The white tents on the plaza outside the Daley Center, where Christmas ornaments are sold in December, contained different goodies Tuesday. The Forest Preserve District of Cook County declared its own holiday.
As pedestrians absorbed sunshine on lunch breaks, officials handed out freebie fishing guides, water bottles, brochures and a new map pinpointing the agency's 68,000 acres of woods, lakes, golf courses, nature centers and recreational sites.
To get more locals to come to them, Forest Preserve officials invaded the world of concrete, high-rises and government buildings. The task was to remind citizens that neither all of Chicago nor the rest of the county is paved. The calling card was the foldout map that identifies 310 locations in Cook County where men, women and their families can go play. The theme on the front is "Live Healthy, Discover Nature."
"In essence, it's an awareness program," district superintendent Steven Bylina Jr. said. "We want to get the word out to a variety of users that this is in your own backyard. There are a great number of people who don't realize what there is in their county."
The map, funded by a grant from the U.S. Forest Service, was the showpiece giveaway. It is a tightly packed guide to all of the woods and waters under district county supervision and a handy list of year-round activities available in the forest preserves.
"Convenience is the big thing," Bylina said of the map as a source to point residents to places near where they live. "With gas prices the way they are, people are going to stay close to home. At least you will be aware of it."
During the two-hour promotion, people streamed past the tents to pick up maps and discuss where to bicycle, fish or picnic.
Some visitors who already use the district obtained tips on where to find more enticing spots for their recreational inclinations.
Jermaine Young, 29, said he camps within the forest preserves on family trips and fishes at Wolf Lake. He said he doesn't even know where he camps because he just sleeps on the way.
"They say, `Get yourself out of the car and set up,'" Young said while laughing. "I'm a worker bee."
Young said he hopes studying the map will give him new ideas for using the forest preserves.
Map-carrying Fabian Ayala, 35, of Chicago, said he plays tennis and soccer, but is always open to new suggestions for using bicycle trails.
"I just jump on my bike and go," he said. "I have the outdoors schedule I want to check at home."
One popular display showed off fish swimming in aquariums, everything from Northern pike, largemouth bass, walleye and channel catfish to black crappie, bluegill, white crappie, black bullhead and sunfish.
"It's surprising how many people think we have piranha or barracuda in there," district biologist Jim Phillips said. "They're surprised when they find out they all came out of the forest preserves."
Benjamin Cox, executive director of the Friends of the Forest Preserves, works closely with the district to coordinate volunteer projects. The district relies heavily on about 7,000 volunteers who participate in cleanup and restoration projects.
"A big part of our role is to education people that we have preserves," Cox said. "They think parks. We tell them we're preserving nature first. They go, `Oh, I see.'"
Still, Bylina said improvements throughout the district are underway. About 300 miles of trails have been freshly marked, old wooden outhouses replaced and, just possibly, the district might introduce a new species of fish in some bodies of water over the next few years.
Bylina said the forest preserves are studying the possibility of stocking striped bass or muskie.
"Wouldn't it be nice to wake up in the morning and catch a muskie within 25 miles of your home?" he said.
Bylina said the probability of stocking muskie in the Skokie Lagoon or Tampier Lake is the more likely.
"It's not going to happen overnight," he said.
Kathi Steinbert, 48, a lifelong angler from Chicago, is not sure if she should get excited about that.
"All I ever catch is bluegill, wherever I go," she said. "Since I'm a little kid that's all I've ever caught."
However, 15 years ago, at Saganshkee Slough in Willow Springs--a forest preserves site--one guy proposed marriage to her. Did she say yes?
"Of course," Steinbert said. "It's the only proposal I ever got."
The Forest Preserve District of Cook County's new recreational map can be obtained at district nature centers and the district headquarters in River Forest. It also will be made available through the district Web site at www.fpdcc.com.


