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Gargantua and Pantagruel (Penguin Classics)
By Francois Rabelais
A Year in Reading: Max Porter
Max Porter - 12.6.2019 | 1
A combination of factors (leaving my editorial job, a new book out, traveling a lot, being sent a great many books, small children, existential crises, moral panics, a cold office, bad knees, a guilt complex) means the structure of my reading life has crumbled. I'm all over the place. Undisciplined. Books everywhere. Books about ecological disaster sitting next to old copies of Asterix. Mad panic that I might not have time to read Pantagruel again so I'm hiding in the toilet reading Pantagruel while I should be getting my kids ready for school. It feels strange to read books. But we are reliably informed that it always did.
Most of my reading these days is about animism, paganism, druidism, and trees. Treeism? Some of this is research, but mostly it's philosophical escapism. I'm searching for something. My second novel got a review from a right wing paper that said 'Porter goes full hippy" and I took it as permission to do just that. If not now, then when?
For a book I want to write, I've been researching medieval life, art, and medicine. Highlights include Towards a Global Middle Ages by Bryan C. Keene (especially Eyob Derillo's amazing work on Ethiopian amulet scrolls), Medieval Bodies by Jack Hartnell, and the British Library catalogue Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War.
I would have been lost this year (as any other) without poetry to cling to and travel with. If I had to choose a single book of the year it would be Jay Bernard's Surge. It is an extraordinary artistic and political achievement and one of the most important British books of the last decade.
Other highlights have been Rachael Allen's Kingdomland, Rebecca Tamás's Witch, Fiona Benson's Vertigo & Ghost, Jenny George's The Dream of Reason, and Anthony Anaxagorou's After the Formalities.
There is also a shockingly fresh, invigorating, boasty-bright new translation of the Welsh epic Taliesin, by Gwyneth Lewis and Rowan Williams. It bubbles, swoons, and swaggers as if Alice Oswald wrote it yesterday. I've kept it by my bed in the hope I dream of "Nettle flowers from the ninth wave's water…conjured by Math."
I have spent a lot of time rereading Julia Blackburn's Time Song, Richard Holloway's On Forgiveness, and Fanny Howe's The Needle's Eye. These books have given me clarity and inspiration this year. I also reread Riddley Walker for discussion with the great Backlisted Podcast, and holy shit it's still the absolute best.
I read some classics including Jamaica Kincaid's The Autobiography of My Mother, which cut through everything else around it like a very sharp knife. What a powerful book. This was also the year I first read Omensetter's Luck by William H. Gass, After London by Richard Jeffries, The Golden Legend by Jacobus De Voragine, Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees, and Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls.
The work in translation I'm most grateful to have discovered this year is the Tilted Axis series of pamphlets Translating Feminisms. Extraordinary Nepali, Vietnamese, Korean, and Tamil poetry, with introductory essays by the translators that make visible and examine the political machinations of translation. Radical, stylish, important, and invigorating publishing.
Three really, really good new American novels from my old pals at Granta Books knocked my socks off: Jenny Offill's Weather, Jesse Ball's The Divers' Game, and Ben Lerner's Topeka School. The disconnect between these visionary, elegant, sophisticated literary endeavors and the burger-vomit death-cabaret is…well I don't know what it is. It's simultaneously wildly bizarre and heartbreakingly mundane.
In British nonfiction I'm grateful to Nathan Filer's This Book Will Change Your Mind About Mental Health (formerly titled The Heartland), because it did. Johny Pitts's Afropean and Mariam Khan's It's Not About the Burqua both do a lot to expand, revise, and interrogate the ideas we have of one another in the U.K., and counter some of the entrenched bigotry and pernicious ignorance that shapes so much of the discourse on our small racist island.
Samantha Harvey's forthcoming book on insomnia is incredibly good. As is Mark O'Connell's forthcoming book on the end of the world.
The graphic novel I am most excited about is Anders Nilsen's visionary work-in-progress Tongues. I read the first three parts this year and I eagerly await the next. It's just…staggering. Utterly fucking insane. So beautiful and so strange. He is a genius.
Lastly, John Burningham died this year. I grew up with his books. They've been a constant presence in my children's lives. They've been in our dreams and in our language. His clouds, his animals, his strange domestic spaces, his weird anguished faces and bruised mottled landscapes. I love his books very, very much.
Don't miss: A Year in Reading 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005
The Millions Interview
Martin Riker Discusses Fatherhood, 19th-Century Literature, and the Beastie Boys
Stephen Sparks - 9.25.2018
Samuel Johnson's Eternal Return, which marks Martin Riker's first book-length foray into fiction, is a book that I imagine has been simmering for a long time, and one that likely has taken a back seat to Marty's many other pursuits. As one of our most perceptive critics—I've made it a rule to read books he reviews favorably—and publishing do-it-alls (at Dalkey Archive and now, with his wife, novelist and publisher Danielle Dutton, at Dorothy, a Publishing Project), Marty has been one of the great champions of daring, innovative fiction. This, of course, leaves little time for other things.
And so it was with great excitement and pleasure that I read Samuel Johnson's Eternal Return, which is characteristically subtle, funny, and well-seasoned. To say it's a novel about identity or parenthood or our collective fixation on television may be partially true, but as with all significant works of fiction, those descriptors may be in the ballpark but miss the game entirely. For the game, you've got to read the book.
The Millions: As I was reading Samuel Johnson's Eternal Return, I couldn't help thinking of the television show Quantum Leap. The differences between the time-traveling, body-jumping hero of that show and the eponymous character of your novel are vast and in that gulf is a world of possibilities, which you mine to great effect. What is it about the trope of inhabiting another body or consciousness that appeals to you?
Martin Riker: I actually don't know that show! In fact I'll admit right out of the gate that even though the novel contains a whole narrative history of television programming, I don't own a TV. Growing up I was a TV kid, not a book kid. In the eighties I loved network television with all my heart. But I stopped watching in the early nineties and didn't look at screens at all for 10 or 15 years. Having a kid of my own brought TV back into my life, but our son doesn't watch much. I mean, we Netflix. We're not hermits.
Anyway, the trope: The logistical answer (there are two answers) is that this novel was originally conceived as a modern retelling of Robert Montgomery Bird's 1836 Sheppard Lee, Written by Himself, which is a picaresque novel narrated by a man who's died and whose soul travels from body to body, uncovering the reality of lives across the socioeconomic spectrum of early America. I loved the playfulness of that premise, its expansiveness, but beyond that I loved its democratic ambitions, the Whitman-like project of trying to sing America from the inside out. My own version took some pretty radical digressions from Bird's original; for example, I abandoned very early any attempt to be "representative" of the diversity of modern America, which is just too broad, and instead focused on points of commonality and difference, themes that define life for all of us (media, family, solitude).
The more general answer is that I am a lifelong admirer of the Menippean satire, a 2,000-year-old literary genre the particulars of which I won't go into here except to say that one of its 13 attributes (according to Mikhail Bakhtin in his Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics) is the transgression of boundaries between this world, heaven, and the underworld. Starting around the "Myth of Er" in Plato's Republic, there's a long line of writers playing with these boundaries, and specifically with the idea of metempsychosis—the transmigration of the soul through bodies. The point, from an art perspective, is that it allows the writer (and reader) to step back from everyday life and look at our human experiences from a distance. The pettiness of human endeavor is revealed for what it is, etc. The oddity of my narrator is that, despite how separated he (mostly) is from the world he witnesses, he can't seem to attain anything like a comforting objectivity. Death gives him "perspective," but that's almost all it gives him. It doesn't free him from human concerns. He's still as frustrated and petty as anybody.
TM: I suspect rendering one of those consciousnesses almost helplessly passive was a great challenge. Did you set yourself any formal limitations in the composition of the plot?
MR: Yeah, that was what made me want to write the book in the first place, that challenge. For years I had been thinking about how to write an adventure novel in an age when modern transportation and telecommunications have left us with pitifully few unexplored places and when a life of "action" feels like a movie cliche. You could set it in space, or inside the earth, I guess. Cyberspace feels more Kafkaesque than adventurous to me. So what I saw in the premise of Sheppard Lee was the possibility of an adventure story in which the protagonist lacks agency—a passive action novel! And then immediately I realized it would be a book about media culture as well.
As for plot composition, I have an almost embarrassingly specific answer for this. Edgar Allan Poe reviewed Sheppard Lee when it first came out. He liked it, but cited among its problems that Bird couldn't seem to decide when or to what extent his protagonist (Sheppard Lee) should control the bodies he inhabits. My interest in writing about media sort of solved this problem for me—my protagonist would have as much control over what he sees as you or I have over a television program—but it raised a different problem, which was how to make that into an interesting book. I wasn't excited to write something boring and hopeless. My Samuel Johnson had to be able to (and forced to) make decisions with moral consequences, even if he tended to make very bad ones. So I had to have a narrative device by which my protagonist might gain control of his existence (under certain circumstances), and the invention of that device is another reason my novel took a very different direction from Bird's. The device itself, and the emotional possibilities it opened up, took me to unexpected places, and that element of adventure (compositional adventure) was one of the great pleasures of writing this book. Fortunately, sticking to the plan was never part of the plan.
TM: There is perhaps no way of answering this, but I'm going to ask to see where an answer might lead: Could you have written this novel before becoming a father?
MR: I don't think I could have, but not for the obvious reason (that I now know what being a father is like). The actual reason is much more personal, and I doubt I can articulate it very well. It has to do with how having a kid changes what you care about, where you invest your emotions and your aspirations. I've written fiction for many years but not much of it was very sharable, because I was constantly getting in the way of myself (don't ask me what I mean by that). One of the biggest changes for me, in becoming a dad, was that I stopped caring very much about myself. I like myself just fine, but my emotional attention is now directed elsewhere, toward my son and my wife but also outward more generally. And for some reason that change in myself had a tangible impact on my ability to craft sentences and paragraphs. It's not the only change that mattered for writing this book, but it's maybe the most interesting.
TM: Am I correct in reading SJER as a satire?
MR: Not in the conventional sense. I'm not out to attack anyone. There's no target. I mentioned Menippean satire earlier, and one of the funny things about that genre is that despite the name, it isn't really satire as we think of it. Where satire attacks one point of view from the perspective of a different point of view, the Menippean satire is all about copia, plentitude, the diversity of ways of seeing the world. The only thing it attacks is the presumption that any single worldview might constitute "truth," and this it often attacks viciously, if comically. Erasmus's In Praise of Folly, for example, or Rabelais's Gargantua and Pantagruel. Bakhtin admires menippea (as he calls it) because he's all about polyphony and the idea that a novel is not a political statement but rather a space in which many different voices and ideas and ways of seeing are constantly mixing and contending with one another. This is what I like about it as well.
TM: When we met, you were still at Dalkey Archive Press, and you are now the publisher, with Danielle, of Dorothy, so I must ask the question of influence. Which writers and/or schools influenced this novel? Who are you reading or what excites you in contemporary fiction?
MR: I don't know about influence, but I start to salivate at the opportunity to make book recommendations. But first I'll try to answer about influence.
Aside from Bird's novel, it's hard to say precisely what influenced SJER. I was rereading Dickens when I started writing it, and I'm sure he's in there somehow—the voice, maybe. Georges Perec is probably the most important, and in some ways that influence is clear: the mixing of an adventure story with other genres, the almost schematic breadth of subjects, Perec's passion for telling tales. There's a lot of linguistic parody in SJER, and some of that might be coming from Fran Ross's Oreo, which is in my all-time top five. Ross's parody has more satirical punch, though. I'm just interested in all the cool things language can do (so was she, of course). More generally, I think my ideas about art and literature were shaped from a very early age by the Beastie Boys, whose work I see as fundamentally about friendship, first, and, second, about the endlessly various ways a bunch of stuff can be thrown together to make something wonderful. That's the quality William Gass meant when he called Donald Barthelme—quoting Barthelme himself—"the leading edge of the trash phenomenon." It was a compliment.
Lately I've been rereading a lot—for my classes and for fun—and it's been a great joy to revisit Flann O'Brien and Nikolai Gogol and people like that. After the fact, I saw a lot of Dead Souls in SJER, even though it wasn't in my mind while writing. In fact, I find that writing a book causes you to see your own book in every other book you read, or at least in a lot of them. Other books I've been loving but that have nothing to do with SJER include everything Dorothy is publishing (!) and quite a number of the books I've been reviewing. Best in Show goes to Mike McCormack's Solar Bones, which I think you and I both liked a great deal. McCormack's novel made me feel loose and ready, like a boxer. It made the question of "the novel" feel suddenly up for grabs again, which for me is the best thing a book can do.
TM: You mention that when writing a book you start to see your book in every other book. This is such a simple but revelatory statement! It also speaks to something apparent in the novel: a current trend (that's too light a term for it, but it'll stay for now) that is all about the… if not the dissolution, then at least the fragmentation or break-up of the idea of a concrete individual who is bound by gender, age, demographics. I love how SJER's shifting forms reflect this pivotal moment in Western culture. All of which is to ask: What good is the individual in fiction? Does he/she have a future in literature?
MR: I'm not sure he/she even has much of a past! Or at least that past is admirably patchy. It seems to me literature's been ahead of the curve when it comes to complicating or fragmenting or subverting received ideas about the cleanly coherent self for at least a couple hundred years. Maybe not so much in the outwardly visible ways we're seeing now in the culture, not until books like Orlando, or Brigid Brophy's 1969 In Transit, or Anne Garréta's Sphinx—but those books seem to me natural extensions of the novel's essential polyphony. Once the menippean values I mentioned earlier got mixed up with the idea of character, which was happening at least by the time of Diderot's Rameau's Nephew in the mid-18th century, the instability and multiplicity of identity became what novels—some novels—were all about. Dostoevsky, whole swaths of modernism, etc.
In comparison to that stuff, my Samuel Johnson is pretty simple. He starts off without much self to speak of, so he's relatively unpresumptuous, and comfortable in the role of sponge. What interests me most is that even though he inhabits all these other lives, and forgets himself and "becomes" these others, still he doesn't often feel that he knows these people very well. He knows them as well as you could possibly know someone, but that turns out to be: not that well! In part because they don't know themselves, or are too human-messy to be easily defined, but mostly because he doesn't have access to their thoughts, and so there's this invisible wall, consciousness.
