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Ритм в образотворчому і декоративно-прикладному мистецтві — спосіб естетичної організації форми і художньо-образної виразності в образотворчому і декоративно-прикладному мистецтві, заснований на тимчасових і просторових закономірностях і взаємозв'язках.

Поняття ритму
Поняття ритму невідривне від метра. Під «метричних порядком» розташування елементів розуміють їх рівномірну послідовність; ритмічні структури засновані на нерівномірних рядах, різних інтервалах, чергуванні акцентів і пауз. Таким чином визначають ритм у музиці: це послідовність тривалості, утворена чергуванням акцентів і пауз. У філософському сенсі взаємодія ритму і метра відображає «універсальний закон розвитку світобудови».

Природі властиво, що повторюються, чергуються певні явища, які відбувається у певній послідовності. Це універсальна закономірність організації матерії, в тому числі живих організмів, «біологічний годинник» життєдіяльності людини. Природа живе за законами ритму: ритмічно рухаються планети, ритмічно б'ється серце людини. Ритм пов'язаний з асиметрією гравітаційного простору і законом ентропії.

Симетрія і метричний порядок елементів є формальною основою естетичної організації форми, а асиметрія і ритм — художньо-образної виразності. Причому ті і інші поєднуються і породжують змішані форми і складні метроритмічні і симетрично-асиметричні структури. Посилення ритміки, акцентуація такту, якщо вони збігаються з біологічним ритмом людини, створюють психологічний ефект полегшення дії.

Ритм в античності
Поняття ритму було усвідомлено ще в античній естетиці:  — міра, вимірювання;  — рух, тоді ж виникло поняття «рима». Метр — структурна основа будь-якої ритмічної конструкції. Так в античній архітектурі важливе значення мало співвідношення понять ритм і евритмія. Давньоримський зодчий Вітрувій в трактаті «Десять книг про архітектуру» (18-16 рр. до н. е.) під симетрією розумів «просту відповідність», або метричну норму, а під пропорціями - евритмію, ритмічну, організацію елементів композиції. Він визначив цим поняттям «видиму відповідність».
Евритмія- категорія давньогрецької естетики, термін, введений Арістотелем, який позначав якість. Пізніше її стали називати словом «гармонія» (співзвуччя, досконала цілісність).

Евритмічний тип гармонійних пропорцій у практиці античної архітектури пов'язували з динамічними властивостями похилих і діагональних ліній, а  вертикаль і горизонталь співвідносили з симетрією.

В античному мистецтві існували дві концепції «краси форми», умовно звані «симетрична» і «евритмічна». Пізніше два полюси  організації художнього твору отримали ідеологічний зміст, їх стали розрізняти як «класичне» та «сучасне». В античності використовували канонічні інтервали: рівний (1:1), подвійний (1:2), полуторний (2:3), епітріт (3:4), дохм (3:5), пентаметр (1:5). Такі традиційні мотиви «ходи звірів», або «звіриного гону».

Винахід гончарного круга близько 3700 р. до н.е. е. дозволив виробити технічні прийоми декорування керамічних посудин на обертовому столі. Повертаючи посудину, майстер ділив горизонтальні пояси декору на рівні частки, а рух по колу підказував елементи, що володіють асиметрією, спрямованістю в бік руху.

Ритм у мистецтві
У живописі, графіці, скульптурі, декоративному мистецтві ритм є одним з найважливіших виразних засобів композиції, він бере участь у побудові зображення, і додає змісту певну емоційність. Можна використовувати чергування однакових елементів композиції, наприклад фігур людей, їх рук або ніг. Отже ритм може будуватися на контрастах об'ємів. Особлива роль відводиться ритму у творах народного і декоративно-прикладного мистецтва. Численні композиції різноманітних орнаментів побудовані на ритмічному чергуванні їх елементів. За допомогою ритму можна передати рух на площині.

Закономірності ритму пояснюють походження орнаменту. Естетичні властивості і символічні значення метра і ритму об'єднуються в розміреності і спрямованості зорового руху форми. У мистецтві класичного орнаменту такі властивості має давньогрецький меандр: його елементи вписуються в метричну сітку, але є кілька подовжених, так званих нерівносторонніх, або «живих», «квадратів», а їх малюнок має яскраво виражену спрямованість. Відтак виникає враження безперервного односпрямованого (зазвичай зліва направо) руху. Ця властивість меандру пояснює також найбільш поширену версію походження слова: від назви річки Меандрос у Малій Азії (нині — Великий Мендерес у Туреччині), яка має звивисте русло. Іконографія меандру пов'язана з естетичним осмисленням фізичного руху і, зокрема, освоєння технології виготовлення керамічного посуду на гончарному крузі. Обертаючи посуд на гончарному столі, майстер ділив горизонтальні смуги декору на рівні частки, а рух по колу підказував спрямованість і ритм.

Орнамент будується за певними мотивами. Для створення орнаменту використовують зазвичай мотиви природи, розрізняють зооморфний орнамент (за участі зображень тварин) та рослинний. Якщо ж мотивом орнаменту обрано лінії та геометричні фігури, він називається геометричним. Поєднання цих мотивів створює змішаний орнамент.

«Крок» орнаменту, відстань між сусідніми елементами, називають інтервалом. Головна властивість орнаменту полягає в моторності, динамічності і нескінченності розвитку.

При виникненні декількох осей симетрії на поверхні метро-ритмічні закономірності побудови орнаменту стають складнішими. Поєднання горизонтальних поясів та вертикалей і, відповідно, кількох осей симетрії створюють метричну сітку, тобто рапóрт. В орнаменті рапорту чергування фігур відбувається в декількох напрямках: вертикальному, горизонтальному і діагональному. Такий тип орнаментальних побудов характерний для декорування тканин, шпалер, підлоги. Точки перетину осей акцентуються в ритмічному порядку, що породжує зорову пульсацію.

Види ритмічного порядку
Ритм в житті і в мистецтві – різні поняттяя. У мистецтві можуть бути відхилення від ритму, ритмічні акценти, нерівномірність, не математична точність, а жива різноманітність.

У творах образотворчого мистецтва наявні активний, поривчастий, дробовий ритм або плавний, спокійний, сповільнений.

Ритмічний порядок елементів може бути простим або складним, багатовимірним. Оцінки мірності, закономірності послідовності образотворчих елементів і відносин величин залежать від масштабу, пропорцій і спрямованості форми. Все разом створює гармонію. Ритм в образотворчому мистецтві називають «життям форми»,  він створює наповнений простір, перетворюю ритмічні відносини величин в концептуальний простір-час. Прикладом є фреска Рафаеля «Афінська школа». У комбінації фрески фігури згруповані таким чином, що їх асиметрична ритміка врівноважена і узгоджена з форматом картини та її архітектурним фоном.

В архітектурній споруді ритмічно розміщуються вікна, колони, орнаментальні оздоблення тощо. В архітектурі розрізняють два види ритмічних закономірностей (порядків): метричну, або метр, і ритмічну закономірність – ритм. Метричний порядок характеризується повторенням в композиції однакових форм, елементів, частин і повторенням рівних інтервалів між ними.

Джерела
 Масол Л. Мистецтво. Підручник для 5 класу. - Київ, "Світоч", 2013, ISBN 978-966-97266-3-6
 Гандзій П. А., Левицький Ф. Д. Уроки малювання: Посібник для вчителя. – К.: Рад. школа, 1975.

Орнаменти
Образотворче мистецтво
Декоративно-ужиткове мистецтво


A Carnegie Roundtable on Measuring Wellbeing event was held on 7 July in Belfast. Established in 2013, membership of the Carnegie Roundtable on Measuring Wellbeing comprises representatives of the public sector, academia, business and community sectors.
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Chester County Excavating Keenan Inc. Serving Delaware, Montgomery and Chester County
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Q: checking elements is in a set in numpy I am new to numpy so any help is appreciated. But I am curious how array handles set in python.
This is my code but it doesn't work as expected.
I am trying to filter elements that are not in my set.
new_mask = np.where(np.isin(mask, my_set), 1, 0)

Because for my understanding, searching in a set is more efficient than in a list due to hashing. But I found this in the doc. I am wondering why it doesn't work?

Because of how array handles sets, the following does not work as expected:
>>> test_set = {1, 2, 4, 8}
>>> np.isin(element, test_set)
array([[False, False],
      [False, False]])

Casting the set to a list gives the expected result:
>>> np.isin(element, list(test_set))
array([[False,  True],
      [ True, False]])

