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Get henry copeland's new subjectivity quotes.
We may have less control over our thoughts than previously assumed -- ScienceDaily
Morsella and the other researchers conducted two experiments with SF State students. In the first experiment, 35 students were told beforehand to not count an array of objects presented to them. In 90 percent of the trials, students counted the objects involuntarily. In a second experiment, students were presented with differently colored geometric shapes and given the option of either naming the colors (one set) or counting the shapes (a different set). Even though students chose one over the other, around 40 percent thought about both sets. "The data support the view that, when one is performing a desired action, conscious thoughts about alternative plans still occupy the mind, often insuppressibly," said Morsella. Understanding how sets work could have implications for the way we absorb information -- and whether we choose to act or not. We think of our conscious minds as private and insulated from the outside world, says Morsella. Yet our "insulation" may be more permeable than we think. "Our conscious mind is the totality of our experience, a kind of 'prime real estate' in the cognitive apparatus, influencing both decision-making and action," Morsella said. The new study demonstrates that it's actually quite easy to activate sets in people and influence what occupies the brain's "prime real estate." "The research shows that stimuli in the environment are very important in determining what we end up thinking about and that once an action plan is strongly activated its many effects can be difficult to override," said Morsella.
#brain #subjectivity #subconscious - sciencedaily.com
Portraits: filling in what's missing
Writing and painting, descriptive undertakings both, rise and fall on the same ground. The basic mistake of either is to orchestrate too much. If the great insight of Close’s work has been to make portraiture vivid by removing detail, forcing viewers to contribute their own perception to the process, what I have noticed as a reader and writer is that a similar principle applies. The best you can do is provide a constellation of individual points, just enough to let the reader form an opinion of her own. This can be challenging when the writer has something certain in mind to say, but it becomes all the more difficult when there is nothing certain to say at all. A written portrait of a portrait painter is recursive from the start, but when you’re trying to get a fix on the identity of an identity fixer whose own identity is coming unfixed, the whole thing goes uroboric.
#art #biography #subjectivity - nytimes.com
The Mysterious Metamorphosis of Chuck Close - The New York Times
It seems to me now, with greater reflection, that the value of experiencing another person’s art is not merely the work itself, but the opportunity it presents to connect with the interior impulse of another. The arts occupy a vanishing space in modern life: They offer one of the last lingering places to seek out empathy for its own sake, and to the extent that an artist’s work is frustrating or difficult or awful, you could say this allows greater opportunity to try to meet it. I am not saying there is no room for discriminating taste and judgment, just that there is also, I think, this other portal through which to experience creative work and to access a different kind of beauty, which might be called communion.
#art #subjectivity - nytimes.com
On the surface of subjectivity
Looking at a painting like “Lyle,” you see minute shades of detail: a gentle furrow in the brow, a wrinkle of amusement at the corner of the eye. This impression of detail, where no actual detail can be found on the canvas, is mesmerizing and confounding. What you are seeing isn’t really there. You are no longer looking at the actual surface of the painting, but some apparition hovering above it, a numinous specter that arises in part from the engagement of your own imagination. Through the painting, Close has accessed the perceptual center of your mind, exploiting the way we process human identity: the gaps of knowledge and the unknown spaces we fill with our own presumptions, the expectations and delusions we layer upon everyone we meet.
#art #biography #identity #subjectivity - nytimes.com
Lurking, death niggles
While thinking about death directly, Pyszczynski says, folks do rational things to get away from it, like trying to get healthy. It’s when death lurks on the fringes of consciousness that they cling to worldviews and seek self-esteem. "That helps explain why these ideas might seem strange to some people," says Pyszczynski, a professor at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. "You can’t really introspect on it. While you’re thinking about death, this isn’t what you do."
#motivation #death #subjectivity #subliminal - chronicle.com
"The Dress" is the perfect mirror for the subjective, fractured Internet
The fact that a single image could polarize the entire Internet into two aggressive camps is, let’s face it, just another Thursday. But for the past half-day, people across social media have been arguing about whether a picture depicts a perfectly nice bodycon dress as blue with black lace fringe or white with gold lace fringe. And neither side will budge. This fight is about more than just social media—it’s about primal biology and the way human eyes and brains have evolved to see color in a sunlit world.
#science #metaphors #subjectivity - wired.com
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The Grand Unified Theory of Dhammā – Introduction
Revised May 20, 2016; December 22, 2018; July 6, 2019; August 21, 2019
1. According to Buddha Dhamma, EVERYTHING in existence can be put into four ultimate realities (paramatthathō):
Thoughts (citta)
Thought qualities or mental factors (cētasika)
Matter (rūpa)
These entities described in detail in the Tables and Summaries and Abhidhamma sections; see, “Abhidhamma – Introduction.”
All existence “in this world” described in terms of the first three. And they are all conditional; each is born due to the presence of a cause. If there is no cause, none of these three will arise. That is the fundamental cause and effect (paticca samuppāda) in Buddha Dhamma.
Causes are numerous, but the root causes are six: greed, hate, ignorance, non-greed, non-hate, and non-ignorance.
Nibbāna and those other three entities are mutually exclusive (things in this world are absent in Nibbāna); see, “Paṭhamanibbānapaṭisaṃyutta Sutta (Ud 8.1)” (English translation: “The First Discourse about Nibbāna“).
2. Nibbāna results with the removal of the three roots of greed, hate, ignorance (rāgakkhyō, dōsakkhayō, mōhakkhayō Nibbānam).
It is necessary to cultivate the three moral roots non-greed, non-hate, and non-ignorance first while in the mundane eightfold path. That allows one to comprehend Tilakkhana (anicca, dukkha, anatta) and get to the Noble Eightfold Path; see, “Buddha Dhamma – In a Chart.”
Therefore, one strives to remove greed, hate, and ignorance, which are “san“; see, “What is ‘San’?“. That is the key to Nibbāna, as laid out in the Noble Eightfold Path.
Since it does not arise due to causes, Nibbāna is permanent.
3. The citta arise and decay at a fast rate: billions of citta can arise and pass away each second. But as we will see in the Abhidhamma section, “active thoughts” occur relatively infrequently in “fast bursts” or citta vithi. Cētasika is “embedded” in each citta. There are 89 types of cittas in all, and 52 types of cētasikas; see, “Tables and Summaries.” Thus the mental realm is very complicated.
For an introduction to the mind, see “Amazingly Fast Time Evolution of a Thought (Citta),” “The Amazing Mind – Critical Role of Nāmagotta (Memories),” and “Do I Have “A Mind” That Is Fixed and “Mine”?” in that order.
4. Matter (rūpa) constitutes of 28 basic units, of which only four are truly fundamental. However, the smallest indivisible unit of matter is called a “suddhāttaka“; see, “Rupa – Generation Mechanisms” and “The Origin of Matter – Suddhashtaka.” These suddhāshtaka have very long lifetimes of a mahā kappa (basically the age of the universe). Suddhātthaka are the building blocks of any “tangible thing” in this world.
Any sankata in “this world” is subject to change. Each sankata (basically any material thing) has a lifetime that could be shorter than a second or as long as billions of years (for a star for example).
5. Many people confuse “udayavaya” or “formation and the breakup of a sankata” means anything, including suddhāshtaka, is perpetually in flux. They try to tie this with “impermanence” which they incorrectly translate anicca to be. In the contrary, a suddhāshtaka has a very long lifetime.
It is only those “composites” such as humans, animals, trees, etc., that undergo decay and death at time scales that are discernible to us; a gold bar, does not decay for a very long time; see, “Does any Object (Rupa) Last only 17 Thought Moments?“.
For a discussion on udayavaya nana, see, “Udayavaya Ñāna.”
6. The “result” of this udayavaya nature of all sankata embedded in the Three Characteristics of “this world”: anicca, dukkha, anatta. But anicca is NOT impermanence, and anatta is NOT “no-self”; see, “Anicca, Dukkha, Anatta – Wrong Interpretations.”
Briefly, (i) it is not possible to find AND maintain happiness in anything in “this world.” (ii) Because of that, we become distraught and suffer, and (iii). Thus, one becomes helpless (not in control). It is essential to realize that these are characteristics of not just this life, but our beginning-less rebirth process in “this wider world” of 31 realms described below.
Even though gold bars are virtually permanent relative to our lifetimes, we still cannot “maintain it to our satisfaction.” That is because we have to leave it (and anything else) behind when we die.
And all this is due to “udayavaya” of sankata, all that we experience; see, “Root Cause of Anicca – Five Stages of a Sankata.”
7. Therefore, there is NOTHING “in this world” that is permanent (except “nama gotta“; see below). Everything is constantly changing. That is the fundamental reason why nothing in “this world” will meet one’s expectations; see, “Second Law of Thermodynamics is Part of Anicca!“.
Some things can last longer than others, but nothing is permanent. Anything is CONDITIONAL, i.e., arises due to causes. It would not come to existence in the absence of root causes. Thus it is said that everything “in this world” is CONDITIONED.
The only exception is “nama gotta,” which are the permanent records of a given “lifestream”; see, “Recent Evidence for Unbroken Memory Records (HSAM).” That is how one with abhinna powers can go back and look at one’s past lives; some children can recall their past lives too. That record is permanent.
8. This world made of citta, cētasika, and rūpa is very complicated. Living beings can be born in 31 realms out of which we can “see” only two realms: human and animal.
Think about the fact that all biological matter arises from just four bases of DNA, and all computer codes based on two units, 0 and 1. Thus, one could see how complex the mind is when there are 89 types of cittas, and 52 types of cētasikas are involved!
9. Nibbāna, in contrast to citta, cētasika, and rūpa, is UNCONDITIONED. Nibbāna attained by removing all root causes. Thus Nibbāna itself does not arise due to root causes and therefore is permanent.
Nibbāna is attained at four steps or stages: Stream Entry (Sōtapanna), Once-Returner (Sakadāgāmi), Non-Returner (Anāgāmi), Arahant.
At each stage, bad character or “gati” (pronounced “gathi“) that could result in births in some realms are “removed”; see, “Gati, Bhava, and Jāti.” For example, at the Sōtapanna stage, those hateful gati suitable for beings in niraya, greedy gati suitable for petas (hungry ghosts), etc. are removed.
All causes (and all “gati“) removed at the Arahant stage. However, an Arahant lives as a normal human being until death and is not reborn anywhere in “this world.” Let us first examine what the Buddha meant by “this world” in the next section.
Thirty-one Planes of Existence
Here is a video from Carl Sagan to get an idea of how vast our “detectable universe” is:
The “worldview” of the Buddha is not merely about the living beings on this planet. Our Solar system is one of an infinite number of “world-systems” (planetary systems). In the EACH planetary system with life (scientists have not found even one yet, but they are out there!), there are 31 “planes of existence.” As we find out below, we can “see” only two of these realms: our human realm and the animal realm. Thus our “world” is much more complicated than even the present-day science believes.
As some of you may already know, science cannot account for 95% of the mass of the universe, which they label “dark energy” and “dark matter”; see, “The 4 Percent Universe” by Richard Panek (2011), or do a Google search on “dark energy and dark matter”. That is why I say that the Buddha transcended “this world”; see, “Power of the Human Mind – introduction.” He was able to “see” the whole of existence: see “Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem” under “Dhamma and Science.”
A being in a given plane of existence is reborn in any of the 31 realms at death. That happens instantaneously, and evidence for such a mechanism is slowly emerging from quantum mechanics; see, “Quantum Entanglement – We are all Connected.”
The Buddha has described these different realms of existence in many suttas, and a convenient summary is at: “31 Realms of Existence“. For a detailed discussion see, “31 Realms Associated with the Earth“. In the following, I will use a visual to simplify things a bit and to provide a simple description of Nibbāna with respect to this “wider world of existence.”
Imagine a sphere with 31 shells, with a small sphere in the middle. Thus the total volume of the big sphere is filled by the center sphere and surrounding shells. The 31 sections represent the 31 planes of existence. I emphasize that this is just a visual. The reality is different. For example, animal and human realms co-exist. Also, both time and space are infinite.
1. The inner 11 shells represent the kāma lōka, where all five physical sense faculties are present.
The innermost sphere represents the niraya (hell) where there is non-stop suffering; next is the animal realm. There are two more realms where suffering is higher than in the human plane.
The human plane is the fifth shell. That is the last realm where greed, hate, and ignorance all prevail. However, this is unique in the sense that humans can also get rid of all those three and attain Nibbāna.
The sixth through eleventh shells represent the realms of the devas (wrongly translated as gods by many). Devas do not have dense bodies with flesh and blood, and thus, they do not have the physical ailments. They do not generate greedy thoughts.
2. The next 16 shells represent realms where only two physical sense faculties (eye and ear) are active, in addition to mind. These beings have very fine bodies, even less dense than devas. These are called rūpa lōkas.
3. The last four shells represent the arūpa lōkas, where beings have ultra-fine bodies and only the mind faculty; they do not have physical senses.
4. In rūpa and arūpa lōkas, living beings are in jhānic states, and those beings do not have either greed or hate; but they still have ignorance.
Humans can attain these jhānic states, and thus humans can “temporarily live” in those lōkas; see, “Power of the Human Mind – Anariya or Mundane Jhanas.”
The 16 realms in the rūpa lōka correspond to the four lower jhānas, and the four realms in the arūpa lōka correspond to the four higher jhānas.
5. Now, a lot of you may be thinking, “How do I know all this is true? Is there any evidence?”. There are a lot of things we do not know about “this world.” We cannot rely on our senses or even science to verify/confirm these; see, “Wrong Views (Micca Ditthi) – A Simpler Analysis” and “Dhamma and Science.”
Only within the last 50 years or so that science has accepted that our universe has more than a few galaxies (now science has confirmed that there are billions of galaxies!).
Furthermore, the newest findings (yet unconfirmed) in string theory indicate that we live in a 10-dimensional world (of course we cannot see the other spatial dimensions), not a 3-dimensional world. For a fun look at different spatial dimensions, see, “What Happens in Other Dimensions.”
6. Any living being (including each of us) has been in all realms in this beginning-less sansāra (or samsāra). We have been in the niraya (hell), and we have been at the highest (except the five pure abodes in rūpa lōka which can be accessed only by Anāgāmis or Non-Returners).
7. Above the human realm, there is relatively less suffering (except at death, which is inevitable). However, unless one has achieved at least the Stream Entry (Sōtapanna) stage, even a living being in the highest plane can fall to any lower level. Therefore, a normal human is bound to end up in the niraya (hell) at some point; once there one will spend a long agonizing time there and eventually come out. Each of us has done this many times over. The cause of births in different realms is explained in terms of “kamma seeds”; see, “Sankhara, Kamma, Kamma Beeja, Kamma Vipaka“).
8. So, each living being moves from one realm to another, but spends the most time in the four lower worlds, mainly because once fallen there, it is hard to come out. This “sansāric wandering” is the critical point to think about and comprehend.
9. As one moves away from the center, the level of suffering decreases, and the level of mundane pleasure increases up to the 11th realm. After that in the rūpa and arūpa lōkas it is mainly the jhānic pleasures, not the sense pleasures; see, “Three Kinds of Happiness – What is Niramisa Sukha?“.
10. The human realm and the animal realm are the only ones where a being is born to parents. In all other realms, living beings are born instantaneously, formed fully, within an instant (cittakkhana) of dying in the previous life. That is an opapatika birth. That is why the Buddha said, “manō pubbangamā dhammā………..“. The mind is the root cause, not matter.
As discussed in the Abhidhamma section, even the humans and animals start their “bhava” opapatically as gandhabbas; see, “Gandhabba (Manomaya Kaya).” They begin building a “dense physical body” after getting into a womb.
11. A person who becomes an Arahant or attains Nibbāna, will not be reborn in any of these 31 realms. Thus, Nibbāna is not difficult to understand: see, “Nibbāna – Is it Difficult to Understand?“, and “What are Rupa? Relation to Nibbāna“, and other posts (by the way, you can type a keyword in the “Search box” at top right to get a list of relevant posts).
Nibbāna, in the present model, corresponds to getting out of all 31 shells, out of the big sphere; no more rebirth in any of the 31 realms. Nibbāna is where the permanent sukha or nirāmisa sukha, is.
When one attains Nibbāna or Arahanthood, he/she looks just like any other human but has no attachments to any worldly things. Until death, an Arahant is subjected to kamma vipāka. When that kammic power is used up, he dies and is not reborn because he/she will not “willingly grasp” (or “upādāna“) any of the possible births.
12. Why are we trapped in the 31 realms? Because we perceive that there is happiness to be had in “this world.” We are not aware that there is much suffering in the lower four realms. Many people look at their lives and say, “where is this suffering the Buddha was talking about?”: It is the hidden suffering that is there not only in this world but mostly in the lowest four realms. The problem is that once fallen there, it is hard to come back up. In those realms – animal realm included – beings are more like robots. They do not have developed minds like humans.
No one or no external force is keeping us in “this world” of 31 realms. Content with sense pleasures, do not see the suffering “in the long term” or even in this life as we get old. Thus we are clinging to everything in this world like an octopus grabbing its prey with all eight legs. And we are not aware that there is a better kind of pleasure in Nibbāna, in detaching from “this world”; see, “Three Kinds of Happiness – What is Niramisa Sukha?“. (Also, unless a Buddha comes along, we do not know about the 31 realms and are not aware of the suffering in the lower four realms).
13. Can we taste Nibbānic “pleasure”?. Yes. We can feel it in increments, even below the Stream Entry (Sōtapanna) stage; see, “How to Taste Nibbāna.” That is nirāmisa sukha, the “pleasure of giving up worldly things.”
This nirāmisa sukha has “quantum jumps” (substantial instantaneous changes) at the four stages of Nibbāna: Stream Entry, Once-Returner, Non-Returner, Arahant. Thus when one is on the Path, one can experience nirāmisa sukha at varying degrees, all the way to Nibbānic bliss, during this very lifetime; see, at the end of “The Four Stages in Attaining Nibbāna.”
14. All these 31 realms are in our solar system (cakkavāla or Chakrawāta in Sinhala). They are associated with the Earth. There are billions of such cakkavāla (planetary systems) in existence at all times with living beings.
These are in clusters of the small, medium, and large “world systems” (galaxies, galaxy clusters, and superclusters?). But none is permanent. They come into being and eventually perish. Within the past 100 years or so, scientists have confirmed the existence of billions of planetary systems within each galaxy. And there are billions of such galaxies in our universe!
We have been born in almost all of these realms in our sansāric journey that has no traceable beginning.
Continues the discussion in, “Our Two Worlds: Material and Mental“, ……..
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Posts Tagged ‘Arvind Kejriwal’
Is This The Intellectual Depth Of Aam Aadmi Party?
April 26, 2013 Anuraag Sanghi 2 comments
Aam Aadmi Party founders like @VinitaDeshmukh and @ArvindKejriwal derive inspiration from US governance. What lessons, if any, from the USA?.
Query to Vinita Deshmukh, brought no reply. Possibly, in her view, this message was axiomatic – what in Indian classical idiom will be called pratyaksh satya. | Tweet Text – My observation: Governance in USA revolves around Citizen Safety and Citizen Convenience. Just love it! | Twitter – VinitaDeshmukh- My observation- Governance … 2013-04-26 10-02-32 | Click to go to original message.
very remarkable thing in India is the effect English has on Indian minds.
For instance, Arvind Kejriwal‘s Party, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has looked to the US for every inspiration. This inspiration-by-the-US ideas are not based on study of the US – but on the propaganda by US media.
For instance corruption.
Just one scandal in the US, is bigger than all corruption cases that have ‘allegedly’ happened in the last nearly 70 years of independent India. The nearly US$8 trillion of unaccounted /partially accounted hole in the expenditure by US Department of Defense. US$ 8 trillion is nearly all the money that India has spent on defense in the last 65 years.
Yet a founder of the AAP tweets on US governance. Not surprisingly, it based on ‘optics’ – not on any critical appreciation of the US.
For instance, let us look at the US Supreme Court.
Slavery vs Freedom
In March, 1857.
About 1 month before India went up in flames, against the British Raj, the Supreme Court of the USA (SCOTUS) covered itself in infamy. On March 6, 1857 the US Supreme Court, in a complex judgement, upheld slavery (Dred Scott v. Sanford). This judgement closed the door of US judiciary and stopped any slave from approaching US courts for justice.
In March 1857, while Indians were preparing to battle the British for freedom and independence, the SCOTUS was busy finding new ways to keep slaves – stooped, shackled and in chains.
It took another 100 years of protests, assassinations of leaders like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, even a Civil War to change rampant discrimination in the US. But, above all, finally an acute shortage of factory labor and soldiers forced the US Government to withdraw its support to entrenched racism.
The SCOTUS just did not stop at slavery.
SCOTUS supported racism (United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, 261 U.S. 204 (1923)), segregation by Plessy v. Ferguson 1896.
This tradition has continued. Most recently, SCOTUS stopped a vote recount that would have declared Al Gore the President – but instead, George Bush became the US President for the second term. Books have been written, news journals regularly compile their ‘favorite’ lists of Worst 10 SCOTUS judgements.
Unlike the SCOTUS, the Indian SC has not allowed such unjust judgements to escape its portals. The Indian Supreme Court, in its’ short history has been a remarkable body in juridical operations.
I could repeat big data here
How the US imprisons more people than the next 10 biggest police States in the world.
How 1 in 3 Black Americans are imprisoned
How the US police are brutal force which tramples on US citizens’ rights, every minute, every day.
How the US secret police is bigger than any police State ever in the history of mankind
How the US prosecutes more than 1.4 crore people through its judicial system – which I have pointed out above is covered in tar.
If Arvind Kejriwal and Vinita Deshmukh of the Aam Aadmi Party will take a 2ndlook.
Having said all this, Arvind Kejriwal’s idea of a citizen police force for women safety is a step in the right direction. While the BJP, Communists were all clamoring for more police, more judges, more courts, more costs, Arvind Kejriwal differed.
We cannot have an expanding State. Do we want more and more brutal policemen.
Who are you? asks the Indian SC (quicktake.wordpress.com)
AAP proposes ‘citizen security force’ for women’s safety (vancouverdesi.com)
Aam Aadmi Party to submit 6 lakh letters to Dikshit (thehindu.com)
Aam Aadmi Party now a registered political party (thehindu.com)
Civil society groups support Kejriwal’s campaign against “inflated” power bills (thehindu.com)
Kejriwal’s indefinite fast fails to attract public (ibnlive.in.com)
Condition of 5-year-old Indian girl who was raped improves as protests continue (theglobeandmail.com)
Categories: Corruption, India, Indian education, Media, Politics, Social Trends, Yumm-Rika Tags: AAM AAdmi Party, Arvind Kejriwal, SCOTUS
Kejriwal Misrepresents
November 9, 2012 Anuraag Sanghi Leave a comment
Kejriwal’s press conference is a defeatist approach to a global problem. Factually and conceptually wrong, Kejriwal has an ’empty’ agenda.
While Robert Vadra calls India a ‘banana republic’, Kejriwal is trying his best to prove Robert Vadra’s description becomes reality. Kejriwal has just finished a press conference where he has made some serious allegations of black-money abroad.
For now, no transcript is available or any links. Below is my summary of the points that Kejriwal makes.
Yumm-Rika is right. Indian Government is incompetent.
If this right, what is the status on the US$10 trillion DoD scam. This amounts to about 80% of US GDP – by one department in a short period of time. As Kejriwal should know, the DoD-GOTUS has not obtained a clean audit report for decades now.
Moral of the Story: – Corruption is a global story – and more taxes, more laws, more police, will not solve this. Less power to the State is a good starting point.
UBS came running and gave details to Yumm-Rika.
Blatantly untrue.
The GOTUS had to institute legal proceedings, diplomatically push the Swiss Govt. – and obtained this info. after considerable effort.
Read this anti-Swiss actions by the GOTUS alongwith the passing of the NDAA Acts. This probably points towards closing all doors and windows for US citizens, before some kind of gold-confiscation by GOTUS is done. Obama has won his second-term – and will probably do this in the next 12-36 months.
Moral of the Story: – This is maya. Look at things a little deeper.
Hawalatransactions.
For money to be given in India does not need hawala. There are perfectly legal methods to do this.
Moral Of The Story: – Check with IT, Finance Ministry and banks how this can be done. Talk to the guilty party also.
At the beginning of the press conference he makes a defeatist statement that we will never get our money back. But just before Prashant Bhushan starts off, Kejriwal asserts that this money comes back as FII /FDI investment.
Silly Indians keep money in Swiss accounts these days. India is the best place to keep your money these days – black, white, accounted, unaccounted.
Moral of The Story: – Three important points. Data. Data. Data.
Rs.6000-Rs.7000 crores abroad. And not 25,00,00,000 crores as per CBI estimates.
The amount of money that Indians supposedly have in foreign banks exceeds our GDP. Any economic calculation will tell you that this is not feasible.
Moral of The Story: – Data. Data. Data.
Why were the small guys targeted.
Yes. The small guys are always the first to be hit. And this is the reality of Desert Bloc polity. This is the only sensible point that Kejriwal makes.
Answer and solution – Bharattantra.
Kejriwal to make another revelation today (ibnlive.in.com)
IAC asks Vadra to apologise for ‘banana republic’ FB post (ibnlive.in.com)
Mukesh Ambani runs India, not PM: Arvind Kejriwal’s third ‘expose’ (ndtv.com)
We are targeting corruption, not Cong: Kejriwal on Vadra (ibnlive.in.com)
We are the B-team of the people of India, not BJP: Kejriwal to NDTV (ndtv.com)
Khurshid dares Kejriwal to visit Farrukhabad (thehindu.com)
Categories: Corruption, India, Indian Economy, Media, Politics, Social Trends, World Economy, Yumm-Rika Tags: Arvind Kejriwal, HSBC, India Against Corruption, UBS
Team Anna Breaks Up. Anna, Kejriwal go separate ways: The Dance Of Lilliputs
September 20, 2012 Anuraag Sanghi 1 comment
Can these ‘corruption-fighters’ reconcile an expanding State with decreasing corruption?
Will Harry Potter-Anna Hazare riding on a magic broomstick, wave a wand and corruption will disappear? | Cartoon by Manoj Kureel.
What can you do with anger, rage, fury?
Can empty rage fuel a revolution?
Not in India, at least. Ideologically empty movements like Arab Spring have little impact on a nation – except it replaces one mobster with another.
Can these ‘corruption-fighters’ reconcile an expanding State with decreasing corruption? Can these ‘corruption-fighters’ reconcile more police with less crime? Have these ‘corruption-fighters’ studied the global corruption scenario? Have these ‘corruption-fighters’ quantified sectors where it is rampant, has increased, and where it has decreased? Have they quantified the volume and value of corruption?
Even before the battle has been defined, there is strategy and tactics. The corruption issue in India is so deeply superficial, that it is a matter of greater concern than corruption itself.
Arvind Kejriwal’s former associate, member of Team Anna and now associate of Baba Ramdev, Devinder Sharma (thinks) the split is a victory for the Congress which always worked for it. He said the Congress also wanted them to form a party which would then eat into the Opposition votes and improve its own chances of victory.
He should go back to Anna and the movement as forming a party now would only help the Congress, says Sharma. He says that right from the beginning it was known that Anna was sympathetic to the Congress. But the Congress also maintained a hot line with Kejriwal, and tried all means to create differences in them, besides pushing them away from Baba Ramdev, says Sharma.
He says that when the five Congress ministers came to receive Baba Ramdev at the airport and held talks at Claridges hotel, one of the demands made by Kapil Sibal was that Anna Hazare should not be allowed to come to the Baba’s stage. “If Baba comes talks fail, Sibal told us,’’ says Sharma. “The very next day Arvind Kejriwal gave a list of conditions for us if we wanted Anna to share stage with the Baba. ‘’
Kapil Sibal also told us that he was talking to Arvind every day. This was confirmed later by Arvind to me, says Sharma.
Again in December when the crowds were thin in Mumbai, Baba offered to come and join the protests but Arvind did not allow it. While first it was Sibal who was doing the manipulation, later it was Sandeep Dixit who was in touch with Arvind followed by Yogendra Yadav. “You need time to build a party. If they form a party now, they would help the Congress which is what they want,’’ says Sharma.