I do get put off (this is a different way of answering your question) by writing that doesn't allow room, formally, for experiences of instability, possibility, surprise, change. A lot of commercially successful fiction makes me feel constricted in that way. It takes itself too seriously, or doesn't take me (reader) seriously enough. But maybe that's just a way of saying that uninteresting books aren't interesting. Whereas identity as a site of possibility or contention, the individual as an ongoing dialogue—those ideas I hope have a future, because literature would be pretty dull without them.
TM: Your reference points for the book are, for the most part, 19th century and earlier, though of course there are more modern influences. What is it about these forms that allows them the plasticity to be continually reinvented and to feel so fresh?
MR: You are my dream interviewer. I think all literary forms have the plasticity you're talking about. Forms come with some basic characteristics (e.g., a "list" contains "items"), but they don't come with any prescribed values or freshness potential—that's all in what you do with them.
If I were going to really do this question justice I would go on a longish rant about friendship. I would talk about the sense I have in reading certain 18th-century works—for example, Diderot's Jacques the Fatalist—that they were written long before the idea of the "professionalized author" was even conceived. I would then attempt to describe the pleasure I get—with Diderot—from feeling that what I am reading is written not by a "professional" but by an incredibly smart and interesting friend. Wayne Booth makes the argument, in his The Company We Keep, that the idea of friendship as a literary value falls off somewhere in the 19th century. In fact, he says the idea of friendship as a subject worthy of critical attention falls out of intellectual life entirely, even though for the longest time the notion that books were like friends was the primary way of seeing them. He doesn't mean we've lost friendship itself, even in books; he just means we don't really think or talk about books in those terms.
I've noticed that the books I feel the greatest friendship toward tend to resist the veneer of professionalization in one way or another. I mentioned earlier Fran Ross and Georges Perec. Alasdair Gray is another. Also Joanna Ruocco, whom I publish, though I don't know her personally very well. Not long ago I interviewed her, primarily because I wanted to confirm for myself that she was actually as cool as I thought she was (she is). There are others, but not very many. It's a specific feeling, not a common thing, more a recognition of shared values than "liking" or admiring or even loving the work. For example, I don't feel this way about David Foster Wallace's work, even though David was my real-life friend, someone I cared about quite a lot. I love his writing, too (well, I love about half of his writing), but I don't have that "friendship" feeling toward it.
All I mean to say is that I've always wanted my own writing to be friendly, approachable. Meaningful, but in a manner completely in step with everyday life. My favorite writers read like they might easily live next-door to you. You can go over and borrow their lawnmowers, plus they write these wonderful, interesting things. And maybe 18th- and 19th-century storytelling devices appeal to me—to try to loop this back to your question—because things like conversational narrators and tale-telling and "then fate took an unexpected turn!" are very approachable and are as likely as anything else to produce interesting art.
TM: I really like your take on the question about fatherhood. That fatherhood provides an out from yourself that opens up a whole set of possibilities that open up whole avenues previously untraveled or at least infrequently visited is a refreshing take—especially for a writer, since so many male writers have been aloof or absent from the lives of their children. I wonder if the passivity of the narrator is a reflection of what must feel like occasional helplessness in viewing the life of a child.
MR: That's a really ideal way to read it. The book thinks a lot about feelings of helplessness, both with regard to parenting and more generally to life. The idea that we are stuck in our own heads and there's little we can do for one another has been a staple of existential comedy since Beckett at least, in addition to being a painfully obvious fact of every parent's daily reality, and I like seeing those two seemingly distinct anxieties—one existential, the other mundane—as not so different.
As far as my narrator goes, I would stop short of saying his passivity is caused by his helpless-parent feelings. He is modern man! He's passive from way, way back.
TM: I don't want to talk about the ending, but I do want to ask, in a general way, one of those craft questions about the structure of the novel and how it came to you. Were you writing toward that ending? At a certain point, the narrative picks up momentum and you can see where it's going, and my hunch is that it was lurking there all along, but I'm curious to know if that's accurate.
MR: When I first conceived of the book and had written the opening two chapters, I had a particular ending in mind. Danielle wanted to know what it was, but I wouldn't tell her, and she said "Well, I just hope that…" and then said the thing she hoped would happen, which was not the ending I had in mind. I wanted my wife to be happy with my book—it was quite possible she would be the only one reading it—so I thought, maybe I can have both endings? It took me a while to figure out how to make that work, but the result is that the book really has two endings, and this is essential, I think, to how and what the story "means." We talk of stories having happy endings or sad endings and I very much dislike those being the options. I've always loved the start of Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds, where the narrator says a good book ought to be allowed to have three entirely different openings. I didn't want entirely different endings, though; I just wanted the ending to "mean" in several directions at once. I can't say more without saying too much. But if there's anything I'm particularly proud of in this book, it's those last two chapters.
Pineapples in a Hothouse: Writing Culture in 'Dear Committee Members' and 'Twilight of the Eastern Gods'
John Yargo - 11.21.2014 | 3
In Germany, in the late 1790s and early 1800s, university curators and other supervisors struggled with the balance of power between faculties and centralized administrators. As William Clark details in his book, Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University, private correspondence between administrators and specialists carried the most weight in promotions and hiring.
"A 1795 article in Berlinische Monatsschrift recommended that sovereigns should not consult universities corporately in formal correspondence," writes Clark. Instead, "a sovereign should consult with a few scholars via confidential correspondence."
Clark quotes a contemporary history professor who pointed out an eternal truth: "Although the faculties of learned academies recognize the men who most merit a vacant position, they are still seldom or never inclined to suggest the most capable fellow they know."
The University of Göttingen would be the first to shift away from the correspondence model and inaugurate the era of "publish-or-perish." But the letter of recommendation, that grim genre of guarded praise and veiled contempt, is still as ubiquitous as ever.
The protagonist of Julie Schumacher's seventh book, Dear Committee Members, a professor of creative writing named Jay Fitger, is deluged by these requests. In his hands, the letter of recommendation becomes a means of expressing his wider dissatisfaction with his career and his life, only perfunctorily addressing the question of his students' and colleagues' "reliability," "relevant experience," and "preparedness." Fitger eschews form in both senses of the word. His letters are incisive instead of workmanlike, garrulous instead of discreet.
Some of the targets of Schumacher's piquant satire will be familiar: exploitative graduate program schemes that saddle students with debt and unrealistic expectations; automated human-resource systems; and the strained relationship between the university's idealists (read: humanities professors) and pragmatists (read: bottom-line administrators), the latter of which will willingly trade a nationally-renowned Department of Slavic Studies for a more attractive salad bar.
But Fitger's letters are also laced with subtle observations about the writing life. The friends he met in the "the Seminar" (which seem to be modeled on Gordon Lish's courses at Columbia and the Iowa Writers' Workshop), writers who were once poised for glory, have experienced setbacks. One novelist's life story is Job-like, including the sudden death of a wife, but with the manuscript of his magnum opus in place of the seven children.
Schumacher hints that Fitger, a middle-aged man (who happens to be a professional writer), has come to the recognition that the choices he made as a egotistical young aspirant have poisoned his relationships with friends, mentors, and former lovers. Schumacher doesn't allow any "all-for-the-art" grandstanding for Fitger either, whose career has nosedived since his early success. Instead, with refreshingly honesty, the letters are shot through with palpable regret. He's still patiently, vainly, attempting to undo the damage 20 years later. A writer who long ago exhausted his own talent, he is especially invested in a shy young writer who is working on a "Bartleby-in-a-Bordello" updating of Herman Melville. The story, which unfolds tragicomically, is redemptive gesture for Fitger.
At one point, Fitger rails against an MFA program (in what is ostensibly a letter of recommendation for a prospective student) by claiming, fairly, that the program exploits the naïveté of students. He writes, "The point of this digression…is not to discourage the practice of writing: What, after all, is a writer's life without a dose of despair," before listing off all the "formidable" obstacles of the contemporary writers. But he finishes by saying, the writing life "despite its horrors, is possibly one of the few sorts of life worth living at all."
Earlier this year, Eric Bennett claimed in The Chronicle of Higher Eduction that the Cold War axis of humanist academics and Pentagon spooks shaped the ideological clay feet upon which MFA programs stand: "Creative writing has successfully embedded itself in the university by imitating other disciplines without treading on their ground."
Of course, Cold War politics also shaped a much worse example of the writing life: the exceedingly horrific and efficient system of patronage and intimidation administered by the Soviet Union. The persecution of Boris Pasternak, Isaak Babel, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Osip Mandelstam, and many other writers, journalists, and intellectuals underlines the fact that Soviet government was deeply insinuated in the art world, as sponsor as well as censor.
Finally published in 1967, 28 years after its author died, Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita cleverly dovetails the persecution of Yeshua (Jesus of Nazareth) by Pontius Pilate in ancient Palestine and the literary-bureaucratic order of 1930s Soviet Russia. In the latter plot, "Professor Woland," a satanic figure, terrorizes a group of obsequious, craven hacks belonging to the writer's organization, MASSOLIT, who mostly pander to the secular, brutal Stalinist regime. (For Bulgakov, those two adjectives do tandem duty.)
During their assault on literary Moscow, two demons visit the headquarters of the Soviet writer's union, Griboyedov's House, a stand-in for the Gorky House. During the Communist era, the House brought together writers from throughout the Soviet world to meet, teach, and write great literature.
"You know, Behemoth, I've heard many good and flattering things said about this house. Take a look at it, my friend! How nice to think that a veritable multitude of talent is sheltered and ripening under this roof!"
"Like pineapples in a hothouse," said Behemoth…
"And a sweet terror clutches your heart when you think that at this very minute the author of a future Don Quixote, or Faust, or, the devil take me, Dead Souls may be ripening inside that house!"
If Bulgakov's fictionalized account and Ismail Kadare's fictionalized memoir Twilight of the Eastern Gods are accurate, though, the Soviet Goethes and Soviet Gogols weren't doing much creative "ripening" in the house. Instead, they were carousing, drinking heavily, and engaging in mercenary character assassination against rivals, students, allies, supervisors, cronies, family, and friends.
Ismail Kadare's Twilight of the Eastern Gods is a brilliant non-fiction treatment of Soviet literary culture during the later Leonid Brezhnev years, a non-fiction response to Bulgakov's novel. As a promising Albanian writer, Kadare was invited to Moscow, where he met the odd mix of Party sycophants and belles-lettrists that was the Soviet intelligentsia.
Of course, the explicit goal of the House was to build a Soviet literature that would undermine nationalist culture, but the reverse-refugee program is comical. Siberian and Ukrainian writers, one Russian notes, have the real problem of enforcing literary convention on a surrealistically unconventional existence:
Can you imagine living your whole life in six-month-long days and nights, and then being required to divide your time into artificial chunks when you sit down to write? For instance, [a Ukrainian writer] couldn't write 'Next morning he left' because 'next morning' for him meant in six months' time.
Kadare also writes about how the literary history of the city was being distorted by the intense political scrutiny:
Not a single Soviet novel contained anything like an exact description of Moscow. Even characters who lived there or were visiting always remained in some imaginary street, as I did in my dreams, and almost never turned into Gorky Street, Tverskoy Boulevard, Okhotny Road, or the environs of the Metropole Hotel…and if they did wander into it they seemed stunned: they heard nothing, and saw nothing — or, rather, they had eyes and ears only for the Kremlin and its bells.
Literary-political events unsettle the young Kadare's mock-idyll. The first occurs in 1958: Boris Pasternak is awarded the Nobel Prize, in part for his novel, Dr. Zhivago. Kadare's own interaction with the book begins auspiciously when he finds the illegal manuscript in one of the rooms at Gorky House. Having accidentally read a few incoherent and scattered pages surreptitiously, Kadare then witnesses the full force of the Soviet media machine as it pummels its dissident and newly-minted Nobel laureate.
Forgoing political outrage, he renders the melancholy disquiet of the anti-Pasternak media blizzard evocatively. He writes:
All the same, newspapers, radio and TV carried on campaigning.
Doctor…Doctor…the wailing of the transcontinental wind made it seem as if the entire, and now almost entirely snow-covered Soviet Union was calling for a man in a white coat. Doctor…Doctor…Sometimes, at dusk or in the half-light of dawn, you could almost hear the deep-throated moaning of an invalid waiting for the arrival from who knew where of a doctor who had so far failed to turn up.
Then, as quickly as it began, the smear campaign stops: no one talks about Pasternak or the Nobel Prize again. A "spontaneous" demonstration is held, under the suspicion that the West secured the prize for Pasternak to undermine to Soviet culture. (Recently declassified CIA documents have shown that, apparently, they were right.) It is eventually decided that Pasternak will have to turn down the prize.
Sometime later, an artist from Moscow becomes infected with smallpox in Delhi, while sketching an Indian princess. Once news of the infection spreads, the Soviet government immediately quarantines the possibly infected. Muscovites rush to vaccination clinics. During the panic, the young Kadare spots a friend who had seemingly given him a cryptic warning, "for me — or rather, for my country."
The friend demurs, then confesses that there are rumors that Russian-Albanian relations are cooling. Gorky House suddenly turns on the young, anonymous Albanian writer. They fear contagion: because of spurious rumors about faraway political machinations, his one-time mentors and colleagues quickly ostracize and marginalize Ismail Kadare, a great 20th-century novelist. If he had been embraced, his work would have inevitably been co-opted or at least compromised by his sponsor-censors.
Reading Twilight of the Eastern Gods, I thought about another writer who had the similar mixed blessing of being banished from his home country, Witold Gombrowicz. In his Diary, he offered as an archetype the great French humanist François Rabelais, "a writer who had no idea whether he was 'historical' or 'ahistorical.'" (I would add "national" or "internationalist," "reactionary" or "revolutionary.".) The author of Gargantua and Pantaguel "had no intention of cultivating 'absolute writing' or of paying homage to 'pure art,' or, too, the opposite of that, articulating his epoch. He intended nothing at all because he wrote the way a child pees against a tree, in order to relieve himself."
Gorky House was formative for Kadare. But being rejected by its writers was hardly an obstacle. In fact, the Soviet literary elite might have been doing Kadare a favor by disfavoring him. The concerns of that circle have proven to be parochial, venal, insular. Yet, it produced Kadare, who has managed to craft a nuanced, luminous memoir to commemorate the time when Moscow cried with "the deep-throated moaning of an invalid."