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Tag Archives: Moral panic
Remembering the Queen Boat, fourteen years after
Posted on 12 May 2015 by scottlong1980
Defendants in the Queen Boat trial wait in court for the verdict to be read, Cairo, November 14, 2011: photo by Norbert Schiller
The night of May 12, 2001 – fourteen years ago today – I worked in my office late. Back then I was program director for the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, a US-based NGO. Sometime after midnight an email snapped me out of drowsiness, from someone in Egypt who called himself "Horus." The evening before, police had raided a dance club on a boat moored in the Nile. They'd arrested dozens of men whom they accused of being gay. The stranger's roommate was among them. He was afraid they were being tortured. He sent messages to all the human rights organizations whose addresses he could find. In the end, I was the only one who answered him.
His real name was Maher Sabry, and he effectively broke that story to the world. Police arrested thirty people on the Queen Boat on May 11, 2001, and threw them into cells with a dozen others whom they'd seized on the streets in the preceding days. They concocted a scandalous case of conspiracy, perversion, blasphemy, with obscure political motives behind it. The trial dominated Egyptian headlines for months. All the men's lives were ruined. In the next three years, police raided parties and private homes in search of "debauchery"; undercover cops entrapped victims over the Internet; judges sentenced hundreds or thousands more to jail.
Bridgebuilder: Major General Hatem Amin
Fourteen years have passed. Last week in Egypt, police in the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh arrested a 26-year Jordanian citizen "wearing women's clothes," and charged the victim with "sexual perversion." Al-Youm al-Sabbah, mouthpiece for the government's ongoing moral panic, carried pictures, probably taken from her phone or laptop. The case went to prosecutors; it's not clear whether she'll be deported or sent to prison. Sharm el-Sheikh was where Generalissimo Sisi held his celebratory investment fair in March, to underwrite his brutalities with foreign money; perhaps, back then, the victim saw US Secretary of State John Kerry cruise by in a limousine. Major General Hatem Amin, head of the provincial security directorate, presided over the investigation. When Amin got his job in July 2014, he declared that one of his responsibilities (in addition to torturing alleged terrorists, which in Sinai goes without saying) would be to "finish the bridge of trust between citizens and police." Trust is built over the bodies of the despised; this is a lesson from Sisi.
Egypt's new rulers know how to commemorate an anniversary.
Photo of the arrested Jordanian citizen, from Youm7
These banal numbers and blurred photos are about people's lives. A 22-year-old who was arrested on the Queen Boat in 2001 told me what happened at the police station that night:
This officer who I think was a psycho came over to us. He started shouting abuse at all of us. He said to us, "I want the khawalat [faggots] to one side and the ordinary people to the other side. " He was silent for a minute. "Of course, you don't have any normal people, you're all khawalat."
Other officers came over and this officer called us out one by one. They looked us over. I was one of the first to be called out. I was well-dressed but he thought my clothes looked "girlish" though I was just wearing a tight T-shirt top, and a jacket, and pants with a little flower stitched on them, around the cuff. They all thought I was effeminate, all through this ordeal, so I was singled out for special attention. After that, he made me take my pants off to see what I was wearing underneath. … He told me, "Of course you are a khawal." I said, of course not. And then he started beating me terribly. … He used fists and a hose. He beat me on my back with it. Over and over. I'll never forget that.
This man, now my friend, eventually escaped to France. Another friend of mine, who lived in the provincial town of Tanta, told me how the police arrested more than eighty suspected khawalat in the city in 2002, after a gay man named Adel was murdered. They were all tortured to get information:
[One man] was hung up for four days without food or drink, by cuffs in the window … They tied [another man's] hands and feet, and put him on a metal thing with two legs — a kind of metal sawhorse — and tied him so that he was hanging under it. He was blindfolded and naked. They attached wires to him and electroshocked him all night. They electroshocked his tongue. The next day they brought us in to him. He was lying on the floor in the office of the chief of detectives, where the torture happened. His tongue was swollen and hanging out of his mouth. I recognized his fingers and toes as they brought me in to him—there wasn't much else I could recognize. I could barely understand him when he tried to talk. … An officer came in. He said, "Write down the names of all the khawalat you saw in Adel's apartment in the last ten years." He had shown him to us as a warning.
And here is the testimony of a young trans woman who talked to me last year. She and three friends were arrested in April 2014 in an apartment in Cairo, thirteen years minus a month after the Queen Boat:
The head policeman asked: "Do you have girls, weed, weapons in the apartment?" We said no. He said, "I am going to search this place." … An informer [plainclothesman] said to the officer: "See how they look, they are all khawalat." The officer said: "You don't need a warrant for this type of people."
They took us to the police station … They started hitting us in the face and kicking our legs, and touching us all over. The informers kept trying to pull my hair out. "Are these prostitutes?" the officer in charge said, and the other police said, "No, they are khawalat." He said, "In more than 24 years I have never seen khawalat so effeminate. Take off your clothes." …
Another officer, when he was told we were khawalat, starting beating us violently … The officers began sexually abusing us, grabbing our breasts. One of the informers said, "If you don't sleep with me, I'll put you in detention with the other prisoners." … A "nice" clerk came and said, "They are sick people and you shouldn't hit them." Then he started taking a video of us.
.التكرار يعلّم الحمار Or, as they say elsewhere: plus ça change …
Egypt's finest torturers: police on duty in Cairo. Photo from Al Ahram.
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Note: The testimonies from 2001-2002, along with many other stories, can be found in Human Rights Watch's 2004 report, In a Time of Torture: The Assault on Justice in Egypt's Crackdown on Homosexual Conduct.
Posted in Gender Identity, Human Rights, LGBT Rights, Sex Work, Sexual Rights	| Tagged #Am_not_aCriminal_Am_just_Different, #انا_مش_مجرم_انا_مختلف, Cairo 52, debauchery, Egypt, fugur, homosexuality, Moral panic, Queen Boat, Scott Long, Sisi, Youm7	| 4 Replies
Government by moral panic
Posted on 20 July 2014 by scottlong1980
A separatist militiaman looks at the wreckage of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17. Photo: Dominique Faget/AFP
I met Pim de Kuijer once or twice, perhaps, and Martine de Schutter once, I think. He lobbied in the Dutch parliament on behalf of Stop AIDS Now; she fought for universal access to HIV prevention at Bridging the Gaps. They were both smart and young and full of enthusiasm, and they are both now dead somewhere in a field in eastern Ukraine. The enthusiasm is what I will remember. You can rebuild expertise, reconstruct lost formulae of scientific knowledge, but whatever you do you can't recapture that intangible spirit which wants more than anything for the world to change. It seems to me that the loss of that spirit alone has set AIDS activism, which has never had much time to lose, back years.
Martine de Schutter
Still, the mourning for them and other colleagues who were on the way to the 20th International Aids Conference in Australia was disserved and distracted by a numbers game. Less than 24 hours after Malaysian Air Flight 17 crashed, a Murdoch paper reported:
More than 100 AIDS activists, researchers and health workers bound for a major conference in Melbourne were on the Malaysia Airlines flight downed in the Ukraine.
It is believed that delegates to the 20th International AIDS Conference, due to begin on Sunday, will be informed today that 108 of their colleagues and family members died on MH17.
International media have been tossing this figure around for days, The airline has released the flight manifest, and there's no sign that anywhere near a third of those aboard were actually bound for the Melbourne conference. The figure may have come from an interview with a single person, in shock but with no direct knowledge of who was on the plane:
In a slower era, journalists might have checked what he actually knew before reporting, but this is the age of short attention spans. In fact, the International AIDS Society (IAS) has identified six passengers as traveling to the conference. More may be named in time, but those deaths will certainly be "an order of magnitude smaller than what has been reported," as Chris Beyer, the IAS's incoming president, said. This is one of many confusions in the speculative fog. (Fox News, for instance, reported that 23 US citizens died; in fact there was one holder of dual US and Dutch passports.) It's minor; except it means that some chronicler of AIDS activism, looking at the real toll of six dead against the initial reports of eighteen times that, will say, "It wasn't so bad." An ersatz relief, impossible without the initial extravagance of error, will blur the real gravity of the loss: a small affront to the dead, to what they did, to their incendiary enthusiasm to do more.
Nearly everybody believes that Russian separatists using Russian weapons shot down the plane: everybody, it seems, except for the Russian media, its readership, and regular viewers of Russia Today. Unanimity is itself cause to preserve a sliver of skepticism. We still don't have absolute proof, and the forensic investigations haven't even begun. (This is largely thanks to the separatists: they've moved the bodies, tampered with the wreckage, seemingly looted the site, and held investigators at bay.) Nearly all the evidence points that way. But David Remnick, in the New Yorker, keeps the focus on what we do know:
What's far more certain is that Vladimir Putin, acting out of resentment and fury toward the West and the leaders in Kiev, has fanned a kind of prolonged political frenzy, both in Russia and among his confederates in Ukraine, that serves his immediate political needs but that he can no longer easily calibrate and control.
Is that a microphone in the ceiling? Pavlovsky speaks
Remnick interviewed Gleb Pavlovsky, a former Putin adviser who broke with the boss in 2011. If a parasite could guide you through the guts of its host, it couldn't speak with more exactitude than Pavlovsky does of the Russian security state and its intestinal windings. He knows Putin's interests in Ukraine well. Remnick delicately omits this, but back in 2005 leaked tapes (possibly doctored, possibly released as part of a Kremlin power struggle) implicated Pavlovsky in the poisoning of Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko, dosed with lethal dioxin midway through a campaign in which he condemned Russian interference. But let Pavlovsky speak:
Pavlovsky said … Putin has "created an artificial situation in which a 'pathological minority'—the protesters on Bolotnaya Square [two years ago], then Pussy Riot, then the liberal 'pedophiles'—is held up in contrast to a 'healthy majority.' Every time this happens, his ratings go up." The nightly television broadcasts from Ukraine, so full of wild exaggeration about Ukrainian "fascists" and mass carnage, are a Kremlin-produced "spectacle," he said, expertly crafted by the heads of the main state networks.
"Now this has become a problem for Putin, because this system cannot be wholly managed," Pavlovsky said. The news programs have "overheated" public opinion and the collective political imagination.
"How can Putin really manage this?" Pavlovsky went on. "You'd need to be an amazing conductor. Stalin was an amazing conductor in this way. Putin can't quite pull off this trick. The audience is warmed up and ready to go; it is wound up and waiting for more and more conflict. You can't just say, 'Calm down.'"
Putin has been running a historically unusual sort of government: government by moral panic. He promotes pandemics of fear, viral outbreaks of outrage at imagined enemies. And he doesn't conjure threats to security or values just to boost popularity, but as a basic tool of governance.
You could say that dictators and demagogues do this a lot, but Putin's different. Hitler kept up an unceasing propaganda war against the Jews. Stalin's ferocious demonology exorcised enemy after enemy – Social Revolutionaries, engineers, Trotskyites, German spies, eventually the Jews too, always with some overlap between them. But totalitarian ambition subordinated public outrage to state power. The occasional "spontaneous" pogrom in Germany, like Kristallnacht – carefully stage-managed, in fact — quickly gave way to the action of the police, the Gestapo, the forces of order. The anger enabled but never displaced the task of expulsion and the ultimate end of genocide, which only a dispassionate bureaucracy could efficiently commit. Meanwhile, under Stalin, in 1930s Moscow, anybody holding a spontaneous, unauthorized protest against enemies of the State would have been declaring himself an enemy of the State too: here I am, a Kautskyite deviationist, Kolyma here I come. It wasn't just that Stalin was an "amazing conductor." He shot the orchestra members one by one, while the audience stayed frozen in their seats, hands on the armrests, humming patriotic songs in unison, no sudden movements allowed.
Russian Neo-Nazis abuse a kidnapped, allegedly gay "Uzbek," July 2013, from a social-media page
Putin's panics, on the other hand. whether about evil Ukrainaians or subversive homosexuals, aren't meant to efface other movements and players, to erase other institutions in a coordinated exercise of power. They enlist the Church, the neo-Nazis, school administrations, nationalist intellectuals, diasporic allies in the near abroad — but without subordinating them. It's all chaotic. The government's bloodthirsty rhetoric charts a general direction, but everybody is set loose to follow it as best they can. This is in the best tradition of moral panics, which offer wide scope for what the sociologists call "moral entrepreneurs," opportunists of anxiety, to stake out arenas for action and go after enemies in their own way. The anti-homosexual legislation may be the best example. Draconian though it is, almost nobody has been prosecuted since its passage. The State hasn't actually done much. Rather, the law encourages everybody from priests to foreign "pro-family" ideologues to right-wing gangs to launch their own campaigns. It asks them, in fact, to support the State, which desperately needs their help in rooting out perversion. In its weird way, it's thus an instrument of that most stereotypically American of political practices – coalition-building, uniting disparate interests into a party of shared goals. The dictatorial law seems almost democratic in the way it works.
Or consider Putin's strategy in Ukraine. Pundits and politicians compare it to Hitler's seizure of the Sudetenland and its ethnic Germans. Yet what's missing in Russia is the triumphal confidence that State power can always prevail. Look back at Nazi propaganda during the Sudeten crisis; it showed German might irresistibly smashing the country cousins' chains:
Poster for a "yes" vote on annexation to the Reich, in a referendum held in the Sudetenland on December 4, 1938
Or it depicted Hitler as savior to little blond Sudeteners dreaming of deliverance:
Propaganda postcard sent to Sudetenlanders during the 1938 crisis
By contrast, Russian propaganda on Ukraine has a pathetic stress on victimhood. There's a genocide going on in the potato fields, Russians are being exterminated, but Russia seems powerless on its own to prevent it. (The #SaveDonbass hashtag campaign, which started on Twitter a couple of months ago and showed ostensible ethnic Russian victims, almost exclusively exploited images of sheer wide-eyed helplessness.)
Hence the reliance on militias, generously armed but semi-independent rebel groups, uncoordinated actions compensating for what the State can't do. Neither Stalin or Hitler would ever have tolerated this wild welter of assistance. The Gestapo would have rounded up the anti-gay thugs with their vigilante delusions, and the insurgents would have been handed not missile launchers but tickets to the Gulag. Something's changed.
Ethnic Russian self-defense forces stand in front of a government building, Simferopol, Crimea, March 2014. Photo: AFP
You could point to many things, but one is overriding. Russia is a nuclear power and a near-dictatorship, but it's a weak state. This is paradoxical given the overweening authority Putin manages to project, but it's true. Putin has full authority over the security establishment, but that is no longer enough to endow unquestioned solidity upon the state he built. For one thing, Russia is no longer an isolated command economy. It's been integrated into the capitalist world. While Putin has bullied the unruly Yeltsin-era oligarchs into submission, that still doesn't help him control the country's livelihood, dependent instead on international vicissitudes of supply and demand. This is particularly true since a single commodity sector — energy — dominates everything, and prosperity rides on fluctuations of markets out of the government's hands. You can police dissidents, but you can't police the price of natural gas abroad. If the old Soviet economy has been "privatized" — more precisely, in neoliberal fashion, parcelled out to a bunch of ill-coordinated players — so, too, have other parts of Soviet power. Corporate conglomerates, a military-industrial complex, rich and insecure churches, noisy social movements (more of them on the Right than the Left), local governments carving out their own extortion zones, and many more mini- and mega-oligarchies multiply. As happens when a once coherent power is privatized, each tries to establish its own small dictatorship over whoever it can influence. This Russia, one scholar says, is " a highly corrupt state that still cannot fully control its borders, monopolize the legal means of violence, or clearly articulate its role in the contemporary world." For all his shirtless preening, Putin is no muscle-man able to wield top-down control. Instead he must exhort, scare, cajol, and distract the rest of society till he gets his way.
Government by moral panic is a way of governing when the government fears impotence, as in a morning nightmare where your legs won't move: its power shaling into paralysis, its strength sloughing off like sand.
We're going to see more of this. We live in an era of weak states. The most authoritarian among them can't muster half the authority its ancestors did. The neoliberal state has big biceps to flex, but it hobbles along on crutches. How can a leader feel secure in his position when foreign bankers who price your bonds can make or break your popularity, your ministers, your country?
Vote if you want to, it won't make a difference: Thatcher's mantra of neoliberalism
More and more, continent after continent, governments are promoting moral panics as ways to govern. These conflagrations of fear can convulse society, but they convince people they need the state again, for all its frailty and fecklessness. Look at Egypt, where a military regime reestablished control over a fractious country through a year-long campaign of demonizing (arresting, shooting) Islamists,and journalists, and refugees, and Palestinians. Or Israel, where Netanyahu's administration hid and lied about the deaths of three Jewish teenagers to aggravate a fever of popular panic and rage, and stoke pressure for a saving intervention by the state's favorite instrument: its troops. Or, for that matter, the United Kingdom, where a weak coalition government (the first of its kind in almost a century) keeps looking for bogeymen to justify its existence. It's tried Muslims and Romanians so far, with limited success, but there are more to come.
Or the United States. America is always different — exceptional, they say; it's the home of private enterprise, after all. And the panics are privatized too. Occasionally, true, you get governments whipping up people's anxieties. (Remember those color-coded terror alerts of the vigilant Bush years? Today my Fear is Orange, Mr. Ashcroft!) But just as often you see entrepreneurs drumming up the fear and loathing for their own ends.
Increasingly the US is a classic weak state, a casualty of neoliberalism in its several forms. Years of right-wing amputations whittled its government down, and now conservatives committed to a big-business version of Russian Nihilism refuse to allow the legislative process to exist. Its politicians still praise it as the "indispensable nation," but it governs itself like Somalia. Like any weak state, it falls prey to warlords, though they have offshore accounts and paid talk-radio pundits rather than weapons caches. Usually they stir up panics to pressure the government into deploying its dwindling powers on one of their pet causes. It's a competition: to get what's left of the state on your side. Immigration is a wonderful source of panics, all in this entrepreneurial spirit. The goal almost always is to get the government to abandon its remaining responsibilities to people inside the border (food, jobs, health care, those vague things called civil rights) and devote all its energies to policing the border itself. Imagine you have a plot of land, and a limited number of bricks. You could waste the bricks building a house to live in, or you could put up a nice thick wall around the whole vacant lot. The answer — Who needs a roof, anyway? — becomes more obvious as the panicked voices keep shrieking, Do something! They're walking on the lawn!
I told you to build that wall: Anti-immigration cartoon from 1891
Moral panics come in many kinds, but one feature is consistent. They always have victims. Scapegoating is intrinsic to the package. Governing by moral panic means governing by exclusion.
Immigrants, minorities, the irresponsible and perverted, sex workers and trans women, the sick and susceptible, wayward young or useless old: somebody's going to suffer. As our states get weaker, those marked for marginality multiply. In a kinder, gentler, more condescending era, states justified themselves by providing for people's welfare. In the neoliberal age, states will justify themselves increasingly by their capacity to exclude. Legitimacy will derive from the quantity of victims.
i started with the fog of speculation shrouding a terrible disaster, uncertainty created by the compulsory celerity and fake urgency of the Internet. These days, rumors have wings while facts slog in leaky galoshes. This, too, makes government by moral panic possible. Strong states survived on facts. How large was the grain harvest? How many gallons of water in the reservoir? What is the average height of army conscripts from the southern province? Only that kind of exactitude made their interventions, whether for welfare or security, work. In the world of moral panic, facts disappear. What's left are speculations; and governments that want to rule, politicians who want to keep their power, learn to surf the waves of supposition, like a traveller in a dream who realizes the road has become a river.
Everything that's solid melts. Those floating numbers of the dead– six? eight? 100? 108? — are a symptom of our fluid and oblivious condition. They speak of a world of nameless panics and unattributable terrors, inaccessible to the consolations of proof, where the one thing certain is that there will always be more victims.
Ethnic Russian self-defense units at local government headquarters in Simferopol, Crimea, March 2014. Photo: Thomas Peter/Reuters
Posted in Human Rights, LGBT Rights, Politics, Uncategorized	| Tagged HIV/AIDS, immigration, International AIDS Conference, Malaysian Airlines, Martine de Schutter, MH 17, Moral panic, neoliberalism, Pim de Kuijer, Putin, Russia, Scott Long, Ukraine	| 9 Replies
Gitmo at home: The security state for children
I'm the Mayor of Sex Crimes on Foursquare: Rate the offenders near you
I can't improve on Judith Levine's powers as a reviewer, so I'll just quote away.
In California Governor Jerry Brown signs a law prohibiting registered sex offenders from offering their homes as polling places. The bill's sponsor, Republican Assemblyman (and former LAPD officer) Stephen Knight, says the legislation is necessary to protect high-school volunteers and children accompanying their parents on Election Day.
In Vermont a $13.8 million network of twenty-eight communications towers and eight "public safety answering points" is under construction to aid first responders in case of a terrorist attack. Homeland Security, which is funding the project, has granted Vermont—population: 620,000; state crime ranking: forty-nine—more than $90 million since 2001.
In New York a maverick group of psychologists and urban designers are agitating to bring back the old monkey bars and asphalt surfaces of playgrounds, which were abolished because of perceived risks of accidents and lasting psychological trauma. Sixty pages of federal playground regulations now advise, among other precautions, against children wearing drawstring sweatshirts and "mittens connected by strings through the arms." Write the psychologists: "Paradoxically, our fear of children being harmed by mostly harmless injuries may result in more fearful children and increased levels of psychopathology."
How are these items—collected at random during one week in 2011—related?
The answers can be found in Roger N. Lancaster's Sex Panic and the Punitive State, a riveting history and virtuosic analysis of the way America's thirty-year panic about child sexual abuse has fueled an ever-increasing appetite to "protect, punish, and preempt" crime and has served as the model for the creation of "something resembling a police state" in the United States.
I haven't read Lancaster's book, though now I will. I have read Levine's most important work, Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex, which made her a walking target for those on the Right who idolize the punitive State, and those on the Left who idealize the protective one. (Published by the University of Minnesota, it caused her morals to be debated by the Minnesota State Legislature, that frozen assemblage of Athenian ethicists.) She can summarize better than anyone how all those disparate strands of war — the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, the War on the Poor — come together in a single, seductive justification: the War for Our Kids.
Here's a little more — on how the "emergency" crisis of endangered children becomes an excuse for creating an extralegal world where offenders are subject to permanent punishment, a kind of invisible Guantanamo at home kept going for the sake of innocence and family:
The American carceral state imprisons an unprecedented number of its citizens: with 5 percent of the world's people, the United States now has 25 percent of the world's prisoners, leading all other nations in both percentage and raw numbers. On the other side of the bars, one in four-to-five American workers is engaged in private security or other "guard labor." This "penal Keynsianism," comments Lancaster, "solves two economic problems: it creates jobs while guarding the unemployed."
Sex offenders constitute a relatively small proportion of people under the thumb of the criminal justice system. But the harshness of their punishment and the disregard of their rights lie outside the Pale even in an extraordinarily harsh system. And in a nation famous for second chances, sex offenders are uniquely bereft of the opportunity to discharge their debt to society, repent of their transgressions, and start anew. …
In an era where parents are afraid to let their children play outside—or fortify them with helmets and cell phones whenever they do—"risk assessment" is a growing discipline, which looks like science. It is in fact symbolic: the actuarial encoding of hyperbolic public apprehension, ever on the uptrend. Phil Taylor, a former Texas-certified sex offender therapist, told me that "sex offender 'management' is done like business management": the state calculates its potential profits (including political ones) and losses and structures its policing bureaucracies accordingly. Never mind that what shows up in the debit column are the civil and human rights of people once called U.S. citizens. …
This moral panic has been going on for nearly a century, interrupted by one brief decade. It is protean: in the last three decades alone, it has metamorphosed from outsized estimates of incest to belief in covens of Satanic abusers to the government's claim of a massive global traffic in child porn—which can be neither substantiated nor refuted, since the public and the press are prohibited from viewing the images.
Just read the review.
Posted in Human Rights, Sexual Rights	| Tagged child abuse, child porn, Judith Levine, Moral panic, security state, sex offenders, War on Terror	| Leave a reply
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text:
Тулово је насељено место града Лесковца у Јабланичком округу. Према попису из 2011. било је 697 становника (према попису из 2002. било је 739 становника).

