By proactively identifying & addressing customer's technical needs and objections, to drive sales.
Assist sales team through preparation and delivery of technical presentations and statements of work by matching specific client business requirements into effective technical solutions - with a focus on NICE inContact's solutions.
Maintain high level knowledge of competitive product lines, especially as it relates to technical strengths and weaknesses of the competitor's products and what strategy NICE inContact should develop to counter.
Maintain high-level knowledge of all other NICE inContact products/services, competitive product lines, and industry through self-education and NICE inContact's resources.
Proactively and effectively identify customer needs and overcome objections to proposed solutions.
Perform technical benefits assessment for customers by gaining detailed understanding of their environment.
Provide continuous knowledge transfer to the sales force regarding technical aspects and benefits of the NICE inContact's™ solutions.
Support new and existing sales efforts via technical discovery, product demonstrations and presentations.
Properly document and provide feedback to sales team.
Assist in the preparation of responses to RFP's and deliver technical and sales oriented presentations to customer's technical staff and senior management.
Meet with customers to understand their current technical environment, key business issues, and future benefits that could be realized through NICE inContact's advanced contact center technology deployments.
Work with the Sales Support to ensure orders are completed in an accurate and timely fashion.
Create, based on customer needs, a detailed Solutions Overview (SO) document for each new customer which will be the basis from which all pre-turn up work will be performed. Instruct customer on costs associated with the work.
Build and maintain relationships with financial, subject and technical decision makers and influencers in prospect base.
Position will require significant travel up to 75%.
Excellent interpersonal and communication skills including verbal, written, negotiation and communications.


text:
Jamie Zawinski (JWZ; born November 3, 1968) is a computer programmer known for significant contributions to the free software projects Mozilla and XEmacs, and early versions of the Netscape Navigator web browser.
1 Attributed
3 Quotes about Zawinski
Attributed[edit]
Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems.
alt.religion.emacs (lost; recovered)
Zawinski's Law of Software Envelopment (also known as Zawinski's Law) relates the pressure of popularity to the phenomenon of software bloat:
Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.
"Zawinski's Law of Software Envelopment"
Commonly attributed to jwz, but "I didn't make that up"
The real bug here is that the design of the system even permits this class of bug. It is unconscionable that someone designing a critical piece of security infrastructure would design the system in such a way that it does not fail safe.
"[1]" (About Ubuntu Bug)
You can't take a dying project, sprinkle it with the magic pixie dust of "open source," and have everything magically work out.
"resignation and postmortem" (essay)
Using these toolkits is like trying to make a bookshelf out of mashed potatoes.
Quoted in the UNIX-HATERS Handbook, chapter 7: "The X-Windows Disaster"
I'd just like to take this moment to point out that C has all the expressive power of two dixie cups and a string.
XKeyCaps homepage
Linux is only free if your time has no value.
In an interview in June 1998; he later claimed that "Bits and pieces of this article have been quoted out of context in lots of places"
Today, I use Linux as my primary OS (on an x86 PC, and on a Thinkpad), and I also use Irix (on an SGI O2). Linux has improved a great deal since I wrote this, specifically with respect to its ease of installation.
In a comment on his site in 2000
Your "use case" should be, there's a 22 year old college student living in the dorms. How will this software get him laid?
"Groupware Bad" (essay)
My one purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others.
DNA Lounge blog
I dug in a bit but then the smell of gasoline and burning flesh drove me away.
If you're using Windows, go fuck yourself.
"Backups" essay
Don't do drugs, kids. Stay in school.
"don corleone" (essay)
C (it's not just a language, it's a grade)
alt.religion.emacs
I've noticed that when I get quoted in .sig files, it's never any of the actual clever things I say all the time. Usually it's something dumb.
DNA quotes, Inkee .
Browser compatibility problems are nature's way of saying "stop trying to be so fuckin' clever".
Professionalism has no place in art, and hacking is art. Software Engineering might be science; but that's not what I do. I'm a hacker, not an engineer.
"Signatures", Texts, RU: PP .
[Perl] combines all the worst aspects of C and Lisp: a billion different sublanguages in one monolithic executable. It combines the power of C with the readability of PostScript.
Groups, Google .
Your needs are big because the Internet is big.
Easter eggs, JWZ .
Nothing comes for free.
These people also tended to pretend to care deeply about the blind and otherwise disabled. I am sympathetic to the needs of those users, but I can't help but think that those who claimed to speak for the blind were being more than a little disingenuous, just like those Hemp people who present their arguments in terms of their deep and abiding care for the textile industry, when their real motives are … something else entirely.
Markup, JWZ .
There is a lot of money to be made in the business of secrets, of course.
IWTBF, JWZ .
Our focus in the client group had always been to build products and features that people wanted to use. That we wanted to use. That our moms wanted to use.
Groupware, JWZ .
If you want to do something that's going to change the world, build software that people want to use instead of software that managers want to buy.
But instead I'm stuck inside under fluorescent lights, pushing bits around inside a computer in ways that are only interesting to other nerds.
NSCP Dorm, JWZ .
Quotes about Zawinski[edit]
One of the best programmers I ever hired had only a High School degree; he's produced a lot of great software, has his own news group, and made enough in stock options to buy his own nightclub.
Norvig, Peter (2001). Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=Jamie_Zawinski&oldid=2598648"
Programmers from the United States
People from Pittsburgh