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Metamorphic rock is rock that has changed from one type of rock into another. The word metamorphic (from Greek) means "of changing form." Metamorphic rock is produced from either igneous rock (rock formed from the cooling and hardening of magma ) or sedimentary rock (rock formed from compressed and solidified layers of organic or inorganic matter). Most of Earth's crust is made up of metamorphic rock. Igneous and sedimentary rocks become metamorphic rock as a result of intense heat from magma and pressure from tectonic shifting. Although the rock becomes extremely hot and under a great deal of pressure it does not melt. If the rock melted, the process would result in igneous, not metamorphic rock. Metamorphic alteration of rock causes the texture and/or mineral composition to change. New textures are formed from a process called recrystallization. New minerals (which are simply various combinations of elements) are created when elements recombine.
There are two basic types of metamorphic rock: regional and thermal. Regional metamorphic rock, found mainly in mountainous regions, is formed mainly by pressure, as opposed to heat. Different amounts of pressure produce different types of rock. The greater the pressure, the more drastic the change. Also, the deeper the rock the higher the temperature , which adds to the potential for diverse changes. For example, a pile of mud can turn into shale (a fine-grained sedimentary rock) with relatively low pressure, about 3 mi (5 km) down into the earth. With more pressure and some heat, shale can transform into slate and mica. Metamorphic rock found closer to Earth's surface, or produced by low pressure, characteristically splits or flakes into layers of varying thickness. This is called foliation. Slate is often used as roofing tiles and paving stones. With lots of pressure and increasing heat, rock called schist forms. Schist, which is a medium-grained regional metamorphic rock also has a tendency to split in layers, is subjected to high temperatures, and often contains crystals , such as garnets. Gneiss (pronounced "nice") is formed by a higher pressure and temperature than schist. These rocks are coarse grained and, although layered as schist is, do not split easily. Essentially, metamorphic rocks are made of the same minerals as the original rock or parent rock but the various minerals have been rearranged to make a new rock.
Thermal metamorphic rock, also called contact metamorphic rock, is formed not only by considerable pressure but, more importantly, by intense heat. Imagine molten rock pushing up into Earth's crust. The incredible pressure fills any empty space, every nook and cranny, with molten rock. This intense heat causes the surrounding rock to completely recrystallize. During recrystallization, the chemical composition regroups to form a new rock. An example of this type of thermal metamorphic rock is marble , which is actually limestone whose calcite has recrystallized. Sandstone made mostly of quartz fragments recrystallizes into quartzite. Thermal metamorphic rocks are not as common or plentiful as regional metamorphic rocks. Sometimes a metamorphic rock can become metamorphosed. This is known as polymetamorphism.
"Metamorphic Rock." World of Earth Science. . Encyclopedia.com. 10 Apr. 2019 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>.
metamorphic rock An aggregate of minerals formed by the recrystallization of pre-existing rocks in response to a change of pressure, temperature, or volatile content. Metamorphic rocks can generally be divided into four types: (a) regional metamorphic rocks, formed in response to changes leading to high temperature and high pressure (shearing stress and hydrostatic pressure: see HYDROSTATIC STRESS) accompanying orogenic events (see OROGENY; REGIONAL METAMORPHISM); (b) contact metamorphic rocks, formed in response to changes leading to high temperature (with low pressure) around an igneous intrusion (see THERMAL METAMORPHISM); (c) cataclastic or dynamic metamorphic rocks, formed in response to an increase in directed pressure (shearing stress) particularly in fault and thrust zones (see CATACLASITE); and (d) burial metamorphism, formed in response to changes leading to high pressure (with low temperature).
"metamorphic rock." A Dictionary of Earth Sciences. . Encyclopedia.com. 10 Apr. 2019 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>.
metamorphic rock Broad class of rocks that have been changed by heat or pressure from their original nature – sedimentary, igneous, or older metamorphic. The changes characteristically involve new crystalline structure, the creation of new minerals, or a radical change of texture. For example, the metamorphic rock slate is made from sedimentary shale.
"metamorphic rock." World Encyclopedia. . Encyclopedia.com. 10 Apr. 2019 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>.
metamorphic rock An aggregate of minerals formed by the recrystallization of pre-existing rocks in response to a change of pressure, temperature, or volatile content.
"metamorphic rock." A Dictionary of Ecology. . Encyclopedia.com. 10 Apr. 2019 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>.
"metamorphic rocks." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. . Encyclopedia.com. 10 Apr. 2019 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>.
Metamorphic rock is rock that has changed from one type of rock into another. The word metamorphic (from Greek) means "of changing form." Metamorphic rock is produced from igneous rock (rock formed from the cooling and hardening of magma), sedimentary rock (rock formed from compressed and solidified layers of organic or inorganic matter), or existing metamorphic rock. Most of Earth's crust is made of metamorphic rock. Igneous and sedimentary rocks are transformed into metamorphic rock as a result of intense heat from magma and pressure from tectonic shifting. Although the rock becomes extremely hot and under a great deal of pressure, it does not melt. If the rock melted, the process would result in igneous, not metamorphic rock. Metamorphism causes the texture and mineral composition to change (although the chemical composition generally remains the same). New textures are formed from a process called recrystallization. New minerals are created when elements recombine.
There are two basic types of metamorphic rock: regional and thermal. Regional metamorphic rock, found mainly in mountainous regions, is formed mainly by pressure, as opposed to heat. Different amounts of pressure produce different types of rock. The greater the pressure, the more drastic the change. Also, the deeper the rock, the higher the temperature, which adds to the potential for diverse changes. For example, mud can lithify into shale (a fine-grained sedimentary rock) with relatively low pressure, about 3 mi (5 km) into Earth. With more pressure and some heat, shale can transform into slate and mica. Metamorphic rock found closer to Earth's surface, or produced by low pressure, characteristically splits or flakes into layers of varying thickness. This is called foliation. Slate is often used as roofing tiles and paving stones. With lots of pressure and increasing heat, rock called schist forms. Schist, which is a medium grained regional metamorphic rock also has a tendency to split in layers, is subjected to high temperatures and often contains crystals, such as garnets. Gneiss is formed by a higher pressure and temperature than schist. These rocks are coarse grained and, although layered as schist is, do not split easily. Essentially, metamorphic rocks are made of the same minerals as the original rock or parent rock but the minerals have been recrystallized to make a new rock.
The degree to which metamorphism has progressed, particularly with regard to temperature and pressure, is known as the metamorphic grade. Slate, for example, is a low grade metamorphic rock whereas gneiss is a high grade rock. Metamorphic rocks are also described in terms of facies (a term that means aspect) defined by minerals formed under particular combinations of pressure and temperature.
Thermal metamorphic rock, also called contact metamorphic rock, is formed not only by considerable pressure but, more importantly, by intense heat. Imagine molten rock pushing up into Earth's crust. The incredible pressure fills any empty space, every nook and cranny, with molten rock. This intense heat causes the surrounding rock to completely recrystallize. During recrystallization, the chemical composition "regroups" to form a new rock. An example of this type of thermal metamorphic rock is marble, which is actually limestone whose calcite has recrystallized. Sandstone made mostly of quartz fragments recrystallizes into quartzite. Thermal metamorphic rocks are not as common or plentiful as regional metamorphic rocks. Sometimes a metamorphic rock can become metamorphosed. This is known as polymetamorphism.
Blatt, H., R. Tracy, and B. Owens. Petrology: Igneous, Sedimentary, and Metamorphic. New York: Freeman, 2005.
Fowler, C.M.R. The Solid Earth: An Introduction to Global Geophysics. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
"Metamorphic Rock." The Gale Encyclopedia of Science. . Encyclopedia.com. 10 Apr. 2019 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>.
Metamorphic rock is rock that has changed from one type of rock into another. The word metamorphic (from Greek) means "of changing form." Metamorphic rock is produced from either igneous rock (rock formed from the cooling and hardening of magma ) or sedimentary rock (rock formed from compressed and solidified layers of organic or inorganic matter ). Most of Earth's crust is made up of metamorphic rock. Igneous and sedimentary rocks become metamorphic rock as a result of intense heat from magma and pressure from tectonic shifting. Although the rock becomes extremely hot and under a great deal of pressure it does not melt. If the rock melted, the process would result in igneous, not metamorphic rock. "Metamorphism " of rock causes the texture and/or mineral composition to change. New textures are formed from a process called recrystallization. New minerals (which are simply various combinations of elements) are created when elements recombine.
There are two basic types of metamorphic rock: regional and thermal. Regional metamorphic rock, found mainly in mountainous regions, is formed mainly by pressure, as opposed to heat. Different amounts of pressure produce different types of rock. The greater the pressure, the more drastic the change. Also, the deeper the rock the higher the temperature , which adds to the potential for diverse changes. For example, a pile of mud can turn into shale (a fine-grained sedimentary rock) with relatively low pressure, about 3 mi (5 km) into Earth . With more pressure and some heat, shale can transform into slate and mica. Metamorphic rock found closer to Earth's surface, or produced by low pressure, characteristically splits or flakes into layers of varying thickness. This is called foliation. Slate is often used as roofing tiles and paving stones. With lots of pressure and increasing heat, rock called schist forms. Schist, which is a medium grained regional metamorphic rock also has a tendency to split in layers, is subjected to high temperatures and often contains crystals, such as garnets. Gneiss (pronounced "nice") is formed by a higher pressure and temperature than schist. These rocks are coarse grained and, although layered as schist is, do not split easily. Essentially, metamorphic rocks are made of the same minerals as the original rock or "parent" rock but the various minerals have been rearranged to make a new rock.
Thermal metamorphic rock, also called contact metamorphic rock, is formed not only by considerable pressure but, more importantly, by intense heat. Imagine molten rock pushing up into Earth's crust. The incredible pressure fills any empty space , every nook and cranny, with molten rock. This intense heat causes the surrounding rock to completely recrystallize. During recrystallization, the chemical composition "regroups" to form a new rock. An example of this type of thermal metamorphic rock is marble, which is actually limestone whose calcite has recrystallized. Sandstone made mostly of quartz fragments recrystallizes into quartzite. Thermal metamorphic rocks are not as common or plentiful as regional metamorphic rocks. Sometimes a metamorphic rock can become metamorphosed. This is known as polymetamorphism.
Dixon, Dougal. The Practical Geologist. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1992.
Eyewitness: Rocks & Minerals. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988.


