Our Inaugural Startup Story Competition Winners!
StartupNation ran its inaugural Startup Story competition last month, and instead of picking just one winner, we had to pick five because we were so blown away by the submissions! Read about how these entrepreneurs were able to successfully launch a business, and are now taking the next steps to grow these businesses.


You already shop on Amazon.com so add the word Smile to the beginning of that web address (smile.amazon.com) and you'll be helping us save lives and end breast cancer forever with each purchase! Amazon will donate 0.5% of your purchases made to Susan G. Komen Austin whenever you shop on AmazonSmile.
To get started simply click the button below and log in with your existing Amazon account information. That's it, you're done! Going forward, simply remember to go to smile.amazon.com to start your shopping rather than amazon.com and 0.5% of all of your purchases will go to Komen Austin.


At Holden Hearing Aid Center, we understand how important your sense of hearing is to your quality of life as well as your health and happiness. We can help restore your hearing so you can continue to do the activities you enjoy, whether it's going to work, watching movies or playing with your grandchildren.
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Don't miss out on everything from the punch lines of jokes and family conversations to movies and TV audio. At Holden Hearing Aid Center, our hearing instrument specialists' mission is to help you tune in again with the right hearing aid.


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Home Texans Texans Choose Jake Delhomme
Texans Choose Jake Delhomme
It was down to Jeff Garcia and Jake Delhomme and the Houston Texans decided to go with the player that has seen game action in the last two years. The Texans plan on having Delhomme help rookie QB T.J. Yates rather than take over as the starter.
"Jake is fired up and ready to go and will do everything he can to support T.J.," said Rick Smith, Delhomme's agent.
"Some coaches I talked to spoke real highly of Jake," said Texans head coach Gary Kubiak. "They think he'll fit in perfectly with what we were looking for. I think he's a good fit with T.J."
Delhomme has been a mentor before so the idea makes sense from that aspect. If Houston has to rely on him at some point in the season it could get pretty bad given his most performance.
Gary Kubiak has already mentioned that "it's T.J.'s job," so there's little question as to who will be starting for the Texans in the near future. The problem for Houston is that they have to win as many games as they can down the stretch because they're in position to possibly secure home field advantage if they do so. If they end up collapsing they could miss the playoffs altogether so you could see a change if soon Yates really struggles in the next few weeks.
Gary Kubiak
Jake Delhomme
Jeff Garcia
Matt Schaub
t.j yates
AFC Notes: Carson Wentz, Colts, Texans, Titans
Texans Interviewed Josh McCown For Head Coach Job
AFC Notes: Jaguars, Texans, Davis Mills, Titans
2022 NFL Head Coach & GM Tracker

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


On Thursday April 3, 2014 at 7PM the Pro Life committee will present the film "BloodMoney" in Holy Spirit's dining room. This informative and powerful documentary was created to help women in crisis make a better choice and to expose the truth behind the abortion industry.
Watching this movie will satisfy the requirements for the ACE Wings award so all Knights who attend will earn the ACE Wings Pro Life Award.
Narrated by Dr. Alveda King, Bloodmoney takes a critical look into the dark origins of abortion, and return with a deeply disturbing picture: how a movement based on racism and population control usurped the momentum of the women's rights movement to create something truly despicable– a multi-billion dollar industry that literally thrives on the destruction of unborn babies and the traumatizing of young pregnant women.


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Bardsey Island Pilgrimage
Holywell Chapel Pilgrimage
Pennant Melangell Pilgrimage
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Kii Mountains
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Iona Abbey was the home of St. Columba, whose missionary work in the 6th century brought Celtic Christianity to Scotland. Now home to the ecumenical Iona Community, it remains a place of Christian pilgrimage, dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
The 3.4 square mile island of Iona, in the Inner Hebrides, with a population of 125, has been occupied since the first centuries AD. In 563 AD, the exiled Irish missionary St. Columba established a small monastic community on Iona. Through the work he did here Celtic Christianity spread throughout Scotland and eventually on to Europe.
Although little of Columba's monastery remains, we know that its basic layout consisted of a small church, individual monastic cells (which may have been made of stone in a beehive shape or constructed of wood) and communal buildings.
Viking raids in the early ninth century AD caused most of the monastic community to move to Kells in Ireland. Later, in around 1200, a Benedictine abbey and nunnery were established here and it is these restored buildings that survive, notwithstanding its dissolution and ruination at the Reformation. In the 1938 Lord George MacLeod, inspired by the founding traditions of Iona, founded the ecumenical Iona Community in 1938. The Community restored the abbey buildings from 1938 to 1965.
West of the abbey, there is a rocky area on which the foundations of a small building have been excavated - this could be St. Columba's cell, which was "built in a higher place".
The 14-foot-tall St. Martin's Cross, dating from the early centuries AD, still stands in its original position in front of the abbey. The sculptures are badly weathered, but the figurative scenes can be identified as (from top to bottom): the Virgin and Child, Daniel in the lions' den, Abraham and Isaac, David with musicians, and a scene that may be Samuel about to anoint David.
The abbey museum exhibits the original St. John's Cross, and grave markers, some carved with Norse runes, dating from the 10th or 11th century.
The site of Columba's monastery is now occupied by the Benedictine abbey church, known as St. Mary's Cathedral, built around 1200 in Norman style. The oldest part is the north transept. The adjoining reconstructed Romanesque cloister is decorated with modern reliefs on the capitals and a modern bronze sculpture in the central garden.
From Iona Abbey, the "Street of the Dead" runs westward to St Oran's Cemetery (Celtic: Reilig Odhrain), Scotland's oldest Christian graveyard. Many sixty Scottish kings were buried here, including Kenneth MacAlpin, who unified Scotland, and Macbeth. All the tombstones were thrown into the sea at the Reformation.
The Iona Community is a monastic-inspired organization from different denominations with three centres in the Western Isles - two on Iona and one on Mull - and a mainland headquarters in Glasgow.
For daily visitors, it conducts daily services in the abbey church, provides guided tours of the abbey and operates the Iona Heritage Centre and a coffee shop (open daily 10am-4:30pm).
Every Wednesday, members of the Community lead a 7-mile hike to the island's holy and historic spots. There are also regular workshops on Christianity. Modest room and board is available for those who participate in worship, common meals, education, social activities and chores.
Regular ferry services operate from Fionnphort on the Isle of Mull (10 minutejourney). To get to Mull, take a ferry from Oban on the mainland to Craignure (45 minutes), followed by a 1 hour bus ride to Fionnphort. Cars are not permitted for visitors. There are a few hotels on the island
( http://www.roomfinderscotland.co.uk/mapsearch.php?townid=237 ).
Glasgow is the nearest large airport to Oban and is approximately 90 miles away. There are good links from the airport to the train and bus terminals in the city.
By rail, the journey takes you along the world-famous West Highland Line. First ScotRail runs trains three times a day from Glasgow Queen Street Station to Oban (two on Sunday). For times and prices visit the Trainline site or First Scotrail. To plan your timetable go to Timetables Online.
You can also phone National Rail enquiries on 08457 484950
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TEL - 01681 700 512
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Aaron York is an internationally celebrated traditional artist, educator, public speaker and mentor. He is the owner and founder of the Red Child Studio of Fine Wabanaki Arts. Although best known for his skills as a birchbark canoe artisan, he has also revived several other rare Wabanaki art forms such as brides boxes and highly embellished crooked knives. His pieces are of equal complexity to the ancestral examples known in museums and private collections. As a result, his arts can be found in museums and high-end private collections resting aside pieces of Wabanaki greats such as Tomah Joseph and Eugene Francis of the 1800s. Aaron's arts have earned many prestigious publications as well placement Hollywood films, commercials, documentaries and radio worldwide.
In 2005, Aaron was asked by the Ministikwan Cree First Nation in Saskatchewan to go west and help them rediscover their traditional canoe forms. Since then, he has worked extensively with several western First nations in Canada to revive their aboriginal watercraft. In return for his teaching out west, he was immersed in all other aspects of Algonquian culture that he had been longing to learn. Aaron attributes being well rounded culturally to travelling to cousin nations where he found missing pieces of his nation's traditions that were lost to colonization. Aaron now has strong family ties in the treaty 6 and treaty 7 regions of Saskatchewan and Alberta. In short, his time and bond with his western Cree cousins was life altering, and the quality of his art is what he attributes to making that relationship possible.
"Culture is not inherited, it is learned." We do not arrive from the womb with the ability to speak our ancestral language or know our culture. It takes only one generation of failing to teach our children their culture for devastating cultural erosion to occur. As an eastern Native I know this all too well! This is what drives me to work so hard to create art that is "over the top" but well within the parameters of regionally specific, traditional Wabanaki art forms. Such art forms that are rare, labor intensive and have a life-long learning curve. I am trying to do my part to heal the toxic affect that cultural erosion has caused our people.
Material culture is a language! Its a non-verbal language that transcends the limits of what we can convey through speech or written word. Material cultural crosses racial divides, political boundaries, and time itself. Material culture gives us a direct form of connection to our ancestors, other living beings, and the Aki (earth) itself. When I give thanks to a beautiful canoe birch for the materials it provides me I make a promise to turn its skin into a timeless piece of beauty. The quality of my art is my greatest giving of thanks to the plants, animals and Aki that give to me. I am bound through an ancient traditional agreement with my plant, animal and human relations to do my absolute best with their gifts. This is what I offer the world, my nation, my family.
This is the non-verbal I message I encapsulate in my art to be understood by my descendants hundreds of years from now: "Do your very best. Always stay humble enough to improve your skill! Your hands are speaking for your people! You are telling the world what our values are! You are Wabanaskiya! You are a human representative of Aki's beauty, health, and a celebration of life itself! This is the only thing you inherit! The rest is up to you to show just how much beauty you can convey through good hands, just as we did, and my grandmothers and grandfathers did before me. Love your culture. Love yourself as much as we love you grandchild and pass this message on through your art the way we passed this on to you!"
Fawn Skin quiver, Permanent Collection, Odanak Museum, Odanak FN, QC.
Bride Box (bent wood box elaborate chip carved), Flemming Museum, permanent collections Burlington, VT.
Birchbark Canoe on permanent exhibit, Abbe Museum, Acadia National Park Location, Acadia National Park, ME.
Odanak Homecoming, canoe build demo, QC, Canada.
Onsite build for "Gifts of the Forest," McCord Museum, , 2004 Montreal, QC, Canada.
Birchbark canoe class, Wooden Boat School, Brooklin, ME.
Birchbark canoe class, Ministikwan First Nation, 2005 and 2016, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Onsite Build of Ocean canoe, Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport, ME.
"Champlain Canoe Build," Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, Vergennes, VT.
Birchbark canoe class, Blue Quills First Nations University, St Paul, Alberta Canada.
Take A Kid Trapping Program, Youth Birchbark Canoe Class, Fort Simpson, Northwest Territories, Canada.
Significant Cultural Benefit Status, Government of Canada, achieved 2006.


