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Biological Science and the Roots of Nazism
The Promotion of racist doctrines in the name of science
George J Stein
American Scientist January-February 1988, 76, 50-58
A recent issue (10 August 1984) of the French weekly L' Express carried as its cover story "Demography: The Suicide of the White Race?" The French review of the New Right, Elements for a European Civilization, offers its readers the opportunity to purchase the works of Y. Christen, The Hour of Sociobiology, Marx and Darwin, and The Darwin Dossier, and the work of H. J. Eysenck, Human Inequality. The review Nouvelle Ecole, a rightist journal, devotes a special issue (no.38) to "Darwinism and Society", and the rightist publishing firm of Plon offers the work of A. Griotteral, The Immigrants; The Shock, which affirms that a "multiculturaI France will be, in fact, a negation of France" and offers a plan for a "repatriation" of the foreigners. Even tiny Luxembourg is concerned: in 1982 the president of the government observed that "if there is a foreign influx to be added to the children of foreign parents who grow to maturity and have children of their own, Luxembourg will become something of a Mediterranean nation."
The roots of ethnocentrism, nationalism, racism, and xenophobia remain deep in Europe, and remain deep in Europe, and although anti-semitism is in bad taste as a consequence of World War II, it too remains alive. What can the history of science, especially the history of human biology and the new science of sociobiology , tell us about the place of these social (or perhaps natural) phenomena?
Nazi Racial and
biological policy grew
out of a well-established
and generally accepted
scientific tradition
Since the pioneering study of the American historian Richard Hofstadter on Social Darwinism in American Thought in 1945, many scholars have been attracted to a more ideologically sensitive analysis of the relation between science, scientists, and the putative scientific foundations of racism (Stanton 1960; Ludmerer 1972; Pagliaro 1973; Chase 1977). There is little doubt that the history of ethnocentrism, racism, nationalism, and xenophobia has been also a history of the use of science and the actions of scientists in support of these ideas and social movements. In many cases it is clear that science was used merely as raw material or evidence by ideologically interested political actors as proof of preconceived notions. Most contemporary sociobiologists and students of biopolitics would argue that all attempts to use science in this manner are, in fact, mere pseudoscience but nevertheless are to be taken quite seriously as a threat to both authentic science and democratic politics (Falger 1984).
On the other hand, there is also little doubt in the historical record that this contemporary self-protecting attitude is based on a somewhat willful misreading of history of ethnocentrism and the like has also been the history of many well-respected sceintists to advance and support racist and xenophobic political and social doctrines in the name of science. Thus, if the scientists of the day used the science of the day to advance racism, it is simply a fonn of Kuhnian amnesia or historical whitewash to dismiss concem with a possible contemporary abuse of science by a claim that the past abuse was mere pseudoscience. If scientific truth is to be a canon of Truth, it would have been unscientific to claim that science was irrelevant to the truth of the superiority of the Victorian English male unless, of course, we are prepared to assert that our science is science but their science was not. There would appear to be an epistemological problem with such a claim. Thus, while some contemporary scientists (e.g., E. O. Wilson) appear to write as if sociobiology will be (or is) the new philosopher's stone to provide the fully unified science of mankind, others (e..g., R. D. Alexander) are more aware of the limits of science. The semi-educated public is confused. It may, then, be instructive to review a recent case in the history of the relationship between science and the roots of ethnocentrism, racism, and nationalism: the case of national socialism in Germany.
National socialism and biopolicy
There are certain difficulties in understanding national socialism. Leaving aside the pure ideological views of most Marxists, there is a great diversity of interpretations, too many in fact to review here (Laqueur 1976; Aycoberry 1981). There is little attempt to understand national socialism on its own terms. On the one hand, sheer moral revulsion prevents most attempts at sympathetic understanding. On the other hand, however, the seeming inconsistency of Nazism and Hitler with any rational categories of experience often prevents seeing the Nazis as they saw themselves. To illustrate these difficulties with a comment by a very well known scholar on the subject:
Hitler arrives at a whole philosophy of history, an interpretation of human existence from the beginning onwards, which has a certain crazy originality. As Hitler sees it, human nature forms part of nature and follows the same laws as the rest of nature. ...Nature demands inequality, hierarchy, subordination of the inferior to the superior-but human history is a series of revolts against this natural order, leading to ever greater egalitarianism. [Cohn 1981, p. 184]
There is no origina1ity here, crazy or otherwise. Hitler's views are rather straightforward German social Darwinism of a type widely known and accepted throughout Germany and which, more importantly, was considered by most Germans, scientists included, to be scientifically true. More recent scholarship on national socialism and Hitler has begun to realize that this "crazy originality" was the specific characteristic of Nazism. National socialist "biopolicy," a policy based on a mystical-biological belief in racial inequality, a monistic, anti-transcendent moral nihilism based on the eternal struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest as the law of nature, and the consequent use of state power for a public policy of natural selection, is what national socialism is all about (Jäckel 1972). Once it becomes clear that a particular biopolicy was the basis of the regime, various historical problems such as the seeming inconsistency or opportunism of tactics, the strategic blunders such as the invasion of Russia, or the totally irrational efforts expended on the extermination of undesirables become dear. Hitler was, in fact, remarkably consistent in the application of national socialist biopolicy; it is perhaps the only element of the Nazi era which was neither modified nor manipulated in response to strategic and tactical requirements (Rich 1973). More important, with the exception of a pathological hatred of the Jews, shared by many Volkish Germans, Hitler did not invent national socialist biopolicy : It is the thesis of this article that almost every element of Nazi biopolicy was already well established in the German political culture in both a vulgar, man-in-the-street sense and, more importantly, among the educated elite who took their views from the representative science of the day.
A brief overview of the fundamental ideas of national socia1ist biopolicy can be seen in Hitlers Mein Kampf. As early as 1925, in chapter 4 of volume 1 of Mein Kampf, Hitler discussed the relationship between politics and natural selection as the basis for a successful German national policy .This short section will serve to illustrate the kind of thinking which can be found throughout Mein Kampf, other writings and speeches, countless other Nazi books, films and tracts, and, of course, the graveyards of Europe.
Hitler analyzed the prospect facing Germany of a continual increase in population numbers and demand. His fundamental assumption was a world of scarcity . Hitler recognized that continual growth of numbers and levels of demand within, to use the modem term, the limited "carrying capacity" of the German ecosystem would lead eventually to increasing misery and ultimately starvation. Hitler considered four possible solutions to the population-resource disequilibrium; three would be rejected.
The first policy would be the "French" policy of restricting population through birth control to a size which could be sustained within the limits of the German ecosystem. This, however, was rejected. Not only would it be imprudent to restrict population while potential enemies did not, but population restriction through birth control violates the law of nature. Nature, to be sure, restricts numbers in excess of environmental resources. Nature, however, restricts not the "power of procreation" but the "conservation of the procreated by exposing them to hard trials and deprivations.... Those whom she permits to survive the inclemency of existence are a thousandfold tested, hardened, and well adapted to procreate in turn, in order that the process of thoroughgoing selection may begin again from the beginning" (Hitler 1943, p. 131).
A people that interferes with natural selection through permitting anyone to breed merely introduces even rarger numbers of the less fit into the population pool. This "mockery of Nature and her will" must lead to disaster. A nation which has not followed natural selection in developing its population will "some day be deprived of existence on this earth for man can defy the eternal laws of the will to conservation for a certain time, but sooner or later vengeance comes…. A stronger race will drive out the weak, for the vital urge in its ultimate form will, time and time again, burst all the
Many well-respected scientists used their
authority as scientists to advance racist
doctrines in the name of science
absurd fetters of the so-called humanity of individuals, in order to replace it by the humanity of Nature which destroys the weak to give his place to the strong" (p. 132).
A second option for addressing the need for additional resources would be "intemal colonialization" or increasing the yield from a fixed base through modern technology. Hitler saw that there are limits to resource extraction. Only so much marginal land could be brought under cultivation, only so much fertilizer could be added to the soil; "a limit will one day be reached, created by the soil itself" (p. 133). But, Hitler observes, it will be objected sooner or later that this will be the fate of the whole planet. True but irrelevant; "Nature as such has not reserved this soil for the future possession of any particular nation or race… Nature knows no political boundaries. First she puts living creatures on this globe and watches the free play of forces. She then confers the master's right on her favorite child, the strongest in industry and courage" (p. 134). And, of course, a people that has chosen to limit the effects of natural selection through birth control and that attempts to live off an ever-narrowing physical resource base will confront the "culturally inferior but more brutal and more natural peoples."
Then ...there will be but two possibilities: either the world will be governed by the ideas of our modern democracy , and then the weight of any decision will result in favor of the numerically stronger races, or the world will be dominated in accordance with the laws of the natural order of force, and then it is that the peoples of brutal will who will conquer, and consequently once again not the nation of self restriction. [p. 135]
In the end, Nature asserts herself, and "only the urge for self-preservation will avail." Thus, the infamous phrase: "Mankind has grown great in eternal struggle, and only in eternal peace does it perish" (p.. 135).
The third policy option, and that followed by modern, liberal societies, would have been to recognize the interdependence of natios and, through technological superiority and trade, purchase the needed food and resources. This rational or civilized response was reject- ed because the physical survival of a community is too crucial to be left to the mercy of potentially hostile foreign states. EngIand's trade success was not a true exception as it had both an empire and a special linguistic and cultural bond with the United States, itself a continental power base. Then too, the poIitical and economic disruption and suffering caused by the occupation of the Ruhr by France and Belgium after World War I demonstrated the fragility of trade and commerce for survival.
