down. Chaos would result. We'd all go mad!
Bray also gives us a look at the caricatures drawn in early modern literature: "…the sodomite is a young man-about-town, with his mistress on one arm and his 'catamite' on the other; he is indolent, extravagant and debauched." The Earl of Oxford fit this portrait perfectly. Note that this man-about-town was omnisexual — depraved in all directions.
Lots of storm, little fury
Bray examines court records for hints about interpersonal relations. Buggery cases were heard in the Quarter Assizes, judged by county Justices of the Peace. While the crime was a felony, cases were rare. In the 66-year period 1559-1625, in all of Kent, Sussex, Hertfordshire, and Essex, there were only 4 indictments for sodomy. These cases involved violence and were thus breaches of the peace. Nobody was sneaking around spying out naughty buggers and hauling them into court; not even into church courts.
Bray situates garden variety homosexuality inside the home, observing that homes in early modern times were also workplaces. The workshop was on the ground floor of the house or in the yard. A typical path for a young person, male or female, was to leave the natal home in the early teens and go off to work in someone else's house. Boys might be apprenticed to a craftsman; girls would find work as servants. They would work until they were able to support themselves, through savings and advancement in their craft.
In early modern England, as now, couples were expected to establish independent households. They married later as a result; men well into their twenties or even thirties, women around mid-twenties. Note that this is also an effective means of managing the birth rate; pretty much the only means they had other than abstinence.
Servants' beds
Servants and apprentices lived with the family, though they might sleep on cots in the attic or in a cockloft over the barn, segregated by sex. Thus there were many opportunities for opportunistic sexual relations; desirable as a way of relieving sexual pressures without producing unwanted pregnancies.
Neither ask thou, nor tell
Bray concludes that, "In general homosexual behaviour went largely unrecognised or ignored, both by those immediately involved and by the communities in which they lived." Vehement hostility in public was matched by willing blind complicity in private.
Bray notes that Francis Bacon was known to have sexual relations with his servants, which no one would have minded if he hadn't been so outrageously generous with gifts, for which he probably borrowed the money. He quotes Aubrey's Life of Francis Bacon: "He was a παιδεραστής. [paiderastes~pederast] His Ganymedes and favourites took bribes; but his lordship always gave judgement secundum aequum et bonum [according to what is just and good.] His decrees in Chancery stand firm, i.e. there are fewer of his decrees reversed than of any other Chancellor."
Thus we see that Bacon may have been queer, but he was also always fair.
Anna Castle
Bray, Alan. 1996. Homosexuality in Renaissance England. Columbia University Press.
Award-winning author Anna Castle writes two historical mystery series: the Francis Bacon mysteries and the Professor & Mrs. Moriarty mysteries. She has earned a series of degrees — BA in the Classics, MS in Computer Science, and a PhD in Linguistics — and has had a corresponding series of careers — waitressing, software engineering, grammar-writing, assistant professor, and archivist. Writing fiction combines her lifelong love of stories and learning.
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Editor's note: For more on the contraception available in this period, check out this post on 17th century condoms. They were more of a protection against syphilis, and not a very effective one at that…
Alan Bray Anna Castle Elizabethan England Francis Bacon Homosexuality Renaissance England Review
13 Comments Posted on November 13, 2016 November 11, 2016 17th Century, Art, Guest Posts, Persons of Interest, Sex, Vice
Love Below Stairs: Rembrandt and His Maids
Bathsheba at Her Bath. Rembrandt (1653)
Tales of masters involved with their maids have as much allure today as they did in history. In the news, we read sordid tales of Hollywood stars romantically involved with their personnel and the scandal reports of shameless household help preying on vulnerable celebrities. But what makes these relationships so intriguingly immoral? Is it the element of adultery because many of the employers are married? Or is having a relationship in the workplace what makes this arrangement taboo?
Analyses of the behavioral patterns between employers and employees fill volumes of psychology books. A certain power imbalance arises when two people enter into a vocational relationship. The employer has the upper hand, holding not only the threat of termination over the employee's head but also holding the purse strings. One could say, the employer holds an employee's very existence in his hands. As with any power imbalance, there is a risk that this power could be abused. Or a more commonplace risk could arise: a romantic relationship could develop in the workplace. These risks compound the intrigue, especially when the employees are working in private homes.