Fr.C.Rodrigues Institute of Technology has been rated "AAAA"
A college with a difference!!
Fr. C.R.I.T. has, within a short span of time, established itself as a leading engineering college in Mumbai University. Though its reputation rests mainly on the high quality, value-based technical education that it imparts, it has to its credit a verdant, well-maintained Campus and extensive facilities. Its location in the vicinity of the holy places of various religious denominations underscores its secular credentials and its philosophy of "Vasudhaiva Kuttumbakam". The college prides on being one of few that as accreditation for all five branches vide file no. 28-41/2010-NBA dated 14.11.2012.
85% Of Our Students Placed.
Not Just Educate, create Leaders.


These are all the photographs taken by our professional photographer. Click on any of the links below to start viewing these photographs.
Photos taken by Karl and by our friend John Pazdernik.
The disposable cameras from the reception tables. Here you will find some very interesting, unexplainable, and occasionally frightening shots.
Catra's wedding shower was held at The Pottery Bayou in Naperville on June 8, 2003.


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Tag: Jesuits
The Orenda by Joseph Boyden
On May 23, 2014 May 23, 2014 By matthewrettinoIn Historical Fantasy, Literary FictionLeave a comment
We had magic before the crows came.
Joseph Boyden begins The Orenda with an allusion to the lost world of Huronia that is suggestive of a certain insight proposed in John Crowley's Aegypt sequence: the world was not always what it has since become. Huronia, the land of the Wendat nation, has since vanished, along with their magic ties to orenda, the life force the suffuses all things, living and dead. Whether The Orenda is a historical fantasy is debatable–there are magic tricks, dream prophesies, and prayers and libations of all kinds, though none or very few unexplainable by science. However, The Orenda is certainly a historical novel, and therefore invested in showing us a forgotten world and time.
Before the arrival of the crows–the Jesuit missionaries who first called First Nations magic unclean–the Wendat had a power that the Christian European world could not comprehend. This is what the Jesuit priest Père Christophe discovers while living away from the security of the settlement of Kebec, behind a Wendat palisade deep in the woods. This 'primitive' village is the primal setting of the Canadian consciousness, at least according to Margaret Atwood in her 1970s book Survival, and thus promises to be a gripping Canadian epic.
The first heart-stopping sequence sets the tone for the rest of the novel with the brutal slaughter of the family of a young girl. Snow Falls witnesses her father sing his death song as his skull is bashed in by a club and he falls, arms outstretched and blood pooling around his head. The man who committed the murder is Fox, brother of Bird, who is a respected war chief of the local Wendat village. Bird is at war with the Haudenosaunee, who soon pursue him to avenge Snow Fall's capture. As the war party trudges away through the snow, Christophe carries Snow Falls to safety and tries to win her trust. Despite her rebellion, he sees her father, splayed in the same shape as he fell when he died, in the silver crucifix around the Jesuit's neck. It is implied that she believes her father's orenda has come to rest in the crucifix. This belief in the orenda is what defines her people as different from Christophe's.
'Orenda' is the closest word the Wendat have for 'soul,' though it also implies 'power' and is a mystical force that unites not only humans, but all things–trees, animals, stones. You could also say the orenda is like 'the Force' in Star Wars, which borrows ideas from world religion, or Polynesian 'mana.' The difference between Christian soul and Huron orenda proves to be a vast gap that must be bridged if Christophe is to save the 'savage' Wendat from what he sees as the demons of Satan.
Though we see Bird and his brother Fox engaged in committing horrific violence within the first few chapters, we later see them at home in their longhouses with their families. We grow to see these characters as heroes defending their traditional way of life. Though in one sense, Christophe–or Christophe Crow, as the Wendat call him–is the antagonist of this novel, the reader cannot help but feel sympathy for him and admiration for his intelligence and bravery. Snow Falls naturally draws our sympathy as we see her grow from a scared Haudenosaunee orphan into a grown Wendat woman who may one day become a seer.
The Orenda is a novel composed of various heroes who come together as antagonists to each other, because of their cultural differences. Even the enemy who we rarely see, the Haudenosaunee, Bird describes as being not so different from the Wendat. But if every character has a good orenda, then what happens to ruin the magic that the Wendat once had?
The Huron were forced to trade with the Iron People for what were once luxuries that became necessities. Was this another cause in the fall of Huronia?
Joseph Boyden poses the question of who's responsible with a beautifully structured tragedy. Is it Bird's adoption of Snow Falls that begins the war that will see the end of his world? Is it the disease the Jesuits bring with them? Is it Christophe Crow's clumsiness? Or was it just a few bad harvests? Boyden sows the seeds of the end in the beginning, as the Wendat sow the seeds of the three sisters–squash, corn, and beans–each spring to be harvested–or burned–in the fall.
At times The Orenda causes you to remember the present social troubles of First Nations by glimpsing the birth of the patterns of destruction that have assailed them ever since. You see alcohol, suicide, physical and sexual abuse, and the way of regarding First Nations as "savage" that eventually results in the formation of Residential Schools. All that bloody and painful history has its origins in the fatal story that involves Bird, Snow Falls, and Christophe Crow.
Even before I began to read The Orenda, I expected it to be a defining epic of Canadian history, an absolute must-read. I also expected it be similar to the movie Blackrobe. Indeed, several scenes in The Orenda appear to have been either inspired by Blackrobe, or the source material it has in common with it: The Jesuit Relations. But The Orenda goes deeper in describing the ripples the Jesuits caused in Canadian history. The past and future are present, says Aataentsic the Sky Woman.
I saw Blackrobe once in high school at the same time as I studied–too briefly, perhaps–the civilization of First Nations before and during European contact. I remember learning about all the anthropological points between distinguishing the Algonquins and Iroquois, the genocidal wars the Iroquois won with Dutch muskets, and then New France's reaction, or rather inaction, regarding the wars. Our schools spend too little time teaching about First Nations history. But The Orenda can satisfy your curiosity about any blank spots in your mental timeline. I personally find the old-school map included in the hardcover edition and the references to Huronia and Kebec (instead of Quebec) work wonderfully at alienating Quebecois readers who are familiar with their country/province so that they can be carried into the perspective of those who lived during that time.
The Orenda is part of Joseph Boyden's saga of the Bird family, and the first prequel. Certainly the first to go back so early in the history of the family. I have read Through Black Spruce before, a tale of a comatose bushplane pilot (named Bird) who remembers how he dealt with a gang of drug dealers in Northern Ontario while his daughter speaks to him while he recovers in hospital from a crash, recalling her own journey to find her sister. It has the same stark, affecting style as The Orenda and it explores some of the social issues in First Nations communities–issues that we now know go back to the seventeenth century. Three Day Road is another in the saga, a book I may pick up in the future.
The Orenda won Canada Reads in 2014, was a Governor General's Literary Awards finalist, and made the longlist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. The Orenda's orenda is strong. Read it.
Joseph Boyden, author of The Orenda
http://grou17.wix.com/fur#!__master-page-3
Behind Guy Fawkes: the History of Catholic Conspiracies
On November 5, 2013 November 1, 2013 By matthewrettinoIn HistoryLeave a comment
Happy Guy Fawkes Day!
"But as a nation—continued he in his reveries—these Spaniards are all an odd set; the very word Spaniard has a curious, conspirator, Guy-Fawkish twang to it." -Herman Melville, "Benito Cereno."
"The imaginary is part of history." -Michel de Certeau, The Possession at Loudun.
"[A] good case could be made that the last unchallenged and most perniciously pervasive element in the whig view of modern English history is an unacknowledged tendency to privilege all things protestant while sedulously marginalizing all things catholic." -Peter Locke with Michael Questier, The Antichrist's Lewd Hat.
It is finally November 5! Celebrate this day with your friends. Or if you want to stay indoors reading blogs…
The final part of the "Behind Guy Fawkes" series opens with the three epigraphs above. The first one, by Melville, is one I find humorous and relateable. It reveals that Protestant paranoia had a way of infusing itself even into nineteenth-century American culture.
Due to Jesuitophobia, the fear of Jesuit-led conspiracies that hit England after the Gunpowder Plot and inspired a literary genre of Jesuit slander, the English associated the Jesuits with Fawkes' conspiracy. Since the English also associated any threat to their Protestant nation with the Spanish, it becomes intuitive for Herman Melville to associate the word "Spaniard" with Guy Fawkes–even though he was neither Spanish nor a Jesuit.
I have long imagined the word "Spaniard" to have exactly the kind of 'twang' Melville describes, although I may not have been always fully conscious of it. When I think of Guy Fawkes, Inigo Montoya is never far behind in my thoughts…
Inigo Montoya is the archetypical Spaniard. Do you agree?
The other two epigraphs, the more serious ones, are also epigraphs to a fascinating book, Religious Ideology and Cultural Fantasy: Catholic and Anti-Catholic Discourses in Early Modern England, by Arthur F. Marotti. Marotti challenges how history is received and created in England. He examines the "process in which real and fabricated historical 'evidence' and events are translated into a developing set of rhetorical codes and ideological fantasies" (2). What is striking is how Marotti avoids discussing fact in his book and focuses on how historical events are imagined or embellished, in order to serve ideological ends.