The fourth option was, thus, war. War justified as the natural right of any breeding community taking what it needed for survival. Such a war of expansion of the German community could not take place in the "Cameroons" but must Occur in Europe. "We must, therefore, coolly and objectively adopt the standpoint that it is certainly not the intention of Heaven to give one people fifty times as much I and and soil in this world as another ...we must not let poIitical boundaries obscure the boundaries of eternaI justice" (p. 138). And if the other will not share the earth willingly, "then the Iaw of self-preservation goes into effect" and Germany will take what it needs.
This, then, is the core of national socialism. As Hitler wrote in another section of Mein Kampf:
The foIkish philosophy finds the importance of mankind in its basic racial elements. In tl1e state it sees on principle only a means to an end and it construes its end as the preservation of the racial existence of man. ...And so the foIkish philosophy of life corresponds to the innermost will of Nature, since it restores the free play of forces which must lead to a continuous mutual higher breeding, until at last the best of humanity , having achieved possession of this earth, wi1l have a free path for activity in domains which wilie partly above it and partly outside it. [pp. 383-4]
National socialism, whatever else it may have been (for example, a revolt of the' petty bourgeoisie) was ultimately the first fuIIy self-conscious attempt to organize a political community on a basis of an explicit biopoIicy: a biopoIicy fully congruent (or so it was claimed) with the scientific facts of the Darwinianotion. What then were the roots of this biopoIicy?
It is by now an acadernic commonplace to observe that national socialism was a crude social Darwinism. This "Rumpelstiltskin effect" assumes that by naming something one has explained it and has it under control. It is not so simple. True, Nazism was a form of social Darwinism. That correct assertion, however, explains little, as there is no reason inherent in Darwin's thought that required as a logical consequence the extermination of millions of human beings. Darwin's ideas have been appIied (misappIied?) in a variety of ways. All manner of liberal thinkers have appropriated Darwin to find, at last, a scientific foundation for the liberal beIief in progress, democratic egalitarian socialism, and an altruistic ethic of human soIidarity. Marx himself viewed Darwin's work as confirmation by the naturaI sciences of his own views, and even Mao Tse-tung regarded Darwin, as presented by the German Darwinists, as the foundation of Chinese scientific sociaIism (Mehnert 1977). How did Darwinism in Germany become the foundation for national socialism?
It is instructive to recall the full tit1e of Darwin's revolutionary work of 1859: On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. There are, thus, two basic ideas: the idea of evolution and the idea of selection. Darwinism seems to combine within one theory an idea of an overall pattern or cohesion in the evolution or development of allife forms with an idea, that all species "have evolved through a natural selection of vanous, offspring through a competitive struggle for life. Fitness, then, results from the chance interrelationships among vast numbers of possibilities wherein some are selected ; and some rejected on the basis of an ability for surviving, and reproducing in a given environment at a given time.
It is obvious that any teleological or transcendent-dualistic notions are an unscientific intrusion into Darwin's account of life on earth. Nevertheless, the liberal social Darwinism of the English focused on evolution to the neglect of selection. For men like Herbert Spencer, there was, via the organic analogy, an almost automatic evolution in a progressive direction. The basic competition among individuals became a virtual guarantee of inevitable progress in ethics, politics, and civilization in general. It is, of course, now widely recognized that this "Darwinism" of English liberal, rational capitalism and individualism was an ideology in search of scientific legitimacy rather than science supporting an ideology. German social Darwinism, while even a greater misappropriation of science than English and American social Darwinism, was, curiously enough, more faithful to the fullness of Darwin' s scientific views.
The core idea of Darwinism was not evolution, but selection. Evolution is a completely neutral word which describes the resu1ts of selection. Selection, to which values are irrelevant, results in evolution. English social Darwinism, as it were, had it backwards. Darwin's insight was rather that "success" or the "preservation of favoured races" is the result of biological "fitness" in the living conditions of a given time and place; there is no equation of survival and progress in Darwin. The Germans, who focused on selection and the "struggle," or Kampf as it was translated, were closer to the radical insight of Darwin's efforts.
The German intellectual environment
In the late nineteenth century the intellectual life of Germany was confused. At the political level there was a shift from the liberal optimism of the 1840s through the 1860s, from a belief in progress, rationalism, and enlightenment, to a reaction against the failed revolution of 1848, support for the rise of the new Prussian state, and a growth of xenophobic and irrationalist romantic nationalism. Germans began to distinguish "civilization" and "culture" and to identify life as a collective phenomenon of race, people, or Volk. German philosophic romanticism was a xenophobic, or more accurately Francophobic, reaction against the idea of "man" as a species. Rather "men" participated in life or had their being through a unique natural and cultural identity. Folkism was established as both a philosophical ideology and as a political movement.
Simultaneously, however, there was a strong materialist development in late nineteenth-century German intellectual life. Marx, Feuerbach, and many others were rejecting the idealism of Hegel for a more materialistic vision of life. In science proper, men like Helmholtz and Virchow contributed to the development of positivism. This materialism and positivism in German intellectual circles provoked, in turn, the reaction of the so-called German Critics, Lagarde and Langbehn, which attacked the whole idea of "modernity" as destructive of the distinctive German culture. Indeed, some scholars who have observed the obvious anti-urban, folkish conservativism of national socialism have argued that Nazism was a "politics of cultural despair," and a conservative reaction against industrialism, urbanism, and science (Stern 1963). There was, however, a third possibility. What if positivism or materialism, that is to say, science, could be synthesized with idealism and folkish romanticism? What if folkish romanticism were scientifically true? Then, to anticipate the historical results, folkish romanticism as national socialism would likewise be scientifica1ly true. This, in essence, was the achievement of the German social Darwinists, especially Ernst Haeckel and his followers.
Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) was the man who brought Darwinismus into German intellectual life. Not only did he succeed in establishing his interpretation of the strictly scientific aspects of Darwin as the correct view for a generation of scholars, but he went far beyond science to establish a unique German form of social Darwinism (Gasman 1971). This social Darwinism combined an almost mystical, religious belief in the forces of nature (i.e., natural selection as the fundamental law of life) with a literal, and not analogical, transfer of the laws of biology to the social and political arena. It was, in essence, a romantic folkism synthesized with scientific evolutionism. It included the standard Darwinian ideas of struggle (Kampf) and competition as the foundation for natural law , and therefore social law, with a curious "religion" of nature which implied a small place for rationalism, the lack of free will, and happiness as submission to the eternal laws of nature. Blut und Boden were the reality of human existence.
"Hundreds of thousands of incurables –
lunatics, lepers, people with cancer - are
artificially kept alive without the slightest
profit to themselves or the general body"
-Ernst Haeckel
Standard romantic folkism, especially as it appealed to the marginal middle class, needs little comment. Essentially it was a comforting self-image of being mystically united with the German racial group and its physical or natural environment. The role of such folkish elements in later national socialism is well known. It is important to remember, however, that Hitler himself thought these folkists silly. Hitler' s folkism was no such vague nonsense of fir trees and deep Germanic forests; his was scientific.
By the late nineteenth century, the ideas of Count Arthur de Gobineau' s The Inequality of Human Races (1854) were no longer current in Germany. Gobineau, after all, was too pessimistic. Haeckel, however, would revive Gobineau' s ideas by claiming, unlike the anti-modern, antiscience folkists, that the science of Darwin established the truth of Gobineau' unscientific speculations of Aryan superiority. Furthermore, a biologically superior elite could use the instruments of the modern, urban technological state to practice a biopolicy of natural selection, which would maintain Aryan superiority in spite of Gobineau' s prognosis.
Darwin' s Origin was published in 1859 and translated into German in 1860. In 1863, Ernst Haeckel, alreadya respected professor of zoology and comparative anatomy at the University of Jena, addressed the annual meeting of the Congress of German Naturalists in a lecture entitled "On Evolution: Darwin's Theory." He argued that Darwin was correct and, even though Darwin himself had not yet publicly speculated on the origins of humankind, Haeckel argued additionally that humankind had unquestionably evolved from the animal kingdom. Thus, and here the fatal step was taken in Haeckel's first major exposition of Darwinism in Germany, humankind's social and political existence is governed by the laws of evolution, natural selection, and biology , as clearly shown by Darwin. To argue otherwise was backward superstition. And, of course, it was organized religion which did this and thus stood in the way of scientific and social progress.
Haeckel was an active scientist and published numerous strictly scientific studies in a Darwinian context. His place in the history of science as a biologist is secure. He was, however, also a prolific popularizer of scientific ideas and in his later years was politically active in support of his scientific social ideology .His most important "popular" works include: (English-language editions) The History of Creation; Or the Development of the Earth and Its Inhabitants by the Action of Natural Causes (1876); The Riddle of the Universe (1900); The Evolution of Man (1903); The Wonders of Life (1905); and Eternity; World War Thoughts on Life and Death, Religion, and the Theory of Evolution (1916). He also published numerous scientific-expedition travel books and various philosophical works in German.
By the end of the nineteenth century , serious scholars in England had begun to question the whole idea of social Darwinism (Himmelfarb 1959). Even Darwin's disciple T. H. Huxley was questioning the relevance of Darwin' s ideas to politics and ethics. Although social Darwinist ideas would linger on in England and America among some anthropologists, American racists, and the British and American eugenics movement, both the continued scientific development in genetics and the rise of an egalitarian Labor Party created a scientific and ideological environment which offered less and less support for the pseudoscientific ideas of social Darwinism in England. Not so in Germany.