Let's concentrate on the recipe for a good master and maid tale: a household hires a housekeeper. The household does not fit into the modern concept of the nuclear family in a loving marriage. Maybe this is a marriage arranged for business and social reasons. For some reason the husband and wife live together but separate. The husband may travel frequently. The wife may be preoccupied with childbearing. The housekeeper has daily and intimate contact with the master. A kind word, a smile, a wink, a touch, a kiss…The master feels he has the right to take his maid, however he desires, with her consent or against her will. Maybe some gratuity changes hands.
These tales often concentrate on male employers and their use and misuse of their female help. Surely, male household employees are misused as well, but the majority of these cases involves women. The proof of female employees caught in unsavory circumstances is often obvious in the form of an unwanted pregnancy and the subsequent fall from grace forever.
In his book The Unwanted Child: The Fate of Foundlings, Orphans and Juvenile Criminals in Early Modern Germany, Joel Harrington reports the case of a young maid and her descent into disrepute by bearing a child, the result of a unwanted pregnancy caused by her employer. During Harrington's research, he notices that the legal records were crammed full of reports of maids involved in fornication, abortion, abandonment and infanticide cases. He reasons that "domestic service entailed geographic and thus social displacement. Most young women…served fairly near their homes but far enough away to require a new social network." Considering the stage in their development, that being late teens and early twenties, the young women were exposed to a multitude of "voluntary and involuntary sexual relations."
They were almost completely dependent on their employers for food and board and leaving even abusive circumstances would result in forfeiting pay and termination of the contract, as well as shame to their families. "A maid impregnated by her employer was in fact the most common adultery scenario among married men throughout the early modern era."
As with many historic vocational relationships, payment would only ensue at the end of the employment contract, be that a year or two years, and termination could mean forfeiting all the wages due. Historically, the best-paid women employees, like cooks and nannies, were maybe paid as well as their worse-paid male counterparts. But there were ways maids could better their positions. The master may have hinted that there were extra jobs to do and money would change hands. Maybe even a promise of marriage would preceded a sexual encounter. Although, in his book, Joel Harrington says, "…marriage was at best a cruel delusion."
The French Bed. Rembrandt (1646)
To be fair, there are reports in historical records of genuine love and affection between masters and maids, even if the relationships between them did not end in marriage. A famous example of a master involved with his maid(s) is that of the Dutch painter, Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. Born in 1609 in Leiden, Holland, and educated there too, he soon made himself a name and moved to Amsterdam in 1631, a promising career budding. There he met his art dealer's cousin, Saskia van Uylenburgh, and in 1634, he married her. The couple lived in better circumstances even though a dark cloud shrouded their affluence. Saskia bore three children and none of the three infants survived. Then in 1641, Sakia gave birth to their son, Titus. Saskia sadly died a year later. During the time of Saskia's illness, Rembrandt hired a governess, Geertje Dircx, to help him raise Titus. Around that time, he also hired a housemaid, Hendrickje Stoffels.
Rembrandt's relationship with Geertje was an intimate one, to the point that he gave her a silver marriage medal, although not engraved. At this time he painted his most sexually explicate works like The French Bed (above) and The Monk in the Cornfield (below), considered pornographic for the 1640's. He also gave Geertje some of Saskia's jewels. Although Rembrandt and Geertje were betrothed, even though he later disputed this, they never married. He would have lost Titus' trust fund, money set up in Saskia's will, had he remarried and he could not afford to do that. Even though Rembrandt was a successful portrait painter, he was known to live above his means and had money problems.
The Monk in the Cornfield. Rembrandt (1646)
When did the relationship between Rembrandt and Geertje sour? When did Geertje notice that Rembrandt preferred the young maid, Hendrickje? Maybe when Geertje noticed that Rembrandt looked "…at the young woman (Hendrickje) an instant longer than was quite necessary between a master and a maid," as reported in the book Rembrandt's Eyes by Simon Schama. Maybe when Geertje began to hint that a Christian marriage was what she really wanted. Maybe the problem escalated when Geertje noticed that Rembrandt took Hendrickje into his bed and no longer wanted her.
In 1649, Geertje was ousted, out of the relationship and out of the house. Rembrandt demanded that Geertje make a will leaving the jewelry he gave her to his son, Titus, should Geertje die. Geertje could 'use' the jewels, promising never to sell or pawn them, and he would pay her a yearly stipend, as long as she made no further demands on the artist. Hendrickje was even summoned in front of commissioners to testify that Geertje had agreed to this arrangement in front of witnesses and had no further claim on Rembrandt. The situation escalated further when Geertje pawned the jewels and continued to escalate until Rembrandt testified that Geertje was of "unsound mind." Her detention ensued. In 1651, Geertje was confined to the Gouda Spinhuis, a correctional spinning house for wayward women. Even after her release in 1655, she continued to pester him.