The unofficial motto of this blog is that "history is fantasy." As a result, I thought Marotti's insights quite fascinating. History is what we imagine, after all. The past only exists in our memory, and our imagination inevitably colours even that.
We pick up the story from last time: the Gunpowder Treason had fallen apart. England was in an uproar. But another battle was beginning: the war of the press.
Pamphlets, books, and sermons formed the blogosphere of early modern England. Then as now, political and religious factions battled it out to win the hearts and opinion of the population. Remember the terror that suffused the media after 9/11? That was what was happening in England, give or take, except instead of watching CNN or Fox, you would most likely hear a sermon from a preacher. England's Most Wanted was the Pope—the Osama bin Laden of the day. And, if we continue this problematic analogy, the Jesuits were the Al-Qaeda.
The Jesuit Insignia
Of course the world is not so simple, and I mean no slander on Jesuits of the time, much less the Jesuits of the present day. But black and white morality tends to appear whenever people are afraid of the "other." When action is necessary to protect a nation, you don't want to talk about your enemy in terms of "shades of grey." You don't want to let remorse slow you down, in doing what you believe must be done. Extreme fear in the state results in a superfluous amount of hatred that stimulates the masses—and produces an ideal moment for the king to step in and look good clearing up the situation. Morals become black and white when we think it is convenient for them to appear that way.
The Jesuits first came under suspicion in connection to the Gunpowder Plot when Thomas Bates, a servant to one of the conspirators, confessed that Father Henry Garnet, a Jesuit, was in on the conspiracy. Garnet became one of the most loathed figures in England, and an example for many Protestants of why Jesuits should never be trusted.
Sir Edward Coke and the earl of Northampton wrote the propaganda masterpiece A True and Perfect Relation of the Proceedings at the several Arraignments of the Late Most barbarous Traitors in 1606. Right away, you can tell it is not true and perfect, since they say that it is true and perfect, instead of letting the evidence stand on its own. In this Relation, the Gunpowder Plot is called the "Jesuit treason," reminding readers that Fawkes' conspiracy was only the most recent in a long string of Jesuit-centred regicide attempts.
The Assassination of Henry IV
Throughout, Coke focuses on the ecclesiastical plotters, not those with secular motivations. He claims that Jesuits formed an international society of conspirators. For example, they were supposedly responsible for James Clement's assassination of Henry III and, through the involvement of the Jesuit William Holt, Edmund of York's plot to kill the Queen in 1594. Later, Juan de Mariam would say Jesuits were behind the deaths of Protestant leaders William of Orange and Henry IV, who was killed by radical Catholic François Ravaillac. Jesuits were also blamed for the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of Protestants in Paris, sparked by the attempted assassination of Admiral Gaspard de Coligny. (The massacre is more traditionally pinned on Catherine de' Medici.)
Robert Cecil called the Jesuits "that generation of vipers" (47-48). The stereotype of a Jesuit ran as follows: he had the Pope in his belly, Machiavelli in his head, and Mercury's wings on his feet. Not only could they think deviously in the Pope's service, but they could be anywhere and travel from country to country with speed. This fear, spurred on by paranoia, turned the Jesuit into an evil supervillain.
Mephistopheles and Faustus in Doctor Faustus
In one colourful piece of libel, Thomas Dekker, playwright of the world-famous Shoemaker's Holiday, says that Jacques Clement, a Jesuit, used black magic to conjure a devil in the likeness of a friar. One can only suppose that Dekker suffered from an unhealthy over-familiarity with Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, in which the titular blasphemer does just that.
But why all this hate against the Jesuits? To begin with, Jesuits understood themselves to be soldiers not only of God, but the Pope himself. Their presence in England was seen as a threatening encroachment of foreign power. The intellectual disciplines of the Jesuit priesthood were also seen as unsavoury. They moved in secret among the underground Catholics, masters of disguise and rhetoric, which they used to persuade Catholics to commit treason and even sacrifice their lives suicide-bomber style, for the sake of God. They were said to seal such pacts with the "superstitious" ritual of the sacrament of Holy Communion. Fact is difficult to separate from fantasy here, but it seems fair to assume that Jesuits were not half so Satanic as they were depicted as being.
What's worse, from a Protestant standpoint, was the Jesuit practice of mental reservation and their doctrine of equivocation. Essentially, the doctrine of equivocation said, that it was not a sin to break or swear an oath that would force you to betray the cause of Catholicism. It also freed the conscience of Jesuits to give false confessions while under torture, if it meant saving the lives of their friends. Equivocation threatened the integrity of the oral bonds and oaths that held society together.
Henry Garnet defended himself by defending the doctrine of equivocation, papal disposition of power, the general innocence of Catholic recusants, and the innocence of Jesuits who played no part in conspiracies.
Northampton rebutted, claiming the Gunpowder Plot was devilry, that "the cursed snake who eats the dust of powder, now eats gunpowder with them [the conspirators]" (141). The Papacy's temporal claims and its claiming of the right to depose kings corrupted the institution of the holy church and removed its legitimacy. So ran the Protestant argument.
A series of plates and engravings also served a widespread, if crude, propaganda. A typical plate shows Guy Fawkes holding his infamous lantern, about to ignite the powder, when the eye of God turns on him and casts him in a spotlight. The letter that detailed the conspiracy could also be seen being given to state authorities by an angel (or an eagle, in honour of Mounteagle).
John Milton's In Quintus Novembris frames the Gunpowder Plot as a hellish conspiracy, following this rich tradition of writings. His poem depicts Satan, the hero of Paradise Lost, in envy of England, bothered by how it does not accept the yoke of Roman Catholicism (144). The Church at this time was called Babylon, or the Romish Babylonians, or even the Synagogue of Satan.
From a twenty-first century standpoint, of course, these epithets sound pathetically hilarious, "Romish Babylonians" sounding more like a sports team than anything else. However, the Church was much more powerful in the early seventeenth century, a force to contend with that had temporal interests.
The main tension point on the Protestant side came from its demand for liberty of conscience in all things, against the general opinion of Catholicism's intolerability. The foreign authority of the Pope simply did not mix with the absolute authority of the English monarchy after the Restoration. The defence of the 'ancient liberties' of the English frequently trumped any desire for toleration through 'liberty of conscience'—even though liberty of conscience was what Protestants had traditionally fought for, since the beginning of the Reformation. Robert Southwell and Robert Parsons both wrote directly about this irony.
In human psychology, to arrive at an individual identity, one must be able to separate the "self" from the "other." When we can tell the difference between the outside and our interior, then we have an identity. The same is true in the growth of nationhood. It might be said, that England had to find a group to exclude, in order to create their identity as a Protestant nation.
The same phenomenon occurred in Spain in 1492: nationalism surged after the Reconquest was complete, Muslims forced from Catholic lands. Likewise, German nationalism soared under Hitler, when Jews were excluded from participating in the country. If you create and "in" group, you must exclude those who are "out": observe this phenomenon on any high school lunch table. This does not mean, however, that the process of exclusion is unproblematic. The example of the Nazis is an obvious warning.
Catholics were excluded from the running of English society, for the longest time unable to hold public office or become heirs to the throne. That is now changing. Marotti seems to imply that it is also time to rethink how we frame the history of England. Finding voices that have been forced underground can be a subversive way to open up the questions history poses us.
No doubt if someone should tell Guy Fawkes' story, and the general story of Catholicism in England, it would run much differently from what Protestant historians have written. History, as we understand it, depends much more on who writes history, than it does on what actually happened. Simply because we have received a historical tradition does not mean there is only one way to understand events. Take V for Vendetta, as an example. Questioning the claims of the fascistic government's legitimacy, V was able to unmask the conspiracy that got it into power. For these, and many other reasons, Gunpowder Treason really should never be forgot.
How will you remember the fifth of November?
Buchanan, Brenda, David Cannadine, and Justin Champion, et al. Gunpowder Plots. London: Penguin, 2005.
Haynes, Alan. The Gunpowder Plot: Faith in Rebellion. Dover: Alan Sutton, 1994.
Marotti, Arthur F. Religious Ideology and Cultural Fantasy. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005.
Picture Credits:
The Guy: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-489089/Bonfire-night-cancelled-Guy-Fawkes-home-town-health-safety-killjoys.html
Inigo Montoya: http://www.comicvine.com/forums/battles-7/inigo-montoya-vs-madmartigan-653118/
Jesuit Logo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Jesus
John Milton: http://1year100books.wordpress.com/2011/06/23/36-samson-agonistes-by-john-milton/
Mephistophilis: http://www.mgoodliffe.co.uk/
Ravaillac: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Ravaillac
Behind Guy Fawkes II: The Gunpowder Plot
On November 1, 2013 October 23, 2013 By matthewrettinoIn HistoryLeave a comment
Persecution of Catholics did not relent after James I assumed the throne.