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
The Mission of Raphael in the Light of Spiritual Science
[Map] Version 3.0.1
[ Lecture: S-2694: 30th January, 1913 | Berlin | GA0062 | MansellR ]
On-line since: 8th July, 2012
Rudolf Steiner Archive Document
Lectures Section
The following lecture was given by Rudolf Steiner at Berlin on the 30th of January, 1913. It is a previously unpublished, typewritten transcription of a lecture that is from Bn/GA 62, and is lecture 9 of 13 in the lecture series entitled, Results of Spiritual Investigation, published in German as, Ergebnisse der Geistesforschung. It is London reference number Lr Z-27.
By Rudolf Steiner
Translated by Rick Mansell
Bn 62.9; GA 62; CW 62
This lecture was translated from shorthand reports, unrevised by the lecturer, by Rick Mansell. It was edited for better clarity by the e.Lib staff.
This lecture is presented here with the kind permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Switzerland. From Bn 62.9; GA 62; CW 62.
This e.Text edition is provided through the wonderful work of:
Various e.Text Transcribers
Search for related titles available for purchase at Amazon.com!
For another version of this lecture, see: https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA062/English/eLib2018/RapMis_index.html published in, 2018.
Thanks to a donation from the Los Angeles Rudolf Steiner Library, this Lecture has been made available.
The Mission of Raphael in the Light
of Spiritual Science
Raphael is one of those figures in the spiritual [area] of mankind who rise[s] like a star. These figures stand there, making us feel that they emerge suddenly out of the depths of the spiritual evolution of humanity and then disappear, when through their mighty creations, their being has been engraved into the spiritual history of man. On closer observation it becomes evident that such a human being, whom we have at first compared to a star that flashes brightly and then disappears again, becomes a member of the whole spiritual life of mankind, like a limb in a great organism. This is especially so in regard to Raphael.
Hermann Grimm, the eminent thinker on Art, has tried to follow Raphael's influence and fame through the ages down to the present day. Grimm has been able to show that Raphael's creations went on working after the painter's death as a living element, and that a uniform stream of spiritual development has flowed onwards from the life of Raphael to our own time. Grimm has shown how the evolution of humanity has proceeded since the creations of Raphael, and on the other side of the spiritual conception of history it may be said that preceding ages too give the impression as if they were themselves pointing to the Raphael who was later to appear in world evolution like a limb in a whole organism. We may here recall an utterance once made by Goethe about the world of Space and apply it to the world of Time. Goethe once wrote these significant words: "What would all the starry world and all that is spread out in Space amount to if it were not at some time reflected in the human soul, celebrating its own higher existence for the first time in the experiences of this human soul?" Applying these words to the evolution of the ages, we may say that in a certain sense, when we cast our eyes back into antiquity, the Homeric gods who were described so gloriously by Homer nearly 1000 years before the founding of Christianity, would lose something if they had not risen again in the soul of Raphael, finding their consummation in the sublime figures of his pictures. What Homer created long ages before the appearance of Christianity unites in this sense into an organic whole with what was born from the soul of Raphael in the 16th century. Again, we turn our gaze to the figures of the New Testament, and in the face of Raphael's pictures we feel that something would be lacking if the creative, formative power in the Madonnas and other pictures which have sprung from Biblical tradition and legend, had not been added to the Biblical description. Therefore we may say: not only does Raphael live on through the following centuries but his creations form one organic whole with all preceding ages. Most ages indeed already pointed to one in whom they should find their consummation, although this, it is true, could only be discovered in later history.
The words of Lessing when he speaks of "the Education of the Human Race" assume great significance when we thus see how a uniform spiritual essence flows through the evolution of humanity, flashing up in figures like Raphael. The truth of repeated earthly lives that have so often been emphasized from the spiritual-scientific standpoint in connection with the spiritual evolution of humanity is perceived with special vividness when we bear in mind what has just been said. We realized then for the first time what it means that the being of man should appear again and again in repeated earthly lives through the epochs, bearing from one life to the other what is destined to be implanted in the spiritual evolution of humanity. Spiritual Science is seeking the meaning and purpose in the evolution of mankind. It does not merely seek to portray the consecutive events of human evolution in one straight, continuous line, but to interpret the various epochs in such a way that the human soul, appearing again and again over the course of the ages, must have ever new experiences. Then we can truly speak of an "Education" which the human soul undergoes as the result of its different earthly lives, — an education proceeding from all that is created and born from out of the common spirit of humanity.
What will here be set forth from the standpoint of Spiritual Science in regard to Raphael's relationship to human evolution as a whole during the last few centuries, is not intended to be a philosophical or historical study, but the result of a many-sided study of Raphael's creative activity. There is no question of giving a philosophical survey of the spiritual life of humanity for the sake of bringing Raphael into it. Everything that I myself have experienced after study and contemplation of his different works has crystallized quite naturally into what I propose to say tonight.
It will be impossible, of course, to enter into ithe details of the single creations of Raphael. That could only be if one were able by some means to place his pictures before the audience. The general impression of the creative power of Raphael arises in the soul and then the question arises: what place has this in the evolution of humanity? The gaze falls upon a significant epoch, — an epoch to which Raphael stands in a relationship to when we allow him to work upon us — I referred to the Greek epoch and its development. All that the Greeks not only created but experienced as the outcome of their whole nature and constitution, appears as a kind of middle epoch when we restudy human evolution during the last few thousand years. Greek culture coincides in a certain sense with the founding of Christianity and all that preceded it seems to bear a different character from following ages. Studying humanity in the Pre-Grecian age of civilization we find that the soul and spirit of man are much more intimately bound up with the corporeal, with the outer corporeality than is the case in later times. What we speak of today as the "inwardness" of the soul when applying itself to the spiritual or the spiritual becoming conscious of the Spiritual underlying the universe, — this inwardness did not exist to the same degree in Grecian times. When man used his bodily organs in those days, the spirituaul mysteries of existence simultaneously lit up in his soul. Observation of the sense-world was not so detached and aloof as is ordinary Science to-day. Man beheld the objects with his senses, and with his sense impressions he simultaneously perceived the spirit and soul-elements weaving and living within the objects. The Spiritual was there with the objects as they were perceived. To press forward to the Spirituality of the universe in ancient times it was not necessary for man to withdraw from sense impressions or to give himself up wholly to the inner being of the soul. Indeed in very ancient times of evolution "clairvoyant perception of things" — in the very sense of the word — was a common possession of man. This clairvoyant perception was not attained as the result of certain given conditions, but was as natural as sense perception.
Then came Greek culture with the world peculiar to it, — a world where we may place the beginning of the inward deepening of spiritual life, but where the inner experiences of the spirit are still connected with the outer, with processes in the world of sense. In Greek culture the balance is not between the Sensible and the Psychic-Spiritual. The Spiritual was not so immediately present in sense perception as was the case in Pre-Grecian times. It lit up in the soul of the Greek as something inwardly apart, but that it was perceived when the senses were directed to the outer world. The Greek beheld the Spirit not in the objects, but with the objects. In Pre-Grecian times the soul of man was poured out, as it were, into corporeality. In Greek culture the soul had freed itself to some extent from the corporeality, but the balance between the Psychic-Spiritual and the bodily element was still held. This is why the creations of the Greeks seem to be as fully permeated with the spirituality as that which their senses perceived.
In Post-Grecian ages the human spirit undergoes an inward deepening and is no longer able to receive, simultaneously with the sense impressionthe, Spiritual living and weaving in all things. These are the ages when the human soul was destined to withdraw into itself and experience its struggles and conquests in an inner life before pressing forward to the Spiritual. Spiritual contemplation and the sense perception of things became two worlds which the human soul must experience. How clearly evident this is in a spirit like Augustine, for instance, who in the Post-Christian epoch is really not so far removed from the founding of Christianity as we are from the Reformation. The experiences and writings of Augustine as compared with the traditions of Greek culture are highly characteristic of the progress of humanity. The struggles of the inward turned soul, the scene of action existing in the inner being of the soul apart from the external world that we see in Augustine, — how impossible all this appears in the Greek spirits who everywhere reveal how deeply their soul-content is united with the processes of the external world. The evolutionary history of humanity shows evidence of a division, a mighty incision. Into this evolutionary picture there enters on the one side Greek culture, where man holds the balance between the Psychic-Spiritual and outer corporeality; on the other side there is the founding of Christianity. All the experiences of the human soul were thereafter to become inward, to take their course in inner struggles and conquests. The mission of the founding of Christianity was not to direct man's gaze to the world of sense in order that he might become conscious of the riddles of existence, but to all that the spirit might intuitively hold when giving itself up wholly to the powers of the spirit and soul. How utterly different, — divided by a deep, deep cleft, are those beautiful, majestic Gods of Greece, Zeus or Apollo, from the figure dying on the Cross, — a figure, it is true, full of inner profundity and power, but not beautiful in the external sense. Already here we find the outer symbol of the deep incision made by Christianity and Greek culture in the evolution of humanity. And in the spirits of the Post-Grecian ages we see the effects of this incision as an ever more intense inward deepening of the soul.
Thence forward this energy-pain has been characteristic of the onward progress of evolution. And if we would understand human evolution in the sense of Spiritual Science we must realize that we are living in an age which represents a still greater inward deepening, the more we observe it in relation to the immediate past and the prospect of the future in which a cleft, still deeper than that which the contemplation of the past reveals, will appear between all that is proceeding in the world in a more or less mechanical, technical life of the outer world, and the goal ahead of the human soul as it endeavors to scale the heights of spiritualality, — heights which open up only in our inner being as we attempt to ascend to the Spiritual. More and more we are dancing into an age of inner deepening.
A mighty incision in the progress of humanity in Post-Grecian times toward an energy being is what has remained to us in the creations of Raphael. Raphael stands there as a mighty spirit at a parting of the ways in human evolution. All that preceded him marks the beginning of the process of this inner deepening; what follows him represents a new chapter. Although much that I have to say in this lecture may have the appearance of symbology, it should not be taken merely as a symbolical mode of expression, but as an attempt to create as broad a conception and idea as possible, that which can be clothed only in the "trivial concepts of man" on account of Raphael's towering greatness.
When we try to penetrate the soul of Raphael we are struck, above all, by the way in which the soul appears in the year 1483 in a "spring-like" birth, as it were, passing through an inward development radiating forth its glory from the most marvelous creations. Raphael dies at an early age, at 37. In order to deepen ourselves in the soul so that we can follow all its stages, let us turn our attention for the moment away from all that was going on in world history and concentrate wholly on the inner nature of this soul.
Hermann Grimm has pointed out certain regular cycles in the inner development of Raphael's soul. And indeed it may be said that Spiritual Science today has no need to be ashamed of directing the attention of modern skeptical mankind to the existence of cyclic laws holding sway along the path to the spirit, in all evolution, but also in that of individual human beings, if so eminent a mind as Hermann Grimm was led to, without Spiritual Science, to the perception of this regular inner cyclic development in the soul of Raphael. Grimm speaks of the picture called "The Marriage of the Virgin" as being a new phenomena in the whole evolution of Art, saying that it cannot be compared with anything that had gone before. From infinite depths of the human soul, Raphael created something entirely new in the whole of spiritual evolution. If we thus gain a conception of the gifts in Raphael's soul from birth onwards, we can readily agree with the following passage of Hermann Grimm: "We now see Raphael's soul developing onwards in regular cycles of four years duration. It is wonderful to observe how this soul advances onwards thus, and studying one such period we find that at the end of it, Raphael stands at a higher stage of his soul's development. Four years after the picture The Marriage of the Virgin comes The Entombment; four years later again the frescoes in the Camera dells Segnature in the Vatican, — and so on, by four year stages up to The Transfiguration which stood unfinished by his death bed."
We feel the desire to study this soul for its own sake because its development is so harmonious. Then however we get the impression that in the Art of Painting itself an inwardness had to develop, — an inwardness such as that expressed in figures which only Raphael could create. It is an inwardness borne out of the depths of the soul experience although it appears in pictures of the world of sense, and it then becomes part of history itself.
Having thus contemplated the inner nature of the soul of Raphael, let us allow the age in which he lived and all that was around him, to work upon us. While Raphael was growing up more or less as a child in Urbino, his environment was of a kind that could stimulate and awaken any decisive talents. The whole of Italy was excited at that time about a certain palace that had been built in Urbino. This was something that imbued the early talents of Raphael with an element of harmony with their nature. After that, however, Raphael got more refined and transplanted ihimself to Perugia, then to Florence, then to Rome. Fundamentally speaking, his life ran its course within narrow circles. These towns seem so near when we study his life. His world was enclosed within the circles so far as the world of sense was concerned. It was only in the spirit that he rose to "other spheres." In Perugia, however, which was the scene of his youthful soul development, fierce quarrels were the order of the day. The town is populated by a passionate, tumultuous people. Noble families whose lives were spent in wrangling and quarreling fought bitterly against each other. The one drove the other out-of-town, then after a short banishment the other family would try again to take possession of it. More than once the streets of Perugia flowed with blood and were strewn with corpses. One historian describes a remarkable scene, and indeed all the descriptions of that epoch are typical. A nobleman of the town enters it as a warrior in order to avenge his relatives. He is described to us as he rides through the streets on horseback like the spirit of War incarnate, beating down everything that crosses his path. The historian evidently has the impression that the revenge was justifiable and there arises before his soul the picture of St. George bringing the enemy to his feet. Later, in a work by Raphael, we feel the scene as described by the historian rise up before us in picture form and our immediate impression is that Raphael must surely have allowed this to affect him; and then what seemed so terrible in the outward sense is deepened and rises again from out of his soul in the subject of one of the most wonderful pictures.