Yogendra Yadav political analyst and now member of the political alternative being formed by Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan said a new party by them need not necessarily help the Congress. He said that the exit of Anna Hazare from a future political option is a set back. But at the same time it opens up new opportunities, he said.
via Anna, Kejriwal enacted a Cong script, says former associate.
After splitting with his team, Anna Hazare on Wednesday night had a hush-hush meeting with yoga guru Baba Ramdev.
The surprise meeting was held in a house in posh Golf Links of Delhi in which former Army Chief Gen V K Singh is believed to have been present.
The meeting came soon after Hazare had a tumultuous meeting with his team over turning the anti-corruption movement taking a political plunge.Pramod Joshi, a spokesperson for Ramdev, confirmed the meeting but said he was not aware of what was discussed in the meeting.
There was also no confirmation about Singh’s presence in the meeting.
Hazare had earlier skipped the protest organised by Ramdev last month.
via Post split with Arvind Kejriwal, Anna Hazare meets Baba Ramdev : North, News – India Today.
Have the ‘corruption-fighters’ studied the issue seriously? | Cartoon by Yusuf.
What can we do with corruption?
Corruption is the handmaiden of democratically managed Welfare State – a model imported by India, from the West. Silly protests or one more quasi-judicial body will probably add another layer of corruption at worst – or check corruption at the very best.
The same media that inflated Anna to Gandhiji’s level now blames
‘a large section of India’s middle class believed that the Anna-Kejriwal combine had miraculously created the magic potion that would, in one fell swoop, rid India of one of the biggest ills plaguing the country.’
Unlike 2ndlook. While 2ndlook was clear on the expectations from Anna, there was also understanding that Anna Movement was ideologically empty.
But Anna had crowds?
What of the crowds that supported Anna movement and hunger strike?
If RSS was indeed behind the Anna Movement, like the RSS has claimed – and Anna disclaimed, I am afraid.
It is worth remembering that RSS also supported JP’s movement that had the Janata Party as the electoral lead. RSS supported Janata Party, led by an ex-Congress leader Morarji Desai at its head, who had a credible allegation of being in CIA pay.
The split between veteran anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare and his one-time man Friday – Arvind Kejriwal – was engineered by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), sources told Headlines Today on Thursday.Sources said that it was emissaries of the RSS and Hazare’s close aides who convinced the Gandhian against Kejriwal and facilitated the split.
Revealing the inside story, sources told Headlines Today that RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav was assigned the task of effecting the split, while industrialist Sitaram Jindal was tasked with facilitating communication between the saffron organisation’s top leadership and Hazare. Reportedly, Jindal made multiple trips to the crusader’s native place, Ralegan Siddhi, over the last fortnight.
Sources said that Jindal convinced Hazare’s old aides against Kejriwal’s political party. Yoga guru Baba Ramdev and spiritual leader and Art of Living (AoL) founder Sri Sri Ravishankar, who are considered close to Hazare, also played a significant role. They were aided at every step by Kiran Bedi and former Army Chief General V.K. Singh.
Once Hazare made the split official last night, he left for Jindal’s farmhouse around 8.45 P.M. He then moved to Golf Links for a secret strategy session. Ramdev joined the meeting later even as Jindal, Gen Singh and Bedi remained in a huddle for over 30 minutes.
According to sources, Bedi has been promised chief ministership of Delhi and Gen Singh a BJP ticket from Bhiwani Lok Sabha constituency in Haryana.
via Is Anna Hazare the Sangh Parivar’s new mask? : India, News – India Today.
So full of himself
Anna’s assessment of his own value is breath-taking.
Announcing his break with Kejriwal, he warned, चुनाव के टाइम पर मैं प्रचार करने के लिये नही जाऊंगा. इतना ही नही, मेरी फोटू नही यूज़ करना, मेरा नाम नही यूज़ करना. आपके हिम्मत पर जो कुछ करना है कर लो. (In effect he is saying, Do what you can, without me, my name, my photos or my campaigning.). See video below.
Did someone tell Anna-bhau that his work was not about his photu, his name or his silly speeches – but about corruption?
Anna is such a ideological deadbeat!
Post split with Arvind Kejriwal, Anna Hazare meets Baba Ramdev (ndtv.com)
Kejriwal now supports Ramdev (thehindu.com)
Anna Hazare confirms split, asks Arvind Kejriwal not to use his name or photo (ndtv.com)
Anna Hazare distancing himself from Arvind Kejriwal? (ndtv.com)
India Ink: The End of Team Anna? (india.blogs.nytimes.com)
Same goal, but different paths: Hazare on Kejriwal (thehindu.com)
Anna angry with media, skips questions on Ramdev meet (ibnlive.in.com)
Categories: Corruption, India, Indian Economy, Indian media, Social Trends Tags: Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal, global corruption, Politics, Team Anna
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Pasta: Episode 18 Recap
by: Raine
The contrived conflict at the end of the episode really did me in. There was a point they should’ve ended it, and they missed their chance. But, there were some good moments. So read on and enjoy!
“Part Time Lover” – Clazziquai Project (from the Pasta OST)
https://raine0211.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/06.mp3
episode 18 recap
The morning paper has come out and it has some shocking news. An article titled “‘Chef’s Table’ program’s Oh Sae-young’s confession” is on the front page. Hyun-wook reads the paper at home and Team Korea, Team Italy, the dining hall staff and San read the news on the internet. In the article, Sae-young admits to sabotaging the competition – Choi Hyun-wook.
When Eun-soo shows Yoo-kyung the paper, she runs to San’s office, worried for Sae-young. San is on his way to see her and says he’ll keep Yoo-kyung posted.
Choi Hyun-wook receives a text from Sae-young saying that she loves him and that she lost. He replies that the real rivalry can begin now, making her smile.
The dining hall is buzzing with gossip about Oh Sae-young and to make matters worse, the bitchy critics from the Golden Spoon are there. They order rare steaks, which confuses the kitchen staff. Seol bursts into the kitchen in a panic – the critics who created the lobster scene are back!!!
Seol’s panic spreads but the Chef tells them to focus and reassigns jobs in the mainline so that the sous chef can make the steaks. When Seol takes them to the critics, he is sweating bullets and runs away when they ask him about his change in dress. (Uh, major demotion ladies.) They taste the steak and call for the Chef.
The kitchen staff meets with Seol who speculates that Sae-young tarnished their reputation and that the Golden Spoon means to re-evaluate La Sfera with Chef Choi as the sole head of the kitchen. Team Italy is all for it because it will bring the Chef the attention he deserves.
The critics ordered rare steak to test the quality of the meat, which pleases Seol because sous chef Geum rocks the steak. Team Korea says he’s the “Golden Steak.” Har har.
Anyway, the ladies from the Golden Spoon say that the steak doesn’t taste totally clean – it has some gaminess. They wonder if should trust the quality of the dishes because of Sae-young. He asks them if they would acknowledge his expertise if he were to analyze the problem.
A peeved San meets Sae-young, hurt that she didn’t confide in him. Was he just a scarecrow of a friend? She says that he should understand why she couldn’t open up to him. She had unfinished business with Choi Hyun-wook – she might’ve gone back to him. Did she think he wouldn’t be there? “What do I do now?” she asks.
In his office, Chef asks the mainline if they think their steak is perfect. There is a smell that is masked by cooking it medium or well-done. The sous chef thinks it sounds like a contrived problem. It seems to me that Hyun-wook likes the challenge, but Team Korea thinks they’re being played.
Eun-soo comes in with a hunk of meat. The cause of the gaminess is the blood in the meat. The key is to wrap it tightly in clothe and plastic. Ho-nam points out that a good sauce takes that away and it’s better to develop that than waste time wrapping meat. But the best quality meat comes from the steak itself and that comes with the preparation.
The chef asks them to go through a time-consuming process to improve the quality of the meat and they are pissed and insulted. He asks them to stay after work to prepare it. Yoo-kyung offers to stay as well.
On the roof, Team Korea bitches that the chef only cares about the star rating and showing off. They get a call from the New Chef committee reminding them that they need to resubmit their application with a managing chef.
Hyun-wook is hounded with calls from the Daily News and hangs up on all of them. Ji-hoon thinks that he should just talk to a reporter and get the attention he deserves to boost his career. With a few threats, Hyun-wook shuts him up and leaves. Eun-soo thinks that the chef is siding with Sae-young because they once dated. Philip and Woo-duk are pissed that Ji-hoon spilled the beans about their past relationship to Eun-soo.
Kim Kang, San’s cougar sister, meets Sae-young. She says that the second time she divorced, people made her out to be a criminal. That spring she cried like a lunatic and was depressed. Her pride was hurt and she couldn’t say she wasn’t wrong. When the flowers bloomed, she couldn’t enjoy them because she thought about her ex-husband’s hurt. Cry like crazy because you did wrong, she tells Sae-young, who bawls into Cougar’s shoulder.
That night, Yoo-kyung brings the meat but Team Korea refuses to prepare it. The chef is trying new things when they’re busy because he’s materialistic. Seung-jae accidentally says that they need the time to prepare for the New Chef competition and Sang-sik hilariously tries to shush him. Too late. The cat’s out of the bag.
They swear her to secrecy and when she offers to ask the chef for help, they adamantly refuse, thinking he’d never help them. Why should the sous chef relearn the basics when he’s already awesome at making steak anyway?
Seriously dudes, stop taking your issues out on poor Yoo-kyung.
Hyun-wook drives Yoo-kyung home and ignores more calls from reporters. She thinks he’s being too hard on Team Korea – why does he treat them like they don’t know the basics? They don’t have them down pat, he says. Yoo-kyung wants him to give them at least half the affection he gives her but he thinks it’s a waste of time because they never listen to him.
Then she gets a call from her dad who tells her to do well so that Hyun-wook can hold his head up. Whose side are you on? she demands of her father and hangs up. Hyun-wook is pleased that her father took his side.
At Eun-soo’s urging, Team Italy hesitantly goes to help Team Korea prepare the meat. They shock Team Korea who’s trying to practice for the competition. Eun-soo declares that they’re here to help but Team Italy gets suspicious. Seung-joo quickly ushers them out. They don’t need Team Italy’s help.
On either side of the door, each team is wondering what the other is up to.
The next morning, the chef discovers that Team Korea only made sauces. They will not take filet mignon orders today because the meat was not prepared properly. Why can’t they let go of the sauce? Team Italy wants to know why they can’t just do as the chef asks.
Finally, the sous chef tells the chef to do whatever he wants. He’s already insulted them. The chef smirks. Then he’ll take them out of the New Chef competition. If you can’t please me, how are you to please the judges? Team Korea gives Yoo-kyung the look of death. The chef forbids them from using the kitchen after hours to practice – he’s going to lock the door.
Team Italy is angry that they decided to do this and represent their kitchen without informing anyone. The two teams get into it but the chef stops them, telling them to get back to work.
Yoo-kyung asks why Hyun-wook was so hard on Team Korea and he wants to know why she’s siding with them. If I only took your side, what would I become? she replies. They have a cute moment as they say “posso fare” back and forth, which means, “I can do it” in Italian.
That night, Team Korea shows up and finds the doors are locked. Even the sous chef loses his cool! When Yoo-kyung shows up, she calls the chef, asking why he’s doing this when he could use this opportunity to bring the kitchen together. At least give me the keys and I won’t ask for your help anymore. If you’re not going to sabotage them, at least let them practice.
Hyun-wook gets angry, but he intended to go back anyway. Before he can, however, he receives a phone call from Reporter Yoon who is interviewing Oh Sae-young. He wants to hear both sides of the story before publishing his article. Hyun-wook says the contents of the articles are true, but surprises Sae-young and Reporter Yoon when he says she would’ve won anyway. She is an excellent chef and it angers him that an excellent chef may stop cooking.
At La Sfera, Team Korea and Yoo-kyung wait impatiently for him. They get really angry at her and leave, thinking that she’s made a fool of them.
Hyun-wook rushes to La Sfera but he’s too late. He finds Yoo-kyung drinking alone at a pojangmacha and sits behind her without her noticing. He texts her twice but she ignores him. When he leans in close, they bump heads.
She scolds him heavily for pushing Team Korea down and for not helping them to become better chefs. Why can’t he open his heart to them as he did to her? Like them, she can’t go to Italy or a good cooking school so she understands their desire to win the competition and study in Italy. At her impassioned words, he gives in although he says if they refuse him as their managing chef, he’ll be embarrassed. She assures him that they won’t refuse him.
With a smile, she says she’s sad that she can’t monopolize him anymore and he begs her to monopolize him. Uh, get a room guys.
They head on home and San is there for a man-to-man with Hyun-wook. Thanks for taking care of Oh Sae-young, he says. You’re the only one who can get her on her feet, he says.
How is it possible that you two are only friends? Hyun-wook wants to know and San tells him that she was waiting for him.
Next, they verbally bump chests over Yoo-kyung. Chest thump.
Meanwhile, the ladies are having a session of their own – a decidedly sappier session. Sae-young wants to start from the bottom, feeling undeserving of the title “chef.” Yoo-kyung tells her that she’s her hero and calls her chef. It’s touching. Really.
Hyun-wook drives Yoo-kyung to work and she says Team Korea is going to think he’s nuts for being nice to them. It’s true.
Very early the next morning, Team Korea arrives to practice. Seol has the keys and is going to open the kitchen for them. Eun-soo comes in to do prep work and gets some snark from Team Korea. But then, the New Chef committee calls to inform them that they have a managing chef, Choir Hyun-wook! Gasps all around. Team Korea quickly leaves, deciding not to practice behind their chef’s back.
There’s a cute little moment between Seol and Eun-soo when Eun-soo asks Seol for the keys. Why does the dining hall maknae need the keys when the kitchen maknae comes in early every morning to prepare? Seol holds the keys high above his head. Cute!
In the hall, Team Korea nervously calls the chef who barks at them, but they respond heartily with “yae chep!” to everything he says. Now you guys are dead, he says and Team Korea breaks out into grins. They misjudged him. Uh, no duh, jerks. The hypocrites-formerly-known-as-Team-Korea dream of Italy.
Hyun-wook is hungry and Yoo-kyung suggests going to eat at her father’s jjajangmyun restaurant and he agrees. She teases him that he should tell her father to redo their meal over and over again, like he does to her. But, Hyun-wook says he’d really do it and Yoo-kyung gets seriously upset. He’s joking, but she gets so worked up when he doesn’t relent that she tells him to pull over and let her out.
They argue. She doesn’t trust his temper. He is furious that she actually thought he’d do that when he wants to impress her father. Then, he drives off without her and she is shocked. She pitches a fit like a child.
I’m going to try not to rant. But I can’t promise anything.
Yoo-kyung: Girl, stop your damned whining. Everything is an issue with you, isn’t it? Did she SERIOUSLY think Hyun-wook would humiliate himself in front of her father?
That said, what a contrived bit of conflict. The way her character is going, I felt that she would’ve worried, but not gone to the extent of climbing out of the car and pitching a toddler’s fit. I was thoroughly annoyed. So much so I lost any pity I felt for her because of Team Korea’s douche-y-ness. Grow a pair. Seriously. And then use them. Because if this continues, I will not be responsible for my actions.
Hyun-wook: I like his character more and more. He retains the prickly exterior we all know and love, but he softens, doing kind things in the guise of his old selfishness. After a mistake, he actually takes responsibility. Well, save for driving away from a shrieking Yoo-kyung. But I can’t blame him. I would’ve done the same thing…at 90 mph. I do hope he goes back for her, though.
Team Korea: Seriously? SERIOUSLY?! All of them are pretty damned selfish. Take some flippin’ responsibility. THEY hid it from the chef so even if Yoo-kyung HAD told the Chef, they took La Sfera’s reputation into their own hands without the knowledge of the president or the chef. Stop shifting the blame and being such pussies.
On top of that, they hoisted all of their anger onto poor Yoo-kyung. Maybe that’s why she went batshit crazy at the end. They’ve done that the entire time when they’re really angry at the Chef.
Also, even if it’s unreasonable, not doing what your superior tells you too is grounds for firing. I understand that the relationship is less than stellar, but come on. Blatant rebellion? If you care so much about La Sfera that you make wise cracks when Team Italy leaves, you should at least respect it enough to try and up the quality.
Eun-soo and Seol were adorable fighting over the keys. That made me giggle.
Finally, Sae-young became something more than a black hole. I finally saw Honey Lee REALLY act, not act like she was acting. But she still is a miserable second lead.
I need some more cute and less contrived conflict. Remember I complained before about the lack of conflict? Please take it away. Off with it. The cute is what this show is about.
BRING. IT. BACK.
Here are the recaps of episodes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 on best k-drama recapping site ever, dramabeans.com.
Recaps for episodes 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20
Character introductions.
Pasta Episode 18 Screencaps.
Posted in: Asian Drama Reviews and Recaps | Tagged: Gong Hyo-jin, k-drama, Lee Seon-kyun, Noh Min-woo, Pasta, recap
Padam Padam: Episode 6 Recap
How to Meet a Perfect Neighbor: Episode 5 Recap
4 thoughts on “Pasta: Episode 18 Recap”
Carol Moore says:
All I can say is a hearty “What she said” to Raine. Couldn’t. Agree. More. Oh, I’d like to add that I still don’t care about Chef Oh. Boring!
When did San and HK switch cars? Wasn’t he driving a blue car and San had the smaller Mini Coop looking car. Because HK even talks about it being cuter than his or something…
Random observation I know. So Big Lips needs to chill just because his gf got fired on the first day. They were full on about to start undressing in the kitchen. Definitely not appropriate. Too bad HK went off on his “No love in my kitchen” tangent… maybe if he would have said “no gettin down with the hanky panky in my kitchen” they would have stopped grumbling. He’s needs a good kick in the nads.
hooked says:
Was glad to see your site, Raine.
Was wondering and was a bit disappointed why dramabeans didn’t finish the recap.
Thanks for doing this. It lessened the frustration from not being able to view episodes 14, 16 and 18. Your detailed recap and helped me connect the story. Am so glad that I saw your site!!!!
Raine says:
Hooked! Thanks for stopping by! I started these because DB didn’t finish their recaps. 😀 I feel so much better now with a complete set of recaps roaming around the net!
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Modelling Risk
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Assessing the Geomorphological Characteristics of Soil in Dar es Salaam
Posted on 31/01/2019
/Under Geomorphology
Since its kick-off in 2015, the Ramani Huria Project has collected numerous amount of data to help mitigating and planning for flooding in Dar es Salaam. Data collected include historical flood extents data, drainage data, infrastructure – buildings, roads, drains, etc. We also conducted flood risk identification in more than 200 subwards of Dar es Salaam and mapped hyper-local boundaries of the city, famously and informally known as “shina boundaries”.
Having all these data was not sufficient to produce a flood model of the city. There was one missing component in the data which is soil characteristics of the city to help in the geomorphological assessment. The existing soil data was too generalized for the whole country which would be of help when trying to understand the nature of the soil of the city.
Ramani Huria partnered with JBA Consulting (specialized in understanding geomorphological features) all funded by the World Bank and worked on developing a surface soil dataset that will be used for geomorphological assessment and soil characteristics of Dar es Salaam in comparison with future flood risk studies in the region. Soil and/or sediments were sampled from Dar es Salaam and nearby districts that border the city because most of the sediments that flow to the city are from the upper catchment areas which are not likely to be within the city. In order to get a complete dataset of sediments form, these areas needed to be examined too.
Our partner, JBA Consulting, created 731 sample points on a map using a 2km by 2km regular grid to make sure we get samples for the whole of the Dar es Salaam catchment area. A team of 12 field mappers was then trained in the data collection, with an offset policy in place for points where a sample could not be taken due to inaccessibility. Each sample site had its unique code to identify it, date of sample collection and the name of the mapper to avoid any inconvenience that might occur during the analysis.
In case the sample point was hard to reach or a sample could not be collected for some reasons like paved areas, the mapper had to move about 500 meters north and collect the sample. In order to reach the points for taking the soil samples, mappers were used MapHub on their phone to guide them. When connectivity became an issue the team switched to the Maps.Me application, which allowed them to navigate to points offline simply relying on the GPS on their phones.
731 points represented on Maps.Me Application and Map Hub Application
How points are displayed in Maps. Me
When collecting samples in the field, a mapper needed to take two samples; top sediment at the depth between 3cm -7cm and the bottom sample between 7cm -15cm. When in the field, a mapper would fill out an Open Data Kit survey form about the collected soil sample and take a picture of the surrounding environment.
A mapper in the field collecting a soil sample. Photo, Ramani Huria.
The ODK form had questions to be filled with mappers when they were at the site. The questions included:
The name of the region where the sample was collected, district name, ward name, subward name, the ID number of the sample and also the mapper was supposed to take photos before, during, and after collecting the soil sample.
Filling out an ODK survey form about the sample after collecting it on the field. Photo, Ramani Huria.
Analysis of Sediments
The collected sediments were then sieved to determine grain size distribution. Before sieving, the sample is supposed to weigh 500g, and after sieving, the mass of the soil was recorded on a spreadsheet according to the layers of the sieving tool. There was also a prepared ODK form which was being used to fill in the sieved data to make sure that the data is safe in a server.
Outcomes and Impact
Now that we have soil data of the city and the drainage data is underway to be completed, we will then be able to create an accurate flood model of the city by layering the sediment data and drainage channels data of the city and obtain a more complete understanding of flooding in Dar es Salaam.
Apart from having data on soil characteristics on the city, Our team have learned a lot and increased their level of expertise as they fully participated in sample analysis which is normally done by professionals. The commitment of our team and eagerness to learn new thing is among the best outcome of this activity.
What is next on the RH 2.0 project?
As the next phase of Ramani Huria 2.0 is expected to end in July this year, in the coming month we expect to go back to the community and share back the data that we have been collecting over the past months. A number of “shareback” sessions will be conducted and we will build the capacity of local leaders and NGOs on the specific subwards/ wards to make sure they are able to use data collected for different developmental activities.
All content licensed under CC-BY-SA, Dar Ramani Huria 2016
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Rbt1 protein domains analysis in Candida albicans brings insights into hyphal surface modifications and Rbt1 potential role during adhesion and biofilm formation
Nicotine consumption is regulated by a human polymorphism in dopamine neurons
Publication : PloS one
Microarray and RNAi analysis of P450s in Anopheles gambiae male and female steroidogenic tissues: CYP307A1 is required for ecdysteroid synthesis
Équipe: Groupe: Catherine Bourgouin
Équipe: Génétique Fonctionelle des Maladies Infectieuses
Membre : Catherine Bourgouin
Publié sur PloS one - 04 Dec 2013
Pondeville E, David JP, Guittard E, Maria A, Jacques JC, Ranson H, Bourgouin C, Dauphin-Villemant C
PLoS ONE 2013;8(12):e79861
In insects, the steroid hormone 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E) coordinates major developmental transitions. While the first and the final steps of 20E biosynthesis are characterized, the pathway from 7-dehydrocholesterol to 5β-ketodiol, commonly referred as the “black box”, remains hypothetical and whether there are still unidentified enzymes is unknown. The black box would include some oxidative steps, which are believed to be mediated by P450 enzymes. To identify new enzyme(s) involved in steroid synthesis, we analyzed by small-scale microarray the expression of all the genes encoding P450 enzymes of the malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae in active steroidogenic organs of adults, ovaries from blood-fed females and male reproductive tracts, compared to inactive steroidogenic organs, ovaries from non-blood-fed females. Some genes encoding P450 enzymes were specifically overexpressed in female ovaries after a blood-meal or in male reproductive tracts but only three genes were found to be overexpressed in active steroidogenic organs of both females and males: cyp307a1, cyp4g16 and cyp6n1. Among these genes, only cyp307a1 has an expression pattern similar to other mosquito steroidogenic genes. Moreover, loss-of-function by transient RNAi targeting cyp307a1 disrupted ecdysteroid production demonstrating that this gene is required for ecdysteroid biosynthesis in Anopheles gambiae.
Publié le: 04 Dec 2013
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(03) 9471 0155 Book Appointment Emergency
Partnership with Smart Pups
DIY Hydrobath
Our Cat Adoption Centre
Rescue Organisations
Reservoir VIC 3073
Sam's double diseases
Sam is an 11 year old Maltese Terrier cross who was presented to us in February this year as his owner had noticed that he had started drinking and urinating a lot. A general blood test was taken from Sam and the result showed that his liver enzymes had increased. Based on this, Dr Suzanne recommended a more specific test for a disease called Cushing's Disease, which unfortunately came back positive.
Cushing's disease occurs where the adrenal glands (that usually produce cortisone and other 'fight or flight' hormones) become overactive. This means that they produce a lot more of these hormones which can lead to lots of problems. Sam was started on a special medication given every morning. This medication prevents the production of these hormones and will make Sam feel much better. It took a few months to adjust the dose of his medications but he is now on a stable dose and his Cushing's is being controlled.
Last week Sam came in again as his owner now noticed that he had started to drink more again and was losing weight. He was eating really well but his weight was just falling off him. Dr Suzanne took a blood test and an urine test which unfortunately showed that as well as his Cushing's disease he had now developed diabetes. Diabetes occurs when the pancreas does not produce insulin. When you eat your body breaks down food into glucose. This is then used by all of your cells to power them. Insulin is a key that lets glucose from your blood into your cells (such as your brain and muscles) to keep them working. When insulin is not there, even though you are eating, the sugar is not getting into your cells so they think you are starving. Extra glucose comes out in urine and your body cannot keep any weight on.
Sam's owner needed to start giving insulin injections twice a day and is doing a fantastic job. Recently Sam came in for his first blood glucose test which helps us ensure that he is on the correct dose. Sam is doing much better now both of his diseases are being controlled.
Hyperadrenocorticism - Cushing’s disease
Dogs can get diabetes too!
© Reservoir Vet Clinic VIC 2020
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The Public Papers of Governor Bert T. Combs: 1959--1963 by Bert T Combs
The Public Papers of Governor Bert T. Combs: 1959--1963
This volume presents the most important public papers of Bert T. Combs during the four years he served as governor of Kentucky. Arranged chronologically, the papers reveal the policy of the Combs administration as it evolved in the early years of theMoreThis volume presents the most important public papers of Bert T. Combs during the four years he served as governor of Kentucky. Arranged chronologically, the papers reveal the policy of the Combs administration as it evolved in the early years of the 1960s and show how the governor dealt with varying concurrent problems.Although this collection is not intended as a definitive statement of the Combs administration, it provides important source material that will enable historians to study the broad spectrum of issues faced by the people of the Commonwealth at a time when considerable government-inspired change was occurring.John Ed Pearce has provided a perceptive introductory essay to the volume. The appendix offers a complete listing of speeches delivered by Governor Combs during his term of office. The Public Papers of Governor Bert T. Combs: 1959--1963 by Bert T Combs
Modernity and Crises of Identity: Culture and Society in Fin-De-Siecle Vienna
شيزوفرينيا | Schizophrenia
Love Poems for Lucrezia Bendidio
Internet untuk Pemula - Pasti Bisa
Best Bike Rides Seattle: Great Recreational Rides in the Metro Area
Sudoku On the Go
Did You See My Bone? A Kids Learn to Read Fun Book with Beautiful Photos and a Sweet Story (Free Bon
Lines Out
Macbeth: A Modern Understanding
Die Britische Westminsterdemokratie: Parlament, Regierung Und Verfassungswandel
Intelligence Intensity
Famous Friends Of The Wolf Cookbook: Benefiting Wolf Recovery In The West
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Category: QuickBasic
Advanced QuickBASIC Techniques – User Defined Types to Approach Object Oriented Design
QuickBASIC is not Object Oriented but, just as in C, you can get pretty damn close. For many of those that have programmed in QuickBASIC in the past, the most advanced technique for getting around this fact that they would ever use would be arrays. As a matter of fact, if you don’t mind setting constants, Arrays can be a pretty novel way to store properties of an “object” even without custom types! (Don’t worry! If you hate this technique, understand that I know its limitations and that I will present the better, more advanced alternative using custom types later in the article.)
If you create a constant as an alias for an index to a named array, you can simulate accessing the properties of an “object.”