text:
Letters to Maro – Interview with Frequency Drift
rockyourlyrics April 23, 2018 0 views
Rock Interviews0 views 06 min read
Let's talk about your new album "Letters to Maro " will be released in few days….is there a link/something that connects all the lyrics of the album?
Irini Alexia: Yes, there are a couple of themes that form the backbone of what Letters To Maro is about.
The strongest and most prevalent one is probably the theme of contemporary city life.
You can hear undertones of burnout and loneliness; in a way you could say the album explores the effects of a certain loss of healthy human connections – from mild nostalgia to moments of pure insanity.
As a case in point and "inspiration location", we chose Japan. Japanese culture also provides some fascinating counterpoints to the disenchantments of modern life, like their ghost stories and horror tradition that survived seamlessly into the 21st century and is as effective as ever.
And then there's Haruki Murakami – his magic realism inspired a lot of the themes on the album.
Are you ever scared of revealing, aspects of your personal experience, to strangers through your music?
Irini: Hm, scared is not quite the right word…writing lyrics can indeed be incredibly personal, especially when you draw from concrete experiences in your own life.
But not all lyrics are autobiographic – sometimes you might write from a place of imagination.
Either way: for me, music is very much about connecting with strangers. For that to happen, you have to take a risk and put yourself out there, your emotions, your views, your way of dreaming up stories and scenarios.
There is a thrill in that – maybe that's the right word.
What has your journey in the music industry been like up to now?
Nerissa Schwarz: Exciting, rewarding, frustrating, encouraging, difficult – all at the same time!
I think it's amazing and encouraging that we have built an international fanbase in times when there is so much music out there and so much noise in the social media that it's really hard to get people's attention.
And our audience still seems to grow with each album. We've had such an enthusiastic response to "Letters to Maro" so far, and we're really grateful for that.
What makes the journey difficult sometimes is that our music is obviously hard to pigeonhole, even more so as we like to change our sound from album to album. It's probably easier if you are, for example, a metal band with a clearly defined target audience.
What was the soundtrack to your childhood?
Nerissa: I'd have to choose between Pink Floyd's "The Wall" and "Faith" by The Cure. I was a massive fan of both bands as a teenager, and I still am. Very cheerful stuff, isn't it?
But I also loved The Police, for instance, as well as some folk and classical music.
What was the first record you ever bought?
Nerissa: That was actually a CD by The Police which I bought when I was 14. A greatest hits collection, I must admit, though I bought all their albums afterwards.
What is your favorite song (not written by you) lyrically speaking?
Irini: That's hard! I think there are different genres of lyrics, much like there are different styles of music, and picking a favourite song for its lyrics is like picking a favourite piece of clothing – it really depends on the weather and where you're going.
I love cryptic lyrics with beautiful imagery like in Iron & Wine's "Innocent Bones" or Andrew Bird's "Fitz and the Dizzy Spells", or but also whimsical stuff like "New Ceremony" by Dry The River or "Id Incinerator" by The Color Bars.
That said, I am also a sucker for fast-paced, clever and punchy words with a message, like you find them in urban music – I'm a big Residente/Calle 13 fan for that reason.
That's way more than one already – I'll stop here.
What inspired "Neon" ?
Irini: The words for Neon were inspired by Haruki Murakami's novel "After Dark" – quite obviously when you listen to the lyrics. In the book, the author follows a couple of protagonists through a night in Tokyo.
The dark changes a place, different people are out, different things happen, the vibe is different. It's exciting, but not necessarily safe or wholesome. At night, big cities take on this raunchy type of backlit beauty.
That's what neon is a homage to.
Do you remember the day you wrote "electricity"?
Irini: I remember very well the day I decided on what the lyrics would be about. I was listening to the instrumental version of Electricity on the way home from band rehearsal, and the pulsating intro set it apart from the other songs.
It felt like electricity.
Themes like the TV set that switches itself on at night in Murakami's After Dark came to mind, and the premise of Japanese horror culture that ghosts might be able to manipulate our electric devices.
As I moved these ideas around in my head, a giant row of overhead power lines came into view. That sealed it.
What inspired the song "Izanami"?
Irini: Izanami was the first song on the album that I wrote the words to. I had just watched the film Orfeu Negro – a 1950s movie that tells the Greek mythological story of Orpheus and Eurydice set in a favela of Rio de Janeiro.
I dug a bit deeper into that story and found some striking similarities to a Japanese myth, namely that of Izanami, who dies as a young woman (just like Eurydice), and whose husband Izanagi travels to the underworld to bring her back to life (like Orpheus).
In both stories, the rescue mission looks promising at first, but gets blighted by the one thing the hero was explicitly told not to do: to turn around and look at his woman.
Isn't that remarkable? It's almost like it really happened, and the different cultures just embellished the story differently here and there over the centuries. I guess you have to be a bit of a nerd to get excited by stuff like that – but there's no shame in my game!
What is the best show you ever played?
Nerissa: It's really difficult to tell because we have played so many exciting festivals and venues in different countries, and with different line-ups, too. Regarding the venue, playing Night of the Prog, a big festival in Germany with thousands of visitors, was an amazing experience, of course.
But when it comes to the show itself, my favourite would be the one we played very recently, the release concert for "Letters to Maro".
This is because for the first time, not just our albums, but also our live shows have become very cinematic.
We had some beautiful projections and also some stunning performance art by Irini, who is a perfect fit for the band – not only because of her voice, but also because of her talent for telling stories through her singing.
Nerissa: We are going to play live as much as possible.
We have a couple of upcoming gigs and I look forward to all of them.
But the one I look forward to most is playing the Summer's End Progressive Rock festival in the UK for the second time, in October this year.
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I'm Alright – Interview with Tim Corcoran – The Weadon Boys
rockyourlyrics April 26, 2019
LIFE LESSONS – interview with Brandon Pagano – HANDGUNS
Interview with KID BROTHER
Halfhearted – Interview with Jessica Meuse
Devil in the Lake – interview with Emperors and Elephants
State Lines – Interview with Parlors
rockyourlyrics February 8, 2019