"But 'The Gunpowder Plot'–there was a get-penny! I have presented that to an eighteen- or twenty-pence audience nine times in an afternoon. Your home-born projects prover ever the best; they are so easy and familiar. They put too much learning i'their things nowadays, and that, I fear, will be the spoil o' this."
-Leatherhead, Bartholomew Fair by Ben Johnson, Act 5 Scene 1
A get-penny was a bestselling performance–in this case a puppet show of the Gunpowder Plot, so as Johnson attests through this quote, the drama of the 5 November was as popular today as it was in the seventeenth century.
When James I took the throne, Catholics flocked across the channel from France to return to England, hoping for toleration in the form of a law similar to the 1598 Edict of Nantes, which granted toleration to French Huguenots. However, several things were to go wrong.
First, there was the Bye Plot, in which William Watson, a priest, planned to kidnap the king and hold him for ransom until he declared toleration law. Then the Main Plot, which followed, was led by certain high-ranking courtiers like Lord Cobham and Sir Walter Raleigh. It aimed to get rid of the Scottish King James and replace him with Lady Arabella Stewart. In 1604, due to Puritan Scottish advisers, the king began to harden in his stance towards Catholic toleration. 19 March 1604 marked the passing of recusancy laws that formed a continuation of Elizabeth's anti-Catholic policies.
Robert Catesby was a main ringleader among the Gunpowder Plot conspirators. He belonged to a wealthy Catholic family from Warwickshire. His cousin, Francis Tresham, was also prepared to use physical violence to achieve his aim of initiating a regime change. Jack and Kit Wright were notable swordsmen who fought during Essex's failed rebellion of 1601, which saw the disgruntled earl beheaded. These two men would have known Guy Fawkes from school at St. Peter's,York. Fawkes himself was a veteran of the wars against the Dutch in the Netherlands. Thomas and Robert Wintour, relatives of Catesby, also owned Huddington Court, a priest refuge. Thomas' uncle had been a priest. He'd been hanged, drawn, and quartered—presumably for treason—a gesture I doubt Thomas appreciated.
Wintour and Fawkes are both known to have travelled to Spain in order to seek support. The Spanish under King Philip III was making a peace treaty with the English. Sceptical that the treaty would force the English king to tolerate Catholics, the conspirators prepared for another, more violent means of having their way.
The Gunpowder Plot conspirators. Guy Fawkes' name appears as Guido because he was closely associated with the Spanish.
In winter 1604, Wintour met Catesby and Jack Wright in their house in Lambeth, which was a stone's throw across the Thames from Westminster—their target. The Gunpowder plot was Catesby's idea, and hardening their resolve, once Fawkes had crossed the Channel, they met at a house behind St. Clements in the Strand. There, Father John Gerard, a Jesuit, celebrated Mass. Jesuits in England at this time were not allowed to enter England as "secular" priests: Elizabeth I had banished them from England by decree 5 November 1602. After the Mass, the conspirators swore an oath. The John Gerard was most likely not present for the oath, although Protestants would associate the conspiracy with the Jesuit order for a long time.
Parliament opened 19 March 1604. On 24 May, Thomas Percy acquired a lease on a small house near the House of Lords, where they were to excavate a shaft from the cellars to the foundations of the House of Lords' chamber, and then lay the powder in a stack of concealed barrels. The peace treaty with Spain was signed, and it included no mention of Catholic toleration. The situation worsened when the king appointed a committee to prevent Jesuits from subverting the king's authority.
The plotters encountered many setbacks. Their house was requisitioned while they were digging the mine, which risked the exposure of the plot. A plague outbreak forced Parliament to prorogue until 3 October 1605. They hoped for Princess Elizabeth to survive the explosion—a female monarch, they felt, would be more easily manipulable. Apparently, they had forgotten how much they suffered under the last female monarch, the last Elizabeth.
Robert Wintour, Kit Wright, and John Grant (a notorious participant in the Essex rebellion and the brother-in-law of Robert Wintour), entered the conspiracy in March 1605. Soon, they discovered coal in storage in the Lords' meeting house. This meant they could place powder directly under the House of Lords. Presumably, the coal would help the fires burn afterwards. On 3 October, Parliament was prorogued once more, until the fateful day of 5 November.
Robert Cecil, spymaster and secretary of state. One of the successors of Francis Walsingham's office, and a master in snooping out Catholic threats.
On 27 October, Catesby had reason to suspect the plot had been betrayed. He suspected Francis Tresham, for his connections to Mounteagle, but he denied it enough to convince the conspirators he was innocent. They pushed forward with their resolution. Thomas Percy met lord Northumberland in an attempt to see if he had heard about the conspiracy, but found that he was ignorant of it. The gunpowder was undisturbed, reported Fawkes.
Nonetheless, on Friday 1 November, the king read Mounteagle's letter at Whitehall Palace. The next day, the Lord Chamberlain was ordered to search the palace at Westminster …
Fawkes enters the chamber with a slow match on 4 November. He comes face-to-face with the Lord Chamberlain. Imagine Guy's surprise when the Chamberlain takes him to be a servant of the house. They are standing right in front of a pile of gunpowder barrels concealed only beneath a pile of brushwood and wooden sticks. Fawkes sighs in relief when the Chamberlain, satisfied, resumes his inspection of the rest of House of Lords.
The lie Fawkes uses to get out of that tight spot is not really a lie at all, but an omission of the truth: he said the sticks belonged to the tenant of the house, Thomas Percy, a respectable gentleman pensioner. However, Monteagle finds this suspicious. Why would Percy, a known Catholic, own a second house near Parliament when he has his own house in nearby London? The king has Sir Thomas Knyvet, a Justice of the Peace, an old friend of Robert Cecil, and one of the king's privy chambermen, perform a more thorough search.
At midnight, they found Fawkes with thirty-six barrels of gunpowder, red-handed. Fawkes claimed he was actually "John Johnson," Percy's servant, but I doubt it took much of a genius to know he was lying and thought of that name on the spot.
Fawkes had intended to light the fuse after hearing the king enter Parliament above, then escape across the Thames before the whole thing blew. Sir Everard Digby and his men were stationed in an inn called the Red Lion in Dunchurch, posing as hunters, awaiting Step 2, which Catsby would have initiated after arriving from London with the intent of initiating a Catholic uprising. However, when news of the arrest reached them, the assemble huntsmen lost heart, losing all sense of guidance and momentum.
Catesby, Ambrose Rockwood, and John Grant fled from Catholic safehouse to safehouse, avoiding the law. Once, they were wounded in an accidental gunpowder explosion, when they left damp powder too close to a fireplace. So grim was their situation that "Jack White suggested to Catesby that they should blow themselves up with the remaining powder" (Cannadine 28).
What followed at Holbeach was like a showdown in the Wild West. The sheriff of Worcestershire arrived with two hundred men and exchanged fire with the conspirators. The Wright brothers (not the inventors of the airplane, but the Catholics Jack and Kit Wright), were killed. Tom Percy and Rob Catesby were brought down by a single bullet. Catesby died after crawling back to his house and hugging onto a statue of the Virgin Mary. The survivors were rounded up and brought to the Tower.
Under torture, Fawkes confessed to the crime. He hated the Scots, many of whom were Puritans, and he hated the Scottish king James for assuming the English throne. The earl of Northumberland, whom the plotters were suspected of planning to use as a lord protector after Princess Elizabeth took the throne, was thrown in the Tower. On 27 January 1606 the surviving plotters were tried: Guy Fawkes, Tom and Robert Wintour, Sir Everard Digby, John Grant, Robery Keyes, Ambrose Rockwood, and Thomas Bates. They were executed over the course of several days.
Thomas Bates was the one who spoke of the involvements of three Catholic priests: Father John Gerard, Father Oswald Tesimond, and Father Henry Garnet, who was the only one in England at the time. Garnet was hanged, drawn, and quartered 28 March 1606.
On 5 November 1605, Londoners rang bells and lit bonfires in celebration of the deliverance of the kingdom from unthinkable treachery. In 1606, the day became a religious occasion and later in the century, effigies of the Pope were burned in public every 5 November. The tradition of burning effigies of "the guy," meaning Guy Fawkes, would only arrive in the next century.
We can only imagine what would have happened had the plot succeeded. Chances are that the explosion would have set Westminister ablaze, inflicting destruction over a wide area. Hundreds or even thousands of people, including the bulk of the power structure of England, would have been annihilated spectacularly. Perhaps it was the consciousness of this conspiracy in history that inspired the string of similar conspiracies in twenty-first century popular culture: for example, the anti-mater bomb placed under St. Peter's Basilica during the papal conclave in Angels and Demons, and the Nazi theatre explosion in Inglourious Basterds. Nothing like the Gunpowder Plot happened before 1605. And since then, nothing else has happened quite like it (except perhaps the failed attempt to crash a plane in the White House on 9/11).
Just as people today imagine what might have happened had the conspiracy succeeded, people back then tried, and imagined horrors. The paranoia stirred by the failed plot led to worse persecutions for Catholics. Collective fears also helped shape how the history of the plot was understood in posterity.
Next week: Jesuitophobia and the History of Catholic Conspiracies
Guy Fawkes: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/cristinaodone/100187789/health-and-safety-threatens-bonfire-night-and-making-me-feel-sympathy-for-guy-fawkes/
Robert Cecil: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cecil,_1st_Earl_of_Salisbury
King James I: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:King_James_I_of_England_and_VI_of_Scotland_by_John_De_Critz_the_Elder.jpg