In the meantime, Hendrickje proved to be a valued companion for Rembrandt, although he never married her, either. The immoral relationship did not go unnoticed by the Dutch Reformed Church. Hendrickje was summoned by the Church Council in 1654 when the swellings of her pregnancy were noticeable. She was "informed of the full depths of her depravity and wickedness…and formally banned from the Lord's Supper, the Calvinist communion."
Rembrandt painted what was considered the most beautiful of his nudes, the last nude painting of his career, in 1654, Bathsheba at her Bath (top), supposedly modeled by Hendrickje. They had a daughter, Cornelia, in 1654. Hendrickje remained with Rembrandt as his companion and business administrator until she died in 1663. Rembrandt died in 1669.
Laura Libricz was born and raised in Bethlehem PA and moved to Upstate New York when she was 22. After working a few years building Steinberger guitars, she received a scholarship to go to college. She tried to 'do the right thing' and study something useful, but spent all her time reading German literature. She earned a BA in German at The College of New Paltz, NY in 1991 and moved to Germany, where she resides today. When she isn't writing she can be found sifting through city archives, picking through castle ruins or aiding the steady flood of musical instruments into the world market.
Her first novel, The Master and the Maid, is the first book of the Heaven's Pond Trilogy. The Soldier's Return and Ash and Rubble are the second and third books in the series, to be released 2017. A great way to get in touch is through https://about.me/lauralibricz for all the important links to her books and social media!
Harrington, Joel. The Unwanted Child: The Fate of Foundlings, Orphans and Juvenile Criminals in Early Modern Germany. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2009.
Schama, Simon. Rembrandt's Eyes. New York: Random House / Alfred A. Knopf, 1999.
Stop by Sartle for more on Rembrandt's work here.
Domestic Servants Illegitimacy Laura Libricz Mistresses Rembrandt Sex
4 Comments Posted on November 10, 2016 November 10, 2016 17th Century, Art, Crime, Persons of Interest, Politics, Religion, Sex, The Renaissance
Art is the Best Revenge: Painting Justice with Artemisia Gentileschi
Artemisia Gentileschi. Self-portrait, 1638-9.
Centuries before feminism had a name, post-Renaissance artist Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1653) made waves with exemplary work in a male-dominated medium. Raped at seventeen, she channeled her trauma into her art, raising questions about the mistreatment of women with paintings of staggering beauty and brutality. Of fifty-seven known paintings, forty-nine feature female heroines from history and mythology in positions of strength, many of them also survivors of sexual assault.
Artemisia Gentileschi was born in Rome in 1593. Her father, Orazio Gentileschi (1563-1639), was an established artist who taught her to paint while she was growing up. By the age of sixteen, she already showed great promise, but was rejected by more formal academies. Wanting to nurture his daughter's talent, Orazio arranged for Artemisia to be tutored by a friend of his, artist Agostino Tassi (1578-1644).
Susanna and the Elders. AG, 1610.
Perhaps the first hint that Tassi was not exactly a gentleman can be found in Susanna and the Elders (1610). The Biblical Susanna was a virtuous young woman who was sexually harassed by some of the older men in her community. While many male artists had depicted Susanna as compliant or even flirtatious, Artemisia's heroine is anything but: she is disgusted and exposed, shielding herself from two men almost falling over each other to leer at her.
By 1612, Orazio had taken Tassi to court for raping his daughter. Artemisia testified he had forced himself on her, and she had fought him so savagely that she removed a chunk of flesh from his penis. After the rape, Tassi pressured her into having an ongoing sexual relationship with him with the promise he would eventually marry her. Tassi was already married and could fulfill no such promise, but continued to abuse Artemisia until her father brought charges against him.
It wasn't Tassi's first run-in with the law. He had already been tried for rape, incest, and the attempted murder of his wife. Artemisia, his latest victim, was a well-behaved young woman of eighteen. So what happened?
They tortured her.
Although Tassi's defense was contradictory and blatantly false, the court didn't believe Artemisia's claim that he had raped her. She was subjected to a humiliating physical exam in front of the court to prove she was no longer a virgin, her character was questioned, she was accused of promiscuity, and then she was tortured with thumbscrews while her rapist watched. Over months of witness testimonies and torture, Artemisia never once changed her story and Tassi was eventually convicted. He chose banishment from Rome over imprisonment, but he was back within a few months. By now it was common knowledge that he was a real piece of work, but he had friends in high places: Pope Innocent X was a big fan of his landscapes.