Enhance your Endocrine Health with Acupuncture - Acupuncture | San Carlos Medical Center, Inc.
glands and how they function impact every area of your health.
pituitary, reproductive and thyroid glands.
that increase blood pressure and heart rate in response to stress.
constant supply of energy in the form of glucose.
also responsible for secreting growth hormones.
glands secrete androgen hormones, most importantly testosterone.
–all the things under the control of the endocrine system.
September 1, 2018 in Blog.


text:
Blog Category: All CategoriesNon-Compete & Employment AgreementsTortious InterferenceBreach of ContractBreach of Fiduciary DutyBusiness LitigationSchool Negligence / Personal InjuryConstruction Site AccidentsCar AccidentsSlip / Trip and Fall AccidentsDefective ProductsGeneralGeneral
When a party fails to honor its end of an agreement, sometimes the best possible outcome for the nonbreaching party is to compel the other party to fulfill its obligations. Under New York contract law, this is known as specific performance. Recently, the company that makes the popular Bratz dolls, MGA Entertainment Inc., filed a lawsuit against musician Lady Gaga and her management company. In the complaint, MGA alleges that the singer and her management company failed to issue a final approval of the proposed Lady Gaga doll in order to delay its production and shipment. As a result, MGA asserts that it will lose out on millions of dollars in revenue by not being able to sell the dolls during the fall 2012 retail season.
In a case like the one involving MGA and Lady Gaga, perhaps forcing the defendants to fulfill their end of the bargain would be a better outcome than awarding monetary damages. The true cost of the inability to sell the dolls during arguably the busiest time of year in the retail market may be immeasurable. For a company like MGA to successfully win a request for specific performance following a breach of New York contract, it would have to demonstrate the following:
Specific performance is appropriate because money damages for the failure to approve the dolls on time are insufficient to protect the interests of MGA.
The dollar amount for the injury suffered by MGA as a result of Lady Gaga and her management company's breach of contract in New York is difficult to determine.
The dollar amount is difficult to determine because the never-before-released dolls are unique or do not have an established market value.
Unfortunately for MGA, the judge overseeing the court battle between the parties has not yet granted a request that the defendants be forced to approve the doll. For more information about this and other business litigation matters, contact a New York breach of contract lawyer today. Call our office at (888) 497-3410 for a free consultation.
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Give your time and talents to Greenlife Foundation, Ghana.
The Greenlife Foundation in Wenchi, central Ghana, needs volunteer help with health and medical care, education, Christian ministry and community care with orphans and disadvantaged adults. One month would cost approximately £1750, three months £2000. This includes the return international and local airfares, insurance, visa, and a donation to Christians Abroad towards administrative costs.There is no fixed charge for food and accommodation, but a donation would be gratefully received.
This newly established project is situated in the pleasant town of Wenchi, mid-Ghana, near the regional Methodist Hospital. Founded by Victoria Yeboah, this is a properly organised and state recognised Christian N.G.O.
Accommodation is provided in a rented apartment with separate rooms for three people. Volunteers will receive appropriate training and introduced to local places of interest for weekend visits.
Normal vaccinations for sub-tropical Africa are needed, including Yellow Fever and also malarial medication. DBS checks will be needed, arranged by consultants at Christians Abroad, who take care of all arrangements including an online preparation course.


