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Archive for the tag "books and literature"
I went to the Exclusive Books summer sale yesterday, and came home with seven books for R231.00
Bartlett, Rosamund Benn, Anna. 2007. Literary Russia: a guide. New York: Overlook Duckworth.
Callow, Philip. 1998. Chekhov: the hidden ground. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee.
Conradi, Peter J. 2010. Iris Murdoch, a writer at war: Letters & diaries 1938-46. London: Short.
Conrad, Joseph. 2010. Heart of darkness. London: Collins Classics.
Crystal, David. 2007. By hook or by crook: a journey in search of English. London: HarperPress.
Maher, Paul. 2007. Jack Kerouac's American journey. New York: Thunder's Mouth.
Sandison, David Vickers, Graham. 2006. Neal Cassady: the fast life of a Beat hero. London: Omnibus.
About halfway through the sale they reduce the sale prices by 50%, and so books one could not usually afford suddenly become affordable. The interesting thing here is that most of the books are ones that one never sees on the shelves. They are not being sold to make space on the shelves by reducing unsold stock. I suppose if one knew about them, one could order them specially, but in that case one could only afford to buy one or two of them, not seven.
So I'm not complaining about the sales, far from it. I'm just wondering where they were offered for sale in the first place. I suspect that they were remaindered overseas, and specially imported for the sales.
Most of the ones I picked up are literary biographies, which I enjoy reading. Sometimes I think I'm weird. I often enjoy reading biographies and diaries of authors more than I enjoy reading their works. Perhaps that's because real people's lives are often more interesting than the stuff they write about in their fiction.
Posted in books and tagged book sales, books and literature, literary biography, reading | Leave a comment
Banned books return to shelves in Egypt and Tunisia
Like many other people, I've been wondering which way the "velvet revolutions" in Egypt and Tunisia were going to turn. In some places, like Iran, the overthrow of the Shah brought a regime with greater repression. In Egypt the army is now (or one could say still) in control, but there are some straws in the wind that give hope:
Banned books return to shelves in Egypt and Tunisia | Books | guardian.co.uk:
Anecdotal reports are also emerging of once suppressed titles appearing for impromptu sale on street corners and newspaper kiosks across Egypt. Salwa Gaspard of joint English/Arabic language publisher Saqi Books said accounts in the Arabic press told of books that had been hidden for years in private basements now once more seeing the light of day.
Cairo is also to hold a book fair in Tahrir Square – the focus for protests against former president Hosni Mubarak – at the end of March, according to Trevor Naylor of the American University of Cairo Press bookshop, which is based in the square. Naylor told the Bookseller that the event had been planned in the wake of the cancelled Cairo Book Fair, which was abandoned in January in the face of growing political unrest.
Let's hope the wind keep blowing in that direction.
Some Zimbabwean exiles have been calling for Egyptian-style demonstrations there, but so far there is no evidence of such things.
Posted in Uncategorized and tagged banned books, books and literature, Egypt, freedom, Tunisia | Leave a comment
The Tablet – Review: Engineers of the Soul
"One evening in 1932, Joseph Stalin summoned dozens of the more biddable Russian writers – that is, without the likes of Pasternak, Bulgakov, Mandelstam or Akhmatova – to a jolly at Maxim Gorky's place, and made them an offer they couldn't refuse: to join the Soviet Union's military-industrial drive. "Our tanks are worthless," he tells the nervous assembly, "if the souls who must steer them are made of clay. Man is reshaped by life itself, and those of you here must assist in reshaping his soul. And that is why I raise my glass to you, writers, engineers of the soul." This was no polite big-up, of the sort that might be bandied about at Islington drinks parties by soft London authors in an attempt to shore up their self-importance: it was an order, and signalled an attempt to turn literature into something it had never been before."
So begins an interesting review of The Tablet – Review: Engineers of the Soul:
Frank Westerman's marvellous and original book traces the catastrophe – spiritual, ecological, social – that that attempt bolstered. A country addicted to political fictions enlisted writers to give literary substance to them, with the result that, disastrously, not only the people but the state itself began to believe those fictions. One of the enduring geographical dreams of the Soviet Union was to divert its Arctic rivers southwards to turn the deserts of central Asia into a flowering paradise. Westerman tracks down an old professor engaged in this vainglory: "We were smothered beneath an avalanche of praise. The dams and pumping stations we designed were invariably spoken of as 'more monumental than the pyramids of Egypt'. Try keeping a level head then!" The result: "Some of us let it go to our heads. There were those who dreamed of digging canals using controlled nuclear explosions … "
Hat-tip to Jim Forest. It reminded me of Recent reading: The socialist sixth of the world Khanya. That wwas written by Hewlett Johnson, the "Red Dean" of Canterbury, who sang the praises of Stalin's industrialisation of the Soviet Union, which, according to Johnson, brought peace and plenty, full employment and freedom, at a time when the rest of the world was suffering from the Great Depression. Westerman's book sounds like an interesting counterpoint to that.
Posted in Uncategorized and tagged Bolsheviks, Bolshevism, books, books and literature, reading, Soviet Union, Stalin, Stalinism, USSR | Leave a comment
On not knowing the plot
About thirty years ago, on a 400km drive home to Melmoth in Zululand from Pretoria, I listened to tapes of lectures by Bishop Michael Marshall, then Bishop of Woolwich in England, who had visited Pretoria a couple of years earlier and spoken at a conference there. He described taking his nephew and niece to see Jesus Christ, Superstar , and was surprised to discover that they did not know the plot.
By now his nephew and niece have grown up, and probably have children of their own, and they too have probably lost the plot, or probably grew up with even less chance of knowing it.
And now another Anglican bishop, Bishop Alan of Buckingham, describes the same phenomenon in his blog Bishop Alan's Blog: Bible and Culture 101:
Back in the 1960's school RE was boring and worthy but predictable, and largely based on the Bible. You might decide it was a load of old tosh, but at least you ended up able to understand Shakespeare's Hamlet or Milton's Paradise Lost. The past becomes a completely foreign country, however, when a society obsessed with the latest of everything loses touch with its own roots, and compromises its own corporate memory.
At the age of 11 I went to high school, having grown up in an agnostic/atheist home, but I think I at least would have known the plot of Jesus Christ, Superstar , since when I was about 5 or 6 my mother had given me a book of Bible stories (by Enid Blyton, of all people), Before I go to sleep . I had never been to church, and probably knew more about Islam than I did about Christianity (from another book, King of the wind ). I knew something about Ramadan, I'd never heard of Lent.
So I landed up in this church school where the maths teacher was given the task of teaching "Scripture". He handled that by getting the class to read aloud in turn from the Bible, starting with Genesis 1, while he got on with marking homework, or setting exam papers and things like that. It was a special school edition of the Bible that we had been issued with, which omitted things like the genealogies, and probably had been bowdlerised in other ways too. I found the stories interesting, and began reading ahead, and surprised my parents by asking for a Bible for my birthday, and had read it twice by the time I was 15, the second time with the "Apocrypha".
Then this morning (hat-tip to the Not-so-young Fogey) I read this — Orwell's Picnic ~: Saving the World With Classical Grammar:
The Restoration is not only a matter of politics, or even education qua education. It is an essential re-construction of ruined thought. Imagine Western Civilization not as a set of buildings, or precious cultural artifacts like the Mass (if we may be somewhat impersonal and irreligious for a moment), or the Divine Office, or legally indissoluble natural marriage, or even any philosophical school. Imagine it is a larger thing than that; it is a framework for our thought, our creative efforts. Imagine it is the structure that makes something like Chartres or Salisbury Cathedral possible. The container for the idea of Chartres, without which no Chartres could be conceived.
And I realised that I have very ambivalent feelings about this. I was brought up to regard "Western Civilization" with something like contempt. That was because in South Africa the self-appointed guardians of "Western Civilization" were trying to implement the evil and anti-Christian policy of apartheid and being exposed to their prolonged and insidious propaganda meant that I came to think of "Western Civilization" itself as something evil and anti-Christian.
I've also been reading quite a lot about the Restoration over the last couple of years (Pepys's diaries, etc). As a child I was a natural monarchist, and so I thought the Restoration was a good thing. But its main benefits seem to have been bawdy theatre and the king's numerous mistresses. The present-day Anglican squabbles about bishops who leave their wives and live with their homosexual lovers seem quite mild by comparison.
In the same vein, I've always thought that democracy was a good thing. One of the results of democracy in South Africa is that we have freedom of the press, and so corruption in government isn't covered up as it used to be in the apartheid days. And so freedom of the press means that the newspapers are filled with political sleaze, and who is promiscuously jumping into bed with whom, sexually, politically and above all, financially. But as bad and boring as it is, I think the Restoration could have shown our politicians a thing or two.
But to get back to the Bible and culture, and especially the literature part of it, someone asked me to be a friend on Good Reads this morning, and I went to the page where one compares one's taste in reading with someone else's and I saw that I had given Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey four stars. It's another book that I've recently re-read after a long interval. I first read it as an undergraduate as an English I set book, and I thought it was merely OK. The trouble is that it is a satire on Gothic novels, and I hadn't read any Gothic novels, so I couldn't really appreciate the satire.
I've now read a few Gothic novels, starting with Maturin's Melmoth the wanderer , mainly because I once lived in Melmoth (see above) and was curious about the origin of the name. Yes, I knew the town was named after Sir Melmoth Osborne (the the car registration letters are NO, the O standing for Osborne) but I wondered why his parents had called him that. But my education was incomplete until I had read The castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, which is generally agreed to be the first Gothic novel, and the start of the genre that Jane Austen was satirising. The result is that I now have a new appreciation for Northanger Abbey , far more than I ever did as an undergraduate.
