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2 Answers | Add Yours
Henry Clerval is a foil to Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley's classic, Frankenstein. Henry is a true Romantic, not a scientist like Victor; he encourages Victor to study nature, he enjoys reading romances about knights and damsels in distress rather than such works as those by Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus and Cornelius Agrippa, and he studies languages in hopes of traveling to exotic locations. Henry is humbly honest and forthright whereas Victor, in his arrogance, refuses to confess that it is his creation which has murdered his own brother.
In Chapter 2, Victor describes Henry Clerval as a boy of "singular talent and fancy" who
loved enterprise, hardship, and even danger, for its own sake. He was deeply read in books of chivalry and romance. He composed heroic songs, and began to write many a tale of enchantment and knightly adventure....I might have become sullen in my study, rough through the ardour of my nature, but that [Elizabeth] was there to subdue me...Ad Clerval--could aught ill entrench on the noble spirit of Clerval?--yet he might not have been so perfectly humane, so thoughtful in his generosity--so full of kindness and tenderness amidst his passion for adventurous exploit....
In the absence of the humane Henry Clerval, Victor Frankenstein goes awry in his scientific pursuits and loses his moral judgment. Thus, Henry Clerval is the character who best expresses Mary Shelley's Romantic concepts, concepts of knowledge through intuition and communication with nature rather than by scientific determinations, concepts that she believed were superior to those of Darwin and those involved with science.
Dr. Henry Clerval is Victor's best and most beloved friend. He serves as an anti-Victor in many ways: They are both doctors, but Henry remains ever the most humanist one, having a natural curiosity (not like Victor's obsession) with understanding life. Second, Clerval is the link between Victor and the world. It is Clerval who goes to England and Scotland with Victor, and they travel a great deal (Check Vol. 1, chapters 3 to 5 for quotations).
But it will be Clerval's death what ultimately will send Victor to near insanity, as he realized that the creature did it as a result of Victor's refusal to build a mate for the monster. Right when Henry came (once again) to save Victor from himself and to remove him from this lab, the creature took vengeance with Clerval against Victor.
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You walk outside on a bright summer day, close your eyes and let the sounds of the season wash over you: birdsong, buzzing bees and the roar of lawn-mower engines. It wasn't always this way. Believe it or not, there was a time when cutting your grass didn't involve driving or pushing a small, gas-belching engine back and forth across your property.
The first lawn mowers were manual reel mowers, also known as cylinder mowers. All a person had to do was push one across the lawn, and the wheels would spin a cylinder of sharpened, grass-cutting blades.
The 20th century brought about the invention of gas-powered reel mowers and gas-powered rotary mowers, but not everybody leapt on board with the new technology. Many stuck with manual reel mowers, and many continue to use them today.
While the basic technology hasn't changed much in more than a century, manual reel mowers still boast a number of key advantages over their gas-guzzling and rotary decedents. Manual reel mowers:
- Cost less than gas mowers.
- Are less dangerous than rotary mowers.
- Require little maintenance.
- Are environmentally friendly.
- Scoop and cut the grass blades, instead of tearing them like rotary mowers.
- Produce little noise.
- Are easy to transport and store.
- Don't stir up dust or emit harmful fumes.
- Don't fling debris around the yard.
The trade off? You wind up sacrificing speed and adding sweat. After all, your physical exertion moves a manual reel mower across the yard and also powers the blades. The amount of required force is generally the same as is required to push a larger rotary mower. However, the taller the grass, the more effort it takes to mow it. Tall weeds can be close to impossible to mow without first using a sling blade.
How did 19th-century inventors first apply textile mill technology to lawn care? Find out on the next page.
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Systemic biomechanical issues
Table of Contents
Review / To the top
Here is what we learned in the previous section. These points will be the key to elucidating how movement dysfunction develops.
Shoes tend to cause the problems of
- Tight calves resulting in loss of 10-20 degrees of dorsi-flexion ROM in the calves.
- Inactivation of the muscles on the bottom of the foot and the ankle stabilizers
- Decreased proprioception of the lower limb
Sitting tends to cause the problems of
- Inactivation of the gluteal muscles.
- Tight hip flexors (iliopsoas, rectus femoris, sartorius, tensor fasciae latae [TFL], and adductors longus and brevis).
There are two different ways the body will compensate because of these problems. The first is having the shins angle inwards towards the midline; this is called valgus stress and in extreme cases can be seen as a valgus deformity shown below. The second is having the shins angle outwards away from the midline; this is called varus stress and, similarly, in extreme cases can be seen as a varus deformity which is the opposite of the picture below. In regards to sitting and shoes, valgus stress tends to be more common for multiple reasons, so I will be discussing that most of the time. I will only talk about varus stress briefly. Those that are interested in further reading may contact me later.
Photo from sagepub
Please note again I am only describing the most common way these movement disorders develop. You or someone you know may only have one or a few of the symptoms. Some people have all of them and tend to develop injuries much faster than others. Each case is specific to the individual.
Valgus stress / To the top
Valgus stress is more common because it is a compensation from multiple aspects of shoes and sitting that we have described before. The body naturally compensates when it cannot perform its abilities. For example, if you smash your leg against a corner you naturally compensate with a limp to avoid putting pressure on the injured limb until the pain subsides. Similarly, if your shoulder is hurting you will naturally compensate by side bending in your spine to get your arm overhead.
It is common for the body to naturally compensate with valgus stress because of shoes and sitting. The first “symptom” that usually appears for most people is inward tracking knees. This occurs for multiple reasons.
- First, the loss in 10-20 degrees of ROM from the calves must go somewhere. The next joint above the ankle where the ROM is lost is the knee. Thus, instead of the knee tracking directly over the toe, the lost ROM is compensated by the knee tracking inwards.
- The glutes, especially gluteus maximus and medius, are potent external rotators of the femur. Since the glutes are inactivated with sitting, the femur is allowed to rotate internally in knee bending. This allows the knees to track inwards.
- Adductor longus and brevis are tight and shorter from sitting. The gluteal muscles are also abductors of the femur. Since the glutes are inactivated from sitting, the adductors will tend to pull the knee medially as it bends (eccentric movement).
- Adductor magnus is involved in hip extension. Since the glutes which are primary hip extensors are inactive, a strong OR weak adductor magnus will tend to pull the knee medially as it straightens (concentric movement).
Note: The adductor issues are two separate issues and should not be grouped together. The biomechanical issues with both will have some differences when we discuss how to correct the issues later.
Note 2: It seems there is some confusion on the theory of weak adductors and valgus (Starting Strength pg 46-49). The weakness in adductors is specifically for adductor magnus which let’s the knees cave in during the concentric. As I said, this is a separate issue from the knees caving in on the eccentric.
What happens with a weak adductor magnus is that coming up from the bottom of the squat the hip extensors are at their longest position. Muscles are normally strongest at the middle of their range of motion shown on the force-length curve. This means that the knees cave in to shorten the magnus towards the middle of its range of motion where it is the stronger. If the glutes and abductors were active and stronger this would not happen; however, since they are more inactivated, the adductor magnus along with the hamstrings become primary hip extensors thus pulling the femur medially.
Why is the lost ROM in the calves such a big issue? Well, this study in tennis players shows that restricting ROM in the ankle “may also provoke large internal forces elsewhere.” Stiff shoes were found to the be the worst, and ones that moved better were superior. Obviously, the natural foot itself would be the most flexible in regard, but unfortunately cannot be used by itself extensively on extremely rough surfaces.
Inward tracking knees tends to precipitate a cascade of other postural and biomechanical dysfunctions which affect the other muscles, connective tissue, and eventually the joints within the legs.
Muscle and connective tissue issues
- Flat feet / pes planus / collapsed arches – Internal rotation torque and medial tibial tilt at the talus put most of the weight distribution on the medial arch of the foot. Combine this with inactivated muscles on the plantar foot from the shoes, and the arch collapses. The picture shown below compares a foot with a correct arch (top) to that of a fallen arch (bottom)
Photo from michaeljtodd
You can test this by standing up and allowing the knee to track in. You will see and feel that the tibial torsion at the talus pronates the foot and allows the majority of the weight to rest over the medial arch of the foot.
Likewise, this analysis of increased forefoot loading (from higher heel shoes) leads to greater medial stress on the foot as well.
This study showed that there is greater stiffness in the forefoot especially during barefoot running compared to running with shoes. This is good in the respect that the plantar aspect muscles are firing to maintain the arch. A lack of stiffness in the foot indicates that the muscles are not firing effectively and thus a greater flattening of the arch is occurring in strides. Repetitive stress like this may lead to collapsed arches.
- Plantar fasciitis – Like flat feet the inactive muscles on the foot allow the arch to collapse some putting stress on the plantar fascia. Tight calves contribute as the fascia from the plantar foot is continuous up the posterior chain and pulls on the calcaneus.
It is likely that you only develop either flat feet or plantar fasciitis. Although it is possible to develop both. If your plantar fascia is more lax and stretches easier, it is easier to have the arch collapse all the way even before plantar fasciitis may develop. When the intrinsic muscles of the foot are inactive, the plantar fascia is the last stopgap that holds the medial arch together before it collapses. Since the connective tissue is not built to take that kind of stress, it gets inflammed and painful.
Extremely tight calves, and extended time with heel elevated shoes may lead to this condition solely. A lot of it is variable depending on the person. Remember, I am just describing some of the cases.
- Achilles tendonitis and rupture – the internal rotation torque and medial tilt of the tibia at the talotibial joint in combination with plantar flexion in movement increases the likelyhood of damaging the achilles. All tendons and ligaments work best when pulled on directly like a piece of paper, but when you twist a piece of paper and pull it tears more easily.
Photo from jaapa
In respect with past runners the incidence of achilles injuries has decreased. This is because the calves were involved more when footwear was minimal. But now, with decreased ROM in the calves, the injuries tend to migrate elsewhere. We will see this in the following points.
The torque at the ankle and thus achilles tendon especially in movements on the toes makes this injury appear more frequently than it should. This is in combination with very tight calves.
- ACL sprains and tears – like the achilles the inward tracking knee tends to torque the ACL. Thus, spraining and tearing the ACL is more likely.
Note the inward tracking does also stress the MCL. But for time purposes I am not including this. Just know that in the event of a torn ACL with twisting there is often accompanying MCL sprain or tearing as well. In severely traumatic injuries the unhappy triad (ACL + MCL + meniscus tear) often occurs.
Photo from doctorkolstad
At this point we need to note that women have increased incidence of ACL injury especially because of Q-angle. Womens’ hips are wider for child birthing and thus their knees have to travel further in at an angle under them to support their weight. This greater angle obviously leads to increased torque on the connective tissues at the knee.
This analysis demonstrated that valgus knee angle puts more stress on the ACL as their experiment showed that women land more often in knee valgus position. However, they found no different in gluteus medius activation between the sexes. I do not find the difference in gluteus medius activation troubling since both men and women are both sitting for 7-8+ hours a day in the classroom and doing homework. It would be an interesting comparison if they compared athletically dominant men and women versus the rest of the population though.
- Quadriceps dominance and tightness – the body senses the stress on the ACL from its proprioceptors. If the knees cave in too much obviously it is going to stretch out the ligaments or tear them. To stop this it strongly strengthens the quadriceps, especially the lateral aspect of the quad.
Women as well as men both develop this problem because everyone has a Q-angle. In addition, because the glutes are inactivated, the decreased force output of the hip extensors is compensated by the quads which are the knee extensors. This is also why women tend to be less athletically inclined than men, and also why quad dominant men are not-so-good athletically. For example, this study shows higher vastus lateralis development, higher quad to hamstring strength ratio, and lower gluteal activation in women because of Q-angle and valgus knee stress. This quad dominance in women is indicative of a higher risk of ACL injury than men. Similar results were obtained in this study examining Q:H imbalance in both the medial and lateral aspects of both the quads and hamstrings.
This study showed that increasing heel height (especially with high heels) increases quadriceps activation. There were no intensity increases but with muted glute function we do not need increases in repetitive intensity to see quadriceps dominance to develop. After all what we practice we get better at. If we practice “activating” the quads, we will develop quad dominance. This will also be a key later in redeveloping gluteal activation and strength.
Quad dominance does not only have to do with ACL injuries. Increased quad eccentric loading has been shown to be implicated in the development of patellar tendonopathy/tendonitis.
- Tensor fasciae latae (TFL) and iliotibial band (IT Band) strength and tightness – since the glutes (especially gluteus medius) are weak, the TFL compensates for the body to maintain proper abduction abilities. In addition, increased stress is placed on the TFL and IT band when the knees cave in which strengthens these structures.
Photo from realbodywork
TFL and IT Band tightness, in combination with lateral aspect quad dominance often lead to patellofemoral syndrome where the patella starts tracking off to the lateral side of the knee. In addition, this may cause chondromalacia patellae which is wearing down the articular cartilage on the underside of the patella causing pain.
Extremely tight TFL and IT Band also may cause IT band syndrome as well. In IT band syndrome, the IT band and TFL get extremely tight and start rubbing against the femur itself or other muscles in the area. This creates pain and inflammation.
Bringing up the strength of the glutes to take forces away from the knee and back properly to the hip, like this one case study with gluteus maximus and medius strengthening showing improvements in patellofemoral pain. The same is true in this study of iliotibial band syndrome.
There are even cases where a tight IT band and TFL with a weak gluteus medius can contribute to lower back pain.
- Hamstring weakness and tightness – as we have discussed, the quads become extremely strong and tight, this anteriorly translates the tibia with respect to the femur. This also puts stress on the ACL. To protect joint integrity (anterior-posterior) the body will lock down the hamstrings into extreme tightness to protect the ACL from sprain and rupture.
All quad dominant men have extremely tight hamstrings which are often extremely weak. Women, who tend to have less muscle mass overall, also have their hamstrings lock down. However, since there is less mass to protect the joint it also increases the likelihood of ACL rupture.
We’ve been talking about it before but increased Q-angle, quad dominance, and this all contribute to the 3:1 ratio of women:men in ACL tears.
Athletically inclined quad dominant males and females will often have tight strong hamstrings. This is the other alternative, so it does not necessarily mean hamstring weakness is universal. Since the glutes are inactivated, the hamstring takes over the hip extension and will thus be stronger. Tight, strong hamstrings are notoriously difficult to loosen up.
However, tight hamstrings are often prone to hamstring and groin strains/pulls as well. Incidentally, the decreased activation of the glutes increases the propensity of hamstring overloading and strain.
Note: hamstring tightness may also be instigated or exacerbated from sitting in slouched positions for longer periods of time.
- Deep intrinsic butt muscles tightness – as we know the gluteal muscles are inactivated, so the deep intrinsic muscles lock down to protect hip joint integrity.
Normally this is not as important as the other dysfunctions, but some conditions can arise from this such as piriformis syndrome, SI joint, and lower back pain. In some of the population the sciatic nerve runs through the piriformis muscle in the buttocks. Thus, when the piriformis becomes tight and locked down because of gluteal weaknesses you will often see pain in the glute area and often radiating on down into the leg.
Gluteal weakness (2) and problematic activation patterns (2), (3), (4). Similar findings are true with SI joint pain (2). Now what causes gluteal weakness and incorrect activation patterns? Yes, sitting.
Also, as we stated before decreased hip ROM / mobility refers the mobility to another joint. The next joints in line are the SI joint and lower back. The SI joints and lower back are not meant to be mobile. When you increase the range of motion in those joints you often see increased incidence of sharp pain in the SI joint, potential for bulging and herniated discs, and asymptomatic lower back pain.
Joint issues. I put these last because usually it takes months or years within the aforementioned muscle and connective tissue imbalances to develop joint issues. Our bones remodel to the stress we put on them, and bone tissue is turned over every ~3 months or so. If our posture and biomechanics are out of alignment it will stress the bones and will eventually result in deformity.
In the case of valgus stress, most of the joint deformities are listed in this wikipedia article on valgus deformity.
- hallux valgus – or bunions are formed by repetitive inward tracking stress and weight distrbution over the medial arch.
Photo from twoshots.blogg.se
There are actually two cases of how this occurs.
Repetitive stress over the medial arch plus the talar medial tilt will start to collapse the arch. Since all of the bones of the foot are connected, the stress from the collapse must go somewhere. The stress does not deform at the ankle where the bones and ligaments are the stronger. Rather the stress translates out to the farther part of the arch which is at the 1st metatarsal-phalangeal joint. Since the foot is on the ground and has the 2nd metatarsal next to it, hallux valgus forms by pushing the head of the 1st metatarsal outward. This is the place of least resistance (rather than upwards). Thus, most of these types of bunions are associated with collapsing arches / flat feet.
Alternatively, in some cases the inward stress at the knees pushes the ankle into varus (or higher arches). A varus ankle will twist the proximal metatarsals laterally and superiorly. This makes the head of the 1st metatarsal deviate medially and inferiorly. Obviously, since it cannot deviate inferiorly, it only deviates medially forming the bunion.
- Collapsed arches – the intrinsic muscles of the foot are inactive plus more medial weight lead to the collapse.
We already discussed this before, but permanent collapse is possible if allowed to last too long. The bones of the foot will adopt a more permanent planar foot configuration often with bunion formation.
Collapsed arches is one of the other ways valgus stress can be initiated. For example, collapsed arches tilt the talus. This makes the foot pronate. The pronated foot ‘encourages’ the tibia to internally rotated and tilt medially as well. You may see valgus stress appear in people with severely pronated feet even if their upper leg and patella are still oriented forward compared to the foot pointing outward.
- talipes valgus – inward tracking knees and talar medial tilt results in the ankle joint being deformed to the stress.
Photo from dinc
This deformity is usually associated with flat feet as well. When the arch collapses the talus is permanently tilted medially. Thus, the ankle bone is allowed to deform as weight bearing continues.
- genu valgum / knock knees – the medially and internal rotation tilt of the tibia and femur may lead to this.
This deformity is rarer than the ankle ones. It is usually seen in kids, but it can be present in adults if there is too much valgus stress at the knees.
- coxa valga – this deformity is actually not that noticeable by the layperson. Fortunately, it does not really need to be that noticeable because it is mainly only seen in children.
The reason coxa valga is for the most part only seen in children is because there is more weight and thus stress at the lower extremities than at the hips. Thus, it is way more likely to develop a different disorder at the knees, ankle, or feet. This is especially true with adults who have more total weight over their knees, ankles, and feet.
One of the reasons why soccer is the sport with one of the highest incidences of injury is because of extreme amounts of repetitive use combined with improper strength and conditioning. For example, this study on soccer shows that it exacerbates the valgus related stresses because most of the weight is distributed medially in soccer movements.
Valgus stress and pronation has been indicated in weight distribution over a smaller area of the foot. This is an increased weight to surface area ratio which means that it is more likely to develop injuries with the valgus condition compared to the varus. Another reason why valgus injuries are more common.
Also, remember that my descriptions are only one way to develop such injuries. Some people with flat feet just have decreased proprioception from shoes and that is enough to allow their arch to collapse. That then tilts the talus and the knee tracks inward from there. So there are definitely many cases for how different injuries arise.
The one thing we must keep in mind is that the body functions as a unit and usually it goes until it breaks in one area. Thus, we generally only have the propensity for developing one such injury at a time. On the other hand, it is certainly possible to develop multiple injuries depending on the person. In most people I have seen with at least one of the injuries described above, they have at least 2-4 if not more of the symptoms of valgus stress on their lower body. Keep this is mind later when you are analyzing yourself.
Varus Stress / To the top
I am only going to be briefly talking about this because for one it is not very common to have issues relating to this stress deformity.
Now, the other way that the loss of range of motion in the calves is compensated for is with external rotation of the hip. This may result in varus stress especially if the knees come outward. However, this is rare.
External rotation of the hip is most common in the elderly. As we sleep all of our muscles relax. If you sleep on your back (which is how you should sleep), most people allow their legs to relax with the feet pointed out. When you are in this position for 8 hours, much like sitting this allows the external rotators of the hip to become tight and the internal rotators to be stretched out and weak. Thus, hip, knee, foot turned out posture is developed from both sleeping, and loss of range of motion the calves.
The “most” common symptoms are at the feet and ankles again because of increased weight distribution on the lateral aspect of the foot. Fortunately, the associated conditions are high arches and the increased propensity to roll the ankles. This is in comparison to development of hallux equinovarus / club foot which is more common in children with developmental problems.
Suffice to say for most people with high arches or chronic ankle rolling it is important to avoid shoes especially with padding because they encourage this nonsense. We will talk about this later as well.
In conclusion, we learned that the valgus stress of inwards tracking knees is propagated by shoes and sitting because
- The lost ROM from the ankles is gained at the next joint which is the knees.
- Inactivated glutes which are external rotators allow the femur to rotated internally which encourages inwards knee tracking.
- The tight adductor longus and brevis in conjunction with the inactive glutes pull the knee medially in eccentric movement.
- Adductor magnus in conjunction with in inactive glutes pull the knee medially in concentric movement.
These often lead towards the muscle, connective tissue, and joint issues of
- flat feet / collapsed arches / pes planus
- plantar fasciitis
- achilles tendonitis or rupture
- ACL sprain or rupture
- quadriceps dominance and tightness
- tensor fasciae latae dominance and tightness
- iliotibial band tightness
- hamstring tightness (weakness or strength)
- deep butt muscle tightness
- SI joint or lumbar back pain
- hallux valgus / bunions
- talipes valgus
- genu valgum / knock knees
- coxa valga, while possible, is usually a developmental issue
After having reread the Neanderthal No More Part one article, Cressey and Robertson have come to a lot of the same conclusions I did (before me of course). It’s worth a read for their take on the same thing as well.
In the next segment, we will talk about how to evaluate dysfunctions and some corrections you can make.
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Combined MMRV vaccine carries small risk of seizures: Canadian study
TORONTO — It’s been a contentious year for parents as outbreaks of preventable diseases such as measles and chicken pox took their toll on kids across North America. Doctors blamed an anti-vaccination movement — now, a new Canadian study suggests that the combined MMRV vaccine may cause febrile seizures in young children more so than separate inoculations.
But the Calgary doctors leading the research are reassuring the public: these vaccines are completely safe and risk of seizures is rare.
“Parents should be assured that we are continually monitoring vaccine safety and watching for rare adverse events. It is reassuring that the extra risk is still very low…” said lead researcher Dr. Shannon MacDonald.
“The most important thing is to vaccinate your child, whether it is with separate or combination vaccines,” she told Global News.
MacDonald is a registered nurse and University of Calgary researcher studying vaccine safety and parents’ decision-making around immunization. She’s also a mother of two small children, she notes, so she can relate to the anxiety parents feel about making sound health care decisions for their kids.
Her research, published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, is timely. Along with measles outbreaks, whooping cough, chicken pox and mumps have also resurfaced in the Western world. Doctors have pointed to one culprit: a steadily growing anti-vaccination movement.
MacDonald’s research considers the MMRV vaccine. A common hesitation parents have about vaccination is the number of needles their very young kids have to deal with. The solution was to combine the MMR — measles, mumps, rubella — vaccine with the chicken pox — or varicella — vaccine to create an MMRV dosage.
Right now, the MMRV is given to kids in Alberta at 12 months old and again between four to six. In total, the MMRV vaccine is used in nine provinces.
A U.S. study suggested that the combined MMRV vaccine increased the risk of febrile seizures compared to MMR and varicella vaccines doled out separately. The thing is, the U.S. uses a different MMRV — called ProQuad. MacDonald wanted to know if the MMRV vaccine Canadians use — called Priorix-Tetra — came with the same results.
And to clarify to concerned parents: febrile seizures are convulsions brought on by high fever, typically in babies and young kids. The fever is usually linked to infection, such as a cold, influenza or an ear infection. But the fever can also be caused by a recent immunization. These seizures don’t have any long-term effects, though.
“They can be distressing to parents and result in visits to emergency departments and doctor’s offices,” MacDonald said.
MacDonald’s study looked at all 12- to 23-month-old children in Alberta who received their first dose of the measles vaccine between 2006 and 2012. Her team linked data on immunization status with data on ER visits, hospitalizations and doctors’ visits due to febrile seizures.
The MMR vaccine also comes with a small risk of these seizures, but the risk is twice as high with the MMRV vaccine. It’s still very low though — about an extra three or four seizures per 10,000 doses. For some perspective, if you don’t vaccinate your kids, 60 to 70 per 10,000 cases encounter a seizure.
“If you have ever seen a child in the ICU on a ventilator as a result of contracting whooping cough or having a foot amputated due to meningococcal disease — both of which I have seen — you would not doubt the value of immunizing children against diseases,” MacDonald told Global News.
Then there’s the risk of pneumonia, brain inflammation and even death from refusing vaccinations, she said.
“The challenge in communicating this to parents is that most have not seen the devastation that some of these diseases can cause. Fortunately, most parents appreciate the benefits of vaccines and immunize their children,” MacDonald said.
READ MORE: 6 vaccination myths debunked
So what should parents, doctors and health officials do with this research in mind? For starters, parents should be counselled about the risk of fever post-vaccination. They can keep a close eye on their kids for fever within the next seven to 10 days when the risk of a seizure is heightened.
Medications like acetaminophen (Tylenol) and ibuprofen (Advil) can also help fight fever.
“It is a matter for debate whether the choice of separate versus combination vaccine is a policy decision or a choice for parents to make in consultation with their vaccination providers,” MacDonald concludes in her paper.
In the meantime, she hopes her findings are reassuring to parents. The risk of seizures are low in the MMR and MMRV vaccines, and doctors are being transparent and forthcoming about the potential side effects, she said.
Read her full findings here.
© 2014 Shaw Media
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What is “Flint Glass”?
“Flint Glass” is a term for glassware with a lead content, pressed and/or blown. In the United States “Flint Glass” was produced prior to the Civil War. Pieces with lead content are much heavier and have a bell sound or ring when you “ping” the glass with your finger. Most English Pressed Glass has a lead content, as they believed one had to add lead to glass to give the glass durability and brilliance. American Flint coloured pieces are considered rare.
What is “Non-Flint” Glass?
“Non-Flint” is a term used for glass produced after the “Lead” period or after the U.S. Civil War. When the Civil war began, glass makers were told they could not use lead, as it was to be reserved for bullets during the war. They soon discovered a means to continue to produce glass without lead, by simply not adding it. All “Pressed Glass” from this point on was produced “Unleaded” or “Non-Flint”, as it was cheaper to produce. If you tap “Non-Flint” glass you will not hear a bell tone, just a dull, short ring.
Why are there different colour variations in Pressed Glass?
If your glass has a green or grey tint, this is from the sand used, either the iron or lime. If your glass has a purple or pink hue, this is a chemical called Manganese. It was used to combat the green or grey tones created by iron. If you leave your Pressed Glass in the sun for long periods (like displaying oil lamps in your window frame) the purple colour will eventually darken because Manganese reacts to sunlight rays.
What is a “Banana Stand”?
A “Banana Stand” is a pedestal dish with a U-shaped bowl, used specifically for serving a bunch of bananas. These dishes came on a pedestal as well as without a pedestal, known as a “Flat Banana Dish”. They were designed for 2 specific reasons. Bananas enhance the ripening of your other fruit so they should always be kept separate. Also, when you set your table, your “Banana Stand” is at one end and your fruit compote at the other to balance your table.
What is a “Buttermilk Goblet”?
A “Buttermilk Goblet” is a goblet designed originally to drink buttermilk from. It is a short-squat and wide rimmed goblet. It looks almost like a small bowl on a stem. They are very popular today for mixed drinks, desserts, and shrimp cocktail or as a “Cottage-Dock Glass”. Many people prefer to entertain with these glasses at outdoor functions. The reason for this is most “Buttermilk Goblets” will take a full beer. These glasses will not tip because of the large, wide bowl, and they are not shaped like a wine glass, making it less formal.
Why are there “Covered Compotes” with Lids?
Compotes with lids were made and sold for desserts or fruits that had liquids, like strawberries or rhubarb. Open compotes were to serve apples, oranges, pears, etc. Any foods that had their own protective cover, like the skin on apples was safe to leave in the open. In the Victorian period, houses had poor screen windows and doors, making bugs and flies a problem. The “Covered Compotes” would keep the insects away from the liquid or cooked food. The open compotes would normally sit in the center of the dining table all day, available for a snack anytime.
Why are there pieces of “Miniature Glass”?
Miniature Glass or “Children’s Glass” made excellent gifts for young girls. The pieces come in forms such as creams, sugars, spooners, butter dishes, banana stands, cake stands, mugs, as well as candlesticks. “Children’s Glass” was used to train your daughter how to properly set a table. She would learn by setting her own table while she observed her Mother doing the same for anticipated company or family dining. For example if Mother was having a tea party, her daughter would set up a table to entertain her dolls and teddy bears. Mother would cut up fruit for the banana stand and perhaps a cupcake for her cake stand. “Children’s Mugs” in graduating sizes were used for children to learn to drink from a vessel at the table. “Children’s Candlesticks” were also used to help the daughter to learn how to set a table.
Did people collect “Pressed Glass” 100 years ago?
Yes, people did collect Pressed Glass 100 years ago. Although it was designed for everyday table use, it was very attractive. Ladies of the day did collect and trade pieces with each other. When you were married, if your family could afford the cost, you were usually given a full set of Pressed Glass tableware as your dowry. When you went to visit family, by horse and buggy, ladies would often take a piece from their dowry as a gift for their sister, cousin or Aunt. It was considered a very special gift. After several years of giving and receiving gifts, your cupboard would be full of odd pieces in many different patterns. It then became fashionable to have a variety of different pieces and patterns. Ladies would write to each other telling of their latest gift or trade and the different patterns received.
Is Pressed Glass durable? Can I still use it?
Pressed Glass is very durable. The majority of Pressed Glass has no lead content and was made to last and be used. It is glass and will break if you are not careful with your pieces. However, one has to consider that 100 years ago it was used on a daily basis and has survived over the 100 years of use. That is very durable glassware!
How many patterns are there?
No one really knows how many Pressed Glass patterns were produced in North America. It has been estimated at approximately 3,000 different patterns. We do know that there are at least 1,700 patterns produced in goblet form; but some companies produced patterns only in goblet form or only in tableware form.
Why did companies close?
Factories closed for several reasons; most often they were purchased by other factories to eliminate competition. US Glass was the largest glass making conglomerate. In Canada it was Dominion Glass that was the largest, buying out the majority of their competitors. Sometimes companies would continue producing patterns or cancel production lines after the takeover. Many factories closed due to fires as a direct result from the extreme heat required to mold glass. Sometimes the loss was so devastating that the company could not afford to rebuild. Molds were either sold to retrieve losses or scrapped. Some companies were forced into bankruptcy by lack of sales. Larger companies had better patterns, could hire more experienced mold makers and could afford good marketing. After the turn of the century, many people were buying imported European crystal that was a little more expensive than Pressed Glass. It was considered better quality and became very desirable. This also hurt sales, and eventually ended the Pressed Glass period.
How many “Nova Scotia Glass” patterns exist?
At this time we believe there to be 19 patterns produced in goblet form. Some of these goblet patterns were also produced in tableware forms, such as Crown, Floral and Raspberry. There are also several patterns that did not produce goblets but only tableware. The total number of patterns made including both goblets and tableware is 24 different patterns.
When were reproductions made?
Reproductions began in the 1920’s and 1930’s, however the majority of reproductions were made in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Reproductions were produced as recently as the 1970’s and 1980’s but only in specific forms and colours! The majority of reproductions have been documented and are well known amongst collectors and glass authorities.
How do you tell the difference between Authentic and Reproduction Pressed Glass?
The majority of Reproductions are known and documented. They were commonly made from new molds. With each reproduction there is a very specific way to tell. With most it has to do with the detail. Newer molds lack the details of the originals. With other reproductions it is the weight or thickness. Sometimes it is the colour of a pattern, if it wasn’t originally produced in colour. Occasionally reproductions are marked with a stamp like “MMA” for Metropolitan Museum of Art or “SM” for Sandwich Museum.
Why are there different sizes in “Cake Stands”?
Cake Stands were produced in different sizes for different uses. The largest “Cake Stands” made were produced for bakery store windows to display cakes or pies, or for household use, again to keep cakes and pies. The medium size cake stands (7” to 9”) were made to serve cookies, squares or tarts. The small cake stands (4” to 5”) were part of “Children’s Glass” sets. On the formally set dining table graduating cake stands were stacked for serving desserts, graduating up in size from largest to smallest. Customers have been using the “Child’s Cake Stand” as a top for a graduating stack, they are popular for chocolates, mints or truffles. Flower arrangements can be used for separating the desserts when stacking 3 or 4 high.
Why are there variations in patterns?
No one knows for certain why there are variations with some patterns. We have several theories. Over the lifetime of a pattern it was probably produced by several companies if it was popular with the consumer, and occasionally both in Canada and the U.S. This could have occurred when companies closed and auctioned or sold mold designs, or molds could have been part of a sale of a company when bigger companies took over smaller companies. Different molds were used, so a variation in design could have easily occurred within one pattern. We also know that mold makers worked a few months at one company at a time, changing factories many times over a year. They often stole successful designs from one company and incorporated it in a design with another company. This also explains variations. Another theory is that after companies cancelled production of a pattern and if there was a high demand from the consumer to make more of that pattern, it could have been produced in a different version, but still resembling the original.
Is it a Canadian or American made piece? How do you know?
There were patterns in Pressed Glass that were only made in the United States and patterns that were only produced in Canada. There also were patterns that were produced in both Countries. It is not possible to tell within a pattern how to identify which pieces were produced in either the United States or Canada. This dual production in both countries occurred because of factory takeovers and molds that were sold when companies closed down. Jefferson Glass Company of USA opened in Toronto and chose some of their best patterns to be produced in Canada. Identical patterns were produced from the very same molds. They had already acquired Higbee Glass Company molds from Pennsylvania when the Higbee Glass Company closed. Some of these patterns were produced by Higbee Glass Company, Jefferson Glass USA as well as Jefferson Glass Canada.
What is the difference between Flint Glass and Crystal?
Flint Glass is pre-civil war glassware with a lead content (see Q and A above). It can be blown or pressed. Crystal was produced after the civil war in Canada and the U.S.A, as well as Europe and Great Britain. It has a greater lead content and is a finer type of glass, making it less durable. It can be molded, blown, cut by hand or machine cut.
Does the Number of Mold-Lines tell us Age?
No! This has been an old wives tale for several years. The number of pieces to form a mold was decided by the mold maker, and usually depended on the size and shape of the piece. He would try to encompass the mold line in the pattern to hide it. The number of mold lines also depended on the skill of a mold maker. More skilled mold makers used fewer pieces. Pressed Glass can be found with 2, 3 or 4 piece molds.
What was a “Goblet” and “Wine” used for?
“Goblets” (5"-7") were marketed and known as “Water Goblets”. Water was the customary table beverage for refreshment and mealtime drinking. “Wine” glasses (3" - 4"), were used for drinking wine. Today we find them very small for today’s wine drinking. In the 1880’s wine was expensive and very strong. We didn’t have vineyards in Niagara or California. Wine was imported from Europe by boat. In rural areas, it had to be shipped by stage coach to your general store. This added to the retail cost. On a Saturday evening you would enjoy a sample of your bottle of wine, then wait until the following Saturday for another taste.
Is that a crack or a mold line?
Pressed Glass was considered to be everyday, cheaply mass produced glassware. Mold imperfections are standard in any piece of early Pressed Glass. A crack in Pressed Glass will always be felt on both sides, inside and out. It is impossible for glass to crack only on one side. Light will reflect through a crack in glass, and you will see the line of the crack touching both sides. Cracks are considered ‘after factory damage’ and de-value the piece drastically. Mold imperfections, known widely as “Straw Marks”, can only be felt on one side and will look like a thick or thin scratch. These lines were created from the cast iron mold. As molds were heated and cooled hundreds and hundreds of times over, the cast iron would begin to crack, and the pattern impression would fade. These cracks or imperfections would appear on the glass, as well as deterioration in the pattern, known as “weak impressions”. “Straw Marks” are considered acceptable, and are a part of the making. For this reason “Straw Marks” do not affect the value of the piece of glass.
Why are there bubbles inside my glass?
Bubbles occurred during the pressing stage when air got inside the mold. Bubbles are a part of the making of Pressed Glass and are also considered acceptable. They do not signify an original piece or a reproduction as it can occur in any type of glass, depending on the quality of the glass maker and quality of the mold.
What is a “Jelly Compote”?
A “Jelly Compote” looks like a miniature fruit compote (4 ½" - 5" tall). It was used to serve a jelly or chutney with your dinner. Home preserves, jellies and chutneys were very popular. For every kind of meat, there were jellies to accompany the meat.
Did Pressed Glass Companies ever sign their glass?
Yes, several Pressed Glass companies signed their glass. Some of the most recognizable companies include the “Heisey Glass Company” of Ohio, U.S.A. Their trademark started in 1907 on glass with an “H” inside a diamond embossed directly inside a piece on the stem or on the base of pedestal pieces. Another company was the “Higbee Glass Company” of Pennsylvania, U.S.A. They signed their glass with their trademark “Bee” mark. It is a figural bee stamped inside the piece and occasionally you can also see “HIG in the bee’s wings. Several English Pressed Glass Companies also signed their glass. One of the more recognizable is “Sowerby” Glass Company. Its trademark appears inside pieces and is an upright whale above a water line.
What is a “Spooner”?
A “Spooner” was part of your 4 piece breakfast set which consisted of a Cream, Sugar, Butter Dish and Spooner. The spoon was the most frequently used utensil and a “Spooner” was designed to sit on the table at all times.
Is Pressed Glass Dishwasher Safe?
We do not recommend using a dishwasher to clean any antiques, especially Pressed Glass. Dishwashers, the soaps used in dishwashers and the heat of the water will eventually turn your Pressed Glass milky white and leave a deposits in the pattern. Once this is done it is virtually impossible to remove. You have taken the time to select nice pieces of Pressed Glass; it is worth the time to keep them looking beautiful by hand washing them!
Pressed Glass & Goblets
P.O. Box 369
Arthur, Ontario Canada
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A Doctor of Optometry is an independent primary health care provider who examines, diagnoses, treats and manages diseases and disorders of the visual system, the eye and associated structures. Among the services optometrists render are: prescribing glasses and contact lenses, rehabilitation of the visually impaired, and the diagnosis and treatment of ocular diseases.
Optometrists perform comprehensive examinations of both the internal and external structures of the eye, subjective and objective tests to evaluate patients' vision, analyze the test findings, diagnose and determine the appropriate treatment. As health care professionals, optometrists regularly diagnose signs of disease, both of the eye and of the body, and often work with other health professionals in co-managing the care of patients.
All optometrists provide general eye and vision care. Some optometrists work in a general practice, and other optometrists work in a more specialized practice such as contact lenses, geriatrics, low vision services (for visually impaired patients), occupational vision (to protect and preserve workers' vision and minimize eye strain), pediatrics, sports vision and vision therapy. Others may choose to enter optometric education and/or perform scientific research.
They practice in rural communities, suburban areas, and large cities. Some practice alone, with a partner or partners, or with other health care professionals, while others choose a career in the military, public health, or other government service. Still others may practice at hospitals, clinics, teaching institutions, and community health centers, or they may choose to be employed by another optometrist, or in the ophthalmic industry.
Yes, there is a need in all areas of the country for optometrists to serve the needs of our population which is growing not only in number, but also in awareness of the importance of prevention and proper health care. Optometrists are also needed to fill vacancies created through retirement. In addition, the aging population of the U.S. will create an increased demand for vision care services in the next several decades. Back to Top Is optometry a rewarding career? Yes. One of the best! Optometrists have the satisfaction of helping their patients care for the most highly valued human sense - sight. Doctors of Optometry are recognized as leaders in their communities. Most are self-employed, receive relatively few emergency calls, and can establish a flexible working schedule which allows them the luxury of combining a prestigious professional career with a very satisfying personal life.
There are 17 schools and colleges of optometry - 16 are in the mainland United States, and one is in Puerto Rico.
The Council on Optometric Education of the American Optometric Association is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education and the Council on Postsecondary Accreditation as the accrediting body for optometric educational programs. The purpose of accreditation is to ensure the quality of the schools and colleges of optometry. All of the accredited optometric education programs possess their own relative strengths and benefits. The Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry and the American Optometric Association recommend that applicants review the merits of the school(s) or college(s) they might wish to attend and determine which institution will best meet their individual needs.
Doctors of Optometry must successfully complete a four-year accredited degree program at one of the schools or colleges of optometry. Most students accepted by a school or college of optometry have completed their undergraduate degree. However, each institution has is own undergraduate prerequisites, so applicants should contact the school or college of their choice for specific requirements.
The requirements for admission to the schools and colleges of optometry vary, but students wishing to study optometry should be certain to take at least a year of biology or zoology, chemistry, general physics, English and college mathematics. The science courses should be pre-professional level courses designed for science majors or health professional students and should offer laboratory experience. Brief survey courses in the sciences will not prepare you for optometry school. Be sure to consult with the pre-optometry advisor at your school or an advisor at the school or college of optometry that you plan to attend.
Each institution has its own admission requirements and policies, so you should contact the school or college of optometry you plan to attend and request a copy of its catalog. All optometry schools and colleges also require applicants to take the Optometry Admission Test (OAT).
Early applications are desirable, and deadlines range from November 20 to April 15 for the various schools and colleges of optometry. Contact the school(s) or college(s) of your choice to obtain application instructions and forms.
Potential optometry students may be evaluated on the basis of grade point average, performance on the Optometry Admission Test (OAT), extra curricular and community activities, personal interview, professional potential, etc. Each institution has its own criteria; therefore, you should contact the school(s) or college(s) of your choice to obtain a copy of its catalog and specific application guidelines.
The Optometry Admission Test (OAT) is a standardized examination designed to measure general academic ability and comprehension of scientific information. The OAT is sponsored by the Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry (ASCO) for applicants seeking admission to an optometry program. All schools and colleges of optometry in the United States and Canada require the OAT.
The cost of your education will depend upon where you choose to attend school.
Many of the schools and colleges of optometry have financial arrangements or contract programs which allow students from various states to attend their institution at the resident rate. Contact the admissions officer at the school(s) or college(s) of your choice for specific tuition and fee information.
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David Bourget (Western Ontario)
David Chalmers (ANU, NYU)
Rafael De Clercq
Ezio Di Nucci
Jack Alan Reynolds
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Dissertation, Leiden University (2006)
This thesis is on the history and philosophy of logic and semantics. Logic can be described as the ‘science of reasoning’, as it deals primarily with correct patterns of reasoning. However, logic as a discipline has undergone dramatic changes in the last two centuries: while for ancient and medieval philosophers it belonged essentially to the realm of language studies, it has currently become a sub-branch of mathematics. This thesis attempts to establish a dialogue between the modern and the medieval traditions in logic, by means of ‘translations’ of the medieval logical theories into the modern framework of symbolic logic, i.e. formalizations. One of its conclusions is that, when properly understood within their own framework, the interest of medieval logical theories for modern investigations go beyond mere historical interest, but that a thorough conceptual analysis of such theories must be undertaken in order to avoid conceptual misprojections. While such translations of medieval into modern logic have been attempted before, the approach presented here is innovative in that attention is paid to the similarities as well as to the dissimilarities between the two traditions, and to what can be learned from the medieval masters for modern investigations in logic and semantics.
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Sara L. Uckelman (2012). Arthur Prior and Medieval Logic. Synthese 188 (3):349-366.
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Authors: Stephan J.G. Gift
The one-way speed of light is determined using the range equations employed in the tracking of planets and spacecrafts moving within our solar system. These equations are based on the observation that light travels in the sun-centered inertial frame at a constant speed c and have been extensively tested and rigorously verified. For light reflected from an object moving in space the light speed detected on the surface of the moving Earth is found to be c+v and c-v relative to the receiving antenna for the Earth moving at orbital speed v in directions toward and away from the reflector. This finding is consistent with results first presented by Wallace and later by Tolchel'nikova but is at variance with the postulate of light speed constancy.
Comments: 11 Pages.
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Essay Topic 1
What are the goals of feminism according to hooks? How do feminists seek to accomplish the goals that the movement has set in the way hooks portrays these events? Why are these goals important?
Essay Topic 2
What is the difference between reformist thinkers and revolutionary thinkers?
Essay Topic 3
How did some women actually slow down the progress of the feminist movement in hooks' opinion?
Essay Topic 4
What does hooks mean when she says that one of feminism's greatest foes was the "enemy within"? Do you agree with her on this issue? Why or why not?
Essay Topic 5
How and why was literature significant to the feminist movement in the way that hooks portrays it? How did literature written by women contribute to the end of gender bias in curricula?
Essay Topic 6
What are some ways that hooks suggests feminism can gain momentum? Which ideas seem most...
This section contains 567 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page)
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ST. AUSTELL PARISH
“RAGGED SCHOOLS” and ST. AUSTELL
(written by J. Mosman, OPC)
Children in Cornwall in the early 1800's were viewed differently than children today. It was considered beneficial to their characters to teach them early the rewards of work; children were sent to work in the tin and copper mines, the forges, woodshops, and clay works as young as 8 or 9. In this manner they were kept from "ruinous leisure" while helping the family survive with their earnings.. Education was not something most considered essential, if it was considered at all. "Dame" schools existed for those children whose parents could afford to pay a small weekly sum, but these schools did not reach the majority of children. Various church charities afforded educations to some select students - the curate at St. Austell was paid to teach 15 students each year by an endowment. But most children did not receive formal instruction as they do now.
However, change was in the wind in the 1830's-40s. The Methodist church saw as their mission the teaching of everyone to read the Word of God, in which effort they established Sunday schools. For many reasons, non-conformist churches "took hold" and thrived in Cornwall; thousands of people came to listen at Gwennap Pit when Billy Bray preached. Reports in the West Briton newspaper mentioned that often, the Sunday School instructors set up special classes, for which they were not paid, to enable shift-work miners to come to classes.The Church of England responded by increasing activity in their local mission efforts.
In the mid-1840’s, a new convention came on the scene, called “the Ragged School” movement. While many historians consider this one movement, it was actually several. Free schools for the destitute poor were established in London in the 1830s by the City Mission; these joined together in the Ragged School Union in 1844. The Scottish movement stemmed from Sheriff Watson’s industrial feeding schools, set up in Aberdeen between 1841 and 1847, and from Dr. Guthrie’s Edinburgh ragged school founded in 1847. Bristol and Birmingham had schools in 1846, and forty towns had schools by 1852. One of the main supporters of this movement was the Church of England.
These schools occupied a special niche, as they intended nothing less than the “civilization and conversion” of an entire segment of the poor, juveniles unreached by any other institution. These were children of the poorest of the poor; occasional workers, such as rag pickers, hawkers, and tramps, who could not afford a penny a week for their children’s education, as well as people who through sickness or compulsions, especially drink, could not hold a job. The bible was the compulsory basis of the curriculum, which also included elementary work in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Their main object, as stated in the first RSU circular, was to “teach the children of the lowest poor to read the word of God, and to understand its simple truths.” Their main goal was to save souls; education was secondary.
Fully independent local committees formed; they held their own meetings, published separate accounts and reports, and decided on which services to provide. These committees often reflected interdenominational co-operation, and achieved many of their goals because of that co-operation. Church of England outreach missions were heavily involved, as well as Wesleyan Methodists, Primitive Methodists, Bible Christians, and others.
The need for such a school in Cornwall was first investigated by a committee with members from non-conformist and Church of England congregations in Truro in 1848, but as most of the truly destitute children they could find had religious affiliation, and access to Sunday schools, the establishment of such a school was deemed unnecessary at the time. (in fact, there were 14 found who were not involved with Sunday schools, but it was decided that was too small a number to warrant the establishment of a school.)
Often the schools were housed in buildings convenient for the children, barely adequate, often shabby and unsound. Most had no luxuries such as desks, or even gas light; as they were often ill-funded, being dependent on church mission charity. Men from the artisan class were employed as instructors. In many cases, the teachers kept the schools going by their own means. However, they did achieve success. The literacy rate grew dramatically, as evidenced in one particular by reports at the Cornwall Quarter Sessions from the officials, which quarterly showed a steady decline in the number of prisoners who could not read, or write their names. And in a less dramatic way, it was demonstrated by more and more people being married able to sign the parish registers, until in the 1880’s, when nearly everyone did.
From what evidence exists, the schools in Cornwall, and in St. Austell in particular, were often housed in local chapelries, not shacks – but neither were they “palaces”. Vacant fish cellars were pressed into use, if needed.
By 1870, when the Education Act was enacted, these schools had become a valued resource. Most of the larger cities in the British Isles had ragged societies; Plymouth had four schools, while Liverpool had forty-four.
There was such a school in St. Austell, as evidenced by the 1871 census entry for “a Ragged School and Chapel” in Workhouse Lane. By 1904, it may have been no longer used for the purpose, as the local authorities were considering a development application.
DCRES – Restormel Borough Council DCRES/1249 Plans, Restormel Borough Council
Ref. No. DCRES/1249/540
Title – Alterations to Old Ragged School, Moorland Road, St. Austell
Date – 25 October 1904
Format – Plans
When in 1874 local educational boards were established, and the national school system inaugurated, some ragged schools were retained for those who did not fit into ‘regular’ classes. They often evolved into industrial schools, and eventually became irrelevant as extreme destitution declined, and a better understanding of the nature of truancy, together with the initiation of alternative means of dealing with it, resulted in a diminished need for such provisions.
Together with church Sunday Schools, night schools for adults and children, "dame" schools, and privately funded schools, social reformers managed to create a revolution which is still paying dividends to this day. Horace Mann, in his survey of British schools at the time of the 1851 census, said “It would perhaps be difficult too highly to appreciate the values of the Ragged School”.
For another, much better written view of Ragged Schools in London, by Charles Dickens, please go to http://wwww.infed.org/archives/e-texts/dickens_ragged_schools.htm
Sources of information:
Source: Ian Jordan, Australia, and member of The Cornish List at Rootsweb.com
Source: H. W. Schupf, "Education for the Neglected: Ragged Schools in Nineteenth-Century England " (1972) 12 (no. 2) History of Education Quarterly pp. 162-183.
Source: Clark, E. A. G.(1969) 1 (No. 2) 'THE EARLY RAGGED SCHOOLS AND
THE FOUNDATION OF THE RAGGED SCHOOL UNION ', Journal of Educational
Administration and History pp. 9 - 21.
West Briton and Cornwall Advertiser newspaper, October 1848.
|Main Index||Resources||Parish Life||Maps||Genealogy||History||Top|
|Last updated August 18 2009 . In case of problem, please notify Webmaster.|
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1A rounded, knotty depression in the center of a person’s belly caused by the detachment of the umbilical cord after birth; the umbilicus.
- Abdominal examination revealed a large scar from the navel downwards.
- The child may have low back pain, stomach pain below the navel, or a long-lasting fever.
- An umbilical hernia occurs when part of the intestine protrudes through a weakness in the abdominal wall at the navel.
1.1The central point of a place: the Incas saw Cuzco as the navel of the world
More example sentences
- Such men must be honoured and respected, lest chaos engulf the navel of the world yet again.
- Delphi was no longer the navel of the Greek world, acknowledged point of reference for the competing states.
- They named the place Cuzco, " the navel of the world, " and the Inca nation was born.
contemplate one's navel
- Spend time complacently considering oneself or one’s own interests; concentrate on one issue at the expense of a wider view.Example sentences
- This is a famous soup from the Fujian Province, whose aroma was said to be so alluring that a meditating monk would abandon contemplating his navel and jump over the wall to indulge!
- The yogi contemplating his navel often figures for Westerners as an object of amusement, being taken as a symptom of indolence or narcissistic self-absorption.
- He came from High Times magazine, where he sat around and played video games and contemplated his navel.
Words that rhyme with navelnaval
For editors and proofreaders
What do you find interesting about this word or phrase?
Comments that don't adhere to our Community Guidelines may be moderated or removed.
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kill: Send a signal to processes
kill command sends a signal to processes, causing them
to terminate or otherwise act upon receiving the signal in some way.
Alternatively, it lists information about signals. Synopses:
kill [-s signal | --signal signal | -signal] pid… kill [-l | --list | -t | --table] [signal]…
Due to shell aliases and built-in
kill functions, using an
kill interactively or in a script may get you
different functionality than that described here. Invoke it via
env kill …) to avoid interference
from the shell.
The first form of the
kill command sends a signal to all
pid arguments. The default signal to send if none is specified
is ‘TERM’. The special signal number ‘0’ does not denote a
valid signal, but can be used to test whether the pid arguments
specify processes to which a signal could be sent.
If pid is positive, the signal is sent to the process with the process ID pid. If pid is zero, the signal is sent to all processes in the process group of the current process. If pid is -1, the signal is sent to all processes for which the user has permission to send a signal. If pid is less than -1, the signal is sent to all processes in the process group that equals the absolute value of pid.
If pid is not positive, a system-dependent set of system processes is excluded from the list of processes to which the signal is sent.
If a negative pid argument is desired as the first one, it should be preceded by --. However, as a common extension to POSIX, -- is not required with ‘kill -signal -pid’. The following commands are equivalent:
kill -15 -1 kill -TERM -1 kill -s TERM -- -1 kill -- -1
The first form of the
kill command succeeds if every pid
argument specifies at least one process that the signal was sent to.
The second form of the
kill command lists signal information.
Either the -l or --list option, or the -t
or --table option must be specified. Without any
signal argument, all supported signals are listed. The output
of -l or --list is a list of the signal names, one
per line; if signal is already a name, the signal number is
printed instead. The output of -t or --table is a
table of signal numbers, names, and descriptions. This form of the
kill command succeeds if all signal arguments are valid
and if there is no output error.
kill command also supports the --help and
--version options. See Common options.
A signal may be a signal name like ‘HUP’, or a signal number like ‘1’, or an exit status of a process terminated by the signal. A signal name can be given in canonical form or prefixed by ‘SIG’. The case of the letters is ignored, except for the -signal option which must use upper case to avoid ambiguity with lower case option letters. See Signal specifications, for a list of supported signal names and numbers.
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Like many historical events, the American Revolution is often shrouded in romantic myth and stubborn stereotypes. Perhaps no event offers a better example than General George Washington’s famous crossing of icy Delaware River on Christmas night to lead the Continental Army’s defeat of the Hessians at Trenton, New Jersey, an event which revived the flickering morale American revolutionaries.
In George Washington’s Surprise Attack: A New Look at the Battle That Decided the Fate of America (Skyhorse Publishing, 2014), Phillip Thomas Tucker attempts to parse fiction from fact. He provides an in-depth look (more than 600 pages, with notes) at the events of the Battle of Trenton, presenting new insights and analysis about a battle that holds a mythical place in American national history.
Tucker includes stories from a variety of forgotten individuals of the war, including officers and soldiers from both sides, that help bring to life the Continental army’s victory. At the time a small town in New Jersey, Trenton was occupied by three regiments of Hessian soldiers commanded by Colonel Johann Rall, numbering about 1,400 men. Washington’s force comprised 2,400 men, with infantry divisions commanded by Major Generals Nathanael Greene and John Sullivan, and artillery under the direction of Brigadier General Henry Knox.
Tucker, who is a civilian historian with the Department of Defense and specialized in air force history and living in Washington, DC, explores the tactical roots of Washington’s battle plan. He argues that Washington’s tactical abilities have been inaccurately derided by historians. Other myths that Tucker hopes to debunk include the Hessians’ slovenly drunkenness, Washington acting alone in creating the attack strategy, and Rall’s incompetence as a leader contributing widely to his troops’ defeat.
Note: Books noticed on The New York History Blog have been provided by their publishers. Purchases made through this Amazon link help support this site.
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Elsevier Award Recognises Brilliant Women Scientists In the Developing World
(3BL Media/Justmeans) - The number of women in science, technology and innovation in the world’s leading economies is alarmingly low and actually on the decline in several, including the U.S. Women remain severely under-represented in degree programs for these fields. Even in countries where the numbers of women studying science and technology have increased, more women are not finding their way into the workplace. This why the recent winners of the 2014 Elsevier Foundation prizes are impressive not only for their research, but for their potential, as these awards and recognition could bring exciting new opportunities for research. Plus, over time, these researchers will fulfil their potential as teachers and mentors, as partners in international projects and as advisers to governments. Such leadership can make a long-lasting contribution to global science.
The five female chemists were honoured with Elsevier Foundation Awards for Early Career Women Scientists in the Developing World, each for research that looks to nature for ways to address cancer, malaria and other medical problems. The winning researchers, representing five regions of the developing world, are from Indonesia, Jamaica, Nigeria, Uzbekistan and Yemen. The focus was chemistry; a selection panel of eminent chemists independently selected each winner based on her achievements, who had impressive accomplishments in applying the chemistry of nature to pharmaceutical science. The Elsevier Foundation prize includes USD $5,000 and all-expenses paid attendance at the 2014 American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Meeting in Chicago. In 2015 the prize will be for physics and mathematics.
The awards, launched in 2012, are a collaboration between the Elsevier Foundation, The World of Sciences and the Organisation for Women in Science for the Developing World. These five winners, like all women undertaking scientific research in developing countries, will have faced challenges to gain this award. Their steely determination, commitment and enthusiasm will have gotten them through—they will be an inspiration to all young women considering careers in science. The award is vital for encouraging women in developing countries to be more involved in science and technology and to make a more significant contribution to social and economic developments.
Professional visibility is crucial to developing high-profile international scientific careers, especially for women. The Elsevier Foundation provides support to early-career women scholars through its New Scholars grant programs and mentoring, research retreats, professional visibility, childcare, and work-life integration and recognition programs. The awards for these women scientists help to build a research capacity and advance scientific knowledge throughout the developing world.
The awards help to raise awareness among scientists, policymakers, media and the public about the need to retain and celebrate women scientists. The winners acknowledged that the awards could have a significant impact on their work and Dr. Eqbal Dauqan from Yemen, who won for the Arab region emphasised the impact the award would have on women from her region and that it was very encouraging for Arab women and will enhance scientific research in the Arab world. These winners are an inspiration not only to other young women, but to all scientists of every generation.
Photo Credit: Elsevier Foundation
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Four different bills were blocked by partisan gridlock as voters angrily clamored for action.
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each U.S. state is represented by two senators, regardless of population. Senators serve staggered six-year terms. The chamber of the United States Senate is located in the north wing of the Capitol, in Washington, D.C., the national capital. The House of Representatives convenes in the south wing of the same building.
The Senate has several exclusive powers not granted to the House, including consenting to treaties as a precondition to their ratification and consenting or confirming appointments of Cabinet secretaries, federal judges, other federal executive officials, military officers, regulatory officials, ambassadors, and other federal uniformed officers, as well as trial of federal officials...
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Law and Land in India
According to Amnesty International, since India’s independence, mineral production increased sixty-fold in the region from 2.8 million tonnes in 1947 to 178,6 million tonnes in 2007. This can be explained by a change in governmental policies. The Indian government, in the early 1990s, promoted gradual reforms aimed at liberalizing the market. The New Mineral Policy of 1993 was adopted to promote the involvement of private and foreign investors and companies in the mining sector. This new policy included the injection of funds, technology and managerial expertise into the sector. Consequently, mining companies were not only attracted by cheap labour but also by large government induced subsidies on the labour, transport, water and electricity that is present in India.
Along with these subsidies and neo-liberal policies, land acquisition was made easier through the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 when India was still under British rule. This law currently enables the government to acquire private land for ’’public purpose, ’’however the government’s use of the land is often opportunistic rather than public-serving. Under this legislation, the government has been distributing land to companies wanting to build dams, coal mines, power plants, iron mines, highways, urban developments and ports, all in an effort to develop, and therefore reduce poverty—or so they say.
- A coal mine lake in India
As a result of years of World Bank policies, which included Structural Adjustment programmes to reverse land reforms, land literally became ’commodified.’ Today in India, minerals are considered national resources and subsoil rights over land belong to the state, not to individual owners. Multinational companies can sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) and receive a huge piece of land for money. These MOUs encourage the state’s neglect of civilian rights. For instance, indigenous communities have been displaced from their land in order to enable the appropriation of land by corporations to access natural resources. In a country where about sixty-five percent of the population relies on farming, such allocation of land has sparked major controversy.
The armed state police is also in charge of enforcing orders of eviction, due to the dissent that this process of forced land acquisition has provoked from the farmers. The majority of the cultivators are opposed to the project and they are supported by human rights and environmental activists. Yet in favour of these mining projects is the middle class, of whom the vast majority supports ’development’ in the same way the government, and bureaucrats do: solely as far as government institutions benefit from it. They would like to see, and think that this could bring, modernity and prosperity to Orissa. To the majority of the Indian population, the land represents their socio-economic status as well as health, security, livelihood, cultural, political and religious values. Taking the land away from them would thus represent a flagrant violation of their basic rights to water, food, health, and work; rights legally granted to the Indian indigenous population. Such protection has been instated to preserve indigenous culture and identity. Ultimately, eviction of these peoples could literally be defined as ‘cultural genocide’.
Despite exorbitant projects in mining development, the region of Orissa itself remains one of the poorest. Corporations justify their presence by claiming that large sums of money are being poured into Corporate Social Responsibility schemes, which allows companies to claim they are acting in a "sustainable manner." But the reality is rather grim. Cases of pollution- and skin-related diseases remain rampant; however, citizens are rarely compensated for accidents or land lost. Furthermore, economic, developmental and infrastructural projects that have been approved for implementation rarely see execution.
The negative impacts of mining are economic and socio-cultural in nature, relating to health and the environment. The most common effects are land degradation, large scale denudation of forest cover, depletion of biodiversity, key water source disruption, in addition to air, water and soil pollution.
In the Jagatsinghpur district in Orissa, more than two thousand families are under the threat of eviction by state authorities. After South Korean steel company, POSCO, proposed to build a US$12 billion steel plant in the area, over two hundred families were expelled from their property and their crops and cultivation sheds were destroyed. However farmers have not remained silent. Demonstrations and protests have been organized to demand an end to further evictions, and there is hope.
The case of the Dongria Kondh, an indigenous people living in Orissa’s Niyamgiri Hills constitutes a "landmark victory for indigenous rights." According to Amnesty International, they had been displaced from their home land due to the establishment of a combined bauxite mining and alumina refinery project. With the project almost completed, it left a distressing impact, primarily environmental devastation. More than seventy-five percent of the Niyamgiri mountain is covered by thick forests, home to more than three hundred species of plants and trees, including fifty kinds of medicinal plants. According to a report published by Amnesty International, poor waste management put the health of five thousand people at risk. Inhabitants of the area suffered from side effects of air and water pollution, including skin diseases caused by caustic waters.
This refinery project sparked protests due to the lack of transparency of the government, and the lack of consultation with the local communities. After six years of struggles to keep their land and maintain their way of life, the activism of the Dongria Kondh has yielded results. The refinery project was finally rejected by the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests in August of 2010, after it was revealed that it had already extensively violated forest and environmental laws. The next step forward is to avoid such environmentally detrimental and socially unacceptable projects well before the damage is done.
Amnesty International is calling on government authorities to "establish a clear and transparent process that seeks the free, prior and informed consent of any Indigenous communities who may be affected by such projects, and respect their decision, in accordance with national and international law." The violation of their basic rights is a truth that must be exposed.
Photos: Nitin Kirloskar (Flickr), Goran Ratkovic (Flickr)
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The species of
animals in a savanna depends upon the geographic location of the
biome. The African savannah, the savannah with which most people
are familiar, is home to a wide variety of animals. A short list
of some of those animals includes wildebeest, warthogs, elephants,
zebras, rhinos, gazelles, hyenas, cheetahs, lions, leopards, ostrich,
mousebirds, starlings, and weavers.
During the rainy season, birds, insects, and both large and small
mammals thrive in the savannah, but the rainy season only lasts
6 to 8 months. During the dry season, surface water from the rain
is quickly absorbed into the ground because the soil is extremely
porous. Competition for water during the dry season is intense.
Consequently, most birds and many of the large mammals migrate during
the dry season in search of water. Because drought conditions are
sometimes localized, the migration may be just to another area within
the savannah. When drought conditions exist for a long time and
over a wide area, the animals may migrate to another biome until
the rainy season begins again.
elephants do migrate, they have a physical adaptation that allows
them to access water that is not available to other animals. Baobab
trees store water in their large trunks. The elephant's physical
strength and anatomy allow it to tear open the trunk of the baobab
tree and to suck the water from it. An adaptation used by small
burrowing animals is to remain dormant during times of drought--much
like bears do during the winter in other biomes.
Photos © 2000-www.arttoday.com
During the dry season,
lightning frequently ignites the brown, dry grasses that cover the
savannah. Many of the animals have adapted to living with the fires.
The ability to fly or to run fast enables most birds and large mammals
to escape the flames. Some birds, such as the Fork-tailed Drongos,
actually are attracted to the active fires. These birds feast on
fleeing or flame-roasted insects. Although small burrowing animals
may not be able to outrun the flames, they frequently survive the
fire by digging beneath the soil and remaining there until the flames
pass by them.
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Clues to the Growth of One of the Universe's Largest Structures Revealed
The discovery of enormous arms of hot gas located in the Coma cluster of galaxies reveals new insight into how the cluster has formed over the years, growing through the merger of smaller groups and clusters of galaxies before becoming one of the largest structures in the universe held together by gravity.
The finding, made using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton, points toward a process through which smaller galaxy clusters' gas was stripped away by the head wind created by the cluster's motion through hot gas, causing the arms currently observed to form.
Coma is unusual in that it contains two giant elliptical galaxies near its center, both of which are likely left over from the two largest clusters that merged with Coma in the past, the scientists report in the study detailing their discoveries.
Based on their length and the speed of sound in hot gas, the researchers estimate the arms to be some 300 million years old. This and the fact that they are smooth in shape offers additional clues regarding the conditions of the hot gas found in Coma, suggesting a relatively calm environment despite its many mergers.
What small amount of turbulence does exist in Coma is likely the result of large-scale magnetic fields, the scientists hypothesize, though estimating just how turbulent a galaxy cluster is can be a challenge for astrophysicists: at this point researchers have come up with a range of answers, though some of the conflict, suggesting the need for more research.
Observations of the new arms reveal two of them appear to be connected to a group of galaxies located roughly 2 million light-years from Coma's center. At least one of these arms connects to a larger structure and spans some 1.5 million light-years at least. Finally, researchers have been able to detect a slight tail behind one of the galaxies of Coma -- likely evidence of gas being stripped from a galaxy as well as the groups or clusters that have merged there.
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Discussion of Hartman et al. (2009)
This web page was produced as an assignment for an undergraduate course at Davidson College.
|Human intestines house a diverse population of microbes necessary for food digestion. The dynamics of microbial ecology are especially critical in patients in need of small bowel transplants (SBTs), a procedure to lengthen the small bowel in order to facilitate sufficient nutrient absorption. Despite immunosuppression therapies, SBT patients are at high risk for graft rejection and bacterial sepsis, but the role of microbiota in these patients is still unknown. Researchers do know that mutations in the NOD2 gene increase the likelihood of graft rejection and sepsis in SBT patients. NOD2 encodes a protein that senses microbial products and causes production of antimicrobial peptides. The purpose of this study was to characterize the microbial population that re-colonizes the small bowel after separation from the donor and transfer to a new environment, and to find correlations between a population shift and clinical observations like the NOD2 genotype.||
Illustration of an ileostomy with an ileostomy bag. A loop of the ileum is pulled out through the abdominal wall. An ileostomy bag is attached to collect waste. Photo courtesy of CancerHelp UK.
In order to investigate this, Hartman and colleagues designed a novel method of data collection. After a SBT, doctors gain access to the transplant site for observation by creating an ileostomy, a surgical opening exposing a loop of the ileum for endoscopy, biopsies and waste removal. Hartman and colleagues collected ileal effluent and biopsied tissue samples from SBT patients over at least 10 post-transplant time points. From these samples, they were able to study microbial diversity by quantitative PCR (qPCR) of 16S rRNA. This brief webpage summarizes the figures presented in this paper, and presents my conclusions about the article.
You can access the full text article for Hartman et al. (2009).
Figure 1. Bacterial populations in 17 patients were measured by qPCR at the time points (in days) given on the x axes. In all patients the bacterial population is composed of 4 different bacterial orders – Lactobacilli, Enterobacteria, Clostridia, and Bacteroides. The relative proportions of the four orders and the total number of bacteria vary over time and between patients. Even so, in patients with open ileostomies, the fractional majority of bacteria is generally composed of Lactobacilli and Enterobacteria, which Hartman explains are facultative anaerobes. Clostridia and Bacteroides, strict anaerobes, usually constitute the majority of the ileal bacterial population, indicating that there is an inversion of population dynamics in these patients. In patients that had their ileostomy closed, Clostridia and Bacteroides reclaim the majority of the population, suggesting ileostomies cause a dynamic shift in the microbial ecology in the small bowel.
Figure 2. Bacterial population fractions were compared in clinical conditions involving an ileostomy and not involving an ileostomy to visualize any correlation. Comparison of transplant patients to non-transplant patients all having ileostomies shows that the majority of bacteria are Lactobacilli and Enterobacteria regardless of transplant procedure. Moreover, in patients that underwent an ileum biopsy but lacked an ileostomy, Clostridia and Bacteroides constitute the majority; this dynamic is inverted in a biopsy involving a postsurgical ileostomy. Finally, after ileostomy closure, the majority returns to normal – Clostridia and Bacteroides being the majority. This figure indicates that the population shift seen in these SBT patients is due to the presence of the ileostomy, not the transplant procedure or biopsy procedure.
Hartman et al. Figure 2.
Figure 3. For this figure, the information given in the caption seems incongruent with information in the figure and the text. The purpose of this figure is to illustrate whether the bacterial populations sampled from ileal effluent is representative of the population found on host tissue. The ratio of each bacterial order found in biopsy sample compared to effluent samples was reportedly calculated by log10(biopsy percentage / effluent percentage), so a negative value should indicate a higher population was found in the effluent, and a positive value should indicate a higher population in the biopsy. Thus, the figure would indicate that higher populations of Enterobacteria and Clostridia were found in biopsy samples compared to effluent samples, and higher populations of Bacteroides were found in effluent samples compared to biopsy samples. Similar populations of Lactobacilli were obtained from both collection methods. Graft rejection does not seem to correspond with bacterial population in either the effluent or biopsied tissue. This reading of the figure would suggest that Bacteroides occupies a more planktonic niche in the intestine. However, the figure labels the negative side of the graph as “biopsy” and the positive side as “effluent”; in correspondence with this, the results section states that Bacteroides show higher levels in biopsy specimens.
