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Метка: Hans Jonas
Rudolf Bultmann, Hans Jonas: Briefwechsel 1928–1976
Заголовок: Briefwechsel 1928–1976: Mit einem Anhang anderer Zeugnisse
Автор: Rudolf Bultmann, Hans Jonas. Edited by Andreas Großmann
Издатель: Mohr Siebeck
Дата публикации: 2020
Формат: Paperback 69,00 €
Страниц: XXV, 161
Reviewed by: Ian Alexander Moore (Loyola Marymount University; Faculty Member, St. John's College)
This volume contains letters, spanning nearly fifty years, between the Protestant theologian Rudolf Bultmann and the Jewish philosopher Hans Jonas. It also includes a helpful editor's introduction and a nine-part appendix, containing, among other documents, Martin Heidegger's and Bultmann's previously unpublished evaluations of Jonas's 1928 dissertation on Gnosticism, as well as Jonas's brief, previously unpublished correspondence with Heidegger.
In the first substantive letter (13 July 1929), which is more of a book proposal than a letter properly speaking (Jonas called it a Briefmonstrum, an "epistolary monster," 7), Jonas attempts phenomenologically to derive a universal truth about humanity from St. Paul's famous description of his struggle to fulfill the Law in Romans 7:7–25. The existential, hence not specifically Christian structure of Paul's statements consists, according to Jonas, in the tension between a free, primordial self-willing (volo me velle) and its inevitable lapse into the objectification of the universe and, correlatively, of the self (cogito me velle). Here we have Entmythologisierung ("demythologization") avant la lettre.
But, it should be noted, we are not far before the letter: the very next year, in his first book, Jonas would introduce the language of demythologization, which would become one of the defining and most controversial features of Bultmann's theology, into the scholarly world. This important, but still-untranslated book, titled Augustin und das paulinische Freiheitsproblem: Ein philosophischer Beitrag zur Genesis der christlich-abendländischen Freiheitsidee (Augustine and the Pauline Problem of Freedom: A Philosophical Contribution to the Genesis of the Christian-Western Idea of Freedom), builds on Jonas's "epistolary monster." Bultmann published it in 1930 in his prestigious series "Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments" ("Research on the Religion and Literature of the Old and New Testament").[1]
Although, apart from a few largely perfunctory letters, the extant correspondence does not resume in earnest until 1952, Jonas and Bultmann remained in contact in the interim. For example, in a later memorial tribute to Bultmann (included in the appendix to the correspondence), Jonas relates that Bultmann was the only teacher whom he had visited before emigrating from Germany in 1933 in response to the SA troops' harassment and persecution of Jews. Bultmann, moreover, would also be one of the first teachers Jonas would visit when he returned to Germany fifteen years later as a soldier in the victorious Allied forces. It is worth reproducing Jonas's recollections here, as they attest not only to his intellectual respect for his teacher (which he also had for Heidegger, for instance), but above all to his respect for Bultmann's character and ethical bearing (which, to his great dismay, he found tragically lacking in Heidegger). After reading this, it should come as little surprise that Jonas kept a picture of Bultmann by his desk in New York (108), or that, in 1934, Bultmann was bold enough to write a preface for the publication of the first volume of his Jewish student's work on Gnosticism and even to confess an intellectual debt to Jonas (117–18; see also XIX–XX, 143).[2] As Jonas tells it:
It was in the summer of 1933, here in Marburg. […] I related what I had just read in the newspaper, but he [Bultmann] not yet, namely, that the German Association of the Blind had expelled its Jewish members. My horror carried me into eloquence: In the face of eternal night (so I exclaimed) the most unifying tie there can be among suffering men, this betrayal of the solidarity of a common fate—and I stopped, for my eye fell on Bultmann and I saw that a deathly pallor had spread over his face, and in his eyes was such agony that the words died in my mouth. In that moment I knew that in matters of elementary humanity one could simply rely on Bultmann, […] that no insanity of the time could dim the steadiness of his inner light.
Of their next meeting, amid the ruins of war, Jonas recalls:
barely done with the hurried exchange of first welcomes, scarcely over the emotion of this unexpected reunion—we were both still standing—he said something for which I recount this highly personal story. I had come by military transport from Göttingen and held under my arm a book which the publisher Ruprecht had asked me to take to Bultmann, as civilian mail services had not yet been restored. Bultmann pointed at this parcel and asked, "May I hope that this is the second volume of the 'Gnosis'?" At that, there entered into my soul too, still rent by the Unspeakable I had just learned about in my erstwhile home—the fate of my mother and of the untold others—for the first time something like peace again: at beholding the constancy of thought and loving interest across the ruin of a world. Suddenly I knew: one can resume and continue that for which one needs faith in man. Countless times I have relived this scene. It became the bridge over the abyss; it connected the "after" with the "before" which grief and wrath and bitterness threatened to blot out, and perhaps more than anything else it helped, with its unique combination of fidelity and soberness, to make my life whole again. (125–26; see also 99, 118–19)[3]
The next major highlight of the correspondence pertains to Jonas's text "Immortality and the Modern Temper," which he delivered as the annual Ingersoll lecture at Harvard University in 1961.[4] Jonas sent a copy of the lecture, which attempts to explain what sense immortality could have in today's disenchanted world, to Bultmann in January 1962. In his prefatory letter, Jonas explains that he felt compelled to go in the opposite direction of his erstwhile mentor: whereas the don of demythologization strives, as Jonas had earlier in his career (see especially 115–116), to uncover the true, existential content of myth behind its fantastical garb, Jonas thinks that myth, in the manner of Plato, is the best we have to go on when it comes to questions such as the meaning of immortality and the meaning of God after Auschwitz. Of his lecture, Jonas writes—and here I quote and translate at length, since it is uncertain if and when the correspondence will be translated in its entirety—
It was a daring attempt at a metaphysical statement. When developing it, I saw myself compelled to have recourse to myth—to a self-invented myth. This was not intended as a general method of metaphysics, but as a personal form of symbolic answer to a question that I could not answer in any other way but whose right to an answer was undeniable.
[Es wurde ein gewagter Versuch zu einer metaphysischen Aussage, in deren Entfaltung ich mich genötigt sah, zum Mythos—einem selbsterdachten—Zuflucht zu nehmen. Das war nicht als generelle Methode der Metaphysik gedacht, sondern als persönliche Form der symbolischen Antwort auf eine für mich nicht anders beantwortbare, aber in ihrem Recht auf Antwort unabweisbare Frage.]
It is not enough, Jonas continues, to refer to the authentically human content of mythological form, as Bultmann would have it.[5] Myth itself can, and must, also be deployed—consciously and with full recognition of its inherent inadequacy—in service of being as such:
when, in a seriously non-dualist fashion, the authentic reality of the human points back to the authentic reality of the universe […] and when it is necessary to speak also of this—of the totality of being and its ground—without there being any identifiable terminology for it, then we are directed to the path of the objectifying, indicative symbol; then a momentary, as it were experimental mythologization, a mythologization that holds itself in suspense, can again come closer precisely to the mystery. And here the revocability of the anthropomorphic symbol would have to wait to be replaced by other, for their part likewise revocable symbols, not, however, for a subsequent demythologization, which would have to relinquish what was to be signified only in the symbol.
[wo, ernsthaft undualistisch, die eigentliche Wirklichkeit des Menschen auf die eigentliche Wirklichkeit des Universums zurückweist […] und also auch davon—vom All des Seins und seinem Grunde—gesprochen werden muss, ohne dass es die ausweisbare Begrifflichkeit dafür gibt, da sind wir auf den Weg des objektivierend andeutenden Symbols gewiesen und da kann vielleicht eine momentane, gleichsam experimentelle, sich selber in der Schwebe haltende Mythologisierung gerade dem Geheimnis wieder näher kommen. Und hier würde die Widerruflichkeit des anthropomorphen Symbols auf Ersetzung durch andere, ihrerseits ebenso widerrufliche Symbole zu warten haben, nicht aber auf eine nachkommende Entmythologisierung, die preisgeben müsste, was nur im Symbol zu bedeuten war.] (51–52)
In his myth, which he would later develop in such essays as "The Concept of God After Auschwitz: A Jewish Voice" and "Matter, Mind, and Creation: Cosmological Evidence and Cosmogonic Speculation,"[6] Jonas imagines a god who, in the beginning, divested itself of its power and gave itself wholly over to the becoming of the cosmos. It now falls to the radical freedom of the human being to reshape the face of God, whether by restoring it to its former glory through good deeds, or by creating a disfigured perversion of it through evil deeds.
Jonas received countless replies to his lecture, none, however, more profound and impressive (see 63, 77) than that found in Bultmann's letter from 31 July 1962. Indeed, Jonas would later publish an edited version Bultmann's response, together with his own subsequent reply to Bultmann, in his book Zwischen Nichts und Ewigkeit: Drei Aufsätze zur Lehre vom Menschen (Between Nothing and Eternity: Three Essays on Anthropology).[7] Jonas even claims in a letter from 1963 that, without their epistolary exchange, "my immortality-essay would seem very incomplete to me" ("Ohne es käme mir jedenfalls mein Unsterblichkeitsaufsatz jetzt sehr unvollständig vor") (77). Here Jonas refers to the essay as his "fragmentary and searching philosophical manifesto" ("mein fragmentarisches und versuchendes philosophisches Manifest") (78).
Bultmann, in his response to "Immortality and the Modern Temper," makes several objections, chief of which is that Jonas's perspective on God's relation to the universe is, first, aesthetic and, second, external to the existential situation of the being that, in Heidegger's language, is in each case mine. Jonas contests the first, since he aims not at the final reconciliation of oppositions, but at the triumph of good over evil through the free choice of human beings. His view is ultimately ethical, not aesthetic. Regarding the second, Jonas concedes that it is necessary to take an external perspective if one wishes to interpret the whole. Today, there is little interest in such speculation. But Jonas takes it to be imperative:
For precisely this is now my conviction: that ethics must be grounded in ontology, that is, the law of human comportment must be derived from the nature of the whole; and this is so because self-understanding follows from understanding the whole (thus "from without")—namely when the whole is understood in such a way that it comes about that the human being is there for the whole, and not the whole for the human being.
[Denn eben dies ist nun meine Überzeugung, dass die Ethik auf der Ontologie gegründet sein muss, das heisst: das Gesetz menschlichen Verhaltens aus der Natur des Ganzen abgeleitet werden muss; und dies, weil das Selbstverständnis aus dem Verständnis des Ganzen folgt (also "von aussen")—dann nämlich, wenn das Ganze so verstanden ist, dass sich ergibt, dass der Mensch für das Ganze da ist, und nicht das Ganze für den Menschen.] (67)[8]
Bultmann also invites a consideration of the relation between Jonas's myth of the fate of God and Heidegger's idea of the destiny of being (Seins-Geschick). Jonas ignores this invitation in his rejoinder to Bultmann, although he will later take it up in his famous critique of Heidegger, "Heidegger and Theology," first delivered before a group of theologians at Drew University in 1964.[9] (Jonas describes the event on 84).
Despite Jonas's often scathing critique of Heidegger's thought and person,[10] it is interesting to note that, in a letter to Bultmann from July 1969, Jonas relates that he had met with Heidegger and had "finally reconciled [endlich … ausgesöhnt] with him" (92). Moreover, in 1972, Heidegger supported Jonas's efforts to receive reparations from the German government for the difficulties inflicted on his academic career under National Socialism. At Jonas's request, Heidegger promptly wrote the following official explanation of Jonas's circumstances at the time, testifying to his respect and admiration for his one-time student:
I, Martin Heidegger, was a full professor of philosophy at the Philipps-University in Marburg between 1923 and 1929. / Hans Jonas, who graduated with his doctorate summa cum laude under my directorship in 1928, was one of the most gifted students at the university and predestined to be a university lecturer. Before I left Marburg, Dr. Jonas had discussed with me the basic conception of the work he intended as a habilitation thesis on the position of Gnosticism in the entire thought of late antiquity. The finished work was published in 1934 as a book under the title "Gnosticism and the Spirit of Late Antiquity" (1st part). I read it. There is and there was no doubt for me that this work was outstandingly qualified to be a habilitation thesis. If I had still had something to do with this work as a habilitation thesis, I would have warmly recommended it without reservation.
[Ich, Martin Heidegger, war von 1923 bis 1929 Ordinarius für Philosophie an der Philipps-Universität in Marburg. / Hans Jonas, der bei mir 1928 summa cum laude promovierte, war einer der begabtesten Studenten der Universität und prädestiniert zum Dozenten. Die Grundkonzeption seiner als Habilitationsschrift gedachten Arbeit über die Stellung der Gnosis im Gesamtdenken der Spätantike hatte Dr. Jonas mit mir noch vor meinem Weggang von Marburg besprochen. Die fertige Arbeit ist 1934 als Buch unter dem Titel "Gnosis und spätantiker Geist" (1. Teil) erschienen. Ich habe es gelsen. Es besteht und bestand für mich kein Zweifel, dass diese Arbeit als Habilitationsschrift in hervorragendem Masse qualifiziert war. Hätte ich noch mit dieser Arbeit als Habilitationsschrift zu tun gehabt, so hätte ich sie ohne Einschränkung aufs wärmste empfohlen.] (122)
Other noteworthy moments in the correspondence with Bultmann include Jonas's description of his research in 1952, which, he says, is directed entirely at "an ontology in which 'life' and thus also the human being obtain their place in nature" ("Alle meine theoretischen Bemühungen gehen um eine Ontologie, in der das 'Leben' und damit auch der Mensch seinen Platz in der Natur erhält") (18); Jonas's critique of Eric Voegelin's sweepingly pejorative use of the term "Gnosticism," and his conclusion that Voegelin himself "is the modern gnostic" (32–34); Bultmann's claim, made in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to convince Jonas to assume a professorship at Marburg University, that "you are the only one who has the strength today to take up and continue the great tradition that has developed in the history of philosophizing in Marburg" ("Sie sind der Einzige, der heute die Kraft hat, die große Tradition aufzunehmen und fortzuführen, die in der Geschichte des Philosophierens in Marburg erwachsen ist") (44); and a debate on authenticity (Eigentlichkeit), in which Jonas relates it to his pursuit of an ethics grounded in ontology, whereas Bultmann sees it, with Heidegger, in opposition to the life of das Man ("the they") and as outside the sphere of the ethical (72–76).
