text:
Adi Schwartz
Journalist, Author & Editor
language: HE | EN | FR | ES | IT
Investigations & Interviews
Jewish-Catholic Relationships
Anti-Semitism and Holocaust
Bolivia: For the first time in 180 years, since independence from Spain, Bolivia has an indigenous president, an Aymara Indian, a former llama herder and coca farmer. Evo Morales' election heralds the entry of millions of Indians into visible space
El Alto, Bolivia (photo: Boerries Nehe)
Voyage to South America – Part 1
PUBLISHED IN | Mar 30, 06
LA PAZ. The potholed asphalt road winds constantly upward outside La Paz, the capital of Bolivia. It's hard to believe that we can climb any higher. At an elevation of 3,600 meters, La Paz is the world's highest capital city. The air is thin, breathing is arduous, even the cigarettes almost go out by themselves.
The houses along the road have no plaster covering, only piles of bricks that create densely packed one-story homes. The view would be breathtaking if there were any breath left to take. Below, in the valley, lies La Paz. Above looms the chain of the Andes Mountains in hues of blue, brown and red, and some of the peaks are snowcapped even at the height of summer. The slopes of the hills are covered with shantytowns built in the past 20 years – their population is now comparable to that of the capital.
This is the road to Villa Fatima, a suburb of La Paz. It is named after the Virgin of Fatima, an apparition of the Virgin Mary to three Portuguese shepherd children from the village of Fatima, Portugal, in 1917. Here in Bolivia, Fatima is famous for its market of coca leaves, the largest in the vicinity of the capital.
The taxi groans its way up the ascents. Like all the cabbies of La Paz, Antonio drives until the last drop of gas. He never takes more than a dollar or two's worth of gasoline. His fuel gauge never crosses the "red area."
Indeed, to judge by his driving, the whole country is on the edge: no one uses windshield wipers, not even in driving rain. Drivers turn off their lights when they stop for a red light, if they decide to stop. Sometimes they also turn off the engine.
Coca leaves market, Bolivia (photo: Yan Boechat)
In the Villa Fatima market, the locals are in no hurry to trust the gringo visitor and refuse to talk or have their picture taken. Their lifeblood, the coca leaf, is already being subjected to a prodigious offensive by everyone who is trying to eradicate its end product, cocaine – especially the United States. The U.S., which is considered the biggest consumer of cocaine in the world, has decided to launch a campaign to stamp out coca cultivation in Bolivia and the neighboring countries.
Thus, instead of doing battle against the New York yuppies who sniff cocaine after – or during – their workday, the world's only superpower is fighting hundreds of thousands of Indian farmers and their families in Bolivia, a country where the average annual per capita income is about $1,000.
The market is a two-story structure that looks very much like a school, but instead of students in empty classrooms there are Indian families from the more fertile areas of Bolivia, from the Yungas Valley or the Chapare region. The pattern repeats itself: at the head of each family stands an elderly woman dressed in traditional clothing and watching with deep concentration an old television set.
The program might be a local telenovela (Latin American soap opera) or a North American (as the United States is called here) series dubbed into Spanish. Around her are the younger members of the family, watching over large sacks, each of which contains 25 kilograms of dried coca leaves, at $5 a kilo.
These casually piled sacks are the nightmare of the United States, but in Bolivia they say that the use of coca leaves is a matter of tradition. Chewing them, brewing them, using them in medicines, potions and ointments is part of the Indian tradition, which long predates the Spanish conquest of the continent. Tea made of coca leaves is served in government ministries, and in every hotel you will find coca tea bags laid out alongside an apple brew or regular tea. The Bolivians say the crop is not grown for commercial purposes and that in any event the coca leaf is not addictive. The problem lies only in the cocaine that is produced from it, in an expensive chemical process which does not take place in Bolivia.
But the data show that most of the coca grown here is in fact earmarked for export. Since the 1970s, commercial quantities of coca have been grown in Bolivia, in part due to the collapse of the world tin market, in which the country played a major role. Tens of thousands of destitute workers migrated from the mining regions in the south of the country to the warm, moist areas east of La Paz and became growers of coca, which brings in revenues up to 10 times greater than other crops. According to United Nations estimates, Bolivia produced 36,000 tons of coca leaves in 2004, of which 25,000 tons were exported, mainly to Colombia, where they are processed into cocaine.
In order to fight the cocaine trade, the United States launched a "war on drugs" back in the period of the Reagan presidency. Washington and La Paz offered $2,000 to every farmer who stopped growing coca. But the alternative crops that were suggested to them, such as bananas, were far less profitable and could not cover the losses. In addition, the United States decided to train and arm police forces to fight the recalcitrant farmers. The result was that dozens of people were killed, and a report by the organization Human Rights Watch stated that the governments of the United States and Bolivia were responsible for "serious human rights violations."
According to estimates of the Bolivian government, the average yearly income of coca farmers fell from $2,700 in 1998 to $900 in 2002.
One of those whose life and livelihood are wholly dependent on coca is Elcides, 22, from the Yungas Valley. Every Monday, he makes the five-hour trip to the capital with two sacks of coca and comes here, to the Villa Fatima market, to sell his produce to whoever will buy it. "Our life is built on coca," he explains. There is a heavy odor that recalls a dense orchard that has lain uncultivated for years. Next to him, atop a pile of sacks, another youngster dozes on a mattress. Time is in no rush here.
In the middle of the room are scales that have seen better days. Each family has 10 to 15 sacks, and a quick calculation shows that the total value of all the merchandise in the market at this moment is $100,000. This industry provides a livelihood to hundreds of thousands of people – growers, driers, packers, drivers and sellers, among others. Eradication of the crop would mean a death blow to all these people. "You can chew coca all day," Elcidas says. "To wake up after sleep, not to fall asleep when you are tired, when you don't feel well. All the time." He strongly recommends coca tea, which should be steeped four or five minutes in boiling water, with at least two teaspoons of honey as a sweetener.