It is difficult to distinguish whether the caption or the figure label is incorrect, or if I am misinterpreting the data. Even so, the figure suggests that sampling the effluent alone for three of the four bacterial orders is not similar to a biopsy sample, because most of the points do not touch the 0 reference line ( log10(1) ). A statistical test on these ratio values could show that they are not significantly dissimilar, but no statistical values are available. So I do not agree with the authors’ conclusion that the effluent and biopsy compositions are “quite similar”.
Hartman et al. Figure 3.
Figure 4. Different microbial communities pre- and post-closure of the ileostomy suggested to the authors there might be an observable difference in metabolism. Metabolomic profiling identified 139 compounds that were used to construct a metabolic network diagram. Most metabolites were enriched during pre-closure of the ileostomy. Notable enriched compounds were pyruvate, glutamic acid, and alpha ketoglutaric acid, all involved in the Krebs cycle. Lactic acid was highly enriched in preclosure, which corresponds with an abundance of Lactobacilli. In post-closure, phosphoric acid and methanolphosphate were highly enriched. Hartman says that no possible role is understood for the other highly enriched compounds, suggesting microbial function in humans is extensive, but still not fully understood.
Figure 5. This figure is a schematic diagram summarizing the data found in this study by illustrating the stable states of the small bowel microbial ecosystem. In its normal state, the small bowel is dominated by strict anaerobes due to the low oxygen concentrations. In an open ileostomy, the bowel is dominated by facultative anaerobes due to a high concentration of oxygen. The less stable transition state between these resembles a closed ileostomy, in which facultative anaerobes are still the majority of the oxygenated bowel, but their fraction decreases as oxygen concentrations decrease. Thus this figure shows how the population dynamics are inverted based on the oxygen tension in the small bowel due to the ileostomy procedure.
Hartman et al. Figure 5.
Hartman et al. found that post-surgical patients with ileostomies have a microbial population inversion from strict anaerobes, Clostridia and Bacteroides, to facultative anaerobes, Lactobacilli and Enterobacteria. This microbial composition reverts to normal after the ileostomy is closed. I thought the figures adequately illustrated this dramatic shift, though Figure 3 was difficult to follow because of the caption and axis labeling. For this figure, I also think it would be beneficial to show some sort of statistical test to designate what value range denotes “similar” and what denotes “different” in the comparison. Even so, I do not think this figure affects the validity of the authors’ conclusion; since all samples were taken from effluent, the dramatic inversion of the effluent microbial population is still significant, even if that inversion may not correspond precisely with the population of all bacteria found in the ileum. Since this figure did not seem to me to validate the main conclusions of the article, and the authors spend very little time discussing the figure except regarding Bacteroides, I think it may be unnecessary to have this figure in the main article instead of supplemental material.
Overall, I agree with the conclusions of Hartman et al., that an ileostomy dramatically alters the ileal microbial composition. I did not find it surprising that a shift in oxygen tension alters the microbial composition of anaerobes and aerobes, but it was interesting that this dramatic shift in microbial composition can cause fatal sepsis after ileostomy closure. Because of this, I think the findings of this paper are critical in re-evaluating the use of ileostomies after small bowel transplants, and generally understanding the microbial shifts that can affect humans.
Hartman AL, Lough DM, Darupa DK, Fiehn O, Fishbein T, Zasloff M, Eisen JA. Human gut microbiome adopts an alternative state following small bowel transplantation. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2009; 106(40): 17187-92.
© Copyright 2010 Department of Biology, Davidson College, Davidson, NC 28035
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Microchip Pioneer Kilby Dies
Four decades after inventing the integrated circuit — the basis of every electronic device today — Jack Kilby believed that the invention found him as much as the other way around.
Nobel Prize winner Jack Kilby was a leader in technology, paving the way for the digital age of personal computing.
"Humankind eventually would have solved the matter," he wrote upon accepting the Nobel Prize in 2000. "But I had the fortunate experience of being the first person with the right idea and the right resources at the right time in history."
Kilby, who died Monday at 81 after a brief battle with cancer, gave birth to one of the most dynamic industries in history. His integrated circuit, first demonstrated on Sept. 12, 1958, made possible computers, the space program, the Internet and such everyday items as digital watches and Furbys.
"Few people can say they really changed the world. Kilby would be one of them," says Gordon Eubanks, CEO of tech company Oblix.
Kilby began his career with a small electronics maker in Milwaukee in 1947, the same year the transistor was invented at Bell Laboratories. In 1958, he took a job with Texas Instruments in Dallas.
The company had been working on a problem: As engineers tried to make more complex devices, they kept adding individual transistors, capacitors and other components to circuit boards, soldering each of the tiny wires together. As the boards got more intricate, they were hard to make and unreliable.
That summer, new employee Kilby famously had no vacation time and had to work during TI's annual two-week summer shutdown. He used the time to work on his radical idea of building all the components into a single part.
"I was sitting at a desk, probably stayed there a little longer than usual," he said in an interview posted on TI's Web site. "Most of it formed pretty clearly during the course of that day. There was some slight skepticism (from his supervisors), but basically they realized its importance." Kilby put together a prototype — one transistor and other components on a slice of germanium about half the size of a paperclip. On Sept. 12, he demonstrated his integrated circuit for TI management. It was publicly unveiled on March 6, 1959.
It must have been the right moment for the invention, because someone else had been working on it, too — Robert Noyce, then of Fairchild Semiconductor. Noyce put his on silicon, solving some of the potential manufacturing problems of Kilby's design, and filed for a patent about six months after Kilby. Both patents, slightly different, were granted, which set off legal battles until the two agreed to cross-license to each other.
"As notable nowadays is the gentlemanly way Kilby and Noyce and their companies finally agreed to share the title of co-inventor and the royalties," says Harold Evans, author of They Made America: Two Centuries of Innovators from the Steam Engine to the Search Engine.
Noyce went on to co-found Intel. Atypical in tech history, Intel and TI both remain leaders in making the inventions they engendered.
In the early 1960s, TI challenged Kilby to create a product that would demonstrate to consumers the value of integrated circuits. So Kilby came up with the electronic calculator. It cost nearly $500 when introduced. In his later years, Kilby would say he was amazed such calculators now cost around $4.
"The cost decrease (of computer chips) has been a factor of millions to one," Kilby said in the interview.
Kilby won dozens of awards, including the Nobel Prize in 2000 and the National Medal of Technology in 1990. He also continued to inspire major players in technology.
"I only met him once or twice, but meeting him the first time left an impression," Andy Grove, former chairman of Intel, wrote in an e-mail Tuesday. "It was at an electrical engineering meeting. He was sitting at a table, having drinks, and I was invited to join by someone. I was maybe a year out of school (very junior) and Kilby was a towering figure, both metaphorically and physically. He reached out to me, was very friendly, down-to-earth, and best of all, he wore a pair of hearing aids, just like I did in those days. The combination worked to break the ice, and we had a good technical conversation."
"His death is a great loss to the engineering and scientific communities," says Gordon Bell, who helped invent the minicomputer while at Digital Equipment in the 1960s and now works at Microsoft Research. "As an engineer, the inspiration and my admiration comes from (Kilby) being the co-inventor of one of the greatest inventions of all time."
By Kevin Maney
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Sarcopenia & Its Costs
Sarcopenia is the progressive loss of skeletal muscle that comes with aging. Most people begin to lose modest amounts of muscle mass after age 30, but the resulting loss of strength increases exponentially with age. Sarcopenia is thought to play a major role in the increased frailty and functional impairment that comes with age.
Possible effects of sarcopenia include decreased muscle strength, problems with mobility, frailty, weak bones (osteoporosis), falls and fractures, decreased activity levels, diabetes, middle‐age weight gain and a loss of physical function and independence.
The Human Costs of Sarcopenia:
- Recent estimates indicate that approximately 45% of the older U.S. population is affected by sarcopenia. That equates to 18 million people in 2010, a number that will only continue to rise.
- The risk of disability is 1.5 to 4.6 times higher in older persons with sarcopenia than in older persons with normal muscle.
Stats from: Janssen I, Shepard DS, Katzmarzyk PT, Roubenoff R. The Healthcare Costs of Sarcopenia in the United States. Journal of the American Geriatric Society 52:80–85, 2004.)
The Economic Costs of Sarcopenia:
- The estimated direct healthcare cost attributable to sarcopenia in the United States in 2000 was $18.5 billion ($10.8 billion in men, $7.7 billion in women), which represented about 1.5% of total healthcare expenditures for that year. (Janssen I, Shepard DS, Katzmarzyk PT, Roubenoff R. The Healthcare Costs of Sarcopenia in the United States. Journal of the American Geriatric Society 52:80–85, 2004.)
- People with chronic illnesses and activity limitations caused by conditions like sarcopenia have more physician visits and fill more prescriptions than those individuals with no activity limitations, all of which presents a greater burden on our health care system. These individuals also have more health visits.The United States spends more than $26 billion annually on additional health care costs for people over 65 who lose their ability to live independently over the course of a single year.(Alliance for Aging Research , Silver Book: Chronic Disease and Medical Innovation in an Aging Nation http://silverbook.org/fact/31 28 September 2011)
Why we need to act:
- A 10% reduction in the sarcopenic population would save $1.1 billion. (Janssen I, Shepard DS, Katzmarzyk PT, Roubenoff R. The Healthcare Costs of Sarcopenia in the United States. Journal of the American Geriatric Society 52:80–85, 2004.)
- Though sarcopenia contributes to numerous other health problems and accounts for a similar percentage of healthcare costs as osteoporosis, no public health campaigns are directly aimed at reducing the prevalence of sarcopenia. (Janssen I, Shepard DS, Katzmarzyk PT, Roubenoff R. The Healthcare Costs of Sarcopenia in the United States. Journal of the American Geriatric Society 52:80–85, 2004.)
Current Sarcopenia Management Strategies
Exercise & Nutrition
While pharmaceutical options will expand with further research, resistance training proves to be the safest and most effective strategy to combat sarcopenia, to preserve physical strength and function, and to maintain mobility and independence. Studies confirm that resistance training of the appropriate intensity produces significant gains in strength and muscle mass in older people, with effects similar to those exhibited by younger counter parts. This form of exercise stimulates muscle synthesis and promotes bone health, preventing both falls and fractures.
Diet also plays an important role in the prevention of sarcopenia. Adults tend to consume fewer calories with age and often do not meet their recommended daily allowance of dietary protein, which may contribute to the slowing of muscle protein synthesis. Research suggests that older adults should increase their protein consumption, especially individuals who continue to be active, in order to augment the results of resistance training.
Where the Promise Lies: Current Research
With more than 18 million older Americans living with sarcopenia, age related muscle wasting, and functional decline, it is imperative that the research community and policymakers devote greater resources toward this often overlooked chronic health care challenge.
Though there is a lack of solid medical consensus on causes and exact symptoms of sarcopenia, alongside a lack of regulatory recognition of the condition, there are several areas of research that show great promise. However, while basic research suggests success, the overarching theme for many of these therapies is that they still are largely unexplored or problematic. These research possibilities underscore the need for greater regulatory and research channels to help translate the findings into real management solutions for sarcopenia and functional decline.
Some of the initial research being explored includes:
Men with low testosterone levels frequently exhibit low muscle mass. While basic research suggests testosterone therapy may improve strength in elderly male subjects, testosterone therapy has demonstrated limited clinical success. While subjects did exhibit increased muscle mass, most studies fail to link the hormone to improved functional performance and reduced risk of mortality. The safety of testosterone therapy also remains undetermined; the risks of testosterone therapy include cardiac complications and prostate cancer.
Though initial research shows promise, further research and development is needed for testosterone therapy to become a viable strategy for the management of sarcopenia or functional decline.
More information on testosterone therapy:
A new class of drugs known as selective androgen receptor modulators, or SARMs, show promise in initial research to promote greater muscle mass and strength by targeting specific areas with androgen, the primary male sex hormone. SARMs are similar in function to testosterone, but have been shown to have fewer negative effects on the prostate or cardiovascular system. As in other areas of research in muscle wasting and functional strength, though preliminary results of SARMs research show tremendous potential, the findings warrant further study and development to completely determine their safety and effectiveness.
More information on SARMs:
- PubMed: Drug Insight: testosterone and selective androgen receptor modulators as anabolic therapies for chronic illness and aging
- Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism: Selective Androgen Receptor Modulators (SARMs): A Novel Approach to Androgen Therapy for the New Millennium
The administration of GH does not reverse the symptoms of sarcopenia despite the promise of early research and well documented benefits of GH on adolescent growth disorders. Sarcopenic patients treated with GH presented deleterious side effects more profound than any benefit from the therapy. This failure suggests the role of GH on muscle growth is more complex than previously conceived and scientists continue to study the effect of related hormones (I-GF1 and ghrelin) on muscle wasting.
Multiple factors place the elderly at risk for Vitamin D deficiency and low levels of the vitamin are linked to slowed muscle processes. Studies show the direct administration of Vitamin D3 reduces the risk of falls, the leading cause of death and disability in sarcopenic patients. This correlation adds compelling evidence to the hypothesis that Vitamin D improves muscle strength.
More information on Vitamin D and Sarcopenia:
- PubMed: Vitamin D deficiency is associated with sarcopenia in older Koreans
- British Medical Journal: Recent developments in vitamin D deficiency and muscle weakness among elderly people
- American Journal of Clinical Nutrition: Vitamin D deficiency, muscle function, and falls in elderly people
Another arising treatment evolves from the manipulation of the renin-angiotensin system. Angiotensin II-converting enzyme has a powerful impact on muscle atrophy as well as indirect effects on numerous mechanisms linked to the progression of sarcopenia, including inflammatory response. Scientists continue to explore the use of ACE inhibitors to treat sarcopenic patients and serves as noteworthy development.
More information on ACE Inhibitors:
Age and Ageing: ACE inhibitors for sarcopenia—as good as exercise training?
Sarcopenia Fact Sheet
Sarcopenia is an under-recognized, chronic health care challenge that represents a huge economic cost to our already burdened health care system, as well as a diminished quality of life for older Americans.
Learn more about sarcopenia and its costs. Download our Sarcopenia Fact Sheet
AIM Meeting Resources
On March 28, 2014, the AIM Coalition hosted a meeting with FDA, health and science experts on the latest advances in sarcopenia treatment. The links below offer information that is available for download.
Featured Resources from AIM Members
- Society for Women’s Health Research: Sex and Gender Differences in Sarcopenia
- American Society for Bone and Mineral Research:
- Muscle and Bone Interactions – Webcast from the ASBMR 2011 Annual Meeting on new research on cellular interactions and connections between bone and muscle function
- Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
- American Physical Therapy Association:
More Patient Resources
Health & Aging Organizations
- National Association of Area Agencies on Aging
- Older Women’s League
- American Geriatrics Society
- The Gerontological Society of America
- Muscular Dystrophy Association
- Society for Women’s Health Research
- National Hispanic Council on Aging
- National Association for Hispanic Elderly
- Men’s Health Network
- Alliance for Aging Research
Agencies and Institutes
- National Institute on Aging
- National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases
- Foundation for the National Institutes of Health
Exercise and Physical Activity
- Go4Life: An exercise and physical activity campaign from the National Institute on Aging at NIH, designed to help you fit exercise and physical activity into your daily life.
- The Journal of the American Medical Association: Fitness for Older Adults
- Medline Plus: Exercise for Seniors
- American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons: Seniors and Exercise
- International Osteoporosis Foundation: What is Sarcopenia, with info on prevention, diagnosis and treatment
- National Association of Nutrition and Aging Services Programs
- Nutrition and Aging, Colorado State University Cooperative Extension
- USDA, Eat Smart, Live Strong: Nutrition Education for Older Adults
- Resistance Exercise for the Prevention of Age-related Sarcopenia (REPAiRS)(NCT01355861). The purpose of this study is to determine the benefits of negative work progressive resistance exercise (PRE) for the conservative management of sarcopenia in older male Veterans at the DC VAMC. Efficacy will be assessed by examining post-exercise changes in metabolic and inflammatory markers, muscle morphology, strength, and functional status.
- Blood Flow, Muscle Regeneration and Sarcopenia(NCT01035060): Reduced muscle blood flow in advanced age appears to be a significant factor in reducing skeletal muscle regenerative capacity, but few data exist to confirm this hypothesis. Thus to test this hypothesis we aim to conduct a translational pilot trial which examines regeneration in both young and old adults. Furthermore, we aim to determine if muscle blood flow and satellite cell number are associated with muscle function. The central hypothesis of this proposal is that age-related declines in skeletal muscle angiogenesis and perfusion are significant causal factors in age-related losses of skeletal muscle mass.
Información acerca de sarcopenia:
- Sarcopenia en ancianos, Endocrinología y Nutrición
- Observatorio de la Sarcopenia de la Sociedad Española de Geriatría y Gerontología
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Illustration: Gregory Proch
Commonly known as the “Grease Gun” because of its similarity in appearance to the mechanic’s tool of the same name, the M-3 submachine gun was the simplest firearm issued to U.S. combat troops in the 20th century. In Vietnam, the Grease Gun was a favorite because it provided instant close-range firepower, was tolerant of the field environment and was easy to maintain.
Entering U.S. Army service in 1943 as a low-cost replacement for the 1928 Thompson or M-1 submachine gun, the M-3 and its improved M-3A1 variant saw extensive service in World War II and Korea. The initial production model, with its prominent cocking handle, had been replaced completely by the M-3A1 before any U.S. troops deployed to Vietnam. Lighter and more reliable than the earlier version, the M-3A1 was issued to South Vietnamese army, air force and regional forces as part of America’s military assistance program. American forces also carried the M-3A1, particularly in the early years before the M-16 was issued in large numbers. Even then, virtually every American and South Vietnamese tank crew carried at least one M-3A1 aboard. It could also be found on U.S. Navy ships, river gunboats, among SEAL teams and in military police units.
The Grease Gun was a blowback-operated submachine gun that fired a .45-caliber pistol round from a 30-round magazine loaded from underneath the receiver. It could be easily converted to fire 9mm ammunition. The M-3A1 fired over an open bolt and only in fully automatic mode. It had no mechanical means of disengaging the trigger. Inserting the magazine loaded the weapon, and opening the ejector port made it ready to fire. Closing the ejector port prevented it from firing. Some guns had a flash hider, but that was not a standard feature.
All parts of the M-3A1 were stamped except for the barrel, bolt and firing mechanism, which were precision machined. That not only reduced manufacturing costs, but it also facilitated field maintenance. One could cannibalize a damaged weapon to repair a salvageable one. The Grease Gun was a robust, comparatively light automatic weapon that was easy to clean and maintain.
The only consistent complaints about the M-3A1 were its tendency to rust in salt-air environments, and loaded Grease Guns could fire when dropped on a hard surface with sufficient force to open the ejector port and shock the trigger. However, its simplicity and reliability made it a popular weapon in Vietnam among helicopter and tank crews, Provincial Reconnaissance Units, Mobile Strike (Mike) Force and Civilian Irregular Defense Groups. It was also found in most Army of the Republic of Vietnam infantry squads before 1970, and the Viet Cong used captured Grease Guns, alongside some former Nationalist Chinese weapons provided by the People’s Republic in the late 1950s. More than 670,000 were produced before the last production line was closed in 1952, and served with the U.S. Army until 1992.
M-3A1 Grease Gun
Length with stock 22.8 in.
Barrel length 6 in.
Ammunition .45 cal. / 9mm
Weight loaded 9.7 lbs.
Weight empty 7.6 lbs.
Max. rate of fire 360-450 rounds/min.
Nom. rate of fire 60-80 rounds/min.
Max. effective range 100-150 meters
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- freely available
Design of an Angle Detector for Laser Beams Based on Grating Coupling
AbstractA novel angle detector for laser beams is designed in this paper. It takes advantage of grating coupling to couple the incident light into a slab waveguide; and, the incident light’s angle can be determined by reading the outputs of light detectors within the waveguide. This device offers fast-responding on-chip detection of laser beam’s angle. Compared to techniques based on quadrant photodiodes or lateral effect photodiodes, the device in this paper has far greater detectable range (up to a few degrees, to be specific). Performance of the laser angle detector in this paper is demonstrated by finite-difference-time-domain simulations. Numerical results show that, the detectable angle range can be adjusted by several design parameters and can reach [−4°, 4°]. The laser beam angle detector in this paper is expected to find various applications such as ultra-fast optical interconnects.
Share & Cite This Article
Saha, T.K.; Lu, M.; Ma, Z.; Zhou, W. Design of an Angle Detector for Laser Beams Based on Grating Coupling. Micromachines 2012, 3, 36-44.View more citation formats
Saha TK, Lu M, Ma Z, Zhou W. Design of an Angle Detector for Laser Beams Based on Grating Coupling. Micromachines. 2012; 3(1):36-44.Chicago/Turabian Style
Saha, Tapas Kumar; Lu, Mingyu; Ma, Zhenqiang; Zhou, Weidong. 2012. "Design of an Angle Detector for Laser Beams Based on Grating Coupling." Micromachines 3, no. 1: 36-44.
Notes: Multiple requests from the same IP address are counted as one view.
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Table of Contents
Part I: Fossil Remains of Early Man
and the Record of Genesis
Where Did Man First Appear?
evolutionary origin was proposed, it was generally agreed that
the Cradle of Mankind was in Asia Minor or at least in the Middle
East area. Any evidence of primitive types elsewhere in the world,
whether living or fossil, were considered proof that man had
degenerated as he departed from the site of Paradise. When evolution
captured the imagination of anthropologists, then primitive fossil
remains were at once hailed as proof that the first men were
constitutionally not much removed from apes. One problem presented
itself almost from the beginning, however, and this was that
these supposed ancestors of modern man always seemed to turn
up in the wrong places. The basic assumption was still being
made that the Middle East was the home of Man and therefore these
primitive fossil types, which were turning up anywhere but in
this area, seemed entirely misplaced. Osborn, in his Men of
the Old Stone Age, accounted for this anomaly by arguing
that they were migrants. He asserted his conviction that both
the human and animal inhabitants of Europe, for example, had
migrated there in great waves from Asia and from Africa. In the
latter case, he wrote that it was probable that the source of
the migratory waves was also Asia, North Africa being merely
the route of passage. This was his position in 1915, and when
a third edition of his famous book appeared in 1936, he had modified
his original views only slightly. Thus he has a map of the Old
World with this subscription, "Throughout this long epoch
Western Europe is to be viewed as a peninsula, surrounded on
all sides by the sea and stretching westwards from the great
land mass of Eastern Europe and Asia ‹ which was the chief
theatre of evolution, both of animal and human life." (56) However, in 1930 and contrary
to expectations, H. J. Fleure had to admit: (57)
56. Osborn, H. F., Men of the Old Stone
Age, Scribners, New York, 1936, p.19f.
1 of 18
57. Fleure, H. J., The Races of Mankind, Benn, London,
traces of the men and cultures of the later part of the Old Stone
Age (known in Europe as the Aurignacian, Solutrean, and Magdalenian
phases) have been discovered in the central highland of Asia.
remained essentially the same when, twenty years later, Wilhelm
Koppers observed: (58)
It is a remarkable fact that
so far all the fossil men have been found in Europe, the Far
East, and Africa, that is, in the marginal regions of Asia that
are most unlikely to have formed the cradle of the human race.
No remains are known to us from Central Asia where most scholars
who have occupied themselves with the origin of man would place
the earliest races.
It is true that
some fossil men have now been found in the Middle East but far
from telling against this area as being central to subsequent
migration, they seem to me to argue indirectly ‹ and therefore
with more force ‹ in favour of it. We shall return to this
Griffith Taylor of the University
of Toronto, in speaking of migratory movements in general whether
in prehistoric or historic times, wrote: (59)
A series of zones is shown to
exist in the East Indies and in Australasia which is so arranged
that the most primitive are found farthest from Asia, and the
most advanced nearest to Asia. This distribution about Asia is
shown to be true in other "peninsulas" [i.e., Africa
and Europe], and is of fundamental importance in discussing the
evolution and ethnological status of the peoples concerned. .
Which ever region we consider,
Africa, Europe, Australia, or America, we find that the major
migrations have always been from Asia.
with some of the indices which he employs for establishing possible
relationships between groups in different geographical areas,
he remarked: (60)
How can one explain the close
resemblance between such far distant types as are here set forth?
Only the spreading of racial zones from a common cradle land
[his emphasis] can possibly explain these biological affinities.
subsequently, in dealing with African ethnology, he observed:
The first point of interest
in studying the distribution of the African peoples is that the
same rule holds good which we have observed in the Australasian
peoples. The most primitive groups are found in the regions most
distant from Asia, or what comes to the same thing, in the most
inaccessible of regions. . . .
Given these conditions it seems
logical to assume that the racial
58. Koppers, W., Primitive Man and His
World Picture, translated by Edith Raybould, Shedd and Ward,
New York, 1936, p.239.
59. Taylor, Griffith, Environment, Race and Migration,
University of Toronto, 1945, p.9, 10.
60. Taylor, G., ibid., p.67.
61. Taylor, G., ibid., p.120, 121.
zones can only have resulted from similar
peoples spreading out like waves from a common origin. This cradle-land
should be approximately between the two "peninsulas,"
and all indications (including the racial distribution of India)
point to a region of maximum evolution not far from Turkestan.
It is not unlikely that the time factor was similar in the spread
of all these peoples.
In a similar
vein, Dorothy Garrod wrote: (62)
It is becoming more and more
clear that it is not in Europe that we must seek the origins
of the various paleolithic peoples who successfully overran the
west. . . . The classification of de Mortillet therefore
only records the order of arrival [my emphasis] in the
West of a series of cultures, each of which has originated and
probably passed through the greater part of its existence elsewhere.
So also wrote
V. G. Childe: (63)
Our knowledge of the archaeology
of Europe and of the Ancient East has enormously strengthened
the Orientalist's position. Indeed we can now survey continuously
interconnected provinces throughout which cultures are seen to
be zoned in regularly descending grades round the centers of
urban civilization in the Ancient East. Such zoning is the best
possible proof of the Orientalist's postulate of diffusion.
in writing about the possible cradle of Homo sapiens,
gave a very cursory review of the chief finds of fossil man (to
that date, 1932), including finds from Java, Kenya, Rhodesia,
and Heidelberg, and then gave a map locating them; and he remarked:
It does not seem probable to
me that any of these localities could have been the original
point from which the earliest man migrated. The distances, combined
with many geographical barriers, would tend to make a theory
of this nature untenable. I suggest that an area more or less
equidistant from the outer edges of Europe, Asia, and Africa,
may indeed be the center in which development took place.
It is true that
these statements were written before the recent discoveries in
South Africa, or in the Far East at Choukoutien, or in the New
World. Of the South African finds we have already spoken ‹
and they do not concern us here since there is no general agreement
that they are truly fossils of man or even, in the opinions of
some, ancestral to him. The finds at Choukoutien, as we shall
attempt to show, support the present thesis in an interesting
way. As for the
62. Garrod, Dorothy, "Nova et Vetera:
a Plea for a New Method in Paleolithic Archaeology," Proceedings
of the Prehistoric Society of East, Anglia, vol.5, p.261.
63. Childe, V. Gordon, Dawn of European Civilization,
Kegan Paul, London, 3rd edition, 1939. In the 1957 edition Childe
in his introduction invites his readers to observe that he has
modified his "dogmatic" orientation a little, but he
still concludes at the end of the volume (p.342): "the primacy
of the Orient remains unchallenged."
64. Field, Henry, "The Cradle of Homo Sapiens," American
Journal of Archeology, Oct.-Dec., 1932, p.427.
New World, no one has
ever yet proposed that it was the Cradle of Mankind. Nor do fossils
in it antedate the supposedly earliest fossil men in the Old
World. Thus the Middle East could still retain priority as the
home of Man, although in the matter of dating it must be admitted
that no authority with a reputation for orthodox scholarship
at stake would ever propose it was a homeland so recently ‹
by our reckoning only 4,500 to 5,000 years ago. The problem of
time therefore remains. And at the moment we have no answer to
it, but we can continue to explore further lines of evidence
which in most other respects assuredly do support the thesis
set forth in this Paper.
Part of this evidence, curiously
enough, is the fact of diversity of physical type found within
what appear to have been single families (since the fossils are
found all together and seem to be contemporary). This has been
a source of some surprise, though readily enough accounted for
on the basis of central dispersion. Some years ago, W. D. Matthew
made the following observation: (65)
Whatever agencies may be assigned
as the cause of evolution in a race, it should be at first most
progressive at its point of original dispersal. . . .
is in order on this observation because there are important implications
in it. Lebzelter pointed out that "where man lives in large
conglomerations, physical form tends to be stable while culture
becomes specialized: where he lives in small isolated groups,
culture is stable but specialized races evolve." (66) According to Lebzelter,
this is why racial differentiation was more marked in the earlier
stages of man's history. The explanation of this fact is clear
enough. In a very small, closely inbreeding population, genes
for odd characters have a much better chance of being homozygously
expressed so that such characters appear in the population with
greater frequency, and tend to be perpetuated. On the other hand,
such a small population may have so precarious an existence that
the margin of survival is too narrow to encourage or permit cultural
diversities to find expression. Thus physical type is variant
but is accompanied by cultural conformity. Whereas in a large
and well established community, a physical norm begins to appear
as characteristic of that population, while the security resulting
from numbers allows for a greater range of cultural divergence.
65. Matthew W. D., "Climate and Evolution,"
Annals of the New York Academy of Science, vol.24, 1914,
66. Lebzelter, quoted by W. Koppers in his Primitive Man,
translated by Edith Raybould, Sheed & Ward, New York, 1952,
p.220. His view was sustained by Le Gros Clark, Journal of
the Royal Anthropological lnstitute, vol.88, Part
II, July-Dec., 1958, p.133.
the very beginning, we might therefore expect to find in the
central area a measure of physical diversity and cultural uniformity;
and at each secondary or provincial centre in its initial stages,
the same situation would reappear. The physical diversity to
be expected on the foregoing grounds would, it is now known,
be exaggerated even further by the fact (only comparatively recently
recognized) that when any established species enters a new environment
it at once gives expression to a new and greater power of diversification
in physical form. As LeGros Clark put it: (67)
High variability (in type) may
be correlated with the fact that (at that time) the rate of hominid
evolution was proceeding rather rapidly with the deployment of
relatively small and often contiguous populations into widely
dispersed areas with contrasting and changing environments.
The fact of
initial variability has been widely recognized. Richard B. Goldschmidt
spoke of it as a nearly universal phenomenon: (68)
The facts of greatest general
importance are the following. When a new phylum, class, or order
appears, there follows a quick explosive (in terms of geological
time) diversification so that practically all orders or families
known appear suddenly and without apparent transitions.
Thus we have
in reality three factors, all of which are found to be still
in operation in living populations, which must have contributed
to the marked variability of early fossil human remains, particularly
where several specimens are found in a single site as at Choukoutien,
for example, or at Obercassel, or Mount Carmel.
These factors may then be summarized
as follows: (1) A new species is more variable when it first
appears. (2) A small population is more variable than a large
one. (3) When a species (or a few members of it) shifts into
a new environment, wide variation again appears that only becomes
stable with time. To these should be added a fourth, namely,
that small populations are likely to be highly conservative in
their culture, thus maintaining many links with the parent body
though widely extended geographically.
Vere Gordon Childe observed: (69)
Firmly entrenched instances,
passionately held superstitions, are notoriously inimical to
social change and the scientific advances that make it necessary.
And the force of such reaction in a community seems to be inversely
proportional to the community's economic security, a group always
on the brink of starvation dare not risk a change.
67. Clark, Sir W. LeGros, "Bones of Contention,"
Human Evolution: Readings in Physical Anthropology, edited
by N. Korn and F. Thompson, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New
York, 1967, p.301.
68. Goldschmidt, Ralph B., "Evolution As Viewed by One Geneticist,"
American Scientist, vol.40, Jan., 1952, p.97; and see
for additional material on this point, "The Supposed Evolution
of the Human Skull," Part IV in this volume.
69. Childe, V. Gordon, Man Makes Himself, Thinker's Library,
Watts, London, 1948, p.99.
remains constantly bear witness to the reality of these factors,
but the witness has meaning and the facts are best accounted
for only if we assume that a small population began at the centre
and, as it became firmly established there, sent out successive
waves of migrants usually numbering very few persons in any one
group who thereafter established a further succession of centres,
the process being repeated again and again until early man had
spread into every habitable part of the world. Each new centre
at the first showed great diversity of physical type but as the
population multiplied locally a greater physical uniformity was
achieved in the course of time. Where such a subsidiary centre
was wiped out before this uniformity had been achieved and where
chance preserved their remains, the diversity was captured and
frozen for our examination. At the same time in marginal areas
where individuals or families were pushed out even further by
those who followed them, circumstances often combined to degrade
them so grossly that fossil man naturally tends towards a bestial
form ‹ but for quite secondary reasons. This is supported
by a statement of Le Gros Clark, for example. In discussing Heidelberg
Man, he asks whether he represents a separate species of man
or may not be "merely a deviant peripheral isolate."
(70) Clark virtually
admits the same possibility for Neanderthal Man. After referring
to him as "an aberrant side line . . . a sort of evolutionary
retrogression," he goes on to say, "If the remains
of Neanderthal Man are placed in their chronological sequence,
it appears that some of the earlier fossils, dating from the
earlier part of the Mousterian period are less 'Neanderthaloid'
in their skeletal characters (and thus approach more closely
to Homo sapiens) than the extreme Neanderthal type of later
date [my emphasis]." (71)
On the other hand, in the earliest
stages of the migrations
70. Clark, LeGros, "Bones of Contention,"
in Human Evolution: Readings in Physical Anthropology,
edited by N. Korn and F. Thompson, Holt, Rinehart & Winston,
New York, 1967, p.239.
71. Clark, W. LeGros, History of the Primates, Phoenix
Books, University of Chicago, 1957, pp.163, 164. The 1966 edition
of the Encyclopedia Britannica, vol.14 (p.738) has this observation:
"In the early days of paleoanthropological discovery, Homo
Neanderthalensis was commonly assumed to represent the ancestral
ape from which Homo sapiens derived. . . .
But the accumulation of further discoveries made
it clear that these apparently primitive features are secondary
-- the result of a retrogressive evolution from still earlier
types which do not appear to be specifically distinguishable
from Homo sapiens."
Wilfred E. LeGros Clark notes that Neanderthal Man
"disappeared from Europe quite abruptly, to be replaced
by a population of the modern Homo sapiens type. Presumably,
the latter spread into Europe from a neighbouring area, perhaps
the Middle East, and by replacement led to the extinction of
Homo Neanderthalensis." See his "The Crucial Evidence
for Human Evolution," American Scientist, vol.47,
cultural uniformity would
not only be the rule in each group but necessarily also be found
between the groups themselves. And this, too, has been found
to be so. Indeed, following the rule enunciated above, the most
primitive fragments which had been pushed furthest to the rim
might logically be expected to have the greatest proportion of
shared culture elements, so that links would not be surprising
if found between such peripheral areas as the New World, Europe,
Australia, South Africa, and so forth ‹ which is exactly
what has been observed.
Such lines of evidence force upon
us the conclusion that we should not look to these marginal areas
for a picture of the initial stages of man's cultural development
nor for a picture of his original appearance. It is exactly in
these marginal areas that we shall not find these things. The
logic of this was both evident to and flatly rejected by E. A.
Hooten who remarked: (72)
The adoption of such a principle
would necessitate the conclusion that the places where one finds
existing primitive forms of any order of animal are exactly the
places where these animals could not have originated. . . .
But this is the principle of "lucus
a non lucendo," i.e., finding light just where one ought
not to do so, which pushed to its logical extreme would lead
us to seek for the birthplace of man in that area where there
are no traces of ancient man and none of any of his primate
precursors [my emphasis].
the principle may be true ‹ even if it does contradict evolutionary
William Howells has written at some length
on the fact that, as he puts it, "all the visible footsteps
lead away from Asia." (73) He then examined the picture with respect to the
lines of migration taken by the "Whites" (Caucasoids)
and observed that at the beginning they were entrenched in southwest
Asia "apparently with the Neanderthals to the north and
west of them." He then proposed that while most of them
made their way into both Europe and North Africa, some of them
may have travelled east through central Asia into China, which
would explain, possibly, the Ainus and the Polynesians. He thought
that the situation with respect to the Mongoloids was pretty
straightforward, their origin having been somewhere in the same
area as the Whites, from which they peopled the East. The dark
skinned peoples are, as he put it, "a far more formidable
puzzle." He thought that the Australian aborigines can be
traced back as far as India with
72. Hooten, A. E., "Where Did Man Originate?"
Antiquity, June, 1927, p.149.
73. Howells, William, Mankind So Far, Doubleday, Doran,
New York, 1945, pp.295f.
some evidence of them
perhaps in southern Arabia. Presumably, the African Negroes are
to be traced also from the Middle East, possibly reaching Africa
by the Horn and therefore also via Arabia.
However, there are a number of
black skinned peoples who seem scattered here and there in a
way which he terms "the crowding enigma" ‹ a major
feature of which is the peculiar relationship between the Negroes
and the Negritos. Of these latter, he had this to say: (74)
They are [found] among the Negroes
in the Congo Forest, and they turn up on the eastern fringe of
Asia (the Andaman Islands, the Malay Peninsula, probably India,
and possibly formerly in southern China), in the Philippines,
and in New Guinea, and perhaps Australia with probable traces
in Borneo, Celebes, and various Melanesian Islands.
All of these are "refugee"
areas, the undesirable backwoods which the Pygmies have obviously
occupied as later more powerful people arrived in the same regions.
. . .
Several things stand out from these
facts. The Negritos must have had a migration from a common point.
. . And it is hopeless to assume that their point of origin was
at either end of their range . . . It is much more likely
that they came from some point midway which is in Asia.
There is, then,
a very wide measure of agreement that the lines of migration
radiate not from a point somewhere in Africa or Europe or the
Far East but from a geographical area which is to be closely
associated with that part of the world in which not only does
Scripture seem to say that man began physically populating the
world after the Flood, but also culturally. Looking at the spread
of civilization as we have looked at the spread of people, it
is clear that the lines follow the same course. The essential
difference, if we are taking note of current chronological sequences,
is that whereas the spread of people is held to have occurred
hundreds of thousands of years ago, the spread of civilization
is an event which has taken place very recently. I think that
man was making his long trek to the uttermost corners of the
world while at the very same time civilization was blossoming
at the centre.
It used to be argued that although
civilized man is a single species, these far-flung fossil remains
of man formed separate species in their own right and were therefore
not related to modern man in any simple way. Some have tentatively
proposed, for example, a concept like this by looking upon Neanderthal
Man as an earlier species or subspecies who was eliminated with
the appearance of so-called
74. Ibid., pp.298, 299.
(75) The association
of Neanderthals with moderns in the Mount Carmel finds seems
to stand against this. (76) And indeed, there is a very widespread agreement
today that, with the exception of course of the most recent South
African finds, all men ‹ fossil, prehistoric, historic, and
modern ‹ are one species, Homo sapiens. (77)
Ralph Linton viewed the varieties
of men revealed by fossil finds as being due to factors which
we have already outlined. As he put it: (78)
If we are correct in our belief
that all existing men belong to a single species, early man must
have been a generalized form with potentialities for evolving
into all the varieties which we know at present. It further seems
probable that this generalized form spread widely and rapidly
and that within a few thousand years of its appearance small
bands of individuals were scattered over most of the Old World.
These bands would find themselves
in many different environments, and the physical peculiarities
which were advantageous in one of these might be of no importance
or actually deleterious in another. Moreover, due to the relative
isolation of these bands and their habit of inbreeding, any mutation
which was favorable or at least not injurious under the particular
circumstances would have the best possible chance of spreading
to all members of the group.
It seems quite possible to account
for all the known variations in our species on this basis, without
invoking the theory of a small number of distinct varieties.
Viewed in this
light, degraded fossil specimens found in marginal regions should
neither be treated as "unsuccessful" evolutionary experiments
towards the making of true Homo sapiens types, nor as "successful
but only partially complete" phases or links between apes
and men. Indeed, as Griffith Taylor was willing to admit, "the
location of such 'missing' links as Pithecanthropus in Java,
etc., seems to have little bearing on the question of the human
cradle land." (79)
And he might in fact also have said, "on the question of
human origins." He concludes, "They are almost certainly
examples of a type which has been pushed out to the margins."
At a recent conference of anthropologists
one speaker was reported as having said: (80)
Many of the so called "primitive"
peoples of the world today, most of the participants agreed,
may not be so primitive after all. They
75. Weidenreich, Franz, Palacontologia
Sinica, Whole Series, No.127, 1943, p.276.
76. Romer, Alfred, Man and the Vertebrates, University
of Chicago Press, 1948, pp.219, 221.
77. Fossils of man as a whole: see F. Gaynor Evans in a note
on "The Names of Fossil Men," Science, vol.101,
1945, p.16, 17.
78. Linton, Ralph, The Study of Man, Appleton Century,
New York, 1936, p.26.
79. Taylor, Griffith, Environment, Race and Migration,
University of Toronto Press, 1945, p.282.
80. Reported in Science Yearbook, 1966, p.256.
suggested that certain hunting tribes
in Africa, Central India, South America, and the Western Pacific
are not relics of the Stone Age, as had been previously thought,
but instead are the "wreckage" of more highly developed
societies forced through various circumstances to lead a much
simpler, less-developed life.
Thus the way
in which one studies or views these fossil remains is very largely
coloured by whether one's thinking is in terms of biological
or historical processes. And A. Portmann of Vienna has remarked:
One and the same piece of evidence
will assume totally different aspects according to the angle
‹ paleontological or historical ‹ from which we look
at it. We shall see it either as a link in one of the many evolutionary
series that the paleontologist seeks to establish, or as something
connected with remote historical actions and developments that
we can hardly hope to reconstruct. Let me state clearly that
for my part I have not the slightest doubt that the remains of
early man known to us should all be judged historically.
approach towards the interpretation of the meaning of fossil
man has been explored in some detail by Wilhelm Koppers who thought
that "primitiveness in the sense of man being closer to
the beast" can upon occasion be the "result of a secondary
He believed that it would be far more logical to "evolve"
Neanderthal Man out of modern man than modern man out of Neanderthal
Man. He held, in fact, that they were a specialized and more
primitive type ‹ but later than modern man, at least in so
far as they occur in Europe.
Surprisingly enough, such a great
authority as Franz von Weidenreich was prepared to admit unequivocably,
"No fossil type of man has been discovered so far whose
characteristic features may not easily be traced back to
modern man" [emphasis mine]. (83)
Griffith Taylor has agreed with this opinion.
He observed, "evidence is indeed accumulating that the paleolithic
folk of Europe were much more closely akin to races now living
on the periphery of the Euro-African regions than was formerly
Many years ago, in fact, Sir William Dawson pursued this theme
and explored it at some length in his beautifully written but
almost completely ignored work entitled Fossil Man and Their
Modern Representatives. (85) At the Cold Springs Harbor Symposia on Quantitative
Biology held in 1950, T. D. Stewart
81. Portmann, A., Das Ursprungsproblem,
Eranos-Yahrbuck, 1947, p.11.
82. Koppers, Wilhelm, Primitive Man and his World View,
translated by Edith Raybould, Sheed and Ward, New York, 1952,
p.220 and 224.
83. Weidenreich, Franz, Apes, Giants and Man, Chicago
University Press, 1918, p.2.
84. Taylor, Griffith, Environment, Race and Migration,
University of Toronto Press, 1945, p.45.
85. Dawson, Sir J. William, Fossil Men and Their Modern Representatives,
Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1883, viii and 354 pages, illustrated.
in a paper entitled
"Earliest Representatives of Homo sapiens" stated his
conclusions in the following words, "Like Dobzhansky, therefore,
I can see no reason at present to suppose that more than a single
hominid species has existed on any time level in the Pleistocene."
Ernst Mayr is prepared to admit
the possibility that Heidelberg Man could be merely "a deviant
peripheral isolate," which would suggest that he should
no longer be viewed as a potentially early candidate ancestor
on account of his "brutish" appearance. (87)
The Pithecanthropocines are all
more or less peripheral to the traditional Cradle of Man. These
include Vertesszolles Man in Hungary, Ternifine Man in Algeria,
Olduvai Man in Tanzania, Swartkranz Man in South Africa, and
Lantian and Pekin Man in Java and China. Neanderthal Man, on
the other hand, occupies a position intermediate for cranial,
facial, and dental characteristics between Pithecanthropus and
Homo sapiens. (88)
The most primitive types being at the
margins and only essentially modern types so far found where
civilization had its source, it is to be expected that combinations
and intermediate forms would be found in the geographic areas
in between. Alfred Romer observed in commenting on the collection
of fossil finds from Palestine (Mugharet-et-Tabun, and Magharet-es-Skuhl),
"while certain of the skulls are clearly Neanderthal, others
show to a variable degree numerous neanthropic (i.e., 'modern
man') features." (89) Subsequently he identified such neanthropic skulls
as being of the general Cro-Magnon type in Europe ‹ type
of man who appears to have been a magnificent physical specimen.
He proposed later that the Mount Carmel people "may be considered
as due to interbreeding of the dominant race (Cro-Magnon Man)
with its lowly predecessors (Neanderthal Man)." The assumption
is still being made that the lower Neanderthal form preceded
the higher Cro-Magnon Man. William Howells said of the Skuhl
fossil group, "It is an extraordinary variation. There seems
to have been a single tribe ranging in type from
86. Stewart, T. D., "The Problem of the
eRliest Claimed Representatives of Homo sapiens" in The
Cold Springs Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology:
Origin and Evolution of Man, Biological Laboratories,
Cold Spring Harbour, New York, 1950, vol.15, p.105.
87.Mayr, Ernst, "The Taxonomic Evaluation of Fossil Remains"
in Human Evolution: Readings in Physical Anthropology,
edited by N. Korn and F. Thompson, Holt, Rinehart & Winston,
New York, 1967, p.239.
88. McCown, T.D., "The Genus Palaeoanthropus and the Problem
of Superspecific Differentiation Among the Hominidae." Cold
Springs Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology: Origin and Evolution
of Man, Cold Spring Harbor, New York, 1950 vol.15, p.92.
89. Romer, Alfred, Man and the Vertebrates, University
of Chicago Press, 1948, pp.219, 221.
to almost sapiens." (90) LeGros Clark was even prepared to omit the "almost."
As an extraordinary example of
the tremendous variability which an early, small isolated population
at the periphery can show, one cannot do better than refer to
the finds at Choukoutien in China, from the same locality in
which the famous Pekin Man was found. These fossil remains came
from what is known as the Upper Cave, and consist of a group
of seven people who appear to be members of one family: an old
man judged to be over 60, a younger man, two relatively young
women, an adolescent, a child of five, and a newborn baby. With
them were found implements, ornaments, and thousands of fragments
A study of these remains has produced
some remarkably interesting facts, the most important of which
in the present context is that, judged by cranial form, we have
in this one family a representative Neanderthal Man, a "Melanesian"
woman who reminds us of the Ainu, a Mongolian type, and another
who is rather similar to the modern Eskimo woman. In commenting
on these finds, Weidenreich expressed his amazement at the range
of variation. Thus he wrote: (92)
The surprising fact is not the
occurrence of paleolithic types of modern man which resemble
racial types of today, but their assemblage in one place and
even in a single family considering that these types are found
today settled in far remote regions.
to that of the "Old Man," as he has been named, have
been found in Upper Paleolithic, western Europe and northern
Africa: those closely resembling the Melanesian type, in the
Neolithic of Indo-China, among the ancient skulls from the Cave
of Lagoa Santa in Brazil, and in the Melanesian populations of
today; those closely resembling the Eskimo type occur among the
pre-Columbian Amerindians of Mexico and other places in North
America and among the Eskimos of western Greenland of today.
He then proceeded to point out
that the upper Paleolithic melting pot of Choukoutien "does
not stand alone." (93) In Obercassel in the Rhine Valley were found two
skeletons, an old male and a younger female, in a tomb of about
the same period as the burial in Choukoutien. Weidenreich said,
"The skulls are so different in appearance that one would
not hesitate to assign them to two races if they came from separate
localities." So confused is the picture that he observed: (94)
90. Howells William, Mankind So Far,
Doubleday, Doran, New York, 1945, p.202.
91. Clark, Sir W. LeGros, in Human Evolution, (ref.I),
92. Weidenreich, Franz, "Homo Sapiens at Choukoutien,"
News and Notes, in Antiquity, June, 1939, p.87.
93. Ibid. p.88.
anthropologists have gotten into a blind alley so far as the
definition and the range of individual human races and their
history is concerned. . . .
But one cannot push aside a whole
problem because the methods applied and accepted as historically
sacred have gone awry.
variability nevertheless still permits the establishment of lines
of relationship which appear to crisscross in every direction
as a dense network of evidence that these fossil remains for
the most part belong to a single family, the descendants of Ham.
Griffith Taylor linked together
Melanesians, Negroes, and American Indians. (95) The same authority proposed a relationship between
Java Man and Rhodesian Man. (96) He related certain Swiss tribes which seem to be
a pocket of an older racial stock with the people of northern
China, the Sudanese, the Bushmen of South Africa, and the Aeta
of the Philippines. (97)
He would also link the Predmost Skull to Aurignacian folk and
to the Australoids. (98)
Macgowan (99) and
Montagu (100) were
convinced that the aboriginal populations of central and southern
America contain an element of Negroid as well as Australoid people.
Grimaldi Man is almost universally admitted to have been Negroid
even though his remains lie in Europe. (101) But indeed, so widespread is the Negroid type that
even Pithecanthropus erectus was identified as Negroid by Buyssens.
Huxley maintained that the Neanderthal
race must be closely linked with the Australian aborigines particularly
from the Province of Victoria; (103) and other authorities held that the same Australian
people are to be related to the famous Canstadt Race. (104) Alfred Romer related
Solo Man from Java with Rhodesian Man from Africa. (105) Hrdlicka likewise related
the Oldoway Skull with LaQuina Woman;
95. Taylor, Griffith, Environment, Race
and Migration, University of Toronto Press, 1945, p.11.
96. Ibid., p.60. His argument here is based on head form,
which he considers conclusive.
97. Ibid., p.67. He feels only a "common cradle land"
can possibly explain the situation.
98. Ibid., p.134.
99. Macgowan, Kenneth, Early Man in the New World, Macmillan,
New York, 1950, p.26.
100. Montagu, Ashley, Introduction to Physical Anthropology,
Thomas, Springfield, Illinois, 1947, p.113.
101. Weidenreich, Franz, "Homo sapiens at Choukoutien",
News and Notes, Antiquity, June, 1939, p.88.
102. Buyssens, Paul, Les Trois Races de l'Europe et du Monde,
Brussels, 1936, reviewed by G. Grant MacCurdy, American Journal
of Archaeology, Jan.-Mar., 1937, p.154.
103. Huxley, Thomas, quoted by D. Garth Whitney, "Primeval
Man in Belgium," Transactions of the Victoria Institute,
London, vol.40, 1908, p.38.
104. According to D. Garth Whitney, ibid.
105. Romer, Alfred, Man and the Vertebrates, University
of Chicago Press, 1948, p.223.
LaChapelle and others
to the basic African stock; (106) and held that they must also be related to Indian,
Eskimo, and Australian races. Even the Mauer Jaw is held to be
Eskimo in type. (107)
We cannot do better than sum up
this general picture in the words of Sir William Dawson who,
far in advance of his time, wrote of fossil man in Europe, in
What precise relationship do
these primitive Europeans bear to one another? We can only say
that all seem to indicate one basic stock, and this is allied
to the Hamitic stock of northern Asia which has its outlying
branches to this day both in America and in Europe.
is perfectly true that the thesis we are presenting has against
it in the matter of chronology the whole weight of scientific
opinion, it is nevertheless equally true that the interpretation
of the data in this fashion makes wonderful sense and, indeed,
would have allowed one to predict both the existence of widespread
physical relationships as well as an exceptional variableness
within the members of any one family. In addition to these anatomical
"linkages" there are, of course, a very great many
cultural linkages. One such linkage is the painting of the bones
of the deceased with red ochre ‹ a custom which not so very
long ago was still being practiced by the American Indians and
which has been observed in prehistoric burials in almost every
part of the world.
The circumstances are worth a moment's
consideration because it is hard to explain the phenomenon as
simply evidence "that men's minds work pretty much the same
everywhere." It might be true of the use of flint for weapons,
the making of wooden spears, or the use of leather for clothing,
because all these things serve needs which men everywhere are
apt to experience. But painting bones with red ochre serves no
strictly "useful" purpose, nor can it be said that
in most known cases the practice contributed to beautification.
It is difficult to know precisely what purpose it did serve.
But it certainly was very widespread.
One of the first notices of this
practice was the finding in 1823 by William Buckland of a female
skeleton in a cave near Paviland which was painted with red ochre.
(109) His find
came to be known as "The Red Lady of Paviland." In
the New World the same practice
106. Hrdlicka, Ales, "Skeletal Remains
of Early Man," Smithsonian Institute, Miscellaneous Collections,
vol.83, 1930, p. 342ff.
107. Ibid., p.98. And see William S. Laughlin, "Eskimos
and Aleuts: Their Origins and Evolution," Science,
vol.142, 8 Nov.,1963, p. 639, 642.
108. Dawson, Sir J. William, "Primitive Man and Revelation,"
Transactions of the Victoria Institute, London, vol.8,
1874, p. 60, 61.
109. Buckland, quoted by Kenneth Macgowan, Early Man in the
New World, Macmillan, New York, 1950, p.52.
recurs, though much
later in time. Thus between A.D. 700 and A.D. 1100, in the cultural
sequences which have been established in the Illinois area in
the United States, there is what has been termed the "Red
Ochre Culture," so-called because in almost every case bodies
were sprinkled with hematite. Sir William Dawson (110) had noted this circumstance
in other parts of the New World and remarked upon one burial
from the St. Lawrence Valley dated (at that time) as about 300
years old, in which warriors were buried with iron oxide treatment
of the face precisely similar to those discovered by Dr. Riviera
in a cave at Mentone on the border between France and Italy.
He suggested that in the case of the Indian burials it was an
attempt to provide the dead with the means to appear in the presence
of their ancestors with the appropriate war paint. Perhaps Dawson
was not too far from the truth when he argued that prehistoric
man quite probably enjoyed a culture very similar to that of
many Indian tribes when first discovered by the White Man. He
proposed that the very epithet "Red Indian" derives
from this use of red ochre. The Crow Indians painted the newborn
baby with grease and red paint, (111) which seems to suggest that the substance was held
to be of great potency in guaranteeing vitality ‹ both to
the newborn, the warrior, and to those who had gone to join the
spirits of their ancestors.
So powerful is this colouring material,
and so widespread is its use, that the Australian aborigines
in the central areas of Australia coat with it everything except
their spears and spear throwers. (112) Coon observes, "It is hard to say how much this
served them as a protection and lubricant." Even some of
their spear throwers are treated with red ochre (I have one),
though it is hard to know whether this is a concession to tourists.
At the other end of the world,
it appears that the Saxons also buried their dead, at least upon
occasion, in the company of red ochre, if not originally actually
painted with it. (113)
Surely such a custom could hardly arise everywhere indigenously
110. Dawson, Sir J. William, Fossil Men
and Their Modern Representatives, Hodder & Stoughton,
London, 1883, pp.19, 142, 143.
111. Murdock, G. P., Our Primitive Contemporaries, Macmillan,
NewYork, 1951, p.275.
112. Coon, Carleton S., A Reader in General Anthropology,
Holt, New York, 1948, p.226.
113. Childe, V. G.ordon, The Dawn of European Civilization,
Kegan Paul, London, 3rd edition, 1939, p.168; and elsewhere in
Europe, see pp.209, 254, 259. See also C. S. Coon, Reader
in General Anthropology, Holt, New York, 1948, p.226; George
P. Murdock, Our Primitive Contemporaries, Macmillan, New
York, 1934, p. 275; Kenneth Macgowan, Early Man in the New
World, Macmillan, New York, 1950, p.52; Sir J. William Dawson,
Fossil Men and Their Modern Representatives, Hodder &
Stoughton, London, 1883, p.19, 143; and in the Time Life Publications,
Early Man, edited by F. William Howell, Life Nature Library,
1965, p.156, and The Epic of Man, edited by Courtland
Canby, Time Inc., New York, 1961, pp.40, 41.
simply as an expression
of the tendency of men's minds to find similar answers to similar
needs, for where was the need? It seems much more reasonable
to assume it was spread by people who carried it with them as
they radiated from some central Cradle of Mankind.
And this brings us once more to
the question of the geographical position of this Cradle. Evidence
accumulates daily that, culturally speaking, the place of man's
origin was somewhere in the Middle East. No other region in the
world is as likely to have been the Home of Man if by man we
mean something more than merely an intelligent ape. Vavilov (114) and others (115) have repeatedly pointed
out that the great majority of the cultivated plants of the world,
especially the cereals, trace their origin there. Field remarked:
Iran may prove to have been
one of the nurseries of Homo sapiens. During the middle or upper
Paleolithic periods the climate, flora, and fauna of the Iranian
Plateau provided an environment suitable for human occupation.
Indeed, Ellsworth Huntington has postulated that during late
Pleistocene times southern Iran was the only [his emphasis]
region in which temperature and humidity were ideal, not only
for human conception and fertility but also for chances of survival.
exist as to the routes taken by Caucasoids, Negroids and Mongoloids,
as the world was peopled by the successive ebb and flow of migrations,
and while not one of these really establishes with certainty
how man originated as man, almost all of them make the
basic assumption that western Asia is his home as a creator of
From this centre one can trace
the movements of an early migration of Negroid people, followed
by Caucasoid people, in Europe. From this same area undoubtedly
there passed out into the East and the New World successive waves
of Mongoloid people, and the time taken need not have been so
great. Kenneth Macgowan said it has been estimated that men might
have covered the 4,000 miles from Harbin, Manchuria, to Vancouver
Island in as little as twenty years, (117) while Alfred Kidder said, (118) "A hunting pattern based primarily on big game
could have carried man to southern South America without the
necessity at that time of great localized adaptation. It could
have been effected with relative rapidity, so long as camel,
114. Vavilov, N. I., "Asia, the Source
of Species," Asia, Feb., 1937, p.113.
115. Cf. Harlan, T. R., "New World Crop Plants in Asia Minor,"
Scientific Monthly, Feb., 1951, p.87.
116. Field, Henry, "The Iranian Plateau Race," Asia,
Apr., 1940, p.217.
117. Macgowan K., Early Man in the New World, Macmillan,
New York, 1950, p.3 and map on p.4.
118. Kidder, Alfred, "Problems of the Historical Approach:
Results," in Appraisal of Anthropology Today, edited
by Sol Tan and Charles Callender, University of Chicago Press,
and elephant were available.
All the indications point to the fact that they were." According
to de Quatrefages, (119)
600,000 people made a trip from a point in Mongolia to China
during winter and under constant attack in just five months,
covering a distance of 700 leagues or 2100 miles; and though
this seems to be a staggering trip in so short a time, it actually
works out to an average of 14 miles per day.
In Africa, Wendell Phillips, (120) after studying the relationships
of various African tribes, concluded that evidence already existing
makes it possible to derive many of the tribes from a single
racial stock (particularly the Pygmies of the Ituri Forest and
the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert), which at a certain time
must have populated a larger part of the African continent only
to retreat to less hospitable regions as later Negroid tribes
arrived in the country. H. J. Fleure (121) held that evidence of a similar nature towards the
north and northeast of Asia, and on into the New World, was to
be discerned by a study in the change of head forms in fossil
remains, and it has even been suggested that the finds at Choukoutien
mean we have encountered some of these first pioneers on their
way to the Americas. Moreover, wherever tradition sheds light
on the subject, it invariably points in the same direction and
tells the same story. Many primitive people having recollections
of a former higher cultural standing, a circumstance explored
elsewhere by the writer at considerable length.
And thus we conclude that from
the family of Noah have sprung all the peoples of the world,
prehistoric and historic. The events described in connection
with Genesis 6 to 10 and particularly the prophetic statements
of Noah himself in Genesis 9:25‹28 with respect to the future
of his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, together combine to
provide us with the most reasonable account of the early history
of mankind, a history which, rightly understood, does not at
all require us to believe that modern man began with the stature
of an ape and only reached a civilized state after a long, long
evolutionary history, but made a fresh start as a single family
who carried with them into an unpeopled earth the accumulated
heritage of the pre-Flood world.
In summary, then, what we have
endeavoured to show in this Paper may be set forth briefly as
(1) The geographical distribution
of fossil remains is such that they are most logically explained
by treating them as marginal
119. de Quatrefages, A., L'Espece Humaine,
Balliere et Cie., Paris, 14th edition, 1905, pp.135,136.
120. Phillips, Wendell, "Further African Studies,"
Scientific Monthly, Mar., 1950, p.175.
121. Fleure, H. J., The Races of Mankind, Benn, London,
1930, pp.43 and 44.
representatives of a
widespread and, in part, forced dispersion of people from a single
multiplying population, established at a point more or less central
to them all, which sent forth successive waves of migrants, each
wave driving the previous one further towards the periphery.
Copyright © 1988 Evelyn White. All rights
Previous Chapter *
End of Part I * Next
Chapter (Part II)
(2) The most degraded specimens
are representatives of this general movement who were driven
into the least hospitable areas where they suffered physical
degeneration as a consequence of the circumstances in which they
were forced to live.
(3) The extraordinary physical
variability of their remains stems from the fact that they were
members of small, isolated, strongly inbred bands; whereas the
cultural similarities which link together even the most widely
dispersed of them indicate a common origin for them all.
(4) What is true of fossil man
is equally true of vanished and of living primitive societies.
(5) All these initially dispersed
populations are of one basic stock ‹ the Hamitic family of
(6) They were subsequently displaced
or overwhelmed by the Indo-Europeans (i.e., Japhethites) who
nevertheless inherited, or adopted and extensively built upon,
their technology and so gained the upper hand in each geographical
area where they spread.
(7) Throughout this movement, both
in prehistoric and historic times, there were never any human
beings who did not belong within the family of Noah and his descendants.
(8) Finally, this thesis is strengthened
by the evidence of history, which shows that migration has always
tended to follow this pattern, has frequently been accompanied
by instances of degeneration both of individuals or whole tribes,
and usually results in the establishment of a general pattern
of cultural relationships, which are parallel to those that archaeology
has since revealed from antiquity.
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Extinction claim: Humans, not climate change, at fault for most extinctions …
|June 4, 2014||Posted by News under extinction, News|
That’s weird. Especially when you consider that climate change is supposed to be at fault even for marital cheating.
But here’s the story:
Is it humankind or climate change that caused the extinction of a considerable number of large mammals about the time of the last Ice Age? Researchers at Aarhus University have carried out the first global analysis of the extinction of the large animals, and the conclusion is clear — humans are to blame. A new study unequivocally points to humans as the cause of the mass extinction of large animals all over the world during the course of the last 100,000 years.
“Our results strongly underline the fact that human expansion throughout the world has meant an enormous loss of large animals,” says Postdoctoral Fellow Søren Faurby, Aarhus University.
Or gain, if you count humans. 😉
The results show that the correlation between climate change — i.e. the variation in temperature and precipitation between glacials and interglacials — and the loss of megafauna is weak, and can only be seen in one sub-region, namely Eurasia (Europe and Asia). “The significant loss of megafauna all over the world can therefore not be explained by climate change, even though it has definitely played a role as a driving force in changing the distribution of some species of animals. Reindeer and polar foxes were found in Central Europe during the Ice Age, for example, but they withdrew northwards as the climate became warmer,” says Postdoctoral Fellow Christopher Sandom, Aarhus University. More.
It would be nice if we knew how to get rid of rats instead.
Follow UD News at Twitter!
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Basic Points About
Vedic Culture / Hinduism:
A Short Introduction Part 2
Information Assembled From Various Sources
By Stephen Knapp
This is designed to give succinct and easy answers to common questions about the Vedic tradition and its customs. It is a continuation and a deeper level to the ebook I wrote called, AVedic Culture / Hinduism: A Short Introduction,@ also found on my website at: http://stephenknapp.info. This is to help show that everything in the Vedic tradition has a purpose and a logical explanation, if we only know what it is and can, thus, explain it to others so they also can understand it. More elaborate answers to the philosophical questions and explanations of the Vedic spiritual knowledge can be found in my books.
Presently many Indian Hindus have let themselves be swept away from their roots by the storm of cultural exchange coming from the West. Many have also lost faith in their own values. Some feel ashamed in following basic Vedic traditions. But that is mostly because they have lost the reasons behind the purpose of them. How can we explain the meaning and purpose behind these symbols and traditions when we ourselves don't know them? So it is now time to again regain the awareness and the reasoning of the customs of this great and profound culture. It is time to again awaken to the reasons for the traditions that have been followed for thousands of years, and this booklet is such an attempt to do that.
BASICS OF VEDIC PHILOSOPHY
WHAT IS MEANT BY SPIRITUALITY * WHAT IS SELF-REALIZATION * WHAT IS SPIRITUAL CULTURE * ALL RELIGIONS ARE NOT THE SAME * WHO IS GOD * HOW A FORMLESS GOD CAN BE RECONCILED WITH A PERSONAL GOD * THERE ARE NOT MANY GODS * SEEING GOD EVERYWHERE * WHAT IS PRAYER * WHAT IS A MANTRA * WHAT ARE BHAJANS AND KIRTANS * WHAT IS PRASADA
APPEARANCES AND CUSTOMS
MEANING OF THE GREETINGS NAMASKARA (NAMASTE) * TILAK, BINDEE, AND SINDOORA (SINDHU) * APPROPRIATE DRESS IN TEMPLES * WHAT IS A SARI * WHAT IS A DHOTI * WHY MANY DEVOTEES WEAR WHITE * WHY MANY SWAMIS WEAR SAFFRON COLORED CLOTH * THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SHIKHA (TUFT OF HAIR) * THE MEANING OF THE SUTRA OR SACRED THREAD * THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SAFFRON FLAG * THE PURPOSE OF TOUCHING OUR HEAD TO THE FLOOR
POINTS ABOUT DHARMA
WHAT IS DHARMA * THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DHARMA AND RELIGION * WHO STARTED VEDIC/HINDU DHARMA * HOW OLD IS THE VEDIC/HINDU DHARMA * WHAT IS THE DEFINITION OF HINDUTVA * HINDUTVA AND OTHER FAITHS * DEFINITIION OF HINDU RASHTRA * THE EMPHASIS ON OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH INDIA
FACTS ON SYMBOLS AND TRADITIONS
WHAT THE SWASTIKA REPRESENTS * THE MEANING OF OM * SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CONCH SHELL (SHANKHA) * SIGNIFICANCE OF THE KALASH OR SACRED POT * THE COCONUT * THE IMPORTANCE OF DEEPAK (THE SACRED OIL OR GHEE LAMP) * THE PURPOSE OF YANTRAS * THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SHIVA LINGAM * THE SIGNIFICANCE OF A SHALAGRAMA * WHY THE COW IS CONSIDERED SACRED * SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RED THREAD TIED AROUND THE WRIST
POINTS ABOUT VEDIC WORSHIP
PURPOSE OF THE DIETY OR IMAGE (MURTI) IN THE TEMPLE * WHAT IS PADA PUJA * THE PURPOSE OF A TEMPLE * PURPOSE OF VEDIC RITUALS AND RITES * THE POTENCY OF CHARANAMRITA * WHY THE GANGA (GANGES RIVER) IS CONSIDERED SACRED * WHY THE TULASI TREE IS SACRED * WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PEEPAL TREE * THE PURPOSE OF THE AGNIHOTRA RITUAL * HINDUS AND VEDIC FOLLOWERS DO NOT PRACTICE ANIMAL SACRIFICE
OTHER POINTS OF INTEREST
THE FOUR STAGES OF LIFE * THE PURPOSE OF SPIRITUAL INITIATION, OR DIKSHA * WHERE CHARITY FITS INTO THE VEDIC SYSTEM * THE REASONS FOR DOING PILGRIMAGES
TAKING CARE OF THE DECEASED
WHY HINDUS CREMATE THEIR DEAD * THE PURPOSE OF IMMERSING THE ASHES OF THE DEAD INTO SACRED RIVERS * THE MEANING OF THE PINDA (PIND DAAN) CEREMONY * THE PURPOSE OF THE SHRADDHA CEREMONY * THE SIGNIFICANCE OF TARPAN FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE DECEASED
BASICS OF VEDIC PHILOSOPHY
WHAT IS MEANT BY SPIRITUALITY
Spirituality is the relentless pursuit of the highest Truth and one’s real spiritual identity beyond the physical body and as part of the Supreme Spirit. It is the process of attaining direct spiritual realization, which far surpasses blind faith, and is based on attaining one’s own experience of self-realization. It is beyond conventional forms of religion that often keep one bound to a dogma or set of beliefs, when direct perception and experience of spiritual Truth will take one to seeing the spiritual realities that are described in the Vedic texts.
WHAT IS SELF-REALIZATION
Self-realization is directly perceiving one=s real identity as the higher Self within the body, higher than the mind or intellect, but beyond all material components or influences. It is the stage of enlightenment and seeing what and who you really are. The true Self is not limited to material conditions. Its nature is eternal, blissful consciousness. When one truly recognizes that one=s own Self is the same as the soul in all beings, one becomes an embodiment of peace, love, and compassion capable of uplifting the world.
WHAT IS SPIRITUAL CULTURE
Culture is the development of the beliefs, skills, arts, crafts, etc., of a people. Spiritual culture is the manifestation of the divine, pure nature of human beings, by the society or the country as a result of practice and expression over a long period of time. It is expressed through music, dance, writings and places of worship. Any other form that doesn't rest its base on the divine nature of all beings cannot be the contributor to the integrated spiritual culture. The Vedic system is for doing exactly this.