On Saturday night, Olympic gold medalist Gabby Douglas will get the cheesy Lifetime movie treatment with The Gabby Douglas Story. The trailer just hit this Internet and while it looks camp, I'm excited to see Imani Hakim from Everybody Hates Chris in the lead role. Regina King and S. Epatha Merkerson are also in the film as Gabby's mother and grandmother.
The Douglas Story looks like the perfect family movie to watch with grandma — old ladies love Gabby — except some who have seen the made-for-TV film say the script leaves out one big piece, race.
Douglas overcame a lot—that's not up for debate. But she overcame quite a bit more that's not in the movie. The most glaring omission from her story is seemingly the most obvious one: It's impossible to ignore that Douglas is a black woman competing in a sport that is predominantly white. Even while Douglas was a favored presence at the games, her race was an issue of discussion, ranging from NBC's botched coverage of her time in London to arguments about her hair. Douglas has not been silent on the issue, either. In a 2012 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Douglas explains she felt so isolated because of the racism she experienced at her original Virginia Beach gym, it was one of the reasons for her move to Iowa.
Douglas' ethnicity is reportedly mentioned at least once, when her mom drops her off with an Iowa host family so she can train with coach Liang Chow. It is then that Gabby realizes that she'll probably be the only chocolate drop at the gym. But outside of that scene, the idea that Gabby is a woman of color from a poor family in a predominantly caucasian sport, which has made a habit of ostracizing competitors of color, is odd. But I guess Lifetime wasn't trying to rile up grandma.
Simone Biles Vs. The Racists: Are Black Gymnasts The New Black QBs?