Fortunately, some of the most important correspondence is already available in English. Jonas's own translation of the aforementioned "epistolary monster" is available, with additions and emendations, under the title "The Abyss of the Will: Philosophical Meditation on the Seventh Chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans."[11] The two main letters about "Immortality and the Modern Temper" are in Bultmann and Jonas, "Exchange on Hans Jonas' Essay on Immortality."[12] Furthermore, the seventh document in the appendix, a memorial tribute to Bultmann, exists in a translation by Jonas himself as "Is Faith Still Possible?: Memories of Rudolf Bultmann and Reflections on the Philosophical Aspects of His Work."[13] The final part of the appendix is a republication, in English, of Jonas's 1984 tribute to Bultmann on the centenary of the latter's birth.[14]
[1] Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1930. For the second edition (1965), Jonas changed the subtitle to Eine philosophische Studie zum pelagianischen Streit (A Philosophical Study on the Pelagian Controversy) and appended a revised version of the "epistolary monster." Jonas speaks of "a demythologized consciousness" ("ein entmythologisiertes Bewußtsein") in the first appendix "Über die hermeneutische Struktur des Dogmas" ("On the Hermeneutic Structure of Dogma), which appeared in both editions. See p. 82 of the second for the reference. For discussion, see pp. 14–17 of James M. Robinson's introduction to the second edition, as well as Hans Jonas-Handbuch: Leben–Werk–Wirkung, ed. Michael Bongardt et al. (Berlin: Metzler, 2021), 78 (contribution by Udo Lenzig).
[2] It is noteworthy that, in his controversial 1941 lecture "Neues Testament und Mythologie: Das Problem der Entmythologisierung der neutestamentlichen Verkündigung," Bultmann twice refers to Jonas's works. See Rudolf Bultmann, "New Testament and Mythology: The Mythological Element in the Message of the New Testament and the Problem of Its Re-Interpretation," in Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, ed. Hans Werner Bartsch (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), 12n1, 16. See Bultmann's discussion of the lecture on pp. 21–22 of the correspondence.
[3] Translation in Hans Jonas, Mortality and Morality: A Search for the Good after Auschwitz, ed. Lawrence Vogel (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1996), 146–47. See also Hans Jonas, Memoirs, trans. Krishna Winston (Waltham, Mass.: Brandeis University Press, 2008), 74, 144–45.
[4] In, for example, Jonas, Mortality and Morality, chapter 5.
[5] Jonas quotes from Bultmann's recently published "Zum Problem der Entmythologisierung," in Il problema della demitizzazione, ed. Enrico Castelli (Padua: CEDAM, 1961): 19–26. In English as "On the Problem of Demythologizing," trans. Schubert M. Ogden, The Journal of Religion 42, no. 2 (1962): 96–102.
[6] In Mortality and Morality, chapters 6 and 8.
[7] Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1963, 63–72.
[8] Translation in Rudolf Bultmann and Hans Jonas, "Exchange on Hans Jonas' Essay on Immortality," trans. Ian Alexander Moore, Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 40, no. 2 (2020): 491–506 (quote on p. 503).
[9] See Hans Jonas, "Heidegger and Theology," in The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2001), Tenth Essay. For more on this point, and Jonas's relation to Heidegger more broadly, see Ralf Elm's contribution in Hans Jonas-Handbuch, 28–34.
[10] For the latter, see especially Hans Jonas's 1963 lecture "Husserl und Heidegger," in Kritische Gesamtausgabe der Werke von Hans Jonas, vol. III/2, ed. Dietrich Böhler et al. (Darmstadt: WBG, 2013), 205–224. For discussion, see Ian Alexander Moore's contribution in Hans Jonas-Handbuch, 172–75.
[11] In Hans Jonas, Philosophical Essays (New York: Atropos, 2010), chapter 18. Also, with the subtitle as sole title, in James M. Robinson, ed., The Future of Our Religious Past: Essays in Honour of Rudolf Bultmann (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), chapter 15.
[12] Op. cit.
[13] In Jonas, Mortality and Morality, chapter 7.
[14] Also in Edward C. Hobbes, ed., Bultmann, Retrospect and Prospect: The Centenary Symposium at Wellesley (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985): 1–4.
Опубликовано Вторник Апрель 20th, 2021 Вторник Апрель 20th, 2021 Автор Ian Alexander MooreРубрики PецензииМетки Demythologization, Existentialism, Freedom, Hans Jonas, Hermeneutics, Martin Heidegger, Phenomenology, Rudolf Bultmann, St. Paul, TheodicyДобавить комментарий к записи Rudolf Bultmann, Hans Jonas: Briefwechsel 1928–1976
Hans Jonas: Memoirs, Brandeis University Press, 2021
Заголовок: Memoirs
Серия: Tauber Institute Series for the Study of European Jewry
Автор: Hans Jonas. Translator: Krishna Winston
Издатель: Brandeis University Press
Формат: Paperback $40.00
Опубликовано Понедельник Март 22nd, 2021 Вторник Март 23rd, 2021 Автор Phenomenological ReviewsРубрики PublicationsМетки Hans Jonas, Heidegger, Husserl, ResponsibilityДобавить комментарий к записи Hans Jonas: Memoirs, Brandeis University Press, 2021
Agata Bielik-Robson, Daniel Whistler (Eds.): Interrogating Modernity: Debates with Hans Blumenberg
Заголовок: Interrogating Modernity: Debates with Hans Blumenberg
Серия: Political Philosophy and Public Purpose
Автор: Agata Bielik-Robson, Daniel Whistler (Eds.)
Издатель: Palgrave Macmillan
Формат: Hardback 96,29 €
Reviewed by: Bruce J. Krajewski (University of Texas at Arlington)
In a recent review, Kate Hayles praises Catherine Malabou for admitting in Morphing Intelligence that she was "dead wrong" about some scholarly matter. While not begrudging Malabou her applause, most academics would have to admit the low cost of such an admission for a full professor invited to speak across the globe, and treated as a "celebrity," as Malabou is. More praiseworthy is for younger academics, and those with unsubsidized careers in higher education's hierarchy, to write that some prominent author is wrong. Those assertions can mean banishment from conferences, withdrawal of speaking invitations, and the like, since professional societies devoted (in the questionable sense) to major authors are understandably controlled almost always by an author's fans, disciples, and sometimes family members. Speaking truth to yourself (a confession) and speaking truth to power is a distance similar to being winged in a Twitterstorm for your views and being "canceled." None of this should be compared to the kind of courage, say, Alexey Navalny exhibits. That's a different realm, but needs to be part of the context, lest academics damaged by schoolhouse politics slip into masochism.
The contributors to Interrogating Modernity demonstrate an inspiring irreverence and willingness to declare that the volume's star, Hans Blumenberg, has gotten things wrong. That virtue makes for an admirable collection worthy of its subtitle. At this early stage—Blumenberg's ashes were scattered only a quarter century ago—the scholarly work on Blumenberg has been uncritical, making Interrogating Modernity a refreshing novelty on the Blumenbergiana shelf.
Blumenberg's followers have fashioned a mythic Blumenberg, portraying him as a mysterious intellectual Colossus, adopting Blumenberg's own tendency later in his life toward self-aggrandizement. Thus, we have the film The Invisible Philosopher, for example. The followers' strategy has upped the stakes for anyone who might question or criticize the great philosopher.
Willing to be heretical, the contributors to this volume refuse to be intimidated by The Wizard of Oz scenario fabricated by Blumenberg's fans to promote knee-bending as opposed to scholarly spinefulness. The volume's editors charged the authors with "putting [Legitimacy of the Modern Age, the book that arguably launched Blumenberg's international reputation] into dialogue with later versions of modernity" (vii). The editors insisted on rethinking issues Blumenberg raises in Legitimacy, and the contributors frequently exceed expectations in responding to the call for rethinking.
The first essay out the gate encapsulates all that is good about this book. It's not a head-on meeting with Blumenberg's Legitimacy. It's creative. It takes risks. It could have failed. Here's a taste of Bielik-Robson's experimentation: "Although it does not mention Job explicitly, Hans Blumenberg's reading of Descartes suggests this affinity very strongly" (4). Bielik-Robson resurrects an old-fashioned scholarly recipe: rub any two things together and see what sparks fly.
Bielik-Robson recognizes Job as a figure of "self-assertion," a topos in Blumenberg. Unable to tie Blumenberg directly to Job, Bielik-Robson uses a side door. Blumenberg's research counterpart in the Hermeneutik und Poetik group, Hans Robert Jauss, views "Job as the first hero of self-assertion" in his essay "Job's Questions and Their Distant Reply" (6). This clever move allows Bielik-Robson the opportunity to demonstrate an incompleteness in Blumenberg's attention to Descartes. In Legitimacy, Blumenberg acknowledges the importance of Descartes: "Descartes appear[s] not so much as the founding figure of the epoch as rather the thinker who clarified the medieval concept of reality all the way to its absurd consequences and thus made it ripe for destruction." Blumenberg wants to downplay "the founding figure," the singular Descartes," in order to promote "the thinker," synonymous with anyone who employs the method Descartes used to bring about the old reality's destruction.
The new reality Descartes advocates post-destruction appeals to Blumenberg, because it involves principles of construction to philosophize. That is, Descartes emphasizes the form and conditions of thinking rather than the contingent content. Like Descartes, Blumenberg wants "reoocupation" to function as a transcendental model untainted by historical events, a point fleshed out in the last chapter by Whistler. Historical changes are to be explained by Blumenberg's ahistorical model.
Descartes studies his "own self" in a room of his own, where it occurs to him "that frequently there is less perfection in a work produced by several persons than in one produced by a single hand." The primacy of the individual thinker is Job redux. Bielik-Robson describes Job's situation in memorable prose. Job's story becomes important when "the anthropological minimum [Job] asserted itself for the first time against … the theological maximum [God]" (15). In a schoolbook, this might be described as individuality versus omnipotence.
Job becomes a synonym for "enough is enough!" (16). For Bielik-Robson, Job's story is the journey of a patient moving toward health. "According to [Jonathan] Lear, the patient reaches the point of relative health when she is able to exclaim: 'Oh, this is crap!'—which very nicely corresponds with Blumenberg's take on Descartes, who may be said to have reacted in a similar way, by simply deciding to cut himself off emotionally from the theological morass and call deus fallax a 'metaphysical fable'—basically, a very crappy story" (16). Unfortunately, Blumenberg's focus on the meta-analysis instead of the patient means the trauma of being fed up is not given its due as a revolutionary catalyst (18).
Elad Lapidot's "Legitimacy of Nihilism" juxtaposes Hans Jonas and Blumenberg. Lapidot argues that Blumenberg rejects Jonas's critique of modernity as "the return of Gnosticism" (45). For Blumenberg's taste, that would leave modernity without as radical a break as he wants. Blumenberg needs a way past the logic that "legitimacy enters the world through negation, through illegitimacy" (48). Modernity establishes its own legitimacy apart from the previous historical epoch. According to Lapidot, the New itself "is a category of entitlement and legitimation."
Opposing not only Jonas but also Martin Heidegger, Blumenberg seeks to jettison a notion of continuity attached to a substance. Lapidot writes, "This original constant substance is the basic assumption of all critiques against any historical age" (45). Blumenberg is uninterested in substantialism. He is after something more radical. "The new has no other foundation but itself, and so its specific form of legitimacy is self-legitimization" (47). This antifoundationalism is partly what attracted Richard Rorty to Blumenberg (Rorty was an early Anglophone reviewer of Blumenberg's Legitimacy book).
Lapidot's essay pairs well with Daniel Whistler's "Modernizing Blumenberg." Whistler begins boldly: "[Blumenberg] gets modernity wrong" (257). According to Whistler, Blumenberg supplements modernist figures' arguments for modernity's legitimation, fashioning a case that the modernist figures themselves did not make.
Like Lapidot, Whistler reports that the continuity between the middle ages and modernity Blumenberg emphasizes is functional, but not substantive. In a way, it's the old form versus content argument. Rather than seeing the two as dependent on other, Blumenberg elevates form over content, since that's the airplane ticket out of any historical ruptures at ground level. Forms fly above temporality's constraints. From such a height, anyone might have anticipated Blumenberg to look down on things. Thus, Whistler writes, "[I]t is hard not to discern a slight tone of condescension in Blumenberg's narrative of modernity" (259).
By siding with form and functionality, Blumenberg asserts that his account offers a novel stability. Whistler: "[W]henever the content of history changes, the forms stay the same. Forms may themselves be changing slowly, but their inertia is sufficient for them to remain a stable reference point by which to make sense of any novelty in history" (263). Blumenberg is not content with the messiness of mere history. "Like Kant, Blumenberg considers his transcendental apparatus to be immutable, to exist outside of the frame of historical change and epochal transformation" (264). Whistler concludes that this viewpoint makes Blumenberg a "right Aristotelian" (268). Given Blumenberg's allegiances to far-right ideas linked to Latinate Catholicism, Whistler's "right Aristotelian" designation rings true. Blumneberg is a "conservative" (267).
In the chapter contrasting Bruno Latour and Blumenberg, Willem Styfhals understands Blumenberg as an "apologist" (77) for the ecological mess we are in, and decides Latour offers better options for the predicted apocalypse. "The apocalypse is an unstable, unbearable position that might be conceptually appealing but not practically endurable. This is what Blumenberg made crystal clear in Lebenszeit und Weltzeit as well as in Legitimacy. The apocalypse is so attractive because it allows us to see the world in a radically different perspective, liberates us from the old world for a moment. But this moment does not give rise to a stable and durable position in the world" (77). Syfhals has missed Frederic Jameson's insight, cited in Slavoj Žižek's Living in the End Times, that calls for distinguishing among apocalypses: "[I]t is easier to imagine a total catastrophe which ends all life on earth than it is to imagine a real change to capitalist relations" (334).
Latour does not see capitalism as the problem; it's religion: "If modernity were not so deeply religious, the call to adjust oneself to the Earth would be easily heard." (71). Thus, Styfhals says, "[W]e should develop a political theology of the environmental apocalypse" (61).
While Blumenberg published at least one book specifically about technology, it's difficult to categorize any other of his major writings as confronting environmental issues in the way Styfhals does with his focus on Latour and the Anthropocene. No one would think of Blumenberg as a stand-in for Rachel Carson.
The fourth chapter by Joseph Albernaz and Kirill Chepurin also addresses the theme of political theology. Styfhals's use of apocalypse in the previous chapter has its place in the fourth chapter. For anyone acquainted with televangelism, the continual announcement of forthcoming apocalypses is a staple of populist Christianity. No matter that a specific date for the rapture is given and then passes. That failure is overlooked while a new date for the end is announced. The misreading of signs can be chalked up to human fallibility rather than an indication of a flaw in "God's plan." Albernaz and Chepurin recognize that what becomes important for Christianity is not that the world didn't end as predicted, but that it continues: "But as Christianity found itself needing to explain the world's continued existence, it was also establishing itself … as a [worldly] power. As a result, it needed to justify not the end of the world, but its prolongation" (86). The Christian Church sets itself up "as the institution of the not-yet that is the world – as the institution 'stabilizing' this not-yet" (86).