However, even within the same land one may not force his wife to move from a town to a city, nor from a city to a town.
The mishna adds: One may remove his wife from a noxious residence to a pleasant residence, even if it is in another land. However, one may not compel his wife to move from a pleasant residence to a noxious residence. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: One may also not remove her from a noxious residence to a pleasant residence, because a pleasant residence tests the individual, i.e., one accustomed to certain environments can suffer even in more comfortable living quarters.
GEMARA: With regard to the statement in the mishna that one may not force one's spouse to move from a city to a town or from a town to a city, the Gemara asks: Granted, one may not remove her from a city to a town, as all items are readily available in a city, whereas in a town all items are not as available, and therefore the wife can argue that living in a town is inconvenient for her. However, what is the reason that the husband cannot compel her to move from a town to the city?
The Gemara answers: This supports the opinion of Rabbi Yosei bar Ḥanina, as Rabbi Yosei bar Ḥanina said: From where is it derived that dwelling in cities is difficult? As it is stated: "And the people blessed all the men who willingly offered themselves to dwell in Jerusalem" (Nehemiah 11:2). This shows that living in a city is difficult, due to the noise and the general hubbub of an urban area.
§ The mishna taught: Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says that a pleasant residence tests the individual. The Gemara asks: What is the meaning of the term tests in this context? The Gemara explains: This is in accordance with the opinion of Shmuel, as Shmuel said: A change in one's eating habits [veset] or in one's place of residence is the start of intestinal disease. Similarly, it is written in Sefer Ben Sira: All the days of the poor are terrible. And yet there are Shabbatot and Festivals, when even the poor eat well. Once again, the Gemara answers: This is in accordance with the opinion of Shmuel, as Shmuel said: A change in one's eating habits or in one's place of residence is the start of intestinal disease, and as a result the poor suffer even from a change for the better.
Since the Gemara quoted from Sefer Ben Sira, it cites the rest of the passage concerning the terrible days of the poor. Ben Sira says: Even the nights of the poor are bad. His roof is at the low point of the roofs, i.e., his residence is at the lowest point in the city, and his vineyard is at the mountain peaks, at the highest point of the slope, which means that the rain of roofs washes down to his roof, and the soil of his vineyard to other vineyards, i.e., the rain washes away the soil in his vineyard and carries it away to the vineyards below.
MISHNA: All may force their family to ascend to Eretz Yisrael, i.e., one may compel his family and household to immigrate to Eretz Yisrael, but all may not remove others from Eretz Yisrael, as one may not coerce one's family to leave. Likewise, all may force their family to ascend to Jerusalem, and all may not, i.e., no one may, remove them from Jerusalem. Both men and women may force the other spouse to immigrate to Eretz Yisrael or to move to Jerusalem.
The mishna lists other halakhic distinctions between various geographic locations: If one married a woman in Eretz Yisrael and divorced her in Eretz Yisrael, and the currency of the sum in the marriage contract was not specified, he gives her the sum of her marriage contract in the currency of Eretz Yisrael. If one married a woman in Eretz Yisrael and divorced her in Cappadocia, where the currency holds greater value, he gives her the currency of Eretz Yisrael. If one married a woman in Cappadocia and divorced her in Eretz Yisrael, he likewise gives her the currency of Eretz Yisrael. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: He gives her the currency of Cappadocia. Everyone agrees that if one married a woman in Cappadocia and divorced her in Cappadocia, he gives her the currency of Cappadocia.
GEMARA: The mishna stated: All can force the members of their family to ascend. The Gemara asks: This inclusive phrase serves to include what case? The Gemara answers: It comes to include slaves, i.e., Hebrew slaves as well may be coerced to immigrate to Eretz Yisrael with their master's family against their will.
The Gemara asks: And according to the one whose text of the mishna expressly teaches the case of slaves, this phrase comes to include what case? As stated later in the Gemara, there are some editions of the mishna that state that this halakha applies equally to men, women, and slaves. The Gemara answers: It comes to include one who moves from a pleasant residence to a noxious residence, i.e., one may coerce his family to ascend to Eretz Yisrael even from a good residence abroad to an inferior one in Eretz Yisrael.
§ The mishna further taught: But all may not remove others. Once again the Gemara asks: This phrase comes to include what case? The Gemara answers: It comes to include a Canaanite slave who ran away from his master and came from outside Eretz Yisrael to Eretz Yisrael, as we say to the master: Sell your slave here, in Eretz Yisrael, and then you may go and return abroad, but you may not take the slave abroad with you, due to the mitzva of settling Eretz Yisrael.
§ The mishna taught: All may force others to ascend to Jerusalem. The Gemara asks once again: This phrase comes to include what case? The Gemara answers: It comes to include a move from a pleasant residence elsewhere in Eretz Yisrael to a noxious residence in Jerusalem.
§ The mishna taught: And all may not remove them from Jerusalem. The Gemara asks: This phrase comes to include what case? The Gemara answers: It comes to include even a move from a noxious residence to a pleasant residence. The Gemara adds: And since the tanna of the mishna taught: But one may not remove, in the first clause, he also taught: But one may not remove, in the latter clause, despite the fact that this halakha could have been inferred from the first clause.
§ The Sages taught: If the husband says that he wishes to ascend, i.e., to immigrate to Eretz Yisrael, and his wife says that she does not wish to ascend, one forces her to ascend. And if she will not do so, as she resists all attempts to force her to make the move, she is divorced without receiving her marriage contract, i.e., she forfeits her rights to the benefits outlined in the marriage contract. If she says that she wishes to ascend to Eretz Yisrael and he says that he does not wish to ascend, one forces him to ascend. And if he does not wish to immigrate, he must divorce her and give her the marriage contract.
If she says that she wishes to leave Eretz Yisrael, and he says that he does not wish to leave, one forces her not to leave. And if she does not wish to stay in Eretz Yisrael and resists all attempts to force her to stay, she is divorced without receiving her marriage contract. If he says that he wishes to leave Eretz Yisrael and she says that she does not wish to leave, one forces him not to leave. And if he does not wish to stay in Eretz Yisrael, he must divorce her and give her the marriage contract.
§ The mishna taught that if one married a woman in Eretz Yisrael and divorced her in Cappadocia, he must pay her the marriage contract in the currency of Eretz Yisrael. The same is true if he married her in Cappadocia and divorced her in Eretz Yisrael. The Gemara asks: This matter itself is difficult, i.e., there is an internal contradiction in the rulings provided by the mishna.
The Gemara elaborates: The mishna first teaches that if one married a woman in Eretz Yisrael and divorced her in Cappadocia, he gives her the currency of Eretz Yisrael. Apparently, one follows the customs of the place of the lien, i.e., he pays with the currency of the location of the wedding, where the obligation came into force. Now, say the latter clause of the mishna: If one married a woman in Cappadocia and divorced her in Eretz Yisrael, he likewise gives her currency of Eretz Yisrael. Apparently, one follows the place of the collection of the money.
Rabba said: The Sages taught here one of the leniencies that apply to a marriage contract. The leniency is that the husband pays with the less valuable currency of Eretz Yisrael in both cases, whether the wedding or the divorce occurred there. This is because the tanna of this mishna holds that a marriage contract applies by rabbinic law.
§ The mishna taught that Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says that if one married a woman in Cappadocia and divorced her in Eretz Yisrael, he pays her the marriage contract in the currency of Cappadocia. The Gemara explains that Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel holds that a marriage contract applies by Torah law, which means that its debt must be paid according to its highest possible value. Consequently, one follows the place in which the obligation was formed, which is the halakha for all deeds and contracts, and there is no room for leniency in this matter.
§ The Sages taught: With regard to one who produces a promissory note against another, if Babylonia is written in it, he pays it with the currency of Babylonia; if Eretz Yisrael is written in it, he pays it with currency of Eretz Yisrael. In a case where it is written without specification as to where the document was written, if he produced it in Babylonia he pays it with the currency of Babylonia and if he produced it in Eretz Yisrael he pays it with currency of Eretz Yisrael. If the note mentions money without specification of what type of coins are to be used, the borrower may pay it with any type of coin he likes, even the smallest denomination available. However, this is not the case with regard to a marriage contract.
The Gemara asks: With regard to this last statement, that this is not the case with regard to a marriage contract: To which part of the baraita is this referring? Rav Mesharshiyya said: It is referring back to the first clause, that if the promissory note mentions Babylonia one pays with Babylonian currency. This indicates that one invariably pays based on the place where the document was written. The tanna adds that this principle does not apply to a marriage contract, as one pays based on the place where a marriage contract was written only if this would lead to a leniency, as explained above (Rid). This ruling comes to exclude the opinion of Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, who said that that a marriage contract applies by Torah law and must always be paid in the currency of the place in which the obligation was first formed.
§ The Gemara continues to analyze the baraita, which teaches: If the note mentions money [kesef ] without specification, the borrower may pay it with any type of coin he likes. The Gemara asks: But can't one say that perhaps the document was not speaking of coins but of silver [kesef ] strips? Rabbi Elazar said: The baraita is referring to a case in which it is written in the document: Coins, although it does not specify which ones. The Gemara further asks: And can't one say that one may pay off the debt with perutot, a small denomination? Rav Pappa said: People do not ordinarily mint perutot of silver, as they reserve silver for larger denominations.
§ In relation to the basic point raised by the mishna concerning living in Eretz Yisrael, the Sages taught: A person should always reside in Eretz Yisrael, even in a city that is mostly populated by gentiles, and he should not reside outside of Eretz Yisrael, even in a city that is mostly populated by Jews. The reason is that anyone who resides in Eretz Yisrael is considered as one who has a God, and anyone who resides outside of Eretz Yisrael is considered as one who does not have a God. As it is stated: "To give to you the land of Canaan, to be your God" (Leviticus 25:38).
The Gemara expresses surprise: And can it really be said that anyone who resides outside of Eretz Yisrael has no God? Rather, this comes to tell you that anyone who resides outside of Eretz Yisrael is considered as though he is engaged in idol worship. And so it says with regard to David: "For they have driven me out this day that I should not cleave to the inheritance of the Lord, saying: Go, serve other gods" (I Samuel 26:19). But who said to David: Go, serve other gods? Rather, this comes to tell you that anyone who resides outside of Eretz Yisrael is considered as though he is engaged in idol worship.