And as The castle of Ortranto and The mysteries of Udolpho are to Northanger Abbey so the Bible is to a great deal of Western literature, even modern literature, and even literature written by people who weren't especially Christian. James Joyce's Ulysses is full of biblical allusions, and consider this little poem from Samuel Beckett's Watt (which, interestingly enough, has been censored from the current in-print editions, and therefore worth reproducing here for that reason alone)
But what is this, so high, so white
And what is this, so black, so low
Burning, burning, burning bright
Quenched long ago, cold long ago?
It is a duck, a duck, a duck;
An old East India runner duck,
On a mat, a mat, a mat,
A hairy mat, a hairy mat,
Oh ancient mat! O hairy mat,
Oh high white brightly burning duck,
Cush's stones are crying yet
Forth from the wall to Habakkuk,
And from the wood the answering beam
Cries yet of the appointed time
Still tarrying and of old resolves
Of wind, and sand, and evening wolves.
Secularists, and some others, fear the influence of the Bible, and say it has no place in schools or in general culture, because it belongs to "religion", and religion must be set apart and cordoned off and confined to the "private" sphere. "Religion" and "privacy" are distincly "modern" conceptions, and I have reservations about the value of modernity, similar to those I have about "Western civilization". Actually they are linked, because Western civilization gave birth to modernity.
It was interesting, therefore, to see how this worked out in Orthodox civilization (which Samuel Huntington saw as quite distinct from Western civilization). While doing research in Russia for my doctoral thesis on Orthodox mission methods I asked people about the revival of Orthodoxy and the fall of Bolshevism, and many people told me a similar story. The Bolsheviks were secularists, and they wanted to abolish religion altogether, or at the very least confine it and quarantine it in the "private" sphere. But they were sufficiently Russian to allow people to read the great works of Russian literature, many of which, however, were imbued with an Orthodox "fronima", a mindset, a set of presuppositions. So "Holy Russia" survived in literature, and as an ideal, and people read this literature and became curious about the thinking and the ethos behind it, and wanted to learn more. And in Brezhnev's time, when Bolshevism was dull and boring and conservative and stick in the mud, the thirst for something more interesting and more exciting grew and so Bolshevism was overthrown. One of my interlocutors said that he thought that this showed that the best method of re-evangelising Russia was to promote "Orthodox Christian culture". I'm not so sure about that. In the late-Bolshevik period it was the only accessible alternative to Bolshevism, but since the fall of the Communist Party from power Russia had been flooded with all kinds of literature and culture from all over the world, and so the choice is not so simple any more.
Now this, of course, is the secularist's nightmare, and shows the danger of letting religion get a toehold in the culture after all their strenuous efforts to sideline it. And I find myself out of sympathy with them, but equally out of sympathy with those who want to identify the Christian faith with the culture so completely, and use arguments like those about Chartres Cathedral that I quoted above. I quite like Harvey Cox's distinction between secularisation and secularism. I tend to favour secularisation, because, like it or not, there is a distinction between the church and the world, and I'm aware of those who see religion as so entangled with secular culture that they see other religions as an insult to their culture (some have called this "Christendom"). Secularism, however, is an ideology, and a rather narrow-minded and bigoted one at that, which sees anyreligion as an insult to its culture.
Posted in books, culture, literature and tagged Bible, books and literature, culture, culture wars, Gothic novels, reading, secularism, Western Civilisation, Western Civilization | Leave a comment
Calling Inklings bloggers
I've found quite a number of blogs written by fans of the Inklings, the mid-20th century informal literary group that included C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams and several others.
In spite of this, a search of Blogger profiles reveals only 14 who list the Inklings as one of their interests, and most of them don't have blogs, or their blogs are dead. A similar search at BlogCatalog revealed a similar result.
I've started an Inklings group at BlogCatalog, in the hope that it may be possible to bring at least some Inklings bloggers together, and make it easier to find blogs that deal with the Inklings.
As is the way of such things, the first two people who applied to join had no discernible interest in the Inklings — that seems to be typical of the Internet nowadays, where people you've never heard of announce that they are listing you as their "friend" and thereafter you never hear from them again. All that does is clutter up the net with useless links.
I hope to make this group a little more selective. To join, you don't need to blog about the Inklings in every single post, but a search of your blog should teveal at least some posts about the Inklings.
If you don't have a blog and don't want to have one, there is also an Inklings discussion forum on the net that you can join. There you can also, in the fashion of the Inklings, upload your own writing for others to read and discuss.
Here's a list of the members of the Inklings:
Barfield, Owen 1898-1997
Bennett, Jack Arthur Walter 1911-1981
Coghill, Nevill Henry Kendal Aylmer 1899-1980
Dundas-Grant, James Harold 1896-1985
Dyson, Henry Victor Dyson 1896-1975
Fox, Adam 1883-1977
Hardie, Colin Graham 1906-1998
Havard, Robert Emlyn 1901-1985
Lewis, Clive Staples 1898-1963
Lewis, Warren Hamilton 1895-1973
Mathew, Anthony 1905-1976
McCallum, Ronald Buchanan 1898-1973
Stevens, Courtenay Edwards 1905-1976
Tolkien, Christopher 1924-
Tolkien, John Ronald Reuel 1892-1973
Wain, John Barrington 1925-1994
Williams, Charles Walter Stansby 1886-1945
Wrenn, Charles Lesley 1895-1969
They met in Oxford, usually at C.S. Lewis's rooms at Magdalen College, to read their writings to each other, and in some cases the comments and suggestions made at the meetings influenced the version that was eventually published.
So if you sometimes write blog posts about any of them, or about their writings, please consider joining the Inklings Group.
Here are a few blogs that post stuff about the Inklings, which I hope will join this group:
The Inklings
Iambic Admonit
A Mule In The Chapter House
A Spell for Refreshment of the Spirit
I'm sure there are more out there, so let's try to link them.
Posted in books, culture, literature, theology and tagged book blogs, books and literature, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, eldil, Inklings, Malacandra, Perelandra, reading, Thulcandra, Tolkien | Leave a comment
Book Review Bloggers at Thomas Nelson
I quite often post reviews or comments on books I have read on this or my other blogs, and so found this quite interesting.
Book Review Bloggers at Thomas Nelson:
Any blogger can receive FREE copies of select Thomas Nelson products. In exchange, you must agree to read the book and post a 200-word review (guidelines) on your blog and on any retail website.
I usually post reviews and comments first on my Good Reads page, which then allows me to copy it to one of my blogs, with all links suitably adjusted.
The Thomas Nelson offer looks useful — I wonder if other publishers will do something similar.
Posted in Uncategorized and tagged bloggers, book reviews, books and literature, brb, publishers, reading, Thomas Nelson | Leave a comment
Recent reading: Her fearful symmetry
I finished this book more than a week ago, but have spent so much time trying to get my computer working properly again that I haven't had time to write about it until now.
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
This is a difficult book to review; I suspect that many people, like me, will have been influenced by Audrey Niffenegger's first book, The time traveler's wife, and by the expectations aroused by that. Comparisons are inevitable. I certainly was influenced by such expectations, and found Her fearful symmetry a little disappointing.
It's a ghost story. It's about twin daughters of twins. It's set in Highgate Cemetery in North London. The cemetery is one of the characters in the book, as much so as any of the people. It's hard to say more than that without giving away the plot.
I found it an OK read, but I was expecting and hoping for more.
View all my reviews >>
Posted in Uncategorized and tagged Audrey Niffenegger, book reviews, books and literature, ghost stories, reading | Leave a comment
Novel-Writing month
National Novel-Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is upon us again.
Three years ago I challenged people in Inklings forums to take part and try to write a novel of the same genre as Charles Williams.
That's because I like Charles Williams's novels, and though he's dead and so can't write any more, I've hoped that others would write novels in the same genre, and Inklings fans would be among the people most likely to do that.
For a while I hoped that Phil Rickman would develop into the kind of writer like Charles Williams, but the trend of his writing is now more towards conventional whodunits with a little ecclesiastical intrigue thrown in — Ruth Rendell meets Susan Howatch. My take on his latest book is at Recent reading: To dream of the dead: Khanya
I was thinking of reissuing the challenge this year, and taking part in NaNoWriMo myself, even though inspiration has been mostly absent, and I'm still trying to revise the one I wrote three years ago in answer to my own challenge.
But I won't be able to do that this year, as something else has come up. A couple of years ago I was struck by the way in which the charismatic renewal movement had been written out of South African church history, to the extent that much of what was published was a distortion of history. I began to collect material with the idea of documenting some of the vanished and vanishing history, before everyone who remembered it was dead. Someone pointed out that a church historian had actually written something 25 years ago, but was told by colleagues that he would ruin his academic reputation if he published it. I managed to locate him, and he kindly sent me his unpublished MS, which I read, and found as gripping as a page-turner novel. But it also killed my project, because he had written the book I wanted to write. I'd simply be trying to reinvent the wheel.
But then he suggested to me that I edit it and rewrite it, to bring it up to date and add my material, and that we try to find someone who will publish it under both our names. So that will keep me out of NaNoWriMo this year.
But I still wish that someone will be moved to write something in the Charles Williams genre (which includes C.S. Lewis's That hideous strength ).
If you have even the slightest urge in that direction, sign up with NaNoWriMo now and get writing!