Haeckel's Die Welträtsel (1899, translated as The Riddle of the Universe) argued that a new monistic or non-dualistic natural religion based on evolutionary Darwinian natural selection could explain and guide all society. Biology and physical science were to be the foundations of public administration and must inform all aspects of public and social policy. Die Welträtsel was an immensely successful book. In 1899 it sold 100,000 copies; by 1919 it had gone through ten editions and had been translated into 25 languages; by 1933 it had sold half a million copies in Germany alone. And, although much of the science had already been rendered obsolete, and although Haeckel received some criticism from fellow academics who objected to popularizing works, many more scientists deeply respected Haeckel and accepted his version of scientific Darwinism. The general semi-educated public, as is obvious from the sales figures, loved it. Here at last was a scientific religion which established the truth of German romantic nationalism, Aryan superiority, and the true value of the folk. Haeckel's other popularizations were equally well received.
In 1906 (Haeckel was by then in his seventies) a group of his followers formed the Monist League to support and agitate for this set of curiously original ideas. The founders were not a collection of semi- educated eccentrics typical of the various folkish movements. They included: Dr. A. Kalthoff, a radical protestant theologian; Dr. H. Schmidt, a colleague at Jena and ultimately Haeckel's biographer; W. Boelsche and B. Wille, literary critics and novelists; Dr .A. Forel, a geneticist; R. H. France, a biologist and first editor of the monthly Der Monismus; Dr .J. Unold, a physician and social Darwinist political writeri Dr .A. Forel, a Swiss geneticist W. Schallmeyer, one of the founders of the German eugenics movementi L. Gurlitt, a cofounder of the Wandervogel (often regarded as the genesis of the Hitler Youth); Dr. L. Plate, a biologist and successor to Haeckel' s chair at Jena; and W. Ostwald, a Nobel Prize chemist.
The Monist League was the organized expression of Haeckel's social Darwinism. It agitated and wrote for a conservative revolution in the name of science. The issue was biosocial reform, not structural or political change. Man was seen as a wholly natural phenomenon governed by the laws of biology.Thus, all transcendent ideas of man, be they theological or historical, were scientifically false. Man's so-called soul or psychic life differed from the primates only in degree, not in kind. Parental love was just as evident in apes as in men. There was no qualitatively unique status for the human species, either collectively or as individuals: no spiritual essence, and no primacy over nature.
The ideas of Ernst Haeckel
Are the ideas of Haeckel and his followers the ideas which were to be found in national socialism? A review of some of Haeckel's comments will, I believe, settle the question. It should be noted that many of his followers who wrote in the Monist, the youth journal Sonne, and other sympathetic publications were considerably more extreme than the master.
The first step, and one made in Haeckel's first presentation of Darwin's ideas, was the social Darwinist transition. "Man is not above nature, but in nature" (HAeckel 1903, p. 456). "Civilization and the life of nations are governed by the same laws as prevail throughout organic life" (1916, p. 116). The "evolution of man has taken place according to the same immutable laws as the evolution of any other natural body" (1903, p. 458). "Natural selection in the struggle for life acts so as to transform human society just as it modifies plants and animals" (1876, p. 280). Thus, when "we take it in its wider sense, human sociology joins on to that of the nearest related mammals ...social rules [ are the] natural laws of heredity and adaptation" (1905, p. 467).
As everything is a product of the process of evolution through selection and there are obvious differences among human beings, it follows that different human beings represent different levels of evolution. For Haeckel, Gobineau was correct (1905, p. 391). There is no species unity among humankind as "the morphological differences between two generally recognized species- for example sheep and goats-are much less important than those ...between a Hottentot and a man of the Teutonic race" (1876, p. 434). And, of course, it is the Germans who have "deviated furthest from the common form of apelike men" and who thus "outstrip all others inthe career of civilization" and will lead humankind to a "new period of higher mental development" (1876, p. 332): not only mentally, but physically as well, for it is only among the Aryans that one finds that "symmetry of all parts, and that equal development, which we call the type of perfect human beauty" (1876, p. 321). And of course, the converse was true. The lesser races were worth less. After a1l, "woolly-haired" peoples are "incapable of a true inner culture or of a higher mental development ...no woolly-haired nation has ever had an important history" (1876, p. 310). It is one thing to be a racist, it is another to draw the practical consequences for action from one's racism. Yet Haeckel was prepared to argue that since "the lower races-such as the Veddahs or Australian Negroes-are psychologicaly nearer to the mammals-apes and dogs-than to the civilized European, we must, therefore, assign a totally different value to their lives". (1905, p. 390.
Haeckel' s ethics were completely naturalistic. The function of morality was to serve successful natural selection. Liberalism, democracy, and rationalistic enlightenment were scientifically false as they required an assumption of free will and individual autonomy. Free will was a "pure dogma based on an illusion" (1900, p. 16). The rules of morality are not some special human characteristic which transcends nature but "rest on biological grounds and have been developed in a natural way" (1905, p. 413). Morality serves natural selection and neither reason nor will would overcome the scientific facts of natural biological laws.
The great struggle between the determinist and the indeterminist, between the opponent and sustainer of free will, has ended today, after more than two thousand years, completely in favor of the determinist. The human will has no more freedom than that of the higher animals, from which it differs on1y in degree and not in kind. [1900, pp. 130-1]
The basis for human life, success, and happiness was to be found in conformity with the laws of nature. Man was a social species. Individualism was an illusion and the organic analogy was not an analogy but a scientific truth. Just as each cell of an organism "though autonomous, is subordinated to the body as a whole; in the same way in the societies of bees, ants, and termites, in the vertebrate herds, and in the human state, each individual is subordinate to the social body of which he is a member" (1916, p. 113). Thus, a certain reciprocal altruism must govern human life together with society. If a man desires to have the advantages of living in an organized community, he has to consider not only his own fortune, but also that of the society, and of his 'neighbors' who form the society" (1900, p. 350). Moreover, it was a sign of having reached a higher stage of evolution to have a "more highly developed moral sense" if one recognized that "welfare, true happiness, and satisfaction" were to be found in submission to the scientifica1ly true requirements of the organized folkish community (1916, p. 129).
If it is true that there can be no scientific
base for racist policies, must it not be
true that there can be no scientific base
for advocating nuclear disarmament?
The basic outline of German social Darwinism as developed by Haeckel and his colleagues is clear. It was argued that, on scientific grounds, man was merely a part of nature with no special transcendent qualities or special humanness. On the other hand, the Germans were members of a biologically superior community. German social Darwinism, contrary to Anglo-American social Darwinism, rejected the liberal individualistic state in favor of a natural, organic, folkish state of blood and soil. It attacked the alienation and atomization of individualistic modem civilization in the name of a psychological fulfilment resulting from union with the natural processes of evolution seen as a collective struggle for existence. And, of course, it argued that politics was merely the straightforward application of the laws of biology. In essence, Haeckel and his fellow social Darwinists advanced the ideas that were to become the core assumptions of national socialism.
Unfortunately, it was not just the general principles of the folkish state which were outlined by the German social Darwinists. Specific public biopolicies were advocated in the name of science. Again, a brief review of some of Haeckel's key ideas for a scientific biopolicy is instructive. Haeckel was the respected scientist; the views of his followers were often more extreme. Haeckel's view of society is best described as corporatist, or technically, fascist.
The history of civilization teaches us that its gradual evolution is bound up with three different processes: (1) association of individuals in a community; (2) division of labor among the social elements, and a consequent differentiation of structure; (3) centralization or integration of the unified whole, or rigid organization of the community. The same fundamental laws of sociology hold good for association throughout the entire organic world. [1905, p. 169]
This rigid organization of the community had consequences for the value of the different levels of the social hierarchy and, as noted before, between peoples. "The greater the differentiation of conditions and classes in consequence of the division of labor, the greater become the differences between the educated and uneducated sections of the community, and between their interests and needs, and, therefore, the value of their lives" (1905, p. 169).
The business of the corporate state was eugenics or artificial selection-politics as applied biology. Haeckel was especially fond of praising the ancient spartans whom he saw as a successful and superior people as a consequence of their socially approved biological selection. By killing all but the "perfectly healthy and strong children" the spartans were "continually in excellent strength and vigor" (1876, p. 170). Germany should follow this Spartan custom, as infanticide of the deformed and sickly was "a practice of advantage to both the infants destroyed and to the community ." It was, after all, only "traditional dogma" and hardly scientific truth that all lives were of equal worth or should be preserved (1905, p. 116).
It was not merely sickly infants who should be removed. There were in Germany "hundreds of thousands of incurables-lunatics, lepers, people with cancer, etc.-who are artificially kept alive ...without the slightest profit to themselves or the general body ." Indeed, these diseased people merely bred descendants who polluted the breeding pool and rendered the entire people less fit. The state was not required to keep alive people who had become "utterly useless." The state, instead, should establish special medical commissions to study the ill and deformed, and should have the duty to provide a "redemption from evil" in the form of a quick and painless drug (1905, pp. 118-19). And not just sickly infants, lunatics, and useless people. Capital punishment "for incorrigible and degraded criminals is not only just, but also a benefit to the better portion of mankind."
By the indiscriminate destruction of all incorrigible criminals, not only would the struggle for life among the better portion of mankind be made easier, but also an advantageous artificial process of selection would be set into practice, since the possibility of transrnitting their injurious qualities would be taken from those degenerate outcasts. [1876, pp. 172-3]
The business of the corporate organic state, when it finished with the above-mentioned domestic housecleaning, was also to secure more living space, Lebensraum, for the German people. Like many German nationalists, Haeckel was a founding member of the rightist Pan-German League. Emigration had to be halted as many of the best Germans were leaving their people for lack of opportunity at home. New land, new niches, new space was needed. "The German Empire, being overpopulated, has urgent need to extend and strengthen its frontiers." And, of course, a drive to the East would be best, not only for the land, but also to create a sufficient buffer against "barbaric Russia."