Tassi may have escaped justice through the courts, but Artemisia wasn't done with him. Now a far superior artist to her one-time tutor, she took her revenge in a series of masterful paintings depicting women equal to or dominating men. At least half a dozen show women physically assaulting men, such as the story of Judith and Holofernes:
Judith Slaying Holofernes (1612, and again in 1620): As the story goes, Judith was a Jewish widow. When her town was attacked by Assyrian general Holofernes, she took advantage of his attraction to her by going to his tent with him and then decapitating him as he was passed out drunk. This story has been interpreted by several notable artists including Botticelli, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, and even Kilmt in the twentieth century, but Artemisia's is undoubtedly the most graphic. It was owned by the Medicis, but hidden for years as it was considered too brutal to display. Two versions of this were painted, the first just after Tassi's trial.
Caravaggio's Judith (left) and Gentileschi's Judith (right)
This painting is a clear tribute to Caravaggio's work of the same name, but Artemisia takes it further. Artemisia's Judith is more mature and self-assured. While Caravaggio's Judith hesitantly beheads her attacker with a look of distaste on her face, Artemisia's Judith is all business. She looks almost bored as she hacks off Holofernes' head as if it's something she does–or has thought of doing–every day.
Judith and Her Maidservant (1613-14) : Here we see Judith leaving with her maidservant, sword in hand. Holofernes' head is in a bag, bottom left. Her hairpin here depicts David, who likewise removed the head of Goliath.
Judith and Her Maidservant With the Head of Holofernes (1625): In the last of this series, the head is bottom center as Judith and her maid escape into the night.
And then there's Jael and Sisera (1620):
Sisera was a Canaanite leader who had ruled over the Israelites for many years. Following his defeat by the Isrealites, Sisera sought refuge in Jael's tent, only to have a tent post hammered into his brain once he fell asleep.
Artemisia painted heroines she could relate to, such as Lucretia, the classical victim of rape, and other famous "fallen women" like Mary Magdalene and Cleopatra. Lucretia and Cleopatra are shown in the moments prior to suicide: instead of despair, they seem to question the idea that they ought to take their own lives. Surely a woman is worth more than the concept of "honor" attached to her body?
Artemisia seemed to think so. She married another painter and worked as an artist her whole life, fulfilling commissions for the Medicis and England's Charles I. She was a friend of Galileo, painted a ceiling for Michelangelo's nephew, and inspired countless other women artists to follow in her footsteps during her lifetime.
As for Tassi, his work has fallen into obscurity and he is now primarily known as Artemisia's rapist. I wasn't able to find a portrait of him, but we might be able to guess what he looked like…
Jessica Cale
Brash, Larry. Artemisia Gentileschi.
Christiansen, Keith, and Mann, Judith. Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi.
Sartle. Category: Artemisia Gentileschi
Art Artemisia Gentileschi Caravaggio Charles I Galileo Italy Law Renaissance The Medicis


The morning of her wedding found Lauren at her childhood home surrounded by family and friends. Mirrors were shared and helping hands were given as bridesmaids and bride prepared for the big day.
It was quickly time for the short drive (in a wedding dress friendly Range Rover) to the beautiful St. Giles where husband-to-be, Philip, and guests were waiting.
A ceremony full of smiles, laughter and song was a delight to capture, in no small part from being allowed free movement by the presiding Father Mark. Thank you!
Then it was the traditional run through the confetti and back to the wedding car for the newly weds as they were whisked away to the Darley Dale Cricket Club for the wedding reception, held in Peak Tipis absolutely stunning 3 Giant Kata tipi where the Bride and Groom hosted a lovely afternoon tea.
As the sun started to drop, and the time for couple portraits neared, Mother Nature decided to throw quite a lot of rain at us. More than even the extremely pretty Peakography wedding brolly could cope with, so a cunning plan was hatched. We headed for the Victorian splendor of Matlock train station and captured some rather stunning images. Just as we were heading back to the car, the rain stopped, so we quickly headed up onto Beeley Moor to utilise the last light of day and soak up the sunset.
Once back at the tipi, it was time for dancing, cake cutting, hog roast and more dancing!
This was such a fun day to capture, thank you to Lauren and Philip for having me along.


text:
USDA Reports on Climate Change Effects, Adaptation for Agriculture, Forests
byAndrew Burger
Climate change is expected to have profound, far-reaching effects on U.S. agriculture and forests this century, highlighting a society-wide need to enhance resiliency.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on February 5 released "two comprehensive reports that synthesize the scientific literature on climate change effects and adaptation strategies for U.S. agriculture and forests."