ALL RELIGIONS ARE NOT THE SAME
Some people ask, “Aren’t all religions the same?” No. Every religion is different. Many preachers, mainly Hindu preachers who have vested interest of building their empires propagate the idea that all religions are the same. So any religions will give the same result. But this is not the fact.
Hindus respect other religions. It is not difficult for them to see various levels of spiritual truth in other spiritual paths. But all religions take their practitioners to different levels of philosophical understanding, spiritual knowledge, levels of consciousness, and different abilities to perceive spiritual Truth. So all religions are not the same. This is why members of some religions are more congenial and respectful toward members of other religions, while some members of particular religions are not respectful toward those that are different, are quick to call them infidels and other derogatory names, and say that they are going to hell, or tell them that they need to convert in order to be “saved”. This is certainly due to a different perspective and a lack of understanding that we all worship the same Supreme Being, though in different ways or expressions. Thus, religions can be compared to the difference between an abridged dictionary and one that is unabridged. They both contain the same knowledge, but one is more complete than the other. If you are going to have a dictionary, you might want to get the best one available, and that would be the unabridged dictionary, or the one that is most complete in its knowledge. And that is like the Vedic spiritual texts, which compiles a library of texts for those who want to understand the intricacies of spiritual knowledge.
WHO IS GOD
In the Sanskrit language the word for God is Bhagavan. Bhag implies six attributes: Absolute Fame, Absolute Dharma, Absolute Wealth, Absolute Knowledge, Absolute Beauty and Absolute Detachment. One possessing these attributes is Bhagavan, the Supreme Person or God.
In simple words, One personified as perfect - par excellence is God. One who is Virtue-Incarnate is God. The One who has lived to the infinite limits of right conduct is God. An example of such a person in Hindu history is Maryada Purshottama Shree Rama or Sri Krishna. A person who had shown such qualities of par-excellence and can guide the rest of society to follow the right conduct in living is known as the Incarnation of God, or an avatara, God who descends into this material realm. Or as the Vedanta-Sutras also say, God, the Absolute Truth, is He from whom all else manifests.
HOW A FORMLESS GOD CAN BE RECONCILED WITH A PERSONAL GOD
Some saints and sages have emphasized the worship of and meditation upon a formless God, the Infinite and the Absolute. In contrast, there are people who worship God in different forms to which they impart particular attributes and qualities based on their intellectual capacity, personal tastes and preferences. However, the great sages have explained that one must understand the three main aspects of God, namely His personal or Bhagavan aspect; His localized Paramatma aspect or Supersoul expansion in the hearts of all beings; and His impersonal force or Brahman aspect. Until a person understands all three features, his understanding of God remains incomplete. It can be said that either form of worship can lead to Moksha (liberation) if steadily practiced with a true and sincere heart. But in Bhagavad-gita, Lord Krishna specifically says that meditation on His formless aspect is indeed a difficult path. [My article, “God is Both Personal and Impersonal” on my website goes much deeper in this matter.]
THERE ARE NOT MANY GODS
Sometimes people raise a point of confusion that they have regarding the Vedic culture. They think there are too many gods. They ask why there are so many gods, and which one should a person choose to worship? First of all, there is only one God. His virtues are manifested in different ways, such as Bhagavan, Paramatma, and Brahman. Without comprehending all three aspects of the Supreme, a person will not have a full understanding of God.
If we properly analyze the situation, we will understand that there is but one Supreme Being who has many agents or demigods who assist in managing the creation and the natural forces within. And, like anyone else, if they are properly approached with prayer or worship, they may help facilitate the person by granting certain wishes that may be within the jurisdiction of that demigod.
In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, chapter 3, Yagyavalkya has said that in reality there are only 33 gods and goddesses. Of these 8 are Vasus, 11 Rudras, 12 Adityas, and Indra and Prajapati. The 8 Vasus include fire, earth, air, sky (space), sun, Dyau, moon and the planets. Entire mankind depends upon these. The five gyanindriya (the five senses of perception, namely the eye, ear, nose, tongue and skin), the five karmindriya (the five organs of action, namely hands, feet, larynx, organs of reproduction and the anus) and the soul comprise the 11 Rudras. The 12 months of the year are referred to as the 12 Adityas. The clouds are Devraj Indra, and nature, or the will of the Supreme Being, is referred to as Prajapati. Then there are also other positions that are considered major or minor devas. According to the Vedas, the devas are not imaginary or mythological beings, but are agents of the Supreme Will to administer different aspects of the universal affairs. They also represent and control various powers of nature. Thus, they manifest in the physical, subtle or psychic levels of our existence both from within and without. In this way, a transcendentalist sees that behind every aspect of nature is a personality.
The whole universe depends principally upon six divine forces - fire, earth, air, sky, Aditya and Dyau. When the religious texts have said that there are only 33 gods and goddesses, or forces that govern this universe, the words 33 koti as used in the original text have been misinterpreted to mean 33 crores (330 million) gods and goddesses, instead of 33 categories of divine forces.
The Rig-Veda (1/164/46) explains: An embodiment of truth, knowledgeable persons know the Supreme Being in different forms and different names. The Supreme Being is known by names like Agni, Yama, Matrishva, Indra, Varun, Divya, Suparn, Gurutman and many more. The religious texts are full of such narratives. Yet, the truth is that there is only one God. We see Him in different forms and with different names.
The names of these gods are considered offices or positions, rather than the actual name of the demigod. For example, we may call the president of the country by his personal name, or simply Mr. President. It’s the position itself that allows for him to have certain powers or areas of influence. In the case of the devas, it is only after accumulating much pious credit that a living being can earn the position of being a particular demigod. Then a person may become an Indra, or Vayu, or attain some other position to assume specific powers, or to control various aspects of material energy.
Another example is that when you walk into a big factory, you see so many workers and all that they are doing. You may initially think that these workers are the reason for whatever goes on in the factory. However, more important than the workers are the foremen, the managers, and then the executives. Amongst these you will find people of varying degrees of authority. Someone will be in charge of designing the products. Another may be the Chief Financial Officer or main accountant. Another may be in charge of personnel, while someone else may be in charge of maintenance in the factory itself. Finally, a chief executive officer or president of the company is the most important of all. Without him there may not even be a company. You may not see the president right away, but his influence is everywhere since all the workers are engaging in projects according to his decisions. The managers and foremen act as his authorized agents to keep things moving accordingly. The numerous demigods act in the same way concerning the functions of nature, all of whom represent some aspect or power of the Supreme Will. That’s why it is sometimes said there are 33 million different gods in Hinduism. Actually, there may be many forms, avataras, or aspects of God, but there is only one God, or one Absolute Truth.
This is often a confusing issue to people new to Vedic philosophy. We often hear the question among Westerners that if Hinduism has so many gods, how do you know which ones to worship? The point is that the devas affect all levels of universal activities, including the weather, or who is bestowed with particular opulences such as riches, beautiful wife or husband, large family, good health, etc. For example, one could worship Agni for getting power, Durgadevi for good fortune, Indra for good sex life or plenty of rain, or the Vasus for getting money. Such instruction is in the karma-kanda section of the Vedas which many people considered to be the most important part of Vedic knowledge. This is for helping people acquire the facilities for living a basic material existence.
The reciprocation between the demigods and society is explained in Bhagavad-gita (3.10-12). It is stated that in the beginning the Lord of all beings created men and demigods along with the sacrifices to Lord Vishnu that were to be performed. The Lord blessed them saying that these sacrifices will enable men to prosper and attain all desirable things. By these sacrificial duties the demigods will be pleased and the demigods will also please you with all the necessities of life, and prosperity will spread to all. But he who enjoys what is given by the demigods without offering them in return is a thief.
In this way, it was recommended that people could perform sacrificial rituals to obtain their desires. However, by the performance of such acts they should understand their dependent position, not only on the demigods, but ultimately on the Supreme Being. As further explained in Bhagavad-gita (3.14-15), all living beings exist on food grains, which are produced from rain, which is produced by the performance of prescribed sacrifices or duties. These prescribed duties are described in the Vedic literature, which is manifest from the Supreme Being. Therefore, the Supreme is eternally established in acts of sacrifice.
Although the demigods may accept worship from the human beings and bless them with particular benedictions according to the sacrifices that are performed, they are still not on the level of the Supreme Lord Vishnu (who is an incarnation of Lord Krishna). The Rig-veda (1.22.20) explains: “The demigods are always looking to that supreme abode of Vishnu.” Bhagavad-gita (17.23) also points out: “From the beginning of creation, the three syllables om tat sat have been used to indicate the Supreme Absolute Truth (Brahman). They were uttered by brahmanas while chanting the Vedic hymns and during sacrifices, for the satisfaction of the Supreme.” In this way, by uttering om tat sat, which is stressed in Vedic texts, the performers of the rituals for worshiping the demigods were also offering obeisances to Lord Vishnu for its success. The four Vedas mainly deal with material elevation and since Lord Vishnu is the Lord of material liberation, most sacrifices were directed toward the demigods.
In Bhagavad-gita, however, Lord Krishna points out that men of small knowledge, who are given to worldly desires, take delight in the flowery words of the Vedas that prescribe rituals for attaining power, riches, or rebirth in heaven. With their goal of enjoyment they say there is nothing else than this. However, Krishna goes on to explain (in Bhagavad-gita 7.21-23) that when a person desires to worship a particular demigod for the temporary and limited fruits he or she may bestow, Krishna, as the Supersoul in everyone’s heart, makes that person’s faith in that demigod steady. But all the benefits given by any demigod actually are given by Krishna alone, for without whom no one has any power. The worshipers of the demigods go to the planets of the demigods, but worshipers of Krishna reach Krishna’s spiritual abode.
Thus, as one progresses in understanding, it is expected that they will gradually give up the pursuit for temporary material pleasures and then begin to endeavor for reaching the supreme goal of Vedic knowledge. For one who is situated in such knowledge and is self-realized, the prescribed duties in the Vedas for worshiping the demigods are unnecessary. As Bhagavad-gita (3.17-18) explains, for one who is fully self-realized, who is fully satiated in the self, delights only in the self, there is no duty or need to perform the prescribed duties found in the Vedas, because he has no purpose or material desires to fulfill.
However, another view of the Vedic gods is that they represent different aspects of understanding ourselves, especially through the path of yoga and meditation. For example, the god of wind is Vayu, and is related to the practice of yoga as the breath and its control in pranayama. Agni is the god of fire and relates to the fire of consciousness or awareness. Soma relates to the bliss in the samadhi of yoga practice. Many of the Vedic gods also represent particular powers of yoga and are related to the different chakras in the subtle body. It is accepted that as a person raises his or her consciousness through the chakras, he or she will attain the level of awareness and the power and assistance that is associated with the particular divine personality related to that chakra.
SEEING GOD EVERYWHERE
A true and purified devotee of God can see God everywhere. Everything is but a manifestation of God’s energy. And to such a devotee, God can reveal Himself in so many ways. God presents Himself in the personal form in which one wishes to see Him. There have been many devotees who have realized and conversed directly with God. The relationship between God and His devotee is considered most special and private. It is not appropriate etiquette for a devotee to advertise his or her relationship or ecstasies that are attained with one’s relationship or communication with the Supreme. In the past, many saints have realized God and found perfect peace within. But this realization is dependent on one’s sincerity and devotion, by which God becomes willing to reveal Himself to the devotee. Otherwise, such revelation is not possible. One cannot force God to appear no more than one can force the sun to show itself appear in the middle of the night.
WHAT IS PRAYER
Prayer is an act of love for God, usually expressed in the form of remembrance of the Supreme Being, Almighty, and Absolute Self, explicitly or implicitly. It is a momentary or prolonged withdrawal from the self-centered world, in the shelter and protection of God, submitting and submerging the self (ego) to Him completely. Prayer can take place involuntarily or by design. It can be invoked silently or vocally, by reciting self-made words or prescribed text, in solitude or in communion with others, including accompaniment of music.
Recitation of scriptural verses or popular songs as a prayer is quite common, particularly in the Hindu tradition. Such recitation is helpful in creating a devotional atmosphere, and beneficial for those who to increase their meditation on the Absolute Being. The positive quality of sound in disciplining the mind, especially in a group situation, such as in Bhajans and Kirtanas, is well recognized.
The question whether the devotee should or should not ask anything from God is best left to the devotee and his or her relationship with God. As children of God, we may be tempted to ask for certain boons from the Father. But as we mature spiritually (analogous to a child growing up), our expectations, hopefully, dwindle and we visit God's house and memory for the memory-sake and devotion alone. At that time, our faith and submission of the self are adequate for supporting and sustaining us; there is little need to ask for anything else.
WHAT IS A MANTRA
A mantra is a sacred verbal formula repeated in prayer or meditation. The chanting of mantras helps to open the heart and mind to clear consciousness, which is the reality of our true identity as a spiritual being. Mantras also create an uplifting and meditative atmosphere for inner communion and one-pointedness of our concentration. There are numerous Sanskrit mantras for a variety of purposes. Many mantras are often used as a form of greeting as well. Numerous mantras and stotras are found on this website (www.stephen-knapp.com/a_little_book_of_prayers_mantras_gayatris.htm). Some mantras include the following:
The Hare Krishna Maha-Mantra, or great mantra for deliverance. This is: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare / Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.
Aum (or OM): According to the Vedas, the ancient scriptures of India, OM is a symbol for the Absolute Reality, and is a name of God. It is also the first Sanskrit letter and the first word in many Sanskrit mantras. This is also used as a greeting in such form as AHari Om@, meaning salutations to the Divine as Hari, the Supreme who gives auspiciousness and removes obstacles. Another greeting is AHari bol@, which means chant the names of Hari, God.
Om Namah Shivaya: This means ASalutations to the Absolute in the form of Shiva@.
Aum Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu: AMay all beings everywhere be happy@.
Om Amriteswaryai Namah: AI bow to that Supreme Energy and Immortal Bliss@.
WHAT ARE BHAJANS AND KIRTANS
In Bhakti-Marga (the path of Devotion), a number of rituals are adopted by the devotee to remember and worship God or the deity (personal god) of choice. An important ritual or medium of worship is to offer prayer in the form of devotional songs describing godly attributes, singing praise, and invoke the deity's grace and benediction. Such devotional songs are called Bhajans. Often Bhajans are sung collectively and with accompaniment of music, with repetitive rendering of lines.
Vocal repetition of Mantras is helpful towards mental concentration and Bhajanas can be regarded to have a similar effect. A variation of Bhajan is called Kirtan, where just one or two lines are repeated indefinitely over a period of time. Bhajan-Kirtan can be heard in temples and homes in the course of doing puja (worship) of deities. Often these Bhajans are popular songs and poems composed by celebrated saints and devotees, such as Tulsidasa, Suradasa, Meerabai, Tukarama, and Kabira.
WHAT IS PRASADA
This is a Sanskrit term meaning AGod=s mercy.@ This is often in reference to sacred food after it has been offered to the Deity in the temple, or when food is handed out by the pure or great saintly devotee or holy person. Such sacred food, which is considered to become spiritually surcharged, is honored by carefully accepting it when received.
APPEARANCES AND CUSTOMS
MEANING OF THE GREETINGS NAMASKARA (NAMASTE)
The traditional Vedic/Hindu greeting is 'Namaskara' or 'Namaste', which is said along with joining the two palms in front and bowing the head. This greeting acknowledges the presence of divinity in all human beings. The person saying Namaskaara implies, “with all my physical strength (represented by both folded hands) and my intellect (represented by bowed head), I pay respect to the Atma (soul) within you”.
TILAK, BINDEE, AND SINDOORA (SINDHU)
In Vedic tradition, Tilak is a mark of red powder or sandalwood paste that is applied on the forehead of a person mostly before prayers. In the Vaishnava tradition, the sandalwood paste or gopichand clay is applied over the forehead showing a “V” mark extending from the bridge of the nose to the hairline. This represents the name of Vishnu and that the body is a temple, the original temple of God. In some cases there are three vertical lines, a center line within the “V”. This is often done by devotees of Lord Rama. When three vertical lines are shown, this can represent the tripurti (threesome) nature of God, namely, Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesha, which represents creation, preservation and destruction, respectively.
In the Shiva tradition, the lines marked with ash in a horizontal way. The forehead is considered a seat of memory and the 'spiritual eye or the third eye'. The applying of tilak thus symbolizes the retention of the memory of God.
This tilak also has other functions: It is a mark of respect to the higher centers in the brain where thoughts are generated and it has a psychological effect of keeping away evil thoughts. Sandalwood is used as it has cooling properties and a very pleasant aroma. This signifies that one's head should remain calm and should generate pleasant thoughts. Tilak is also the reminder of vows. The most popular is the red teeka (Bindee) and Sindoora worn by married Hindu women to symbolize their marriage and the wedding vows. The Sindoora (vermillion) is applied on the married woman's head where hair is parted, making a red line from the forehead going back. This also symbolizes that the woman is happily married. Tilak is also applied at the forehead for good luck or good wishes at occasions like loved ones going away from home for extended period of time.
According to Hindu religious texts, applying tilak or tika is necessary at all religious ceremonies, without which no Hindu ceremony is complete. From birth till death tilak is a part of life. All gods, goddesses, yogis, saints, sages and mahatmas apply tilak on their forehead. Some householders also apply tilak daily, although generally it is customary to apply tilak at the beginning of the religious ceremony.
According to tradition, applying tilak is a symbol of honor being extended to the person. Guests are welcomed or seen off with tilak. Even when householders leave on long travel or pilgrimage, they are seen off with a tilak and good wishes.
In the Brahma Vaivarta Purana (Brahma Parva, 26) it is said: If tilak is not adorned on the forehead at the time of a holy bath, yajna, prayer or religious ceremony, the effort bears no fruit. The Brahmin priest must have a tilak when performing prayers, tarpan and other ceremonies.
The Skanda Purana also explains with what fingers tilak must be applied for best results: When tilak is applied with the ring finger it brings peace, with the middle finger it prolongs age, with the thumb it promotes health, and with the forefinger one attains salvation.
Devotees of Vishnu use a tilak of two thin upward lines, devotees of Shakti (Shakti and Shiva) use two dots, and devotees of Shiva use three horizontal lines. Some religious texts suggest that those using a tilak of three horizontal lines during shraddha, yajna ceremonies, meditation, or prayers overcome death.
The tilak, tika or bindiya (for women) is applied in the centre of the forehead because the entire body is controlled from this point. Maharishi Yagyavalka said that this position is appropriate because Shiva's third eye is located here. After the application of tilak pure thoughts are said to emerge.
APPROPRIATE DRESS IN TEMPLES
One should always wear conservative clothes that keep the body comfortable but covered as well. In the West, clothes styles are often quite free and relaxed, but if it is too revealing it can be taken as disrespectful or even offensive to the deities or even the people who are there. So one should always try to dress in a most suitable and modest manner.
WHAT IS A SARI
A sari is the style of outfit that is worn by many women from India. It can be a beautiful and colorful cloth that wraps around and covers the body completely. But it can be most beautiful as well. It may take a person a little practice putting it on after being shown how to wear one.
WHAT IS A DHOTI
This is for men, which is a single piece of cloth that is wrapped around the legs, tied and pleated at the waist that becomes a loose and comfortable piece of apparel, especially for the hot climate of South Asia. It is a traditional type of clothing that is still regularly worn in India.
WHY MANY DEVOTEES WEAR WHITE
In some yoga groups or ashramas many people wear white clothes. This is because it is a symbol for cleanliness, purity and peace. It is not a color that will agitate the mind. It is also a simple reminder of one=s spiritual goal.
WHY MANY SWAMIS WEAR SAFFRON COLORED CLOTH
Saffron is often worn by those who have become spiritually advanced and materially renounced. Saffron is the sign of renunciation from many of the common comforts of the world. It represents a determined focus on one=s spiritual goal of life. The color also gives peace and tranquility to the mind, which helps one on their spiritual journey and development.
The flags on Hindu temples, as well as the robes worn by our religious preachers, mostly Swamis and Sannyasis (religious and spiritually advanced individuals), are of saffron (orange) color. The persons wearing the saffron robes are those who have renounced married life. The color denotes the sun's light giving glow. The sun has a very prominent place in the Vedic literature as the source of energy that sustains life on earth. It acts as a reminder of the power of God, the act of selfless service and renunciation.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SHIKHA (TUFT OF HAIR)
Why do we see some priests and monks have a shaved head with a tuft of hair in the back? First of all, this tuft of hair is called a shikha. When long enough, it tied in a knot at the crown-point (right above the suture) on the central top of the head. This point is given distinctive importance in the science of yoga and spirituality as the point of contact with the brain-centre of intellectual and emotional sensitivity. It also indicates the body as a temple.
The Shikha symbolizes the presence of discerning intellect, farsightedness, and the deity of knowledge upon our head. It is a flag of human culture. It reminds us of the religious principles of morality, righteousness, responsibility, and dutiful awareness.
This body is the fort of the individual self upon which the flag of the shikha is hoisted as the mark of the dignified values and virtues of humanity. The foreign invaders, the crusaders against the Vedic (Indian) culture had attempted to eliminate the roots of this divine culture by first cutting the shikha and removing the sutra (sacred thread) from the bodies of the followers of the Vedic religion. Thousands of innocent heads were cut off just for protesting against this attack. It was for protecting the glory of these universal emblems of human religion that Maharana Pratap, Vir Shivaji, Guru Govind Sigh, and other great martyrs of India had dedicated their noble lives. Today, we have forgotten their sacrifices and done what even the foreign invaders of the medieval times could not do.
The commencement of wearing of the sutra and tightening of the sikha at the time of initiation (diksha) into Gayatri sadhana is referred in the shastras as dwijatva - the second birth, and the one who wears the sacred thread (sutra) and keeps the shikha is called a dwija, or twice-born as a brahmana. That means that regardless of whatever family line one has been born into, he has now attained his second birth as a brahmana.
The shikha also represents the sirsa (top) of the Gayatri Mantra. It reminds the devotee of the subtle presence of the pure divine intelligence in the human mind. Tightening the hair knot right above the suture induces marvelous psychological benefits. It helps in harmonious blood circulation in the brain in normal conditions and augments alertness. As described in the yoga-scriptures, it also lends support in increasing mental concentration and meditation. In terms of its sublime spiritual effects, the shikha works like an antenna in the outer domain of the sahasrara chakra (topmost extrasensory centre) to link the individual consciousness with the cosmic consciousness in the elevated state of Gayatri sadhana.
THE MEANING OF THE SUTRA OR SACRED THREAD
The sutra is the name for the sacred thread, also called yagyopavit, which is worn on the shoulder, usually hanging over the left shoulder and down across the chest around the right hip. This is given to an individual after the sacrament or initiation of upnayana or thread-ceremony.
The moral and social duties of human life are worn on our shoulders and kept attached to our hearts in symbolic form as the sacred thread of yagyopavita (Sutra). It also hangs on our back. It has tied us from all sides, as a reminder of the moral disciplines and ethical duties as human beings.
In different sampradayas or schools of thought, spiritual lineages, the yagyopavit (sutra) will have different numbers of threads, such as six threads and two knots, each joining three threads together, or nine threads and three knots. The knots are symbols of the three granthis (extrasensory roots of ultimate realizations) - the Brahma-granthi, the Vishnu-granthi, and the Shiva-granthi; these also represent the three segments of the Gayatri Mantra that encode the sublime streams of manifestation of the omnipresent eternal sound of "Om". The nine threads symbolize the nine planets and the nine divine-powers (manifestations of shakti, called the nav-durgas) implied in the nine words (after the sirsa) of the Gayatri Mantra. The yagyopavit is like an image of the deity Gayatri. You enshrine the deity in the temple of your body by wearing it.
Wearing this sacred sutra on the shoulders, keeping it near the chest, should remind you of the nine duties, nine virtues, nine principles that are taught and inspired through the nine words of the Gayatri Mantra, which are industriousness, humility, austerity, orderliness, cooperation, wisdom, integrity of character, sense of responsibility and courage.
These nine qualities open the door to a bright, happy and successful life. Inculcation of these qualities induces eminent transformation of personality. These are also the most desired virtues for social and global welfare and progress. The first five of these deal with behavior and deeds. Industriousness means constructive utilization of time and potentials with diligence and enthusiasm for the work in hand. Humility implies modesty, etiquette, and balanced and humble behavior with due respect for the self as well as for others. Austerity includes piety of mind and body. It also means adopting the principle of "simple living & high thinking" in daily life. You must note that foresighted, constructive and altruist use of the resources becomes possible by observing austerity in personal life.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SAFFRON FLAG
The Bhagwa Dhwaja (Saffron Flag) is the symbol of Sanatana Dharma or Hindu culture from times immemorial. The word 'Bhagwa' connotes that it comes from 'Bhagavan' meaning God. It stands for wealth, dharma, advancement, glory, knowledge, and detachment. The combination of these six is 'Bhagwa'. The flag also embodies the glorious orange hue of the rising sun that dispels darkness and sheds light all around.
The saffron (orange) color of the flag is the color of the fire and its flames. The fire is the great purifier and all sacrifices are offered to the fire. It stands for the principle of sacrifice. The color of the flag is the same as the color at sunrise and sunset. When the day dawns the sun rises and reminds everyone to shake off ones lethargy and do one's duty. The sun burns throughout the day giving life to one and all and without demanding anything in return. The time of sunset teaches us to give everything for the society without any expectation.
The shape of the Dhwaja consists of two triangles, the upper triangle being shorter than the lower one. The triangles represent the rising flames of burning fire. The flames rise in the upward direction, only-those rising from the bottom being the longest. They teach us to rise above and become better always.
The Bhagwa flag has existed and guided the Vedic society right from its origin. It has inspired and has been honored by the Vedic Saints and heroes. In ancient times, the warriors used to put on saffron robes and go to the battlefield. If they are victorious, they will rule and if vanquished, they might die on the battlefield and thus go to heaven--such was the motivating force for the heroes.
The people in he ancient times worshipped the Sun because it was the source of energy, light and heat without which life can't exist. The Bhagwa flag inspires us to live the life full of sublime virtues based on sacrifice, renunciation and service.
THE PURPOSE OF TOUCHING OUR HEAD TO THE FLOOR
When entering a temple, coming before the Deity, or when seeing a great saint or devotee, many people will bow and touch their heads to the floor. This is called offering obeisances. Humility is an important quality in spiritual life, and bowing down in such a way is an outward expression of the desire to go beyond the ego. Lowering the head to the floor represents the surrender of self-importance and pride.
Sometimes you will also see a person stretch the whole body out on the floor. In Sanskrit this is called dandavat, falling like a danda or rod. This is considered the most humble way of showing respect for another.
POINTS ABOUT DHARMA
WHAT IS DHARMA
Dharma is defined as a pivotal code of righteous conduct for human behavior on which rests peace, harmony, and the coexistence of all species in the nature (animate and inanimate). Dharma is also in reference to the duties and nature of the individual, and Sanatana-Dharma is specifically in reference to the eternal nature of the each of us as spiritual beings. Sanatana-Dharma also means the eternal religion or the real identity and occupation of the soul. Thus, the whole Vedic system is to arrange life so that we all can reawaken ourselves to the real nature of the soul, which is necessary in order to reach the spiritual dimension and become free from samsara, or future rounds of continued birth and death in a material body.
For this purpose, Vedic Dharma is a treasury of the principles defining the right human conduct that have been discovered and practiced for many millennia and found to be true and thus may be considered true for all times and places, which is what makes it “Santana-Dharma”. (You can also read my article on my website called “Sanatana-Dharma, Its Real Meaning” for more information.)
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DHARMA AND RELIGION
There is no word in English or any other language that may be equivalent to or in near term carry the same meaning as Dharma in Sanskrit or in other Indian languages. However, the word 'Religion' is often used for 'Dharma' in foreign languages, which is not quite accurate.
Unlike other religions that are based on 'One Book' (Christianity on Holy Bible and Islam on Holy Koran) and 'One Savior-Christ in Christianity' and 'One Prophet Muhammad in Islam', Vedic/Hindu Dharma is not based on one book or one messenger or prophet. It is pluralistic in its approach to realize the ultimate Truth. Each individual has to strive for his or her own destiny. It is a law of 'Karma’. It is not based on any miracle, as is the case in other religions. It is not even based on a group of people who started a religion following the instructions and after the name of their teacher. These criteria do not apply to Vedic Dharma.
It is not a dogma given for others to believe, but it is a process of investigation, practice, and purifying ourselves so we can have our own spiritual realizations, perception and experience of our own true spiritual identity and relationship with God. Thus, the individual has the freedom to decide what is best to learn whatever they need to learn in this lifetime for their own ultimate spiritual progress. This is a big difference between conventional religion that we find today and that of Vedic Dharma.
Therefore, Vedic Dharma is much more than just a system of faith and worship. It is a philosophy of 'LIVE AND LET LIVE'. It encourages the freedom of thinking resulting into different interpretations of the same principle. This is why there is so much apparent diversity in Hindu thoughts.
WHO STARTED VEDIC/HINDU DHARMA
No one individual started the Vedic process. Vedic Dharma contains a treasury of spiritual laws that were discovered and realized by unknown number of sages and saints over many millennia and were compiled into the Vedas and Upanishads and later in many additional books in the form of explanations and stories as the situation and time demanded. The thing to understand is that the Vedas were not originated or composed by anyone. They are revelations that were recorded. The spiritual knowledge that became the Vedas and Vedic literature are part of the Shabda Brahman, or the spiritual vibration that exists eternally, within and without the material energy and manifestation, and before, during, and after the creation and annihilation of the cosmic manifestation. Sages who were and are capable of entering that spiritual dimension, or have glimpses into that strata, can easily realize and imbibe the knowledge that exists in that realm and then prescribe or compose them for the benefit of all of humanity. Thus, we also can gain access to that realm to the degree in which our consciousness becomes spiritualized. (Please read my ebook on “The Complete Review of the Vedic Literature” for a comprehensive analysis of the Vedic library of information, which is also on my website at: www.stephen-knapp.com.)
HOW OLD IS THE VEDIC/HINDU DHARMA
As we mentioned in the previous point, it is based on the Shabda-Brahman, the spiritual vibration which is eternal and exists from before, during, and after the material creation. Therefore, the Dharma is as old as the human race on earth. The human civilization first evolved in India (Aryavarta was its name then), which is certainly many millennia older than the period of Rama and Krishna. The period of Krishna is more than 5000 years old and Rama's period preceded that of Krishna by many millennia. The knowledge of the Vedas and Upanishads was being passed orally from generation to generation and ultimately was compiled more than 5000 years ago. It was the great sage and avatara known as Vedavyasa who composed the Vedic knowledge into written form for the benefit of humanity, who he could see was losing its intelligence for remembering deep philosophy. Vedic Dharma is certainly much older than 5000 years and therefore much older than any other existing religion. Christianity is 2000 years old and Islam only about 1500 years old. Older than these two major practicing religions are Buddhism and Jainism, which are more than 2600 years old. Both Buddhism and Jainism evolved out of Hinduism providing major emphasis on Ahimsa (non-violence) that was the need of the time.
WHAT IS THE DEFINITION OF HINDUTVA
It is a cultural (Sanskritic) concept of unity and interdependent freedom. It is an instrument for social equality, justice, and freedom to choose any Ishta Devata (personal god, meaning any faith). It embraces a political doctrine "appeasement for none and justice for all". It also defines an economic system where a person is an integral part and not a pawn on the economic chessboard. It also envisions a system of coexistence in that no religion has the right even to try to obliterate any other religion.
HINDUTVA AND OTHER FAITHS
Vedic/Hindu Dharma does provide the freedom of thinking and therefore, other religions are covered. The followers of other faiths have full freedom to practice their beliefs because such freedom is normal in the Vedic culture, but no particular religion is free to annihilate others of different faiths.
DEFINITIION OF HINDU RASHTRA
Hindu Rashtra or Hindu Nation is a Sanskritic (cultural) concept in contrast to a political one as seen advocated in the western countries. Hindus have a distinct culture. Wherever, the Hindu way of life is practiced is a Hindu Rashtra. India was and is a Hindu Rashtra according to this concept. This is very vividly defined in our scriptures. There is nothing new about it. Chanakya Pandit had given a clarion call to unite Hindus (called Bharatiya at that time) in the name of Hindu Rashtra about 2350 years ago. Emperor Chandragupta ruled over that nation and that dynasty continued for over 200 years - a golden period of Indian history.
THE EMPHASIS ON OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH INDIA
India is our 'Punya Bhoomi' or worshipable Motherland and the nation of our ancestors. It is this land where the eternal principles of Sanatana Dharma were discovered and practiced for many millennia before they were compiled. The philosophy and culture that evolved in this land are very distinct and vibrant for which we should be proud. It is this land where a clarion call was given to all humanity to pursue the goal of becoming higher spiritual beings and realize the ultimate Truth. Thus, we should work to keep the ancient traditions of India, and keep it as the homeland of a dynamic and thriving Vedic culture.
FACTS ON SYMBOLS AND TRADITIONS
WHAT THE SWASTIKA REPRESENTS
The Swastika is a symbol of auspiciousness (Swasti - auspiciousness). Literally, Swastika means 'of good fortune' - 'su' means 'well' and 'asti' means 'being'. It has been used as a symbol of the Sun or of Vishnu. It is a solar symbol, spreading out in all four directions. It symbolizes the cosmos and the progress of the Sun through space. It derives its auspiciousness from the four-fold principles of divinity. Brahma is said to be four-faced. It also represents the world-wheel, the eternally changing world, round a fixed and unchanging center, God.
Religious texts explain that the eight arms of the Swastika are symbolic of the earth, fire, water, air, sky, mind, emotions, and feelings. The four main arms point in four directions. They represent the four eras – Satya-yuga, Treta-yuga, Dwapara-yuga and Kali-yuga. They also represent the four varnas - Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras. They represent the four ashrams of life too - Brahmacharya, Grihasta, Vanaprastha, and Sannyasa. The four arms are also symbolic of the four basic aims of human pursuit - dharma (righteousness), artha (prosperity), kama (passion) and moksha (salvation). They are also symbolic of the four faces and four hands of Brahma and of the four Vedas - Rig-Veda, Yajur-Veda, Sama-Veda, and Atharva-Veda. They are also symbolic of the four constellations - Pushya (8th), Chitra (14th), Shravan (22nd) and Revti (27th).
Since ancient times Hindus use this symbol on auspicious occasions like marriage, Lakshmi-puja, etc. Swastika marks depicted on doors or walls of buildings are believed to protect them from the wrath of evil spirits or furies of nature. Hindus worship Swastika as symbol of Ganesha. In Hindu astronomy the auspicious form of the Swastika represents the celestial change of the Sun to the tropic of Capricorn.
There are two kinds of Swastika symbols mentioned in the ancient scriptures. The right-handed Swastika is associated with the Sun, and hence emblem of the world-wheel indicating cosmic possession and evolution thereof, around a fixed center. The left-handed Swastika, which moves anti-clockwise, represents the Sun during the autumn and winter, and is regarded as inauspicious. According to some accounts the right-handed Swastika symbolizes Ganesha and stands for auspiciousness whereas left-handed one personifies goddess Kali and stands for night and destruction.
In all social ceremonies the right-handed Swastika is used and has become an object of great veneration.
The counterclockwise Swastika, though not as common, is used in some tantrika practices. Incidentally, the Swastika, as adopted by the Nazis was also the counterclockwise type. Thus, it brought ruination. As scholars like Prof. Max Muller also pointed out, this design was also favored in some orthodox Christian churches and was popular several hundred years ago in England, and also in varied forms in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. For example, the related symbol in Sweden had the arms of the counterclockwise Swastika design expanded and connected to each other along a circular contour; which appears like a cross embedded in a circle.
According to Vedic philosophy, the four arms of the Swastika symbolize the four Vedas, four Varnas, four Ashrams, four Lokas or planetary systems, and the four deities - Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh (Shiva), and Ganesh. Eminent Vedic scholar Pt. Ramchandra Shastri further cites that the design of the Swastika resembles a four-petaled lotus (chaturdala kamal) which symbolizes the abode of Lord Ganapati (Ganesh) and is therefore worshiped in religious ceremonies and also enshrined at the places of worship. Several savants also regard the Swastika as the symbol of the Kaustubh Mani present on the chest of Lord Vishnu.
It was also a useful sign in commercial records in the ancient times and a symbol of fire, electricity, lightening, water, magnet, etc. Yet other researchers have also said that the Swastika, the symbol of auspiciousness and well-being, as designed by the Indian rishis (sages) of the Vedic age, was well received and recognized by the different civilizations across the globe who adopted it in various forms of similar designs. Thus, this symbol, along with other marks of the Vedic Culture, carries the spirit of enlightening thoughts and wisdom, the flow of which brings humankind to a higher level of consciousness.
Prof. Max Muller is among the noted European scholars who had studied Sanskrit language and the Vedic literature and also written commentaries there on. Commenting on the global propagation of the Swastika symbol, he once wrote in a letter to Dr. Schloman indicating that - this Vedic symbol could be found in Rome, Milan, Pompia, and perhaps in almost every part of Italy, in some ancient cities of England, at several places in Hungary, Greece, China, and in many other parts of the world. He has also supported the views of E. Thomas, where the latter has described the Swastika as a symbol of the continuous motion of the sun (and the solar system).
In the Ganesh Purana it is said that the Swastika is a form of Lord Ganesh. It is necessary that this be made before beginning any auspicious work. It has the power to remove all obstacles. Those who ignore it may fail. It is therefore customary to make all beginnings with the Swastika.
The Swastika is also known as 'Satiya', which is symbolic of the Sudarshan Chakra. People also consider it as a symbol denoting plus (+). That makes it a symbol of prosperity. The four dots around the Swastika are symbolic of the four directions around us.
THE MEANING OF OM
Om is the Akshara, or imperishable syllable. Om is the Universe, and this is the exposition of Om. The past, the present and the future, all that was, all that is, all that will be, is Om. Likewise, all else that may exist beyond the bounds of time, that too is Om. -- Mandukya Upanishud
Om is the sacred sound of Brahman. Of all the Vedic verses (Mantras) the most powerful and significant one is the single-syllable incantation called Pranava. The Pranava or OM is the universally accepted symbol of Hinduism, Vedic culture. Literally the word Pranava means "That by which God is effectively praised." It also means, "That which is ever new."
Pranava or Om has been extolled highly in the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Bhagavad-gita as also in other scriptures. It is believed one's own beastly nature may be conquered by repeatedly chanting OM.
The Yajur-Veda exhorts us to try to realize Brahman through repeating and remembering OM. The Kathopanishad declares that Om is Parabrahman (the Absolute Self) Itself. The Mandukyopanishud advises the spiritual aspirants to meditate on the unity of the Atman (the self) with Brahman (God) using OM for Japa (repeated chanting). Shri Krishna states in the Geeta that He is OM among words and that all religious rites are started with the chanting of OM. Not only that, if anyone succeeds in chanting OM at the time of his death, simultaneously thinking of God, he will attain the highest Truth. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali declare that Pranava is the symbol of God and that one can attain Samadhi by its repetition, and meditation on Him.
The symbol Om is used for invocation, benediction, ritual worship, festivals, and religious ceremonies. It represents five separate sounds: 'A' 'U' 'M' plus the nasalization and resonance of the sound. It is said that within the 'AUM', Vishnu is 'A’, Brahma is 'U' and Shiva is 'M'; bindu (dot) is the trinity in unity while the nada (crescent) symbolizes transcendence. In the Upanishads, however, AUM is the symbol of the nirguna (formless) Brahman, without attributes, beyond human consciousness and duality (pranava).
Also, AUM is expressed as consisting of three independent letters A, U, and M, each of which has its own meaning and significance. The letter 'A' represents the beginning (Adimatwa), 'U' represents progress (Utkarsha) and 'M' represents limit or dissolution (Miti). Hence the word AUM represents that Power responsible for creation, development and dissolution of this Universe, namely God Himself. The first manifesting word of God is Om.
Om (aum) became the sacred word hum of the Tibetans, amin of the Moslems, and amen of the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Christians. Amen in Hebrew means - sure, faithful. The biblical passage, John 1:1, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The New Testament declares that in the beginning God was the Word. According to the Bible, then, this means the pure sound vibration, or Shabda Brahman, from which all things manifest, including the eternal spiritual knowledge.
As a translator and scholar of Bagavad Gita, Barbara S. Miller notes, "According to the ancient Indian traditions preserved in the Upanishads, all speech and thought are derived from the one self-existent sound - Om. It expresses the ultimate reality." Also, Georg Feuerstein in "The Yoga Tradition" says: “The syllable of Om is held to be or to express the pulse of the cosmos itself. It was through meditative practice rather than intellectual speculation that the seers and sages of Vedic times arrived at the idea of a universal sound, eternally resounding in the universe, which they 'saw' as the very origin of the created world.” [A more thorough explanation of OM is described in my booklet "Meditation: A Short Course to Higher Consciousness."]
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CONCH SHELL (SHANKHA)
This is not only a symbol, but an instrument used in worship in the temple. When blown, it is said to produce a sound like the sacred Om,. It is also said that an adept yogi can subliminally hear the sankhanadi (sound of the perfect blowing of a shankha) within himself during the higher stages of meditation in Nadayoga Sadhana. When the conch is blown with controlled breath, the primordial sound of Om (Aum), the vibration of the universe, emanates from it. This eternal sound is said to be the origin of all Vedas. All knowledge enshrined in the Vedas is an elaboration of the omnipresent sublime sound of Om. It was this sound that was chanted by the Lord before manifesting the cosmos. It represents the creation and the Truth behind it. It represents Dharma or righteousness that is one of the four noble goals of human life.
According to Vedic terminology, that which leads to welfare is also called shankha. It is also with the sounding of the conch that the doors of the temple sanctums are opened. Another well-known purpose of blowing the conch is that it produces auspicious sounds, and can ward off negative vibrations or noises that may disturb the ambience or the minds of the devotees.
Even now, in some places, when the village temple begins its worship, the conch is blown, and everyone who can hear it stops for a moment or even pays their mental obeisances to the deity in the temple.
The shankhas that open towards the left hand (vaamavarti), when the narrow end is pointed toward you, are commonly available, but rare are the ones that open towards right side (i.e., facing South) when the pointed end is toward you. This kind of shankha is called dakshinavarti. South is the direction of Kubera, the God of wealth. Tantra Shastra has also given great importance to such types of shells. These shells are very rare and are found only in a very few places. Dakshinavarti shankhas not only bring wealth but also purify the atmosphere. All the negative energies are swept out of the place. Dakshinavarti shankhas are available in white color and with brown lines on them. Their sizes differ, starting from the size of a wheat grain to as large as a coconut. Mostly these shells are available only at Kanya Kumari. A completely white colored shankha is indeed rare.
Dakshinavarti shankha is the symbol of Goddess Lakshmi. Her deities and pictures always depict dakshinavarti shankha in one of Her hands. Dakshinavarti shankha should be kept at the place of worship or, after being wrapped in a white cloth, at any sacred place in the house. It is said to bring good luck and prosperity to the individual and his family. In the Puranas, the gods and goddesses are depicted as holding a shell, whenever they are happy or setting out on a fight against evil forces. Whenever the shell is blown it is said to purify the environment from all evil effects. Blowing of a shankha enhances the positive psychological vibrations, such as courage, hope, determination, willpower, optimism, etc., in the blower as well as those around him/her.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE KALASH OR SACRED POT
The symbol of the kalash or sacred pot is physically represented by a metal or earthen pitcher or urn. It is generally filled with water during rituals (preferably the water of the holy Ganga, any sacred river or clean, running water). Its top open end holds betel or mango leaves, and a red-yellow sanctified thread (kalawa or mauli) is tied around its neck. This kalash is placed on the pujavedi (worship dais or table) near the deities or pictures of the deity. It is placed facing the North, in the center. This positioning signifies balance; balance that one needs to achieve success in every walk of life. Often it is topped by a coconut or a deepak and kept on the sacred Vedic Swastika symbol or a Vedic Swastika is drawn on it by using wet vermillion, sandal-wood powder and turmeric. The kalash has many symbolic meanings and teachings associated with it as described below.
During worship or rituals, leaves from some select trees are used as essential accessories, but among them all, the betel leaf (pana) enjoys a place of pride in India. In Hindu weddings, a betel leaf is tucked into the headgears of the bride and the groom. The betel leaf is symbolic of freshness and prosperity. The Skanda Purana says that the betel leaf was obtained by the demigods during the grand ocean-churning. The use of betel leaf in India is mentioned in the great epics, such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, as well as in Buddhist and Jain literature.
The kalash, tied with the kalawa, and having betel or mango leaves atop, symbolizes the cosmos. The water inside the kalash represents the primordial waters, elixir of life or the soul filled with love and compassion, abundance, and hospitality. Varuna, the Lord of the oceans and the divine source of water element, is invoked while filling a kalash with water. In some cultures, the kalash is said to represent the body, the leaves the five senses, and water the life-force. Some Vedic scriptures refer it as a symbol of the mother earth and divine consciousness.
The word meaning of the scriptural hymns of the kalash's worship describe the mouth, throat, and base of the kalash as seats of Lord Vishnu, Lord Shiva, and Lord Brahma respectively, whereas the belly represents all goddesses and Divine-mother's power streams. Thus, in this small urn the presence of all the demigods and goddesses is symbolized. This exemplifies that all the gods are essentially one and are emanations of the same Supreme Power.
The coconut (Nariyala) on top of the kalash is a symbol of the Godhead - the three eyes symbolic of the eyes of Lord Shiva. In India, for success in an important undertaking, the beginning is done with the breaking of a sanctified coconut. All religious functions and rituals start with the worship of the coconut, along with the kalash, since it is regarded as symbolic of Lord Ganesha, the deity who helps in the successful completion of any undertaking.
Sage Vishwamitra is said to have got the first coconut tree grown on this earth by the power of his tapas, or austerities. Its hard shell inspires one to have tolerance and do hard work for attaining success. The coconut is also broken before a deity in the temple, signifying the soul's breaking out of the shell of the ego. People get strength and improved eyesight by eating its white kernel. The sick and the elderly find its water nourishing and ladies apply its oil for healthy hair. It has glucose, phosphorous, and carbohydrates in good quantity and is also good for diabetes.
Ancient Indian healers used to burn its outer shell to prepare tooth powder, eyebrow creams, and ointments for burns. Every part of the coconut plant is very beneficial to humans. Hence, most Indians consider it a good omen to receive or give coconut fruits as gifts. It is also called shreephal because it denotes prosperity.
THE IMPORTANCE OF DEEPAK (THE SACRED OIL OR GHEE LAMP)
Together with the kalash the lighted deepak is also placed on the pujavedi or altar and worshiped. As a physical object, a deepak or lamp is an earthen (or metallic) saucer-like tiny pot filled with ghee (clarified butter) or refined oil with a twisted cotton tape (ball) immersed in it. It is lighted in every Hindu household and temple in India. The cotton tape keeps sucking the ghee to yield a soothing bright light, a flame. In nature, the flame is considered to be the source of heat and light. The heat of the fire and hence the flame is also a good germicide.
The deepak is worshipped as the symbol of the all-pervading Light of all Lights. Some scientific models and theories today also agree that all matter has emanated from the light of consciousness-force. This great Effulgence is worshipped through the medium of the deepak. Meditation on the standing bright yellow flame of a Deepak during tratak yoga improves mental concentration and induces sublime energy of positive currents emanating from this symbol of cosmic consciousness.
A deepak is also used during arati – the devotional worship and prayer sung at a religious celebration or ritual of worship to the temple deities. The deepak (arati flame) is moved around the deity to symbolize the divine aura and also to help the devotees to have a clear look of the deity. This is usually done with four circles to the feet, two to the waist, four to the head, and seven to the whole body. In the end, as the lamp is passed around, the devotees put their palms on the arati flame to receive the arati aura, symbolizing the acceptance of divine light that can open one’s consciousness.
The standing deepak (Samai or Kuttuvilaku) symbolizes the dispelling of ignorance and awakening of the divine light within us. Its soft glow illumines the temple or the shrine room, keeping the atmosphere pure and serene. The lamp is also a symbol for the Vedic festival of Diwali (Deepavali), an Indian festival of lights. One of many interpretations of Diwali is a celebration of the light of knowledge that chases away the darkness of ignorance.
Visualizing the kalash as a symbol of the cosmos and deepak as a symbol of cosmic energy may not be so easy for us. But we should at least assimilate the teachings apparent from them - the soothing coolness (calmness) and uniformity (impartiality) of the kalash, and the radiance, energy (activeness) and steadfast uprightness of the deepak.
THE PURPOSE OF YANTRAS
Yantras are generally geological designs imprinted on a copper or silver plate. These days we also see them in multi-colored inks on paper. Among the sacred symbols manifested by the Vedic Rishis, yantras are predominantly regarded as devices for devotional sadhanas or practices, and as objects to direct our mind and worship. These are used as tools for mental concentration and meditation. Keeping a specific yantra in a particular direction in the home, and worshiping it and concentrating upon it is said to have distinct auspicious effects. A mantra is the generator of specific currents of sublime sound and its perceivable manifestation; a yantra is a monogram - a spectrograph of this sonic energy. In terms of their spiritual effects, yantras are like schematic sketches of the contours or structures of divine energy fields.
Likewise the images of gods in the temples, yantras are revered and worshiped as symbols of divine powers. The Devi Bhagavat (3|26|21) states - Archabhave Tatha Yantram; meaning - a yantra symbolizes a divine power. Similar meanings are indicated in Naradiya Purana, Gautamiya Tantra, Yogini Tantra, and several other Vedic scriptures.
Yantras are also referred as the abodes of the divine powers of God, or of the deity that it represents. This is why most of the Vedic yantras are named after different divinities, such as, Ganesa-yantra, Sri-yantra, Gopala-yantra, etc. Each yantra needs to be installed with the use of particular mantras, similar to the temple installation of a deity. Which yantra is placed in which direction and how its worship and devotional sadhana is to be performed - the knowledge of these constitutes a science in itself that has linkage with the Vedic cosmology and sciences of mantra, Tantra, and Vastu.
A dot (.) in the cryptography of yantra symbolizes absoluteness, completeness. In terms of the manifestation of Nature in the universe, it is a symbol of the nucleus of cosmic energy and hence represents the power-source of all activities and motion. Its spiritual implication is pure knowledge, enlightenment, and ultimate realization. The expansions of a dot in circular forms, in a yantra, symbolize related expressions in varied forms. Combining the dots results in a triangle. Different lengths of the straight lines joining the dots, different angles between them, and the different triangular and other shapes generated thereby together with free dots, circles, straight, curvilinear, convergent, and divergent lines are the basic features/components of the structure of a yantra.
Everything that exists in the cosmos has some size and structure - perceivable or conceptualized - in subliminal, astronomical or intermediate dimensions. Even the invisible subtle entities have 'shapes' which could be 'seen' through mental eyes. The sagacious minds of the Vedic Age had deeper insight to 'see' the invisible or sublime elements of nature and express them in a universal language of symbols. They had thus invented a coding system of symbols, signs and alphabets (including digits) to represent the syllables of the seed mantras associated with the sublime fields of divine powers (devatas), natural tendencies of consciousness, emotional impulses in a being, etc; and the five basic elements (pancha-tatvas), their etheric vibrations and energy fields, and the states and motions of the enormous varieties of sub-atomic, atomic, and molecular structures generated thereby. Specific configurations of these codes were then incorporated in different yantras. Thus, by meditating on the yantras, and using particular mantras to invoke their potencies, would also awake higher powers within the mind and consciousness of the sadhaka, or practitioner, if done properly.
A brief description of some of the popular yantras is given below.
Shri Yantra: Through this yantra one attains the favor of Lakshmi and is never short of money. By reciting Lakshmi prayers to it everyday, one attains all benefits. Though there are many kinds of color variations those who are artistic like to make to the Sri Yantra, the best kind of Sri Yantra on which to meditate are those that are simply composed of the black and white lines, which enunciates the triangles in the yantra the best.
Shri Mahamrityunjay Yantra: This yantra protects one from destructive influences like accidents, crises, sickness, epidemic, and similar life-threatening calamities.
Baglamukhi Yantra: This is to overcome enemies or obstacles and gain favorable verdicts in legal cases.
Bisa Yantra: God helps those who have the Bisa yantra in all endeavors. All difficult things become easy. By praying to it every morning obstacles are overcome and one attains success and honor.
Kuber Yantra: This yantra makes Kuber, the god of wealth, benevolent.
Shri Kanakdhara Yantra: It helps in attaining wealth and dispelling poverty and ensures many blessings.
Shri Mahalakshmi Yantra: With prayers to this yantra one is assured of perpetual prosperity.
Surya Yantra: It promotes good health and well-being, protects one from diseases and promotes intellect.
Panchadashi Yantra: This yantra has the blessings of Lord Shiva and ensures morality, wealth, family happiness, and salvation.
Of all yantras the one that brings results the most quickly is the Shri yantra. With successful prayer and offerings, all the four basic human pursuits are attained, such as dharma - discharge of duty, artha - acquirement of wealth, kama - gratification and moksha - final emancipation. The Vedas say that 33 crore gods and goddesses reside in the Shri yantra. This yantra can also eliminate Vaastu shortcomings. The origin and development of the universe is depicted in this yantra.
The Durga Saptshati says: With worship the primordial power gives happiness, enjoyment, and pleasures of heaven.
There is a story pertaining to the origin of the Shri yantra. Once at Kailash Mansarovar, Adi Shankaracharya underwent great penance and pleased Lord Shiva. When Lord Shiva offered a blessing, Shankaracharya inquired whether universal welfare could be attained. In response, Lord Shiva gave him the Shri yantra, an embodiment of Lakshmi, along with the Shri Sukta mantra.
Shri yantra is the place of worship of goddess Bhagwati Mahatripura Sundari, an embodiment of Brahma. She resides in the circles. Her chariot as well as the subtle form and symbol is there. Any prayer offered to Rajeshwari (a monarch), Kameshwari (one who grants wishes) and Mahatripura Sundari without the Shri yantra brings no results. All gods and goddesses dependent upon Mahatripura Sundari reside in the Shri yantra.
Mahatripura Sundari has been referred to in religious texts with names like Vidya (knowledge), Maha Vidya (best knowledge) and Param Vidya (ultimate knowledge).
There is a story about the effectiveness of the Shri yantra. Once, unhappy with her visit to earth, Ma Lakshmi returned home to Vaikuntha. Due to her absence, many problems emerged on earth. Maharishi Vasishtha sought the help of Lord Vishnu to pacify Ma Lakshmi, without success. Then Devaguru Brihaspati explained that the best way to attract Lakshmi to the earth was through the Shri yantra. With worship of the Shri yantra, Ma Lakshmi immediately returned to earth and said, "Shri yantra is my foundation. My soul resides in it. Therefore, I had to return."
Worship to Shri yantra after pran pratishtha ensures happiness and liberation. The best occasions to establish a Shri yantra are Diwali, Dhanteras (two days before Diwali), Dashera, Akshay Tritiya (the third day of the lunar fortnight) and Pratipada (the first day of the lunar fortnight) and other auspicious days. At the time of worship one must face the east and pray with devotion and concentration.
Here are two versions of the Sri Yantra:
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SHIVA LINGAM
One thing a person may be questioning is why Lord Shiva is so often represented as a lingam. Linga basically means a sign or symbol. So the lingam is essentially a symbol of the shapeless universal consciousness of Lord Shiva. “Shiva” also means that in which the creation lies dormant after the annihilation. So, one explanation is that the lingam is a representative of the dormant universal consciousness in which all created things rest after the cosmic annihilation. It also represents the pradhana, the potential but unmanifest ingredients of the material world. Another explanation is that Shiva means auspicious. So the linga is the shapeless symbol for the great god of auspiciousness. It is intended to bring the shapeless unknown into our attention.
The yoni upon which the lingam often sits represents the manifest universal energy. From the unmanifest comes the manifest energy, through which all other things are created. The yoni, which is a symbol of Shakti, combined with the lingam, is a symbol of the eternal union of the paternal and maternal principles, or the positive and negative, or the static and dynamic energies of the Absolute Reality. It is the communion of the eternal consciousness and dynamic power of the Shakti, the source of all actions and changes. It is also the symbol for the creation of the universe through the combination of the active energy of Lord Shiva and his Shakti. This is how Lord Shiva and Durga are considered the parents of the universe. The symbolism of the lingam and yoni also represents the base of the spine, meaning the Muladhara chakra, upon which the kundalini is resting, waiting for awakening.
There are a few versions according to the Puranas of why Shiva is worshiped as a lingam and how this happened, of which I will relate one. There was a great sacrificial ceremony that was going to take place many hundreds of years ago. The great sage Narada Muni was invited to it and asked who would receive the effects of the sacrifice. No one could answer, so the sages who were present asked him who should receive it. Narada said that Sri Vishnu, Brahma and Shiva were all eligible, but they would have to find out which one had the most patience and purity to be the receiver of the sacrifice. So he chose the great sage Brighu to learn the answer.
Brighu had many mystic powers and was able to travel to the domain of the demigods. So first he went to see Lord Brahma, but Brahma was preoccupied and did not notice Brighu’s presence. Feeling insulted, Brighu cursed Brahma, “You are so proud of your power of creation, you did not notice my arrival. For this you shall have no temples on earth.” Thus, there are very few temples of Brahma on earth. Next, Brighu went to see Shiva in Kailash, but Shiva also did not notice Brighu’s arrival. Brighu, again feeling offended, cursed Shiva to be worshiped only as a lingam on earth. This is the reason why Lord Shiva is primarily represented and worshiped as a lingam on this planet.
Then, to continue the story, Brighu went to see Lord Vishnu, who also did not recognize Brighu’s presence. Brighu was so angered that he went forward and kicked Vishnu’s chest. Lord Vishnu apologized if He had hurt Brighu’s foot and began praising Brighu. Brighu immediately felt pleased and could understand that Vishnu was actually the most qualified to receive the offerings from the sacrifice. However, Lakshmidevi, the goddess of fortune and Lord Vishnu’s wife, was very displeased by Brighu’s action and, therefore, does not bestow much mercy on the brahmanas who, as a result, are often without much money.
To explain the shape of the lingam, a Baana linga is egg-shaped and is meant to show that Ishvara has neither beginning nor end. The Lingobhavamurti form of the linga is said to be the prime manifestation of the formless, which Shiva is said to have manifested exactly at midnight on Shivaratri. This is why everyone stays up until midnight and then worships that form during the Shivaratri festival. A representation of the Lingobhavamurti can often be found in a niche on the outside wall of the sanctum in any important Shiva temple.
The lingas in the temples are often formed in three parts. The lowest part is the base square called the Brahmabhaga or Brahma-pitha, which represents the creator Brahma. The next part in the middle is the octagonal Vishnubhaga or Vishnu-pitha, which signifies Lord Vishnu the sustainer. Both of these parts form the pedestal. The top cylindrical portion is the Rudrabhaga or Shiva-pitha, which is also called the Pujabhaga since this is the worshipable part. The top portion is also meant to symbolize the projecting flame of fire. This flame also represents the destructive aspects as well as the preserving power of God.
There are twelve important Jyotirlinga (self-manifested linga) temples scattered across India. They are found at Kedarnatha, Kashi Visvanatha, Somnatha, Baijnath, Ramesvare, Ghrisnesvar, Bhimasankar, Mahakala, Mallikarjuna, Amalesvar, Nagesvar, and Tryambakesvar. The five Pancha Bhuta lingas in India are located at Kalahastisvar, Jambukesvar, Arunachalesvar, Ekambesvara at Kanchipuram, and Nataraja at Chidambaram. The temple of Lord Mahalinga at Tiruvidaimarudur (Madhyarjuna) is also a great temple in South India.
The reason Lord Shiva is often worshiped by pouring Ganges water over the lingam is that it represents the Ganges descending from heaven on to Shiva’s head. The legend is that when the Ganges first began to flow to the earthly planet from the heavenly region, the force of it would have destroyed the earth. To prevent this, Lord Shiva agreed to let the river first fall on his head before it formed into a river. It is also explained that when worshipers pour milk or Ganga water on the linga, it represents the pouring of ghee on the sacred fire in the fire ceremony, or yajna. This is the symbolic offering of ourselves to God.
One story in connection with the Shiva linga is found in the Linga Purana. It describes that once Lord Brahma, the god of creation, and Lord Vishnu, the God of protection, engaged in an argument on who was greater. When those two great gods were fighting between themselves, Lord Shiva appeared as a huge pillar of fire that spread across the universe. He told Brahma and Vishnu that whoever finds the head or foot of his form of flame would be considered greater. Then Brahma took the form of a swan and set out to reach the top of the flame. Vishnu took the form of a boar to seek out the foot of the fire. But in spite of their efforts, they could not succeed in finding the limits. They realized their mistake and the peerless greatness of Lord Shiva. This shows how Shiva cannot be approached through ego, but responds with love to those who surrender to him. In this pastime, Lord Shiva appeared in the form of the fiery lingam for their benefit. So they were considered blessed with additional insight for worshiping that oldest form of him. This form of Shiva who appeared from the flame is called Lingodbhava. This story is found in the Shiva Purana and other texts.
This further helps to show how the lingam is not formless nor really a form, but a symbol for the divinity of Lord Shiva. In Sanskrit, linga also means “mark”. It is a mark or symbol of Lord Shiva in the same way that large puddles of water is an indication of heavy rains. It is an inference for something else, like the form of that which is formless and omnipotent.
Mercury Shiva lingas are known to be especially potent. Mercury is known as parad or para in Hindi. It is also known as Shivadhatu, literally Shiva's metal. In reality, it refers to Shiva's semen. Mercury has been equated with this, and is especially revered. Shiva lingas made from a variety of stones are held in great reverence. However, religious writers have equated a Shiva linga made of mercury with Shiva. It is said to possess divine qualities. Whenever a deity is made ceremoniously with a combination of mercury, it is said to be very effective. It is believed that whoever offers prayers to the mercury Shiva linga will be blessed and considered as having offered prayers to all Shiva lingas in the universe.
These blessings are equivalent to those from hundreds of Ashwamedha yajnas. Even the blessings gained from giving millions of cows in charity cannot equal this. Giving gold in charity also does not qualify one for as many blessings. It is said that in homes where prayers are offered regularly to the mercury Shiva linga, all kinds of comforts are available. Success reigns there as Shiva resides in these homes. In such places, vaastu shortcomings will be overlooked. Offering prayers every Monday to the mercury Shiva linga can also ward off tantric spells.
In the Shiva Purana, Shiva has said: “Whatever blessings are showered upon you on making offerings to millions of different Shiva lingas, these can be multiplied manifold when you personally offer prayers to the mercury Shiva linga. By a mere touch of the mercury Shiva linga one can achieve salvation.”
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF A SHALAGRAMA
On the banks of the river Gandaki in Nepal one comes across smooth, shining, black, egg-like stones that may have a hole, or be like a shell, or have round white lines or designs on them. These are known as Shalagramas. These are black stones with fossil ammonite. Devotees of Vishnu consider these stones sacred, believing that Vishnu resides in them. These are considered to be stones of great value by devotees. Religious texts mention that a home is not complete without a Shalagrama.
In the Padma Purana, it is said that in whatever homes you find a Shalagrama, that home is better than places of pilgrimage. Just by looking at a Shalagrama serious sins are absolved. Those who pray to it are specially blessed. Shalagrama is symbolic of the universal Vishnu.
In the Skanda Purana, Shiva has narrated the importance of Shalagrama. Every year in the month of Kartik (Oct-Nov) on the twelfth day of the lunar month women conduct marriages between Shalagrama and Tulasi and offer new clothes and other items. Amongst Hindus the marriage season starts thereafter.
In the Brahma Vaivarta Purana, Prakritikhand, chapter 21, it is said that wherever one finds a Shalagrama, Vishnu resides there. After completing several pilgrimages, Lakshmi also joins him. All kinds of sins are absolved. A Shalagrama has the ability to bless one with important positions, property, and prosperity. However, one must avoid keeping defective and damaged stones that are sharp, malformed, yellow or discolored. Such stones bring bad luck and create problems and must be disposed.
It is also believed that whoever sprinkles water that has been in contact with a Shalagrama shall be blessed as though he had visited places of pilgrimage and bathed in holy waters. By offering prayers one is blessed as though one has read the Vedas. Whoever bathes the Shalagrama with water everyday is blessed as though he has offered great charities. He is then free from the shackles of life and death. At the time of death it absolves one of all sins and one becomes worthy of living in Vishnu's company. It is believed that whoever looks after Tulasi, Shalagrama, and the conch shell, shall always be dear to Vishnu.
WHY THE COW IS CONSIDERED SACRED
In the Vedic culture, the cow is especially revered and regarded as one of our mothers. It is believed that all the demigods reside within the body of a cow. It is therefore the responsibility of every person to accord it respect and do one's duty by it. For most religious ceremonies the cow is essential.
The cow has been important since ancient times. Maharishi Vashistha once played his own life for the Kamadhenu, the celestial cow. Maharishi Chyavan preferred a cow to a kingdom. Such was the importance of the cow. Like a mother, the cow is known for the good it does mankind. It helps promote good health and long life. Similarly, the bull is known to have provided labor and power to help plow fields and develop agriculture. The dung from both the bull and cow has been used for centuries for fuel.
Religious texts say: The cow is a universal mother. The Agni Purana says that the cow is a pure, auspicious animal. Looking after a cow, bathing it and making it eat and drink are commendable acts. Cow dung and urine are said to have medicinal qualities and are known to contain antiseptic properties. The milk, curd, butter, and ghee are all used in religious ceremonies. Whoever offers a morsel of food to the cow attains spiritual merit. Whoever gives a cow in charity benefits the whole family. Wherever a cow lives the place becomes purified. The touch and care of cows absolves one of sins.
In the Atharva-Veda, it is said: The cow is the mother of Rudras; she is a daughter of the Vasus; she is the sister of Surya. She is a storehouse of ghee that is like the celestial nectar.
In the Markandeya Purana it is explained that the welfare of the world depends upon the cow. The back of the cow is symbolic of the Rig-Veda, the body of Yajur-Veda, the mouth of the Sama-Veda, the neck of the household deity and the good deeds and the soft body hair are like the mantras. Cow dung and urine give peace and good health. Wherever a cow lives the virtues are never wasted. A cow always promotes contentment.
In the Vishnu Smriti it is said that the land on which cows live is pure. Cows are pure and auspicious. They promote the welfare of mankind. They help make a yajna successful. By serving cows one gets rid of sins. Their dwelling is like a pilgrimage. One becomes virtuous through reverence of cows.
The Skanda Purana also explains that cow dung purifies the courtyard and temple.
The Atharva-Veda also relates that cow's milk helps overcome debility and regain lost physical and mental health. It promotes intelligence.
In the Bhagavad-gita, Sri Krishna said, "Amongst cows, I am Kamadhenu."
The Mahabharata relates that a cow given in charity becomes like Kamadhenu through its virtues and returns to the donor in the next birth. Through her virtues the cow protects the donor from the darkness of hell just as air protects and guides a boat from sinking and helps it steer through the vast ocean of life. Just as a mantra acts like a medicine to destroy disease, in the same way a cow given in charity to a good person protects one from all sins.
In the Mahabharata, Kurma Purana, Yagyavalkya Smriti, and several other Vedic texts, it is said that whoever gives a cow in charity shall always be happy and content and attain heaven after death. It is believed that after death, before heaven one reaches the Vaitarni River. To cross it one can hold the tail of the cow (as a sign and indication of respect for it) and finally reach heaven (the higher planetary systems).
The respect given to the cows and bulls is also representative of the respect that followers of Vedic culture give toward all animals and creatures created by God. All such beings have their place and purpose in the world. Elephants, horses, mules, camels, yak, reindeer, and even the simple donkey have helped mankind in their own way. The sheep gave mankind wool. The silk worm provided silk thread. The bee gives honey. Even the pig did not refrain from providing bristles used in many ways. Living in harmony with animals is an essential part of the Vedic way of life.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RED THREAD TIED AROUND THE WRIST
It is customary for Hindus to tie a red thread - commonly called a mauli or kalava - on the wrist at the beginning of a religious ceremony. The thread is tied on the right wrist of men and the left wrist of women. The literal meaning of mauli is 'above all'. Here the reference is to the head that stands high. With the moon perched on top of Shiva's head he is referred to as Chandramauli.
A person often puts on the red thread on one’s wrist when doing a ceremony, ritual or puja, such as worship to the Ganga River, a deity, or for certain blessings. The thread helps preserve or imbibe those blessings when it is tied around one’s wrist during the ceremony. The practice of tying the thread dates back to the time when Vamana Bhagwan tied this holy thread on the wrist of the progressive King Bali to grant him immortality.
The thread can also be called a raksha or rakhi, and is put on the brother by the sister to show the sister’s familial love. The knots in the thread are said to hold the love of the sister when she tied the knot. Thus, the brother wears the rakhi as a sign of his sister’s love and wishes for protection. In other arrangements, the knots tied in the rakhi as the red strings are given to guests or tied around their wrists before a special ceremony or reception is also considered to hold the goodwill of those who offer it.
POINTS ABOUT VEDIC WORSHIP
PURPOSE OF THE DEITY OR IMAGE (MURTI) IN THE TEMPLE
Followers of Sanatana-Dharma believe in the concept of Atma (soul) and Paramatma (Super Soul). The Atma is present in all and is a part of Paramatma. It is easier to build a relationship with God if one thinks of Him as a person. The deities are the personal manifestation of one God representing various qualities. The deities are the representation of God that provides the mercy for us to see Him with our material eyes. Generally, until we become more spiritual developed, we cannot see spiritual items with our material mind and senses. So, the deity is the Lord’s mercy on us so that we can still see Him in our present materialistic conditioning. The deity, once made under strict rules, is then also installed in the temple in a special ritual in which by various means we call the Lord to inhabit the deity. Then the deity is considered to be no different than the Lord Himself. There are also many stories in which it is related how various deities became alive and acted in ways to reciprocate with the devotion of the devotee. Thus, a deity, though appearing to be made of material ingredients, should in no way be considered material. The Lord can indeed make what is material into something spiritual, or take what is spiritual and make it appear as material. But it is explained that anyone who takes the deity in the temple to be ordinary material substance has a hellish mentality. In short, the deities are the personal manifestation of gods or goddesses.