Red is beautiful
Evo Morales (photo: Periódico La Democracia)
These Indians, many of them cocaleros – coca farmers – are now leading a great human revolution in Bolivia. For the first time in 180 years, since independence from Spain, Bolivia has an indigenous president, an Aymara Indian, a former llama herder and coca farmer himself. To understand the magnitude of this revolution, it is sufficient to look at La Paz or its suburbs on the slopes of the surrounding hills, which in time became the separate city of El Alto. About a million people live in El Alto, almost all of them Indians who migrated to the big city in search of a living. There are few paved roads there, and many of its homes are not hooked up to water, electricity or gas – this in a country which has the continent's second largest natural gas reserves (after Venezuela). A working sewage system? Proper health services? Not here.
But the revolution of which Evo Morales' election as president last December is the crowning symbol goes further, because it heralds the entry of millions of Indians into visible space, a place where they are no longer transparent and, accordingly, can no longer be ignored. Some 60 to 80 percent of Bolivia's nine million inhabitants are Indians from various tribes. Yet in the whole city there is not one sign in a native language. Everything is in Spanish. Until the middle of the 20th century, Indians did not have the vote, and discrimination against them continues to this day.
"The situation in Bolivia recalls the situation in the southern United States before Martin Luther King," says Luis Gomez, a social activist and a journalist for the Web site "Narco News" (www.narconews.com), in an interview held in a La Paz cafe. "An Aymara man cannot marry a white woman. If an Indian dressed in traditional garb were to enter this cafe now, the waiters would probably not serve him and would finally hint to him that he is not welcome here. The whites still call the Indians, even the elderly, 'children,' as the whites called the blacks in the United States."
However, Gomez says, in the past few years the Indians began to learn the rules of the game and to demand their rights. Above all they demanded that coca growing be legalized and that the rights of the citizens to the country?s natural resources, especially gas and water, be restored. In 2003, demonstrations by the Indians toppled the government of Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, who was derisively nicknamed "El Gringo," because he studied in the United States and returned to Bolivia with a ?North American? accent. Hundreds died in the demonstrations.
Two years later, the government of President Carlos Mesa was also forced to resign, and afterward, the streets of La Paz were filled with armed soldiers and police at every corner. Social tensions continue to run high, but now a new tenant resides in the presidential palace in Plaza Murillo in the heart of the city.
The palace is ours
Presidential Palace, La Paz (photo: Phillie Casablanca)
The presidential palace, a colonial structure in Italian Renaissance style, is adjacent on one side to the Cathedral of La Paz and on the other to the Parliament building. One hundred and eighty years after independence, the palace still looks like a foreign implant, as though remnants of the Spanish Conquest continue to dominate this Indian city. Nor does the European splendor suit President Evo Morales, who makes a point of never appearing in public in a suit.
The palace is a square structure with a large covered interior courtyard. It is easy to imagine a ball being held there for members of the white aristocracy, perhaps from the last century. Here, on the cream-colored marble floor, couples elegantly dance a waltz. And here, next to one of the impressive stone pillars, the city governor huddles with a general in dress uniform, its gilded buttons glittering. Overlooking the scene are huge portraits of the white generals who led the struggle for independence from Spain. A portrait of Simon Bolivar, for whom the country is named, shows the great leader in a grim mood. Only the two guards who stand by the flag remind the visitor that this is Bolivia: Not for a second do they stand straight.
Now, at any rate, the heroes have changed. One cool evening in March, Evo (as everyone calls the president) convened a press conference in order to sign a bill calling for the convocation of a new constituent assembly to draft a state constitution. The previous constitution was drawn up by Europeans in 1825, and the new president, who calls himself "Che Guevara without the bullets," wants to include in the document specific articles about the status of the Indians and the rights of the citizens.
It's enough to make you rub your eyes to believe it: the waltzing couples have now been replaced by short Indian women wearing the traditional dress of their tribes of origin. Until a few years ago this scene would have been impossible, but now the presidential palace is theirs. Miners in simple clothes and helmets replace splendiferous generals, and the "regular" politicians, those who wear suits and ties, are few and far between.
"The great day has arrived," Morales, 47, declared emotionally, dressed in a blue sweat suit. Outside the palace, in the square, thousands hung on his every word. "We are now changing history, and the colonial and neoliberal model that did such great damage to the country … The time has come to restore the honor of Bolivia and to restore its natural resources. From now on, every citizen of Bolivia must mobilize in this democratic and cultural revolution."
It is not difficult to understand why this man, with hair black as coal, enjoys such tremendous popularity in Bolivia and elsewhere. He won 54 percent of the vote in the December 2005 elections, which produced the highest voter turnout in the country's history, and became known throughout the world as the first Indian president of Bolivia. His workday begins at 5 A.M.; on his first day in office he slashed his salary in half (to $1,800 a month), and above all, perhaps, his fame rests on the sweater he took with him on his first trip abroad. Day after day, he was photographed with the president of France, the prime minister of Spain and other leaders in the rough wool sweater, which, he later said, was simply the first sweater he found in his closet before heading for the winter cold in Europe.
His confidants tell of a man with a lust for life who loves power and knows how to use it. "He has very strong sex appeal," one of them noted. "He loves power, loves to dance and is a great joke teller. He goes to parties in La Paz and makes a pass at whoever he can." According to this source, Morales has seven children by a number of women and has never been married. In the past, he lived with a woman and they had two children together, but they separated a few years ago. Morales is quoted as saying that "it is easier to rule a country than to rule a woman."