Етимологија
Према легенди, на месту на ком је настало село Тулово било је некада под шумом увреженом павитовом виновом лозом. Кроз шуму је ишла стаза за планину кроз шибље које се над стазом надвијало. Да би људи могли ићи, морали су се "тулити" - сагињати се, и тако потуљени проћи овим путем. По томе што су се људи, идући овде уз Туловску реку, морали сагнути и провлачити се - тулити се, село настало на овом месту добило је назив Тулово.

Легенда на врло сликовит начин описује постанак назива села. Међутим, вероватнији начин настанка имена села је тај да оно потиче од занимања становника у доба српске средњовековне државе. Наиме, поједина села била су обавезна на вршење извесних занатских радњи у корист државе или властелина у чију су баштину или пронију спадала, а била ослобођена других работа и давања. Тако је било села која су гајила и дресирала соколове за лов. Ти људи називани су соколарима или гекарима. Траг на ту обавезу неких села очувао се у лесковачким селима, па тако постоји јабланичко село Ђелекаре и поречко Шаиновац (од турске речи шаин или шахин - соко), а такође и у имену некадашњег села Седларца, горњојабланичког села Тулара и Тулова у Лесковачком пољу. Села Тулово и Туларе израђивали су туле, један важан елемент за лов и рат. Туле су кутије од дрвета које се, везане узицом и каишем, окаче преко главе на леђа. У тули стоје врхови стрела, а горњи крајеви вире изнад ратниковог или ловчевог рамена, па он у борби или лову лако извлачи стрелу из туле и служи се њоме. Мештани села су у средњовековно доба засигурно имали ову дужност, по чему је и само село добило име.

Положај и тип
Село је смештено у долини Туловске реке, у подножју планине Кукавице, на самом југу области Лесковачко поље и Бабичка гора. Куће су смештене са обе стране речног корита усеченог у стену. У горњем делу села пут, којим се долази у село, иде десном обалом реке, али убрзо прелази на леву обалу и држи се ње, тако да су сви мештани који живе на супротној обали реке морали да подигну камене или бетонске мостове преко дубоког корита реке. Село је некада имало два засеока - Липову Чуку и Сланиште. Сланиште је данас потпуно расељено и у њему нема становника, док је Липова Чука и данас насељена претежно старим становништвом. Она је смештена изнад главног села, непосредно под планином Кукавицом, са дивним видиком на читаву долину Туловске реке, али и јужни део Лесковачког поља.

По типу, село је збијено и издужено. Куће су поређане једна до друге, а изнад њих, на површини језерске терасе, у коју је Туловска река усекла своје корито, леже њиве, воћњаци, виногради и друге обрадиве површине овог села.

Географија
Атар села Тулова протеже се на површини од 1.151 хектара. Њиве и вртови заузимају површину од 339 хектара, воћњаци 30, виногради 10, ливаде 16, пашњаци 11, шума чак 707, док неплодно земљиште заузима површину од 38 хектара.

Хидрографија
Кроз Тулово протиче Туловска река, чије се извориште налази под Врвикобилом, једним од висова масива Кукавице. Ова река има две компоненте - Голему и Малу реку. Оне се састају изнад села Тулова на месту званом Воденичиште и одатле се овај водени ток зове Туловска река, па све до ушћа у Јужну Мораву код села Горњег Крајинца.

Данас село има водовод и свака кућа је снабдевена водом. Сем тога, у селу постоји и спомен-чесма у славу погинулих партизана и стрељаних Туловчана 1941. године.

Историја
Не постоје никакви записи о Тулову ни у српским ни у турским изворима. Међутим, сматра се да је Тулово веома старо село, засељено најкасније у доба српске средњовековне државе, чије име је трг друштвеног живота Срба тога времена и њихове привреде.

Село је за време турске владавине имало свог господара, али његово име није остало сачувано. По локалитету Турско гробље може се закључити да су Турци живели овде, међутим, то није тачно, већ је локалитет добио назив по томе што су на том простору сахрањени изгинули Турци у рату за ослобођење ових крајева 1877. године.

Демографија
Након ослобођења, Тулово је имало 49 кућа, што значи да је било веће од осталих села у долини Туловске реке. Скоро стотину година касније, према попису из 1971. године, Тулово је имало 163 куће, односно 796 становника, када је и достигло свој максимум. У наредним пописима види се пад броја становника и негативан природни прираштај.

У насељу Тулово живи 583 пунолетна становника, а просечна старост становништва износи 40,8 година (38,6 код мушкараца и 43,0 код жена). У насељу има 167 домаћинстава, а просечан број чланова по домаћинству је 4,43.

Ово насеље је великим делом насељено Србима (према попису из 2002. године), а у последња три пописа, примећен је пад у броју становника.

Привреда
Из података о врстама земљишта у атару села види се да пољопривредне површине заузимају само 406 хектара, док на шуму отпада чак 707 хектара. Све до пред сам Други светски рат, Туловчани су живели од своје шуме: дељали су греде, које су у то време биле битно важне у грађевинарству; секли и извозили дрва за огрев. Шуму су користили и за израду разних пољопривредних алата и предмета нужних сваком сеоском домаћинству, почевши од држаље за мотику и секиру, виле и лопате за скупљање сламе и сена, за вршидбу и чишћење стаја, вејање жита при вршидби, столица, ковчега, наћви, елемената за дрвена волујска кола и др. У то време, била је то читава мануфактура широког спектра, чије су израђевине тражене широм Србије и обезбеђивале једну пристојну акумулацију. У шуми се напасала ситна и крупна стока, нарочито коза. Дакле, шуме је до Другог светског рата представљала сигуран извор Туловчана за живот. Међутим, након Другог светског рата, ствари су се промениле. Колективизацијом и државним власништвом у доба комунистичке Југославије шуме нису више биле у власништву села, већ државе, па сељаци нису могли да исте употребљавају по својој вољи. Сем тога, потребе за њихове дрвне израђевине су се угасиле, а фонд стоке смањио. На оскудној земљи остало им је нешто од културе воћа, претежно крушака, које се делом продају, а делом користе за прављење домаће ракије.

Данас су Туловчани претежно окренути печалбарском занимању, па велики део становништва одлази на сезонске послове, и то не само у држави, већ и у иностранство, што се може закључити и на основу изгледа кућа у селу. Велики број кућа саграђен је у модерном стилу, са по више спратова и савременом фасадом. Туловчани често због тога своје село називају наш мали Париз.

Саобраћај
У Тулово се долази путем преко Велике Грабовнице, узводно преко Мале Грабовнице, Загужана и Зољева. У Тулову се пут завршава, али се пољским путем може ићи у Чукљеник, затим за Накривањ, а преко рида, који одваја Туловску реку од Копашничке реке, у Велику Копашницу.