Posted in Uncategorized and tagged books and literature, Charles Williams, Inklings, NaNoWriMo, Phil Rickman, writing | Leave a comment
It's cool to be hip but not hip to be cool
A couple of days ago there was some discussion about the following article in some Usenet newsgroups. I was interested in it because of the use of the word "hipster". It seemed to be used with a meaning very different from the meaning I understood.
I'm interested in words and how they are used, partly because it used to be my job as an editor for several years, though it would probably be truer to say that I got into the job because of my interest in language and usage rather than the other way round.
Anyway, the article was The Daily Cardinal – Song causes local hipster to self-destruct:
MADISON, WI—Tens of twenties of Madison's hippest are gathered in mourning this afternoon following the news of the tragic death of local hipster Charles "Wayne" Duchene, 22, who died a horrific and most likely cliche death late Monday evening at a Foo Fee Foe concert.
Duchene's body was found in a puddle of his own PBR at approximately 11:15 p.m. Monday night at the entrance of The Dank Bank, an obscure venue located just off the Capitol Square.
Now this is a student publication and it's obviously satire, but they have to be satirising something. I had to ask about PBR, which I at first took to be one of those three-letter abbreviations for various medical conditions that hypochondiacs sprinkle their conversations with and expect the rest of us to understand. It transpired that it did not stand for something like Personal Bodily Refuse, but was an allusion to a local beer, though I gather many people who know the brew think there is little difference, but more of that later.
So what is a hipster?
As I understand it, a "hipster" was orginally a jazz fan, and especially a fan of "cool" jazz, a "hip" or "hep" cat.
In Beat Generation circles it was extended to mean someone who was hip to the lies of mainstream culture, and who disaffiliated from it and rejected its values, who did not get over excited over the things pimped by the advertising industry and so on, who was detached from all the frenzy about brands and fashion. That was the essence of "cool" in those days.
As Lawrence Lipton put it in his book "The holy barbarians" (Lipton 1959:150):
The New Poverty is the disaffiliate's answer to the New Prosperity. It is important to make a living. It is even more important to make a life. Poverty. The very word is taboo in a society where success is equated with virtue and poverty is a sin. Yet it has an honourable ancestry. St. Francis of Assisi revered poverty as his bride, with holy fervor and pious rapture. The poverty of the disaffiliate is not to be confused with the poverty of indigence, intemperance, improvidence or failure. It is simply that the goods and services he has to offer are not valued at a high price in our society. As one beat generation writer said to the square who offered him an advertising job: 'I'll scrub your floors and carry out your slops to make a living, but I will not lie for you, pimp for you, stool for you or rat for you.' It is not the poverty of the ill-tempered and embittered, those who wooed the bitch goddess Success with panting breath and came away rebuffed. It is an independent, voluntary poverty.
So the hipster, or the beat, had a cool and detached attitude to the frenzy of the striving for success in mainstream society.
"Beatniks" were groupies or wannabes. The word was coined by a journalist by analogy with "sputnik" — beatniks were those who were in orbit around the beat movement, but were not central to it.
By the late sixties "hipster" had got shortened to "hippie", and while the hippies were successors to the beats as a countercultural movement, they were a little less cool. To be "cool" suggested being detached, laid back, not excited by the constant changes of fashion and the striving for success. It was the role of a passive and cynical observer.
Hippies were more active, and more positive in trying not merely to disaffiliate from mainstream culture, but to try to create an alternative to it, an alternative culture and an alternative society.
But the impression I got from the article that sparked off this post is that the writer was using "hipster" in an entirely different sense, to mean something almost opposite from what it meant in the 1950s and 1950s.
I wondered how widespread that usage is — can anyone explain the writer's usage, and do they share that understanding of the word today, and how did it get to mean almost the opposite of what it meant 50 years ago? "Cool" seems to have changed its meaning a lot in the last 50 years, so I wonder if "hipster" has likewise changed, so that it no means nearly the opposite of what it did back then.
I watch "Top Gear" on TV, and there they discuss what constitutes a "cool" car, and it is clear that their idea of "cool" is very different from mine. My 1961 Peugeot station wagon, with rusty door panels and empty cold-drink cans rolling around on the floor, bought cheap from an open air used car lot where a rickety wooden shack was the "office", bought on the "zero maintenance" plan, was my idea of a "cool" car, but I doubt very much if the "Top Gear" people are using "cool" in that sense.
Another thing that illustrates the change in the meaning of words like "cool" is Levis jeans. They were cool back then and they are regarded as cool now, for entirely different reasons, and for entirely different values of "cool". When I bought my first pair of Levis there was only one shop in Johannesburg that sold them, imported them from the USA. It was not advertised and nor were Levis. You learnt about it by word of mouth. It was also a decidedly unfashionable shop in a decidedly unfashionable part of town, Jeppestown, which seems to have escaped the gentrification that has transformed other run-down suburbs. Levis were the opposite of fashionable, tough working clothes that one bought a couple of sizes too big because they would shrink to fit. No one with any fashion sense would be seen dead in Levis. How have the mighty fallen!
But the guy whose death was described in the article in question sounded anything but "hip" to me, the very opposite of "hip", in fact. So I still wonder what the writer meant by "hipster", and whether other people understand "hipster" in the same way, and can explain what they mean by it.
To get back to PBR briefly, the Urban Dictionary defines it as:
abbreviation for pabst blue ribbon beer, which is simultaneously the best and worst beer ever brewed. it is typically on special at bars for twelve cents a pint. also doubles as a laxative.
Pabst Blue Ribbon is a lot like the band Bright Eyes,
Hipsters love it, but everyone else thinks its liquid shit.
Hipsters again. It's got to mean something in Wisconsin that is different from what it means in the rest of the world… or does it?
Perhaps I should retreat into the past, to when I was a wannabe hipster, and a wannabe beatnik (and if a beatnik is a wannabe beat, then a wannabe beatnik is a wannabe wannabe). My twenty-year-old self went to visit Brother Roger, an Anglican monk of the Community of the Resurrection, whom I regarded as the authority on all things hip and cool (he lent me books by Jack Kerouac, and the Lipton book I quoted above, and many others besides). So I wrote in my diary for 23 June 1961
… later went to see Brother Roger. There he sat, outside the priory in jeans and sweatshirt, on the library steps, luxuriating in the sun studying Lipton's Holy Barbarians . Studying, yes, truly it is the text book, and he said that he had a book by Clellon Holmes, The horn , about a jazz man, and he says it in that zestful rapturous way of his, which makes me think he gets the utter limit of enjoyment out of everything he does. "It's wonderful," he says, "simply wonderful." And when he says it you know he really means it. He told me about what he is going to say at Modderpoort, and he isn't giving them Bloy this year, but Jean somebody. The Observer calls him the poet of evil, who has spent half his life in jail, and is something of a misanthropist and hates society, patron saint of the Beats. He gave me a play for the AYPA, by Charles Williams, called House of the octopus , and there was a boy there called Abel, a black boy studying for his matric, and says he is a cat and loves jazz, and Bach, and plays a clarinet which got broken. So I talked a bit to Abel and found he lives in Orlando where he goes to AYPA meetings and is staying at the priory during the vac to study. He is a nice cat, a hip spade cat.
The AYPA was the Anglican Young Peoples Association, a youth organisation with branches in various parishes. Modderpoort was the venue of the annual conference of the Anglican Students Federation, where Brother Roger was going to read his paper about the Jean somebody, who was actually Jean Genet (that was the first time I'd ever heard of him), and you can read his paper, Pilgrims of the Absolute , here.
Yes, I've written about this stuff before, sorry if anyone was bored, but I suppose those who have seen it all before wouldn't have got this far anyway.
Posted in books, English usage, Language, literature, Namibia and tagged beat generation, books and literature, cool, counterculture, hippies, hipster, hipsters, language, PBR, society and culture, usage
Recent reading: The Arthurian handbook
The Arthurian Handbook by Norris J. Lacy
The stories of King Arthur are among the most enduring legends in English literature, not to mention French, German and other literatures as well. As the authors note in the preface to the second edition, "in the period 1990-95, and in English alone, well over eighty Arthurian novels and even more short stories were published, and the flood shows no signs of abating."
The authors do not claim to be able to record every title in this flood; to do so would be to make the book nothing more than a bibliography. They concentrate on the more important and significant works.
But the point of such a book is that one is quite likely to come across references or allusions to the Arthurian legend in books that one reads, and so some familiarity with the main features of the legend are useful, and this is what this book provides. It has chronologies of the main works published, including non-literary works, like painting, sculpture, film and more. If gives family trees of Arthur (all different) from the major works. And it gives a brief description of the various works that convey the Arthurian story. At the end there is a glossary, giving the names and roles of the main characters, and their various forms, and the way they are portrayed in various works.
I've read about the Arthurian legend in several books, and allusions to it in several others. One is C.S. Lewis's That hideous strength. The Arthurian element is obvious in the case of Merlin, but for a long time "Mr Fisher-King" quite escaped me.
I tried reading Malory and Tennyson's versions, but found it difficult to see the wood for the trees. This book helps one to follow the thread through the longer works, and also points out some of the inconsistencies. Sir Kay is a villain, or at best a bumbling jobsworth in some versions of the story, but in others, as Sir Cai, he is a hero.
So I've found it a good read, and I'll be going back through it to make notes before I take in back to the library.
Posted in Uncategorized and tagged Arthurian legends, books and literature, King Arthur, reading | Leave a comment

