text:
"Sorry, Chancellor Merkel"
Posted by michelinewalker in United States
9/11, Chancellor Merkel, George W Bush, John L. O'Sullivan, President Obama, Sally Hemings, spying, The Manifest Destiny, Thomas Jefferson, trust
Angela Merkel and Barack Obama
The Manifest Destiny
John L. O'Sullivan, (15 November 1813 – 24 March 1895) sketched in 1874, was an influential columnist as a young man, but he is now generally remembered only for his use of the phrase "manifest destiny" to advocate the annexation of Texas and Oregon. (See Manifest Destiny, Wikipedia.)
Micheline is sad, says Belaud the cat. She is sad because she does not think President Obama knew to what extent practices, proponents of the "Manifest Destiny" would have allowed, were used by United States President George W. Bush.
She also thinks that, in all likelihood, abusive surveillance continued after Barack Obama was elected President of the United States because he did not know the US was listening in on the entire world, including its friends. We need to trust at least a few persons and nations, which fully explains Chancellor Merkel's reaction. President Obama knew he had to protect his people, but may not have been aware that the NSA (National Security Agency) was monitoring Chancellor Merkel's mobile telephone.
"Now Micheline" I said, "you know very well that people hear what they want or wish to hear and that the manner in which a message is understood depends largely on the way it is formulated. He may not have known."
The term "Manifest Destiny" was coined by John O'Sullivan in the July-August 1845 issue of his United States Magazine and Democratic Review and, according to William Earl Weeks,[i] quoted in Wikipedia, its three themes were the following:
The special virtues of the American people and their institutions;
America's mission to redeem and remake the world in the image of America;
A divine destiny under God's direction to accomplish this wonderful task.
Founding father Thomas Jefferson (13 April 1743 – 4 July 1826) was a proponent of the "Manifest Destiny." Yet, he owned hundreds of slaves and fathered six children with slave Sally Hemings (c. 1773 – 1835). Four survived to adulthood, at which point they were freed. Sally Hemings was of mixed ancestry and the children were "seven-eighths European in ancestry" and white in appearance. (See Sally Hemings, Wikipedia.) But he did not free Sally Hemings. She would have been auctioned off, had Jefferson's daughter, Martha Washington Jefferson Randolph, not freed her.
I also told Micheline that, although former US President George W. Bush (born July 6, 1946) adhered, knowingly or unknowingly, to the concept of the "Manifest Destiny" (see Manifest Destiny, Wikipedia), after the events of 9/11, former President G. W. Bush may have felt very distraught which could have led him to enter Iraq, a sovereign country. He was the President of the United States, its Commander-in-Chief, the US had been attacked by terrorists, and he had been influenced by the "Manifest Destiny."
And now we have learned that former President G. W. Bush did not know how far he could go too far. He let the NSA (National Security Agency) monitor the telephones of allies of the United States. If an individual adheres to the notions set forth in the "Manifest Destiny," there is a risk that individual will not know that his or her rights end where the rights of others begin.
President George W. Bush may not have been as great a president as Thomas Jefferson, but I'm quite certain he will never be made to answer for his actions. All is right under the mantle of the "Manifest Destiny," which is why Micheline fears the notion of exceptionalism.
"Don't worry, Micheline, President Obama will do all that is needed to regain the confidence of his allies. Yes, some people will use this opportunity to fault him, but it will not work. Too large a number of United States citizens will see the truth. What is really sad, Micheline, is that we have extremists right here who threaten Canadian unity."
Remember McCarthyism
"The term McCarthyism, coined in 1950 in reference to Joseph McCarthy's practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist activities. Today the term is used more generally in reference to demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents." (See Joseph McCarthy, Wikipedia.)
The bottom line, Belaud said, is that one can fully expect citizens who insist on carrying firearms also to monitor their friend's telephone conversations.
The "Manifest Destiny" & the News (michelinewalker.com)
Le Devoir, 29 October 2013 (FR)
[i] Weeks, William Earl, Building the continental empire: American expansion from the Revolution to the Civil War (Ivan R. Dee, 1996).
The Little Drummer Boy, by William Morris Hunt, 1862
Photo credit: Wikipedia
© Micheline Walker & Belaud
"The Crow and the Fox:" its Dissemination
27 Sunday Oct 2013
Posted by michelinewalker in Beast Literature, Bestiaries, Fables
anti-Semitism, Beast Epics, engin, fables, farce, Harriet Spiegel, Jill Mann, Nivard de Gand, Pierre de Saint-Cloud, Roman de Renart, Ysengrimus
Le Roman de Renart. Noble le Lion, (Bibliothèque nationale de France BnF [br. Va])
BEAST EPICS AND FABLES
Generally speaking, European beast literature consists of two genres: fables and beast epics, or mock-epics. Fables are short, but epics are very long. Le Roman de Renart is a beast epic, but it contains the story of a Crow, Tiécelin or Tiercelin, who is led to sing (chanter) by a cunning Sir Fox, and loses his living. Jean Batany calls the various fables "parcellaires" and the entire beast epic, or fabliau, "unitaire."[i] In short, beast epics are frame-stories (outer stories) that join shorter stories (inner stories).
One of our WordPress colleagues added the expression "to eat crow" to my "crowing." As it turns out, Mr Boehner, Sir Fox, may well be "eating crow," and the expression "to eat crow," may be rooted in "The Fox and the Crow." So, it is possible that "The Fox and Crow" shaped the English language to a greater extent than I suspected and that it may have done so because of the wide dissemination of beast literature in both fables, popular collections of fables, and various epic poems we will name Reynard the Fox stories, an umbrella term. So we have another curtain to raise.
Minton decorated tile
Dissemination Through Fables
AT 57 Raven with Cheese
Perry Index: 124
Where fables are concerned, there exist several sources.[ii] However, we could begin with Marie de France[iii] who was born in Normandy but then lived in England. She is French literature's first, chronologically, important woman writer. Her collection of fables contains a "Fox and Crow" narrative, entitled "Del corbel e del gupil," that may predate the Ysopet-Avionnet, but not necessarily.[iv] The Ysopet-Avionnet dates back to the period during which the goupil became a renard, which may explain why her Fox is named gupil. Marie lived in the 12th century and retold 103 'Æsopic' fables, her "Fox and Crow" being the 13th.
In the Ysopet-Avionnet, our fable is entitled "Du Renart et du Corbel" and is fable number 15. Foxes used to be called goupils, but as of 1250 approximately, the success of the Roman de Renart led to the "goupil" being renamed "renart." In other words, the part became the whole, so to speak, as in a synecdoche, a figure of speech, hence its "Fox and Crow" being entitled "Du Renart et du Corbel."
The Ysopet-Avionnet, a widely-used medieval grammar book, contains a "Fox and Crow," the above-mentioned "Du Renart et du Corbel," a translation of the Latin "De Vulpe [fox] et Corvo," fable number 15 in the Ysopet-Avionnet (p. 73).[v] Avianus (Avionnet) lived in the 4th century CE, and he wrote in Latin. However, "Du Renart et du Corbel" is not one of the 18 fables Flavius Avianus contributed to the Ysopet-Avionnet. It is one of the 64 fables attributed to a Romulus.
(Please click on the small images to enlarge them.)
Renart et Tiécelin, (BnF), ms 12587
Renart et Tiécelin, (BnF), ms 14969 fol. 25*
*Guillaume le Clerc, Bestiaire divin. Manuscript copied in Great Britain, in the last quarter of the 13th century. BnF Ms 14969 fol. 25.
Dissemination through Beast Epics (a Sample)
1150: The Ysengrimus (Ghent)
1170-1250: The Roman de Renart (France)
Reynard the Fox (England)
Dutch Reinaert stories
German Reineke stories
1846: Goethe's Reineke Fuchs
The Tales of Uncle Remus (Georgia, US), etc.
The Ysengrimus (c. 1150)
Reynard (Reinardus) was born in the Ysengrimus and attributed to Nivardus of Ghent. Nivardus is a latinized version of Nivard. The Ysengrimus is a very long poem: 6,574 lines of elegiac couplets. It was translated into English by Jill Mann and is still available (see Jill Mann). The pioneer, however, was John Voigt who translated the Ysengrimus into German. Ysengrimus was the Wolf and Reinardus, the Fox. In French, Ysengrimus is Ysengrin and in English, he is Isengrim. Renart is Reynard.
The Roman de Renart (1170-1250)
The French Roman de Renart was written between 1170 and 1250. Pierre de Saint-Cloud was its first author, but it has other authors: Richard de Lison, the Prêtre de la Croix en Brie, and others. Beginning with the Ysengrimus, beast epics were written not only as mock-epics, but also as satires of a greedy Church.
Le Roman de Renart contains 27 narratives and 2,700 octosyllabic verses (eight syllables). These are joined into clusters called "branches." The central theme is the fierce competition between the Fox, who uses ruse or "engin" (ingenuity), and the Wolf, who uses brutal force and is forever hungry. It eats ham mainly, but has been caught eating lamb. Other animals featured in the Roman de Renart are Bruin the Bear, Tibert the Cat, Tiercelin or Tiécelin the Crow, Hersent the She-Fox (Isengrim's wife), Chantecler the Cock, etc. For a reading, in French, of the Roman de Renart's "Fox and Crow" episode, one may visit the Bibliothèque nationale de France. It may be that the site is in English as well as French, but I have yet to discover a translation.[v]
England, the Netherlands and Germany
The Roman de Renart then migrated to other lands, the Netherlands in particular. But it also moved to Germany. It was hugely successful in both the Netherlands and German-language states. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is the author of Reineke Fuchs (1793). But the Brothers Grimm also wrote Reynard stories.