Thus Raphael saw around him a quarreling humanity; disorder upon disorder, battle upon battle, surrounded him in the town where he was studying under his master Pietro Perugino. One gets the impression of two worlds in the town, — one, the scene of cruelty and terror, and another, living inwardly in Raphael's soul, which had really little to do with what was going on around him in the physical world.
Then, later again we find Raphael transplanted to Florence in the year 1504. What was the state of Florence then? In the first place the inhabitants give the impression of being a wearied people who had passed through inner and outer tumults and were living in a certain ennui and fatigue. What had been the fate of Florence? Struggles, just as in the case of the other town, bitter persecutions among different patrician families, and of course, quarrels with the outer world. And on the other hand stirring events that had thrown every soul in the town into a state of upheaval when Savonarola appears before them uttering words of fire against the current misdeeds, the cruelty, materiality and heathendom of the Church. The words of Savonarola seem to resound again in our ears, words by which he dominated the whole of Florence and to such an extent that the people not only hung upon his lips but revered him as deeply as if a spirit from a higher world were standing before them in that ascetic body. The words of Savonarola transformed Florence as if the direct radiation of the Reformer of Religions Himself had permeated not only the religious conceptions, but the very social life of the town. It was as though a citadel of the Gods had been founded. Such was Florence under the influence of Savonarola. He fell victim to those Powers whom he had opposed, morally and religiously. Their rises before our soul the moving pictures of Savonarola as he was led to the fire of martyrdom with his companions, and how from the gallows when he was to fall onto the burning pyre, he turned his eyes — it was in May 1498 — down to the people who had once hung upon his words, but who had now deserted him and were looking with apparent disloyalty at the figure who had for so long inspired them. Only in a very few, — and they were artists, — do the words of Savonarela still resound. There were painters at that time who themselves donned the monk's robe after Savonarela's martyrdom in order to work in his Order under the influence of his spirit.
One can visualize the weary atmosphere lying over Florence, Raphael was transplanted into this atmosphere in the year 1504. And he brought with him in his creations the very Spirit's breath of Spring, although in a different way from Savonarela. When they contemplate the soul of Raphael in all its isolation, — a soul so different from the mood surrounding it in this town, visualizing him in the company of artists and painters working at his creations in lonely workshops in Florence or elsewhere, another picture rises up, showing us visibly in history how Raphael's soul stands out inwardly aloof from the outer life around it. And there arises before us the figures of the Roman Popes, Alexander VI, Julius II, Leo X, in fact the whole Papal system against which Savonarela directed his words of scorn, the Reformers their attacks. Yet this Papacy was the Patron of Raphael who entered its service, although inwardly his soul had little in common with what we find in his Patron Pope Julius II for instance. It was said of Julius II that he gave the impression of a man with a devil in his body, who always likes to show his teeth to his enemies. They are mighty figures, these popes, but "Christians" in the sense of Savonarola or of others who thought like him, they certainly were not. The papacy had passed over into a new "heathendom". In these circles there was not much Christian piety. There was, however, much brilliance, ambition, lust for power in the Popes as well as in their environment. We see Raphael in the service as it were of this heathenized Christendom, but in what sense in this service? From out his soul flow creations which give a new form to Christian conceptions and ideas. In the Madonnas and other works, the tenderest, most inward element of Christian legend rises again. What a contrast there is between the soul inwardness in Raphael's creations and all that was going on around him in Rome when he entered into the outer service of the Popes!
How was this possible? We see the contrast between our life and Raphael's inner being in the early student days in Perugia, but we see it's still more intensely in Rome where all his all-conquering works were created in the midst of an officialdom of Cardinals and Priests which had been intolerable to Savonarela. True, the two men were different, but we must nevertheless contrast Raphael with his environment in this way if we are to obtain a true picture of what was living in his soul.
Let us allow the picture of Raphael to work upon us. This cannot be done in detail in a lecture, but we can at least call up before the mind's eye one of the more widely known works for the purpose of contemplating the peculiar qualities living in Raphael's soul, — I mean the Sistine Madonna which is familiar to everybody in the innumerable copies existing all over the world. The Sistine Madonna is one of the greatest and noblest works of Art in human evolution. The "Mother with the Child" hover towards us on clouds which covered the Earth globe, — hover from the shadowy world of spirit and soul, surrounded in clouds which seem naturally to form themselves into human figures, one being the Child Himself. Feelings arise which, when we permeate them with the soul, seem to make us forget all those legendary conceptions which culminate in the picture of the Madonna. We forget all that Christian traditions as to tell of her. I say this not for the sake of giving any dry description, but in order to characterize as fully as may be the feelings that arise within us at the site of the Madonna.
Spiritual Science raises us above all materialistic conception of human evolution. Although it is difficult to understand in the sense of Natural Science according to which the development of lower organisms proceeded until finally it reached the stage of the human being, — nevertheless it is the fact that man is a being whose life transcends everything below him in the kingdom of Nature. Spiritual Science knows that man contains a something within him much more ancient than all the beings who stand in greater or lesser proximity to him in the kingdom of Nature. Man existed before the beings of the animal, plant and even of the mineral kingdom. In a wider perspective we look back to ages when that which now constitutes our inner being was already in existence in which only later was incorporated into the kingdoms which now stand below man. We see the being of man proceeding from a super-earthly world and realize that we can only truly understand it when we rise above all that the Earth can produce out of herself to something super-terrestrial and pre-terrestrial. Spiritual Science teaches that even if we allow all the forces, all the living substances connected with the Earth herself to work upon us, none of this can give a true picture of the whole essence and being of man. The gaze must rise beyond the Earthly to the Supersensible whence the being of man proceeds. Speaking figuratively we cannot but feel how something wafts towards the Earthly when, for instance, we gaze at the golden gleaming morning sunrise, — and especially is this the case in a region like that in which Raphael lived. Forces which work down into the Earth seem here to flow into the Earthly elements, — forces which inhere in the being of the Sun. And then out of the golden radiance arises before our soul the sense image of what it is that is wafting hither in order to unite itself with the Earthly. Above all in Perugia we may feel that the eye is beholding the very same sunrise once seen by Raphael, who in these phenomenon was able to sense the nature of the Super-Earthly element in man. And gazing at the Sun-illuminated clouds there may don on us a realization that the picture of the Madonna and Child is a sense picture of the eternal Super-Earthly element in man that is wafted to Earth from super-earthly realms themselves and meets, in the clouds, those elements that can only proceed from the Earthly. Our perception may feel itself raised to the loftiest spiritual heights if we can give ourselves up — not theoretically, or in an abstract sense, but with the whole soul — to what works upon us in Raphael's Madonnas. This perfectly natural feeling may arise before the world-famous picture in Dresden. And to prove to you that it has indeed had this effect upon many people I should like to quote words written about the Sistine Madonna by Karl August, Duke of Weimar, the friend of Goethe, after a visit to Dresden: He says:
"In regard to the Raphael picture that adorns the collection, I felt as if the whole day long I had roamed over the heights of the Gotthard, through the Urner clefts and looks down from thence to the green, blossoming valley. As I looked at the picture and again away from it, it always seemed to me a revelation of the soul. Even the most beautiful Caravaggios were pictures only of the human; the memory of them tangible like beautiful forms. Raphael, however, remained with me as a breath, as one of those revelations sent to one in women's form by the Gods of happiness or sorrow, like a figure that arises before one again and again in waking or dream life, whose gaze, once experienced, is with one forever, day and night, moving the innermost being." (Karl August to his friend Knebel, 14th October, 1763)
Another remarkable thing is that if we study the literature of those who speak of the experiences of deep emotion at the site of this Sistine Madonna and also of other pictures of Raphael, we shall always find that they use the analogy of the Sun, all that is radiant and spring-like. This gives us a glimpse into Raphael's soul and we realize how from amid the environment already described, it held converse with the eternal mysteries of the genesis of man. And then we feel the uniqueness of the soul of Raphael, realizing that it is not a "product" of its environment, but points to a hoary antiquity. There is no longer any need for speculation. A soul like this, looking out into the wide universe, — a soul which does not express the mystery of existence in ideas, but senses and gives it form in a picture like the Sistine Madonna, stands there in its inner perfection quite naturally as mature in the highest degree. Truly, the gifts inherent in this soul represents something that must have passed through other epochs of human evolution, not many such epochs which poured into it a power able to reemerge in what we call the "life of Raphael". But from what it re-merges?
We see the living kind of Christian legends and traditions appearing again in Raphael's pictures in the midst of an age when Christendom had, as it were, become heathenized and was given up to outer pomp and show, just as Greek paganism was represented in the figures of its gods and honored above all else by the Greeks in their intoxication with beauty. We see Raphael giving form to the figures of Christian tradition in an age when treasures of Greek culture which had for long centuries been buried under ruins and debris on Roman soil were unearthed, Raphael himself assisting. It is a remarkable spectacle, the Rome where Raphael found himself at this time. Let us consider what had gone before.
First there are the sentries of the Rise of Rome, — a Rome built upon the Egoism of individual men whose aim it was above all to establish a human society in the external physical world on the foundation of what man, as the citizen of a State, was meant to signify. Then during the age of the Emperors, when Rome had reached a certain eminence, it absorbs the Greek culture which streams into Roman spiritual life. Rome subdues Greece in the political sense, but in the spiritual sense Greece conquers Rome. Greek culture lives on within Roman culture; Greek art, to the extent to which it has been imbibed by Rome, lives on there; Rome is permeated through and through by the essence of Greek culture. But why is it that this does not remain through the following sentries as a characteristic quality of the development of Italy? Why was it that something entirely different made its appearance? It was because soon after Greek culture had streamed into the life of Rome there came the influx of that other element which impressed its signature strongly into the spiritual life that was developing on the soil of Italy, I mean, Christendom. The mission of this inward deepening of Christendom was not that of the external sense element in the Greek State, Greek sculpture, or Greek philosophy. A formless element was now to draw into the souls of men and to be laid hold of by dint of inner effort and struggle. Figures like Augustine appear, — men whose whole being is inward turned. But then, — since everything in evolution proceeds in cycles, we see a rising in men who have passed through this inward deepening and whose souls have long lived apart from the beauties of external life, a yearning for beauty. Once again they behold the inner in the outer. It is significant to see the inwardly deepened life of Francis of Assisi in Giotto's pictures for those pictures express the inner experiences called forth in the soul by Christianity. And even if the inner being of the human soul speaks somewhat haltingly and imperfectly from Giotto's pictures, we do nevertheless see a direct ascent to the point where the most inward elements, the very loftiest and noblest in external form confronts us in Raphael and his contemporaries. Here we are directed once again to a characteristic quality of this soul of Raphael.
If we try to penetrate into the kind of feelings and perceptions which Raphael himself must have had, we cannot help saying to ourselves: "Yes, indeed, in the contemplation of pictures like the Madonna della Sedia, for instance, the whole way in which the Madonna with the Child, and the Child John in the foreground are here represented, makes us forget the rest of the world, forget above all that this Child in the arms of the Madonna is connected with the experiences of Golgotha. Gazing at Raphael's pictures we forget everything that afterwords perceived as the "life of Jesus"; we live entirely in the moment here portrayed. We are gazing simply at a Mother was a Child, which in the words of Hermann Grimm, is the great Mystery to be met with in the outer world. Peace surrounds this moment; it seems as though nothing could connect with it, before or afterwards; we live wholly in the relationship of the Madonna to her Child and separate it off from everything else. Thus do the creations of Raphael appear to us, — perfect and complete in themselves, revealing the Eternal in one moment of Time.
How shall we describe the feelings of a soul able to create like this? We cannot compare them to the feelings of a Savonarola, who when he uttered his words of scorn or was speaking those uplifting, godly words to Christian devotees, was seized with inner fire and passed through the whole tragedy of the Christ. We cannot conceive that Raphael's soul burst forth suddenly like the genius of a Savonarola, or others like him; nor can we conceive that it was swayed by the so-called "fire of Christendom." Raphael could not however have portrayed the Christian conceptions in such inner perfection if his soul had been as foreign to this "Christian fire" as may appear to have been the case.
On the other hand, the forms in all their objectivity and roundness could not have been created by a soul permeated with Savonarola's fire and winged by the experience of the whole tragedy of the Christ. Quite a different peace, quite a different Christian feeling must have flowed into the soul. And yet no soul could have created these pictures if the very essence of Christian inwardness were not living within it. Surely it is almost natural to say: here indeed is a soul which brought with it into the physical existence of the artist Raphael, the fire that pours forth from Savonarola. When we realize how Raphael brings this fire with him through birth from earlier experiences, we understand why it is so illuminating and inwardly perfect; it does not come forth as a consuming and shattering element but as the reliance of plastic creation. In Raphael's innate gifts one already feels the existence of something that in an earlier life might have been able to speak with the same fire that is later found in Savonarola. It need not astonish us to find in Raphael a soul reincarnated from an age when Christianity was not yet expressed in picture form or in Art, but from the age of its founding, the starting point of the whole mighty impulse which then worked on through the centuries.