From bondage to the cabinet
Quechua woman, Bolivia (photo: César Angel)
Whatever the president's attitude toward women, four of the ministries in his government have been entrusted to them. The most exciting story is that of Casimira Rodriguez, who went from servitude into the cabinet. At the age of 14, Rodriguez, an indigenous Bolivian, now 39, was taken from her village to Cochabamba, the country's third largest city, to work for a white family. Her parents, members of the Quechua tribe, were promised that in return for her work the family would see to her needs and education. Instead, Rodriguez was held in conditions of near slavery. She was forced to work long hours, endured abuse of various kinds, and never went to school.
After two years she escaped from the family and joined the struggle for workers' rights – and she is now justice minister of Bolivia. She always dresses in a lace blouse and a wide skirt, and two thick braids lie on her shoulders. It goes without saying that she is the first member of her tribe ever to serve as a cabinet minister.
"It was frightening," Rodriguez told Haaretz of the moment when Morales informed her about the appointment. "I was very surprised, because Comrade Evo told me suddenly, 'You are going to be justice minister.' I felt that this was a hard decision. I felt fear, but also happiness. Many feelings at the same time. Afterward Evo told me it would not be so hard, so I decided to support the change that is taking place here, a change for which all Bolivians are fighting, for a different Bolivia."
How did your family and friends react?
"My mother told me that my choice must be to cope with whatever will happen with me. The family and friends were very happy, but also very worried. Especially my brother: when he heard about it, he did not know whether to jump for joy or burst into tears. He knew I was about to assume a great deal of responsibility. It is incomprehensible, suddenly to reach this status. My brothers looked at me and said, 'This is the minister?'"
What is it like to walk into offices which not long ago were barred to Indians?
"From the outside I always thought these buildings were monstrosities. But on my first day of work a great many people were waiting for me. I went up in the elevator and I did not understand why there were so many people in the office. It was very impressive. They were waiting for me with floral wreaths. It was a bombshell of an experience."
What did you learn from your personal experience as a politician?
"To listen to people and to lose my fear. In the past I defended many workers, many comrades who suffered discrimination, and thus I became a protector of the workers. I learned to be brave and to try to overcome the discrimination and all the things that stand in the way of the workers. The battle for human dignity helped me lose all forms of fear and to gain hope."
In Latin America it is very common for wealthy families to have servants at home. Do you intend to eliminate this custom?
"It is very difficult to imagine a situation in which the domestic workers [the term Rodriguez uses instead of servants] will disappear, because this is a need of many people – of the families that employ them, but also of the
workers themselves. Because of the poverty, and in light of the dreams that domestic workers usually have of becoming independent, the first work they are capable of doing is this. Regrettably, the workers experience a discriminatory attitude and many violations of their human rights.
"The families need domestic workers because the Latin American woman is incapable of getting along without them. The domestic worker plays the role of the woman in the family and replaces the mother, so that the woman can go out to work and increase the family?s income. People often threaten us by saying that if we insist on our rights they will not employ us. But I think the families have learned that the domestic worker is very helpful and makes things much easier."
As justice minister, what will you try to change?
"The poor people suffer greatly from injustice. I will try to see to it that their rights are preserved, I will try to listen to those who have the least, I will try to create a situation in which the most important thing is justice and not the place of residence, justice which will be equal for all and will not be decided according to who has more money or prettier words."
Know the enemy
La Paz (photo: Edwin Vladimir Velasquez Marca)
Whether Rodriguez succeeds in her ministerial post or not, one thing is clear: the mission facing her and President Morales is very complex. Bolivia, the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere (only Haiti is more impoverished) is divided between rich and poor, between mountain people and plains people, between whites and Indians, and sometimes between different groups of Indians as well. The direction Morales will choose to follow is not yet clear: Will he be "Che Guevara without bullets,? clamp down on the international gas mining companies and bring about a genuine change in the living conditions of millions of people who earn less than $2 a day ?(this is the minimum wage in Bolivia, which is not always adhered to?)? Or will he compromise and moderate his ambitions?
According to Gomez, the mandate Morales received is conditional. Gomez, who was born in Mexico but views himself as belonging to the Aymara and who is familiar with their demands, says, "The Aymara will support Evo as long as he meets his commitments to them, as long as he suits their interests. They have become very sophisticated voters. You have to understand that the Aymara were vanquished for 500 years by the white man for one reason only: the white man knew how to kill better, he had better weapons and ammunition. But now the Aymara are learning the methods of the white man, learning how to use computers, how to deal with the bureaucracy and with the white system of justice."
"The goal of the Aymara is to defeat the white man, not to destroy him. They have time, they are waiting." Like David Grossman's description of the Palestinians in "Yellow Wind," Gomez describes the Aymaras' different attitude toward the concept of time. "The Aymara know that the land is theirs. The natural resources are theirs. Now it is only a matter of time before we regain control of them."
The question of when is of no importance, he says, whether it happens in this generation or the next. But victory is certain.
"And maybe we are on the verge of the fourth world war, as in the analysis of Subcomandante Marcos [the leader of the Zapatistas in southern Mexico]. The third was the Cold War. The fourth will be the war against neoliberalism. The fact is that the economic system has not changed in the world. Not in South America, either. Now we have a human awakening, of the people, not of leaders who come from above. Bolivia will then be at the forefront. The fact is that we succeeded in kicking out two presidents, we succeeded in expelling a Western water company from Cochabamba [the Bechtel Corporation]. Maybe the war will actually start here."
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© 2009, Adi Schwartz


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text:
Louis XVI of France
Portrait by Antoine-François Callet
King of France
10 May 1774 – 21 September 1792
Reims Cathedral
Louis XVII
Palace of Versailles, France
Place de la Révolution, Paris, France
Basilica of St Denis
Marie Antoinette of Austria (m. 1770)
Marie Thérèse, Queen of France
Louis Joseph, Dauphin of France
Louis XVII of France
Princess Sophie
Louis Auguste de France
Louis, Dauphin of France
Maria Josepha of Saxony
Louis XVI (French pronunciation: [lwi sɛːz]; 23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793), born Louis-Auguste, was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as citizen Louis Capet during the four months before he was guillotined. In 1765, at the death of his father, Louis, son and heir apparent of Louis XV, Louis-Auguste became the new Dauphin of France. Upon his grandfather's death on 10 May 1774, he assumed the title "King of France and Navarre", which he used until 4 September 1791, when he received the title of "King of the French" until the monarchy was abolished on 21 September 1792.
