Proposing to amend Section 4 of Article II, Section 20 of Article II, Section 31 of Article II, Section 19 of Article III, and Section 6 of Article IV of the Constitution of the State of Ohio and to enact Section 20a of Article II of the Constitution of the State of Ohio to establish the Public Office Compensation Commission.
4. No member of the general assembly shall, during the term of office for which hethe member was elected, unless during such term hethe member resigns therefrom, hold any public office under the United States, or this state, or a political subdivision thereof; but this provision does not extend to officers of a political party, notaries public, or officers of the militia or of the United States armed forces.
No member of the general assembly shall, during the term of office for which hethe member was elected, or for one year thereafter, be appointed to any public office under this state, which office was created or the compensation of which was increased, during the term of office for which hethe member was elected.
Section 20. The General Assembly, in cases not provided for in this constitution, shall fix the term of office of all officers and the compensation of all non-elected officers; but no change therein shall affect the salary of any non-elected officer duringhisthe officer's existing term of office, unless the office be abolished.
20a. (A) The Public Office Compensation Commission is created. The Commission consists of the following nine voting members: two members appointed by the Governor; two members appointed by the President of the Senate; two members appointed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives; one member appointed by the Minority Leader of the Senate; one member appointed by the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives; and one member appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The following are not eligible to be appointed as a member of the Commission: (1) an officer or employee of the state or a political subdivision of the state or a family member, as defined by law, of an officer or employee of the state or a political subdivision of the state; (2) an individual who, within twelve months before appointment, was a candidate for election to a public office in the state; or (3) an individual who engages during at least a portion of the individual's time to actively advocate legislation on behalf of another.
Terms of members of the Commission are for two years. Members may not serve more than four consecutive terms. The Commission chairperson shall be selected by majority vote of all members of the Commission. Members are not entitled to compensation, but shall be reimbursed for actual and necessary expenses incurred in the performance of Commission duties. A vacancy among the members of the Commission shall be filled in the manner prescribed for the original appointment.
(B)(1) The Public Office Compensation Commission shall meet each even-numbered year to review the current compensation of each elected public office in the state. The Commission shall consider such factors as are provided by law, including the amount of compensation paid to similarly skilled individuals in the private sector, the amount of compensation paid to individuals in comparable elected public offices in other states, and the current financial condition of and within Ohio. After completing its review, the Commission, by vote of at least five of its members, shall prepare a proposed compensation plan that sets forth the compensation of each elected public office in the state. The Commission shall prepare a report of its proposed compensation plan and shall present the proposed compensation plan and report at not less than three public hearings in the state in order to obtain public input regarding the proposed compensation plan. After conducting its public hearings, the Commission, by vote of at least five of its members, shall issue a final compensation plan that sets forth the compensation of each elected public office in the state. The Commission shall prepare a report of its final compensation plan not later than the last day of December in each even-numbered year.
(b) The percentage increase, if any, in the consumer price index, or a generally available comparable index, over the twelve-month period that ends on the thirtieth day of September of the immediately preceding year, rounded to the nearest one-tenth of one per cent.
(2) The compensation amounts set forth in the final compensation plan for each elected public office in the state take effect on the first day of July of the following odd-numbered year unless, before that day, the General Assembly, by a three-fifths vote of the members elected to each house, adopts a concurrent resolution rejecting one or more of the compensation amounts.
If the General Assembly rejects a final compensation plan or portion thereof, a member of the General Assembly is not entitled to an increase in compensation for the duration of the member's term of office.
(C) This section does not affect the compensation of a county officer elected under a county charter that has been adopted under Article X, Sections 3 and 4 of this constitution, or the compensation of an officer of a municipal corporation elected under the power of local self-government as exercised by a municipal corporation under Article XVIII, Sections 3 and 7 of this constitution.
Section 31. The members and officers of the General Assembly shall receive a fixed compensation, to be prescribed by law, and no other allowance or perquisites, either in the payment of postage or otherwise; and no change in their compensation shall take effect during their term of officeas provided for in Article II, Section 20a of this constitution.
Section 19. The officers mentioned in this article shall, at stated times, receive, for their services, a compensation to be established by law, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the period for which they shall have been electedas provided for in Article II, Section 20a of this constitution.
Section 6. (A)(1) The chief justice and the justices of the supreme court shall be elected by the electors of the state at large, for terms of not less than six years.
(3) The judges of the courts of common pleas and the divisions thereof shall be elected by the electors of the counties, districts, or, as may be provided by law, other subdivisions, in which their respective courts are located, for terms of not less than six years, and each judge of a court of common pleas or division thereof shall reside during histhe judge's term of office in the county, district, or subdivision in which histhe judge's court is located.
(B) The judges of the supreme court, courts of appeals, courts of common pleas, and divisions thereof, and of all courts of record established by law, shall, at stated times, receive, for their services such compensation as may be provided by law, which shall not be diminished during their term of officefor in Article II, Section 20a of this constitution. The compensation of all judges of the supreme court, except that of the chief justice, shall be the same. The compensation of all judges of the courts of appeals shall be the same. Common pleas judges and judges of divisions thereof, and judges of all courts of record established by law shall receive such compensation as may be provided by lawfor in Article II, Section 20a of this constitution. Judges shall receive no fees or perquisites, nor hold any other office of profit or trust, under the authority of this state, or of the United States. All votes for any judge, for any elective office, except a judicial office, under the authority of this state, given by the general assembly, or the people shall be void.
(C) No person shall be elected or appointed to any judicial office if on or before the day when hethe person shall assume the office and enter upon the discharge of its duties hethe person shall have attained the age of seventy years. Any voluntarily retired judge, or any judge who is retired under this section, may be assigned with histhe judge's consent, by the chief justice or acting chief justice of the supreme court to active duty as a judge and while so serving shall receive the established compensation for such office, computed upon a per diem basis, in addition to any retirement benefits to which hethe judge may be entitled. Laws may be passed providing retirement benefits for judges.
If adopted by a majority of the electors voting on this proposal, Section 4 of Article II, Section 20 of Article II, Section 31 of Article II, Section 19 of Article III, and Section 6 of Article IV of the Constitution of the State of Ohio as amended by this proposal and Section 20a of Article II of the Constitution of the State of Ohio shall take effect immediately and existing Section 4 of Article II, Section 20 of Article II, Section 31 of Article II, Section 19 of Article III, and Section 6 of Article IV of the Constitution of the State of Ohio are repealed effective immediately.
The Public Office Compensation Commission shall meet in 2015 to review the current compensation of each elected public office in the state. The Commission shall issue a proposed compensation plan and final compensation plan, and the accompanying reports, not later than December 31, 2015, in accordance with the process in Article II, Section 20a of the Constitution.
The compensation amounts set forth in the final compensation plan for each elected public office in the state shall take effect on July 1, 2016, unless, before that day, the General Assembly, by a three-fifths vote of the members elected to each house, adopts a concurrent resolution rejecting one or more of the compensation amounts.
Some of the proposed amendments to Ohio Constitution, Article II, Sections 4 and 20, and Article IV, Section 6, replace gender specific language with gender neutral language. These amendments are not intended to make substantive changes in the Ohio Constitution. The gender neutral language shall be interpreted as a restatement of, and substituted in a continuing way for, the corresponding gender specific language existing prior to adoption of the proposal.