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


I clearly remember how those old Calvin & Hobbes comics depict only Calvin's dad loving the great outdoors, while the rest of the family – mom, Calvin and Hobbes, absolutely hated it, and yet going off on a family camp seems to be an annual thing for the family. Most of the time, too, the weather remains foul until it is time to pack up and leave, and Calvin's dad always has a penchant of telling Calvin that what he is going through will help "build character". Having said that, camping is not easy to go through if you do not have the proper tools and knowledge, heck, even getting the traditional wood fire going could prove tricky, not to mention having to maintain it.
FIREase might have a tool to help budding campers out there with the IncinerGrate, where it will be able to make fire starting a snap, while maintenance of the fire, too, should not be too difficult. After all, it is hard to argue with FIREase's tagline, "We build fires that love to burn!" The IncinerGrate comes in a metal frame which enables you to assemble the perfect structure of tinder, kindling, and wood to kick off a fire.


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Hi Robin, in light of camera manufacturers releasing increasingly large and expensive cameras and lenses, do you think you'll still be calling your site "The Lightweight Photographer" in a few years? Or will that refer more to a mindset than actual equipment. I currently utilize m4/3 gear myself, but it seems like all the new releases are just as large, and in some cases more expensive than a DSLR option.
Love the photo for this entry.
When I starte the blog it was because I was so impresed by Micro 43 cameras. I had also been considering ways to lighten my camera pack, even considering just using one lens. Soon after I realised being lightweight could apply to all sorts of things photography such as the way we edit our images. I know what yo mean though about the equipment. It all seems to be converging and getting larger as well as more expensive. I don't think I will change the name but it will be a more general photography blog I suspect.
Great to hear that you found this helpful. I'm also pleased to hear you didn't break something. That glen is treacherous.
I was wondering if you are planning to replace the Olympus 12-40 and the Panasonic 45-150 with the newly released and highly praised Olympus 12-100? Also, what is the reason you chose the 9-18 over the 7-14?
Thank you for this article; it is a great help for me, as I am choosing a zoom in the range of 40-150mm in my venture away from FF towards m43. I have read reviews of the Panasonic 45-150mm and Olympus 40-150mm – their optical performance seems quite similar, and the Panasonic has better build quality. Do you have and experience of the Olympus lens? Given the current price difference between them (€150 for the Olympus vs €250 for the Panasonic), I am leaning towards the Olympus.
I had both at one point and sold the Olympus. The build quality wasn't good enough. Whilst the image quality was quite good on the Olympus I thought the Panasonic was better. At the time, both lenses were around the same price (£150). I think I would still go with the Panasonic at the additional cost. It has IS in the lens where the Olympus doesn't. This isn't a problem if you have an Olympus camera as the IS is in the body, but if you ever switch to a Panasonic body, you will need it in the lens. Hope this helps.
Keen to know what you would recommend now that we are heading for 2019.
I would probably still buy the same lenses. A good lens a few years back is still a good lens today. Also, I don't have any experience with newer Micro 43 lenses since I switched to shooting with Fuji. (I kept my Micro 43 lenses and cameras though).


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Q: InputStream ios works without a RunLoop I am writing an iOS app using InputStream and OutputStream. However, I find that I can both read and write from the streams without scheduling them in a RunLoop!
I here is my ThreadFunc. Notice that I have commented out all the runLoop code, but it still works!
@objc func threadFunc(){
    var dataToSend: Data?;

    print("Inside threadFunc loop!");

    //self.m_ReadStream?.schedule(in: RunLoop.current, forMode: RunLoopMode.commonModes );
    self.m_ReadStream!.open();

    //self.m_WriteStream?.schedule(in: RunLoop.current, forMode: RunLoopMode.commonModes );
    self.m_WriteStream!.open()

    var once = false;

    while( !m_Calcelled ){
        let wStat = self.m_WriteStream?.streamStatus;
        let rStat = self.m_ReadStream?.streamStatus;

        if( dataToSend == nil && self.m_Lock.lock(before: Date(timeIntervalSinceNow: 10 ) )){
            dataToSend = self.m_DataToSend; // Make local copy
            self.m_DataToSend = nil;
            self.m_Lock.unlock();
        }

        if( dataToSend != nil && wStat == .open ){
            let totalBytesSent = self.sendDataBlock( d:dataToSend! );
            if( totalBytesSent == dataToSend?.count ){
                print("successfully sent the packet.");
            }
        }
        //let untilDate: Date = Date(timeIntervalSinceNow: 5 );
        //print("SocketThread. Calling runLoop...");
        //RunLoop.current.run( mode: .defaultRunLoopMode, before: untilDate );
        //print("SocketThread is waiting for action....");
        //sleep(1);   // Sleep for 1 second...
    }
}

A: As the docs note:

Unless the client is polling the stream, it is responsible for ensuring that the stream is scheduled on at least one run loop and that at least one of the run loops on which the stream is scheduled is being run.

You're polling the stream. This isn't generally how streams are meant to be used, but since you are, it doesn't require a runloop.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


The fall semester has ended, and with it, the largest writing project of my life (so far). The function of a senior seminar in history is to prove that you've acquired the skills to read and analyze scholarly work, do research in primary and secondary sources, and develop your own historical argument-- one that contributes to a larger body of work. The final written product needed to be around the 6000-word ballpark; we had four months to become semi-experts on the subjects we were researching, enough time to hopefully learn enough that our own thesis could grow out of the discoveries we made while reading. We read.
For two months we read an array of articles from the Georgia Historical Quarterly, on various topics in Georgia history from the Civil War to the early 1970s. During this time, we were each seeking to become well-read in our respective areas of interest, often guided through the sources by our professor, Dr. David Parker. Then around the end of September, we stopped meeting to discuss articles and hypothetical topics and started using that class time to scour the archives, the library, and the research databases we'd used to much less extent in previous classes: we had to come up with a thesis and flesh it out into a contextual and well-argued history thesis by Dec. 7.
I had arrived in this class at the eleventh hour, signing up about two weeks before the start of fall semester-- and without one last prerequisite class I needed. And in fact it was quite surprising to some of my history major friends that I would end up in a Georgia History senior seminar after spending college studying Asia. But several weeks earlier, in mid-July, Dr. Parker and I had found a way to combine these two seemingly unrelated regions: Young John Allen.
Young J. Allen (yes, Young is his first name, not a kindly prefix) graduated from Emory College when it was just a newly-founded school in Oxford, Georgia, and spent his life as a Methodist missionary in Shanghai, China. He left the United States in Dec. 1859 and remained in the Far East until his death there in 1907. His manuscript collection as well as a large library of his own books reside at Emory University in Atlanta, deeming Allen the subject of a day's trek over to the archives at their Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library (MARBL). What started as a fun mini-project for my summer class (which I also took with Dr. Parker) would have to become my senior thesis topic; when else was I going to find a subject that would so perfectly blend documents in Georgia and three years' worth of my knowledge about Chinese culture, language, politics, and religion? Plus, I was raised Methodist, so I would get to know a little more about that history to boot.
What I would discover was much more than the life, failures, and triumphs of Young J. Allen and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South in China, but simply how enthralling it is to pour over documents that he poured over more than a century earlier. Call me a dork, or a call me a historian, but it felt utterly like touching history. Thankfully, he had somewhat legible handwriting, so I read what I could of his hand-written letters, journals, sermons, and notes for the books he wrote. It felt romantic in the way it seems when you read The Historian and follow a generation of historians across Cold War Europe in search of Vlad Tepes (the prince who inspired tales of Dracula) but also monotonous in the way that you feel work must inevitably be. The result is a happy medium, a wholly rewarding experience and with any luck, worthwhile when you sit down to write.
I found a man inspired by God, baffled by Confucius, and bound to pragmatism. The state of the young Methodist mission was sad when he arrived, and much as he tried to expand it, the American Civil War stole any hope of support or funding from abroad. Allen and his fellow missionary J. W. Lambuth spent nearly a decade working odd jobs to keep themselves afloat. Their families were present in Shanghai too; in fact, Allen had six children with his wife Mary Houston Allen, but only three survived past toddlerhood. By the time funding returned in any sense, Allen had made his own revelation about Chinese society. The non-receptive citizens he'd been preaching to had been anything but successful; but the young men he taught while working at a government school seemed just the type, the upper class families, who may have more influence in a hierarchical Confucian society. Maybe, he decided, reaching these people first and educating them in western subjects (including but not exclusively Christianity) could later influence more people through the top-down formation of their citizenship. These people would not only receive the accompanying western education that Allen considered paramount, but might have more success at reaching the laypeople with whom he'd become so disenchanted.
Allen spent the rest of his life working to varying degrees in education in Shanghai. The Anglo-Chinese College, Shanghai would eventually merge with two others to become Suzhou University in 1901, which had been one of his life's goals. He would also play his hand in journalism and publishing, using his Wan-kuo kung-pao magazine to propel a combination of world and national news, essays on religion, and attacks on Confucian lifestyle. He contributed many translations of tomes on politics and religion, including The Relations Between East and West that was popular among his colleagues and governmental gentry. He wrote several books of his own as well, including one that you can find on Google Books today (by the way, it's in Chinese!). While he did not abandon his evangelistic goals, he expanded those initial plans by adding his social missions to his ambitious strategy to win converts. He wound up somewhere in between fully accepting Confucian society and fully condemning it, and allowed students to learn about Christianity in a non-pressured way. At the end of the day, he saw both mental and spiritual parts of man to be significant.
My thesis touches on this and other aspects of what made Allen a combination of the two worlds of missionary work that grew out of that late nineteenth and early twentieth century, as Americans and other missionaries encountered reluctant natives in the field; a strong camp of traditional strictly evangelical missionaries would go forth alongside the newer social progress proponents. It wound up being around 8000 words (thirty pages double-spaced). I had an embarrassing number of library books checked out from mine and other university libraries across Georgia.
It was an incredible exercise in being a historian. Almost every person in my ten-student class ended up spending at least a few days in an archive somewhere in Georgia, from Emory to Koinonia Farm and in between. What any of these theses will become in the future remains to be seen, but I think we all felt like historians during those months. I am one of the only living experts on Young J. Allen, and I think that's pretty darn cool.


Guess what! For Valentine's Day, M&D got me my very own camera and ZuZu got another t.b. (ZuZu thinks I lost out)!
Anyway, we thought it would be fun to have a vote to see who you think captured the better photo, me or Daddy?! Let us know by commenting either "Hammie or Daddy"
For those wondering how I captured my photo, M&D set it on video mode and they helped to screen capture one of the images from the file.
So, what do you think? Vote by commenting, "Hammie or Daddy"!