"The new provinces which we are going to annex are energetic and intractable, but with cautious, intelligent treatment they can be Germanized, or at least made accessible to German culture" (1916, p. 169). There really was very litt1e left for national socialism to invent. The foundations of a biopolicy of ethnocentrism, racism, and xenophobic nationalism had already been established within German life and culture by many of the leading scientists of Germany well before World War I.
Unfortunately, Haeckel and his colleagues in the Monist League were not the only members of the German academic and scientific communities who helped prepare the way for national socialist biopolicies. Two other groups need to be mentioned. The first were the German racial anthropologists. Beginning in the 1890s with the work of Otto Ammon on cepha1ic indexes rand other such scientific proof of Aryan supenonty, much German anthropology, especially the most scientific branch, physical anthropology, added to the climate of folkish superiority. If humankind evolved through natural selection and there are scientifically measurable differences among humans such as cranial capacity, facial angle, or pigmentation, then it was obvious that the races of humankind must be arranged hierarchically along the ladder of evolution. The chief source of these ideas in Germany was the Politisch-Anthropologische Revue under the editorship of Ammon and L. Woltmann. Whether or not physical anthropology is considered a true science, there is little doubt that the anthropologists who discovered all the measurable divergent physical, psychological, and mental characteristics of the various races thought they were scientific. And so did the general public.
The second group of scholars were far more scientific and simultaneously far more politically active, that, is, the Society for Racial Hygiene (Gesellschaft far Rassenhygiene). Developments in the science of genetics had shown that the earlier Lamarckian view of acquired traits as heritable phenotypes was mistaken. Furthermore, genotypic traits seemed to continue to be inherited irrespective of environmental conditions. The simpleminded genetics of Haeckel and his Monists were thus scientifically wrong. However, this did not, in Germany, contribute to a discrediting of racialist thinking. Rather, the members of the Society came to almost identical conclusions on eugenic matters as Haeckel while claiming: to be even more scientific. The hygiene-eugenics movement in Germany, as initially in England and America, began with the observation that modern medicine was keeping congenitally feeble people alive to reproduce. They followed Galton's (1892) observation on the small number of children produced by the superior people in a given society and added the observation of the generally smaller family size among the superior races. This they blamed, via a kind of reverse naturalistic fallacy, on the ethics of individualism in democratic and capitalist societies. Modern civilization was thus seen as a threat to the cultured Nordic races. Throughout the pages of their joumal, the Archiv für Rassen und Gesell- schaftsbiologie, the German eugenicists argued for social policies of sterilization, selection, euthanasia, etc., which differed little from those of Haeckel, his Monists, the racial anthropologists, the vulgar folkists, and, ultimately, the national socialists.
By 1936 the Gesellschaft für Rassenhygiene had over sixty local chapters active in promoting these ideas. The coeditors of the Archiv included the founder, A. Ploetz, a medical physician; L. Plate, a zoologist and successor to Haeckel's chair at Jena; E. Rudin, a psychiatrist; and R. Lenz, a racialist writer. In 1935 H. F. K. Gunther, the author of Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes, was appointed to the University of Berlin and awarded the Prize for Science (Zmarz1ik 1972). By 1936 doctorates in racial science were offered at the universities of Berlin, Frankfurt, Königsberg, Leipzig, and Münich. German social Darwinism, enthnocentrism, and racism were well established in the nation's universities while, at the same time, German social Darwinism, ethnocentrism, and racism were being well established in the streets as the public policies of the national socialist Third Reich.
modern science and public policy
It would, of course, be a gross exaggeration to claim that the German scientific community , especially the members of the biological sciences faculties, were directly responsible for national socialism. Historical and political changes of such magnitude are far too complex to reduce to one or even a few causes. Nevertheless, recent historical studies such as those by Gasman (1971), Zmarzlik (1972), and Beyerchen (1977) demonstrate that most members of the scientific and academic communities did very little to support the Weimar Republic, did very little to oppose the rise of Hitler and national socialism, and in many cases lent their considerable prestige as scientists to the support of the ideas of the national socialist movement. It is simply true historically that German academics and scientists did, in fact, contribute to the development and eventual success of national socialism, both directly through their efforts as scientists and indirect1y through the popularization or vulgarization of their scientific work.
It will be objected that those scientists were not "true" scientists and that their ideas, especially those ideas on biopolicy which are the focus of this article, were not "true" science. True enough by today's standards. Their biopolicies of racism and ethnocentrism are not our values of the unity of humankind. But then, if we are to argue that they made a naturalistic fallacy in developing a racist "ought" from their putative "is," by what epistemological standard do we derive our "ought" of the unity of humankind from our putative "is" of the unity of humankind? If science cannot support racist nationalism, neither can it support liberal humanitarianism or any other normative, ethical construct. We are forced to reassert that science is totally irrelevant in the choice of public policies.
Science, however, always seems to involve scientists. And the interrelationships among science, scientists, and public policy remain as problematic today as in 1930. Have those scientists who have been discussing the "nuclear winter" effects of nuclear war as an effort to encourage arms control ceased to be scientists? Is it not precisely because they are scientists who base their policy prescriptions on science that we are to take their views seriously? If it is true that there can be no scientific base for racist policies, must it not be true that there can be no scientific base for advocating nuclear disarmament? Or must we not admit that the scientific findings of the natural science of sociobiology or the social science of biopolitics are as likely to be appropriated by interested parties, even scientists, to serve political ends as were the scientific findings of the German social Darwinists, racial anthropologists, and eugenicists? The history of scientific racism, ethnocentrism, and nationalist xenophobia suggests that this is no mere academic question.
Aycoberry, P. 1981. The Nazi Question: An Essay on the Interpretations of National socialism, 1922-1975. Pantheon.
Beyerchen, A. D. 1977. Scientists under Hitler. Ya1e Univ. Press.
Chase, A. 1977. The Legacy of Malthus: The Social Costs of the New Scientific Rocism. Knopf.
Cohn, N. 1981. Warrant for Genocide. Scholars Press.
Darwin, C. 1859. On the Origin of species by Means of Natural selection. London: Murray.
Falger, V. S. E. 1984. Sociobiology and political ideology: Comments on the radical point of view. J. Hum. Evol. 13:129-35.
Galton, F. 1892. Hereditary Genius. Watts.
Gasman, D. 1971. The Scientific Origins of National Socialism. Elsevier.
Gobineau, A. 1854. The lnequality of Human Races. Heinemann (trans. 1915).
Haeckel, E. 1876. The History of Creation: Or the Development of the Earth and Its Inhabitants by the Action of Natural Causes. Appleton.
- 1900. The Ridd/e of the Universe. Harper.
-1903. The Evolution of Man. Appleton. -.1905. The Wonders of Life. Harper. -.1916. Eternity: World War Thoughts on Life and Death, Religion, and the Theory of Evolution. New York: Truth Seeker. Himme1farb, G. 1959. Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution. Doubleday.
Hitler, A. 1943. Mein Kampf, trans. R. Manheim. Houghton Mifflin.
Jäckel, E. 1972. Hitler's Weltanschauung. Wesleyan Univ. Press.
Laqueur, W., ed. 1976. Fascism: A Reader's Guide. Univ. of California Press.
Ludmerer, K. 1972. Genetics and American Society. Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
Mehnert, K. 1977. Kampf um Mao's Erbe. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags- Anstalt.
Pagliaro, H. E. 1973. Racism in the Eighteenth Century. Case Western Univ.
Rich, N. 1973. Hitler's War Aims. Norton.
Stanton, W. 1960. The Leopard's Spots: Scientific Attitudes towards Race in America. Univ. of Chicago Press.
Stern, F. 1963. The Politics of Cultural Despoir. Univ. of Ca1ifornia Press.
Zmarzlik, H.-G. 1972. Social Darwinism in Germany seen as a historical problem. In Republic to Reich: The Making of the Nazi Revolution, ed. H. Holborn. Vintage Books.
George Stein is an associate professor of interdisciplinary studies at the School of Interdisciplinary Studies of Miami University and has taught at Miami University's Center in Luxembourg. A political scientist, his research interests include the reIationship between science, especiaIly biology, and public policy, and he has published articles on ethics and environmentalism and on public policy and scarcity. An early version of this paper was presented at an annual meeting of the European Sociological Society, of which he is a member ; he also holds membership in the Association for PoIitics and the Life Sciences and in the International Studies Association. This article is reprinted with permission from The Sociobiology of Ethnocentrism, edited by V. Reynolds, v. Falger , and I. Vine (Croon Helm, Ltd., 1986; Univ. of Georgia Press, 1987 ). Address: School of InterdiscipIinary Studies, Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056.
Figure 1. The frontispiece to Ernst Haeckel's The Evolution of Man (1874, transl. 1903) presents a skull labelled 'Australian Negro" as an intervening evolutionary stage between the 'Mediterranean' skull and those of the lower primates. Such racist doctrines were generally accepted by educated Germans as scientifically true long before Hitler came to power. Haeckel was certainly an authoritative scientist; he was the primary advocate of Darwinism in nineteenth-century Germany and is perhaps best known today for proposing the theory that a developing embryo recapitulates the evolutionary history of its species.
Figure 2. In this illustration from Racial Science of the Jewish People by Hans K. Günther, a photograph of Benjamin Disraeli, identified principally as a "Jew from England," is displayed alongside a black African ("Hottentot") in order to demonstrate that the resemblence of the two men is probably attributable to a common "hamitic," specifically an "Ethiopian," origin. The book, published in 1930, is typical of the purportedly scientific ethnological studies that proliferated in Germany both before and after the Nazis came to power.