text:
Dynamic load balancing for I/O- and memory-intensive workload in clusters using a feedback control mechanism
Xiao Qin, Hong Jiang, Yifeng Zhu, David R. Swanson
One common assumption of the existing models of load balancing is that the weights of resources and I/O buffer size are statically configured. Though the static configuration of these parameters performs well in a cluster where the workload can be predicted, its performance is poor in dynamic systems where the workload is unknown. In this paper, a new feedback control mechanism is proposed to improve the overall performance of a cluster with I/O-intensive and memory-intensive workload. The mechanism dynamically adjusts the resource weights as well as the I/O buffer size. Results from a trace-driven simulation show that this mechanism is effective in enhancing the performance of a number of existing load-balancing schemes.
Dynamic Load Balancing
Dynamic loads
Qin, X., Jiang, H., Zhu, Y., & Swanson, D. R. (2004). Dynamic load balancing for I/O- and memory-intensive workload in clusters using a feedback control mechanism. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), 2790, 224-229.
Dynamic load balancing for I/O- and memory-intensive workload in clusters using a feedback control mechanism. / Qin, Xiao; Jiang, Hong; Zhu, Yifeng; Swanson, David R.
In: Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), Vol. 2790, 01.12.2004, p. 224-229.
Qin, X, Jiang, H, Zhu, Y & Swanson, DR 2004, 'Dynamic load balancing for I/O- and memory-intensive workload in clusters using a feedback control mechanism', Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), vol. 2790, pp. 224-229.
Qin X, Jiang H, Zhu Y, Swanson DR. Dynamic load balancing for I/O- and memory-intensive workload in clusters using a feedback control mechanism. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics). 2004 Dec 1;2790:224-229.
Qin, Xiao ; Jiang, Hong ; Zhu, Yifeng ; Swanson, David R. / Dynamic load balancing for I/O- and memory-intensive workload in clusters using a feedback control mechanism. In: Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics). 2004 ; Vol. 2790. pp. 224-229.
@article{e83858d9c95e42b3b43489d95a15318a,
title = "Dynamic load balancing for I/O- and memory-intensive workload in clusters using a feedback control mechanism",
abstract = "One common assumption of the existing models of load balancing is that the weights of resources and I/O buffer size are statically configured. Though the static configuration of these parameters performs well in a cluster where the workload can be predicted, its performance is poor in dynamic systems where the workload is unknown. In this paper, a new feedback control mechanism is proposed to improve the overall performance of a cluster with I/O-intensive and memory-intensive workload. The mechanism dynamically adjusts the resource weights as well as the I/O buffer size. Results from a trace-driven simulation show that this mechanism is effective in enhancing the performance of a number of existing load-balancing schemes.",
author = "Xiao Qin and Hong Jiang and Yifeng Zhu and Swanson, {David R.}",
journal = "Lecture Notes in Computer Science",
T1 - Dynamic load balancing for I/O- and memory-intensive workload in clusters using a feedback control mechanism
AU - Qin, Xiao
AU - Jiang, Hong
AU - Zhu, Yifeng
AU - Swanson, David R.
N2 - One common assumption of the existing models of load balancing is that the weights of resources and I/O buffer size are statically configured. Though the static configuration of these parameters performs well in a cluster where the workload can be predicted, its performance is poor in dynamic systems where the workload is unknown. In this paper, a new feedback control mechanism is proposed to improve the overall performance of a cluster with I/O-intensive and memory-intensive workload. The mechanism dynamically adjusts the resource weights as well as the I/O buffer size. Results from a trace-driven simulation show that this mechanism is effective in enhancing the performance of a number of existing load-balancing schemes.
AB - One common assumption of the existing models of load balancing is that the weights of resources and I/O buffer size are statically configured. Though the static configuration of these parameters performs well in a cluster where the workload can be predicted, its performance is poor in dynamic systems where the workload is unknown. In this paper, a new feedback control mechanism is proposed to improve the overall performance of a cluster with I/O-intensive and memory-intensive workload. The mechanism dynamically adjusts the resource weights as well as the I/O buffer size. Results from a trace-driven simulation show that this mechanism is effective in enhancing the performance of a number of existing load-balancing schemes.
JO - Lecture Notes in Computer Science
JF - Lecture Notes in Computer Science

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The Genus GVCSMK video shoulder mount is a modular and adaptable support system designed with the new generation of large sensor video cameras in mind. The modular design of the components in this system allow you to quickly build up or strip down your rig to suit.
By utilising industry standard 15 mm rods the shoulder mount ensures compatibility with other acces-sories. You can accessorise your rig with the easy attachment of matte boxes, follow focuses and moni-toring solutions. It is a perfect match to the ever expanding range of Genus accessories.
Made of CNCed aviation grade aluminium makes the rig both strong and light weight. The rod height can be varied by changing the orientation and fixing point of the rod support bracket. The modular component design of the rig allows for easy break down, and convenient transportation. The non slip foam grips are easily adjustable, allowing you to change them, to the right position for you. The Genus video shoulder mount rig is available in as a complete kit or as individual components.
The modularity of the rig makes it simple to add more components. Designed with ergonomics in mind, as your shooting style evolves so can your Genus system. The adjustable shoulder pad and counter weight allow you to configure the rig to maximise comfort and balance. The Genus Video shoulder mount opens the world of endless possibilities and can be easily configured to your shooting style.


How to reinforce multi-stakeholder collaboration and bring key resilience partners together, including the private sector, the insurance industry, climate scientists, and community leaders.
The sessions addressed emerging links between urban resilience and resource efficiency/circular economy pathways and explored the growing challenges of Big Data and digitalization for cities and regions. Participants also shared best practices for ensuring resilient food systems, enhancing social cohesion, and citizen participation in resilience-building efforts.
Many of the world's vital natural ecosystems, and the communities reliant on them, are vulnerable to climate change, yet ecosystems themselves can form a strong line of defense against the direct impacts of climate change. This paper argues that nature-based solutions are a key tool for meeting global goals on climate change and sustainable development.
The Fifth Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the most up-to-date, comprehensive and relevant analysis of our changing climate.


The Ananda Yoga Centre is the first dedicated Hatha Yoga Centre, based in the heart of Latchford Village in Warrington, Cheshire. We offer Hatha and Restorative Yoga classes and workshops alongside holistic treatments. It is intended to provide everyone a chance to experience this wonderful, peaceful practice in a warm, comfortable and sacred space. We welcome people of all ages and experience to come and feel the benefits of yoga practice to their every day life.
Yoga may be understood to be a set of behaviours that develop a holistic experience of the body, heart, mind and spirit. It is a process of fully inhabiting life and oneself in a radically engaging and inquisitive way. Through this wonderful ancient practice, we can develop a healthy capacity to literally take up residence in our bodies and minds, which can then lead us into simple presence. Presence is a quality of being that is open and aware. This body minded presence serves as the ground for compassion and wisdom to emerge within us.
Although there are many branches of yoga, the philosophy can be defined as a joining or yoking of many seemingly opposing layers of our being. When you experience everything as a oneness in your consciousness, then you are in yoga. To attain the unity within, you work with the body then move to the breath, then to the mind and then to the inner self.
Living a life of Yoga will make you Happy!
You can contact Barbara at the Ananda Yoga Centre using our contact page here.