In the attempt to understand the soul like Raphael's, it is perhaps not too bold to say something of this kind, for those who have steeped themselves again and again in the works of Raphael and have thus learned to revere this soul in all its depth, cannot but realize what it is that speaks from those wonder-works into which the artist poured his soul. Thus the mission of Raphael only appears in the right light when, — to use expression of Goethe, — we seek in a life already past for the Christian fire that is revealed in the radiance of the Raphael life. Then we understand why his soul was necessarily so isolated in the world and why it was that having possessed to an intense degree in an earlier existence something of the nature of a Savonarola. It was able to refresh and renew all that had arisen in the spiritual evolution of Italy in the 16th century.
I have already described how in the age of the Rise of the Empire, the influence of Greek culture has entered into Roman development and how an inward deepening of the soul had seven. Later on, in the age of Raphael, — the Renaissance, — we see on the one side the reappearance of this old Greek culture that had long been buried under ruins and debris. We see in Rome with the remnants of this free culture, the reappearance of the Greek spirit that had once adorned and beautify the city; the eyes of the Roman people turn once again to the forms that had been created by this Greek spirit. On the other side, however, see how the spirit of Plato, Aristotle, of the Greek Tragedians, penetrates Roman life in the epoch. Once again the victory of Greek culture over the Roman world! The Greek culture which was emerging from ruins and debris and spreading over the Italian peninsula could not help having a refreshing and renewing effect on a spirit like Raphael's, who in an earlier existence was imbued, to the exclusion of everything else, with the moral-religious conception of Christendom. If we see the moral-religious impulse of Christendom born in the gifts of Raphael, we also see that element which these gifts did not at first contain rising before his eyes in the resurrected culture of Greece. And just as the city, rising out of ruins and debris, influenced this soul more deeply than all others, so also did the spiritual yields of Greek culture that were unearthed in the hidden manuscripts. Raphael's inborn gifts, united with his "super-spiritual" devotion to everything of a cosmic nature, worked hand-in-hand with the Greek spirit that was emerging again in his age. These were the two elements that united in Raphael's soul; this is why his works express the inwardness proceeding from the post-Grecian age, — the inwardness poured by Christianity into the evolution of humanity which was expressed in outward manifestation in a world of artistic forms permeated with the purest Greek spirit.
We are faced, then, with the remarkable phenomena of the resurrection of Greek culture within Christendom through Raphael. In him we see the resurrection of a Christendom in an age which in a certain respect represents the "Anti-Christian" element around him. In Raphael there'll is a Christianity far transcending what had gone before him and rose to a much loftier conception of the world as it was at that time. Yet it was a Christianity that did no dimly and vaguely direct the attention to the infinite spheres of the Spiritual, but was concentrated into forms that delight the senses too, just as in earlier times the Greeks expressed in artistic forms their ideas of the gods united with the formless element living and weaving in the universe.
This is what we find when we try to form a general picture of Raphael, allowing one or another of his creations in all their sublime perfection yet marvelous superfluity of youth, — for Raphael died at the age of 37, — to work upon us. Not for the sake of any colorless theory, or for the purpose of building any kind of philosophical history, but as the result of a conception born out of Raphael's works themselves, it must be said that the law holding sway in the course of human spiritual life finds its true revelation in a mighty spirit such as his. It is not correct to think of this course of spiritual life as a straight line where effect follows cause as a natural matter of fact. It is only too easy in this connection to quote one of the so-called "Golden sayings" of humanity to the effect that the life and nature does not advance by leaps and bounds. Well and good, but the fact is that in a certain respect both life and nature do continually do so, as can be seen in the development of the plant from the green leaf to the blossum, from the blossom to the fruit. Here everything does indeed "develop" but sudden leaps are quite obvious. So too is it in the spiritual life of humanity, and this, moreover, is bound up with many mysteries, one of them being that a later epoch must always have it support in an earlier. Just as the male and female must work in conjunction, so may it be said that the different "Spirits of the Age" must mutually fertilize and work together in order that evolution may proceed. Roman culture, already at the time of the empire, had to be fertilized by Greek culture in order that a new "Spirit of the Age" might arise. This new Spirit of the age had in its turn to be fertilized by the Christ Impulse before the inwardness which we then find in Augustine and others was possible. This human soul that had been so inwardly deepened, had once again to be fertilized by the spirit of the Greek culture which, although it was a doubly buried, doubly hidden, was made visible again to the eyes of man in the works of Art resting beneath the soil of Italy, and to their souls in the rediscovered literary manuscripts.
The first Christian centuries in Italy were extraordinarily uninfluenced by what lived in Greek Philosophy and Poetry. Greek culture was buried in a double grave and waited in a realm beyond as it were, for an epoch when it could once again fertilized human soul that had meantime passed through a new phase. It was buried, this Greek culture, hidden from the eyes of men and from souls who did not know that it would live and flow onwards like a river that sometimes takes a track under a mountain and is not seen until it once again comes to the surface. Hidden, outwardly from the senses, inwardly from the depths of the soul was this Greek culture and now it appeared once again. For sense perception it was brought to the light of day from out of the soil of Italy and flowed into the works of art; first virtual perception it was not only unearthed from the ancient manuscripts; men began once again to feel in the Greek sense of the material is the manifestation of the Spiritual. They began to feel all that Plato and Aristotle had once thought.
It was Raphael in whom this Greek culture could bring forth its fairest flower because the Christ Impulse had reached a greater ripeness in his soul than in any other. This is twice buried and twice resurrected Greek culture worked in him in such a way that he was able to impress into forms the whole evolution of humanity. How marvelously was he able to accomplish this in the pictures in the Camera della Segnature in the Vatican! The ancient spiritual contests rise again before our eyes, — the struggles and activities of those Spirits who developed onwards during the epoch of inward deepening, who were not there in the Greek culture as it reappeared in the time of Raphael. The whole period of inward deepening was necessary before Greek culture could become visible in this particular form, and then it is painted on the walls of the Papal Chambers. What the Greeks had conceived of in forms only, has now become inward; we see the inner struggles and conflicts of humanity itself charmed onto the walls of the Vatican in the spirit of Greece, of Greek art and beauty. The Greeks poured into their statues their conception of the way in which the gods worked upon the world. How this working of the gods is experienced by man, so that he presses on words to the foundations and causes of things, — this is what is expressed in the picture so often called "The School of Athens". The conceptions which the human soul had learned to form of the Greek gods is expressed in the Parnassus, with it's new and significant interpretation of the Homeric gods. These are not the gods of the Iliad and Odyssey; they are the gods as perceived by a soul that had passed through the period of inward deepening. On the other wall there is a picture that must remain indelibly in the memory of every one, whatever their religious creed, — I refer to the fresco of the "Dispute about the Mass" which portrays the deepest inner truths. Whereas the other pictures, — in a Greek beauty of form it is true, — express the goal to be attained as the result of a certain philosophical striving, we have in the "Dispute about the Mass", the fairest thing that the soul of man may experience. Here we find "Brahma", "Vishnu", "Shiva" portrayed in quite a different sense, — a prove to us that there is no need to adhere rigidly to a narrow Christian dogmatism. What inwardly experienced by every human soul, irrespective of creed or confession, as the "Trinity", faces us in the symbolism, — though the portrayal is not merely "symbolical", in the upper part of the picture. We see it again in the countenances of the church fathers, in their every gesture, in the whole grouping of the figures, in the wonderful coloring, indeed in the picture as a whole which portrays the inwardness of the human soul in a beauty of form permeated by the spirit of Greece.
And so the inward deepening experienced by the soul man in the course of 1500 years rises again in outer revelation. Christianity, not as the heathendom of the Roman popes and cardinals, but as the wonderful paganism of Greece with its mighty gods, is resurrected in the works of Raphael.
Thus the soul of Raphael stands at the turning point of ages, pointing back to days of yore, containing within itself all that had developed up to the time of Christendom in the beauty of external revelation, and yet at the same time permeated by what had been brought about by the so-called "education of the human race", namely an inward deep pain in the reincarnated soul. These wonderworks of so rare and art stand before us like a fusion of two ages, each clearly different from the other, — the pre-Grecian and the post-Grecian epochs, the one of external, the other of inner life. But the pictures also open up a glimpse into the future. Those who realize what the fusion of external beauty and the inner wisdom-filled urge of the human soul may signify, cannot but feel security and hope that this inward deepening — despite all the materiality that must needs develop more and more as humanity progresses, — must increase in the course of evolution and that the soul of man through successive lives will enter into greater and greater depths of inwardness.
If we now turn to literature and study not as "Art critics" or mere readers, the works of a spirit like Hermann Grimm, who tried with his whole soul to portray the workings of human fantasy, we can understand the depths of inner sympathy with which he contemplated the creations of Raphael. If we ourselves study a spirit like Hermann Grimm with this same inner sympathy, we can understand the significance of certain words of his which express what was passing through his soul when he makes a somewhat tentative utterance at the beginning of his books, in a passage dealing with the way in which Raphael is a product of all the ages. Grimm's formal descriptions of the various works of Raphael do not show us once this particular thought has sprung. In the middle of other wider historical considerations into which Raphael is introduced, Hermann Grimm is struck by a thought which he records somewhat tentatively in these words: "When we contemplate the spiritual creations of humanity and see how they have passed over from days of yore into our own time, we may well be aware of a longing to tread this Earth once more in order to see what has been their fate as they have lived on." This desire for "reincarnation" expressed by Hermann Grimm in the introduction to his book on Raphael is remarkable, and moreover, deeply characteristic of the feeling living in the soul of a man of our own time, — I mean of course one who tried to penetrate into the very soul of Raphael and his connection with other epochs. Surely this makes us feel that works like those of Raphael are not merely a "natural product"; they do not only induce a sense of gratitude for all that the past has hitherto bestowed. They rather give birth to a feeling of hope, because they strengthen our belief in an advancing humanity. We feel that these works could not be what they are if progress were not the very essence of humanity. A feeling of security and hope arises when we allow Raphael to work upon us in the true sense and we are able to say: Raphael has spoken to humanity itself in his artistic creations.
In front of the Stanzas in the Camera della Segnatura we do indeed feel the transitoriness of the outer work and that those ofttimes repaired frescoes can no longer give any conception of what Raphael's magic once charmed on those walls. We realize that at some future time men will no longer be able to gaze at the original works, but we know too that humanity will never cease progressing. Raphael's works began their march of triumph when out of sheer love of them the innumerable reproductions now in existence were made. The influence of the originals live on, even in the reproductions. We can so well understand Hermann Grimm when he says that he wants hung a photograph of the Sistine Madonna in his room but always felt that he had no right to go into that room; it seemed to him to be a sanctuary of the Madonna and the picture. Many will have realized that the soul is changed after they have entered livingly into some picture of Raphael, even though it is only a reproduction. True one day the originals will disappear, but may it not be said that they exist nonetheless in other worlds? The words of Hermann Grimm in his book on Homer are quite true: "Neither can the original works of Homer truly delight us in these days for when we read the Iliad and Odyssey in ordinary life without higher spiritual faculties, we are no longer able to enter fully into all the subtleties, beauty and power of the Greek language. The originals exist no longer; yet in spite of this Homer speaks to us through his poems." What Raphael has given to the outer world however will always remain as a living witness of the fact that there was once an age in the evolution of humanity when the mysteries of existence were indeed revealed through mighty creations, although at that time men could not penetrate into these mysteries through printed writing. In the age of Raphael then read less, but they be held a great deal more.
Raphael's internal message to humanity will bear witness to this epoch, — an epoch differently constituted but that will nevertheless work on through all the ages to come, because humanity is one complete organism. Thus Raphael's creations will live on in the outer course of human evolution and inwardly in the success of lives of the spirit of man, destroying ever mightier and more deeply inward treasures.
Spiritual Science points to a twofold continuation of life, one aspect of which has been described in previous lectures here, and will be still further described, and to another spiritual life towards which we are ever striving. This spiritual life becomes our guide as we passed through the epochs of earthly existence. Hermann Grimm spoke words of truth when he expressed what his study of Raphael imparted to his feeling and perception. He says: "A time must come when Raphael's work will have long since faded and passed away. Nonetheless he will still be living in mankind, for in him humanity blossomed forth into something that has its very roots in man and will forever germinate and bear fruit." Every human soul who can penetrate deeply enough into Raphael's soul will realize this. Indeed we can only truly understand Raphael when we can sublimate and deepen in the sense of Spiritual Science a feeling which permeated Hermann Grimm when he turned again and again to the contemplation of the painter. (In the last lecture we saw how near Hermann Grimm stood to Spiritual Science.) It will help us to understand our own relation to Raphael and the sense in which thoughts such as have been given today may grow into seeds. If we conclude with a passage from Grimm which expresses what I have really wished to say: "Men will always long to understand Raphael, the fair young painter who surpassed all others, who was fated to die early and whose death was mourned by all Rome. When Raphael's works are lost his name will nevertheless remain engraven in the memory of man."
Thus wrote Hermann Grimm went in his own particular way he began to describe Raphael. We can understand these words and also those with which he concludes his book: "All the world will launch and though of the life work of such a man for Raphael has become one of the basic elements in higher development of the human spirit. We would fain draw nearer to him nay, we need him for our healing."
[Map] [ Make Corrections | Help ]