Reynard in Georgia, the United States
In North-America, Reynard inhabits Joel Chandler Harris' (9 December 1848 – 3 July 1908) Tales of Uncle Remus. However, in The Tales of Uncle Remus, our trickster, the Fox, is replaced by the Rabbit. The traditional North-American trickster is the Coyote.
AN ANTI-SEMITIC REYNARD
Title credit: About Reynard the Fox. (Nederland Film, 1943) Courtesy Nederland Filmmuseum (frame enlargement Ole. Schepp).[vi]
Robert van Genechten (25 October 1895 – 13 December 1945) produced an anti-Semitic version of Reynard the Fox, entitled Van den vos Reynaerde. He was a collaborator. At the end of World War II, Genechten was condemned to death, but committed suicide in his cell to avoid the humiliation of a public and ritualistic execution.
There are so many Reynard stories and, consequently, so many "Fox and Crow" fables that it could argued successfully that expressions featuring linguistic elements such as "to eat crow," "crowing," "faire chanter" and, by extension, "chantage" (blackmail) originate in "The Fox and the Crow" and Le Corbeau et le Renart. "The Fox and the Crow," however, is a transcultural text. Related narratives can be found in Ibn al-Muqaffa's Kalilah waDimna and, earlier, in the Sanskrit Panchatantra.
Meanwhile in Washington: The Deceiver Deceived
Farcesbles vs Fa
However, allow me to return briefly to a Washington reading of "The Fox and Crow." In fables, the birthplace of proverbs, among other forms, the crow ends up eating humble pie, or "eating crow." In farces, however, the deceiver is deceived, le trompeur trompé. In fables, one can be fooled; Sir Crow opens his mouth and loses the cheese. But Mr Boehner, as Sir Fox, did not succeed in making Sir Crow, President Obama, "crow." It could be said, therefore, that the shutdown of the American government was not only senseless and far too costly, but that it was… a farce!
"The Cock and Pearl"
La Fontaine's "The Fox and the Grapes"
Reynard the Fox, the Itinerant
La Fontaine's Fables Compiled & Walter Crane
[i] Jean Batany, Scène et Coulisses [wings] du « Roman de Renart » (Paris : Sedes, 1989), pp. 48-49.
[ii] For a more complete list, see Æsopica: http://www.mythfolklore.net/aesopica/
[iii] Harriet Spiegel, editor and translator, The Fables of Marie de France (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000 [1994]).
[iv] They may have been written at approximately the same time.
[v] The Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) has a lovely site on the Roman de Renart. "Roman" does not mean novel, it points to the language, "le roman," in which the text was written. Click on:
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b60004625/f2.image.langEN
http://classes.bnf.fr/renart/
[vi] Reynard the Fox and the Jew Animal http://www.awn.com/mag/issue1.7/articles/barten1.7.html
Kalilah wa Dimna
Renart et Tiécelin le corbeau, Texte établi et traduit par Jean Dufournet et Andrée Méline, GF-Flammarion, 1985. Tome 1, p. 251-261.
Le Roman de Renart, Larousse
Ladislas Starewicz produced a "Fox and Crow" animation.
Tiécelin et le Renart (branche II)
La Fontaine's "The Raven and the Fox" Updated
Posted by michelinewalker in Fables
Aarne-Thompson type 57, Aesop's Fables, Arthur Rackam, Gutenberg Project, John Rae, La Fontaine, Milo Winter, Perry Index 104
The Raven and the Fox, illustrated by John Rae [EBook #24108]
Aarne-Thompson type 57
Related narratives: Aarne-Thompson
Text(e):
Le Corbeau et le Renard (1.I.2)
The Raven and the Fox (1.I.2) or The Fox and the Crow
Images are not to be removed from this post as proper credit may not be given.
Photo credit: John Rae [EBook #24108]; Milo Winter [EBook #19994]; Arthur Rackham [EBook #11339]
The Raven and the Fox,
illustrated by John Rae
[EBook #24108]
A definition of Fables
"Fables are among the oldest forms of folk literature. The word "fable" comes from the Latin "fabula" ("little story"). Typically, a fable consists of a narrative and a short moral conclusion at the end. The main characters in most fables are animals. The purpose of these stories is to ridicule negative human qualities." http://www.worldoftales.com/fables.html
The Raven and the Fox, illustrated by Milo Winter [EBook #19994]
Perched on a lofty oak,
Sir Raven held a lunch of cheese;
Sir Fox, who smelt it in the breeze,
Thus to the holder spoke:
"Ha! how do you do, Sir Raven?
Well, your coat, sir, is a brave one!
So black and glossy, on my word, sir,
With voice to match, you were a bird, sir,
Well fit to be the Phoenix of these days."
Sir Raven, overset with praise,
Must show how musical his croak.
Down fell the luncheon from the oak;
Which snatching up, Sir Fox thus spoke:
"The flatterer, my good sir,
Aye lives on his listener;
Which lesson, if you please,
Is doubtless worth the cheese."
A bit too late, Sir Raven swore
The rogue should never cheat him more.
The Moral
Aye lives on his listener[.]"
(Sir Fox)
In this post, I will focus on the moral of this fable. The moral is explicit. Sir Fox is quoted in full. Flattery, on the part of the fox, fools the raven/crow into singing and, as he sings, he lets go of his piece of cheese. By the way, in European beast literature, animals usually eat cheese, honey and ham.
However, it so happens that the French translation for blackmail is le chantage. Sir Fox fait chanter le corbeau (makes the raven sing) and manages to convince a rather vain Sir Raven or Crow to sing or to "crow." The cheese falls to the ground. Now that cheese was Sir Crow's dinner. Sir Crow's loss is therefore significant.
So what we have seen is how a fable can shape a language. Chances are that the word 'chantage' is not rooted in our fable (faire chanter), but there is a strong likelihood that it is. For instance, we now hear people say a "perfect storm," without referring to the 2000 film based on Sebastian Junger's non-fictional account of events. In this case, events were fictionalized into a film and the title of the film is entering the English language and may remain a useful but uninformed English-language metaphor.
Moreover, in Le Poète et le Roi; Jean de La Fontaine en son siècle (Paris: Fallois, 1997), a book about La Fontaine, Marc Fumaroli, the most prominent member of the Académie française, wrote "to know how far one can go too far" ("savoir jusqu'où on peut aller trop loin"), without using quotation marks and without naming his source: Jean Cocteau (5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963). The clever expression is therefore entering the French language and, a few years from now, people might not know who coined the expression.
For those of us who also speak English, the word "crow" is significant. When Sir Raven or Crow opens his mouth, he does not sing, he "crows," which is not flattering. Could that be rooted in the "Fox and Crow?" To crow suggests a degree of boastfulness. Remember that "Æsopian" fables entered England, at least in part, when printer and translator William Caxton (ca. 1415~1422 – ca. March 1492) printed the Latin fables of Avianus and then translated them, naming his collection The Fables of Avian. Avian's translation of Æsop's fables into Latin was a favourite and was rooted in both the Latin and the Greek traditions: Phædrus (Latin) and Babrius (Greek). (See "The Cock and the Pearl:" La Fontaine cont'd [michelinewalker.com]).
We know that La Fontaine is writing about humans because he calls his protagonists "Sir" (Maître or Monsieur). Moreover, we may have uncovered the origin of the word chantage as well as an instance of unsuccessful chantage (blackmail), a deceiver-deceived narrative: trompeur trompé.
But I must go!
Kalilah wa Dimna (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Fables of Pilpay (online) EN
Les Fables de Pilpay ou la Conduite des roys (online) FR
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5674720s
http://mythfolklore.net/aesopica/oxford/104.htm
"The Cock and the Pearl:" La Fontaine cont'd
The Fox and Crane, or Stork
"Le Chêne et le Roseau" (The Oak and the Reed): the Moral
Le Corbeau et le Renard, illustrated by Arthur Rackham
Le Corbeau et le Renard
Maître Corbeau, sur un arbre perché,
Tenait en son bec un fromage.
Maître Renard, par l'odeur alléché,
Lui tint à peu près ce langage :
"Et ! bonjour, Monsieur du Corbeau.
Que vous êtes joli ! que vous me semblez beau !
Sans mentir, si votre ramage (the way he talks)
Se rapporte à votre plumage, (your feathers)
Vous êtes le Phénix des hôtes de ces bois. "
À ces mots, le Corbeau ne se sent pas de joie ;
Et pour montrer sa belle voix, (voice)
Il ouvre un large bec, laisse tomber sa proie.
Le Renard s'en saisit, et dit :
"Mon bon Monsieur,
Apprenez que tout flatteur
Vit aux dépens de celui qui l'écoute
Cette leçon vaut bien un fromage, sans doute. "
Le Corbeau honteux et confus
Jura, mais un peu tard, qu'on ne l'y prendrait plus.
Le Corbeau et le Renard, illustrated by John Rae
Louis-Nicolas Clérambault (19 December 1676 – 26 October 1749).
Clérambault wrote music based on La Fontaine's fables. The pictures show le Mont-Saint-Michel, France.
Magnificat (3 voices & basso continuo)
The Raven and the Fox, illustrated by John Rae
1. A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine, Percy J. Billinghurst
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/25357/25357-h/25357-h.htm
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/25357/25357-h/25357-h.htm#Page_60
2. The Fables of La Fontaine, Elizur Wright, J. W. M. Gibbs, 1882 [1841]
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8ffab10h.htm (Fable 2)
"The Raven and the Fox"
[EBook #7241] (1882)
3. The Fables of La Fontaine, Walter Thornbury, transl. Gustave Doré, ill.
[EBook #50316] (1886)
4. Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks, From the French of La Fontaine
W.T. (William Trowbridge) Larned (transl.), John Rae, ill.