WHAT IS PADA PUJA
When a great saintly person or spiritual master arrives for giving darshan or to a satsangh, sometimes they are given pada puja. This is the worship of the feet. Often this is done by giving the feet of that person a bath in flowers, or sometimes with milk. Then the flowers or milk is distributed to the surrounding devotees who then accept it respectfully. By worshiping the feet of one who is grounded in the Ultimate Truth of God consciousness, we are invited to awaken that same consciousness and Supreme Love in our own hearts. Associating with the remnants of such worship of those who are spiritual advanced will accelerate one’s own spiritual progress.
THE PURPOSE OF A TEMPLE
A temple is a place where the deities are enshrined and worshiped. In personal expression, a temple is the abode of God. A temple represents an ocean of spiritual energy, which preserves and protects culture and tradition. It magnifies the spiritual vibration which the devotees can then use like a spiritual launching pad from which one can hasten and charge one’s own spiritual development by coming closer to the spiritual dimension. Even a temple room in one’s own house can work in this way to some extant.
PURPOSE OF VEDIC RITUALS AND RITES
Traditional rites and rituals have a definite influence upon individuals. The activities involved while performing rites and rituals may include a yajna, chanting mantras, special offerings, and group participation, which are based upon scientific principles. Scientists acknowledge the influence of sound and music, color, magnetic vibrations, and knowledge on which we concentrate. There is no doubt about the uplifting effect of rites and rituals. Good actions promote good habits and positive impressions that are absorbed by the mind and consciousness. Even psychologists admit that a person picks up good habits quickly when directed by good people in the correct environment.
The conscious mind controls the bulk of everyday activities. The unconscious mind looks after the more subtle and finer activities. The conscious mind collects impressions and influences from the outside world. The Vedic rituals provide a means for this to happen. However, the unconscious mind sorts the information and builds memories. Depending upon the kind of impressions and influences one gathers from the environment, the subconscious mind gradually transforms itself accordingly. A skillful and efficient mind renders the best support and service to the soul. It is not possible to awaken the perception of one’s soul without a knowledgeable, controlled and pure mind.
During rites and rituals a priest invokes the blessings of the deities. When individuals experience the kindness of gods and are emotionally touched during the yajna and other activities, the mind gets charged with religious feelings. The importance of the occasion, the enthusiasm, the purity of the place, an emotional oath by the individual, the presence of the family, relatives and friends together add up to create a special kind of mental state. Activities during rituals leave an indelible impression upon the individual. This impression specially influences and educates the mind.
The effect of the ceremonies depends upon the atmosphere on the occasion and the way it is conducted. Hindus observe a variety of rites and rituals. The Gautam Smriti mentions that there are 40 basic rituals. Some religious texts place this figure at 48. According to Maharishi Angira, there are 25 basic forms of rituals.
THE POTENCY OF CHARANAMRITA
The word charanamrita comprises two words, charan and amrita. Charan means feet and amrita is the celestial nectar that makes one immortal. Together the words mean nectar of God's feet. This is the water that has been used to bathe the deity of the Lord in the temple. It glides down the body of the deity and through His lotus feet. It is then gathered and sometimes mixed with yogurt and a little sugar and offered to all who come to the temple to see the deities. Thus, having touched the body of the deity form of the Lord, the water becomes spiritually very powerful. Those who come to the temple to see the deities gladly accept three drops in the palm of their right hand, which is supported by their left, and then sip it from their palm.
Charanamrita is normally kept on a special table near the deities in a copper vessel, as copper has many curative qualities. Ayurveda and homoeopathic practitioners have confirmed this. Copper cures spasmodic pains. It is believed that drinking water stored in a copper vessel improves intellect, memory, and wisdom.
The Padma Purana says that even if one has not done any pious activities at all, if a person accepts the charanamrita of the deity, he becomes eligible to enter Vaikuntha.
In the Ramayana (Ayodhya Kand, Doha 101) Tulsidas has said: When Kewat washed the feet of Sri Rama and accepted the water as charanamrita, not only did he attain salvation, but his forefathers also attained it.
In the Ranvir Bhaktiratanakara Brahma, it is said: To absolve oneself of sins and get rid of disease God's charanamrita is like medicine. If tulasi leaves are added, the qualities are enhanced.
In the Ranvir Bhaktisagar it is said: Charanamrita protects one from untimely death. It destroys all kinds of diseases. It breaks the chain of death and rebirth.
Charanamrita has great qualities and benefits a person physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Therefore, always accept charanamrita with grace and humility.
WHY THE GANGA (GANGES RIVER) IS CONSIDERED SACRED
In the Mahabharata (Vana Parva, 85/89-90-93), it is said: Just as fire burns the fuel, in the same way if one were to bathe in the Ganga even after hundreds of forbidden deeds, the water of the Ganga would cleanse them all. In Satya-yuga all pilgrimages produced results. In Treta-yuga Pushkar would be very important, in Dwapara-yuga Kurukshetra, and in Kali-yuga Ganga would be most important. The very name of Ganga purifies a sinner. The sight of it is auspicious. Bathing in it or drinking a few drops purifies seven generations.
In the Bhagavad-gita, Sri Krishna also says: Amongst the rivers, I am Ganga. In other religious texts it is said: The medicine for spiritual ills is the water of the Ganga. The doctor who cures these ills is none other than Lord Vishnu.
In the Padma Purana it is mentioned that with the influence of the Ganga, the sins of several births are washed away. Much virtue is gained and one finds a place in heaven.
The Agni Purana says that the Ganga blesses one with liberation. Those who bathe in it or drink from the Ganga everyday then cross hurdles and sail smoothly in life. Those who chant the glory of the Ganga gain many virtues. There is no pilgrimage on a river holier than the one on the Ganga.
The Skanda Purana (Kashi p., 27/49) also says: Just as fire burns on touching it even though one does not want to be burnt, in the same way the Ganga washes away the sins of mankind even when it is not so intended.
Research has confirmed that water from the Ganga does not deteriorate on storage. With its health promoting qualities, Ganga water can be compared to celestial nectar or amrita. It is sweet, rich in a variety of minerals and destroys disease. Some people have reported extraordinary cases of revival when Ganga water was given to a dying person. The experience has been described as similar to a fountain of life bursting inside to revive the person. Many people believe that at the time of death a few drops of Ganga water and pieces of tulasi leaf must be administered to a dying person. Therefore, it is important to respect the Ganga River and take all necessary steps to maintain its cleanliness by not pouring pollutants into it and to preserve it as best we can.
WHY THE TULASI TREE IS SACRED
The Skanda Purana says that one gets rid of the sins of as many lives as the number of Tulasi plants one grows. The Padma Purana asserts that wherever there is a garden of Tulasi plants, that place is like a pilgrimage. Representatives of Yama, the God of Death, cannot enter this home. Homes plastered with soil in which the Tulasi grows are free from disease.
Ancient religious texts have praised the Tulasi plant in many ways. Air that carries the fragrance of Tulasi benefits people it comes in contact with. Planting and caring for Tulasi helps people get rid of their sins. Even if one Tulasi is grown, the presence of Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh, and other gods is assured. Benefits of pilgrimages such as going to Pushkar and that of sacred rivers like the Ganga are also available there. By offering prayers to Tulasi, one automatically prays to all gods and it is akin to a pilgrimage, therefore, the benefits accrue accordingly.
During the month of Kartik (Oct-Nov), when prayers are offered to Tulasi, or new plants are grown, the accumulated sins of many births are absolved. Tulasi affords auspicious opportunities generously. Simultaneously, it removes worries and tension. By offering Tulasi leaves to Lord Krishna one achieves liberation. Without Tulasi, religious ceremonies remain incomplete. When charity is given along with Tulasi, it ensures great benefits. And when shraddha is offered to forefathers near a Tulasi plant, it pleases them immensely. At the time of death, it is customary to mix Tulasi with Ganga water and put this in the mouth of the dying person.
It is customary to offer prayers to the Tulasi plant in the evening and light a lamp to offer the Tulasi tree or perform an arati to Tulasi. One then attains the blessings of Vrinda and Lord Vishnu. It is believed that the penance of Vrinda and her surrender and devotion to Lord Vishnu became a part of the fragrance and leaves of the Tulasi. It is customary to circumambulate the Tulasi plant 108 times on Somapati Amavasya (Monday that coincides with the dark night or new moon of the month) to get rid of insufficiency.
In the Brahma Vaivarta Purana (Prakriti Khand, 21/40) it is said: Lord Hari is not so pleased after bathing with thousands of pots filled with celestial nectar, as he is when even a single leaf of Tulasi is offered to him.
It is also said that whoever offers even a single Tulasi leaf to Lord Vishnu and prays to him daily attains the benefits of a hundred thousand Ashwamedha yajnas. And, at the time of death, even if a single drop of Tulasi water enters the mouth of a dying person, Vishnu Loka (the abode of Lord Vishnu) is attained definitely.
The Padma Purana says that whoever bathes with water in which Tulasi is added attains the virtues of having bathed in the Bhagirathi Ganga (Ganges River).
It is also described in the Brahma Vaivarta Purana that her last birth Tulasi was Vrinda Devi, married to an asura named Jalandhar. To gain victory over him, Lord Vishnu persuaded Vrinda to give up devotion to her husband. Pleased with her, Vishnu gave her his blessings. Through his blessings she became Tulasi and is worshipped by people all over the world.
[More about Tulasi is explained in my article called, “Tulasi Devi: The Sacred Tree,” which will explain this more completely.
WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PEEPAL TREE
In Taittriya Samhita, the Peepal tree is included amongst the seven most important trees in the world. The importance of the tree is also attested in the Brahma Vaivarta Purana.
The Padma Purana also explains that the Peepal tree is a form of Lord Vishnu. Therefore, it is accorded special importance for religious purposes. Often described as a divine tree, it is an object of prayer. On several occasions around the year prayers are offered to it. It is believed that Lord Vishnu and Goddess Lakshmi reside in the Peepal tree on Somapati Amavasya (the dark night or new moon of the month that falls on a Monday).
In the Skanda Purana (Nagar, 247/41-44), it is explained that: “Vishnu resides in the root of the Peepal tree. Keshav (another name for Krishna) resides in the trunk, Narayana in the branches, Lord Hari in the leaves and all the gods reside in the fruits. This tree is like the deity of Vishnu. All good people serve the virtues of this tree. This tree is full of all kinds of virtues and has the ability to fulfill desires and absolve the sins of people.” Thus, herein it is described how the different forms of the Supreme Lord are found in this tree, such as Vishnu, Krishna, Narayana, and Hari. And the demigods are in the fruits.
In the Bhagavad-gita (10/26), Lord Krishna says: “Amongst trees I am the Asvattha tree.” The Asvattha tree is the holy fig or Peepal tree.
The Padma Purana explains that by offering prayers to the Peepal tree and circumambulating it one attains longevity. Whoever offers water to this tree is absolved of all sins and attains heaven.
Many Hindu women believe that by regularly offering prayers and watering the Peepal tree and by circumambulating it, they will be blessed with good children, particularly a son. This is because unknown souls residing in the tree are pleased and enable such blessings to bear fruit. This is why it is customary to tie threads around the trunk or branches of the tree. Putting a little oil in the root of the tree and lighting a lamp near it on Saturdays helps get rid of a variety of problems. To reduce the malefic effect of the seven-and-a-half years of Shani (Saturn) it is customary to offer prayers and circumambulate the Peepal tree. The shadow of Shani resides in the tree.
The bark of the tree is used for religious ceremonies. The leaves are auspicious and used to make buntings on special occasions. Since the tree is hardy, unaffected by disease and pests and because it cleanses the air, it is considered divine. Many times you will find one Peepal tree within the courtyard of a temple. Before sunrise, the influence of poverty hovers over the tree. But after sunrise, Lakshmi takes over. Therefore, prayers to the Peepal tree are forbidden before sunrise. Cutting or destroying a Peepal tree has been equated with the murder of a brahmana.
The Peepal tree converts carbon dioxide into oxygen round the clock. Those who live nearby obtain more oxygen. It is interesting to note that during summer the shade of the tree is cool. During winter there is warmth in the shade. The leaves and the fruits of the tree are used for medicinal purposes.
THE PURPOSE OF THE AGNIHOTRA RITUAL
Agnihotra simply means a sacrificial fire. This is the ritual in which ghee and sesame seeds, and on some occasions other items, are offered into a small fire, usually in a pot or special container, while the priest chants various mantras for petitioning the presence and mercy of God. The fire, Agnideva the fire god, becomes the mouth of God, through which He accepts our offerings. These are also distributed to the other demigods, thus, prayers to many divinities may be chanted during the ceremony. The ritual invokes auspiciousness, peace, goodwill, and changes the vibrations and atmosphere wherever it is held.
Amongst Hindus, there is a family name Agnihotri, which is derived from the fact that at one time these families maintained a perpetual fire in their homes. In many homes even today prayers are offered with the fire.
In the Valmiki Ramayana (1/6/12), it is said: Everyone performed Agnihotra in Ayodhya everyday. Lord Ram and Sita performed Agnihotra on the day of the coronation. It is also said the aggrieved Kaushalya did not miss out on Agnihotra even on the day Rama left home for 14 years of exile.
In the Suttinipat (568/21), Buddha explained the importance of Agnihotra: Just as the ocean amongst the rivers, a king amongst the people, and Savitri amongst the verses, Agnihotra is amongst the yajnas (rituals).
In the Atharva-Veda (19/55/3) it is also explained: May the fire in the home give us happiness and peace in the morning and evening, a happy temperament, resolve and good health. May it give us fame and honor. May we awaken you through yajna fire so that we may be robust and strong. Agnihotra promotes good health and mental contentment. It is a ladder to spirituality.
In the Atharva-Veda (9/2/6) it is said: Agnihotra destroys enemies.
The flames, smoke, and vibrations of the Agnihotra promote mental peace and give contentment. It clarifies the air in the home, spreads fragrance, purifies the atmosphere and thus helps householders. It gives them energy and the power to concentrate. It releases mental tension. Through a cleaner environment it promotes good health for everyone and has innumerable benefits.
The Agnihotra ritual is also called a yajna, or Vedic ritual. However, when conducting a yajna (pronounced as yagya) it is customary to have a havan or fire sacrifice. The fire is ceremoniously lit, symbolic of inviting Agni, the fire God. Thereafter as mantras are chanted an offering in the form of ghee or havan samagri (a mixture of herbs and ghee) is offered to the fire at the end of the mantra. This is also called ahuti, which is an oblation or offering that is put into the fire. While making the offering, the word Swaha is uttered loudly.
The Matsya Purana says that when the five essential constituents - gods, havan fluid or offering (such as ghee), Vedic mantras, the divine law, and a gift to the Brahmin - are there, it is a yajna (complete sacrificial ritual). Any good activity done for universal welfare is a yajna.
Sages and saints have identified three purposes of a yajna - prayer to gods, developing harmonious company, and charity. Prayers to gods are used as models to shape our lives. Harmonious company is having relatives and friends who share similar thoughts and are motivated towards togetherness and mutual support. Charity is to share one's blessings, extend support to society and create a feeling of universal brotherhood.
Through a yajna one attains physical, mental and internal peace, purification of the self, spiritual progress, and protection from sickness. The yajna fire has five qualities - it is always hot or active; it is exemplary; it is attractive to all that come to it; it is generous because it gives rather than stores its benefits; and the flame is always high, symbolizing concern, character, and self-respect.
In the Kalika Purana (23/7/8) it is said: Yajnas please the gods. It was through a yajna that the entire world was established. Yajnas support the whole world. Yajna protects people from sin. People live on grain. Grain is produced from clouds that bring rain. Clouds emerge from the yajnas. The whole universe depends upon yajnas.
In the Upanishads it is also explained: Through yajnas the gods attained heaven and overcame the demons. Through yajnas even enemies become friends. Therefore outstanding people consider a yajna a special activity.
In the Agni Purana (380/1) it is said: Through a yajna the gods grant one's wishes.
In the Padma Purana (Shristhi Khand, 3/124), it is said that pleased by a yajna the gods bless mankind with well-being.
In the Manu Samhita (3/76), it is related that an oblation dutifully offered to the fire is received by Surya.
In the Sama-Veda (879) it is said that whoever offers oblations to the fire is blessed with good children, wisdom, wealth and prosperity.
When Brahma created mankind, man visualized that his life would be full of need, problems and sorrow. He complained to Brahma, "Lord! Who would nourish and protect insecure mankind?"
Brahma responded, "Dear son! Through a yajna offer oblations to the gods. They will bless you with wealth, prosperity, well-being and fame."
In a yajna, after chanting the mantra it is customary to say Swaha when making an oblation to the fire. Swaha is the name of Agni's wife. It is customary to invoke her name during an offering to make her the medium of the oblation. Swaha literally means good speech.
HINDUS AND VEDIC FOLLOWERS DO NOT PRACTICE ANIMAL SACRIFICE
Sometimes people who are confused or misinformed think that Hindus or followers of Vedic culture practice the sacrifice of animals to the deities or in rituals. However, this is completely wrong, even though some people who are misinformed or misguided, nonetheless, feel animal sacrifice is necessary.
In the Mahabharata (Shanti Parva), it is said: Knaves and rascals initiated the offering of liquor, fish, animals, and human sacrifice in a yajna. They had a demonical temperament and desired to eat meat in a yajna. In the Vedas eating of flesh has not been recommended.
To please Bhairav, Bhawani and other gods and goddesses, some Hindus who were greedy for meat began offering animal sacrifices. During Mughal rule, meat eating became popular. It is said that some greedy priests wrote certain shlokas (verses) that claimed the goddess desired animal sacrifice, and the flesh would be served as prasada, the mercy of the deity. These shlokas were mischievously included in some religious texts. All Vedic religious texts forbid the eating of meat and consider it food for demons. No authentic religious text permits meat eating, unless it has been foolishly tampered with. If gods and goddesses were greedy for meat, they would motivate one into savage acts rather than towards compassion. Would they then have been different from demons? Killing innocent animals in the name of religion and offering them to gods and goddesses to fulfill selfish desires cannot be justified in any way. With such sinful acts one cannot expect to be blessed with prosperity, good fortune or happiness. Such sacrifices do not please any god or goddess. If one does find happiness sometimes, it is temporary. Bad deeds only ensure sorrow and hell.
In the Shrimad-Bhagavatam, Vedavyas says that whoever offers animal sacrifice and prays to demons and evil spirits will be worse than animals. Hell is certain. In the end, such people roam about in the utter darkness of ignorance and sorrow. It also explains that those animal sacrifices meant for Kali are not accepted by Kali, but she lets her ghostly assistants partake of such offerings. Thus, anything taken as remnants or prasada from such offerings are but remnants from those ghostly beings and not Kali or any demigoddess.
It is also sometimes suggested that the Vedas explain that there should be ajbali in the yajnas or sacrificial rituals. Aj is interpreted to mean a goat and bali means sacrifice. But the correct interpretation is that a seed is also known as aj. Aj denotes cereals. Therefore, the Vedas direct us to use cereals. Killing of animals is forbidden in a yajna and is irreligious. This is why ghee and sesame and grains are used in offerings of any authentic Vedic ritual. However, in the temples of Lord Krishna, wonderful vegetable preparations, cooked with devotion in a sacred environment, and are offered to the deity and then distributed as prasada.
OTHER POINTS OF INTEREST
THE FOUR STAGES OF LIFE
An important belief of Hindus/Vedic followers is that there are four stages, or ashrams, of life every individual passes through. The first stage of life is called the Brahmacharya ashram. This period is rounded out to the first 25 years of life. It is considered to be a period of student life in which one remains celibate for acquiring the focused and determined state of mind for spiritual and academic advancement. During Vedic times, this would be the stage when the student would attend the gurukula, or the school or ashrama of the guru, and study under him for spiritual and material knowledge.
The second stage of the life is termed the Grihastha ashram, in which young men and women marry and raise a family. This is the householder's life and perhaps the most difficult stage when a person needs to interact with a variety of people and situations, and attend to the attentions of career and supporting a family.
The third stage is termed the Vanaprastha ashram, which generally starts sometime around the age of 50 years old. At this stage it is expected that one’s children have grown up and found a place in society. Daughters would be married and sons will have entered into a career and be well on their way to their own Grihastha ashram.
At this stage, while children are gradually detaching themselves from parents, it is expected that parents too will slowly detach themselves from the householder's responsibilities and spend time in preparing for a new life focused increasingly on spiritual advancement and one’s approaching old age and death. Life is a preparation for all of these events, and the Vanaprastha ashrama is when one especially begins to concentrate on the final years and prepare for the next life.
The fourth stage of life is termed the Sannyasa ashram. This stage is primarily for men and extends from around the 75th year of one’s life until the final emancipation. If the third stage aims at detachment from worldly life, this stage aims at renunciation, asceticism, and abandonment of worldly ties or mundane interests. At this stage, if one is at peace with oneself, he/she makes the final effort to find ultimate freedom from any further bondage to the cycles of birth and death.
Of course, a person’s life may not follow these stages exactly as described. They may change according to circumstances, and in the way a person may or may not make progress on the spiritual path.
THE PURPOSE OF SPIRITUAL INITIATION, OR DIKSHA
Spiritual initiation from a guru is also considered an important part of the Vedic lifestyle. This is usually done during the Brahmacharya stage of life while one is still a student. However, such an initiation by a guru that inspires you with his spiritual knowledge can be done at any time of life.
The decision to become initiated is usually made only after one has spent time observing the qualities of a particular guru and has decided that he is the appropriate spiritual teacher and guide that a person needs in their life.
However, this is not a one-way decision. The guru must also observe the student or potential disciple over a period of time to see if the student is also qualified by interest, determination, and sincerity to follow the guru’s instructions. If the guru is approached by someone who wants initiation who has these qualities, and the student is similarly ready for initiation, or diksha, then the relationship between the guru and disciple can proceed accordingly. The initiation ceremony is only the formality of recognizing this exchange between the guru and disciple, which is a lifetime relationship. During the diksha ceremony, the guru also gives the disciple the appropriate mantra that the student uses for his accelerated spiritual development. By chanting the mantra given to the student, he or she awakens his hidden potential and powers.
The ceremony also represents the guru taking away the student’s or disciple’s blockages, such as any bad karma that may stifle the disciple’s progress. This is an extremely important and difficult responsibility and should not be taken lightly by the disciple.
The real relationship between the guru and disciple is the disciple’s rendering of service in exchange for the spiritual knowledge and guidance given by the guru. The disciple may offer service or offerings in the form of time, activity, intellectual work, supplies and facility, or financial funds to assist the guru in his work and upkeep. The guru then gives spiritual knowledge and direction that has been attained through his own study, research, practice, and personal experience. The guru also provides the necessary step-by-step instructions so the disciple can properly understand and utilize the scriptural instructions as found in the Vedic texts in one’s life.
Diksha can be in several forms. When the guru gives a verbal mantra to the student, it is known as mantric diksha. When the diksha is given through a signal or gesture, it is called shambhvi diksha, and when it is given by touching a certain part of the disciple’s body to arouse the kundalini or the energy within, it is known as sparsh diksha.
After the disciple receives initiation or diksha from the guru or spiritual master, it is only appropriate that he makes a token payment for it in the form of dakshina or an honorarium. By giving the honorarium the student affirms his faith and devotion to the teacher. The honorarium is also important because anything free is never taken as seriously as that for which one pays in some form.
WHERE CHARITY FITS INTO THE VEDIC SYSTEM
It is the responsibility of everyone to give charity. One should give charity as a duty towards society and expect nothing in return. It is very noble to feed a hungry person. However, imparting knowledge is even better. Feeding a person is momentary support. Imparting knowledge is permanent support.
In the Rig-Veda it is said that of all charities imparting knowledge is best. It cannot be stolen or destroyed. With time it grows and continues giving happiness to many people.
Hindu religious texts suggest that charity in different forms must be given on festivals and special occasions. This charity must be given happily with love and devotion. One should leave the fruit thereof to God. He responds with great happiness and contentment.
In the Bhavishya Purana (151/18) it is said that three kinds of charity are particularly meritorious - the giving of a cow, the giving of land, and the giving of knowledge. It is believed that the benefits continue for seven generations.
The Manu Samhita (4/229-234) also explains some interesting benefits of giving charity. It is said that whoever feeds a hungry person finds great satisfaction. One who gives sesame seeds in charity is blessed with cherished progeny. One who gives a lamp or some form of light in charity is blessed with good eyesight. One who donates land receives land in return. Whoever donates gold is blessed with long life. Those who donate silver are blessed with beauty and charm. Of all charities, the best is teaching of the Vedas.
When a donor gives charity with love and devotion, and the benefactor receives it with the same sentiments, both the donor and benefactor go to heaven. When there is disrespect in giving or receiving, both go to hell. With whatever sentiments one gives charity, it returns in the same way.
In the Skanda Purana (Maheshwar Khand), it is said: No virtue accrues from charity that is given out of ill-gotten wealth. In giving charity out of duty it is important that one must adhere to morality and ethics.
THE REASONS FOR DOING PILGRIMAGES
The whole point of pilgrimages is to visit the holy places, associate with other pilgrims and sadhus and sages to gain spiritual knowledge, and become enlivened by the energy of such highly evolved souls and the historical occurrences involving various Vedic divinities that happened at such places. So for this reason, people who are serious about spiritual life go to such locations as Badrinatha, Dwaraka, Jagannatha Puri, Rameswaram, as well as Rishikesh, Haridwar, Kanchipuram, Mathura, or visit holy rivers such as the Ganga, Yamuna, etc. Each of these places has special features and significance which makes them beneficial for any pilgrim to visit. Then when they return home, they are spiritually surcharged and can share that energy with others, as well as cope with everyday life better than before. Visiting such places, engaging in the austerity or struggle and expense to reach such locations brings one spiritual merit and freedom from so much negative karma.
In ancient times, such pilgrimages would be done on foot. Now we take trains, buses or cars, and the holy places have more modern amenities and are even more commercialized than before. So now more pilgrims go to these places. But the purpose remains the same, as long as we don’t forget it, which is to learn how to better cross over the great ocean of material existence.
Many of the Puranas have chapters that describe the benefits of visiting various holy towns, villages, or temples. Thus, the historical meaning and significance of such places go back thousands of years.
Large parts of the Shiva Purana, Padma Purana, and Skanda Purana are devoted to the benefits of pilgrimages. Even the Vedas, Upa Puranas and the Mahabharata contain portions which say that by going on pilgrimage one gets rid of sins, accumulates virtues, finds favor with the gods and goddesses, achieves inner peace, finds fulfillment in everyday life and steps towards heaven.
In the Mahabharata (Vana Parva) it is said that through a pilgrimage one can conveniently attain the benefits that cannot be easily attained even through the special Agnistome yajna. However, those who travel for fun or sightseeing and are devoid of the devotion required for a pilgrimage cannot attain these benefits. A pilgrimage should have two objectives -- the cleansing of the mind and welfare of the self/soul. Those who travel with these objectives will benefit from a pilgrimage.
In the Mahabharata (Vana Parva, 85/92) it is said: Going on the holy pilgrimages to Pushkar, Kurukshetra, Ganga, and Magadha benefits seven generations each of forefathers and successors. In the Devi Bhagawat it is said that just as the purpose of agriculture is to produce grain, the purpose of a pilgrimage is to become sinless. In the Atharva-Veda (18/4/7) it is said that pilgrims get over sins and shortcomings through pilgrimages and advance towards a pure wholesome life. It is also said the benefits that accrue from a pilgrimage are in direct proportion to the devotion of the pilgrim.
The Bhavishya Purana (Uttara Kand, 122/7-8) explains: When the hands, the legs, the mind and the speech are in balance, and the person is knowledgeable, reputed and devoted, one benefits from a pilgrimage. One who is not devoted, is a sinner, is suspicious, an unbeliever or a sophist - these five kinds of people never benefit from a pilgrimage.
The Skanda Purana goes on to explain that speaking the truth is a pilgrimage. Forgiveness is a pilgrimage that bears fruit. Control over the senses is as beneficial as a pilgrimage. Kindness to all people is as virtuous as a pilgrimage. A simple life too is like a pilgrimage. Amongst all pilgrimages the most outstanding one is the purification of the mind.
The Padma Purana also relates that during pilgrimages one comes across saints and ascetics and those that are specially blessed by God. Meeting them can help destroy sins just as if one would burn them with fire.
TAKING CARE OF THE DECEASED
WHY HINDUS CREMATE THEIR DEAD
Whoever is born must die. Amongst Hindus it is customary to do the last rites by consigning the body to fire. On this occasion, all relatives, friends and acquaintances get together to mentally convey a farewell to the departed soul. Their presence on this occasion reminds everyone of the ultimate truth -- everyone has to die some day. It also reminds them of the futility of living only for oneself or without spiritual development.
In the Chudaman Upanishad it is said that Brahma gave birth only to the flame-like soul. From the soul, the sky was born. From the sky, air was born, from air fire, from fire water, and from water the earth was born. These five elements united to form the human body. When a dead body is cremated in fire, the elements return to nature from where they came initially.
In the Atharva-Veda (18/2/56), the cremation of a dead body is explained thus: O Departed Soul, your lifeless body is offered so that the two fires may unite for your salvation. I set the body on fire. Through these two fires you may go in your best state to Yama (the lord of death), who controls death.
The Atharva-Veda (18/3/71) also says: O Fire. Accept this dead body. Give it refuge. May your acceptance of the body bring you glory. O God in the garb of fire, burn this body and deliver the person to the abode of righteousness.
The Yajur-Veda (40/15) also relates: “O industrious person! At the time of leaving the body, chant the principal and outstanding name of God, Om. Remember God. Remember your past deeds. The air that goes in and out of the body is like celestial nectar. However, the end of the physical body is ash. It will end as ash. The dead body is worthy of being turned to ash.”
There is the understanding amongst Hindus that after death the soul continues to hover around the dead body due to its earlier attachment with it. When the body is consigned to the flames and burnt to ashes the relationship between the soul and the body ends. Therefore, to help speed the soul along to its next existence, the body is burned to ashes.
It is customary amongst Hindus that the son of the deceased performs the cremation ceremony. This is to prepare the son to accept that his father or mother is dead. It also prepares him emotionally to take over the responsibilities of the household and also fulfill his duties towards society.
During the cremation ceremony when the dead body is set on fire, an important part of the ceremony is kapal kriya. The significance of this is explained in the Gamda Purana. During kapal kriya, the skull is broken with a bamboo pole because it consists of very hard bone that cannot be burnt easily, even by fire. When broken, it burns with the rest of the body and is converted to the five elements that constitute the body and becomes a part of the ashes.
THE PURPOSE OF IMMERSING THE ASHES OF THE DEAD INTO SACRED RIVERS
If you go to many of the holy places around India, such as Gaya, Haridwar, Pushkar, Ujjain, Varanasi, and other places, you will see that Hindus who have had a death in the family do a particular ritual wherein they offer the ashes of the dead to the sacred rivers, such as the Ganga, Yamuna, Sipra, etc. There is much meaning and purpose behind this practice.
The remnant of the dead body after burning is left behind in the form of ashes. Hindus respectfully call these ashes phool - literally flowers - to express devotion and respect for the departed soul. When children are symbolically referred to as 'fruit', it is appropriate to refer to the ashes of forefathers as 'flowers'.
It is customary to gather or take the ashes on the fourth day after death. They are then immersed in sacred rivers like the Ganga. If it is not possible to immerse them immediately, they are kept in a locker in the crematorium or at home and immersed as soon as possible. This should be done no later than a year after the death of the person.
The Shankha Smriti (page 7) explains the consigning of ashes to the Ganga as follows: As long as the ashes of the deceased person remain in the Ganga, the person continues to enjoy happiness in worthy places for thousands of years (in the next existence).
Furthermore, in the Kurma Purana (35/31-34) it is said: Whatever number of years the ashes remain in the Ganga, the departed soul is held in reverence in heaven for thousand times the number. Of all the pilgrimages and of all the rivers, Ganga is considered most holy. It grants liberation to all, including those that have committed gross sins. Although accessible everywhere to the common man, Ganga is unique at Haridwar, Prayag, and Gangasagar. Those who desire liberation, including emotionally downtrodden sinners, there is no better place than the Ganga.
Religious writers also understand that the deceased person's journey towards the eternal home (the spiritual realm beyond heaven and hell) does not start until the ashes are consigned to the Ganga.
THE MEANING OF THE PINDA (PIND DAAN) CEREMONY
The custom of pind daan dates back to the time when the Vedas were written. The pinda daan is performed after the death of a person. The word pind means a body. The word daan denotes charity or giving. Therefore, pind daan means giving charity to the body of the deceased. This means that if the deceased is in a distressed or hellish condition, and in a place where they are paying for their sinful activities and may be thirsty or hungry, the pind daan ceremony helps to alleviate the distress of the deceased. Depending upon circumstances, the son or another person performs pind daan.
When a person dies, the soul leaves the body. To end the relationship between the soul and the body, the body is consigned to flames where it is converted into ashes. These ashes are consigned to a holy river like the Ganga. Thereby, nothing remains of the physical body, but the soul waits for a new body. It is said that it may take ten days for the deceased to enter a new situation. On the 11th and 12th day the food is offered to the deceased through the shraddha ceremony to be eaten. It is believed that on the 13th day the messengers of death usher the deceased into Yamaloka, the abode of Yama. When the last rites are performed with devotion, the deceased enters Yamaloka happily, after which he may be given a pleasant or uplifting situation. To Hindus this is important. Therefore, the food (pind daan) that is offered is accepted by the deceased through the scent of smell, not that it is actually or physically eaten. The scent of smell and sound, and the transfer of emotions can still be felt by the deceased from those who remain on the physical plane. Thus, the pind daan and the shraddha ceremony are utilized to serve this purpose.
It is explained in the Yoga Vashistha, (3/55/27): At this stage the soul is aware that the old body is dead and that it is through the pind daan of the son or brethren that a new body has been created and relieved of any distress. This experience is conveyed through feelings and sentiments. The physical rites are only symbolic. These sentiments embrace the deceased.
On receiving pind daan the soul or deceased feels happy and content, and after giving blessings proceeds to Yamaloka in an improved situation. A son who does not offer pind daan to the deceased can be cursed in retaliation.
It is believed that it was Brahma who first performed the pind daan ceremony in Gaya. Since then this tradition has continued. Offering pind daan during the dark fortnight of Ashvin is of special significance. Symbolically, a pind is a round ball made of a mixture of wheat and rice flour with some sesame seeds mixed along with some milk and honey. Seven balls are made out of 100 grams of flour. Of these, one is offered to the deceased and the rest to others as desired.
In the Vayu Purana, according to a narration titled Gaya Mahatam, when creating mankind, Brahma created a demon named Gayasur. The demon went atop the Kolahal Mountain and offered great penance to Vishnu. Pleased with Gayasur, Vishnu asked him to seek one blessing. So, Gayasur requested that whoever came in touch with him -- be it an angel or a demon, an insect, a sinner, a saint or a sage, or an evil spirit -- should find liberation after having been purified of all sins. From that day everyone who came in touch with him found liberation and proceeded to Vaikuntha (abode of Vishnu).
The Kurma Purana (34/7-8) also explains: All forefathers appreciate a pilgrimage to Gaya by their successors. Once the pind daan is performed in Gaya, one achieves liberation. One becomes free of rebirth. If one visits Gaya even once and offers pind daan to the forefathers, they become free from hell and other dreadful destinations and achieve salvation.
The Kurma Purana also explains that whoever goes to Gaya for pind daan is blessed and seven generations from the paternal and maternal side are benefited along with the personal self who achieves liberation.
Only a son or another male relative is authorized to offer pind daan. However, in 1985, the Brahmins of Mithila authorized women relatives also to offer pind daan. It is said that once Sita too offered pind daan after the death of Dasaratha, Lord Rama’s father and Her father-in-law.
This story is that when Rama, Lakshman and Sita reached the banks of the Phalgu River in Gaya to offer pind daan. Rama and Lakshman left Sita there so that they could collect the necessary items for pind daan. When they were away, there was a celestial call saying that the auspicious time for pind daan was passing away, and that Sita should proceed with pind daan.
Considering the situation, Sita proceeded to do pind daan with cows, Phalgu River, Ketaki flowers, and fire as witnesses. She personally chanted mantras offering balls made of river sand to Dasaratha. When Rama and Lakshman returned, Sita told them about what had happened. Rama and Lakshman found it hard to believe. When Sita asked witnesses to testify about what she had said, none besides the Vat tree did so.
Sita was enraged. She cursed the cows that they would eat impure things. She cursed the river Phalgu that it would be dry on the top and water would flow beneath the waterline. She cursed the Ketaki flower that it would never be used for auspicious occasions. She cursed the fire that whatever came in contact with it would be destroyed. Yet, She blessed the Vat tree that it would remain evergreen. And now we can see that the Phalgu River dries up almost completely during the winter or dry season, and only flows easily in the rainy season. And in this age of Kali-yuga, we can see in India that wandering cows eat whatever they can in order to survive, even refuse and plastic. And certainly fire burns anything that comes in touch with it. These are some of the ways Sita’s curse can be recognized.
THE PURPOSE OF THE SHRADDHA CEREMONY
Thirteen days after death it is customary to feed brahmanas, saints, sages, and other devotees in the fond memory of the deceased. This ceremony is called shraddha. It is believed that when brahmanas and others are offered food in memory of the deceased, one's devotion for the deceased remains steadfast. When the ceremony is performed as a gesture of gratitude to the deceased, it brings with it great inner peace and goodwill. It is understood that this makes the deceased happy and content in whatever their situation may be. It is an important step towards the salvation of the deceased. It is also customary to perform the shraddha ceremony on the death anniversary of the deceased.
In the Manu Samhita (3/275) it is written: Whatever one offers ceremoniously and with devotion to the deceased reaches them in heaven in an imperishable and eternal form.
In the Brahma Purana it is said that in the dark fortnight of Ashvin (Sep-Oct), Yama frees all souls so that they can visit their children to accept the food they offer at the shraddha ceremony. It is also accepted that those who do not offer food to their forefathers during this period may attract their wrath and may have to suffer if cursed by them. Coming generations may also suffer on account of this lapse.
In the Garuda Purana it is explained: When shraddha is performed to their satisfaction, the deceased bless their successors with age, a son, fame, salvation, heaven, glory, stability, strength, prosperity, cattle, happiness, money, growth, and eternal blessings.
The Yama Smriti (36-37) further explains that a father, grandfather, and great grandfather desire the shraddha ceremony just as birds living on trees desire that the tree bear fruit. They expect that successors will offer honey, milk, and kheer (rice-porridge) at the shraddha ceremony.
The Yama Smriti (40) also says: Whatever number of morsels a brahmana, expert in mantras, eats, that many morsels are accepted by the father of the person performing shraddha by being present within the body of the brahmana or devotee.
In the Atharva-Veda, (18/3/42), another way of reaching food to the forefathers is explained. It says that while offering oblation to the fire, the person performing shraddha should pray as follows: O admirable God of Fire! You know how and in whatever form or place my father resides. Whatever foods we present as an offering please reach it to him with your beneficence.
In the Vishnu Purana it is written that when shraddha is performed with devotion, it not only gives contentment to the forefathers, but also to Brahma, Indra, Rudra, Ashwini Kumar, Surya, Agni, Ashtvasu, Vayu, Rishi, mankind, birds, animals, reptiles, and also the spirits.
In the Brahma Purana it is said that the family of the person who performs shraddha with devotion will be trouble free.
According to Maharishi Sumantu, in this world there is no other path to good fortune than performing shraddha. All wise people must devotedly perform shraddha.
In the Markandeya Purana it is said that the nation and family where shraddha is not performed will never have brave and healthy men who live a hundred years.
In the Mahabharata, Vidura tells Dhritarashtra that whoever does not perform shraddha is termed foolish by wise people.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF TARPAN FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE DECEASED
Tarpon literally means offering of water to the deceased. This is often included in and is a part of the shraddha ceremony. It is customary to add milk, oats, rice, sesame seeds, sandalwood and flowers when offering tarpan. The mixture is offered in a small stream made with the use of kusha grass and offered while chanting particular Vedic mantras. Of course, it is usually the priest who directs the ceremony and the mantras to chant so you can do it properly. When this offering is made with devotion, gratitude, goodwill, love, and good wishes, it immediately ensures contentment for the deceased. This offering is made on the death anniversary of the deceased. If one does not know the date of the death, then the ceremony can be performed during the dark fortnight of Ashvin (Sep-Oct).
In the Manu-samhita, tarpan has been described as pitra-yajna - a yajna dedicated to the memory of forefathers. It is believed that it gives contentment to the deceased, and promotes comfort and happiness for their successors. The ceremony is meant to remember the deceased, offer reverence and appease the hunger for remembrance. Forefathers look forward to this by their successors.
Among shraddha ceremonies, six kinds of tarpan are commended. Each has its own significance.
Devatarpan aims at making an offering to water, air, Surya, Agni, Moon, energy, and the gods that work selflessly for the welfare of mankind.
Rishitarpan aims at making an offering to Narada, Charaka, Vyasa, Ddhichi, Sushrut, Vashistha, Yagavalkya, Vishwamitra, Atri, Katyayan, Panini, and other rishis.
Divyamanavtarpan aims at making an offering to all who have made sacrifices for the welfare of mankind such as the Pandavas, Maharana Pratap, Raja Harishchandra, Janak, Shivi, Shivaji, Bhamashah, Gokhale, Tilak, and other important people.
Divyapitratarpan aims at making an offering to those forefathers who left behind great moral values and wealth for successors.
Yamatarpan aims at making an offering to remember the god of Death, Yamaraja, and to accept the principle of birth and death.
Manushyapitratarpan aims at making an offering to all those who are related to the family as relatives, teachers, friends, and others.
In this way, through tarpan an individual makes offerings of goodwill for everything connected with the person. It ensures happiness and contentment.
* * *
So herein are a few additional points regarding the basic Vedic view of customs and traditions in the practice of Vedic culture. To understand these points can be beneficial for anyone who wants to know why certain things are done. I hope that this can be used to spread the understanding of these particular practices, and awaken the reasons for the customs that have been followed for thousands of years.
Bhagavad-gita As It Is by Srila A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
The Heart of Hinduism by Stephen Knapp
The Power of the Dharma by Stephen Knapp
Vedic Symbols by Shri Vedmata Gayatri Trust
Hindu Rites, Rituals, Customs & Traditions by Prem P. Bhalla
[More information at www.stephen-knapp.com]
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Our Smallpox Main Article provides a comprehensive look at the who, what, when and how of Smallpox
Definition of Smallpox
Smallpox: A highly contagious and frequently fatal viral disease that is characterized by a biphasic fever and a distinctive skin rash that leaves pock marks in its wake. Because of its high case-fatality rates and transmissibility and because people haven't been vaccinated against it in years, smallpox now represents a serious bioterrorist threat. The disease is caused by the variola virus. The incubation period is about 12 days (range: 7'17 days) following exposure. Initial symptoms include high fever, fatigue, headaches, and backaches. A characteristic rash, most prominent on the face, arms, and legs, follows in 2 to 3 days. The rash starts with flat red lesions that evolve in 2 to 3 days. Lesions become pus-filled and begin to crust early in the second week. Scabs develop and then separate and fall off after about 3 to 4 weeks. The majority of patients with smallpox recover, but death occurs in up to 30 percent of cases. Smallpox is spread from one person to another via infected saliva droplets as occurs during face to face contact. Persons with smallpox are most infectious during the first week of illness because that is when the largest amount of virus is present in saliva. However, some risk of transmission lasts until all scabs have fallen off. Also known as variola.
Last Editorial Review: 5/13/2016
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LAKE HOUSTON. Lake Houston lies on the San Jacinto River four miles north of Sheldon and eighteen miles northeast of Houston in Harris County (centered at 29°55' N, 95°08' W). The man-made lake is held by the sixty-two-foot-high earthfill San Jacinto Dam and concrete spillway section, engineered by Ambursen Engineering. The lake is owned and operated by the City of Houston for municipal, industrial, recreational, mining, and irrigation purposes. Construction began in November 1951, and the dam was completed in December 1953. A sedimentation survey made in 1965 records a storage capacity of 146,700 acre-feet and a surface area of 12,240 acres at the spillway crest elevation of 43.8 feet above mean sea level. The drainage area above the dam is 2,828 square miles. The dam, just below the confluence of the east and west forks that form the San Jacinto River, is three miles upstream from Magnolia Gardens. The lake is crossed by the Missouri Pacific line at the McKay Bridge and by Farm Road 1960.
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The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article.Handbook of Texas Online, Seth D. Breeding, "Lake Houston," accessed June 25, 2016, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/rol42.
Uploaded on June 15, 2010. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
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Step 2: Background: How the Wireless Doorbell Receiver Works
The circuit of the wireless receiver is divided into five main parts.
1. The Radio Receiver: This section filters and amplifies the incoming radio signal.
2. The Decoder Array: This array of jumpers is used to set either the device's tuning frequency or the security code on the IC chip. This helps to prevent it from interfering with other nearby wireless devices.
3. The IC Chip: The IC Chip monitors the incoming signal and detects when the button on the transmitter has been pressed. When the signal is detected, it sends a tone to the speaker.
4. The Volume Control: This is a simple transistor amplifier that uses a variable resistor to set the speaker volume.
5. The Speaker: The speaker is a plain 0.25W speaker. It is wired between the positive supply voltage and the volume control transistor.
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This article comes on Day 17 of our special Altmuslim/Patheos Muslim Ramadan #30Days30Writers blog project, in which we are showcasing the voices of 30 Muslim leaders, activists, scholars, writers, youth and more (one on each day of Ramadan) as part of our commitment to own our own narratives and show how we are one Ummah, many voices. To demonstrate how our Ramadan experiences are shared yet unique to each of us.
“Read, O Prophet, in the name of your Lord who has Created! He has created man from a clinging clot. Read! For your Lord is the Most Gracious One, who has taught by the pen, has taught man what he has known not! [Quran 96 : 1-5]”
According to our tradition, before his Prophethood, Muhammad ibn Abdullah would retreat during the month of Ramadan — spending it in contemplation in Cave Hira, just outside of Makkah. One night, a heavenly vision (the angel Gabriel) came to the Prophet and twice ordered him to “read!” — to which he responded that he did not know how to read. The third time, Gabriel ordered the Prophet to read, he continued and taught the Prophet the above verses, which Muslims believe were the very first to be Divinely revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)* by the angel Gabriel (AS)** in the sacred month of Ramadan.
These verses impress upon us that the Quran is not only a text to be recited and heard, but also that reading sacred words and using writing as a tool to learn and teach are divinely interrelated. That words have meaning, indeed, the intellect is what differentiates human beings from beasts. And, our free will to believe or reject God is what differentiates us from the angels. Language is one of the most important components of our very essence as human beings.
Believers are asked to conquer their egos, to put their faith in God and to speak the truth. We read myriad examples of this in the Holy Book. We read of Luqman the Wise (AS) teaching his son the virtues of modesty and humility. We read of Lady Mary (AS) being asked to fast from speech when she returned to her family with a baby in tow, and we read of the words the infant Jesus (AS) spoke, exonerating his mother and giving tidings of his own Prophethood.
We read of Zachariah (AS) being ordered to fast from speech for three days as a sign that God will bestow upon him an heir. We read of Joseph (AS) who refused to bear false witness, and spent years languishing in jail for a crime he did not commit. The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) himself was described by his wife Aisha, may God be pleased with her, as the personal embodiment of the Holy Quran — a literal “walking Quran.”
Millions of Muslims are spending the better parts of their nights reciting God’s Words throughout Ramadan, which is often referred to as the Month of Quran. We remind ourselves of these prophetic stories, of the critical importance of speech, of the sacred responsibility we have to seek the truth with gentleness and humility.
So what does that mean for us today, when anyone with access to the internet has a platform to tell the world his or her thoughts. What is the responsibility we bear as Muslims to offer the world “good” speech? When we do we speak up and speak the truth, and when do we stay silent and keep the peace? How can we use the power of speech to teach or admonish without hurting others or closing their hearts?
Being Careful in Our Words
“Moses said: My Lord! Open for me my heart, and make easy for me my mission, and release the knot from my tongue, so they understand my words.” [Quran 20:25-28]
We must very careful in selecting our words, so that they are not misunderstood, so that they don’t pierce our sisters’ and brothers’ hearts, so they don’t bear witness against us on the Day we meet our Lord. This Ramadan is bearing witness to a segment of the American Muslim community — mobile, sophisticated and wired — committing their all in social media wars. After enduring Abu Easagate and Alice in Arabia this year, I was hoping for a quiet Ramadan, full of contemplation and connection. Alas, that was not to be.
This weekend has raised the issue — not for the first time — of the controversy over Muslims attending the annual White House Iftar. And much has been written about a group of American Muslim thought influencers, academics and chaplains participating in an interfaith program in Israel and Palestine, hosted by a conservative and Zionist Jewish educational institute.
Palestinians and others who support BDS were profoundly angry and disappointed by the program. Those who participated in the program and their supporters responded that Muslims must understand the place that Zionism has in the hearts of most Jews. A social media war erupted in the first days of Ramadan, with Muslims on both sides attacking each others’ integrity and faith. Professor Omid Safi speaks for many when he urges conscientious truth-telling and healing among all parties involved.
All of this is happening in the shadow of two major events: The latest Israeli assault on Gaza and the World Cup, which ended this weekend. In the weeks before the Israeli assault, three Israeli teenagers, Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Yifrah, were kidnapped and murdered in the middle of the ongoing occupation. This heinous crime led to the kidnapping and brutal murder of Palestinian teenager Muhammad Abu Khdeir, who was burned to death after being forced to drink gasoline. In this chaos, Muhammad’s teenaged American cousin, Tariq Abu Khdeir, who was visiting Jerusalem for a family wedding, was violently assaulted by Israeli police and thrown in detention. He’s now being held under house arrest as the Israeli assault on Gaza continues.
Israel launched “Operation Protective Edge” while much of the world was engrossed in the final matches of the World Cup, which has led to many Palestinian activists to bemoan the fact that the world’s attention is focused on the spectacle of sport as the death toll reaches at least 185 people — all of them Palestinian — at the time of publication.
Which of course, has led to many of other Muslims complaining — or pointing out, depending on your perspective — that the crises Muslims are facing in the Central African Republic, Burma, Syria, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere are not receiving as much traction as the Palestinian crisis. Still others contest those domestic crises, such as systemic racism and the violence in America’s cities must have an equal place in our hearts as foreign crises.
When Does it Behoove Us to Be Silent?
The nature of social media wars means that many of the actors feel compelled to drag the rest of us from our prayers, recitations and worship in order to share their two cents. Fasting from speech as our forbears, Zachariah and Mary (AS) did, does not seem to cut it in the online frenzy that seems to say that if you don’t Tweet your support or update Facebook status with a condemnation, then you are forfeiting your right to ever comment on any issue affecting Muslims anywhere forevermore.
The situation highlights for me the critical importance of challenging racism internally and building interracial relationships, institutionally and individually, among American Muslims. Allegiances and support should be inherent in our relationships with each other, but they’re not. Each ethnic/racial group is focusing on the issue that impacts them narrowly without intentionally reaching out to other racial/ethnic groups, nor even praying for each other. This disunity causes dissonance in the “American Muslim narrative,” where the actions of some are directly detrimental to others in the same community.
The recent chain of events highlights for me the fact that Muslims need a multi-pronged approach, one that both conscientiously engages with and speaks truth to power. That’s the only way we can move the dial on any of the issues that are near to our hearts, both here at home and abroad. It also highlights the profound power of loving our sisters and brothers in faith and respecting our differences. Instead of attacking each other, I pray that we can either publicly support each other or remain silent. And in all cases, pray for each other as we stand, reciting the Revealed words, during in our night prayers in this sacred month.
“We have not sent the Quran down upon you to distress you, Oh Prophet – but rather as a revealed Reminder for whomever would revere God, in awe of a Divine word descending from the One who created the earth and the high heavens. The All Merciful who has settled Himself over the Throne, befittingly. To Him belong all that is in the heavens, and all that is in the earth, and all that is between them, and all that is beneath the soil. And whether you utter words out loud or silently, He indeed knows the secret and what is yet more hidden.” [Quran 20:2-7]
*PBUH = God’s Peace Be Upon Him, a prayer Muslims offer after saying the name of our blessed Prophet
**AS = Alayh Salaam, God’s peace on him, a prayer Muslims offer after saying the names of angels, prophets, and divinely inspired teachers
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To many Americans, the word “pet” does not do justice to the spot our four legged friends have in our hearts. Our cats and dogs are members of our family and are treated as such. Those of us that have “fur children” and animal best friends know how important what goes into their bodies is to their overall health. Do you know what is in the food you give to your cat? Do you read the labels of your dog’s treats? What do you really know about your pet food and treats?
Important Update: The FDA has launched an ongoing investigation into pet deaths and illnesses related to the consumption of beef jerky treats. It is estimated that over 1,000 dogs have died. Nearly all of the reported deaths/illnesses can be traced to jerky imported from China. See the FDA notice here. We’ve compiled a list of sources for dog treats made in the USA. Please save and share it in addition to the article below and our other related pet articles.
Here are some tips and suggestions to help you decide what is good for your furry family member. Always remember to consult your veterinarian when changing the diet of your cat or dog. Like humans, every animal is different. Some have allergies, sensitivities and medical issues which could even be associated with a certain dog or cat breeds.
Does buying dog food that says “Made in USA” on the label automatically mean that your dog/cat is 100% safe?
The answer is no, but he/she will be SAFER. Despite where pet food is made, there is still a risk of bacteria contamination. Just like human food, there are no guarantees. Most pet food is not kept in consistent temperature conditions. Heat and humidity can promote bacteria growth. Purchasing pet food made in the USA could decrease this risk as time in transport is lessened. This could decrease exposure to temperature changes.
Remember, the huge pet food recall in 2007? Cats and dogs all over the US were being sickened and killed from pet food that contained melamine. This ingredient originated from China. However, it still was found in products manufactured in the USA. How was this possible? Some pet food made in America contains “fillers”, or additional ingredients added to the product to bulk it up and serves no nutritional purpose. It is not required to list where pet food ingredients come from. The same is true with human food. Reading the ingredient label and doing company research is very important!
Does seeing the word “Natural” on the label mean the pet food is 100% healthier?
Again, the answer is no. There is no regulation in the pet food industry that defines what “natural” means. It could mean there are no added colors, which would make it safer, but not 100% “natural”. You need to read your labels and research the brands. Make sure the pet food manufacturer’s definition of “natural” matches yours.
Do all of the products manufactured by the companies named contain 100% made in the USA ingredients? In most cases, no. However, the companies we had chosen to highlight take great pride in research and putting the overall health of our four legged family members as a #1 priority.
Merrick makes cat and dog food (in both wet and dry varieties), as well as pet treats in Hereford, Texas. What I LOVE about Merrick is they state in their 5-Star Promise (located on the Merrick website) that ALL of their ingredients are from local farms and NOTHING comes from China. They consider themselves “natural” because they consider Merrick products to be food in it’s purest state- no artificial additives, sweeteners, colorings and preservatives.
EVO brand offers pet treats and food for dogs, cats and ferrets. According to the EVO website, their made in the USA pet products contain more protein and fats, and less carbs and starches, like the diets of wild dogs and cats.
California Natural specializes in wet and dry dog food and dog treats, but does also offer high quality cat food and treats too. California Natural products are recommended for dogs that follow the “Rotational Feeding” program, a program that believes offering a variety of protein into a diet leads to optimal health.
Both EVO and California Natural products are manufactured in Hereford, Texas, and both brands are a subsidiary of Nutura Pet Products. According to thier website, Nutura highly regulates it’s manufacturing process.Why do I LOVE EVO and California Natural products? Only high quality, natural ingredients are used and all of it’s meats pass USDA inspection. Their product manufacturing is monitored as rigorously (maybe more in my opinion) as most people food!
Wysong manufactures food and supplements in the USA for dogs, cats, ferrets, rabbits, horses, and yes, humans (supplements). Wysong considers themselves natural because they use all natural ingredients and no artificial sugars, coloring, preservatives. Wysong is family run and was founded by a veterinarian, Dr. Wysong, in 1979. Why do I LOVE Wysong products? Extensive research has been put behind their products and every ingredient serves a nutritional purpose., On their website Wysong is very honest in where their ingredients originate and in MOST cases they do all come from the US. One thing that Wysong does make clear is that their are no domestic sources for amino acids and ALL are manufactured in China. And FYI, amino acids are considered important dietary supplements and are added to human vitamins too.
Many thanks to the following sources:
- Bone Appetit, Eco-Friendly Dog Store, West Greenwich, RI for the list of products mentioned. They personally research all of the products they sell. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction
- Dog Food Advisor, website for product rankings and “Think Your Dog’s Food Is 100% China Free? Don’t Count On It,” by Mike Sagman and “The Truth About “Natural” Dog Food,” by Mike Sagman.
- FDA, US Food and Drug Administration, website for recall information and other websites as mentioned.
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Trying to get kids to eat healthier can be tough, and a federally funded school lunch program is helping. But a trend is showing the initiative may be losing money in the long run.
There’s been a big change in school lunches over the past few years. Pizza and cheesesteaks have been replaced with salads, fruits and vegetables. In fact, those food items are mandatory under the National School Lunch Program that reimburses school districts for offering healthier choices on the lunch line.
“There are a lot of different varieties of fruit and veggies. You can even get entrees,” said Liberty senior Kenya Jones.
But is the program working? Nationally, it is getting mixed reviews. The Associated Press reported that multiple schools are dropping out of the $11 billion a year program because they are losing money by students either throwing away the fruits and vegetables or packing their lunch. At Liberty High School, they are seeing more students bringing their lunches from home.
“We have seen a drop in the reimbursed meals for sure,” said Liberty Food Service Director Lisa Banner. “I think that just maybe offering a few more fruits and vegetable to them and a wider selection will help us increase those counts.”
Banner said the toughest issue at Liberty is introducing whole grains to students. Wheat hamburger and hot dog buns are not going over well.
Youngstown City Schools is trying to introduce healthier options at a younger age so students can get accustomed to eating them.
“We are trying to introduce more fruits and vegetables to children so hopefully they can grow better eating habits as they grow older,” said Donna Smaldino, chief of food services.
Banner and Smaldino agree the program is a great way to introduce students to food they may never have heard of or seen before.
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In the age of the Internet, genealogy and our search for a connection to the past have taken on the speed of present day life. Searching for the Scotch-Irish emigrants from Ireland to America in 1718 can, however, bring the researcher to a grinding halt. We should remember that if we combine Internet searching with old-fashioned hard work, we can have amazing results. To many of the hundreds of thousands of living descendants still living in America, the 1718 emigrants are akin to a 'Lost Tribe'. We know they came in 1718, we know where they settled, we know they prospered, and we THINK we have no way of proving our connection to these long-ago people. Happily, that is no longer entirely true. Finding the 1718 emigrants is possible, and being able to prove a connection to these pioneers is becoming more likely.
To research the 1718 emigrant, we should understand the unique characteristics of the Scotch-Irish in early America. Our focus is pre-Revolutionary War, and because of this the value of being 'English citizens', as they were then termed, was immense. These rights of shared citizenship cause the scarcity of emigration documents derived from passenger lists. The local governments and 'state' governments of New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina habitually documented boats with emigrants from the German Palatine and other European countries. The origins of the Scotch-Irish granted them the right to be accepted as fellow citizens. However, local newspapers many times named names and described ships that came to ports with emigrants. The local court system also plays a large role in documenting the 1718 emigrants.
The custom of the day was for each family to support itself, if at all possible, so as not to draw on the welfare of the local town. The proof of the financial status of a man or family was the word of a local citizen. When a man without friends or family settled in a town, he had no proof of his financial status. Therefore, the family was 'warned out' by the local town leaders. Those 'warnings' while seemingly, to present day eyes, a rude welcoming have proven to be one of the best primary documents in which to find the 1718 emigrants. The 'Boston Record Commission' volumes recording the activities of the selectman (elected officials) of Boston are largely responsible for our proving the names of the ships from 1718, and many of the passengers. 'Robert Holmes & wife, William Holmes and child who came from Casco into this Town [about] 12 days before was on the 15th of April [current] warned to depart' Boston Selectman records from meeting on April 27, 1719 in Charles K. Bolton, Scotch-Irish Pioneers, Boston 1910.
Two of the original proprieters of Londonderry, New Hampshire recorded in the Londonderry town records on June 21, 1722 can be found in the Boston warnings. Robert Doke or Doak and Abraham Holmes, from Ireland in the ship 'Elizabeth' were warned out November 3, 1719. Boston Record Commission, vol.13, p.63 as noted in Ethel S. Bolton, Immigrants to New England 1700-1775 Salem 1931 pp. 50, 90.
Abraham and Robert both have modern day descendants researching their large extended families. The Doak family website at: http://www.doak.ws is an excellent example of the possibilities of current Scotch-Irish research into the 1718 emigrants. Combining documented facts with lists of possible connections, writing the story and timeline of an emigrant, and placing it on the World-Wide Web is one of the best ways to preserve our ancestors’ rôles in history.
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Steve Jobs was quite right when he said “If you see a stylus, they blew it.” While a good touchscreen should never require you to use a stylus for standard operations, there are tasks when using your fingers is a bit awkward. For example if you want to digitize your signature, take quick handwritten notes or simply draw, a stylus can come in very handy.
You can find a large selection of tablet styluses online and many are very cheap. However, given the fact that the technology hidden inside a capacitive stylus is extremely simple, you can just as well build it yourself.
Building your own stylus is easy, fun, and you must likely have all the materials at home already. All you need is an old pen and conductive material that transports the static electricity of your fingers onto the display. Conductive materials are, for example, most metals and water.
Here is a suggested list of ingredients:
- old pen
- wire, e.g. from an old electric cable
- soft conductive material, e.g. household foam
- a pair of scissors or a cutter
So here is what I did. I took a household foam and cut off a small piece.
Then I disassembled an old plastic pen.
I used wire with about 2.5 times the length of the pen and wrapped it around the foam…
…and tested the raw stylus on my tablet to make sure it works. You can also test the foam by itself before you combine it with the wire.
Next, I pulled the wire with its end first through the narrow tip of the pen and wrapped the wire around the outside of the pen, all the way to the bottom. If you want you can secure the end with some tape. Just make sure that you will touch the wire when you hold the pen. The screenshot below shows the first test with my self made stylus.
To make it look a little nicer, I trimmed the tip. If your foam is very soft, like mine is, you will mostly be drawing with the side of it. It may be worth playing with different foams, to see which ones give you the best result. Note that if your foam is not super conductive, you can also wet it a little to get better results.
Finally, here is my finished stylus.
This is a very simple way to build a stylus with cheap materials and with almost no tools.
You can create a much more stylish and sophisticated stylus, for example by using a metal pen. This eliminates the need for the wire, as the pen itself will transport your hand’s static electricity to the foam, which in turn will conduct it onto the tablet’s touchscreen.
If you don’t have a metal pen, but some more tools, you could drill holes into a plastic pen where you will touch it with your fingers and then let the wire exist the pen and make contact with your skin at these spots.
The video below shows how Collin from Make. made his DIY capacitive stylus.
That was simple, right? We would love to see your homemade stylus! Please share your photos in the comments.
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Data & Knowledge Engineering 25(1-2):161--197 (March 1998)Definition Ontology (page 25): An ontology is a formal, explicit specification of a shared conceptualisation. A ‘conceptualisation’ refers to an abstract model of some phenomenon in the world by having identified the relevant concepts of that phenomenon. ‘Explicit’ means that the type of concepts used, and the constraints on their use are explicitly defined. For example, in medical domains, the concepts are diseases and symptoms, the relations between them are causal and a constraint is that a disease cannot cause itself. ‘Formal’ refers to the fact that the ontology should be machine readable, which excludes natural language. ‘Shared’ reflects the notion that an ontology captures consensual knowledge, that is, it is not private to some individual, but accepted by a group..
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It is well known that the rules that allow for certain educational uses of copyrighted works under certain conditions without permission of the rights’ owners vary greatly between countries. But how different are those rules? And how difficult is to access those differences? Can a teacher with no legal background determine alone whether a certain use is allowed or not in his/her country?
We are answering these questions in a new working paper titled „Educational Resources Development: Mapping Copyright Exceptions and Limitations in Europe”, prepared by Teresa Nobre (Legal Lead of Creative Commons Portugal). The study is an investigation of the fragmented European landscape of copyright exceptions and limitations for educational purposes, across 44 European states.
We intend to understand the obstacles faced by teachers in each of the countries analyzed. The shape of L&Es translates into limits to the free usage of content in education – and the more complicated the rules are, the more difficult they are for educators to follow.
The Open Educational Resources model has been traditionally seen as avoiding altogether the standard copyright regulations, by relying on a voluntary, free licensing model that establishes broad user rights for educators. The fragmentation of L&Es further proves the importance of open licenses for the development and dissemination of educational resources.
Yet it is impossible for educators and learners to rely just on OERs. As Creative Commons already stated, no matter how well crafted a public licensing model is, it can never fully achieve what a full set of open-ended and flexible statutory exceptions and limitations for educational purposes can. Only with a legal reform in place can we see an end to this balkanization of legal solutions and treat education as it deserves to be treated – as an exception to copyright and related rights.
We hope that the results of the study will provide evidence, within the current debate on copyright reform in Europe, for the need to further harmonize and strengthen user rights in education.
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Written by: Tom Morton
Have you ever wondered how many counties, incorporated places, census tracts or census blocks there are in a particular state or in the nation as a whole? Or, have you wondered how the number of 2010 census tracts compares to the number of 2000 census tracts in each state? If so, you should check out the Geographic Tallies webpage. Here you will find counts of 2010 Census geographies and comparisons of 2000 and 2010 counts of areas by state.
- 3,143 – Total number of counties and equivalents in the United States. Puerto Rico has 78 and the Island Areas (American Samoa, Guam, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and U.S. Virgin Islands) have 13.
- 29,261 – Number of incorporated places and census designated places (unincorporated places) in the United States for the 2010 Census. There are 19,540 incorporated places and 9,721 census designated places.
- 2,704 – Number of minor civil divisions in Minnesota as of the 2010 Census. No state has more.
- 74,134 – Number of census tracts in the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Island Areas for the 2010 Census.
These tallies give you an idea of the vast amount of statistics we provide. You can obtain information for more than 12 million geographies from the 2010 Census and more than 400,000 geographies from the American Community Survey annually.
Since communities and their boundaries grow and change, tallies, evaluated over time, provide insight into areas where populations have changed and/or development has occurred. Counts of geography are also important for public and private organizations in determining regional assignments of resources.
Study up if you plan to see us at a professional meeting. We think these tallies make great trivia questions, which we post online and we may quiz you when you stop by our booth.
There are several ways to view the information from the Geographic Tallies webpage. You can select a state and click “Go” from the “Tallies of Geographic Entities by State” dropdown menu to see tallies for a state. Or, to view a comprehensive chart of all state and geographic entity tallies, select “Tallies of Geographic Entities by State and Type.” Here you can view and compare all geographic entity tallies for which the Census Bureau tabulates data, including American Indian areas, congressional districts, counties, county subdivisions, places, ZIP code tabulation areas and many more. Download the Microsoft Excel version of the chart and customize it to fit your needs.
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A typical U.S. family spends about $1,900 a year on home utility bills, and a large part of that energy is wasted. Beyond your pocketbook to the environment, electricity generated by fossil fuels for a single home puts more carbon dioxide into the air than two average cars.
Whether you want to save some cash or do you bit for Planet Earth – or both – Department of Energy’s Home Energy Saver that can help.
The Home Energy Saver works by calculating the likely energy output of your home based on your local climate, current energy prices and other factors, such as the number and age of your major appliances. It then recommends specific home upgrades ranked by payback time.
HES also gives you an estimate of your home’s carbon footprint and shows how, and how much, it can be reduced. If you think the results are too optimistic (or pessimistic), just change the energy efficiency assumptions, or the estimated upgrade costs, and recalculate the results.
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Prediction of the thermosonic signal from fatigue cracks in metals using vibration damping measurements.
J APPL PHYS
, Article 104905. 10.1063/1.2361091.
Thermosonics (also known as ultrasound stimulated thermography or sonic infrared imaging) is a potentially attractive nondestructive testing method for the detection of contacting interface-type defects such as fatigue cracks in metals and delaminations in composites. A high power acoustic horn is typically used to excite a complex vibration field, which causes the defect interfaces to rub and dissipate energy as heat. The resulting local increase in temperature at one of the specimen surfaces can then be measured by an infrared camera. In this study a set of steel beams with fatigue cracks of different depth and variable partial crack opening was tested. Each beam was instrumented with strain gages across the crack and at the back face for the measurement of both the "breathing" behavior of the cracks and the excited vibration. The heat released at the crack was predicted from the measured vibration and an experimental estimate of the additional damping introduced in the specimens by each crack. The cracks were modeled analytically as nonuniform heat sources. Hence the temperature rise expected on the monitoring surface of the specimens could be predicted and compared with the infrared camera measurements. The results show good linear correlation between predictions and measurements, thus validating the prediction algorithm. The relationship between the vibration input and the thermal output will allow, as a longer-term goal, the prediction of the general threshold level of vibration needed for reliable crack detection. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.
|Title:||Prediction of the thermosonic signal from fatigue cracks in metals using vibration damping measurements|
|Keywords:||LOCK-IN THERMOGRAPHY, ACOUSTIC CHAOS, NDE, BEAM|
|UCL classification:||UCL > School of BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science
UCL > School of BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering
Archive Staff Only
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<urn:uuid:b3427e82-e76d-4980-adcf-3a1da555cb6c>
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/134594/
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Why is red light seen as "warm", although it is still lower in energy than blue?