This is Polly. She is a wild animal and an Amazon.
She is looking right at us.
These Wild Parrots scream louder than my Lily.
These two are yelling and twirling on the phone lines.
These are really wild parrots that decided to live in Southern California.
You have a big beak Polly.
While we were looking at these crazy kids.
We spotted a ??!!! WHAT!!!
We thought it was a butterfly. It's a bat!!
How about this little hairy beetle. Yuk, no more explorin.
We are going to take a snooze.
Nice nature hike and right in your neighborhood!
We like bats...Dad made a bat house and hung it up on a tall pole in the garden. Then a woodpecker came along and tore it all apart!
You two see some of the most aMAYzing thingys on your walkies.
WOW! Wild parrots?! We don't having like that on our telephone poles. Usually just mourning doves or, the worst, TREE RATS.
Wow, you live in a regular safari there! Nothing colorful like that around here, although lately it FEELS like a tropical rainforest. If the heat & humidity don't knock it off soon, I do think parrots might migrate here!
I saw that documentary about the parrots. Your walks look so fun being able to see so much nature.
Those parrots have us surrounded. I posted about them a while ago, but I loved your take on it.
We don't like bats! We'll take Pollies over bats any day of the week!
Lots of interesting creatures today!
WOW, that is so cool. I never knew you had parrots in SO. Cal. and bats in the day time.. yikes, I would worry about that in New England.. We had a bat once laying on the bathroom floor and we all had to get rabies shots. It is a crazy story, but true!
Living in England, we find it amazing you can see wild parrots where you are, how wonderful and how lucky you are!
Those parrots look very tasty...err..I mean pretty.
ArrrG! Grandmomma has tons of these around her house. They hang out in the trees and squawk and harasses our cousins. They're so loud, but pretty too.
We have some wild parrots here too, they love our hot weather! We do NOT see bats, mom would scream!
They look beautiful, but noisy too.
We sometimes get colourful birdies here.
I try to chase them but i am too slow!
Those are pretty birds. Did you try to eat that bug?


text:
The Alyssa Trahan
Zodiac Paintings
Books (Author Page)
The Zodiac Signs
Why I Love Aquarius
By Alyssa Trahan | Aquarius, Self Love
Aquarius, you are the Master. On the Zodiac wheel, you come after Capricorn (AKA the power-seeking sign). Therefore you hold the power that Capricorn built, but instead of hoarding said power, you redistribute it to those without. Basically, you are the Democratic Socialist of the Zodiac. You are the "Water Bearer": The man or woman who leaves the first world,...
Why I Love Libra
By Alyssa Trahan | Libra, Self Love
Before I begin, I contemplated asking someone else to write this piece for me. As a Libra, explaining to everyone why I love myself, reminds me too much of my everyday life. Why do you look in the mirror? You must be vain. Why do you take selfies? You must be desperate for attention. Why do you care so much...
Why I Love Gemini
By Alyssa Trahan | Gemini, Self Love
Everyone has a Gemini in their life that they love. That's what being a Gemini is all about. Taking love and sharing love and spreading love everywhere with your big smile and run on sentences… Whether you are the very talkative Gemini or the unusually quiet, self-talking Gemini — you are loved. As your sign naturally rules over the 3rd...
Why I Love Pisces
By Alyssa Trahan | Pisces, Self Love
This is what I love about Pisces. I love Pisces because — wait, you already know what I'm going to say. After all, you are psychics of the Zodiac, right? You've actually dreamt about this exact scenario two weeks ago. But I was an owl and you were a mermaid and it took place in the Pacific ocean, and your...
Why I Love Scorpio
By Alyssa Trahan | Scorpio, Self Love
Hello Scorpio. Fancy seeing you here so early. You are, after all, the main event, and I'm only halfway through the Zodiac. Before the rest of the signs get all angry at me for this—wait, never mind. Get angry, I don't care. You all know it's true. Everyone is interested in Scorpio. I have made hundreds of videos on each...
Why I Love Cancer
By Alyssa Trahan | Cancer, Self Love
When it comes to the Zodiac, there is only one Sign I don't feel awkward about expressing my loving feelings for, and that Sign is Cancer. You can say you love, but can you actually feel that love? This truth is what the Cancer people in my life, have taught me to understand. Cancer is the 4th sign, ruler of...
Why I Love Capricorn
By Alyssa Trahan | Capricorn, Self Love
Capricorn, you are not only the most powerful, hard-working Zodiac sign, you are also the most interesting—and that is an unequivocal fact. The only people who won't agree with this statement, just don't "get" you. And that is their fault, not yours. You're funny, but a lot of your jokes are too intelligent, so they go over people's heads. You're...
Why I Love Virgo
By Alyssa Trahan | Self Love, Virgo
Virgo's are notoriously the hardest to please of all the Zodiac signs. So to be honest, I'm a little nervous about writing you a love letter—you may never see how much I actually love you, when you're tearing apart my grammar and questioning my intent—and Virgo, that is partly why you are so great, but there is more. So I've...
Why I Love Sagittarius
By Alyssa Trahan | Sagittarius, Self Love
I love you Sagittarius, and to prove my love, I would like to share a secret: if I could be any sign in the Zodiac, I would be you. Sagittarius, you have no equal. You are where otherworldly intelligence, open-mindedness, quick humor, and spirituality collide. You should be considered a perfectly engineered cyborg, yet they call you a human. I...
Why I Love Leo
By Alyssa Trahan | Leo, Self Love
Leo, you are the Lion King.The head of the Zodiac's Royal Family. Every part of you is to be admired, hell, even your hair has it's own fan club. I don't think you need more of an introduction, so let's just start. You are ruled by the Sun, so you are the center of the Zodiac. Every other planet in the Solar System,...
Why I Love Taurus
By Alyssa Trahan | Self Love, Taurus
In my experience, Taurus is the most underappreciated sign, and I would like to change that today, by writing all of the reasons why I love you. Taurus, you are ruled by Venus, the planet of love and beauty, so it should be no surprise that this beauty is passed to your features, creating a softness and a charming, attractive...
Why I Love Aries
By Alyssa Trahan | Aries, Self Love
Aries is the first, or youngest sign of the Zodiac. You represent the head of the Astrological body, basically controlling every other sign. You say, "Walk," and the Sagittarius (Thighs), Capricorns (Knees), Aquarians (Ankles) and Pisces (Feet) start working together to make that happen. You say, "Look over there!" and Taurus (Neck) has no choice but to position you. You...
Your Zodiac Sign's Love Language
By Alyssa Trahan | Astrology, Communication, Love & Relationships, Signs
the 5 love languages There are many different ways that human beings love, and it's often these differences that destroy us in relationships, and by our own families. According to author Gary Chapman (and what has become a phenomenon over the years), there are Five (5) main love languages, and everyone has at least one of these, as their main love style. The Love...
The Signs in the 10th House (Midheaven)
By Alyssa Trahan | 10th House, Aquarius, Aries, Astrology, Cancer, Capricorn, Career, Gemini, Houses, Leo, Libra, Midheaven, Pisces, Sagittarius, Scorpio, Signs, Taurus, Virgo
The Tenth House, AKA the glorious Midheaven of everyone's fame dreams. Click Here for the Introduction to the 10th House/Midheaven Click Here for Planets in the 10th House/Midheaven. Find your…
Patreon Ascension
Website Design & Artwork. All Rights Reserved.
Layout, Design & Photography: Alyssa Trahan
© 2020 The Alyssa Trahan. © Alyssa Trahan. All Rights Reserved.


The Karma Sound studio facility sits high in the establishment of brilliant Thailand Recording Studios. A luxury residential retreat only a short drive south of Bangkok in the Chonburi province, Karma offers a world class studio and accommodation, all of which is found in a paradise Thai location.
Karma Sound is owned by Chris Craker, who has been a prominent force in the music industry for over 25 years working as a record producer, label boss, musician and industry commentator amongst many other things. Chris has set about providing the most creatively stimulating and enjoyable setting to make music in. Karma's two studios – a large SSL room with great live spaces, and a highly spec'd production suite – are supplemented by first class hospitality and catering, as well as a swimming pool, gym, bar, massage room, outdoor live performance area, private tropical gardens and a beautiful nearby beach. The studio's fantastic reputation is growing fast, with recent clients including Placebo, Jamiroquai, Bullet for My Valentine, Enter Shikari and Young Guns all highly praising the Karma Sound experience.
Karma Sound is without doubt one of the very best recording studios Thailand has to offer, consisting of two exceptional rooms. Studio 1 has 1000 square meters of fantastic sounding recording space, divided between a main live area, 3 isolation areas and a large vocal booth. Its combination of stone, wool and wooden walls has been meticulously designed to provide a wide variety and choice of excellent acoustics. Studio 1's control room is built around a SSL 4056 E/G+ console that used to belong to UB40. It boasts a good selection of outboard and powerful monitoring.
The smaller Studio 2 has been built for writing, overdubbing, mixing/mastering and lesser scale tracking projects. It has a great sound for recording guitars and vocals, and benefits from access to a large amount of microphones, and vintage and modern outboard equipment.
In the adjoining building is the Karma residential. Modern, chic, light and spacious, this luxury home consists of 6 bedrooms, five of which are doubles with one single. Most of the rooms have private balconies overlooking the pool and gardens. An al fresco, poolside dining and BBQ area is the ideal evening hang out spot, and it can even double up as an outdoor gig space and video shoot location.
Only a few minutes away is Bang Saray– the quintessential Thai beach blessed by turquoise waters, beautiful sand, palm trees and an immensely relaxing tropical atmosphere. What's more, this amazing residential recording experience comes at unbelievable value at only £35 per person per night for both accommodation and catering, on top of the studio rate.
Find out everything you need to know about Karma Sound Studios, Thailand at www.miloco.co.uk/karmasound.


I put out a idea on this UK stock back in January, 2017 suggesting shorting it at 302 and since then it went a lot lower. Recently it has been showing some signs of life to the upside and I am now suggesting this as a possible bullish count. The major problem I have with this count is that b wave in the correction is very short indeed.
After what might have been an extended wave 5 BT could expect a protracted fall to around the level of wave 4 of the climb up. The massive drop of 25/01/17 may be the start of an accelerated decline in a wave 3.