Within this context of an ever-delayed apocalypse, Christians fashioned a God with unlimited sovereignty and omnipotence. However, by the late medieval period God's characteristics became incomprehensible, "alien to consciousness," according to Albernaz and Chepurin (88). In response to this affront to consciousness, human beings develop their own rationality to give themselves security that is comprehensible (91-92).
The deleterious effects of Christianity's global power as explored by Albernaz and Chepurin also concern Lissa McCullough. Her essay makes the case that if you thought Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt were harmful, then you need to take a second look at John Locke (124). "Locke founded a new religion focused around the sacrality of proprietas in The Second Treatise on Government, while retaining in The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695) as much as was reasonably salvageable of the trappings of Christian faith to give the new religion a respectable pedigree, hitching it to . . . the authority of an apparent continuity with Jewish-Christian tradition (122). If you wonder why some people feel it legitimate to kill others for stealing, you can thank Locke for valorizing property over human lives. McCullough writes that Locke and his advocates managed to persuade numerous capitalists that the individual's only incentive to consent to "join" society is to protect the property he has" (122).
McCullough sifts through Blumenberg to demonstrate Blumenberg's allegiance to Locke's valorization of property, despite Blumenberg's efforts to make Locke seem insignificant to the massive scholarly buttresses Blumenberg uses to build his cases. Vital matters pivot on a reference to Locke in a footnote, for example. "[A]n extended footnote in Paradigms for a Metaphorology (1960) … proves a vein of gold when mined for its immense implications. This footnote expands on the notion of truth as a product of labour. In it, Blumenberg remarks that this sort of produced [constructed?] truth is truth that is legitimately one's own. The possession to be taken" (110). McCullough's hermeneutical attention shows Blumenberg's participation in Locke's scheme. Blumenberg contributes to overturning the Horatian view that what is natural is not something one can own: "Nor he, nor I, nor any man, is made/by Nature private owner of the soil" (111).
In addition to articles that confront Blumenberg's arguments and politics, the collection features authors who affirm Blumenberg's positions. Zeynep Talay Turner's "Political Legitimacy and Founding Myths" corroborates Blumenberg's criticism of Hannah Arendt in Blumenberg's "Moses the Egyptian," written around 1978. Turner writes, "As Freud took Moses the man from his people [Blumenberg says Freud "damaged" his people's "self-confidence"], so Hannah Arendt took Adolf Eichmann from the State of Israel." Blumenberg does not hide his "indignation" towards this "stealing" (129).
Turner captures the salient features of "Moses the Egyptian" and presents an effective précis of Blumenberg's use of the term "prefiguration." Even though Turner seems ultimately to agree with Blumenberg about Eichmann in Jerusalem, Turner notes in his conclusion that Blumenberg may have been venturing outside his area of expertise in taking up the question of "what a Jewish state should do with someone who had sought to destroy the Jews" (146).
According to Turner and Blumenberg, Israel needed Eichmann to take on a mythic role at his trial in order to solidify Israeli nationhood. It's not clear whether anyone ever laid that task at Arendt's feet during the trial, since she was writing in the moment, as events unfolded. Unlike Blumenberg, Arendt did not have the luxury of hindsight, nor was she alive in 1978 to respond to such criticism. Furthermore, Turner and Blumenberg do not provide details of how Arendt's book on Eichmann undermined Israel, then or since. Conceptual damage is of a different order from "stealing" a nation's legitimacy.
In Chapter 7, Robert Buch concentrates on a "neglected" (153) part of Legitimacy of the Modern Age, the section about theoretical curiosity. Why has it been neglected? Buch: "The reasons for the relative neglect of the third part undoubtedly have to do with its length and more specifically its detail and apparent digressiveness, but above all its sheer material abundance."
The editors sought to bring Blumenberg into conversation with other thinkers, and Buch chooses Husserl as Blumenberg's conversation partner. Buch's aim is "to juxtapose Blumenberg's account of the genesis of early modern science with Husserl's Crisis of the European Sciences" (153).
Perceptions of science's legitimacy have relevance, Buch writes, given "the modern suspicion of science, aggravated dramatically in our times of climate crisis" (164). Husserl questioned the cause of a universal science, a science that adhered to rational structures and objectivity (166). Husserl reacted against the easy division between objectivity and subjectivity. Husserl posits that modern science fails to consider consciousness as a component of its investigations.
In Buch's account, Blumenberg owes many debts to Husserl's view of science and technology. The differences are fewer than the commonalities. One important difference appears in Blumenberg's narrative about the electric doorbell in an essay Buch leans on heavily, "Phenomenological Aspects on Life-World and Technization," now available in English in The Blumenberg Reader. Blumenberg says the electric doorbell, the workings of which are hidden in comparison to a mechanical doorbell, "is 'packaged' in a way that it conceals this history and deprives it from us in its abstract uniformity…. [I]t is legitimized by being … put into operation" (Blumenberg Reader, 386). The "artificial product," the doorbell, is "shrouded" with "obviousness"; technization produces this unquestioned obviousness (Reader, 387), a point Blumenberg claims shows the limits of Husserl's commentary on the connection between life-world and technization. Blumenberg aims to show that his account is "more complicated." To appreciate Blumenberg's point, think of the unknowability about the functioning of crosswalk buttons in urban centers, many of which remain deliberately unfixed. Even a non-working button gives the illusion of control.
Charles Turner's chapter on "infinite progress" in science concludes with an exploration of time and the life of the politician (175). In the middle of the two topics is C. Turner's choice for Blumenberg's partner in dialogue, Max Weber. The question Weber poses that C. Turner investigates is: [W]hat are the chances that someone whose life is necessarily limited to one arena of activity can achieve something of lasting significance?" (181). Weber directs that question at scholars and politicians.
In making Weber's question contemporary, C. Turner reminds readers about the fast pace of contemporary life coupled with an increase in life expectancy. In the infinity of time, how are finite individuals to gather meaning for their lives? For scholars, the fear is that one's work becomes obsolete within the scholar's lifetime. For the politician, long-lasting glory can come with great success, but few politicians are remembered beyond their lifetimes. As Weber puts it, the scholarly life is chained to progress (thus fear of obsolescence), while the political life is more like art in that multiple spectacular achievements by different artists are possible, though those achievements must be of a stature to escape temporal constraints (184).
Weber's long view echoes Blumenberg's considerations of Lebenszeit and Weltzeit, the tension between the individual's tiny lifetime amidst the ocean of time that is world history. Blumenberg suggests we leave the tension in place, lest the world itself suffer as it did with Adolf Hitler. According to Blumenberg, Hitler's sin was an effort at melding Lebenszeit and Weltzeit. The evidence lies in a quotation from Hitler: "I … stand under the command of fate to achieve everything within a short human life … That for which others have an eternity, I have merely a few meagre years" (191).
In Chapter 9, Oriane Petteni escorts her readers into the world of art history and optics. This gives Petteni reason to ponder Blumenberg's preference not to be photographed (202), as if Blumenberg's own study of optics caused his wish to avoid the medium. Petteni is well aware Blumenberg's avoidance of selfies is something more than shyness. Petteni sees it as connected to much larger matters, like truth. The visible and the hidden link up with Western beliefs about truth. Petteni writes, "[I]n the modern age, truth no longer reveals itself; instead, it must be revealed by decisive action" (195). That is, we must work for our truth.
The comments on truth correspond to Blumenberg's views about biology. Petteni sees that Blumenberg derives his anthropology from biology. Petteni turns to The Genesis of the Copenican World for evidence. "The Earth requires both exposure to the Sun for complex lifeforms to arise and protection from direct exposure to sun rays, which would otherwise threaten to consume every living thing. The exposure to light requires—for the Earth as well as for human beings—a kind of filter or screen" (203). Others back up Petteni's sense that Blumenberg foregrounds the importance of indirection and camouflage, such as the recent biography by Uwe Wolff, who notes multiple times Blumenberg's penchant for indirect communication.
Petteni finishes her reflections on Blumenberg via a journey through Franz Kafka's Der Bau. The unfinished Kafka text parallels, for Petteni, Blumenberg's open-endedness regarding the human impulse to fashion "endless significance" (211). The story about a burrow also fits in with a quotation Petteni cites by Heinz Wisman, "[Blumenberg's] thought is strongly marked by the worry not to remain at the surface of things" (202).
Chapter 10 might serve readers best read in conjunction with the first and the last chapters where Descartes has a prominent role. One difference about Adi Efal-Lautenschläger's chapter is the linkage between Descartes and Blumenberg's book The Legibility of the World. Blumenberg himself points out the parallels between his theme in Legibility and Descartes's Traité du monde et de la lumière. What does Blumenberg find in Descartes' book? "The self is to be experienced according to the measure of the world, as compatible or not with its changing conditions" (Legibility, 92). This lesson runs counter to interpretations of Descartes that rely on the celebrated cogito ergo sum and tend to make Descartes a happy solipsist. The lesson also seems a challenge to Whistler's essay in which Blumenberg leaves behind the messy world for timeless forms and models, though keep in mind that Whistler's interpretation launches from a different Blumenberg work, Legitimacy rather than Legibility.
Efal-Lautenschläger contributes a useful dichotomy based on the arguments of Legibility: "Blumenberg chooses to put his concept of reality on the side of world-imaging, instead of world-modelling. [R]eality is understood as belonging to the arena of representations or of world-imaging. World imaging – and, with it, reality itself – has an interpretative orientation: the reality that results from the image of the world is designated as an act of reading" (224-25).
Credit the editors with choosing to follow Efal-Lautenschläger's essay with one that expands Efal-Lautenschläger's points. Returning to Blumenberg's Legitimacy of the Modern Age, Sonja Feger dives into another pairing, "reoccupation" (Umbesetzung) and "reality-concepts" (Wirklichkeitsbegriffe). Feger tells readers that Blumenberg uses reoccupation "to explain how epochal change can be grasped. On the other hand, and in other texts, he provides a historical analysis of what he calls "reality-concepts." "In this chapter, I attempt to bring these two concepts into line with each other" (237).
Reoccupation is up first. Feger: "It is important to note that "reoccupation", that is, the English term Wallace uses to translate the German word Umbesetzung, does not allude to anything antagonistic; it is not about any kind of (intellectual) conquest or usurpation. Rather, the term brings into focus the process-character of epochal change" (244). Emphasizing the "process-character" of change points to Whistler again, because "reoccupation" is about a perennial question-and-answer model Blumenberg wants to say is at work. Not that a "firm canon" of "great questions" exists. Fegel warns readers not to become fixated on answers or questions in their concrete content. Relying on a quotation from Blumenberg's essay on secularization, Fegel asks readers to remember that "the historical identity and methodical identifiability of supposedly secularized notions is an illusion created by the identity of the function that altogether heterogeneous contents can assume in certain positions within man's system of understanding the world and himself" (245).
How do we find out about reality? In some places, like Blumenberg's famous essay on the possibility of the novel, his response seems to be "sometimes we won't." Feger pinpoints his wording: "[I]t is quite natural that the most deeply hidden implication of an era – namely, its concept of reality – should become explicit only when the awareness of that reality has already been broken." (246). It's a version of not being able to see the forest for the trees. "The subject as historically situated can only account for earlier concepts of reality, not current ones" (246).
Exiting that reality dilemma depends on reality-concepts. "Making a reality-concept explicit draws on the distinction between an object (i.e. a certain behaviour towards reality) and reflection on that object" (247). While it looks as if Blumenberg's position is that our reflecting on an object called reality is accurate only for earlier periods, Feger says our access to what's real about the moment we are in depends on Husserlian transcendental phenomenology. "[T]ranscendental consciousness both carries out and simultaneously reflects upon the process of (reality-) constitution" (248). Problem solved (if Blumenberg is correct).
Bajohr, Hannes, Florian Fuchs, and Joe Paul Kroll (Eds.). 2020. History, Metaphor, Fables: A Hans Blumenberg Reader. Ithaca, NY. Cornell University Press.
Hayles, N. Katherine. 2019. "Review of Morphing Intelligence." Posted May 17, 2019. Accessed November 1, 2020. https://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/n._katherine_hayles_reviews_morphing_intelligence.
Prisco, Jacopo. 2020. "Illusion of Control: Why the World is Full of Buttons that Don't Work." CNN.com. Accessed November 1, 2020. https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/placebo-buttons-design/index.html.
Wolff, Uwe. 2020. Der Schreibtisch des Philosophen: Erinnerungen an Hans Blumenberg. München: Claudius Verlag.
Žižek, Slavoj. 2011. Living in the End Times. London: Verso.
Опубликовано Воскресенье Ноябрь 22nd, 2020 Воскресенье Ноябрь 22nd, 2020 Автор Bruce J. KrajewskiРубрики PецензииМетки Christianity, Descartes, Hans Blumenberg, Hans Jonas, Husserl, Max Weber, Metaphorology, Modernity, Nihilism, VoegelinДобавить комментарий к записи Agata Bielik-Robson, Daniel Whistler (Eds.): Interrogating Modernity: Debates with Hans Blumenberg
Michael Bongardt, Holger Burckhart, John-Stewart Gordon, Jürgen Nielsen-Sikora (Eds.): Hans Jonas-Handbuch, J.B. Metzler, 2020
Заголовок: Hans Jonas-Handbuch: Leben – Werk – Wirkung
Автор: Michael Bongardt, Holger Burckhart, John-Stewart Gordon, Jürgen Nielsen-Sikora (Eds.)
Издатель: J.B. Metzler
Опубликовано Понедельник Сентябрь 14th, 2020 Понедельник Сентябрь 14th, 2020 Автор Phenomenological ReviewsРубрики PublicationsМетки Ethics, Gnosticism, Hans Jonas, Religious Thought, Responsibility, TechnologyДобавить комментарий к записи Michael Bongardt, Holger Burckhart, John-Stewart Gordon, Jürgen Nielsen-Sikora (Eds.): Hans Jonas-Handbuch, J.B. Metzler, 2020
Elad Lapidot, Micha Brumlik (Eds.): Heidegger and Jewish Thought: Difficult Others, Rowman & Littlefield, 2017
Заголовок: Heidegger and Jewish Thought: Difficult Others
Серия: New Heidegger Research
Автор: Elad Lapidot, Micha Brumlik (Eds.)
Издатель: Rowman & Littlefield International
Опубликовано Вторник Июнь 27th, 2017 Пятница Июнь 30th, 2017 Автор Phenomenological ReviewsРубрики [:en]Newsletter[:], PublicationsМетки Anti-Semitism, Emmanuel Levinas, Hans Jonas, Heidegger, Jewish Thought, Kierkegaard, Martin BuberДобавить комментарий к записи Elad Lapidot, Micha Brumlik (Eds.): Heidegger and Jewish Thought: Difficult Others, Rowman & Littlefield, 2017