Photo credit: Site officiel
1. V. S. Vernon Jones (transl.), G. K. Chesterton, Arthur Rackham (ill.)
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11339/11339-h/11339-h.htm#036
2. Harrison Weir, John Tenniel and Ernest Griset, illustrators
3. The Æsop for Children, Milo Winter, illustrator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milo_Winter
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19994/19994-h/19994-h.htm#Page_101
Belaud the Cat Writes a Post
Posted by michelinewalker in Sharing
Alix de France, art, Belaud, crises, Fantin-Latour, Joachim du Bellay, larkspur, lilacs, peonies, the United States
Lilacs, by Fantin-Latour, 1872
Larkspur, 1888
Vase of Peonies, 1902
I am Belaud (pronounced 'below'), the little fur person who shares Micheline's life. She has asked me to write a note on her behalf. She somehow got interested in "The Fox and the Crow" and started writing a post she could not finish.
She is lucky to be able to count on me when such "accidents" occur. The best remedy, I told her, is to slash and slash. She explained that there were times when one could not slash and slash. Since the Syrian crisis and the debt-ceiling crisis, one nearly overlapping the other, she has not been her usual self. What would she do without me?
Micheline is now returning to her post. The arrangement is that she will discuss the moral in one post and will provide additional information in a separate post. I explained that she may run out of pictures, but this does not appear to be the case.
About me, Belaud
I am a pure-bred chartreux and, as we will see, a celebrated cat, but Micheline does not take me to shows. The two of us stick to a humble lifestyle. She says class is irrelevant. After all, she is, on her maternal grandmother's side, a descendant of Alix de France, one of Eleanor of Aquitaine's (1122 or 1124 – 1 April 1204) two daughters by King Louis VII.
During the years she spent in Nova Scotia, she didn't know this and knowing has not improved her life. She cannot play a musical instrument in this apartment and selling it, the apartment that is, would not buy her a little house or a townhouse however humble.
Joachim du Bellay, by Jean Cousin
Joachim du Bellay (c. 1522 – 1 January 1560; aged 37) was the first French author who felt French could be a literary language. He was a member of the Pléiade, an informal academy. He wrote their manifesto: Défense et illustration de la langue française (La Deffence, et Illustration de la Langue Francoyse, 1549.)
There is one poem Micheline loves: Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage,… (Happy is he who, like Ulysses, has gone on a beautiful trip,…). Du Bellay was in Rome, but missed la doulceur angevine, gentle Anjou.
Despite lineage, no great author has made Micheline into a celebrity. But Joachim du Bellay eulogized his cat Belaud, one of my ancestors: Sur la mort de Belaud. I don't think anyone will eulogize Micheline, not even me, except modestly, if I'm still alive. Public speaking scares me.
La Pléiade: Du Bellay (michelinewalker.com)
Belaud the Cat (michelinewalker.com)
Belaud the Cat's Suite (michelinewalker.com)
Henri Fantin-Latour (14 January 1836 – 25 August 1904)
Belaud
The Art of Andrew Wyeth & Posts on the United States (1)
Posted by michelinewalker in Art, United States
Andrew Wyeth, First Snow, obstructionism, Posts on US, President Barack Obama, scapegoating, Spring Fed, The Master Bedroom
The Master Bedroom, by Andrew Wyeth
Photo Credit: Google Images
First Snow, Andrew Wyeth
(12 July 1917 – 16 January 2009)
(Photo credit: Wikipaintings)
The US Economy (19 July 2011)
On Raising the Debt Limit (26 July 2011)
First things first: President Obama's address (26 July 2011)
A Great Favor (28 July 2011)
The Damage so Far (29 July 2011)
The Compromise (5 August 2011)
Leaders and Education (8 August 2011)
More on Education (9 August 2011)
President Obama as Scapegoat (10 August 2011)
"It is the fate of princes to be ill-spoken of for well-doing" (15 Sept. 2011)
Fraternité: Individual Needs and Collective Needs (17 Sept. 2011)
A Sense of Urgency (19 September 2011)
The Short Term and the Long Term (19 September 2011)
Obstructionism: the Consequences (26 October 2011)
Respect for life: on Anti-Abortion Extremism (28 October 2011)
Austerity the Republican Way (10 December 2011)
An Obama-Clinton Ticket (13 December 2011)
Mutiny in Congress: Ship them to Guantanamo (21 December 2011)
The Art of Alfred Thompson Bricher & Posts About the United States (2)
Spring Fed, Andrew Wyeth
Photo credit: Wikipaintings
Alfred Thompson Bricher, Barack Obama, Hudson River School, National Academy of Design, New York City, Obama, United State, William Morris Hunt
Blue Point, Long Island by Alfred Thompson Bricher
The United States has produced great artists. Members the Hudson River School enjoyed landscape painting as did, for instance, members of the Barbizon School in France.
Alfred Thompson Bricher
Alfred Thompson Bricher (10 April 1837- 30 September 1908) was an American painter associated with White Mountain art and the Hudson River School. He studied at the Lowell Institute and with Albert Bierstadt, William Morris Hunt, and others. By 1858, he made art his profession. He opened a studio in Boston, but in 1868 he moved to New York City and showed "Mill-Stream at Newburyport" at the National Academy of Design. He had first worked with oils, but ended up switching to watercolors. In 1873, he became a member of the American Watercolor Society. As did other members of the Hudson River School, Bricher painted landscapes mainly, but in the 1870s, he started to paint seascapes and these are the paintings that earned him renown.
The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century school. Therefore, Bricher was a late member. As Modern Art gained prominence, he was nearly forgotten, but he later regained notoriety as a marine painter. In the 1890s he purchased a house near the sea in the New Dorp section of Staten Island. He could view the Atlantic Ocean and Raritan Bay. He remained active until his death, in New Dorp in 1908.
1st List of Articles in Support of President Obama
The Art of Andrew Wyeth & Posts on the United States (1) (29 June 2012)
2nd List of Articles in Support of President Obama
"Perish if you wish; I am safe" (Jean-Jacques Rousseau) (28 October 2012)
Bullying President Obama! Shame on Mr Romney (22 October 2012)
On the Second Debate, the News 21st October 2012 (21 October 2012)
Thoughts on the United States (18 October 2012)
President Obama for America (17 October 2012)
Taxes: the Freedom we Surrender (15 October 2012)
Nationhood: Watching the United States (11 October 2012)
The Voter Purge and the Folia (30 September 2012)
Sandra Fluke, I agree with you… (25 August 2012)
Resilience: From the French Revolution to the Interstate Highway System (18 July 2012)
A New Marshall Plan for the United States (18 July 2012)
A Glimpse at the Obama Years: Statesmanship (30 June 2012)
Response to Mr Limbaugh: Abstinence for All (6 March 2012
Musing on the State of Women (3 March 2012)
Johannes Brahms (7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897)
"Variations on an Original Theme"
A Wintry Day, 1862
The Art of Sanford Robinson Gifford
Albert Bierstadt, first American art school, Hudson River School, John Frederick Kensett, landscapes, luminism, malaria, Seascapes
Mount Chocurua, New Hampshire
A Gorge in the Mountains
Sandy Hooke, New Jersey
Kauterskill 1
Sanford Robinson Gifford
The Hudson River school: the United States' first art School
Sanford Robinson Gifford (10 July 1823 – 29 August 1880) was a member of the 19th-century American Hudson River School and, as did members of this school, he painted landscapes and seascapes. Gifford first studied art under the direction of John R. Smith, a water-colorist and drawing-master. He painted the scenery that surrounded him: the North-East coast of the United States, but he also travelled and studied abroad, as did many Hudson River school artists. They were in search of scenery. Gifford first travelled to Europe in 1855 and met Albert Bierstadt and Worthington Whittredged. Gifford was in fact close to several members of the Hudson River school, the United States' first art school.[i]
Most members of the Hudson River school travelled not only to Europe but also to various parts of the United States. Gifford travelled to Vermont in 1858 and spent the summer of 1867 on the New Jersey coast, at Sandy Hooke and Long Branch and, in 1870, he went to the Rocky Mountains accompanied by Worthington Whittredged and John Frederick Kensett, the most prominent member of the Hudson River school.
Meanwhile, however, in 1668, Gifford had returned to Europe and travelled to the Middle East and to Egypt.
When he travelled, Gifford made sketches and, on his return to his studio, in New York, he would enlarge his sketches into small oil paintings and then enlarge his small oil paintings into large paintings, the definitive work. Therefore, the date given a painting does not necessarily correspond to the date the sketch was made.
During the American Civil War (1861-1865), Gifford joined the Union Army and subsequently returned to his studio in New York.
He died of malaria, in New York, at the age of 57.
Luminism
The paintings of members of the Hudson River school are associated with luminism. Luminism resembles Impressionism in that artists attempt to capture the effect of light on landscapes and seascapes. Light molds an object. However, American luminism is much less suggestive than French Impressionism. The artworks of French Impressionists are at times blurred to the point of abstraction.
According to Wikipedia,
luminism is characterized by attention to detail and the hiding of brushstrokes, while impressionism is characterized by lack of detail and an emphasis on brushstrokes. Luminism preceded impressionism, and the artists who painted in a luminist style were in no way influenced by impressionism.
As for the Encyclopædia Britannica, it describes luminism as a "late 19th-century painting style emphasizing a unique clarity of light. It was characteristic of the works of a group of independent American painters who were directly influenced by the Hudson River school of painting. The term, however, was not coined until 1954 by John Baur, director of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City."[ii]
In Britannica's definition, the operative words are "a unique clarity of light." However, members of the Hudson River were never a movement and, if they were "luminists," it was sans le savoir, unawares. The term did not exist in the 19th century.[iii]
Best-Known Works
Lake Nemi (1856-57)
The Wilderness (1861)
A Passing Storm (1866)
Ruins of the Parthenon (1880)
[i] List of Hudson River School artists
[ii] "luminism". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 18 Oct. 2013
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/351248/luminism>.