text:
Public should adhere to preventive measures
Dr Farida Al Hosani
The UAE authorities have been doing their best to protect one and all in the country from the deadly COVID-19 pandemic and the extension of the National Disinfection Programme until April 4 is an appropriate step that indicates nothing is left to chance in the fight against coronavirus.
Hundreds of personnel, supervisors and administrative staff from various federal and local government departments are participating in the National Disinfection Programme.
The fact that several regions and utilities have already been sterilised using state-of-the-art technology nationwide over several stages in collaboration with various relevant authorities should instill confidence that every possible step is being taken to ensure public safety.
As Dr Farida Al Hosani, the official spokesperson for the UAE health sector, pointed out, the decision to extend the sterilisation drive until April 5 aims to ensure coverage of the largest possible number of utilities and establishments nationwide.
The concerted efforts and synergy witnessed across the country over the past two days toward the National Disinfection Programme is certainly laudable.
All segments of the society should commit more to staying at home during the sterilisation period in order to ensure more success for the programme.
The UAE health authorities have heeded global calls to mobilise action plans, coordinating with various authorities within the country, and ensuring cross-governmental involvement to control the pandemic.
There is no need for panic or anxiety among residents regarding the availability of hygiene essentials. Dubai Economy officials have clearly affirmed that there are adequate stocks of face masks, gloves and sanitisers at leading supermarkets across the country. Residents, on their part, need to shop responsibly and avoid hoarding of essentials.
In the words of Mohammed Ali Rashed Lootah, CEO of the Commercial Compliance and Consumer Protection, CCCP, sector in Dubai Economy: "We express our sincere appreciation for the Lulu Group for their keenness to support the precautionary measures being adopted by the UAE authorities against the COVID-19 pandemic. The prompt action by Lulu Group to provide adequate supplies of hygiene essentials will enhance confidence among the public and help them comply with the prevention guidelines against the pandemic."
Lulu supermarkets' efforts to source a daily average of 1.6 million face masks across their 75 branches in the UAE is encouraging.
It is good that retailers in Dubai, especially those supplying basic needs of people, have risen to the occasion and ensured that residents do not face any shortage during this critical time.
Since the onset of the COVID-19, the UAE has been keen to ensure full solidarity and cooperation with all other countries addressing the impact of the virus outbreak.
What increases the importance of international cooperation in confronting this virus is that its negative effects do not stop at only the health aspect, although it is the most dangerous and most painful, but extends to many other aspects as well, the most important of which is the economic aspect.
The pandemic poses a major threat to entire humanity. The worldwide number of officially confirmed fatalities from the novel coronavirus rose to 31,412 on Sunday.
Over 667,090 declared cases have been registered in 183 countries and territories since the epidemic first emerged in China in December. Of these cases, at least 134,700 are now considered recovered.
People themselves have a major role to play and the community should follow and commit to the instructions and procedures of relevant authorities that aim to counter the virus.
COVID-19 UAE Virus Health Dr Farida Al Hosani
No cases of coronavirus reported in the UAE: Ministry
The World Health Organization (WHO) which issues alerts and advisories on outbreaks and epidemics to governments, stated in its website that "Novel Coronavirus is a new strain of the large family of respiratory viruses that can cause diseases ranging from common cold to the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome and the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome."
UAE provides free round-the-clock COVID-19 consultations via video, voice calls
The health authority announced in a statement that it is providing this service through its 'Doctor for Every Citizen' initiative, which was launched by the authority last December to fulfil the goals of Article 5 of the Fifty-Year Charter.
Effective steps by UAE to combat virus impact
New decisions by the UAE cabinet stepping up precautionary measures to contain the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic are aimed to protecting people's health and safety and ensuring business continuity at all sectors.
World needs nearly six million nurses as they are the backbone of any health system: WHO
The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that the world needs nearly six million nurses. According to a report that there are just under 28 million nurses on the planet.
China may present a 'sanitised' picture
The visit by a WHO team to Wuhan sounds significant at first sight, but it may not yield the desired result or depict the right picture, thanks to strict Chinese government controls. A global team of researchers arrived on Thursday in the Chinese city where the coronavirus
Trouble lurks irrespective of impeachment result
The argument against the latest impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump, for the second time, is that now is the time to heal a wounded nation, not deepen the bitter divisions even more by pursuing the president during the final days of his term.
Starmer has instilled discipline lacking in the Corbyn era
"So what would you do about it?" is the question opposition parties dread. They like to evade until they are ready to answer but can never escape. But Labour has marked the new year by a change of gear and is starting to give at least some answers. It's an important
2021 could figure in the top five warmest years
Global warming pushed temperatures to near-record levels in 2020, in effect tying 2016 as the hottest year on record, according to data released Thursday by US science agencies. Last year's average global surface temperature was 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit above the late 19th