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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text:
Big Ten Football
Penn State Football Spring Practice Notes
I was able to grace the Holuba Hall practice field with my presence to check out the first practice of the spring season.
By Nick Polak@TheREALNPolak Mar 18, 2014, 8:11pm EDT
Share All sharing options for: Penn State Football Spring Practice Notes
Matt Zanellato, Daesean Hamilton, and De'Andre Thompkins
TheRealNPolakiPhone
The first of 15 spring practices for James Franklin's Nittany Lions was held yesterday in Holuba Hall, and they opened it up to the media for the first hour or so. Being the incredibly important media member that I am, I figured it would be good to give all of the players and coaches a chance to get to know me, so I stopped by to check it out. (I'm just the best, aren't I?)
I didn't learn a ton of new information, but there were some interesting observations to be made, so I've compiled what I saw into a nice list for you, and included some of the videos and pictures I took during practice as well.
Christian Hackenberg looked bigger. He has apparently added around 15 pounds of muscle to his already sturdy frame, and he'll need it considering our offensive line is still so up in the air. I didn't get a chance to see much of the quarterbacks in their drills, but from what I heard O'Connor was showing off his pocket presence and displaying solid footwork around the line. Also of note, Jack Seymour is no longer on the roster. Seymour looked like a potential Matt McGloin type after declining several MAC offers to walk on for Penn State, but had fallen to fifth on the depth chart. Austin Whipple has also changed numbers from 3 to 16.
Bill Belton and Zach Zwinak were working together...on kick returns. Sam Ficken was serving up some short kicks to be fielded by Belton, Zwinak, and Devin Pryor. While I'm not a huge fan of the idea of Zwinak returning a kick in an actual game due to his lack of top end speed and fumbling issues, it's certainly an interesting idea. Franklin said that he is planning on putting starters on special teams to ease some of the issues that plagued the Lions last year, so it's not the most surprising thing in the world. It will be quite interesting to see someone try to tackle Zwinak when they are both running at full speed directly at each other. Despite the possibilities though, it's still puzzling to see our slowest running back at kick returner. To help illustrate this fact, I made this fun graphic to show the speed difference between Belton, Lynch, and Zwinak.
The first three wide receivers off the line in the drills that I saw, were Eugene Lewis, Matt Zanellato, and De'Andre Thompkins. It was a surprise to see Thompkins in there, but a very happy one at that. He reportedly ran the fastest 40 time on the team the other day, confirming that his speed is much more than just elite track speed. Richy Anderson, the other main competition for the slot receiver role, stepped up to the line with the second group, while Daesean Hamilton (with some sort of wrap or cast on his wrist) lined up with the third group.
De'Andre Thompkins was also part of the group getting work on the punt return. The other big name I noticed here was Jordan Lucas. Both had quick first steps after fielding the punt, although the drill was more focused on keeping their bodies square and catching the ball cleanly.
I had a difficult time tracking the tight ends. I saw Carter and Breneman at one point, but I never actually saw them in a drill. They will be my targets for viewing next time.
When I first walked onto the field, the team was stretching. I was placed conveniently right in front of Deion Barnes. I know we all this already, but I feel the need to reiterate that Deion Barnes is an absolute monster of a human being. If he can put it together for a full season this year, he should absolutely hear his name called at the NFL Draft one day.
In the linebacker drills, Brandon Bell, Mike Hull, and Nyeem Wartman were the first three off the line. This isn't a surprise, but it's nice to see regardless. Bell really came on strong at the end of last season, and he has a chance to be a special member of Linebacker U. Gary Wooten ran with the second line, and looked to be slightly leaner and quicker than in the past.
Jordan Lucas looked very fast in his drills, repeatedly citing that he was going to have more picks this season. He was the first off the line in every cornerback drill, and looked very comfortable. In the drill I saw, Trevor Williams was in the second pairing, and DaQuan Davis in the third. Based on those observations, I don't think the order in this drill was completely indicative of the current depth chart. but interesting nonetheless. Trevor Williams also got hit in the face with a pass he never saw coming. I mentioned it to him and he said "Mannnnnn I know." We're best friends now.
Adrian Amos was practicing with the safety group. I will continue to believe that Amos is most valuable to Penn State as a corner, but if the staff feels comfortable enough with Lucas, Williams, and co., why not let Amos fly around the field a bit.
Chris Gulla was punting the ball a bit to start the practice, routinely hitting the ceiling. I expect Gulla to be the starting punter, and this practice did nothing to deter me from that opinion. Finally we have someone to replace my least favorite Penn State athlete ever.
Sam Ficken looks to be completely healed up from his groin injury, as he was kicking the ball with confidence and power, albeit on extra point length kicks. Although he struggled towards the end of last season due to said injury, he still hit 15 kicks in a row previous to that. As always, I'm predicting a Lou Groza type season for the future All American kicker.
The energy in the practice as a whole was fantastic. The second the team started up the drills, there was little to no standing still. With the end of each drill there were bullhorns blaring and coaches screaming for players to rotate to the next spot. Coach Franklin himself was moving around from drill to drill to get a good look at his new team in action. He also made sure to take the time to speak to some onlookers. They looked really old so I'm guessing they were important.
Scroll through (scroll in the box) below to check out some pictures and video from the practice.
James Franklin screaming his head off as we get inside pic.twitter.com/KjggqWsZ0F
— Nick Polak (@TheREALNPolak) March 17, 2014
#PSUnrivalred stretching https://t.co/oUsDTNaiUM
We Are.. https://t.co/6WOFqKufL6
Michael O'Connor pic.twitter.com/B1tt2AVGf6
The man: Christian Hackenberg pic.twitter.com/nf2r4Z2VMe
Gulla's drilling the ceiling every time. https://t.co/OIrNnwuYRX
Ficken kicking off to Belton https://t.co/p9MdAh7aHI
De'Andre Thompkins pic.twitter.com/I4CfbFbX9M
Thompkins on a punt https://t.co/LELrfke7kV
Hooray for trash can drills https://t.co/TVeHYOoYUM
Zach Zwinak and Akeel Lynch pic.twitter.com/aTsS2slNKA
The man, the myth, the legend. $am Ficken. pic.twitter.com/crl0IFFA4v
Mike Hull, Nyeem Wartman, and Brandon Bell https://t.co/honph3zzga
Might just be that he's not in full pads, but Wooten looks a little smaller and a lot faster to me. pic.twitter.com/EhmpEU04g8
Jordan Lucas and Devin Pryor off the line first for corners. Trevor Williams in the 2nd pair. Daquan Davis in the 3rd pic.twitter.com/ohAZemIFH7
Corner drills. https://t.co/J1Jb38VpRw
Coach Franklin looking in on the corners. pic.twitter.com/zdP6A7giDA
Receiver work. https://t.co/I6fxyY7CsM
It was a good day.
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A token economy is a form of behavior modification designed to increase desirable behavior and decrease undesirable behavior with the use of tokens. Individuals receive tokens immediately after displaying desirable behavior. The tokens are collected and later exchanged for a meaningful object or privilege.
The primary goal of a token economy is to increase desirable behavior and decrease undesirable behavior. Often token economies are used in institutional settings (such as psychiatric hospitals or correctional facilities) to manage the behavior of individuals who may be aggressive or unpredictable. However, the larger goal of token economies is to teach appropriate behavior and social skills that can be used in one's natural environment. Special education (for children with developmental or learning disabilities, hyperactivity, attention deficit, or behavioral disorders), regular education, colleges, various types of group homes , military divisions, nursing homes, addiction treatment programs, occupational settings, family homes (for marital or parenting difficulties), and hospitals may also use token economies. Token economies can be used individually or in groups.
Tokens: Anything that is visible and countable can be used as a token. Tokens should preferably be attractive, easy to carry and dispense, and difficult to counterfeit. Commonly used items include poker chips, stickers, point tallies, or play money. When an individual displays desirable behavior, he or she is immediately given a designated number of tokens. Tokens have no value of their own. They are collected and later exchanged for meaningful objects, privileges or activities. Individuals can also lose tokens (response cost) for displaying undesirable behavior.
A clearly defined target behavior: Individuals participating in a token economy need to know exactly what they must do in order to receive tokens. Desirable and undesirable behavior is explained ahead of time in simple, specific terms. The number of tokens awarded or lost for each particular behavior is also specified.
Back-up reinforcers: Back-up reinforcers are the meaningful objects, privileges, or activities that individuals receive in exchange for their tokens. Examples include food items, toys, extra free time, or outings. The success of a token economy depends on the appeal of the back-up reinforcers. Individuals will only be motivated to earn tokens if they anticipate the future reward represented by the tokens. A well-designed token economy will use back-up reinforcers chosen by individuals in treatment rather than by staff.
A system for exchanging tokens: A time and place for purchasing back-up reinforcers is necessary. The token value of each back-up reinforcer is pre-determined based on monetary value, demand, or therapeutic value. For example, if the reinforcer is expensive or highly attractive, the token value should be higher. If possession of or participation in the reinforcer would aid in the individual's acquisition of skills, the token value should be lower. If the token value is set too low, individuals will be less motivated to earn tokens. Conversely, if the value is set too high, individuals may become easily discouraged. It is important that each individual can earn at least some tokens.
A system for recording data: Before treatment begins, information (baseline data) is gathered about each individual's current behavior. Changes in behavior are then recorded on daily data sheets. This information is used to measure individual progress, as well as the effectiveness of the token economy. Information regarding the exchange of tokens also needs to be recorded.
Consistent implementation of the token economy by staff: In order for a token economy to succeed, all involved staff members must reward the same behaviors, use the appropriate amount of tokens, avoid dispensing back-up reinforcers for free, and prevent tokens from being counterfeited, stolen, or otherwise unjustly obtained. Staff responsibilities and the rules of the token economy should be described in a written manual. Staff members should also be evaluated periodically and given the opportunity to raise questions or concerns.
Initially tokens are awarded frequently and in higher amounts, but as individuals learn the desirable behavior, opportunities to earn tokens decrease. (The amount and frequency of token dispensing is called a reinforcement schedule.) For example, in a classroom, each student may earn 25 to 75 tokens the first day, so that they quickly learn the value of the tokens. Later, students may earn 15 to 30 tokens per day. By gradually decreasing the availability of tokens (fading), students should learn to display the desirable behavior independently, without the unnatural use of tokens. Reinforcers that individuals would normally encounter in society, such as verbal praise, should accompany the awarding of tokens to aid in the fading process.
Advantages of token economies are that behaviors can be rewarded immediately, rewards are the same for all members of a group, use of punishment (response cost) is less restrictive than other forms of punishment, and individuals can learn skills related to planning for the future. Disadvantages include considerable cost, effort, and extensive staff training and management. Some professionals find token economies to be time-consuming and impractical.
Risks involved in token economies are similar to those in other forms of behavior modification. Staff members implementing the therapy may intentionally or unintentionally neglect the rights of individuals receiving treatment. Token economies should never deprive individuals of their basic needs, such as sufficient food, comfortable bedding, or reasonable opportunities for leisure. If staff members are inadequately trained or there is a shortage of staff, desirable behaviors may not be rewarded or undesirable behaviors may be inadvertently rewarded, resulting in an increase of negative behavior. Controversy exists regarding placing individuals in treatment against their will (such as in a psychiatric hospital), and deciding which behaviors should be considered desirable and which should be considered undesirable.
Ideally, individuals will use the skills learned in a token economy in their everyday surroundings. They will display the undesirable behavior less frequently or not at all. They will also engage in positive, adaptive behaviors more often.
If the token economy was ineffective, or time spent in the token economy was limited, individuals may show no changes or increases in the undesirable behavior.
Ayllon, Teodoro. How to Use Token Economy and Point Systems. 2nd ed. Austin, Texas: Pro-Ed, 1999.
Higgins, Stephen T. and Kenneth Silverman. Motivating Change Among Illicit Drug Abusers: Research on Contingency Management Interventions. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 1999.
Moore, James W., Daniel H. Tingstrom, R. Anthony Doggett, and William D. Carlyon. "Restructuring an Existing Token Economy in a Psychiatric Facility for Children." Child & Family Behavior Therapy 23, no. 3 (2001): 53–59.
Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies. 336 Baker Avenue, Concord, Massachusetts 01742-2107. (978) 369-2227. <www.behavior.org> .