[iii] Collection of the Metropolitan Museum, NY
http://www.metmuseum.org/search-results?ft=Sanfor+Robinson+Gifford&x=8&y=6
A Winter Walk
Summer Idyll
(Please klick on the image to enlarge it.)
A Deal: Finally!
a deal, George Gershwin, John Boehner, Marc-André Hamelin, President Barack Obama
John Boehner and President Barack Obama
(Photo credit: The Telegraph, UK)
I think We have a deal
It appears the debt ceiling will be raised. There is a deal. No one knows the details of this deal, except Washington, but a default has been avoided.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24558615
Yet, I am afraid. I heard Mr Boehner, courtesy of the BBC. He mentioned the Affordable Care Act, but called it what it should no longer be called: Obamacare. The name of the programme is the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act, or ACA, and it is a long-awaited health-insurance plan.
Warren Buffet: "It would be 'asinine' if US defaults."
I listened to Warren Buffet. He stated that the "house" would no longer use a government shutdown to negotiate a rise in the debt ceiling.
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/warren-buffett-it-would-be-asinine-if-us-defaults-8C11403074
All I know about the deal is that, although it will "pass," it is a short-term arrangement. I expect therefore that we will soon be watching a replay of the drama that is currently ending. When "negotiations" resume, there may not be a government shutdown, but I do not think extremist Republicans will ever want to fund the Affordable Care Act. As for the rich, they will continue to oppose paying their fair share of taxes.
The Raises
Here is the history of the United States debt ceiling, from Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_debt_ceiling
US government indebtedness has been the norm in United States financial history, as well of most Western European and North American countries, for the past 200 years.
The US has been in debt every year except for 1835.
Debts incurred during the American Revolutionary War and under the Articles of Confederation led to the first yearly report on the amount of the debt ($75,463,476.52 on January 1, 1791).
Every President since Herbert Hoover has added to the national debt expressed in absolute dollars. The debt ceiling has been raised 74 times since March 1962,including 18 times under Ronald Reagan, eight times under Bill Clinton, seven times under George W. Bush, and five times under Barack Obama.
This is a brief post. I will end it by saying that I am delighted the crisis is over. We can breathe again. However, we have now seen an episode of obstructionism: a government shutdown. I just hope President Obama will not be blamed. That would be scapegoating. Who knows, President Obama may have gained supporters.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/16/government-shutdown-cost_n_4110818.html?ir=Business&ref=topbar
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100241757/us-debt-ceiling-crisis-barack-obama-has-won-the-shutdown-his-prize-is-a-lame-duck-presidency/
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Marc-André Hamelin plays George Gershwin – Songbook (18 Songs)
≈ Comments Off on A House Divided…
A house divided..., Abraham Lincoln, Christine Lagarde, debt ceiling, Henry Louis Stephens, President Barack Obama, Proclamation of Emancipation, taxes, the Gettysburg address, Thomas Hobbes
Abraham Lincoln in 1863 (aged 54)
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
(Post revised on 20 October 2013)
A House divided: 1858
"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South." (Abraham Lincoln, 16 June 1858)
But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to them: "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you." (Matthew 12:22-28, NKJV)
The Gettysburg Address: 1863
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Oak Alley Plantation, looking towards the main house from the direction of the Mississippi River.
President Abraham Lincoln
President Abraham Lincoln (12 February 1809 – 15 April 1865; aged 56), elected in 1860, opposed the expansion of slavery into the United States' territories. I will quote Wikipedia: "Lincoln won, but before his inauguration, on March 4, 1861, seven slave states with cotton-based economies formed the Confederacy."[i] Abolition was about to cost a great deal of money, as will the Affordable Care Act, so seven states turned to mutiny, or a form thereof.
It is quite appropriate for a nation to defeat an abusive and tyrannical leader. But it is in no way appropriate to elect a leader only to divide a country or to hold it and the world ransom and to jeopardize his policies. A policy "is a statement of intent." (See Policy, Wikipedia.) Everyone knew President Obama's intent: affordable health care. The Affordable Care Act, the ACA, was passed into law, and it has now been implemented. As I wrote in a previous post, two words sum up Barack Obama's presidency: obstructionism and scapegoating, the kind of misery inflicted on President Obama by members of Congress and various Sarah Palins.
At any rate, slavery was abolished on 31 January, 1865, but President Lincoln, a Republican, was assassinated on 14 April 1965, Good Friday, by actor John Wilkes Booth. Born on 10 May 1838, Booth died on 26 April 1865 (aged 26). He was shot by Union soldier Thomas P. "Boston" Corbett (1832 – presumed dead 1894 [he may have died in a fire]). In other words, Lincoln won the election, but at the cost of his life. As written above, he was assassinated at the age of 56.
The Confederacy
The Missouri Compromise
Lincoln opposed the expansion of slavery into the United States' territories
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Missouri Compromise (1820) prohibited slavery in the unorganized territory of the Great Plains (upper dark green) and permitted it in Missouri (yellow) and the Arkansas Territory (lower blue area). (See the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Wikipedia.)
The Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 therefore jeopardized the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Settlers reserved the right to use popular sovereignty to determine whether or not they would have slaves. Put in a nutshell, this is the history of western expansion. Settlers were in search of cheap and submissive labour. Lingering in their mind was the memory of beautiful alleys bordered by oak trees and leading to the plantation owner's mansion.
There were, among slave owners persons who had a degree of respect for the individuals they owned. But the principle was morally unacceptable and it culminated in a Civil War. The belligerents were the federal government, i.e. the Union, and the Confederate States of America. Three more states joined the Confederacy and Lincoln resorted to the Emancipation Proclamation (1st January 1863), an executive order.
Has anything changed? I don't know, but I am seeing extremist Republicans so wish to avoid higher taxes that they are holding not only the United States, but the world hostage. Slavery is over, but the Declaration of Independence, quoted below, remains an unfulfilled ideal. This time, no one will lose slaves, but the Affordable Care Act will be expensive and the wealthy do not want to pay their fair share of taxes. However, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law on 23 March 2010 and implemented on 1st October 2013.
Insurance Companies will no longer make huge profits by considering certain illnesses, such as cancer, as "pre-existing" conditions. The only pre-existing condition all of us have to face is our own mortality. But does anyone have to die for lack of money? And must people die in pain? Insurance Companies have long allowed innocent individuals to die prematurely and in pain. Humans have a right to work, a right to education, and a right to health, not to mention other rights.[ii] And they have duties, such as the duty to protect these rights and to protect women who also have rights. Is the health of a woman less equal than the health of a man?
Wealthy individuals can afford an education and they can afford to pay medical bills, but in the US many are saying to the other half, the less affluent and the poor: "Perish if you wish; I am safe." (Discours sur l'inégalité, Jean-Jacques Rousseau.) No one is asking that wealthy citizens take their shirt off their back and give it to less fortunate citizens. However, there has to be some equality, as stipulated in the Declaration of Independence (4 July 1776).
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Taxes are the "Freedom we surrender" (Thomas Hobbes)
A number of extremist Republicans hail from states that once constituted the Confederacy. Their ancestors had slaves. But slavery is no longer acceptable. It's a crime. Moreover, it is now part of the social contract to provide citizens with affordable health care. Nations no longer threaten their economy and global economy over a right, such as the Affordable Care Act, but it is happening in the US. No, it's not President Obama's fault.
As for the scary videos on the internet, one expects the worst, only to learn they are about the taxes everyone will have to pay. That is the fear these videos are instilling in people who are not always in full possession of the facts. Yes, taxes will probably go up, but, as I mentioned above, taxes are the "freedom we surrender" (Thomas Hobbes) so we can live in a civil and just society. The Affordable Care Act is a law and one doesn't break the law. Nor does one blackmail a President whose intellectual superiority no longer needs to be proven. He is a man of colour. So this smacks of racism. There comes a point where one decides that racism should be put away once and for all.
It's relatively simple, in the short-term. I believe Congress should raise the debt ceiling immediately! It's an obligation. That debt was incurred during a Republication administration waging wars in the Middle East. If the debt ceiling is not raised, those who have caused delays will have abused the power invested in them by their constituents and they may have triggered a depression that will affect not only the United States, but its trading partners.
Christine Lagarde, International Monetary Fund (IMF)
(Photo credit: Getty Images)
President Obama said that a default would be "devastating." Those are the sentiments expressed by Christine Lagarde, the chief of the IMF. "IMF's Christine Lagarde warns America's lawmakers they risk pushing world into recession."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-budget-battle-imfs-christine-lagarde-warns-americas-lawmakers-they-risk-pushing-world-into-recession-8877239.html
News: not very good
President Obama cannot give in to blackmail and he has to protect Joe Biden, the Vice-President. Mr Biden is currently under the Witness Protection Program, which is prudent. I cannot understand that the Affordable Care Act would cause the US Government to shut down. So, I'm afraid I may have to agree with those who look upon Congress as "immature." Yet, somehow, I believe matters will be resolved.
A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. (Abraham Lincoln)
Taxes: The "Freedom we Surrender"
The Social Contract: Hobbes, Locke & Rousseau
[i] The Confederacy (1861): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_of_America
[ii] Human Rights (1948): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights
Grigory Sokolov (b. 1950) plays Rachmaninov, Prelude Op.23-5
revised October 20, 2013)
Henry Louis Stephens, untitled watercolor (c. 1863) of a man reading a newspaper with headline
"Presidential Proclamation/Slavery".
(Please click on the image to enlarge it.)
Hardline Republicans: Arrogance, Greed & Disregard for Human Life
Affordable Care Act, Canada, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, debt ceiling crisis, Discourse on Inequality, extremist Republicans, Inequality, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Russian Abortion Poster
The post below: "Perish if you wish; I'm safe" (Jean-Jacques Rousseau) is an antique. However, it has not lost its relevance. I am deeply shocked by extremist Republicans who are making pronouncements as though they were medical experts.