We have seen AWESOME performances from everyone on Open Workout 16.3 including more than a handful of first time bar muscle ups! While a workout like 16.3 with muscle ups can be intimidating, it should not be seen as disappointing. As Brian mentioned last week the Open is a measure of where you are on your journey right now. Accept that you're nearing your goals and do not become discouraged. If you know and can admit that you could be working harder towards your goals, let these workouts motivate you. It's a great thing if the Open workouts this year motivate you to set new goals. Talk to your coaches about how to make those goals a reality, and then go after what it takes to reach them. We promise it will take hard work to get where you want to be, but when you look back you will know that it was absolutely worth the effort. The best news is that we get another year to attack our weaknesses and to become more fit athletes before the 2017 Open. Please remember to enjoy the journey that you're on with us at CrossFit 616 and with life each day, and celebrate every single success along the way.
In the meantime, we've got more preparing to do for the rest of the Open this year and for our fitness in general!


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Joseph Addison, The Spectator, no. 69 (19 May 1711) | Macmillan Higher Education Skip to main content
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Joseph Addison, The Spectator, no. 69 (19 May 1711)
Author: Stephen H. Gregg
Published in: Empire and Identity
The Spectator's spokesperson for trade was the character 'Sir Andrew Freeport', whose values echo the dominant ideology of the British empire as one based upon peace: 'His Notions of Trade are noble and generous, and… he calls the Sea the British Common. He is acquainted with Commerce in all its Parts, and will tell you that it is a stupid and barbarous Way to extend Dominion by Arms; for true Power is to be got by Arts and Industry.'1 In this issue, Addison's paean to the hub of Britain's commercial networks, the Royal Exchange, was part of a wider vindication of the new urban commercial class to sceptics who looked to land as the traditional foundations of Britain's wealth. Addison's paper in this issue naturalises the spread of goods around the globe but, more importantly, naturalises Britain's role as the centre of this worldwide commerce.
Empire and Identity
Stephen H. Gregg


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News Treehugger Voices
Everyone's Excited About the Food Truck Revolution, but What Are the Implications for Urbanism and the Environment?
Lloyd Alter
Lloyd Alter is Design Editor for Treehugger and teaches Sustainable Design at Ryerson University in Toronto.
The restrictions are being eased to make it easier for food trucks to serve in Toronto. Is this a good thing?
It's an annual ritual: Spring comes, people want to be outside, and there is a debate over food trucks. Like many cities, Toronto has had strict rules about mobile food. Now they are being loosened; as of May 15 they can park on public streets for up to three hours without a special permit; they can operate from private property. There are still tough restrictions, the toughest being that no food truck can set up closer than 50 meters (165 feet) so nobody is totally happy (usually the sign of a good compromise); Jennifer Bain quotes a city councillor in the Star:
"Why oh why oh why meddle and micromanage everything here?" Beaches-East York Councillor Mary-Margaret McMahon had asked council. "Let's just grow up and put a little faith in these dynamic foodie entrepreneurs and give them a chance to exist. Let's give those hungry Torontonians what they want."
Mayor Ford also came out in favor of the free market. "This is free enterprise, this is capitalism, let 'em sell what they want, and let the customer decide." For once, a whole lot of latte sipping bike riding pinko kooks are agreeing with him.
Lloyd Alter/CC BY 2.0
There are many wonderful things about food trucks. They are a platform for young entrepreneurs to start a business without the costs of a bricks and mortar spot. They follow the crowds can quickly respond to demand in a way that fixed establishments can't.
But with an urbanist hat on, I worry that our first priority should be reinforcing and revitalizing our main streets, to build walkable communities with the resources people need nearby, summer and winter, slow and high season. Hidden behind the food trucks in the photo above are restaurants like Chippys and Caflouti and Noce which have washrooms and other facilities. They mostly use china plates and glasses that are washed and reused. They are there all year, not only when the art show is happening in the park.
Then there is the garbage. Where does it go and who pays for picking it up? The city. The bulk of its street pickup of garbage is already fast food from permanent restaurants, but this just exacerbating it.
Finally, there is the noise and the pollution. Permanent restaurants are hooked up to municipal supplies of electricity and have engineered exhaust hoods that dump the fumes out at rooftop level; Food trucks often have engines running to generate electricity and pump their fumes out virtually at street level.
When Pablo looked at food trucks a couple of years ago, he concluded that food trucks were actually greener than restaurants, since the owners don't have to heat all that space all day long. Sarah Johnson at the Atlantic studied cupcake trucks and concluded that mobile food had a much higher carbon footprint than a fixed storefront. But then she noted: " the "big kicker" boils down to: is it more efficient for the food to go to where the people are or have the people go to where the food is?" We still don't know the answer to that.
Lloyd Alter/ mobile crepe cafe in Copenhagen/CC BY 2.0
I remain conflicted and as I found in a survey two years ago, clearly in the minority. Perhaps I would think differently if more of them were like this crepe truck in Copenhagen. I suppose this summer we will begin to see whether they are a good thing or not.
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Underwood, Hilary (2008) G.F. Watts Parables in Paint Watts Gallery, Guildford, Surrey.
The booklet explores how Watts's upbringing shaped his outlook and influenced the subjects of his religious art. It shows how his chosen style of painting gave him an expressive language for conveying his religious and spiritual ideas. The essay also includes an outline of Watts's forty-year involvement with St Paul's Cathedral.


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NGC 6522 est un amas globulaire situé dans la constellation du Sagittaire à environ  a.l. (7,7 kpc) du Soleil et à  a.l. (0,6 kpc) du centre de la Voie lactée. Il a été découvert par l'astronome germano-britannique William Herschel en 1784. Cet amas est proche du cœur de la Voie lactée, dans une région du ciel appelée fenêtre de Baade, où l'absorption du milieu interstellaire est suffisamment faible pour permettre les observations des régions situées à proximité du centre galactique. NGC 6522 est situé à proximité de NGC 6528, un autre amas globulaire près du centre de notre galaxie.

Histoire, détermination de la distance du centre galactique
Historiquement, cet amas a joué un rôle important dans l'établissement de la distance au centre galactique. C'est l'astronome allemand Walter Baade qui eut le premier l'idée d'étudier certaines étoiles de cet amas pour en déduire leur distance et par suite, en supposant que cet objet était situé à proximité du centre galactique, la distance du centre galactique lui-même.

Baade proposa l'utilisation de cet amas en 1946, mais c'est en 1951 qu'il arriva à en déterminer la distance par l'étude d'étoiles variables de type RR Lyrae qu'il trouva en grande nombre (76) dans l'amas. La valeur trouvée par Baade était de 8,7 kpc, accord en apparence remarquable avec la valeur actuellement admise (7,7 kpc), mais pour une raison essentiellement fortuite restée célèbre. En effet, le résultat de Baade fut fortuitement proche de la distance exacte par la combinaison de deux erreurs s'étant heureusement compensées : il avait d'une part surestimé l'extinction en direction de NGC 6522, et d'autre part surestimé la magnitude absolue de ces astres, qu'il imaginait plus rougis et intrinsèquement plus brillants. L'erreur de Baade relativement au rougissement tient à ce qu'il avait mal évalué la nature des populations stellaires de cet amas. Il l'imaginait composé d'astres relativement déficients en métaux (c'est-à-dire pauvre en éléments chimiques autres que l'hydrogène et l'hélium), à l'instar des autres amas globulaires du halo galactique, alors qu'en réalité cet amas est très significativement enrichi en métaux, du fait de sa proximité avec le centre galactique. Finalement, du fait de cette propriété, il est plus rouge que ne le serait un amas plus pauvre en métaux, ce que Baade avait interprété à tort comme un signe d'un absorption interstellaire importante, celle-ci étant directement proportionnelle à l'excès de couleur rouge qu'il pensait observer. À ce titre, les étoiles de type RR Lyrae utilisées par Baade pour la déterminer la distance de NGC 6522 forment une population assez peu commune de cet amas globulaire et de cette région de la galaxie, étant, elles, relativement pauvres en métaux.

Caractéristiques

Distance et vitesse
Selon la base de données Simbad, la vitesse radiale héliocentrique de cet amas est égale à ..  William W. Harris indique une valeur plus grande, soit . Un article publié en 2019 indique aussi cette valeur de la vitesse pour cet amas et une troisième publication récente (2018) indique une valeur de .  Cet amas est un peu allongé avec une ellipticité de 0,06.

Selon une étude publiée en 2011 par J. Boyles et ses collègues, la métallicité [Fe/H] de l'amas globulaire NGC 6522 est égale à -1,34 et sa masse est égale à . Dans cette même étude, la distance de l'amas est aussi estimée à .

Métallicité et âge
Cinq valeurs de la métallicité sont indiquées par Simbad, ces valeurs sont situées entre -1,04 et -1,69. Harris indique la même valeur que Boyles, soit -1,34. Une métallicité comprise entre -1,69 et -1,04 signifie que la concentration en fer de NGC 6522 est comprise entre 2,0% et 9,1% de celle du Soleil. Après le Big Bang, l'Univers étant surtout composé d'hydrogène et d'hélium, la métallicité était pratiquement nulle. L'univers s'est progressivement enrichi en métaux (éléments plus lourds que l'hélium) grâce à la synthèse de ceux-ci dans le cœur des étoiles. La métallicité des amas du halo de la Voie lactée varie d'un centième à un dixième de la métallicité solaire, ce qui signifie que ces amas se décomposent en deux sous-groupes, les relativement jeunes et les vieux . NGC 6522 est donc un amas enrichi en métaux lourd et relativement âgé.