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ICAN at the UNGA
On Thursday the 27th of October, United Nations adopted a landmark resolution to launch negotiations in 2017 on a treaty outlawing nuclear weapons.
By Daniel Högsta
Teaser Image Caption
ICAN at the UN
The resolution is the culmination of the "Humanitarian Initiative" which has swept through the field nuclear disarmament in recent years, ushering in a new era based on humanitarian concerns and a broad participation of states and civil society.
At a meeting of the First Committee of the UN General Assembly, which deals with disarmament and international security matters, 123 nations voted in favour of the resolution, with 38 against and 16 abstaining.
The resolution will set up a UN conference beginning in March next year, open to all member states, to negotiate a "legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination". The negotiations will continue in June and July.
Despite arm-twisting by a number of nuclear-armed states, the resolution was adopted in a landslide. A total of 57 nations were co-sponsors, with Austria, Brazil, Ireland, Mexico, Nigeria and South Africa taking the lead in drafting the resolution. The nuclear-armed states remain fiercely opposed to a negotiation process which they cannot control or steer to preserve their own interests.
Working in partnership with key governments, ICAN mobilized its campaigners both on site at the United Nations in New York and in capitals throughout the world to build and consolidate support for the resolution, ensuring the successful outcome.
The resolution, known as L.41, acts upon the key recommendation of a UN working group on nuclear disarmament that met in Geneva this year to assess the merits of various proposals for achieving a nuclear-weapon-free world.
Setsuko Thurlow
Throughout this process, victims and survivors of nuclear weapon detonations, including nuclear testing, have contributed actively. Setsuko Thurlow, a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing and an ICAN supporter, has been a leading proponent of a ban.
"This is a truly historic moment for the entire world," she said following the vote. "For those of us who survived the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is a very joyous occasion. We have been waiting so long for this day to come."
"Nuclear weapons are absolutely abhorrent. All nations should participate in the negotiations next year to outlaw them. I hope to be there myself to remind delegates of the unspeakable suffering that nuclear weapons cause. It is all of our responsibility to make sure that such suffering never happens again."
ICAN Demonstration
Most of the nine nuclear-armed nations voted against the UN resolution. Many of their allies, including those in Europe that host nuclear weapons on their territory as part of a NATO arrangement, also failed to support the resolution.
But, in a side event co-sponsored by ICAN and the governments of Brazil and Guatemala, Australian Labour parliamentarian Lisa Singh spoke to the significance of ban treaty negotiations for opposition parliamentarians in nuclear alliance states like Australia: "[the Australian Labor Party] will do everything we can – from the opposition benches of parliament – to support this process as it moves forward," she said. "I'm confident that a future Labor government in Australia would sign and ratify a treaty banning nuclear weapons, as per our national policy platform."
Following lobby efforts by ICAN campaigners in Brussels, the European Parliament adopted its own resolution on this subject – 415 in favour and 124 against, with 74 abstentions – inviting European Union member states to "participate constructively" in next year's negotiations.
Lisa Singh
The resolution has received widespread support from prominent supporters of humanitarian causes:
15 Nobel Peace Prize winners urged nations to support the negotiations and to bring them "to a timely and successful conclusion so that we can proceed rapidly toward the final elimination of this existential threat to humanity".
The International Committee of the Red Cross has appealed to governments to support this process, stating on 12 October that the international community has a "unique opportunity" to achieve a ban on the "most destructive weapon ever invented".
Amnesty International: "This historic decision is a vote for common sense and humanity. It brings us a step closer to a world free from the horrors of nuclear weapons, the most destructive and indiscriminate weapons ever created."
ICAN Statement of the Phlippines
The resolution was also widely covered in the media, marking a break from past practice wherein only issues related to North Korea and the Iranian nuclear deal receive coverage. Major wire services including the Associated Press, Agence France-Press, Bloomberg, EFE and DPA circulated pieces about the vote, and stories also appeared in the Guardian, the Independent, the Nation and Foreign Policy.
"This treaty won't eliminate nuclear weapons overnight," concluded Fihn. "But it will establish a powerful new international legal standard, stigmatizing nuclear weapons and compelling nations to take urgent action on disarmament."
For more from ICAN on this historic resolution, please follow this links:
ICAN's liveblog
Voting result
setsuko.png
ican_hibakusha_demonstration.jpg
ican_statement_jasmin_galace_philippines.jpg
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/ ICAN at the UNGA.
The European Union and Nuclear Disarmament – a Sensitive Question
Currently the debate on nuclear weapons in the European Union is not making any progress, this could be due to the failure of the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2015. Nevertheless, a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Europe should still be envisaged.
By Julia Berghofer
Germany: In defense of nuclear weapons?
Negotiations on a treaty declaring nuclear weapons illegal are planned for 2017. So far, Germany and others have tried to block this process, even while officially supporting a nuclear-weapon-free world. These contradictions will soon end, however: states will have to pick sides.
By Leo Hoffmann-Axthelm
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text:
Home Politics Matter sub judice: Khattar on demand to compensate kin of deceased Dera...
Matter sub judice: Khattar on demand to compensate kin of deceased Dera followers
Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Friday said 'The matter is sub judice and the government will act according to the court's order', in a reply to state Cabinet Minister Anil Vij's demand for compensation for the families of those killed in police firing during the violence that broke out at Panchkula after the conviction of Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh.
"The matter is sub-judice, the court will decide if any compensation has to be given or not. Will will give compensation if the court says, whatever it directs, we will do that," Khattar told the media here.
ALSO READ: Kamal Haasan hints at entering politics; meets Arvind Kejriwal
Vij, however, pointed that compensation was awarded to victims after last year's Jat agitation, hence asks the same for the "Dera victims."
Earlier on September 1, during the search operation at the Dera headquarters in Haryana's Sirsa, Anil Vij refuted the claims that he had donated money to the Dera Chief.
Speaking to ANI on the same, Vij reiterated that the money was given to the children in the Dera and not the Dera Chief.
"Being the Sports Minister, I went there for the inauguration of an event. The children in the Dera won in the National Games in Kerala and the prize money was to felicitate them," he said.
ALSO READ: Mamata practicing 'politics of appeasement': BJP
Earlier on September 5, the Punjab and Haryana High Court gave orders to conduct a search operation at the headquarters of Dera Sacha Sauda, under the supervision of a judicial officer.
This order came after the Haryana Police seized a cache of 33 licensed weapons of the Dera Sacha Sauda. These weapons include 14 revolvers, nine guns, four rifles and other modified weapons.
The police later seized and sealed all the weapons.
Dera followers kin
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Life – Page 2 – Yours Julie – Mostly travel, also food.
One of the reasons I was so busy recently, is the two-week advanced training course for PR trainees I am currently doing at the established journalism school Haus Busch in Hagen. But there was some fun to be had, too. For example, during the photography training session with freelance photographer Jürgen Theobald.
For six short weeks I have moved to a different part of Germany for my job: The Ruhr region. I am lucky to be living with some awfully great people in Bochum, but I work in Essen. Essen is a particularly interesting city in this area and it was named European Capital of Culture 2010. One of the most iconic places in Essen is Zeche Zollverein, a UNESCO world heritage site. And within that retired industrial complex, there are a few really great museums.
Last year was a harsh year for me (and I don't mean all the dead celebrities, although I will miss Alan Rickman a bit). 2016 kicked off with a lot of unrest in Germany, Brexit happened, the US election happened, the war in Syria is still going on, various places in Germany and other European countries were targets of terrorist attacks, and Europe in general seems severely destabilized, as right-wing politics have gained ground in France, Austria, and other countries, among them Germany.
On a personal level, things didn't go so well either.
While planning our trip we saw that for the first part we would pass through some sparsely populated areas of Germany and never end our day in a town, so camping would have to be it. That changed for the second stretch of the trip, so we figured we might try sleeping indoors again and turned to couchsurfing – and it was great.
As we venture into December, I still have some catching up to do, so let's look back to September. Ehem.
I happen to like a good challenge! So what's better than challenging yourself, spending time outdoors with an amazing friend and seeing a part of your country that you haven't seen before? I really wanted to do a great bike tour and found me some awesome company for the road: Jana!
I went out this morning just to run back in and grab my camera. Moments of beauty are rare in this cold and dark season, so I had to set down some of that natural splendor.
It's fall where I live and all of a sudden the weather turned grey and wet. I like to eat a warm breakfast, especially when the weather is cold.