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text:
IV of V
Did Joseph Smith Prophesy of Baha'u'llah?
This chapter is 17 printed pages
Mormons still await "The Day" that the Holy Ghost, Whom they believe is still a Spirit-Man, without a body, will "come down to get a body" and perform some Holy Mission on Earth. He will be born of a woman, grow up, perform some Mission in relation to the Second Coming of Christ, and then die and be resurrected with an immortal body.
Baha'is do not believe that Joseph Smith was a "Prophet"; because in the Baha'i sense of the term a "Prophet" is an infallible Revelator; the incarnation of a Name/Attribute of God.
The Faith also teaches the existence of "Seers"; who are fallible Revelators. Seers are not the incarnations of the Names/Attributes of God. They have ordinary human souls. They do not "return".
Shaykh Ahmad-i-Ahsa'i, a Shi'ite Muslim Seer who lived in the 1820s, had visions of the Prophet Muhammad, Who taught him many truths. Shaykh Ahmad was not a Prophet lesser or otherwise. But, he had divine visions, and made prophecies. He prepared the way for the coming of The Báb in 1844.
Prophets=infallible Revelators Who are the incarnations of the Name/Attributes of God.
Seers=fallible Revelators who have ordinary human souls.
Some examples of Seers:
*Mary the mother of Jesus who had a vision of the Angel Gabriel.
*Zecharias (father of John the Baptist) who had a vision of the Angel of the LORD in the Jewish Temple who told him to name his son "John".
*The mother of Sampson, in the Old Testament, who was visited by the Angel of the LORD who told her that her son would "vex" the Philistines.
*Peter the Apostle of Jesus who had visions.
There have been many Muslim Seers. One such Seer in India, in the 8th century, made this prophecy:
"In that day the Holy One will be found abiding in a land called Karkh. He will walk beside the river, wearing the dervish turban, and wrapped in a red robe. He will be teaching His followers on the banks of the river. Would that I might be privileged to enter His Presence, and to shed my life-blood in His Path." (The Chosen Highway, p.242)
In 1850, The Báb (bawb), the Prophet of Iran, told His followers that God was going to sent another Prophet after Him, Whom He called "He Whom God Shall Make Manifest".
The Báb was martyred in 1850, and many of the Babis were killed, imprisoned. A few hundred were exiled to Baghdad, Iraq.
In 1863, in the Khark District of Baghdad, Baha'u'llah, wearing a glorious red robe, made His first annoucement to the followers of The Báb that He was "He Whom God Shall Make Manifest". Most of the Babis acceptd this, and called themselves no more "Bábís" (followers of The Gate of God) but "Bahá'ís" (followers of The Glory of God).
However, if Joseph Smith was a "SEER" he "may" have prophesied of Baha'u'llah in the capacity of a Seer.
There is no official Bahá'í doctrine that says that Joseph Smith was a "Seer". But, Shoghi Effendi apparently believed that he was.
Shoghi Effendi (1897-1957) was the Guardian of the Faith and the Interpreter of the Holy Writings. He is not considered to be a Prophet lesser or otherwise. But he was the "Guardian" and his teachings are considered infallible. He ruled the Faith until his death in 1957. Shoghi Effendi was NOT a Prophet! But, many Baha'is believe he was a Seer. He prophesied of the Holocaust and the Internet many years, or decades, before these things became realities. You can read more about these things in The Prophecies of Shoghi Effendi online.
Shoghi Effendi purportedly told Baha'is on several occassions that Joseph Smith was a "Seer":
"Joseph Smith was a Seer, not a Prophet; neither major nor minor. He had a high standard, but the Baha'is have a higher standard coupled with God's power that comes direct from God for this age." (Pilgrim notes of Ramona Browne, in Memories of 'Abdu'l-Baha, p.117)
By "higher standard" Shoghi Effendi does not mean moral standard, but a standard of Revelation. Baha'is have a "higher standard" of Revelation; meaning a Greater Revelation than Joseph Smith received; because while Joseph Smith was a Seer, Bahá'u'lláh was the Holy Ghost incarnate: the ONE WHO INSPIRED the Prophets (and Seers).
Shoghi Effendi died in London, England, in 1957. After his death, the Faith was ruled by nine "Hands of the Cause" (similar to apostles) called "The Custodians". Then, in 1963, the first Universal House of Justice was elected.
The Universal House of Justice is not a building, but a council of 9 rijals (Arabic: "distringuished gentlemen") who govern the Baha'i Faith worldwide. This council of nine elected men is referred to as "The House".
The "Members of The House" are not considered to be Prophets, nor are they are recognized as Seers. Yet, their collective decisions are believed to be "under the shadow of Baha'u'llah" and thus divinely-inspired. Individually they are merely Baha'is, but "The House" (collectively) is "under the shadow of Baha'u'llah". In regards to inquiries concerning Joseph Smith, they sent this reply:
"As for the status of Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Faith, he is not considered by Baha'is to be a prophet, minor or otherwise. But of course he was a religious teacher sensitive to the spiritual currents flowing in the early 19th century directly from the appearance of the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh and the Revelation of Their Messages of hope and Divine Guidance." (Lights of Guidance, p. 511)
A religious fraud or charlatan cannot be "sensitive to spiritual currents". Thus, Joseph Smith was not a fraud who invented tales about angels and gold plates. However, Joseph Smith was a fallible human, like other humans. The LORD gave Joseph the Seer this stern warning in 1832:
4 For although a man may have many revelations, and have power to do many mighty works, yet if he boasts in his own strength, and sets at naught the counsels of God, and follows after the dictates of his own will and carnal desires, he must fall and incur the vengeance of a just God upon him.
9 Behold, thou art Joseph, and thou wast chosen to do the work of the Lord, but because of transgression if thou art not aware, thou wilt fall." (D&C 4:4,9)
The year 1843 was a turning point for Joseph Smith. In 1843 Joseph Smith publicly denied he was a polygamist, but secretly practiced it. He married up to 32 women as plural "wives", including mothers and their own daughters. The LORD told Moses:
""And if a man take a wife and her mother it is wickedness: they shall be burnt with fire, both he and they; that there be no wickedness among you." (Leviticus 20:14)
The Law of Moses said that a man who took as wives a woman and her own mother must be put to death. That Law of God was never abrogated by Jesus, nor Muhammad, nor The Báb, nor Bahá'u'lláh. Those Divine Laws which are not abrogated, remain part of the Law of God.
In May of 1843, Joseph Smith preached:
"I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I." (History of the Church: 6:408)
In June of 1844, several Mormon leaders started The Nauvoo Expositor as a way to expose Joseph Smith's secret polygamy, and cause him to repent and resign as Church President. Joseph Smith had the newspaper closed, and its printing plates destroyed in the street. He was arrested in June of 1844 for illegally destroying an opposition newspaper in Nauvoo, Illinois, while acting as Mayor of Nauvoo. He was sent to Carthage Jail, Carthage Illinois, to await trial. While awaiting trail a mob rushed the jail and killed Hyrum and Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith "fell" to his death (riddled with bullets) from a second story window (Carthage Jail) on June 27th, 1844; in direct fulfillment of Doctrine & Convenants section 4, verse 9! The LORD warned His Seer that if he "boasted of his own strength" and "set naught the counsels on God" to fulfill his own carnal desires he would "fall"! And he did...literally! Joseph Smith became a fallen Seer!
After Joseph was killed, a member of the mob drew a large Bowie knife, and acted as if he intended to cut off the head of the Seer. At that instant, a light descended from the sky and struck the man holding the Bowie knife. He dropped the knife and was unable to walk or speak for some time afterwards. Mormons took it as a "sign" (miracle) from God that Joseph Smith was a true Prophet. Anti-Mormons took it as a "sign" from God that Joseph was a false prophet and that He had approved of his murder. Apparently the LORD allowed His fallen Seer to be killed, but He would not allow the body of His Seer to be mutilated and disrespected.
After the death of the Seer, the Church became divided into factions. The family of Joseph Smith followed James Strang, a Mormon who also claimed to be a Seer. His revelations are contained in The Book of the Law of the Lord. He was killed in 1856. Most of his followers then followed Joseph Smith III (eldest son of Joseph Smith), who founded The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS Church); now called Community of Christ with about 250,000 members worldwide.
Most Mormons followed Brigham Young, the senior Apostle, who led the Mormons to Utah. He founded Salt Lake City and hundreds of other cities and towns. His successors are the Presidents of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: also known as "the Mormon Church" or "the LDS Church" with over 14 million members worldwide by the year 2010.
Again, Prophets are "infallible" Revelators, but Seers are as "fallible" as any other human being.
Baha'is cannot recognize Joseph Smith as a "Prophet". But they "may" recognize him as a Seer! Shoghi Effendi did, but he did not mandate that the Baha'is believe this too, or he would have said so in one of his Directives (epistles). He never did. Only the "Directives of the Guardian" (his personal letters and letters written by his secretaries on his behalf but signed by him) are "binding" upon the Believers.
Things that Bahá'ís "heard" him say are called "Pilgrim's Notes". They can be published and shared, but they are not considered "authoritative" and thus Baha'is are not required to believe what they say.
For example, a good friend of Joseph Smith named George Hinkle claimed that Joseph Smith told him that Muhammad was "a Prophet and a good man". This is second-hand "hearsay". Thus, Mormons are not required to believe it. The same is true with things Baha'is "heard" Shoghi Effendi say. Baha'is "may" believe that Joseph Smith was a Seer who prophesied of Baha'u'llah in the capacity of a Seer, or they may not believe it. The choice is theirs.
Did Joseph Smith prophesy (praw-fess-sai) of Baha'u'llah in the capacity of a Seer?
I personally believe he did! Here is the "proof" of my personal belief that Joseph Smith prophesied (praw-fess-side) of Baha'u'llah:
In 1840 Joseph Smith sent Orson Hyde (one of his apostles) to the Holy Land to dedicate the land for the return of the Jews. When Orson Hyde returned to Nauvoo Illinois (at that time a Mormon city) he told Joseph Smith of the fabulous white wines he had drank in the Holy Land. Drinking wine was not forbidden for Mormons in Joseph Smith's day. Only "strong drink" (i.e. liquors such as whiskey etc.) was forbidden at that time.
Joseph Smith then prophesied (praw-fess-side) that "IF" he be allowed to live he would "drink white wine" with Hyde in the Holy Land. (Diary of Joseph Smith, Jan. 20, 1843, LDS Church Archives). This prophecy was never published in the Doctrine and Covenants; the Revelations of Joseph Smith with a few additions by his Utah successors.
In 1842, in Nauvoo, Illinois, Joseph Smith owned a red brick store. On the second story, Joseph Smith had his private offices. There, he established a secret organization within the Church he called "The Holy Order". The Holy Order consisted of 9 men; Joseph Smith and his closest friends in the Church. These 9 men were called "The Anointed Quorum"; which ruled the Holy Order. Eventually, the Holy Order grew to about 70 men and women.Joseph Smith designated the second story of his red-brick store in Nauvoo, Illinois, as "The Order Lodge".
In 1843, Joseph Smith introduced a secret Masonic-like ritual for the Holy Order called "The Endowment Ceremony". Joseph also referred to it as "Celestial Masonry". It was a secret rite that most Mormons never knew about. It was revealed only to members of The Holy Order. The rite was somewhat as follows:
*Men and women were taken into separate rooms and washed with water and anointed with olive oil, and dressed in all white clothing.
*They were taken into a room where the Garden of Eden story was reenacted by actors (no nudity).
*They were taught certain grips and gestures called "signs and tokens" and given oaths never to reveal the signs and tokens even under pain of death.
*They were taken to an altar and taught to pray in a circle and learned three Hebrew secret words.
*They were taken to a white veil, and there they had to repeat the "signs and tokens" they learned.
*Once they repeated the signs and tokens they were let into a small "Celestial Room"--symbolic of the Celestial Kingdom, where a man with a crown sat upon a throne. This room represented the Kingdom of the Father.
What was Joseph Smith preparing his Holy Order for? According to George J. Adams (the Bishop of Nauvoo and close friend of Joseph Smith), the Seer was preparing them for the coming of "The Son of Man" Who would appear in the Holy Land (Palestine) wearing red gardments, in the year 1891.
On August 27th, 1843, Joseph Smith declared:
"The Holy Ghost is now [1843] in a state of probation which if he should perform in righteousness he may pass through the same or a similar course of things that the Son has." (Joseph Smith, The Words of Joseph Smith, p. 245; Sabbath address, 27 August 1843)
The term "state of probation" comes from The Book of Mormon, and refers to a mortal life on Earth (1 Nephi 10:21, Nephi 2:2,30, and 33:9, Mormon 9:28). Joseph Smith said that "now" (1843) the Holy Ghost was in "a state of probation" somewhere on planet Earth. Joseph Smith never claimed to be the Holy Ghost incarnate. But, there was a Man living in Persia (Iran) in 1843, Who later did claim that station!
A meeting of the Holy Order in the Order Lodge
All members of the Holy Order were Mormons, but most Mormons were never members of the Holy Order. In fact, most Mormons knew nothing about the Holy Order. Brigham Young was a member of the Holy Order, but not a member of the Anointed Quorum. He was probably never informed of Joseph's plans to take the Order to Palestine so that Joseph could "see the face of the Son of Man" in 1891 (D&C 130:15).
According to George Adams, the Bishop of Nauvoo, close friend of Joseph Smith, and senior member of the Anointed Quroum next to Joseph Smith, the Seer planned to take the Holy Order with him to Palestine; there to build a colony and await the coming of the Son of Man, Who would appear in the Holy Land in the year 1891, wearing red apparel.
After the assassination of Joseph Smith in June of 1844, George Adams, not Brigham Young, became the head of the Anointed Quorum, and thus the entire Holy Order. George Adams tried to take the Holy Order to the Holy Land as Joseph Smith wished, but Brigham Young excommunicated Adams and those who wanted to go to Palestine as planned. They did eventually go to Palestine, but most left a few years afterwards because life was too difficult for them there. But, about 20 families stayed; eventually settling in the small Arab village of Haifa, next to Mount Carmel. Had Joseph Smith been allowed to live, he would have been among them.
In 1846, Brigham Young dissolved the Holy Order, and excommunicated any member of the Order who wanted to go to Palestine. He changed the Endowment Ceremony (adding many things to it), and made the ceremony mandatory for all Mormons who wanted to go on missions or get married. He told the Mormons that the Endowment was to help them enter into the Celestial Kingdom (the highest heaven) after they died, that the "signs and tokens" were necessary to pass-by Sentinel-Angels on one's journey to the Celestial Kingdom after death.
Mormon Temples are not houses of worship. They are places were sacred ordinances are performed: such as Endowment Ceremonies, Sealings (marriages for eternity), and Baptisms for the Dead (the living are baptized in the name of a dead person so that dead person may join the Church in the Spirit-World).
In the years 1920, 1950, and 1990, Mormon Church leaders removed various "additions" to the Endowment Ceremony that Brigham Young added to it in 1846; without explanation. Latter-day Saints (Mormons) consider the Endowment Ceremony to be very sacred, and not to be discussed in any detail outside of the Celestial Rooms inside Mormon Temples. The "signs and tokens" are considered most sacred, and not to be discussed at all. Various exposé's of the secret Mormon Endowment Ceremony can be found on the Internet, but not all are accurate, and some are very inaccurate and misleading. The Church now has hundreds of temples around the world. The most preeminent is the Salt Lake Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah. It faces East, the direction in which Mormons believe Jesus will come "suddenly" (without forewarning) to His Temple.
Haifa in 1891
Joseph Smith planned to take the Holy Order with him to Palestine, and await the coming of the Son of Man, Who would appear in the Holy Land in red apparel when Joseph Smith was 85 years old (1891). But, because he sinned in regards to polygamy (marrying mothers and their own daughters) Joseph Smith was not allowed to live and see the Face of the Son of Man in the Holy Land in 1891. Joseph was assassinated at Hancock County Jail, Carthage, Illinois, on June 27th, 1844, by an angry mob of Anti-Mormons. Joseph fell from the second story window of the Carthage Jail, like a shaft of lightening. A member of the mob then tried to cut off his head with a Bowie knife, but a light from heaven rendered the ruffian motionless and prevented this from happening.
According to George J. Adams (former Bishop of Nauvoo), Joseph Smith wanted the Holy Order to go to Palestine to await the coming of "The Son of Man" in 1891. But, according to Adams, Brigham Young refused to allow this. Adams then joined with James Strang, along with Emma Smith (Joseph's Widow), Lucy Smith (Joseph's mother) and William Smith (Joseph's remaining living brother). The sisters of Joseph Smith also followed Strang, who was assassinated in 1856. Then George J. Adams took a number of members of the Holy Order to Palestine. But considitions were horrendous, and most (including Adams) returned. However, about twenty Holy Order members stayed and settled among the German Templar Colony in Haifa at the foot of Mount Carmel.