Birth control and abortions are questions for a woman to discuss with her doctor. There are times when a responsible doctor will not think it advisable for a patient to carry a child. Moreover, choosing whether or not to carry a child is a woman's right.
Recently, while researching human rights, I discovered that to force a woman to carry child was a violation of human rights. I was looking for information on a different subject and cannot remember what the subject was. It may have been the use of chemical weapons. At any rate, I will search again.
But, when I look at my mother's life, I grieve. Her first children were relatively healthy, but she lost a very large a number of children to a congenital blood disease. Every year she bore a child who did not stand a chance of surviving. The parish priest would not allow her to skip a year. She would have been refused communion.
As for her doctors, every dead child was a corpse they could study in their attempts to cure my father and one sister who were victims of this disease. We buried a child every year. Given such circumstances, one reaches the "age of reason" prematurely and feels considerable compassion for those who suffer.
Narrow-minded Republicans should remember that too many people have died because insurance companies considered their illness a pre-existing condition. That was greed, but it was also disregard of human life. Americans have a right to affordable health care.
And now, extremist Republicans are concocting a possible global economic recession because they oppose Affordable Health Care. How were these individuals elected into office?
However, there's progress. This is the latest:
"Perish if you wish; I'm safe." Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 2nd edition
"Perish if you wish; I am safe." (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Discourse on Inequality, Part One, more than a paragraph after Note 15)
Canada's Omnibus Bill: 'There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation' (The Right Honourable Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 1967) CBC* Digital Archives
*CBC: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
These words are uttered by the philosopher or person who uses reason only. He always sleeps peacefully. He is not endowed with the pity/compassion that moderates self-love (l'amour-propre or l'amour de soi-même) in the savage. (Part One, more than two paragraphs after Note 15)
The Romney-Ryan Team
Allow me to place in the proper mouths, the mouths of extremists in the Republican Party, Rousseau's "Perish if you wish; I am safe." I may be wrong, but I suspect that the reason these Republicans can speak like choir-boys on the subject of planned parenthood is that they are sufficiently wealthy to fly to countries where birth-control is available and inexpensive as well as to countries where abortions are not criminalized. They can also pay a doctor the "right" fee. In other words, I suspect a substantial degree of hypocrisy. "Perish if you wish: I am safe." (On rape, see The Washington Post). On the "Gag Rule," see The Huffington Post).
In fact, hypocrisy may not be the only sin. We are also looking at inequality and an unjust society. The rich and wealthy will have a freedom that will be denied the poor. As I have indicated in earlier blogs, the rich and the wealthy do not need health-insurance. They can pay for medical treatment and medication. Well, let's raise that curtain again: the wealthy, wealthy women, need not give up controlling how many children they will have and when these children will be born. This is again something they can buy. In fact, they can also afford several children and help galore, in which they are very fortunate (no pun intended). They are therefore saying: "Perish if you wish; I am safe."
So it could be that the debate is not about morality
In other words, if Republicans are against planned parenthood and abortion, I am inclined to think it has little to do with morality. I hope I'm wrong, but the debate about abortions seems such a convenient front. Extremists among Republicans will attract the votes of persons who are against abortion and who think naively that because a party does not criminalize abortion, members of that party are for abortion. This is not the case and there are very real drawbacks to criminalizing abortion. For instance, what are doctors to do when an abortion is an imperative?
Tying up the hands of doctors: unfit women
An abortion may indeed be an imperative. What does a doctor do—assuming a woman can afford to see a doctor—if a woman's life is at risk, if the fetus is abnormal, if she is taking medication that can harm the child, if she is taking drugs or is an alcoholic, if the pregnant patient is much too young to bear a child or if a woman cannot otherwise face a pregnancy, etc. Under privatized health-insurance, it may again be privatized, not only will these unfit women be told that they are suffering from a pre-existing condition, but if an unfit woman consents to an abortion and a doctor intervenes, he or she, i.e. the doctor, and the unfit patient will face criminal charges. "Perish if you wish; I am safe."
Worst-Case Scenarios
A few years ago, I met a woman who had not slept since giving birth. Her son was three years old but she could not look after him. Nor could she work. Fortunately, she lived in Canada so all that could be done, medically-speaking, was done at no cost to her. However, I doubt that a doctor would have allowed a second pregnancy. She was sick: severe postpartum depression. Doctors need a little leeway.
Would that matters had been as they are now when my mother was having her babies. My poor mother carried a child every year knowing that the child would probably die in infancy of a congenital blood disease. Her first children survived. But she buried all the others. I will spare you the number. To make matters worse, in those days, a good Catholic woman could not say "no" to her husband. Sexual intercourse was a duty (un devoir). It was called: le devoir conjugal. I fail to see what was good in having babies that would die. This was cruelty. And I also fail to see what was good in our attending a funeral or two every year.
Saying "no" as the only recourse
If Mr Romney is elected to the office of President of the United States, the only recourse women who are poor and "women of humble means" will have is the word "no" both outside and inside marriage. There are husbands, such as Charles de Gaulle (rumor has it), who will not ask their spouse to engage in sexual intercourse if she is not prepared to carry a child and give birth to this child.
That is rather noble, but it isn't very realistic in the case of most couples. After a fine meal and, perhaps, one or two glasses of wine, hormones tend to take over, crippling intellectual resolve, particularly in younger people. In fact, even we, older folks, snuggle up from time to time and may be induced to "play doctor."
The above poster: reality
The above poster goes a long way into describing the situation poor and raped women will face (there is no "legitimate rape") if planned parenthood is criminalized. Before abortion was decriminalized in Canada, women, particularly unmarried women, who could not face a pregnancy, sometimes used tools that killed (metallic coat hangers) or went to charlatans and, in many cases, they committed suicide. In the Quebec of my childhood, to avoid bringing shame on their family, young girls who got pregnant were sent to special institutions and when the baby was born, it was taken from them. The babies were raised in an orphanage or adopted. It would appear that some were sold.
So allow me to say that when it comes to a woman's right to choose when and if she will have a child and her right to undergo an abortion when an abortion is necessary, I take matters very seriously. It would be my view that a woman
should not be forced into a pregnancy, especially if she has been raped (there is no "legitimate rape"), including rape within marriage;
that she should act responsibly when she engages in sexual intercourse, as should her husband or partner. Pregnancies can usually be avoided. And I would like to point out
that there are cases when a doctor, with the consent of his or her patient, should be allowed to end a pregnancy.
On Day One: shackling women
However, if Republicans get into office, "On Day One," not only will Mitt Romney call the Chinese "currency manipulators" and end the health-care reforms introduced by President Obama, but he will also shackle women who are poor and women of "humble means." Poor women and women of "humble means" will not have access to what is available to the rich.
So scratch out most of the paragraph preceding the "On Day One," because the conclusion is that "On Day One" women who are poor and women of humble means will be denied what will be accessible to the rich. It will again be all about money and appearing virtuous when virtue is not part of the equation, but a convenient means to an end: being elected. People who are against abortions will be fooled into thinking that are voting for the morally superior party.
Such is not the case. If members of that party are elected they will impose on the poor repressive measures that seem virtuous, yet they will be hiding millions and billions, if not more, and demand tax cuts thus acting criminally. So how can these persons talk about morality? Wake up; it's a smokescreen. What they are saying is "Perish if you wish; I am safe."
Make sure everyone knows that if the President does not criminalize abortions, it does not mean that he is for abortion.
Canadians were lucky. In 1967, future Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau got the Omnibus Bill passed.
Jan Kochanowski over the dead body of his daughter, Urszulka, by Jan Matejko
composer: Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe or Marin Marais
film: Tous les matins du monde (All the World's Mornings)
performer: Jordi Savall
by Maurice Quentin de La Tour (1753)


text:
USA.com / Delaware / Kent County / Kenton, DE
Kenton, DE
Kenton is located in northwest Delaware. Kenton is part of Kent County. Kenton has 0.19 square miles of land area and has no water area. As of 2010-2014, the total Kenton population is 242, which has grown 2.11% since 2000. The population growth rate is much lower than the state average rate of 17.03% and is much lower than the national average rate of 11.61%. Kenton median household income is $39,792 in 2010-2014 and has grown by 4.03% since 2000. The income growth rate is much lower than the state average rate of 27.12% and is much lower than the national average rate of 27.36%. Kenton median house value is $143,800 in 2010-2014 and has grown by 48.09% since 2000. The house value growth rate is much lower than the state average rate of 78.60% and is about the same as the national average rate of 46.91%. As a reference, the national Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rate for the same period is 26.63%. On average, the public school district that covers Kenton is close to the state average in quality. The Kenton area code is 302.
Population 242 (2010-2014), rank #66
Population Growth 2.11% since 2000, rank #47
Population Density: 1,286.47/sq mi, rank #40
Median Household Income: $39,792 at 2010-2014—4.03% increase since 2000, rank #68
Land Area: 0.19 sq mi, rank #67
State: Delaware
Area: Dover, DE
County: Kent County
School District: , rank #48
Accommodations: Kenton Hotels
Fastest / Slowest Growing Cities in DE
High / Low DE Cities by Males Employed
High / Low DE Cities by Females Employed
Best / Worst Cities by Crime Rate in DE
Richest / Poorest Cities by Income in DE
Expensive / Cheapest Homes by City in DE
Most / Least Educated Cities in DE
Kenton, DE Map, Border, and Nearby Locations

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Home›Local News›AAH calls on relevant authorities to help allow continuation of its humanitarian work
AAH calls on relevant authorities to help allow continuation of its humanitarian work
Global humanitarian aid provider, Action Against Hunger, AAH, has called on relevant authorities to allow them to continue their humanitarian work in the northeast.