Red and blue light differ in energy density, they are located on opposite sides of the rainbow. Blue light oscillates almost twice as fast as red and has a correspondingly shorter wavelength. And because it swings faster, the particles of blue light are also higher in energy. Nevertheless, red light appears warmer.
This is the difference between physics and psychology. How a color affects us depends not just on whether or not the corresponding rays are energetic, but it depends on how the brain processes signals. And especially when it comes to colors, very archaic associations play a role.
Red, yellow and orange - these are the colors of fire, of embers. The sun appears red in the evening sky. And red is also the color of blood. Blood means heat: If we are hot and our fingers are warm, they are red. This already happened to our early ancestors, and that's why this association of red = hot is probably anchored deep in our perceptual apparatus. Conversely, if we consider what is blue: blue is, for example, water - and water is cool.
Now you can take this even further and say: Red light is not only psychologically warm, but also physically warm - if we think for example of infrared lamps, they really warm us. Which is why they are used in medicine, while, conversely, of course, no doctor would think to treat a person with UV lamps. Because UV light is aggressive, it can damage the skin and cause cancer.
This is because UV light is even higher in energy than blue light - the high energy density makes the light so aggressive. Conversely, infrared light, while physically even lower in energy than red light, is seen as heat radiation.
This has the following background: Basically, every body has a natural radiation, and this characteristic radiation depends only on the temperature. Therefore, one can, even if it is pitch dark, distinguish hot and cold items with an infrared camera, because warm objects glow stronger in the infrared spectrum. There is a clear relation between the temperature of a body and the kind of radiation that it emits.
If something has room temperature, then we do not see this radiation, it lies in the infrared and our eyes can not see infrared radiation. But when things get warmer, the radiation changes and shifts into the range of visible light - in other words, it shifts from infrared to red. That is why red-hot objects are red.
At still higher temperatures, the heat color would in fact shift to blue, but when a body glows blue, it would be even hotter than the sun, and in everyday life, we almost never have to do with such extremely hot objects. That is why red is the color of a warm, glowing body.
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/4624/why-do-cool-colors-which-are-actually-warmer-look-cool-and-vice-versa
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AIDS research just took a big step forward, and you can thank gamers for that.
Scientists had long been puzzled by the molecular structure of a protein-cutting enzyme classified as a “retroviral proteases” and found in an AIDS-like virus afflicting rhesus monkeys. The enzyme helps the virus spread, and it could hold a secret about how AIDS and other diseases are transmitted.
A researcher at the UW thought it might help to crowd source the problem. Dr. Firas Khatib of the University of Washington Department of Biochemistry posted the dilemma on Foldit, an online game where players can collaborate and compete in predicting the structure of protein molecules.
Sure, that might not sound like much fun to the average Joe. But gamers on Foldit solved the puzzle in less than 10 days.
“We wanted to see if human intuition could succeed where automated methods had failed,” said Khatib said in a prepared statement from UW.
Humans, 1. Automated methods, 0.
MSNBC’s Cosmic Log has more on the breakthrough:
(Foldit) is designed so that players can manipulate virtual molecular structures that look like multicolored, curled-up Tinkertoy sets. The virtual molecules follow the same chemical rules that are obeyed by real molecules. When someone playing the game comes up with a more elegant structure that reflects a lower energy state for the molecule, his or her score goes up. If the structure requires more energy to maintain, or if it doesn’t reflect real-life chemistry, then the score is lower…
The monkey-virus puzzle was one of several unsolved molecular mysteries that a colleague of Khatib’s at the university, Frank DiMaio, recently tried to solve using a method that took advantage of a protein-folding computer program called Rosetta. “This was one of the cases where his method wasn’t able to solve it,” Khatib said.
A research paper about the project was published this week in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.
Read more here from MSNBC: “Gamers solve molecular puzzle that baffled scientists.”
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2011/09/19/gamers-solve-molecular-puzzle-that-stumped-scientists/
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Please note: This information was current at the time of publication. But medical information is always changing, and some information given here may be out of date. For regularly updated information on a variety of health topics, please visit familydoctor.org, the AAFP patient education Web site.
Information from Your Family Doctor
Grieving: Facing Illness, Death and Other Losses
FREE PREVIEW. AAFP members and paid subscribers: Log in to get free access. All others: Purchase online access.
FREE PREVIEW. Purchase online access to read the full version of this article.
Am Fam Physician. 2000 Oct 1;62(7):1689-1690.
What is grief?
Grief is a normal, healthy response to different types of losses. One of the greatest losses that can occur is the death of someone you love. Other losses that may cause grief include the loss of your health or the health of someone you care about, or the end of an important relationship, such as a divorce. Healing from a loss involves coming to terms with the finality of the loss and the meaning of the loss in your life.
What are the normal feelings of grief?
As you face a loss, you may have different feelings at different times. These feelings may include shock, denial, anger, guilt, sadness and acceptance. You may find yourself going back and forth from one feeling to another. For example, when it seems that you're starting to accept the loss, you may find yourself feeling sad or guilty again. Your grief may never completely go away. The pain you feel will lessen with time as you work through these feelings.
What usually happens first?
When you're first told about the loss, you may feel shocked, numb and confused. You may not remember what people are saying to you. You may feel dazed, as though you're going through things like a robot. You may think and act as though the loss hasn't occurred. This is called denial.
As the shock wears off, reality will slowly break through. You'll begin to realize that the loss has happened. It's normal to feel abandoned and angry. You may direct your anger toward God, religion, doctors and nurses, the one who has died, other loved ones or yourself.
What happens after the anger wears off?
After you get through some of the anger and denial, it's normal to try to pretend things are like they used to be. If someone you love has died, you may play memories over and over in your mind. You may also feel the presence of your loved one, think you see him or her, or think you hear his or her voice.
You may also find yourself talking to your loved one as though he or she were in the room with you. As you begin to realize that your loved one is gone and that you can't bring him or her back, you'll begin to feel the full impact of your loss. These feelings may be scary because they're so strange and so strong. They may make you feel like you're losing control.
Symptoms of Grief
Feeling like there's a lump in your throat
Feeling like what's happening around you isn't real
Hyperventilating—sighing and yawning
Not being able to get organized
Not feeling hungry or losing weight
Restlessness and irritability
Sadness or depression
Seeing images of the dead person
Shortness of breath
Tightness in your chest
What happens then?
When you begin to realize the full impact of the loss on your life, you may feel depressed and hopeless. You may also feel guilty. You may find yourself thinking things like “if only” or “why me.” You may cry for no apparent reason. This is the most painful stage of healing, but it doesn't last forever. With normal grief, the depression will begin to lift with time.
What is the first sign of relief?
You may start to feel better in small ways. For example, you may find it's a little easier to get up in the morning or you may have a small burst of energy. This is the time when you'll begin to reorganize your life around the loss or without your loved one.
What is the final stage?
The last stage of accepting a loss is when you begin to invest in other relationships and activities. During this time, it's normal to feel guilty or disloyal to your loved one because you're moving on to new relationships. It's also normal to relive some of your feelings of grief on birthdays, anniversaries and holidays, and during other special times.
How long does grief last?
Each person's experience of grief is different, but you'll probably start to feel better in six to eight weeks. The whole process usually lasts six months to four years.
If you feel like you're having trouble getting through the process at any point, ask for help. People who can help include friends, family, clergy, a counselor or therapist, support groups and your family doctor.
Be sure to talk to your family doctor if you have a lot of trouble eating, sleeping or concentrating for longer than the first couple of weeks. These can be signs of depression. Your family doctor can help you get through the loss.
Tips on dealing with a loss
Talk about how you're feeling with others.
Try to keep up with your daily tasks so you don't feel overwhelmed.
Get enough sleep, eat a well-balanced diet and exercise regularly.
Avoid alcohol. Alcohol can make you feel more depressed.
Get back into your normal routine as soon as you can.
Avoid making major decisions right away.
Allow yourself to grieve—to cry, to feel numb, to be angry or to feel however you're feeling.
Ask for help if you need it.
This handout is provided to you by your family doctor and the American Academy of Family Physicians. Other health-related information is available from the AAFP online at http://familydoctor.org.
This information provides a general overview and may not apply to everyone. Talk to your family doctor to find out if this information applies to you and to get more information on this subject.
Copyright © 2000 by the American Academy of Family Physicians.
This content is owned by the AAFP. A person viewing it online may make one printout of the material and may use that printout only for his or her personal, non-commercial reference. This material may not otherwise be downloaded, copied, printed, stored, transmitted or reproduced in any medium, whether now known or later invented, except as authorized in writing by the AAFP. Contact firstname.lastname@example.org for copyright questions and/or permission requests.
Want to use this article elsewhere? Get Permissions
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A is for Awareness . . . of parents and caretakers about potential hazards in the child's environment, including nursery products.
B is for Baby.
C is for Caution . . . in selecting and maintaining products for the child's environment, including nursery products.
S is for Safety . . . the sum of the A B C's.
From the beginning of a child's life, products intended for a child must be selected with safety in mind. Parents and caretakers of babies and young children need to be aware of many potential hazards in the child's environment hazards from incorrect use of products or with products not well designed for their intended purpose. The Consumer Product Safety Commission hopes this booklet, with its selected safety hints, will be your ABC primer helping you buy nursery products, using them, keeping them in good repair, and properly disposing of a product if it becomes a hazard. The Commission has several ways to keep you informed:
CPSC can also send you information for hosting a Baby Safety Shower, a great way to inform new parents how to protect their babies from harm in their own homes.
The topics that are discussed in The Safe Nursery are:
- Cribs/Crib Toys
- Bathing Aids, Buckets and Pails
- Gates and Enclosures
- High Chairs
- Play Pens
- Rattles/Squeeze Toys/Teethers
- Toy Chests
- Back Carriers
- Bassinets & Cradles
- Carrier Seats
- Hook-on Chairs
- Changing Tables
- Strollers & Carriages
- General Household Tips
Download the Safe Nursery Booklet
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4 1/2-5 3/4" (11-15 cm). Typical adults sandy brown above with dusky streaks; pale central crown stripe bordered by dark stripes; double dark mustache streaks separated by whitish area (upper streak often joins dark ear spot and eyeline to form dark face triangle); eyebrow pale, usually yellowish from bill to eye; white below with dusky streaks on breast and sides; some birds have dark central breast spot. Short notched tail, pale pink legs.
Similar Species- Lincoln's, Song, Baird's, and Vesper Sparrows
Soft tsit-tsit-tsee-tsay, last note lower.
Breeds across portions of Alaska and Canada, south to Indiana and New Jersey, and south through western U.S. and Mexico (locally) to southwestern Guatemala. Winters from southern British Columbia, southern Nevada, Gulf states, and Massachusetts, south to northern Honduras.
Found in open areas, especially grasslands, tundra, meadows, bogs, farmlands, grassy areas with scattered bushes, and marshes.
During summer, eats insects, spiders, and snails. Adults feed arthropods to young. Individuals feed on seeds at other times of year.
Builds cup-shaped nest on ground, frequently under covering vegetation. Infrequently nests in loose colonies. Forages on ground. May form small aggregations in winter.
|Status:||Protected nongame species|
No references are available at this time.
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Illustration by Kent Pendleton
Although a common quail of the desert Southwest, the Gambel’s requires a lot of water. Generally sedentary, it moves short distances in the late summer to form coveys, usually comprising several family groups. It hybridizes with both California and scaled quails where their ranges overlap. Polytypic (2 ssp.; nominate in North America). Length 10" (25 cm).
Identification Plump, short-tailed quail with gray plumage; prominent teardrop-shaped head plume or double plume in both sexes. Adult male: chestnut crown with black forehead and black throat; chestnut sides with whitish underparts with a black belly; gray upperparts. Adult female: similar to adult male but muted and lacking distinctive facial pattern. Head plume smaller. Juvenile: grayish brown overall and heavily mottled. Usually has a short head plume.
Similar Species The California is similar in structure and size, but the chestnut crown and sides and lack of scaling on the Gambel’s easily separate them.
Voice Call: a plaintive qua-el; and a loud chi-ca-go-go similar to the California’s, but higher pitched and usually 4 notes, sometimes shortened on only 1 or 2 syllables. Also a variety of clucking and chattering calls.
Status and Distribution Common year-round in desert shrublands and thickets, usually near permanent water sources. Introduced to Hawaii, Idaho, and San Clemente Island, California.
Population The numbers appear to be stable over the past 60 years. The Gambel’s seems to be more tolerant of habitat disturbances than other Callipepla.
—From the National Geographic book Complete Birds of North America, 2006
Identify your backyard visitors in a flash! Just answer four simple questions to search our database of 150 backyard birds common to Canada and the U.S.
How much do you know about the feathered visitors to your backyard? Put your avian IQ to the test with this quiz.
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A Dreamer's Tales, by Lord Dunsany, , at sacred-texts.com
THE SWORD AND THE IDOL
It was a cold winter's evening late in the Stone Age; the sun had gone down blazing over the plains of Thold; there were no clouds, only the chill blue sky and the imminence of stars; and the surface of the sleeping Earth began to harden against the cold of the night. Presently from their lairs arose, and shook themselves and went stealthily forth, those of Earth's children to whom it is the law to prowl abroad as soon as the dusk has fallen. And they went pattering softly over the plain, and their eyes shone in the dark, and crossed and recrossed one another in their courses. Suddenly there became manifest in the midst of the plain that fearful portent of the presence of Man—a little flickering fire. And the children of Earth who prowl abroad by night looked sideways at it and snarled and edged away; all but the wolves, who came a little nearer, for it was winter and the wolves were hungry, and they had come in thousands from the mountains, and they said in their hearts, "We are strong." Around the fire a little tribe was encamped. They, too, had come from the mountains, and from lands beyond them, but it was in the mountains that the wolves first winded them; they picked up bones at first that the tribe had dropped, but they were closer now and on all sides. It was Loz who had lit the fire. He had killed a small furry beast, hurling his stone axe at it, and had gathered a quantity of reddish-brown stones, and had laid them in a long row, and placed bits of the small beast all along it; then he lit a fire on each side, and the stones heated, and the bits began to cook. It was at this time that the tribe noticed that the wolves who had followed them so far were no longer content with the scraps of deserted encampments. A line of yellow eyes surrounded them, and when it moved it was to come nearer. So the men of the tribe hastily tore up brushwood, and felled a small tree with their flint axes, and heaped it all over the fire that Loz had made, and for a while the great heap hid the flame, and the wolves came trotting in and sat down again on their haunches much closer than before; and the fierce and valiant dogs that belonged to the tribe believed that their end was about to come while fighting, as they had long since prophesied it would. Then the flame caught the lofty stack of brushwood, and rushed out of it, and ran up the side of it, and stood up haughtily far over the top, and the wolves seeing this terrible ally of Man reveling there in his strength, and knowing nothing of this frequent treachery to his masters, went slowly away as though they had other purposes. And for the rest of that night the dogs of the encampment cried out to them and besought them to come back. But the tribe lay down all round the fire under thick furs and slept. And a great wind arose and blew into the roaring heart of the fire till it was red no longer, but all pallid with heat. With the dawn the tribe awoke.
Loz might have known that after such a mighty conflagration nothing could remain of his small furry beast, but there was hunger in him and little reason as he searched among the ashes. What he found there amazed him beyond measure; there was no meat, there was not even his row of reddish-brown stones, but something longer than a man's leg and narrower than his hand, was lying there like a great flattened snake. When Loz looked at its thin edges and saw that it ran to a point, he picked up stones to chip it and make it sharp. It was the instinct of Loz to sharpen things. When he found that it could not be chipped his wonderment increased. It was many hours before he discovered that he could sharpen the edges by rubbing them with a stone; but at last the point was sharp, and all one side of it except near the end, where Loz held it in his hand. And Loz lifted it and brandished it, and the Stone Age was over. That afternoon in the little encampment, just as the tribe moved on, the Stone Age passed away, which, for perhaps thirty or forty thousand years, had slowly lifted Man from among the beasts and left him with his supremacy beyond all hope of reconquest.
It was not for many days that any other man tried to make for himself an iron sword by cooking the same kind of small furry beast that Loz had tried to cook. It was not for many years that any thought to lay the meat along stones as Loz had done; and when they did, being no longer on the plains of Thold, they used flints or chalk. It was not for many generations that another piece of iron ore was melted and the secret slowly guessed. Nevertheless one of Earth's many veils was torn aside by Loz to give us ultimately the steel sword and the plough, machinery and factories; let us not blame Loz if we think that he did wrong, for he did all in ignorance. The tribe moved on until it came to water, and there it settled down under a hill, and they built their huts there. Very soon they had to fight with another tribe, a tribe that was stronger than they; but the sword of Loz was terrible and his tribe slew their foes. You might make one blow at Loz, but then would come one thrust from that iron sword, and there was no way of surviving it. No one could fight with Loz. And he became ruler of the tribe in the place of Iz, who hitherto had ruled it with his sharp axe, as his father had before him.
Now Loz begat Lo, and in his old age gave his sword to him, and Lo ruled the tribe with it. And Lo called the name of the sword Death, because it was so swift and terrible.
And Iz begat Ird, who was of no account. And Ird hated Lo because he was of no account by reason of the iron sword of Lo.
One night Ird stole down to the hut of Lo, carrying his sharp axe, and he went very softly, but Lo's dog, Warner, heard him coming, and he growled softly by his master's door. When Ird came to the hut he heard Lo talking gently to his sword. And Lo was saying, "Lie still, Death. Rest, rest, old sword," and then, "What, again, Death? Be still. Be still."
And then again: "What, art thou hungry, Death? Or thirsty, poor old sword? Soon, Death, soon. Be still only a little."
But Ird fled, for he did not like the gentle tone of Lo as he spoke to his sword.
And Lo begat Lod. And when Lo died Lod took the iron sword and ruled the tribe.
And Ird begat Ith, who was of no account, like his father.
Now when Lod had smitten a man or killed a terrible beast, Ith would go away for a while into the forest rather than hear the praises that would be given to Lod.
And once, as Ith sat in the forest waiting for the day to pass, he suddenly thought he saw a tree trunk looking at him as with a face. And Ith was afraid, for trees should not look at men. But soon Ith saw that it was only a tree and not a man, though it was like a man. Ith used to speak to this tree, and tell it about Lod, for he dared not speak to any one else about him. And Ith found comfort in speaking about Lod.
One day Ith went with his stone axe into the forest, and stayed there many days.
He came back by night, and the next morning when the tribe awoke they saw something that was like a man and yet was not a man. And it sat on the hill with its elbows pointing outwards and was quite still. And Ith was crouching before it, and hurriedly placing before it fruits and flesh, and then leaping away from it and looking frightened. Presently all the tribe came out to see, but dared not come quite close because of the fear that they saw on the face of Ith. And Ith went to his hut, and came back again with a hunting spear-head and valuable small stone knives, and reached out and laid them before the thing that was like a man, and then sprang away from it.
And some of the tribe questioned Ith about the still thing that was like a man, and Ith said, "This is Ged." Then they asked, "Who is Ged?" and Ith said, "Ged sends the crops and the rain; and the sun and the moon are Ged's."
Then the tribe went back to their huts, but later in the day some came again, and they said to Ith, "Ged is only as we are, having hands and feet." And Ith pointed to the right hand of Ged, which was not as his left, but was shaped like the paw of a beast, and Ith said, "By this ye may know that he is not as any man."
Then they said, "He is indeed Ged." But Lod said, "He speaketh not, nor doth he eat," and Ith answered, "The thunder is his voice and the famine is his eating."
After this the tribe copied Ith, and brought little gifts of meat to Ged; and Ith cooked them before him that Ged might smell the cooking.
One day a great thunderstorm came trampling up from the distance and raged among the hills, and the tribe all hid away from it in their huts. And Ith appeared among the huts looking unafraid. And Ith said little, but the tribe thought that he had expected the terrible storm because the meat that they had laid before Ged had been tough meat, and not the best parts of the beasts they slew.
And Ged grew to have more honour among the tribe than Lod. And Lod was vexed.
One night Lod arose when all were asleep, and quieted his dog, and took his iron sword and went away to the hill. And he came on Ged in the starlight, sitting still, with his elbows pointing outwards, and his beast's paw, and the mark of the fire on the ground where his food had been cooked.
And Lod stood there for a while in great fear, trying to keep to his purpose. Suddenly he stepped up close to Ged and lifted his iron sword, and Ged neither hit nor shrank. Then the thought came into Lod's mind, "Ged does not hit. What will Ged do instead?"
And Lod lowered his sword and struck not, and his imagination began to work on that "What will Ged do instead?"
And the more Lod thought, the worse was his fear of Ged.
And Lod ran away and left him.
Lod still ruled the tribe in battle or in the hunt, but the chiefest spoils of battle were given to Ged, and the beasts that they slew were Ged's; and all questions that concerned war or peace, and questions of law and disputes, were always brought to him, and Ith gave the answers after speaking to Ged by night.
At last Ith said, the day after an eclipse, that the gifts which they brought to Ged were not enough, that some far greater sacrifice was needed, that Ged was very angry even now, and not to be appeased by any ordinary sacrifice.
And Ith said that to save the tribe from the anger of Ged he would speak to Ged that night, and ask him what new sacrifice he needed.
Deep in his heart Lod shuddered, for his instinct told him that Ged wanted Lod's only son, who should hold the iron sword when Lod was gone.
No one would dare touch Lod because of the iron sword, but his instinct said in his slow mind again and again, "Ged loves Ith. Ith has said so. Ith hates the sword-holders."
"Ith hates the sword-holders. Ged loves Ith."
Evening fell and the night came when Ith should speak with Ged, and Lod became ever surer of the doom of his race.
He lay down but could not sleep.
Midnight had barely come when Lod arose and went with his iron sword again to the hill.
And there sat Ged. Had Ith been to him yet? Ith whom Ged loved, who hated the sword-holders.
And Lod looked long at the old sword of iron that had come to his grandfather on the plains of Thold.
Good-bye, old sword! And Lod laid it on the knees of Ged, then went away.
And when Ith came, a little before dawn, the sacrifice was found acceptable unto Ged.
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Sunday, 7 October 2012
Inventing the Fourth Dimension
There is a fascinating article in the latest issue of Astronomy and Geophysics (the monthly magazine of the Royal Astronomical Society) about a little-known 19th century astrophysicist named Karl Zöllner. If you look him up on Wikipedia you could be forgiven for thinking he was just a minor player on the fringes of science, who was only interested in things like optical illusions and spiritualism. But in fact he was a prolific mainstream scientist, who did innovative work in the fields of astrophotometry, instrument design, electrodynamics, solar physics and the theory of comets. He was the first person to consider that the three-dimensional space that we live in is not “flat” Euclidean space, but is curved on a cosmological scale. The idea of non-Euclidean geometry had been around as an abstract concept since earlier in the 19th century, but Zöllner—in 1872—was the first person to suggest the Universe itself was non-Euclidean. He was led to this conclusion as the simplest explanation of a well-known but puzzling astronomical observation known as Olbers’ Paradox.
What does “curved space” mean? The easiest way to visualize it is by analogy with a curved two-dimensional surface, such as that of a sphere. A normal two-dimensional surface is a flat sheet, which is Euclidean because the angles of any triangle drawn on it always add up to 180°. On the other hand, the apparently two-dimensional surface of a sphere is non-Euclidean because the angles of a triangle add up to more than 180°. This is because the sphere exists in a higher dimensional space—three dimensions—which is Euclidean. By analogy, Zöllner imagined that the universe was a four-dimensional Euclidean hypersphere that gives the illusion of being a curved, non-Euclidean three dimensional space because we cannot directly perceive the fourth spatial dimension that he believed to exist.
In 1877, a few years after Zöllner proposed his theory of curved space, he met William Crookes—a British chemist who had recently become interested in the scientific study of spiritualism. Zöllner quickly became convinced of the reality of “spirits”, but rather than believing them to be the souls of dead people he theorized that they were visitors from the fourth spatial dimension. He expounded this theory in an 1878 book entitled Transcendental Physics, which aimed to encompass both the physical and spiritual worlds with a single theory of four-dimensional space.
Although Zöllner’s theories of the fourth dimension are almost forgotten today, they preceded the work of Charles Howard Hinton: Pioneer of the Fourth Dimension (mentioned recently in my post on Esoteric Mathematics) by several years. And as I said at the beginning, they can be seen as the ancestor of all subsequent New Age theories about “extradimensional entities”, as well as mainstream cosmological theories involving higher spatial dimensions.
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During one of several trips into Amish territory in Holmes County, a buck board driven by a Amish man was seen loaded quite full with black kitchen bags stuffed with shorn wool.
This reminded me of the 1930s around North Benton. Several, if not all, homesteads possessed numerous sheep. Early in the year the Hartzell and Bedell farms were busy with sheep shearing.
Legal title. The art of spinning was an honorable pursuit for ladies as early as the 800s, it was so universal that it created a legal title by which unattached ladies were termed years ago, spinster. This title remained longer than previous terms used decades before – shepster, webster, litster, brewster and baxter.
Shepster and baxter remained for some time – each have occupations, the first is cutting out of cloth and last is baking of bread – and how these applied to wool culture is questionable.
Wool industry dates far back in mankind’s history. The skill, care and perserverance required in the production of cloth have almost always reflected on civil advancement.
One of the first industries entered into by our first colonists was housing then clothing wool culture. By mid 1600 a fulling mill was in operation in New England, probably due to the fact many immigrants had been clothiers in the Old World and carried their expertise to this New World.
Also possibly this industry aided in the success of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. These folks were mainly from the British Isles. The shires in England abounded in sheep and wool culture.
Also by mid 1600, dimities, fustians and linens were produced in New England.
New England sheep. Over 3000 sheep were pastured by the colonists in Massachusetts in 1644. Soon the several devices required to produce clothing were whirring and clattering in almost every home.
Sheep herding was encouraged by strict laws and need. Sheep under two years of age were not allowed to be slaughtered, and dogs that killed sheep were hung and their owners fined twice the worth of the animal.
Any person not employed was required to spin. Spinners were divided in “squadrons” under the supervision of a leader. In the colony, laziness and idle persons were not tolerated. Position in the community excused no one from labor.
The folks in the communities also agreed to consume no mutton or lamb and not to use any imported wool. The local assembly also estimated that five youngsters over 13 years old could make enough woolen material to clothe 30 persons.
Dye colors. Tobacco was a medium of exchange, six pounds for one yard of homespun woolen yarn, 12 pounds for a dozen pair of woolen hose made in the home.
By the first quarter of 1700, stockings and knit goods were made in Pennsylvania, long known as Germantown goods. Colors were mostly obtained from natural sources. The bark of sassafras was used for yellow or orange, balsam blossoms and leaves the same color.
By first boiling wool and sorrel together and secondly with oak bark, a deep black was obtained. Other plants were employed to make yellow dye, including mountain laurel. The root of barberry also made yellow, as did Jerusalem artichoke and St. John’s wort.
Oak, walnut and maple bark made brown. Often the wool cloth was dyed, not the wool. Often the woolen yarn was spun twice for a close, hard twisted thread, which produced a stiff, wiry cloth. This was called “roving.”
A single spinning was sufficient to furnish yarn suited for knitting, resulting in softness and warmth desired. Wool was not the only natural product employed to produce cloth articles. Linden bark (Basswood), nettle fibers, deer and cow hair were successful to a degree.
Coarse thread was obtained from nettle fiber. Deer and cow hair spun with wool resulted in a type of felted material usually to make blankets.
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Image by the European Space Agency
We’ve done a bang-up job of polluting both Earth and outer space in the past few decades. Space junk, at least, could be reduced significantly if satellites didn’t die out so quickly. Enter MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates (MDA), a Canadian company that wants to build a space-bound satellite fueling and service station.
Here’s how the station would work: after being launched in space, it would dock to existing satellites (note: satellites travel at 7,000 miles per hour), fix them up, and fill them with hydrazine. The process could potentially double or triple the lifespan of satellites if all the onboard equipment remains intact.
MDA hopes to have a prototype ready in 2013 — just in time to help out the 136 satellites scheduled for decommissioning between 2012 and 2020.
Via Popular Science
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For the week of Dec. 5-11
1775—A memorial is dedicated to Salem Poor in Cambridge, Mass. Poor was a slave who had bought his freedom and became a hero fighting in the American Revolutionary War for independence from England. He so distinguished himself in battle, including at Bunker Hill, that he won the praise of 14 officers.
1784—The amazing poet Phyllis Wheatley dies in Boston, Mass. Wheatley was kidnapped in Africa at age 7 and sold to a prosperous Boston family, which placed a high value on education. By age 12, she was reading Greek and Latin classics. In the 1770s she became a sensation in the city because of her amazing ability to write poetry. A London company published her first book of poetry. Sadly, she died in poverty before she could find a publisher for her second book. That second volume has never been found. Although some letters she wrote during this period were recently discovered and sold at auction.
1870—Legendary Black cowboy William “Bill” Pickett is born in Travis County, Texas. Standing only 5’7” and weighing 145 pounds, he is considered one of the toughest men every to be called a cowboy. He became famous in the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch Wild West Shows where he performed dare devil feats and invented the rodeo sport of “bulldogging.” He is thought to have been of Black and Indian descent. He died at age 70 in Ponca City, Okla.
1870—Alexandre Dumas (pere) dies in France. Dumas, one of the most famous French writers of the 1800s, was a Black man born to a French marquis and a slave woman on the island of St. Domingue (now Haiti). Dumas wrote such noted works as “The Three Musketeers” and “The Count De Monte Cristo.”
1932—The “King of Gospel” Rev. James Cleveland is born in Chicago, Ill.
1932—Flamboyant singer-performer “Little Richard” is born and raised in Macon, Ga. He becomes one of the founding fathers of rock-and-roll. His dynamic stage performance and homosexuality often landed him in trouble. But he remained a major force in the music field. He just recently had a hip replacement operation.
1955—The historic bus boycott begins in Montgomery, Ala. The Black boycott of city buses was set in motion when civil rights heroine Rosa Parks refused to surrender her seat on the bus to a White man. The law at that time required her to give up the seat. A young minister named Martin Luther King Jr. was called upon to lead the boycott launching his career as the national civil rights leader.
1957—New York becomes the first city to pass a law banning racial or religious discrimination in housing with the Fair Housing Practices law.
1849—Harriet (Ross) Tubman escapes slavery in Maryland. But she becomes perhaps the greatest “conductor” on the Underground Rail Road returning to the South 19 times and helping an estimated 300 slaves escape. Despite a serious head injury received from an angry slave master when she refused to beat another slave, Tubman was one of Black America’s greatest examples of courage and determination. During the Civil War she also spied on the South and relayed the information to Northern generals.
1870—Joseph H. Rainey (1832-1887) is sworn in as the first Black to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives. He represented South Carolina—the state in which he was born a slave. But his father—a barber—managed to raise the money to purchase his family’s freedom. Earlier this year, the portrait of Rainey was finally hung in the House of Representatives.
1949—Blues legend Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter dies. Ledbetter was born in 1885 near Mooringsport, La. But he had a quick temper and a violent streak. Thus, he stayed in trouble with the law. Indeed, his musical genius was discovered in jail by a visiting White folklorist. Upon release from prison, he moved north and became a sensation performing in the U.S. and Europe.
1961—Revolutionary psychiatrist and writer Frantz Fanon dies in Washington, D.C., where he had gone for medical treatment. In his writings, the Martinique-born Fanon explored the psychological aspects of racial oppression and Black liberation. His most famous works were “Black Skins, White Masks” and “Wretched of the Earth,” which was considered by many “the handbook for Black revolution.”
1931—Comer Cottrell is born. Cottrell founds the Pro-Line hair care products company. He also becomes the first Black to own part of a professional baseball team when he buys into the Texas Rangers in 1989.
1941—Dorie Miller shoots down three or four Japanese war planes during the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Miller was a kitchen worker on the USS Arizona who had learned to operate the ship’s weapons. After his death he was awarded the Navy Cross.
1850—Lucy Ann Stanton graduates from Oberlin College in Ohio. She is believed to be the first Black female college graduate in America.
1936—The Gibbs v. Board of Education in Montgomery County, Md., decision is rendered. It was the first of a series of court rulings, which eliminated the practice of paying White teachers more than Black teachers.
1987—Kurt Schmoke becomes the first Black mayor of Baltimore, Md.
1872—P.B.S. Pinchback begins serving as the first Black governor of Louisiana. He served for a little more than a month. Pinchback, son of a White plantation owner and a former Macon, Ga., slave, was a major force in Louisiana politics after the civil war and during Reconstruction. He was also instrumental in the 1879 establishment of Southern University.
1875—Carter G. Woodson is born in New Canton, Va. In 1926, Woodson started the first Negro History Week which grew to become Black History Month.
1846—Norbert Rillieux invents the “multiple effect pan evaporator” which revolutionizes the sugar industry and makes the work much less hazardous for the workers. Rillieux was born “quadroon libre” in New Orleans, La. His father was a wealthy French plantation owner and his mother a former slave. He was sent to Paris, France, to be educated in engineering. He also researched Egyptian hieroglyphics. There is no record that he ever returned to the U.S. after the 1850s. He died in Paris in 1894.
1854—Edwin C. Berry is born in Oberlin, Ohio. In Athens, Ohio, he co-founds the City Restaurant and builds the Hotel Berry which was to become one of the most elegant hotels in the entire state. By the time he retired in 1921, he was one of the most successful Black businessmen in America. He dies in 1931.
1950—Ralph Bunch becomes the first African-American awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Bunch was born in Detroit, Mich. But his family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and then Los Angeles, Calif., where he showed academic genius and won a scholarship to Harvard. His fame came when he worked out a temporary settlement between the Palestinians and the Jews after the state of Israel was established in 1948 on Palestinian lands. It was that work which won him the Nobel Peace Prize.
1964—Martin Luther King Jr. is awarded the Nobel Peace prize for his leadership of the American Civil Rights Movement.
1967—R&B legend Otis Redding dies when the twin-engine plane he was piloting crashed into a lake as it was headed for a concert in Wisconsin.
1917—Thirteen Black soldiers were hanged for their participation in the so-called Houston riot. The “riot” had occurred in August of 1917 when Whites objected to the presence of Black soldiers in the city. Racist insults and mistreatment began. Then a Black soldier intervenes in the arrest of a Black woman. A Black corporal inquires with the police about the arrest of the soldier. A fight breaks out between the corporal and the police. A rumor spreads that a White mob was marching on the Black camp. Roughly 100 Black soldiers grabbed rifles and marched onto downtown Houston. Within two hours they had killed 15 Whites including four police officers. They returned to camp but military officials pressured seven soldiers to snitch on the others. Their snitching resulted in the convictions and hangings of 13 Black soldiers.
1917—The Great Jazz Migration begins when noted musician Joe “King” Oliver leaves New Orleans, La., and settles in Chicago, Ill. He is soon joined by other early Jazz greats. Their presence in Chicago laid the foundation for the Southern Black music genre (with heavy sexual overtones) to become a national obsession. Actually, the “migration” may not have been quite so romantic. Instead of being forced by the closing of the New Orleans Storyville district, Jazz greats probably left New Orleans for Chicago for the same reason other Blacks left the South–failing crops forced the disappearance of jobs while Northern factories recruited Blacks for work to produce arms and other goods for World War I. Nevertheless, many historians view Oliver’s relocation to Chicago as the start of New Orleans Jazz migrating to the rest of the nation.
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Do you live on a tree-lined street? You probably like trees because you can climb them, sit in the shade, or enjoy the fall color in some climates. Trees help keep streams and rivers clean, provide cool shade and breezes, and improve air and water quality. Trees remove carbon dioxide from the air and produce oxygen through the process of photosynthesis. Trees also house and attract wildlife with their leaves, flowers, seeds, and fruit. Some trees live for hundreds of years and tell us about changing climate and weather. Tree rings are nature’s timeline. Wooded areas keep dirt and harmful chemicals from running into streams as well as reduce runoff and erosion. Some research shows that windows with a view of trees and nature can help reduce stress or even help patients in a hospital heal more quickly.
Trees are our friends.
Activity 1 – Leaf Indentification
Supplies: Internet, leaves, wax paper, iron, towel, paper and pencil or pen
What trees will grow best where you live? Take a walk and collect some leaves. Using the following website, see if you can identify the kinds of trees in your area: arborday.org. Check to see if your tree is:
Needle or Broad Leaf? Single or Compound leaf? Evergreen or Deciduous tree? Opposite or Alternate?
Once you have found and identified 10 leaves, press the leaves between two pieces of wax paper that are the same size. Place one sheet of paper flat on an ironing board, lay the leaf in the middle, and cover with the second sheet. Place a towel over the wax paper and press with a warm iron. If you do not have access to an iron, you can use clear contact paper. Be careful to lay the leaf flat onto the sticky side and then cover the leaf smoothing out bubbles. Label the pressed leaves and put them in a tree identification folder.
Activity 2 – Diagram Your Friend the Tree
Draw three diagrams of a tree.
Diagram 1: Start on a fresh page in your journal. Draw a diagram of a tree showing the following parts: roots, trunk, main branches, secondary branches, leaves. Review this link: thinkquest.org
Diagram 2: After reviewing, record in your journal the following shapes of trees: Columnar, pyramidal, v-shaped, round, oval, weeping. First draw the natural shape of the tree in pencil, and then draw the geometric figure of the tree in marker.
Diagram 3: Draw a cross section of a tree trunk after reviewing the Life of a Tree at: http://www.arborday.org/kids/carly/lifeofatree: Label the outer bark, inner bark, the cambium, sapwood, and heartwood layers. These definitions and this reference will help: thinkquest.org
bark: outer skin of a tree inner bark: also called phloem that carries food from leaves to rest of tree cambium: growing layer of tree sapwood/xylem: layer that carries water to tree heartwood: center support of tree
Activity 3 – What Are the Benefits of Trees?
Trees can make a home or property beautiful and increase the value while saving on energy costs. Shade trees on the east and west of a building keep it cool enough to reduce the amount of air conditioning needed; they also shade concrete sidewalks and asphalt parking lots. A line of trees, called a windbreak, helps keep cold winter winds away. Make an outline about trees that tells how trees are our friends. Check out the trees on your school yard at the National Tree Benefit Calculator. List several contributions trees make to our daily living
Trees are our friends!
Activity 4 – Tree Species
There are close to 10,000 identified species of trees on earth. There are more than 1,000 different species of trees in the United States alone. In the US, there are twice as many hardwood trees as softwood trees. Less than 100 types of trees are commercially used. Tree species group trees together that share the same morphology (form), DNA (genetics), geography (location) and propagation(regeneration). Now that you know the name of the trees in your yard and on your school ground, look at other species of the same tree. For example, if the tree in your yard is a fir tree, you can investigate the Balsam Fir, Fraser Fir and the Noble Fir. If your tree is a maple, look for the Silver Maple and Red Maple and if the tree at your school is an oak tree, find other types of oaks. Select three trees that you know. Make a tree poster with other types of trees that fit your three species. Show the leaves, leaf arrangement, shape of the tree and bark description. Record the scientific names for all of your trees. Scientific names for species use binomial nomenclature. Binomial nomenclature means that there are two names given. The first name is the genus name and the second name the species. The terms are usually Greek or Latin. For example, there are over 400 species of oak trees. The scientific name of the White Oak Tree is Quercus alba, where the genus Quercus is Greek for oak and the species is Latin for white.
Know your species!
Activity 5 – Tree Extremes
What and where are extreme trees? Extreme trees are the largest trees found growing on earth, or the smallest. Investigate extreme sizes. Nominate a tree in the United States as a Champion Tree. To nominate a tree, you need to measure the trunk size, tree height and tree width. All three numbers are added together to get a total. As people nominate trees, a winner that has the highest total wins champion status. The Sequoian National Park has five of the world’s largest trees. Its largest tree is the General Sherman. To look for a champion tree nearby take a walk in the fresh air and seek out a wooded area. Be sure to take your measuring tape, a ruler and a digital camera. Once you find a large tree, measure the circumference of its trunk at 4 ½ feet above the ground. If the tree is on a slope measure the high and low side circumference and average the two. Note this dimension in your journal. To figure the width of the tree, you need to walk from the center of the tree to the furthest extended branch and or leaf. From this point walk toward the trunk to the opposite widest extension. Record this measure. Then take the narrowest tree coverage dimension by repeating this same walk under the tree coverage. Average the two numbers for your tree width. Finally, walk away from the tree until you can fit its complete height (from the point the trunk enters the ground to the highest leaf top branch in the sky). Use a ruler to calculate this dimension. For assistance look at measuring guidelines. As for the smallest trees, look into the art of Bonsai.
Take measure of your trees! Trunk Circumference (inches) + Height (feet) + ¼ Average Crown Spread (feet) = Total Points
- Photosynthesis is the process of:
- A tree ring represents how many years of growth?
- A tree’s roots extend as far as its branches reach.
- All trees require the same amount of water.
- How many different tree species are there?
- All About Trees
- All About Trees Grades 1 + 2
- Alliance For Community Trees
- Anatomy of a Tree
- Arthur Wiechula Tree Sculpture
- Dichotomous Tree Key
- Drawing General Sherman, Sequoia National Forest, Video
- From Woods to Wood
- Fruit Trees 101
- How to Draw a Tree
- How to Plant a Tree
- LEAF Tree Identification Cards
- Life of a Tree
- National Tree Benefit Calculator
- Plant Trees 4 Life
- Tree identification
- Tree Identification by Fruit
- Tree Identification: By Leaf, Fruit or Name
- Tree Interaction With History
- Trees 4 Life International
- Trees Ease Inner City Neighborhoods
- VIDEO: The Most Amazing Things About Trees
- Video Why Does a Leaf Change Color?
- Where are our Forests? (US)
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The current issue of Social Scientist has three articles on colonial India dealing with three different themes, each of which nonetheless is of abiding interest. The paper by Vikash Pandey, which takes Awadh as its case-study, explores the character of the agricultural middle class:
did it correspond to the 'progressive' middle peasantry, identified by Hamza Alavi and others as the leader of the peasantry as a whole in anti-feudal and anti-colonial struggles before independence, or was it a stratum that more or less kept itself aloof from peasant uprisings? Pandey argues that the entire middle layer, consisting of under-proprietors, subordinate proprietors, occupancy tenants, ex-proprietary tenants, grant holders and privileged tenants, did not consist of persons who were coming up the social ladder and whose economic position was based in any way upon enterprise; on the contrary their privileged position was closely related to pre-capitalist forms of rent collection and, though hostile to superior taluqdari rights, they stood quite apart from the vast mass of tenants-at-will. This made them stand aside during the peasant rebellions of the 1920s, though they joined the Congress-led nationalist struggle thereafter, in contradistinction with the case of the 'middle peasants' in Alavi's perception which attributes a leading role to this class in peasant uprisings such as Telengana.
The paper by Tuteja and Grewal traces the emergence of Hindu communal ideology in the Punjab from the Arya Samaj movement through to the 1920s. The development of this ideology which was rooted in the quest for identity of an urban middle class that simultaneously benefited from, as well as felt discriminated by, a colonial order, gained momentum as the competition for jobs and elected office at the local level intensified. As the national movement swept the country, however, the communal ideological stream got bifurcated, with one branch favouring cooperation, admittedly within a 'communitarian' prospective, between the Hindus and the Muslims in a common struggle against colonial rule, while another branch either turned its back upon the anti-colonial struggle altogether, or, at best, defined its position solely in terms of a 'Hindu nation*. It is this latter branch, represented by the Punjab Hindu Swaraksha Sabha, which
Social Scientist, Vol. 20, Nos. 7-«, July-August 1992
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The red fox is dog-like in appearance, with an elongated pointed muzzle and large pointed ears that are usually erect and forward. It has moderately long legs and long, thick, soft body fur with a heavily furred, bushy tail. Typically, red foxes are colored with a light orange-red coat, black legs, lighter-colored underfur and a white-tipped tail. Silver and cross foxes are color phases of the red fox. In North America the red fox weighs about 7.7 to 15.4 pounds (3.5 to 7.0 kg), with males on average 2.2 pounds (1 kg) heavier than females.
Gray foxes weigh 7 to 13 pounds (3.2 to 5.9 kg) and measure 32 to 45 inches (81 to 114 cm) from the nose to the tip of the tail. The color pattern is generally salt-and-pepper gray with buffy underfur. The sides of the neck, back of the ears, legs, and feet are rusty yellow. The tail is long and bushy with a black tip.
Other species of foxes present in North America are the Arctic fox, swift fox, and kit fox. These animals are not usually associated with livestock and poultry depredation because they typically eat small rodents and lead a secretive life in remote habitats away from people, although they may cause site-specific damage problems.
Range and Habitat
Red foxes occur over most of North America, north and east from southern California, Arizona, and central Texas. They are found throughout most of the United States with the exception of a few isolated areas.
Gray foxes are found throughout the eastern, north central, and southwestern United States They are found throughout Mexico and most of the southwestern United States from California northward through western Oregon.
Kit foxes are residents of arid habitats. They are found from extreme southern Oregon and Idaho south along the Baja Peninsula and eastward through southwestern Texas and northern Mexico.
The present range of swift foxes is restricted to the central high plains. They are found in Kansas, the Oklahoma panhandle, New Mexico, Texas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming and Colorado.
As its name indicates, the Arctic fox occurs in the arctic regions of North America and was introduced on a number of Islands in the Aleutian chain.
The red fox is adaptable to most habitats within its range, but usually prefers open country with moderate cover. Some of the highest fox densities reported are in the north-central United States, where woodlands are interspersed with farmlands. The range of the red fox has expanded in recent years to fill habitats formerly occupied by coyotes (Canis latrans).
The reduction of coyote numbers in many sagebrush/grassland areas of Montana and Wyoming has resulted in increased fox numbers. Red foxes have also demonstrated their adaptability by establishing breeding populations in many urban areas of the United States, Canada, and Europe. Gray foxes prefer more dense cover such as thickets, riparian areas, swamp land, or rocky pinyon-cedar ridges. In eastern North America, this species is closely associated with edges of deciduous forests. Gray foxes can also be found in urban areas where suitable habitat exists.
Foxes are most active during the early hours of darkness and very early morning hours. They do move about during the day, however, especially when it is dark and overcast.
Foxes have a wide variety of calls. They may bark, scream, howl, yap, growl, or make sounds similar to a hiccup. During winter a male will often give a yelling bark, “wo-wo-wo,” that seems to be important in warning other male foxes not to intrude on its territory.
Foxes may cause serious problems for poultry producers. Turkeys raised in large range pens are subject to damage by foxes. Losses may be heavy in small farm flocks of chickens, ducks and geese. Young pigs, lambs and small pets are also killed by foxes. Damage can be difficult to detect because the prey is usually carried from the kill site to a den site, or uneaten parts are buried.
Foxes do carry rabies. Although the number of foxes with rabies has declined, humans are still at risk. Rabies outbreaks are most prevalent among red foxes in southeastern Canada and occasionally in the eastern United States.
Foxes in the United States are listed as furbearers or given some status as game animals by most state governments. Most states allow for the taking of foxes to protect private property. Check with your state wildlife agency for regulations before undertaking fox control measures.
Net wire fences. Electric fences.
Protect livestock and poultry during most vulnerable periods (for example, shed lambing, farrowing pigs in protective enclosures).
Flashing lights and exploders may provide temporary protection. Well-trained livestock guarding dogs may be effective in some situations.
None are registered for livestock protection.
Gas cartridges for den fumigation, where registered.
M-44® sodium cyanide mechanical ejection device, in states where registered.
Steel leghold traps. Cage or box traps. Snares.
Predator calling techniques. Aerial hunting.
Den hunting. Remove young foxes from dens to reduce predation by adults.
The above information was adapted from PREVENTION AND CONTROL OF WILDLIFE DAMAGE with permission of the editors, Scott E. Hygnstrom, Robert M. Timm, and Gary E. Larson (Cooperative Extension Division, Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources University of Nebraska-Lincoln, United States Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Animal Damage Control, Great Plains Agricultural Council Wildlife Committee).
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Old Wang Coal?
by Bill Chameides | February 18th, 2013
posted by Erica Rowell (Editor)
Coal is the backbone of the Chinese economy, accounting for about 70 percent of China's total energy production. But will coal remain king? We look at the landscape. (Flickr/rob helpychalk)
Is China, the world’s largest producer and consumer of coal, a promising market for U.S. coal exports?
China is big and is thus superlative in many ways. It’s got the highest population and the biggest labor force. It’s the biggest holder of U.S. debt and the “biggest recipient of foreign direct investment in the world.”
It’s also the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases — a superlative unlikely to go away any time soon because China has yet to commit to lowering its emissions.
Beijing has, however, promised to lower China’s carbon intensity (the amount of carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product) by 17 percent below the 2010 level by 2015. (Note: as long as a nation’s GDP rises faster than its carbon intensity declines — the case for China — its emissions will increase.)
To meet its goal, China will need to achieve an average cut in intensity of about 3.4 percent each year over the five-year period. They didn’t do too well in 2011, with their carbon intensity remaining essentially flat, but 2012 was a different story. Last year, China’s carbon intensity reportedly decreased by 3.5 percent. Over the next three years China will have to cut its intensity by another 13.5 percent to achieve the 17 percent reduction.
China: The King of King Coal
To achieve this target reduction, you’d think China would steer clear of carbon-intensive fuels like coal. So far, however, just the opposite appears to be happening; coal has been ascendant and the stats are striking.
Because coal is cheap and abundant, it is one of the world’s most widely used fuels. In 2008, the Energy Information Administration reports, “coal accounted for 28 percent of world energy consumption.” But China’s coal dependence is considerably larger — accounting for about 70 percent of its total energy production and forming the very backbone of its economy. And so, as China’s economy has grown (at an annual GDP rate of about 10.5 percent since 2000), so has its consumption of coal, which has increased by an average of nine percent per year over the same period. By comparison, average coal demand growth for the rest of the world has been about one percent per year.
In 2011, China accounted for 87 percent of the global increase in coal consumption, and now accounts for almost one half of all the coal consumed in the world. To put it in its starkest terms, as per the EIA: “China consumes nearly as much coal as the rest of the world combined.”
If you’re concerned about climate change, all that coal-burning is not welcome news, but a change may be in the offing. Earlier this month, Beijing announced it will cap total coal usage at essentially its current rate. But I wouldn’t pop the corks just yet. Given that 70 percent of China’s rapidly growing economy is powered by coal, stopping the rapid rise in China’s coal usage while maintaining that economic growth will be no easy feat.*
China’s Coal Appetite a Boon for U.S., but Will It Last?
To acquire the coal it needs, China became a net importer in 2009 — a happy circumstance for U.S. (et al.) coal producers. As demand for coal has waned in the United States, largely because of fuel switching to natural gas, U.S. coal producers have been able to make up some of the slack by exporting more coal. Projections for 2012 show an expected new record for U.S. coal exports of about 125 million short tons. (Final numbers expected later this year.) While U.S. exports to China currently make up only about four percent [pdf] of total U.S. coal shipments overseas, the more than eight million short tons [pdf] shipped in 2012 through September are double the 2011 shipments over the same period.
- As noted above, the Chinese government has announced plans to stabilize its coal consumption at current levels. Of course declaring an intention to cap coal usage in such a coal-dependent country is one thing; actually doing it is something else. Nevertheless, if you’re a coal exporter to China, it has to give you pause.
- China isn’t importing coal because it lacks domestic coal. (Remember, China is the world’s “largest top coal producer.”) China is importing because it lacks the infrastructure to extract and bring the coal to market. As that infrastructure is built out, its need for foreign coal will shrink.
- Like the United States, China has ample shale gas reserves ($ub req’ed) and will soon get into the business of fracking. (Huzzah.)
Is all this wild speculation? Global consulting firm IHS doesn’t think so; they project that China’s coal imports have already peaked and will decline gradually through 2035.
There was a time in the United States when coal was king, but those days are on the wane. Today old king coal is more aptly called “wang” coal (wang is Chinese for king). The jury is still out on when, but there must come a day when old wang coal also begins to wane. We’ll all be a lot merrier if it happens sooner rather than later.
*One thing in China’s favor as it works to reduce its coal dependence is its already sizeable investment in renewables. For example, for the fourth year in a row, China has installed more wind capacity than any other nation. The 15.9 gigawatts of onshore wind installed in 2012 brought its total wind capacity to 61 gigawatts, making wind China’s third largest power source behind coal and hydro. It expects to reach 100 gigawatts by 2014 — a year ahead of its latest 5-year plan goal.filed under: carbon dioxide emissions, coal, economy, energy, faculty, pollution, renewable energy
and: carbon intensity, China, greenhouse gases, renewables, wind
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A scientist, a curator, and an archaeologist discuss the exciting discoveries revealed by the scientific analyses of an ancient Greek funerary stele.
Marco Leona: I'm Marco Leona, the head of the Scientific Research Department at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. I'm here in the New Greek and Roman Galleries, looking at an ancient Greek funerary stele from the late fourth to early third century B.C. I'm with two colleagues who have been studying this object with me from two perspectives that are very different than mine: Joan Mertens, curator in the Greek and Roman Art Department; and Mark Abbe, doctoral candidate in archaeology at New York University.
Joan Mertens: The object that we're looking at is a tombstone and it was made and it was found in northern Egypt in the area around Alexandria. And during this time, which we call the Hellenistic period, Alexandria was an extremely important center with a very cosmopolitan and international population. And in the cemeteries there, we have evidence, especially from inscriptions, of the many foreigners who were buried there, and we know that quite a few of them were mercenaries. The object that we are looking at is very traditional in many respects, and this is why the opportunity of working with two scientific colleagues is so exciting, because it opens up entirely new perspectives that curatorial people like us would not otherwise be aware of.
The form of the tombstone, with a pediment on the top and this architectural aspect, was really established at the end of the fifth, the early fourth century B.C. on the Greek mainland and particularly in Athens. And the subject that we have here of someone who has died, who was taking leave of his family—this also has been known on the Greek mainland since the end of the fifth century B.C. And even the fact that there is painted decoration is also, at this time, nothing new. What is very new and very exciting is what our scientific colleagues have been able to discover.
Mark Abbe: We first examined this stele under a microscope, and then you'll notice all of the different colors that you see. And we did a series of material analyses using X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and other techniques that allow us to identify the pigments that you see. One of the fascinating things in our study of this piece is that the yellow pigment that you see on the garment of the central figure is, in fact, a new pigment, unidentified to date. It is a lead-arsenate mineral known as mimetite, and if you scan the Mediterranean basin and look for where this specific mineral may have been found, we find it really in only one place in any degree of significant concentration: the silver mines of Athens at Lavrion, which we know were in their peak of production in the fourth century. It was the silver from these mines that really funded the Athenian empire, in a way. And the discovery of mimetite at these mines really has, to date, not been properly recognized.
Mimetite appears naturally as a yellow particle on the exterior, forming almost like a crust, on the dark, black, galena silver ore. And so, what appears to be the case here is that an artisan or someone working in the mines scraped this yellow crust off and began to use it as a pigment in the Greek palette. This mineral was presumably imported into Alexandria where it was used on the stele.
Marco Leona: Mimetite was not the only yellow pigment available in the ancient classical world. An artist would have had a choice of pigments such as ochre—so, iron oxides that are extremely abundant and widely found—or the more rare and costly orpiment, which is a very warm, rich yellow-in fact, it means "the color of gold". What is significant here with the discovery and use of mimetite is really the connection to an Athenian formation for these artists. The fact that the pigment would have been immediately available and noticeable by artists in Athens. It probably, when originally painted, was a very bright, highly reflective yellow, because that's one of the characteristics of lead pigments—they have high refractive indexes, which, in turn, give a very strong color contrast.
The artists in the classical world had access to a variety of pigments of all colors, and that's also significant for us—if you want, from a different perspective than the art historian or the conservator, that of a scientist—because it opens a window into the chemical and scientific knowledges of our ancestors. They would have used a variety of minerals, finely crushed, such as mimetite, such as the ochres ranging from yellow to brown to orange to red. They would have access to natural and semi-synthetic pigments, such as the various lead pigments—lead-white, red-lead. They had discovered—a discovery inherited from the Egyptian tradition—synthetic mineral pigments, such as Egyptian blue. And they had even mastered the art of turning vegetal or insect extract into color, and those would be bright shades of pink that were obtained by fixing the juices of some roots on clays or on alumina—a technique that we find, up to this day, in the use of natural dyes for textiles.
Mark Abbe: One of the great things about understanding the materials that an artist used is it really allows us insight into the working practices of ancient artists. If you look at this stele, at the center, you'll see the central figure—his hair appears to be blue. It did not appear this way in antiquity. Rather, this is actually the Egyptian blue that Marco mentioned, and it was used as an under-paint to obtain a very rich, complex, black tone. The whole reverse of the painted scene that you see at the center of this stele was prepared with a lead-white ground. This was a new innovation during the Greek classical period and it allowed the painter to really maximize the color effect and color values obtained through the different pigments that Marco has been mentioning.
Marco Leona: Now, one question that any visitor would have is how is this scientific work done, and what it requires, both of the scientists at the Museum and of the piece that's being examined. What we have here is an object that has survived for 2,300 years. It looks as—most of the color is gone, the image is somewhat fragmentary, but we should regard the fact that there's an image at all as exceptional. Very few works survive from classical antiquity with their entire polychromy extant. So for us, in a museum, it's extremely important to respect the integrity of the piece. Now, analytical chemistry requires, very often, a pretty invasive approach. Something has to be removed and then processed in our instrument.
Here at the Museum, we specialize in obtaining analytical information without this type of invasive approach. So some of the techniques that have been used, such as X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, can be applied in a completely noninvasive way. It's a small instrument that approaches the surface of the piece, shoots X-rays at the pigments, and captures the scattering of these X-rays and the interaction of the primary X-rays with the substrate, deriving a fingerprint for each type of pigment. Other approaches include Raman spectroscopy, where a laser beam is used to excite a response in the minerals present in the pigment layer. That, in turn, gives rise to a fingerprint spectrum of the material used.
Finally—and that's actually how we analyzed mimetite, identified mimetite—something that's required for the most complex and difficult cases, we may have to remove a microscopic fragment, in this case something in the order of twenty, thirty, fifty microns, which is, commonly, the diameter of a human hair. That small fragment was then analyzed in an instrument called an X-ray diffractometer, which gave the crystallographic fingerprint of the mineral mimetite. All this work, of course, is done in collaboration with the curatorial and conservation department. You can imagine that the importance of the piece, the correct identification of the painting layers, the remains of polychromy, and the scope of the analysis—the sampling required—require a constant consultation between the professionals involved in the study.
Joan Mertens: This is, really, the most exciting part of such a collaboration, and this is the very exciting aspect of what can be done here in the Museum, that a variety of disciplines—some which are relatively traditional, such as the curatorial disciplines, with a long tradition of scholarship and of visual analysis—that we're able to come together with pros in the contemporary disciplines of science and open up entirely new aspects and horizons about, in most cases, relatively well-known classes of material. But through these new processes, they gain entirely unexpected and extraordinarily exciting new dimensions.
Marco Leona: If you would like to learn more about how collaborative work in art, conservation, and science can lead to new discoveries about works of art, we invite you to come to The Metropolitan Museum of Art to hear a new Audio Guide program: "Investigations: Art, Conservation, and Science." Information about the Metropolitan Museum and its programs is available at metmuseum.org.
The Audio Guide program at the Metropolitan Museum is sponsored by Bloomberg.
This has been an Antenna Audio production.
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The day Iceland's women went on strike. "Forty years ago, the women of Iceland went on strike - they refused to work, cook and look after children for a day. It was a moment that changed the way women were seen in the country and helped put Iceland at the forefront of the fight for equality." [Via]
One mathematician’s formula suggests that all-male lineups don’t “just happen,” despite what conference organizers might claim. "...in any conference with over 10 speakers, say, it would be extremely rare to have no female speakers at all—less than 5 percent chance, depending on one’s assumption about the percentage of women in mathematics as a whole."
Robert Crumb talks to The Observer about misogyny, sex, fame, cartooning and getting older in a sprawling interview.
In 1992-1994 and 2005-2009, Yuka Makino studied the lopping practices in the oak forests of Garwhal, Himalaya. Her PhD dissertation (PDF) contains a fascinating prologue describing the practical and ethical issues for conducting ethnographic research in an area where distrust of outsiders runs high and where gender and caste norms are strictly enforced. One afternoon, several children came and were chatting with us when a 10-year-old girl joined us. Though she still took part in the conversation in a loud voice, she stood at the edge of the veranda, far away from the door. (...) I realized that she was a Scheduled Caste girl and if she had stood at the doorway her shadow would have fallen into the room and may have touched my assistant’s plate of food, contaminating or polluting it. I let her stand there so that neither she nor my assistant would feel uncomfortable. [more inside]
How Poker Player Annie Duke Used Gender Stereotypes To Win Matches - "By the time she got to that championship game 10 years later, she had also figured out a way to make people pay, quite literally, for the stereotypes they had about her." (previously)
The extraordinary case of the Guevedoces. "Johnny lives in a small town in the Dominican Republic where he, and others like him, are known as 'Guevedoces', which effectively translates as 'penis at twelve' ... Like the other Guevedoces, Johnny was brought up as a girl because he had no visible testes or penis and what appeared to be a vagina. It is only when he approached puberty that his penis grew and testicles descended." [more inside]
"As long as 'feminine' is treated as a synonym for 'weak,' girls are going to continue to be underestimated and boys are going to continue to be bullied when they step out of the gender box they've been put in." Why does gender neutral clothing always mean 'boy' clothes for girls? [more inside]
The US Department of Education has released the College Scorecard, matching financial aid data to federal tax returns. At some expensive colleges, the salaries of students 10 years after enrollment are bleak, and there is an earnings gender gap at every top university. [more inside]
Picture yourself as a stereotypical male "As it turns out, there is zero statistically significant gender difference in mental rotation ability after test-takers are asked to imagine themselves as stereotypical men for a few minutes. None. An entire standard deviation of female underperformance is negated on this condition, just as a man’s performance is slightly hindered if he instead imagines himself as a woman."
In its all-too-brief 3½ year run, Comedy Central's sketch comedy powerhouse Key & Peele burned brightly, leavening Peabody-award-winning social commentary with sublime silliness and Hollywood-quality production values, all centered on the impeccable character acting of co-stars Jordan (Peele) and Keegan-Michael (Key). By the time its end was announced, characters like the Substitute Teacher, the East/West College Bowl players, and Obama's Anger Translator had captured the popular consciousness, while skits like TeachingCenter and Negrotown deftly spotlighted our most pressing problems. With the finale airing tonight, and the dynamic duo free to tackle other projects, why not revisit the program's concentrated brilliance in the form of ~100 of their very best short bits available on the web, sorted loosely by topic. [more inside]
"Reactions to that one simple gesture (a marriage proposal, from a woman) contain sexist multitudes. After all, women are conditioned from an early age—by Disney, their families, the wedding industry—to hope for marriage, but simultaneously discouraged from taking any initiative in making that marriage happen. And men are expected to fear—or at least resist—matrimony. Should they decide they'd like to wed, they're required to spend an enormous amount of financial and emotional capital to create a (preferably public) display of atypically masculine vulnerability and emotionality. The sheer popularity of YouTube proposals complete with flash mobs, tear-y eyed assembled family, and the bride's shocked gasps caught in three angles is a strong indicator of the pedestal upon which we place these stories. With the reverse proposal, all this fanfare is still required, but both partners face the prospect of a lifetime of ribbing and weird comments from strangers..."
Once a Pariah, Now a Judge: The Early Transgender Journey of Phyllis Frye.
Useful resources for participating in the discussion: Ohio U's Trans 101* : Primer and Vocabulary guide; and GLAAD's Transgender Media Program [more inside]
Useful resources for participating in the discussion: Ohio U's Trans 101* : Primer and Vocabulary guide; and GLAAD's Transgender Media Program [more inside]
The Village Where Men Are Banned (and accompanying photos). Julie Bindel at the Guardian writes about the Kenyan village of Umoja, where for 25 years, since the village was founded by survivors of sexual assault, only women and their children have lived.
Your Sex is Not Radical In queer radical circles and in much of the left, the worlds in which I operate, there’s a widely held idea that one’s political radicalism can be attached to one’s sexual practices. This is why those who practice BDSM and are variously “sex positive” are often equated with left politics. But the sad truth that many of us learn after years in sexual playing fields (literally and figuratively) is that how many people you fuck has nothing to do with the extent to which you fuck up capitalism.
Attractive entrepreneurs get more funding – but only if they're male. The research paper "Investors prefer entrepreneurial ventures pitched by attractive men", written by researchers at Harvard, Wharton School and MIT, found the gender and attractiveness of entrepreneurs have a significant effect on whether their business ventures will receive funding. [more inside]
Mic article on Resting Bitch Face EJ Dickson article about people constantly telling her she looks angry and discovering that her "RBF" is a symptom of her anxiety.
What I Learned Sending My Novel Out Under a Male Name: I sent the six queries I had planned to send that day. Within 24 hours George had five responses—three manuscript requests and two warm rejections praising his exciting project. For contrast, under my own name, the same letter and pages sent 50 times had netted me a total of two manuscript requests. The responses gave me a little frisson of delight at being called “Mr.” and then I got mad. Three manuscript requests on a Saturday, not even during business hours! The judgments about my work that had seemed as solid as the walls of my house had turned out to be meaningless. My novel wasn’t the problem, it was me—Catherine.
"Pajubá is one of the many queer anti-languages of the world. People study them in 'Lavender Linguistics'. It's hard to study those languages because their usefulness vanishes if they are not secret anymore. Pajubá is a moving target, evolving so rapidly that it can't be documented." — Pajubá: The secret language of Brazilian trans women [via mefi projects]
Facebook's bias training: "There are different forms of unconscious bias that can prevent us from cultivating an inclusive and innovative workplace. In these videos, we discuss four common types of biases: Performance Bias, Performance Attribution Bias, Competence/Likeability Trade-off Bias, and Maternal Bias."
"Games offer a way to simulate and view complex systems from the outside, to pick them up and play with them as a child might play with a toy machine, to understand what they are able to do and where they are broken." Bea Malsky at The New Inquiry writes about casual time management gaming, Marxism, affective/emotional labor, worker alienation, and whether just maybe Diner Dash is doing subversive feminist work.
Why can't men be Olympic synchronised swimmers? - by William Kremer (BBC News Magazine)
Conchita Wurst (previously) might have made bearded drag famous with her 2014 Eurovision win, even popularizing it to an extent by inspiring mainstream outlets like RuPaul's Drag Race. But there's more to bearded drag and genderfuck drag than Conchita Wurst. Beards in drag have been around since the 1970s, notably as performed by The Cockettes and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (previously). Here, bearded queens Lucy Stoole, Grace Towers, and Jeff Poulin speak about why they incorporate beards into their performances. (NB: drag queens are not synonymous with trans women.)
It won't be important to everyone, most people probably won't even notice it, but Facebook's icons are changing, in more than one case specifically so that the woman isn't "quite literally in the shadow of the man". [more inside]
It's possible you don't know what I'm talking about. Maybe you're a moderate drinker who baby-sips two glasses of wine and leaves every party at a reasonable hour. Maybe you are one of those lucky people who can slurp your whisky all afternoon and never disappear. But if you're like me, you know the thunderbolt of waking up to discover a blank space where pivotal scenes should be. My evenings come with trapdoors.An excerpt from Sarah Hepola's new memoir: "Everyone has blackouts, don't they?" [more inside]
New research into the pain processing of mice has found male and female mice process pain differently, and the discovery may also apply to other species, including humans. Scientists are now questioning what this means for the future of medical research, which until now, has had a strong bias towards experimenting on male mice. [more inside]
"..Research also shows that diverse teams are better at solving complex problems and enjoy more dynamic workplaces. So at Facebook we’re serious about building a workplace that reflects a broad range of experience, thought, geography, age, background, gender, sexual orientation, language, culture and many other characteristics.” Facebook only hired seven black people in latest diversity count.
In an new episode of the Charlie Rose Brain Series, the topic of Gender Identity is discussed. Participating in the discussion are Ben Barres, chair of neurobiology at Stanford University, Norman Spack of Boston Children’s Hospital, Catherine Dulac of Harvard University, Melissa Hines of University of Cambridge, and Janet Hyde of University of Wisconsin. (SL Video) [more inside]
This Is What Ruby Rose Thinks About The Entire Internet 'Going Gay' For Her - Erin Whitney, Huffington Post | Girl On Girl: Why We Never Talk About Male Sexual Fluidity by Morgan Cohn, The Frisky | We Heart: Ruby Rose on Gender Fluidity - Emma Niles for Ms. Magazine
Why More Men Are Drinking Pink "You go to a table where people are sitting outside and they're like, 'I'll take a magnum of Bedell,' and maybe it's seven dudes and you're a little surprised. You thought you were going to be talking to them about scotch, but they want some Provence rosé, and that's totally cool."
StyleLikeU's "What's Underneath" Project features short videos of people from all walks of life slowly stripping down to their underwear, while giving revealing interviews intended to show that 'style is not the clothes one wears, but spirit, and comfort in one's skin.' Topics covered are as diverse as their subjects, and include beauty, fashion, disability, diseases and chronic conditions including albinism and cancer, career, gender, identity, body image/dysmorphia, abuse, miscarriage, etc. The majority of the subjects are women. Some videos may be NSFW. (Via)
Math edutainer and MeFi favorite Vi Hart reflects on how her beliefs about gender, personal expression, "political correctness," diversity, and sincerity have matured over the years.
Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index covers journal articles, book reviews, and essays in books about women, sexuality, and gender during the Middle Ages. [some pages may contain medieval nudity] [more inside]
"The average monthly income in Ethiopia is about $300-$400, less after taxes. She is running to take $4,000 home. You do the math. All I am going to take home are some sore legs, a cheesy medal, and a fierce hangover from partying with my brothers. I got nothing to lose so I let it all hang out. We don’t speak the same language, but running is universal, like music."