In 1860, a Lutheran minister in Germany named Christoph Hofmann was told by the Spirit that Christ was returning soon, on Mount Carmel, and to raise a "spiritual Temple" of Christians to meet Him. So Hofmann and others formed a "Society of the Temple" and founded a colony in 1868 in Haifa, Palestine, at the foot of Mount Carmel. From the sea to the foot of Mount Carmel they built "The Way of the Lord" (now Gen Gurion Street), and over the doors and windows of their red-roofed homes they wrote "Die Herr Ist Nahe" ("The Lord is Near"). About twenty members of the Holy Order joined them.
The Shrine of The Báb on the Sacred Spot on Mount Carmel overlooking the German Templar Colony
Joseph Smith made plans for living and dying. He planned to make his brother Hyrum President of the Church, and travel to the Holy Land with his Holy Order, to await the coming of the Son of Man, in red apparel, in the year 1891.
It is clear that Joseph Smith never intended to make the Endowment Ceremony mandatory for all Latter-day Saints. He taught it only to the Holy Order; whom he planned to take with him to Palestine "if" he be allowed to live. He wasn't. The Endowment had nothing to do with the Afterlife, but contained "types and shadows" of the coming of the Son of Man in 1891.
Baha'u'llah (baw-haw-ohL-LAW) was a religious prisoner. He was exiled first to Baghdad in 1853, then to Turkey, then finally to the prison-city of Akka, Palestine, in 1868. For many years, in Akka, He lived in a room whose windows and door was covered in white veils. Because of assassination attemps, anyone who wanted to visit Him had to know certain secret words and gestures. They were told to wash and anoint themselves, and to wear white (a symbol of purity) if possible, before entering the "Celestial Room" of Baha'u'llah; Who wore a taj (Dervish crown), and red robes.
The Celestial Room of Baha'u'llah (Akka, Palestine, 1890)
He wrote that He was the promised Son of Man:
"The Voice of the Son of Man is calling aloud from the sacred veil: 'Here am I, here am I, O God, My God!' The Father hath come, and that which ye were promised in the Kingdom of God is fulfilled." (The Words of Bahá'u'lláh, p.104)
"Verily I say, this is the Day in which mankind can behold the Face and hear the Voice, of the Promised One." (Gleanings 10:vii)
"He Who is the King of Kings hath appeared, arrayed in His most wonderous glory, and is summoning you unto Himself, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting." (Gleanings 211:cv)
In the year 1891 Bahá'u'lláh went from Akka to Haifa. He pitched His tent on on Mount Carmel on a Sacred Spot overlooking "The Way of the Lord" and the German Templar Colony. It was from this Sacred Spot that He recited His Tablet of Carmel:
"All glory be to this Day, the Day which the fragrances of mercy have been wafted over all created things, a Day so blessed that past ages and centuries can never hope to rival it, a Day in which the Contenance of the Ancient of Days hath turned towards His holy seat. Thereupon the voice of all created things, and beyond them those of the Concourse on high, were heard calling aloud: "Haste Thee, O Carmel, for lo, the light of the Countenance of God, the Ruler of the Kingdom of Names and Fashioner of the heavens, hath been lifted upon thee.'***CALL OUT TO ZION, O Carmel, and announce the joyful tidings: He that was hidden from mortal eyes is come!" (Bahá'u'lláh--The Word Made Flesh, p.64)
Just mere coincidence?
Dear Mormon Seeker of Truth, you ask "Why was I never told about this aspect of Mormon history?" The answer is simple: because Church leaders DO NOT want YOU to know about it! We think you should know.
The LORD inspired Joseph Smith to take certain symbols from the Masonic Lodge, and create a ceremony that contained "types and shadows" which pointed directly to Baha'u'llah, the Son of Man and Holy Ghost Incarnate, Who appeared upon Mount Carmel, in 1891, in red robes. Had Joseph Smith lived, he would have seen the Face of the Son of Man.
On the the 6th of April, 1843, Joseph Smith declared:
There are those of the rising generation who shall not taste death til Christ comes." (Joseph Smith, General Conference, 6 April 1843, quoted in The Words of Joseph Smith, p.179)
The Holy Ghost said to Joseph the Seer:
"And the Lord shall be red in his apparel like him that treadeth the wine vat,..." (D&C 133:48, RLDS D&C 108:9c)
In Nauvoo, Illinois, on August 27th, 1843, Joseph Smith declared:
The term "state of probation" comes from The Book of Mormon, and refers to a mortal life on Earth (1 Nephi 10:21, Nephi 2:2,30, and 33:9, Mormon 9:28). Joseph Smith said that "now" (1843) the Holy Ghost was in "a state of probation" somewhere on planet Earth. Where was He? Who was He?
Joseph Smith never claimed to be the Holy Ghost incarnate (although some "Fundamentalist" Mormons claim it for him). But Baha'u'llah (1817-1892), the founding Prophet of the Baha'i Faith, did claim to be the Holy Ghost Incarnate--the Spirit of Truth!
In 1843 a Baptist named William Miller said he had calculated Bible prophecies and came to the conclusion that Christ would return in the year 1843 (he made a recalculation later and put it at 1844). Joseph Smith also heard of the claims of Miller, and decided to inquire of the LORD about this. A Voice told him that if he lived until he was 85 years of age he would "see the Face of the Son of Man" (D&C 130). Joseph Smith would turn 85 on Dec. 23, 1890. For all but 9 days, he would be 85 years old in the year 1891.
That was not all! He would make several other prophecies that would point to the year 1891.
On April 6th, 1843, Joseph Smith made the following prophecy:
"I was once praying earnestly upon the subject, and a voice said unto me, My son, if thou livest till thou art 85 years of age, thou shalt see the Face of the Son of Man--I was left to draw my own conclusions concerning this & took the liberty to conclude that if I did live till that time He would make His appearance or I shall go where He is--I prophesy in the name of the Lord God--& let it be written, that the Son of Man will not come in the heavens till I am 85 years old, 48 years hence or about 1890." (Diary of Joseph Smith, April 6, 1843, quoted in The Revelations of Joseph Smith, p.345)
48 years "hence" of 1843 is 1891 (1843+48=1891).
On February 14th, 1835, Joseph Smith gave a speech in Kirland, Ohio, before "Zion's Camp"; a Mormon militia that was going to Missouri to defend Mormons living there from Missouri mobs who believed that the Mormons were trying to free their black slaves. The speech was recorded by Franklin D. Richards; then the personal secretary of Joseph Smith. In this speech, Joseph Smith claimed that the Holy Spirit showed him in vision that the coming of the Lord would be "56 years hence" from 1835 (1891). In the History of the Church for February 14, 1835 (reported by his secretary Franklin D. Richards) it says:
"President Smith then stated that the meeting had been called, because God commanded it; and it was made known to him by vision and by the Holy Spirit***and it was the will of God that those who went to Zion, with a determination to lay down their lives, if necessary, should be ordained to the ministry, and go forth to prune the vineyard for the last time, or the coming of the Lord, which was nigh--even fifty-six years should wind-up the scene." (D.H.C. 2:182)
In the Index (vol. 7) of the History of the Church , under "Second Coming", we find the following: "Joseph indicates would be in fifty-six years V2:182".
The year 1835 + 56 years = 1891
The early "Brethren" (Mormon leaders) believed that Christ would come and establish His Kingdom in the year 1891; based upon the 1835 and 1843 prophecies of Joseph Smith. A few questions for the Reader:
Q1. When will the Holy Ghost, Who is a Spirit-Man, come down to Earth to get a body?
Q2. Will the Holy Ghost perform some great Divine Mission on Earth, or merely come to Earth to get a body and work at some ordinary job or career?
Q3. Will the Holy Ghost be some great Prophet, or just an ordinary human being like everybody else?
Q4. Was Joseph Smith the incarnation of the Holy Ghost, or will the Holy Ghost be some other Man?
Q5. Do the 1891 prophecies of Joseph Smith (i.e. the Son of Man would come in the year 1891 in red apparel), have to do with the Second Coming of Jesus, or with the coming Incarnation (embodiment) of the Holy Ghost?
I would like to bare you my testimony of the following:
I. The Holy Ghost has already come down to get a body! He was born in Persian (Iran) in the year 1817, and died in 1892 in the Holy Land. He was a direct descendant of King David of Israel and King Cyrus of Persia.
II. He was not an ordinary man, but the Holy Ghost Incarnate. He was the One Who inspired the Prophets and Seers.III. He was born with the name Mirza Húsein-Ali Núri (Arabic: "Prince Beauty Exalted of Light"). He had Núr ("Light") as a "covering" (sur-name). He took the name-title of BAHÁ'U'LLÁH (baw-haw-ohL-LAW); which in Arabic means "The Glory of God".
IV. He announced to the world-at-large that He was the promised "Son of Man" in the year 1891, wearing red apparel, on the northern slopes of Mount Carmel, in Palestine (now Israel).
V. His Eldest Son, 'Abdu'l-Baha (awb-dull baw-HAW), Whom many considered to be the reincarnation of Jesus, appeared in Salt Lake City in September of 1912, and knocked on the East Door of the Salt Lake Temple; wearing the glorious red robe of His Father.
The Baha'i Faith is the Millennial Kingdom of God on Earth in embryo. It will not be "born" until after "The Calamity"; an epic worldwide event wherein a third of all Mankind will perish.
Early Mormon apostles believed the Millennial Kingdom would be established, somehwere on this planet, in the year 1891 They referred to it as "THE KINGDOM".
In 1891, in General Conference, Elder Charles W. Penrose (a Mormon apostle) said:
"Did not all the Prophets of old look forward to such a time, and did not our Savior send His disciples to proclaim that THE KINGDOM was at hand? He gave a great many parables concerning THE KINGDOM. He compared it, among other things, to a grain of mustard seed that grew and became the greatest tree on earth. That is, commencing with a small beginning, but, like all God's works, gradually growing and developing until fully complete. The prophet Daniel saw it as the 'little stone', cut out of the mountain without hands, which smote the great image and shattered its remnants to the four winds, and then became a great mountain and filled the whole earth, which is our birthplace according to the flesh and our future home and heaven. The earth fulfills the law of its creation and shall therefore be glorified and become a fit dwelling place for the sanctified, fit for the Presence of God and clothed with His glory. The Church and THE KINGDOM are not identical, although they are closely connected. In the Church is the Gospel of the Kingdom. It is a preparation for that Divine Government. IT will not be fully established until Christ comes, who is the King. As members of the Church we are commanded to be subject to the governments under which we live, as long as they exist, for 'the powers that be are ordained of God,' but we are approaching a time when all things on earth must give way to the HEAVENLY KINGDOM. The kingdom of this world are to become the KINGDOM OF GOD AND HIS CHRIST. Let us prepare ourselves for the events that are coming, and when we pray: 'Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,' do our part in the work to prepare for its advent." (Collected Discourses 2:188-9, emphasis added)
In the year 1890, in Conference, Elder B. H. Roberts (Church historian and Seventy) said:
"Before another General Conference shall be reached we shall have entered upon the year 1891. In the Book of Doctrines and Covenants, section 130, Joseph Smith was promised that if he lived until 1891, he would see the face of the Son of Man. On February 14th, 1835, at a meeting where certain Elders, they were told by Joseph that they were called to go forth to prune the vineyard for the last time, before the coming of Christ, even 56 years should wind-up the scene. 1835 plus 56 years also brings us to the year 1891! These circumstances have called the Saints to believe that some great epoch will open at that time--the year following the present [1891]. My faith in the matter is whatever the Lord has in mind to accomplish in that year will be performed. It may be something, however, that would scarcely create a ripple. The organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was one of the greatest events in the history of the world. It was organized with six members, and but little was known concerning it even in the neighborhood where it occurred, at the time. It may be that the greatness of what shall occur in 1891 will not be comprehended until succeeding years." (Collected Discourses 2:105-6)
Many of the Mormons in 1890 expected Jesus to return in the clouds of the sky in 1891; with thousands of angels in tow, spitting fire-balls upon the wicked nations of the earth and wiping Jackson County clean of inhabitants so that they could return and build the city of New Jerusalem. Some even prepared hand-carts for the return journey. Elder Roberts told them not to expect such a dramatic occurance, but--like the organization of the Church at Farmington New York in the year 1830--what was going to happen in the year 1891 may even be unnoticed by those right next to the event!
Joseph Smith prophecied in the name of the LORD that the Son of Man would UNVEIL HIS FACE in the years 1891! IF even one of Joseph Smith's prophecies were false then he MUST be dismissed as a FALSE PROPHET and the Church false as well! There is no middle-ground! No excuses or explain-aways can be accepted!
Jehovah told Moses that if a prophet appears and prophesies a thing, and that thing come not to pass, then the LORD did NOT send that man, and he is a FALSE PROPHET! The LORD said:
"When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word which the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously, you need not be afraid of him" (Deuteronomy 18:22)
In other words, if a man claims to be a Prophet, and makes prophecies, and those prophecies "fail" to come to pass (fail to occur), then that man is a false prophet, and people should not be "afraid" (subservient) to him; because the LORD has not spoken to him (i.e. he is a false prophet). Did the 1891 prophecies of Joseph Smith "come to pass"? We say THEY DID, but not as Mormons expected.
In 1886, Mormon apostle Moses Thatcher declared before a gathering of Mormons in the Salt Lake Tabernacle:
"Our deliverance will be within 5 years; the time indicated by Joseph's [Feb. 14, 1832] prophecy will be February 14, 1891." (Salt Lake Tribune, 10 April 1886)
In 1887, the LDS Church printed and distributed a book by Elder Robert Smith (a 2nd cousin of Joseph Smith), to be "used by teachers in Sunday Schools" (it was an official Church publication). Elder Robert Smith wrote:
"Now, we will prove by the prophet Joseph Smith that the same year, 1891, is the commencement of the reign of righteousness. In Section 130, Doctrine and Covenants, Joseph was told that if he lived to be 85 years old he would live to see the scene wound up or the Redeemer on the earth. He was born December 23rd, 1805, and if we give him the 85 years, we could not count the year 1805, we should have to count 1806, as the year 1805 was mostly gone before he was born, therefore, we have 1806 and 85, making 1891; again in the year 1835 Joseph was told positively that 56 years would wind up the scene, which we believe was the reign of iniquity and transgression: 56 and 1835 are 1891. Thus we have abundant proof that that year will begin the reign of righteousness, and God's people be acknowledged, for the earth is to be given to them. He has said: 'Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.'" (A Series of Lectures on the Fulfillment of Prophecy, 1887, pp.39-40)
Mormon leaders told rank-and-file Mormons over and over gain to expect "THE KINGDOM" to be established somewhere on Earth in 1891!
On January 1st 1891, Wilford Woodruff (the 4th President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) wrote in is diary:
"Jan 1, 1891. This is New Year's Day, and the year that has been looked upon by many as one of the more important years in the world." (Jounal of Wilford Woodruff, Jan. 1, 1891)
Tens of thousand of Latter-day Saints, from Mormon apostles to rank-and-file Mormons, believed that the "Son of Man" was coming "in red apparel" in the year 1891 to establish "THE KINGDOM".
When Jesus failed to appear in the sky over Salt Lake City in 1891, riding upon a cloud, the Mormons said: "The Lord has delayed His coming!"
Truly did Jesus say, "that evil servant shall say in his heart, My Lord delayeth His coming." (Matt. 14:48)
Truly did the LORD say unto Joseph the Seer: "...and they shall say that Christ delayeth his coming until the end of the earth." (D&C 45:26)
There are over 7 MILLION people on earth today that believe that Christ did NOT delay His coming, but came on schedule.
The LORD said to Joseph the Seer:
"Therefore, sanctify yourselves that your minds become single to God, and the days will come that you shall see him; for HE WILL UNVEIL HIS FACE UNTO YOU, and it shall be in his own time, and in his own way, and according to his own will." (D&C sec. 88:68)
"Ye were also in the beginning with THE FATHER; that which is Spirit, even THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH." (D&C 93:23)
"The COMFORTER is the promise which I give unto you of ETERNAL LIFE, even THE GLORY which I spake concerning the ten virgins." (D&C 45:56)
"...the Church of the Firstborn are those who have received the fulness of THE FATHER." (D&C 76:70)
"There are they whose bodies are celestial, whose glory is that of the sun, even THE GLORY OF GOD, the highest of all, whose glory the sun of the firmament is written of as being typical." (D&C 76:70)
Bahá'u'lláh wrote:
The COMFORTER Whose advent all the Scriptures have promised is now come that He may reveal unto you all knowledge and wisdom. Seek Him over the entire surface of the earth, haply ye may find Him." (Words of Bahá'u'lláh pp.104-5)
"Verily I say, this is the Day in which mankind can BEHOLD THE FACE, and hear the Voice, of the Promised One." (Gleanings 10:vii)
"Verily, He who is THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH is come to guide you unto all truth. He speaketh not as prompted by His own self, but as bidden by Him Who is All-Knowing, the All-Wise." (Lawh-i-Aqdas 11:4-5)
"Say, O followers of the Son! Lo! THE FATHER is come, and that which ye were promised in the KINGDOM is fulfilled." (Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh p.12)
"The Voice of THE SON OF MAN is calling aloud from the sacred veil: 'Here am I, here am I, O God, My God!' THE FATHER is come!" (Words of Bahá'u'lláh p.104)
In Arabic, Bahá'u'lláh means THE GLORY OF GOD!
All just mere coincidence?
Continued in 5 of 5