The first part of his reign was marked by attempts to reform the French government in accordance with Enlightenment ideas. These included efforts to abolish serfdom, remove the taille (land tax) and the corvée (labour tax)[1], and increase tolerance toward non-Catholics as well as abolish the death penalty for deserters[2][3]. The French nobility reacted to the proposed reforms with hostility, and successfully opposed their implementation. Louis implemented deregulation of the grain market, advocated by his economic liberal minister Turgot, but it resulted in an increase in bread prices. In periods of bad harvests, it would lead to food scarcity which would prompt the masses to revolt. From 1776, Louis XVI actively supported the North American colonists, who were seeking their independence from Great Britain, which was realised in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. The ensuing debt and financial crisis contributed to the unpopularity of the Ancien Régime. This led to the convening of the Estates-General of 1789. Discontent among the members of France's middle and lower classes resulted in strengthened opposition to the French aristocracy and to the absolute monarchy, of which Louis and his wife, Queen Marie Antoinette, were viewed as representatives. Increasing tensions and violence were marked by events such as the storming of the Bastille, during which riots in Paris forced Louis to definitively recognize the legislative authority of the National Assembly. Louis XVI was initiated into masonic lodge Trois-Frères à l'Orient de la Cour[4].
Louis's indecisiveness and conservatism led some elements of the people of France to view him as a symbol of the perceived tyranny of the Ancien Régime, and his popularity deteriorated progressively. His disastrous flight to Varennes in June 1791, four months before the constitutional monarchy was declared, seemed to justify the rumors that the king tied his hopes of political salvation to the prospects of foreign intervention. The credibility of the king was deeply undermined, and the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of a republic became an ever-increasing possibility.
In a context of civil and international war, Louis XVI was suspended and arrested at the time of the Insurrection of 10 August 1792; one month later, the absolute monarchy was abolished; the First French Republic was proclaimed on 21 September 1792. He was tried by the National Convention (self-instituted as a tribunal for the occasion), found guilty of high treason, and executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793, as a desacralized French citizen under the name of "Citizen Louis Capet," in reference to Hugh Capet, the founder of the Capetian dynasty – which the revolutionaries interpreted as Louis' surname. Louis XVI was the only King of France ever to be executed, and his death brought an end to more than a thousand years of continuous French monarchy. Both of his sons died in childhood, before the Bourbon Restoration; his only child to reach adulthood, Marie Therese, was given over to the Austrians in exchange for French prisoners of war, eventually dying childless in 1851.
absolute monarch of france, 1774–1789
revolutionary constitutional reign, 1789–1792
imprisonment, execution and burial, 1792–1793
titles, styles, honours and arms
The young duc de Berry (right) with his younger brother, the comte de Provence. Portrait by François-Hubert Drouais, 1757.
The duc de Berry as a young boy, artist unknown.
Louis-Auguste de France, who was given the title Duc de Berry at birth, was born in the Palace of Versailles. One of seven children, he was the second surviving son of Louis, the Dauphin of France, and the grandson of Louis XV of France and of his consort, Maria Leszczyńska. His mother was Marie-Josèphe of Saxony, the daughter of Frederick Augustus II of Saxony, Prince-Elector of Saxony and King of Poland.
Louis-Auguste was overlooked by his parents who favored his older brother, Louis, duc de Bourgogne, who was regarded as bright and handsome but who died at the age of nine in 1761. Louis-Auguste, a strong and healthy boy but very shy, excelled in his studies and had a strong taste for Latin, history, geography, and astronomy and became fluent in Italian and English. He enjoyed physical activities such as hunting with his grandfather and rough play with his younger brothers, Louis-Stanislas, comte de Provence, and Charles-Philippe, comte d'Artois. From an early age, Louis-Auguste was encouraged in another of his interests, locksmithing, which was seen as a useful pursuit for a child.[5]
When his father passed away, who died of tuberculosis on 20 December 1765, the eleven-year-old Louis-Auguste became the new Dauphin. His mother never recovered from the loss of her husband and died on 13 March 1767, also from tuberculosis.[6] The strict and conservative education he received from the Duc de La Vauguyon, "gouverneur des Enfants de France" (governor of the Children of France), from 1760 until his marriage in 1770, did not prepare him for the throne that he was to inherit in 1774 after the death of his grandfather, Louis XV. Throughout his education, Louis-Auguste received a mixture of studies particular to religion, morality, and humanities.[7] His instructors may have also had a good hand in shaping Louis-Auguste into the indecisive king that he became. Abbé Berthier, his instructor, taught him that timidity was a value in strong monarchs, and Abbé Soldini, his confessor, instructed him not to let people read his mind.[8]
Afrikaans: Lodewyk XVI van Frankryk
Alemannisch: Ludwig XVI.
العربية: لويس السادس عشر ملك فرنسا
aragonés: Loís XVI de Francia
asturianu: Lluis XVI de Francia
تۆرکجه: اوْن‌دؤردونجو لوئی
Bân-lâm-gú: Louis 16-sè
беларуская: Людовік XVI
беларуская (тарашкевіца): Людовік XVI
български: Луи XVI
bosanski: Luj XVI, kralj Francuske
brezhoneg: Loeiz XVI (Bro-C'hall)
català: Lluís XVI de França
čeština: Ludvík XVI.