"Let’s have a year of publishing only women." ~ Kamila Shamsie [The Guardian] [Books]
It is clear that there is a gender bias in publishing houses and the world of books. Well, enough. Why not try something radical? Make 2018 the Year of Publishing Women, in which no new titles should be by men.[more inside]
For those at the top, James Brown’s observation that it is a man’s, man’s, man’s world still holds true. Some 95% of Fortune 500 CEOs are male, as are 98% of the self-made billionaires on the Forbes rich list and 93% of the world’s heads of government. In popular films fewer than a third of the characters who speak are women, and more than three-quarters of the protagonists are men. Yet the fact that the highest rungs have male feet all over them is scant comfort for the men at the bottom.
The New Republic interviews Josh Levs, a CNN reporter who "has written a book, All In: How Our Work-First Culture Fails Dads, Families, and Businesses – and How We Can Fix It Together, arguing that it is incumbent on men to become part of a conversation about gender equality in homes and in workplaces." [more inside]
"The record store, the guitar shop, and now social media: when it comes to popular music, these places become stages for the display of male prowess. Female expertise, when it appears, is repeatedly dismissed as fraudulent. Every woman who has ever ventured an opinion on popular music could give you some variation (or a hundred) on my school corridor run-in, and becoming a recognized 'expert' (a musician, a critic) will not save you from accusations of fakery." The World Needs Female Rock Critics, by Anwen Crawford for the New Yorker. Discussed in the piece is Jessica Hopper's new collection of essays, The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic, which has been greeted with glowing praise. Here's an interview she did with Hazlitt: 'Am I Womansplaining To You?' And here she speaks to Meredith Graves of Perfect Pussy: "Being a fangirl is all the qualification you need. And don't wait for anyone to give you permission. They won't. And you should do it anyways." [more inside]
Quiverfull of shit: a Guide to the Duggars' Scary Brand of Christianity - Gawker, Jennifer C. Martin
"In 1985, a writer named Mary Pride published a book called The Way Home: Beyond Feminism, Back to Reality, which detailed her journey away from the second-wave feminism of the '70s and into what she perceived was a woman’s Biblical place in the home, and the commandment to fill the house with as many of her husband’s children as possible.
"Pride insisted that no woman could possibly find true happiness without submitting to her vision of Christianity: Relinquish control of your womb to God, and exist only to please your husband, give birth, feed everyone, and educate your children in the home—almost certainly without having received any formal higher education yourself."
17 Pathbreaking Non-Binary and Gender-Fluid Novels | You might be sexually fluid and not realize it — or even care
"D’Eon exploited this remarkable situation to transition to womanhood, getting both the English and French governments to declare that 'Monsieur d’Eon is a woman.' The press closely followed these announcements and, starting in 1777, d’Eon lived her life legally recognized as a woman. In Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman, d’Eon is held up as one of the most remarkable women of her century." Transgender celebrities are not new. Just read London newspapers from 1770, The Guardian
My approach in shooting the portraits was to create a community experience. I set up open calls for women and female-identifying individuals to have their photographs taken holding whatever made them feel most safe walking home alone.Iowa-based artist Taylor Yocom presents: Guarded. [more inside]
Transgender Lives: Your Stories (NYT). As part of a series of editorials about transgender experiences, we are featuring personal stories that reflect the strength, diversity and challenges of the community.
While work-life balance is generally seen as an issue mostly affecting women, many men also struggle with balancing work obligations with family. In companies which expect an "ideal" worker to produce 60-80 hour work weeks, men use a number of strategies to conserve time and shorten work weeks--with vastly different consequences depending on transparency.
Every April for the past several years, Fantasy Cafe has published a series of guest posts for Women in Science Fiction & Fantasy Month. This year, the article that generated the most discussion was "'I am ... ?': Representation of Mature Women in Fantasy" by Mieneke from A Fantastical Librarian, who asked, "So where are the older women in fantasy? Mature women who are the hero of their own story?" The many other guest posts this year offered an interesting range of questions, observations, and reflections--often by well-known names in the field. [more inside]
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Several great whale species were once far more abundant than records suggest, geneticists say.
By Alex Kirby
BBC News Online environment correspondent
They think there were about 10 times more fin and humpback whales in the North Atlantic than modern estimates claim.
Humpbacks' songs are legendary
But minke whale numbers appear historically to have been much closer to current populations.
The findings could radically change the terms of the debate on a possible resumption of whaling.
The geneticists, from the universities of Stanford and Harvard, US, report their findings in the magazine Science.
To estimate the size of whale populations before commercial hunting began, they studied genetic variation in the maternally-inherited mitochondrial DNA of North Atlantic fins, humpbacks and minkes.
They found a "surprisingly high" degree of variation, implying a correspondingly large population size for those species in the past.
Stephen Palumbi, professor of biological sciences at Stanford, is co-author of the report.
He said: "The genetics of populations has within it information about the past. If you can read the amount of genetic variation - the difference in DNA from one individual whale to another - and calibrate that, then you can estimate the historic size of the population.
"A small population tends to weed out all of its genetic differences through inbreeding. A large population, by contrast, should have a lot more genetic variation."
Estimates of historic population size are made by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) on the basis of whaling records dating back to the mid-19th century.
But Professor Palumbi and the report's lead author, Joe Roman of Harvard, write: "Reliable estimates of former whale abundances are elusive.
"Whaling logbooks provide clues, but may be incomplete, intentionally under-reported, or fail to consider hunting loss."
Their own study of fin whales, second in size only to the 30-metre blue whale, concludes that the IWC's historic estimates are far too low.
Fins: IWC suggests 40,000, authors 360,000
Humpbacks: IWC 20,000, authors 240,000
Minkes: IWC 130,000, authors 265,000
The commission thinks there were once about 40,000 North Atlantic fins, and that they have recovered to an all-time high of about 56,000.
But the authors' genetic comparison of 235 fins shows a pre-whaling population of probably about 360,000 animals.
They reach a similar conclusion with humpbacks, which the IWC estimates now number about 10,000, half the apparent historic high of 20,000 whales.
Roman and Palumbi compared DNA samples from 188 humpbacks to reach their own historic estimate of about 240,000 animals.
Professor Palumbi judges from this that the global humpback population could have been as high as 1.5 million whales, against an IWC figure of 100,000.
The immediate significance of what Roman and Palumbi are saying lies in the debate over the resumption of commercial whaling, suspended since 1986 under an IWC moratorium. There is pressure, led by Japan, Norway and Iceland, to lift the moratorium.
Minkes are relatively abundant
The IWC says there can be no whaling until populations have returned to at least 54% of their historic levels.
Other arguments aside, that could mean North Atlantic humpbacks being killed again some time within the next decade.
But the genetic analysis suggests whaling should not start for something like 70 or 100 years.
On minke whales, Roman and Palumbi conclude the original North Atlantic population was about 265,000, roughly twice the number the IWC thinks are there now.
Hunting decisions about the minkes, the authors say, "must be based on other data".
Professor James Estes, of the US Geological Survey, said the loss of more than 800,000 fins, humpbacks and minkes from the North Atlantic would not have been an isolated event and was likely to have altered the entire web of life.
Dr Doug Butterworth, a mathematician specialising in fisheries population modelling, from the University of Cape Town, is sceptical about the research.
Iceland wants to hunt fin whales
He told the BBC: "If the genetics is right, then either our estimates of past catches are very wrong or there's been some major ecological shift in the oceans. Where is the stuff all these whales were eating?
"There may be questions about the accuracy of our figures. They may be two or three times out, but even that's pushing it. They're not five to ten times out."
Humpback and fin whale images courtesy of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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This webpage allows students to engage with digital technology in a safe and easy to navigate environment. Throughout this webpage students are able to read storybooks online, use their creative skills, play word games, listen to music with particular attention to rhymes and extend on their mathematical skills by completing interactive games and activities.
MindMup is a zero-friction online mind mapping tool. We aim to create the most productive mind mapping canvas out there, and remove all the distractions. There is no advertising, no spam, no registration needed - just you and your ideas. MindMup is free, and we'll opensource the code soon.
There are many apps for students to use to increase their reading and writing through technology. This App allows students to choose to have the entire book read to them, choose only the words they struggle with or allows students to read the entire book by themselves.
“Why will PowerPoint alternatives be favored by users?” As is known to all, users can only enjoy the functions of PowerPoint in exchanges of money. However, as Office 2010 becomes more pricy than Office 2007 and Office 2013 turns more costly than Office 2010, private users may take free or cheaper PowerPoint alternatives into serious considerations. Therefore, this post will cover top 5 PowerPoint alternatives with which one can make good presentations.
If you're short on time but looking to learn about some of the coolest and most engaging web 2.0 tools, you're in luck! From Today's Meet to Socrative, there's plenty here for a teacher on the go but in the know.
Website for teachers looking to incorporate Web 2.0 into their classrooms. This website has a wide range of webpages and online resources to keep up with the growing use of technology within the classroom.
This website consists of Web 2.0 tools from creating videos through to Newseum which shows hundreds of front pages of newspapers from all over the world.
This webpage has a wide range of Apps for Education. There are many Apps for a wide range of KLA's, however is a wonderful webpage to find Apps quickly and to gather an understanding of how to use these within the classroom.
Another brainstorming tool. Bubbl.us is a colourful mindmap tool that can be easily printed or shared. Great tool for primary and secondary students. I used this App on a Prac where the students were asked to pull a story about and identify all of the different aspects within the story. Kids loved it.
Springboard has a wide variety of childrens books ranging from Prep - Year 7. Each year level has a wide variety of reading levels. I believe that Springboard is a program that needs to be purchased through your school for access, however if you are able to purchase this program I would highly recommend it. All you need to do is link your computer to the interactive whiteboard or allow students to access the program on the computer and you have a fantastic interactive English lesson. Students can point to words they struggle with, or have the whole book read to them. Fantastic for reading groups.
This webpage consists of a range of ways to use comics and tools for creating comics within the classroom. What better way to gather a students understanding and ability to retell information than getting students to demonstrate this through creating a comic.
UtellStory is a new service for creating and sharing audio slideshows. To create and share your story through UtellStory you can upload pictures, add text captions, add audio narration to each slide, and upload a soundtrack to support your entire story. Completed projects can be embedded into your blog, emailed to your friends, or shared through your favorite social networking sites.
Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.
How to integrate my topics' content to my website?
Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.
Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.
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Tony Buzan, the inventor of mind mapping, has spent a large part of his life analyzing how the brain works, and how to visually transfer one’s ideas to paper or screen. Most people realize that mind maps are useful for brainstorming – for quickly capturing ideas as they occur. But few people truly understand the immense power of this technique as a creative problem-solving tool. Here are some insights into the benefits of creative thinking using mind maps, from Buzan’s landmark book on the subject, The Mind Mapping Book:
The gestalt effect: Mind maps allow you to view many elements at once, increasing the probability of creative association and integration
Rich idea hunting territory: They enable you to hunt and capture ideas that normally lie in obscurity at the periphery of your thinking (I love this concept – it sounds like you’re a big game hunter, finding ideas hiding in the brush and coaxing them out into the open)
Connections and combinations breed creativity: They increase the probability of gaining new insights – because you can see how each idea and concept in your map relates to each other, your mind is more likely to make creative connections and combinations – a key to creative thinking.
Incubation welcome here: Mind maps naturally reinforce the incubation process, increasing the probability of generating new ideas. Incubation is when you walk away from your mind map for a few hours or a few days, and then return to it with fresh perspectives, insights and ideas.
Have fun mind mapping: They encourage playfulness and humor, which tends to lead to new ideas. Buzan encourages devotees of his visual thinking process to liberally add images and color to their maps, which engages the brain’s neural circuitry much more than linear writing does.
Separating the wheat from the chaff: Mind mapping helps you to think through situations and challenges more thoroughly. You can easily add multiple levels of detail to a mind map without destroying its structure. It also enables you to capture and organize a prodigious amount of detail, to separate important nuggets of information from background data and to identify gaps in your information. This incredible flexibility enables you to solve problems faster and more effectively.
Thinking about your thinking: Mind mapping exposes your thinking to you so you can consider it with a greater amount of perspective. According to Buzan, it “allows the brain to observe its own thoughts in an externalized whole picture and thus learn more about itself. This new knowledge expands the brain’s perspective, encouraging it to have even more advanced thoughts about the topic.”
Bringing your challenges into sharp focus: Mind maps help you to bring clarity and focus to ambiguous situations and problems. They “allow your brain to assimilate immediately whole range of complex and interrelated items of information, bringing all of the issues into clear focus,” according to Buzan.
Decisions, decisions: They help you to explore trade-offs when you are making important decisions. Because mind maps enable you to collect and analyze complex data in an integrated form on a single page, they increase your chances of making a better informed and intelligent decision.
In short, mind mapping is clearly not just a tool for capturing and organizing ideas, but can also be a powerful creative problem-solving tool!
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New Mechanism Fundamental to the
Spread of Invasive Yeast Infections Identified
PITTSBURGH—A group of researchers led by Carnegie Mellon University Biological Sciences Professor Aaron Mitchell has identified a novel regulatory gene network that plays an important role in the spread of common, and sometimes deadly, yeast infections. The findings, which establish the role of Zap1 protein in the activation of genes that regulate the synthesis of biofilm matrix, were published in the June 16, 2009, issue of PLoS Biology, a peer-reviewed open-access journal from the Public Library of Science.
Candida albicans is a fungus, more specifically a yeast, which approximately 80 percent of people have in their gastrointestinal and genitourinary tract with no ill effects. However, at elevated levels it can cause non-life threatening conditions like thrush and yeast infections. A C. albicans infection becomes much more serious, and can be lethal, in those with compromised immune systems who have an implantable medical device, such as a pacemaker or artificial joint, or who use broad-spectrum antibiotics. Approximately 60,000 Americans develop such invasive C. albicans infections each year.
Central to such infections is a substance called biofilm matrix. A biofilm is a population of microbes, in this case C. albicans cells, joined together to form a sheet of cells. The cells in the biofilm produce extracellular components such as proteins and sugars, which form a cement-like substance called matrix. This matrix serves to protect the cells of the biofilm, preventing drugs and other stressors from attacking the cells while acting as a glue that holds the cells together. By doing this, the matrix provides an environment in which yeast cells in the biofilm can thrive, promoting infection and drug resistance.
"Biofilms have a major impact on human health and matrix is such a pivotal component of biofilms. It is important to understand how the production of matrix is regulated," Mitchell said.
In the study published in PLoS, Mitchell and colleagues found that the zinc-responsive regulatory protein Zap1 prevents the production of soluble β-1,3 glucan, a sugar that is a major component of matrix. They also identified other genes whose expression is controlled by Zap1, called Zap1 target genes. They found that these genes encode for two types of enzymes, glucoamylases and alcohol dehydrogenases, which both govern the production and maturation of matrix components.
"Understanding this novel regulatory gene network gives us insight into the metabolic processes that contribute to biofilm formation, and the role the network plays in infection," Mitchell said. "By better understanding the mechanisms by which biofilms develop and grow, we can start to look at targets for combating infection."
According to Mitchell, the next steps will be to determine the mechanisms by which Zap1 target genes regulate matrix production. Understanding and targeting these mechanisms will allow the researchers to develop therapeutic small molecules that will block biofilm formation and diagnostic tools that can detect biofilms before infections spread.
This study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.
Other study authors include Clarissa J. Nobile, Aaron Hernday, Oliver R. Homann and Alexander D. Johnson of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of California, San Francisco; Jeniel E. Nett and David R. Andes of the Department of Medicine, University of Wisconsin; and Jean-Sebastien Deneault and Andre Nantel of the Biotechnology Research Institute, National Research Council of Canada.
Pictured above is Aaron Mitchell, a professor in biological sciences.
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| The Erwin Study |
Prior to 1982 most biologists thought that the number of undescribed species was roughly comparable to, or perhaps a few times as many as, the number already described. Thus, pre-1982 guesses of the total number of animal species were on the order of several million. But no one really knew.
In 1982 Terry Erwin published a provocative report in which he estimated the number of species of insects to be not several million but an order of magnitude higher - several tens of millions. Erwin reasoned that because the tropical forests appeared to contain vast unexplored areas of biodiversity he would sample there. Erwin, an expert on beetles, fogged the canopy of several trees of the species Luebea seemannii with a pesticide. The fogged insects then fell to the ground, allowing Erwin to sample them. As he sampled the beetles, Erwin kept finding new undescribed species. From the canopy of a single species of tree (L. seemannii) Erwin found more than 1,100 species of beetles.
How did Erwin arrive at a global estimate for the number of species from his "kill 'em and count 'em" experiment? He first estimated that 160 of those species were specialized to the canopy of that particular species of tree. Considering that beetles represent two-fifths of species diversity of insects, there should be about 400 (160 x 5/2) species of insects specialized to the canopy of L. seemannii. This inference assumes that beetle diversity is representative of insect diversity for that species. Erwin assumed that about two-thirds of the insect species were in the canopy and the rest were elsewhere. Based on that assumption, there should be 600 (400 x 3/2) species of insects specialized to L. seemannii. There are an estimated 50,000 species of trees in tropical forests. If each tree has 600 species of insects specialized to it, there should be 30 million species of insects in tropical rain forests.
Many authors expressed criticism and reservations about Erwin's extrapolations and inferences. Moreover, there have been only a few similar studies, none on the same scale as Erwin's. Much of the criticism revolves around Erwin's initial guess that 160 of the species he collected were specialists. If Erwin had overestimated the proportion of specialists, he would be overestimating the total number of species. Likewise, had he underestimated the proportion of specialists, he would have underestimated the total. Nigel Stork noted that Erwin could well be vastly underestimating biodiversity, given that he did not know how much of the diversity of beetles from the L. seemannii he had sampled. Suppose Erwin had only sampled one-third of the beetle diversity; all of his estimates would be three times too low. Could there be 80 million species of animals? 100 million? In actuality, two decades after Erwin's report, most biologists have revised their estimates for the total number of species downward toward the 10 million range, in part due to studies suggesting that Erwin overestimated the proportion of specialists. Still, nobody really knows how many species are on Earth.
Another factor that adds to the uncertainty about overall global diversity is our lack of knowledge about smaller organisms. There may be hundreds of thousands or millions of mites and fungi that we have literally overlooked. Even less is known about microbes. There are about 5,000 known species of prokaryotes, but scientists estimate that true diversity could range between 400,000 and 4 million species.
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The Beginnings of Life on Earth
Origin and Evolution of the RNA World
As certain as many people are that the RNA world was a crucial phase in life's evolution, it cannot have been the first. Some form of abiotic chemistry must have existed before RNA came on the scene. For the purpose of this
discussion, I shall call that earlier phase "protometabolism" to designate the set of unknown chemical reactions that generated the RNA world and sustained it throughout its existence (as opposed to metabolism--the set of reactions, catalyzed by protein enzymes, that support all living organisms today). By definition, protometabolism (which could have developed
with time) was in charge until metabolism took over. Several stages may be distinguished in this transition.
In the first stage, a pathway had to develop that took raw organic material and turned it into RNA. The first building blocks of life had to be converted into the constituents of nucleotides, from which the nucleotides themselves had to be formed. From there, the nucleotides had to be strung together to produce the first RNA molecules. Efforts to reproduce these events in the laboratory have been only partly successful so far, which is understandable in view of the complexity of the chemistry involved. On the other hand, it is also surprising since these must have been sturdy reactions to sustain the RNA world for a long time. Contrary to what is sometimes intimated, the idea of a few RNA molecules coming together by some chance combination
of circumstances and henceforth being reproduced and amplified by replication simply is not tenable. There could be no replication without a robust chemical underpinning continuing to provide the necessary materials and energy.
The development of RNA replication must have been the second stage in the evolution of the RNA world. The problem is not as simple as might appear at first glance. Attempts at engineering--with considerably more foresight and technical support than the prebiotic world could have enjoyed--an RNA molecule capable of catalyzing RNA replication have failed so far.
With the advent of RNA replication, Darwinian evolution was possible for the first time. Because of the inevitable copying mistakes, a number of variants of the original template molecules were formed. Some of these variants
were replicated faster than others or proved more stable, thereby progressively crowding out less advantaged molecules. Eventually, a single molecular species, combining replicatability and stability in optimal fashion under prevailing conditions, became dominant. This, at the molecular level, is exactly the mechanism postulated by Darwin for the evolution of organisms: fortuitous variation, competition, selection and amplification of the fittest entity. The scenario is not just a theoretical construct. It has been reenacted many times in the laboratory with the help of a viral replicating enzyme,
first in 1967 by the late American biochemist Sol Spiegelman of Columbia University.
An intriguing possibility is that replication was itself a product of molecular selection. It seems very unlikely that protometabolism produced just the four bases found in RNA, A, U, G and C, ready by some remarkable coincidence to engage in pairing and allow replication. Chemistry does not have this kind of foresight. In all likelihood, the four bases arose together with a number of other substances similarly constructed of one or more rings containing carbon and nitrogen. According to the present inventory, such substances could have included other members of the purine family (which includes A and G), pyrimidines (which include U, T and C), nicotinamide and flavin, both of which actually engage in nucleotide-like combinations, and pterines, among other compounds. The first nucleic acid-like molecules probably contained an assortment of these compounds. Molecules rich in A, U, G and C then were progressively selected and amplified, once some rudimentary
template-dependent synthetic mechanism allowing base pairing arose. RNA, as it exists today, may thus have been the first product of molecular selection.
A third stage in the evolution of the RNA world was the development of RNA-dependent protein synthesis. Most likely, the chemical machinery appeared first, as yet uninformed by genetic messages, as a result of interactions among certain RNA molecules, the precursors of future transfer, ribosomal and messenger RNAs, and amino acids. Selection of the RNA molecules involved could conceivably
be explained on the basis of molecular advantages, as just outlined. But for further evolution to take place, something more was needed. RNA molecules no longer had to be selected solely on the basis of what they were,
but of what they did; that is, exerting some catalytic activity, most prominently making proteins. This implies that RNA molecules capable of participating in protein synthesis enjoyed a selective advantage, not
because they were themselves easier to replicate or more stable, but because the proteins they were making favored their replication by some kind of indirect feedback loop.
This stage signals the limit of what could have happened in an unstructured soup. To evolve further, the system had to be partitioned into a large number of competing primitive cells, or protocells, capable of growing and of multiplying
by division. This partitioning could have happened earlier. Nobody knows. But it could not have happened later. This condition implies that protometabolism also produced the materials needed for the assembly of the membranes surrounding the protocells. In today's world, these materials are complex proteins and fatty lipid molecules. They were probably simpler in the RNA world, though more elaborate than the undifferentiated "goo" or "scum" that is sometimes suggested.
Once the chemical machinery for protein synthesis was installed, information could enter the system, via interactions among certain RNA components of the machinery—the future messenger RNAs—and other, amino acid-carrying RNA molecules—the future transfer RNAs. Translation and the genetic code progressively developed concurrently during this stage, which presumably was driven by Darwinian competition among protocells endowed with different variants of the RNA molecules involved. Any RNA mutation that made the structures of useful proteins more closely dependent on the structures of replicatable RNAs, thereby increasing the replicatability of the useful proteins themselves, conferred some evolutionary advantage on the protocell concerned, which was allowed to compete more effectively for available resources and to grow and multiply faster than the others.
The RNA world entered the last stage in its evolution when translation had become sufficiently accurate to unambiguously link the sequences of individual proteins with the sequences of individual RNA genes. This is the situation that exists today (with DNA carrying the primary genetic information), except that present-day systems are enormously more accurate and elaborate than the first systems must have been. Most likely, the first RNA genes were very short, no longer than 70 to 100 nucleotides (the modern gene runs several thousand nucleotides), with the corresponding proteins (more like protein fragments, called peptides) containing no more than 20 to 30 amino acids.
It is during this stage that protein enzymes must have made their first appearance, emerging one by one as a result of some RNA gene mutation and endowing the mutant protocell with the ability to carry out a new chemical reaction or to improve an existing reaction. The improvements would enable the protocell to grow and multiply more efficiently than other protocells in which the mutations had not appeared. This type of Darwinian selection must have taken place a great many times in succession to allow enzyme-dependent
metabolism to progressively replace protometabolism.
The appearance of DNA signaled a further refinement in the cell's information-processing system, although the date of this development cannot be fixed precisely. It is not even clear whether DNA appeared during the RNA world or later.
Certainly, as the genetic systems became more complex, there were greater advantages to storing the genetic information in a separate molecule. The chemical mutations required to derive DNA from RNA are fairly trivial. And
it is conceivable that an RNA-replicating enzyme could have been co-opted to transfer information from RNA to DNA. If this happened during the RNA world, it probably did so near the end, after most of the RNA-dependent machineries had been installed.
What can we conclude from this scenario, which, though purely hypothetical, depicts in logical succession the events that must have taken place if we accept the RNA-world hypothesis? And what, if anything, can we infer about
the protometabolism that must have preceded it? I can see three properties.
First, protometabolism involved a stable set of reactions capable not only of generating the RNA world, but also of sustaining it for the obviously long time it took for the development of RNA replication, protein synthesis and translation, as well as the inauguration of enzymes and metabolism.
Second, protometabolism involved a complex set of reactions capable of building RNA molecules and their constituents, proteins, membrane components and possibly a variety of coenzymes, often mentioned as parts of the catalytic armamentarium of the RNA world.
Finally, protometabolism must have been congruent with present-day metabolism; that is, it must have followed pathways similar to those of present-day metabolism, even if it did not use exactly the same materials or reactions. Many abiotic-chemistry experts disagree with this view, which, however, I see as enforced by the sequential manner in which the enzyme catalysts of metabolism must have arisen and been adopted. In order to be useful and confer a selective advantage to the mutant protocell involved, each new enzyme must have found one or more substances on which to act and an outlet for its product or products. In other words, the reaction it catalyzed must have fitted into the protometabolic network. To be sure, as more enzymes were added and started to build their own network, new pathways could have developed, but only as extensions of what was initially a congruent network.
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Individual differences |
Methods | Statistics | Clinical | Educational | Industrial | Professional items | World psychology |
Scientific management or Taylorism is the name of the approach to management and industrial and organizational psychology initiated by Frederick Winslow Taylor in his 1911 monograph The Principles of Scientific Management. (online Online version). It was was a theory of management that analyzed and synthesized workflows. Its main objective was improving economic efficiency, especially labor productivity. It was one of the earliest attempts to apply science to the engineering of processes and to management. Its development began with Frederick Winslow Taylor in the 1880s and 1890s within the manufacturing industries. Its peak of influence came in the 1910s; by the 1920s, it was still influential but had begun an era of competition and syncretism with opposing or complementary ideas. Although scientific management as a distinct theory or school of thought was obsolete by the 1930s, most of its themes are still important parts of industrial engineering and management today. These include analysis; synthesis; logic; rationality; empiricism; work ethic; efficiency and elimination of waste; standardization of best practices; disdain for tradition preserved merely for its own sake or merely to protect the social status of particular workers with particular skill sets; the transformation of craft production into mass production; and knowledge transfer between workers and from workers into tools, processes, and documentation.
Overview and contextEdit
The core ideas of scientific management were developed by Taylor in the 1880s and 1890s, and were first published in his monographs A Piece Rate System (1895), Shop Management (1903) and The Principles of Scientific Management (1911).
While working as a lathe operator and foreman at Midvale Stee, Taylor noticed the natural differences in productivity between workers, which were driven by various causes, including differences in ability, intelligence, or motivations. He was one of the first people to try to apply science to this application, that is, understanding why and how these differences existed and how best practices could be analyzed and synthesized, then propagated to the other workers via standardization of process steps. He believed that decisions based upon tradition and ]rules of thumb] should be replaced by precise procedures developed after careful study of an individual at work, including via time and motion studies, which would tend to discover or synthesize the "one best way" to do any given task. The goal and promise was both an increase in productivity and reduction of effort.
Scientific management's application was contingent on a high level of managerial control over employee work practices. This necessitated a higher ratio of managerial workers to laborers than previous management methods. The great difficulty in accurately differentiating any such intelligent, detail-oriented management from mere misguided micromanagement also caused interpersonal friction between workers and managers, and social tensions between the blue-collar and white-collar classes.
Terminology and definitionsEdit
While the terms "scientific management" and "Taylorism" are often treated as synonymous, an alternative view considers Taylorism as the first form of scientific management, which was followed by new iterations; thus in today's management theory, Taylorism is sometimes called (or considered a subset of) the classical perspective (meaning a perspective that's still respected for its seminal influence although it is no longer state-of-the-art). Taylor's own early names for his approach included "shop management" and "process management". When Louis Brandeis popularized the term "scientific management" in 1910, Taylor recognized it as another good name for the concept, and he used it himself in his 1911 monograph.
The field comprised the work of Taylor; his disciples (such as Henry Gantt); other engineers and managers (such as Benjamin S. Graham); and other theorists, such as Max Weber. It is compared and contrasted with other efforts, including those of Henri Fayol and those of Frank Gilbreth, Sr. and Lillian Moller Gilbreth (whose views originally shared much with Taylor's but later evolved divergently in response to Taylorism's inadequate handling of human relations). Taylorism proper, in its strict sense, became obsolete by the 1930s, and by the 1960s the term "scientific management" had fallen out of favor for describing current management theories. However, many aspects of scientific management have never stopped being part of later management efforts called by other names. There is no simple dividing line demarcating the time when management as a modern profession (blending art, academic science, and applied science) diverged from Taylorism proper. It was a gradual process that began as soon as Taylor published (as evidenced by, for example, Hartness's motivation to publish his Human Factor, or the Gilbreths' work), and each subsequent decade brought further evolution.
Larger theme of economic efficiencyEdit
Scientific management is a variation on the theme of economic efficiency; it is a late 19th and early 20th century instance of the larger recurring theme in human life of increasing efficiency, decreasing waste, and using empirical methods to decide what matters, rather than uncritically accepting pre-existing ideas of what matters. Thus it is a chapter in a larger narrative that includes many ideas and fields, from the folk wisdom of thrift to a profusion of applied-science successors, including time and motion study, the Efficiency Movement (which was the broader cultural echo of scientific management's impact on business managers specifically), Fordism, operations management, operations research, industrial engineering, manufacturing engineering, logistics, business process management, business process reengineering, lean manufacturing, and Six Sigma. There is a fluid continuum linking scientific management by that name with the later fields, and there is often no mutual exclusiveness when discussing the details of any one of these topics.
In management literature today, the greatest use of the term "scientific management" is with reference to the work of Taylor and his disciples ("classical", implying "no longer current, but still respected for its seminal value") in contrast to newer, improved iterations of efficiency-seeking methods. In political and sociological terms, Taylorism can be seen as the division of labor pushed to its logical extreme, with a consequent de-skilling of the worker and dehumanisation of the workers and the workplace. Taylorism is often mentioned along with Fordism, because it was closely associated with mass production methods in factories, which was its earliest application. Today, task-oriented optimization of work tasks is nearly ubiquitous in industry. The theory behind it has evolved greatly since Taylor's day, reducing the ill effects, although in the wrong hands it is sometimes implemented poorly even now.
Taylor observed that some workers were more talented than others, and that even smart ones were often unmotivated. He observed that most workers who are forced to perform repetitive tasks tend to work at the slowest rate that goes unpunished. This slow rate of work has been observed in many industries in many countries and has been called by various terms (some being slang confined to certain regions and eras), including "Template:Visible anchor", (reflecting the way conscripts may approach following orders), "dogging it", "goldbricking", "hanging it out", and "ca canae". Managers may call it by those names or "loafing" or "malingering"; workers may call it "getting through the day" or "preventing management from abusing us". Taylor used the term "soldiering" and observed that, when paid the same amount, workers will tend to do the amount of work that the slowest among them does.
This reflects the idea that workers have a vested interest in their own well-being, and do not benefit from working above the defined rate of work when it will not increase their remuneration. He therefore proposed that the work practice that had been developed in most work environments was crafted, intentionally or unintentionally, to be very inefficient in its execution. He posited that time and motion studies combined with rational analysis and synthesis could uncover one best method for performing any particular task, and that prevailing methods were seldom equal to these best methods. Crucially, Taylor himself prominently acknowledged (although many white-collar imitators of his ideas would forget) that if each employee's compensation was linked to their output, their productivity would go up. Thus his compensation plans usually included piece rates. He rejected the notion, which was universal in his day and still prevalent even now, of the secret magic of the craftsman—that the trades, including manufacturing, were black arts that could not be analyzed and could only be performed by craft production methods.In the course of his empirical studies, Taylor examined various kinds of manual labor. For example, most bulk materials handling was manual at the time; material handling equipment as we know it today was mostly not developed yet. He looked at shoveling in the unloading of railroad cars full of ore; lifting and carrying in the moving of iron pigs at steel mills; the manual inspection of bearing balls; and others. He discovered many concepts that were not widely accepted at the time. For example, by observing workers, he decided that labor should include rest breaks so that the worker has time to recover from fatigue, either physical (as in shoveling or lifting) or mental (as in the ball inspection case). Workers were taught to take more rests during work, and as a result production "paradoxically" increased.
Unless people manage themselves, somebody has to take care of administration, and thus there is a division of work between workers and administrators. One of the tasks of administration is to select the right person for the right job:
the labor should include rest breaks so that the worker has time to recover from fatigue. Now one of the very first requirements for a man who is fit to handle pig iron as a regular occupation is that he shall be so stupid and so phlegmatic that he more nearly resembles in his mental make-up the ox than any other type. The man who is mentally alert and intelligent is for this very reason entirely unsuited to what would, for him, be the grinding monotony of work of this character. Therefore the workman who is best suited to handling pig iron is unable to understand the real science of doing this class of work.—Frederick Winslow Taylor, 1911.
Relationship to mechanization, automation, and offshoring Edit
Scientific management evolved in an era when mechanization and automation existed but had hardly gotten started, historically speaking, and were still embryonic. Two important corollaries flow from this fact: (1) The ideas and methods of scientific management were exactly what was needed to be added to the American system of manufacturing to extend the transformation from craft work (with humans as the only possible agents) to mechanization and automation; but also, (2) Taylor himself could not have known this, and his goals did not include the extensive removal of humans from the production process. During his lifetime, the very idea would have seemed like science fiction, because not only did the technological bridge to such a world not yet look plausible, but most people had not even considered that it could happen. Before digital computers existed, such ideas were not just outlandish but also mostly unheard of.
Nevertheless, Taylor (unbeknownst to himself) was laying the groundwork for automation and offshoring, because he was analyzing processes into discrete, unambiguous pieces, which is exactly what computers and unskilled people need to follow algorithms designed by others and to make valid decisions within their execution. It is often said that computers are "smart" in terms of mathematic computation ability, but "dumb" because they must be told exactly what to calculate, when, and how, and (in the absence of any successful AI) they can never understand why. With historical hindsight it is possible to see that Taylor was essentially inventing something like the highest-level programming for industrial process control and numerical control in the absence of any machines that could carry it out. But Taylor could not see it that way at the time; in his world, it was humans that would be the agents to execute the program. However, one of the common threads between his world and ours is that the agents of execution need not be "smart" to execute their tasks. In the case of computers, they are not able (yet) to be "smart" (in that sense of the word); in the case of human workers under scientific management, they were often able but were not allowed. Once the time-and-motion men had completed their studies of a particular task, the workers had very little opportunity for further thinking, experimenting, or suggestion-making. They were expected (and forced) to "play dumb" most of the time (which, unsurprisingly to students of human nature, people tend to revolt against).
In between craft production (with skilled workers) and full automation lies a natural middle ground of an engineered system of extensive mechanization and partial automation mixed with semiskilled and unskilled workers in carefully designed algorithmic workflows. Building and improving such systems requires knowledge transfer, which may seem simple on the surface but requires substantial engineering to succeed. Although Taylor's original inspiration for scientific management was simply to replace inferior work methods with smarter ones, the same process engineering that he pioneered also tends to build the skill into the equipment and processes, removing most need for skill in the workers. This engineering was the essence not only of scientific management but also of most industrial engineering since then. It is also the essence of (successful instances of) offshoring. The common theme in all these cases is that businesses engineer their way out of their need for large concentrations of skilled workers, and the high-wage environments that sustain them.
Effects on labor relations in market economies Edit
Taylor's view of workers Edit
Taylor's view of workers was complex, having both insightful and obtuse elements. Anyone who manages a large team of workers sees from experience that Taylor was correct that some workers could not be relied upon for talent or intelligence; today enterprises still find that talent is a scarce resource. But he failed to leave room in his system for the workers who did have talent or intelligence. Some of them would be duly utilized during the early phases (the studying and designing), but what about smart workers in years afterwards who would start out among the ranks of the drones? What opportunities would they have for career advancement or socioeconomic advancement? He also failed to properly consider the fate of the drone-ish workers themselves. Maybe they did lack the ability for higher-level jobs, but what about keeping them satisfied or placated in their existing roles?
Taylorism took some steps toward addressing their needs (for example, Taylor advocated frequent breaks and good pay), but Taylor nevertheless had a condescending view of less intelligent workers, whom he sometimes compared to draft animals. And perhaps Taylor was so immersed in the vast work immediately in front of him (getting the world to understand and to implement scientific management's earliest phases) that he failed to strategize about the next steps (sustainability of the system after the early phases).
Many other thinkers soon stepped forward to offer better ideas on the roles that humans would play in mature industrial systems. James Hartness, a fellow ASME member, published The Human Factor in Works Management in 1912. Frank Gilbreth and Lillian Moller Gilbreth offered alternatives to Taylorism. The human relations school of management evolved in the 1930s. Some scholars, such as Harry Braverman, insisted that human relations did not replace Taylorism but rather that both approaches were complementary—Taylorism determining the actual organisation of the work process, and human relations helping to adapt the workers to the new procedures. Today's efficiency-seeking methods, such as lean manufacturing, include respect for workers and fulfillment of their needs as inherent parts of the theory. (Workers slogging their way through workdays in the business world do encounter flawed implementations of these methods that make jobs unpleasant; but these implementations generally lack managerial competence in matching theory to execution.) Clearly a syncretism has occurred since Taylor's day, although its implementation has been uneven, as lean management in capable hands has produced good results for both managers and workers, but in incompetent hands has damaged enterprises.
Implementations of scientific management usually failed to account for several inherent challenges:
- Individuals are different from each other: the most efficient way of working for one person may be inefficient for another.
- The economic interests of workers and management are rarely identical, so that both the measurement processes and the retraining required by Taylor's methods are frequently resented and sometimes sabotaged by the workforce.
Taylor himself, in fact, recognized these challenges and had some good ideas for meeting them. Nevertheless, his own implementations of his system (e.g., Watertown Arsenal, Link-Belt corporation, Midvale, Bethlehem) were never really very successful. They plugged along rockily and eventually were overturned, usually after Taylor had left. And countless managers who later aped or worshiped Taylor did even worse jobs of implementation. Typically they were less analytically talented managers who had latched onto scientific management as the latest fad for cutting the unit cost of production. Like bad managers even today, these were the people who used the big words without any deep understanding of what they meant. Taylor knew that scientific management could not work (probably at all, certainly never enduringly) unless the workers benefited from the profit increases that it generated. Taylor had developed a method for generating the increases, for the dual purposes of owner/manager profit and worker profit, realizing that the methods relied on both of those results in order to work correctly. But many owners and managers seized upon the methods thinking (wrongly) that the profits could be reserved solely or mostly for themselves and the system could endure indefinitely merely through force of authority.
Workers are necessarily human: they have personal needs and interpersonal friction, and they face very real difficulties introduced when jobs become so efficient that they have no time to relax, and so rigid that they have no permission to innovate.
Early decades: making jobs unpleasant Edit
Under Taylorism, workers' work effort increased in intensity. Workers became dissatisfied with the work environment and became angry. During one of Taylor's own implementations, a strike at the Watertown Arsenal led to an investigation of Taylor's methods by a U.S. House of Representatives committee, which reported in 1912. The conclusion was that scientific management did provide some useful techniques and offered valuable organizational suggestions,Template:Request quotation but it gave production managers a dangerously high level of uncontrolled power. After an attitude survey of the workers revealed a high level of resentment and hostility towards scientific management, the Senate banned Taylor's methods at the arsenal.
Certainly Taylorism's negative effects on worker morale only added more fuel to the fire of existing labor-management conflict, which frequently raged out of control between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries. Thus it inevitably contributed to the strengthening of labor unions and of labor-vs-management conflict (which was the opposite of any of Taylor's own hopes for labor relations). That outcome neutralized most or all of the benefit of any productivity gains that Taylorism had achieved. Thus its net benefit to owners and management ended up being small or negative. It would take new efforts, borrowing some ideas from Taylorism but mixing them with others, to produce more successful formulas.
Later decades: making jobs disappear Edit
To whatever extent scientific management caused the strengthening of labor unions by giving workers more to complain about than bad or greedy managers already gave them, it also led to other pressures tending toward worker unhappiness: the erosion of employment in developed economies via both offshoring and automation. Both were made possible by the deskilling of jobs, which was made possible by the knowledge transfer that scientific management achieved. Knowledge was transferred both to cheaper workers and from workers into tools. Jobs that once would have required craft work first transformed to semiskilled work, then unskilled. At this point the labor had been commoditized, and thus the competition between workers (and worker populations) moved closer to pure than it had been, depressing wages and job security. Jobs could be offshored (giving one human's tasks to others—which could be good for the new worker population but was bad for the old) or they could be rendered nonexistent through automation (giving a human's tasks to machines). Either way, the net result from the perspective of developed-economy workers was that jobs started to pay less, then disappear. The power of labor unions in the mid-twentieth century only led to a push on the part of management to accelerate the process of automation, hastening the onset of the later stages just described.
A central assumption of Taylorism was that "the worker was taken for granted as a cog in the machinery." The chain of connections between his work and automation is visible in historical hindsight, which sees that Taylorism made jobs unpleasant, and its logical successors then made them less remunerative and less secure; then scarcer; and finally (in many cases) nonexistent.
Successors such as 'corporate reengineering' or 'business process reengineering' brought into sight the distant goal of the eventual elimination of industry's need for unskilled, and later, perhaps even most skilled human workers in any form, all stemming from the roots laid by Taylorism's recipe for deconstructing a process. As the resultant commodification of work advances, no skilled profession, even medicine, has proven to be immune from the efforts of Taylorism's successors, the 'reengineers', whose mandate often comes from skewed motives among people referred to as 'bean counters' and 'PHBs'.
Effects on disruptive innovation Edit
One of the traits of the era of applied science is that technology continually evolves. There is always a balance to be struck between scientific management's goal of formalizing the details of a process (which increases efficiency within the existing technological context) and the risk of fossilizing one moment's technological state into cultural inertia that stifles disruptive innovation (that is, preventing the next technological context from developing). To give one example, would John Parsons have been able to incubate the earliest development of numerical control if he were a worker in a red-tape-laden organization being told from above that the best way to mill a part had already been perfected, and therefore he had no business experimenting with his own preferred methods?
Implementations of scientific management (often if not always) worked within the implicit context of a particular technological moment and thus did not account for the possibility of putting the "continuous" in "continuous improvement process". The notion of a "one best way" failed to add the coda, "[… within the context of our current environment]"; it treated the context as constant (which it effectively was in a short-term sense) rather than as variable (which it always is in a long-term sense). Later methods such as lean manufacturing corrected this oversight by including ongoing innovation as part of their process and by recognizing the iterative nature of development.
Relationship to Fordism Edit
It is human nature to jump to a post hoc conclusion that Fordism borrowed ideas from Taylorism and expanded from there. In fact it appears that Taylor himself did that when he visited the Ford Motor Company's Michigan plants not too long before he died. But it seems that the methods at Ford were in fact independently reinvented based on logic, and that any influence from Taylorism either was nil or at least was far enough removed to be very indirect. Charles E. Sorensen disclaimed any connection at all. There was a climate at Ford at the time (which remained until Henry Ford II took over the company in 1945) that the world's "experts" were worthless, because if Ford had listened to them, its great successes would not exist. Henry Ford felt that he had succeeded in spite of, not because of, experts, who had tried to stop him in various ways (disagreeing about price points, production methods, car features, business financing, and other topics). Therefore Sorensen spoke very dismissively (and briefly) of Taylor, and the mention was only to lump him into the unneeded-so-called-expert category. Sorensen did speak very highly of Walter Flanders and credits him with being the first driving force behind the efficient floorplan layout at Ford. Sorensen says that Flanders knew absolutely nothing about Taylor. It is possible that Flanders (a New England machine tool whiz) had been exposed to the spirit of Taylorism elsewhere, although not to its name, and had been (at least subconsciously) influenced by it, but he did not cite it explicitly as he simply allowed logic to guide his production development. Regardless, the Ford team apparently did independently invent modern mass production techniques in the period of 1905-1915, and they themselves were not aware of any borrowing from Taylorism. Perhaps it is only possible with hindsight to see the overall cultural zeitgeist that (indirectly) connected the budding Fordism to the rest of the efficiency movement during the decade of 1905-1915. This is not unlike other invention storylines, where it was more than just Watt who was working toward a practical steam engine (others were struggling with it contemporarily); more than just Fulton who was working on steam boats; more than just Edison who was working on electrical technology; and even regarding Henry Ford himself, more than just he who was working toward a truly practical automobile in the 1890s (people all over North America and Europe were trying during that era, which he freely admitted). The same can be said about the development of the engineering of processes between the 1890s and the 1920s, although the Ford team were not at all conscious of this at the time. They perceived themselves to be working in a vacuum in that respect, but historians can argue with them about the extent to which that was really true. Taylor was an early pioneer in the field of process analysis and synthesis (which is why many people, falling for the storytelling allure of the Great Man theory, tend to think that the whole field owes everything to him). But he did not have the field to himself for long. The world was ready for such development by the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And in fact many people started to work on it, sometimes independently, sometimes with direct or indirect influence on each other.
"One of the hardest-to-down myths about the evolution of mass production at Ford is one which credits much of the accomplishment to 'scientific management.' No one at Ford—not Mr. Ford, Couzens, Flanders, Wills, Pete Martin, nor I—was acquainted with the theories of the 'father of scientific management,' Frederick W. Taylor. Years later I ran across a quotation from a two-volume book about Taylor by Frank Barkley Copley, who reports a visit Taylor made to Detroit late in 1914, nearly a year after the moving assembly line had been installed at our Highland Park plant. Taylor expressed surprise to find that Detroit industrialists 'had undertaken to install the principles of scientific management without the aid of experts.' To my mind this unconscious admission by an expert is expert testimony on the futility of too great reliance on experts and should forever dispose of the legend that Taylor's ideas had any influence at Ford."—Charles E. Sorensen, 1956.
Influence on planned economies Edit
Scientific management was naturally appealing to managers of planned economies, because central economic planning relies on the idea that the expenses that go into economic production can be precisely predicted and can be optimized by design. The opposite theoretical pole would be an extremist variant of laissez-faire thinking in which the invisible hand of free markets is the only possible "designer". In reality most economies today are somewhere in between.
In the Soviet Union, Taylorism was advocated by Aleksei Gastev and nauchnaia organizatsia truda (the movement for the scientific organisation of labor). It found support in both Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky. Gastev continued to promote this system of labor management until his arrest and execution in 1939. Historian Thomas P. Hughes has detailed the way in which the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s enthusiastically embraced Fordism and Taylorism, importing American experts in both fields as well as American engineering firms to build parts of its new industrial infrastructure. The concepts of the Five Year Plan and the centrally planned economy can be traced directly to the influence of Taylorism on Soviet thinking. Hughes quotes Joseph Stalin:
American efficiency is that indomitable force which neither knows nor recognises obstacles; which continues on a task once started until it is finished, even if it is a minor task; and without which serious constructive work is impossible.... The combination of the Russian revolutionary sweep with American efficiency is the essence of Leninism.
Hughes offers the equation "Taylorismus + Fordismus = Amerikanismus" to describe the Soviet view. Sorensen (1956) recounted his experience as one of the American consultants bringing Ford know-how (although he himself would not have called it Ford-ism) to the USSR during this brief era, before the Cold War made such exchanges unthinkable. As the Soviet Union developed and grew in power, both sides, the Soviets and the Americans, chose to ignore or deny the contribution that American ideas and expertise had made: the Soviets because they wished to portray themselves as creators of their own destiny and not indebted to a rival, and the Americans because they did not wish to acknowledge their part in creating a powerful communist rival. Anti-communism had always enjoyed widespread popularity in America, and anti-capitalism in Russia, but after World War II, they precluded any admission by either side that technologies or ideas might be either freely shared or clandestinely stolen.
The German Federal Archives contain documentation created by the German Democratic Republic as it sought to increase efficiency in its industrial sectors. In the accompanying photograph, workers discuss standards that have recently been created specifying how each task should be done and how long it should take. By the 1950s, Taylor's original form of scientific management (and the name "scientific management" itself) had grown dated, but the goals and themes remained attractive and found new avatars. The workers in the photograph were engaged in a state-planned instance of process improvement, but they were essentially pursuing the same goals that were also contemporaneously pursued in the Free World by people like the developers of the Toyota Production System.
Scientific management was one of the first attempts to systematically treat management and process improvement as a scientific problem. It was probably the first to do so in a "bottom-up" way, which is a concept that remains useful even today, in concert with other concepts. Two corollaries of this primacy are that (1) scientific management became famous and (2) it was merely the first iteration of a long-developing way of thinking, and many iterations have come since. Nevertheless, common elements unite them. With the advancement of statistical methods, quality assurance and quality control could begin in the 1920s and 1930s. During the 1940s and 1950s, the body of knowledge for doing scientific management evolved into operations management, operations research, and management cybernetics. In the 1980s total quality management became widely popular, and in the 1990s "re-engineering" went from a simple word to a mystique (a kind of evolution that, unfortunately, draws bad managers to jump on the bandwagon without understanding what the bandwagon is). Today's Six Sigma and lean manufacturing could be seen as new kinds of scientific management, although their evolutionary distance from the original is so great that the comparison might be misleading. In particular, Shigeo Shingo, one of the originators of the Toyota Production System, believed that this system and Japanese management culture in general should be seen as a kind of scientific management.Peter Drucker saw Frederick Taylor as the creator of knowledge management, because the aim of scientific management was to produce knowledge about how to improve work processes. Although the typical application of scientific management was manufacturing, Taylor himself advocated scientific management for all sorts of work, including the management of universities and government. For example, Taylor believed scientific management could be extended to "the work of our salesmen". Shortly after his death, his acolyte Harlow S. Person began to lecture corporate audiences on the possibility of using Taylorism for "sales engineering" [Person was talking about engineering the processes that salespeople use—not about sales engineering in the way that we use that term today]. This was a watershed insight in the history of corporate marketing.
Today's militaries employ all of the major goals and tactics of scientific management, if not under that name. Of the key points, all but wage incentives for increased output are used by modern military organizations. Wage incentives rather appear in the form of skill bonuses for enlistments.
Scientific management has had an important influence in sports, where stop watches and motion studies rule the day. (Taylor himself enjoyed sports, especially tennis and golf. He and a partner won a national championship in doubles tennis. He invented improved tennis racquets and improved golf clubs, although other players liked to tease him for his unorthodox designs, and they did not catch on as replacements for the mainstream implements.)
See also Edit
- Digital Taylorism
- Dirty, Dangerous and Demeaning
- Hawthorne effect
- Modern Times (film)
- Pandora's Box (documentary film)
- The Pajama Game
- The Secret Life of Machines#Series 3 - The Secret Life of the Office (1993)
- ↑ Taylor 1903.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Taylor 1911.
- ↑ Taylor 1911, pp. 117–118.
- ↑ Morf (1983) p.15
- ↑ Mitcham, Carl and Adam, Briggle Management in Mitcham (2005) p.1153, quote:
Nevertheless, regardless of outcomes and the fact that the term has fallen out of use, "'scientific management,' as well as its near synonym, 'Taylorism,' have been absorbed into the living tissue of American life" (Kanigel 1997, p. 6)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Rosen 1993, p. 139, quote:
The worker was taken for granted as a cog in the machinery. The pioneers in diagnosing and prescribing for modern work organizations early in this century began with that very viewpoint. Frederick Taylor, father of scientific management, was an engineer; so was Henri Fayol, the early proponent of general principles of management.
- ↑ Drury 1915, pp. 15–21.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Taylor 1911, pp. 13–14.
- ↑ Merriam-Webster.com, "soldier (intransitive verb)", sense 2
- ↑ Merriam-Webster.com, "dog (transitive verb)", below sense 2, related phrasal verb "dog it"
- ↑ Merriam-Webster.com, "goldbrick (verb)", intransitive sense
- ↑ Taylor 1911, pp. 19, 23, 82, 95.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Taylor 1911, pp. 13–29, 95.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 Taylor 1911, p. 59.
- ↑ Hartness 1912.
- ↑ Braverman 1998.
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 Mullins 2004, p. 70.
- ↑ Drury 1915, pp. 170–174.
- ↑ Noble 1984.
- ↑ Hounshell 1984, pp. 249–253.
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 Sorensen 1956, p. 41.
- ↑ Beissinger 1988, pp. 35–37.
- ↑ Hughes 2004.
- ↑ Hughes 2004, p. 251, quoting Stalin 1976 p. 115.
- ↑ Sorensen 1956, pp. 193–216.
- ↑ Dawson 2005.
Further reading Edit
- Aitken, Hugh G.J. (1985) , Scientific Management in Action: Taylorism at Watertown Arsenal, 1908-1915, Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0-691-04241-1, OCLC 1468387, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1468387. First published in 1960 by Harvard University Press. Republished in 1985 by Princeton University Press, with a new foreword by Merritt Roe Smith.
- Beissinger, Mark R. (1988), Scientific Management, Socialist Discipline, and Soviet Power, London, UK: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, ISBN 978-1-85043-108-4, http://books.google.com/books?id=cHPO_yLx5ToC&lpg=PP1&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false.
- Braverman, Harry (1998) , Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century, New York, NY, USA: Republication by Monthly Review Press, ISBN 0-85345-940-1.
- Dawson, Michael (2005), The Consumer Trap: Big Business Marketing in American Life (paper ed.), Urbana, IL, USA: University of Illinois Press, ISBN 0-252-07264-2.
- Drury, Horace Bookwalter (1915), Scientific management: a history and criticism, New York, NY, USA: Columbia University, http://books.google.com/books?id=BvFCAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA3#v=onepage&f=false.
- Gershon, Richard (2001), Telecommunications Management: Industry Structures and Planning Strategies, Mahwah, NJ, USA: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, ISBN 978-0-8058-3002-6
- Hartness, James (1912), The human factor in works management, New York and London: McGraw-Hill, OCLC 1065709, http://books.google.com/?id=QB41AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover. Republished by Hive Publishing Company as Hive management history series no. 46, ISBN 978-0-87960-047-1.
- Head, Simon (2005), The New Ruthless Economy: Work and Power in the Digital Age, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-517983-5, http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Economics/Business/?view=usa&ci=9780195179835. Head analyzes current implementations of Taylorism not only on the assembly line, but also in the offices and in medicine ("managed care").
- Hughes, Thomas P. (2004) , American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm, 1870–1970 (2nd ed.), Chicago, IL, USA: University of Chicago Press, ISBN 978-0-14-009741-2, http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=synopsis&bookkey=3627102.
- Kanigel, Robert (1997), The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency, New York, NY, USA: Penguin-Viking, ISBN 978-0-670-86402-7. A detailed biography of Taylor and a historian's look at his ideas.
- Mitcham, Carl (2005), "Management", Encyclopedia of science, technology, and ethics, 3, Macmillan Reference USA, ISBN 978-0-02-865834-6, http://books.google.es/books?id=eaIRAQAAMAAJ.
- Morf, Martin (1983) Eight Scenarios for Work in the Future. in Futurist, v17 n3 pp. 24–29 Jun 1983, reprinted in Cornish, Edward and World Future Society (1985) Habitats tomorrow: homes and communities in an exciting new era : selections from The futurist, pp. 14–19
- Mullins, Laurie J. (2004), Management and Organisational Behaviour (7th ed.), Financial Times–FT Press–Prentice-Hall–Pearson Education Ltd, ISBN 978-0-273-68876-1, http://wps.pearsoned.co.uk/ema_uk_he_mullins_manorgbeh_7/.
- Rosen, Ellen (1993), Improving Public Sector Productivity: Concepts and Practice, Thousand Oaks, CA, USA: Sage Publications, ISBN 978-0-8039-4573-9
- Stalin, J.V. (1976), Problems of Leninism: Lectures Delivered at the Sverdlov University, Beijing, China: Foreign Languages Press.
- Taylor, Frederick Winslow (1903), Shop Management, New York, NY, USA: American Society of Mechanical Engineers, OCLC 2365572, http://books.google.com/books?id=Am4I-N4XN2QC&pg=PA3#v=onepage&f=false. "Shop Management" began as an address by Taylor to a meeting of the ASME, which published it in pamphlet form. The link here takes the reader to a 1912 republication by Harper & Brothers. Also available from Project Gutenberg.
- Taylor, Frederick Winslow (1911), The Principles of Scientific Management, New York, NY, USA and London, UK: Harper & Brothers, OCLC 233134, http://books.google.com/books?id=HoJMAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA3#v=onepage&f=false. Also available from Project Gutenberg.
| Scientific management]]
- Special Collections: F.W. Taylor Collection. Stevens Institute of Technology has an extensive collection at its library.
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On May 1
On May 13019, []on the plain outside Minas Tirith, he entered the city as King .
Minas Tirith the [].
Revision as of 08:53, 23 August 2010
|Location||Easternmost point of the White Mountains, close to Anduin|
|Description||White city of seven levels|
|Other names||Minas Anor|
The Guarded City
|Etymology||S. minas "tower" + tirith "guard"|
|Events||Siege of Minas Tirith|
Minas Tirith (S. 'Tower of the Guard') was a city of Gondor, originally called Minas Anor. From T.A. 1640 onwards it was the capital of the South-kingdom and the seat of its Kings and ruling Stewards.
The city of Minas Tirith was originally a fortress, Minas Anor (S. 'Tower of the Sun'), built in S.A. 3320 by the Faithful Númenóreans. It was the western counterpart to Minas Ithil (S. 'Tower of the Moon'): guarding the western flank of the city of Osgiliath from the men of the White Mountains, as Ithil guarded its east from Mordor. From Osgiliath the sons of Elendil jointly ruled the newly-founded South-kingdom, but Minas Anor was home to Anárion's House and Minas Ithil to Isildur's. Therefore when the seven palantíri were divided amongst the Realms in Exile one was placed in Minas Anor.
Sauron attacked Gondor in S.A. 3429, taking Minas Ithil and forcing Isildur to flee north to his father in Arnor. Anárion meanwhile was besieged in Osgiliath and Minas Anor for five years, until he was relieved by the Last Alliance of Elves and Men. In T.A. 2 Isildur planted the second White Tree of Gondor in Minas Anor in memory of his brother, who had perished during the Siege of Barad-dûr. From this point the Kingship of Gondor belonged solely to the heirs of Anárion, who continued to rule from Osgiliath.
In T.A. 420 Minas Anor was rebuilt by Ostoher, the seventh King of Gondor, and his from his reign onwards the Kings removed there from Osgiliath in the summer. It remained the second city of Gondor for the next thousand years as the Kingdom reached the height of its power under the Ship-kings, and then fell into its long decline. Osgiliath was burned and its palantír lost during the Kin-strife, and from this point Minas Anor gradually grew more prominent. In T.A. 1636 the old capital was devastated by the Great Plague, leaving it depopulated and falling into ruin. Soon after Tarondor permanently moved the King's House to Minas Anor.
For a short time under Tarandor and his heirs the decline of Gondor was slowed, although constant wars with various groups of Easterlings took their toll. In T.A. 1900 Calimehtar built the first White Tower in the Citadel of Minas Anor to house the city's palantír. Just over a century later, however, the kingdom was dealt a harsh blow. In T.A. 2002 Minas Ithil, where the guard on Mordor had long since slackened, was captured by the Nazgûl. It became known as Minas Morgul, and in turn Minas Anor was renamed Minas Tirith, 'Tower of the Guard' or the 'Guarded City'. Soon after Eärnil II, the last King of Gondor, was killed in the Morgul Vale, and the lordship of the South-kingdom passed to the Stewards.
Following a brief respite in the Watchful Peace, Gondor under the Stewards became increasingly beset by enemies: control of Ithilien and the ruined bridges of Osgiliath passed back and forth between Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul,the coastlands were raided by the Corsairs of Umbar, and Easterlings assailed them from the north. The Citadel was improved under Ecthelion I (T.A. 2685–2698), who rebuilt the White Tower which afterwards bore his name. But equally the White Tree died at the same time as the twenty-first Steward, Belecthor II, and this time a new seedling could not be found to replace it.
In the reign of Ecthelion II (T.A. 2953–2984) Minas Tirith was strengthened against Mordor, where Sauron had now declared himself openly. It was at this time that Aragorn the future King first came to the city under the name Thorongil, and did great deeds.
War of the Ring
- Main article: Battle of the Pelennor Fields
During the War of the Ring, the brunt of Mordor's assault on the Free Peoples was directed at Gondor and Minas Tirith. Cair Andros fell on 10 March 3019 and on 12 March a company led by Faramir was forced to retreat from its defence of Osgiliath. An effort was made to repair the Rammas Echor, but this came too late. With the crossings of Anduin taken the Pelennor was overrun, and Minas Tirith was besieged by a great army of Morgul orcs and Easterlings led by the Witch-king. The city was under-manned, and its defenders had little hope; on 15 March the Great Gate was breached and the last ruling Steward, Denethor II, burned himself in despair. But Gandalf was also present, and rescuing Faramir from his father he took charge of the defence of Minas Tirith. The Rohirrim under Théoden also came unlooked for to the city's aid, and Aragorn led a force up the river from Pelargir. Seeing this Imrahil, Prince of Dol Amroth, led a sally from the city, and the three armies were able to break the siege in the decisive Battle of the Pelennor Fields.
On 1 May 3019, returning with the victorious from the Battle of the Morannon, Aragorn was crowned on the plain outside Minas Tirith, and he entered the city as King Elessar. On June 25 he discovered a sapling of the line of Nimloth in a hidden hallow of Mount Mindolluin. This was planted in the Court of the Fountain – the fourth White Tree of Gondor.
Under King Elessar Minas Tirith was rebuilt and restored: the Great Gate was remade in mithril and steel, the streets were repaved with white marble and gardens and trees were planted all around the city. This labour was aided by the Dwarves of the Glittering Caves, led by Gimli, and the Woodland Elves led by Legolas.
Minas Tirith was situated on the Hill of Guard – the "out-thrust knee" of Mount Mindolluin, connected to the main mass of the mountain by a narrow 'shoulder'. It was surrounded by the Pelennor Fields, fertile townlands stretching from the walls of the city proper to the Rammas Echor.
The city was built on seven levels cut into the hill. Each level had a wall and a gate, placed such that the path up through the levels wound to and fro rather than following a straight line. A outcropping of rock as high as the seventh level bisected all the lower levels except the lowest on the line of the Great Gate. The winding path through the city therefore passed through tunnels in this 'keel' five times. The uppermost tunnel emerged into the Citadel. The Citadel was the city's strongest point, rising seven hundred feet above the Great Gate and surrounded by high walls and battlements on the 'keel'. It housed the Court of the Fountain and the Tower of Ecthelion, which brought the total height of the city to one thousand feet.[note 1] The 'shoulder' of rock that joined the Hill of Guard to the main mass of Mount Mindolluin rose to the level of the fifth wall and was fortified with large ramparts. On it was Rath Dínen and the Hallows, where the tombs of the Kings and Stewards of the city were built.
Portrayal in adaptations
This article or section needs expansion and/or modification. Please help the wiki by expanding it.
In Peter Jackson's The Return of the King, the walls of the city are defended by a battery of 100 trebuchets. These played a significant role in the siege in the movie, as they were responsible for destroying many orcs, siege towers and catapults. Sadly, a number of them were smashed to bits by fell beasts, but all were repaired in the end.
Tolkien's description of the physical layout of Minas Tirith is followed scrupulously in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King film, although there is no reason to suppose that the top of the rock is flattened and paved, and in the book it is not the location for the coronation of Aragorn which occurs on the Pelennor Field outside Minas Tirith, he then enters the city as King. In the film version it is within clear sight of the mountains surrounding Mordor and the fires of Mount Doom, so much that in at least one night scene the light of it shines on the faces of viewers from the city walls. However, in the books the mountains were far enough away that from the city they looked like a low dark shadow over the land far away. As well, in the book the populace was almost entirely evacuated before the battle. In the movie, the women and children remained, and many were slaughtered in the lower levels.
- ↑ On the basis of this figure and unpublished sketches by Tolkien Karen Wynn Fonstad estimated the breadth of the city at 3100 feet in her Atlas.
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, Appendix B, "The Third Age"
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, Appendix B, "The Second Age"
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (ed.), The Silmarillion, "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age".
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A.
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, "The Palantír".
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (ed.), The Peoples of Middle-earth, "The Heirs of Elendil"
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, "Minas Tirith".
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, "The Siege of Gondor"
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, "The Pyre of Denethor"
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, "The Battle of the Pelennor Fields"
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, "The Steward and the King".
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (ed.), The War of the Ring, "Part Three: Minas Tirith", "Minas Tirith".
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Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both, And be one traveler, long I stood, And looked down one as far as I could, To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that, the passing there, Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay, In leaves no step had trodden black, Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh, Somewhere ages and ages hence: two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.
-- Robert Frost, "Road Not Taken"
I began my last month's column with the famous quotation by the German mathematician Leopold Kronecker (1823-1891): "God made the integers; all else is the work of man." I ended the essay with a number of questions about the way we teach beginning students mathematics, and promised to say something about an alternative approach to the one prevalent in the US.
This month's column begins where my last left off. To avoid repeating myself, I shall assume readers have read what I wrote last month. In particular, I provided evidence in support of my thesis (advanced by others in addition to myself) that, whereas numbers and perhaps other elements of basic, K-8 mathematics are abstracted from everyday experience, more advanced parts of the subject are created and learned as rule-specified, and often initially meaningless, "symbol games." The former can be learned by the formation of a real-world-grounded chain of cognitive metaphors that at each stage provide an understanding of the new in terms of what is already familiar. The latter must be learned in much the same way we learn to play chess: first merely following the rules, with little comprehension, then, with practice, reaching a level of play where meaning and understanding emerge. (Lakoff and Nunez describe the former process in their book Where Mathematics Comes From. Most of us can recall that the latter was the way that we learned calculus - an observation that appears to run counter to - and which I think actually does refute - Lakoff and Nunez's claim that the metaphor-construction process they describe yields all of pure mathematics.)
If indeed there are these two, essentially different kinds of mathematical thinking, that must be (or at least are best) learned in very different ways, then a natural question is where, in the traditional K-university curriculum, the one ends and the other starts. And make no mistake about it, the two forms of learning I am talking about are very different. In the first, meaning gives rise to rules; in the second, rules eventually yield meaning. Somewhere between the acquisition of the (whole) number concept and calculus, the process of learning changes from one of abstraction to linguistic creation.
Note that both can generate mathematics that has meaning in the world and may be applied in the world. The difference is that in the former, the real-world connection precedes the new mathematics, in the latter the new mathematics must be "cognitively bootstrapped" before real-world connections can be understood and applications made.
Before I go any further, I should point out that, since I am talking about human cognition here, my simplistic classification into two categories is precisely that: a simplistic classification, convenient as a basis for making the general points I wish to convey. As always when people are concerned, the world is not black-and-white, but a continuous spectrum where there are many shades of gray between the two extremes. If my monthly email inbox is anything to go by, mathematicians, as a breed, seem particularly prone to trying to view everything in binary fashion. (So was I until I found myself, first a department chair and then a dean, when I had to deal with people and university politics on a daily basis!)
In particular, it may in principle be possible for a student, with guidance, to learn all of mathematics in the iterated-metaphor fashion described by Lakoff and Nunez, where each step is one of both understanding and competence (of performance). But in practice it would take far too long to reach most of contemporary mathematics. What makes it possible to learn advanced math fairly quickly is that the human brain is capable of learning to follow a given set of rules without understanding them, and apply them in an intelligent and useful fashion. Given sufficient practice, the brain eventually discovers (or creates) meaning in what began as a meaningless game, but it is in general not necessary to reach that stage in order to apply the rules effectively. An obvious example can be seen every year, when first-year university physics and engineering students learn and apply advanced methods of differential equations, say, without understanding them - a feat that takes the mathematics majors (where the goal very definitely is understanding) four years of struggle to achieve.
Backing up from university level now, where the approach of rapidly achieving procedural competence is effective for students who need to use various mathematical techniques, what is the best way to teach beginning mathematics to students in the early grades of the schools? Given the ability of young children to learn to play games, often highly complicated fantasy games, and the high level of skill they exhibit in videogames, many of which have a complexity level that taxes most adults - and if you don't believe me, go ahead and try one for yourself (I have and they can be very hard to master) - I guess it might be possible they could learn elementary math that way. But I'm not aware that this approach has ever been tried, and it is not clear to me it would work. In fact, I suspect it would not. One thing we want our children to learn is how to apply mathematics to the everyday world, and that may well depend upon grounding the subject in that real world. After all, a university student who learns how to use differential equations in a rule-based fashion approaches the task with a more mature mind and an awful lot of prior knowledge and experience in using mathematics. In other words, the effectiveness of the rule-based, fast-track to procedural competence for older children and adults may well depend upon an initial grounding where the beginning math student abstracts the first basic concepts of (say) number and arithmetic from his or her everyday experience.
That, after all, is - as far as we know - how our ancestors first started out on the mathematical path many thousands of years ago. I caveated that last assertion with an "as far as we know" because, of course, all we have to go on is the archeological evidence of the artifacts they left behind. We don't know how they actually thought about their world.
It is also clear from the archeological evidence that our early mathematically-capable forebears developed systems of measurement, both of length and of area, in order to measure land, plant crops, and eventually to design and erect buildings. From a present-day perspective, this looks awfully like the beginnings of the real number system, though just when that activity became numerical to an extent we would recognize today is not clear.