text:
Sports betting rules for Deadwood receive approval from South Dakota's gaming commission
Applicants for a license will need to pay $5,000, and employees won't be allowed to place wagers with machines owned by their employer. South Dakota's legislature passed a law paving the way for legalized sports wagering in Deadwood, after nearly 60% of voters approved the gaming last November. The law takes effect July 1.
Deadwood, South Dakota has held legalized gambling since 1989. (Matt Gade / Mitchell Republic)
PIERRE, S.D. — The first-ever legalized sports betting season in Deadwood, S.D., kicks off this summer, and regulations are coming forward.
On Tuesday, May 18, the South Dakota Commission on Gaming approved new rules for casinos to operate sports wagering games in the northern Black Hills town, months after the state enacted legislation legalizing sports betting in the town's limits.
Last November, 58% of South Dakotan voters supported adding sports betting to the suite of gambling options already approved for play and taxation in Deadwood, including poker, slots and blackjack.
The legislature beat back other attempts to expand sports gambling statewide, including one bill that sought to legalize betting at kiosks at bars or restaurants anywhere within the state, so long as they were digitally tethered to a server based in Deadwood.
According to the initiated measure approved by voters, sports betting was to be legalized "within the city limits of Deadwood," with net municipal proceeds funneled to the city's historic upkeep fund.
Commissioners on Tuesday approved a list of over a dozen rules, including requiring a $5,000 fee for applying for a license and banning employees from placing bets on machines owned by their employer.
The package of regulations was received with unanimous approval. They will go to approval to a rules committee in early June before being registered with the Secretary of State's office.
Roger Tellinghuisen, a lobbyist for the Deadwood Gaming Association , did ask for clarification on excise taxes, which the commission agreed to.
While the sports betting law takes effect on July 1, it is expected to be a few months before people can place bets.
"We're on track to get sports wagering up and rolling as quickly as we can," said Mike Shaw, attorney with the commission.
The commission will begin accepting applications for licenses beginning on Friday, May 20.
Related Topics: GOVERNMENT AND POLITICSSOUTH DAKOTAGOVERNMENT AND POLITICSELECTION 2022
Lake Andes Resource Center looks ahead after fire destroyed 'priceless' tribal history, paused vital services
As leaders of the NAWHERC scramble to resume operations, they're beginning to realize the true extent of what a "total loss" meant.
By Hunter Dunteman
SD returns millions in unused housing assistance funds to federal government
Official: Money returned because Congress gave too much, less rental assistance was needed
Here is what Gov. Noem, Rep. Johnson and Sen. Thune had to say about the vaccine mandate ruling
Johnson, of Mitchell, called the Supreme Court decision "a win for federalism and individual freedoms"
By Luke Hagen
Mitchell Technical College again in the running for $1M Aspen Prize
School among 150 across the country eligible for competition
By Erik Kaufman


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You are here: Home / FEATURED AUTHORS / Rise of the "Third Umpire" in the Shipping Industry
Rise of the "Third Umpire" in the Shipping Industry
July 12, 2015 by Officer of the Watch Leave a Comment
To understand the significance of a third umpire in the shipping industry one must first understand what brought about the advent of the third umpire in games such as cricket, tennis, rugby, soccer, etc. In the game of cricket there usually were two umpires on the field who make decisions on the game as it progresses.
Whatever decision the two umpires made was final and usually unchallenged even if they were considered controversial by the players or spectators. This however changed with the appearance of video cameras and television, i.e. advanced technology, which at the time made it possible to replay the game instantly on a screen, especially when a decision needed to be made. A third umpire now sitting outside the field with access to television monitors could easily review the game, if required in slow motion, at various angles, and give a much more accurate decision especially when umpires on the field were unsure or made the incorrect decision. The third umpire in cricket was first officially introduced in 1992 and his decision is now considered final.
Classification societies have played a major role in shaping the shipping industry and they have for decades played an incredible role of setting and maintaining the standards at the highest level. The classification societies are so deeply ingrained in the DNA of the industry that for every ship they set technical rules, confirm that designs and calculations meet these rules, survey ships and structures during the process of construction and commissioning, and periodically survey vessels to ensure that they continue to meet the rules until the end of their life. Simply put, without class certification the vessel cannot be deployed for business.
Although there has always been competition between classification societies, as a group they have enjoyed the unchallenged respect of ship owners. The reason for this is – for solutions to problems, answers to questions, advice and for almost everything else, the first place the ship owner turned to, is class. As a result the classification societies developed not only excellent classification and certification services but also in many cases extensive consultancy expertise. They developed a reputation of being objective and logical, with a glowing aura of being fair, unbiased and impartial. With authorisation to inspect ships, oil rigs, etc. and issue certificates on behalf of the state under whose flag the vessels are registered they evolved to be in many ways the undisputed 'guardians of the industry'.
Lately however classification societies have realised that it is increasingly lucrative to have other revenue streams besides their core area of ship classification and certification. This has meant subtly promoting their consultancy business and developing advisory business streams in areas such as energy efficiency, fuel saving, operational optimisation, new ship design, etc.
Now this brings us to the earlier question as to how the third umpire is relevant in the shipping Industry. In the game of cricket the third umpire monitors the game just as closely as the two other umpires on the field. The advantage the third umpire has is the access to tools that make the decisions more accurate and therefore less controversial.
With classification societies appearing to be chasing other business streams for revenue, ship owners no longer seem to have the confidence and devotion they once had. They are now looking at alternate sources to find answers to their questions, solutions to their problems and general advice. The latest technology has given much smaller companies the capability to offer these services in their own specialist areas. These companies have developed tools specifically to help ship owners who are either sceptical of the advice offered by classification societies or find their extended services controversial. There is now an increasing trend and in fact several cases of ship owners opting for such boutique companies over well-established classification societies for the services and assistance they seek.
For instance, companies that specialise in performance management are increasingly approached by ship owners as first choice to measure or monitor performance which in the past would have almost automatically fallen into the lap of classification societies. Niche companies with their more accurate tools and capabilities are now called upon to play the role of the third umpire in the industry. Such companies are now frequently contracted for projects such as measuring the impact of energy saving devices retrofitted, paints applied or modifications made. In most instances they partake as independent entities between a ship owner and supplier with their findings being accepted as accurate and impartial. What is quite striking is ship owners have not limited themselves there, they now have also started engaging white shoe consultancy firms from outside the shipping industry, virtually unheard of earlier.
Unfortunately does this mean that classification societies after enjoying nearly a century of reverence and loyalty are slowly being relegated to play second fiddle, just as the two umpires who despite new technology are still required to be on the cricket field. In their core area of classification and certification their reputation for being technically objective and logical will probably continue, however no matter how deep we bury our heads in the sand, to the ship owner what clearly appears to be fading is the earlier unquestioned aura of being fair, unbiased and impartial.
Can the rise of the third umpire in shipping then be considered as perhaps the industry's own subtle way of 'police-ing' the so called guardians of the shipping industry?
Capt. Melvin Mathews is an MBA graduate and Ex-Master Mariner with over 20 years of experience in the Maritime Industry previously serving as a Captain on vessels ranging from coastal ships to VLCC's. He is an Associate Fellow of the Nautical Institute and a member of IMarEST. He has extensive business and consultancy experience and shouldered Risk-assessment and Risk-management initiatives at a senior level. Melvin is a certified nautical lecturer and has been involved in Maritime & Competency training. He is presently the Director of Regulatory and Environmental Solutions at Eniram.
ABOUT ENIRAM
Established in 2005, Eniram provides the maritime industry with energy management technology to reduce fuel consumption and emissions. Created by experienced seafarers and technologists, Eniram's solutions range from single onboard applications to comprehensive fleet analysis. Eniram is headquartered in Helsinki, Finland and has subsidiaries in the UK, the USA, Germany and Singapore. www.eniram.fi
Filed Under: FEATURED AUTHORS Tagged With: Classification Societies, Technical, Vessel Performance Manager
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text:
Cook CEO to Toomey: MDT will drive our device business overseas
"The straw that broke the camel???s back."
Neil W. McCabe
The Keystone State senator, who for many years ran a small restaurant with his brothers, drew out from Steve Ferguson, the chairman of Cook Medical, a discussion about the damage President Barack Obama???s medical device tax has on his company during a Feb. 26 hearing of the Senate Budget Committee.
???Am I right in understanding that because of the medical device tax and if it stays in effect, you will forgo expanding production in the United States of medical device manufacturing???? said Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.), who in addition to helping to operate the restaurant in Allentown, Pa., had a successful Wall Street career.
Examples of aortic intervention devices produced by Cook Medical (Courtesy)
???Yes, our future growth will have to be in Denmark or Australia,??? the Cook chairman said. Cook Medical is a family-owned medical device company based in Bloomington, Ind., with more than 10,000 employees.
The medical device tax is a 2.3 percent levy on sales including in the president???s landmark 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The levy is unique because it does tax profits, as is the case with other corporate taxes.
In the case of a company with $1 million in device sales, it would owe $23,000 for the MDT. If the company made a profit of $100,000, before deductions it would owe another $35,000 in corporate income taxes giving this relatively small company a tax rate of 63 percent. That 63 percent rate would come down with deductions, but the deductions apply only to the corporate income tax, not the MDT.
Toomey said, ???There is a bipartisan concern that this is a really egregiously badly-designed tax. That happens to be my view in part because it applies to sales, irrespective of whether a company is making any money.???
The senator, who was once the president of the Club for Growth, pressed Ferguson: ???So this medical device tax, in your view, is this a pretty direct incentive to go overseas, go offshore, create jobs somewhere else????
Ferguson said the MDT is a major burden to his company.
???When combined with other issues the answer is 'yes' and this is sort of the straw that broke the camel???s back,??? he said.
???But the other thing is that it falls directly on R & D because when you look at the size of this type of tax and it???s an expense and knowing places you got other employees or R & D or you got to go look for cost savings someplace else,??? he said.
Obama has failed to fill key government watchdog posts
Chuck Hagel Confirmed as Secretary of Defense
Written By Neil W. McCabe
Neil W. McCabe is the editor of HE's "Guns & Patriots" e-letter and was a senior reporter at the Human Events newspaper. McCabe deployed with the Army Reserve to Iraq for 15 months as a combat historian. For many years, he was a reporter and photographer for "The Pilot," Boston's Catholic paper. He was also the editor of the free community papers "The Somerville (Mass.) News and "The Alewife (North Cambridge, Mass.)." Email him: neilwmccabe@gmail.com Follow him on Twitter: @neilwmccabe.
Calls to "Rein In" the Media Latest Form of "Newspeak"
Facebook and Twitter Are Not Local Bakeries.


text:
Q: Git bash não aceita o comando colar Gostaria de saber por que o git bash não aceita o comando ctrl+V. Toda vez que tenho que clonar um repositório no github tenho que digitar toda a url!

A: Comandos como Ctrl+c e Ctrl+v no bash não correspondem a copiar e colar respectivamente.
Para ambiente Windows, as opções abaixo funcionam:

*

*Experimente clicando com o botão direito do mouse, assim:

*

*Ou também poderá usar o botão do meio do mouse (opção sugerida por lazyFox).

Obs.: Já trabalhei em outras versões do bash, onde clicando com o botão no ícone do canto superior, era exibida uma opção para colar também. Testei aqui a opção Shift + Insert (citada na resposta do LINQ) funcionou também.

A: No Git Bash (e em vários outros softwares) Shift + Insert cola o texto que estiver na área de transferência.