DEFINT A-Z
DIM dog$(3)
CONST nickname = 0, breed = 1, age = 2
dog$(nickname) = "Ralph"
dog$(breed) = "Pug"
dog$(age) = "5"
PRINT dog$(nickname) + " the " + dog$(breed) + " is " + dog$(age) + "."
''' This, of course, will output: "Ralph the Pug is 5." '''
This isn’t useful in situations where you need to store the attributes of many dogs and it quickly becomes cumbersome and unwieldy. In cases where you need to store more objects, it’s necessary to use the TYPE command. This command confused me in my younger years, I just didn’t see its purpose until much later. It is similar to a struct in C in that it is essentially an object that only stores properties and not functions. In C, a struct can store pointers to functions in memory as a way to get around this, however, this is not really possible in QuickBASIC. TYPES are containers for data that can be used as the TYPE in defining an array.
When would this be useful? Let’s suppose you’ve made a game where you will have 25 zombies on the screen, chasing the player. Each zombie needs a status such as whether or not it is active, its location on the screen, its old location, and perhaps which shade of green it is. For something like this, you can define a custom TYPE.
TYPE zombie
active AS STRING * 1
x AS SINGLE
y AS SINGLE
oldx AS SINGLE
oldy AS SINGLE
col AS SINGLE
Then, to have a set of 25 zombies, we can just DIM an array of 25 zombies.
DIM zombies(25) AS zombie
…which basically means “Allocate memory for a 25 element array called ‘zombies’ where each element is an zombie.” (Remember, we can do that because zombie is now a variable type just like INTEGER or STRING.
But wait, how do we set/get our data? Easily… Let’s say we want to set a zombie’s location to x=100,y=100
zombies(0).oldx = zombies(0).x
zombies(0).x = 100
zombies(0).oldy = zombies(0).y
That’s cool and all but, let’s line all of the zombies up in a row… fast:
zombies(i).oldx = zombies(i).x
zombies(i).x = (10 * i) + 10
zombies(i).y = 100
The final step of course is “adding code” to our zombie to draw it or to move it… but… We won’t actually be adding the function to the zombies themselves as QuickBASIC TYPE does not allow child functions. As such, you’ll have to suffice for having subprograms or functions that can handle the zombie such as drawZombie(z AS zombie) and zombies will have to be a globally shared array. Not everything can be pretty…
DIM SHARED zombies(25) AS zombie
DECLARE SUB drawZombie(i)
SCREEN 12
drawZombie (i)
SUB drawZombie(i)
DIM z AS zombie
z = zombies(i)
CIRCLE (5 + z.oldx, 5 + z.oldy), 2, 0
LINE (5 + z.oldx, 7 + z.oldy)-(5 + z.oldx, 15 + z.oldy), 0
LINE (5 + z.oldx, 15 + z.oldy)-(9 + z.oldx, 19 + z.oldy), 0
CIRCLE (5 + z.x, 5 + z.y), 2, 2
LINE (5 + z.x, 7 + z.y)-(5 + z.x, 15 + z.y), 2
LINE (5 + z.x, 15 + z.y)-(9 + z.x, 19 + z.y), 2
Download the above source from here if you’d like.
Et voila! A nicely spaced rank of newly undead.
Have fun! I wrote a program using this concept to make a simple game where the player runs around shooting zombies. If you wanted to do the same, you’d need to create a second array for bullets/arrows/fireballs so you could have more than one on the screen at a time.
Time to Start Over
What a goddamn mess…
Development has stalled because I dread fighting the Game Engine I myself designed. I’ve literally gone three months without even looking at the code because it puts me in a bad mood. If I’m going to move forward, I need to start over.
It’s not as though I didn’t plan or design or even begin with something even remotely sane. As I hit the limitations of the language I’m writing in, I’d find myself making little patches everywhere just to get working again and those patches piled up. I found myself patching and patching until I was painted right into a corner.
I can’t tell memory issues from logical errors anymore.
No… I’m Sorry.
So, when your list of things you wish you had done differently is overtaken by the list of things that you can’t do because of the limits of your own design, it is time to start over. I need to learn from my mistakes and start fresh.
What I Did Right:
Fast, Flexible Graphics Engine Without PSET
Beautiful Maps w/out a Need for Tiles
Palette Loading/Cycling to Achieve Atmosphere
In-Game Debugging Tools
Asset Loading
Separation of Concerns
In-Game Code Editor
QB and JavaScript Map-Editor 90% Equal
Excellent Parsing
Controlling Game with a Scripting Engine
Game Runs in a Virtual Environment
What I Can’t Fix Without Starting Over:
Scripting Engine Interrupts Game Execution
Global Keyboard State Poisoned by Subs and Functions
No In-Game GUI File Browser
Never Figured Out Music Engine
No GUI Primitive Subsystem / Window Management
Non-Standard Loading of Player Character Entity
Never Figured Out Off-Map Tracking or Events
Scripting Engine Poorly Written and Buggy
Integrated DOS Shell Should not be Necessary
Excessive and Unnecessary Band-aid Spaghetti Code
Interactions, Macros and Manifests Need to Merge
IT’S DONE! Web-based First Time Hero map editor is finally done!
Click me to try it out or Download Firefox (Pre-configured for the Map Editor.)
Worth the wait.
This took way longer than it should have but I hope it was worth the wait. Just look at my blog, its been months since I last posted and I’m sorry. First Time Hero isn’t dead. My friends can finally make graphics with this app without needing a DOS computer and a computer science degree. Stuck in a Hotel? Make graphics! Locked in Best Buy because you fell asleep watching stock footage in 4K? Make graphics! You can finally be creative (do my work for me) whenever and wherever you are inspired (or bored.)
This map editor supports every feature that my DOS editor has except palette shifting and collision masks. These are things I can add later and I don’t want to bore contributing artists with them anyway. This online version adds the ability to take measurements, to copy larger areas and a deeper undo. Also, there are now GUI elements for switching tools but you’re still welcome to use keyboard controls if you wish.
You can check the editor out at https://robtalada.com/apps/entity-editor8
Find Information about the editor in the Help menu in the app but I do plan on publishing documentation in my blog and a walk-through video. I’ll likely link to them from the Help menu so look out for it!
Update: First Time Hero Sprite Editor Moving Online
Sorry for the lack of updates recently. I’m still in school and working full time but progress is still being made. What am I doing now?
All of the tools for graphics for First Time Hero are moving onto the Internet, browser based sprite editing tools. I’m not pulling any punches either, to make sure everything remains authentic, I am litterally emulating QuickBASIC’s SCREEN 13 in Javascript. This will create the most authentic user experience possible and ensure that graphics are still created as though they were made in DOS. 320×200 resolution, 256 colors.
SCREEN 13 in Google Chrome:
Try it yourself at https://robtalada.com/apps/entity-editor8
The goal is to enable people that don’t have a DOS rig set up just for development to work on sprites for First Time Hero. There are many, many talented people in my family and circle of close friends and many of them want to help but don’t have the means to run my software.
This will change, now people can even use a chromebook to work on First Time Hero. It’s also the beginning of something amazing. I may….try to port First Time Hero so it can run in a browser for people that have a hard time getting the game to run. As it stands right now, it will be impossible to play Play First Time hero on a computer without a DVD drive. I want to change that.
UPDATE: June 1st – Updated link/image to latest, greatest version of editor. More on that here: https://robtalada.com/web-based-first-time-hero-map-editor-done/
Version History: v1, v2, v3, v4, v5, v6, v7
Posted on March 21, 2017 December 16, 2018
The Breath of Life: Animating your Fantasies in 256 Colors
True legends of the craft have said that it is the constraints and challenges that a medium present that bring out the best qualities of an artist. I couldn’t agree more. In the short time that I have been animating First Time Hero, the art has evolved over and over. So far, three technologies have been added to expand artistic freedoms.
Fluid Sprites
Long before I started the project that would become First Time Hero, I created a sprite editor that had a very neat accidental feature. I was able to draw points into the frames as the editor was playing the animation. This resulted in some very smooth looking “particle” animations. I decided that this would make for excellent sprite animations and sure enough, fire, magic, smoke, faeries, water, blood and dust became effortless effects.
Dynamic Palettes
Of course, my graphical tinkering didn’t stop with that sprite editor which was originally created for a bullet-hell. First Time Hero was born out of a desire to create some art using a non-standard palette in QuickBASIC. That non-standard palette quickly grew old and I had to improvise. All of my code had already been written to depend on this palette.
First Time Hero Palette Editor
I began refactoring in order to structure my code for a dynamic palette. Soon thereafter, the game engine supported unique palettes on every screen. Now, the colors of a cave could be mellow and have smoother gradients and the world outside could be rich and vibrant with a wide assortment of colors. Every graphics editor for the game eventually included a palette editor that is map coordinate sensitive. Beautiful things resulted. This did not completely satisfy me however, my world was still largely static and lacked atmosphere.
Palette Cycling
After discovering the art of Mark Ferrari and playing Loom, I decided that my engine must support palette cycling. Palette cycling allows cyclic palette swapping in order to animate areas of graduated colors. My first somewhat successful experiment was with implementing waves in the water just outside the Temple of Strangers. The atmosphere that resulted was undeniable and demanded that I turn my attention to other elements in the game. First Time Hero could now have waves, waterfalls, blowing grass and leaves, all at almost no expense to the CPU and sacrificing no frames. Thank You, Mark. If you ever read this, you are an amazing inspiration and I could never hope to hold a light to your mastery and command of light and magic.
I never could have imagined when starting this project that I would be talking about implementing hundreds of dynamic palettes, particle simulating sprites or color swapping to the likes of Mark Ferrari. First Time Hero is giving me experiences I could never had dreamed of having just a year ago
First Time Hero Gets New Dev Tools
A sneak peek into the tools behind First Time Hero!
Progress on First Time Hero is coming right along with the completion of some new development tools. Tools that have been created so far are the In-Game Entity Checker, the First Time Scripting Language Editor, the Map Editor, the First Time Hero Entity Editor and the First Time Debug.
On top of all of this, I’ve finally gotten my work environment straightened out so I can be more efficient. Progress is going to start coming about much faster.
Here’s a sneak peek at some of the tools mentioned:
First Time Hero Entity Editor
First Time Scripting Language Editor
First Time Hero In-Game Entity Checker
Posted on March 16, 2017 November 3, 2019
An Intro to First Time Hero
A quick Intro to First Time Hero is in order!
The First Time Hero is the accidental adventurer.
Mysteriously pulled from a normal life in a country town, the hero wakes up in a mysterious temple, barely escaping death and meeting some interesting characters along the way. Characterized by an inadequate capacity for heroism and a clumsy charm, the hero will “grow into the role” as you play. The hero manages to make it out of the temple only to become one of the many, many Strangers that have appeared from within recently. This marks the beginning of an epic, open-world quest to discover where the Hero came from, why the Strangers keep appearing, and to uncover the other deep afflictions, mysteries and treasures this new world you’ve discovered has to offer. Death is permanent, every action you take will matter, you will change the world around you and there will be no excuse to play the game the same way twice.
First Time Hero will be written in QuickBASIC, an outdated but fun to use language created by Microsoft in the 1980s. It’s pretty good at making graphical DOS applications, but has many practical limitations. I’ve challenged myself to make a decent, open-world 2D role playing game in it. There are plenty of examples of poorly designed, incomplete role playing games written in QuickBASIC so I’m trying to be the first, “high-quality” RPG in QuickBASIC. That isn’t to say that other role-playing games aren’t good enough, but I think it will be interesting to see what 2017 ideas can bring to a game written using 1980s technology. Expect to see some surprisingly modern features!
First Time Hero!
I aim to have graphics in First Time Hero that have never been seen in a pure QuickBASIC game before. From Palette Cycling inspired by the work of Mark Ferrari to easily edited, per-map palettes, colors will look more vibrant than ever before. Animations will be immersive and can encompass the entire screen. Waves, blowing grass, environments that will draw you in and tell stories with no words. With pixel-accurate layer masking and collision detection, the First Time Hero will be able to walk behind into and around obstacles in a way that hasn’t been seen in a QuickBASIC role-playing game. There will be no limiting tile-based system in this game, every screen is an individually drawn screen. Only certain, very repetitive graphical elements will be “copy-pasted” and will be done so in a way that feels more natural and “un-tiled.”
Copy-pasta Trees in Progress…
I will try to keep this a pure QuickBASIC 4.5 game relying on no external libraries or mods to QuickBASIC. I have written everything down to the pixel routines for the engine. The game will be my love letter to QuickBASIC, the language that got me interested in programming and helped me branch out into Python, Java, C++, Lua, PHP, Javascript and many more. It is also my first time dabbling into writing a scripting language of my own. The First Time Scripting Language is crude but contains IF/ELSE logic, looping, variables, basic operations and First Time Hero specific commands. For those interested, I may release the documentation to the language.
Of course, many people may have heard of Black Annex, a Syndicate style game purportedly written in Qbasic. I haven’t reviewed all of the code myself, but I would guess that the game largely relies on routines only available in QB64, a modernized, 64-bit port of Qbasic for modern Windows operating systems. Nonetheless, Black Annex is a fascinating game that managed to be green-lit on Steam and made it into PAX’s indie showcase. It also inspired my dive into building this game.
My next blog post will explore the tools I’ve made to aid in the completion of this game… Stay tuned!
A home for First Time Hero!
This blog is going to be where I will put updates regarding First Time Hero!
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The derivative as a limit
The derivative as a limit10:36
Finding derivatives from first principles14:39
In this video, we formally define the derivative as a limit in two different but equivalent ways and practice these definitions on the cubing function that takes x to x cubed. Recall from earlier videos, that we've looked at the notion of an average rate of change of a function over some interval of inputs, which is just the slope of the line joining the end points of the curve. Recall for displacement function, as a function of time. This produces the average velocity for the trip. If we imagine the time interval becoming shorter and shorter, in fact as vanishingly small, recall that we get the instantaneous velocity, which is the idea behind what you see on your speedometer. This is represented by the slope of the tangent line to the curve at the point of interest. Recall that we've seen this idea informally in an earlier video by constructing slopes of secants to curves and watching what happens as they get shorter and shorter. As the secants vanish away, the slopes of the secants get closer and closer to the slope of the tangent line. We think of them as reaching the slope of the tangent line in the limit and we express this in limit notation. We take this now as the definition of the derivative of the function f given by the rule y equals f of x at the input x. The derivative of f at x denoted by f dashed of x is a limit if it exists as h tends to zero of the quotient f of x plus h minus f of x divided by h. This represents the slope of the tangent line to the curve y equals f of x at the point with coordinates x, f of x. In the case of f of x equals x squared, the squaring function, recall that we calculated this limit in an earlier video, but the derivative is 2x. So, f dashed x is two times x. Let's move from squares to cubes and consider the function y equals f of x that takes an input x to execute and think about what the derivative might be. The graph of this function looks like this, with a 180-degree rotational symmetry about the origin, it turns out to be an odd function, an important concept we'll discuss in detail later. Apart from being a lot steeper, this curve has an important distinguishing feature from the parabola that describes the squaring function. If you draw miniature tangent lines to the curve throughout, you'll discover that the tangent to the curve at the origin, which is just the x-axis in this case, crosses the curve. The origin becomes an inflection point for this curve. Another important concept we'll discuss in detail in a later video. Already you can see for that particular tangent line, the slope is zero since it's just the x-axis in fact which is horizontal. But what about slopes of tangent lines in general for f of x equals x cubed? Well, let's work through the definition of the derivative and say what happens. Start off with the definition. F dash of x is the limit as h goes to zero of f of x plus h minus f of x over h, which in our case becomes the limit, as h goes to zero, at x plus h cubed minus x cubed over h. The cube and the numerator expands, you can check as x cubed plus 3x squared times h plus 3x times h squared plus h cubed minus x cubed. We noticed the x cubed and minus x cubed cancel out. So, we get the limit as h goes to zero and 3x squared times h plus 3x times h squared plus h cubed all of h, and the numerator factor arises as 3x squared plus 3x times h plus h squared times h. We can cancel the h's in the numerator and denominator, and the whole thing simplifies the limit as h goes to zero as 3x squared plus 3xh plus h squared. There's no problem simply evaluating this expression for h equals zero, reducing quickly to 3x squared. This solves our original problem. The derivative of f of x equals x cubed is 3x squared. Recapping from an earlier video with this new notation, we've already seen that if f of x is x squared and the derivative is 2x, and just now, that if f of x is x cubed, then the derivative is 3x squared. You can easily work through the details for f of x equals x to the fourth, though it takes a bit longer and find that the derivative is 4x cubed. This all instances of the general pattern. For f of x equals x to the n, for any exponent n, the derivative is n times x to the n minus one. That is, the exponent falls down to the front and you get a new exponent by subtracting one. If you know about something called a binomial expansion, you can verify this directly already for any positive integer n from the definition of the derivative. When we've developed some general techniques with finding derivatives, this result will follow quite easily and works for any real expanded n, which is very nice indeed. There's an alternative limit definition of the derivatives that comes about naturally by taking the average rate of change of the function over an interval and seeing what happens in the limit as the interval shrinks to nothing at the left-hand end point. Here's our typical curve y equals f of x. To find at least an interval from A to B, producing outputs f of a and f of b for the respective endpoints, and then we draw the secant joining the end points which has slope f of b minus f of a over b minus a, and this is just the average rate of change. If we allow b to head towards a, then the secant lines up more and more in the direction of the tangent line to the curve at x equals a. So, that its slope the, average rate of change approaches the slope of the tangent line, which is just the derivative of the function of x equals a, denoted by f dashed of a. Thus, we expect an alternative definition of the derivative namely, f dashed of a, equals the limit as b approaches a, and f of b minus f of a over b minus a. Now, this looks quite different to our original definition. So, let's see if we can recover the original definition by rearranging this formula somehow. Put h equal to b minus a, because we want to get h in the denominator, and put x equal to a because we want x in the game. Observe that b is just a plus h, which is x plus h since x equals a. And h, the difference between a and b, tends to zero as b gets closer and closer to a. So, the derivative of f at x which is called f dashed of x is just f dashed of a, since x equals a, which feeding in our new alternative definition in the box above is the limit as b approaches a of f of b minus f of a over b minus a, but b is x plus h, a is x, b minus a is h, and b tends to a as h tends to zero. So, we can rewrite this as the limit as h tends to zero of f of x plus h minus f of x all over h. We recover our original definition of the derivative that we introduced early in this video. So, everything is working nicely as expected. Let's revisit the derivative of the cubing function but using this alternative definition. The definition is in terms of f dashed of a and says that we take the limit as b approaches a of f of b minus f of a divided by b minus a. But f of b is b cubed, and f of a is a cubed. Now, there's a beautiful factorization of the difference of two cubes that you can check if you've not seen it before. b cubed minus a cubed is b minus a times b squared plus ba plus a squared. So, we get cancellation of the factor b minus a in the numerator with b minus a in the denominator, so that it reduces to finding the limit as b goes to a of b squared plus ba plus a squared, which becomes straightforward evaluation replacing a by b to get a squared plus a squared plus a squared which is 3a squared. This shows that f dashed of a equals 3a squared. If we revert to using x instead of a, we get f dashed of x is 3x squared. Exactly what we obtained using the original definition which is very pleasing. Today, we see that many ideas we've encountered previously are all coming together using the unifying concept of a limit. We define the derivative to be the slope of the tangent line to a curve which has two quite natural and equivalent formulae in terms of limits. We use both of these formulae to find the derivative of the function that takes x to x cubed and the answer turns out to be 3x squared. In later videos, we'll apply this limit formulae for the derivative to other important functions. Then in the next module, develop some general techniques and principles that enable one to find swaths of derivatives easily and quickly in a variety of different settings. Please read the notes and when you're ready please attempt the exercises. Thank you very much for watching and I look forward to seeing you again soon.
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RVA Shows You Must See This Week: 3/21-3/27
Marilyn Drew Necci | March 21, 2018
Topics: Anneliese, basmati, Big No, Brainbuster, Butt, Ceschi, ESH, Forever Came Calling, gallery 5, Gavin Riley Smoke Machine, Gumming, Haircut, Hanoi Jane, Hold Close, In Her Own Words, Lance Bangs, Last Night's Ghost, Lipid, LNT, Love Roses, Mojo's, Moodie Black, Mylo Shift, Onry Ozzborn, Palm, Patsy's Rats, Prisoner, Ruin By Design, Satan's Satyrs, Scott Yoder, shows you must see, Sick Bags, Spirit Of The Beehive, strange matter, Telltale, The Broadberry, The Canal Club, Trauma Lavern, Windhand, Wonderland
Friday, March 23, 7 PM
Windhand, Satan’s Satyrs, Prisoner @ The Broadberry – $15 (order tickets HERE)
It’s been a long time, y’all, but the time has finally come for the return of Windhand! This crew of almighty shredders has been quite a while away from the recording studio — their last full-length, Grief’s Infernal Flower, was issued nearly three years ago. However, not only have they returned to action this year with a split LP combining their sludgy brutality with the shredding rippage of NoVA slayers Satan’s Satyrs, they’re returning to the stage here in Richmond for the first time in a year with this epic celebration of the aforementioned split LP’s release!
The Windhand side of this full-length is the first release featuring Windhand’s current single guitar lineup, but it shows no diminution in the power, volume, and density of the band’s sound. The spooky gloom sludge of new tunes “Old Evil” and “Three Sisters” carries on the foreboding mood of the band’s previous work, with Dorthia Cottrell’s witchy vocal melodies and some excellent organ undertones making the perfect contrast to the brutal riffs these songs are veritably overflowing with. You’ll get a good taste of their excellent new material as well as some old favorites at this show, so come prepared for the onslaught.
Satan’s Satyrs will be on hand as well, giving you a heavy dose of the rockin’, rollin’ biker metal grooves from their own side of the brand new split LP. They aren’t quite as crushing as Windhand, but they’ll keep your head banging and your ears ringing just fine on their own behalf. And of course, Prisoner will bring plenty of thunderous fury of their own from their opening slot, reminding us all how great their 2017 LP Beyond The Infinite was, with its mix of denim n’ leather thrash and grit-encrusted D-beat doom. Make sure you’ve got some ibuprofen in the medicine cabinet before this one, because your neck and ears will be in serious need the next morning. And you’ll never regret it for a second.
Wednesday, March 21, 7 PM
Forever Came Calling, In Her Own Words, Hold Close, Telltale, Last Night’s Ghost @ The Canal Club – $12 in advance/$15 day of show (order tickets HERE)
I try to be honest when shows like this come up, so let’s just get it out front right now — I’m a sucker for emotional pop-punk bands with a vague hardcore edge. The Story So Far, State Champs, Four Year Strong… all that stuff just has me dead to rights. Like those other bands, Forever Came Calling was signed to Pure Noise Records earlier this decade when they were putting out killer LPs like 2014′ s What Matters Most and winning me over with outstanding emo-pop gems like “Defenseless” and “Rather Be Dead Than Cool.” They fell off the map for a bit, leaving Pure Noise and doing some lineup restructuring that kept them off the road and in the practice space for a while.
However, Forever Came Calling have come back full-strength this year with a new guitarist and a new self-released EP, Retro Future. The two advance singles from the EP show that they’re still firing on all cylinders, and between these killer new tunes and the passel of singalong classics from their first two LPs they’ll have for us, tonight’s gonna be a hell of a night! Tourmates In Her Own Words — a pretty good emo-pop-punk band in their own right, though their name would make a lot more sense if they actually had a female singer — and Hold Close — another crew of emo-punk bad boys with a bit of a Knuckle Puck vibe (always good in my opinion) — will bring a significant amount of excellent tuneage to this night as well.
Thursday, March 22, 7 PM
Gavin Riley Smoke Machine, Anneliese, Mylo Shift @ Gallery 5 – $5
It’s getting pretty far along in the week, but the weekend’s not quite here yet — so if what you really need this Thursday night is to add some spice to your week, look no further than the Gavin Riley Smoke Machine show at Gallery 5. It’d be easy to just call Riley’s sound electronic hip hop, but there’s so much more to what he and his Smoke Machine have to offer, and a lot of it only fully comes alive in the live environment. You see, performances by the Gavin Riley Smoke Machine are sort of like those Choose Your Own Adventure books we all used to read when we were seven years old. Wait, what? Hold on a second, I’ll explain.
Each song presents us with a plot point in Riley’s “Space Needle Adventure.” At the end of the song, the audience will be given two choices, and how they vote will determine what happens next in the story… and, in turn, what song the Smoke Machine plays next. Eventually, we’ll arrive at an ending, though it may not be one you necessarily expected. The songs themselves are fun and amusing, littered with plot twists reflecting Riley’s dark sense of humor. And therefore, it makes some sense that hilarious local one-man band Mylo Shift is one of the locals on this bill — his own twisted sense of humor and wacky antics are enough to put you in the perfect mood for your headliners. And of course, we can’t forget Anneliese, who you may know from The Folly or Museum District but who has some pretty great pop-soul sounds of her own in store for you. Show up on time, and be prepared for an unusual and unforgettable show! It’ll get you through til the weekend, and then some.
Palm, Spirit Of The Beehive, Lance Bangs, Basmati @ Strange Matter – $12 (order tickets HERE)
This Friday night, Palm comes to town to prove to everyone who thinks there’s nothing new under the sun that they’re just not paying close enough attention. The zany, frenetic hybrid sound of Palm’s brand new second album, Rock Island, is the kind of thing that could never have existed before the current moment in the indie continuum, synthesizing as it does disparate influences from mellow math-rockers like Tera Melos, pop experimentalists like Animal Collective, and impossible-to-categorize hyperkinetic weirdos like Deerhoof. If any of these bands appeal to you, you’re sure to enjoy watching Palm dash headlong through sounds that remind you of all of them and a good deal more, in the space of a single song. And somehow, they keep the melodies memorable and the tunes entertaining throughout it all.
Spirit Of The Beehive are another excellent product of the recent indie evolutions, though they have landed in a very different spot. Initially channeling that whole early 90s “shoegaze” sound that many bands attempt these days (with varying rates of success), their second LP, last year’s Pleasure Suck, is an altogether different animal that sees Spirit Of The Beehive retaining their sense of tuneful energy but adding programmed beats, underwater synth sounds, and an air of general weirdness that shifts the whole thing at least 90 degrees off-kilter. The result is something that local Citrus City fans should really dig, which makes it all the more apropos that Citrus City standard-bearers Lance Bangs bring their jangly slacker-pop to one of the opening slots on this bill. Basmati interject their own unique take on math-pop indie sounds as well, making this a night full of bizarrely captivating music that is sure to win you over.
Saturday, March 24, 8 PM
Gumming, Lipid, Butt, Haircut @ Mojo’s – $8-10 donation to RRFP
Punk rock has gotten really psychedelic and weird in recent years and I love it. I’m particularly stoked about Gumming, a relatively new RVA band featuring members of fellow psych-punk oddities Pucker Up and Whorecough. They’ve got a brand new tape, Human Values, out on Not Normal Records, which showcases their rumbling, pounding riffs, messy guitar sound, and frustrated vocal ranting. The sum total of the whole thing reminds me of incredible UK punk band Good Throb with some demented Flipper/Butthole Surfers energy and a dose of early-80s psychos The Crucifucks. Gumming might freak you out at first, but if you stand your ground and give yourself a chance to get on their wavelength, the rewards will be plentiful. Trust me.
This show celebrates the release of Human Values, but it also benefits the Richmond Reproductive Freedom Project, and Gumming will even be giving a portion of the money from their merch sales to RRFP, so that’s all the more reason to score your own copy of Human Values at this show. The other bands on this bill offer plenty of additional reasons to show up. Butt aren’t quite as ranty as Gumming but definitely have that weirdo psych-punk vibe in excess. Haircut drop the psychedelia in favor of full-on angry old-school hardcore, but without going all tough-guy style and ruining it. Lipid follow the trend of one-word names that is apparently sweeping the city based on this bill, but that’s all I can really tell you except that the facebook event page calls them “rap punk” and I have no idea whether to take that seriously or not. Regardless, you already have more than enough reason to make it to Mojo’s this Saturday night, and I haven’t even mentioned their food! Get there.