Today's US mathematics curriculum starts with the positive whole numbers and addition, and builds on to in a fairly linear fashion, through negative numbers and rationals, until it reaches the real number system as the culmination. That approach can give rise to the assumption or even the belief that the natural numbers are somehow more basic or more natural than the reals. But that is not how things unfolded historically. True, if you try to build up the real numbers, starting with the natural numbers, you are faced with a long and complicated process that took mathematicians some two thousand years of effort to figure out, completing the task as recently as the end of the nineteenth century. But that does not mean that the real numbers are a cognitively more difficult concept to acquire than the natural numbers, or that one builds cognitively on the other. Humans have not only a natural ability to abstract discrete counting numbers from our everyday experience (sizes of collections of discrete objects) but also have a natural sense of continuous quantities such as length and volume (area seems less natural), and abstraction in that domain leads to positive real numbers.
In other words, from a cognitive viewpoint (as opposed to a mathematical one), the natural numbers are neither more fundamental nor more natural than the real numbers. They both arise directly from our experiences in the everyday world. Moreover, they appear to arise in parallel, out of different cognitive processes, used for different purposes, with neither dependent on the other. In fact, what little evidence there is from present-day brain research suggests that from a neurophysiological viewpoint, the real numbers - our sense of continuous number - is more basic than the natural numbers, which appear to build upon the continuous number sense by way of our language capacity. (See the recent books and articles of researchers such as Stanislaw Dehaene or Brian Butterworth for details.)
It seems then, that when we guide our children along the first steps of the long path to mathematical thinking, assuming we want to ground those key first steps in everyday experience and build upon natural human cognitive capacities, we have two possible ways to begin: the discrete world of assessing the sizes of collections and the continuous world of assessing lengths and volumes. The first leads to the natural numbers and counting, the second to the real numbers and measurement.
In the Unites States and many other countries, the choice was made - perhaps unreflectively - long ago to take our facility for counting as the starting point, and thus to start the mathematical journey with the natural numbers. But there has been at least one serious attempt to build an entire mathematical curriculum on the other approach, and that is the focus of the remainder of this essay. Not because I think one is intrinsically better than the other - though that may be the case. Rather because, whichever approach we adopt, I think it is highly likely we will do a better job, and understand better what we are doing as teachers, if we are aware of an(y) alternative approach.
Indeed, knowledge of another approach may help us guide our students through particularly tricky areas such as the multiplication concept, the topic of some of my previous columns. As Piaget observed, and others have written on extensively, helping students achieve a good understanding of multiplication in the counting-first curriculum is extremely difficult. In a measuring-first curriculum, in contrast, some of the more thorny subtleties of multiplication that plague the counting-first progression simply do not arise. Maybe the way forward to greater success in early mathematics education is to adopt a hybrid approach that builds simultaneously on both human intuitions? (Arguably this occurs anyway to some extent. US children in a counting-first curriculum use lengths, volumes, and other real-number measures in their everyday lives, and children in the real-numbers-first curriculum I am about to describe can surely count, and possibly add and subtract natural numbers, before they get to school. But I am not aware of a formal school curriculum that tries to combine both approaches.)
Whichever of the two approaches we adopt, the expressed primary goal of current K-12 mathematics education is the same the world over: to equip future citizens with an understanding of, and procedural fluency with, the real number system. In the US school system, this is done progressively, with the first stages (natural numbers, integers, rationals) taught under the name "arithmetic" and the real numbers going under the banner "algebra". (Until relatively recently, geometry and trigonometry were part of a typical school curriculum, bringing elements of the measuring-first approach into the classroom, but that was, as we all know, abandoned, though not without a fight by its proponents.)
It is interesting to note that coverage of the real numbers as "algebra" in the US approach ensures an entirely procedural treatment, avoiding the enormous difficulties involved in constructing the concept of real numbers starting from the rationals. Eventually, even our counting-first approach has to rely on our intuitions of, and everyday experience with, continuous measurement, even if it does not start with them.
In a series of studies of the development of primates, children, and traditional peoples, Vygotsky observed that cognitive development occurs when a problem is encountered for which previous methods of solution are inadequate (Vygotsky & Luria, 1993). The Davydov mathematics curriculum is built on top of this observation, and consists of a series of carefully sequenced problems that require progressively more powerful insights and methods for their solution. This is of course quite different from the instructional approach adopted by most US teachers, which consists of an instructional lecture, with worked examples, followed by a set of exercises focused on repeated practice of the particular skill the instructor has demonstrated in class.
But that is just the first of several differences between the two approaches. Whereas the US K-12 mathematics curriculum has an understanding of and computational facility with the real numbers system as the declared end-point, the first several years are taken up with the progression through positive whole numbers, fractions, and negative integers/rationals, with the real number system covered in the later grades, primarily under the name "algebra". In contrast, the Davydov curriculum sets its sights squarely on the real number system from the getgo. Davydov believed that starting with specific numbers (the counting numbers) leads to difficulties later on when the students work with rational and real numbers or do algebra.
I'll come back to the focus on the real number system momentarily, but first I need to introduce another distinquishing feature of Davydov's approach.
Davydov took account of Vygotsky's distinction between what he called spontaneous concepts and scientific concepts. The former arise when children abstract properties from everyday experiences or from specific instances; the latter develop from formal experiences with the properties themselves.
This distinction is more or less (but not entirely) the same as the one I discussed last month between mathematics we learn by abstraction from the world and mathematics we learn in a rule-based fashion the same way we learn to play chess. For example, children who learn about the positive integers by counting collections of objects thereby acquire a spontaneous concept. Learning to play chess leads to a "scientific" understanding of the game. The point I made earlier was that in my experience, both as a learner and a teacher of advanced mathematics, the scientific approach is the most efficient, and perhaps the only way, to learn a highly abstract subject such as calculus.
In last month's column I asked where the abstract-it-from-the-world kind of mathematics (spontaneous concepts) ends and learn-it-by-the-rules kind (scientific concepts) starts. As I have noted, that question is a naive one that obscures the fact that there is most likely a continuous spectrum of change rather than a break point. A more usefully phrased question from an educational perspective is, which parts of mathematics should we teach in a spontaneous-concepts fashion and which in a scientific-concepts way?
The accepted wisdom in the US is that the spontaneous approach is the way to go at least all the way through K-8, and maybe all the way up to grade 12. (Adopting the approach all the way to grade 12 tends to force a presentation of calculus as "a method to calculate slopes", which I personally dislike because it reduces one of the greatest ever achievements of human intellect to a bag of procedural tricks. But that is another issue for another time.)
The Davydov curriculum adopts the scientific-concepts approach from day 1. Davydov believed that learning mathematics using a general-to-specific, "scientific" approach leads to better mathematical understanding and performance in the long run than does the spontaneous approach. His reasoning was that if very young children begin their mathematics learning with abstractions, they will be better prepared to use formal abstractions in later school years, and their thinking will develop in a way that can support the capacity to handle more complex mathematics.
He wrote (Davydov 1966), "there is nothing about the intellectual capabilities of primary schoolchildren to hinder the algebraization of elementary mathematics. In fact, such an approach helps to bring and to increase these very capabilities children have for learning mathematics."
I should stress that Davydov's adoption of the "scientific-concepts" approach is not at all the same as teaching mathematics in an abstract, axiomatic fashion. (This is where my analogy with learning to play chess breaks down, as do all analogies sooner or later, no matter how helpful they may be at the start; which reminds me, did I ever mention the problems that can result from introducing multiplication as repeated addition?) The Davydov approach is grounded firmly in real-world experience, and lots of it. Indeed, students spend more time at the start doing nothing but real-world activities (before doing any explicit mathematics) than is the case in the US curriculum. But when the actual mathematical concepts are introduced, it is in a scientific fashion. The students are able to link the scientific concept to their real world experience not because that concept arose spontaneously out of that experience (it did not), but because they had been guided through sufficiently rich, preparatory real-world experiences that they are able to at once see how the concept applies to the real world. (In terms of metaphors, the metaphor mapping is contructed back from the new to the old, not the other way round as in the Lakoff and Nunez framework for learning.)
In Grade 1, the pupils are asked to describe and define physical attributes of objects that can be compared. As I hinted a moment ago, the intention is to provide a context for the children to explore relationships, both equality and comparative. Six-year-olds typically compare physically lengths, volumes, and masses of objects, and describe their findings with statements like
where H and B are unspecified quantities being compared, not objects. (At this stage the unspecified quantities are not numbers.) Notice this immediate focus on abstractions. The physical context and the act of recording mean that the elements of "abstract" algebra are introduced in a meaningful way, and are not seen by the children as abstract.
For instance, the pupils are asked how to make unequal quantities equal or how to make equal quantities unequal by adding or subtracting an amount. Starting from a volume situation recorded as H < B, the children could achieve equality by adding to volume H or subtracting from volume B. They observe that whichever action they choose, the amount added or subtracted is the same. They are told it is called the difference.
Only after they have mastered this pre-numeric understanding of size and of part-whole relationships are they presented with tasks that require quantification. For example, if they have been working with mass and have noticed that mass Y is the whole and masses A and Q are the parts that make up the whole, which they may be encouraged to express by means of a simple inverted-V diagram like this:
This sets the stage for putting specific numerical values for the "variables" in order to solve equations that arise from real-world problems. (Numbers, that is, real numbers, are introduced in the second half of the first grade, as abstract measures of lengths, volumes, masses, and the like.) As a result, the pupils do not have to learn rules for solving algebraic equations; rather they become sophisticated in reasoning directly about part-whole relationships.
When the pupils get to multiplication and division, Davydov's curriculum requires that they connect the new actions of multiplication and division with their prior knowledge of measurement and place value, as well as addition and subtraction, and to apply them to problems involving the metric system, number systems in other bases (studied in grade 1), area and perimeter, and the solution of more complex equations. In other words, the new operations come both with real world grounding and their connections to previously learned mathematics. Thee pupils have to explore the two new operations and their systemic interrelationships with previously learned concepts. They are constantly presented with problems that require them to forge connections to prior knowledge. Every new problem is different in some significant way from its predecessors and its successors. (Contrast this to the US approach where problems are presented in sets, with each set focusing on a single procedure.) As a result, the pupils must continuously think about what they are doing in order that it makes sense to them. By working through many problems designed so make them create connections between the new actions of multiplying and dividing and their previous knowledge of addition, subtraction, positional systems, and equations, they integrate their knowledge into a single conceptual system.
Thus, the Davydov curriculum is grounded in the real world, but the starting point is the continuous world of measurement rather than the discrete world of counting. I don't know about you, but measurement and counting both seem to me to offer pretty concrete starting points for the mathematical journey. Humans are born with a capacity to make judgments and to reason about length, area, volume, etc. as well as a capacity to compare sizes of collections. Each capacity leads directly to a number concept, but to different ones: real numbers and counting numbers, respectively.
Clearly, the Davydov approach has no such difficulties. With the real number system as basic, integers and rational numbers are just particular points on the real number line.
Another possible advantage of the Davydov approach is that the more troublesome problems about how to successfully introduce multiplication and division that plague the start-with-counting approach to learning math - the focus of three of my columns last year - simply do not arise, since multiplication and division are natural concepts in the world of lengths, volumes, masses, etc. and part-whole relationships between them.
One feature of the Davydov approach that I personally (as a mathematician, remember, not a teacher or an expert in mathematics education, which I am not) find worrying is the absence of exercise sets focused on specific skills. Chunking and the acquisition of procedural fluency are crucial requirements for making progress in mathematics, and I don't know of any way to achieve that than through repetitive practice. While a math curriculum that consists of little else than repetitive exercises would surely turn many more students off math than it would produce skilled numbers people, their absence seems to me just as problematic. A colleague in mathematics education tells me that Russian teachers sometimes (often?) do get their pupils to work through focused, repetitive exercise sets, and I wonder if success with a more strict Davydov curriculum might depend at least in part on parents working on repetitive exercises with their children at home.
Whether one approach is, overall, inherently better than the other, however, I simply do not know. Absent lots of evidence, no one knows. Unfortunately - and that's a mild word to use given the high stakes of the math ed business in today's world - there haven't been anything like enough comparative studies to settle the matter.
One of the few US-based studies I am aware of involved an implementation of the entire three years of Davydov's elementary mathematics curriculum in a New York school. The study was led by Jean Schmittau of the State University of New York at Binghamton. Schmittau (2004, p.20) reports that "the children in the study found the continual necessity to problem solve a considerable - even daunting - challenge, which required virtually a year to meet, as they gradually developed the ability to sustain the concentration and intense focus necessary for success. However, upon completion of the curriculum, they were able to solve problems normally given only to US high school students."
Countering commonly made claims that in the era of cheap electronic calculators, there is no need for children to learn how to compute, and that time spent on computation actually hinders conceptual mathematical learning (for instance, you'll find these claims made repeatedly in the 1998 NCTM Yearbook), Schmittau writes (2004, p.40), "In light of the results presented [in her paper], it is impossible to subscribe to the contention that conceptualization and the ability to solve difficult problems, are compromised by learning to compute. Not only did the children using Davydov's curriculum attain high levels of both procedural competence and mathematical understanding, they were able to analyze and solve problems that are typically difficult for US high school students. They did not use calculators, and they resolved every computational error conceptually, without ever appealing to a "rule". In addition, developing computational proficiency required of them both mathematical thinking and the establishing of new connections - the sine qua non of meaningful learning."
Here again, I find myself worrying about the balance between, on the one hand, deep conceptual understanding and the ability to reason from first principles - highly important features of doing math - and, on the other hand, the need for rule-based, algorithmic methods that are practiced to the point of automatic fluency in order to progress further in the subject. The continued popularity - with parents if not their children - of commercially-offered, Saturday morning, math-skills classes suggests that I am not alone in valuing basic skills acquisition (procedural fluency), and as I mentioned once already, I often wonder if the success of some curricular experiments does not depend in part on unreported activities outside the classroom.
Another US atudy was carried out at the same time at two schools in Hawai'i by Barbara J. Dougherty and Hannah Slovin of the University of Hawai'i, and there too the researchers reported a successful outcome. They write (2004, p.301), "Student solution methods strongly suggest that young children are capable of using algebraic symbols and generalized diagrams to solve problems. The diagrams and associated symbols can represent the structure of a mathematical situation and may be applied across a variety of settings." (The students used algebraic symbols coupled with diagrammatic representations like the inverted-V diagram shown above. The children in the study referred to in this quote were in the third grade.)
In fact, if we pursue that last observation a bit, we get to what I suspect is the really important factor here: teachers who have a deep understanding of basic mathematics. Hmmm, now where have I heard (and read) that before? Liping Ma, anyone?
In fact, in the context of this country, bedeviled by the incessant math wars and the intense politicization of mathematics education that drives them, my view is that debate about the curriculum and the educational theory that drives it is a distraction best avoided (at least for now). To me the real issue facing us is a starkly simple one: Teacher education. No matter what the curriculum, and regardless of the psychological and educational theory it is built upon, teaching comes down to one human being interacting with a number of (usually) younger, other human beings. If that teacher does not love what he or she is teaching, and does not understand it, deeply and profoundly, then the results are simply not going to come. The solution? Attract the best and the brightest to become mathematics teachers, teach them well, pay them at a level commensurate with their training, skills, and responsibilities, and provide them with opportunities for continuous professional development. Just what we do in (for example) the medical or engineering professions. It's that simple.
L. P. Steffe, (Ed.), Children's capacity for learning mathematics. Soviet Studies in the Psychology of Learning and Teaching Mathematics, Vol. VII, Chicago: University of Chicago. Specific articles in that volume are listed below.
My brief summary of the Davydov approach is based primarily on Dougherty & Slovin 2004 and on Schmittau 2004.
The Dougherty & Slovin article describes a US-based (Hawaii) research and development project called Measure Up that uses the Davydov approach to introduce mathematics through measurement and algebra in grades 1-3.
Davydov, V.V. (1966). Logical and psychological problems of elementary mathematics as an academic subject. From D. B. Elkonin & V. V. Davydov (eds.), Learning Capacity and Age Level: Primary Grades, (pp. 54-103). Moscow: Prosveshchenie.
Davydov, V.V. (1975a). Logical and psychological problems of elementary mathematics as an academic subject. In L. P. Steffe, (Ed.), Children's capacity for learning mathematics. Soviet Studies in the Psychology of Learning and Teaching Mathematics, Vol. VII (pp.55-107). University of Chicago.
Davydov, V.V. (1975b). The psychological characteristics of the "prenumerical" period of mathematics instruction. In L. P. Steffe, (Ed.), Children's capacity for learning mathematics. Soviet Studies in the Psychology of Learning and Teaching Mathematics, Vol. VII (pp.109-205). University of Chicago.
Davydov, V. V., Gorbov, S., Mukulina, T., Savelyeva, M., & Tabachnikova, N. (1999). Mathematics. Moscow Press.
Dehaene, S. (1997). The Number Sense: How the Mind Creates Mathematics, Oxford University Press.
Devlin, K. (2000). The Math Gene: How Mathematical Thinking Evolved And Why Numbers Are Like Gossip, Basic Books.
Dougherty, B. & Slovin, H. Generalized diagrams as a tool for young children's problem solving. Proceedings of the 28th Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, 2004, Vol 2 (pp.295-302). PME: Capetown, South Africa.
Ma, Liping, (1999). Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics: Teachers' Understanding of Fundamental Mathematics in China and the United States, Lawrence Erlbaum: Studies in Mathematical Thinking and Learning.
Morrow, L.J. & M.J. Kenney, M.J. (Eds,) (1998), NCTM Yearbook: The teaching and learning of algorithms in school mathematics. Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
Schmittau, J. Vygotskian theory and mathematics education: Resolving the conceptual-procedural dichotomy. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 2004, Vol.XIX, No 1 (pp.19-43). Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada : Lisbon, Spain.
Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Harvard Press.
Mathematician Keith Devlin (email: firstname.lastname@example.org) is the Executive Director of the Human-Sciences and Technologies Advanced Research Institute (H-STAR) at Stanford University and The Math Guy on NPR's Weekend Edition.
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I have just returned from Turkey, where my wife and I and Dom and Sarah Crossan led a two-week long pilgrimage. Our focus: Paul and early Christianity in the historical context of the Roman Empire and Roman imperial theology. Rome ruled the world of early Christianity: from Spain in the west, Britain in the north, the Euphrates in the east, into North Africa in the south.
Roman rule was legitimated by imperial theology. According to it,
Caesar Augustus, the greatest of the emperors, was divine. Born Octavian around 63 BCE, he ruled as emperor from 31 BCE to 14 CE. His titles included “God,” “Son of God,” “Lord,” “savior of the world” who had brought “peace on earth.” He was the product of a divine conception, conceived in his mother by the god Apollo, god of light, reason and order.
Augustus brought peace on earth through military victory. At the battle of Actium, he ended the decades-long civil war that had torn the empire apart. Now peace reigned, the Pax Romana, achieved through military victory and sustained by Roman imperial power. All of this, according to Roman imperial theology, was the will of God. Roman theology legitimated Roman empire. It was omnipresent in the public media of the day: in images, inscriptions, and coins.
This was the historical context of Paul (and Jesus and early Christianity). The titles of Jesus – “Son of God,” “Lord,” “savior of the world,” the one who brings “peace on earth” – existed before he was born. They were titles of the emperor.
When Paul and other early Christians applied these titles to Jesus, they were saying Jesus is Lord and empire is not.
What is the difference between these two lordships? According to the seven letters of Paul that are universally seen by scholars as the earliest documents in the New Testament, all written in the 50s, and thus earlier than the gospels: Rome embodied peace through victory and Jesus proclaimed peace through justice and non-violence. Paul and other early Christians created communities radically centered in God that embodied a vision of life together very different from the vision embodied in Roman imperial theology.
To see Paul and Jesus and early Christianity in this context is to see how they (and the Bible as a whole) combine the spiritual and the political. Christianity is spiritual – it is about our personal relationship to God (the sacred, what is, reality, isness). It is about a deeper and deeper centering in God as known in the Bible and especially in Jesus. And equally importantly, it is about participating in God’s passion for a different kind of world – a more just world, fair world, a world of peace and not war. This is “the dream of God” in the Bible and Jesus: a transformed world.
Our pilgrims were diverse even as they shared some things in common. Though most were Americans, a fourth were from the British Commonwealth: three Australians, three Canadians, and two New Zealanders. All were interested in Christianity and what it might mean to be Christian today, even as some were not currently involved in the life of a church. All were intellectually interested in understanding Paul and early Christianity more fully.
Pilgrimage is about more than being a tourist. Pilgrims are on a journey, whether they are conscious of that or not. Pilgrimage is about a quest for understanding and meaning, and not just about seeing other parts of the world. In its fullest meaning, pilgrimage is about a date with God, the sacred.
A date intrinsically involves a time and place. For two weeks, the time and place was Turkey: we saw the world of Paul and early Christianity, the ruins of the Roman empire (and empires before and since), and we experienced being in a a group of intentional pilgrims. All of us pondered: what does this mean, what might this mean, for us today?
We – the Borgs and Crossans – will lead another Paul pilgrimage to Turkey next year, May 7 – 21, 2012. To be on the e-mail notification list, click here to send an e-mail to Donna. To learn more about past pilgrimages or to see pictures, please go to my Pilgrimages page.
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These three cabins in Utah were built using no glue, binders, adhesives, or products with volatile organic compounds. As an inaugural project of a partnership between the Girl Scouts of Utah (GSU) and the School of Architecture at the University of Utah, these structures are meant to raise awareness of careers in the AEC industry for women.
The cabins are located in a wooded area on GSU’s Trefoil Ranch Camp. They were built using Interlocking Cross Laminated Timber developed by Euclid Timber Frame PC, a company focusing on natural building methods. This includes using no glue, binders, adhesives, or products with volatile organic compounds. Their research is supported by the Integrated Technology in Architecture Center, which is interested in the high-value use of locally-sourced wood damaged by a pine beetle infestation prevalent in the American West. Unusable in traditional stick-frame construction, the wood currently remains in the forest and increases the risk of wildfires.
The cabins are part of an initiative to expose Scouts to female practitioners and encourage participatory design processes. The year-long series of outreach events, including the construction of the cabins, provided an opportunity for the girls to engage with an institution of higher education and learn about community-based approaches to design that includes architects, clients, stakeholders, and other parties.
Photos by Jörg Rügemer
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When I was One-and-Twenty Youth Quotes
How we cite our quotes: line
When I was one-and-twenty (1)
We hear that our speaker is 21 three times. That's an awful lot of space in a poem that's only sixteen lines long! Any time that a phrase is repeated so often, chances are that it's pivotal to the work of the poem.
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me. (7-8)
Silly, silly young lad. This sort of comment is the type that no one could make in the present tense – it's the kind of self-reflection that's just a little bit self-deprecating. Plus, it's just oozing with irony and condescension for the man that he was. Good thing he's changed, huh?
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true. (15-16)
Why call yourself one-and-twenty instead of twenty-one? It's for this line, folks. See, when the big change (his birthday) rolls around, putting the "two" in front of the twenty makes it super-clear that it's the ONE YEAR difference that causes such a huge shift in his perspective. After all, twenty-one looks a lot like twenty-two. But "two-and-twenty"? Everyone can see how different that is!
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After months of consultations with local stakeholders and residents in all the nine local municipalities, the process of renaming the Cacadu District Municipality to Sarah Baartman District Municipality is well and truly underway.
“The majority of the communities have supported this name change”, said the Cacadu District Municipality Speaker, Deon de Vos.
Sarah Baartman is considered a synonymous with the commitment to democracy by the South African Government. Baartman, of Khoikhoi descent, was laid to rest in Hankey along the banks of the Gamtoos River on 9 August 2002. She became orphaned when her family was subsequently taken to Cape Town as a slave. At the age of 20, in 1810, William Dunlop, a British ship doctor, took her to London. There she was put on display as a human novelty, due to the fascination of the Europeans with her body shape.
Her inhumane treatment was exposed and a court case was brought in her defence by the African Association, an antislavery group in London. When she could no longer be displayed in London, she was sold to an animal trainer in France, who sold her as if she were a circus animal. She died of respiratory illness in Paris in 1815, after which her body was dissected by a scientist named George Cuvier, Napoleon’s surgeon-general.
A body cast was made of her corpse and her body parts were put on display until 1974. In 1994, President Nelson Mandela appealed to the French Government for the return of the remains of Sarah Baartman from the Musee del’Homme in Paris. It was only in 2002 that the French Government finally agreed. On October 2002, the former President, Thabo Mbeki, declared the grave of Sarah Baartman a national heritage site.
“So there is general understanding of the suffering that she went through and the name change will be our way to honour her”, described De Vos.
A report has been compiled documenting the objections and comments from the communities that we consulted with. The report will be submitted to Council for consideration, where after we will follow the legal processes and submit a request to the MEC for Local Government and Traditional Affairs to conclude the process” said de Vos.
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Reasons for the Misidentification of Special Needs among ELLs
By: Else V. Hamayan, Barbara Marler, Cristina Sanchez-Lopez, and Jack S. Damico
To ensure that misidentification does not occur, the authors of Special Education Considerations for English Language Learners: Delivering a Continuum of Services propose a different approach to assessment and service delivery for ELLs that can overcome many of the problems in traditional assessment and remediation directed toward this student population. Before highlighting solutions in their manual, however, they present three reasons why such misidentification is likely to occur in this population. These reasons are problematic assessment practices, the influence of the medical model when addressing educational issues, and funding biases toward special education. Each is briefly discussed here.
- a focus on superficial behaviors rather than underlying factors as indices of difficulty
- the collection of inadequate data — often in the form of norm-referenced and standardized test results — that do not enable sufficient descriptions of proficiency
- a lack of recognition of several consequences of bilingualism during assessment, and
- the application of inappropriate discrepancy formulas for interpretation purposes.
Behavioral manifestations: Intrinsic vs. extrinsic factors
At a superficial level, the way that academic and language difficulties manifest among ELLs is very similar to the way such difficulties manifest among students with long-term disabilities or special needs (Crago & Paradis, 2003; Cummins, 2000; Damico & Damico, 1993a; Salameh, Håkansson, & Nettelbladt, 2004). For example, Paradis (2005) examined English grammatical morphemes in 24 typically developing ELLs and compared their productions with those of monolingual English-speaking children exhibiting specific language impairment (SLI). She found that the ELLs' accuracy rates and error patterns were similar to those reported for same-age children with SLI. Similarly, both ELLs and monolingual English-speaking learning-disabled students may frequently search for words in English even though they have understood the concept. That is not to say that the causes of these difficulties are the same in the two populations. Rather, there are only so many ways that language and learning difficulties manifest behaviorally, despite the underlying causal variables (i.e., disability or difference). It is not enough to focus only on the superficial indices of difficulty; one must also determine whether deeper or more complex variables are operating (e.g., Ahlsén, 2005; Armstrong, 2005; Damico, Smith, & Augustine, 1996; Holm & Dodd, 1999; Perkins, 2005).
Language and learning disabilities are generally due to factors intrinsic to the learner, such as a neurological impairment or a problem with symbolic processing (Perkins, 2005), whereas second language learning difficulties are typically due to factors extrinsic to the learner, such as the language learning process itself or cross-cultural differences (Damico & Hamayan, 1992). In the case of vocabulary usage, for example, if an ELL frequently forgets a common word that has been taught, it is possible that the visual aid used to represent the concept may have been culturally irrelevant for that student (for example, the Liberty Bell representing the concept of freedom or independence that is specific to American history); hence the visual symbol would not provide any help for that student in learning new vocabulary. For learning-disabled students, the same difficulty — that is, forgetting common words that have been taught — may result from a completely different set of reasons. The student may have oral language comprehension or production difficulties as a consequence of word retrieval problems, or the student may have memory problems. In such cases, the pedagogical needs of the two populations are different: learning-disabled students need support in creating compensations to overcome their problems (e.g., Damico, Smith, & Augustine, 1996; Dunaway, 2004; Genesee, Paradis, & Crago, 2004; Westby, 1997), whereas second language learners need to develop further proficiency in academic language.
- focus on superficial aspects of language structure
- have validity and authenticity concerns
- provide numbers that have a differentiating function rather than an interpretive function and
- focus on identifying students' weaknesses.
Consequently, these tests do not give us a good sense of what ELLs are able to do. Further, ELLs, who are often unfamiliar with the cultural context of test items, are likely to give the wrong answers not because they do not have the specific skill being assessed but because they do not understand the question. This constellation of factors promotes unreliable test results that give an inaccurate view of the student (Aspel, Willis, & Faust, 1998; Gunderson & Siegel, 2001; Müller, 2003; Portes, 1999).
Consequences of bilingualism
In addition, norm-referenced and standardized assessment tools typically do not account for the fact that the students being tested are bilingual. Instead, tests designed for monolingual students are developed or translated from one language to another, and different norms are collected. Even assuming that the tests developed are valid and reliable (a dangerous assumption), factors relating to bilingualism as a process are not always carefully considered (Chamberlain & Mederios-Landurand, 1991; Genesee, Paradis, & Crago, 2004; Grosjean, 1998; Oller & Eilers, 2002). For example, although many studies have demonstrated that ELLs are highly variable in their performance, based on individual, contextual, affective, and developmental factors as well as proficiency (e.g., Bialystok, 2001; Genesee, Paradis, & Crago, 2004; Goldstein, 2004; Thordardottir, Rothenberg, Rivard, et al., 2006), these variables are rarely considered in the scoring criteria or in the interpretive instructions for these tools (Damico, 1991, 1992; Lubinski, 2000; Wilson, Wilson, & Coleman, 2000).
Similarly, although numerous studies have indicated that an ELL's test performance should be interpreted using both languages via conceptual scoring — that is, scoring the meaning of a response regardless of the language in which it is produced (e.g., Bedore, Peña, García, et al., 2005; Marchman & Martinez-Sussman, 2002; Oller & Eilers, 2002; Pearson, Fernández, & Oller, 1993, 1995) — this is not typically done. Failure to take into account the complexity of the bilingual process during assessment further reduces the effectiveness of traditional assessment and diagnostic tools when focusing on ELLs.
The discrepancy model
Finally, the discrepancy model for identifying learning disabilities, which was initially useful as a gatekeeping mechanism, does not serve ELLs well, since it is normal for ELLs to have lower scores on verbal tasks than on tasks that do not require as much verbal processing (Campbell, 1996; Campbell & Kenny, 1999; Cummins, 1996; Kohnert, 2004). This discrepancy may provide an accurate description of monolingual students with a learning disability (Fletcher et al., 1998; Sternberg & Grigorenko, 2002). However, it also describes quite precisely a major characteristic of normally developing ELLs!
Perhaps because of these problems, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 2004 has given districts permission to go beyond the discrepancy formula to embrace a model that assesses how students respond to different interventions and instructional activities. This moves the definition of learning disability out of the domain of a discrepancy between performance and potential and into the domain of response to intervention (RTI). The RTI model seeks to improve the learning environment for all students in the classroom by supporting both teachers and students and subsequently keeping track of students who resist these interventions. We discuss the potential advantages and disadvantages of using this model to identify ELLs with disabilities in Chapter 4.
Time and resources
To get a better sense of what an ELL is able to do and what he or she has difficulty with, a considerable amount of information needs to be gathered. In many instances, staff members do not have the time or resources to gather the qualitative information necessary to determine ELLs' needs. Unless they are trained in the process and provided with appropriate tools, gathering accurate and useful qualitative information is a difficulty in many schools. There is often a lack of know-how of how to use ethnographic approaches to collect data in such a way that the information obtained is meaningful and useful. It is important to adhere to certain standards in order to collect qualitative data that are authentic, and to have the conviction that these data are not inferior to data obtained through more standardized means.
Neither can staff always collect the amount of information needed for such a determination. At the end of the assessment process, we are often left with something akin to a huge jigsaw puzzle with several pieces missing. Further, these data are often gathered and interpreted by school personnel who are not adequately versed in ELL education issues, second language acquisition, or cross-cultural education and the implications of these factors for the assessment and instruction of ELLs (Goldstein, 2004; Müller, 2003; Oller & Eilers, 2002; Ortiz, et al., 1986; García & Ortiz, 1988). Often the bilingual or the English as a second language (ESL) specialist is not involved in making sense out of the gathered information, let alone in the data collection (Chronicle 1.1 in the manual describes an instance in which language proficiency testing was overlooked completely).
Prevalence of a Medical Model
A second fundamental reason for the tendency to overidentify ELLs as needing special education services lies in the way in which the special education system has evolved in the United States. In the last quarter-century, a medical model has prevailed in the way that many people attempt to understand the special needs that some students have in school. This model is based on the notion that disabilities or challenges can be identified much like the list of ailments that are officially recognized as diseases in the medical field (Coles, 1987; McDermott & Varenne, 1995; Skrtic, 1991; Taylor, 1991, 1993). This tendency to view academic and language learning difficulties from the perspective of human pathology can be seen in the medicalization of learning problems in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) and the tenth edition of the International Classification of Diseases (World Health Organization, 2002). Whether these medical designations are defensible or not, they do function to create an explicit grounding for the discipline of special education (Skrtic, 1991).
This prevailing medical orientation has as a result created a set of beliefs about the nature of special education and even about ELLs' role within special education, and these beliefs inform both our perceptions of academic and language-learning problems and our assessment practices (Damico, Müller, & Ball, 2004; Frick & Lahey, 1991; Klasen, 2000; McDermott, 1993; Taylor, 1993). This situation has falsely suggested to educators that disabilities can be easily identified in a valid and reliable manner, which results in misidentification, because the complexity of the phenomenon and the individuality of the ELL are often overlooked.
In reality, exceptionality is not an objective and easily verifiable empirical construct. Rather, it is a social construct, and the diagnostic criteria employed for various exceptional traits have been constructed on the basis of a number of sociocultural factors that mirror whatever ideologies are in vogue at any given time (e.g., McDermott & Varenne, 1995; Reid, Maag, & Vasa, 1994; Skrtic, 1991). These diagnostic categories may be further complicated by ambiguity and subjectivity, and this lack of definitional rigor may result in various types of problems. Indeed, the extreme overidentification of ELLs as learning disabled and language disordered is a clear demonstration of the problems (e.g., Jitendra & Rohena-Diaz, 1996; McNamara, 1998; Ortiz, García, Holtzman, et al., 1985; Stow & Dodd, 2005).
Availability of Categorical Funding
The third reason for the misidentification of ELLs as having disabilities lies in the categorical status of special education. The legal status of special education gives impetus to the tendency to formally identify separate categories of disabilities. When Public Law 94-142 (The Education Act for All Handicapped, also known as the IDEA) passed in 1975, it provided legal support for special education and subsequently created a separately funded category within the educational system. Since then, students have had to be formally identified as having special education needs before funding can be received by the school for that individual student. Thus, the identification of these disabilities is connected with additional funding that gives the school much-needed resources. Having additional funding attached to the categorization of students in special education may make it less objectionable for schools to identify special education needs. The gate or hurdle that would keep students from being needlessly categorized into special education is simply not there. It is too tempting to place students in special education when they are perceived to fall outside of what is considered "normal," regardless of the underlying reasons.
This categorization of special education could also have the opposite effect. In some districts, because of fear of monitoring agencies or potential litigation, the gatekeeping mechanisms are overused. The pre-referral process becomes so complex and time-consuming that students who do need support never get it (Stow & Dodd, 2005). Students have to fail or wait beyond an assimilation period before they are even referred to special education.
The Need to Provide Relevant Services in a Timely Manner
The accurate identification of the special needs of ELLs is important for two reasons. The first reason has to do with the stigma of the label (Cummins, 2000; Goffman, 1964; McDermott & Varenne, 1995). As much as we try to make it sound as though a special education placement is within acceptable limits, the label still carries a certain stigma that will remain with a student, formally and informally, for a long time (Coles, 1987; McDermott, 1993; Taylor, 1991). This stigma is especially problematic insofar as many in mainstream society perceive ELLs as having lower status; many in the general society do not value the languages and cultures that ELLs and their families bring with them. Immigrants and refugees are often marginalized and do not participate fully in what the larger society has to offer. So the added burden of yet another stigmatizing label is not helpful at all (Harry & Klingner, 2006).
The more compelling reason for not erroneously placing ELLs into special education is that we must ensure the most effective learning environment for these students. If an ELL is having difficulties in school because of second language issues, the best support for that student would come from expanding proficiency in English as a second language, and not from special education interventions (e.g., Damico & Hamayan, 1992; Freeman & Freeman, 2001; Genesee, Paradis, & Crago, 2004). Studies have shown that Hispanic students who were classified as learning disabled performed at a lower level after three years of special education placement (Wilkinson & Ortiz, 1986). Thus, these students may not benefit at all from the support they receive in that setting.
Another difficulty with the way special education services are provided to students in general is that it often takes a long time before any additional support is given to ELLs who are having special difficulties in school. Many school districts feel compelled to wait until a full-fledged referral has resulted in a formal categorization into special education before providing specialized support. Thus, the student remains without those specialized interventions for too long. This state of affairs is significantly influenced by some myths regarding ELLs in need of special education services.
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Source: Hamayan, E., Marler, B., Sanchez-Lopez, C, and Damico, J. (2007). "Reasons for the Misidentification of Special Needs among ELLs." Special Education Considerations for English Language Learners: Delivering a Continuum of Services. (pp.2-7). ©Caslon Publishing. Printed with permission, all rights reserved.
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In the rubble that is war, we find human sensibility
By Washington Post
Published February 25, 2007
WASHINGTON - On March 9, 1945, 346 B-29s left the Marianas, bound for Tokyo, where they dropped 1,858 tons of incendiaries that destroyed one-sixth of Japan's capital, killing 83,000. Gen. Curtis LeMay, then commander of the air assault on Japan, later wrote, "We scorched and boiled and baked to death more people in Tokyo ... than went up in vapor at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined."
That was inaccurate - 80,000 died at Hiroshima alone. And in his new biography of LeMay, Barrett Tillman writes that the general was more empathetic than his rhetoric: "He could envision a three-year-old girl screaming for her mother in a burning house." But LeMay was a warrior "whose government gave him a task that required killing large numbers of enemy civilians so the war could be won."
It has been hotly debated how much indiscriminate killing of civilians in the Asian and European theaters really was "required" and therefore was morally permissible. Even during the war there was empathy for civilian victims, at least European victims. And less than 15 years after the war, movies e.g., The Young Lions, 1958 offered sympathetic portrayals of common German soldiers swept into combat by the cyclone of a war launched by a tyrant.
But attitudes about the Japanese were especially harsh during the war and have been less softened by time. During the war, it was acceptable for a billboard - signed by Adm. William F. "Bull" Halsey - at a U.S. Navy base in the South Pacific to exhort "Kill Japs, Kill Japs, Kill More Japs." Killing America's enemies was Halsey's trade. His rhetoric, however, was symptomatic of the special ferocity, rooted in race, of the war against Japan.
In 1943, the Navy's representative on the committee considering what should be done with a defeated Japan recommended genocide - "the almost total elimination of the Japanese as a race."
Stephen Hunter, movie critic for the Washington Post, says that of the more than 600 English-language movies made about World War II since 1940, only four - most notably The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) - "have even acknowledged the humanity" of Japanese soldiers.
Perhaps empathy for the plight of the common enemy conscript is a postwar luxury; it certainly is a civilized achievement, an achievement of moral imagination that often needs the assistance of art. That is why it is notable that Clint Eastwood's Letters From Iwo Jima was one of five films nominated for Best Picture.
It is stressful viewing. An unsparing attempt to come as close as cinema can to conveying the reality of combat, specifically the fighting that killed 6,821 Americans and all but 1,083 of the 22,000 Japanese soldiers on the small (8 square miles) black lava island. Remember the searing first 15 minutes of Saving Private Ryan - the carnage at Omaha Beach? In Letters From Iwo Jima it is exceeded, with harrowing permutations.
The Japanese commander on the island, Tadamichi Kuribayashi, was - like the admiral who attacked Pearl Harbor, Isoroku Yamamoto - a cosmopolitan warrior who had lived in, and never stopped admiring, America. In 2005, a team of Japanese archaeologists scouring the island's man-made caves for artifacts of the battle found a sack of undelivered mail from Kuribayashi and other officers and soldiers. All the writers knew they faced overwhelming force - Japan had no assistance to send - and were doomed to die in accordance with the Japanese military code that forbade surrender and encouraged suicide.
Japanese forces frequently committed barbarities worse even than those of the German regular army, and it is difficult to gauge the culpability of conscripts commanded by barbarians. Be that as it may, the pathos of the letters humanizes the Japanese soldiers, whose fatalism was a reasonable response to the irrational. Viewers of this movie, while moved to pride and gratitude by the valor of the U.S. Marines, will not feel inclined to cheer. We are catching up to Capt. Philip's sensibility.George Will's e-mail address is email@example.com.
2007, Washington Post Writers Group
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Politics has never been more divisive, bitter and harsh in the United States, we're told. To that it often is added that too many politicians have forgotten the definition of "public servant."
It would be interesting to get Alexander Hamilton's take on that. The former secretary of the treasury was shot dead in a duel in 1804 - by then-Vice President Aaron Burr. After leaving the vice presidency, Burr was accused of treason in an alleged scheme to establish a new country on land included in the Louisiana Purchase. He was acquitted.
It's true that some members of Congress waste few opportunities to criticize, sometimes harshly, their political foes. But it's been a long time since senators and representatives routinely took pistols onto the floors of their respective chambers. That was common during the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s.
On a few occasions, the guns were drawn - but not used. Once, a congressman was so upset by a man testifying in a hearing that he drew a gun and threatened the fellow.
In 1856, Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts made a speech criticizing a South Carolina colleague. A couple of days later, Rep. Preston Brooks, nephew of the South Carolinian, stalked onto the Senate floor and used a cane to beat Sumner within an inch of his life.
In terms of nastiness among politicians, ask yourself when was the last time that Congress investigated a president's wife on a charge amounting to treason. It happened to Abraham Lincoln, when his fellow Republicans began looking into allegations his wife Mary was feeding information to the Confederates.
So strong was Lincoln's personality that the probe was dropped when, one day, he walked unannounced into a congressional hearing and told the lawmakers he would vouch for his wife's patriotism.
Still think politics is too brutal these days?
Ah, but the scandals and conspiracies these days! At least that didn't happen in the good old days. Or did it?
The first really juicy scandal in American politics involved a journalist named James Callendar, who reported that President Thomas Jefferson had children with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings. At the time, the accusation was so scandalous Jefferson was able to overcome it. Now, DNA evidence suggests strongly that Callendar was right.
On July 17, 1803, Callendar's body was found floating in three feet of water in the James River at Richmond, Va. The story was he'd been so drunk he drowned accidentally. How many books would modern-day conspiracy theorists get out of that one?
Then there was the famous attack opponents of Grover Cleveland used when he was running for president in 1884. It seems Cleveland had an affair with a woman, who gave birth to a son. When the opposition got ahold of that, they spread the chant, "Ma, ma, where's my pa? Gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha!"
More recently - with, I'm sorry to say, the complicity of some in the press - President John F. Kennedy was notorious for his affairs. His girlfriends included Marilyn Monroe and a woman linked to a Mafia boss. Some of his trysts occurred in the White House. Yet while he was president, not a word of it was reported.
Americans ourselves are more polarized than ever, we're told. Did the talking heads who make that claim miss the Vietnam era and the civil rights battles? Or how about the Civil War? Here where we live, there was a bit of polarization leading up to 1863, when we decided our differences with our fellow Virginians were so deep we had to break away and form our own state.
Now that's polarization.
Among the boldest power grabs ever made by a president was Franklin D. Roosevelt's court packing scheme. Roosevelt didn't like some Supreme Court rulings over his New Deal programs - so he tried to get Congress to pass a law allowing him to appoint enough new justices to, in effect, give himself a majority. It failed.
So, are we Americans and our politicians more polarized than ever? Not even close.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Mike Myer is executive editor of The Intelligencer and the Wheeling News-Register. He can be reached via e-mail at firstname.lastname@example.org
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Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Figure 1: USS Palmer (DD-161) underway at high speed, probably during her trials, circa late 1918. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 2: USS Palmer underway, 26 February 1919. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 3: USS Palmer in a harbor, circa 1919. Courtesy of Jim Kazalis, 1981. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 4: USS Palmer photographed from the air while underway, circa 1919-1921. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 5: Destroyers laid up in reserve at San Diego, California, probably in 1922 or shortly thereafter. Ships nearest the camera are: USS Palmer (DD-161), in left center; USS Crane (DD-109), in right center; and USS Stansbury (DD-180), at right. Courtesy of ESKC Joseph L. Aguillard, USNR, 1969. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Named after Rear Admiral James Shedden Palmer who died in 1867, the USS Palmer (DD-161) was a 1,060-ton Little class destroyer built by the Fore River Shipbuilding Company at Quincy, Massachusetts. The ship was commissioned shortly after the end of World War I on 22 November 1918 and was approximately 314 feet long and 31 feet wide. Palmer was armed with four 4-inch guns, two 3-inch guns, 12 21-inch torpedoes and depth charges. She had a top speed of 35 knots and a crew of 122 officers and men.
Palmer was assigned to the Pacific Fleet and was based on the West Coast until she was decommissioned at San Diego on 31 May 1922. She remained in reserve until being re-commissioned on 7 August 1940. Palmer was converted into a fast minesweeper and re-designated DMS-5 on 19 November. She was sent to the Atlantic and was given minesweeping and escort assignments that would constitute the bulk of her duties for the next three years. Palmer participated in the invasion of Morocco, but was sent back to the Pacific to take part in the invasion of the Marshall Islands in January and February 1944. Palmer also escorted shipping between Hawaii and the central Pacific and went on to take part in the invasions of Saipan and Guam in June and July 1944. On 17 October 1944, Palmer assisted in sweeping the main channels near Leyte Gulf prior to the American invasion of the Philippines. She also escorted transports through the swept channels during the actual invasion.
On 7 January 1945, Palmer was part of the American invasion force that was about to attack the island of Luzon in the Philippines. While on a minesweeping mission in Lingayen Gulf, Palmer struck a mine. A large explosion followed, but Palmer remained afloat and the crew tried valiantly to save its ship. Progress was made in repairing the damage caused by the explosion, but three hours after the blast a Japanese twin-engine bomber flew in low over the ship and dropped two bombs, both of which hit the port side of the ship. The bomb blasts started an enormous fire that engulfed most of the ship and caused substantial damage below the waterline. Palmer started to go down while men frantically jumped into the sea to get away from the stricken warship. Palmer sank in just six minutes. Twenty-eight crewmembers were killed and 38 were wounded.
Ironically, Palmer was a ship that was built for one war but was sunk in another. She also spent 18 years in reserve before having an outstanding five-year career in World War II. Palmer proved that a ship could be kept in reserve for a number of years and still be a valuable wartime asset. Palmer received five battle stars for her service in World War II.
Posted by Remo at 8:58 AM
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Figure 1: The five Sullivan Brothers on board USS Juneau (CL-52) at the time of her commissioning ceremonies at the New York Navy Yard, 14 February 1942. All were lost with the ship following the 13 November 1942 Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. The brothers are (from left to right): Joseph, Francis, Albert, Madison and George Sullivan. They were adamant about serving together in spite of the US Navy wartime policy to separate family members. Surviving the brothers were their parents, Thomas and Alleta, their sister Genevieve, and the youngest brothers’ wife, Katherine, and their son, James. The family today includes two grandchildren of Albert Sullivan: Kelly Ann Sullivan Loughren and John Sullivan. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 2: Letter that was sent by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the parents of the Sullivan brothers, all of whom were lost after the 13 November 1942 Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 3: USS Juneau (CL-52) photographed off New York City, 1 June 1942. She has a barge alongside her starboard quarter. Her superstructure retains its original camouflage scheme, but her hull has been repainted to a different pattern. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 4: USS Juneau off New York City, 1 June 1942, with a Lee and Simmons company barge alongside. Note differing camouflage schemes applied to hull and superstructure. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 5: "The five Sullivan brothers, ‘missing in action' off the Solomons, THEY DID THEIR PART," Office of War Information poster 42, number 1943-0-510254. It shows the Sullivan brothers on board USS Juneau (CL-52) in early 1942. All were lost with Juneau on 13 November of that year. Donation of the Steamship Historical Society of America, 1965. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Albert, Francis, George, Joseph, and Madison Sullivan were born in Waterloo, Iowa, between 1914 and 1920. George and Francis enlisted in the Navy in 1937. Their three bothers enlisted in the Navy in early 1942, shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. All five brothers strongly requested that they not be separated, even though US Navy policy during World War II was to prevent family members from serving on board the same ship. Their request, though, was granted and all five of the brothers were assigned to the commissioning crew of the USS Juneau (CL-52), a 6,000-ton Atlanta class light cruiser built at Kearny, New Jersey. The ship was officially commissioned in February 1942 and, after a shakedown cruise in the Atlantic and the Caribbean, Juneau was sent to the South Pacific in August 1942.
Juneau took part in the massive naval battles off the coast of Guadalcanal and was near the carrier USS Wasp (CV-7) when that ship was sunk on 15 September 1942. Juneau also took part in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands on 26-27 October, in which the carrier USS Hornet (CV-8) was lost. Japanese and American task forces then ran into each other in the early morning hours of 13 November 1942, and what followed was the famous “Friday the 13th” naval battle for Guadalcanal. During this vicious fight, Juneau was torpedoed and badly damaged. The ship remained afloat although a number of the crew was killed or wounded. One of the wounded was George Sullivan, but he was treated and then sent back to his battle station next to the depth charge racks. The next morning, the Japanese submarine I-26 spotted the American warships that had survived the previous night’s battle and fired two torpedoes. The first torpedo missed all of the ships but the second hit Juneau. A massive explosion ensued, blowing a few of the surviving crewmen off the ship and into the water. What was left of Juneau after the explosion sank almost immediately.
The remaining American warships saw the explosion and assumed that none of the crewmen could have survived the catastrophe. Also, since the torpedoes indicated there were enemy submarines in the area, the battered US ships decided to withdraw and not search for survivors, reasoning that any search would endanger the remaining crippled warships.
But there were survivors. One of them was George Sullivan, who had been thrown off the ship by the explosion. He swam desperately in the oil-stained sea, frantically searching for his four brothers. Approximately 100 men survived the explosion, most of them severely injured and now bobbing in the ocean in their life jackets. George swam from survivor to survivor, checking to see if any of them were his brothers. The men eventually found three life rafts in the debris field left by the sunken ship. Some of the survivors clung to the rafts, while most of the severely wounded slipped away and died. The next day, 14 November, George and a few other men were still alive. That day sharks began attacking the survivors who were nearby but still in the water. Gradually the sharks, along with the lack of water and medical attention, began claiming most of the men.
The following day, the remaining survivors were divided among the three life rafts. There were eight men in one raft, 19 in the second, and roughly 12 more in the third, including George Sullivan. After the fourth day, George became delirious and turned to Allen Heyn, one of the other men in the raft, and said that he was going to swim to shore and take a bath. George stripped off his clothes, jumped into the water, and started swimming for what he thought was land. Then Allen Heyn heard the terrible screams as the sharks attacked George and pulled him beneath the waves. The last Sullivan brother was gone.
On 20 November, seven days after the loss of the Juneau, an American destroyer found George Sullivan’s raft. Allen Heyn was the only survivor. In all, only 10 men survived out of a crew of 695 officers and men. It was the first time since the Civil War that one family had lost five sons in battle. The country was devastated by the news, but the remaining members of the Sullivan family banded together and encouraged the rest of the country to continue the war effort. Mr. and Mrs. Tom and Alleta Sullivan, the parents of the five boys, even helped to christen a new destroyer in February 1943 that was named USS The Sullivans (DD-537), in honor of their five children. The tradition continues today with the Arleigh Burke class destroyer, DDG-68, which also was named USS The Sullivans. The ship was commissioned in 1997 and still serves in the US fleet.
Memorial Day is the only day of the year on this blog where we highlight individuals and not ships. This year, Memorial Day is on 26 May and it is only fitting and proper that we take time out to remember the families who have given so very much in defense of this nation. The sacrifice made by the Sullivan boys and their family must be remembered by this and future generations of Americans. We should also be humbled by the notion that there still are families and individuals in this country who are willing to sacrifice everything for this land of ours.
Posted by Remo at 6:53 AM
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Figure 1: USS Tucker (DD-374) completion photograph, taken off the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Virginia, 2 March 1937. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 2: USS Tucker (DD-374) completion photograph, taken off the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Virginia, 2 March 1937. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 3: USS Tucker underway on 28 April 1938. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 4: USS Tucker off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 11 March 1942. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 5: USS Tucker "jackknifed" amidships and under tow by USS YP-346 in the Bruat Channel, Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides, at about 2330 Hrs. GCT, 3 August 1942. Tucker had struck a mine in the area at about 2145 Hrs. GCT on that day, breaking her keel. She sank on 4 August. Photographed from a plane based on USS Curtiss (AV-4). U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 6: USS Tucker "jackknifed" amidships and under tow toward the northwest corner of Malo Island at about 0315 Hrs. GCT on 4 August 1942. She is being towed by a motor launch from the Naval Air Station, Segond Channel, Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides, in a final attempt to beach her before she sank. USS Breese (DM-18) is standing by, in the foreground. Tucker had struck a mine in the area at about 2145 Hrs. GCT on 3 August 1942, breaking her keel. She sank on 4 August. Photographed from a plane based on USS Curtiss (AV-4). U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 7: USS Tucker sunk near Malo Island, Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides, on 5 August 1942. She struck a mine after entering an unannounced defensive minefield during the evening of 3 August and sank early the following morning. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Named after Captain Samuel Tucker, an American naval hero during the Revolutionary War, the 1,500-ton USS Tucker (DD-374) was a Mahan class destroyer that was built at the Norfolk Navy Yard in Virginia. The ship was commissioned on 23 July 1936 and was approximately 341 feet long and 34 feet wide, had a top speed of 36.5 knots and carried a crew of 158 officers and men. Tucker was armed with five 5-inch guns, 12 21-inch torpedo tubes and depth charges.
Following her shakedown cruise in the western Atlantic, Tucker was assigned to the destroyer forces of the US Battle Fleet based at San Diego, California. She remained in the Pacific (cruising between the West Coast and the Hawaiian Islands) until 1940, except for a brief period of time when Tucker took part in Fleet Problem XX, a naval exercise that was held in the Caribbean and was personally observed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on board the USS Houston (CA-30). With tensions rising between the United States and Japan, Tucker was sent from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, to Auckland, New Zealand, arriving there on 17 March 1941 on a good will visit that was designed to “show the flag” in the South Pacific. Tucker returned to Pearl Harbor after her trip to New Zealand and took part in some fleet exercises before returning to her homeport in San Diego on 19 September 1941. After a brief stay there, the ship was sent back to Pearl Harbor where she began patrolling the waters around the Hawaiian Islands.
On 7 December 1941, Tucker was moored at berth X-8, East Loch, Pearl Harbor, in the center of a group of five destroyers and the tender USS Whitney (AD-4). Gunner’s Mate 2nd Class W.E. Bowe was on board Tucker and quickly manned a machine gun on the ship’s after superstructure as soon as he saw the Japanese planes attacking the surrounding warships. He began firing his machine gun even before the alarm for general quarters was sounded. Approximately two minutes later, the ship’s after 5-inch guns began firing as well, joining the antiaircraft gunfire that was coming from the other destroyers that surrounded Tucker. Soon the five destroyers put up a curtain of lead that brought down two of the attacking Japanese aircraft. Fortunately, Tucker was not damaged during the attack.
After the attack, Tucker patrolled the waters outside of Pearl Harbor. She went on to spend the next five months escorting convoys between the West Coast and Hawaii. Tucker then was sent to the South Pacific. She escorted the USS Wright (AV-1) to Tutuila, American Samoa, and the pair then sailed on to Suva in the Fiji Islands. The two ships next went to Noumea, New Caledonia, and then to Sydney, Australia, arriving there on 27 April 1942. After that, Tucker made port visits to Melbourne, Perth and Fremantle before returning to Sydney. Tucker escorted Wright once again to Suva, arriving there on 3 June 1942. The pair operated out of that base until 10 July, when Tucker relieved the USS Boise (CL-47) for convoy escort duties. On 30 July, Tucker arrived at Auckland and was sent back to the Fiji Islands the next day.
After arriving back at Suva, Tucker received orders to escort the freighter SS Nira Luckenbach to Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides. On 1 August 1942, the two ships departed Suva. Because of a communications failure, the two ships were not informed that they were heading directly for an American defensive minefield that was laid on 2 August near Espiritu Santo. As a result, at 2145 on 3 August Tucker hit a mine that almost immediately broke the destroyer’s back. Six men were killed in the explosion and the Nira Luckenbach quickly sent over lifeboats to rescue the crew of the stricken destroyer. The next morning, 4 August, the YP-346 and the USS Breese (DMS-18) arrived on the scene and tried to tow the Tucker into shallower water to make salvage operations easier. But as soon as the rescue ships tried to take the Tucker into tow, what was left of the destroyer broke in two, jack-knifed, and sank.
The destruction of the Tucker shows that ships can be lost in wartime by sheer accident. This tragic event not only cost the lives of six men, but it also prevented a badly needed US destroyer from taking part in the upcoming naval battle for Guadalcanal. The Japanese had just scored a victory without having to lift a finger, a bitter lesson for the US Navy.
Posted by Remo at 8:23 AM
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Figure 1: USS Decatur (DD-341) underway during the 1920s or 1930s. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 2: USS Decatur in the Panama Canal during the 1920s or 1930s. Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation. Collection of Harriet A. Harris, USN(NC)-Retired. Donated by Mrs. J.B. Redfield, 1961. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 3: USS Decatur underway during the Fleet Review, 4 June 1927. USS Paul Hamilton (DD-307) is partially visible in the left distance. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 4: USS Decatur off the New York Navy Yard, 7 August 1943. Courtesy of A.D. Baker III. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the Collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 5: USS Decatur off the New York Navy Yard, 7 August 1943. Courtesy of A.D. Baker III. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the Collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 6: USS Yorktown (CV-5) with other ships at Pier 7, Naval Operating Base, Norfolk, Virginia, on 19 October 1937. The other ships present are (from left to right): USS Texas (BB-35); USS Decatur (DD-341); USS Jacob Jones (DD-130) and USS Kewaydin (AT-24). Note automobiles parked in the foreground. Photograph from Department of the Navy collections in the U.S. National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.
Named after the famous American Commodore Stephen Decatur, the 1,190-ton USS Decatur (DD-341) was a Clemson class destroyer built at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California. She was commissioned on 9 August 1922 and was the last of the more than 270 four-stack “flush-deck” destroyers built after World War I. The Decatur was approximately 314 feet long and 30 feet wide, had a top speed of 36 knots and carried a crew of 126 officers and men. The ship was armed with four 4-inch guns, two 3-inch guns, four 21-inch torpedo tubes and depth charges.
Soon after completing her sea trials off the coast of San Diego, California, the Decatur was placed out of commission on 17 January 1923. But she was re-commissioned on 26 September 1923 and was made the flagship of Destroyer Squadron 11 of the Battle Fleet. From 1923 to 1937, the Decatur patrolled the West Coast of the United States, while making occasional trips to Hawaii, the Caribbean and Atlantic coast ports. She also took part in the Battle Fleet’s cruise to Samoa, New Zealand and Australia in 1925, made an extensive survey of the Mexican coast in 1926, and participated in the Presidential Fleet Review in 1930.
By 1937 the Decatur was stationed at Norfolk, Virginia, as a training ship and she escorted the Presidential Yacht Potomac (AG-25) to New Orleans and Texas that same year. She was used to train Midshipmen and Naval Reservists, but also took part in Neutrality Patrols along the Eastern Seaboard until September 1941.
On 14 September 1941, the Decatur arrived at Argentia, Newfoundland, and assisted in escorting convoys to Iceland until 17 May 1942. From mid-1942 to January 1943, the Decatur escorted convoys from East Coast ports to the Caribbean and in February 1943 she began escorting convoys across the Atlantic and into the Mediterranean. On 24 November 1943, the Decatur was attached to an anti-submarine task group centered on the escort carrier USS Card (CVE-11). The task group returned to New York on 3 January 1944. From 26 January to 17 February the Decatur escorted a convoy to Panama and then escorted yet another convoy from Panama to Hampton Roads, Virginia. On 13 March 1944, the Decatur left Norfolk as flagship of Task Force 64, which escorted a large convoy to Bizerte, Tunisia. On 31 March, while steaming between Oran and Algiers, Task Force 64 successfully fought off an attack by German aircraft and submarines. The convoy reached its destination on 3 April. Eight days later, the Decatur steamed back to the United States, arriving at Boston on 2 May for an overhaul.
The Decatur was in Norfolk on 2 July 1944 and escorted convoys in the Caribbean until the end of June 1945, when she was sent to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for inactivation. She was decommissioned there on 28 July 1945 and sold for scrapping on 30 November of that same year.
The USS Decatur was literally the last of her kind, the final four-stack “flush-deck” destroyer built after the end of World War I. Too late to see any action in the First World War, the Decatur certainly proved her worth in the Second. The Decatur was assigned the vital (yet vastly underrated) job of convoy escort and she assisted hundreds of defenseless merchant ships in reaching their destinations. The US Navy had to make do with these old and outdated destroyers during the early days of World War II until more modern escorts could be built. Never given the recognition they deserved, none of these famous warships survive today as floating museums and that is a pity.
Posted by Remo at 8:50 AM
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Encompassing the flowing Yangtze river, the Yunnan valleys and the highest peak on earth, Mount Everest, China is a vast country that displays impressive variety in its geography. The country boasts a number of different climates, which foster many types of native plants and flowers. Many Chinese flowers can be cultivated in gardens throughout the world.
A member of the bean family, Chinese wisteria (Wisteria sinensis) is a small deciduous tree or woody vine native to China. The fast-growing plant is prized among gardeners for its cascading blooms, which are heavily fragrant and available in colors ranging from purple to lilac, blue or white. The vine does well in a range of conditions and will thrive in USDA hardiness zones 3 to 9. The plant prefers a sunny location and a well-draining, average soil. Water the plant as needed, and prune if desired. Chinese wisteria is considered invasive in some areas, so check an invasive plant list before cultivating. The less aggressive American wisteria (Wisteria frutescens) is recommended for gardeners in Florida.
Blossoming as early as mid-winter, Chinese jasmine (Jasminum polyanthum) is a sprawling shrub or vine that boasts glossy green leaves and heavily fragrant, waxy white blooms. A native of China, Chinese jasmine may reach up to 10 feet in length. The plant is commonly used as a fragrant border, or as an accent to a trellis or entryway. The vine is adaptable to a variety of soils, from neutral or alkaline to acidic. Chinese jasmine is a warm weather lover that is best suited to cultivation in full or partial sunlight in USDA zones 8 to 11. The plant may have a prolonged bloom period in warmer zones. Water the vine as needed: more in the summer, less in the winter.
A member of the nightshade family, devil's trumpet (Datura metel) is a flowering annual native to Southern China and parts of Asia. The plant reaches an average height of between 3 and 5 feet, sporting broad, jagged green leaves and purple-tinged white flowers, which are trumpet shaped. Flowers may also be pure white, yellow or bluish. Devil's trumpet grows best in full sunlight in USDA zones 7 to 10. An average, moisture-retentive soil is fine for this plant, which only requires water during summer droughts. Like other members of the nightshade family, devil's trumpet is highly toxic. Children and pets should be kept away from the plant, as it may cause serious illness if ingested.
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Upper Parana Atlantic Forest
Charlie Howe (MLA '10) 2009
Sponsors: Penny White Fellowship
World Wildlife Fund lists the Upper Parana Atlantic Forest as one of the worlds most diverse. It is, also, one of the most threatened. At the juncture of Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil this sub-tropical forest offers inexpensive land to subsistence farmers, cattle ranchers, and large soy producers. "Colonists understand the ecological function of the forest though they continue to clear land both for profit and survival," explained 2009 winner Charlie Howe, MLA 2010, who recently returned from nine weeks of travel in rural Paraguay.
Charlie visited five of the newest subsistence settlements in Paraguay’s Atlantic Forest. He photographed these frontier settlements, living with the newly arrived colonists." Life is not easy in new farm colonies, but with rich soil and plenty of raw resources there is a sense of optimism." This investigation comes at a precarious time in the Upper Parana Atlantic Forest with virgin tracts nearly exhausted.
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Third, Fourth, Fifth Grade Science Activities
This science fair project idea attempts to train a worm to complete a simple maze in order to find out if worms can learn and remember.
This science fair project creates a visual model of whatâs happening to sound waves as a car approaches and then leaves.
In this free science fair project idea, we model the movement of worms and fish by analyzing their swim bladder and peristalsis movement methods.
This science fair project idea explores the different parts of the human ear and models how the human ear reacts to sound waves.
Kids will learn how to show the direction of magnetic field lines and create a permanent model using iron filings in this great science fair project idea.
This fun elementary school science fair project idea helps students in designing an amusement park using their knowledge of forces and simple machines.
Looking for a fun project on energy? Check out this fun elementary school science fair project idea that demonstrates chemical energy in a bottle.
This science fair project examines how seeds hitchhike on animals and clothing.
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://www.education.com/collection/ckamerman/fourth-grade-science-activities/?page=3
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Americans who are religious are more likely to be happy, healthy ... and hefty?
According to research from Northwestern University, youths of a healthy weight who frequently participated in religious activities were twice as likely to become obese by middle age than their less-religious peers.
Even when controlling for race, sex, education and income -- several factors that could independently be affecting likelihood of obesity, this affect remained. Researchers drew on data from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults study, which tracked weight and a number of physical and behavioral variables, including religious involvement, in more than 2,000 men and women over the past two decades.
"We had previously found that those with high religious involvement were more likely to be obese [as middle-aged or older adults], but we wanted to follow people over time to make sure that people who are religious are more likely to become obese, not that people who weigh more are more likely to turn to religion," said Mathew Feinstein, lead author of the study and an M.D. candidate at Northwestern University.
Several studies, including some of Feinstein's past work, have found an association between high religious involvement and obesity, but the studies didn't necessarily find an association between religiosity and negative health outcomes, such as markers of cardiovascular disease. Indeed, several studies link faith to an increased lifespan, more positive mood, and avoidance of unhealthy behaviors like drinking and smoking.
In the current study, for instance, the more frequently participants attended religious services, the less likely they were to smoke. The avoidance of such unhealthy behaviors may explain, in part, why religious people live longer, said Feinstein. But why they tend to put on more weight than their less-religious peers remains a bit of a mystery.
Faith and Fat: Why Religiosity May Tip the Scales
Feinstein posits that one possible explanation for the link between religiosity and weight may be that religious gatherings may center on unhealthy or high-calorie meals, thus creating a habitual association with religious works and overeating.
"Social aspects of religion almost invariably involve food and feasting," said Dr. David Katz, director and founder of Yale University's Prevention Research Center.
Many diet experts thought that an attitude shift among people of faith may also be behind the link.
"Another possible explanation is that religion encourages a focus on the afterlife and might thus distract a bit from focusing on the health goals in this one," said Katz.
Another possibility is that religious people take a fatalistic attitude towards their health, which Katz has seen in his own work.
"It's in God's hands, so I will just let come what may" is the attitude some take, he said.
Carla Wolper, a registered nurse at the Obesity Research Center at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in New York, agreed with that possibility, saying that believing that God is control of one's life may reduce the likelihood that those of faith take matters into their own hands and make changes.
A sociological study on the topic posited that associations between obesity and faith may have to do with a prioritization of certain sins over others. Sociologists Krista Cline and Kenneth Ferraro noted that, in America, religions tend to focus on constraining sins such as smoking, drinking and promiscuity, while gluttony became a more acceptable vice to indulge in.
Dr. Keith Ayoob, director of the Nutrition Clinic at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, added that amid the atmosphere of restriction, food can also become "a legitimate, socially acceptable drug."
Bible Belt vs. Obesity Belt and Towards a Religious Solution
While the association between religiosity and obesity was strong in the study, both Feinstein and diet experts warned against concluding that religious affiliation definitely causes obesity. More likely, there are other factors, such as the health attitudes and lifestyle choices discussed above, that are associated with both religious faith and the tendency to overeat.
One such mediating factor may have been where participants were living. The southeastern part of the United States, often referred to as the Bible Belt, has the highest concentration of religious populations and also contains some of the states with the highest prevalence of obesity.
While Feinstein's study draws on populations from around the country (Alabama, Minnesota, Illinois, and California), researchers did not control for location and, hence, it may have been that the Alabama participants skewed the association by having large populations of overweight and highly religious participants.
Whether religious faith was predisposing church-goers towards mid-life obesity or other factors associated with religious involvement were controlling the association, Feinstein pointed out that anti-obesity initiatives may do well to have specific outreach to religious populations.
Anecdotally, "faith-based" exercise programs have had success in religious communities heavily burdened with obesity and co-morbid conditions such as diabetes and heart disease. For instance, one Los Angeles-based program had elderly black women pair scripture readings, group prayer and exercise education with much success.
"Religion can be a tool we can use for those at risk," said Ayoob. "This study may be a wake-up call that we need to use religious ideas to convey health messages that mean something to people [of faith]. Make diet and exercise an extension of their religious dedication."
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| 0.971909
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|Expected rate of return||RATE_OF_RETURN|
|Years of inflation||YEARS_TO_SAVE years|
The underlying data supplies an annual CPI rate and a base amount which represents the relative purchasing power for that year. For example, in 1980 the base amount was 82.4 compared to 224.9 in 2011. In this example, $224.90 in 2011 would have the same purchasing power as $82.40 in 1980. The calculations use the base amounts to calculate the difference between any two years. There are small data discrepancies and loss of precision through rounding in the underlying data supplied by the Federal Reserve. These discrepancies can cause differences between the annual change in base amounts and the stated CPI rate for any given year.
It is important to remember that these scenarios are hypothetical and that future rates of return can't be predicted with certainty and that investments that pay higher rates of return are generally subject to higher risk and volatility. The actual rate of return on investments can vary widely over time, especially for long-term investments. This includes the potential loss of principal on your investment. It is not possible to invest directly in an index and the compounded rate of return noted above does not reflect sales charges and other fees that Separate Account investment funds and/or investment companies may charge.