You'll laugh until you cry, emphasis on cry.
If we weren't all parents here, this would be too disgusting to write about. But we are all parents … and it's still almost too disgusting.
So you've probably heard of a baby poo-splosion. You pretty much haven't earned your stripes as a parent unless you've had to peel your baby out of a poo-covered onesie, trying your best not to wipe liquidy faeces into her hair or face.
And you've also heard of women pooing during labour. Maybe you were even lucky enough to do one yourself. If you did, it's a moment you and your partner never speak of.
Put your embarrassment away because Issy Fox has upstaged us all with her poo-splosion during labour.
Remember what we said about this story being too disgusting? Yep.
Issy was in labour when she had what is probably the most embarrassing few hours of her life.
The midwives politely laughed and ignored it. It's probably one of the perks of the job.
Unfortunately her husband Luke was at the business end of the operation and saw every last poo. So after his baby was born, he took a good look and then poked his eyes out with a fork.
Just kidding. He only wanted to do that.
How could it get worse, you might wonder? You'll regret your curiosity with this next bit.
"I began pushing and pooing. The baby was still not budging and was back to back so I needed forceps," she said.
"The insertion of the forceps was probably the one time I didn't think I'd be able to handle the pain but I got through it and pushed with everything I had.
"I tore and exploded poo, womb stuff and blood all over the doctor, walls and floor.
Her baby was born healthy and well, if a bit icky.
"My baby landed on top of me covered in gunk and opened his little eyes and looked at me," she said.
"He was covered in my poo, his poo and god knows what else.
Why she's choosing to talk about it in public, who knows, but thanks for painting such a graphic picture of your experience Issy. We'll just be over here curled up in a ball crying.


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Q: Advanced DataGridView DateTime Filter In my win form application I have used 'Advanced DataGridView'. For filter string columns it is working good but when i filter Datetime column the grid view becomes empty.
When i did debug it, i came to known that it is getting only dates and not dateTime from the column i.e
([Date_Time] IN ('11/04/2017', '12/04/2017', '13/04/2017'))

and this is the reason why my grid view become empty because there is no row with only date.
here is my code for 'Change filterString' event
Me.crossMatchBindingSource.Filter = dgvCrossMatchDetails.FilterString

So, my question is how can i include time in the filter.

A: I believe you are trying to bind a grid view to a data source, which uses SQL to extract data from the databases.  I believe you can just amend your SQL as follows:
([Date_Time] between ('11/04/2017' and '14/04/2017'))

This should cater for times as well as dates.

A: You should just go to DataGridView properties and set "DateWithTime" to "True".
Then you are able to filter by Date and Time now.

A: Please correct me if i m wrong. whoever created AdvancedDataGrid, the code he/she wrote to filter can only filter the date and not the datetime. So i should split my datetime in two columns then i will be able to filter my dates. Actually i have done it and it is working perfectly but time column shows every record separately like text in the filter and not making grope of hours and minutes as excel does.