A: Para alguns, como eu, que o teclado não tem a tecla Insert, tem um outro atalho de teclado para o Git Bash que permite copiar e colar.
Basta seguir os passos:

*

*Clicar com o botão direito e clicar em "Options..."

*Selecionar o menu Keys e desmarcar a opção "Copy and Paste" (como está ilustrado na figura abaixo)

*Clicar em "Apply" e depois em "Save".
Depois de fazer essa configuração basta usar o comando Ctrl+Shift+C para copiar e Ctrl+Shift+V para colar.

A: No git (versão 2.21-64bit-ambiente windows 7) - eu simplesmete apertei o botão Insert e ele colou todo o caminho do diretorio que copiei.
Vlw. Espero que ajude.


text:
<?php

namespace Emarref\Jwt\Signature;

use Emarref\Jwt\Encoding\EncoderInterface;
use Emarref\Jwt\Encryption\EncryptionInterface;
use Emarref\Jwt\HeaderParameter\Algorithm;
use Emarref\Jwt\Token;

class Jws implements SignerInterface
{
    /**
     * @var EncryptionInterface
     */
    private $encryption;

    /**
     * @var EncoderInterface
     */
    private $encoder;

    public function __construct(EncryptionInterface $encryption, EncoderInterface $encoder)
    {
        $this->encryption = $encryption;
        $this->encoder    = $encoder;
    }

    public function getUnsignedValue(Token $token)
    {
        $jsonHeader    = $token->getHeader()->getParameters()->jsonSerialize();
        $encodedHeader = $this->encoder->encode($jsonHeader);

        $jsonPayload    = $token->getPayload()->getClaims()->jsonSerialize();
        $encodedPayload = $this->encoder->encode($jsonPayload);

        return sprintf('%s.%s', $encodedHeader, $encodedPayload);
    }

    public function sign(Token $token)
    {
        $token->addHeader(new Algorithm($this->encryption->getAlgorithmName()));

        $rawSignature = $this->getUnsignedValue($token);

        $signature = $this->encryption->encrypt($rawSignature);

        $token->setSignature($signature);
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Showing results for tags 'jw dress rules'.
Source: jw.org/en/publications/magazines/watchtower-study-july-2018/we-belong-to-jehovah/ So having nice hair and a good outfit is apparently bad? I see people dress like this at the convention all the time lol Wild colored socks. Anthony Morris III actually wasn't saying thereÂ's anything wrong with that. He said that sock color was a matter of taste, and that he thought some of these young brothers with brightly colored socks were demonstrating poor taste, but it wasnÂ't immodest. - Anthony Morris III - Governing Body member speaking at the US Branch Visit on November 8, 2014 Tight Pants (tight pants on the young brothers who the worldly gay designers are drooling over at 27:35) "…and the other one that needs addressing is for these young fellows, cause the older ones arenÂ't doing much of it, thankfully, uhhh, itÂ's the metrosexual look. WeÂ've addressed that in the past, weÂ've said things about it, but whatÂ's happened now has really caught on more. Now the metrosexual look, thatÂ's the tight suit jacket and the tight pants, better known as 'tight pantsÂ'. (laughter) And, uh, they are tight, I mean tight all the way down to the ankles. And, that is not modest brothers. No. ItÂ's not appropriate. ItÂ's not sound of mind. And I was proud of one Circuit Overseer who told me this past summer at one of the Intl. Conventions, 'cuz he brought it up, one of these fellows, he shows up for his Circuit OverseerÂ's visit and wants to go out in the ministry work with him, door-to-door, heÂ's wearing 'tight pantsÂ'. And the Circuit Overseer was man enough, spiritual man enough to say, 'No. IÂ'm not going door-to-door with you. Not with that dress on. Inappropriate.' So a lot to think about and you elders out there listening in, and be kind now, we always want to try to imitate Christ Jesus. You be spiritual man enough to tell these young fellows 'You donÂ't go out in the ministry looking like that. Not in this organization.' And frankly I have asked sister after sister, 'You know, what do you think of this? Do you find that appealing, attractive? You know, IÂ'm just curious, 'cause IÂ'm not a woman. Ahhh.Â' (laughter) And you know what, IÂ've not found one yet that thought they look good. (Garbled, poor audio quality for a couple seconds.) And this is a fact, the homosexuals that are designing these clothes, they like you in tight pants. (Huge laughter) Not, spiritual people. So, itÂ's something to consider for Christian grooming. Is it appropriate? Is it modest? Does it display soundness of mind? If not, do something about it." - Anthony Morris III - Governing Body member speaking at the US Branch Visit on November 8, 2014 Spanx "…what it is is this Spanx, this skin-tight stuff they wear. Now, are you sisters wearing this in the ministry? No. I canÂ't say that IÂ've ever seen that. But when they exercise, they leave their home and theyÂ're jogging in this stuff? Look at the verse. Is that appropriate to wear skin-tight Spanx or whatever they call them? ItÂ's not modest and itÂ's certainly not sound of mind. ItÂ's really inappropriate. ThereÂ's nothing else to say about it. Now you want to be in your home or your room and wear that stuff, thatÂ's your business. But donÂ't go out in public like that and say you worship the True God. 'IÂ'm just trying to stay in shapeÂ'. (laughter) Inappropriate." - Anthony Morris III - Governing Body member speaking at the US Branch Visit on November 8, 2014 See also: Did I miss anything important?
I remember in the 1960's and 1970's when some Kingdom Halls had a closet with white dress shirts, and visiting speakers would NOT BE ALLOWED to give their talks if they were "inappropriately dressed". I was called off the platform during a Ministry School assignment because I had a blue shirt under my suit coat, and chastised because I had a mustache. When Jesus was teaching in the Synagogue, did he have to conform to the dress code of Rabbis, and the sideburns never trimmed, and the long Long, LONG beards they had, in order to be allowed to teach from the "platform"? I hope someone out there knows Jewish "rules' and customs about "dress codes" in Jesus' time ... he was referred to as "Rabbi".


text:
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------
// <copyright file="OutputInfo.cs">
// Copyright © Ladislau Molnar. All rights reserved.
// </copyright>
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------

namespace BitcoinDatabaseGeneratorIntegrationTest.Helpers
{
    public class OutputInfo
    {
        public OutputInfo(decimal outputValueSatoshi)
        {
            this.OutputValueSatoshi = outputValueSatoshi;
        }

        public decimal OutputValueSatoshi { get; set; }
    }
}


Johannes Kreidler is documenting a vast assortment of graphic music scores on his http://www.kulturtechno.de/ This is an important catalog for all interested in finding a different voice in compositional construction.
Many of these scores, I have not been exposed to and I have been sharing them with others from his postings. This is great work and a unique service and gesture to all of us interested in our unique path of musical endeavors.
Don't miss his music either. He is a disruptively, radical thinker. He has a game changing mind set which is evocative and essential.


KYOSHO LAZER ZX-5 INSTRUCTION MANUAL Pdf Download.
View and Download Kyosho Lazer ZX-5 instruction manual online. 1:10 Scale Radio Controlled Electric Powered 4WD Racing Buggy. Lazer ZX-5 Toy pdf manual download.


Becoming an au pair in Great Britain certainly sounds great. It makes you think of a holiday with free board and lodging in return for a helping hand to your host family. However, these kind of placement offers are rare. Those who wish to brush up their English and do not limit their search for a host family to Great Britain only, have good chances.
"I would like to be a summer au pair in England. What is the best way for me?" Ann-Kristin Schell, director of the AuPairWorld translation team is well acquainted with such an enquiry. As a long-standing member of the support department, she has frequently replied by phone or email to this question from users from all over the world. Her tip: If you do not only focus on big cities, you will have better chances. Therefore, please add the rural areas to your search as well! Furthermore, do not be too limited in your choice of the number and age of the children."
Background information: Great Britain is crawling with long-term au pairs rendering it even more difficult for summer au pairs to find a host family there. According to our internal statistics, the number of summer au pairs in comparison to the host families was 14:1 in 2010. However, looking at Ireland, the situation is much better with good chances of finding a job as a summer au pair. Here are some more suggestions from Ann-Kristin for all those you would like to refresh their English as a foreign language, and are flexible concerning the choice of their host country: "English is not only spoken in Great Britain and Ireland, but also in the Scandinavian countries."
All those who plan to become a summer au pair in Australia or New Zealand should reconsider their destination choice or duration of stay. The Working Holiday Visa for these countries is only valid once in a lifetime. So you really ought to reconsider using it for only a few months! Besides the travel costs, au pairs also need to have funds of about 5,000 AUD or at least 4,200 NZD.
Thus the question arises: Is it really worth to take on such costs for a relatively short stay? Generally the following applies for au pair placements: The chances of those who do not search for a one-month-placement, but four months or more, will have a much greater opportunity.
* Note: The article has been revised here. In a previous version, we pointed out that young people planning to become a summer au pair would not have much of a chance in the USA. In the meantime, we have asked well-directed questions. Some of the designated agencies as well as the US Diplomatic Mission to Germany have confirmed that the summer au pair programme was cancelled in autumn 2009.


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All documents we prepare are written by our experts on the medical scientific evaluation. These documents fully comply with the ICH GCP standard and with the requirements of FDA, EMEA, the Russian Ministry of Health and Social Development, and the Scientific Center for Expert Evaluation of Medicinal Products at the Russian Ministry of Health and Social Development. Scientific documents we prepare can be used both for the studies conducted by us, and for the projects run on your own.
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When registering a medicinal product or arranging a clinical study, there is often a need to process medical and pharmaceutical documents in various languages, especially when the manufacturer of the drug or one of its active ingredients is a foreign company. For this purpose, we hire professional translators.
prepare the assembled master file ready for submission to the Ministry of Health and Social Development of the Russian Federation.
Our specialists are highly qualified for modern multifunctional graphical editors and enjoy a great experience to do the complete workflow on the drug packaging mockup from its design to the final publish-ready file.