text:
Never Knowingly Underwhelmed
Don't look like much here, but we have everything
Contact Andrew Collins
Mitford Sisters
Thomas's Fund
Admit one
Posted on July 6, 2012 by Andrew Collins
Having expressed my lack of excitement about the discovery of the Higgs Boson on Twitter on Wednesday – a semi-principled, partly caricatured indifference predicated upon my own dimwit's grasp of physics, a year-round allergy to hype and a more specific aversion to the sneering nature of the nickname "the God Particle" – I was informed by a couple of defenders of science that if so, I was therefore unqualified to get excited about anything else that I get excited about, including films, music, TV and, specifically, the Mitford Sisters. (I was also called an "intellectual pygmy" by someone who I will never hear from again, which I'm pretty sure is sizeist.)
I was on that day particularly excited by the Mitford Sisters, the world's most interesting aristocratic sibling sextet, as I had tickets to see two – that's two – great lost TV documentaries about them at the BFI on London's South Bank. As part of what looked like a generally if typically excellent season, The Aristocracy on TV, they'd forged a Mitfords double-bill out of Nancy Mitford 1904-1973: A Portrait By Her Sisters (1980) and Jessica Mitford: The Honorable Rebel (1977), both made for the BBC, the latter under the umbrella The Lively Arts.
Having been officially and continually besotted by Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica and Debo Mitford since 2008, when Letters Between Six Sisters came out in paperback, my thirst for new material to ingest waxes and wanes. I went on an early rampage after Letters and Martin Bright's C4 documentary alleging that Unity had been pregnant with Hitler's child when she shot herself in 1939, shown around the same time. And from this first flush of enthusiasm for six literate women who were not only the subject of many books, they wrote plenty too (as well as seemingly endless correspondence), I created my own small library of new and secondhand volumes. (I am particularly fond of the yellowing paperback copy of Unity Mitford: A Quest, which erroneously displays a picture of Diana on the cover.) I have added to this intermittently when new reprints come round, or when Debo, the surviving Mitford, publishes another, but by and large, it's kind of done. Which is why I jumped at the chance of viewing these two documentaries, which are unlikely to be shown on TV now.
I was delighted that the screening sold out, early on. It was a thrill to be among fellow Mitford groupies in NFT2, with not a spare seat in the house. Mitford fans do tend to be female, and not generally young, but this is by no means a rule. After all, five out of six of the Mitfords are dead – indeed, long dead; only Diana and Debo saw the Millennium in – and as such, loving them is not about remembering them, necessarily. I wasn't aware of them, growing up, and I'm sure I heard about Nancy, the novelist, first. I don't yearn to live in the tumultuous and deadly 1920s and 1930s that were their heyday, although I do find that era endlessly fascinating, with the aristocracy experiencing their first taste of decline, and losing their men in both world wars. (A life lost in action is a life lost regardless of breeding or money.)
Produced by Michael Barnes in 1977, when Jessica, or Decca, was a sprightly 60, the Melvyn Bragg-narrated portrait An Honorable Rebel was a real insight into Communist Spice's life in Oakland, California. (She eloped to fight with the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War with her sweetheart Esmond Romilly – who was, sadly, killed in the Second World War, when he joined the Canadian Air Force – and ended up in the United States, where she married Civil Rights lawyer Bob Treuhaft.) By this time, she was in demand as a lecturer and speaker, and the documentary is topped and tailed by a talk given to students at a university. She had not developed an American accent, and retained the much-derided "Mitford accent", which must have been impenetrable to outside influence. What a curiosity she must have seemed when she threw herself into protecting the rights of black people on the frontline of unrest in the 40s and 50s.
She and Bob – a lovely soul whose eyes almost disappear into slits when he smiles or laughs, which is often – are seen with compatriots from the Civil Rights years, when Decca was stamped a "subversive" by the authorities and the FBI started a long file that she reads from, having obtained it under the Freedom of Information Act. (It is, unsurprisingly, redacted; it also states that she and Bob were both earmarked for possible internment in camps that were always previously denied by the US government.) What a fiercely dedicated freedom fighter she appears. From a privileged upbringing, she confounded all by coming out and then going away, and none of it was a "gap year" pose. She and Romilly lived in an East End slum when they first returned from Spain, and the pair of them tended bar in Florida when they first arrived there. During the McCarthy years in America, she was not exactly blacklisted, but she refused to incriminate herself or fellow members of the Civil Rights Congress at the HUAC hearings – an episode she illuminates beautifully in the re-telling, with a comic twist about mishearing a question about her alleged membership of a "tenants' association" which turned out to be a "tennis association."
Here's a thing: I have hardly ever seen the Mitford sisters moving about, or talking. There's a marvellous late interview with Decca by Christopher Hitchens on iTunes, but very little footage exists of the sisters in their debutante days. Photos, yes, and portraits, and newspaper cuttings (such as when Decca eloped and her father, Lord Redesdale, sent out a search party), but moving pictures? Very scarce. Which is why both of these docs were such delights. Honorable Rebel – named after her first memoir, Hons and Rebels, one of my faves – is packed with Decca and her lovely, plummy voice, her sentences peppered with "you know". But Nancy Mitford, made seven years after the eldest sister's death by Julian Jebb, was arguably all the more valuable, as it featured brand new interviews with Pamela, Jessica, Debo and Diana, an icily elegant lady who was only 70 at the time, but could have been 90, with her white hair in a bun. Still beautiful, of course. Oh, and still defiantly claiming that the British Union of Fascists, led by her second hubby Oswald Mosley, were not anti-semitic. (Diana and Mosley were interned during the war, and did not live the life of luxury in there, other than being brought Stilton and Port by visitors, so it must have etched a few years into her, although she lived to the ripe old age of 93.)
There's also some plum footage of Nancy from 1966, filmed for ABC. She is, if anything, the most Mitfordy of all the Mitfords, fluting, "I enjoyed the war very much … it was very lively in London." Pamela, whose lack of strident political affiliations left her without a handy nickname, and who might have been a lesbian, is a smashing old stick, feeding her hens and letting her pony off for a run, cheerily reading from Nancy's novels and chuckling away at her favourite bits, the very image of a Countryside Alliance stalwart. She is least known of the sisters, but comes alive in this film. Debo we are used to seeing in her active dotage, such a fixture has she become at Chatsworth and on the book-signing circuit, but it's sweet to catch her, aged 60, when she was still the Duchess of Devonshire. I love the way she admits to her older siblings' stereotype as a bit of a dunce ("I can hardly read – I hate it, books"), and it's amazing to think that 32 years later, she'd still be going strong.
There's a bit of Diana's son Jonathan Guinness in the Nancy film (he co-authored 1984's solid House Of Mitford with daughter Catherine), but it's all about the sisters. These films have reignited my passion for them. I could literally recite their shared biography to you, with accompanying amazing facts and trivia, and part of me wishes I really had worked up a one-man show about them for Edinburgh, as I had once fantasised about doing. I'm happy enough spreading the word. Quite clearly, you don't have to agree with hereditary peerage and the old class system like David Cameron and George Osborne do, in order to find these people fascinating. From a feminist perspective, the sisters weren't schooled as their father feared they would develop "fat calves" from all the hockey and as such, effectively educated and motivated themselves. Only Pamela and Unity did not write books (and Unity may have, had she lived). Nancy wrote eight highly-regarded novels and, later, a clutch of tolerated historical biographies. Decca wrote a dozen books including memoirs and, more importantly, investigative journalism; she changed the way Americans saw their own funeral industry with The American Way Of Death. (She is seen testifying against the sharp practices of the funeral industry at a hearing in Honorable Rebel.) Diana wrote three memoirs and was a book reviewer for Books & Bookmen and the Standard.
That two of them turned out to be fascists, and one of them a card-carrying Communist is what makes them so unique. I love them. Anyway, my tried-and-tested guide to the best of Mitfords literature – Mit Lit – is here, although I may have to add Jessica's memoir of her time in the Communist Party, A Fine Old Conflict, to this, having now seen An Honorable Rebel, which has re-piqued my interest.
I know it's in London, but the BFI is such an amazing place to go to, even if it's just for a pricey drink in the bar. Have a look what's on there now and in the near future.
Altogether now, for Decca:
'Tis the final conflict
Let each stand in his place
The Internationale
Shall be the human race
This entry was posted in Mitfords and tagged BBC, BFI, documentary, Mitford sisters, Mitfords, NFT by Andrew Collins. Bookmark the permalink.
3 thoughts on "Admit one"
Peter Fitzpatrick on July 6, 2012 at 6:05 pm said:
"intellectual pygmy" <<< I'm having that. Genuine LOL (as the kids say these days)
dave on July 6, 2012 at 6:22 pm said:
I've got a Union Jack hanging from every window for the Higgs Boson. I don't know what it is but I want everyone to know I'm excited about it.
Please don't take away my flags. They're all I've got.
Kristen Mustoe Best on July 8, 2012 at 1:03 pm said:
an "intellectual pygmy"? Without context, that can also read: "brilliant short person"…
Do leave a reply Cancel reply