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Bedrock Art Editions
Lithography, Woodcut, Monotype
Ouroboros Shredder, 2017, speaking to the greek mythological concept of the cyclical nature of life and death, depicts the entire span of the printmaking processes of: drawn image (matrix), printing/editioning, and destroying the matrix into one narrative.
Ouroboros Shredder
Ouroboros Shredder, 2017
Andrzej Zielinski
b. U.S. 1976
Folded lithograph with registration pins
24″ x 30 5/8″ irregular
The front and back sides of Ouroboros Shredder, unfolded
Depicted below in sequence, each step of the slitting, folding, and assembling of Ourobors Shredder.
Shop notes:
One of the most interesting and challenging aspects of collaborating with an artist is finding continuity in conjunction with the many mediums they work in. In a perfect world, I'd like prints to be as recognizable and impactful as their paintings, drawings, sculpture, installations, etc…… I like a dialog between mediums.
In the case of Andrzej Zielinski, I've been taken with his work for years. The experience of standing in front of his paintings or sculpture remains for me, an experience which takes words and leaves them irrelevant and flaccid. In my experience great creations speak for themselves, and speak also, to their predecessors. Such were my aspirations as Andrzej and I began our dialog about what to do for his upcoming lithograph.
The evening we met to discuss concepts for his print, the studio felt small, as if trying to contain the many ideas Andrzej brought to the table. Ideas were leveraged, but we narrowed them down to a folded print, structurally similar to a few steel sculptures Andrzej was working on at the time.
The concept was electrifying and frightening, and a bit abstract, in that Andrzej's concept differed from any other folded print I've seen or read about.
Which is something that will clarify itself as you read on.
I set Andrzej up with several large sheets of newsprint to work out the basic structure with. To my surprise, forty five minutes later, he'd pulled together the basic form, giving us something to look at and talk about. This first mock up seemed solid enough to create the next generation, a version folded out of the largest printing sheet I have available, which we taped in place, and had Andrzej watercolor to get a sense of how color might be approached, as well as what the construction of the print might require. From this, details poured forth.
Andrzej making adjustments to the mockup
Realization #1: The method of using a continuous sheet of paper, slit in seven places and folded in 18 locations, such that it comes together to make an illusion of a singular object/print, would necessitate printing both the front and back of the largest printing sheet I have available.
Realization #2: The body of the shredder is a horse-shoe shape around which brushstrokes travel fluidly, as thorough painted on top of the shredder. The back ground is the same, drawn lines traveling across the body of the background and through folds, giving the illusion of uninterrupted drawn lines. HOWEVER, the reality of how the drawn and painted elements would need to exist once printed, would look like random geometry spread across the surface of the paper, both front and back, until all the elements are folded together. The basic concept around the creation of the piece is as such: shapes made of brush strokes and drawn lines, printed front and back on a sheet of paper, and folded together to make an illusion of an uninterrupted painting/drawing/object. And one that is not flat, but dimensional.
Realization #3: The nature of printing font and back of the paper, directly correlates to the doubling of all materials……. for every color there would need to be two plates, and twice as much ink. AND, in order to work as a folded whole, the inking/printing of the front of the sheet of paper would have to be exact to the inking of the back…… shift in printing style, ink modification, or color value would break the illusion and leave the print looking like a disparate mess of shapes.
It became obvious that this was a spacial puzzle of mind-bending proportions.
How would I take Andrzej's brushstrokes and drawn lines, and pull them apart onto plates, such that they would print and then fold back together again in uninterrupted, fluid marks? Certainly there had to be a solution, but initially, I couldn't see what it was.
As with most puzzles, banging your head against the wall by over-thinking never works. Which is why many artists have unfinished works around the studio, when moments of fresh seeing or unconscious dialogs can slip in naturally, showing the way forward. In that manner, days later I was taking a run, when entirely of its own accord, the solution came flashing to mind, leaving me dashing for a paper and pencil. The following days in the studio proceeded with making a system, deconstructing it, and using that deconstruction to make a new system, which was then used in the making of a jig, which made a new system, etc. until the train of logic had been followed all the way to its end, leaving, hopefully, a way that I could create Andrzej's plates, slit and fold the finished prints, and have each one come together in the same manner in the end. A repeatable method. I hoped.
Now it was time to involve Andrzej. The nerves set in.
With untested system in place, Andrzej came in to the studio, and in the course of a morning painted and drew up all of his mylars. They were beautiful, which only exacerbated the reality of what was to come, as, each would need to be cut into pieces, placed perfectly onto a jig I'd made up, and transferred to a new piece of Mylar in exact locations, all to be exposed to photographic litho plates.
Any shift, any error in cutting or placing, any unthought of occurrences, and each of the 14 printing plates, and all the time it takes to expose and ready them for printing, weeks of work and money invested in materials and time, would be trash.
To cap it all, I'd no way of knowing until every plate was made, all the inks were mixed, and a proof printed, slit, and folded, if this project was a fools errand, or something unique and beautiful. The only way through was in the doing of the thing.
Cut up mylar on jig
Cutting Andrzej's drawn and painted mylars apart, and placing them into their locations with the jig was a bit what I would imagine surgery to be like. One had to be calm and deliberate through all the double-jointed swear worthy machinations of razor blade and tape. The week and a half it took to complete this process, left me feeling each day a little more depleted, and a little more desperate to know how this would go. But there were more surprises ahead.
Plate with hand marks on it
Having assembled and readied each of the mylars, I began the process of exposure. And in doing so, found out that the vacuum seal on my exposure unit (which is new to me), drops out on the last two inches of the right and left sides of plates of this size, yielding a fuzzy, unfocused image. Not acceptable. The solution. Don dark shades and place my body into the booth with the exposure unit, placing the printing plate on top of the glass of the exposure unit, plexiglass on top of that, starting the exposure, and holding the plex down tight to the plate, thus taking the UV rays streaming forth from the bulb. Not smart. But what could I do? Each of those plates were left with large hand marks where I held the plex down which later needed deleting from the plates::::: I got a pretty nice tan to boot, and a "sunburn" on my head.
Preparations finished, the printing of the first proof was a blur. It felt as though none of the details a printer normally concerns themselves with mattered. I just wanted to get to the end, and get the thing slit and folded, and see if it really worked.
I've never, ever, experienced pressure like this as a printer. Nor felt such intense desire for something to work. It needed to work. It had to work!
Proofing finished, once my assistant had gone home, I took the wet print immediately to my folding jig and began the hour of slitting and carefully folding. Holding my breath, dying with anticipation, hands shaking, and feeling slightly nauseous, it came together.
IT. CAME. TOGETHER. Beautifully. Slumping into a chair I very nearly cried with relief.
Even so, this first proof was still a shipwreck of colors. No harmonizing, and the shredded paper portion of the print was not working at all. Thus into the rounds and months of proofing we went, dialing in color, shifting the order of printing of plates, and reconsidering how the shredded paper would finds its resolution. Three more proofs, many considerations, and a helpful critique with artist and historic ULAE printer Zigmunds Priede later, we got honest that the shredded paper was not speaking with the rest of the print.
Andrzej organizing the plates to be photographed and incorporated into the composition.
Andrzej folding the freshly printed pink "printing plates," now being shredded.
In the midst of this deliberation, Andrzej took notice of the printing plates stacked in a line on one of the studio tables. He liked the sculptural feel of the layered plates with registration pins at the end of each plate. He liked the labeling nomenclature written in my chicken scratch at the top of each plate. The decision was made to have the plates photographed, and exposed to a new plate to be used in the image itself. Now, going into the last and final proof, Andrzej brought full circle the concept of the Ouroboros Shredder: A paper shredder printed lithographically, slit and folded together out of a continuous sheet of printing paper (no parts cut off or apart at all), shredding a print of the plates, from whence it was printed. The snake eating its own tail.
The Ouroboros Shredder had been born, complete with the inclusion of four registration pins inside the punch holes of the paper. The same pins used for the printing of the edition.
As I had come to understand about this print, from beginning to end, even the preparation for edition printing was going to have its unusual demands. It was Andrzej's desire that literally NO part of the paper be cut off, so each printing sheet needed to be fastened with card stock extensions which are punched, allowing the print to be registered; but again, leaving another new system to create so that each was fastened in exactly the same location as all the others. Also true to this print, no decision came without its consequences. Soon into edition printing, I found that the difference in width of the thicker card stock to the thinner printing paper meant that as the scraper bar of the press (which applies pressure to the paper) traveled off of the cardstock and onto the paper, it cracked the thin plastic of the tympan. Two tympans were ruined before I made the switch to a thick 1/8″ tympan sheet which was heavy and unwieldy to use, and, gave a whole different set of considerations when setting the press pressure for each color plate.
Edition printing
Lockstep with the entire process, each color run in the printing of the edition had its own say in how the printing would progress. Some required that the press be set to a tenuously slow speed, so as not to create odd textures in the ink films. Other runs required us to strip back the thicker mass of new ink with newsprint, so that two layers would harmonize better together. A few plates needed three sizes of rollers. Most notable was the pink run, as in order to avoid the unforgivable look of a rippled ink film called "push", I had to smooth each impression upward against an elevated tympan, holding it extremely tight and still, a process requiring both hands and a shoulder, and rendering me immobile to press the button to make the press go.
Mel, my press assistant would slick the plate one last time with a thin film of water then sprint all the way around the press to push the button for me. Comedy gold!
None the less, having run the gauntlet of creating a method to bring this print together, along with the unusual demands of printing each impression, I felt as though I had traveled a long journey through a very strange and unstable land. That I had stepped through a of door of experience which would forever influence how I look at the creation of prints.
Exhausted, fulfilled, still in disbelief, I poured my assistant and I a glass of whiskey and we clinked glasses, drank, shook our heads, and smiling went about the process of cleaning up.
The fourteen Ouroboros Shredders lay waiting to be folded.
In retrospect, I've come to realize that I have been given a great gift in having the opportunity to collaborate with Andrzej Zielinski, and his Machiavellian, kamikaze approach to art-making.
Both in concept and in form, this lithographic paper sculpture called the "Ouroboros Shredder" represents not only a turning point in how Andrzej approaches works on paper, but how I will consider more carefully what I had previously thought impossible.
And further compels me to understand what possibilities lie ahead, particularly relevant to future projects with Andrzej.
Artist's Statement:
Ouroboros Shredder, 2017, speaking to the Greek mythological concept of the cyclical nature of life and death, depicts the entire span of the printmaking processes of: drawn image (matrix), printing/editioning, and destroying the matrix into one narrative. This lithograph is printed onto one sheet of 31″ x 47″ printmaking paper, slit in seven locations, and folded together eighteen times in an uninterrupted fashion à la the Japanese art of kirigami, which is a variation of origami that includes cutting of the paper. No parts of the paper are cut off or apart, even to the inclusion of the registration punch holes, normally torn off during the curatorial process. However, one distinction to note, origami and kirigami both follow a system in which the folds and cuts make a sculptural object, while in Ouroboros Shredder the folding makes both the object (shredder) and the space it occupies (background). It therefore determines itself in relation to its surroundings, and vice versa, in a self-sufficient manner that is indicative of the Ouroboros concept.Ouroboros — which is typically depicted as a serpent eating its own tail — has no waste and constantly renews itself. In this manner, underlying Ouroboros Shredder lay critical issues facing our own management of resources and the cyclical nature of sustainability.— Andrzej Zielinski, 2017
© 2023 · Aaron Shipps · 816-492-9603
2024 Broadway St., Kansas City, Missouri 64108