Since 2008, the Île-de-France region has launched eight calls for projects to realize technological prototypes and test them at the Futur en Seine international digital festival. For its 2016 edition, INNOV'up Proto has chosen two current topics: 3D printing and the intelligence of connected objects.
Orosound was rewarded in the second category of the contest. Tilde wireless earphones with intelligent noise management, have been analyzed by a jury chaired by the Ile-de-France Region, the competitiveness clusters involved, and a panel of independent experts. Our project was submitted to a vote by the elected regional representatives in the standing Committee. Tilde earphones had to meet more than a dozen evaluation criteria, including the innovative nature of the project, the constraints of installation or use, and the positive impact on employment.
Being a laureate, INNOV'up Proto Contest represents a great opportunity for Orosound. The R&D of a new innovative feature of our earphones is now supported by the Île-de-France region. The production of our prototypes will be fully funded and we will present them at the biggest European event of innovation: the Futur en Seine festival.
Take some time to see us at Futur en Seine 2017. Our innovative acoustic technology will be full of great surprises!


text:
GreekReporter.comGreek NewsEconomyCabinet Members and SYRIZA MPs React Against the New Greek Proposal
Cabinet Members and SYRIZA MPs React Against the New Greek Proposal
The new Greek proposal that includes an estimated 8 billion euros in tax revenues and reforms in pension laws has caused reactions among several members of the SYRIZA coalition government.
The reactions ranged from mild to extreme, with some SYRIZA MPs expressing reservations and the party's "left platform" asking to end negotiations and come to a direct rift with creditors and the European Union in general.
"These measures cannot be voted in parliament, they are extreme and go against society," said Parliament Vice-President Alexis Mitropoulos on STAR television after the new Greek proposals were announced.
SYRIZA MP Yiannis Michelogiannakis also stated on Greek television that he will vote against the proposed deal because it contains austerity measures and goes against the party program.
Government MP Vangelis Diamantopoulos wrote in the social media that the phrase "there is no alternative" does not belong to the Left.
A SYRIZA MP who belongs to the left platform and preferred to remain anonymous said that, "it's not a question whether SYRIZA can shoulder the measures, it is the Greek people who can't shoulder them," adding, "this is the Europe of austerity."
SYRIZA's left platform is asking MPs to vote against the new measures and called for an emergency party meeting "to decide the rift with the troika and the Greek capitalist oligarchy, and the change of leadership."
There were also reactions by junior coalition partner Independent Greeks (ANEL). Pavlos Chaikalis, an ANEL lawmaker said on ANT1 television: "The government has fallen into a trap, I don't know to what extent this can be implemented."
Government spokesperson Gavriil Sakellaridis said that the proposed deal is based on social justice. However, he said, "if government MPs do not vote for the deal, the government cannot remain in power."
Alexis Mitropoulos
Left Platform
HACC Forum on Tourism and Study Opportunities in Greece
Western Leaders Ponder Providing Fighter Jets to Ukraine


This page is regularly updated with news and technology items.
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Juwan Morgan had 20 points and nine rebounds as Indiana cruised to a 92-74 victory over Illinois on Thursday night at the State Farm Center.
The win could help land the Hoosiers (16-14, 7-12 Big Ten) a low-seed berth in the NCAA tournament. Rob Phinisee added 17 points and Justin Smith 15 for Indiana.
Ayo Dosunmu led the Illini with 16 points, while Giorgi Bezhanishvili and Trent Frazier added 15 and 13, respectively.
The loss closed out the home season for Illinois (11-19, 7-12), which visits Penn State on Sunday.
The Hoosiers were in control for most of the game, leading by 22 before Illinois went on a 6-0 run to close to 80-67 with 5:22 left. But Indiana took advantage of an obviously tired Illinois defense and iced the game.
Despite hitting 7 of 13 3-pointers in the first half, Illinois seemed out of sync and trailed 52-42 at the half.
The game had conference tournament implications for both teams. Indiana, which closes the regular season at home Sunday against Rutgers, likely will have a first-round bye, while the Illini could find themselves playing Wednesday at the United Center if they don't beat the Nittany Lions.
The Hoosiers' wins last week over Wisconsin and Michigan State have thrust them back into the NCAA tournament conversation after a stretch in which they lost 12 of 13 Big Ten games, but they would need to beat Rutgers to have a chance.


I am a member of the Environmental Education Alliance of Georgia and recently went to a day of workshops during The Outdoor Learning Symposium. The workshops I attended were very interesting.
I went to one session that was held by a geologist and a biogeologist and talked about how we can use plants to identify the rocks beneath our feet. Our state is very wooded and covered in plants. Our capital city has the highest density of tree canopy coverage in the nation, so plants are an important intersection with Earth Science teaching in our state. We essentially looked at the most common types of rocks found in our state by geographic region (which is taught in our state in the third grade, in Waldorf Schools we tend to teach this in fourth grade) and then what plants grew there due to the soil conditions. We went through the prehistoric epochs to see WHY we have the types of rocks here that can be found, why our state is low in fossil finds, how Africa merged with North America and essentially took the part of the state that is now Atlanta, which was off the coast of Cape Hatteras and shoved it into where it was today. Some of the rocks we went through included quartz and the plants associated with quartz, granite, amphibilate, and limestone (and why our state only has marble in a certain place). The best resources for this type of work include using indicator plants, using geologic maps, the web soil survey of the USDA. I bought a great geologic game for children. I already had the roadside geology guide for my state, and many other states are available. This is the site for the Georgia book and geologic game that I use. Earth Science Literacy standards were also addressed. We received free pamphletswith the "Big Ideas" of Earth Science literacy. For more information on this, you can see Earth Science Literacy.
I also went to sessions about Project WET and Project Learning Tree. Project WET focuses on action-oriented education that helps children understand the value of water in the world. In that session, we played a variety of games, even including magic tricks, that focused on water. They have a great curriculum that can be obtained by taking a certification course that runs about 10 hours, but there are also a variety of free resources available as well. There are other "sister" organizations in my state that work together, including Project WILD (wildlife focus) and Project Learning Tree (forestry). All of these have separate certifications to be able to use their curriculum, but from what I saw it would be easy to incorporate many of these ideas and concepts into Waldorf Education.
The last session I attended was a Project Learning Tree session where we discussed forestry, the role of trees in our state, and made paper. It was a fun session. For those of you looking for ideas regarding paper making, this book was there and it was fun to look through: 300 Ideas for Papermaking. We had a great time making paper with all kinds of add-ins.
Lots of fun, and looking forward to the Annual Southeastern Environmental Education Conference and Research Symposium next year!
This entry was posted in Outdoor Education, Uncategorized by Carrie. Bookmark the permalink.


text:
zaha hadid-designed stadium in qatar nears completion ahead of 2022 world cup
architecture in qatar (27 articles)
architecture in qatar surveys the contemporary condition of the country's built environment, showcasing a range of innovative projects and the diverse materials and unconventional forms employed in their construction.
zaha hadid's al wakrah stadium opens in qatar ahead of 2022 world cup
koichi takada reveals final images from inside the national museum of qatar
arata isozaki's ceremonial court in doha is captured by photographer pygmalion karatzas
koichi takada architects unveils interior design of the national museum of qatar
jean nouvel's national museum of qatar opens to the public
qatar 2022 world cup (9 articles)
qatar 2022 world cup: the 2022 FIFA world cup is scheduled to be the 22nd edition of the FIFA world cup, the quadrennial international men's football championship contested by the national teams of the member associations of FIFA. it is scheduled to begin on november 21, 2022.
foster + partners designs 80,000-seat lusail stadium for 2022 world cup in qatar
zaha hadid-designed 'al wakrah stadium' in qatar set to open in 2018
qatar is building a demountable football stadium using shipping containers
a new video has been released showing the progress of qatar's al wakrah stadium — the 2022 world cup venue designed by the late zaha hadid. the 40,000 capacity arena, which will host games up to the soccer tournament's quarter-finals stage, was first unveiled back in 2013. as of october 2018, the structure itself is now complete and work is progressing on the internal finishes, the roof, and the façade. the energy center that will serve the venue has also been built, while the precinct infrastructure and hard landscaping are also advancing.
all images and video courtesy of supreme committee for delivery & legacy
located in one of qatar's oldest continuously inhabited areas, the zaha hadid-designed venue has been described as 'an extraordinary stadium for an adventurous city'. the supreme committee for delivery & legacy (SC) — the organization responsible for delivering the stadiums and infrastructure for the 2022 FIFA world cup — also promise that 'supporters will also find plenty to do before and after matches, whether it's taking a stroll along the waterfront, buying unique local wares at the souq, or discovering the area's rich history at a museum.'
the stadium structure is now complete
the stadium will also have a retractable roof that will be able to close in approximately 30 minutes. a light sleeve, made of steel wires brought together at an oculus, will also provide shade to the entire pitch and contribute to the efficiency of the cooling system before the match. resembling curved hockey sticks, a series of 540-tonne pillars are the main support for the arena's retractable roof. the roof steel elements for the columns originated in china and were fabricated in italy and later shipped to qatar.
work is progressing on the retractable roof
the venue will also comprise schools, a wedding hall, tennis courts, basketball courts, restaurants, a swimming pool, gyms, and marketplaces — amenities designed to be used by the community for years to come. after the tournament, the region's local team — al wakrah sports club — will stadium the venue as its new home. a reduced capacity of 20,000 hopes to ensure an 'electric atmosphere' for the club's qatar stars league matches. the other 20,000 seats will be donated to football development projects overseas.
the stadium's internal finishes are also moving ahead
'the fact that the design of this stadium will bring the late zaha hadid's vision from the paper into structural form is in the back of everyone's mind,' thani al zarraa, SC project manager at al wakrah stadium. 'it is both a privilege and a challenge to be working on such a unique project, which combines elements of our cultural heritage in the form of the dhow boat with the architect's iconic structures.'
seat installation is almost done
the façade installation is almost complete
the stadium will be one of the venues of the 2022 FIFA world cup
stadium architecture and design (156 articles)
zaha hadid architects' all-timber stadium receives planning permission
david beckham's miami soccer team reveals MLS stadium plans
competing proposals revealed for milan's new san siro stadium
one thousand museum, zaha hadid's miami skyscraper, fully unveiled in new images