Sunday, March 25, 8 PM
Love Roses (photos by Eric Maupin), Ruin By Design, LNT, Brainbuster, Hanoi Jane @ Wonderland – $8
I tend to think of package tours as the sort of thing that brings four or five emo or metalcore bands to The Canal Club and turns a show into an all-day festival even before there are openers added, but if the bill hitting Wonderland this Sunday night is any indication, package tours aren’t just for Warped Tour graduates anymore. The final date of the Worldwide Weekend Tour sees five different bands from around VA finish up a jaunt across the state that will bring the same five bands to clubs in DC and Roanoke before finishing up down in Shockoe Bottom. I wonder if they rented a bus for the occasion?
In all honesty, I can’t imagine. After all, these are hardly the sort of well-scrubbed heartthrobs you’d find on a Warped Tour bus. Instead, we’ve got the raging old-school HC/punk hybrid of RVA’s Love Roses at the top of the bill — and anyone paying attention knows these guys are always a blast. DC’s Ruin By Design bring a tough yet somewhat melodic take on fast USHC, while NoVA rippers LNT, aka Like No Tomorrow, bring some Dwarves-style raging punk with a hint of melody. Then there’s Fredericksburg spiky punks Brainbuster, who mix Casualties-style US punk with some old-school Boston HC sounds. And of course, we wrap it up with Roanoke’s Hanoi Jane, who mingle Poison Idea’s rockin’ punk rage with some oddly Op Ivy-ish ska-punk moments. It’s gonna be a lot to take in all at once, but since all of these bands keep the pedal to the floor, you’ll be able to skank on through to the other side with no problem. So throw away your preconceptions about five-band tours and come out ready to circle-pit — it’ll be a blast. And it won’t take all night!
Monday, March 26, 8 PM
Patsy’s Rats, Scott Yoder, Big No, Sick Bags @ Strange Matter – $10 (order tickets HERE)
It kinda keeps to itself, but if you pay attention, you’re sure to notice just how active the local garage-punk scene is here in Virginia. If you haven’t caught on just yet, this show is definitely a good reason to pay attention. After all, Patsy’s Rats, an incredible power-pop ensemble out of Portland that combines the talents of former Scavenger Cunt frontwoman (and Howe Gelb of Giant Sand’s daughter) Patsy Gelb with those of Mean Jeans frontman Christian Blunda, aka Billy Jeans, have turned to the VA garage scene for their current rhythm section: Paul Kirk (Cherry Pits) and Tim Abbondelo (the Ar-Kaics). If you want to see these favorite local sons rocking it with a killer group from the left coast — and you do, I assure you — this Monday night’s your chance.
Patsy’s Rats will arrive in town in the company of their Burger Records labelmate Scott Yoder, who hails from Seattle and has a sweet acoustic sound on his 2016 LP, Looking Back In Blue. Regardless of the decided lack of punk snarl, Yoder’s work has a real kinship with what Patsy’s Rats are doing, being just as firmly grounded in the basics of excellent pop songcraft as the Rats are. This can also be said of Big No, the local band featuring Tim Abbondelo’s long-ago Crestfallen bandmate Nathan Grice and his partner, Heather Jerabeck, delivering some psychedelic sounds that will add a measure of outer space to this evening’s festivities. Sick Bags will open up with all the snotty punk snarl you could ever want in your garage punk, just to keep all the leather-jacket kids happy. This one’s got it all.
Tuesday, March 27, 8 PM
Ceschi, Onry Ozzborn, Moodie Black, ESH, Trauma Lavern @ Strange Matter – $10 (order tickets HERE)
If you’re both stoked on the DIY underground and a true-blue hip hop head, this might just be the best show for you all year. Ceschi Ramos, who records and performs under his first name (which is pronounced chess-key), has been running his own label, Fake Four Inc, for a decade now, and he’s on tour with some labelmates to bring the celebration across the country. Ceschi has an intriguing sound that is more hip hop in approach and mindset than strictly in sound — while the man can rap rings around most emcees working these days, he sometimes forgoes the boom-bap beats in favor of acoustic guitars, choosing to sing instead of spit. His expanded palette always keeps his performances interesting, and everyone from open-minded hip hop fans to singer-songwriter types are sure to find plenty to love in his performance Tuesday night.
But Ceschi’s got a whole crew of Fake Four artists along with him this time around, and those artists are at least as much an attraction as Ceschi himself. Onry Ozzborn, who may be best known for his membership in Seattle rap duo Grayskul, is showing up solo with sounds from his 2017 release, Black Philip, and presumably quite a bit more as well. With less genre-hopping tendencies than Ceschi, Onry is mainly here to spit some killer lyrics over strong beats and electronic vibes. Meanwhile, Moodie Black brings the noise rap sounds from way back, coming out of Arizona with an aggressive sound that originated long before any of us had heard of Death Grips. Boston rapper/producer Esh rounds out the crew of Fake Four tourmates with some sick rhymes and unusual beats, while PT Burnem continues his long local association with Ceschi and Fake Four by bringing his current group, Trauma Lavern, to an opening spot on this bill. Liven up your week with this one.
Email me if you’ve got any tips for me about upcoming shows (that take place after the week this column covers–this week’s column has obviously already been written): [email protected] [for more of my deranged ramblings, check GayRVA each and every day. Sometimes I even write about music over there.]
Top image by Vivienne Lee
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Richard's Collectables
Online Estate Sales of Life Time Collections
Stero
45 RPM Records
Used DVD
The Man. The Father. The Memory. The Collections
His name was Richard and he lived and worked in Bethlehem PA. A passionate man who believed in being humble beyond all else. He was a Engineer who worked with Research Department of Bethlehem Steel his entire career, growing and expanded the capabilities of the company. He built his own home and was the Regional director for the Boy Scouts of America.
Richard also had a passion, of passions, the desire for collecting. Upon his death, his family discovered some 300 different cameras ranging from pre-1900 to modern day, hundreds of vintage games and treasure trove of classic magazines, all nicely preserved with many in their original boxes.
Thus Richard’s collectibles was born.
We have expanded the offering to include other persons collectibles, enabling others to sell inherited collections to benefit their families. Call us for how we can help get your items sold.
© Richard’s Collectables 2020
Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws. The creators, producers, participants, distributors and clients of this site shall not be held liable in anyway whatsoever for any purchases made by buyers on this site. All products are used and sold as is.
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Joseph Haggerty
Boston, MA USA
“[Kids] want it yesterday rather than being able to wait for it. But that's just a part of any profession, getting the experience and working up to that point.”
Themes: Exploration
Joseph Haggerty HighlightInterview Highlight
It's The Means to an EndInterview Excerpt
Taking OpportunitiesInterview Excerpt
Stick With It For A Little WhileInterview Excerpt
Says he never thought that covering professional sports would be in the cards for him.
Went to Northeastern University but financial hardships caused him to drop out after one semester.
He took two years off of school but realized he was getting away from his passion, knew his writing talents were going to waste.
Went back to college; started getting involved in the campus newspaper and wrote for a local publication on the side.
Had doubts about whether writing was truly his life's passion, so he took himself out of it for a while, worked at a cafe.
After one year, he missed sportswriting so much that he knew he had to go back to pursuing it as a career.
Stresses that everyone has to pay their dues; sometimes he'd have to write about things that didn't interest him, but those pieces were worth it.
Says that no one is going to hand you anything, but if you put in the time and effort, and you're patient, you can become whatever you want to be.
English Language and Literature, General
I want people to see me walk down the street and say, "there goes Joe Haggerty, the best sports writer there ever was."
Communicating / Sharing Stories
No Better Time
Team Crossroads
Travis GaffordEsports JournalistYahoo! Sports
Ariel HelwaniMMA Sports Reporter
Michael WilbonSports Commentator & AnalystESPN
Aaron HerreraSports journalist
Betty CortinaEditorial DirectorLatina Magazine
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Discovered on my U Iowa office door this morning, the day before my 40th birthday
Posted on February 21, 2013 by bobcargill (@xkv8r)
I arrived at my University of Iowa Jefferson Building (JB) office this morning (the day before my 40th birthday), and discovered this taped to my door.
It is supposedly the text of “1JB40Car (the Tye-Dye Scroll)”, a newly-discovered Dead Sea Scroll. It purports to be a list of things I’ve said during various classes at Iowa (with the most incriminating words conveniently lost to lacunae :).
Much of it appears to be corroborated by a textual congruency with a particular Twitter site, which I’m guessing was authored by the same students.
Anyways, I can neither confirm nor deny the accuracy of the statements below.
But I CAN say that I love teaching, I love my students, I love the University of Iowa!
(And NO, I shan’t be supplying the missing words…)
The text of 1JB40Car (the Tye-Dye Scroll), discovered posted on my University of Iowa Jefferson Building (JB) office door the day before my 40th birthday. It is a list of things I’ve apparently said during class (with the most incriminating words conveniently lost to lacunae :)
The top half of 1JB40Car (the Tye-Dye Scroll).
The bottom half of 1JB40Car (the Tye-Dye Scroll).
Filed under: humor, thank yous, things that rule, University of Iowa | Tagged: 1JB40Car, 40, awesomeness, birthday, dead sea scrolls, Jefferson Building, old, students, tie-dye, Tye-Dye Scroll | 10 Comments »
UCLA Summer 2011 Course: Dead Sea Scrolls and Early Judaism with Dr. Robert R. Cargill
Posted on March 16, 2011 by bobcargill (@xkv8r)
Course: Jewish Studies 170: Dead Sea Scrolls and Early Judaism
Instructor: Dr. Robert R. Cargill, UCLA
Date: Summer 2011, Block A (June 20 – July 29, 2011)
Time: MW – 12:00 to 2:15 pm
Room: Public Affairs 2270
The Reconstructed Tower at Qumran, facing southeast
This 4-unit course introduces the Dead Sea Scrolls and their relationship with early Jewish movements. The course will include extensive reading of the Scrolls in English translation (with discussion of some key Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek words), an examination of the archaeology of the site of Qumran, and a survey of the broader sociopolitical context of Second Temple Judaism (586 BCE – 135 CE) out of which the scrolls emerged. The history of the discovery of the scrolls will be discussed, as will the interpretative methods used by scholars studying the scrolls over the past 60 years. The class will explore issues of Jewish sectarianism, canon and “scripture,” the role of the Temple, the place of the Torah, the re-writing of texts, interpretation of prophecy, messianic expectation(s), liturgy, and will compare and contrast the text of the scrolls with early Christian and Rabbinic texts.
The course makes extensive use of virtual reconstructions of the archaeological site of Qumran and digitized texts. Each lecture will be video cast on iTunes U and exams are taken online via CCLE/Moodle.
Please contact Prof. Robert R. Cargill at cargill@humnet.ucla.edu for more info.
Click here for a .pdf flier of the course. Click here for the registrar’s course information.
Filed under: archaeology, bible, dead sea scrolls, education, humanities, israel, judaism, qumran, religion, robert cargill, ucla | Tagged: aramaic, canon, christian, class, course, dead sea scrolls, greek, hebrew, jewish, liturgy, messianic expectation, prophecy, qumran, Rabbinic, re-writing, scripture, second temple, sectarianism, summer 2011, temple, Torah, ucla | 9 Comments »
‘writing the dead sea scrolls’ to re-air on national geographic channel december 11, 2010
Posted on November 29, 2010 by bobcargill (@xkv8r)
“Writing the Dead Sea Scrolls” is scheduled to re-air on NatGeo December 11, 2010. I’ve previously posted about this here.
If you’re interested in the Dead Sea Scrolls, this is the show to watch.
Filed under: archaeology, bible, dead sea scrolls, Jerusalem, judaism, qumran, religion, robert cargill, tv | Tagged: adolfo roitman, american colony, antonia packard, ctvc, david keene, dead sea, dead sea scrolls, documentary, ein feshkhah, ein gedi, en gedi, gideon hadas, iaa, israel, israel antiquities authority, jan gunneweg, jean-baptiste humbert, Jerusalem, jodi magness, john fothergill, kidron valley, lawrence gardner, lawrence schiffman, masada, national geographic, nava mizrahi, orit shamir, palestine, paula nightingale, pnina shor, qumran, Ray Bruce, robert cargill, ronny reich, shimon gibson, silwan, stephen pfann, temple mount, wadi og, west bank, yuval peleg | 1 Comment »
trying to dig oneself out of a hole: raphael golb posts his appeal online
Raphael Golb is handcuffed and led from a Manhattan State Supreme courtroom in New York to prison after being sentenced to 6 months in jail and 5 years probation. Golb, son of University of Chicago Oriental Institute historian Dr. Norman Golb, was convicted on 30 felony and misdemeanor counts of identity theft, forgery, criminal impersonation, aggravated harassment, and the unauthorized use of a computer. Photo: Steven Hirsch
There’s an old saying: “When you dig yourself into a hole, put down the shovel.”
Apparently, no one ever taught this to Raphael Golb, whose latest attempt to garner sympathy from the paranoid, the friendless, and those involved in similar ordeals is now available online.
And good news: this latest volley from Dr. Golb seems to be having the desired effect. For instance, the “Overturn the Wrongful Conviction of Raphael Golb” group on Facebook has seen its membership rise significantly from 15 to 16 over the past month. Given that at least one of those “members” is a marketing bot, I’d say that it won’t be long until the Raphael Golb Facebook group has as many fans as “The Great Kim Jong-Il” group (4377) or the “Sarah Palin for President 2012” group (92). Even ol’ Jimmy Barfield’s “Copper Scroll Project” has more supporters with 394.
Yes, Dr. Golb is back, and this time per the requirements of his sentencing and bail writing in his own name! Remarkably, Dr. Golb has essentially posted his conviction appeal online. I’m guessing the State of New York thanks him for the additional time to prepare its response. I mean seriously, didn’t Dr. Golb learn anything from the trial? He hung his lawyers out to dry by posting every possible angle of every possible line of their questioning online several months before the trial actually began! Every witness knew exactly what Golb’s attorneys were going to ask because the verbally-incontinent Golb had already posted it online months before. So thanks again for the advance notice.
(Unless, of course, Golb is using the same tactic he used during the trial, where he knew he would be found guilty 30 times, but decided to use the trial to attack his victims further, and decided to attempt to try his case in the blogosphere. The only problem is, I don’t think Dr. Golb’s most recent posting on the indymedia.org website qualifies as “protected speech.” I’m assuming he didn’t make any false claims in his indymedia post…)
For those of you who don’t want to waste the time reading Dr. Golb’s rant appeal, let me summarize it for you. I’ve listed who Raphael Golb thinks is responsible for his arrest and conviction in the table below:
People whose fault it is:
(in order of appearance)
People whose fault it is not:
Dead Sea scrolls “guild” or “monopoly”
“creators of museum exhibits”
a fake “consensus”
“defenders of the sectarian position”
“abuse of power and of financial influence” by scholars and academic institutions
“evangelical Christian educational institutions”
“orthodox Jews” who shared their basic perspective
“religiously oriented scholars”
Larry Schiffman
NYU officials
Assistant District Attorney John Bandler
Patrick McKenna, an investigating officer assigned to the New York Country D.A.’s identity theft unit
New York Criminal Court Judge Carol Berkman
agreeing “to be interrogated without an attorney”
“sly” interrogation techniques
District Attorney Robert Morgenthau
New York court system and “rules”
jury selection process
failure of judge “to explain to the jurors that my case was the first of its kind”
prevention of Golb’s attorneys “from engaging in significant cross-examination of witnesses”
“Judge Berkman instructed the jury to find me guilty”
New York Jewish Museum
Salem witch trial
Senator Joseph McCarthy
Stephen Goranson
Duke University provost
UCLA faculty members
Risa Levitt Kohn
“coincidences” like despite claiming not to have known of “Johnathan Seidel,” a rabbi in Oregon named Jonathan Seidel coincidentally graduated from Golb’s alma mater, Oberlin College, and coincidentally was introduced to Norman Golb in England in 1986, and coincidentally discussed things over a coffee with him.
jurors’ sheer fatigue
ill equipped jurors
academic “gatekeepers”
getting “carried away in the midst of a heated campaign of criticism which I [Golb] directed against a group of scholars
duplicitous museum exhibits
Raphael Golb
As you can see, just like his father and his theories, Golb argues that the reason neither is accepted by the academy is not because of problems with the theory or its proponent, but because of a massive conspiracy involving just about everyone else in the field. Raphael Golb’s appeal argues that his conviction was not the result of his own illegal activities, but the result of a grand conspiracy, and everyone else is to blame.
Conspiracy theories. Blaming others. Not taking responsibility for actions. Victim mentality. It seems like it never ends…
Filed under: anonymity, blogging, crime, dead sea scrolls, internet, qumran, unprofessionalism | Tagged: anonymity, appeal, blame, crime, criminal, dead sea scrolls, guilty, identity theft, jail, lawrence schiffman, norman golb, not my fault, oriental institute, prison, qumran, raphael golb, reaction, robert cargill, unauthorized use of a computer, university of chicago | 9 Comments »
Lawrence Schiffman, Robert Cargill Interviewed Live on Israel National Radio’s LandMinds Program
Posted on August 18, 2010 by bobcargill (@xkv8r)
I was interviewed live this morning on Arutz Sheva’s Israel National Radio on the LandMinds program with Barnea (Selavan) and David (Willner). Jim Long sat in for Barnea, who was away. NYU’s Dr. Lawrence Schiffman was interviewed in the first hour (mp3: part 1, part 2), and I was interviewed in the second hour (mp3: part 1, part 2).
Professor Schiffman answered questions about Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls for the first hour and provided some wonderful insights and background to the study of the scrolls. In the first part of the second hour, I answered questions about Qumran and offered my opinions about the establishment of the site, its residents, who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the role of virtual reality modeling in archaeology. In the second half hour, I answered questions about the history of archaeology, the role of scholars in public education, technology’s role in archaeological education, the importance of debunking pseudoscience and sensationalist claims, how to teach critical biblical studies without abandoning the faith and/or alienating people of faith, issues of biblical historicity and mythology, and finally answered the story about how I came to be Nicole Kidman’s private tutor.
Many thanx to David Willner and Jim Long for a wonderful interview. Don’t forget to add the LandMinds Facebook page.
LandMinds broadcasts live at www.israelnationalradio.com every Wednesday from 5-7pm Israel time, 3-5pm in the UK, and 10-12am EST. Shows are rebroadcast, and archived on the A7 and Foundation Stone websites for your convenience. Podcasts are also available on iTunes.
Filed under: archaeology, christianity, dead sea scrolls, israel, Jerusalem, judaism, palestine, qumran, robert cargill, technology, ucla | Tagged: archaeological education, arutz sheva, david and goliath, dead sea scrolls, digital modeling, faith, historicity, israel national radio, itunes, jim long, LandMinds, lawrence schiffman, qumran, Qumran Visualization Project, robert cargill, technology, virtual reality | 1 Comment »
to trial we go: golb formally refuses plea bargain
Posted on August 6, 2010 by bobcargill (@xkv8r)
Raphael Golb rejects no-jail plea offer in Manhattan Criminal Court on Friday. Photo by Siegel for News.
laura italiano of the ny post is reporting that plea bargain negotiations between the ny district attorney’s office and a lawyer for raphael golb have broken off without agreement. melissa grace has the story at the new york daily news:
That means the case against Raphael Golb, a real-estate lawyer turned amateur religious scholar, is headed to trial in September.
the case is scheduled for trial beginning september 13, 2010.
Raphael Golb, son of University of Chicago Oriental Institute historian Dr. Norman Golb, is accused of identity theft, forgery, criminal impersonation, unauthorized use of a computer, and aggravated harassment by the state of New York. Plea bargain negotiations broke down today. The trial is scheduled for September 13, 2010. Photo by Steven Hirsch.
according to sources:
They offered the son 80 hours of community service if he pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors – and the judge said three years probation would have to be a condition.
Golb turned it down because probation would bar him from contacting his victims – including posting on blogs where the scrolls’ origins are debated.
golb is the son of university of chicago oriental institute historian dr. norman golb. golb is accused of multiple felony and misdemeanor counts of identity theft, forgery, criminal impersonation, unauthorized use of a computer, and aggravated harassment by the state of new york as a result of golb’s involvement with an extensive campaign to smear the perceived rivals of his father. a detailed history and evolution of golb’s campaign against dead sea scrolls scholars, grad students, museums, and universities is chronicled at the who is charles gadda website.
for background:
who is charles gadda?
to trial we go: golb formally refuses plea bargain (8/6/2010)
denied! golb case heads to trial (2/25/2010)
chicago maroon: e-mails in dead sea scrolls case may implicate prof norman golb (2/16/2010)
court docs detail raphael golb’s harassment of robert cargill (1/29/2010)
bombshell: ny da’s response to raphael golb’s motion to dismiss charges and suppress evidence (1/28/2010)
details of raphael golb’s impersonation of lawrence schiffman (dec 18, 2009)
court documents say norman golb may have been involved in the raphael golb dead sea scrolls scandal (dec 18, 2009)
highlights from raphael golb’s initial police interview (dec 18, 2009)
if you’re not guilty, why offer to plead guilty? (dec 17, 2009)
text of raphael golb’s police interview immediately following his arrest (dec 17, 2009)
on false accusations of anti-semitism in the academy (dec 15, 2009)
oh… so you were just kidding this whole time (dec 10, 2009)
new aliases popping up surrounding the criminal investigation of raphael golb (nov 10, 2009)
update: golb’s motion to dismiss the charges against him available online (nov 9, 2009)
on recent news about the ‘cloak and browser’ case against raphael golb (nov 8, 2009)
8 months later: bar finally ‘reports’ on the golb scandal (oct 30, 2009)
update in the new york vs. raphael golb identity theft case (sept 24, 2009)
top 10 strangest cases of identity theft (sept 6, 2009)
model wins right to sue anonymous blogger who maligned her (aug 19, 2009)
new online legal tool helps you track criminal cases (july 28, 2009)
Filed under: anonymity, archaeology, blogging, crime, dead sea scrolls, justice and legal, qumran, robert cargill, scholarship, technology, unprofessionalism | Tagged: blogs, charles gadda, dead sea scrolls, fraud, gmail, identity theft, impersonation, lawrence schiffman, norman golb, oriental institute, qumran, raphael golb, robert cargill, unauthorized use of a computer, university of chicago | 7 Comments »
Writing the Dead Sea Scrolls Airs on National Geographic Channel: Some Reflections
Posted on July 27, 2010 by bobcargill (@xkv8r)
National Geographic Channel aired the documentary Writing the Dead Sea Scrolls this evening, Tuesday, July 27, 2010. It was accompanied by a UCLA Today story by Meg Sullivan and an article entitled, “Dead Sea Scrolls Mystery Solved?” by Ker Than on National Geographic News.
I wrote about the making of this documentary in a blog shortly after returning from filming it in January 2010. I’ll let others critique the show (you’re also welcome to praise it, but such is usually not the nature of Qumran studies ;-). I shall offer here just a quick summary of what the producers were trying to do with the show.
What This Documentary Explores
The point of the documentary was to highlight the most recent scholarship on Qumran and to get the different, often warring sides talking to one another. As a relatively young scholar in this field, I was asked to investigate the new claims to see what they have to offer.
No one theory answers all of the questions about the Dead Sea Scrolls, and no one Qumran scholar owns the whole truth. The traditional Qumran-Essene Hypothesis – where Essenes built Qumran and wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls there – has slowly been losing support over the past decades. Other theories have been offered in its place, but many of these theories take extreme positions claiming, often rancorously, that the scrolls have nothing to do with Qumran and that the scrolls are the products of anyone but the Essenes. These alternative theories have just as many problems, if not more so. This documentary hopes to show that the answer lies somewhere in between, and that only when all sides work together as professionals and actually talk to one another in a professional dialogue can we begin to reach a viable solution to the question of who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls.
There is a tremendous congruency of ideology within the sectarian manuscripts, which make up a significant portion of the Dead Sea Scrolls. There is a congruent, yet unique messianic expectation (or expectations), interpretation of scripture, halakhic interpretation, and a unique, but consistent calendar present within the sectarian manuscripts recovered from the Qumran caves. It is difficult to explain this congruence – the use of a solar calendar, references to the Teacher of Righteousness, Community Rules for life together in the desert, and especially the very low view of the Jerusalem Temple priesthood – within these sectarian documents if one argues they came from disparate libraries in Jerusalem. The Jerusalem Origin Theory (defined as: the Dead Sea Scrolls were in no way a product of anyone living at Qumran and came, rather, from various Jewish libraries throughout Jerusalem) creates more problems than it solves and has been dismissed time and time again. It fails to explain the congruency of ideology in the sectarian manuscripts. Likewise, the Jerusalem Temple Library theory (which argues that the scrolls are the product of the official library of the Jerusalem Temple) has also been discounted as it fails to explain why the Jerusalem Temple priests would preserve and copy literature that so negatively portrays their activities and emphasizes their illegitimacy.
At the same time, it is difficult to explain some of the ideological diversity present within some of the scrolls if one argues that all of the scrolls were composed by a single sectarian group at Qumran. For example, why are the scrolls written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek if they are the product of a single sectarian community? Likewise, the Copper Scroll from Cave 3 is from a later date than the rest of the scrolls, is written on a different medium, and in a different dialect (some say language) of Mishnaic Hebrew. We simply cannot consider the Copper Scroll the product of a community of Jewish sectarians living at Qumran.
Therefore, it is possible that more than one group or groups hid documents in caves surrounding Qumran. Based upon the evidence, it is possible that a group of sectarian Jews took up residence in the former fortress that was Qumran, brought scrolls with them to the site, copied and penned other scrolls, and hid them all in the nearby caves during the suppression of the Jewish Revolt by the Romans. They may or may not have been Essenes (although the Essenes are still the best candidate for the sect at Qumran). The theory examined in this documentary (a Multiple-Cave, Multiple Author theory, or whatever you choose to call it) explains both the congruence and the diversity within the scrolls, and it explains the development of ideological and theological thought contained with the scrolls from one of strict halakhic interpretation to one that incorporates and develops apocalyptic and dual-messianic expectations, as well as rules for life together as a community. This is not to say that the Multiple Cave Theory is not without problems. The statistical analysis is still in need of serious review and critique, and a theory that argues that different caves “belong to” or “represent” different sectarian groups may be overly simplistic. However, it is a new attempt to explain the congruency and the diversity of the Dead Sea Scrolls and is worthy of examination.
Simply put, some of the scrolls could be the product of a sect within a movement (if I may so summarize John Collins) that resided at Qumran, and other scrolls may be the product of other groups that hid scrolls in many of the caves nearby Qumran. This explains the congruency of sectarian ideology and the diversity of the scrolls, as well as their presence in caves both in Qumran’s backyard (Caves 7-9, 4-5) and those some distance from Qumran, as well as explaining the nature of the archaeological expansions made to the site of Qurman, which appear to be in a communal, non-military fashion.
On this last topic (the archaeology of Qumran), I shall dispense with the equally difficult discussion about the origin and nature of the Qumran settlement. While some have argued that the Essenes built the settlement from the ground up at a date ranging anywhere between 150-50 BCE, I have argued that Qumran was initially built as a fort, was abandoned, and was reoccupied by a small community of Jewish sectarians who were ultimately responsible for collecting, copying, and even composing some of the Dead Sea Scrolls. (In fact, I can recommend an excellent book on the subject. ;-) You will notice, however, that I nowhere in the documentary touted my own theory. Rather, my job was to investigate other scholars’ claims and to assess all of the evidence fairly and without prejudice. The producers chose the interviewees and setup the interviews, and I had the opportunity to talk to this diverse assemblage of archaeologists and scientists and ask them about their research.
The Point of This Exercise
The point of the documentary and of the producers’ approach was to do less of this, and have more of the professional exchange of ideas and more of the kind of scholarly and public dialogue that a documentary like this can generate. It is possible to discuss Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls without resorting to aliases and anonymity, without abusing one’s position to suppress new ideas, and without doing drive-by hit jobs on the personal lives of graduate students and scholars with whom you disagree. This documentary is an example of how one can facilitate a discussion amongst a number of scholars – many of whom disagree strongly – and present the new information, responses to these new ideas, and allow the viewer (both scholar and non-specialist alike) to make an informed decision. It is hoped that this documentary can shed light on the new research surrounding the Dead Sea Scrolls, and can serve as an example of how scholarship can be done professionally and collaboratively in this new age of modern media and the Digital Humanities.
The Importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls are important because they are the oldest known copies biblical manuscripts we have. They are important because they demonstrate the length Jews were willing to go to protect what they considered Scripture. The scrolls are important because while they have nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity (i.e., nothing to do with John the Baptist, James the brother of Jesus, Jesus, or the early Christian community), they demonstrate that the Christians were not the only Jewish sect reinterpreting Hebrew scripture and applying it toward their leader (the “Teacher of Righteousness” as opposed to Jesus), awaiting a Messiah (actually, two Messiahs were expected at Qumran as opposed to only one (Jesus) in Christianity), engaging in ritual purification (cf. baptism in Christianity), holding property in common (cf. Acts 2:44-45), and awaiting a final, apocalyptic battle (cf. the War Scroll at Qumran and the New Testament book of Revelation). The Dead Sea Scrolls show us the importance of scripture and its interpretation to Second Temple Judaism.
My thanks to Executive Producer Ray Bruce and CTVC for producing the show, choosing the scholars, and allowing much of their new research regarding Qumran to come alive. Thanks also to Producer, Director, Writer, and fearless leader John Fothergill for his excellent direction, script, vision, support, encouragement, and enthusiasm in making this project. Thanks also to associate producer Paula Nightingale, who made everything happen when it was supposed to, and to Director of Photography Lawrence Gardner, who shot a beautiful show, and to Sound Engineer David Keene for making the show sound so wonderful (as well as for the many great late evening laughs). Thanks also to Israeli producer Nava Mizrahi and to Antonia Packard for making everything in Israel pleasant and expedient. May we share many more adventures together.
Filed under: archaeology, dead sea scrolls, israel, Jerusalem, judaism, palestine, qumran, religion, robert cargill, scholarship, tv, ucla | Tagged: adolfo roitman, american colony, antonia packard, ctvc, david keene, dead sea, dead sea scrolls, documentary, ein feshkhah, ein gedi, en gedi, gideon hadas, iaa, israel, israel antiquities authority, jan gunneweg, jean-baptiste humbert, Jerusalem, jodi magness, john fothergill, kidron valley, lawrence gardner, lawrence schiffman, masada, national geographic, nava mizrahi, orit shamir, palestine, paula nightingale, pnina shor, qumran, Ray Bruce, robert cargill, ronny reich, shimon gibson, silwan, stephen pfann, temple mount, wadi og, west bank, yuval peleg | 21 Comments »
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Is Cruz Cracking Up?
Posted on April 21, 2016 by Robert Ringer
Okay, enough’s enough. Now I’m getting seriously concerned about Ted Cruz’s mental health. Ever since Trump won New York in a landslide and Cruz came away with zero delegates, he’s been talking as though he were the one who came out on top in the Empire State.
Cruz keeps railing on and on about winning five states in a row, two (Colorado and Wyoming) of which were states where Republican voters were barred from voting! No problem — zero embarrassment.
He brags about his “ground game” and his campaign team’s ability to persuade Republican party hacks … er, I mean, delegates … as though such feats make him supremely qualified to be president of the United States.
Even with Trump poised to win Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania next Tuesday, TC insists, in classic Napoleonic fashion, that everything is falling into place for him.
He makes it clear that he plans to win the Republican nomination the old-dirty way — wining and dining unbound delegates and sweet-talking them into voting for him on the second ballot at the convention.
Don’t get me wrong. Even though I have very little faith in ANY politician, I believe that if Cruz were president, he would probably implement a number of policies to increase individual freedom and shrink the size of government. On the upside, he might succeed in carrying out as much as 25 percent of his overall agenda, which would place him far ahead of most past presidents.
But notwithstanding all his positive qualities — e.g., a great debater, a great constitutional lawyer, and a staunch refusal to compromise his core principles — his biggest problem is that he comes across as sleazy and creepy. Maybe it’s not his fault; it could just be a personality disorder he inherited at birth. But, regardless, sleazy and creepy are what come to my mind whenever I listen to him speak, which is something I try to avoid.
In fairness, let’s assume that the ease with which Cruz turns people off is just a birth defect, thus not his fault. But it’s something his advisers should encourage him to work on. I’m not saying he’s on a par with Hillary, who has “DESPICABLE” stamped across her forehead, but he definitely has a personality disorder.
Fortunately for Cruz, however, history has proven that voters will sometimes look past a bad personality (think Richard Nixon), but craziness is something that scares the hell out of them. And the latest example of Crazy Cruz came two days ago in Philadelphia when he told a crowd, “America has always been best when she is lying down with her back on the mat and the crowd has given the final count.” Huh? What was that again?
In all fairness, I guess we can strain to figure out what we think he was trying to say, but the way he said it (with the usual Shakespearean drama added in) reminded me of one of Glenn Beck’s overly dramatic, crazier moments in his fading days of superstardom. Cruz might want to consider rewording his thought to make it sound more intelligible and rational, then redelivering the line.
Though he doesn’t seem to realize it, time is running out on Texas Ted. Sleaziness and creepiness are making his hope for a Cleveland miracle less and less likely, but if he doesn’t get a grip on himself, he may end up not even being able to pass a background check for buying a handgun. What a sad irony that would be for a hardcore, pro-gun advocate like him.
120 responses to “Is Cruz Cracking Up?”
Yes-The man is very sleazy. By the way-for those interested, please look up what Cruz's ex-college roommate has to say about his character. It's a combination of chilling and humorous.
OnlyChumpsR4Trump says:
What college roommate? Do you have a link?
Ellis Baxter says:
What shocks me is this regurgitation of slander talking points with out any truth and with total disregard of the actions of the American Hitler! For a long time I have warned about the 4th Reich that we see world wide. While only in the angry stage the outline is there. Donald Trump fosters all this false talk about Senator Cruz. States have their choice as to how they choose their delegates. What none of you ever say is that most of the states have not mattered in decades ! So they decided to avoid the costs. The selection of the candidate is province of the party! On Feb 27, 2016 I was on the side line as my first and second choices were out of the race. I enjoy my Saturday coffee while reading the Financial Times. Page nine was on Trumps using illegal Polish workers to take down and clear the ground where Trump Tower was to go. What was in that article was the how the union let this happen … and the resulting fines that Trump had to pay .. .how ? The Genovese Crime family controls the Union ! I made some phone calls to NYC were I have contacts in Law enforcement who confirmed this with great ease ! Digging further I found that Mr. Trump has built his entire career on the political connections of the Mafia…. they are rewarded by his employing their legal construction company [news to me but it is the way it is done!] as I continued to dig there it is the man is immoral at the least … I have yet to turn over a rock that does not have a snake under it .. in this guys life.. Where as Cruz is doing battle over delegates .. history is ripe with the number of presidents that did not lead in the primary voting .. Reagan in 1976, IKE in 1952 ! I would state you all need to spend more time doing research and quit talking and start working on a new party God knows we need one ….
Jerry O says:
You must be a Trump supporter, though you didn't say it. Of all the candidates running right now, I see far less sleaze in Cruz than in any of the others. At least one can believe that he is telling the truth and that he will stand by his convictions.
I'm with you 100%! At least Cruz isn't a pedophile like Trump allegedly is (www.corbettreport.com 2-27-16, Video #1144) and at least Cruz didn't get the "Liar Liar Pants On Fire" Award of 2015 from Politifact for LYING 83% of the time, like Lyin' Donald did! The one with the clearly manifesting personality disorder is Trump, not Cruz! (And Trump's proposed beliefs and policies change from day to day, while Cruz's do not.)_
FIGMO says:
Pedophile?? Oh you have Trump confused with bubba clinton who went to that billionaire pedophile's island were he could choose from a large selection of 14 year olds. Like the kennedys and lbj bubba goes through life letting the little head rule the big head.
It wasn't Cruz making those ridiculous childish faces during the debates or resorting to name calling and personal insults when he didn't get his way. Cruz consistently comes across as the only adult in the room. When Cruz got CO delegates by playing by the rules, he was accused of "stealing" them. But when Trump got about 95% of NY's delegates with only 60% of the votes, that's perfectly fine. And, love him or hate him, Cruz has been consistently conservative for forever whereas Trump has been a flaming liberal his entire life until 5 minutes before he decided to run on the Republican ticket. And who's crazy?!?! Anybody who falls for Trump's change of stripes as genuine is crazy.. And Robert Ringer, as much as I usually love what you write, you also come across as having lost it yourself.
Dante Ardenz says:
Typical Cruz supporters ..that's insane ! Mr Trump has had beautiful grown women in life ,and not hookers ,and a successful marriage to stay at home mother Melenia !
Funny how " conservatives " just love believing " Liberal " media on Trump.
tin man says:
Ever heard of Craig Mazin? He was Ted's college roommate. Check out his tweets and ask him how honest he KNOWS Ted not to be. This guy oozes creepiness.
Marte says:
I'd vote for Cruz over Hillary any day – but I don't like him. He does sound sleazy and creepy and he looks… plastic.
I'll back Trump all the way – and I get really annoyed when I hear our all-wise folks on TV say that women don't like him. I like him and other women I talk with do too – but then we aren't asking for government handouts. Perhaps that's the difference.
OnlyChumpsR4Trump! says:
Really? You think it's OK for a candidate to brag about how he cheats on his wives (all 3 of them) and talks about how the only thing that matters is having a hot piece of a__ in the bed beside him? And don't forget his tacky posting of Cruz's wife in an awkward moment next to a professional photo of his wife for sexist and insulting comparison purposes. Trump has an arrested development age of, at best, 13 years old mentally! And a maladjusted 13 year old at that! I personally know of NO women who would be self-loathing enough to vote for Trump, and as per the polls, he has AT BEST a 70% disapproval rating among all women.
Richard Van Der Voort says:
I believe men who can afford it ought to have a "starter wife", then a "for show" wife, and then one or more willing mistresses. As a happy man, then, he would be more fit for work.
Your past advocacy for abortion (an atrocity committed only on women) and this remark lead me to believe you are anti-woman. A woman has a right to a man who will love, protect, and cherish her the way she will love and cherish him. We are human beings, neither slaves nor throways. Or are we supposed to never take you seriously?
◄Dave► says:
I was somewhat amused and didn't take Richard too seriously; but neither did I find his remarks anti-woman. He freely acknowledged that there was a high cost attached to supporting more than one "willing" woman. It would be naïve not to admit that there is no shortage of attractive women, who are more than willing to play those roles, for the benefits afforded. Such often predatory women, are the precise opposite of victims.
Neither are those seeking an abortion victims. If one deems an abortion to be an atrocity, any fair reading would have to conclude that said atrocities are committed 'by' women, not 'on' them. While many women hire others to assist them, there are many techniques for terminating a pregnancy, which require no such assistance.
Yes, a woman has the right to choose a loving, protective, provider for a mate, who will adore and cherish her, in return for her love and devotion. Since the choice is hers, it has always been a conundrum to me, why they so often seem to prefer a rascal to a gentleman. Alas, courting is a lost art, which is no longer necessary, or even appreciated by modern females. ◄Dave►
"Neither are those seeking an abortion victims. If one deems an abortion to be an atrocity, any fair reading would have to conclude that said atrocities are committed 'by' women, not 'on' them."
If that were true, then when abortion was illegal the women victims (yes, VICTIMS) would have gone to prison had the crime been uncovered. But the abortionists were the ones that were convicted and went to prison. Of course, if Trump had his way he'd convict incarcerate the women. Um…he did say that, didn't he, during one of his recent lip slips?
Oh and p.s. Abortion is not a CHOICE. A choice is between Coke or Pepsi, a blue prom dress or a red one. A choice is not rife with potential serious consequences, like infection, sepsis and hemorrhage. The problem with deranged pro-aborts like you is that you relegate serious decisions that require thought, time and serious introspection to nothing but soda pop.
RJR says:
Very interesting insight.
Oh, good grief. I am not "pro-abort"; I am anti-coercion. I probably find most abortions as distasteful as you do; but I find the notion of Piously Correct busybodies empowering the government, to force an unwilling woman to bear an unwanted child, even more egregious.
I was using the word 'atrocity' as a moral term, not a legal one. I know of no law proscribing atrocities. Like 'sin,' or 'good,' or 'bad,' the generality 'atrocity,' is in the eye of beholder. Many regard availing oneself of the option to abort a pregnancy as atrocious, even though doing so is currently perfectly legal.
In many cases, so do I; but it is patently ridiculous to claim that these women are not making a choice. I have not heard of any women being kidnapped, and forced to undergo an abortion procedure against their will. How are those voluntarily ingesting an abortifacient, being coerced and victimized? You may consider their choices foolish, bad, and even atrocious; but they are freely made choices nonetheless.
Many choices in life are rife with potential serious consequences. Any decision is another term for choice. In today's STD riddled hook-up culture, the decision to have unprotected sex, with someone whose sexual history is unknown, is itself a risky choice for women and even men. The choice to jump out of a perfectly good airplane, involves the calculated risk that one's chute might not open. Suicide, by definition, is choosing to experience dire consequences, as an alternative to perhaps less bearable pain.
Trump is a neophyte politician, who has not yet learned to resist answering hypothetical questions. Yet, I found the question reasonable, and his answer perfectly legitimate. Those wishing to ban the act of terminating a pregnancy, need to answer it themselves. One thing that is absolutely unpreventable in this society, is access to supposedly controlled drugs on the black market. Just try to ban abortifacients, and they will instantly become ubiquitous on the street, and probably easier for a teenager to obtain than they are now.
If abortion was made illegal, and it became known that a woman deliberately aborted a pregnancy all by herself, was a crime committed? If not, then abortion itself clearly would not really be illegal, and you folks are only fussing over physician-assisted abortion. If so, then what should be the legal consequences for her dastardly contumacy? If they are somehow less than a speeding ticket, what would be the point of another routinely unenforced statute? It would make about as much sense as the silly laws against suicide. ◄Dave►
Jonnie5 says:
Touche! My friend, touche!
Helen Roberts says:
Right on!! And Ted being sleezy & creepy? How about bombastic, boring and a
braggart(Trump).And Cruz having a personality disorder? Gimme a break! Can't beat Trump who has an ego as big as Chicago!!
I'd vote for Trump over Hellary any day, but I don't like him. I think he doesn't understand the issues, and he's not being up front about what he will do. He contradicts himself a lot, which makes it worse.
But I'd be mortified if Hellary were the first woman president.
Dominick Perez says:
Scumbag Ted looks like Gordon Shumway lol
Philip Pizzurro says:
Mr Ringer you just exposed your true intentions in our search for an honest and trustworthy person to be our next president. I can see you are well versed in the leftist's smear of good people who really can do something to save our country.
Mr. Pizzuro, for what it is worth you've completely misjudged Mr. Ringer. I have started in the last few days to prefer Cruz a tad over Trump, primarily because I think the former to be more consistently principled in the realm of political policy. For example, I would love to see him nominate 3 hardcore originalist Justices to the Supreme Court. That could set the Left back decades. It would be beautiful, magnificent, and absolutely YUGE!!!
But he does have a personality issue. And the way in which he is gathering votes via backroom delegate wooing is not exactly going to endear him to the electorate.
Check out some of Robert's books. There is not a many alive who believes more strongly in freedom and liberty, and has put it out there for the whole world to see. Just saying.
Thank you, Phil, for saving me the trouble of clarifying my words. I will say it again: I neither trust nor support ANY politician. Supporting politicians is a bad habit that harms one's self-esteem. Whether the next president is Trump, Cruz, or a "compromise candidate," he will disappoint all of us. No need to even mention Hillary.
There is nothing " good" about creep Cruz…he is financially supported by Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs where is wife works.
She / he is CFR globalists who support open borders ,and moving jobs abroad for the Transnationals.
His campaign chairman is Michael Chertoff who destroyed civil liberties as Secretary of Homeland Security ,and Cruz wants war with Russia .
Tasine says:
I don’t believe it makes a bit of difference in what he says or does not say. Trump supporters will vote for Trump, Cruz supporters will vote for Cruz, Hillary supporters will vote for her, Bernie supporters will vote for him. Hillary win, NOT because she is a good candidate, but because I think most on the left are afraid of her. And the political right will have their vote split between Kruz and Trump. Republican voters are not as “loyal” to their party as the democrats are . We mustn’t forget that MANY in the republican party are RINOs and may vote for the devil should he be running….or may vote for Bernie. A republican will NEVER win a democrat vote. I am a solid conservative and will vote for Cruz, but if Trump wins the primary, I intend to vote for him in the general election. I will die before voting for a democrat- AKA socialist.
Rocketman says:
Trump has got it all but sewn up and here's why.. Did you hear him talk about who he is thinking about for vice-president the other day? Rubio and Kasich. Both just happen to have delegates in their back pocket that Trump could tell them that he will make them Vice President if they tell their delegates to support Trump on the first ballot. Either would jump at the chance and the delegates would put him over the 1,237 needed. If on the other hand he can see that he's already got the ballots and he doesn't need them then he could make his VP someone that he truly likes and respects like Sarah Palin. Win-win for Trump.
Sarah Palin? Heaven forbid! What if she were to become President? OMG!
Sounds like more anti-woman attitude to me. I think she's crazy for endorsing Trump, but she did a very fine job as governor of Alaska. She's strong, resourceful, and knowledgeable. And pro-life. A perfect feminist.
Stutts says:
And quit…
Don't tell me you don't know WHY she quit. She quit because she was being sued, and the taxpayers were paying for the costs of defending the suit. She didn't want the taxpayers to pay. I wish we had a few more politicians who had that level of concern for the taxpayers. I find your criticism to have no merit.
Yes, a Rubio nomination for VP would be brilliant and I could live with that.
Kasich is the better choice to help carry the midwest(where the election will be won.
I'd have to live with it, but I wouldn't like it. He is the proverbial snake in the grass.
Tucker says:
If either Rubio or Kasich are picked by Trump for his VP, or if either of these two slabs of maggot infected, RINO, cuckservative hyena manure wind up being named for a future spot in a Trump Administration – I will refuse to vote for Donald Trump and vote for the best third party, likely the Constitution Party's candidate.
I DESPISE Rubio and especially despise Kasich.
I can't stand either of them. That said, sounds like you despise both of them more than you despise Hellary. After all, if you vote 3rd party, Hellary effectively gets your vote.
Thanks for the help preserving and restoring our nation. NOT!
Bill Anthony says:
Palin? Sarah Palin??? If Trump picks Palin the ticket is doomed. Even I would vote for Clinton to keep Palin one heartbeat away from the presidency! Rubio would be a smart choice. Not because of the delegates he has, but because he could bring in sixty percent of the Hispanic vote.
Chris Christie wouldn't bring in as many votes, but Trump could turn him lose on Clinton, staying above the fray while Christie lands the much needed body blows. Other possible candidates would be Kasich, Carson, or even Cruz. But Palin? NO WAY! Picking Palin would be a sure ticket to defeat.
Cruz's father came on and very upset this bothers me why would his father speak out though it is his father who has pushed him from beginning. Also I read Cruz become a citizen day before he applied for the position of president does any one else know of this?
the desire to be president has reached the point where I am leary about him.
Alex Lohr says:
Cruz's father is a nut case minister ,and old buddy of Lee Harvey Oswald .
"My son was appointed by the God to bring sacrifices to the priests " ,the old TV preacher wanna be has said .
The Cruz family of Cuba via Canada ,through Britain are really nuts !
I'm fed up with all the paid-off shills masquerading as journalists who pretend to be conservative while touting Trump. The two (Trump and conservatism) have NOTHING in common, and you cannot claim to be one while claiming to also be for the other!
Definitely not a conservative. In fact, I doubt he has ever given ideology a thought. As I have repeatedly said, if Trump were elected, his job would be to take a wrecking ball to Washington. If he didn't do that, then his presidency would be a failed one.
Sally Martin says:
I just don't get you anymore Ringer. What in the world is so sleazy about Cruz? He is our last best hope for this failing country of ours and you putting thoughts in uninformed people's heads doesn't help. Could you please just stick to the important issues that he is going to try and brilliantly solve and stop trying to be a psychologist! You sound like a child.
And YOU sound like "one type" of woman! Are you friends with Megan Kelly, perchance?
Thank you Sally. You are so right. It's nice to see another smart woman in here. Ignore Richard below, who reminds me of a dim incandescent light bulb. Sadly, unlike incandescents, he is not banned.
Sorry I sound like a child to you, Sally, but I get paid to be a psychologist and give my opinions. I agree with you that Cruz may be the candidate who would do the most good, but, even if did, I couldn't force my perceptions to disappear. He comes across as sleazy and creepy to me. Nothing I can do about it.
"What in the world is so sleazy about Cruz? " haha how about his 5 mistresses,for a start.
Gene R. says:
"Conservative" means big government, abusive IRS, world government, and unprovoked foreign invasions. Why would anyone want to be a conservative?
You're exactly 180 degrees out of phase, bud.
Gene R how would you describe a democrat? Small government, a kind and gentle IRS, local government and no involvement in Afghanistan? Yes the Republicans are corrupt and useless but simply because they are not conservatives.
I do not consider Democrats the opposite of Republicans. Based on the fruit of the governance of either party, they all produce big government, abusive IRS, world government, and unprovoked foreign invasions. The problem is with the voting majority – who think that one of the monopoly parties will be America First. I see Cruz as much better than most but I have not heard anything from him about the Constitutional problems of the type of government previously mentioned. If Cruz is creepy, the rest are downright dangerous.
I can't disagree with your assessment.
Yes, "by hook or by crook"! Great piece! Reminds me of one of my literary heroes, H.L. Mencken! I detest the "drama" of Cruz! It is downright corny! And amateurish! And the sound of his voice as it emanates through his pointy nose is gross to listen to! When I hear him, and I hate to, I wonder where is the Real Person, IF there is one behind the drama. Yes, I can't say enough bad about that guy. I can't say that if he becomes President, which I doubt he will, I'd move to another country because I already did. No way I could afford to live in the States these days. Not happily anyway. Donald Trump, on the other hand, just look at his physical posture. Like, "I can and will endure anything! Bring it on!" As if he is saying, "I may bitch and complain, but I will damn well get it done!" Whatever "it" refers to or may be! My prediction is that Mr. Trump will go ALL THE WAY! And America will be better for it. And maybe the world as well.
Sure beats Hillary, Jeb, or most of the other Jokers vying for the Title.
If you don't even live here, why are you sticking your opinions into our affairs? Sure, anyone can comment. But given the nature of your comments, you DO have a lot of nerve.
I have a lot more than nerve. I am a resident of Michigan but live in the Philippines. There is a large American community here. And most of us follow what happens back in the States. And many continue to vote. Based on experience, it "seems" that Americans here are as or more interested in the affairs in American than people I knew before I came to the PI. I am a True Child of the 1950s, high school, Army, and college, and I lament what has been happening in America especially the last (almost) 8 years. (Reading and making comments is fun.)
We have a lot of real slackers in America, people who have no education because the public "schools" dumbed them down, and because they don't care. They shouldn't vote. I think people who take welfare shouldn't be allowed to vote. It should be noted, however, that you experience relatively little impact as a result of what goes on here, yet you influence the process. I don't know if your vote is calculated to make things better or worse, but your apparent hatred of women concerns me. Oh, and by the way, as is usually the case these days, I am older than you are. I remember how much better, for liberty, things used to be. And I was the beneficiary of the push for better science education, started by the educationists in response to Sputnik.
I've been saying for years, and not only me, that there is some percentage of citizens who should not be allowed to vote. They are not competent. But, how to test and qualify prospective voters? And then there is the additional problem(s) of people voting multiple times, or, voting illegally, and other infringements on the process. Nothing is perfect, but, seems little if anything is being done about such problems. Perhaps their numbers are not considered significant? I don't know. Idealists, however, at least TRY to make things are right as possible. Is Idealism still a value in America or American Government? Or are "they" mostly only on the make and on the take?
As a former University Professor, the difficulties in American education concern me. Not only for the good of America, or even the World, but especially for young people, the students themselves. First, if there is no discipline, and order, how can any teaching/learning take place? I could never teach in most current educational contexts now since first and foremost I demanded and expected order and engagement. As of the 1960s, the decline began. Remember BLACKBOARD JUNGLE? But, much depends on whether a school, and its teachers, is in an affluent neighborhood, or a ghetto. What to do about the expanding ghetto-world I would think should concern people and Government. Et.c and so on…
Ken S says:
Richard, I am a CPA and MBA and have for years been spending 20 to 25 hours per week studying philosophy, science, economics, political theory, and american history. Do I believe I am competent to vote. My honest answer is no. The reason why is no single individual can acquire the necessary knowledge to know if the economic and social policies of his chosen candidate will have the hope for result. This is why I believe a society base on individual rights and not majority rule give us the best chance for freedom, wealth, and peace.
A hearty yes to individual rights over tyranny of the majority.
Now you have me totally confused. How can someone who appears to be so astute on the topic of education, particularly university education, be so anti-woman?
You do bring to mind another problem with internet voting, though. It is trivial to create multiple accounts on the internet. People would be able to vote many times. And I don't see a way to stop this. I have several identities myself, which I use for various purposes.
Your idea of me being anti-women is all in YOUR MIND, not a fact. I in "Real Life" take people on an individual basis, or try to. Regarding FEMINISM, there is the Pure View that I subscribe to, including equal OPPORTUNITY. And then there are those who are "emotionally afflicted". I like to steer clear of them, and that is part of the reason I live here and not in the midst of some types of angry so-called feminists. If one works in many different countries and cultures, as I have, s'he will see diverse attitudes regarding women. I mean "of women" themselves. And America, in my opinion, is not experiencing the best of attitudes on the part of women "these days". In any case, the subject of gender is vast. I am speaking, by the way, from the PV of a "normal" marrying and divorcing heterosexual (old) male. Generalizations, about gender, or any topic, are not usually valid. My first course in Philosophy at Michigan State back in the 50s was titled, THE PRINCIPLES OF RIGHT REASON using the text by Henry S. Leonard. That course, or the equivalent, should be required for all people who aspire "to think". The book is on GOOGLE.
No, I don't think my idea is all in my mind. The fact you are divorced tells me plenty, too. While not all divorces are the fault of men, or partly their fault, a lot of them are. I speak from the experience of someone who endured adverse situations and came out with a wonderful marriage to a wonderful man. We've been married 50 years, and counting.
Many feminazis are not very nice people. I don't consider them feminists. They believe in killing helpless babies. A true feminist wants rights and protection for all human beings. That's the difference.
I am willing to read your book, at least long enough to get an idea if I should finish reading it. I will check it out. On the other hand, I think the only book that is essential for people who "aspire to think" is the Bible. It is by far the most intellectually challenging book in existence, yet its central and essential message is simple enough a baby can understand it. Quite a feat.
"I detest the "drama" of Cruz! It is downright corny! And amateurish! And the sound of his voice as it emanates through his pointy nose is gross to listen to!"
Oh, get a life already. You are so incandescently DIM. Speaking of noses, have you taken a look at your photo?
Kevan Rowlee says:
Sharing to my Facebook wall.
Blank Reg says:
Cruz is beginning to sound more and more like Baghdad Bob…declaring victory all the way to the convention, where he will have his ass handed to him…
Reg, you need to practice being more blunt.
124andmore says:
I'm concerned about YOUR mental health. You still support a guy who wears a squirrel pelt on his head and thinks it's OK that a man in a wig can walk into a public bathroom occupied by female children. I think you need a checkup from the neck up.
You said a lot of good stuff, but I think you missed the point on a couple of things. First, I see absolutely nothing wrong with being familiar with the rules for being nominated and taking advantage of them. As one writer pointed out, those rules have been there a long time, and Trump simply did not prepare adequately to take advantage of them. Second, I'd have to take issue with "sleazy". Cruz comes across as possibly abrasive to me. He speaks his mind. As an introvert who does not express herself well, I can relate to his difficulties communicating. And as you pointed out, he knows his stuff when it comes to preserving our constitutional heritage. We don't really know WHAT Trump would do. And all of that said, I have one huge quarrel with Cruz. He sided with Monsanto against the American people, to hide the presence of Genetically Modified ingredients in our food. That's fraud. I have jumped on him a number of times about this, and he hasn't recanted. Siding with a huge corporation that has committed multiple crimes against humanity, against the American people, is unacceptable.