text:
btc $38458 -9.56% eth $2791.65 -12.57% usdt $0.999316 -0.23% bnb $416.29 -11.03% usdc $1 -0.12% ada $1.19 -13.93% sol $118.56 -15.44% xrp $0.678507 -9.71% luna $72.71 -12.71% dot $21.7 -13.04% doge $0.15157 -8.92% AVAX $72.4 -16.14% busd $0.994904 -0.84% shib $2.475E-5 -12.05% matic $1.83 -13.7%
Technology News Report
$2.3M in BTC Seized by US DOJ From Colonial Pipeline Ransomware Attack
8 June 2021, 07:19 GMT+0000
Updated by Kyle Baird
The United States Department of Justice recovers 63.7 BTC from hackers.
DarkSide was the hacker group behind the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack.
Colonial Pipeline was attacked in early May 2021.
The U.S. Department of Justice has recovered $2.3 million in bitcoin from the DarkSide ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline infrastructure.
The United States Department of Justice (DoJ) has announced that it has recovered 63.7 BTC, about $2.3 million, from the recent ransomware extortion targeting the Colonial Pipeline. This represents some of the ransom that the group demanded. The notice states that the law enforcement was able to track the transfers to a specific address, to which the FBI had the private key.
Hacking group DarkSide targeted the Colonial Pipeline infrastructure with ransomware, putting critical services out of operation. The news immediately stirred concerns about cybersecurity and the use of cryptocurrencies in asking for ransom.
The Ransomware and Digital Extortion Task Force coordinated its efforts with other agencies to recover the assets. This law enforcement division was created to combat the growing number of ransomware and digital extortion attacks.
The Colonial Pipeline was attacked in early May 2021, and the group asked for a ransom of $5 million. Initially, the firm that owns the pipeline said that it would not pay the ransom. However, it changed its tack after no other solutions could be found. The U.S. recommends not meeting ransom demands, but officials of the company were forced to go through with it after it began seriously affecting operations.
The payment was made only hours after the attack. The DarkSide group is believed to be located in Russia or Eastern Europe and has carried out other attacks in the past. Experts believe that the group stepped on the wrong toes, not expecting such a swift and threatening response from the U.S. government.
DarkSide has an odd reputation in the cybersecurity world. It has said that it aims to make the world a better place and has even donated ransoms to charities around the world in the past.
Biden to address ransomware issue at G7 summit
The U.S. government is currently stepping up its regulatory efforts as cryptocurrencies become more prevalent in mainstream society. Besides cybersecurity threats paid in crypto, the issues of money laundering, taxation, transaction traceability, and investor protection all stand as major worries.
Some headlines have been floating that President Joe Biden will bring up the matter of cryptocurrencies at the upcoming G7 summit. Biden's National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, speaking to reporters at The White House, said that ransomware attacks related to critical infrastructure is going to be a priority.
Other individuals in key governmental positions are also looking into how to regulate the asset class, including SEC Chairman Gary Gensler and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. On the plus side, this brings more regulatory clarity, but investors are wary that there could also be some tough restrictions.
Technology Sponsored
Privacy Coins: A BlackHat Project
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NFTS Are Escaping the Metaverse – Bringing Tokens to Reality
Markets Opinion
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High Seas and NFTS — Crypto Is Making Waves


On the whole, I'm not someone who fills out magazine quizzes and questionaires designed to provide glib psychological profiles. These kind of things, far from being validated job recruitment tools, are closer to horoscopes. They paint in a broad brushstrokes. Beyond confirming that you are not an axe-wielding psychopath any more than the imminent tall dark stranger, so popular with horoscope writers. Although they fall short of telling me that it is the age of Aquarius, or that Jupiter is aligned with Mars, their credibility is on a par with these astrological cliches. I don't want to labour the point, but it's a short step from here to the divination of character by ink blots, tea leaves or chicken entrails. And one could argue a case for the chicken guts because you would at least have a decent casserole at the end of the day of interviewing.
Anyway, against my better judgement, I completed one of these pieces of cappuccino psychobabble, brought to my attention by Facebook. Twenty multiple choice questions and the questionnaire would spit out a two word stereotype.
It will surprise nobody to learn that I am a "Dreamy Idealist". The report put flesh on these bones with the reassurance that this was "one of the introverted personality types".
In an effort to further expand the stereotype, I learned that I "prefer a quiet work environment, free from repeated distractions". So the circus clowns, wild animals and dancing girls who would normally fill my home office have to go then?
Apparently, the report goes on, I am "grateful for a certain measure of order and structure" and my "capability to concentrate is unusually great", which seems to stand at odds with my need for a quiet work environment. If my concentration is that brilliant, couldn't the dancing girls stay?
I am apparently a man of paradoxes. I need peace and solitude yet also enjoy working together with others. Come on guys -- pick one. Either I am a misanthropic loner or a happy-go-lucky team player. But then Mr Happy-Go-Lucky would not "take critique and negative feedback very personally". That response would sit more naturally with Mr Misanthropic Loner, plugging bullets into the clip of an AK-47.
It also turns out that I "enjoy the opportunity for exchanges with other people". Exchanges as in exchanges of fire perhaps? And apparently my notion of teamwork is "a few hand picked colleagues who truly move on your wavelength". This sounds less like an ideal office environment than the formula for a terrorist cell. My suspicions are further raised in line or two later when the report concludes that "It is best when you share the same high ideals and important objectives and together can fight for the same good cause". Maybe it's just me but there is something about the combination of high ideals and social misfits that makes me uneasy.
Yet amazingly, and despite the many glaring paradoxes, this is the kind of profile that companies increasingly use to try and match applicants to jobs. And for that matter, it is intended also to provide the profilee with some indication of those employment options to which they are best suited. Adrenaline fuelled, power crazed yuppies are likely to make poor librarians for instance. And so on. But it's hardly an exact science -- or science at all really. You might as well use ink blots.
Thinking of ink blots takes me back 40 years to my school and, at that time a fairly decent traditional boys boarding school education. Unfortunately, tradition still substituted for intelligent career guidance. For generations, a third of the sixth form each year had gone to Oxford or Cambridge, another third to "other" universities and the remainder were mopped up by Sandhurst. In the face of this rigid progression, careers advice at my school was predictably lamentable.
My best subjects were languages. The careers master suggested employment in the Foreign Office would be appropriate. Sensing my disinterest, he volunteered, with a note of weary resignation, that there ws always teaching. Even with my detailed psychological profile at his disposal, I doubt if he would have come up with anything more intelligent in the way of advice. In some way I had to be made to pay for decades of his own thwarted ambitions.
I looked him square in the eye and told him I was going to be a scientist.