Metropolitan Touring, the innovator of cultural travel and eco-tourism across South America, has announced the completion of a renovation of Mashpi Lodge, its award-winning eco-lodge nestled on 3,200 acres of Andean cloud forest near Quito, Ecuador. The project, undertaken from February to July 2017, has enhanced the property with focus on wellness, families, and scientific research.
The renovation was led by two of Ecuador's top designers: Julio Vinueza, who worked with the Mashpi team to redefine the interior design of the Lodge's public areas; and Roberto Burneo, who led construction of a new outdoor area. Naturally, all renovation work was undertaken with necessary care to protect the ecosystem of the Mashpi Reserve.
Already a relaxed and inviting presence deep in the forest, Mashpi Lodge is now even more so with warm neutral tones inside and out that highlight stunning views of nature through floor-to-ceiling windows. New couches, stools and cushions enliven all social areas, while a new Expedition Room for presentations by naturalists is arrayed with cozy sitting areas for guests to relax and share experiences over a glass of wine from the new Honesty Bar.
The project also created two new guest rooms sized for families on the Lodge's first floor Lobby Level, separated by a vestibule that, taken together, form a "faux suite". The guest rooms are located at the site of the original spa area, which has been relocated to the second floor Terrace Level, with two massage rooms, including one sized for couple's treatments.
Meanwhile, wellness offerings have been expanded into a new outdoor space located adjacent to the Lodge. Called SAMAY (for "soul" in Kichwa), the space includes a covered open-air hot tub and yoga deck. It is accessible via a short winding path through lush foliage often dotted with bird species.
The renovation also enhanced Mashpi Lodge's focus on research and environmental awareness with a new Laboratory open to guests and resident scientists alike. Specimens of various species are maintained for viewing, and a cheery Kids Corner that invites youngsters to embark on their own journey of scientific discovery.