I write occasional articles on search and Ultraseek for ultraseek.com, so I've collected links to them all from here. I've clipped the first paragraph or two of each one so you can see whether you'd like to read the entire article.
Search relevance is usually thought of as a statistic that measures whether the search results match the query. That is useful in the lab, but not as useful for a search installation.
When search is part of a site, we need to understand how it helps the users of that site. Can they find things quickly? Are they comfortable with the search?
We are concerned about all of the problems reported by our customers, but there is one problem I don't mind hearing about.
Everyone wants their search index to be an accurate, timely reflection of their content. Ultraseek automatically revisits pages to find new URLs, and that is very effective, but some sites have even stronger reqirements for how quickly documents need to be available in search results. This is called "index freshness." A stale index frequently misses new pages and has old information including pages that have already been deleted, and old copies of pages that have changed since they were indexed. For maximum index freshness, use Ultraseek's Add URL feature for notifications of deleted, changed, or new URLs.
If you have used other search engines, you probably had to manually configure your indexing schedule to make sure new content was found and indexed. This is not necessary with Ultraseek.
Ultraseek has "continuous spidering with real-time indexing and adaptive revisit intervals." It sounds complicated, but it means that Ultraseek will automatically spider most pages at the right times.
Why Not Use "All Terms" Queries?
Google, Yahoo!, and MSN all default to matching all of your search terms, but Ultraseek does not. Why? What do you say when your users want Ultraseek to "work like Google"?
In most cases, it is good for an enterprise engine to behave like the WWW engines because users can intuitively transfer their searching skills. But, this is a case where doing the right thing is more expensive for the WWW engines, and more reasonable for enterprises.
It looks like I've been careful to write useful leads, because selecting the first few sentences makes a pretty fair intro to each article.