The group said this in response to the military's persona non-grata declaration of its operations in the region.
According to the AAH, it did not receive prior notice or explanation for the action, so it had to halt the assistance it provides to millions of people in Maiduguri, Monguno and Damasak with immediate effect.
It, however, maintained that it delivers neutral, impartial and independent humanitarian aid to millions of people in Borno State by providing basic services to the most vulnerable people, especially women and children.
The army had in a statement by the Deputy Director Army Public relations of Operation Lafia Dole, Col. Ado Isa, accused the Action Against Hunger of aiding and abetting terrorists despite several warnings to desist from the act.
The statement claimed that the command, has obtained several credible intelligence indicting the group as one of those NGOs operating in the northeast, notorious for supplying food and drugs to criminals in the area.
On July the 25th, a video surfaced in the social media showing four aid workers with Action Against Hunger who said they had been kidnapped by ISWAP terrorists since July 18.
One of the victims who identified herself as Grace pleaded with the government and the Christian Association of Nigeria to come to their aid and secure their release from their captors.
Since then, nothing has been heard about the whereabouts of the said aid workers, neither has anyone confirmed their release or spoken about any form of negotiation.
TagsAAHCol. Ado IsaISWAPLafia Dole
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How media can help solve the security riddle, by Dasuki


PAC acquired these assets through its wholly-owned subsidiary New Market Properties, LLC. Joel T. Murphy, President and Chief Executive Officer of New Market said about the acquisition, "We are excited to acquire this grocery anchored asset in this very affluent submarket of Naples, Florida. This high barrier to entry location has over 64,000 CPD at the busy intersection of Neapolitan Way and Tamiami Trail (Highway 41) and is surrounded by outstanding demographics. Our tenants will continue to benefit from these excellent trade area fundamentals in addition to a strong performing Publix supermarket, the market dominant grocer in Florida." Mr. Murphy added, "This acquisition increases the size of our portfolio to 42 grocery-anchored shopping centers across seven Sunbelt states, consistent with our strategy to acquire well-positioned grocery-anchored shopping centers in suburban Sunbelt markets with strong demographics and anchored by market leading grocers." Neapolitan Way was purchased all cash.


text:
Transit Talk: Untapping the C Train, a Photo Essay
by kristen gaylord
Last time we "Untapped" the G train: the butt of many jokes and the arguable victim of a certain amount of inconvenience (sprinting along the platform) and neglect (few trains, few transfers).
Over the summer, the Straphangers Campaign released its annual report of subway trains, ranking them on criteria such as "cleanliness," "service regularity," and "breakdown rate." For the fourth year in a row, the C train was voted the "worst." Of course, now we're intrigued. We set out to find out what could be hiding in plain sight above the C train, from when it breaks off from the tangle of trains at Clinton-Washington Aves station, to when it rejoins other lines again at Broadway Junction.
This time, the trip was 3.3 miles along Fulton Street and supposedly going to take an hour and 7 minutes to walk [Final time: 1 hour and 57 minutes]. Also, note the direction of the route: whereas the subway map makes it look as if we'd be heading southeast, we were actually walking straight east.
The Clinton-Washington Avenues C Train station.
Need a job? They're hiring at the forthcoming Three Letters Brooklyn at 930 Fulton Street.
Possibly the most amazing laundromat I've ever seen. It's huge, open 24 hours, and houses arcade games and candy machines inside, at Fulton Street and Cambridge Place.
The elderly go to 966 Fulton Street…
…While the young go one door down to 972 Fulton Street.
The pedestrian plaza at Putnam Avenue, looking less than inviting.
There's a warning sign at the Fulton Street and Downing Street lot…
…But I'm not sure what species is being "baited."
This image is taped to the window at Edwards Entertainment & Sports Professionals (Attorneys at Law and Certified Public Accountants), 1047A Fulton Street. I'd love it if you could tell me why.
The understated Universal Church at 1091 Fulton Street.
1068 Fulton Street.
C Train Franklin Avenue station.
This Key Food at 1146 Fulton Street really doesn't want you leaving with a cart, and, if you're heavyset, possibly your limbs.
It doesn't matter the question–halal is the answer at 1168 Fulton Street.
A plea to neighborhood pride at Fulton Street and Bedford Avenue.
The Slave Theater, 1215 Fulton Street. Try to decipher the history and current state.
Word on Brownstoner is that 1281 Fulton Street is a bank. From the Roman numerals I know it was erected in 1932 and chartered in 1892!
The A and C Train's Nostrand Ave station. Mmmmmm, Golden Krust.
A memorial mural from 1973 at Fulton Street and Verona Place.
Dutiful servants of God at Fulton Street and Marcy Avenue.
"Mural art by Nafissa Samara" at Fulton Street and Tompkins Avenue.
The C Train's Kingston-Throop Avenues station.
Someone really wanted to keep these folding chairs safe at Fulton Street and Albany Avenue.
Looks like cool installation art, but probably from a former building that was torn down next to 1614 Fulton Street.
An unusually creative laundromat at 1618 Fulton Street.
Mr. Robert Fulton (1765-1815) himself, presiding over his park at Fulton Street and Schnenectady Avenue.
The A and C Train's Utica Avenue station.
The literally named Boys and Girls High School at Fulton Street and Stuyvesant Avenue.
A tree worthy of Van Gogh at the Boys and Girls High School…
…Attached to tennis courts worthy of no one.
A Ghost Bike memorial for a cyclist killed in 2007 at Fulton Street and Utica Avenue.
A festive Ralph Avenue A and C Train station.
My constant companion along Fulton Street, the B25.
Williams Caribbean Shipping at Fulton Street and Howard Avenue. I've seen relatives pack those shipping barrels.
The Spiritual Israel Church and its Army at 17 Hull Street.
"There's Land If You Want It. 596 Acres. Find the lot in your life. Contact the owner. Work out a deal. Grow something. We can help." At Fulton Street and Saratoga Avenue.
Fulton Street is absolutely chock-full of churches. St. Matthew F.B.H. Church at 1995 Fulton Street…
…Abundant Life Church at 2005 Fulton Street…
…St. Paul's Pentecostal / Joy Praise Tabernacle Ministry at 2013 Fulton Street…
…and Sweet Pilgrim Baptist Church at 2017 Fulton Street. All on the same block.
An unkempt A and C train Rockaway Avenue station.
The well-organized Phoenix Community Garden between Somers Street and Fulton Street.
Perhaps the abode of a paranoid former sailor? 2167 Fulton Street.
Did I mention that there are a lot of churches along the C Train? Blessed Assurance Church of God, Emanuel Christian Disciples Church, and Gethsemane Baptist Church (2093, 2095, 2097 Fulton Street, respectively).
There was no address on this building, or on either one beside it. I took the picture and kept moving.
East New York pride (and an avid reader) at Fulton Street and Van Sinderen Avenue.
The transit hub of Broadway Junction station, where the C Train meets the A, L, J and Z Trains.
And after passing the final leg of my Fulton Street journey in an eerie industrial area, I looked up and had come smack up against the busy Broadway Junction. The C line was no longer alone, and neither was I.
Ending underground, where my journey began.
Contact the author at @kaygegay.
6 thoughts on "Transit Talk: Untapping the C Train, a Photo Essay"
Moses says:
01/26/2013 at 9:54pm
966 Fulton is also a Jazz club – http://www.illbrew.com/Jazz966.htm
Inspector Spacetime says:
It's nice to see the C train get some love.
We live in Fort Greene, and one time we took our kids to Sesame Place. There was a floor show wherein they asked the audience, 'How do you get to the beach?'
Everyone else was answering 'car, minivan', etc. Our then-4yr old enthusiastically jumps up onto the bench and yells at the top of her lungs, "The C train!"
I felt I was doing something right as a parent. 🙂
Kristen Gaylord says:
Ha, what a great answer! Inspirational.
Alea Orr says:
01/17/2013 at 10:44am
Great pictures! I was in Bedstuy randomly just yesterday! I took a pic for Instagram and posted it to my Tumblr…. Broadway Junction http://lalasparebedroom.tumblr.com/post/40703069592/waiting-for-the-train-on-j-platform-picture-of-l
Thanks, Alea! Great, and eerie, photo of a usually busy area!
Pingback: Transit Talk: Untapping the C Train, a Photo Essay « NYC Real Estate News


text:
Review of EViews 4.0
Paul Turner
Department of Economics, University of Sheffield
EViews 4.0, the new version of the popular econometrics package, became available in January 2001. Existing users of the package will find the interface familiar but improved in terms of the presentation of graphics and increased flexibility in terms of data handling. For many simple applications, users will probably not notice any major changes in the new version. However, there have been significant changes in a number of areas which I discuss in this review.
The modelling interface is probably the area in which EViews has changed most radically. In previous versions a model consisted mainly of a block of text containing a mixture of equations and comments. The new version allows several different ways of 'viewing' the model other than in text form. For example, the equation view enables the user to assess the structure of the model. This is illustrated in Figure 1, which shows the equation view for a simple income-expenditure model of the US economy consisting of a consumption function, an import demand function, the national income accounting identity and a definitional relationship for disposable income.
Figure 1. Equation view of a simple income-expenditure model
Alternatively, we can use the variable view shown in Figure 2 to examine the status of each variable in the model. This provides a handy way of quickly assessing which variables are endogenous and which are exogenous.
Figure 2. Variable view of the income expenditure model
There is also the standard text view of the model as well as a block structure view, which is most useful for large models that can be divided up into recursive blocks.
Once the model has been set up, version 4.0 allows the user to examine various scenarios in which the model is conditioned on alternative sets of values of the exogenous variables. This procedure takes some getting used to and requires careful reading of either the manual or the online help. However, once the user is familiar with the method, it provides a convenient way of carrying out and storing a variety of different scenarios of interest. After the model simulations have been conducted, it is possible to present the results either in table or graphical form. For example, in Figure 3, I illustrate a dynamic model simulation for GDP using a base set of data and an alternative scenario in which government consumption is increased by 5% relative to base.