Figure 3. Ernst Haeckel extended the social Darwinist ideas he advocated into what amounted to a new religion, Monism, which denied any essential distinction between nature and humankind and thus denied a transcendent status for traditionai moral values. This frontispiece to one of Haeckels many books of scientific exposition depicts the close relation of humans to nature and to their simian relatives in a way that seems intended to shock the conservative Germans of the day. By the time the Nazis came to power, Haeckel's views of man's place in nature had become far less shocking in Germany. (From Album of Science: The Nineteenth Century, L. Pearce Williams, Scribner's 1978.)
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Jacqueline Williams to become first woman third umpire in a men's international match
Shahnawaz Aamir January 15, 2020
Dubai: West Indies' Jacqueline Williams is set to become the first woman third umpire in a men's international match.
When West Indies and Ireland step on the field to play the first T20I of the three-match series later today, Williams will forge her name into history.
The 43-year-old will be officiating in the position in all three matches of the series.
"This is a matter of huge honour for me and I am really excited at the prospect of my role as TV umpire in a men's international match. I have officiated as a third umpire in men's matches before, but this is for the first time in an international match and that too featuring the West Indies," Williams said in an official statement.
Last year, India's G S Lakshmi oversaw the third series of the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup League 2 in the United Arab Emirates and in the process became the first woman match referee in men's ODIs.
In April last year, Australia's Claire Polosak became the first female umpire to stand in a men's ODI, in the ICC World Cricket League Division 2 match between Namibia and Oman in Windhoek, Namibia.
Retired umpire Kathy Cross of New Zealand was the first woman official to stand in a men's ICC tournament. (ANI)
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Croatian company's crisis ripples across Balkans
* Domino effect feared if Croatian conglomerate goes under
* Hundreds of small Balkan suppliers face losing biggest buyer
* Suppliers fear debt might never be paid
By Daria Sito-Sucic
SARAJEVO, June 19 (Reuters) - Adin Fakic, chief executive of Bosnia's oldest dairy, likens the crisis engulfing his biggest client Agrokor to an earthquake. The epicentre is in Croatia, but the tremors are felt across the farmlands of neighbouring Bosnia and beyond.
For a decade, Fakic's Milkos has built up business with Croatian supermarket chain Konzum, which now buys roughly 35 percent of its annual output of some 20 million litres of milk.
Only Konzum isn't paying anymore, not since the sprawling conglomerate that it is part of – Agrokor – began to teeter under the weight of an estimated $6 billion in debt.
Fakic's experience highlights the ripple effects of the crisis enveloping Agrokor as it now faces the risk of having to cut contracts with hundreds of farmers.
It's a crisis that follows years of debt-fuelled expansion as Agrokor snapped up companies and well-known brands across the ex-Yugoslavia in countries torn apart by war 25 years ago.
Thousands of jobs are now on the line as its dramatic collapse since the start of the year risks undermining efforts to further integrate the small economies of the region.
"Agrokor's expansionary efforts were seen as a precursor of a new wave of regional business integration," said Luka Oreskovic, a partner at investment and advisory firm Spitzberg Partners.
"However, with the Agrokor crisis still unfolding, further regional economic integration will have to wait." The likes of Slovenia and Serbia, he said, "have already moved to shield their domestic markets from a potential Agrokor collapse."
JOBS ON THE LINE
The Croatian government is scrambling to avert bankruptcy at the once family-run Agrokor, which employs 60,000 people across the region.
Thousands more jobs are on the line among suppliers.
"If we accumulate a surplus of goods, we'll have to cancel our contracts with farmers, about 300 of them in the worst-case scenario," Fakic told Reuters. "That would mean thousands of job losses across the country."
"Bosnia-Herzegovina is a small country and every irregular move on the market, which we could describe as a mild earthquake, has a strong impact," he said. "The food industry is particularly sensitive."
The crisis at Agrokor – the biggest privately-owned company in the region with interests ranging from sausages to ice cream, and construction to tourism – has sent shockwaves across the region. Roughly half of the company's workforce is employed outside Croatia in fellow ex-Yugoslav republics Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia and Montenegro.
Serbia estimates that some 700 companies are linked to Agrokor either directly or via its suppliers, and that Serbian suppliers are owed some 130 million euros. Agrokor's debt to suppliers in Slovenia is estimated at 40 million euros.
Croatia's neighbours are already taking steps to protect themselves.
In May, the Slovenian government named a trustee to the management board of Agrokor-owned Mercator, Slovenia's largest retailer with some 10,000 employees, and tasked him with overseeing the firm's dealings with its parent company.
In Serbia, the daily Politika reported this month that courts in Belgrade and the town of Zrenjanin had effectively issued a stay on the sale or use as collateral of two Agrokor-owned companies under a motion filed by Russian lender Sberbank, Agrokor's biggest creditor. The report could not be independently confirmed.
"Every country in the region will turn to protectionism," Sasa Djogovic of the Belgrade-based Institute for Market Research told Reuters.
He said food manufacturers' stocks in Serbia were up 22 percent in April, "which suggests that producers would rather stockpile products than hand them over to Mercator S," the Serbian arm of Agrokor's Mercator.
In Croatia, some 150,000 people are believed to be employed by Agrokor's suppliers. Faced with such a seismic threat to the country's fragile economy, the government intervened in April to take control of Agrokor from its founder, Ivica Todoric, with the aim of restructuring it over the next 12 months.
Ante Ramljak, the crisis manager appointed by the government to secure Agrokor's immediate liquidity and start the process of restructuring, said his own "very conservative estimate" was that 30 percent of the 180,000 jobs dependent on Agrokor in Croatia – 30,000 direct, 150,000 indirect – would have disappeared immediately had the company simply gone bankrupt.
That would have led to "a downward spiral to which there is no end," he said last month.
Restructuring will entail the quick sale of any number of Agrokor's dozens of companies, bringing with it possible downsizing and job losses. Many suppliers, too, fear they will never recoup the money Agrokor owes them, once the major creditors take their share.
Creditors had until June 9 to submit claims, although it make be weeks before the true scale of Agrokor's liabilities is clear.
Suppliers have twice threatened to halt deliveries over the repayment of debts. Some have raised alarm over promissory notes issued by Agrokor that could be cashed in at banks. But the notes said banks could claim the cash back from the suppliers if the banks were not paid by Agrokor.
Deliveries have in general continued undisrupted, but some suppliers have started asking for payment in advance.
At the Milkos dairy, which was established in 1952 under socialist Yugoslavia, survived Bosnia's 1992-95 war and was privatised in 2004, Fakic said he wanted his money back.
Problems with payments from Agrokor began in March, he said, but he declined to specify how much Milkos was owed.
"Suppliers want regular and secure payments, we need guarantees for the future," Fakic said.
"We expect them to pay the debt." (Additional reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic and Matt Robinson in Belgrade, Igor Ilic in Zagreb and Michael Kahn in Prague; Writing by Matt Robinson, editing by David Evans)


Mrs. Mattie R. Tenney, 77, of Newnan passed away on Sunday, March 24, 2019 surrounded by her loving family.
Mrs. Tenney was born on November 20, 1941 in Thomaston, Ga. to the late James and Beatrice Gibby. She worked as a seamstress for many years and enjoyed restoring antiques. Along with her parents, she is preceded in death by her husband of 46 years, Marvin Eugene Tenney, and her sister, Jannie King.
She is survived by her children, Lisa and her husband J.T. Watson of Newnan, Julie Tenney and her partner Craig Howard of Hogansville, Amy and her husband Craig Adams of Newnan and Jamie and her husband Steve Casswell of Newnan; 13 grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren; and a brother, George and his wife Alandis "Cookie" Gibby of Warner Robins.
A service to celebrate Mrs. Tenney's life will be held on Friday, March 29, 2019 at 2 p.m. from the Chapel of McKoon Funeral Home. Interment will be held directly following the service at Forest Lawn Memorial Park. The family will receive friends on Thursday evening from 6-8 p.m.


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Safe return to school
Measures have been put in place to ensure children can return to school safely
The Department of Education, in close consultation with experts in the HSE, have produced a suite of guidance documents to facilitate the safe reopening of schools.
the Roadmap for the full return to school
COVID-19 Response Plan for the safe and sustainable reopening of primary and special schools
These resources are designed to guide schools in the correct implementation of public health measures to:
reduce the risk of introduction of COVID-19 to the school
reduce the spread of COVID-19 within the school if it is introduced into the school
These measures include making sure that:
children with symptoms of COVID-19 do not attend school
there is rapid identification and appropriate management of children who develop symptoms of COVID-19 while in school
there is physical distancing between students and staff (for example: the reconfiguration of classrooms)
there is strict adherence to hand hygiene and respiratory hygiene (for example: the provision of adequate handwashing facilities and hand sanitiser)
Whatever mode of transport is used for travel to school, the aim is to minimise the risk of exposure to COVID-19 by ensuring physical distancing, good hand hygiene, good respiratory hygiene and wearing of face coverings where appropriate.
walking or cycling to school should be encouraged as much as possible, where safe and appropriate. If walking or cycling with people from other households, a distance of 2 metres between people should be maintained where possible
if driving to school, wherever possible family groups should use their own private vehicle and should not arrange carpools or offer/accept a lift from others
public transport should be avoided if possible. Where public transport must be used, strict adherence to physical distancing must be maintained and students aged 13 years and older should wear face coverings in line with national guidance.
Congregation of people at school gates should be strictly avoided.
Some approaches that schools may consider to avoid congregation include the following:
staggered drop off and pick up times where practical or feasible, so that not all children arrive onsite at one time
if the school has additional access points, consideration may be given to whether it would be beneficial to open these to reduce congestion
consideration may be given to where children go as they arrive at the facility. This could include heading straight to their small group's designated learning space or classroom
for those arriving by car, parents may be encouraged to park further away from the school and then walk with their children to avoid congestion, or alternatively use active travel routes where feasible
where learning spaces can be accessed directly from outside, this should be encouraged to decrease interactions between individuals in circulation spaces
What is meant when you hear about class bubbles and pods
Physical distancing is a key measure to prevent the spread of COVID-19. In order to facilitate physical distancing in primary schools, pupils and their teachers may be sorted into 'Class Bubbles' and 'Pods'.