text:
Q: How to read exceptions(error log) in Unity? I need to find way how to read issues explanations at Unity console?
For example:
UnityEngine.Events.InvokableCall.Invoke () (at <"d3b66f0ad4e34a55b6ef91ab84878193">:0)
In this exception(error) I see next containers:

*

*UnityEngine.Events.InvokableCall.Invoke ()

*(at <"d3b66f0ad4e34a55b6ef91ab84878193">:0)

Sometimes it can be more or different containers for other errors.
But I can't find where I can read the expressions.
I mean, I want to know what is this? (at <"d3b66f0ad4e34a55b6ef91ab84878193">:0)
I tried to search in memory addreses structure, UID, GUID and so on. but nothing was like this note - (at <"d3b66f0ad4e34a55b6ef91ab84878193">:0)
Important! Chars and nums may be another. It's not matter.
"" - this symbol is abscent. Typed just for view.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Muggles With Attitude: A podcast about Harry Potter!
After reading the book, we watched the movie! We discuss what part of the adaptation worked, what didn't, and why does Seamus Finnegan keep blowing up?
Your hosts are Alice Sullivan (@alicemsullivan), Micah Sparkman, and Jeff Lake (@jeff_lake).
Here's a special bonus episode! We interview real-life Quidditch player, Lyz Renshaw.
We finish up Harry P and the S. Stone with a whole mess of wizard challenges, an unexpected betrayal as well as some unexpected loyalty. Also, the Slytherins were right all along: the system is rigged.
From cupboard-dweller to wizard athlete! Harry finds his calling as a high-flying star. He also gets a cloak of invisibility and uses it to sneak into... the library. To read some books. Nerd.
Harry makes some friends, sees some ghosts, makes some enemies, gets his head tasted by a hat, and learns to fly!


The University of Mary Washington women's tennis team overcame a 2-1 deficit after doubles play to sweep all six singles matches in defeating Salisbury University, 7-2, on Thursday at the Battleground. The Eagles improve to 15-7 on the season, and advance to the NCAA Championship tournament, which will begin May 14.
Apr 22, 2010 at Fredericksburg, Va.