The effects of climate change will be profound and far-reaching, according to the two reports, which drew on more than 1,000 peer-reviewed studies carried out by scientists in federal service, universities, non-governmental organizations, industry, tribal lands and the private sector.
"These reports present the challenges that U.S. agriculture and forests will face in this century from global climate change," William Hohenstein, director of the Climate Change Program Office in USDA's Office of the Chief Economist, said in a press release. "They give us a framework for understanding the implications of climate change, in order to meet our future demands for food, feed, fiber, and fuel."
Climate change and U.S. agriculture
Providing a comprehensive view of the anticipated effects of ongoing climate change on U.S. farms, forests, grasslands, and rural communities over the course of the 21st century, the two reports are to be incorporated in the U.S. Global Change Research Program's 2013 National Climate Assessment, a bi-annual report to the President and Congress mandated by passage of the Global Change Research Act of 1990.
Rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and temperatures along with changing patterns of precipitation will affect agricultural productivity, according to Climate Change and Agriculture in the United States: Effects and Adaptation. Though the effects on the whole will be mixed, ongoing changes are in general expected to have "detrimental effects on most crops and livestock" by the middle of the century and beyond.
Crop production may shift along with changing temperature and precipitation patterns, but that doesn't lessen the likely disruption to lives, livelihoods and communities in agricultural, forest and other areas where local economies across the country depend on natural resources, or to residents of urban areas ultimately dependent on the water, food, fiber and materials ecosystems provide. For example, the annual cost of weed control in the U.S. total more than $11 billion, according to the report. That's expected to increase with rising temperatures and carbon dioxide concentrations, which will add to rising food costs.
Similarly, rising temperatures and changing precipitation patterns will also have impacts on livestock production. "Heat stress for any specific type of livestock can damage performance, production, and fertility, limiting the production of meat, milk, or eggs. Changes in forage type and nutrient content will likely influence grazing needs. Insect and disease prevalence are expected to increase under warmer and more humid conditions, diminishing animal health and productivity," the report authors note.
Climate change, U.S. forests, adaptation and resilience
Climate change is likewise expected to have significant impacts on U.S. forests this century. According to Effects of Climate Variability and Change on Forest Ecosystems: A Comprehensive Science Synthesis for the U.S. Forest Sector, "wildfires, insect infestations, pulses of erosion and flooding, and drought-induced tree mortality are all expected to increase." More specifically, the area burned by wildfires is expected to at least double over the next 25 years. Insect infestations are expected to affect yet more land per year than fires.
Flowing through the social-ecological system of the U.S., the direct and indirect effects "are likely to cause losses of ecosystem services in some areas, but may also improve and expand ecosystem services in others." Areas where current infrastructure and resource production are based on historical climate and steady-state conditions, which seems likely to be the case in most, if not all, areas, are likely to be most vulnerable.
While detailing the substantial threats anticipated as a result of climate change, the two reports also highlight the need and offer recommendations for developing and enacting proactive, inclusive climate change adaptation strategies that imbue communities and ecosystems with greater resiliency.
"The ability of communities with resource-based economies to adapt to climate change is linked to their direct exposure to these changes, as well as to the social and institutional structures present in each environment. Human communities that have diverse economies and are resilient to change today will also be prepared for future climatic stresses.
"Although uncertainty exists about the magnitude and timing of climate-change effects on forest ecosystems, sufficient scientific information is available to begin taking action now. Building on practices compatible with adapting to climate change provides a good starting point for land managers who may want to begin the adaptation process.
"Establishing a foundation for managing forest ecosystems in the context of climate change as soon as possible will ensure that a broad range of options will be available for managing forest resources sustainably."
Image credit: view_camper, courtesy flickr
The Daily PlanetWatch for Thursday, July 11
Canadian Warming, Calving Ice Sheets, Shrinking Glaciers, Dolphins Not Getting It On as Climate Warming Continues
U.S. Companies Making a Splash In Water Resource Management
PepsiCo Foundation Expands Access to Safe Water for More Than 22 Million People Worldwide
Editorplanetwatch
Largely Ignored, High Forest Cover and Low Deforestation Nations and Supporters Meet in Paramaribo
Will Nature Put an End to the Global Warming Debate?
Nepal Seeks Climate Change Aid as Glaciers Retreat and Lakes Swell
Investors Ask the Oil and Gas Industry To Disclose Water Risks
Myanmar Mangrove Restoration Project First to Receive Verified Carbon Standard Certification


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