I don't care how many times he repeats it. It is clear to me that he supports Trump. How do you know who trannies are attracted to? I don't want the sick f***s in restrooms with children – male or female. How do you know if they are really transvestites? How do you know that they aren't just pervs looking for an opportunity to rape a woman? They should plan their pee stops at gas stations or other single user restrooms. They can use a pee bottle in their car. It's their problem, not mine. Only a very tiny fraction of our population are transvestites. This isn't a big enough problem for the entire country to be concerned. They need a psychiatrist, not a female restroom.
You should see "how it is" in the Philippines, and I hear Thailand. They, transvestites, and other (ab)normal varieties are EVERYWHERE. And, they are far more accepted here than in the States. Another was subject RE how it is here vs there. Also, it is common if not universal to see men urinating in public against any tree or wall available. And, it appears to be acceptable. But, the men of the higher social classes here don't whip it out just anywhere to relieve themselves. Where I come from in rural Michigan, however, men don't hold it and search for a "rest room". BUT regarding "pervs" I would not want them allowed near children or decent people anywhere, anytime, but enforcement is another matter. So what to do? How, I wonder, did America get so concerned about petty issues, "political correctness", etc., INSTEAD OF concerning itself more RE National Securitiy, and other issues THAT MATTER. AT THE MOMENT, American are here in the PI, Bases, Ships and Fighter Planes, but, there is a national election soon, and, the frontrunner is another Nationalist who wants to cut ties with Americans and Aussies! I just don't get it that humans find it difficult to act in the interest of mutual help and good, and for the good of all concerned. Pettiness and Alienation continues, unfortunately, to reign among humans, individually and collectively.
Smucko says:
As long as you guys continue to fall in line with the typical voter who believes that all we have to do is get the Right Person (read Benevolent Dictator) in the White House and all will be right with the world, then all of us will continue to vote for the Lesser of Two Evils as the country stays the course toward slavery. The reason that we will stay the course is because we keep sending up to Congress and our State Legislatures the same corrupt lawmakers. If you want a real change in course, then you have to change the lawmakers at both levels.
As you read this, the voters in your district are preparing to return their incumbent to their respective lawmaking office, where they will continue to amass power over you, and have you and your kids pay for their lifestyle. Not only do you re-elect them, you assure them that you will not leave the party, you will not call them home, and you do not see any reason to form a third party. You have enslaved yourself.
If you want to rein in the Fascist Dictatorship that passes for our President, the bureaucrats that control every aspect of our lives, a Supreme Court that believes in giving the people whatever they want, and the Press that actively cheers on the partisans of their choice, then YOU have to replace your corrupt lawmaker with someone who will uphold the Constitution by impeaching unconstitutional Presidents and not approving unconstitutional federal judges. The revival of our Republic starts with that overhaul of Congress.
Personally, I would much prefer a laissez faire stateless society, where everyone cooperated on a volunteer basis, and no one could impose their values on others. Yet, the Marxists and religionists are unlikely ever give up pestering their neighbors to conform to their model of the world. If we must suffer a government then, I agree with Voltaire that the best form of government actually is a benevolent dictatorship – tempered by an occasional assassination.
I'm afraid our Republic is long past any reasonable hope of a revival. Overhauling Congress, or even creating a viable third party, won't do it. It matters not which candidates ostensibly win or lose. It is the entrenched, unelected, tyrannical bureaucrats, who make and enforce all the rules and regulations, oppressing every segment of our society, that win every election.
Any serious effort to return to the true Constitutional Republic designed by our founders, would first have to convince both the Marxists and religionists, to abandon their efforts to empower the government to coercively enforce their values and lifestyle choices on others. I honestly don't see how this could ever be accomplished.
Assuming it might, then somehow the Civil Service System would have to be abolished, and replaced with the old original Spoils System. This way, in a 'change' election, we could throw ALL the bums out of office. No government job, or function for that matter, should have any expectation of lasting longer than two years. The very notion of a government employees' union ought to be laughed out of existence. Remember when Reagan fired the striking air traffic controllers?
Until these basic changes in the current nature of the present government are somehow made, there is little point in even voting in their sham elections. Doing so only legitimizes their tyranny, and permits the winners to claim a voter 'mandate' for their agenda, even though most were not voting 'for' them or their agenda; but 'against' their opponent's. They were merely expressing their opinion, as to which of the candidates the oligarchs allowed on the ballot, was the least onerous and/or the lesser evil. ◄Dave►
From my personal studies, "Ahimsa" of the Vedic literature of ancient India sez it all! It is the simple injunction to "DO NO HARM TO SELF OR OTHER". But that takes intelligence and good judgment, and a lot of it. Plus, Right or Good Motives. At least Ahimsa should be the ultimate goal taught in the schools, in the home, and by Government. It is NOT a religious principle; it is a PRAGMATIC principle. Pragmatism: what works is true. But, how to institute an Ultimate Ideal such as that in any given country or culture? One might say it is a "unifying principle" that if "preached and practiced" would solve all problems, individual and collective. Philosophy (the notion of Ahimsa), Principle, Policy and Practice is the old formula I learned in a course I took in the Philosophy of Education back in the late 50s. If Philosophy were looked to first, the rest "should", "ought to" follow. But, in the so-called Real World, how many people are able to think/reflect on that level. i suppose most would say, "Do Whut?"
Richard, your "Ahimsa" somewhat reminds me of my own "Gospel According to Dave: Do Right, and Leave Others Be." 😉 ◄Dave►
You are right, Dave. Or, I agree. But, if a "bad guy" won't "leave me be", I retain the right to protect myself. But that, I suppose, goes without saying. I appreciate "thinking people", and you are one, Dave!
Yes, of course, Richard. The right of self-defense goes without saying. I also reserve the right to be rude, to those busybodies insisting on pestering me with their nonsensical beliefs, and/or unwelcome prescriptions for how I should live my life. ◄Dave►
YOU ARE 100% ON TARGET. Anyone who keeps voting criminal enablers like McCain, McConnell, and Graham back into office qualify to appear on Watters' World. And I'm tired of getting the government THEY deserve.
RealitySeeker says:
Cruz is half the man Nixon was. How many times do I have to say it?
Moreover, I have to laugh at those who say that Ted just does a better job than Trump by playing the arcane rules to his advantage. That's like saying a good lawyer knows how to play the corrupt system in order to win a favorable decision in court. I just got done testifing a month ago in a case againsts two transnational corporations. The two giants tried to win the case by a technicality and a false accusation.. They lost. Not only did they loose in court they lost in the court of public opinion. It's the same thing Cruz is doing, but it's even worse. Cruz is attempting to win through rules (laws) designed and passed by party insiders for the benifit of insiders. Cruz is trying to win by disenfranchisement. If winning without holding a public vote is OK, like was done in Colorado, then why bother with voting at all? Why not go all the way back to when the first president was elected? No women. No blacks. Nobody but insiders. It was Andrew Jackson and Teddy Roosevelt who opened the door of voting for "We the People". It took another 100 years to get the system to let the People vote. But as anybody with half of a brain can see the system still is very, very corrupt. Ted is right there playing dirty, yet he claims a big win?
Hey Ted, it is mathematically impossible for you to win 1237 delegates. Your only path to victory is disenfranchisement.
You're not making sense. Both Cruz and Trump must play by the rules as they exist. The fact is Cruz is doing it better than Trump these days, in some places. And that makes him guilty of disenfranchisement? I don't THINK so. The delegates to the Colorado convention were selected on the local level by the PEOPLE.
Claiming a big win is a motivator.
Reality Seeker says:
"Both Cruz and Trump must play by the rules as they exist".
No they don't. And everybody who understands the election process knows it's as riddled with corruption as my writing is with spelling and grammatical errors……. What must happen is the "People" must pressure the insiders to bend to the "Will of the People". That's the only way the system becomes better. I won't play by the rules, if the rules say women can't vote. In the case of Colorado, millions of people were left out of the process, not just women.
One person, one vote………
Anything less than one person, one vote is wrong. We now have the technology to have a completely fair and transparent election. In fact, we could all vote online. It could be that easy and that transparent. For example, anybody can have a credit card. It's as easy as going down to the local Walmart and buying a prepaid card. It can be the same with voting, only better, easier and faster. Nobody has to leave the comfort of their own home.
There's simply no excuse anymore. Voting, campaign contributions and the entire political process can be revolutionized.
Ted is part of the disenfranchisement club, and so is Hillary. In fact, Hillary is worse. The "Democrats" and their "super delegates" are totally corrupt. What's a super delegate?
A super delegate = a super insider……
This isn't about Trump, per se, although Trump is on the right side of the issue. And Cruz is proving himself to be less and less of a man and more and more of a sleazy attorney everyday. In fact, Cruz isn't even half the man Nixon was. He's so much less.
No more delegates, I say. One person, one vote. Let the people vote……Let the people's vote count. We can do away with the entire delegate and convention baloney. Everything can be accomplished and determined online. The young people understand. They get it. The old people still buy newspapers and watch cable TV and support the GOP and it's unfair rules. The only young people who still watch cable news, write checks, and buy newspapers and the throwbacks…….
Down with the old. corrupt way and up and in with the new……..
Why do you believe the majority we do able better then the few. The problem is not let everyone vote but let everyone have freedom. Let's have a system base on individual rights and not a democracy
No, it's YOU who apparently don't get it. Sorry to be so blunt. If you know anything about the internet, you would know that voting on the internet would be far more rife with fraud than our present system. It is so easy to divert data, change data, steal data. There is no way to prevent this. And then there's Microsoft, whose software is full of security holes, and a lot of people use Internet Explorer. They don't know any better. And Bill Gates is the enemy of life and liberty.
I am personally familiar with how the internet can be co-opted and people's data can be compromised. It happened to me four times. I also live with one of the top experts on internet security in the country.
It is up to the people of Colorado to change the system if they desire to do so. They DID vote on the local level. No, the people were not kept from voting. They elected people to represent them at the statewide convention.
I don't get your comparison of Cruz to Nixon. Nixon didn't deserve what was done to him, either. It was ridiculous. Newer figures like the present PrOTUS have gotten away with stuff 1000x worse. (Pr stands for "pretender")
"Internet….. It is so easy to divert data, change data, steal data."
But it's not 'easy" to cover up "diverted data, changed data and stolen data". On the contrary. It might be "easy" (depends on what you mean by easy) to steal credit card information and raid a bank account, but it's not easy to keep it hidden. Accounts have to be reconciled. It's the same way with voting on the internet. You might be able to pretend you're a dead person and/or vote multiple times. But in a transparent system ( e.g., open source) it would be impossible to hide anything long-term.
Your friend who is an "expert" must not be much of an expert if he can't see the possibility of employing a block-chain system in conjunction with open source code and/or a "LifeLock" . In fact multiple systems could be used to audit each vote. This is not only possible, but long overdue. The paper ballot is obsolete; so is the "delegate"; so are the insider rules.
The voting system could be as simple as comparing one SSI number with one vote. Everybody could look at their online voting account and see if their vote was stolen. Could the system be hacked? Yes, of course. No system carries with it an absolute guarantee. But open source cannot be altered without it becoming widely known. Paper ballots can be disposed of and/or altered and it's much more difficult to detect — and that's just one example.
I'll cast my vote with confidence on a well designed open source voting system combined with a block chain — like Bit Coin. Do you know how many "experts have tried to crack Bitcoin? You can steal Bitcoin ( like you can steal a credit card number) but you can't hide the theft and you can't counterfeit a Bitcoin.
I purpose one vote to be the same as one bitcoin; backed up by a Life Lock; and audited by a citizen appointed network.
You and your "expert friend" really need to get out more…..
If I told you who my expert was, you would agree he's an expert. 'Nuff said on that.
Your system depends on the honesty of the people involved. And generally, "open source" refers to a computer program when the code is posted in a place where it is widely available to anyone.
And what makes you think you can count on the honesty of people designing the voting system? Even computer screens not hooked to the internet are the biggest risks for fraud. All it takes is one knowledgeable person to hack the system. And there are a lot of knowledgeable hackers out there. Bitcoin may or may not be secure. Bitcoin may or may not be vulnerable. I wouldn't bet on anything if I were you.
I'll go ask my expert about block chain… I did. Here's what he said.
Nobody has figured out how to counterfeit Bitcoin YET. However, a block chain checker in a program can be disabled. The only way to guarantee there is no fraud is to have an audit trail . This means a way to trace back the vote recorded to the original. Only paper does that. Without this, people CAN vote multiple times. The purpose of block chain is to keep transactions ANONYMOUS, the OPPOSITE of what would be needed to have an audit trail.
Me again. As for your suggestion of linking it to social security numbers, have you thought about all the people presently in this country who are using someone else's social security number fraudulently? And getting away with it? A bunch of illegal alien voters, anyone? What if the illegal votes first? What happens to the vote of the citizen? How about people who use dead people's social security numbers, like our present PrOTUS? And what about people who want to chuck the social security system, and do not want to have a social security number? I imagine you are aware that the social security system is really a form of slavery. Do you want only slaves to vote?
1) "The only way to guarantee there is no fraud is to have an audit trail" .
Yes. Now you're starting to get it. And the trail must be transparent to everybody.
2) "The purpose of block chain is to keep transactions ANONYMOUS, the OPPOSITE of what would be needed to have an audit trail".
Wrong. A block chain IS in and by itself a trail. On the other hand, I can spend a paper dollar and leave no trail. Why do you think all of the big banking cartels and big governments want to eliminate paper money? Paper money leaves no trail — if you know what you're doing. Dumping a box of paper votes leaves no trail because there's rarely an audit that tracks the paper back to its source. When was the last time you heard about paper votes being audited to an actual ID or SSI? The voter registration cards are a step in the right direction, but they can be done with both paper and an online account. A paper trail is only valid with an ID, e.g., an SSI # or some other verifiable ID. That's how we catch people in voter fraud in the first place. By tracking an SSI # or a drivers license. It's rarely done. What I propose is a running audit. I understand that the average person ( an even some of the so called experts don't get it) but just because the old-school people are incapable of conceptualizing what should be self-evident doesn't mean that it's not light years ahead of the current system.
I cannot spend a Bitcoin without leaving a trail. Period. That's why Bitcoin cannot be duplicated. Bitcoin is a trail. A hundred-dollar bill can be counterfeited so well that it fools even a banker. A paper vote can also be counterfeited, and it takes a lot more work to audit a paper vote than it does a Bitcoin. There are other block chains that have been developed that have five or six layers more protection than bitcoin. This redundancy is as close to bullet proof as we can get. So the block chain is advancing rapidly. So get ready for the big banks to deploy there own versions. And the U.S. Treasury, the CIA and other insiders are planning on transitioning from paper to electronic money.
I always laugh when I hear or read some expert say Bitcoin is 'anonymous". It's not. The FBI has busted so many people who bought into that myth. The record is all there. You are actually incriminating yourself when you buy and sell contraband. The IRS can trace every single transaction, so the fools who think that they're "anonymous" better go back to good ol' hundred dollar bills…..lol. All I have to do is follow the "chain" and I got you by the ass……
Could the blockchain one day run your city? Some think so. It's that powerful of a technology. I don't think it can in its present form, but I know it can play a role in a new voting system; in conjunction with traditional audits the block chain would be better than paper ballots.
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/226832-could-t…
3) "Your system depends on the honesty of the people involved. And generally, "open source" refers to a computer program when the code is posted in a place where it is widely available to anyone".
Wrong again. The very reason I want it available to everybody is I want everybody to see it. Which means I want full transparency. This actually safeguards against dishonesty.
Finally, what I envision is when a vote is cast online that vote is sent to and recorded by at least three different systems which operate independent of each other. Ten systems would be better, but that might be overkill. But could you and your most ingenious friend possibly conceptualize your vote being sent to ten different systems and then compared for accuracy? They would audit each other. And it would be so cheap to do….. The system I have in mind might, to borrow a phrase, actually help "make America great again" .
I'm done with this thread. Have a great day!
I'm glad you are done with this thread. There's no convincing a Bitcoin fanatic.
My expert says that he would attack the computer that tabulates the votes.
Suffice it to say, I want nothing to do with Bitcoin or anything connected to it. I would not feel safe voting with such a system, and I have lots of company. How is that going to fix anything?
lol…… Bitcoin fanatic. No, I like gold, silver, diamonds and other tangibles as a store of value.
"Money" is a separate issue altogether. Information is one thing. And the blockchain is great for transmitting information. A receipt for money is another issue. I would accept blockchain as a receipt for money, but blockchain is not money. It might be fair to say blockchain is used as electronic currency, like a paper dollar is used for physical currency. But my idea of money is the same as Ludwig von Mises'.
Nope. I'll stick with commodity money. We'll discuss the issue of money and fiduciary media later on down the road, if you like. Maybe we'll even finish up our previous conversation on 9/11 and the classified 28 page report I'd like to see declassified.
Again, have a really great day…..
Really, have a great day.
Hmmm, thought you were done with this topic.
I'm confused. When did I say money and blockchain are the same thing?
We tried using gold to save our money temporarily, but when we had to sell, the price had gone down, and we lost thousands of dollars. Paper money is really barter certificates. Since it is widely accepted, it's less volatile than commodities. Sometimes people don't have a really good grasp on reality. Using commodities in that way is really a form of gambling. Not only do I not gamble, I am in no position to gamble. Mises had a lot of good thoughts, but unless they can be applied for the average person, they are just pretty theories. We have a lot of work to do to get things to the point where such ideas are good for the average person.
As for the other discussion, I don't remember enough details to continue that discussion. There are far too many other issues impinging on my life in a big way.
Although I have recently become a flaming anarchist, and now desire to banish voting entirely, the subject of this debate has always interested me. I don't have the expertise of either of you; but I have given thought in the past about the feasibility of internet voting.
It would seem that the only way one could have a reasonable level of confidence that one's votes were actually recorded and counted accurately, would be if there was a digital audit trail, which one could somehow examine for oneself. The problem with that idea, however, is that providing that feature would necessarily defeat the important factor of anonymity. The fear that Big Brother was able to determine how one actually voted, would discourage dissenters from the status quo, from voting at all. Then, they would just pass a law mandating that everyone vote, whether they wanted to or not… making the cure worse than the affliction!
Any ideas on solving this conundrum, RS? ◄Dave►
You do raise one critically important point. Such a system would be centralized. Very dangerous. Spreading things out so that less powerful people are in charge is critically important. It's why we have a republic of states, not a central government controlling all. At least that is what we are supposed to have. It needs to be restored. This scheme would do the opposite. I think you are spot on with this comment.
"Dissenters" "Anonymity"
I'm sure you've figured out by now that in this day and age it's almost impossible to retain anonymity while being a dissenter. Take, for example, Patg2's friend, he's a computer expert who's going to hack you no matter what precautions you take … lol. In fact, I'm sure you've figured out by now that privacy is almost nonexistent. The only way you retain a measure of privacy is by getting off of the grid and living a subsistence lifestyle.. If you're not off of the grid, then you have little or no real privacy. Electronic eyes and ears are everywhere. Private, public and military artificial-intelligence systems are surveilling you and me. As time passes the systems get exponentially better at what they do.
In a decade or two, if the government isn't stopped, Big Brother will be watching 24/7 no matter where in the world you live. Personally, I use a nom de plume not to hide from Big Brother, but to shield my identity from the general public. The same goes for voting. Big Brother knows ( or he can find out if he wants to) how you vote. So forget about privacy. Big Bro knows whether or not you're a dissenter. But the general public wouldn't have to know how you voted online.
Honestly, online voting would only work if your vote was sent to multiple entities who could verify your personal information ( name, address, SSI etc.) and then email you a receipt on just who your vote was cast. That way, you could actually get some feedback on if your vote was counted or noty. You could also have a receipt snailmailed to you. In fact, for the old, distrustful geezers, they could still mail in their ballot but they should get a receipt. A vote should still be sent to federal, state and local servers. But most importantly, the vote should be sent to non-profit groups who independently tally the votes and then compare the results against government totals on a master list.
The age of privacy is gone. Sorry.
I agree with you pretty much. That said, you will notice that I didn't comment on his privacy ideas. I commented on the power of the people who receive the information and process it. I have my own ways to assure the level of privacy I want, and from whom I want to be protected. When I go to vote, I know darn good and well my vote can be traced back to me. The secret ballot has been a myth for a long time. As long as there are many, many people, and limited numbers of spies (unlike the former Soviet Union, where everyone spied on everyone else), you can still protect yourself to a large extent. And I don't particularly worry about it anyway, because I have bigger fish to fry.
Privacy is no longer my thing, and hasn't been for many years. Apparently, I am even less concerned about it than either of you. I always participate on the internet under my real name. If anyone is curious, it is displayed rather prominently at:
http://www.thoughtsaloud.com/2009/04/16/my-john-h…
…in an open and rather contumacious message to the Feds. Hiding from nothing, I now even permit my devices to report my GPS location when asked.
My point was that keeping the sheeple voting for the lessor of evils, is so critical to the continued success of the oligarchs' Incumbrepublocrat duopoly, that internet voting might trigger unintended consequences, if too many were to give up voting over their own privacy concerns. Australia long ago made it a crime not to vote. I suspect that the only thing holding our politicians back, is the lack of clarity over which wing of the duopoly would most benefit.
That said, currently the Progressives get their knickers in a twist, if their lo-fo voters are even asked to identify themselves and/or prove they are citizens entitled to vote. It is hard to imagine them ever permitting the level of personal scrutiny you are proposing, RS, especially if doing so would make it harder for them to rig an election.
Then again, I really don't intend to ever vote again, and would encourage others to also boycott elections, so pondering this subject is only an intellectual exercise. Perhaps I should just use your assurance that there will never again be the expectation of privacy in the act of voting, as additional ammunition for my anti-voting arguments. 😉 ◄Dave►
Your analogy is perfect. It has nothing to do with being for or against Cruz, Trump, or anyone else. It's an analysis that stands on its own logic. The players are irrelevant.
This article is ABSURD. Trashing Cruz (and Glenn Beck for good measure) is way way over the top. Sen. Cruz has every right to "wine & dine" the delegates, as he is allowed to do. Better wining than whining, which is all the Dumpster ever does, unless it's a state he wins. I find it comical that when he wins the NY primary it's "Sen. Cruz" and when he loses in Colorado it's "Lyin' Ted." Does he have Derangement Disorder? Or is it memory lapse?
Either way, this article is moot in lieu of Trump's outrageous comments the next day defending transgendered men using ladies rooms. Um…that is really sick, especially since any man can now use that excuse to go into a bathroom with little girls. That is INSANE. RR, you think Ted looks CREEPY but you have no comments about the CREEPY bathroom policy that Dumpster supports? I'd rather have a creepy looking president than one who support sick and creepy policies. I'm afraid our culture is really finished if people think that is normal. No wonder Hillary got more votes than all three Republicans combined. That's because of what Trump is doing. Trump said again today he'd raise taxes. He's a LIBERAL, people, posing as a Republican. Voters are turned off. Kasich is full of himself and a spoiler. Cruz is right. Ringer is WRONG.
"Sen. Cruz has every right to "wine & dine" the delegates".
Lol…….. can I wine and dine a judge in order to win one of my legal cases? Can I wine and dine a cop, so he might or might not issue a ticket? Can I wine and dine admissions so my kid can get into Harvard? Can I wine and dine my way all the way up to the White House? Do I have the "right" to wine and dine?
Let's add that to the Constitution: " The right to wine and dine" can become the Thirty-forth Amendments….lol
You're too funny. Keep posting your shit. It really makes for a good laugh.
Your analogies are apples and oranges.
If I'm wrong, then so are you, Shiela, because I AGREE with most of what you say. But Trump is not a liberal, he's an unguided missile who just likes to say controversial things. And the bathroom thing makes me physically ill. If he can't pull himself together, his new campaign manager may just resign.
Sheila, here's the real bottom line: The ENTIRE system is corrupt and ALL politicians are, to one extent or another, lowlife.
And too many Americans have been hoodwinked into the age old maxim of "choosing the lesser evil" and this is the mess we have in the republic – a "progressive" nightmare. Trump's main benefit is in torching the establishment, so we might be able to get a restart. Since neither Calvin Coolidge or Ron Paul are running this time, we are just watching various degrees of evil performing, and NONE worse than the wretch which is Hildabeast!!
Yes. I agree too, that the corruption is very sad and reaches across the political spectrum. Too bad we can't have government without politicians or lobbyists.
Diane Young says:
Ted Cruz looked like a used car salesman to me from the git-go–slippery and sleazy. Would you buy a used car
from someone who looked and talked like he does?
Trump is the only Capitalist running in this race . That is why he is hated by many . The Jews brought Capitalism to Europe and disrupted the ruling Aristocracy's power over the population . When the Jews were attacked by the National Socialists , it was their business , not their churches getting the treatment .
Everything they throw at Trump was said about the Jews in Europe
Michael Ponzani says:
I hear Cruz is extremely cold in private. Classic psycho-sociopathic personality. A Bad News Boy.
Michael, can you tell me where you heard that?
Thank you, Dave, for again making my position regarding ALL politicians known.
I did, 40 years ago. It broke down right after I pulled off the lot.
The "tortoise" did that. LOL
Palin has a wacky sense of humor. I like that. She talks off the cuff. I used to do that a lot in speeches, so it doesn't bother me if she sometimes says things that don't sound quite right. As for Glenn Beck, good on her. Beck is a deceiver. I gave up on him for claiming to be both a Christian and a Mormon.
Lyin' Ted
La'me says:
At least Mr. Ringer did not mention principled Ted Cruz's finding money from Goldman Sachs in his pockets, Mr. Cruz's fatal attraction to finding his way into bed with women not his wife (notice no one filed a lawsuit over those Enquirer facts), lynching black candidate Ben Carson, and driving his wife Heidi, over the edge, because that would have cost Ted Cruz another million dollars in overtime to his employed minders, coming onto sites like this and posting defenses of how wonderful Ted Cruz is, a man who is ineligible due to another fact that he had dual citizenship being born in Canada.
Let us just though blame Mr. Ringer, Mr. Trump and the tooth fairy as none of this is ever Ted Cruz's fault or crimes, as I believe Rush Limbaugh when he vouches that Ted Cruz is the most principled man and God is thinking about replacing Jesus with Ted.
Your rant is beyond belief, full of lies and innuendos. Too bad you apparently believe what you said.
I'll TELL you why Cruz didn't sue the Enquirer. First of all, a public official or public figure CANNOT SUE FOR DEFAMATION. Second, it's a waste of time to sue the Enquirer.
Two courts have ruled that for purposes of being president, Cruz is a natural born citizen.
The rest of your message should be taken with the same skepticism. I don't think Cruz is perfect, and I desperately dislike some of the things he HAS done that I can verify. But that doesn't mean your criticism has merit. It doesn't.
Are lawyerly judicial opinions all that mere voters, who still revere the Constitution, are permitted to care about? If Cruz is a natural born citizen (NBC), then so was Winston Churchill. So is Prince Albert II, the current reigning monarch of Monaco. Does that make any sense?
Then, whatever was all the fuss about, over the question of whether Obama was born in Hawaii or Kenya? According to the legal opinions you cite, it could have made no difference to Obama's eligibility either way. One hell of a lot of people, on both sides of that dispute, sure thought it did. Why did a great many judges, including the SCOTUS itself on multiple occasions, dodge making a ruling on the matter?
One thing is indisputable: Until he renounced his Canadian citizenship two years ago, after deciding to run for POTUS, Canadian born citizen Cruz spent the first 44 years of his life as a certified NBC of Canada. If he was also simultaneously a NBC of America, then the term has no useful distinction whatever, and our Founders were foolish for even employing it in the Constitution.
In any case, those voters disagreeing with you and your court opinions, have every right to reject them as dispositive, and continue to refuse to vote for a candidate they reckon ineligible for the office. They also have the right to campaign against Cruz for that reason alone if they wish, and stating their opinion on the matter is not a 'lie,' just because a couple of lawyers in black robes have different opinions. ◄Dave►
The court system is what we are stuck with. It decides disputes of this nature. If you don't like this system, get it changed. Furthermore, the challenge based on citizenship has been used successfully in the past. I happen to like that as a requirement. As for the present PrOTUS, (Pretender Of The US), I don't know what the problem is there. I think he is an illegal, personally. There is a lot of really strange stuff going on, the way people capitulate to him for no apparent reason. Since he slipped by, evidently the courts in general are not going to use that requirement anymore. That needs to be fixed, too.