Selon une étude spectroscopique exhaustive des populations stellaires des amas globulaires NGC 6522 et NGC 6626 (M28), la métallicité de ces deux amas est similaire et se situe entre -1,30 et 1,0 ce qui correspond à un âge situé entre 12,5 et 13,0 milliards d'années.

Galerie

Notes et références

Notes

Références
, page 47.

Voir aussi

Articles connexes
 Liste des objets du NGC
 Fenêtre de Baade
 Centre galactique

Liens externes

NGC 6522 sur le site du professeur C. Seligman

Amas globulaire
Constellation du Sagittaire
6522
Objet céleste découvert en 1784
Objet céleste découvert par William Herschel

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Books in the Making
It has been a busy year. In February, New Holland Publishers released my picture book called 'The Last of Maui's Dolphins'. It is a fictional story about a Maui's dolphin saving its friends from a set net. Some reviewers have called it a creative non-fiction book but I call it a picture book. It made me think about the definition of what a creative non-fiction story is. More people are aware of the term now but it is being used for books that don't technically fall into that category. I believe it is has to be about something factual but written in story format. For example, 'Rangitoto' is about the birth of a volcano and it is written using story techniques. I also have a creative non-fiction story in 'The Call of the Kokako' a true story about how one man saved ten kokako. 'The Last of the Maui's Dolphins' has been popular and sold well all year.
While I was thinking of marketing opportunities for the dolphin book I was also teaching a 'Writing for children' paper at Massey University. I then spent three months writing a teaching resource for Essential Resources. It should have only taken six weeks but for the first time ever I had writers' block. I've decided it is essential you have down-time during the Christmas break instead of working through or else you tend to burn-out. I tried everything to get through this block from sitting at the desk every day to writing a journal to setting goals but most days I just banged my head against the keyboard. In desperation I tried a bach flower remedy that is supposed to help you get over blocks. I also had to read an affirmation aloud every time I took the drops. It worked and I finished 'Critical Essay Writing'; a book that helps teachers teach essay writing across the curriculum. It might have been timing and I had got over the block or else ... spookier things have happened. If you're desperate and want to give it a try it's called 'Essence of D'Light' the "Manifestation" flower crystal/homeopathic remedy.
In August my book 'New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame' was released by New Holland Publishing. I've been thrilled at how popular this book has been. It sold out within three weeks and had to be reprinted. The kids are loving reading about their heroes featured in an easy-to-read format with action photographs and talented Marco Ivancic's illustrations. I was interviewed by numerous radio stations around the country about the book. I found it amusing that they asked me the question whether I had a sporting background and when I told them I did ballet and competed in national ice skating competitions, they said, so you don't have a sporting background. Ummm, team sports no, but creative sports - yes. Some of the radio announcers liked the book so much they were encouraging kids to buy it for their fathers for Fathers Day. The most popular question was: Who were my favourites? I answered that I was impressed with sports people who had overcome incredible obstacles in the beginning and yet came out top in their fields such as Valerie Adams - both her parents died before she turned 20 years old; Cindy Mosey - the only survivor in a plane crash that killed all her family and she excelled in three sports including being World champion kite surfer three times; and of course Sophie Pascoe - who had a terrible accident at two years old that resulted in her losing her leg but has won more world champion gold medals than anyone else in New Zealand has ever won. Of course, I have Richie McCaw, Sonny Bill Williams, and Sir Russell Coutts and other amazing athletes in the book. See if your favourite sport star is in there too.
For the first time I published two books under my imprint Long White Cloud Books. For years booksellers had been asking me where they could buy 'Rangitito' which had been published by Penguin New Zealand but had gone out of print. It had been republished digitally last year by Pixel Book and I loved how they include slide shows and audio. We called it 'The Rock Standing in the Ocean' to reach a wider audience. However, we needed a print version as well. The printed book is bigger than before. Illustrator/designer Heather Arnold has changed some of the illustrations and design elements such as no white space at the bottom - the text space is now more blended with the illustration; I had up-to-date information about how scientists think field volcanoes erupt so Heather altered the diagram in the middle of the book; we also changed the page that featured all the different styles of volcanoes; and we included all 55 volcanoes. When the book was first published there were only 48 volcanoes known. A professor of geology in Australia saw the book and endorsed it, and a geology scientist in New Zealand fact checked it. The text was only tweaked but we still had it checked by an editor and a proof reader. The end result is - it looks fabulous and we're really proud of it.
The other book published under the imprint Long White Cloud Books is 'Operation Nest Egg Chick'. This is the first time this book has been published in print but it had been digitally published by Pixel Book last year. The digital version includes a video and lots of fabulous slide shows. The printed book is glossy, in a large size, with a creative non-fiction story, and a fact box on each page. It is illustrated with Bruce Potter's half-cartoon-half-real illustrations drawn on the computer, and includes lots of photographs with the text boxes. Bruce Potter has drawn the eyes of the kiwi much bigger than they naturally are and he said he deliberately did this because he wants children to empathise with the kiwi chicks in the story. The story is about two kiwi chicks; one survives to become part of the Operation Nest Egg programme that is saving kiwi all over New Zealand. You'll have to read it to find out what happens to the other kiwi chick. To complement the book Heather and I put together some photographs and videos of kiwi releases on Motuora Island and published it on a webpage here.
I launched three of the above books at the National Library along with two great friends: Heather Arnold (she published 'Draw New Zealand Birds' under the imprint Dragonsauce Books) and Victoria Azaro (she published 'Sage' and 'Super Saffron' under the W4 imprint). The three of us have worked together giving each other feedback on our books, writing/designing our publicity sheets, and promoting our books together. We've also made sure we've included all the publishing process and had our books professionally designed, edited and proofed. The books are being distributed by South Pacific Books. We also set up shops on our websites so that people can buy direct from us too. I've included all my books in the Long White Cloud Book shop as some are still in print but hard to find in bookshops (that tend to only stock the latest books nowadays). It is very exciting getting book orders!
Several smaller projects I worked on this year have been an article in the latest Magpie Magazine about Betty Brownlie author/illustrator of the Life Cycle series; and two articles for Kiwi Conservation Club 'Wild Things' magazine one about bullies (not the ones you think) in the Issue 123 Winter and another about conservation dogs in their next issue. Editor Johanna Knox is doing a wonderful job with this children's magazine - I highly recommend it for the home and school library.
At the moment, I'm researching an ANZAC book that comes out in 2016. I was extremely fortunate in receiving a Creative New Zealand WW100 grant that is enabling me to travel to Australia for two weeks to research the Australian soldiers in the book. For the first time ever I'm getting paid for every hour I work on the book too (due to the grant). I am thoroughly enjoying researching New Zealand and Australian soldiers. Their stories are awe-inspiring and sometimes tragic. My challenge is to make their stories exciting and also impart how difficult it was for the soldiers. We're calling the book 'ANZAC Hall of Fame: 25 Heroic Soldiers'. It is part of the New Zealand Hall of Fame series but I've included Australian as well as New Zealand soldiers (it is a truly ANZAC book), and some of the design elements are going to be different. We'll let you find that out when it is released in March 2016.
I hope you enjoy my books!
Posted by https://kidsbooksnz.blogspot.com at 4:30 PM 1 comment:
Labels: New Books; Long White Cloud Books
Children's Book events at Wellington Festival
I left it to the last minute to hop onto a plane to Wellington to attend Writer's Week at the New Zealand Festival – and I'm so glad I went. I find I learn something new at every literary event I go to – perhaps you'll pick up something from these notes from the talks I attended or find an author/illustrator/book you hadn't considered reading:
The very talented Fifi Colston and I stumbled into the first session on Sunday morning by good luck. We'd meant to pick up our tickets for Ulf Stark's talk and go to one of the many café's nearby before attending the session. Anxious to fill seats, the publicist gave us free tickets and we were ushered to the front row for a session on how to read a classic picture book in te reo Maori. On the stage teacher storyteller Te Kahureremoa Taumata began a haunting shell call to welcome us in. She then read Kei reira nga weriweri to the quiet adult audience. At this point, I had wondered what I had got myself into. Why were there no visuals on the screen behind the presenter and where were the children? Ten minutes later, she had us all up stomping and waving our arms while repeating after her Maori words; demonstrating how she engages restless children. Te Kahureremoa continued to give us tips and then reread the story how she would read it to children. She asked questions, pointed out figures, sang phrases, acted out the words – you could see how little children would be entranced. She emphasised that pre-schoolers don't need the whole story read to them; gauge how interested they are and get them interacting with the book. We both took away something we could use in our own storytelling.
Multi language talks continued into the next session. Julia Marshall from Gecko Press translated Ulf Stark's answers while his wife asked the questions. Ulf Stark told us the startling news (perhaps only astonishing to English first language) that only one percent of Swedish books are translated into English. Julia translated and published Can you whistle, Johanna? several years ago. At the time, Ulf didn't even know where New Zealand was. He said with books you have a way of flying a bit – and now he has flown all the way to New Zealand.
Ulf began his writing career as a poet. He said poetry is similar to writing children's stories – you have a small amount of space to say something. He doesn't set out to include issues in his stories but said the world looks a certain way and it is his job to describe the world, including bodily functions and death. "Death is a part of life and every child and adult will have to meet it one way or another. You don't win so much from trying to bury it." He said it is a good way to meet some of these sad things when you are a child – often adults are more afraid of these things than children are. A writer can rebuild their childhood transforming people into characters and making fiction out of it. When asked what he would never write he said detective stories – there are too many in Sweden. "It is important to go into the deep – with detective stories so much is happening on the surface you cannot go deep."