text:
/***************************************************************************//**
* \file cyip_lcd.h
*
* \brief
* LCD IP definitions
*
********************************************************************************
* \copyright
* (c) (2016-2022), Cypress Semiconductor Corporation (an Infineon company) or
* an affiliate of Cypress Semiconductor Corporation.
*
* SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
*
* Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
* you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
* You may obtain a copy of the License at
*
*     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
*
* Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
* distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
* WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
* See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
* limitations under the License.
*******************************************************************************/

#ifndef _CYIP_LCD_H_
#define _CYIP_LCD_H_

#include "cyip_headers.h"

/*******************************************************************************
*                                     LCD
*******************************************************************************/

#define LCD_SECTION_SIZE                        0x00010000UL

/**
  * \brief LCD Controller Block (LCD)
  */
typedef struct {
   __IM uint32_t ID;                            /*!< 0x00000000 ID & Revision */
  __IOM uint32_t DIVIDER;                       /*!< 0x00000004 LCD Divider Register */
  __IOM uint32_t CONTROL;                       /*!< 0x00000008 LCD Configuration Register */
   __IM uint32_t RESERVED[61];
  __IOM uint32_t DATA0[8];                      /*!< 0x00000100 LCD Pin Data Registers */
   __IM uint32_t RESERVED1[56];
  __IOM uint32_t DATA1[8];                      /*!< 0x00000200 LCD Pin Data Registers */
   __IM uint32_t RESERVED2[56];
  __IOM uint32_t DATA2[8];                      /*!< 0x00000300 LCD Pin Data Registers */
   __IM uint32_t RESERVED3[56];
  __IOM uint32_t DATA3[8];                      /*!< 0x00000400 LCD Pin Data Registers */
} LCD_V1_Type;                                  /*!< Size = 1056 (0x420) */

/* LCD.ID */
#define LCD_ID_ID_Pos                           0UL
#define LCD_ID_ID_Msk                           0xFFFFUL
#define LCD_ID_REVISION_Pos                     16UL
#define LCD_ID_REVISION_Msk                     0xFFFF0000UL
/* LCD.DIVIDER */
#define LCD_DIVIDER_SUBFR_DIV_Pos               0UL
#define LCD_DIVIDER_SUBFR_DIV_Msk               0xFFFFUL
#define LCD_DIVIDER_DEAD_DIV_Pos                16UL
#define LCD_DIVIDER_DEAD_DIV_Msk                0xFFFF0000UL
/* LCD.CONTROL */
#define LCD_CONTROL_LS_EN_Pos                   0UL
#define LCD_CONTROL_LS_EN_Msk                   0x1UL
#define LCD_CONTROL_HS_EN_Pos                   1UL
#define LCD_CONTROL_HS_EN_Msk                   0x2UL
#define LCD_CONTROL_LCD_MODE_Pos                2UL
#define LCD_CONTROL_LCD_MODE_Msk                0x4UL
#define LCD_CONTROL_TYPE_Pos                    3UL
#define LCD_CONTROL_TYPE_Msk                    0x8UL
#define LCD_CONTROL_OP_MODE_Pos                 4UL
#define LCD_CONTROL_OP_MODE_Msk                 0x10UL
#define LCD_CONTROL_BIAS_Pos                    5UL
#define LCD_CONTROL_BIAS_Msk                    0x60UL
#define LCD_CONTROL_COM_NUM_Pos                 8UL
#define LCD_CONTROL_COM_NUM_Msk                 0xF00UL
#define LCD_CONTROL_LS_EN_STAT_Pos              31UL
#define LCD_CONTROL_LS_EN_STAT_Msk              0x80000000UL
/* LCD.DATA0 */
#define LCD_DATA0_DATA_Pos                      0UL
#define LCD_DATA0_DATA_Msk                      0xFFFFFFFFUL
/* LCD.DATA1 */
#define LCD_DATA1_DATA_Pos                      0UL
#define LCD_DATA1_DATA_Msk                      0xFFFFFFFFUL
/* LCD.DATA2 */
#define LCD_DATA2_DATA_Pos                      0UL
#define LCD_DATA2_DATA_Msk                      0xFFFFFFFFUL
/* LCD.DATA3 */
#define LCD_DATA3_DATA_Pos                      0UL
#define LCD_DATA3_DATA_Msk                      0xFFFFFFFFUL