Cymraeg: Louis XVI, brenin Ffrainc
dansk: Ludvig 16. af Frankrig
Deutsch: Ludwig XVI.
eesti: Louis XVI
Ελληνικά: Λουδοβίκος ΙΣΤ΄ της Γαλλίας
español: Luis XVI de Francia
Esperanto: Ludoviko la 16-a (Francio)
euskara: Luis XVI.a Borboikoa
فارسی: لوئی شانزدهم
føroyskt: Ludvík 16. kongur
français: Louis XVI
Frysk: Loadewyk XVI fan Frankryk
Gaeilge: Louis XVI na Fraince
galego: Luís XVI de Francia
한국어: 루이 16세
հայերեն: Լուի XVI
हिन्दी: लुई सोलहवाँ
hrvatski: Luj XVI., kralj Francuske
Ido: Louis la 16ma di Francia
Bahasa Indonesia: Louis XVI dari Prancis
íslenska: Loðvík 16.
italiano: Luigi XVI di Francia
עברית: לואי השישה עשר, מלך צרפת
Jawa: Louis XVI saking Prancis
ქართული: ლუი XVI
қазақша: Людовик XVI
Latina: Ludovicus XVI
latviešu: Luijs XVI
Lëtzebuergesch: Louis XVI. vu Frankräich
lietuvių: Liudvikas XVI
lumbaart: Luis XVI de Francia
magyar: XVI. Lajos francia király
македонски: Луј XVI
Malagasy: Louis XVI
मराठी: सोळावा लुई, फ्रान्स
مصرى: لويس الستاشر
مازِرونی: لویی شونزهم
Bahasa Melayu: Louis XVI dari Perancis
Nederlands: Lodewijk XVI van Frankrijk
नेपाली: लुई सोह्रौं
日本語: ルイ16世 (フランス王)
norsk: Ludvig XVI av Frankrike
norsk nynorsk: Ludvig XVI av Frankrike
occitan: Loís XVI de França
پنجابی: لوئی XVI
Picard: Louis XVI
polski: Ludwik XVI
português: Luís XVI de França
română: Ludovic al XVI-lea al Franței
Runa Simi: Louis XVI
русский: Людовик XVI
Scots: Louis XVI o Fraunce
shqip: Louis XVI
sicilianu: Luiggi XVI
සිංහල: දහසය වැනි ලුවී රජ
Simple English: Louis XVI of France
slovenčina: Ľudovít XVI.
slovenščina: Ludvik XVI. Francoski
српски / srpski: Луј XVI
srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски: Louis XVI od Francuske
suomi: Ludvig XVI
svenska: Ludvig XVI av Frankrike
Tagalog: Louis XVI ng Pransiya
தமிழ்: பிரான்சின் பதினாறாம் லூயி
ไทย: พระเจ้าหลุยส์ที่ 16 แห่งฝรั่งเศส
Türkçe: XVI. Louis
українська: Людовик XVI
Tiếng Việt: Louis XVI của Pháp
Winaray: Louis XVI han Fransya
吴语: 路易十六
Yorùbá: Louis 16k ilẹ̀ Fránsì
粵語: 路易十六
中文: 路易十六

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
The Asphalt Life
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Day Summary: MotoAmerica VIR 2017 — Sunday
Posted on May 15, 2017 January 6, 2021 by "Fast" Mike Marino
Sunday's MotoAmerica action from VIRginia International Raceway (VIR) was tame compared to Saturday's bar-banging drama. That said, there was plenty of on-track action in all three racing classes. The sun was out all day and conditions were much warmer and drier than either Friday or Saturday. Unfortunately, the hot conditions made the track greasy, and the day was witness to several unfortunate incidents.
Chief among those incidents was a crash involving two Ohioans. During the KTM RC390 Cup morning warm-up, Hillard, Ohio's Gavin Anthony (#176) and Medina, Ohio's Tyler Wissel (#200) crashed after both drafted past Tyler's twin brother Ryan (#220) on the front straight. Based on Ryan's description of the incident, Tyler tried to pass Gavin on the inside of turn 1 when he lost control and crashed into Gavin as Gavin was taking a wider line into the corner. The session was red-flagged and both riders were transported to a local hospital and then released. I spoke with Gavin's father Adam later in the day and he indicated Gavin had a sprained wrist and a lot of bruising but has no broken bones. Ryan reported to me that Tyler was going to need surgery, but was generally okay. Both motorcycles looked significantly damaged when I saw them in the paddock. One of Gavin's clip-on handlebars was broken completely off. Hopefully both riders will be healthy enough to race at Road America in three weeks time.
Gavin and Tyler's incident was far from the last one for the KTM RC390 Cup riders. Of the 14 riders who started the KTM RC390 Cup race, six of them crashed out and one more ran off track and rejoined. Points leader Benjamin Smith (#118) crashed out when he ran into the back of another rider and lost the front at turn 1. Buckeye Ryan Wissel (#220) crashed at turn 3. I spoke with Ryan after the race and he believed his crash and a number of the other crashes had been caused by teams raising rear tire pressures too high for today's hotter conditions. I also spoke with RC390 Cup competitor Nate Minster (#101), who reported the track felt greasier to him in the hotter conditions. With the top two riders in the KTM RC390 Cup standings not finishing Sunday's race, the points standings have been shaken up a bit. Race winner Jackson Blackmon (#618) who entered the weekend with no points, left VIR fourth in the standings. The battle at the top of the points remains close, with the top three separated by only six points.
Today's supersport highlights actually began during the last chance qualifier (LCQ). Xavier Zayat, who I had a chance to sit down and talk with for a bit on Saturday, had failed to finish Saturday's LCQ due to clutch problems. During Sunday mornings' LCQ, Zayat crashed on the warm-up lap, but came all the way back to finish second and advance to the main. Unfortunately, Zayat struggled with more clutch problems in Sunday's main and did not finish the race.