You are free to vote against anyone for any reason. Or campaign against anyone. I just don't like to see people spreading lies. The idea that Cruz is or is not a natural born citizen is a matter of dispute, obviously. That wasn't what I was calling a lie. The idea that if Cruz didn't sue the Enquirer, the allegations must be true is simply false. The claim this proves the allegations a lie if you tell it KNOWING it's false. Otherwise, you are simply mistaken. I don't know the answer, but I have no reason to suspect Cruz of infidelity. Heidi's politics worry me a lot. Wives are very influential. But I will choose either Trump or Cruz over Hellary any day. Or Sandnut, for that matter.
Cruz is a creep. If you can't see through his transparent lies and creepy demeanor then you are a big part of the problem.
`Crazy’ Cruz just held a rally in the major American city of Philadelphia to which 22 people showed up! LOL! You literally couldn’t make this up! Meanwhile Trump has been rallying 10,000 to 35,000 people at a time for months. Cruz is loudly claiming massive victories in states where the American people have not been afforded the opportunity to vote — Colorado, Wyoming. Meanwhile Trump has be demonstrating unprecedented political appeal across all demographics and ideological categories in all regions and corners of the country — winning 17 states (which is more states than Clinton). Trump just won 50% of the Republican Latino vote in New York, beating out crazy Raphael `Ted’ Cruz the Cubano-Canadian by twice the vote.
Crazy, Crazy Cruz… election theft maestro… is sadly ineligible to run for President. He will be legalistically ground up like hamburger and terminally ruined by the Clintonistas should he prove unlucky enough to be `falsely nominated’ using `suspect electronic vote counting machines’ at the upcoming RINO convention in Cleveland. Yet Crazy Cruz keeps saying he is the only one who can beat Clinton.
Cruz is a foreign-born, illegal immigrant raised to become a world class political-psychiatric case. I agree with the insightful author of this article. Crazy Cruz has a major `personality disorder’ — a disorder made to order on the other side of the American border.
stevefromohio says:
Cruz reminds me of Elmer Gantry. Always waving his Bible saying he is a man of GOD all the while trying to get a girl.
Cruz is a hypocrite and he is a man of the system. He is a Bushite through and through.
Rodney L Kincaid says:
Rodney from Florida
I just finished reading all of the comments, and it puts some humor in my soul. I was surprised that no one mentioned John Kasich He just may be our only hope for our country.
Kathy Murrayleisure says:
I am curious as to whether American voters in our TV – soaked society will vote for a Commander in Chief or an Entertainer-in-Chief.
Johan Harald Berger says:
It's a shame that ordinary people looked at the bigger Picture when the talk in politics – ca. 1972-5 – was of the 'official' sin committed by the Nixon Administration re Watergate – whose actions were magnified into a HUGE scam perpetrated by the Courts, the academia and rivals waiting to unseat the Devil Incarnate. Anybody remotely able to think clearly on Watergate MUST read Geoff Shepard's The REAL Watergate Scandal' out 2015 on Regnery History.
alegator43 says:
interssting
Leave a Reply to FIGMO
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Kryventsov: The game passed in one breath
The head coach of Shakhtar reserve team summed up the win over Chornomorets U21
- Today's game passed in one breath. Our team set a quick pace from the off and operated powerfully from the first to the last minute, alternating rapid attacks with combination moves. We enjoyed a great advantage, however, seemed to come short of luck in the first half: we did not convert a penalty and registered a few more threatening episodes. During the break, we made little tactical changes and asked the guys to continue in the same vein and assured them if they did, the result would definitely come. And it so happened: we quickly opened the score in the second half before claiming three more goals. At the same time, we set up enough opportunities to finish the match with much more devastating score.
- How did the first team players from the youth national side prove themselves?
- They came into the game seriously and proved themselves well. They turned out to be real leaders on the pitch, with younger players producing more confident and organized performance beside them. I believe that it is very important when several experienced footballers play for the reserve team. Next to them, young guys will be progressing faster and have completely different sense of responsibility.
- The Pitmen restarted to play their home games on the natural turf. Is it more suitable for your lads?
- The turf was perfect today. It only plays into our hands, since we have plenty of skilled players, to which the pitch quality is of high importance.
- How did the team take a new calendar, as they have to face tough opponents from the league top six every week?
- I think that the guys are more motivated, because every match is like the final now. We gear up for every single clash and head into each of them very seriously. We respect all the opponents we face, and we do not divide them into strong and weak sides. And I am happy that many players are progressing in this competition. Let's hope that this will continue.
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Access Lobbying
Town Centre ActivationsWhat we doShrewsbury Cup
We have successfully negotiated changes to the Shropshire Council car parking strategy but continue to campaign for changes to go further in the interest of businesses in Shrewsbury.
In 2015, Shrewsbury BID negotiated £1 Sunday parking all day in long-stay car parks and for £1 for the maximum stay permitted in short stay car parks. This initiative provided an opportunity to extend the visiting time for those who want to come and spend time in the town centre on Sundays and further improve town centre trading.
Shropshire Council proposed a new car parking strategy in 2017, which we strongly objected to. During the consultation period, we worked with car parking experts to formulate an informed response, along with encouraging our members to respond and holding a public debate. Following this activity, Shropshire Council made the following changes on our recommendation:
Removal of evening charging in Abbey Foregate and St Julian Friars
Free parking at Frankwell and Abbey Foregate on Sunday
Introduction of an 8-hour cap at Frankwell, Abbey Foregate and Raven Meadows
Downgrading of the St Julian Friars car park band
Retention of the 15-minute pop and shop
Although there were significant improvements we have continued to negotiate changes on evening charging, as this was highlighted as a major issue by the Shrewsbury BID community.
Before the final car parking strategy was approved by Shropshire Council cabinet, we campaigned for evening charging to be scrapped at Frankwell as we saw this having too great an impact on the night time economy. In July 2018, Shropshire Council agreed to this change. However, we feel that last-minute concessions to other locations undermined the consultation process and principle of the whole strategy. The result is an unbalanced and unfair strategy which penalises Shrewsbury. As a result, we lobbied Shropshire Council for the total removal of the proposed evening on-street charges in Shrewsbury. Shropshire Council conceded to our lobbying and agreed to scrap evening charges.
The new car parking strategy came in at the start of November 2018 and we will be monitoring footfall and feedback to assess the impact of the changes.
Business Rates Lobbying
Representing & Influencing
Big Town Plan
Quarry Pool Response
PROMOTING & ANIMATING
Shrewsbury is already a successful town with the potential to be even better. Shrewsbury BID professionally promotes the town and delivers exciting activities to attract new visitors and customers.
SUPPORTING & ENHANCING
The visitor experience is increasingly important to the success of town centres. Shrewsbury BID works with partners to improve the accessibility and attractiveness of the town whilst continuing to deliver its award-winning safety projects.
Towns operate more efficiently and profitably if businesses and public authorities are working effectively together. Shrewsbury BID provides a strong and representative business voice on issues affecting the town centre.
See Key Documents for our full BID2 Business Plan.
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D.A.V.Public School, Kusmunda, Bilaspur
D.A.V.Public School, Kusmunda
Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh
Campus Size 3400 Sq. Metres
About D.A.V.Public School, Kusmunda
D.A.V.Public School is a Co-ed school affiliated to Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).
It is managed by DAV Trust New Delhi.
Secl P.O. Kusmunda, Korba, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh-495454
Kendriya Vidyalaya No. 3, Kusmunda
Korba, Chhattisgarh
Aadharshila Vidya Mandir, Bilaspur
Bal Bharati Public School, Sipat
Brillant Public School, Seepat Rd
Burgess English Higher Secondary School, Bilaspur
Career Point World School, Bilaspur
Colonel's Academy Of Radiant Education, Bilaspur
D A V Public School, Vasant Vihar
DAV Mukhyamantri Public School, Kudkai
D.A.V Mukhyamantri Public School, Deorikhurd
DAV Mukhyamantri Public School, Gobripat DAV Mukhyamantri Public School, Vedparsada DAV Mukhyamantri Public School, Sarbahra Delhi Public School, Tifra Disha College Of Higher Secondary Studies, Bilaspur Dolphin International School, Mungeli Government Boys Higher Secondary School, Masturi Government Boys Higher Secondary School, Lormi Government Boys Higher Secondary School, Gaurella Government Boys Higher Secondary School, Marwahi Government Girls Higher Secondary School, Gaurella Government Girls Higher Secondary School, Marwahi Government Gurukul Higher Secondary School, Pendra Government H. Girls Higher Secondary School, Kota Government Higher Secondary School, Ganiyari Government Higher Secondary School, Sakri Government Higher Secondary School, Mungeli Government Higher Secondary School, Ratanpur Government Higher Secondary School, Pathariya Government Higher Secondary School, Sendri
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How to Identify the Copperhead
••• stephen bowling/iStock/GettyImages
How to Identify Baby Rattlesnakes
By J. Dianne Dotson
Copperhead (Agkistrodon contortrix) snakes are venomous snakes that live mainly in the eastern and central United States. Sometimes copperheads are confused with other snakes. Nicknames for copperheads include copper adder, red adder, hazel head, poplar leaf snake and highland moccasin, among others. Once you know what to look for, you can learn how to identify the copperhead snake.
Copperhead Snake Features
How does a copperhead snake get its name? The copperhead snake head is indeed a coppery, reddish-brown color with some dots on the top. The snake’s triangle-shaped head is large in proportion to its narrower neck.
Copperheads are bulky snakes and reach up to about 3 feet in length in maturity. Their eyes have slit-like pupils similar to cat’s eyes. They sometimes vibrate their tails, but mostly they remain still and in a coiled position to ambush prey. Copperheads can swim if necessary.
Copperheads are pit vipers. The copperhead snake’s head possesses a pit in its face that detects heat. This can help them locate prey in dark passages or at night. They can even tell the general size of their prey at night! Copperheads bite their prey, and their fang venom breaks down red blood cells in the prey to immobilize it. Depending on the kind of prey they pursue, copperheads can adjust their venom supply. Copperhead bites often happen when someone steps on one of the snakes or otherwise touches. While the bite of a copperhead is venomous, it rarely kills humans. Generally, copperheads do not want anything to do with humans. Despite this, do not ever bother a snake if you do not want to be bitten!
Copperhead Snake Skin Pattern
The copperhead snake skin pattern on its back is also an immediate indicator of the species. Repeating, hourglass-shaped bands make up the copperhead snake skin pattern, which is tan and brown to nearly black in color. The rest of copperhead snake skin is copper-brown in color, which helps to shield the copperhead in leafy habitats. Copperhead snakes in more mountainous areas tend to have more black flecks on their bodies.
Features of Baby Copperheads
How can you tell a juvenile copperhead from an adult one? One difference is that baby copperheads are, of course, smaller than adults. Generally, baby copperheads range about 7 to 10 inches in length. They are grayer than adults. Baby copperheads strongly resemble the adults, with one distinct difference. The color of the tail tips of baby copperheads is vivid yellow. Scientists think this pointy yellow tip attracts potential prey, as the tip mimics a moving worm. Since young copperheads eat slightly different foods from adults, having the yellow tail comes in handy. The young copperheads outgrow their yellow tails near maturity at three or four years old. Even baby copperheads can produce a venomous bite as powerful as an adult’s.
Copperhead Growth and Development
Adult copperheads will mate generally in the spring, every other year. Some of the males may fight each other during this time. Males search for females by scent via their tongues, sometimes over great distances. Then males will court and mate with females.
Copperheads will grow in eggs inside their mother’s body for three to nine months. The females give birth late in summer to early autumn. Copperheads are viviparous, meaning they are born alive, hatching inside their mother rather than hatching from eggs after birth. In rare cases, snakes can be born from unfertilized eggs (this is called parthenogenesis). A brood of copperhead young can range in number from seven to as many as 20 snakes. Larger females tend to have more babies. Copperhead mothers do not linger to take care of their young. Copperhead young lose their yellow tips, and when they reach adulthood, they can be as long as 36 inches. Male and female copperheads differ in size, with the males being larger, while the females can be longer. The teeth of copperheads can be replaced over time. Copperheads can live to approximately 18 years.
What Do Copperhead Snakes Eat?
Copperheads are carnivores. Their choice of prey is vast, however. Copperheads eat frogs, lizards, other snakes, insects, mice, voles, chipmunks, squirrels, shrews, skinks and even some types of birds. Of the insects copperheads eat, cicadas are their favorite. They also enjoy caterpillars. Copperheads prefer to lie in wait to ambush their prey. If the prey is small, they can be swallowed whole. Baby copperheads favor invertebrates such as insects. The copperhead does not have many predators in the wild, although birds of prey have been known to take them. The top threat to copperheads is humanity. People kill many copperheads outright, or they may perish from vehicles on roads every year.
Habitats of Copperhead Snakes
Copperhead snakes prefer wooded locations, often near a body of water. This way they can be close to any prey that visits the water. Copperheads like protected areas like woodpiles, deteriorating stumps, large stones, and human structures like walls and deserted old barns. Copperheads favor rocky areas and hardwood or mixed hardwood and pine forests, and the higher elevation margins of swamps. They easily adapt to more urban locations. Living near human settlements gives them opportunity for shelter all through the year.
Copperheads relish basking on warm rocks in cool weather, but they retreat during the day in summer. Copperheads are diurnal, meaning they are daytime animals, but occasionally they do hunt after nightfall in the warmer months. While copperhead snakes like abandoned human buildings, they will not typically enter any that are occupied.
Copperhead snakes serve as one of nature’s pest controls. They keep the populations of rodents from exploding, and so help aid people’s crops from being eaten by too many rodents. Without copperhead snakes, rodents would increase in number and could be a greater risk to public health. So it is a good idea to leave copperheads to do their natural work in peace. They can be relocated by a professional if need be.
How to Identify a Copperhead Den
Copperhead snakes are social snakes that make dens to survive colder seasons. These dens can be found underground. Many dens will exist on the sides of south-facing hills, which get more sunlight and warmth. Not only will they share dens with their own kind, but also with other kinds of snakes, such as black rat snakes and timber rattlesnakes. Copperheads like to use the same dens every year. The dens can contain many snakes. Copperhead dens tend to be found in more mountainous areas. Copperheads in coastal plain and piedmont areas do not display as much social den behavior.
Corn Snake vs. Copperhead
Corn snakes possess several different colors, such as orange, brown, red and gray, with some black and white or yellow and white on their undersides. Some observers may confuse a corn snake with a copperhead. Corn snakes, however, do not share the copperhead snake pattern. They have less distinct brown blotch patterns. Corn snakes are also not venomous and do not exhibit aggressive behavior. Other snakes sometime confused with copperheads include eastern rat snakes (which are harmless) and northern cottonmouth snakes. It is wise to learn copperhead markings (as well as other snake markings) to be able to tell those that are venomous from those which are not. Still, these other snake species do not have the copperhead snake skin patterns. There is no true copperhead lookalike. Only the copperhead boasts the hourglass snake skin pattern.
University of Georgia Savannah River Ecology Laboratory: Copperhead (Agkistrodon Contortrix) – Venomous
NC Cooperative Extension: Corn Snake
Virginia Herpetological Society: Eastern Copperhead
Smithsonian’s National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute: Northern Copperhead
J. Dianne Dotson is a science writer with a degree in zoology/ecology and evolutionary biology. She spent nine years working in laboratory and clinical research. A lifelong writer, Dianne is also a content manager and science fiction & fantasy novelist. Dianne features science as well as writing topics on her website, jdiannedotson.com.
How to Identify a Cottonmouth Snake
Identification of Snakes in Georgia
Georgia Oak Snakes
How to Identify a Copperhead Vs. a Milk Snake
The Difference Between a Black Snake & a Racer
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Oliver Wainwright
Oliver Wainwright a writer and photographer based in London. He has been the architecture and design critic of the Guardian since 2012. He trained as an architect at the University of Cambridge and the Royal College of Art, and worked in strategic planning at the Architecture and Urbanism Unit of the Greater London Authority and at a number of architecture practices, including OMA in Rotterdam and Muf in London. In this conversation, Oliver and Jarrett talk about the relationship between writing and architecture, the tensions between practice and criticism, and what it means to write for a major newspaper.
@ollywainwright
Oliver’s archive on The Guardian
OMA/AMO
114. Reinier de Graaf / Scratching the Surface
Four Walls and a Roof - Reinier de Graaf
Rem Koolhaas’s De Rotterdam: cut and paste architecture - Oliver Wainwright
110. Sam Jacob / Scratching the Surface
Snapping point: how the world’s leading architects fell under the Instagram spell - Oliver Wainwright
Super-tall, super-skinny, super-expensive: the ‘pencil towers’ of New York’s super-rich – podcast - Oliver Wainwright
Inside Facebook and friends: a rare tour around tech’s mind-boggling HQs - Oliver Wainwright
Nairn’s London - Ian Nairn
Ian Nairn’s Outrage columns
Rowan Moore
96. Christopher Hawthorne / Scratching the Surface
Owen Hatherley
A.A. Gill
119. Michèle Champagne
117. Vera Sacchetti
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September 14, 2013 October 8, 2015 by Phil
X-Wing Starship Expansions
“Inform the commander that Lord Vader’s shuttle has arrived.”
–Star Wars: Return of the Jedi
Fantasy Flight Games have announced a new wave of models for X-Wing Miniatures Games which will, in their words, forever redefine the game. These four – apparently – game changing vessels include the Lambda-class Shuttle, HWK-290 (made famous by the Dark Forces games), the B-Wing bomber, and the TIE Bomber.
It’s such a cool game, albeit an expensive one, and the new models churning out of FFG is only make it more so. First a Correllian Corvette, and now the HWK-290. So. Much. Want.
Fantasy Flight has this to say:
New Dimensions of Play
The game’s flexible squad building rules ensure that every X-Wing expansion introduces a wealth of tactical options, but these four new starship expansions take your squad building options to a new, all-time high!
When the X-Wing Core Set was released in tandem with the first four starfighter expansions, competitive players quickly learned how to optimize their strategies by partnering ships and pilots that gained power as they flew together in close formation. The next four starship expansions, which included the Millennium Falcon™ and Slave I™, blasted the larger metagame wide open. These large, powerful ships functioned just as well flying on their own as they did while flying in formation, and they promoted a versatility and diversity within the game that was reflected at every level, from casual play to the game’s Regional Championship season to the recent North American Championship tournament at Gen Con Indy 2013.
Now, the Lambda-class shuttle, HWK-290, B-wing, and TIE bomber bolster the game with powerful support strategies, control tactics, and highly customizable weapons platforms.
These four new expansions not only include the first starship from the Star Wars expanded universe (the HWK-290), but they strengthen one of the greatest and fastest-growing miniatures games currently available.
The game’s increasing diversity is one of its greatest strengths, and we saw it grow by leaps and bounds as the first two waves of expansions added fantastic squad-building options. Each new starship expansion enhances the game’s flexibility with new miniatures, ship cards, and upgrades, meaning that you gain a wide range of options to build the squad that best suits your personality and play style.
System upgrades like the Advanced Sensors greatly enhance your starship’s utility in combat.
Accordingly, we saw more than eighty X-Wing players show up for the sold-out North American Championship tournament at Gen Con Indy 2013, fielding dozens of distinct squad and competitive archetypes, and we expect to see even more players and even more diversity at the FFG World Championship Weekend in November.
Make the Jump to Hyperspeed
The Lambda-class Shuttle, HWK-290, B-Wing, and TIE Bomber Expansion Packs have just dropped out of lightspeed, so the best time to get your hands on these hot X-Wing expansions is right now.
Posted in EditorTagged B-Wing, Fantasty Flight Games, FFG, HWK-290, Lambda Class Shuttle, New Releases, Star Wars, TIE-Bomber, X-Wing, X-Wing Miniatures Game
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3 thoughts on “X-Wing Starship Expansions”
ZombiePirateXXX says:
The Lambda’s wings fold? SOLD!!!!
Coolgeekreports says:
X-wing is such a good game. It’s a shame it’s so hard to get hold of most of the ships.
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Óláfr hvítaskáld Þórðarson (Ólhv)
13th century; volume 2; ed. Lauren Goetting;
1. Poem about Hákon (Hák) - 1
2. Hrynhenda (Hryn) - 12
3. Lausavísur (Lv) - 2
III. 1. Thómasdrápa (Thómdr) - 2
III. 2. Fragments (Frag) - 9
IV. Stanzas in praise of Árón Hjǫrleifsson (Árdr) - 2
The Third Grammatical Treatise (TGT) - 330
Óláfr hvítaskáld ‘White Skald’ Þórðarson (Ólhv) was an accomplished Icel. scholar and a prolific poet. Details of his life are documented in Sturlunga saga (Stu), Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar (Hák), and Knýtlinga saga (Knýtl). He was born c. 1210-12 at Staður on Snæfellsness, Iceland, as the eldest son of Þórðr Sturluson and his concubine Þóra. He was the nephew of Snorri Sturluson (SnSt; d. 1241), with whom he spent long periods of time as a young man, and the older brother of Sturla Þórðarson (Sturl; d. 1284). In 1237 he left Iceland with Snorri to embark upon a career as a professional poet at the courts of Scandinavia. According to Skáldatal (SnE 1848-87, III, 256-8, 260, 378-84) Óláfr composed poetry in honour of a large number of kings and noblemen, including the following: (in Norway) Jarl Skúli Bárðarson (d. 1240), King Hákon Hákonarson (d. 1263) and his son Hákon ungi ‘the Young’ Hákonarson (d. 1257), Jarl Knútr Hákonarson (d. 1261); (in Sweden) King Eiríkr Eiríkson (d. 1250); (in Denmark) King Valdimarr Valdimarsson (d. 1241). Because of Óláfr’s close association with Valdimarr, from whom he hafði ... margar ágætligar frásagnir ‘got ... many excellent narratives’ (ÍF 35, 315), he is thought by some to have written Knýtl, which recounts the history of Dan. rulers (see LH 1894-1901, II, 275, 784-5). Around 1242 Óláfr returned to Iceland and founded a school at Stafaholt in Borgarfjörður, where he wrote the Third Grammatical Treatise (TGT) and devoted himself to teaching and writing until his death in 1259. In addition to these pursuits, he was ordained subdeacon at some point after his return to Iceland and also served as lawspeaker 1248-50.
Most of Óláfr’s extant poetry consists of encomia to King Hákon Hákonarson and is inserted throughout the prose in Hák. This includes part of Hrynhenda (Ólhv Hryn), one st. from a Poem about Hákon (Ólhv Hák), and two lvv. (Ólhv Lv). One lv. traditionally assigned to him, has been reassigned in the present edn to Óláfr svartaskáld Leggsson (Ólsv Love 3III). Aside from the aforementioned, the remainder of Óláfr’s known poetic works includes two sts from Árónsdrápa ‘Drápa about Árón’ (Ólhv ÁrdrIV), composed about his friend Árón Hjǫrleifsson, and two sts from Thómasdrápa ‘Drápa about Thomas (ꜳ Becket)’ (Ólhv ThómdrIII), recorded in the Fourth Grammatical Treatise (FoGT). Finally, nine fragments of sts from TGT (Ólhv FragIII), treated as anonymous in previous eds, are attributed to Óláfr in this edn.
Hrynhenda (‘Falling, flowing metre’) — Ólhv HrynII
Lauren Goetting 2009, ‘(Introduction to) Óláfr hvítaskáld Þórðarson, Hrynhenda’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 658-70.
stanzas: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Skj: Óláfr Þórðarson hvítaskáld: 2. Et hrynhent digt, 1240 (AII, 93-7, BII, 105-8)
SkP info: II, 658-9
old edition introduction edition manuscripts transcriptions concordance search files
1 — Ólhv Hryn 1II
edition interactive full text transcriptions old edition references concordance
Mærir glǫddusk miklu ári
menn, bôru þá ávǫxt tvennan
(veglig sýndisk) viðr ok fuglar
(vísa grein) á sumri einu. (hrynhent)
texts: ‹Flat 828›, ‹Hák 4›
editions: Skj Óláfr Þórðarson hvítaskáld: 2. Et hrynhent digt 1 (AII, 93; BII, 105); Skald II, 55; E 1916, 490, F 1871, 404, Hák 1910-86, 321, Hák 1977-82, 21, Flat 1860-8, III, 22.
AM 47 fol (E) 144v, 21 - 144v, 22 (Hák)
AM 45 fol (F) 87vb, 7 - 87vb, 9 (Hák)
AM 42 folx (42x) 92v, 28 - 92v, 31 (Hák)
AM 81 a fol (81a) 70vb, 27 - 70vb, 30 (Hák)
AM 325 VIII 5 a 4° (325VIII 5 a) 1v, 27 - 1v, 28 (Hák)
GKS 1005 fol (Flat) 166ra, 54 - 166ra, 56 (Hák)
AM 761 b 4°x (761bx) 259r, 2 - 259r, 5
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Join SAM
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Together with the Asociación Oportunidades Para La Vida (AOPLV), The Johannes Gutenberg school offers quality education and technical training to prepare the next generation to positively impact society. The school’s educational ministry targets the at-risk children and youth of Lima and Huanta, Peru.
History of the Johannes Gutenberg Schools
In the 60s, Italian missionary Dr. Jose Moró founded “Kinderwerk Lima”, an educational initiative to care for and influence for Christ an emerging generation of young people living in extreme conditions in the city of Lima, Peru.
Dr. Moró’s ministry and advocacy led to the formation of Asociación Cultural “Johannes Gutenberg” in 1970. In partnership with Kinderwerk, the Association formed a primary school in the community of El Agustino, Lima. By 1986 a similar educational initiative opened with 50 children in the community of Comas in Lima.
In the 1990s, “Johannes Gutenberg” expanded its ministry for secondary students, with a technical and professional focus. The geographic scope of the ministry also expanded to Huanta, a city in the state of Ayacucho.
Today, more than 2,100 children and youth attend the “Johannes Gutenberg” schools in Lima and Huanta. The enrolled children are at-risk, with limited access to educational opportunities. Many students come from single parent and dysfunctional households.
Partnership with South America Mission
South America Mission and the Asociación Cultural “Johannes Gutenberg” are partnering together because of a mutual commitment to the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and shared mission objectives in Peru. As an affiliate ministry partner, the Association receives donations stewarded through SAM. Missionaries can be assigned to Johannes Gutenberg ministry contexts in Peru.
Ministry Team:
Simmons, Dave & Marilyn
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September Prayer Focus: Organizational Excellence Saturday September 1st, 2018
1021 Maxwell Mill Road, Suite B, Fort Mill, SC 29708
Copyright © 2020 South America Mission, Inc.
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‘Ivory Tower’ — A Documentary Babel
by Bruce Chapman
Conservatives have assumed that young people are coming to understand that increased government inducements to take out student loans for college are traps that keep graduates from becoming financially independent, starting families and otherwise embracing full adulthood. What started modestly as scholarship aid is now a trillion dollar loan program that perversely gives colleges and universities incentives to continue raising spending and tuition rates, thereby promoting the still further government expansion of student loans.
Students are hurt, taxpayers are hurt, but universities — part of the political base of progressivism — are the financial beneficiaries.
But that interpretation is not the message of Ivory Tower, a documentary film by Andrew Rossi that opens in big cities in coming days. Rossi and the authorities he assembles, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), want the subsidies made both greater and more direct. Highlighted in the film is an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street at Cooper Union College in New York. Cameras and microphones dwell lovingly with the occupiers (who have taken over the President’s office) as they insist on continuation of Cooper Union’s tradition of free tuition, ignoring setbacks in the school’s finances. “Free Education for All,” demand the self-righteous protestors.
In telling his story, Rossi does amuse viewers with examples of wasteful collegiate grandiosity, such as resort-like accommodations for partying students and a rising administrative overhead that far exceeds that found in any other institutions of society. He also pays tribute to the brilliant, but tiny program of tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel that encourages bright students to bypass college altogether and follow their dreams now, not later; and Rossi also describes at some length the promise of online learning.