#endif /* _CYIP_LCD_H_ */

/* [] END OF FILE */

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
A blog about Germany, Germans, German, and competely unrelated things.
German Joys Review: Camera Buff
October 22, 2006 ~ ~ Leave a comment
Polish director Krzyzstof Kieslowksi (known internationally mainly for the Trois Couleurs (G) trilogy he directed in the 1990s) made Camera Buff in 1979, long before his reputation had crossed the Polish border in a serious way.
We meet Filip Mosz (Jerzy Stuhr), an unassuming thirty-year-old who works as a purchasing manager for a factory in Wielice, a nothing town whose residents live in gray, pre-fabricated rent-barracks. As the movie begins, Irka (Malgorzata Zabkowska) gives birth to their first child, a daughter. At the time, Polish men were kept away from their wives during childbirth, and instead downed congratulatory vodka with friends. After sleeping off his hangover, Jerzy buys a Russian 8mm camera to record his new daughter's first steps and words.
Cameras were rare in Poland then – Filip's cost 2 months of his salary. When the factory director learns Philip has a camera, he orders him to film the company's 25th anniversary celebration (speeches, visits by dignitaries, a cheesy band). This assignment sparks a fascination with moviemaking; Filip begins to imagine his daily environment filmed, and begins to frame shots with his hands. He forms a film club with the factory's "cultural" subsidy. He's the director, and his wiry young friend Witek and a "crew" of other enthusiasts helps him. He submits the resulting movies to the local amateur film federation, headed by the sultry Anna (Ewa Pokas).
After getting some advice from some of the of bald, turtleneck-clad auteurs in the Film Federation, Filip begins coming up with his own ideas for short documentary films, among them a feature about a midget who works in the factory. A brief, hesitant flirtation sparks between Filip and Anna, and shortly after, the midget documentary is shown on Polish television. Filip attends a lecture by an established Polish feature-film director, Krzyzstof Zanussi, and persuades Zanussi to visit drab old Wielice to screen his new movie Camouflage and answer questions afterward. (Zanussi, a contemporary and friend of Kieslowski, plays himself in the film).
Where are Irka and the child while the factory clerk swans off to Warsaw to meet with television producers, or wanders Wielice filming footage, or pursues his chaste little flirtation with Anna the Film Federation chief? Waiting at home in the family's Spartan apartment. "How could my husband lose just lose interest in me and his own child?" she muses bitterly. She accuses Filip of abandoning her at what was supposed to be the most intense and joyful time of her life. With disarming frankness, he admits guilt. He thought he wanted the "tranquility" family represents, but just cannot suppress the urge to create. Irka moves out.
Conflict is also brewing outside the family. Seemingly innocent scenes in Filip's documentaries showed skittish functionaries who didn't want the be filmed, or half-finished public-works projects that the central authorities were told had been successfully completed. This causes problems. Now, Polish censors did tolerate mild social critique at this time, both in the movie and in the real Poland. Thus, the consequences, within the film, aren't drastic. Filip is forgiven because he's young and foolish and talented; but his immediate boss, the philosophical stamp-collector Osuch (Jerzy Nowak), is forced into early retirement for giving Filip the funding that led to the embarrassing movies.
Camera Buff has everything we expect from Kieslowski: understated, deep-grooved performances; contemplative pacing that doesn't drag; moral generosity that never strays into sentimentality. Jerzy Stuhr's performance as Filip (he is also given co-credit for the script) is a wonder. He goes from ordinary worker to film addict to increasingly confident director without losing his essential schlubbiness. It's this direct unpretentiousness, combined with his genuine enthusiasm for film-making, which keep the viewer's sympathy, even as he abandons his young family. Osuch, who loses his job because of Filip's films, recognizes that Filip's obsession with film springs from genuine passion, and forgives him in an affecting scene. Osuch warns Filip that the drive to create, once awakened, cannot be choked off. By leaving his life as a purchasing manager behind, Filip enters a a life of struggle and conflict. A quintessentially Kieslowskian scene, framed closely and intensely, as if it were taking place in a confessional.
The DVD features many splendid extras, including a moving interview with the real Zanussi about his long friendship with Kieslowski (who had died before the DVD was prepared). Zanussi gives us a lively, poignant sketch of Kieslowski's character: Although he could be bitingly anti-clerical, he was deeply hurt when a Jesuit reviewer criticized one of his movies (No End) as being metaphysically un-Christian. Kieslowski turned to feature films from documentaries in part because of the guilt he felt at robbing the subjects of their anonymity. He doubted anyone had the right to film genuine human tears. He stayed in touch with many former documentary subjects and tried to help them, out of the belief that filming someone creates a bond of obligation with them. Kieslowski also fought with the censors (Camera Buff has unmistakable political overtones), and generally despised premieres, festivals, and other film-word frippery.
There are also interviews with the Polish director Agnieszka Holland, and a sprightly American film professor named Annette Insdorf who's written a book about Kieslowski's films (oddly enough, she speaks in French, even though the DVD is an American release, and subtitles on the DVD are only in English). If that weren't enough, thre's also a 16-minute black-and-white documentary from 1980 called "Talking Heads," in which Kieslowski asking dozens of ordinary Poles how they would describe themselves, and what they most wish for in life. It's regular humans, talking about their lives, and it's just lovely.
Now the bad news. This DVD, apparently, has not been released in Germany. I bought it in the U.S. from the art-house firm Kino Video as part of lovingly-produced 6-DVD set. It's apparently also available as an English import (check out the ludicrous all-caps summary on the Amazon website!), but not from Kino Video, so it probably won't have the extras which add so much to the DVD.
Germany, why are you keeping these outstanding movies from your people? Who's afraid of Krzyzstof Kieslowski?
Biting a Bishop's Head Off
October 19, 2006 ~ ~ 6 Comments
Christmas must be just around the corner, because my local bakery has Weckmaenner. These are wheat-flour pastries in the shape of a fat, bulbous man. He always holds a clay pipe, and may have raisins for eyes. My favorite kind of Weckmann is covered head-to-toe in marzipan paste and almond slivers, which makes him look like an albino porcupine having an orgasm. The combination of the serious, daddy's-office taste of roast almonds, the gooey sweetness of the marzipan paste, and the slightly sour-tasting fluffy wheat dough can't be beat. (When he's covered with nuts, you have to make sure not to accidentally bite into his pipe. So to speak.)
Whenever I encounter something edible in the shape of a living creature, I eat the head first. I figure if anyone were to eat me, I would request the same treatment. I may think twice about that, though, now that I find out the baking of the Weckmann during Advent is a centuries-old custom, and the Weckmann was originally meant to represent a bishop.
I learned that from the following webpage (G), which was written by a real theologian named Dr. theol. Manfred Becker-Huberti. My translation follows:
In the early days of the church, it was common, on Sundays and Church holidays, to give blessed, but not consecrated, bread to people who had not received the Eucharist, were not entitled to receive it (=penitents, catechumens) or were unable to receive it (=sick people staying at home). In the Greek and Russian Orthodox liturgy, this custom, which goes back to the early Christian Agape Meal (Feast of Christian Love) after religious services, has been maintained. Jews maintain this custom to this day: After the Kabbalah-Sabbath, the religious service on Friday evening at the beginning of Sabbath, all who took part in the service gather for a communal meal. Over the course of time, the pastry used during this meal took on a particular form relating to the celebration. It was called "image bread." The Weckmann (which is called Stutenkerl or Piepenkerl in Westphalia, Hefekerl in Switzerland, and also Printenmann, Hanselmann, Klasenmann) , which was common originally only on St. Nicholas' day, but then later also for St. Martin's Day and now during all of Advent is an "image bread;" that is a pastry formed into a figure made out of wheat flour or dough. It is supposed to represent a Bishop! The clay pipe one usually sees today is an error: If you turn it around so the end of the pipe faces the top, you can see even today that instead of the clay pipe, a Bishop's crozier was originally attached to the pastry.
Polish Books II: The Captive Mind by Czesław Miłosz
October 7, 2006 ~ ~ 2 Comments
A few notes about another Polish book I read recently. The book was rather good, so the post is rather long.
Miłosz, a Polish poet and 1980 Nobel laureate in literature, was born in Lithuania, in 1911 (Lithuania was then a part of Russia, after 1918 a part of Poland). By the time the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, Miłosz was a promising avant-garde poet. He stayed in Poland during the war, working in the "cultural wing" of the underground. Poles have a long history of preserving local culture as a means of resisting an equally long history of foreign domination. Spiritual resistance to Nazi rule was just as important as the practical sort – poets risked their lives to publish in underground newspapers, theatres staged secret plays, there was even an underground university.
Miłosz watched as the 1944 Warsaw Uprising was crushed after a few weeks and the Nazis razed Warsaw in retribution. Only after the destruction of Warsaw did the Red Army, which was encamped nearby, "liberate" the smoldering ruin. This culpable delay, which Poles attribute to Stalin's calculation, was only the most recent reason for Poles to view the advancing Russians with apprehension. At war's end, some Poles hoped that the West might be able to cajole Poland from of Moscow's orbit, but these hopes were gradually dashed; by the early 1950s, it was clear Poland would become a Soviet satellite.
In the uncertain post-war years, Miłosz cooperated with the new Polish government. When he began writing The Captive Mind in 1951, Miłosz was cultural attaché to the Polish Embassy in Paris. Poland's new commissars had hoped to burnish the new government's image by detailing a worldly young poet to captivate Paris' intellectual circles, but things didn't go according to plan. As Moscow's interference became clearer, Miłosz rebelled. As he writes, his rejection of Stalinism proceeded "not from the functioning of the reasoning mind" – which reminded him of the ease and fame awaiting politically-reliable artists – but from the "revolt of the stomach," the feeling that he would soon no longer be able to carry out "the writer's essential task – to look at the world from his own independent viewpoint, to tell the truth as he sees it, and so to keep watch and ward in the interest of society as a whole." Miłosz applied for political asylum in Paris in 1951 and lived there until 1960, when he took up a professorship in Slavic Languages at Berkeley.
The Captive Mind is part Miłosz' justification of these decisions and part intellectual biography; but primarily it is an account of the ideological temptation of Communism. He describes the book as a "battlefield[] in which I have given shape to my combats with the doctrine I have rejected." The book may be a battlefield, but it is no demonizing polemic; Miłosz had met too many brilliant, idealistic Communists to permit that. Out of respect for them, Miłosz promises, when discussing Marxism, to "give the enemy his arms" and even to "copy the way of reasoning" when necessary, before attacking it.
Anti-Communists hailed the book as a lucid attack of enforced ideological conformity, but Miłosz kept his distance from all political camps, wary of being instrumentalized. Years later, he wrote that his failure to unreservedly join the anti-Communist cause led "[t]hose few people who were against current political fashions and saw me as a valuable ally [to make] dour faces, because the world is divided into two blocs, and if you are in one you must beat the hell out of the other." Instead, after writing The Captive Mind, Miłosz withdrew from direct political disputation.
Miłosz is a poet, not a lawyer. Rather than stitching together a precise, linear argument, the book strolls leisurely here and there in Miłosz fashion, favoring the reader with asides on the countryside around Vilnius, 19th-century French colonial officials, and the appeal (for one growing used to the gray uniformity of Socialist-bloc architecture) of Western cities, in which the "exciting and invigorating power of … participation in mass life springs from the feeling of potentiality, of constant unexpectedness, of a mystery one ever pursues."
However, Miłosz never wanders far form his theme: how Moscow (which Miłosz calls the "Center") brought writers in the newly-annexed Eastern European nations into line. Brute force or open threats were rarely necessary. For Miłosz, this acquiescence is the interesting psychological question: why did intellectuals who bravely defied one dictatorial regime collude with another one, especially one originating in Russia – a former imperial master and, for centuries, an object of Polish scorn and distrust?
Never one to pass up an opportunity showcase Polish literary talent, Miłosz constructs an analogy to a 1931 futurist fantasy written by the anarchically inventive poet, novelist, painter and playwright Stanislaw Witkiewicz. In Insatiability, Witkiewicz writes of an Eastern invader who conquers a dissolute, exhausted Polish nation and offer his new subjects the greatest gift to mankind ever devised: happiness in pill-form, concocted by the great Mongolian philosopher Murti-Bing. Whoever took the Murti-Bing pill "became serene and happy"; the problems against which he had struggled to that time "appeared to be superficial and unimportant," and he was no longer plagued by metaphysical concerns.
Everyone takes the pill. Not because they are forced to, but, to quote Miłosz, because "[t]here is an internal longing for harmony and happiness that lies deeper than ordinary fear or the desire the escape misery or physical destruction." The "New Faith," as Miłosz calls Communism, attracts intellectuals for several reasons.
First, by taking the pill like everyone else (including those who had no choice), the intellectual undoes his typical alienation. He now shares a language, a thought-world, and a set of daily concerns with people whom he once thought impossibly remote from him: "The truck driver and elevator operator employed by a publishing firm now read the same Marxist classics as its director or staff writers."
Second, the intellectual joins the socialist community in a noble cause – the redemption of humanity from the real evils of nationalist excess, economic exploitation, and ruthless class privilege. He may even be offered the chance to "throw himself into the flame for the glory of mankind"; Miłosz cautions the reader not to underestimate the appeal of martyrdom to intellectuals.