Veteran bloodletter Mohammad Gyas watches as his son slices open the tourniquet-bound hands and feet of the sick with single-use razor blades in the gardens of Jama Masjid, a mosque in Old Delhi. A few feet away, a middle-aged arthritis sufferer leaps energetically onto a brick platform. Springing back down again, grinning, he explains his recovery is the result of a traditional treatment for which he is patiently waiting in line to top up. Or rather, bleed out, because in India doctors are letting blood in the streets. The "bad blood" spilled into gutters that runs along the side of the platform is being washed from the patient's limbs with jugs of water.
The ancient bloodletting practice, combined with strict dietary regimes, is said to cure everything from heart pain and arthritis to cancer and diabetes. "The darker the blood, the longer you have to bleed," Gyas tells me. A typical treatment regime runs for six weeks. Gyas's son is working with half-a-dozen assistants who wrap the tourniquets, wash water over the blade wounds to flush out blood and treat the cuts with a mixture of spices. A doctor is on hand, giving tetanus injections.
Gyas suffers from Parkinon's disease, which has prevented him from doing any of the work himself since 2008. Neither he nor his son sported any nicks or cuts on their own limbs. Their doctors' reluctance to participate doesn't matter to the duo's patients, though, who travel from far-flung parts of India, even voyaging from other countries, including Japan and the United States, to be "cured". Many of them swear by the treatments – maybe they work, or maybe the no-booze, no-smoking, legume-rich diet works.


text:
<?php
// Heading
$_['heading_title']        = 'Extension Installer';

// Text
$_['text_upload']          = 'Upload your extensions';
$_['text_success']         = 'Success: The extension has been installed!';
$_['text_unzip']           = 'Extracting files!';
$_['text_ftp']             = 'Copying files!';
$_['text_sql']             = 'Running SQL!';
$_['text_xml']             = 'Applying modifications!';
$_['text_php']             = 'Running PHP!';
$_['text_remove']          = 'Removing temporary files!';
$_['text_clear']           = 'Success: You have cleared all temporary files!';

// Entry
$_['entry_upload']         = 'Upload File';
$_['entry_overwrite']      = 'Files that will be overwritten';
$_['entry_progress']       = 'Progress';

// Help
$_['help_upload']          = 'Requires a modification file with extension ".ocmod.zip" or ".ocmod.xml".';

// Error
$_['error_permission']     = 'Warning: You do not have permission to modify extensions!';
$_['error_temporary']      = 'Warning: There are some temporary files that require deleting. Click the clear button to remove them!';
$_['error_upload']         = 'File could not be uploaded!';
$_['error_filetype']       = 'Invalid file type!';
$_['error_file']           = 'File could not be found!';
$_['error_unzip']          = 'Zip file could not be opened!';
$_['error_code']           = 'Modification requires a unique ID code!';
$_['error_exists']         = 'Modification %s is using the same ID code as the one you are trying to upload!';
$_['error_directory']      = 'Directory containing files to be uploaded could not be found!';
$_['error_ftp_status']     = 'FTP needs to be enabled in the settings';
$_['error_ftp_connection'] = 'Could not connect as %s:%s';
$_['error_ftp_login']      = 'Could not login as %s';
$_['error_ftp_root']       = 'Could not set root directory as %s';
$_['error_ftp_directory']  = 'Could not change to directory %s';
$_['error_ftp_file']       = 'Could not upload file %s';

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Q: Page Progressbar My client wants to have a progressbar on initial page load. And the instant the page loads to hide it.
So I thought about it and come up with this.
var num = 0,
    progress = $('.progressbar'),
    interval = setInterval(function(){
        num++
        progress.text(num+'%')
    }, 100);

$(window).load(function(){
    clearInterval(interval);
    $({number: num}).animate({number: 100}, {
      duration: 1000,
      easing:'swing',
      step: function() {
          progress.text(Math.round(this.number)+"%");
      }
    })
})

Demo (I added a large image to show the loading)
The only thing I can come up in order to decrease the chance of the number reaching 100 before the dom load is to add a few if to check if the num is for example 50% and decrease the interval repeating value, and the same thing on 75% I guess, but I don't find it very smart.
So pretty much my question is - "Is there a smarter way to do this?"

A: Just an idea, I'm sure you've considered the jQuery progress bar.
I found this concept on Code Academy and made this FIDDLE.
JS
var mybar = $(".progressbar").progressbar({value: 1});

var progress = setInterval(function() {
                                       updateprog();
                                       }, 10
                          );

function updateprog ()
{
      var currentVal = $(".progressbar").progressbar("option", "value");
       var nextVal = currentVal + 1;
       if (nextVal > 100)
          {
           $(mybar).hide();
           clearInterval(progress);
           } else
          {
           $(".progressbar").progressbar({value: nextVal});
           }
}

I haven't styled anything, but that should be fairly straight-forward.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Q: APP rejected by reason 2.16 From Apple
2.16 - Multitasking Apps may only use background services for their intended purposes: VoIP, audio playback, location, task completion, local notifications, etc
detail
Your app uses the Location Background mode but does not include the required "battery use" disclaimer in your Application Description
last time my app is ok to submit,what should i do ?change the info.plist?

A: No you don't need to add it in your plist but you need to wirte "The continued use of GPS may decrease battery life" (like this) in your application meta data description in itunes connect app.


text:
Q: How many VLANs are too few and too many? We're currently running a netwok of 800+ PCs and 20+ servers, the network infrastucture is along the lines of Core Switch 10Gb-> Area Switch 2GB-> Local Switch 1GB-> Desktop.  All running 3Com equipment(1).
We have 3 Area switches for four areas (A, B ,C, D is merged with the core), each area switch will have between 10 and 20 local switches connected to these.  There is also a backup core switch, lesser powered but connected as the main core switch is.
We also have an IP phone system.  The Computers/servers and swicthes are on a 10.x ip range, the phones on a 192.168.x range.  Computers generally don't have to talk to each other except in computer labs, but they do need to be able to talk to most of our servers (AD, DNS, Exchange, File storage etc.)
When we set up, it was decided that we were to have 3 VLANs, one for Switches & Computers, one for Phones and one for server replication (this was against the 3Com engineers advice).  The network has been stable and working since this point(2), but we've now started to upgrade to SAN and Virtualisation environement.  Now splitting this new infrastructure into seperate VLANs makes sense, and re visting how our VLANS are set up seems sensible.
It's now being proposed that VLANs should be set up in a room by room basis, ie a computer lab with 5+ PCs should be it's own VLAN, but if we follow this model we'll be looking at least at 25 "new" VLANS, plus the VLANS for SAN/Virtual servers.  Which seems to me will add an excessive amount of administration, although I am quite happly to be proved wrong.
What would be best practice seem to suggest?  Is there a certain number of PCs that are advisable not to go over/below in a VLAN.
(1) The 3Com switches (3870 & 8800) route between VLANs differently to how some others do it, it doesn't require a seperate router as they are layer3.
(2) We do sometimes get high discard rates, or STP changes, and at time 3Com Network director report that switches are underload and slow to respond to pings, or a failed switch managing to take down the network (all phone & computer VLANS!, once, no idea why)

A: It sounds like somebody in your organization wants to create VLANs w/o understanding the reasons why you'd do it and the pros/cons associated therewith. It sounds like you need to do some measurement and come up with some real reasons for doing this before moving forward, at least with the insane "VLAN for a room" silliness.
You shouldn't start breaking an Ethernet LAN into VLANs unless you have good reasons to do it. The best two reasons are:

*

*Mitigating performance problems. Ethernet LANs can't scale indefinitely. Excessive broadcasts or flooding of frames to unknown destinations will limit their scale. Either of these conditions can be caused by making a single broadcast domain in an Ethernet LAN too big. Broadcast traffic is easy to understand, but flooding of frames to unknown destinations is a bit more obscure (so much so that none of the other posters here even mention it!). If you get so many devices that your switch MAC tables are overflowing switches will be forced to flood non-broadcast frames out all ports if the destination of the frame doesn't match any entries in the MAC table. If you have a large enough single broadcast domain in an Ethernet LAN with a traffic profile that hosts talk infrequently (that is, infrequently enough that their entries have aged out of the MAC tables on your switches) then you can also get excessive flooding of frames.