A 'Class Bubble' is a class grouping which stays apart from other classes as much as possible.
Within the Class Bubble, pupils and teachers may be further separated into small discrete groups or 'Pods', to the extent that this is practical. Pod sizes should be as small as is reasonably practical in the specific classroom context. If the class is divided into Pods, there should be at least 1 metre distance between each Pod, and between individual pupils and teachers in each Pod, whenever possible.
The objective is to limit contact and sharing of common facilities between people in different Class Bubbles (and Pods within those Class Bubbles) as much as possible, rather than to avoid all contact between Pods, as this will not always be possible.
The aim of the system within the school is that Class Bubbles mix only with their own class from arrival at school in the morning until departure at the end of the school day. Pods within Class Bubbles are an additional measure, to further limit contact between pupils and teachers in the Class Bubble.
Whenever possible, pupils and teaching staff should consistently be in the same Class Bubbles. Different Class Bubbles should have separate breaks and mealtimes or occupy separate areas at break or mealtimes. Sharing educational material between Pods should be avoided or minimised. Movement of staff members between Class Bubbles should be limited as much as possible.
Government policy, which is based on official public health advice, continues to advise against non-essential travel overseas for everyone.
It is a requirement for anyone coming into Ireland, from locations other than those with a rating of 'normal precautions' ("green"), to restrict their movements for 14 days, and this includes school staff, parents and children or other students coming from abroad to attend school in Ireland. Restricting your movements means staying indoors in one location and avoiding contact with other people and social situations as much as possible.
The school has a duty of care to all of its pupils and staff members. If a school has reasonable grounds for believing that its duty of care toward its staff and pupils is being undermined in circumstances where a person – staff member or pupil – has not observed the mandatory requirement to restrict movements for 14 days following return from a non-green list country, it is reasonable for the school to refuse access to the pupil or staff member during this period.
Pupils who live with someone who travels abroad for work
The general public health advice outlined above for people returning to Ireland having worked abroad should be followed by the person who has worked abroad (for example: a parent or guardian).
Living with a parent or guardian who travels abroad for work does not prevent children from attending school. The parent or guardian should follow all of the HSE guidelines when they return home.
There is no evidence to suggest that asking children to wear freshly laundered uniforms or clothes every day is an effective measure to limit the spread of COVID-19. School uniforms or clothes should be laundered regularly in line with usual good hygiene. If uniforms or clothes are visibly dirty or soiled, they should be laundered.
Lunchboxes and water bottles
Your child can bring a lunchbox/water bottle to school, but they should be the only person to handle these items during the school day and should not share or swap their lunch with other children. This aligns with regular good practice to protect children with allergies from accidental exposure to allergens such as nuts.
The virus that causes COVID-19 survives for longer on hard surfaces like lunchboxes and water bottles, compared to soft fabrics like clothing, so these items should only be used by one child and should be cleaned daily with regular household cleaning products.
Sharing school equipment with other children
Wherever possible, children should have their own individual resources, for example: textbooks, pencil cases, art equipment. Some resources can be shared when necessary, but strict adherence to the Department of Education COVID-19 response plans for the safe reopening of schools must be maintained:
art – where possible students should be encouraged to have their own individual art and equipment supplies
electronics – shared electronic devices such as tablets, touch screens and keyboards should be cleaned between use. Consideration could be given to the use of wipeable covers for electronics to facilitate cleaning
musical equipment/instruments – to the greatest extent possible, instruments should not be shared between students. If sharing is required, the instruments should be cleaned between uses
books – where practical, students should have their own books. Textbooks that are shared should be covered in a wipeable plastic covering that can be wiped with a suitable household cleaning agent between uses. Students should be encouraged to perform hand hygiene before and after using any shared item
shared sports equipment – Minimise equipment sharing and clean shared equipment between uses by different people
What to do if a child has symptoms of COVID-19
Students who have symptoms of COVID-19, including fever, new cough, shortness of breath, breathing difficulties, or loss or change to their sense of smell or taste, should not attend school.
Please phone your doctor and follow guidance on self-isolation. Your doctor will advise whether COVID-19 testing is required and will arrange testing if necessary.
What happens if a child develops symptoms of COVID-19 while in school
If your child develops symptoms suggestive of COVID-19 while in school, they should tell their teacher or designated staff member straight away. They will be taken to a designated isolation area within the school building.
Ideally, the isolation area should be a separate room (resource permitting), but it may be an area within a classroom where a distance of at least 2 metres from all other people in the room can be strictly maintained.
The school will immediately contact the child's parent or guardian to inform them that the child has symptoms of COVID-19.
The child's symptoms will be assessed to determine whether they require emergency medical attention:
if emergency care is not required, the parent or guardian will be asked to collect their child/arrange for them to come home immediately (public transport of any kind should not be used), from where they can continue self-isolation and phone their doctor for advice on further management and whether COVID-19 testing is required
if emergency care is required, the emergency services (ambulance) will be called and the parents or guardians will be informed without delay
Appropriate cleaning of the isolation area will be conducted when the symptomatic child has vacated the room.
COVID-19 testing arrangements if a child develops symptoms of COVID-19 in schools
If your child develops symptoms of COVID-19 in school their symptoms will be assessed to determine whether they require emergency medical attention:
if emergency care is not required, the parent or guardian will be asked to collect their child/arrange for them to come home immediately (public transport of any kind should not be used), from where they can continue self-isolation and phone their GP for advice on further management and whether COVID-19 testing is required. If the GP determines that COVID-19 testing is required, they will be able to arrange testing for your child
if emergency care is required, the emergency services (ambulance) will be called and the parents or guardians will be informed without delay. COVID-19 testing will be undertaken at the hospital if required
What happens if a child attending school is diagnosed with COVID-19
Under the law, all cases and outbreaks of COVID-19 must be notified to Public Health. It is very important to note that management of confirmed cases and outbreaks of COVID-19 in schools will be Public Health led, and action taken will be based on Public Health risk assessment undertaken by the regional Department of Public Health.
There is no 'one size fits all' approach for the management of cases and outbreaks of COVID-19 in schools. This is because every situation and every school is different.
Public Health doctors consider many factors when they risk assess an outbreak of COVID-19 in a school, including:
where the cases have been in the school
what class they are in
what contact have they had with other children or staff
what is the size and configuration of the school
what is the level of interaction between students, and between students and staff
what COVID-19 prevention or infection prevention control measures are in place in the school and how well are they monitored and adhered to
where have confirmed cases been outside of the school environment. For example, have they been in a social or household situation where they may have picked up COVID-19
All of these factors, and more, allow Public Health doctors to assess the level of risk to students and staff within the school. Outbreak management is a complex process undertaken by highly trained Public Health doctors and affiliated staff. Many factors are considered in deciding the right course of action in each individual situation.
Sharing textbooks, pencils and so on with other children
Wherever possible, each child should have their own set of textbooks and their own pencils/pens and pencil case. They should not share these items with other children. The virus that causes COVID-19 survives for longer on hard surfaces like textbook covers and pencil cases so these items should be only be used by one child and should be cleaned daily with regular household cleaning products. Cleaning of textbook covers can be facilitated by laminating the cover/lining the cover with clear plastic wrapping.
Temperature checks/COVID-19 symptoms
The public health advice is that temperature checking is not recommended because fever is not a consistent symptom of COVD-19 in children. Parents and/or schools do not need to take children's temperatures every morning.
Parents and pupils/students are reminded that, if they feel unwell or have ANY COVID-19 symptoms, they should not attend school. More information is available on the symptoms of COVID-19.
Visitors to schools
Visitors to schools during the day should be minimised as much as possible and by prior appointment and should be received at a specific contact point.
Visitors who are admitted to schools should then be subject to the same controls as apply to staff entering the school.
Visitors should perform proper hygiene on arrival at school.
Schools should consider the use of Perspex in school offices if there is likely to be a high throughput of visitors, despite the restrictions above.
Visitors should maintain 2 metres physical distancing from pupils/students and staff while in school.
Visitors should sign a contact tracing log which each school is required to keep. The department has provided a sample tracing log at Appendix 5 of the School COVID-19 Response Plans.
Movement of staff between schools and within schools
Education staff move routinely between schools in the context of substitute teachers, shared special education teachers and so on, and it is not possible to eliminate this movement entirely.
The department has provided additional staffing resources which will help to minimise the movement of staff within and between schools. It is recognised that there will continue to be movement of staff between schools, albeit perhaps at a reduced level.
In these circumstances the following should be considered:
a teaching resource shared between schools should remain in a school for a full day where practicable
a staff member shared across classes within a school should take particular care to maintain physical distancing, proper hand and respiratory hygiene in moving throughout the school
records of their contacts should be maintained as they may be needed for contact tracing purposes
Speaking to children about COVID-19
You should provide your child with age-appropriate information about COVID-19 so that they know how to protect themselves and others and know how to recognise and report symptoms of COVID-19. Empower children to protect themselves and others by teaching them key health behaviours to reduce risk, for example: physical distancing, hand washing and respiratory hygiene.
Role model these behaviours for your children and make them the norm in all circumstances. Practice handwashing, respiratory hygiene and physical distancing with younger children so that they learn effective behaviours to protect themselves and others. See HSE.ie for further information on protecting your child from coronavirus.
The Department of Education has provided printed posters to schools with age-appropriate key health messages and has created age-appropriate videos, which are available here.