Third, the pedigree. Communism was founded by intellectuals, who built its doctrine not on cloudy metaphysical appeals but on the coolly rational 'dialectical' method. Even moderately clever functionaries can bewilder reactionary opponents with dialectical reasoning, and in the hands of a genuine thinker, it's almost unstoppable. The dialectic destroys liberal-bourgeois prejudices not directly, by confronting them, but indirectly – by enfolding them like a canny spider and sucking the life out of them.
Finally, even if the intellectual and ethical appeal of the New Faith weren't enough, the practical appeal could hardly be ignored, especially for those with long-suffering wives and children in tow: a writer, composer, or painter who proved himself politically reliable got a privileged social position, a secure income, time to think, paint or compose, and license to publish and lecture.
Cultural commissars enticed the convert with reassurances that the Party tolerates independent views, but he soon realizes this is a lie; the New Faith's "only friend will be the man who accepts the doctrine 100 per cent. If he accepts only 99 per cent, he will necessarily have to be considered a foe, for from that remaining 1 per cent a new church can arise." He soon spots flaws and gaps in Communist doctrine, wonders at the miles of empty store shelves, and flinches at the lifeless stupidity of Party art and propaganda.
The intellectual must master a form of Ketman: techniques of subtle dissimulation cultivated by Islamic free-thinkers under the rule of absolute monarchs and mullahs. First described in the West by the French diplomat Joseph Arthur Comte de Gobineau, Ketman is necessary because silent complicity is not enough — the intellectual is always suspect, and must openly profess absolute loyalty in an atmosphere in which "[e]ven one's gestures, tone of voice, or preference for certain kinds of neckties are interpreted as signs of one's political tendencies." A well-timed denunciation here and there is key, since "those who are most helpful in detecting deviations are those who themselves practice a similar form of Ketman…. Thus they protect themselves; and the measure of dexterity is to anticipate by at least one day the similar accusation which could be leveled against them by the man they denounce."
Ketman eats at the soul and conscience. The heart of the book is Miłosz' portrait of four writers – called Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta — and what the New Faith did to them. "Alpha the Moralist," is a Catholic fascinated by "tragic moral conflicts" and "tormented by the enigma of purity." He made his reputation, before the war, by exploring these conflicts in Graham-Greene-like novels. Alpha accepts the New Faith after a long inner struggle. At first, his new role delights him; he is sent through the country to lecture to attentive and worshipful audiences of simple workers. However, his former religious faith is a mark of Cain. To expunge it, he realizes he will have to publish a thorough, humiliating self-criticism. To twist the knife further, the Party assigns him to represent its generally hostile line towards the Catholic Church. His writing, formerly alive with anguish and nobility, becomes contrived: "One compromise leads to a second and third until at last, though everything one says may be perfectly logical, it no longer has anything in common with the flesh and blood of living people."
Although the essay on Alpha is most often anthologized, the one on Beta is even more revealing. Beta was only twenty in 1942, but already had the "exaggerated shyness" that "usually bespeaks immense ambition." Beta published his poems in the underground press, but, as a nihilist, scoffed at the more pious and nationalistic wings of the resistance. He was arrested one day and ended up in Auschwitz, where he survived for two years by sheer wit. On his return, he wrote a book about his experiences which Miłosz called "terrifying," terrifying because the author "never moralizes, he relates."
Cooly and precisely, Beta describes scenes from the platform where transports arrived at Auschwitz: a Jewish mother pushes away her own child in an attempt to be classified as single and "work-capable," instead of being immediately gassed with the rest of the mothers; two deportees copulate in front of a gawking crowd during the last moments of their lives; a girl with an amputated leg, still alive and with "tears streaking down her face," is tossed onto a pile of corpses headed for the crematorium. Although other witnesses recounted Beta's acts of charity, he never mentions them himself. Instead, he emphasizes how proud he was to have "succeed[ed], when others, less clever, perish[ed]."
Beta found much to admire in the New Faith: "He absorbed dialectical materialism as a sponge soaks up water. Its materialistic side appeased his hunger for brutal truth, its dialectical side permitted a sudden leap above the human species, to a vision of humanity as the material of history." His book about Auschwitz, however, was no longer politically correct; books about concentration camps had to separate the actors by political persuasion and portray the "moral strength and heroic behavior" of Soviet prisoners. In any case, Beta quickly understood that literary books of any sort were of no use to the movement, it needed propaganda pure and simple: "Loud, violent, clear, biased." He joined the party, and set to work on a series of "poisonous articles about America."
Miłosz's psychological insight comes into sharpest focus in these biographical essays. Here, to illustrate the conversion of gifted writers into rigid fanatics, he imagines how Beta steeled himself to excrete one of his "poisonous articles":
"[T]o present the event honestly, he would have to penetrate the motives of the opposing forces and the necessities which govern them – in short, to analyze it from every side. Then anger comes to his rescue, introducing order into the tangle of interdependencies and releasing him from the obligation to analyze. This anger against the self-deception that anything at all depends on man's will is, simultaneously, a fear of falling prey to one's own naïveness. Since the world is brutal, one must reduce everything to the simplest and most brutal factors. The author understands that what he is doing is far from accurate; people's stupidity or people's good intentions influence events no less than do the necessities of the economic struggle. But he takes his vengeance upon mankind (upon others and upon himself) by demonstrating that man is dominated by a few elementary laws; at the same time, he feeds his own sense of superiority and proves himself acute and strong enough to dispense with 'prejudices.'"
A few months after Miłosz wrote the portrait, Beta committed suicide in his Warsaw apartment. Those who observed him in his last months, Miłosz reports, attributed his suicide to the fact that "the discrepancy between what he said in his public statements and what his quick mind could perceive was increasing daily."
Next comes Gamma, the "Slave of History," who turns into an obedient Communist cultural functionary, and is rewarded with postings in foreign lands, where he was expected to make new converts: "He knew too much to retain any illusions and despised those naïve enough to nourish them. To bring new damned into the fold was his one means of reducing the number of internally free people, who, by the mere fact of their existence, judged him." Before the war, Delta, a childlike, always-drunk "troubadour," delighted Poles with his poetry, a "kaleidoscope of chubby baroque angels, magicians carried off through the window by some unknown power (they are retained, at the last moment by a wifely bite on the ear), falconry, [and] astrologists prophesying the end of the world." In exile in Brussels, he mourns the loss of his audience, and decides to return to Poland – to general acclaim and a warm welcome from the cultural bureaucracy. A mind this wayward needed to be kept on a short leash. Thus, Delta began cycling in and out of favor with the authorities, a terrifying process his lyrical mind could not begin to fathom.
After the portraits of individual writers, Miłosz concludes the book with an appeal for moral clarity; or at what passes for an appeal in a man of Miłosz' circumspection. Communism is a "stupefying and loathsome phenomenon" which must be condemned and opposed, without regard to the less menacing weaknesses of Western capitalist democracies: "Fear is well known as a cement of societies. In a liberal-capitalist economy fear of lack of money, fear of losing one's job, fear of slipping down one rung on the social ladder all spurred the individual to greater effort. But what exists in the Imperium is naked fear," fear of being deported to a place "where polar bears thrive but people do not." Western Communists and fellow-travelers, who blur this distinction with cheap distractions and spurious moral equivalencies, incite Miłosz to the only expression of rage in the book: "Nothing can compare to the contempt he [a "writer from the East," clearly Miłosz] feels for these sentimental fools."
Although the specific battle which occasioned The Captive Mind belongs to the past, the book does not. Miłosz cared little about the intricacies of contemporary ideological fights, so the book spares us details about long-forgotten factional strife. His exploration of the psychological mechanism of collaboration is timeless and profound. But even if the subject doesn't interest you, Miłosz's writing should – his serene, melancholy, appealingly idiosyncratic prose survives Jane Zielonko's stylish translation trailing clouds of glory.
Sausage-Skin Recycling
October 4, 2006 ~ ~ 1 Comment
…is unnecessary, according to Germany's Packaging Ordinance. As a public service, I present you a list of other items not considered "packaging":
– Flower pots intended to stay with the plant throughout its life
– Tool boxes
– Tea bags
– Wax layers around cheese
I live to serve.
Geoff Eley On "Ossiness"
October 3, 2006 ~ ~ Leave a comment
Here, historian Geoff Eley evokes some of the complicated feelings of mistrust and resentment spurred in East Germans by the way re-unification of Germany was handled. The prose is sometimes a bit academic, but Eley makes interesting points.
Eley maintains that many Western politicians denied the East Germany government any sort of recognition whatsoever, painting it as nothing more than a chilling Communist dictatorship (which, of course it was). This blanket characterization, though, meant that "the legitimacy of the forms of popular experience fashioned during the life of the GDR became systematically denied." (remember what I said about academic prose).
It is important to grasp what was entailed in such a process of denial. It affected not only the official history of the old East German state and the political tradition incorporated by the SED, the postwar record of GDR Communism, and the specificities of what used to be called actually-existing socialism. Much more fundamentally, that denial also disallowed the mundane accomplishments of ordinary citizens' lives – that is, the arduous process of having tried to build workable lives inside the constricting boundaries of what an established but beleaguered and poorly-resourced state could realistically make available.
[U]nderstanding the distinctive modalities through which East German residents built their lifeworlds and negotiated their coexistence with the SED is a crucial step towards grasping the predicament of Easterners since 1990. Not only had unification deprived former residents of the GDR of the operating contexts for which their political habitus was fitted, but it also threw them into a vastly differing social scene, where their skills were dismissed, their psycho-cultural outlook derided, and their pasts belittled. This loss of bearings, bitterly seared into the consciousness of East Germans by the accompanying deindustrialization, destruction of livelihoods, and loss of social supports, is a different kind of injustice from the sort prosecuted by the victorious West Germans, but surely one deserving of note. As Lindenberger observes, events 'were experienced not only as a material loss but also above all as an expropriation of social relations and structures, of moral values and habits, of a specific East German culture, through which GDR citizens had mastered their lives in the preceding four decades and which they now regarded as their legitimate "Ossiness"'.
Eley here is evoking — for an audience that can barely imagine it — what it would be like to live in a country whose entire political structure, habits and customs, consumer products, and work relationships either disappeared or changed radically within a few years. It's a fascinating thing to think about, I find.
I've met a number of "proud" former "Ossies" (people from East Germany or Ostdeutschland) myself. They have complex and often-contradictory feelings about the former East German state, but many of them are proud in the way Eley describes: they built a satisfying, ethical life in a society that made this difficult. To this pride, many added an admiration for the some of the social ideals of East Germany.
We are not talking here about party faithful, but about people such as Wolf Biermann or Rudolf Bahro (G), who considered themselves both socialists and dissidents. Instead of replacing the East German dictatorship with a genuinely democratic socialist successor state, they watched as it was erased from the history books. When re-unification was being negotiated, East Germany was considered to have nothing to contribute to the discussion about how the new Germany's social or foreign policies (for example) would look. East Germany's role was simply to be passively absorbed into the West and express proper gratitude for the opportunity. Of course, East Germans would also be entitled to huge transitional payments from the West, but this was hardly a signal of recognition as a partner of equal dignity in the debate over what a re-unified Germany would look like; rather the opposite. As one acquaintance from the East recently put it, "we didn't think we were demonstrating to replace a series of depressingly uniform concrete housing blocks with a series of depressingly uniform fast-food chains."
I don't agree with Eley in every point, but his thesis does explain the vicious circle that keeps coming up in East-West German relations: Ossies have a quiet, but strong grudge against the West for "anti-Communist triumphalism" (Eley) displayed during re-unification and the lack of respect for individual experiences it showed. Westerners, in turn, sputter with rage at the fact that the Ossies could be so ungrateful for one of the biggest wealth transfers in history (most Westerner still pay a large chunk of money to the East every month as a "solidarity payment.")
Eley thinks the fading of the anti-Communist triumphalism in recent years signals a chance for a more nuanced and satisfactory approach to the issues. Let's hope he's right.
Boring Germans
Brutalism Bashing
Exploding Animals
German Customs and Manners
German Diaspora
German Glumness
German Legal System
German Media
German Word of the Week
HDHTECL
Nazis Old and Neo
Other People's Indians
Tiny Hat People
Years of Lead
LemmusLemmus on A Fake Quote from Peter Handke…
Andrew Hammel on A Fake Quote from Peter Handke…
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What Peter Handke Said at Slobodan Milošević's Funeral November 1, 2019
A Fake Quote from Peter Handke in the New York Times and Everywhere Else October 22, 2019
What the BBC Gets Right, and German Public Broadcasters Get Wrong September 16, 2019
Every Time the Word "Penis" Has Been Uttered in the German Bundestag September 9, 2019
German Word of the Week: Pointendichte September 9, 2019
Rocks Don't Love You Back August 25, 2019
German Word of the Week: Witzelsucht August 19, 2019
The Neglected, Overgrown, Eldritch Hubbelrath Valley June 20, 2019