I think there is no more quintessentially 'summer' fruit than a peach. At least in our area, the arrival of peaches signal summer's heyday. We are fortunate to have superb peaches from the Western Slope of the Rocky Mountains, grown in the same area responsible for the vineyards feeding Colorado's wine industry. The 'Palisade Peaches' are large and firm delivering an irresistible nectar. They remind us the end of summer is near but frankly everyone is gobbling up so many delicious peaches, the blow is lessened!
I love ice cream but have found myself craving more sorbet this summer. A quick primer on ice cream and sorbet: ice cream is made with dairy cream where sorbet is a water or juice based frozen treat with fruit being at the center of the flavor. I find ice cream often makes me thirsty, where sorbet delivers the intense flavor of fruit in a thirst-quenching form.
While in Paris on our summer vacation I found myself picking up kitchen items as souvenirs. There was a particular store I sought out that makes darling plastic spoons. I use them often (they can be spotted in many Boulder Locavore recipe photos) and could not wait to stock up. When in the store it was almost too much to take as I wanted to buy almost everything. Knowing we were traveling light, and worried over bringing home breakable items I limited myself to a few small bowls including two which were a beautiful blue color in which I knew I'd have to serve Peach Sorbet. The inspiration for new recipes is often unpredictable!
When returning home peach season was in full swing. Our CSA farm fruit share was pounds of peaches and we have been taking trips almost daily to stock up at our favorite grocery store. Never satisfied with the status quo, I added some Lemon Thyme from our garden to the simple syrup mixture for the sorbet as well as a bit of Bourbon. The alcohol from the bourbon evaporates leaving a touch of bourbon flavor which I love with peaches (though should you prefer to omit it, additional water may be used in its place). The sorbet is a wonderful mix of peach, light citrus (from the lemon thyme and lime juice) and hint of bourbon flavors! I can't think of a better homage to summer's heat.
Nothing screams summer louder than the flavor of juicy, ripe peaches. This sorbet recipe celebrates peaches with some added citrus, thyme and bourbon flavors making for an irresistible dessert. The alcohol from the bourbon evaporates leaving only the flavor however should you wish to omit that, substitute water for the amount of bourbon.
In a medium saucepan, combine the water, bourbon, lemon thyme, lime juice and sugar. Bring to a boil, stirring often, to allow the sugar to fully dissolve. Turn off the heat and allow to steep for 1 hour.
Place peaches in a blender. Strain the sugar mixture into the blender. Blend into a puree.
Cover and place into the refrigerator until fully cooled (aproximately 1 hour). Process in an ice cream maker to manufacturer's instructions or see notes below to freeze without an ice cream maker.
To Freeze without a Machine: Place sorbet in a shallow freezer-proof pan. Allow to almost freeze fully (1 to 1 1/2 hours), and stir the mixture completely. Repeat the freeze/stir process a two more time times to ensure a consistent texture (this breaks up ice crystallization).
What an awesome flavour combination for a sorbet… looks so refreshing and light. Totally will be recreating the recipe for the upcoming Summer here in Australia. Pinned!
I guess that is one advantage of cyberspace Thalia, you can cruise all the seasonal recipes from the US to prepare for your next season! I love this sorbet. It really tastes like the fruit with tones of the herbs and bourbon flavors. So you have peaches in Australia? What is your big summer fruit you look forward to?
This looks so refreshing and delicious! I love sorbet and peaches, so this is my kind of dessert…thanks for sharing!
Oh I'm so glad Jodee! I've really been loving sorbet this summer. Especially making it at home with fruit at their peak of ripeness.
Gorgeous and love that you're still using the delicious summer peaches. I can't eat them quick enough to get my fill before they're gone!
Having been traveling Gina I feel like I got home for the start and the end of the season within about two weeks! No complaints though. Doing my best to eat them all before fall fully arrives.
Please tell me where I can get those spoons!
Paris! It's a long way for some spoons but worth the trip!
Thanks for the reply! Sometimes you just HAVE to go to Paris!
What a creative recipe! I have been loving all of the fruit + herb combos I have been seeing lately. Thyme + peach sounds uniquely delicious.
everything about this recipe makes me happy. I love the combinations of sweet and savory, and the addition of bourbon!
I'm so glad Janelle and I feel the same!
What a fun flavor combo! Perfect for these last days of summer.
Even though September feels like a fall month, I'm stretching out summer a bit with this sorbet. Having a little bowl each day until it's gone. Then it can be fall!
I am loving this recipe. We get amazing peaches here in Georgia. What a great way to use them and I love the thyme. Our thyme survived a very rough winter and I'm happy to find new ways to use it.
I was just putting in a cold weather fall garden this weekend (after not having time to do one for summer!) and put in some more thyme. Lemon thyme is really my all time favorite herb I think. More and more I'm enjoying putting thyme into sweet dishes to make the flavors a bit more sophisticated. You can't go wrong with thyme!


text:
Reading Medbh McGuckian during Lockdown by Rosanne Gallenne
by admin August 10, 2020 August 11, 2020 1 Comment on Reading Medbh McGuckian during Lockdown by Rosanne Gallenneessay
Back in March, before I left UCD and Dublin for a two-week stay with my partner, I met my supervisor with whom I agreed on writing a paper on McGuckian's poetry while I was away. Although the situation in Germany and particularly in Italy looked already quite grim, my reaction was like most people's at the time – one of denial – and I was sure I would soon be back to hand my work in and move on to the next stage. So, on March 6th, I took an early flight to Toulouse with mixed feelings about the situation but still trying to ignore all the signals that predicted the crisis to come.
I immediately settled; I loved getting lost in the winding streets of the old Toulouse, found a favourite bookshop, visited the food markets, cafés and boulangeries I miss so much when I am in Ireland, and enjoyed the long hours of work in the Library of Studies and Heritage where my research was progressing faster than I expected. However, the situation in France and Ireland started changing as public places progressively shut in both countries. In France, though, things evolved much faster; not even a week after my arrival, I had to send for essential things I had left behind and packed what I had brought with me to get on the road driving up North to my parents', right after the government announced the quarantine.
Week 2 was spent on hours of waiting for more information from UCD, learning about the online teaching tools, emailing worried students back and forth, but also trying to get my head around my own research while working on other collective projects. Although it was not an easy time, I was in a privileged position: I was living in a house with a garden, near the sea, was quarantined with a supportive partner, his family (and, most importantly, their cat), and could get in touch with my own family whenever I wanted to. However, within less than two weeks I had moved places twice, had to accept that I could not see my colleagues and my friends before a while and realised that I would not be back in Dublin before September at best. And even if the online teaching allowed me to maintain a contact with my students , leaving UCD so soon and so unexpectedly left a taste of unfinished business.
One of the (few) upsides of doing a non-funded research project in the Arts and Humanities is that at least we get to choose a topic we ( are supposed to) like, which can bring some comfort despite the pressure we experience. In that, I feel particularly lucky: until the pandemic, poetry had always been a sort of refuge and doing a PhD in poetry was the logical continuity to my studies. Researching women poets in Ireland also sharpened my critical approach to poetry and to other matters as well. More recently, the addition of a comparative study on women's poetry in France and Ireland to my "Research To-Do List" established a reassuring bridge between the two countries I live in. And despite the precarity of the comings and goings between France and Ireland, I felt that I had found a stable home in poetry.
Initially, working on Medbh McGuckian 's collections while being away from Ireland was a pleasing prospect as, in a way, I was keeping a foot in the country where I was not. Also, McGuckian's particularly intricate poetry was an exciting challenge . Another aspect I appreciate in her work is the resonance it can have in other cultures. In fact, even if she is often presented like the Northern Irish woman poet, only a few of her collections are openly set in the Norther n Irish context. On the contrary, the multi-layeredness of her poetry offer s multiple possibilities of interpretation and allows her to reach well beyond the boundaries implied by this sort of tagging, which is interesting to explore as it shows that gendered prejudices (simplicity, "feminine" topics revolving around the domestic sphere…) are still very present. However, one of the consequences of this idea of multiplicity that defines Medbh McGuckian's poetry is that it is difficult, if not impossible, to get a sense of security or stability from it. And in the context of a global pandemic that induced many changes in a very short spa n of time, researching McGuckian's poems was suddenly too much. For some time, I thought I could not read poetry anymore. And as supportive an d empathetic the persons around me were, they had their own problems and could not really understand mine. So, I would rather keep quiet than trying t o express things I could not even articulate myself.
For a couple of weeks, I read, re-read and annotated a long list of poems. I could read a poem one day and be certain of my notes and my selections, but the following day I would get something else or something completely different from i t. I seriously questioned my research and academic skills, as well as my sanity. Over the course of these weeks, we were also drowning in sometimes contradictory information, and this clash of perspectives resonated a lot wit h what I was trying to do with my academic work. I was in touch with friend s who were experiencing the same thing, and we finally ended up putting words onto how we were feeling: anxiety, creative blank, sometimes incapability of reading anything, and an ever-present sense of guilt. In the meanwhile , the French media adopted a more stable perspective on the COVID-19 and new gurus started to impose their vision of the crisis and how to deal with i t. The repetition seemed to be working as around me people of usually different political sensibilities slowly integrated new words into their daily vocabulary.
Spending so much time outside my "home" country made me realise how much French people are naturally suspicious of any kind of consensus, and the fact that more and more people use the same words every day and do not seem to question this uniformity of speech makes me very uncomfortable. It also used to make me feel even more guilty as I thought I did not have the right to complain about my situation as in comparison with other people I was in a privileged position. Paradoxically, this uniformity of thoughts made me reconnect with McGuckian's poetry, after weeks of oscillation between silent anger and impromptu snaps of temper, as I realised how important her constant shifts of perspective and contradictions are. Indeed, after having spent some time working on her poetry, I believe that what Medbh McGuckian's work shows us is that it is normal for individuals to change their minds, to have doubts and to express them. It is also vital to question and interpret what we are told, otherwise we would jus t blindly accept anything, even if it restricts our rights, as we saw and s till can see with different governments' decisions about the crisis .
Unsurprisingly, most experts that are interviewed are reasonable" men who have a very managerial approach to the virus . Their expertise and confident attitude impose respect and grant them authority when they talk about matters such as the nation's security" or people's necessary "resilience ". McGuckian's poetry once again is relevant in this context as it shows the perverted effects of reason as it always gives power back to the same people. It consequently legitimises the marginalising of the same minorities who are considered too emotional to be listened to, and whose knowledge is overtly questioned. McGuckian's poetry is thus political as it seems to argue against the act of reading poetry as a purely intellectual exercise, as we are unfortunately taught in schools. In fact, reading McGuckian requires an affective engagement and empathy, which makes even more sense today. Her poetry also alerts about the dangers of "resilience" as a new mantra, both at macro and micro levels, as it can be us ed to legitimise abuses of power but also undermines the impact of the crisis on individuals' mental health and general well-being. If some people discovered the existence of the word during the pandemic – as for once a majority found itself powerless – using it simply in this context and as an order can be insensitive towards those who have been in a precarious situation for a long time but rarely get attention from the media.
McGuckian's poetry has often been deemed difficult", "obscure", and was even accused of fake intellectualism. Like many other women poets, Medbh McGuckian does not follow the tacit standards of "feminine" poetry and dares encroaching on me n poets' territory with her poetic experiments. Many scholars have noted that McGuckian's poetry could not be read through traditional methods, so what if her poetry started to be approached differently, as written by a woman evolving in a still prominently masculine milieu and who h as had to half-say things during her entire career not to be censored or ev en more marginalised, because she refused to be resilient?
Alone, in the Dark, With You by Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan
In the Quiet Space. A poem by Robin McNamara
C L Couch
My goodness, this is excellent! The blending of personal experience with discovering a new approach to the poetry is, if I may say, sublime.
I know that people matter more–that you matter more–but I hope the cat is well, happily carrying on feline efforts in diplomacy.