*A desire to limit / control traffic moving between hosts at layer 3 or above. You can do some hackery examining traffic at layer 2 (ala Linux ebtables) but this is difficult to manage (because rules are tied to MAC addresses and changing out NICs necessitates rule changes) can cause what appear to be really, really strange behaviors (doing transparent proxying of HTTP at layer 2, for example, is freaky and fun, but is utterly un-natural and can be very non-intuitive to troubleshoot), and is generally difficult to do at lower layers (because layer 2 tools are like sticks and rocks at dealing with layer 3+ concerns). If you want to control IP (or TCP, or UDP, etc) traffic between hosts, rather than attacking the problem at layer 2, you should subnet and stick firewalls / routers with ACLs between the subnets.
Bandwidth exhaustion problems (unless they're being caused by broadcast packets or flooding of frames) are not solved with VLANs typically. They happen because of a lack of physical connectivity (too few NICs on a server, too few ports in an aggregation group, the need to move up to a faster port speed) and can't be solved by subnetting or deploying VLANs since that won't increase the amount of bandwidth available.
If you don't have even something simple like MRTG running graphing per-port traffic statistics on your switches that's really your first order of business before you start potentially introducing bottlenecks with well-intentioned but uninformed VLAN segmentation. Raw byte counts are a good start, but you should follow it up with targeted sniffing to get more details about the traffic profiles.
Once you know how traffic moves around on your LAN you can begin to think about segmenting the LAN for performance reasons.
If you're really going to try and button down packet and stream-level access between VLANs be prepared to do a lot of legwork with application software and learning / reverse-engineering how it talks over the wire. Limiting access by hosts to servers can often be accomplished with filtering functionality on the servers. Limiting access on the wire can provide a false sense of security and lull administrators into a complacency where they think "Well, I don't need to configure the app. securely because the hosts that can talk to the app. are limited by 'the network'." I'd encourage you to audit the security of your server configuration before I'd start limiting host-to-host communication on the wire.
Typically you create VLANs in Ethernet and map IP subnets 1-to-1 onto them. You're going to need a LOT of IP subnets for what you're describing, and potentially a lot of routing table entries. Better plan those subnets with VLSM to summarize your routing table entries, eh?
(Yes, yes-- there are ways not to use a separate subnet for every VLAN, but sticking in a strictly "plain vanilla" world you'd create a VLAN, think up an IP subnet to use in the VLAN, assign some router an IP address in that VLAN, attach that router to the VLAN, either with a physical interface or a virtual subinterface on the router, connect some hosts to the VLAN and assign them IP addresses in the subnet you defined, and route their traffic in and out of the VLAN.)

A: VLANs are only really useful for restricting broadcast traffic. If something is going to do a lot of broadcasting, then separate it into its own VLAN, otherwise I wouldn't bother. You might want to have a virtualised duplication of a live system on the same network and want to use the same address range, then again, that might be worth a separate VLAN.

A: VLANs are good as an additional security level. I don't know how 3Com handles it but usually you can segment different functional groups into different VLANs (e.g. Accounting, WLAN, etc.). You can then control who has access to a particular VLAN.
I don't believe there is any significant performance loss if there are many computers in the same VLAN. I do find it impractical to segment LAN in a room by room basis, but again, I don't know how 3Com handles it. Usually the guideline is not size, but rather security or operation.
In effect I don't see any reason to even segment LAN into different VLANs if there are no security or operational gains.

A: Unless you have 25 test and development groups that regularly kill the network with broadcast floods, 25 per-room VLAN's are 24 too many.
Obviously your SAN needs its own VLAN and not the same VLAN as the virtual systems LAN and Internet access! This can all be done through a single ethernet port on the host system, so no worries there about splitting those functions.
If you have performance crap-outs, consider putting your Phone and SAN on separate network hardware, not just VLAN's.

A: There is always going to be broadcast traffic, whether it's name resolution broadcasts, ARP broadcasts, etc. The important thing is to monitor the amount of broadcast traffic. If it exceeds 3 - 5% of total traffic then it's a problem.
VLAN's are good for reducing the size of broadcast domains (as David stated) or for security, or for creating dedicated backup networks. They're not really meant as "management" domains. In addition, you'll add routing complexity and overhead to your network by implementing VLAN's.

A: Generally, you only want to consider using VLANs when you need to quarantine devices (such as an area where users can bring in their own laptops, or when you've got a critical server infrastructure that must be protected) or if your broadcast domain is too high.
Broadcast domains can typically be about 1000 devices large before you start to see issues on 100Mbit networks, though I'd bring that down to 250 devices if you're dealing with relatively noisy Windows areas.
For the most part, modern day networks don't need VLANs unless you're doing this quarantining (with appropriate firewalling using ACLs, of course) or broadcast limitation.

A: They're also useful for preventing DHCP broadcasts for reaching unwanted network devices.