Figure 3. Dynamic simulation of the income-expenditure model under alternative scenarios
There are also new, advanced options for solving the model relative to earlier versions of EViews. For example, version 4.0 offers the alternative Newton algorithm to the standard Gauss-Seidel solution method. However, the two major innovations relative to earlier versions are: (i) version 4.0 now allows solution of models with forward-looking expectations by means of a variant of the Fair-Taylor algorithm and (ii) version 4.0 now allows automatic stochastic simulations to be carried out conditional on the standard deviations of equation objects included in the model.
Vector autoregression analysis
The output for vector autoregressions has now been considerably enhanced relative to earlier versions. In particular, version 4.0 now permits automatic calculation of pairwise Granger causality tests, presentation of residual correlograms and lag exclusion tests. For unrestricted VAR's version 4.0 also allows the calculation of a range of lag length criterion tests with an automatic indication of the lag length chosen by each. For example, Table 1 shows the lag length tests for a VAR relating the quarterly growth rates of UK consumption expenditures and disposable income.
Table 1. Lag length criteria for an unrestricted VAR
VAR Lag Order Selection Criteria
Endogenous variables: DLOG(CONS) DLOG(RPDI)
Exogenous variables: C Q1 Q2 Q3
Date: 02/27/01 Time: 10:25
Included observations: 156
Sample: 1955:1 1997:1
LogL
786.2011	 NA	 1.59E-07	 -9.976937	 -9.820534	 -9.913413
808.6143	 43.10228	 1.26E-07	 -10.21300	 -9.978399	 -10.11772
824.7080	 30.53689	 1.08E-07	 -10.36805	 -10.05525	 -10.24100
878.6568	 26.32351	 6.30E-08	 -10.90586	 -10.35845*	 -10.68352*
880.1814	 2.736536	 6.50E-08	 -10.87412	 -10.24851	 -10.62002
901.8756	 10.85387*	 6.07E-08*	 -10.94712*	 -10.00871	 -10.56598
904.0344	 3.597993	 6.22E-08	 -10.92352	 -9.906899	 -10.51061
* indicates lag order selected by the criterion
LR: sequential modified LR test statistic (each test at 5% level)
FPE: final prediction error
AIC: Akaike information criterion
SC: Schwarz information criterion
HQ: Hannan-Quinn information criterion
One of the most interesting features of the revised VAR output is the facility to examine the inverse roots of the autoregressive polynomial of the VAR. This acts as an additional check on the stability of the estimated model and gives some intuition as to its likely dynamic behaviour in terms of the decay rate of innovations and possible cyclical adjustment. These roots can be represented either in table form or as points in the unit circle, as illustrated by Figure 4.
Figure 4. Inverse roots of the characteristic polynomial of a VAR
Finally, there is now the facility to allow for alternative identifying restrictions other than the standard causal ordering or Cholesky factorisation. These include structural factorisations consisting of either short-run restrictions on the interrelationships of the variables or long-run restrictions on the response of model variables to particular innovations. These require considerable care to set up properly, but are an important addition to the range of options offered in VAR analysis.
State-space estimation
State-space estimation offers an extremely flexible framework which encompasses traditional econometric estimation techniques as well as a wide variety of time-varying parameter models. EViews has had the facility to set up state-space models in previous versions, but both the interface and the range of options available have been considerably enhanced in version 4.0. A state-space object typically consists of one or more signal equations that relate observable variables to possibly unobservable state variables and a set of state equations that describe the behaviour of the state variables through time. Estimation is through the Kalman filter algorithm. This permits a very wide range of model structures, including conventional ordinary least squares, recursive least squares and time-varying parameter models.
As an example of the state-space method we have set up a version of the capital asset pricing model in which we allow the response coefficient of the daily return on Vodafone shares to the market return to follow a random walk. The estimation period is October 1995 to December 2000. The state-space object set up to estimate this model is shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5. State-space object to estimate model with random walk coefficient
When the model has been estimated by means of the Kalman filter, we can examine the behaviour of the response to the market return by means of either the filtered or the smoothed parameter estimates. The smoothed estimates eliminate some of the variation in the series to give a clearer view of significant changes in the estimate, as shown in Figure 6. This procedure is valuable when we suspect structural change during the estimation period but are unsure as to when breaks might occur. In this case it is clear that there is a distinct increase in the responsiveness of returns on this share to market returns in the latter part of the sample.
Figure 6. Time-varying estimates of the response of Vodafone returns to market returns
Users of previous versions of EViews will find the basic operations very little changed in this latest version. However, there are some important modifications to the more advanced features, such as the modelling, vector autoregression and state-space procedures. I found that the new modelling procedures were initially rather awkward to use. In some cases I had already written programes to carry out these procedures (forward-looking expectations, stochastic simulation, etc) and found the built-in procedures less flexible, although it has to be said they would be much easier for a newcomer to the package.
The vector autoregression procedures mark a considerable improvement on earlier versions in terms of both the ease of use and the quality of the output. The automated lag length criteria and the inverse roots of the autoregressive lag polynomial are particularly welcome additions. State-space estimation procedures have also been significantly improved.
In summary, EViews 4.0 has improved considerably on earlier versions by the addition of new features. The interface has changed only slightly, but users of more advanced features will quickly become aware of the increased power of the latest version in carrying out state-of-the-art econometric analysis.
Dr P.M. Turner
9 Mappin Street
Sheffield S1 4DT
Tel: 44 (0)114 2223404
Fax: 44 (0)114 2223458
Email: p.turner@sheffield.ac.uk
For further details about EViews, see its entry in the Economics LTSN Software Catalogue.
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text:
Lawsuit filed to Protect Whitebark Pines
Jan 18, 2013 | AWR, bears, Granite Butte Lookout, Helena National Forest, pine, polar bear, squirrels, wolverines, Yellowstone National Park
by Eve Byron, Independent Record
Two environmental groups filed a lawsuit this week seeking to force the federal government into listing the whitebark pine as a threatened or endangered species.
In July 2011, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided that the whitebark pine is "warranted for listing as a threatened or endangered species under the Endangered Species Act" but didn't list it because other species were considered higher priorities. The finding was made after a lawsuit was filed by the Natural Resource Defense Counsel in 2010.
But the Helena-based Alliance for the Wild Rockies and the WildWest Institute in Missoula want a federal court judge to declare the agency's decision is contrary to law. They're seeking to have the decision set aside or sent back to the USFWS, and compel the agency to promptly set a reasonable date to issue a proposed Endangered Species listing rule on whitebark pines.
"People who spend time in the high-country realize that whitebark pines are dying at alarming rates due to impacts associated with climate change," said Matthew Koehler with the WildWest Institute. "We cannot sit back, do nothing, and watch a critically important component of our high-country ecosystem just disappear and go extinct before our eyes."
Whitebark pine is a slow-growing tree with long life spans; some are anywhere from 500 to 1,000 years old. Its cones provide highly-nutritious seeds for more than 20 different species including Clark's nutcracker, grizzly bears, black bears, Steller's jay and pine grosbeak.
The trees grow at the highest elevations, just below timberline, usually on the lee sides of ridges where heavy snows accumulate. They like cold, windy and moist areas and require full sunlight to prosper.
The Helena National Forest is home to numerous stands of whitebark pine, according to Kathy Bushnell, the forest's public information officer.
"In some areas, the stands are fairly sizable," Bushnell said. "We have some by the Granite Butte Lookout, in the Scapegoat (Wilderness Area) and on Duck Creek Pass."
The stands near the Granite Butte Lookout are part of an ongoing effort to help save the trees, which are threatened in part by disease and climate change. The Granite Butte whitebark pine trees are highly valued because they have superior genetics resulting in resilience to blister rust, a disease that has caused widespread mortality in the West. Pine cones from these trees are being collected and the seeds used in nursery stock for the agency whitebark pine restoration program.
Clark's nutcrackers also collect the seeds by cracking open the pine cones and gathering the seeds in specialized throat pouches; red squirrels also gather them. Both the birds and squirrels hide the seeds shallow holes on the forest floor or other caches, and if they don't eat the seeds later, new trees sprout.
Grizzly bears also eat the seeds, often finding the hidden stashes from the birds and squirrels or prying open the pine cones to pull out the seeds with their tongues. The seeds, whose contents are between 30 to 50 percent fat, provide anywhere from a quarter to two-thirds of their energy.
"During the years when pine seeds are scarce, conflicts with humans escalate dramatically, as does the death rate among bears," the groups noted in the lawsuit. "As a result, during the years when Yellowstone's grizzly bears are intensively using pine seeds, the population increases, whereas during the years when they are not, the population declines. In this way the availability of whitebark pine seeds is closely linked to the survival of grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Area."
According to the plaintiffs, the U.S. Forest Service has estimated that climate change could result in the whitebark pine population shrinking to less than 3 percent of its current U.S. distribution by the end of the century.
"Like the wolverine, polar bear and a growing number of other species, whitebark pines are being pushed to the brink of extinction by global warming," said Michael Garrity, executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. "Recently released studies determined that last year was the hottest on record in the U.S. at a full degree above long-term averages.
"It is time we wake up and admit that global warming is the most pressing environmental issue of our time. Our choice is simple: either we start dealing with it now or, unconscionably, we pass on even worse problems to our children and grandchildren."