The action at the front of the Supersport/Superstock 600 race was intense. Team Hammer M4 Suzuki's Valentin Debise, who was a front runner all of last year and at Road Atlanta, crashed out on lap 2 at turn 1 for the second day in a row. Unlike Saturday's crash, Debise's fall was an unassisted low side as he tried to make a pass for the lead. The remainder of the race featured a close battle at the front between the Y.E.S. Graves Yamahas of J.D. Beach (#95) and Garrett Gerloff (#1) with Beach coming out on top. Honda factory-supported rider Benny Solis brought his Honda CBR600RR home in a lonely third place. With Debise's two DNFs this weekend, Solis has moved past Debise for third in the points standings. Gerloff left VIR having maintained his four-point lead in the championship over Beach.
Sunday's Superbike/Superstock 1000 race did not feature as many of the close battles or controversy that Saturday's race did. Sunday's race did feature a new-old winner, as Monster Energy Graves Yamaha's Josh Hayes took his first win of the season. Hayes grabbed the holeshot and maintained his lead throughout most of the race. Despite Hayes' victory, the ride of the day belonged to Hayes' teammate Cameron Beaubier. For the second day in a row, Beaubier made a mistake under braking for turn 1 that took him off the track. Beaubier rejoined the race in sixth and fought his way back onto the podium. Saturday's race winner, Yoshimura Suzuki's Roger Hayden, went off track at turn 1 on lap 22 of 23 and finished in sixth place. Josh Herrin, who was penalized three grid spots for his crash on Saturday that took out Yoshimura Suzuki's Toni Elias, ran off track early in the race and finished in eleventh place. Elias ran a solid race that featured a battle with teammate Hayden throughout most of the race and was able to bring his 2017 Suzuki GSX-R1000RR home in second place. As for the overall championship, Elias has maintained his position at the top of the standings despite the DNF in race 1. Elias leads Cameron Beaubier by 10 points and teammate Roger Hayden by 11 points heading into the next round at Road America on June 3-5.
Posted in MotoAmerica
Published by "Fast" Mike Marino
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A Glove for Every [Touring] Occasion
Ridin' in the Cold with Friends
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Tour Report: Down South Ride 2020
Looking back on my SaddleSore 1000
A Glove for Every [Touring] Occasion January 2, 2021
Ridin' in the Cold with Friends November 30, 2020
Cadillac, Kalamazoo and Back: My Michigan Johnny Cash Ride September 12, 2020
Tour Report: Down South Ride 2020 June 19, 2020
Looking back on my SaddleSore 1000 June 11, 2020
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I thank you for stopping by and leaving your comment.
Let GOD bless them abundundly and wipe their tears!!
Amen. Thank you for your comment.
Wow Jerry, a lot said in a few words!
So true Jerry. We sometimes forget those who are left behind. A very poignant and fitting poem.
Loss from the other side. We should not forget about those left behind.
So true, Jerry. Thank you for this poem!
We should care for (and about) the families for as long as they need our help and support.
The words are hard and true. I keep in contact with some of the children of my friends killed in the new wars. We never talk of their fathers. I believe I should.


25 Water Fountain Ideas - Home Fountains Ideas.
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There is strong evidence that eating disorders have a genetic basis.
The genes that are most implicated in passing on eating disorders are within biological systems that relate to food intake, appetite, metabolism, mood, and reward-pleasure responses. It has been shown that this genetic influence is not simply due to the inheritance of any one gene but results from a much more complicated interaction between many genes and quite possibly non inherited genetic factors as well.
The biological causes of eating disorders are not well understood. This could be because the majority of studies are conducted during the acute or recovery phase of an eating disorder. At this time, there are physiological changes occurring in the person as a result of their eating disorder behaviours which can affect the findings of the studies. Studies conducted at the onset of an eating disorder could show different results.
Research into Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa specifically has identified a number of personality traits that may be present before, during, and after recovery from an eating disorder.
Specific additional personality traits may be associated with each type of eating disorder. It is also important to include that prolonged starvation induces change in cognition, behaviour, and interpersonal characteristics. It can therefore be difficult to discern the psychological causes from the psychological effects of eating disorders.
Evidence shows that socio-cultural influences play a role in the development of eating disorders, particularly among people who internalise the Western beauty ideal of thinness. Images communicated through mass media such as television, magazines and advertising are unrealistic, airbrushed and altered to achieve a culturally perceived image of 'perfection' that does not actually exist.
The most predominant images in our culture today suggest that beauty is equated with thinness for females and a lean, muscular body for males. People who internalise this 'thin ideal' have a greater risk of developing body dissatisfaction which can lead to eating disorder behaviours.
Like most other psychiatric illnesses and health conditions, a combination of several different factors may increase the likelihood that a person will experience an eating disorder at some point in their life.
Low self-esteem has been identified by many research studies as a general risk factor for the development of eating disorders. Strong self-esteem has been described as essential for psychological well-being and for strengthening the ability to resist cultural pressures.
Poor body image can contribute to impaired mental and physical health, lower social functionality and poor lifestyle choices. Body dissatisfaction, the experience of feelings of shame, sadness or anger associated with the body, can lead to extreme weight control behaviours and is a leading risk factor for the development of eating disorders.
Body dissatisfaction is also linked to depression and low self-esteem and has been found to be widespread in adolescent girls and boys in Australia.
People who internalise and adopt the Western beauty ideal of thinness as a personal standard have a higher risk of developing an eating disorder.
Disordered eating is the single most important indicator of onset of an eating disorder. Disordered eating is a disturbed pattern of eating that can include fasting and skipping meals, eliminating food groups, restrictive dieting accompanied by binge eating and excessive exercise. Disordered eating can also include purging behaviours such as laxative abuse and self-induced vomiting.