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What was the effect of the Louisiana Purchase quizlet?
Nearly doubled the size,allowed Americans control of the Mississippi,and allowed Americans to have western expansion.
What was the effect of the New Deal? what was the purpose of the new deal.
What was the effect of the Louisiana Purchase?
What are 3 effects of the Louisiana Purchase?
Which of the following was a result of the Louisiana Purchase quizlet?
What was significant about the Louisiana Purchase quizlet?
What were the negative effects of the Louisiana Purchase?
How did the Louisiana Purchase affect slavery?
How did the Louisiana Purchase affect the War of 1812?
How did Louisiana Purchase affect the size of the country?
How did the Louisiana Purchase affect the United States and its government quizlet?
What groups were affected by the Louisiana Purchase?
How did the Louisiana Purchase affect politics?
What were the pros and cons of the Louisiana Purchase?
How did the Louisiana Purchase affect the civil war?
How did the Louisiana Purchase cause the Civil War?
How did the purchase of the Louisiana Territory affect the problem of taking Indian lands?
What was the effects of the War of 1812?
How did this purchase impact migration?
How did the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark expedition affect the expansion of the United States?
How did we pay for the Louisiana Purchase?
What were three long term effects of purchasing Louisiana?
How did the Louisiana Purchase positively affect the growth and development of the United States quizlet?
What were the long and short term impacts of the Louisiana Purchase?
What if Louisiana Purchase never happened?
How much was the Louisiana Purchase today?
How did the Louisiana Purchase affect Texas?
Did the Louisiana Purchase put the US in debt?
Why was the Louisiana Purchase controversial?
Who secured the Louisiana Purchase?
Why did the French sell the Louisiana Purchase?
What dilemma did Thomas Jefferson face when purchasing Louisiana from Napoleon?
What was the impact of the Louisiana Purchase? The Louisiana Purchase eventually doubled the size of the United States, greatly strengthened the country materially and strategically, provided a powerful impetus to westward expansion, and confirmed the doctrine of implied powers of the federal Constitution.
The federal government became stronger because presidents can now buy land.
U.S. territory doubled in size.
Provided more land for farming and other goods.
The Port of New Orleans was now under U.S. control and allowed more freedom for trade.
Which of the following was the most significant result of the Louisiana Purchase? It nearly doubled the geographical size of the nation.
The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 was extremely important to the United States because it dramatically expanded the size of the country. It essentially doubled the size of union. … This not only increased the power of the country but also set the stage for further development across the continent.
While the Louisiana Purchase added the territory as a whole to the United States, land disputes on a smaller scale erupted immediately. With the Spanish government no longer in control, the oral contracts and traditional family holdings of existing landowners led to complicated legal disputes.
The Louisiana Purchase Was Driven by a Slave Rebellion. Napoleon was eager to sell—but the purchase would end up expanding slavery in the U.S. Slaves revolting against French power in Haiti. … But the purchase was also fueled by a slave revolt in Haiti—and tragically, it ended up expanding slavery in the United States.
An important, often overlooked, factor that led to the War of 1812 was the Louisiana Purchase. The United States wanted the large swath of land for westward expansion and exploration; France urgently needed money to pay for soldiers and supplies in its coming war with Great Britain.
The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 brought into the United States about 828,000 square miles of territory from France, thereby doubling the size of the young republic.
How did the Louisiana Purchase affect the United States and its government? The Louisiana Purchase affected the US by causing the US to more than double in size, which caused the government to be unsure if it was unconstitutional. It also created more anti-federalists.
For more than a century after La Salle took possession of it, the Louisiana Territory, with its scattered French, Spanish, Acadian and German settlements, along with those of Native Americans and American-born frontiersmen, was traded among European royalty at their whim.
The Louisiana Purchase has caused multiple political effects that have greatly altered the United States development course. For starters, the Louisiana Purchase avoided war with France, a major superpower at the time. … This was because France was at war with Britain and desperately needed funds.
One pro of the Louisiana Purchase is that it doubled the size of the U.S. Cons were that people got worried that the country would get too big and impossible to govern. Another criticism was that it wasn't clear that the purchase was constitutional. Another pro was the fact that the land was incredibly cheap.
The acquisition of so much territory eventually strained the union between North and South and helped to bring on the American Civil War (1861–1865). Unplanned and unexpected, the Louisiana Purchase presented the federal government and the American people with an array of new challenges and new opportunities.
Purchased in 1803 from France for $15 million –about four cents per acre–the Louisiana Purchase added much of the Great Plains to the United States, set the stage for expansion to the Pacific Ocean, and set in motion sectional conflicts over slavery that led to the Civil War.
How did the purchase of the Louisiana Territory affect the problem of taking Indian Lands? … It ushered the removal of Indians.
The War of 1812 changed the course of American history. Because America had managed to fight the world's greatest military power to a virtual standstill, it gained international respect. Furthermore, it instilled a greater sense of nationalism among its citizens.
How did this purchase impact migration? It opened western lands for migration and more than doubled the size of the U.S. … This increased the diversity of the United States.
How did the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark expedition affect the expansion of the United States? The purchase doubled the size of the country and that meant that the new land would have to be explored.
On the advice of a French friend, Jefferson offered to purchase land from Napoleon rather than threatening war over it. … A treaty, dated April 30 and signed May 2, was then worked out that gave Louisiana to the United States in exchange for $11.25 million, plus the forgiveness of $3.75 million in French debt . 4.
The long term effects were the expansion of America, now being able to grow in population, economics, strength, and unity.
How did the Louisiana Purchase positively affect the growth and development of the United States? It allowed Americans to explore and settle the lands between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains.
The short term effects of the Louisiana Purchase was that it increased nationalism among the US because the citizens felt like a bigger nation. The long term effects were negative, however, as the purchase led to disputes over slavery, primarily whether slavery would be allowed in the territory or not.
If the Sale of Louisiana had not occurred, the War for Louisiana would have. Now, had the Louisiana Purchase been made, yet Louisiana not accepted into the Union as a State…then it would be an unincorporated territory of the US.
Vaguely defined at the time as the western watershed of the Mississippi River, and later pegged at about 827,000 square miles, the acquisition nearly doubled the national domain for a mere $15 million, or roughly $309 million in today's dollars.
The Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the United States at that time. … Most importantly where Texas was concerned, the Louisiana Purchase brought the border of the United States adjacent to the border of Texas…and in some places, the claimed territories overlapped.
In 1803 the government increased its debt fifteen million dollars when the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France. Still, this major expense did not alter Gallatin's plan for the nation's economy.
2. Why was Jefferson's authorization of the LA purchase controversial? It was deemed controversial because Jefferson was a strict constructionist of the Constitution and the Constitution does not explicitly state that the president or Congress could purchase foreign land. Many thought he was being a hypocrite.
The Louisiana Purchase (1803) was a land deal between the United States and France, in which the U.S. acquired approximately 827,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River for $15 million.
Napoleon Bonaparte sold the land because he needed money for the Great French War. The British had re-entered the war and France was losing the Haitian Revolution and could not defend Louisiana.
The Louisiana Purchase posed a dilemma for President Thomas Jefferson, as he was uncertain of his legal authority to make such a deal. A strict constructionist, Jefferson had misgivings because he knew the U.S. Constitution did not confer any authority for acquiring territory.
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MC48010 BAE Hawk Mk. 66 - silk screen printed decal sheet
Pre-cut paint masks 1/48 & 1/32 scale
Instructions - download as PDF
MC48010 BAE Hawk Mk. 66 - 1/48 scale - CHF 20.-
Pre-cut self adhesive vinyl canopy detonation cords
The set in 1/32 scale includes enough decals for one complete aircraft including the original scheme of U-1251
Two layers of white have been printed for superior opacity
The masks in 1/32 scale are desinged to fit the excellent Revell kit
A spare canopy detonation cord is included
The set in 1/48 scale includes enough decals for two complete aircraft including the original scheme of U-1251
The masks in 1/48 scale are desinged to fit the Italeri / Tamiya kit
2 spare canopy detonation cords are included
With the Hawk Mk66 the Swiss Parliament ordered an advanced jet trainer in October 1987. This after a thorough evaluation against the French Alpha Jet. The contract worth 395 Mio CHF covered 20 aircraft and included a simulator.
U-1251 flew for the first time on April 7th1989 at Dunsfold (UK) with Paul Hopkins at the controls. This aircraft was handed over to GRD (Gruppe für Rüstungsdienste) on November 8th and was flown to Switzerland by Manfred Brennwald and Thomas Schwarz.
The official introduction into the SAF inventory was celebrated January 31st 1990. This marked the end of the DH-115 Vampire Trainer & DH-100 Vampire as Training aircraft.
Please note that the first Hawk Mk66 build in Great Britan was been painted in white with striking red trim on the wings, nose and tail. For better visibility, the scheme was changed and painted red on the belly up half the way of the fuselage. The upper side remained white. Unfortunately, not many pictures of the short lived livery exist. This scheme re-appears on the T-45 Goshawk that was developed for the US Navy. What maintenance markings and walk ways concerns, very view were applied – restricted to the ejection seat warnings and recue items as well as fire extinguishing.
The remaining 19 Hawks (U-1252 – U-1270) were assembled in Emmen – the final aircraft delivered to the air force on October 2nd 1991. As it is a tradition, the last aircraft leaving the line was adored with some special artwork – reflecting a Hawk that carries away a 'Walliser Tomato'… some people argue, that it must be an Apricot. Also Flags of the Canton Wallis and City of Emmen are painted onto the fuselage surrounded by grapes.
Already in 2002 the remaining 19 Hawks were put into storage. One aircraft (U-1256) was lost October 15th 1990 in a training accident in the Alps – Nesthorn (VS). Of these, 18 Hawks were purchased by Finland in 2008. U-1251 remained in the Flieger & Flap Museum in Dübendorf. The short service period in Switzerland is simply explained – technology advanced faster than expected – with the introduction of the F-18, the Hawk could not fulfill the requirement of a digital cockpit and despite the low flying hours and excellent condition it was deemed as financially sound to withdraw the aircraft from service. Today, the Pilatus PC-21 fills the slot allowing a straight transition onto the F-18.
This decal sheet has been designed based on painting instructions from the maintenance manuals as well as a thorough visit to U-1251 stored at Duebendorf. Special thanks for assistance go again to the Flieger and Flap Museum Duebendorf and to Bruno Schneider who have been immensely helpful on this project and others in the past. The decals themselves have been screen printed by the UK based Fantasy Printshop and guaranty a top quality product and easy application to the model. The decals must be applied onto a glossy surface to avoid the unwanted silvering. Decal softeners like Mircro Sol & Set work very nice. Once dry, excess glue from the decals should be removed with a soft damp cloth.
Fotos: Luftwaffe & Geri Friedlos