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The Topeka hatemongers claim that when Josh Powell hacked and burned Charlie, 7, and Braden, 5, he was carrying out God's vengeance on the state of Washington for legalizing gay marriage.
That's a new low in the quality of their hogwash, and it has set well-intended but unwelcome plans in motion.
Motorcycle groups, contingents of veterans and gays, Occupy Tacoma and Seattle and hundreds of individuals and families responded over Facebook and on blogs with pledges to put themselves between the Phelpses and the memorial service. Bikers promised to rev up a mighty roar to drown the Phelps' voices.
The Cox family does not want that, Curry said.
Any protest, from either side, he said, would sully the event for those whose hearts are with the boys.
Curry is serious. While mourners and supporters are welcome to attend the service, police will be on hand to remove any demonstrators from church grounds.
The property across the street is more problematic, and church leaders struggled Thursday to craft a plan that would honor the family's wishes but shield them from the bigots if the Phelps crew turns up.
Oftentimes, they don't. They threatened to picket military funerals and memorial services on Joint Base Lewis-McChord, and did not bother to show. They just grabbed low-hanging publicity with their threat to appear.
This time, they might turn up to plug into the national media, what with Washington's imminent legalization of gay marriage and the outrage over the boys' deaths.
Associated Ministries' director, The Rev. Chris Morton, is out of town, but he wanted Pierce County's people of faith to have a civil way not only to respond to that presence, but also drown it out.
He suggested meeting across the street from the church.
Curry and the Cox family asked for reconsideration. They would prefer the focus be on the boys and the service.
The Rev. Gordon Hutchins and lay minister Michael Collier of The Bridge, a ministry of the United Methodist Church, acted for Associated Ministries to find a solution.
The Elks Club offered it. The club, with its vast parking lot at 1965 S. Union Ave., will open Saturday morning for members of groups who want to shield those at Life Center from any Phelps' spew.
If the haters from Topeka show up, The Bridge's people will hand out sheets of children's hymns. Protesters, now protectors, will walk, singing songs of God's love and line up across the street from Life Center. They will be a peaceful presence as mourners arrive and leave.
If, as anyone who loved Charlie and Braden hopes, the hate crew develops the humanity to stay away, those who came to protect the sanctity of the boys' service will happily have no reason to be there. They can go in peace.