text:
Credit: NOAA Images/Flickr
10 years on from Hurricane Katrina: What have we learned?
Roz Pidcock
Storms10 years on from Hurricane Katrina: What have we learned?
Shortly after 10am on 29th August 2005, Hurricane Katrina tore through the city of New Orleans, a vibrant port in the US state of Louisiana. Extreme winds and heavy flooding cost more than 1,800 people their lives and caused an estimated $108bn in damages.
As images of the destruction beamed across the world, the media began asking questions about how far the scenes were a product of our own actions. The New York Times said:
'With one American city swamped by one great hurricane and then by another one only a month later â?¦ it is no surprise that debate has flared over the role of global warming."
Or as the BBC's Richard Black put it:
"Hurricanes and global warming – a link? Here's a recipe for an explosive news cocktail."
As well as kickstarting an energetic media and public interest in extreme weather and climate change, Katrina also put pressure on the science community to provide answers.
Carbon Brief spoke to some scientists working in the field about what has and hasn't been learned in the ten years since Hurricane Katrina made its destructive mark on Louisiana.
New York Times, Aug 30th 2005
A storm brewing
'Hurricane' is the name given to a tropical storm that forms in the North Atlantic or Northeast Pacific, with wind speeds reaching 33 metres per second or more.
Storms this big are called different things depending on where in the world they form. In the Northwest Pacific they are known as typhoons, while in the Indian Ocean they are cyclones.
There are five categories of hurricane. Storms with wind speeds above 67 metres per second classify as category five. Those between 56 and 67 metres per second fall into category four.
When it made landfall in Louisiana, hurricane Katrina had a sustained wind speed of about 55 metres per second, making it a strong category three storm.
Warmer seas, stronger storms
Hurricanes form over warm water near the equator. A long time before Katrina, scientists suspected that a warming ocean could provide extra fuel for hurricanes, making them stronger than they would otherwise have been.
Modelling studies demonstrated the relationship between sea surface temperatures and hurricane strength, while others looked at observations of hurricane patterns over time.
Observed sea surface temperature in C with the track taken by Katrina overlaid (black line). Asterisks to indicate locations on 25 to 30 August 2005. Trenberth et al., ( 2005)
In 2005, Prof Peter Webster from the Georgia Institute of Technology published his team's findings that the number of category 4 and 5 storms globally rose between the 1970s and the early 2000s, from about 50 to 90 over a five-year period.
Coming a month after Katrina, the paper got a fair amount of media attention. "Study attributes stronger storms to warmer seas", read a The New York Times headline.
It's been notoriously difficult to identify trends in past hurricane activity.
Part of the difficulty is 'miserable' global historical hurricane records, says Prof Kevin Trenberth from the US National Center for Atmospheric Research. Data quality improved with the advent of satellites but the record is still very patchy.
A recent paper found that once you account for improvements in satellite data since the 1970s, the global rise in strong hurricanes may not be as sharp as it first seemed.
The best records are in the North Atlantic, where surveillance aircraft have complemented the satellite data since the 1940s, says Trenberth. There, we've seen a substantial increase in Atlantic hurricane activity over the past 35 years. But, he adds:
"The other thing that gets complicated in this is for so-called 'landfalling' hurricanes. There are much better records of landfalling hurricanes that go back to the 1850's, maybe. But there are so few, they make up only 2-3% of the total number."
Historical records focus on the peak wind speed when a storm makes landfall, but other things like size, duration and path over the ocean affect how damaging it is, says Trenberth.
North Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Count 1950-2014. Source: NOAA
Just to complicate matters further, natural fluctuations in the climate system cause variability in tropical storm activity from one year to the next, explains Dr Jim Kossin, atmospheric scientist at NOAA's Center for Weather and Climate. He tells Carbon Brief:
"This season is certainly very quiet in the Atlantic, there's no doubt about that. Now we have a pretty good idea that this is being driven by the developing El Nino, and we understand all of that fairly well."
Other natural cycles affect hurricane activity from one decade to the next. That's why we have to be careful to look at hurricane trends, or any aspect of the climate system, from a slowly evolving point of view, says Kossin, the rest of it is just noise.
Stronger hurricanes, fewer overall
Separating any past global warming 'signal' from the background 'noise' has certainly been problematic. But as more data becomes available, the expectation from scientists is that the number of strong hurricanes will increase as the climate warms.
The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says it's more likely than not we'll see more intense hurricanes in the North Atlantic and western North Pacific Oceans, but a lack of data means the same can't be said of other regions just yet.
Most scientists expect the increase in the number of strong hurricanes as the climate warms to be at the expense of smaller ones, meaning fewer overall. The reason for this is that big storms leave a cold wake behind, making the environment less favorable for the next one.
Big strides forward
Wind speed is certainly a big part of how damaging a hurricane turns out to be. The force exerted increases disproportionately with the wind speed, which means 10% rise in wind speed translates to a 33% increase in destructiveness, all things being equal.
But there are many more pieces to the puzzle, says Kossin. The biggest strides in the last 10 years have been in understanding all those other factors, he tells Carbon Brief:
"It's not as simple as just saying that the warmer the oceans, the stronger the hurricanes are, or the more frequent they are. It turns out to be much more complex than that."
Rising sea levels mean that when a hurricane hits land, the storm surge it produces is more likely to overwhelm coastal defences and cause flooding.
This is part of what made Katrina so damaging. At the time, the BBC reported that storm surges had caused flooding several kilometres inland in some places.
The same has been true of more recent tropical storms, says Dr Friederike Otto from the University of Oxford in the UK. She tells Carbon Brief:
"With hurricane Sandy and [Typhoon] Haiyan, scientists found little contribution [from human activity] to the storm itself, but the main role of climate change was through the higher sea levels."
Scientists also know that a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, meaning there's more water available to fall as rain when a storm hits. A recent study showed how heavy rainfall alongside a storm surge has amplified flood risk in many major US cities in the last century.
This doesn't mean there wouldn't have been heavy rains and flooding if climate change wasn't happening, says Trenberth. But, he adds:
"But sometimes it can make the difference … It's the straw that breaks the camel's back. It's the little bit extra from climate change that exceeds the values that were planned for and things break."
Human contribution
While knowing how hurricanes in general may change in a warmer world is important, the questions asked after a disaster like Katrina tend to be far more specific.
How much worse has climate change made the event we've just experienced?
Prof Ted Shepherd, from the University of Reading in the UK, says:
"For a long time, the standard answer of climate scientists to an extreme event was "we can't attribute single events to climate change", which when you think about it is an incredibly naive position. For example, it is generally not possible to attribute a particular death by lung cancer to smoking even for a heavy smoker, but the effect on risk is beyond doubt."
The pressure to say something more specific about Katrina gave the scientific community a new steer, says Otto. Scientists began pinpointing how climate change has altered the chances of a particular event happening. This is known as "single event attribution".
Such studies were around before Katrina. A paper in 2004 found that climate change had made the European heatwave in 2003 twice as likely, for example. (Incidentally, an update to that study found the risk of 'extremely hot' summers is now ten times greater than when the 2003 heatwave struck.)
But after hurricane Katrina, attribution stepped up a gear. Otto says:
"It was realised in the scientific community that we really need to do event attribution if we want to be able to say something quantitative when people ask the question about the role of climate change."
Some recent examples include a study of the heatwave across Europe in July, which found global warming made such an event at least twice as likely over much of the continent.
After heavy rain in the winter of 2012 in the UK led to widespread flooding, a study found that climate change had made such rainfall 25% more likely.
Hurricane Katrina cost more than 1,800 people their lives during and caused an estimated $18bn in damages. Credit: Infrogmation of New Orleans/Flickr
"Something of a revolution"
If attribution studies had been available during Katrina, what might they have told us?
They may have stopped the media discussion from taking such a binary approach to the question of climate change's role, Otto says:
"I think if we would have been able to provide attribution analyses in the direct aftermath of Katrina it would have been very powerful, and allowed maybe for the discussion to focus less on blaming climate change or denying its existence."
The way that attribution allows scientists to talk about climate change's making a specific event more or less likely has been "something of a revolution", says Shepherd. He tells Carbon Brief:
"It changes the question from "What does this event tell us about climate change?" to "What does climate change tell us about this event?"
Unfortunately, it's not always as simple as that. Not for hurricanes at least.
While the human contribution to heatwaves and heavy rainfall are relatively straightforward to untangle, for hurricanes it's far more difficult.
One reason is the lack of good data. But another is that the many different elements that interact in hurricanes can sometimes pull in opposite directions. Prof Myles Allen, head of the climate dynamics group at the University of Oxford, tells Carbon Brief:
"While research at the time of Katrina pointed to sea surface temperatures and sea level as causing damage and having a human contribution, other researchers suggested warming sea surface temperatures elsewhere and changing atmospheric vertical structure may have had a countervailing effect, making the overall impact of human activity on Katrina unclear."
As far as attribution goes, the fact that it might pose a complicated question shouldn't mean we avoid answering it altogether, says Shepherd. He tells Carbon Brief:
"These are extremely challenging scientific questions, but we cannot just wait for more data or better models – people need some kind of answer now â?¦ We have to give the best answers we can, with the appropriate caveats."
But Kossin warns that the different elements of hurricanes can lead to confusion, adding:
"I'm not saying there's never been a compelling attribution study for a single event. I think we've got to the point now with heatwaves where we can start to talk about quantifying how much stronger it is because of climate change. But heatwaves are a much different animal to tropical cyclones, and I don't think we've quite gotten there yet."
While formal attribution studies might be some way off, this doesn't mean scientists can't say anything with confidence about hurricanes like Katrina and climate change, Kossin says:
"I think what we need to be saying is that we imagine these types of events to be more likely, and will continue to be more likely, into this century. And I, frankly, think that's quite alarming all by itself."
Being careful to talk about probabilities, while explaining natural variability, data quality and the different rules for different types of extreme weather all make for a very nuanced message.
Are the media getting it right?
Dr James Painter from the Reuters Institute for the study of journalism at the University of Oxford tells Carbon Brief:
"My impression is that much of the mainstream media organisations are becoming a lot more careful in how they describe the link between single extreme weather events and man-made climate change."
Prof Kerry Emanuel from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology tells Carbon Brief:
"I perceive that the media are beginning to understand some of the subtleties of the problem. For example, it is not meaningful to talk about frequency and intensity as separate issues, and more reporters are understanding that the main issues are the frequency of the rarer high intensity events, storm surges, and rainfall. Hurricane rain is finally starting to get more attention, as it deserves."
Weighing up
A lot has changed since Katrina.
Science can tell us more about how climate change is altering how often the world bears the brunt of such a destructive force. The media is beginning to reflect a more nuanced discussion of how climate change is implicated in extreme weather.
But other areas have seen far too little progress. Some of the mistakes that made New Orleans so vulnerable in the first place are being repeated, Trenberth tells Carbon Brief:
"The engineers came back in and restored the levies, more or less rebuilding them to withstand a category three storm. And they resettled areas that are below sea level … and so I don't know that enough lessons have been learned."
The rising risks from hurricane damage should be ramping up pressure on governments, says Trenberth, both to tackle climate change and build resilience. Ten years on from Katrina, the science has moved on but our response appears to be falling woefully short.
Image: Satellite image of Hurricane Katrina. Credit: NOAA Images/Flickr.
10 years on from Hurricane Katrina: What have we learned? #Katrina10

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


You can always click a thumbnail to get a larger version. When you see a photo you want to buy, click on it, you'll have that photo on a single screen, where you click "buy this photo," and it will be added to your cart. Continue browsing and adding photos to your cart, and when finished, click "view cart" to complete your transaction. In the shopping cart, you can choose from 4x6, 5x7 and 11x14 sized prints, via the "standard prints" menu. Open the "specialty prints" menu, and you can choose sizes 8x12 and wallets. There's a "photo gifts" menu, there you can choose shirts, mugs, puzzles, magnets, and more. Open the digital downloads menu, and you can order your own copy of the file.
The prints and gifts you purchase will not have the watermark on them.