While moderate changes in diet and exercise have been shown to be safe, significant mental and physical consequences may occur with extreme or unhealthy dieting practices.
Dieting is associated with the development of eating disorders. It is also associated with other health concerns including depression, anxiety, nutritional and metabolic problems, and, contrary to expectation, with an increase in weight.
Puberty is a time of great change biologically, physically and psychologically. Teenagers are often vulnerable to societal pressures and can often feel insecure and self conscious, factors that increase the risk of engaging in extreme dieting behaviour.
The act of starting any diet increases the risk of eating disorders in adolescent girls and boys. Research shows that young people who engage in unhealthy dieting practices are almost three times as likely as their healthy-dieting peers to score high on measures assessing suicide risk.


Items where Author is "Akhavan Niaki, Haleh."
Hosseini, Ahmad. and Estiri, Hajar. and Abdolhosseinzadeh, Baharak. and Alizadeh, Akram. and Akhavan Niaki, Haleh. and Ghaderian, Sayyed Mohammad Hossein. and Fallah, Ali. (2017) Multiple Sclerosis Gene Therapy with Recombinant Viral Vectors: Overexpression of IL-4, Leukemia Inhibitory Factor, and IL-10 in Wharton's Jelly Stem Cells Used in EAE Mice Model. Cell J (Yakhte, 19 (3).
Hosseini, Ahmad. and Estiri, Hajar. and Akhavan Niaki, Haleh. and Alizadeh, Akram. and Abdolhosseinzadeh, Baharak. and Ghaderian, Sayyed Mohammad Hossein. and Farjadfar, Akbar. and Fallah, Ali. (2017) Multiple Sclerosis Gene Therapy with Recombinant Viral Vectors: Overexpression of IL-4, Leukemia Inhibitory Factor, and IL-10 in Wharton's Jelly Stem Cells Used in EAE Mice Model. Cell J (Yakhteh), 19 (3).
This list was generated on Thu Apr 25 01:07:50 2019 IRDT.


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This is the 25th selection in the oratorio The Last Words of Mormon. This is a piano solo under Mormon's brief narration.
This song has been viewed 141 times on this site. This song's pdf has been viewed/downloaded 6 times.


text:
Government and Policy, Kerala
Kerala managed its dam very well says Director Central Water Commission
The director of the Central Water Commission (CWC), Sharad Chandra has praised the state of Kerala for its management of dams during the retreat of the Southwest Monsoon. At the end of September or October, when the Southwest Monsoon is on retreat, the authorities release dam water if not depleted. This causes flooding, especially in the low lying areas. In 2018, Kerala had witnessed abnormally high rainfall from 1 June 2018 to 19 August 2018 leading to severe flooding in 13 out of 14 districts in the State. The state authorities opened its dams overnight and caught people in low-lying areas unaware.
"Most dam authorities tend to fill the reservoir at this time up to Full reservoir level (FRL). If they are not pre-depleted, in wake of increased rainfall and inflow, there is no space to absorb it. Awareness has been generated in recent years regarding proper reservoir operation for flood moderation. Despite large excess rainfall in southern India this year, by and large, dam releases have been done in a judicious way. Kerala really managed its dam very well," wrote Sharad Chandra on the microblogging site Twitter.
The dams are important in India owing to wide spatial and temporal rainfall variability which affect the water availability. It becomes important to have efficient reservoir operation from flood moderation point of view.
Small dams, if built for some other purposes, cannot provide the benefits of flood moderation as they quickly fill up during high intensity of rainfall. They are as good as some detention/ retention basin.
Large dams having no dedicated flood cushion and are more vulnerable to cause downstream flooding in event of heavy rainfall. However, by evolving a proper decision support system, these dams can utilise dynamic flood cushion.
"Reservoir operation remains a challenge in India as we have made multi-purpose dams with nearly no dedicated flood cushion. But we need to realise that saving lives need to given priority even at cost of losing some power production or irrigation benefits," wrote Sharad Chandra.
The Central Water Commission monitors the live storage status of important reservoirs in India on weekly basis. As per the CWC website, India currently has 91 reservoirs.
ICG & DRI recover gold from Gulf of Mannar smuggling route
The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) seized approximately Nine Kgs of Gold in Gulf of Mannar, off Tamil...
Indian Medical Association not to train Ayurvedic Doctors
In addition to the farmers, the Modi Government now faces strike by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) for its unilateral decision to allow the...
Now BIS certified light helmets compulsory for two-wheelers in India
The Indian government has made the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) certified helmets, which are commonly known as ISI certified helmets, as mandatory for...
IESM calls pensions reduction plans for premature retirees as illegal
The Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement (IESM) which was started to fight for One Rank One Pension (OROP) has termed Modi Government's proposal to cut down...
FSSAI FosCos now available to rest of India
The existing Food Licensing and Registration System (FLRS) is getting replaced with the new Food Safety Compliance System (FoSCoS) throughout India. The system was...
India takes steps to count Snow Leopard population
Today marks the first year of the National Protocol on Snow Leopard Population Assessment in India (SPAI). Snow leopard, also known as the "ghost...


Here's something you probably didn't know about me: I've gone my entire life without pooping on a plane. I know it defies biology, luck and logic, but it's true. Despite a transatlantic travel record that includes Munich, London, Barcelona and even South Africa, never once have I felt nature knockin' at the back door during a flight, if you get my drift.
But, as they say, all good things must come to an end. And seeing how this column is devoted to the notion of finding myself on unfamiliar territory, I'm going to explain how I ended up breaking the streak at a comfortable cruising altitude of 39,000 feet. My editors didn't even ask me to do it. It just happened. But man, there were a few moments there where I thought they must have rigged the whole thing.
For the record, my secret has always been coffee, consumed at exactly one hour and 42 minutes before final boarding call. I also try to avoid travelling before 10 a.m. whenever possible. I figure that by this point in the morning I'll have a pretty good idea of what kind of a day it's going to be, digestively-speaking.