In between talks the children's literary community went from one favourite coffee café to another. We ate burritos, beignets (yummy type of doughnut) and biscuits. That night we attended the launch of Mary McCullum's book Dappled Annie and the Tigrish in a crowded St James Theatre. Present were Gecko's New Zealand and international authors. We heard that illustrator Annie Hayward and Mary collaborated on the story from the start; and the picture book transformed into a junior fiction chapter book over two years. Julia Marshall and the Gecko Press editor both sung its praises and then it was launched. The room hummed with librarians, teachers, booksellers, publishers, writers and illustrators talking and networking.
On a crisp Monday morning, I attended Leo Timmer's session at Hannah Playhouse. Leo told us ten years ago he saw illustrations moving to the computer but he was not interested. He likes the physical aspect of painting and you can't do that on the computer. He kept painting and noticed those that jumped to computers have switched back to painting. He says it is a very slow medium and slowness is a good thing – it gives you time to think, whereas, computers are too fast and you can take shortcuts too easily. He likes reworking his illustrations - for him time passes and they get better. "Drawing is like a puzzle with many elements that fit together." All are carefully constructed and he likes to tell a story with each picture.
Leo believes printed and digital books will co-exist. He says it is too easy to show everything in a digital device. He sees children growing up with devices being over-stimulated with movement. He worries about that. Can they concentrate, be still, be quiet and read? Children need a wide variety of experiences. When everything is presented for them on a digital device they don't need to use their imagination. Books stimulate your imagination and encourage problem solving.
With a graphic artist and advertising background, Leo didn't know he could paint for a living. He ended up never working in design and advertising – in fact, he has never had a job. Over those years, he experimented and found his style and voice. He realised in the early stages it is all about 'idea'. Every day he draws in a book developing ideas, as an exercise in telling stories. He'll let those ideas rest for a month or so and then looks back at it. Some work, some are not ready, and some are so bad they'll never been seen. He says this method takes the pressure off him.
Leo started writing out of frustration. He'd receive stories he felt he could not do anything for. It took him a long time to dare to write – he had such respect for writers. The first book he wrote won an award and from then on he felt he didn't need to worry.
Animals are a key motif that comes through with his work. Leo says animals create distance. He uses animals to talk about things kids' experience. It is not a direct reflection on a child – it is more like a metaphor. He likes to play with colours and shapes with animals too. For example, Leo got the idea for his 'Bang' story from a movie. He took from it that it looks like we have to crash into each other to feel something. He wanted to turn this idea into a picture book. He put his animal characters into cars rather than be alone. He drew the simple fast layer first and then put other things into it for kids to discover over many readings. Leo said, "Picture books are not an illustrated story – it is visual story telling." His stories have many layers. Children look more carefully at everything, whereas, adults tend to focus on just one element.
Leo does like to tell a message in his stories. "Problems children have are no different to our problems." He likes to play with ideas that apply to everyone: belonging, having friends etc. His bigger message is often about 'who are you' and 'what makes it, who you are'. Leo was naughty at school – he was dyslexic and considered not very bright. He couldn't read, spell or count – everything was in reverse. Because of that a lot of his stories often have the message of 'outsiders who want to fit in'.
Illustrator designers Aleksandra and Daniel Mizielinsky have however, embraced print and digital media. They believe that the digital medium is in its very early stages, though. They don't believe digital books should be even called e-books – they have nothing in common. A book designed for print can't work for a screen. Some digital books are one tap away from the game 'angry birds'. They believe game designers will transform digital stories. It is not surprising Daniel believes that, as he has a background in animation.
Daniel and Aleksandra met at the entrance exam at a Polish design and illustration academy. They began commercial work in their third year (of a five year degree) to earn money. They find it easy to work together because they've had the same teachers. Their styles are so similar they often cannot tell who did what in their books. They have faith in each other's work but are not averse to giving each other feedback.
They like to make their books interactive. That's why they included icons in H.O.U.S.E and D.E.S.I.G.N. The icons also enabled them to shorten content. In a book are two languages: image and text. Sometimes they see no need to include both – that's overdoing it. So they put in icons children can refer to and save space as well. It enables children to learn something new and read it in many different ways.
Over the years they've developed four type-faces. They don't believe in patenting them, though. That just involves a lot of legal tangle. To encourage questions from the audience they offered to give away the use of some of their fonts for one year. I was the lucky recipient of one of their fonts. I wanted to know the name of the app Daniel said sits in-between print and e-stories. It is a Scandinavian game/story called Year Walk and I found a review of it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsYxazZGrzg
After a bit of time-out from the hustle and bustle of literary talks and cafes down at the wharf sunning myself I had time for a wine with friends before attending Gavin Bishop's State of the Nation speech.
Gavin focussed his talk mostly on his illustration experience and how it has influenced him and how it relates to the literary world he finds himself in. He says the whale in the Pinocchio film transformed his life at four years old. The story became a touchstone for him and was the title for his lecture: 'The mouth of the whale'. After seeing that film he realised the power of illustrations. The cinema taught him the use of visual storytelling – where the imagination has to do a lot of work.
Maurice Sendak once said, "A picture book is a damned difficult thing to do." Gavin agrees - you need to make it look easy – the mystery is the artist's business. Like a movie; words and pictures don't say the same thing. The pictures should not be just an echo of the author's words – otherwise they are doing the same thing. You are never just decorating.
Gavin says lots of modern books are lean and mean; stories simplified to satisfy a quick fix. People are producing what they think children want and include talk about bodily functions. Tessa Duder said to enshrine those in books is sad.
Dr Libby Limbrick told Gavin she is optimistic, however. This year when choosing books for the Notable Award they had plenty to choose from. In one category they've chosen 13 because there were so many good ones.
Gavin shared his early experiences with publishing – his desire to set his stories firmly in New Zealand. When he did have two stories published for the American market they were warmly received there but New Zealand reviewers were critical – where were the New Zealand references.
Though publishers are moving overseas and there are fewer outlets for writers and illustrators to be published Gavin said there is more support nowadays. He named Storylines, NZSA, Te Tai Tamariki, NZ Book Council and other organisations. Gavin recognises a need for closer ties with Australia and would like to see a children's laureate here in New Zealand. Later he said we need benefactors to enable a children's laureate scheme to happen. It would have many advantages for the children's literary scene.
Picture books are here to stay, said Gavin. Technology may change the format but its current make-up of 32 pages is successful. "The mouth of the whale will forever be open in astonishment and delight."
We toasted his talk afterwards at a café and then local bar. Wellingtonians are a hospitable lot (especially Fifi Colston) and Wellington is understandably the creative epic centre of New Zealand. I'd highly recommend travelling to the next Wellington Festival. Other centres will also have their Literary festivals later in the year – get yourself along to one by yourself or with the kids:
Dunedin Writers & Readers Festival 6-11 May
Auckland Writers & Readers Festival 14-18 May
Christchurch Writers Festival 28-31 August
Storylines Family Day Festivals
· Saturday 23rd August in Dunedin
· Sunday 24th August in Christchurch, and Wellington
· Saturday 30th August in Northland, and South Auckland
· Sunday 31st August in central Auckland
Labels: festival notes
What Lies Beneath Exhibition
'The Last of the Maui's' picture book has had its outing at the What Lies Beneath Exhibition at the National Library (from 20/1/14 - 20/2/14). Now it is at Takapuna Library until the 28th March when it goes on show at the Gala Night, What Lies Beneath exhibition, National Library (8 Stanley Street, Parnell, Auckland) 6pm. All invited (rsvp mariagill at ihug.co.nz). It is a chance for you to see all 16 exhibits together for one night only.
What does the exhibition reveal? Authors and illustrators in the exhibition will share what inspired them, you'll see drafts, storyboards, and proofs.
Writers are inspired by many different things. It might be something we are passionate about (like my Maui's dolphin story - I wanted to do something positive to spread the word that we need to help save them). Illustrators go through a different process. They'll research like us but are more likely influenced by visual images and they'll obsess over shape, colour, perspective, and sometimes font.
At the Gala night, you'll also hear authors and illustrators talk about the process of creating a book. Some will also share sneak peaks of books yet to be released.
There will be wine and nibbles, books for sale (and authors and illustrators available to sign them), and all the exhibition on show. Entry fee - gold coin donation. We look forward to seeing you there. Here are some images of 'The Last of the Maui's' picture book on show.
Labels: Exhibition
Exciting new book about Maui's dolphins
From yesterday onwards my latest book - The Last of Maui's Dolphins - is available in shops.
I am rather thrilled to announce it is a picture book about a young Maui's dolphin who is warned by his pod to never go near the dark shapes; the ever present threat of fishing boats. One day he has to ignore their pleas. Can he save his friends: Squiggles the octopus, Spotty the snapper, and Puru the Blue penguin and not get caught himself?
When I heard that there were only (at the time) 111 Maui's dolphins left - a story began stirring in my mind. I had to write the first stanza that night in my hotel room (I was away touring at the time). I tweaked the story over two years and by the time it was accepted by New Holland Publishers for publication we found out there were only 55 Maui's dolphins left!
At the back of the book is a fact page that tells readers what they can do to help Maui's, Hector's and other dolphins. Fishing boats aren't the only problems dolphins have to face: boat strike, pollution (liquid and rubbish), ghost fishing (nets left in the water that continue to catch marine animals), and over-fishing. I encourage (commercial and recreational) fishermen to use pingers, and be sure they don't leave any lines or nets in the water. People tend to point the finger only at commercial fishermen (a lot of them are very responsible - they have pingers on their nets, and make sure they don't leave any netting in the water). There are many more recreational fishermen - that's you and I - and we need to all make sure we're responsible when out fishing too. If you want to do something right now - be part of WWF's Maui's campaign.
I believe Maui's dolphin population has reached critical level and we all need to do something to help them. We definitely don't want their extinction on our hands ...
Where can you get the book? From all good book shops, of course! RRP $21
And if you're wondering who did the fantastic artwork - it is Bruce Potter - his underwater scenes are stunning!
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Labels: Picture Book