text:
package de.saxsys.mvvmfx.internal.viewloader.lifecycle.example_basic;

import de.saxsys.mvvmfx.FxmlView;
import de.saxsys.mvvmfx.InjectViewModel;

public class LifecycleTestSub1View implements FxmlView<LifecycleTestSub1ViewModel> {

	@InjectViewModel
	public LifecycleTestSub1ViewModel viewModel;

	public void initialize() {

	}
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Q: link_to with double namespace I have routes defined like this:
 namespace :dealer, path: '' do
   resources :images, except: :index do
     resources :comments, only: [:create, :destroy] do
       resources :attachments, only: :show
     end
   end
 end

In my view using link_to url_for([@image, comment]) results in a url named:
dealer_image_dealer_comment_path which doesn't exist. It should be dealer_image_comment_path. Any way to avoid the double namespace?
I'm receiveing this error:
undefined method `dealer_image_dealer_comment_path' for #<#<Class:0x007fb599499520>:0x007fb5994980d0>
Did you mean?  dealer_image_comments_path
               dealer_image_comment_path

rake routes:
dealer_image_comments POST      /images/:image_id/comments(.:format)                                                                   dealer/comments#create {:subdomain=>"dealer"}
dealer_image_comment DELETE    /images/:image_id/comments/:id(.:format)                                                               dealer/comments#destroy {:subdomain=>"dealer"}

A: As far as I know, with link_to you can do the following:
link_to "Comment", [@image, comment]

Take a look at link_to UrlHelper for more information

A: I ended up writing my own helper to accomplish this:
  def path_gen(namespace, models)
    path = ''
    models.compact!.each do |m|
      path = path + '_' + m.class.name.demodulize.downcase
    end
    send("#{namespace}#{path}_path", *models)
  end

which accepts path_gen([@image, comment])

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Our graduates are making gifts that fuel innovation and pioneer change through the creation of new centers and the development of ground-breaking programming which help attract students and raise the profile of the Law School.
For example, to increase our students' and graduates' ability to support entrepreneurship both during and after law school, the Law School created the Center for Urban Entrepreneurship (CUBE). CUBE will provide effective legal representation and advice for new commercial and not-for-profit businesses, and train the next generation of lawyers to understand the needs of new and growing companies. Whether in technology, real estate, media, creative arts, energy, or social enterprise, CUBE offers the tools to support and help build the start-up successes of tomorrow and beyond.
Initial CUBE founders include Evan B. Azriliant '92, Robert B. Catell, Irwin Cohen '58, Lawrence I. Feldman '74 and Diane Feldman, Andrew Finkelstein, Stanley Grossman '67 and Nancy Grossman, Debra Humphreys '84 and David C. Humphreys, Deborah Riegel '93, and Gary M. Rosenberg '74.
The support of these donors has allowed BLS to expand its CUBE teaching capacity by filling two new full-time clinical positions and hiring two additional adjunct faculty. This expansion has increased both the number of students enrolled and the scope of clinic activities. To provide CUBE with workspace, Robert Catell, an emeritus Board of Trustee member, arranged two off-campus locations, one in DUMBO and another in Metrotech Center.
Graduates who consider business acumen a critical ingredient to legal success have also supported CUBE. Andrew Finkelstein '91, Managing Partner of four strategically aligned law firms (Finkelstein & Partners LLP, Jacoby & Myers LLP, Fine Olin & Anderman LLP, and Finkelstein, Blankinship, Frei-Pearson & Garber, LLP), is one such donor. "Students should be able to think like business people," he said. As an entrepreneur himself, he has grown his firm, Finkelstein & Partners, which his father Howard Finkelstein '59 started in 1959 right after graduating from BLS, by acquiring the three other firms. Finkelstein's support of CUBE stems from his desire to expand legal services to entrepreneurs and individuals who otherwise could not afford such services.
In its inaugural year, CUBE hosted events such as the CUBE Innovators Competition, a day-long symposium, "From Bleak House to Geek House: Evolving Law for Entrepreneurial Lawyers," and a Breakfast Roundtable, "New Directions: Land Use and Housing in the de Blasio Era." Read more about CUBE and its impressive roster of activities this year by clicking here.
The Center for the Study of Business Law and Regulation has also benefited from strong donor support. A Business Advisory Committee made up of alumni working in the field of financial compliance and regulation, provide advice and financial support with respect to the overall direction and strategy of the Center. The Advisory Committee makes recommendations on areas of study and programs that the law school can offer in light of developments in business law and practice. For a complete list of the Members of the Business Advisory Council please click here.
David Mitnick '00, Founder of Domain Skate LLC, is also a great supporter of programming at the Law School. Mitnick supports three fellows at the Law School's Trade Secrets Institute (TSI). TSI is a relatively new initiative of Brooklyn Law School, founded in 2010, designed to provide comprehensive neutral coverage of key trade secret cases and legislative or regulatory initiatives throughout the United States.
The TSI database allows users to search the information by trade secrets issue, trade secrets subject matter, document type, or jurisdiction. The TSI also provides access to state trade secrets statutes and related federal laws, and some of the seminal decisions on trade secrets law among many U.S. jurisdictions. Three students are selected as fellows each year to maintain the database.
One of the cornerstones of the TSI is the creation of a new course, the Trade Secrets Workshop taught by Alexander Kaplan '00, Partner at Proskauer Rose, LLP. The workshop focuses on both research and doctrinal issues in trade secrets law. The TSI also benefits from input of its Advisory Board, each with expertise in intellectual property and trade secrets. For a full list of TSI Advisory Board members please click here.
Graduates are also impacting our community by funding panels addressing topics of critical legal significance such as The Barry L. Zaretsky Roundtable, a dinner that brings together distinguished practitioners, judges, and academics to discuss cutting-edge commercial and bankruptcy law topics. This past year's event, entitled, "Avoiding Chapter 22: Predicting Success in Chapter 11," was funded by the generosity of over 25 donors committed to the success of the Law School.
Tyler Korff '12, who is a recent graduate member of the Board of Trustees and an influential solo practitioner with the Law Office of Tyler J. Korff, funded a half-day symposium entitled "Fighting for Veterans: Meeting the Need for Legal Services in New York City." The program explored the role that lawyers can play in assisting both veterans and their families, which is especially relevant to New York City, home to a quarter-million veterans. The panel included representatives from private practice, the New York State Division of Veterans Affairs, the Veterans Assistance Project at the City Bar Justice Center, the Veteran Advocacy Project at the Urban Justice Center, and the New York Legal Assistance Group, as well as the student organization, BLS Law Students for Veterans' Rights.