The problem was, I wasn't on my usual coast and the flight options were not working in my favour. I was in St. John's, Newfoundland, and the only way out of there was on Porter Airlines Flight 222, with a departure time of 8 a.m. I didn't notice when I booked it, but this route is what they call the "milk run", featuring a series of stopovers and pickups in Halifax and Ottawa en route to Toronto. That's three complete takeoffs and landings in the span of four hours! So, understandably, by the time we'd slammed onto the tarmac at Macdonald-Cartier Airport, my guts were in absolute knots. In the words of Obi-Wan Kenobi, I felt a great disturbance in the force, and I was left with no further options other than to unbuckle my seatbelt and head to the front of the fuselage.
Having never had a reason to visit an airplane lavatory before, you can imagine my sheer horror as I pushed open the door and realized the unfathomable limitations of the space at hand. "That's it?!" I muttered to myself as I sized up a tiny alcove that would make a PortaPotti at the PNE look roomy.
Next thing I knew, I was squatting over an opening the size of a large funnel, spine firmly pressed against the back wall, hips touching the side walls, one elbow in the tissue receptacle and the other resting on the sink counter.
The toilet paper dispenser was completely obscured by my right knee, which I eventually accessed by sticking my arm straight upward, kinking it at the elbow and then twisting forward and downward again, sort of like a weird bathroom version of the butterfly stroke. When my contorted hand finally met the roll, it was emptier than my bowels.
Frantically, I began searching for a replacement, patting at cupboards and hatches that might lead to some good news. Nothing.
I wiggled my elbow out of the tissue receptacle to find one lonely sheet waiting for me inside. I rationed it as best I could and then began to size up some less-desirable substitutes: wallpaper, signage labels, even my own socks. Thankfully, there were a few paper towels left beside the sink, though they were taking up precious real estate in the bowl at an alarming rate. A midway maintenance flush would have been ideal had I been able to reach the button, but I had no choice but to just power through and hope for the best.
By this time, I'd been in there about 10 minutes and I could hear the chatter of a line forming outside the door. I'm sure they all wondered what was happening as my panicked limbs thunked repeatedly against the door and interior walls. Little did they know, I was in the throes of a delicate dance: flushing and cleaning, thinking and calculating, cursing and begging, wiping and waiting.
After what seemed like an eternity, I'd finally gotten myself back to a sanitized (though very traumatized) state of being. I stood up, shimmied around and pressed the flush button, ready to put this experience behind me.
I pressed it again. Nothing. And again. Nothing. And again. Nothing.
It tried its best, with a sputter here and a burp there, but it didn't have nearly the pressure needed to contend with my makeshift paper deposits. After five more minutes, my handiwork was still sitting at the bottom of the bowl, looking as though someone had murdered a smurf.
Now freshly out of paper towels as well, I resumed my frantic search for suitable objects and did my best to ignore the impatient knocks on the door. A plunger wasn't anywhere to be found, nor would it have been much help anyways. What I needed was something to prod the mass downward. A wedge… A shim… An empty toilet paper roll!
Yanking it from its socket, I began mashing it into the blue blob, and finally, with the help of some well-timed turbulence, managed to make my coil of shame vanish into oblivion.
I washed my hands four times, took a deep breath and opened the door to find 23 people standing there waiting, all in various stages of distress. Wouldn't you know it, my seat-mate was at the very front of the line looking as though he was about to burst.
Halfway to the rear of the plane, I looked back just in time to see the co-pilot rush out of the cockpit and into the alcove I'd just called home for the last 40 minutes.


Today, I remind myself that rejection is not failure.
Today, I remind myself that failure is our impetus to move forward, onwards and upwards.
We all walk down an imaginary road, a path paved with the concrete of childhood whims and teenage ambitions not yet conceived in full. For years, we paint the lines and place the markers that we believe will guide us to the destination of our daydreams that we worship in the most tired moments, that we lust over in fits of frustration. We tell ourselves if we can only push ourselves a little harder, sleep an hour less, try one more time, we will travel a mile farther… until one day we reach the place only our hearts know.
In all of our lives, there comes a day when our direction dissipates into a distance that lays beyond the grasp of our fingertips, when we are condemned to watch helplessly as a power unknown leaves us shivering in a forest of fear where the road had laid only moments before.
But you have to find a way to get there– wherever there may be. All of a sudden, you cannot remember the way, the way you believed in, the way you worked towards, the way you told yourself was the only one. You pace, you panic, you persist to feel that the road must end here, that you were never meant to make it. That you were never good enough.
And in this lonely place of solitude, we begin to discover who we are. From the depths of disorientation and despair, we find the compass within, the sound of your first footstep in the thick silence louder than the screams you have suppressed for years. It is in the moment we think we have lost everything that we find what we never knew we wanted, what we never knew we needed. Because there is no more path– no more lines to constrain nor confine, no more markers of fulfillment without feeling fulfilled, no more wishing and wanting and worrying overreaching somewhere that never existed outside of our fatal fantasies. And finally, after all this time, you realize that the only path that ever mattered is the one you are paving.
Start. Get lost. Get lost again. Start over. Star again.
In due time, you will find your way.
A wanderer need not be weary– to wander is to seek, to explore, to embrace what it means to be alive, to be present, to never let a path end. To those who have never faced failure, for those who do not understand the space of solitude surrounded by that crumbled concrete that seemed to bury, to choke, to destroy everything you thought you were, you have not dared to dream beyond. Because that is what matters– what lays beyond your destination, beyond the star you wished on outside your childhood bedroom window a thousand times, beyond degrees and dollar signs, beyond yourself.
Because that is a place the man who walks the linear path cannot find because those who truly persist to find what they are looking for never stop– not even when they get there.


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