© 1998-2016 KJE Computer Solutions, LLC
Financial Calculators at http://www.dinkytown.net
1730 New Brighton Blvd. PMB #111
Minneapolis, MN 55413
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Identifying At-Risk Students
At one time or another, everyone feels depressed or upset. However, there are three levels of student distress which, when present over a period of time, suggest that the problems are more than the ‘normal' reactions to life stressors.
Level 1 Distress
Although not disruptive to others in the classroom or elsewhere, these behaviors in students may indicate that something is wrong, and that help may be needed:
- Serious grade problems.
- Unaccountable change from good to poor performance.
- Change from frequent attendance to excessive absences.
- Change in pattern of interaction.
- Marked change in mood, motor activity, or speech.
- Marked change in physical appearance.
Level 2 Disturbance
These behaviors in students may indicate significant emotional distress, or a reluctance or inability to acknowledge a need for personal help:
- Repeated request for special consideration.
- New or regularly occurring behavior which pushes the limits and may interfere with class management, or be disruptive to others.
- Unusual or exaggerated emotional response.
Level 3 Dysregulation
These behaviors may show that the student is in crisis and needs emergency care:
- Highly disruptive behavior (hostility, aggression, etc.).
- Inability to communicate clearly (garbled, slurred speech, disjointed thoughts).
- Loss of contact with reality (seeing/hearing things that are not there, beliefs or actions at odds with reality).
- Overt suicidal thoughts (suicide is a current option).
- Homicidal threats.
- Individuals deficient in skills that regulate emotion, cognition, self, behavior, and relationships.
What You Can Do
Responses to Level 1 or 2 Behaviors
- Calmly talk to the student in private when you both have time.
- Express your concern in non-judgmental terms.
- Listen to the student and repeat the gist of what the student is saying.
- Clarify the costs and benefits of each option for handling the problem from the student's point of view.
- Respect the student's value system.
- Ask if the student is considering suicide.
- Make appropriate referrals if necessary.
- Make sure the student understands what action is necessary.
Responses to Level 3 Behavior
- Stay calm.
- Contact the BIT and/or emergency responders right away.
Talking to Students About Your Concerns
Be cognizant about the limits of your ability to help. You can help them get the support they need by informing them of our counseling services. Explain that students visit the counselor for a variety of reasons. If a student is receptive to seeing a counselor, provide them with the Counseling and Life Development phone number 314-968-7030, or walk them over to the Counseling and Life Development office. Some statements that might help you start a dialogue are:
- “Sounds like you are really struggling with _________. Many people find it helpful to talk confidentially with someone that is outside of the situation.”
- “I want to help you get the help you need and deserve.”
- “Meeting with a University counselor is confidential, free, and will not go on your academic record.”
- “These are services your tuition pays for; take advantage of them.”
Do's and Don'ts for Responding to Suicide Gestures
- DO show that you take the student's feelings seriously.
- DO let the student know that you want to help.
- DO listen attentively and empathize.
- DO reassure that, with help and motivation, (s)he can develop a more positive outlook.
- DO stay close until help is available, or the risk has passed.
- DON'T try to shock or challenge the student.
- DON'T assume the student is only seeking attention.
- DON'T become argumentative.
- DON'T react with shock or disdain at the student's thoughts and feelings.
- DON'T discount the student's distress.
More Tips for Faculty
In the Classroom
- Create opportunities for connections in your classroom and work to engage the withdrawn, or socially isolated, student.
- Phrase feedback positively whenever possible.
- During critiques, emphasize the purpose, process, and benefit of them. Seek to normalize the experience by using examples, such as an invited upperclassman's work.
- Understand that some students lack basic life skills and are playing catch-up in many areas.
- Identify the Counseling and Life Development counselors (314-968-7030), as a resource regarding self-care, stress management, test anxiety, depression, or other pertinent topics.
Outside the Classroom
- Refer students to programs that will help them improve study skills and time management (academic resource center, writing center).
- Identify career counseling as a tool for personal growth. Contact career services at 314-968-6982 for more information.
- Encourage student involvement in events, campus clubs, or community activities. Contact John Ginsburg, director of university center and student activities, for ideas, handouts or resources at 314-968-7105.
- Inform students with disabilities about the self-identification process to utilize accommodations. Contact Barbara Stewart, director of academic resource center at 314-968-7495 for more information.
- Engage with students at activities and on campus – they will feel valued!
- Consult with the BIT as needed for feedback. We are here to support the students and you!
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://www.webster.edu/bit/resources.html
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While stories exists in which people stand up for those with disabilities, there are also an alarming number of reports of discrimination against them. Perhaps most disturbing are the reports of sexual and physical violence against people with disabilities — and the consequences that those experiences have on those involved.
A recent report shows that people with disabilities are more likely to be the recipients of physical and sexual violence — and that they are at a high risk for suffering from subsequent mental ill-health following the ordeals.
The recent World Report on Disability highlighted violence as a leading cause of death among disabled people. The research was published on February 20, and assessed how often people with disabilities — both mental and physical — experience various kinds of violence. The authors of the report analyzed information from the 2009-2010 British Crime Survey to estimate the odds of a person with physical or mental disabilities experiencing physical, sexual, domestic or non-domestic violence.
The survey did not include people with disabilities who live in group homes or institutions.
Report authors found that the odds of being a victim of violence is greatly increased if one has a disability. The chances of being a victim of sexual or physical violence is three times higher for those with mental illness-related disabilities. The chances are two times higher for those with physical disabilities.
It is important to note that not only are people with disabilities more likely to be victims of violence, but they are twice as likely to “experience emotional difficulties following violence” than other victims.
The authors reports that the purpose of their investigation is to highlight the need for medical professionals to be aware of the greater risks of domestic and non-domestic violence for those with disabilities.
What do you think could be done to decrease the risk of violence for those with disabilities?
[Image via Shutterstock]
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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Students flooded the halls with their bodies and noise as they made their way to the auditorium on the afternoon of April 1, 2010 for an assembly on climate change. Teachers were invited to allow their last period classes to attend this assembly put on by ACE (Alliance for Climate Education). The sixth grade classes from the Smith College Campus School were also invited and in attendance. Tom Weiner, one of the sixth grade teachers, helped to initiate the presentation by connecting ACE with NHS.
Members of the NHS Environmental Club began the assembly by announcing upcoming events sponsored by the club. They also invited students to attend a question and answer session immediately following the assembly. Finally, they introduced Julian Rodriguez-Drix from ACE and the high-energy assembly (on conserving energy!) commenced.
Julian ran the presentation with style and flare. His interactive multimedia presentation and lecture was upbeat, captivating, and engaging, making it a truly entertaining and fun experience for the youth who were in attendance. He left scare tactics, which are often used in climate change education, at the door and, instead, gave students serious facts that they could relate to their everyday lives. He dealt with issues of climate change in a positive and non-judgmental way by raising students' awareness of the problem at hand and the methods by which they are actively polluting and contributing to global warming. The presentation explained how climate change has been caused and continued by social influence and our culture of consumption. Students learned how their seemingly minimal consumption is connected to huge companies, large usage of fossil fuels, and incredible amounts of waste. Julian clearly summarized his message in his statement, “We're all wrapped up in [an] economic cycle that just leads to garbage.” He also discussed “super-sized” American living, excessive use of non-renewable resources, and the results of pollution in an urgent, but humorous, manner.
Julian told students that they were not to blame for the current state of our environment, but that they had to be responsible for changing it. He encouraged students to use their imaginations to combat climate change. “If the ideas aren't out there yet, they're somewhere inside you now, in your hearts, in your heads.” He then played an inspirational video, which depicted the students celebrating the hypothetical environmental changes they had made at their high school reunion forty years later. This video not only suggested a possible plan of action for the adolescent generation to take, but it also provided a positive feeling that this is a problem that they can, and must, take on. Afterward, Julian roused the audience and urged them to take a stand. He ended the assembly by encouraging students to text ACE to make their own commitment to change, creating both an energetic frenzy to pull out cell phones and an overwhelming explosion of chatter in response to his presentation.
Both high schoolers and sixth graders exited the auditorium full of hope and anticipation to act against climate change. Many high school students attended the question and answer session with Julian Rodriguez-Drix and the Environmental Club, while others provided their email addresses to be contacted with additional information about ACE. The Smith College Campus School sixth graders rushed back to their own classrooms to discuss and write about their responses to the assembly.
With Earth Day around the corner, the NHS Environmental Club has many events coming up in the future. During the week of April 26, 2010, there will be a showing of the film Food Inc, a sampling of locally grown foods, various Earth Day art displays, and a composting option during lunch periods. The week of May 17, 2010 is Bike Week, during which NHS students are encouraged to ride their bikes to school. Competitions will be held and those who participate will receive tasty treats from the Environmental Club.
For more information on ACE, check out their website:. Schools or other institutions interested in scheduling their own assembly can do so through the group's website.
By Darleen Hostetler
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The mature crown consists of a branched leafy canopy
in which flower buds, flowers, fruits and seed are formed. The leaves
of a mature crown are adult in most species but in many others, leaf
advance is arrested at the juvenile phase and the tree is reproductively
mature when in juvenile, not adult leaf. In the development of any
eucalypt there is no distinct point at which the juvenile stage changes
to the intermediate and the intermediate leaves become adult. The
stages are useful although imprecise reference points.
Every leaf begins as a minute bundle of cells,
whether it is on a seedling or a grown plant. The ultimate functional
structure is a mature leaf which can be on a eucalypt plant at any
growth stage. This means that there are mature seedling leaves,
mature juvenile leaves, mature adult leaves etc. and the term "mature"
must not be used interchangeably with the word "adult".
In the great majority of eucalypts, the leaves
are formed in the following sequence. The first recognizable organ
to emerge from a germinating seed is the root which pierces the
seedcoat and penetrates downwards. It is usually white and covered
with fine hairs. Then an aerial shoot appears and a pair of cotyledons
soon unfold. These are situated on the opposite sides of a "square"
stem (a seedlot will occasionally produce seedlings with cotyledons
in threes placed symmetrically around a six-sided stem, but this
condition changes to the normal four-sided stem after a few nodes).
Above the cotyledons, the true leaves are formed
in opposite pairs (see exceptions next paragraph), each succeeding
pair being at right angles to the pair below. While the leaves in
most species continue to be formed in opposite pairs for the whole
life of the tree (this can be checked at the growing tips on a mature
crown), from the late seedling to the adult stage the leaves become
displaced at their point of attachment on the stem such that they
appear to be alternate. In many species, however, the leaf development
does not advance to the adult stage, and the crown is composed of
opposite, (broad, usually glaucous juvenile) leaves for the life
of the tree. In only a few species is the mature crown composed
exclusively of opposite, apparently adult (lanceolate or falcate,
green) leaves e.g. E. doratoxylon, E. erythrocorys.
In a small group of species, after the first
two or three pairs of leaves, the stem becomes five-sided and the
subsequent leaves form in a 2/5 spiral (e.g. E. oleosa).
This is detected by examining the seedling closely. No leaves will
be opposite and any two leaves appearing consecutively, one above
the other on any leaf-bearing face, will be separated vertically
by four other leaves distributed around the other four vertical
faces (e.g. E.
longicornis). Vertically adjacent leaves will occur on the
next leaf-bearing face but one, never the adjacent face. This produces
a spiral arrangement
of leaves that occurs often in seedlings with very narrow seedling
A different spiral formation is seen in small
group of Western Australian eucalypts. In these the stem is three-sided
and a three-leaved spiral forms in the seedling and persists throughout
the life of the tree (e.g. E. lehmannii).
Adult leaf shape is not much use in identification
as most species have lanceolate
or falcate (curved) leaves. Leaf
shape is a character of low reliability. Leaf size is useful if
all the leaves in an adult crown are unusually small or large.
Most eucalypt species have adult leaves that are more or less
the same colour on both sides. But if an adult leaf is distinctly
discolorous (the upper face is
darker and greener than the lower), then this is a fairly powerful
tool in the discrimination of species. The discoloured appearance
of the leaf is a factor of internal structure. The green photosynthetic
tissue (composed of cells with chlorophyll-bearing chloroplasts)
is near the upper surface of the leaf and is lacking towards the
lower surface in this type of leaf. The discoloured appearance is
sometimes maintained on fallen dead leaves although somewhat faded,
and the assessment can reliably be made before sampling the living
crown. Juvenile leaves in all species are usually slightly to distinctly
discoloured, so care must be taken in assessment of colouration.
It is thought that the discolorous (or dorsiventral) leaf is an
atavism (a reversion to an earlier ancestor), maintained in species
of humid or high rainfall regions that most resemble the probable
environment of the rain forest precursors of the eucalypts. It is
seen in E. intermedia in eastern Australia and in E. diversicolor
of the far south-west of Western Australia. E. cladocalyx
of South Australia with its very discolorous leaves is probably
a curious survivor of the ancient forests.
character not influenced by the environment is the leaf
venation and this can be characteristic of certain groups, e.g.
the bloodwoods have many parallel side veins at a wide angle in
a regularly pinnate (feathery) pattern.
Other species have generally fewer side
veins at more acute angles, the extreme being the Snow Gums
(E. pauciflora) and Black Sally (E. stellulata) which
have side veins more or less parallel
to the midrib. While the angle of the side veins is highly diagnostic
for the wide-angled and for the parallel-veined species, it is of
little value for angle states between the extremes.
The midrib of a leaf is the primary
vein, the side veins are the secondary
veins. When these are the only veins apparently present or visible
as in E. suberea, there
is no reticulation, a strong character
in assessing leaves for identification. Tertiary veining links the
side veins and forms a reticulum.
Some species have quaternary veining and the reticulum is consequently
very fine. There is no absolute distinction between these categories
and we use the terms no visible reticulation,
sparse reticulation, moderate
reticulation, dense and very
dense reticulation to describe them.
Eucalypts are notable for their oil glands in the leaves. In a
dried specimen the glands can only be seen with reflected light
and appear as black dots on the undifferentiated surface. But if
a fresh leaf is held up towards the sun and inspected with oblique
light through the leaf, the glands will be seen as white or yellowish
or green structures, obviously within the tissue of the leaf. This
inspection should always be done on the upper surface of the leaf
(i.e. holding the lower leaf face towards the sun). This is to ensure
comparability between specimens. The leaves of some species look
the same when viewed through either face, but most show far more
features when viewed with the underside towards the light source.
Many species will show quite different patterns between top-side
or under-side viewing. Because most eucalypt leaves turn on their
stalks and hang down in the crown, some experience is needed to
determine which are the upper and lower faces. This decision is
easier to make if the petiole is
flattened on the upper surface, as it is in many species. Difficulty
will be experienced in other species in determining the upper and
lower surfaces of a leaf if the leaf stalk is slender and not flattened.
In these instances both sides should be examined and the image with
clearer reticulation and glands assessed, as this is the upper surface.
Then comparable assessment can be made.
Leaf oil gland categories
are usually strong aids to identification as related species tend
to have similar patterns.
The oil glands may be positioned either
at the intersections of
the veinlets, e.g. E. squamosa, and E.
where they appear to be star-shaped, being connected from
the points by a linear chain of cells (appearing as veinlets)
to the tertiary veins.
In sharp contrast, the glands may appear
as 'islands', e.g. E.
loxophleba, and E. marginata, within the un-veined
areas (areoles). 'Island' glands usually appear round although
in some species as in the gimlets, e.g. E.
salubris, they are very irregular.
In some species the oil glands are obscure,
e.g. E. baxteri
which is probably a result of their appearance through thick
leaf tissue. In a few species the glands are apparently absent,
e.g. E. ovata,
and E. todtiana.
Presence or absence may be variable within a species and although
rare, is seen in E. rigidula whose leaves in southern
populations are clearly glandular while populations in more
arid regions of the species distribution to the north appear
to be glandless.
||While oil glands in the leaves
are mostly described as intersectional, island, absent or obscure,
another category confined to Western Australian species is defined
as 'abundant' or 'crowded'.
In these species, e.g. E.
annulata, E. brachycorys and their related species,
the oil glands are extremely numerous, round, crowded, often
obscuring any venation apart from the midrib. The abundant category
of glands is a character of high reliability being confined
to the series as represented by the species named above.
BACK TO EUCALYPT
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Suppose it is the year 5055 and you are living in a primitive new world. You know nothing of the world of 2004. You come across on your food forages a cache of manuscripts from the 20th century. (For present purposes, we will assume you can read English). Among these manuscripts you find a book titled Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by an author named Philip K. Dick. Not knowing anything of the life of Mr. Dick or of his cultural background, you would be forced to bring your own limited knowledge to the story. You may recognize the text as a fictional story or you may choose to read it as historical fact. You would have no background from which to place the text in its proper context. You would be forced to bring your own meaning to the text by providing the text with a context.
We are speaking here not of words by themselves but of whole texts. While agreeing with Derrida that the words are repeatable and can be cited in many different contexts, our concentration here is on particular texts as a whole. The context of a single word can shape meaning and the meaning can be re-contetextualized. We understand that the word is not anchored and can be moved elsewhere into infinite contexts but does the same hold true for an entire text?
A text is produced to convey an idea. Finding the context of the text can narrow all of the meanings of that central idea down. The context of a text limits and shapes its meaning. However, it is not possible to find every context and therefore every meaning. In a sense, the context is going to interrupt the meaning. Meaning is always being ruptured by one form of context or another. Here we will explore three distinct forms of context: the historicity and cultural backgrounds of a text, the intention of the author and of the reader, and finally, the background noise surrounding a text.
Bronislaw Malinowski in his essay “The Role of Myth in Life” says that “The text, of course, is extremely important, but without the context it remains lifeless” (Malinowski 201). The contexts here are the cultural and sociological components that surround a text. This context, consisting of the understanding of the culture in which the text extends from, is essential to effective communication of the text. This is especially important when approaching a text in which the present day reader is not the reader that was the intended audience. This present day reader is far distanced from the text’s creation.
Literature Professor John Lye of Brock University offers this observation, “Reading is thus tied to the text and its historicity; every reading is only an interpretation, an engagement of the historicity of the reader with the historicity of the text. There is no stable reading, only historical reading…meaning as it emerges through the historical reader’s understanding of the historical text” (Lye).
If Lye’s statements are valid, then this statement shows the importance of understanding the historicity and culture of a text. Using the example set forth in the first paragraph of this essay, the historicity of the year 5055 reader and the historicity of the text he is reading are far removed from one another and therefore the validity of the text is vulnerable to misinterpretation because its context has vanished.
William Faulkner writes, “The artist is of no importance. Only what he creates is important…” (Faulkner Quotes). Faulkner speaks of the author as invisible, of the unimportance of who wrote the words, of the “death of the author”. But this is simply not the case. The historicity of the author very often is of utmost importance. The authors of the Bible are dead, are invisible but without searching out the historicity of the culture of these authors, the reader of the text will be falling through an abyss of endless meaning. Scholars and lay readers alike must delve deeply into the historicity of the Bible text in order to establish, at the very least, an approachable context for finding meaning.
Without this knowledge of historical context behind the writing it is not possible for the reader to understand the text validly. As stated in the above example using Philip Dick’s novel as a model, without knowing the historicity and cultural background of the period in which the novel was written can lead to error in interpreting the text itself. Without knowledge of the author and the author’s background can a reader begin to interpret the text in the manner that the author intended? The 5055 reader may very well take as historical fact the apocalyptic world that Dick has created. The reader may not even possess the background to understand what science fiction or satire is.
This leads us to the question of intention on the author’s part. Intention of the author does not have complete control over what something means. Serres says, “…it (the text) is understood only if the receptor possesses the key to the drawing”. While the text is readable even without knowing intention, it would seem of paramount importance to know the context in which the text was written, to “possess the key to the drawing.
Toni Morrison is sometimes shocked at the response that her novels generate concerning meaning. Morrison’s intentions when writing each novel quite often do not match up with the meanings culled from her reader’s. Morrison’s latest novel, Love, seems to be largely about miscommunication, skewed meaning, and misread intentions. The author has no choice but to release his text to the world and let context, let meaning, be drawn by the individual reader.
All of the characters in the novel are finding meaning in their own ways and largely finding skewed meaning. The picture of Cosey that hangs over Heed’s bed is a perfect example of intention and meaning. The characters looking at the picture all bring their own meanings to it. “Vida believed a powerful, generous friend gazed out from the portrait hanging behind the reception desk” (45). The picture, in itself a representation of the character of Cosey, becomes a text itself that is open to interpretation (or misinterpretation). The next line reminds us that possibly this is not the correct assumption. “That was because she didn’t know who he was looking at” (45).
The readers never do discover who Cosey was looking at, although he can make a few guesses. Cosey’s character is left to individual interpretation and the reader can never quite decide whether to like him or hate him. The picture of Cosey is readable without knowing intention but the reader finds himself yearning to know the intention. He doesn’t know who Cosey was looking at, and therefore he doesn’t know who he is looking at. Even if the reader did know it doesn’t mean he would know who Cosey really is.
When Junior meets Heed for the first time, she is looking for “the face behind the face” (28) and she is listening “for the words hiding behind talk” (28). Here again is the possibility of hidden meaning in the text itself. The entire novel consists of a search for “the face behind the face”. The characters are introduced backwards, with their meanings coming only at the end of the novel, and even then they are left fairly open to interpretation. Morrison is talking to us through her characters and we are frantically searching for the hidden words that will reveal all to us. The line on page 28 “Junior fixed on the hands more than on what occupied them” made me think of words and meaning, with the hands being the vehicle of transport for the text and “what occupied them” being the meaning. The reader’s job in searching for meaning is to pry those hands open and reveal what occupies them.
Perhaps this Morrison’s novel is meant to address the very issue of how readers are misconstruing her words. She lays out an intricate web of gossip, lies, and miscommunication so that we as reader’s can see how bringing meaning to a text does not make that meaning valid. There are so many readers who bring their own history and backgrounds to the text and therefore there are an infinite number of ways for the text to be read. Nietzsche said “facts is precisely what there is not, only interpretations”. (Bennett and Royle 113). The reader can never simply validate a text and move on because there is no validation. The world of words is a place “Where all is known and nothing is understood” (4).
If the reader is unaware of the author intentions, then the text is subject to miscommunication. “In such a typology, the category of intention will not disappear; it will have its place, but from that place it will no longer be able to govern the entire scene and system of utterance” (Derrida 18). While intention is certainly beneficial to a valid reading of the text, it is not essential. The author of the text can only do so much. The intention of the author does not have control over what the text means to the reader once the text enters “the essential drift” (Derrida 8).
Additionally, what expectations does the reader bring to the reading of a text? Without knowing context, the reader writes the text they read. The reader, in a sense is constructing the author. In positioning the reader within the reading of a text, does the author then become simply a byproduct of the text? Bennett & Royle say that “…factors such as the life of the author and his/her intentions, or the historical and ideological context in which the text was produced” are inconsequential (Bennett & Royle 11). If this were the case, then how would one be expected to read the text without noting the position of the author as he/she wrote it?
Is the text created through the process of reading (Bennett & Royle 12)? If so, this would make the reader the authority of the validity of the text and therefore of the experience itself. Should the reader be responsible for validating the text when the experience was not theirs to begin with? In Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends, psychologists Michael White and David Epston say, “Since we cannot know objective reality, all knowing requires an act of interpretation” (White/Epston 2). Therefore, the text is open to the interpretation of the reader.
A deconstructionist reader might respond that “while any text demands a ‘faithful’ reading, it also demands an individual response” (Bennett and Royle 17). If an individual is reading a text, then the position of individual can be thought of as being moot because the reading of the text usually carries with it the knowledge that one is reading of someone else’s experience. Therefore, can the reader be excused from reading into the text their own experience?
All acts of interpretation are fraught with human subjectivism. While the reader understands that they are reading someone else’s experience, it is often difficult, if not impossible, for that reader not to read into the text his own experience. So, which comes first – the text or the reader? Derrida says that the text may be understood as fundamentally incomplete, to be constructed in the act of reading – the reader makes the text and the text makes the reader.
Another issue surrounding finding meaning in context is that of background noise. The distinctive dialect, the regional accents, the cultural backgrounds, the historicity, the intention of the author, and the intention of the reader all constitute background noise that provides the reader with clues to the context in which it was written. At the very least, these background noises afford the reader a chance to narrow down the infinite number of contexts to choose from. The text is altered depending upon this background noise. This makes knowing the context advantageous to a valid reading of the text. As Lengis says, “…background noise is essential to communication” (Lengis). Without applying these contexts that make up the background noise the validity of the text can be at stake.
The background noise makes up the Constitutive Outside, the outside makes the inside. The noise – the context, in this case - create the meaning of the words. There can be no pure message without this noise because there must be differentiation. But the distinction between the inside and outside is unstable. There is the historicity surrounding the text, the intention of the author framing the text, and the interpretation of the reader narrowing down the context even closer. The trick is to differentiate where each context begins and where each context ends – if that is even possible to do.
The background noise pulls the other contexts into even more focus by providing the reader with other tools for discovering meaning. In uncovering dialect, sentence structure, even errors in the text, the reader pulls the frame of the text even tighter. On reading Morrison’s novel, Love, the reader encounters the background noise of dialect – a distinctive southern African American dialect. This noise situates the text in a certain time and place and enables the reader to focus on closer meaning.
To summarize, three forms of context are important to a valid reading of an entire text. Historicity provides the reader with a base from which to build meaning. Intention of the author and interpretation of the reader provide the reader with a frame in which to narrow context even more. Finally, background noise adds an even more focused context from which the reader can draw valid meaning. All of these contexts searched out and applied make for the validity of meaning within a text.
Bennett, Andrew and Nicholas Royle. Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory. 2nd Edition. New York: Prentice Hall, 1999.
Derrida, Jacques. “Signature, Event, Context.” (1972). Limited Inc. (1977). Evanston, IL Northwestern UP, 1988. 1-23.
Lingis, Alphonso. “The Murmur of the World.” The Community of Those Who Have Nothing in Common. Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 1994. 69-105.
Lye, John. “Some Principles of Phenomenological Hermeneutics”. Brock University.
Date Accessed March 5, 2004. Last updated November 7, 2003.
Malinowski, Bronislaw. “The Role of Myth in Life”. Sacred Narrative. Dundes, Alan,
ed., Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984.
Serres, Michel. “Platonic Dialogue.” Hermes: Literature, Science, Philosophy. Eds. Josue V. Harari and David
White, Michael and David Epston. Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends. WW Norton &
Company: New York. 1990.
K. Y. Hamilton, BA, MA - Copyright 2004, 2006
Malinowski, Bronislaw. “The Role of Myth in Life”. Sacred Narrative. Dundes, Alan, ed., Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984.
Serres, Michel. “Platonic Dialogue.” Hermes: Literature, Science, Philosophy. Eds. Josue V. Harari and David
White, Michael and David Epston. Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends. WW Norton & Company: New York. 1990.
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Canadian Shellfish Sanitation Program
The Canadian Shellfish Sanitation Program (CSSP) is a federal food safety program jointly administered by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), Environment Canada (EC) and Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO). The goal of the program is to protect Canadians from the health risks associated with the consumption of contaminated bivalve molluscan shellfish (for example, mussels, oysters and clams).
Under the CSSP, the Government of Canada implements controls to verify that only shellfish that meet food safety and quality standards reach domestic and international markets.
Roles and Responsibilities
Three partners work to deliver the program:
Canadian Food Inspection Agency:
- regulates the import and export, processing, packaging, labelling, shipping, certification, storage, repacking of shellfish to protect against contamination and product quality degradation and to maintain source and lot identity and integrity;
- suspends operations or decertifies shellfish processors on the basis of unacceptable operating and sanitation conditions;
- regulates the depuration (i.e., controlled purification) of shellstock, verifies product quality and purification effectiveness, maintains production and product quality records;
- maintains a biotoxin surveillance program of shellfish growing areas in support of DFO and CFIA activities;
- identifies safe shellfish harvest areas in Canada, which includes ongoing water quality monitoring of fecal contamination, in accordance with the CSSP Manual of Operations criteria;
- conducts comprehensive sanitary and bacteriological water quality surveys in shellfish harvest areas in Canada;
- identifies and assesses sources of point and non-point pollution that would impact harvest areas, such as municipal sewage, industrial wastes and agriculture run-off;
- recommends classification of shellfish harvest areas based on the results and analyses of these activities to Fisheries and Oceans Canada for regulatory implementation;
Fisheries and Oceans Canada:
- controls the harvesting of shellfish from areas which are classified as contaminated or otherwise closed;
- patrols growing areas, apprehends and prosecutes persons violating restrictions;
- regulates and supervises relaying, transplanting and replanting;
- restricts harvesting of shellfish from actual and potentially affected growing areas in a public health emergency;
- regulates licenses, harvesting locations and times and minimum harvest sizes for stock management purposes.
Health Canada establishes policies, regulations and standards related to the safety and nutritional quality of food, including seafood. It also conducts health risk assessments in order to inform and protect Canadians from the health risks associated with food.
Harvest Site Information
For the latest updates about closures in your area, contact Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
Reference Material - Consumers
- Fish and Seafood Fact Sheets (bacteria, viruses and marine toxins)
- Fisheries and Oceans Canada Factsheet on the Dangers of Illegal Harvesting
Reference Material - Industry
- Canadian Shellfish Sanitation Program - Manual of Operations
- Facts on Shellfish Harvest Area Closures Related to Significant Weather Events
- Importing Live and Raw Shellfish: Requirements and Country Lists
- List of Canadian Establishments and Harvest Areas Approved to Export Bivalve Molluscs, Echinoderms, Tunicates and Marine Gastropods to the European Union
- Canada and USA Joint Health Risk Assessment on Norovirus in Bivalve Molluscan Shellfish
- Food and Drug Administration - National Shellfish Sanitation Program
- Food and Drug Administration - Shellfish Shipper's List
- Marine Water Quality Monitoring
- Date modified:
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"Brick Kilns," Clay Bluffs 1900 Miles above St. Louis
1832 George Catlin Born: Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania 1796 Died: Jersey City, New Jersey 1872 oil on canvas 11 1/8 x 14 1/4 in. (28.3 x 36.3 cm) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr. 1985.66.366 Not currently on view
Luce Center Quote
“To this group of clay bluffs, which line the river for many miles in distance, the voyageurs have very appropriately given the name of ‘the Brick-kilns;’ owing to their red appearance, which may be discovered in a clear day at the distance of many leagues . . .
Luce Center Label
By the action of water, or other power, the country seems to have been graded away; leaving occasionally a solitary mound or bluff, rising in a conical form to the height of two or three hundred feet, generally pointed or rounded at the top, and in some places grouped together in great numbers . . . the sides of these conical bluffs (which are composed of strata of different coloured clays), are continually washing down by the effect of the rains and melting of the frost; and the superincumbent masses of pumice and basalt are crumbling off, and falling down to their bases . . . The strata of clay are alternating from red to yellow-white-brown and dark blue; and so curiously arranged, as to form the most pleasing and singular effects.” George Catlin painted this work in 1832 on his first extended voyage up the Missouri River. (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 1, no. 10, 1841; reprint 1973)
Ethnic - Indian
Figure(s) in exterior - frontier
Landscape - mountain
Landscape - plain
Landscape - United States
paint - oil
fabric - canvas
metal - aluminum - support added
About George Catlin
Born: Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania 1796 Died: Jersey City, New Jersey 1872
More works in the collection by
- George Catlin and His Indian Gallery / American Art
- George Catlin's Indian Gallery / American Art
- Exhibitions / American Art
- Online Exhibitions / Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Pigeon's Egg Head (The Light) going to and returning from ...
- Motivating and unifying most of her efforts is an overriding ...
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Provided by: gnu-fdisk_1.2.4-3_i386
GNU fdisk, lfdisk, gfdisk - manipulate partition tables on a hard drive
fdisk [options] [device]
fdisk is a disk partition manipulation program, which allows you to
create, destroy, resize, move and copy partitions on a hard drive using
a menu-driven interface. It is useful for organising the disk space on
a new drive, reorganising an old drive, creating space for new
operating systems, and copying data to new hard disks. For a list of
the supported partition types, see the --list-partition-types option
It comes in two variants, gfdisk and lfdisk. Lfdisk aims to resemble
Linux fdisk 2.12, while gfdisk supports more advanced disk operations,
like resizing the filesystem, moving and copying partitions. When
starting fdisk, the default is to run gfdisk.
displays a help message.
displays the program's version.
turns on Linux fdisk compatibility mode. This is the same as
turns off Linux fdisk compatibility mode.
where necessary, prompts for user intervention.
never prompts for user intervention.
lists the partition table on the specified device and exits. If
there is no device specified, lists the partition tables on all
displays a hex dump of the partition table of the disk, similar
to the way Linux fdisk displays the raw data in the partition
use sectors, instead of cylinders for a default unit.
prints the size of the partition on DEVICE is printed on the
displays a list of supported partition types and features.
The following options are available only to lfdisk.
Specify the sector size of the disk. Valid values are 512, 1024
and 2048. Should be used only on older kernels, which don't
guess the correct sector size.
Specify the number of cylinders of the disk. Currently does
nothing, it is left for Linux fdisk compatibility.
Specify the number of heads of the disk. Reasonable values are
255 or 16.
Specify the number of sectors per track. A reasonable value is
Before editing a BSD disklabel, the partition with the disklabel should
already exist on the disk and be detected by the OS. If you have
created a BSD-type partition, you need to write the changes to the
disk. If fdisk fails to notify the OS about the changes in partition
table, you need to restart your computer. As fdisk tries to guess the
device holding the BSD disklabel, it might fail to edit it at all, even
if the OS has detected it. In this case you are adviced to simply open
the device with fdisk directly. It is possible that it doesn't work on
some operating systems.
Getting the size of a partition with -s might fail, if fdisk fails to
guess the disk device, for the same reasons as with the previous bug.
mkfs(8), cfdisk(8), parted(8) The fdisk program is fully documented in
the info(1) format GNU fdisk User Manual manual.
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It's hard to imagine that we're still feeling the effects of the last ice age.
A rash of close to 30 small earthquakes on the eastern coast of Maine puzzled scientists during the last day of April and the first few days of May. The explanation, as it turns out, is an after-effect of the last ice age.
"These occur in response to the movement of large, rock plates that make up the earth’s crust, even though Maine is not near a plate boundary, where most of the large events occur, such as California and Japan," Dr. Robert Marvinney said in a press release. "The crust in Maine is still adjusting to the loss of thick ice at the end of the last ice age, and this may be a cause for some earthquakes."
The "swarm" of earthquakes is the result of of the movement of the Laurentide ice sheet 25,000 years ago, according to Wired. The ice, which was 1 to 2 miles thick in some places, apparently pushed the crust down as far as 500 feet.
The result has been a trampoline effect that has occurred over thousands of years. From time to time the region experiences a rash of seismic activity.
"This swarm may continue for several days, but there is no need for alarm," Marvinney said. "This type of swarm has occurred before in Maine. While local residents may feel these earthquakes, because they occur only a few miles below the surface, they are well below the magnitude 5 threshold at which damage might occur."
While no damage may occur, residents still occasionally feel the activity.
May 1 Seismograph (During Activity):
May 8 Seismograph (After Activity):
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While conducting patrol and mop-up operations on the north end of the Chips Fire burning on the Plumas and Lassen National Forests in Northern California on Aug. 25, the Mad River Hand Crew encountered a remarkable sight; a baby bobcat! It was found wandering along the side of the road, alone and dazed. “It seemed to be confused,” said Tad Hair, the Mad River Hand Crew superintendent who spotted the kit.
According to Hair, it was the size of a domestic kitten and seemed to have impaired vision, perhaps from the smoke and ash in its eyes. “It was walking in circles near a stump” said Hair. Once they verified that there were no obvious physical injuries on the kit the crew attempted to walk away, but she swiftly followed the sounds of their movements. Each time the crew would stop, she would curl up on Hair’s boots, snuggling into his chaps.
Hair and his crew members searched a large area, but there were “no tracks, whatsoever, in the ash except for this little gal’s” and they found no sign of a mother bobcat. The lone kit, so young that its eyes appeared to be just starting to open, seemed abandoned and lost in the aftermath of the fire. According to the National Geographic, bobcats live a solitary life and the females will typically choose a den that is secluded in order to raise one to six kits, teaching them to hunt for up to twelve months before leaving them to survive on their own.
“I couldn’t just leave him there,” said Hair, who chose to name the kit “Chips.” After contacting Fire Communications, Hair brought Chips to the Incident Command Post to await contact with appropriate parties. It was suggested that he call Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care (LTWC). The group is a non-profit organization, run by volunteers, “whose function is to raise, rehabilitate and release orphaned and injured wild birds and animals.” There are no fees associated with the acceptance and care of animals.
While awaiting the arrival of the LTWC volunteers, the public information staff cared for Chips, giving her a couple of ice chips and enormous amounts of tender loving care. Anna Thompson, a professor of biology at Feather River College and a volunteer for LTWC responded, along with her family. They, along with public information staff, fed Chips a few pipettes full of a special kit formula which she eagerly devoured! Responding well to the formula, Chips was energetic and curious as they placed her carefully into a carrier.
They transported Chips to LTWC where professionals, experienced in the care of bobcats, examined her and treated her injuries. The Executive Director and Co-Founder of Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care, Cheryl Millham, said today that Chips is doing “just great!” A fire fighter who helped to transport Chips flushed her eyes while en route to the shelter. Once she arrived at there, a veterinarian took over, flushing her eyes again and added medicated ointment which is reapplied three times a day. “We are optimistic that once the infection is clear, Chips will regain full vision in both eyes” said Millham.
She also explained that Chips had second degree burns on all of her paws, so the veterinarian cleaned off the dead tissue and carefully treated and wrapped her tender paws. Until her feet are fully healed she rests on a very soft bed, and is fed up to six pulverized mice per day, plus additional formula, if the mice do not sate her appetite. According to Millham, to keep Chips’ paws dry during the healing process, they give her a “spit bath” after each feeding, consisting of a moist warm cloth which they use to gently rub her fur while she eats, after which she contentedly returns to sleep.
The next step in the process, says Millhap, is to ensure that Chips is exposed to other bobcats in order to learn appropriate behaviors. “Because she is so very young, she will be sheltered throughout the winter, along with other bobcats.”
When the staff deems it appropriate, Chips will be released back into the wild, in an area where it is determined that food sources are abundant. When advised of Chips’ well-being, Hair said he was grateful and “would love to be involved in her eventual re-introduction into the wild, whenever that may be.”
For further information regarding Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care, see http://www.ltwc.org/
For further information regarding the Chips Fire, please visit http://inciweb.org
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Synonyms and other taxonomic changes
higher taxa recently redefined -- see a summary at(2)
5-30 mm, possibly larger (typically 9-15 mm)
Medium-sized to large predatory flies, often perch in exposed location and make short flies after prey. Typical family characteristics:
top of head depressed between eyes, with three ocelli
in the depression
body from very hairy to nearly bare
body typically elongated, with tapered abdomen
some are bee/wasp mimics
face usually "bearded", with prominent mystax
mouthparts modified to inject prey with saliva, similar in both sexes (unlike in blood-sucking flies, such as Tabanidae
antennae three-segmented, third segment elongate and often with terminal style
most diverse in dry, open habitats; larvae usually in soil or decaying wood
Predatory on a variety of other insects.
Adults lay eggs in the soil or in plants. A few, such as Mallophora
form an egg mass on a plant stem (see photo here
). Larvae often predatory, consuming eggs and larvae of other insects in decaying matter. Typically overwinter as pupa, emerge in spring. Life cycle is 1-3 years.
1. Larva. 2. Pupa
CAUTION! Large robber flies may bite if mishandled (forum discussion here
Genera not yet in the guide [per(3)
Beameromyia 15 spp., mostly sw. (5 in se. US)
Bohartia 6 spp., w./sw. US
Apachekolos 4 sw. spp. + 1 sp. in se.
Omninablautus 4 spp. w./sw.
Itolia 3 spp. AZ-NV-CA
Nannodioctria 2 spp. FL CA
Prolatiforceps 2 spp. NM-AZ
The following are represented by a single species each:
northern transcontinental: Rhadiurgus
w. NA: Stilpnogaster, Willistonina
sw. US: Atomosiella
AZ: Bromleyus, Dicranus, Orrhodops, Perasis
(pers. comm. of 7.vi.2012)
This is a fairly contentious issue. Until recently, most workers have favored a version of the Papavero classification (1973-2009; see recent updates in the Catalogue of Neotropical Diptera or the Manual of Neotropical Diptera, both 2009). I used this same classification in my unpublished checklist of Nearctic Asilidae(5)
(used by Herschel Rainey for his state lists). In 2009, things were changed significantly by Torsten Dikow(7)(8)
with publication of his PhD work. His morphology-only analysis of 158 spp. yielded 720 most parsimonius cladograms, the favored classification selected being one comprised of 14 subfamilies. A combined total evidence analysis was then performed, adding DNA sequencing data from 77 of the original 158 spp. studied (representing 12 of the 14 subfamilies sampled morphologically). Results from the combined total evidence analysis failed to support the morphology-only classification in many instances, with about half of the subfamilies appearing in multiple positions (=nonmonophyletic) in the favored combined cladograms. Another problem is that some of the subfamilies recognized lack external characters useful for dichotomous keys or gestalt recognition: many features used in the morphology data matrix require extensive dissection, and those in the total evidence analysis are partly molecular. Ironically, the only truly congruent classification resulting from both methodologies is one where only three subfamilies are recognized (Asilinae, Laphriinae, Dasypogoninae), like the pioneering classifications of Macquart and Loew in the early 1800s! Dikow's work has demonstrated that some of the modern subfamilies and tribes (those more recent than the classic ones just mentioned) are not monophyletic, but problems are apparent with his new classifications as well. More species need to be sampled for phylogenetic study – especially those with DNA sequencing data – even though total evidence analysis has so far yielded conflicting results. Until a stable, practical classification is available, some version of the Papavero classification is probably still preferable, and I recommend using the eight subfamilies from(3) (currently used on BG) with no tribes recognized (some tribes are apparently monophyletic but others are not, and details and relationships are controversial).
Dennis D.S., Barnes J.K. (2011) Tentative key to robber fly (Diptera: Asilidae) subfamilies based on pupal cases. Zootaxa 3031: 37–46 (Full text
Hull F.M. (1962) Robber flies of the world: the genera of the family Asilidae, U.S. Nat. Mus. Bull. 224: 1-907 (Full text: pp. 1-427
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Branches mean knots in the wood. And knots in the wood spoil its resonance. Pellegrini is a tree picker. He will find you the spruce in 10,000 that is just right. He will find you the “Stradivarius tree”. “Lentement, lentement, lentement,” he says. “Slowly, slowly, slowly”. That’s how violin trees should grow.
The researchers could find no link between the age and value of the violins and how they were rated by the violinists. The three old instruments had a combined value of $10m, a hundred times that of the modern violins. “They are beautiful instruments, but the prices are insane,” Fritz said. “The old versus new issue doesn’t make any sense. “It doesn’t matter if the violin’s old or new, all that matters is whether it’s a good violin or a bad violin. Many modern violin makers are doing a great job.”
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In the Garden:
Southern California Coastal & Inland Valleys
Citrus trunks and branches are painted to reflect the sun and prevent sunburn.
Plant Tender Trees
The weather from now through June is ideal for planting citrus, avocados, kiwis, kumquats, and pomegranates. In completely frost-free areas, also try cherimoya, guava, mango, and passion fruit. When choosing citrus, look for trees with many strong branches, a smooth graft union, and deep green leaves. For containers, be sure to choose dwarf types.
Plant citrus and avocado trees in a southwest exposure that's protected from the wind for the best insurance against damage from cold weather and frost. Plant them on a mound or in a raised bed so water drains away from the roots. Rub suckers off trunks as they appear. Paint trunks and large limbs with a matte-finish, off-white, interior latex paint mixed half and half with water to prevent sunscald.
Tree roots can extend almost four times the distance from the trunk to the dripline. The longest ones -- the feeder roots -- are near the soil surface. When planting a tree, dig the planting hole only as deep as the rootball, but twice the width. Then, turn over soil a foot deep for that distance again further out. New roots can easily reach out into this native soil and become well established. In addition, keep walkways, decks, and other heavy traffic and construction at least 5 feet away from the trunk, so feeder roots won't be harmed. Then, pile up to 4 inches of mulch on top of the loosened soil to reduce evaporation and moderate air temperature.
Staking Young Trees
Newly planted trees may need support for a year while they develop strong root systems and trunks, but only if they can't stand up by themselves. First, remove the stake that came from the nursery. Into the ground on either side of the trunk and a foot out from it, drive two, sturdy, 1-inch stakes about 16 inches deep. About two-thirds the way up the trunk, tie loops from each stake around the trunk; use "soft" material like stockings or rags or old garden hose pieces. Tie the loops loosely so the trunk can sway gently in the wind; this strengthens the trunk and stimulates strong root growth. Remove the stakes after a year.
Fertilize all trees heavily for strong growth and good fruit production. Topdress them with compost and fertilizer high in nitrogen (fish emulsion, chicken manure, cottonseed meal, blood meal), and phosphorus (bone meal and rock phosphate). Spread these out over the root zone to about 6 feet beyond the dripline of the tree. Keep compost, manure, and fertilizer at least 6 inches away from tree trunks.
Don't try to rush growth of nectarines, peaches, or plums by providing too much nitrogen. This contributes to generally poor fruit quality -- poor color development, delayed maturity, softness, and reduced storage. Too much vegetative growth from excessive nitrogen also can result in poor fruit set for the following year. If the trees have good growth with dark green leaves in the spring, they have sufficient nitrogen.
On established trees that have already set fruit, thin the excess for better developed remaining fruit and for less strain on the tree. This is especially important for those trees bearing fruit for the first or second time. Allow a spacing of 5 inches between peaches on opposite sides of the branch, and 3 inches between plums and apricots. Thin peaches before the fruit reaches almond-size to improve the size and flavor of the remaining fruit.
Be ruthless in your thinning: the fruits are small now but will take lots of energy to mature, and you don't want to allow the young tree to produce too much fruit for the first couple of years.
Shield Trunks From Sunburn
Paint tree trunks with light-colored, indoor latex paint to prevent sunburn damage. Use an inexpensive brand, or thin down an expensive one to a solution of half water and half paint. This is the one time when "cheap" is best.
Care to share your gardening thoughts, insights, triumphs, or disappointments with your fellow gardening enthusiasts? Join the lively discussions on our FaceBook page and receive free daily tips!
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1 Answer | Add Yours
The crux of the plot in Achebe's work is the conflict between how Okeke believes Nnaemeka should act and how Nnaemeka actually does act. It is here where the conflict between tradition and progress is evident. Okeke believes that his son should adhere to the cultural wishes and the familial wishes in marriage. He believes that marriage is a tradition- bound institution in which honor and compliance with the wishes of the elders is of the utmost in importance. While Nnaemeka does recognize that his love and eventual marriage to Nene is going to cause problems, his actions indicate that he is of the mindset that marriage should be entered out of love for the other person. When Okeke presents his choice for Nnaemeka's bride, the response of he not being in love with her represents this conflict. It is here where the collision is most evident.
Okeke continues with his fervent defense of tradition to a point where he rejects his son and his daughter in- law. The ending, though, points to how Achebe views the beliefs of people like Okeke. In the final analysis, Okeke can cling to tradition. He can believe in the notion that tradition must be adhered to and followed. Yet, when it becomes evident that Nnaemeka is not going to respect this and rather embrace modernity, Okeke is left alone. The letter from Nene in which Okeke realizes he is a grandfather and his son is a father is a moment in which this becomes clear. The fears that Okeke experiences are one in which Achebe has made clear that the clinging to tradition at the expense of isolating loved ones can only foster loneliness and a sense of being forlorn. Okeke races against this in the end, recognizing that he has lost time and wishes to not lose any more of it. The conflict between traditional and modern views are thus shown to be a futile one if individuals lose connection and sacrifice belief in one another as a result.
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http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/describe-detail-conflict-between-traditional-views-350637
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Strong and frequent southerly breezes, a disappearing snow pack at low elevations and the presence of large stretches of open water along streams, in the backwater of rivers and in marshes prompt the return of numerous forms of waterfowl to the Adirondacks.
Even though mid March is early for the arrival of some migrants from their wintering grounds, when the opportunity arises to reconnect with the area used for breeding, these flat-billed, webbed-footed birds take advantage of the favorable conditions and fly north. Included with these returning birds is one of the most colorful and handsome species of waterfowl in North America – the wood duck.
Its attractive blend of green, blue, rusty-orange, white and tan plumage and uniquely shaped head make the male, or drake, as visually appealing as any member of our wildlife community. Even the drab, gray colored female or hen with her crested head, distinct white marking around her eye and compact shape creates an image more regal than that of other ducks.
As its name implies, the wood duck is closely associated with aquatic settings surrounded by patches of deciduous woods. Forests that contain some mature stands of hardwoods are especially attractive, as this duck relies on older trees for some of its food and a nesting site. While acorns are frequently consumed by the wood duck in southern locations, wild black cherries, the seeds of the maples and beechnuts are more often eaten by this duck in our northern climate, where oak trees are lacking. The wood duck is also known to depend on berries from several shrubs that grow near the water’s edge, especially raspberries and blackberries. The seeds from various aquatic plants that root in the shallows and numerous invertebrates picked up from the bottom are also ingested by this “dabbler”. (A dabbler is a duck, like the mallard, that obtains the bulk of its food by dunking its head below the surface, rather than submerging its entire body.)
Rather than lay its eggs on the ground in some protected spot, the wood duck places its nest in a sizeable wooden cavity well above the forest floor. A stand of deciduous trees is likely to contain one or several trunks that have a cavity large enough to accommodate the wood duck’s nest. A hollow section of a standing tree with an entrance hole greater than four inches is greatly preferred. In wilderness settings, a tree that has experienced severe rotting of its heartwood, and which has had a large limb torn from its trunk to form an appropriate sized opening is the typical site used by the wood duck. Occasionally, a deep hole created by a pileated woodpecker may be selected for use, however, because the wood duck favors a chamber with an inside diameter of at least one foot, most woodpecker cavities fall far short of this space requirement.
Around towns and village, large nest boxes are more regularly used by the wood duck for housing its eggs. Since these structures are constructed by wood duck enthusiasts, their floor space and entrance hole size are tailored to meet the needs of this bird. Yet, while most of these boxes are placed quite close to the ground, the wood duck does not need to have its home so low to the forest floor. In wilderness settings, this bird is known to occupy cavities that are well over 50 feet high. While this height may seem to be a deadly obstacle when the time arrives for the flightless chicks to exit their nest and drop to the ground, these infants are well adapted to float slowly down and are able to bounce once they hit the layer of leaf litter that covers that forest floor.
While the depth of some natural cavities may also seem to present a problem for the chicks, these birds are able to climb several feet up vertical surfaces because of the claws that occur at the end of their toes.
It is rare to see a wood duck in the Adirondacks before St. Patrick’s Day, as conditions are rarely favorable for this bird prior to the end of March. Additionally, the wood duck, unlike most other birds, is not territorial and does not have to hurry back north to lay claim to a favored breeding site before rivals take possession of all the prime locations. However, this year, with the abnormally early appearance of spring weather, it is possible that in the coming days following a bout of strong southerly winds, a pair of wood ducks may be seen weaving their way through an alder choked stretch of stream or on an overgrown section of marsh here in the Adirondacks.
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http://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2012/03/adirondack-wildlife-the-wood-duck.html
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I wasn't shocked to hear parents are more concerned about their children getting good grades and their overall achievements than their ability to be kind and caring.
This was revealed in the research released by Making Caring Common Project that has parents, teachers and many others talking. Surveying 10,000 middle and high school students about what was more important to them, "achieving at a high level, happiness, or caring for others," almost 80 percent of the students ranked achievement or happiness over caring for others -- leaving only 20 percent of students who identified with caring for others as their top priority.
Some of the headlines read," Why Kids Care More About Achievement Than Helping Others" and "Kids Value Achievement Over Caring Because They Think Their Parents Do Too" and one that can strike a nerve, Are We Morally Failing Our Children?
In understanding that we live in a fast-paced society as well as the fact that many families are struggling to simply make ends meet or are spread thin in one-parent households, it's readily apparent that it can be a challenge to reach out into the community to give back.
It's not impossible.
As the study and research has said, children will take cues from their parents, regardless of whether they are growing up in a single-parent or two-parent household. It starts with us; our generation has to start modeling to our children that no matter how busy we are, we are never too busy to lend a hand to someone that has less.
It is a fact that most parents want their children to become more than they were, and if you are struggling as a single parent, you want to be sure your children have all the benefits of an education that maybe you missed out on. However a formal education is only a portion of success.
Life has a way of bringing people into your path. As you and your children are volunteering, you never know who you or they may meet that could be part of their future. Volunteering can open doors in unexpected ways; it can be a source of inspiration and even a stepping stone to finding your purpose in life.
Where can you start? Give up a day at the beach or the mall.
Lead by example and give up part of one of your off days to help a local organization or someone right in your own neighborhood. Maybe it is only for a few hours, but it will be the most important few hours you spend with others and your family. Make this a habit -- not a one-time event.
• Nursing homes: Contact your local nursing homes. Do you own a dog that could become a therapy dog? Many homes welcome locals to bring their dogs in to visit the residents. Ask if you can volunteer to read to some of the residents. Many nursing home residents have family members that don't visit often or are out of town.
• Helping the Elderly and Infirm: Meals on Wheels is an excellent way to contribute to the care of those who are unable to care for themselves. A hot meal, a smile and a kind word can make a world of difference to someone who is homebound. Find your local program.
• Feeding the Homeless: Find your local homeless shelter. Where I am located we have the St. Francis House. Our local high school students started volunteering here with their Interact Club of Kindness. This is a great opportunity for you to get your entire family involved. I am confident all communities have a place that would welcome your help.
• Habitat for Humanity: Help eliminate poverty and homelessness in your community. Habitat's youth programs are open for 5-25 year olds, so everyone is welcome! Contact your local affliate and start making a difference today in someone's life.
• Start a caring club: Work together with your child to start a Caring and Kindness club in your neighborhood. You could set up a neighborhood volunteer list to help each other out in many capacities. Start reaching out to elderly neighbors or neighbors that are sick that may need extra help such as walking their dog or mowing the lawn. If you have a neighbor that just had surgery, cook them a meal. Help a neighbor who is unable to drive by picking up groceries for them. Make it a priority in your home to reach out in your own neighborhood to see who needs you!
The most important part of this outreach is that parents have to participate. They need to show their kids they are just as dedicated to being caring adults as they expect their children to be kind kids. There are so many ways to help others -- you simply need to take the time to listen and hear their needs.
This summer is a perfect time to start building a caring community in your neighborhood for parents and kids alike. Get the whole family involved and spend some quality time together while doing good deeds. You can strengthen your relationship with your child while fostering a better neighborhood environment for them to grow up in.
We're the adults, we can't pass this self-centered morality on to our children and say, "Wow, we got it wrong! Good luck figuring it out -- we're all counting on you now." No, the cycle stops with us.
• When you give to others, the bigger gift is to yourself
• Visit Random Acts of Kindness Foundation for more ideas to give back
• No more excuses, make time to give back to your community and make a commitment to yourself to find ways to show kindness to others -- your kids are watching
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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Today is Memorial Day, Decoration Day, as ordered by General Logan. A day set aside to honor the Civil War dead, a war that killed more Americans than all other wars combined......
The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country and during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.
Today it is fitting that we honor our war dead. It is also fitting that we, as a people, who ask our young to fight and die, take a hard look at the reasons we do so and our seemingly open ended commitments that span the entire globe.
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http://www.winecommonsewer.com/the_wine_commonsewer/2011/05/decoration-day.html
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As discussed in Why is polyploidy lethal for some organisms while for others is not?, polyploidy is normally lethal in mammals.
However, two species of Octodontidae (South American rodents), are tetraploid due to a recent doubling of all chromosomes:
- Tympanoctomys barrerae: 4x = 102
- Pipanacoctomys aureus: 4x = 92 (apparently some chromosomes were lost after the polyploidy event)
See the paper discussing T. barrerae, the first of these tetraploid rodents discovered.
According to the Wikipedia article, both are believed descended from the same species, Octomys mimax (or possibly now-extinct close relatives thereof), which has 2x = 2n = 56 chromosomes, half those of T. barrerae.
What was special about Octomys that allows it to survive polyploidy, unlike most mammals?
The sperm head of Tympanoctomys is is by far the largest naturally occurring in mammals, and its size is causally related to the double genome size it has to accomodate.
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/3746/why-was-polyploidy-not-lethal-in-certain-octodontid-rodents
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A question was asked of me recently which i decided to look into to give a good answer. That question was What is the difference between Candida and a Yeast Infection.
The truth is I thought it was an easy answer, however there are a couple of differences. Below is my answer.
A Yeast Infection is the Visual Sign of Candida
The first difference is that a Yeast infection is the visual sign of a Candida infection, it is what can usually be seen visually or if small can be seen under a microscope. So in a way they are both outcomes of each other and one cannot exist without the other. One effect of Candida in another way is the common Yeast Infection. This means that by directly treating the Yeast Infection only you will get rid of that infection, but you will not get rid of Candida thus it will return in time. However if one does treat both or more aggressively treats the Candida issue the infection can disappear quite quickly. The problem is most people address one without understanding of the other..
Candida Effects the Whole Body In Many Ways
Secondly Candida is slow forming and effects the whole body whereas a Yeast Infection is usually effecting only the bowel area and sexual organs. Both of which can be very frustrating and make one very ill. Candida can effect the brain, the breathing, the bowels, the nervous system and much much more.
Okay so now that we know the basic differences of Candida is there a solution to understanding better how to conquer Candida, the easy answer is yes, the bard answer is yes as well but it takes time and lots of effort. The principal being you want to fight all forms of Candida and Yeast Infections from all angles. To do so i made a easy to follow list for those on the path.
Conquer Candida and Yeast Infections List
- Follow my 3 Day Candida Diet – This is a must
- Exercise Daily – At least 30 minutes to 1 hour no excuses
- Eat lots of easy to digest fiber – this will keep you regular which is essential to Candida and removing yeast infections. One such good fiber source is Physilium Husks.
- Drink lots of good clean water
- Keep away from all forms of yeasts and sugars. Focus more on good proteins, vegetables and low sugar fruit.
- Use Threelac – This is a powerful Probiotic.
- Use Candex – Effective candida eating enzyme..
- Avoid Antibiotics
With Candida like I said above it is essential to be patient, by following my program above you need to be consistent and allow up to and over 6 weeks for good results, three months if your Candida is really developed. So it depends on your side there. Either way you need to keep at it until you feel more Candida free and then after that you need to follow a after Candida Diet plan from there.
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://www.mycandidacleanse.com/difference-between-candida-yeast-infection/
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“You couldn’t see. You couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t go outside for days,” remembers Eugene Littlefield. “It was awful.”
Littlefield is referring to the giant black clouds of soil that would blot out the sun and swallow the countryside. Born in Wayside, Texas, in 1934, Littlefield was welcomed into the world by the Dust Bowl – an era in the 1930s when the most massive, brutal dust storms ever known to our nation repeatedly ravaged the Panhandle and Great Plains regions.
Littlefield was the only child of parents who raised cattle, wheat and sorghum on their farm 20 miles east of Happy, Texas, in the now-extinct community of Wayside.
“We could see those storms coming over the horizon,” Littlefield says. “The dirt would blow in your face and hit your skin so hard it hurt. Dad would get our animals in the best shelter he could, while my mom started packing the windows with rolled wet towels and hung sheets to try to keep dirt out.
“It still didn’t work,” he says, shaking his head at the fury and intensity of the storms. “Fine sand would get in our food no matter how well we protected it. It would get behind the wallpaper in our house. Our white sheets on the bed would turn brown.
“Mother would light kerosene lamps and you could barely see them for the brown haze around them,” he adds.
He recounts his family having to use a bucket for the bathroom because they couldn’t go outside to the outhouse. His dad had a rope tied from the house to the barn so if there was even the slightest reprieve in the raging storm he could go check on the animals.He says no matter how hard you tried to protect your equipment or vehicles, the fine sand would penetrate the carburetors and wind up in fuel lines, rendering equipment inoperable until it could be repaired.
“I remember coming outside after the storms and you couldn’t find things,” he says.”You could see, but you still felt disoriented because the landscape would look so different. Tumble weeds would blow against the fences and get trapped, then the dirt would just pile up in them to the point it would bury the fence so deep in dirt you couldn’t see it. Entire plows could get buried and only the levers would be visible.”
Soil exposed to erosion
Farming practices contributed to the blowing dust. Plowing up native grasslands across the Great Plains left vast stretches of soil exposed to drought and wind. The 1930s mark a decade of the worst drought in U.S. history. Planted seeds would shrivel and die in the ground before they could ever sprout. With no plants to trap the soil or moisture, the parched dirt turned to powder that was easily carried away by wind.
This loss of land and crops only further deepened the effects of the Great Depression, to the point that by 1933 more than 11,000 of the nation’s 25,000 banks had failed and unemployment was at a record high 25 percent.
The Dust Bowl affected 100,000,000 acres, centered on thepanhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, and adjacent parts of New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas. In December 1935, experts estimated that 850 million tons of topsoil had been blown off the Plains that year alone. The drought would linger four more years until rain finally brought relief in the fall of 1941.
Hard work preparing the land and planting the crops was met with years and years of crop failure. With no crops to harvest and no grass for livestock to eat on their Swisher County farm, the Littlefields struggled, along with so many others, just desperate to survive.
“We were excited when my dad got a job with the Civilian Conservation Corps to help build a road across Palo Duro Canyon,” Littlefield remembers. “But when they found out he was selling milk from our milk cow to the neighbors, they considered that a job and let him go so they could hire someone else that was unemployed.”
During this time there was one man who was strongly convinced he had a plan to keep so much of America’s top soil from blowing away.
In 1928, while working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a chemist with theBureauof Soils, Hugh Hammond Bennett wrote about the ongoing soil erosion issue in a government report.
“To visualize the full enormity of land impairment and devastation brought about by this ruthless agent is beyond the possibility of the mind. An era of land wreckage destined to weigh heavily upon the welfare of the next generation is at hand,” he wrote.
Through his experience with soil surveys, Bennett realized the effects of soil erosion and the negative impacts it had on agriculture. His persistent admonition about the devastation of farmland that was occurring across the nation’s landscape led Congress to establish the USDA’s Soil Conservation Service (SCS), now known as Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).
Establishment of SCS
The establishment of the SCS marked the beginning of federal funding and natural resource education to landowners, especially farmers. States established state soil conservation agencies and procedures whereby local Soil and Water Conservation Districts (SWCDs) could be formed in counties across the U.S. SCS assistance was delivered at the direction of the local SWCD board, made up of five landowners from across the county.
The agency employees would hold workshops and in some cases go door-to-door to educate farmers on soil conservation and anti-erosion techniques, including crop rotation, strip farming, contour plowing, terracing and other beneficial farming practices. The agency provided financial incentives to help farmers offset the costs of adopting some of these practices.
Littlefield remembers the local SWCD presenting a film about soil erosion at his Wayside Grade School.
“I remember the conservation service men coming by to teach us how to put nutrients back in the soil by rotating our crops,” Littlefield says. “We planted rows of trees, a shelterbelt, to act as a windbreak for our fields. We started terracing our fields to hold the water better. It made a big difference.”
The land care lessons his family and others received in the 1930s paid off in the 1950s when another historic drought had America’s farmland in its grip.
“The SCS helped us know how to take care of our land, even in hard times,” Littlefield says. “They taught us about strip till farming and the equipment we needed to farm in better ways. I really feel like the Graham-Hoeme chisel plow saved this country from blowing completely away.”
The plow featured reversible chisel points that were used for erosion control and primary tillage. Special "low-crown" 16-inch-wide sweeps were developed for shallow weed control before planting. The sweeps left about three-quarters of the stubble covering the soil surface, reducing soil dryness and preventing wind erosion. This was one of the first tools available to perform "stubble-mulch" throughout the Great Plains.
Littlefield still owns farm land in Swisher County. As an impressionable child,experiencing first-hand the largest man-made ecological disaster our nation had ever seen made a lasting impression on Littlefield. He wanted to do everything he can to save the soil on his land. He enrolled his farmland, most of it with highly erodible soil, in the USDA Farm Service Agency’s (FSA) Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). Participating as a SWCD cooperator, he worked with the NRCS to develop a conservation plan and proper management for his CRP.
When his CRP contract expired in 2011, Littlefield immediately enrolled it in the USDA’s State Acres for Wildlife Enhancement (SAFE) program, administered by FSA, with NRCS providing technical assistance and conservation planning advice. In the SAFE program, Littlefield relies on NRCS to help remove the existing introduced bluestem grass to prepare the acres for planting native plants to improve wildlife habitat for such threatened and endangered candidate species as theLesser Prairie-Chicken.
“Seeing what I saw growing up as a boy on our farm, I have witnessed the positive effects over 70 years of conservation efforts have had on our land,” Littlefield says. “I am now proud to say I am a landowner that is making a difference for the environment, and in the process, I hope to be able to help the prairie chicken populations.”
Bennett, known as the Father of Conservation, perhaps said it best: “Farmers have only temporary control over their land. It can be theirs for a lifetime and no longer. The public's interest, however, goes on and on, endlessly, if nations are to endure....”
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December 8, 2009
Rett Symptoms Stem From Gene Loss In Cells That Make Specific Neurotransmitters
Loss of the gene that causes Rett syndrome disrupts the production of neurotransmitters in specific nerve cells, causing the movement and behavioral problems typical of the disease, said a research team led by those at Baylor College of Medicine in a report online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Abnormalities in MeCP2 (methyl-CpG binding protein) lead to decreased production of enzymes that control production of the neurotransmitters dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin," said Dr. Jeffrey Neul, assistant professor of pediatrics "“ neurology at BCM and Texas Children's Hospital, and a senior author of the report. Neul is also assistant medical director of the Blue Bird Rett Center at BCM.Findings confirmed
"This study, and in particular the data in the patients, confirmed our first ever clinical study on Rett syndrome," said Dr. Huda Zoghbi, professor of molecular and human genetics, pediatrics, neurology and neuroscience and a senior author of the report. In 1985, Zoghbi and her collaborators first found that the metabolites of dopamine and norepinephrine were decreased in the spinal fluid of six girls with Rett syndrome. (N Engl J Med. 1985 Oct 10;313(15):921-4. Metabolites are the breakdown products that remain after the neurotransmitters accomplish their tasks.)
While the finding made sense, it was hard to reproduce until standardized levels of such chemicals could be determined. Neurotransmitters carry messages from one cell to another in the form of chemical signals. Too little dopamine can result in movement problems such as those seen in Parkinson's disease. Low serotonin levels are associated with anxiety and aggressive behavior "“ behaviors also seen in Rett. Zoghbi, who is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and director of the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children's, discovered that mutations in the MECP2 gene cause Rett syndrome in 1999.
Rett syndrome is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects mainly girls. As infants, girls with Rett syndrome seem normal for at least six months. Between the ages of 6 and 18 months, however, their development stops and they begin to regress, losing the ability to talk. Then they begin to have problems walking and keeping their balance and develop typical hand-wringing behavior. Many of their symptoms mirror those of autism. The disorder is estimated to affect 1 in 10,000 to 15,000 live female births.
In this study, the researchers analyzed the metabolites of the neurotransmitters in the spinal fluid of 64 girls and women with Rett syndrome and compared them to the levels in spinal fluid of more than 200 people who did not have the disorder. They found low levels of the metabolites for dopamine and serotonin.
They also found that levels of all three neurotransmitters were reduced in the brains of mice with a mutated Mecp2 gene, which causes a form of Rett syndrome in the animal. Further study showed that the neurons were producing too little of the neurotransmitters because MeCP2 binds to the promoters of the enzymes that are a critical step in the production of the neurotransmitters.
"We wanted to know what role MeCP2 plays in the neurons that produce the neurotransmitters," said Neul. Using a special process, they were able to "knock-out" the MeCP2 gene only in the subset of neurons that produced each neurotransmitter. He and Zoghbi credited first author and graduate student Rodney C. Samaco with pushing the work forward.
When they eliminated MeCP2 in the neurons that produce serotonin, only the serotonin levels decreased. When they eliminated it in the neurons that produce dopamine and norepinephrine, only the levels of those neurotransmitters decreased.
Symptoms paralleled neurotransmitter loss. When only dopamine and norepinephrine declined, the animal had movement problems. When only serotonin levels decreased, the animals had normal movement but were more aggressive.
"The pathophysiology (symptoms) of the disease is a cumulative effect of MeCP2 on different neuronal populations," said Neul. "Each contributes to the overall picture of the disease."
In the future, he said, he hopes to target the symptoms of the diseases by correcting the defect in the neurotransmitters.
"We could use this information to do some targeted therapeutics by modifying the dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin systems," Neul said.
An important negative finding is that loss of MeCP2 in the neurotransmitter-making cells did not cause breathing problems or death, said Neul.
"We have to start finding out what is causing the breathing abnormalities and deaths," Neul said. "It could be a cumulative effect that occurs when MeCP2 is lost from all of these neurotransmitters systems. We may need to consider therapy that modifies all of these systems to see a meaningful effect."
The findings may also have implications for other disorders that stem from neurotransmitter abnormalities "“ such as Parkinson's disease.
"Understanding the pathological mechanism that causes these abnormalities in Rett syndrome may give insight into the neurocircuitry that contributes to other kinds of diseases," Neul said.
Others who took part in the study include Caleigh Mandel-Brehma, Hsiao-Tuan Chaob, Christopher S. Ward, Sharyl L. Fyffe-Maricich, Christina Thaller, Steven M. Maricich and Daniel G. Glaze, all of BCM; Jun Ren and John J. Greer of the University of Alberta in Canada, Keith Hyland of Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, Peter Humphreys of Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Canada and Alan Percy of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Sharyl L. Fyffe-Maricich and Stephen M. Maricich are now at Caste Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Ohio, and Hyland is with Medical Neurogenetics in Atlanta.
Funding for this work came from Autism Speaks, the National Institutes of Health, the International Rett Syndrome Foundation, the Simons Foundation and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
On the Net:
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