Kurian Mathew Tharakan is the founder of sales and marketing strategy firm Strategy Peak Sales & Marketing Advisors, and a 27 year veteran of the sales and marketing industry. He has consulted for companies in numerous sectors, including Professional Services, Manufacturing, Distribution, High Technology, Software, Non-Profit, Medicine, and the Life Sciences. In addition to his consulting practice, he is also an Executive in Residence at the business accelerator TEC Edmonton where he assists clients with their go to market strategy. Prior to Strategy Peak, Mr. Tharakan was a Vice President Sales & Marketing for an Alberta based software firm where his team achieved notable wins with several members of the US Fortune 500. Previous to his software experience, Mr. Tharakan directed the Sales and Marketing programs for the Alberta practice of an international professional services firm.


SELSports were awarded the contract for the BHS rooftop project. The contract was split into two phases, Phase 1 was to install a robust rubber tiled area to one side of the rooftop and phase 2 was to install an all-weather synthetic turf rooftop MUGA and remaining rubber tiled areas.
A regulating gravel layer was installed to minimise undulations in the roof. A single layer raft of modular, interlocking SELSports lightweight drainage units was installed across the entire roof area. The SELSports units were inverted in the tiled areas such that red anti-shear connectors could be inserted to secure the heavy duty rubber tiles. A prefabricated shockpad was installed directly on the SELSports units in the pitch area, followed by SIS's Soccer Pro 50, 3G synthetic grass. All surface materials were carefully selected based on their robustness and their permeability to allow rainwater to percolate through the sports pitch to the SELSports lightweight drainage units where it is temporarily stored, creating enough head/pressure to activate the siphonic rain water outlet valves.
A steel edging with PVC edge trim, was fixed to the SELSports lightweight drainage units around the perimeter of the rooftop MUGA to create a neat and distinguished finish.
This rooftop drainage system is a lightweight alternative to traditional gravel, with a high rainwater attenuation capacity, which reduces construction depths, the risk of the pitch flooding whilst simultaneously reducing the need for large rainwater attenuationtanks at ground level.