Wellbeing resources to help children cope with the changes in the school environment due to COVID-19
A suite of wellbeing resources for the primary is available at education.ie.
These resources include:
guidance for schools: supporting the wellbeing of school communities as schools reopen
wellbeing webinar for post primary schools
wellbeing toolkits for schools
The wellbeing toolkits for schools are guidelines for teachers that focus on promoting a sense of safety; a sense of calm; a sense of belonging and connectedness; a sense of self-efficacy and community-efficacy; a sense of hope.
The Toolkits comprise of a combination of materials developed by the National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) and information collated from other acknowledged sources that promote natural resilience for all and recovery for those with additional educational needs.
How communities can support the safe reopening of schools
Everyone can support the safe reopening of schools, and help prevent the spread of COVID-19, by following the public health measures put in place by the government.
These measures include the following:
physical distancing should continue to be maintained at all times
hand hygiene – wash your hands well and often
respiratory hygiene – cover your mouth and nose with a tissue or bent elbow when coughing or sneezing, and discard used tissue safely
wear a face covering when appropriate – by law, you have to wear a face covering on public transport, in shops, shopping centres and some other indoor settings. See the full list of places where you should wear a face covering here
keep your close contacts/social network to a small number of people
avoid crowded areas. If an area looks busy, go somewhere else or return at a quieter time
Parents and guardians can support the safe reopening of schools by following the advice included on www.gov.ie/backtoschool and by complying with all measures advised by Government and schools to reduce the risk of COVID-19.
These measures include:
encourage children to walk or cycle to school where safe and appropriate
do not congregate at school gates
provide your child with age-appropriate information about COVID-19 and empower them to protect themselves by teaching them about physical distancing, hand hygiene, respiratory hygiene and wearing face coverings as appropriate. Role model these behaviours and make them the norm in your household


The world's most famous casino (a must see even if you do not gamble), glittering nightlife, first-class dining and shopping, make it one of the world's most glamorous destinations. The casino is an elaborate Italianate structure capped by four towers and a copper-tin roof.
We had to take a tender from the ship to the port. We took our own walking tour which may be too many steps for some people. There were beautiful gardens & spectacular views of the city. Once again we had lunch where the locals dine.
BEAUTIFUL! They were practicing for the Grand Prix when we were there so we heard the cars when the ship was arriving. The tender made it difficult getting into the city on time (had an independently booked excursion), but we set the time for a few hours out after arrival and the timing ended up perfect. Visited Ese, France as well and it was great site to see. Don't have any cameras with you that you don't want to check if you see the casino. It costs to get in as well. We didn't have a lot of Euro at the time so we opted just to peek in. I also didn't want to check my camera.
No tour group needed here. Get off and walk all around. Go to Royal Palace, church where Prince & Princess are buried, walk to casino and hotel. Marvel at the yachts and the cars. Beautiful!
When disembarking go through the cruise terminal and get a discount voucher book for most of the major sights including the hop off and on bus. Use public transport for 3E return to go to Nice, tickets on bus.
3 of 21 shore excursions in Monte Carlo, Monaco.
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text:
Congressman Arch A. Moore, Jr. (fifth from the left) with the Small Business Committee. From left to right: Robert P. Griffin, unknown, unknown, James J. Delaney, Arch A. Moore, Jr.; Joe L. Evins, unknown, Abraham J. Multer, Tom Steed, unknown, unknown, and unknown.[remove]1
Delaney, James J., 1901-19871
Evins, Joe L. (Joe Landon), 1910-19841
Griffin, Robert P. (Robert Paul), 1923-20151
Multer, Abraham J. (Abraham Jacob), 1900-19861
Steed, Thomas Jefferson, 1904-19831
Legislation1
Legislative bodies--Officials and employees1
You searched for: Date 1965 Remove constraint Date: 1965 Description Congressman Arch A. Moore, Jr. (fifth from the left) with the Small Business Committee. From left to right: Robert P. Griffin, unknown, unknown, James J. Delaney, Arch A. Moore, Jr.; Joe L. Evins, unknown, Abraham J. Multer, Tom Steed, unknown, unknown, and unknown. Remove constraint Description: Congressman Arch A. Moore, Jr. (fifth from the left) with the Small Business Committee. From left to right: Robert P. Griffin, unknown, unknown, James J. Delaney, Arch A. Moore, Jr.; Joe L. Evins, unknown, Abraham J. Multer, Tom Steed, unknown, unknown, and unknown. Publisher West Virginia & Regional History Center Remove constraint Publisher: West Virginia & Regional History Center
1. Photograph of Congressman Moore and the Small Business Committee
Photograph of Congressman Moore and the Small Business Committee
Griffin, Robert P. (Robert Paul), 1923-2015, Evins, Joe L. (Joe Landon), 1910-1984, Multer, Abraham J. (Abraham Jacob), 1900-1986, Steed, Thomas Jefferson, 1904-1983, Delaney, James J., 1901-1987, and Moore, Arch A., Jr. (Arch Alfred), 1923-2015
Committees, Meetings, Legislation, Legislators--United States, Men, Governors--West Virginia , and Legislative bodies--Officials and employees
United States. Congress. House. Select Committee on Small Business


Every year I am asked to make the same contribution to the Passover seder we attend at the home of friends.
Matzoh brittle, with its buttery-caramelized crunch and chocolate-almond (and sometimes shredded coconut) toppings is as delicious as it is easy. In years past I was reliably guilty of consuming way, way more than my fair share.
But not anymore. Oh, sure, I still make the matzoh brittle – several batches, in fact. But being on a gluten-free diet means I no longer eat it. This could be considered a new form of culinary torture, if you ask me.
So knowing about my legendary sweet tooth, you are no doubt wondering if I was able to find a substitute gluten-free and yeast-free confection that would be an acceptable Passover treat.
Oh, yes. Yes, I did.
… and dug out the jar of Nutella that had been languishing at the back of a kitchen cupboard just waiting for its close-up.
Nutella is the ultimate mouth-gasm, in my opinion, and it spread with perfectly unctuous smoothness across one flat side of my macarons.
At our seder, I snagged a couple of these decadent treats for my dessert and left the matzoh brittle to the others.
And you know what? I did not feel at ALL deprived.
If you thought you'd seen all possible permutations of knitwear for men, let me introduce you to something completely different.
Looking through images of his menswear designs prior to our interview, I understood in an entirely fresh way what people mean when they talk about artistic vision.
Not because I can actually imagine a "regular guy" wearing one of Kevin's creations, but because he has an emphatic, highly original perspective on knitwear and menswear. His work is uncompromisingly true to this concept, despite published comparisons of his work to "Snuggies for men," and other unflattering descriptions.
Kevin's designs have won numerous awards in the world of high fashion, where his knitwear is assumed to have evolved from the work of avant-garde fashion designers such as Rei Kawakubo, Issey Miyaki, and Comme des Garcons.
He rejects these comparisons, however, arguing that existing fashion is, instead, anti-inspiring in the creation of new fashion.
You may not like what you see, but I'll bet it gets a reaction out of you because you've never seen anything like it before (oh, wait a minute, of course you have: think about ghetto kids with their jeans riding so low on their hips that their boxers are entirely exposed; think about oversized sweaters that make some of us feel – if not actually look – smaller).
If you appreciate nothing else about these images (Just for starters: luxe fabrics, texture in abundance, movement and drape), you must at least acknowledge the unique quality of the designs.
Next month, Kevin's work will be featured as part of a prestigious fashion design exhibition, Unravel: Knitwear in Fashion, at the MoMu Mode Museum in Antwerp, Belgium. The exhibition will introduce visitors to knitted garments and accessories from across the last centuries, with a focus on high fashion pieces and their vernacular interpretations.
Perhaps I should have stated at the outset that Kevin is not a hand knitter. He works on knitting machines that allow him to manipulate his luxury fibers, slowly creating sumptuous textured fabrics. A single swatch takes hours to develop (hand knitters can definitely appreciate that), and a prototype of a single garment can take him ten months to complete.
Although you won't find Kevin on Ravelry, next time you find yourself in search of inspiration, a scroll through his site just might turn your knitting mojo upside down!
All images accompanying this post are courtesy of Kevin Kramp.
Oh CraftyPod, How I Love You!
Notice anything different about this blog lately? If you have not yet taken an online class with Sister Diane of CraftyPod fame, I urge you to run, don't walk, to her website and sign up right this second!!!
I recently completed her three-part online Craft Blog Tune-Up class, at the suggestion of Kim (another craft goddess whose work is awesome and inspiring).
Craft Blog Tune-up made me rethink my entire blogging philosophy, from its most ephemeral qualities (high-value vs. low value topics) to the most nuts-and-bolts aspects (photo size, amount of white space vs. text).
3) Long-Term Results: You probably go in thinking you've already made your blog as good as it can be, yet you have the nagging feeling that you've missed something. You finish the class lessons feeling completely fired up to make a million changes, but confident that even taking one baby step at a time will make a noticeable difference. By the time you've incorporated all the suggestions that are applicable to your own personal craft blog, you might not recognize it from its original format, but it's still YOU – but a new and improved you that reaches your audience in equally new and improved ways!
San Francisco resident Hilary Smith Callis was an easy choice for inclusion in Brave New Knits. Although at the time she did not consider herself a full-fledged designer, the foundation had been established and was just waiting to blossom.
Hilary writes an entertaining blog that shares all the fibery details of her knitting experiments, successes, and even the occasional frogged project. That blog "voice" is endearingly modest and just a little bit goofy in a highly entertaining way. Her knitting evolved quickly from covering the patterns of other designers to working up her own ideas from sketch to swatch to finished sweater. Since first discovering her blog, it has been a pleasure to follow her progression from basic knitter to accomplished designer.