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In a rare criticism of the kingdom's powerful "mutaween" police, the Saudi media has accused them of hindering attempts to save 15 girls who died in the fire on Monday.
According to the al-Eqtisadiah daily, firemen confronted police after they tried to keep the girls inside because they were not wearing the headscarves and abayas (black robes) required by the kingdom's strict interpretation of Islam.
One witness said he saw three policemen "beating young girls to prevent them from leaving the school because they were not wearing the abaya".
The Saudi Gazette quoted witnesses as saying that the police - known as the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice - had stopped men who tried to help the girls and warned "it is a sinful to approach them".
"Lives could have been saved had they not been stopped by members of the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice," the newspaper concluded.
The school was locked at the time of the fire - a usual practice to ensure full segregation of the sexes.


text:
Q: Manage the views generated in rails admin I am currently doing a project and the gems that I've used are: devise, rails admin and cancancan.. The codes below will add the CRUD and also a default views/page
Ability.rb
class Ability
  include CanCan::Ability
  def initialize(user)

    alias_action :create, :read, :update, :destroy, to: :crud

    if user.role == 'admin'
        can :read, [xxxx]
        can :crud, [xxxx]

        can :access, :rails_admin
        can :dashboard
    end

  end

end

Question: Where can I find the view or page? So that I can edit the view/s

A: The Ability class is where all user permissions are defined, it does not add default views. devise comes with default views packaged within the gem. In order to customize those views, you would have to run the following command:
rails generate devise:views

This command copies all devise views to your application under your_app/app/views/devise folder. You should be able to customize specific views from there. Also, link to configure devise views for your reference.
UPDATE
Rails_admin documentation suggests that they are strongly encouraging making edits to the dashboard views via the DSL. A few examples for your reference: #1, #2.
rails_admin views reside packaged in the gem here. If you absolutely need to add a lot of customizations that cannot be done using DSL then add similar view structure to your app. For eg: to customize dashboard view, create your_app/app/views/rails_admin/main/dashboard.html.erb and write your own dashboard view.

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