text:
NCI-COG Pediatric MATCH Trial to Test Targeted Drugs in Childhood Cancers
Today investigators at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the Children's Oncology Group (COG) announced the opening of enrollment for a unique precision medicine clinical trial. NCI-COG Pediatric Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice (Pediatric MATCH) is a nationwide trial to explore whether targeted therapies can be effective for children and adolescents with solid tumors that harbor specific genetic mutations and have progressed during or after standard therapy. Pediatric MATCH will incorporate more than eight different study drugs, each targeting a predefined set of genetic mutations, to match patients with therapies aimed at the molecular abnormalities in their tumors.
The study was developed and will be led jointly by NCI, part of the National Institutes of Health, and COG, part of the NCI-sponsored National Clinical Trials Network.
Pediatric MATCH is a phase 2 trial with sub-studies (arms) for each targeted drug being investigated. It will open with approximately six treatment arms, expanding to eight or more. A similar trial for adults, NCI-MATCH, began enrolling adult patients in August 2015 and is also matching patients to treatments based on the genetic mutations in their tumors. Pediatric MATCH is a separate trial for children and adolescents ages 1 to 21 who have solid tumors — including non-Hodgkin lymphomas, brain tumors, and histiocytoses — that no longer respond to standard treatment or have recurred after treatment.
"Pediatric MATCH is a very special trial," said Douglas R. Lowy, M.D., NCI acting director. "There aren't any other cancer trials of this scale exploring targeted treatments for children whose cancers have specific genetic abnormalities. Precision medicine trials like Pediatric MATCH have the potential to accelerate progress in identifying more effective treatments for children with cancer."
The trial has two enrollment steps. Each patient will initially enroll for a screening study, in which a sample of his or her relapsed tumor will undergo DNA and RNA sequencing to detect genetic abnormalities that could be targeted by one or more of the drugs being studied. Archived tumor samples can be used if they were obtained after the tumor progressed following initial treatment. If there is a genetic abnormality identified in the tumor and a drug in Pediatric MATCH that targets that abnormality, the patient can then enroll in the corresponding treatment arm if he or she meets the eligibility criteria.
Pediatric MATCH will use a single sequencing test to screen for many molecular abnormalities at once. The test, which is also being used for the adult NCI-MATCH trial, was developed by the Molecular Characterization Laboratory at the NCI-sponsored Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research (FNLCR) in Frederick, Maryland. The latest version of this test looks for alterations in more than 160 genes associated with cancer.
To ensure quality control, biopsy specimens from all patients will be sent to a single location, the COG Biopathology Center at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, for DNA and RNA processing. The sequencing analysis for Pediatric MATCH will be done at two laboratories that carried out sequencing for adult NCI-MATCH: the FNLCR and MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Cancer mutations that match one of the drugs being studied are expected to be found in only about 10 percent of tumors from children and adolescents with cancer. The trial investigators, therefore, project that they will screen 200 to 300 patients a year, for a total of 1,000 patients screened, to identify patients potentially eligible for each of the sub-studies. Patients with a matched drug will be able to receive treatment as long as their tumors remain stable in size or get smaller. At least 20 patients will be targeted for enrollment in each arm, and additional treatment arms will be added as the trial progresses.
"Pediatric MATCH is a cutting-edge trial in many ways," said COG chair Peter C. Adamson, M.D., of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "It will bring molecular analysis, coupled to a portfolio of new targeted agents, to children and adolescents with relapsed cancer across the United States. Importantly, it will also help us learn more about relapsed cancer in pediatric patients, catalyzing research aimed at developing better treatments."
The drugs being used in Pediatric MATCH are all investigational (experimental) agents in children and contributed by pharmaceutical companies that have partnered with NCI to support this study.
"This trial would not have been possible without the enthusiastic support of the partnering pharmaceutical companies, as evidenced by their willingness to provide targeted agents for this trial," said NCI study co-chair Nita Seibel, M.D., of NCI's Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis. "Some of the agents included have not previously been tested in children, so this trial will provide broader access to targeted agents for children and adolescents."
Although most of the DNA mutations identified in study patients will be present only in cancer cells and not elsewhere in the body, some may have been inherited. For this reason, in Pediatric MATCH "we will also look at whether mutations found in tumors are detected in blood samples and hence were inherited," said COG study co-chair Will Parsons, M.D., Ph.D., of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. "This will allow us to provide the treating physician with guidance for the patient's family regarding the need for formal genetic testing, counseling, and follow-up care."
Patients found not to have a matched drug may, with the help of their oncologists, be able to enroll in other studies available through the COG Developmental Therapeutics Program, Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium, New Approaches to Neuroblastoma Therapy consortium, and pharmaceutical trials located through trials.cancer.gov.
Enrollment in Pediatric MATCH will be available at children's hospitals, university medical centers, and cancer centers across the United States that are part of COG. Sites will access the trial under the protocol identification APEC1621 via the NCI Cancer Trials Support Unit.


Following are the topics on which our followers have written (and writing essays) every Sunday to hone their essay writing skills. The topics are chosen based on UPSC previous year topics. Writing one essay on each Sunday will help you get better marks in this paper.
March 31, 2019: The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
March 17, 2019: Money and Religion – Great Unifiers of Humankind?
February 10, 2019: Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
January 20, 2019: All that we are is the result of what we have thought.
January 12, 2019: All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything.
December 23, 2018: Government Surveillance – Good or Bad?
December 16, 2018: Trade Wars – Economic or Geopolitical?
September 23, 2018: E-commerce as a new form of trade and its challenges to India.
September 09, 2018: Death Penalty eliminates Criminals, not Crime.
September 02, 2018: Dissent is the foundation of democracy.
July 29, 2018: Social reform is a myth if places of worship are open only to all castes and not to all genders.
July 08, 2018: Sometimes it takes a natural disaster to reveal a social disaster.
June 17, 2018: Where Should India Invest More – Human Capital or Human Development?
June 10, 2018: Has Democracy Taken Backseat Due to the Rise of Populists and Demagogues?
May 27, 2018: Can Development and Environment Protection Go Together?
April 15, 2018: Can Education and legislation Address Violence Against Women and Children in India?
April 8, 2018: Banking Crisis in India – Failure of Governance and Regulation?
February 04, 2018: Art, freedom and creativity will change society faster than politics.
January 07, 2018: The Root Cause of Agrarian Distress in India – Failure of Policies or Failure of Governance?


The SEC Panel has a number of duties defined within the SEC or signaled in forthcoming SEC drafting regarding System and Equipment Testing leading up to Initial Live Operations. These include approving that the DCC's Test Approach documents for each testing phase are appropriate and approving that defined exit criteria have been met for certain phases.
The Terms of Reference (ToR) and Membership for the TAG can be found in the documents section at the bottom of the page.
For meeting information, including agendas and papers, please follow the link here.


Snapshot: Wednesday is motivationally productive and very clarifying subconsciously as well as offering magical subconscious expression.
At 12:15pm Mars at 15:56 Aquarius Semi-Sextiles Pluto at 15:56 Capricorn.
Mars is in Mutual Reception with Uranus so we have plenty of drive for personal freedom. In a minor productive aspect to Pluto, we can at least expect some authorities to get out of our way or even lend a hand. We will act on our awareness and use it to initiate structures around shared resources and intimacy.
Wednesday evening holds a 3-way aspect around our real-time sense of reality and our ideas and plans.
At 5:19pm Mercury at 27:16 Sagittarius Quintiles Neptune at 9:16 Pisces.
Here we have Mercury bathed in 2 Higher Mind energies: Jupiter rules Sagittarius and Neptune. We can expect to have some magical words that can heal and can create a new perspective to any old subconscious issues… such as even erasing any trauma associated with them. Pay attention to what gets said as 5D energies can be subtle and overlooked if not in awareness.
At 8:17pm the Sun at 9:16 Sagittarius Squares Neptune at 9:16 Pisces.
Here is the rub. The Sun will be bringing up clarity around things that occurred over the last year as Saturn Squared Neptune within orb of the Sun's Square to Neptune today. The Square can be a bit harsh, but clarity is always a good thing. The Sun can reveal some of the things Neptune kept hidden from us during the Karmic Squares of the last year. We can expect to see how our 'old' philosophies created some of the issues. But Mercury has already expressed the magical way to rise about the Karmic energies. Now the Sun can remind why we need to rise above it all… Sagittarius style.
In the midst of all of this, Chiron is almost stopped dead and ready to Station Direct around 5:30am on Thursday morning. One more pass ahead to anyone who has a Planet in a Square or Opposition to Chiron in Pisces. This last pass should resolve some of the pain from the previous passes.


*With Gluten free and Vegan options, of course! Although, it's an orange so it's already gluten free and vegan!
I know I know, I keep encouraging sweet treats. I promise you, I'm a health blogger. The colder months always seem to require these little treats to keep motivation high, if it's not for you then even better. Keep going on your journey and stay healthy without the need of these sweet things. You're a stronger person that I and I really commend anyone who can do that.
But, now for all us scallywags and naughty nibbles, this one is a treat for the kids and for the chocolate lovers. This season is the season for fun and festive jeer, along with a bit of sugar and warmth.
We all love a surprise. Maybe that's why fireworks and presents are so fun. We don't know what it's going to be until that last moment and bang, it's there in front of us. These little bundles are a chocolate lovers dream and a great way to get kids involved with bonfire night and still keep them safe. Give them the task of cutting the hole in the orange and scraping the pulp out until these oranges are hollow! They can tip in their batter and cook them!
These went down a treat on Halloween night, we typically enjoy a great night of fancy dress and drinking but now we're a bit older and kids have popped up into our life we host mini-parties for the kids to play together. These orange cakes went down a treat although one of them wanted to do the same with banana peel, which I tried my best to explain wasn't possible. Each to their own, eh?
I prepped the oranges and tinfoil squares but let the boys make the cake batter and pour it in, carefully to the 'moulds'. I saved the lids of the oranges and popped them back into the hole of the orange so there wouldn't be any leakage. They wrapped up the bundles and I popped them into the fire.
Tip: Sneak in a marshmallow or syrup to the centre of the gooey mix before wrapping it up in a ball of tinfoil.
Whilst we were waiting the boys selected a Halloween film for the night and we sat in front of the house fire, whilst the mums and dads watched the fire, had a nice drink and a good natter. It took around 20 minutes to make a soft fudgy brownie and almost 30 minutes to make a cake textured treat. Gluten free mixes take less time and Vegan mixes tend to take more, yep, I tried all 3 types for you. Depending on the preference make sure you keep an eye on these and give them 10 minutes to cool down after removing from the fire.
The kids can then peel back they chocolate treat and enjoy the evening's entertainment! Pick any flavour you like but chocolate and orange is a winning combination in my eyes!
Have a brilliant bonfire night or whatever celebration you're enjoying!
Wow!! So you scoop out all the orange? Could you mix it with the batter do you think?
It woulc make it watery but you could use 30ml and replace it with the liquids you use in your cake mix (Either water or milk depending). I drank the orange juice and used the pulp in my mix for extra vitamins.
These are such a great idea! I would have never have thought of it!
I hadn't heard of something like this before!
What an adorable idea! Might give it a go…I LOVE AUTUMN!