The blackberries are fermenting on the vine, fallen leaves blanket the picnic table, and the slice of sun on my clothesline arrives later each day. With the arrival of fall, the days of being able to hang my laundry outside are growing fewer. Lately I have been pondering my passion for this ritual of outdoor clothes drying. Is it only the sensual pleasure I crave, or something more?
One of my early childhood memories is of being outside with my mother as she hung long rows of clothes with wooden clothespins. Sheets created a labyrinth of imagination. Half of the backyard in our Denver home at various times over the years was claimed by hanging laundry on those days. Numerous cloth diapers testified to the presence of a baby in the house. They hung beside the parochial school uniforms of my sisters and me, my father's work clothes, my mother's aprons, the envied "regular" clothes of my older sisters, my brothers' play clothes, each item revealing something of our lives.
One year, for my birthday party, my mother organized a game in our backyard near the clothesline. The goal was to successfully drop clothespins into the small round opening of a glass milk bottle on the ground. One at a time each child knelt on a wooden chair, facing backward, their arm resting on the back of the chair. The person with the most clothespins in the bottle won. Now when my mother recalls this game she laughs with embarrassment of not having provided a more sophisticated activity. But we kids loved it. It stands out for me as a testament to my mother's inventiveness of transforming everyday items into something special and marks with some nostalgia a certain time of growing up in the 1950s and 60s.
At the turn of the millennium, my younger sister took up the practice of line-drying the clothes when she and her family were living in Rome. Laundry hung in long rows outside the back door of their home while the neighborhood bambini played nearby. Will her two daughters remember this ritual with any fondness? The oldest daughter, now age seventeen and living back in the United States, prefers soft, machine-dried clothes, not the stiff sentinels that the clothesline offers up at the end of the day.
In Italy, rows of laundry hang publicly and "shamelessly" high above the streets of some cities and outside the windows of village homes. When I first visited my maternal grandmother's village in 1980, some women still gathered at a public basin to wash their clothes. What stories were told as women did laundry together? My Italian cousin, Daria, deftly hung and strung laundry outside her centuries-old apartment window with a circulating line – reeling it in and out. It was the same line that her mother likely used to hang the laundry when she was alive and lived in that home. Cycles of time passed through the circulating line.
In Sardegna, Tanit's presence in the lives of the ancients is evident in the form of a 3000 year-old "holy well," a remarkable structure of basalt blocks expertly crafted and fitted together to create the triangular shape of her body. Twenty-five smooth stone stairs descend into subterranean space to reach the spring water held below. Twice a year, at the end of the winter and at the beginning of autumn, the sun's beams align with the angle of the steps to penetrate the waters of the well. Precious bronze ex-voto, gifts of gratitude and devotion, have been found at the well, now known as the well of Santa Cristina, further marking it as an ancient sacred site. Descending the steps like so many pilgrims before me, "entering Tanit's body," and blessing myself with the holy water marked a meaningful event in my life. Now, as then, water heals, sanctifies, and washes away.
The bearers of my backyard clothesline, carved of reclaimed Redwood, are no less remarkable or substantial. Their color evokes the red ochre of the oldest sacred artistic pigment, as well as the life-giving blood of the mother. Enduring geometrical forms define their shapes: a downward-opening triangle for the body and a round circle for the head, which together mark the distinctive symbol for Tanit. Their features were selected from twenty reproductions of Tanit illustrated by Italian architect Franco Laner, who refers to the well of Santa Cristina as a temple.2 One of the clothesline Tanits has her "arms" raised in an orans, or praying pose, an ancient sign in sacred iconography for worship or epiphany. The other Tanit has a simple horizontal bar for arms and a crescent moon for her headdress. The lunar adornment links her with menstruation, since the length of both the moon's cycle and the menstrual cycle is 29 ½ days. A further lunar connection has been made by archeo-astronomists in Sardegna, who, after studying the sacred well of Santa Cristina, have discovered that the circular stone opening above Tanit's body aligns with the full moon. Every 18 ½ years, in the middle of the night at the darkest time of the year, the milky moonlight enters the round hole at the surface and shines directly down the bottle-shaped stone column into the water. This holy well is an exquisite vessel of cosmic and Earthly communion, as moon and sun come together in the waters held within the earth and stone, all sanctified inside the female body of the Goddess.
The two Tanits, with silvery clothesline strung between them, stand outside my office window like guardian oracles of ancestral winds. Inside, at my computer, I am working to retrieve my ancestral heritage as part of my dissertation research. Over the months, I have been interviewing my elder female relatives in Colorado and in Italy asking about their lives. From them, I am learning about the life of my maternal grandmother, Edvige Albasini, who died three years before I was born. A century ago, she and my other grandparents emigrated from alpine villages in Trentino, the mountainous region of the Dolomites in what is now northern Italy. Edvige's destination was Russell Gulch, Colorado, a rustic gold-mining town. Like many wives of miners, she was soon widowed, in her case at a young age with a family of three small children. "Taking in laundry" of wealthy people enabled Edvige to manage.
In a popular Trentino legend known as I Monti Pallidi, The Pale Mountains, the Salvans—little men who dwell in the wilds of the caverns and forests—spin the moonlight into a silvery cloth which they drape over the rugged Dolomites, giving them their white alpenglow. 12 They perform this task so that a Moon Princess, with whom a Prince on Earth has fallen in love, can come down to live with him and feel at home. In return for their gift, the Salvans are granted permanent residence in the caverns of the mountains. Moonlight, women, and wilderness are woven together and remembered in this tale.
In my childhood dream, I am standing alone at night in the backyard between the clothesline and the apple tree. The white beam of the full moon shines from high above and bathes over me. Slowly it begins to lift me up off the ground back to its source. My heart is racing.
Was I remembering my lunar lineage? Were my female ancestors beckoning for me to someday remember their traditions?
Hanging clothes outside for me, in the 21st century, enfolds simple pleasures and deeply held values: the smell of clothes that have been dried by the wind and sun, spending time outside, conserving electric energy, and doing one small thing to reduce my legacy of consumption. In my visits to the folk museums of Trentino, I have witnessed all the stuff of everyday life made by hand. It is impressive – and humbling – to realize that these people of the mountains knew how to make everything: a variety of containers, every type of clothing, all food and drink, utensils, tools, and shelter. Older women were valued for their extensive knowledge of childbirth and healing remedies learned from a lifetime of careful observation and care-giving. The elders knew (and some still know) where the likely places for wild brise mushrooms are, which herbs to use for medicine, and the specific healing properties of the various mineral springs.
Practical knowledge gained through the responsibilities of work began at a young age for Onorina Bortolamedi, one of the women I interviewed in 2009 in Trentino. Although her formal education was interrupted by the falling bombs of World War II, she said with pride that by the time she got married, "I could do everything!"13 She exudes the caring confidence of a bisnonna, a great-grandmother who birthed her first child at home and has tended to several generations. I look back to my ancestor's wisdom as I look forward to creating a more sustainable life, less dependent on machines and distant others that give me "free time" but take away wellness and health-imparting activity that I must then create in other ways.
From my vantage point of mid-life, the laundry line feels like a connection to my female lineage, my motherline.14 Not in drudgery, although this task of keeping clothes washed and dried has been formidable over the ages; but in the ritual act itself of hanging clothes, and in the stories that settle around women's lives in the creation and care of clothes. As we retrieve our mother's stories and those of other female relatives we reclaim the value of women's lives in history and restore our inner connection with the timelessness of the cycle of life.
1 Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum, dark mother: African origins and godmothers, (Lincoln: Authors Choice Press, 2001).
2 Franco Laner, Il Tempio a Pozzo di Santa Cristina: Storia, Technologia, Architettura e Astronomia, (Mestre, Sardinia: Guida 2 Edizioni Adrastea, 2004), 36.
5 Elizabeth Wayland Berber, Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1994), 29.
6 Elizabeth Mathias and Richard Raspa in Italian Folktales in America: The Verbal Art of an Immigrant Woman, (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1985), 3.
7 The filò is portrayed visually in the film L'Albero degli Zoccoli, The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978), directed by Ermanno Olmi.
8 From interviews with Ann Ress, Louise Kulp, Emma Fortarel, and Lena Moser conducted in May, 2009.
9 Doing laundry during the waning cycle of the moon, with its dissolving energy, helps make biancherie – linens and cottons – whiter, according to Johanna Paungger, who documents numerous lunar-related traditions of her Tyrolean childhood which she still practices. Johanna Paungger and Thomas Poppe, Servirsi della Luna: il suo influsso positivo su natura, salute,e vita quotidiana, (Milano: TEA, 2004), 152.
10 Details regarding recent menstrual practices were kindly provided to me by Giuseppina Trentini of Rovereto in Trentino, Italy via personal correspondence in November, 2010.
11 Judy Grahn, Blood Bread and Roses: How Menstruation Created the World, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993).
12 Carl Felix Wolff, The Pale Mountains, English translation by Francesca La Monte, (New York: Minton, Balch & Company, 1927).
13 From interviews with Onorina Bortolamedi conducted in September 2009.
14 See Naomi Ruth Lowinsky, The Motherline: Every Woman's Journey to Find Her Female Roots, (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Perigee Books, 1992), for more information on the concept of the motherline and on the importance of researching the stories of female family members.
Berber, Elizabeth Wayland. Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1994.
Birnbaum, Lucia Chiavola. dark mother: African origins and godmothers. Lincoln: Authors Choice Press, 2001.
Grahn, Judith Rae. Blood Bread and Roses: How Menstruation Created the World. Boston: Beacon Press, 1993.
Laner, Franco. Il Tempio a Pozzo di Santa Cristina: Storia, Technologia, Architettura e Astronomia. Mestre, Sardinia: Guida 2 Edizioni Adrastea, 2004.
Lowinsky, Naomi Ruth. The Motherline: Every Woman's Journey to Find Her Female Roots. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Perigee Books, 1992.
Mathias, Elizabeth and Richard Raspa. Italian Folktales in America: The Verbal Art of an Immigrant Woman. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1985.
Paungger, Johanna and Thomas Poppe, Servirsi della Luna: il suo influsso positivo su natura, salute,e vita quotidiana. Milano: TEA, 2004.
Wolff, Carl Felix. The Pale Mountains, English translation by Francesca La Monte. New York: Minton, Balch & Company, 1927.
This entry was posted in Cloth, Dreams, Family, Folk Stories, Moon, Stories, Trentino and tagged Moon, Motherline, Trentino by Mary Beth Moser. Bookmark the permalink.
Oh how wonderful to read this on a windy sun-filled day here on the coast of Maine with the full moon rising just hours away. I can smell the laundry drying and see the moon beams dancing into Tanit and Cristina's shrine!
Sending my best wishes on the Moonbeams dear Margaret-Lynn!