John Piper Quote Worship ChristianQuotes was posted in August 26 2018 at 3:20 am and has been seen by 12 users. If you want to view image in full size just click image on gallery bellow.
24 Powerful Quotes About Worship Ministry 24 images about Christian Quotes on We Heart It See more about Quotes about Worshipping Christ 24 quotes CS Lewis Quote God's Glory ChristianQuotes Ipinimg2224x22242224fa222422242224fa222452224772224f2224222492241ce224fb224 24 Inspiring Quotes about Worship 24 Inspiring Quotes about Worship Christian Quote Images About Worship 24 best Worship?? images on Pinterest Spirituality Worship Quotes about Christian Worship 24 quotes Christian Quotes About Worship.


While AB Testing is currently the default method for optimizing online conversions, there are frameworks other than AB testing for selecting between competing optimization options. One of the main alternative approaches is known as the Multi-Armed Bandits problem. Solutions to the so called bandit problems have several nice features that often make them a good choice for your optimization problems.
This post looks a little long, what am I going to learn?
You will learn how you might be able to squeeze even more from your optimization efforts by using alternatives to AB Testing. Additionally, you should have a basic handle on what the multi-armed bandit problems it and how it relates to your optimization goals.
A bandit is another name a slot machine, and online conversion optimization is in some ways analogous to the task of how to pick between slot machine with different payoffs. So think about walking into a casino, and you have reason to believe that different machines have different payoffs.
If you knew beforehand which machine had the highest payoff, you would play that one exclusively to maximize your expected return from playing. The difficulty is that you don't know which machine is best beforehand, so you have to deduce which slot machine has the highest pay off. To do this, you are going to have to try them all out in order to get a sense of the expected return from playing each machine.
But how to do this? Run an AB style experiment?
You could do that, but remember; each time you play a poor performing machine, you lower your take that you walk out of the Casino with that night. In order to maximize how much money you walk out of the casino with, you will have to be efficient with how you collect your data.
The solutions to Bandit style problems try to account for this data acquisition cost. They do it by trying to balance using the current best guess about the performance of each option and value of collecting more data to improve upon these guesses.
This tradeoff between using currently available information and collecting more data is often referred to as explore exploit problem, but some like to call it earning while learning. You need to both learn in order to figure out what works and what doesn't, but to earn; you take advantage of what you have learned. This is what I really like about the Bandit way of looking at the problem, it highlights that collecting data has a real cost, in terms of opportunities lost.
Unlike AB or multivariate testing, which all use basically the same methodology (apologies to Fisher, Neyman, and Jeffreys), there is no one standard approach for Bandit solutions, but they all try to incorporate this notion of balancing exploration with exploitation. Technically, these are problems that try to minimize what's known as regret.
Regret is the difference between your actual payoff and the payoff you would have collected had you played the optimal (best) options at every opportunity.
This can get a little confusing, so to make this clearer, let's compare AB Testing to one of the simpler bandit algorithms. While there are many different approaches to solving Bandits, one of the simplest is the value weighted selection approach, where the frequency that each optimization option is selected is based on how much it is currently estimated to be worth. So if we have two options, 'A' and 'B', and 'A' has been performing better, we weight the probability of selecting 'A' higher than 'B'. We still randomly select between the two, but we give 'A' a better chance of being selected.
First lets take a look at how AB Testing selects during learning compared our Bandit method. For our example we consider a problem where we are trying to optimize with three possible options; 'A','B', and 'C'.
In AB Testing, we see that each time we make a selection, each of the options gets the same chance to be selected.
In the Bandit approach, this isn't the case. The probabilities for being selected at each turn depend on the current best guess off how valuable each option is. In the above case, Option A has the highest current estimated value, and so is getting selected more often than either options B or C, and likewise, option B has a higher estimated value than option C.
Since the selection probabilities are based on the current best estimates for each option, the Bandit selection probabilities can change over time as we update our value estimates for each option. Let's imagine we set up an optimization project to try the out three possible options.
Unbeknownst to us at the start, les say that the top performing option is worth $2.00, the next best, $1.00 and the worst option only $0.50. Let's see how Bandit's continuous Learn and Earn balancing act looks compared to AB Testing in the graph below.
With the AB Testing approach we try out each of the three options with equal proportions until we run our test at week 5, and then select the option with the highest value. So we have effectively selected the best option 44% of the time over the 6 week period (33% of the time through week 5, and 100% at week 6), and the medium and lowest performing options 28% of time each (33% of the time through week 5, and 0% at week 6). If we the weight these selection proportions by the actual value of each option, we get an expect yield of about $1.31 per user over the 6 weeks (44%*$2 + %28*$1 + %28*$0.50=$1.31).
Now lets look at the Bandit approach. Remember, the bandit attempts to use what it knows about each option from the very beginning, so it continuously updates the probabilities that it will select each option throughout the optimization project.
In the above chart we can see that with each new week, the bandit reduces how often it selects the lower performing options and increases how often if selects the highest performing option.
So, over the 6 week period the bandit approach has selected the best option 72% of the time, the medium option 16% of the time, and the lowest performer on 12% of the time. If we weight by the average value of each option we get an expected yield of about $1.66 per user. In the case the bandit would have returned a 27% lift over the AB Testing approach – ($1.66-$1.31)/$1.31 – during the learning time of the project.
The following chart show the same idea in a slightly differently. Here we can see what the average value of each user will be during out optimization project.
For the first 5 weeks, the AB Test has an expected yield of $1.17 per user (33%*$2.00 + 33%*$1.00 + 33%*$0.50), and then an expected return of $2.00 once Option C has been selected.
The Bandit, on the other hand, starts at $1.17, like the AB Test, but then increases the average value continuously throughout the project. So you get more payoffs while learning.
In fact, the area under the bandit value curve and above the AB Testing value curve is the total extra payoff we get by using the bandit. If we averaged around 1,000 visits per week, we would take in $4,666 while learning with AB Testing but $6,810 with Bandit learning – a lift of 46%.
Of course, the longer you extend your project out for, the smaller this incremental payout is of the total. This means that for short lived projects, like online campaigns, are particularly well suited for adaptive bandit methods – since they are active for a limited time.
Earn while you Learn. Data collection is a cost, and we ought to try to do it as efficiently as possible. Using a bandit style approach lets us at least consider these costs while we run our optimization projects.
Automation – the bandit approach is a natural way to formulate the online optimization problems for automating the selection optimization with machine learning. This is especially true when applying user targeting, as correct AB tests becomes much more complicated in this situation.
A changing world – Bandit approaches are useful when you have an optimization problem where the best options can change over time. By letting the bandit method always leave some chance to select poorer performing option, you give it the opportunity to 'reconsider' the option effectiveness. If there is evidence that it is performing better than first thought, it will be automatically be promoted and used more often. It provides a working framework for swapping out low performing options with fresh options, in a continuous process.
Of course, there is no guarantee that using a Bandit method will perform better than running an AB Test. However, there is also no guarantee that using either a Bandit or AB Test selection approach is necessary going to be better than just guessing – but on average it should be.
To wrap up, Bandits are a continuous learning method for selecting between competing options. They weight the competing selections between what currently seems to work best and the potential benefits of collecting more information to improve future results.


Outline because the world's solely seven star lodge the Burj Al Arab stands tall earlier than the pristine waters of Dubai in all its glory. With its 202 fits and it incredible view of the ocean the Burj khalifa is stretches extravagance to epic proportions. Constructed on an 280 m synthetic island and designed to imitate the sail of a ship, this fabulous hotel is a combination of high quality art and excessive engineering.
Nothing will substitute the expertise of learning. In accordance with the notable American science fiction author Robert Heinlein, "Learning isn't a method to an finish; it is an end it itself". In many progressive nations sailing is becoming a giant pie out there. Tremendously it has turn into a million dollar business as extra students from throughout the globe take pleasure in studying the right way to sail.
As lovely as a household holiday in ski chalets in France is, typically all dad and mom need just a little break. Whether or not your little ones aren't up to full day on the slopes or you wish to spend a few evenings as a couple, glorious close by childcare amenities are a will need to have for all good family ski chalets in France.
You will find all kinds of motels in Isle of Wight.
An east and west space of Andheri houses some very biggest malls and lots of renowned software program firms which attracting students in the entire Mumbai. There are lots of other landmarks in Andheri, which grabs the vacationer's attraction.
People come right here primarily to experience snow skiing, which takes place in the course of the winter months, from December till late February. Pahalgam resort are wonderfully constructed with all trendy facilities and facilities, holding the vacationers in mind.
Phuket, Thailand: The a lot trumpeted on-line examine-in system for yachts arriving at Chalong Marina in Phuket, Thailand will finally go dwell on 1st September 2011. These suites can be found on a bed and breakfast basis while the town houses and villas are good for anyone looking to self-cater while on vacation.