text:
Airwars and CIVIC: 20 years after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan began, NATO foreign and defence ministers must urgently learn lessons of the past on protecting civilians
October 13, 2021 – Last week marked twenty years since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan began, following which the UK, Netherlands, and other NATO members began their own presence with the declared aim to install "security, stability and the rule of law."
This anniversary happens after last month saw a wave of resignations by senior Ministerial staff and frank debate across Parliaments in Europe, including in relation to the sudden and chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Airwars and Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC) urge the new ministers to take a frank look at the mistakes of their predecessors, and understand what could have been done differently. The public and political criticism surrounding the withdrawal of the United States and its allies from Afghanistan and the devastating humanitarian crisis unfolding in Afghanistan, sends a strong message about the urgent need for stronger approaches to civilian harm mitigation, transparency and accountability policies in future military operations.
We encourage the new ministers in the Netherlands and in the UK to learn about the risks to civilians caught in armed conflict in planning phases for any military operations, so they may work towards their protection. We also call on them to commit to improving transparency and accountability for civilian harm, including by consistently tracking, investigating, publicly acknowledging, and amending harm through compensation payments, apologies, and other offerings in accordance with victims' needs and preferences. We extend the same call to the United States and other NATO nations. This is especially important because the risk to civilians in Afghanistan is not unique. In fact, in the 20 years since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, we have seen risks to civilians multiply and deepen in many parts of the world. War is now increasingly fought in urban environments with long-lasting and lethal effects. NATO members, increasingly hesitant to deploy "boots on the ground," have relied instead on supporting local forces through air support – even when local partners may lack the capacity to protect civilians. And multiple countries have claimed the power to use force anywhere in the world, including outside recognized war zones and including through the use of armed drones, sometimes devastating civilian communities in the process.
As risks to civilians have increased, transparency and accountability for harm is diminishing. In Iraq and Syria, the UK still only admits one civilian death over the course of its operation, despite declaring thousands of UK airstrikes and despite Airwars' own assessment showing that at least 8,300 civilians have likely been killed by the US-led Coalition.
We urge all NATO nations to take heed of these past mistakes, which had devastating and continuing consequences on the lives of civilians. As Rt. Hon. Liz Truss starts as the new UK Foreign Secretary, and as the new Dutch Minister of Defence, Henk Kamp, and Foreign Minister, Ben Knapen, begin their tenure, we urge them to immediately take the following steps:
Recognise publicly and through a revision of doctrine, the imperative of civilian harm mitigation, transparency, and accountability in all aspects of defence and foreign affairs, including in their nations' own operations as well as "train, advise, and assist" missions.
Prioritise resourcing for the monitoring and tracking of civilian harm in current and future military deployments.
Commit to investigating, publicly recognizing, and amending legacy civilian harm from Afghanistan and other operations over the past 20 years, including by issuing compensation or solatia payments; and commit to applying these policies and practices in all future operations.
Adopt and implement clear policies for civilian harm tracking, mitigation and response through consultation with civil society experts, which are adequately resourced at all areas of deployment.
Incorporate open-source information from civil society, the media, and other external sources into civilian harm assessments and investigations.
Publish the specific date; location; munition type used; and nature of target for all weapon deployments in the anti-ISIS Coalition from 2014 to the present day and in all future operations.
Publish regular reports on civilian harm allegations from past and current missions.
Engage with conflict-affected civilians (including civil society groups and communities) on issues pertaining to civilian protection and civilian harm mitigation, both at the capital level and in countries of deployment. This includes the establishment of a regular dialogue with civil society, as well as establishing safe channels of communication with conflict-affected civilians to discuss protection concerns.
As part of all lessons learned processes around the war in Afghanistan, withdrawal, and evacuation, identify gaps in civilian harm mitigation as well as gaps in civil-military coordination that may have hampered the capacity of civil society and at-risk Afghans to access safe and secure air evacuation options.
CIVIC Statement on U.S. Drone Strike that Killed Civilians in Kabul, Afghanistan
NATO's New "Human Security" Umbrella: An Opportunity for Better Civilian Protection?
Dec-04-2019
Building Bridges, Reinforcing Protection: How NATO's Protection of Civilians Framework Influenced Ukraine's Approach


It's a no-brainer to say that your teeth are exceptionally strong. But despite the fact that your teeth may be strong, this does not mean at all that your teeth are exempted from damages. Your teeth can chip, crack and break, but what is more problematic is the fact that your teeth cannot grow back tissues which they have already lost. Luckily for you, modern dentistry has allowed individuals to seek treatments for their damaged teeth in the form of artificially constructed dental tissues made with either composite resin or porcelain.
What this material is is basically a mixture of glass and plastic and resembles the same natural color of teeth. The actual color can be dyed so as to fit the unique color of a person's teeth. Composite resin material can be used to reshape the appearance as well as color of teeth in order to make them look more aesthetically pleasing.
The primary advantage of composite resin is that it's cheaper compared to the second option, which is porcelain. This means that if you need your entire set of teeth to be treated, then you can realistically make this happen with the help of composite resin treatments. At the same time, composite resin is manipulated directly by the dentist and does not require fabrication. For this reason, composite resin treatments can be completed in an expedited manner compared to ones which involve the use of porcelain.
However, composite resin is not as stable as porcelain and is subject to chipping. At the same time, while the material is teeth-like in color, this does not mean that it resembles the natural translucency of teeth.
In ancient times, porcelain was made with clay which was cooked in kilns. However, in creating dental porcelain, there is a rather different method of creating this material. Also known as dental ceramic, porcelain is made with both metallic and non-metallic components. The resulting product is something which is hard, firm and is biocompatible with your teeth as well as the overall aesthetics.
The main advantage of porcelain crowns is the fact that it is extremely durable and will last longer compared to composite resin. At the same time, porcelain resembles more like natural teeth compared to composite resin and is impenetrable to stains.
On the other hand, the cost of porcelain is the main deterrent for getting this type of treatment. You need not worry about being able to afford the best care possible with Dr. Langdon. Contact our office to ask about your financial options for the care you need.


text:
Maria Mercè Marçal i Serra (13 November 1952 – 5 July 1998) was a Catalan poet, professor, writer and translator from Spain.

Biography
Marçal was born in Barcelona but spent her childhood in Ivars d'Urgell (Pla d'Urgell), which she considered her home. Her mother was Maria Serra, a woman who loved theater and songs, and her father was Antoni Marçal, who had to leave college for family reasons. She had a sister Magda.

She went to high-school in Lleida, at the Institut de Lleida, after receiving a scholarship. She then studied literature at the University of Barcelona, earning a degree in Classical Philology there. She went on to become a Professor of Catalan Language and Literature.

In 1972, Marçal married the poet Ramon Pinyol Balasch. They separated some time afterward.

In 1973, she was co-founder of the publishing house Llibres del Mall with her husband and another young Catalan poet, Xavier Bru de Sala.

In 1980, her daughter Heura was born, an experience that she transformed into tender poetry.

In 1992 she proposed the creation of Catalan Women Writers as part of the Catalan Centre for PEN.

She translated into Catalan works by both French and Russian writers: Colette, Marguerite Yourcenar, Anna Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetaeva, Baudelaire and Leonor Fini.

Marçal died in Barcelona in 1998 of cancer, aged 45.

Legacy

Marina Rossell, Teresa Rebull, Ramon Muntaner, Txiqui Berraondo, Maria del Mar Bonet, Celdoni Fonoll and Gisela Bellsolà have sung Marçal's poems.

Works

In 1976, Marçal's first book of poems Cau de llunes (winning the Carles Riba Prize), introduced by a splendid poetic sestina penned by Joan Brossa, includes the poem "Divisa," which is like a manifesto summarizing what guided her activism:To fate I am grateful for three gifts: having been born a woman,

of low class and oppressed nation.

And the turbid azure of being three times a rebel.

Selected Publications

Cau de llunes. Barcelona: Proa, 1977.
Bruixa de dol (1977–1979). Sant Boi de Llobregat: Llibres del Mall, 1979.
Terra de mai. Valencia: El cingle, 1982.
Sal oberta. Sant Boi de Llobregat: Llibres del Mall, 1982.
La germana, l'estrangera (1981–1984). Sant Boi de Llobregat: Llibres del Mall, 1985.
Contraclaror: antologia poètica, de Clementina Arderiu. Barcelona: La Sal, edicions de les dones, 1985.
Desglaç (1984–1988). Barcelona: Edicions 62 - Empúries, 1988.
Llengua abolida (1973–1988). Valencia: Climent, 1989.
La passió segons Renée Vivien. Barcelona: Proa, 1994.
Paisatge emergent: trenta poetes catalanes del S.XX. Barcelona: La Magrana, 1999.
Raó del cos. Barcelona: Edicions 62 - Empúries, 2000.
Contraban de llum: antologia poètica. Barcelona: Proa, 2001.
El meu amor sense casa (CD). Barcelona: Proa, 2003.

References

External links

 Maria-Mercè Marçal - Escriptors
 Fundació Maria-Mercè Marçal, in Catalan.

Poems: http://www.barcelonareview.com/46/c_mmm.htm

Spanish translators
Catalan-language writers
Translators to Catalan
1952 births
1998 deaths
Translators from Catalonia
Deaths from cancer in Spain
University of Barcelona alumni
20th-century translators
Spanish women poets
Women writers from Catalonia
20th-century Spanish poets
20th-century Spanish women writers
Spanish lesbian writers
Lesbian poets

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
KUBERT SCHOOL Enlists ERICA SCHULTZ
By Chris Arrant, Editor August 14, 2019 01:32pm ET
Erica Schultz
Credit: The Kubert School
Erica Schultz has signed on to teach classes at the Kubert School in the upcoming school year. Schultz will teach the "Story Adaptation" and "Writing and Imaginative Drawing" classes at the college's Dover, New Jersey campus.
"I'm incredibly excited to be working with the faculty and staff at the Kubert School," Schultz told Newsarama. "So many talented creators have come though those halls. I really appreciate the chance to work with up-and-coming creators and help to guide their careers. I'm also a little nervous, but I hope to live up to the legacy."
Schultz is best known for writing the 2018 Daredevil Annual for Marvel, and both Xena: Warrior Princess and Charmed for Dynamite. She has a Bachelor's Degree in Literature from the University of Hartford, and previously worked as an artist/animator for Continuity Studios.
Schultz plans to continue her role teaching lettering and production with Comics Experience.