International reference pricing (IRP) has become a popular policy instrument in Europe as government seeks to curb healthcare costs and notably reduce expenditure on medicines. IRP builds on systematic price comparisons with other countries and aims at fixing low reimbursement levels for drugs covered by the public health insurances. There are however serious concerns as to whether IRP is an adequate instrument in terms of reconciling the immediate need to reduce healthcare spending with the objective of fostering a dynamic and innovating atmosphere for future health technology improvements.
Discussing the benefits and drawbacks of international reference pricing, this Policy Brief seeks to identify known effects and provide greater understanding of possible unintended consequences of IRP, particularly with respect to market distortions.
Existing research shows that reference pricing may reduce drug prices and promote generic market entry in the short term. In the long run however, IRP risks causing negative dynamic effects. This is due to the fact that the operation of the price mechanism is set out of play. The IRP as an instrument is not designed to improve productivity and efficiency in the pharmaceutical market. Instead of basing prices on an assessment of the added therapeutic value of a new medicine, IRP focuses solely on cutting costs. As pharmaceutical companies react to policy incentives, launch delays have been observed as well as higher prices on branded drugs as firms try to compensate for foregone sales. Ultimately, by dampening the price competition and by discouraging incremental innovation, IRP may in the long run defeat its purpose and lead to increased medical expenses for the public healthcare sector.