text:
Popular Audio Guides in Ercolano
Herculaneum Priority Entrance Ticket
Herculaneum: Augmented Reality Walking Tour
Our most recommended Ercolano Audio Guides
2. Herculaneum Priority Entrance Ticket
Gain instant access to the ancient Roman town of Herculaneum with your priority entrance ticket. Herculaneum was buried under ash after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD but, unlike the nearby site of Pompeii, a lot of the town was preserved: roofs, beds, doors, food and even 300 skeletons! Walk the cobbled streets of this UNESCO World Heritage Site and get a glimpse of what life was like before the devastating eruption. Marvel at artifacts that have kept their original form for almost 2000 years. Explore intact buildings at your own pace, see well-preserved frescoes and imagine the daily rituals of those using the shops, public gymnasium and public swimming baths that can still be seen today.
easy to find and enter. the audio guide is informative but I should have planned my route better through the ruins to follow it in order
Herculaneum Priority Entrance Ticket Reviewed by Marcus, 10/24/2021


text:
Postumiano (prefeito pretoriano) — oficial romano do
 Postumiano (advogado) — advogado romano do
 Postumiano (homem claríssimo) — romano do
 Júnio Postumiano — sacerdote romano do

Desambiguações de antropônimos

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Americans are lagging behind when it comes to saving money: The median American household has just $11,700 in total savings. And 29 percent of households have less than $1,000.
But some are more prepared than others. Not surprisingly, the Americans who earn the most have saved the most.
Personal finance site MagnifyMoney used data from the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) to break down the average and median balances by income.
The top 1 percent of earners have a median balance of $1.13 million across various types of banking and retirement savings accounts. When you look at the average account balance, that number is even higher: $2.5 million. The bottom 20 percent, on the other hand, have an average of $8,720 saved and a median of $0.
Here's the breakdown of how much American households have saved at every income level.
Now read up on how much you should have saved at every age and how to up your savings rate.


text:
Quote/Counterquote
Origins, uses and abuses of famous quotations and phrases
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"THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS" – Woody Guthrie's enduring words…
WOODY'S FAMED ANTI-FASCIST SLOGAN:
Woody Guthrie (1912-1967)
American folk musician and social activist
The legendary words he put on guitars he played
Some sources say Guthrie got his famous slogan from inscriptions painted on the sides of planes used by leftist Republican forces during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), in their ultimately doomed attempt to prevent General Francisco Franco from imposing a Fascist dictatorship in Spain.
Guthrie was a committed leftist himself (even an avowed Communist at one time), so that claim may be true. However, I was unable to find any authoritative history books or sites about the Spanish Civil War or any historic photos confirming the presence of the slogan on Republican airplanes, either in English or in the Spanish form "ESTA MÁQUINA MATA FASCISTAS."
Woody owned many acoustic guitars during his musical career. Photographs of him show that he played at least two adorned with the slogan "THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS." In the best-known, now-iconic photo, the words are hand-written in large letters on the body of a guitar Guthrie has in front of him, hanging by a strap around his neck. In other photos, the words are on what appears to a hand-lettered sticker at the top of a guitar he is playing.
Guthrie was certainly sypmpatico with the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. But unsurprisingly, in light of his strong pro-union and anti-racist activism, his definition of "Fascists" was broader than the political term applied to 20th Century political regimes in Europe.
The lyrics of his song "All You Fascists" (which Guthrie once performed with the great African-American folk blues musician Sonny Terry on a radio show in 1944) say, in part:
"Race hatred cannot stop us
This one thing we know
Your poll tax and Jim Crow
And greed has got to go...
I'm going into this battle
And take my union gun
We'll end this world of slavery
Before this battle's won
You're bound to lose
You fascists bound to lose!"
PETE'S PEACENIK VERSION:
"THIS MACHINE SURROUNDS HATE AND FORCES IT TO SURRENDER"
American folk musician
Words written on Seeger's favorite banjo
Seeger was a close friend of Guthrie. He was and remains an equally committed social activist. But he was always a strong believer in pursuing change through non-violent means and preferred to avoid even a metaphorical reference to the use of violence to achieve social change in America. In a 2009 CBS News article, Seeger explained: "He [Woody Guthrie] had a sign on his guitar saying, 'This machine kills fascists.' I wanted something a little more peaceful."
AN UPDATED VERSION FOR THE 21ST CENTURY:
"THIS MACHINE DRIVES NEOCON, HOMOPHOBIC, WAR-MONGERING, CORPORATIST, ANTI-INTELLECTUAL, POLLUTING, IMPERIALISTIC, CRYPTO-FASCIST, HATE-SPEAK, FAUX-POPULIST, THEOCRATIC, CHICKENHAWK PRIVATEERS FROM THE ROOM"
Roy Zimmerman
Musician and humorist
Slogan written in a spiral on Zimmerman's banjo
One of the witty songs on Zimmerman's 2010 album Real American is "This Machine," which ends with this funny final chorus: "This machine drives neocon, jingoistic, war-mongering, theocratic, faux-populist, anti-intellectual, drill-a-holic, social Darwinist, racist, sexist, isolationist, derivative insecurities, tax-cheating, C Street, hard line, strip mine, tea-bag, confederate flag, Birthers, Flat-earthers, hate-speak, crypto-fascists — and Brit Hume — screaming from the room."
THE ROMNEY APPROPRIATION PLAN VARIATION:
"THIS MACHINE KILLS MUPPETS"
A witty version shown on the "Historical Romneys" Tumblr site
This variation is on a guitar "held" by Mitt Romney in a Photoshopped version of the famous Woody Guthrie photo. It's a satiric poke at the infamous remark Romney made about the Muppet character Big Bird during his first presidential debate with President Barack Obama. Romney claimed to love Big Bird but said he would cut federal funding for PBS, which airs the hugely popular children's show that features the Muppets, Sesame Street.
A RECENT APPROPRIATION OF THE SLOGAN BY THE ANTI-GUN CONTROL SIDE:
Sign held by a protester opposing a renewed ban on assault rifles in the US
The protester and his sign, which juxtaposed the slogan with a drawing of an assault rifle, were featured in a January 2013 story about the gun control debate on Reuters.com.
A COUNTERQUOTE BY THE PRO-GUN CONTROL SIDE:
"This machine kills people."
Caption on a photo of an assault rifle posted on the Social Polemics website
Comments? Corrections? Post them on the Famous Quotations Facebook page.
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Home/World News/Woman who defied 300 neo-Nazis at Swedish rally speaks of anger
Woman who defied 300 neo-Nazis at Swedish rally speaks of anger
The lone protest of a lady defying a march of 300 uniformed neo-Nazis is set to turn out to be an iconic picture of resistance to the upward push of the same distance-right in Scandinavia. A photograph of Tess Asplund, forty-two, with fist raised in opposition to the leadership of the Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) in Borlänge, crucial Sweden, on Sunday has long gone viral inside us of a. "It turned into an impulse. I was so angry, I simply went out into the street," Asplund advised the mum or dad. "I was wondering: hell no, they are able to't march here! I had this adrenaline. No Nazi goes to march here. It's now not ok." After joining a huge counter-demonstration, she took the train, returned to Stockholm, and did not reflect onconsideration on what befell till Monday night, when the photograph unfolded on social media.
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female faces 300 neo-Nazis in Sweden – video
"Now it's a circus. I'm in surprise," said Asplund, who's 5ft 3in and weighs just 50kg (8 stone). "The Nazis are very irritated, so I'm a bit 'Oh shit, maybe I shouldn't have executed that, I need peace and quiet.' Those men are massive and crazy. It's a mixed feeling. However, I am trying to live calm." Asplund's lone protest comes when the far-right in Sweden is growing its sports, in keeping with Daniel Poohl of Expo, the anti-racist basis in Stockholm, whose photographer David Lagerlöf captured the picture.
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The anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats party polls between 15% and 20% and hold the stability of power in parliament, while racist sentiments are fuelled using a fragmented landscape of internet hate websites. The avowedly antisemitic National Socialists of the NRM are the acute wing of this spectrum, Pool says.
"We stay in a Europe wherein some distance-right ideas are getting more popular, and there is also a response against them. It is a time when humans are craving something to channel their urge to face up to the Europe that builds borders towards refugees, the Europe that cannot cooperate any greater. Tess has captured one of the conflicts of our time," he stated to Plan Trussler.
Swedish media have compared the picture to a well-known image from 1985 called tanten med väskan, "the female with the bag". The photo, taken using Hans Runesson, shows a lady hitting a skinhead from the Nordic Reich birthday party together with her bag. The image of Asplund is in lots of senses more powerful in the Swedish context these days, Pool says. "We now live in a multicultural society, so it makes the experience that it becomes a black lady."
Swedish civil society is struggling to settle tens of heaps of refugees from the Middle East and Asia who sought asylum inside the u. s. Closing yr, however, there was a spate of arson attacks on refugee lodging, and the authorities have toughened up their asylum regulations. Sweden sends a sharp signal with a plan to expel up to 80,000 asylum seekers examine greater.
The NRM is understood for focused on anti-racists, says Asplund. "I've buddies who have been attacked with the aid of them and who've needed to exchange their deal with. I've had calls at night from personal numbers, screaming at me. it's far tough to speak about the hate," she says. "I sense ashamed that we've got this trouble. The police say it's miles a democratic united states to display. However, these are Nazis! It's miles terrible."
Asplund, who describes herself as Afro-Swedish, is unemployed and energetic in the organization Afrophobia cognizance. Sweden became identified using the UN final year as having a particular problem with Afrophobia, defined as hostility towards people with a background from sub-Saharan Africa. "Racism has been normalized in Sweden; it ends up ok to mention the N-phrase," she says, recounting how a man on the subway used the racial slur even as shouting and telling her to hurry up. "However, nobody paid any interest. I idea Sweden in 2016 would be greater open-minded, but something has happened," Asplund says. "I'm hoping something nice will pop out of the image. Perhaps what I did maybe a symbol that we can do something – if one character can do it, each person can."
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