Hilary's eye for simple but stunning details is unerring; she creates designs that manage to be both user-friendly and style-conscious. The project she designed for Brave New Knits is a perfect example of the wearable simplicity she strives for. Although the finished garment is as sophisticated as it is practical (love those pockets!), making it would not be beyond the skill set of a new knitter.
The detail shown below, with its neat textural juxtaposition (Whoa! An 'x' in two consecutive words! God, I love the English language!) of stockinette and reverse stockinette, the clean finished edge, and an unfussy, classic button choice, is just a tiny preview of the knitterly goodness to come.
It is this kind of collaborative creativity that really resonates with the designer, whose inspirations seem to come at her from all directions, marinating in her imagination until she "sees" a precise image of what the design should be.
At the beginning of 2010, Hilary had three sweater designs accepted into Knit Picks' Independent Designers Program. This additional exposure gave her designs an even wider online audience. In fact, she is convinced that "… because I design exclusively "for the internet", almost everything I do is in some way influenced by the online knitting community." And that conviction made her a perfect fit for Brave New Knits.
Even Ravelry has gotten in on the act of anointing Hilary as an up-and-coming designer to watch. Within just a few days of putting up a new pattern for sale (the Lilas Cardigan, below), responses were overwhelmingly positive, and it had made the "New and Popular" list that is a regular feature on Ravelry. Thanks, Hilary, for letting me "borrow" this image of your lovely design to share with readers.
Earlier in the week, we took a look at the unassuming beginning of the Habu Goddess Tunic. Two long pieces of stockinette in Habu's Tsumugi Silk, bordered at each end with deep swaths of Wool Stainless Steel carried with Kusaki Zome Silk. Each length measuring 60″ long by 18″ wide when blocked, they could easily be repurposed as a pair of ephemeral scarves.
But look what happens when we begin adding definition to these simple lengths of stockinette by pinning them strategically together. Gathers at the shoulders add delicate ruching and lend a hint of modesty to the fabric's sheerness. Flattering shapeliness and drape begin to take form. Our curiosity is aroused; how else will these two pieces of fabric come together?
Suddenly it becomes clear. The gathers and pins work together to create a classic silhouette. The deeper-toned border gives the design a bit of weight, a feeling of substance that plays nicely off of the body's transparency.
A delicate ribbon tie under the bust provides just the right touch of embellishment to make this tunic appropriate for dinner out, or an evening at the theater. Greek tragedy, anyone?
I accomplished a lot of vacation knitting in Mexico as I whiled away the hours between pitchers of margaritas and tall glasses of a frozen drink called the "Miami Vice" (a sweet concoction that seems to be a combination of daiquiri and pina colada that my daughter gleefully introduced us to. Although in the U.S. she is too young to drink *legally,* in Mexico she was "of age.").
Remember those miles of stockinette I promised would allow you to read a book and knit simultaneously? I'm here to tell you it works. And the margaritas I consumed had nothing to do with it. Here is a first glimpse of the Habu Goddess Tunic, which is perhaps the most versatile garment I have ever created. Over the next few posts, you'll see why!
It doesn't look like much, draped over Grayce (my accommodating dressmaker form), and stuck full of pins. But just wait; it gets better. Much better.
A Little Reading With Your Knitting?
A few posts ago, I posed this question: Are you a knitter who enjoys reading while you knit? Do you take your knitting to the movies and click away in the dark while the film rolls? When you go out for a meal with friends, are you knitting even as you wait for your food to arrive?
For knitting under these circumstances, I've always preferred an easy project that doesn't require too much of my attention. Stockinette is in many ways ideal; on its own with no multi-tasking, it can be the ultimate bore. But when my attention is divided and I need to focus visually on something else, stockinette is just the thing.
These gorgeous fibers from Habu entered my stash at Stitches West this February. Tsumugi Silk with its slubbed perfection, Wool Stainless Steel in all its tensile glory, and Kusaki Zome with its gorgeous sheen and dry, crunchy hand. Oh, how I love them. The clean orchidacious colors are the icing on the cake.
The fibers themselves are so interesting that I didn't want to use them in a project with complicated stitches or texture, although they would certainly work well enough for those pursuits. As I thought more about my Knitting-While-Reading project, the Habu yarns captured my imagination and wouldn't let go. I decided to work with them on a larger needle than their fine gauge might suggest; in this case, a US size 6. With yarn so fine, the airy openness of the Stockinette stitch is lovely.
Elegant Simplicity became my mantra. I wanted a simple project, but not quite as straightforward as a scarf. The photo below might suggest that this is exactly what I wound up making, but that assumption would be wrong. With enough of the Habu yarns to make a garment, I set my sights a bit higher. Taking advantage of the knitted fabric's wonderful soft drape, I settled on the idea of gathers. Simple construction to be sure; the tunic will be made up of only two pieces cleverly assembled with seaming and ruching that takes advantage of the fabric's best qualities.
Stay tuned! This is a vacation project that I'm knitting while reading, and it will be completed upon my return next week!
Or should that be reading while knitting?
A group of us were sitting around the other evening talking about knitting (what else?), and one member of the group asked if anybody had figured out how to read a book while knitting. Now, most of us already watch TV while we knit and don't think anything of it. Easy-peasy, right? But reading seems to require a whole new level of multi-tasking proficiency. It turned out that I was the only person sitting around that table who has been known to read and knit simultaneously.
In a word: Stockinette. In another word: Garter. If the knitting project on my needles is worked predominantly in either Stockinette or Garter stitch, I am perfectly capable of reading a book at the same time – probably because I could do those two stitches in my sleep, so reading doesn't feel like much of a stretch. Anything more complicated or demanding such as cables or lace, however, and I have to close the book and concentrate on the knitting.
The miraculous thing about knitting a long stretch of Stockinette or Garter while reading a good book is that by the time I finish a chapter and take a look back down at my knitting, a huge amount of progress has been made. It always astonishes me that the muscle memory in my hands can take over like that. Makes me wonder what else my hands might get into while my attention is elsewhere… such as the cookie jar, the chocolate stash, etc.
In my opinion, this simple hands-free bookmark is your insurance policy against books that seem hell-bent on slamming shut all by themselves, thereby losing your place just when you were getting to the good part. A friend gave me one of these years ago and it is still my favorite bookmark ever. Yes, you do have to stop knitting momentarily to turn the page, but it's worth it.
We all want them; those projects requiring so little attention that we can focus without worry on our favorite TV program, or keep our hands busy on a long car trip but still be able to make conversation with the driver, or occupy us during a long flight (but allow us to ignore a snoring seatmate).
I'm picturing something drapey and fluid, a tunic perhaps. Knit on large-ish needles (US size 6 or 7?) to render the finished garment translucent and cool. Gathers or ruching or smocking; whatever the fabric demands to create a sense of movement and simple elegance. Let's see what I come up with.
I'll be on vacation next week, and have already warned my family that I might not join them for every single activity: the zipline tour/swim with dolphins/sunset cruise (well, maybe just not the zipline tour…) kinds of things, so that I can simply relax (now there's a novel concept). Lie around, free up my imagination, play with this silk, and see what happens.
If you've been on my Ravelry Designer page within the last 48 hours, you may have noticed that these patterns are up for sale. As promised, you can purchase them as a set for $7.00, or individually for $4.00 apiece.
In addition, way past my bedtime two nights ago I uploaded them to my Pattern Store on this site. The link routes you to PayPal to complete the purchase. I hope you'll enjoy these projects – because even if you are not a fan of the Twilight books/movies, or the True Blood TV series, this is a project to love for its own sake.
Do Vampires Have A Sense of Humor?
And did you notice those brilliant red "drop of blood" buttons to fasten the neckwarmer? Resistance was futile, but they were selected with tongue firmly in cheek. Equally true for the toothsome (OK, a fang is a fang is a fang) "Shark's Tooth" lace border that edges both the neckwarmer and the fingerless gloves.
This craze for all things vampire-ish seems to me to demand a sense of humor! That's also the inspiration behind my cable choice for both projects; the X-O-X-O represents that strange attraction that humans seem to feel for vampires, and vice versa (at least according to the movies and TV shows that feature them).
If you are an intermediate skilled knitter, or even an adventurous beginner, the Love Bites ensemble is designed to be only moderately challenging but provides a relatively quick reward for taking your knitting skills to the next level.
And just a reminder; the 1st, 13th, and 25th purchasers of one or both of these patterns will receive a skein (of my choosing) of indie dyed yarn. I'll PM you so I can get your mailing details! Actually, Christina C. was the very first knitter to bite (hehehe!) when she purchased the neckwarmer two days ago, so she will receive a skein of luscious merino wool from Fearless Fibers.
I make a lot of bouquets out of whatever is blooming in my garden, and love having fresh flowers in the house as well as outside my windows. During the spring and summer months there are lots of possibilities, sometimes a seemingly infinite variety of options to combine. Friends of mine, aware of my flower obsession, have enabled me with gifts of vases and other vessels to contain these bouquets.
While I don't pretend to have any special skill in flower arranging, every bouquet is a soul-satisfying opportunity to play with color and texture – and these are driving forces in my life. From my 20 years as an interior designer to my current and equally long-standing passion for knitting and beautiful fibers, the visual feasts of my garden and my yarn stash are what make me so happy to jump out of bed in the morning.
For all that I love color, it's surprising that I do virtually no Fair Isle or other colorwork in my knitting. It's not that I wouldn't like to, but that I am still so enamored of the textural possibilities in cables and lace. While I sometimes play with color combinations such as those above, time and again when choosing a new project, I return to my purist roots and gravitate toward the solid and semi-solid colors in my yarn stash. They work especially well with the textural stitches I enjoy building into the projects I design.