But ultimately, Ivory Tower is not an argument for reform of runaway higher education spending, or for innovation, but a case for government acceptance of the bill for some variation on the present system. It’s a new entitlement, folks, like pre-school education, and whatever it costs and whatever it does to warp the lives of students (and those who don’t go to college or drop out) is for someone else to consider another day.
In a tidy coincidence, Ivory Tower hits the theaters just as President Obama, by executive fiat, offers more and more means to reduce student debt loads. The progressive mindset is beautifully encapsulated in loans that can be paid off more quickly if a student will agree to enter public service (government) after graduation or work for a non-profit. In other words, repayment of student loans is the left’s new backdoor to the long sought utopia of National Service. Instead of the stick of a draft we have the carrot of reduced school debt. Implicit in the scheme is contempt for students who think that the private sector is the most productive place to be — you know, the sector that merely pays the taxes.
Meanwhile, overall reform is slighted. To watch Ivory Tower you would have little sense of the frivolous and ideological courses that have come weigh colleges down, and certainly no sense of the political correctness codes — written and unwritten — that punish dissident academics in field after field. There also is no sense that what increasingly defines a major research university is subservience to government funding agency priorities as the freeway to grants, or that undergraduates are consigned to a rambling, unfocused curriculum that that indulges professors’ fancies and teenagers’ whims, rather than meeting students needs as mature citizens.
Formerly the road to success, higher education is becoming a primrose path to dependency and delayed maturity for those who aren’t rich enough to pay their way and for talented, if poor, youth for whom someone else pays the freight. Whereas college once was meant to help young minds think for themselves, it is becoming a funding instrument for government to shape their thinking in school and their behavior later on.
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Match Day Live
Score Predictor
Ladbrokes Fantasy Football
SPFL Trust
Weekend in numbers
Resident statto @splstats looks at some of the numbers from the weekend games in the SPFL…
7 – Rangers moved to within two points of the summit of the Ladbrokes Premiership after thrashing Motherwell 7-1 at Ibrox. The Gers are unbeaten in 13 their home matches since Steven Gerrard took over and Sunday’s win was their most emphatic yet. It was the first time in over five years that Rangers had scored seven or more goals in a league match – the last occasion was an 8-0 victory over Stenhousemuir in Ladbrokes League 1 in September 2013. The Light Blues are now unbeaten in 42 league matches against The Steelmen, with their last defeat coming at Fir Park on Boxing Day 2002. However, Well have picked up three cup wins over The Gers in that period – they beat them in both legs of the Premiership play-off final in 2015 and in last season’s Betfred Cup semi-final.
5 – St Johnstone thumped Hamilton Academical 4-0 at McDiarmid Park to move to within three points of Celtic and Hearts at the top of the Ladbrokes Premiership. Saints have now recorded six Premiership wins in a row against Accies. Tommy Wright’s side have racked up five consecutive league wins for the first time since November-December 2014 – they have never managed six in a row in the top flight. Zander Clark and his defence have not conceded a goal in those five victories, setting a new club record for consecutive top-flight clean sheets.
24 – Inverness Caledonian Thistle moved back into the play-off spots in the Ladbrokes Championship after their 1-0 victory over Partick Thistle at The Energy Check Stadium at Firhill. John Robertson’s side had drawn each of their seven previous Championship matches, equalling the Scottish league record, but were finally able to pick up a win thanks to a goal from Tom Walsh and a penalty save by Mark Ridgers. Inverness are now unbeaten in a club record 24 league matches, a run that consists of 12 wins and 12 draws. The Caley Jags’ last league defeat was a 1-0 loss to Dunfermline Athletic at East End Park in March.
30 – East Fife ended 30 years of hurt with a 2-1 victory over Fife rivals Raith Rovers at Bayview on Saturday. The last time the Fifers picked up a win against the Rovers, ‘I Should Be So Lucky’ by Kylie Minogue was just ending a five-week stretch at the top of the UK charts and ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’ and ‘Robocop’ were being screened in UK cinemas. That was back in March 1988, when the Methil side earned a 1-0 win in Kirkcaldy. Back in the modern day, Saturday’s win was East Fife’s sixth in a row at Bayview, which is their best run since they did eight on the trot in August-December 2007.
6 – Queen’s Park continued their impressive run of form under Mark Roberts with a 2-0 victory over Peterhead at Hampden. The Spiders are now unbeaten in six matches in all competitions, picking up five wins and a draw to propel themselves to within two points of the play-off spots in Ladbrokes League 2 and also secure their place in the IRN-BRU Cup quarter-final. Saturday’s Hampden shut-out was their third consecutive clean sheet – it is the first time in over two years that they have managed three in a row.
Midweek preview Slater joins Spiders January signings Morton add McGinty McCart moves to McDiarmid Park Celtic seal deal for Soro Watch: Jan 25/26 highlights Weekend in numbers Hearts beat Rangers Hearts bring in Boyce
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After Hours With Amy Lawrence
5 Transactions That Would Help the Phillies Return to the Playoffs
Despite one of the greatest on-paper offseasons in MLB history - general manager Matt Klentak called it "objectively great" - the Philadelphia Phillies won just 81 games in 2019. The craziest part about what was perhaps the most disappointing season in franchise history is that the offseason's two...
Stephen Strasburg's Top 5 Potential Landing Spots In Free Agency
If Game 6 of the World Series was Stephen Strasburg's final start as a Washington National, he finished on about as high of a note as possible. Following a regular season that will likely net him a top five finish in National League Cy Young Award voting, Strasburg capped off a career-defining...
November 04, 2019 - 10:44 am
Anthony Rendon's Top 5 Potential Landing Spots In Free Agency
All MLB free-agents became eligible to sign with new teams on Nov. 4. However, MLB free agency isn't the same sprint as NBA free agency is. The start of NBA free agency is like watching the weather channel, finding out it's going to snow a foot overnight and looking out the window to make sure that...
Bryce Harper Says He's 'Happy' For Nationals, Feels No Jealousy
Bryce Harper celebrated his 27th birthday Wednesday. As he did so, his former team, the Washington Nationals, celebrated winning their first National League pennant in franchise history Tuesday evening. They'll now await the winner of the ALCS, where the Houston Astros currently lead the New York...
Curt Schilling Interested in Phillies Manager, Red Sox Pitching Coach Jobs
Well, this would be something. The Phillies, after announcing the firing of Gabe Kapler on Thursday , begin their search for a new manager. And according to USA Today's Bob Nightengale, former Phillies pitcher Curt Schilling is interested in the position. Friends close to Curt Schilling say he...
Ranking the Worst MLB Postseason Failures of the 2010s
Nothing quite matches the intensity of October baseball, with every pitch carrying weighted meaning. While pressure moments can sometimes bring out the best, it can also bring out the worst in players and teams. Over the last decade, there have been several moments and series where teams have...
Ben Krimmel
Bryce Harper: Nationals Fans 'Crossed the Line' With Taunts
Former Washington Nationals slugger Bryce Harper had endured the taunts from his former fans throughout the season and said and did next to nothing. That was until the eighth inning Wednesday at Nationals Park when he reached his thumb behind him and pointed to the name on the back of his jersey...
Angelo Cataldi and the Morning Team
Phillies' Gabe Kapler Plans to Return: 'That's All I Can do'
( SportsRadio 94 WIP ) -- At 79-78, the Phillies have officially been eliminated from the postseason. They are now five games away from completing one of the more disappointing seasons in the franchise's recent memory. "Incredibly disappointing," Phillies manager Gabe Kapler told Angelo Cataldi on...
© Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
Breaking news: Bryce Harper to sign massive deal with Phillies
NEW YORK (AP) — A person familiar with the negotiations tells The Associated Press that Bryce Harper and the Philadelphia Phillies have agreed to a $330 million, 13-year contract, the largest deal in baseball history. The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity Thursday because the...
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ISIL Oil Sales Drop 'Significantly' Due To Russian Airstrikes in Syria
© Photo : Russian Defense Ministry
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201510311029401115-isil-oil-russian-airstrikes/
Nicolas Dhuicq, a member of the French legislative defense commission, said that ISIL not only sells crude oil, but "pays people to refine oil in its own places."
Turkish Journalist Questions Why US Isn't Bombing ISIL's Oil Fields
VIENNA (Sputnik), Svetlana Alexandrova – Oil sales conducted by the Islamic State (ISIL) jihadist group dropped dramatically after Russia launched its airstrikes against terrorist positions in Syria, a member of the French legislative defense commission told Sputnik on Saturday.
"As far as I know, ISIL’ budget is close to $2 billion. However, Islamic State-controlled oil sales have declined significantly in recent weeks due to the Russian campaign in Syria," Nicolas Dhuicq said.
In over a month of operations requested by Syrian President Bashar Assad, the Russian General Staff said over 1,600 terrorist objects were destroyed in nearly 1,400 sorties in Syria. A total of 131 ammunition and fuel depots have been destroyed since September 30, it said.
© CC BY 2.0 / Paul Lowry / Oil Pump Jack
US Policymakers Missed Importance of Islamic State Oil Trade Through Turkey
Dhuicq, a French National Assembly Defense Commission member, added that the terrorist group that has gained ground in Syria and Iraq over the past years not only sells crude oil, but "pays people to refine oil in its own places."
He contended that the ISIL oil revenues originated mostly from private donors in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey.
A US Treasury Department spokesperson told Sputnik last week ISIL has generated up to $1.5 billion from looting banks and illicit oil proceeds of about $40 million per month.
Also Nicolas Dhuicq stated that the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group generates oil revenue from private donors most likely in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey.
Reports emerged this week claiming the ISIL earns monthly oil revenues through illicit sales and smuggling of up to $50 million. A former CIA official confirmed to Sputnik most illegal oil exports are likely to be conducted through Turkey.
Self-Styled ISIL Caliphate Will Stop at Nothing to Get Money for War
"ISIL is funded, probably, by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which are trying to gain back their share of influence in the regions of Iraq and Syria against Iran. Until now, IS continues to receive money from these countries, most likely from private donors," Nicolas Dhuicq said.
Dhuicq, who estimated the ISIL budget at "close to $2 billion," claimed that Turkish donors were also involved in re-selling crude oil purchased from the terrorist organization.
"Money may also come from the secret services of the countries and also from Turkey," the French National Assembly Defense Commission member told Sputnik.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are part of a US-led coalition conducting anti-ISIL airstrikes in Iraq and Syria. The 60-nation coalition operates in Syria without approval from Damascus or the UN Security Council.
Death and Taxes: Analyst Reveals ISIL's True Source of Revenue
Oil, Daesh, Syrian crisis, Nicolas Dhuicq, Syria, Russia, France
11:30 GMT Ivanka Trump Wades Into Row Over CNN’s Mockery of Trump Supporters With Jab at ‘Smug Elites’
11:20 GMT Berlin Warns UK Won't Get Full Access to EU's Single Market Unless Upholds Common Standards
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The Anglican Parish of Sorrento and Rye
Spirituality, Creativity, Hospitality, Justice & Healing
Father Nicholas Wallace
The Reverend Nicholas Robert Wallace was born in Wiltshire in the United Kingdom. He left school at fifteen and worked for a major British retailer for over twenty years. He spent six years training for the Priesthood and has served God as a parish priest in an urban multi-cultural inner-city parish, an island seaside parish with a rural farming community and an urban Adelaide parish in partnership with Anglicare. He joined the Parish of St John Sorrento with St Andrew Rye as Vicar in May 2013.
Father Nick is married to Mandy who is a Senior Intensive Care Nurse. They have four adult children, three grandsons and one granddaughter. One of his favourite pastimes is going to the cinema and he is also partial to a pint of (room temperature) Guinness.
Fr Nick was a British Royal Naval Association padre for a decade and is therefore highly appreciative of what the men and women of the armed services contribute to the defence of the nation and the furtherance of world peace.
Fr Nick sees the role of the church as being integral to the wellbeing of communities and has worked with people in the past to help bring about socio-economic regeneration.
Fr Nick can be contacted by telephone: 0408 239 678
or by email: sorrento-rye-churches@outlook.com
Fr Nick is supported by:
Reverend Libby Gilchrist, An Adviser for Spiritual Direction
Reverend Libby supports Father Nick in the Parish.
Rev Libby moved into the area in 2014. She is retired. Her special area of ministry is Spiritual Direction, and she has completed the spiritual direction course at The Living Well Centre in Melbourne. Married to Stuart, they have 3 children and 4 grandchildren.
Daphne Blore, Pastoral Visitor
Daphne came to Australia from England in 1964. In 1998 she and her husband Colin retired to the Peninsula.
She has been a Lay Minister for the last ten years and loves her role of visiting and caring for people. She believes that God’s spirit has brought her to Sorrento/Rye.
Daphne enjoys a night at the theatre, concerts of light opera or relaxing at home with a good book. Thrillers are a magnet to her!
Widowed in 2015, Daphne has two sons and three grandchildren.
Daphne can be contacted on: 0429 448 448
Church Wardens (elected November 2017)
Rod Binns
Mac McPherson
Angela Raffaele
Parish Council (until November 2019)
Fr Nicholas Wallace (chair)
Church Wardens
Bev Baltissen
Carol Barelli
Carole Curnow
Lynn Heyes
Faye Kirk
Cheralyn O’Sullivan
Pauline Powell
Val Smith
Baptism Information
Pew Sheet
Pastoral Groups
Copyright © 2020 The Anglican Parish of Sorrento and Rye
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Trending: Ecommerce Salesforce Branding Customer Satisfaction
“Entrepreneurial Economy” Blueprint Launches – High Profile Task Force to Address Start Up Issues, Opportunities
Published: Nov 9, 2009 Last Updated: Apr 27, 2012 by Anita Campbell In Small Business Press Releases 0
Tucson, Arizona (PRESS RELEASE – November 9, 2009) – Today, Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities, Inc. (TREO) launches the next extension of its Blueprint, called the Entrepreneurial Economy Blueprint, to focus on entrepreneurship. TREO’s Economic Blueprint, a long-range plan to diversify the region’s economy and closely guide the community’s economic development vision for decades to come, was launched in 2007 and focused on five key areas to achieve a competitive economy through the recruitment, retention and expansion of existing business. The outcome of the Entrepreneurial Economy Blueprint will be an action-specific strategy to create new jobs and community wealth through the start-up, growth and expansion of knowledge-based enterprises.
“I am pleased to be chairing this effort. We need a stronger alignment of many community groups to leverage assets we already have, strengthen partnerships, find common ground on addressing gaps and promote awareness of cutting-edge entrepreneurial activity here in the region,” says Harry George, Managing Partner of Solstice Capital, the Chairman of the Entrepreneurial Economy Task Force.
The project will tackle topics and goals such as:
* Angel, Venture and other Capital Resources: Addressing key gaps and leveraging new “Fund of Funds” State program
* Talent Attraction/Retention: Improving the product of Tucson for the “Creative Class Entrepreneur”
* Enhanced Infrastructure: Strengthening incubation of the next big idea
* Forming University/Industry Research Partnerships: Aligning strategies to achieve a common vision
* Technology Transfer: Getting more out of the UA’s research powerhouse
* Promoting Technology-based Economic Development: Aligning marketing efforts to plan strategies
* Communication Plan: Extending entrepreneurial opportunity by building and a robust communications campaign
Building on TREO’s process of deep community involvement in the Blueprint, the effort will be guided by a diverse, high-profile Entrepreneurial Economy Task Force to develop a series of strategies that will strengthen our economy through innovation and entrepreneurial growth. The project will be completed by March 2010.
UDig Expands Technical Services, Announces Consulting Practice
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Communitech Breakfast Series: Data Munch
Agrawal will help you adapt, and thrive, throughout this economy-wide transformation.
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Our Automated Future: Learning to Adapt—and Thrive—in the Era of Intelligent Machines.
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Mythology Study Guide / History Courses
Korean Mythological CreaturesNext Lesson
Gods in Irish & Celtic Mythology
Quiz & Worksheet - Irish-Celtic Deities Quiz
Instructor: Daniel McCollum
Dan has a Master's Degree in History and has taught undergraduate History
A great god represented with a club and a cauldron is a famous image in ancient Irish art. This figure is the Dagda, the ~'Good God~' of Irish mythology. This lesson looks at the Dagda and other gods of the ancient Irish people.
Celtic and Irish Mythology
Irish mythology is the ancient stories and beliefs of the Gaelic people who were the ancestors of the modern Irish. The Ancient Gaels were a Celtic people and their mythology developed from the diverse beliefs and stories told by the Celts; since the Irish recorded many of their old stories, Irish mythology is the form of Celtic mythology that is best known to us. Since the Irish were an Indo-European people, their mythology has much in common with that of other Indo-European peoples, such as the Romans, the Greeks and the Indians, to name but a few.
The Irish myths that have come down to us were transcribed in Gaelic by monks during the Middle Ages; they are some of the earliest vernacular literature in Europe. Irish myths are often broken into four cycles of stories: the Mythological Cycle, the Cycle of Kings, the Ulster Cycle and the Fenian Cycle. Each cycle includes different sources and has a different focus. The Mythological Cycle, the Cycle of Kings and, to a lesser extent, the Ulster Cycle are the ones that contain the most tales of the ancient Irish gods.
The Tuatha de Danann
The Gods of the ancient Irish were said to be members of the Tuatha de Danann, the Children of Danu. Danu is largely thought to be an earth and mother goddess. These gods are said to not be native to Ireland, but came from an island far to the west (although some stories claim they came from the north). In Irish mythology, the west is often associated with magic and other worldliness; it is the home to Hy-Brasil, Tir na Nog and other magical islands.
Coming to Ireland
When the Gods came to Ireland they found that it was already ruled by another people known as the Fir Bolg, as well as older gods known as the Fomorians. This older generation of gods was monstrous and physically deformed; their leader was a one-eyed giant called Balor whose gaze was said to be able to kill anyone he looked upon. This theme of a generation of monsters preceding the gods is also found in Greek (the Hundred-Handed Ones and the Cyclopes), Norse (the Ice Giants), and several other mythologies.
The Tuatha de Danann went to war with the Fir Bolg and Fomorians, and were eventually victorious after the god Lugh used a sling to kill Balor; the stone was said to have hit him with such force that it knocked his cursed eye out from the back of his head and rolled down a hill, killing all of the Fomorians who saw it.
Although the Tuatha de Danann ruled Ireland for many years, they themselves were eventually defeated by the Milesians, the human ancestors of today's Irish, who drove the gods underground. It was said that the gods then resided in massive halls deep underground and in the ancient mounds that litter the Irish landscape.
Important Gods and Goddesses
The Dagda
The king of the Tuatha de Danaan was a god known as the Dagda. He became king after the wounding of the previous king Nuada, for the laws of the gods and men at the time stated that kings must be whole in body in order to rule. The Dagda possessed a club which was said to be able to kill nine men with a single blow but, as it could take life it could also grant it, for the hilt of the club was able to bring the dead back to life. The Dagda was also known to possesses a magic cauldron called the Undry that was bottomless and could feed any man his fill without running out of food. The Dagda was often called the 'Good God' or the 'All Father' and was depicted either as a shining and great god by later writers and scholars, or as a buffoonish figure with a large phallus.
Like many other kingly gods in world mythology, he was known as a philanderer and had numerous affairs with other goddesses and humans. Because of this, he was seen as the father of Angus, the God of Love; Oghma, the God of Writing and Eloquence; and Brigid, the Goddess of Spring and the Dawn.
Another important God for the ancient Irish was Lugh, known as 'Lugh of the Long Arm.' Lugh was a warrior who possessed a long spear and was probably a solar god as a result, as the spear was seen to represent the rays of the sun. Despite this, Lugh was best known not as a warrior, but as a jack-of-all-trades. The story is told that, as a young man, he traveled to the court of the King of the Tuatha de Danaan but was not allowed in until he proved some unique skill. No matter what skills he showed off, the gatekeeper said that the Gods already possessed someone who could do the same. Finally, Lugh asks if they had anyone who could practice all of the arts. At this point the gates opened and he was allowed in.
He is also unique in that he is seen as the son of a Tuatha de Danaan father and a Firbolgian mother, meaning that he is descended from both of the godly races to settle in Ireland. Lugh was also the father of the great hero Cuchulainn who is one of the main characters of the great Irish epic, the Cattle Raid of Cooley.
The Morrighan
Finally, one must look at the figure of the Morrighan. The Morrighan, whose name means 'Great Queen' or 'Phantom Queen', was seen as the great goddess of war, death and prophecy. She was often imagined as a black crow flying, inspiring those she favored and terrifying her enemies by driving them into a panic.
Representation of Macha, one of the three goddesses associated with the Morrighan
She is usually seen as a trinity of goddesses, the other members of which are Bebd and Macha. These three goddesses, who could be called 'The Morrighan' collectively, were seen as as being associated with terror in war, their chanting and poetry being able to drive enemies away, as well as fertility and sovereignty. She remains one of the most distinctive and fascinating of the Irish gods and goddesses.
The gods of the Ancient Irish are called the Tuatha de Danaan, which means the 'Children of Danu.' They were seen as having come to Ireland from a western island and driving out the monstrous Fomorians who already called the island their home. The Tuatha de Danaan would eventually be defeated and chased underground by the Milesians, the human ancestors of the Irish people.
The King of the Tuatha de Danaan was the Dagda, a god associated with a magical club that could kill or resurrect, and a bottomless cauldron. Another important god was Lugh who was a jack-of-all-trades and the slayer of the Fomorian leader, Balor. Finally, the Morrighan was a goddess of war, prophecy and death who was associated with the raven.
Visit the Mythology Study Guide page to learn more.
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Mythology Study Guide
8 chapters | 106 lessons
Ch 1. Mythology Study Guide:...
Go to Mythology Study Guide: Understanding Myths
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28-Year-Old Running BackRB
2019 Rush/Rec Stats
2019 Rush/Rec Projections
Unlock Our Projections
2019 Fantasy Outlook
A four-game absence because of a knee injury - along with the emergence of Joe Mixon as a three-down bell cow - led Bernard to the least productive season of his career in 2018. The veteran pass-catching back failed to reach either 300 rushing or 300 receiving yards - figures he'd topped every year since 2013, usually with ease - and his 4.5 yards per target was by far a career low. Andy Dalton's late-season thumb injury played a role in Bernard's loss of effectiveness and volume through the air, but the simple fact of the matter is that Cincinnati doesn't need him as much as it used to. He's still dangerous in the open field and has shown that he can contribute in an expanded role on the ground, but heading into the final year of his contract, he'll face competition from sixth-round picks Rodney Anderson and Trayveon Williams for whatever touches Mixon doesn't get. Read Past Outlooks
#190.66
Bye Week 9
College North Carolina
Drafted 2nd Rd 2013 #37 Overall
Show Contract
$Signed a two-year, $10.3 million contract with the Bengals in September of 2019.
Closes season on a whimper
RBCincinnati Bengals
Bernard finished the season with a three-carry, four-yard performance in the Bengals' Week 17 win over the Browns.
Bernard saw just 18 offensive snaps, his second fewest of the season. He finished the campaign with 170 rushing yards to go along with 30 catches for 234 receiving yards, failing to reach the end zone in any of his 16 outings. His future with the Bengals would be in question but for a two-year contract extension he signed back in September.
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Fantasy/Red Zone Stats
See red zone opportunities inside the 20, 10 and 5-yard lines along with the percentage of time they converted the opportunity into a touchdown.
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How do Giovani Bernard's 2019 advanced stats compare to other running backs?
This section compares his advanced stats with players at the same position. The bar represents the player's percentile rank. For example, if the bar is halfway across, then the player falls into the 50th percentile for that metric and it would be considered average. The longer the bar, the better it is for the player.
Explain These Stats
Broken Tackle %
The number of broken tackles divided by rush attempts.
Positive Run %
The percentage of run plays where he was able to gain positive yardage.
% Yds After Contact
The percentage of his rushing yards that came after contact.
Avg Yds After Contact
The average rushing yards he gains after contact.
Rushing TD %
Rushing touchdowns divided by rushing attempts. In other words, how often is he scoring when running the ball.
Touches Per Game
The number of touches (rushing attempts + receptions) he is averaging per game
% Snaps w/Touch
The number of touches (rushing attempts + receptions) divided by offensive snaps played.
Air Yards Per Game
The number of air yards he is averaging per game. Air yards measure how far the ball was thrown downfield for both complete and incomplete passes. Air yards are recorded as a negative value when the pass is targeted behind the line of scrimmage. All air yards data is from Sports Info Solutions and does not include throwaways as targeted passes.
Air Yards Per Snap
The number of air yards he is averaging per offensive snap.
% Team Air Yards
The percentage of the team's total air yards he accounts for.
% Team Targets
The percentage of the team's total targets he accounts for.
Avg Depth of Target
Also known as aDOT, this stat measures the average distance down field he is being targeted at.
The number of catches made divided by the number of times he was targeted by the quarterback.
Drop Rate
The number of passes he dropped divided by the number of times he was targeted by the quarterback.
Avg Yds After Catch
The number of yards he gains after the catch on his receptions.
0.0 Yds
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2019 NFL Game Log
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Snap Distribution / Depth Chart
Bengals 2019 RB Snap Distribution See more data like this
J.Joe Mixon
G.Giovani Bernard
T.Trayveon Williams
S.Samaje Perine
% of Team Snaps
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#2 RB
Rodney AndersonIR
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Receiving Alignment Breakdown
See where Giovani Bernard lined up on the field and how he performed at each spot.
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2019 Giovani Bernard Split Stats
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Measurables Review View College Player Page
How do Giovani Bernard's measurables compare to other running backs?
This section compares his draft workout metrics with players at the same position. The bar represents the player's percentile rank. For example, if the bar is halfway across, then the player falls into the 50th percentile for that metric and it would be considered average.
40-Yard Dash
19 reps
Hand Length
Recent RotoWire Articles Featuring Giovani Bernard
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Past Fantasy Outlooks
Bernard returned from the ACL tear that cut short his 2016 season seemingly none the worse for wear, as the 5-9, 205-pound back displayed his usual shiftiness and explosiveness in the open field and set a career high with five carries of 20 or more yards despite a career-low 6.6 rushes per game. The addition of Joe Mixon was the driver of Bernard's reduced workload on the ground, but his production as a receiver was right in line with previous years as he grabbed at least 43 passes for the fourth time in five seasons, only missing the mark in that abbreviated 2016 campaign. Still only 26, he's set for another campaign as the pass-catching complement to Mixon, though Bernard has also proven capable of handling three-down duties, at least in short bursts. If Mixon continues to struggle, Bernard would be the most likely beneficiary, especially with Jeremy Hill no longer in a Cincinnati uniform. The Bengals' offseason additions to the offensive line should boost the efficiency of the entire offense, so even if Bernard's workload remains the same, an increase in his numbers wouldn't be a surprise.
Bernard was on pace for his fourth consecutive season with more than 1,000 combined yards, along with a career high in receptions, when he tore his ACL in Week 11's game against the Bills. When healthy, the 5-9, 205-pound back is one of the league's most dangerous runners in the open field, possessing an elite combination of vision, elusiveness and quickness. But after suffering one ACL tear already in college, there's no guarantee Bernard will be able to return to peak form. He was a full go for the start of training camp less than nine months after suffering the injury, but the Bengals added Joe Mixon in the draft to further muddy Bernard's prospects for touches. Even if he does come back 100 percent from his knee injury, he could find himself relegated to a change-of-pace role.
Sometimes less is more, as we saw with Bernard during his third NFL season. Although his rushes dropped to a new personal low, he hiked his YPC up to a personal best, a jump of 0.7 over the previous year. Bernard also nudged his catch rate forward, adding up to a Top 20 RB finish in PPR leagues. Ah, but touchdowns also pay a lot of the fantasy bills, and that’s where Bernard was disappointing — perhaps unlucky — last year. Although his red-zone usage was similar to where it was in 2014, Bernard dropped from seven touchdowns to just two. He was the only back in the league to score just twice on 26 or more red-zone rushing attempts (Bernard collected 32 in all). And it wasn’t like all the totes were from long distances; he had 13 chances inside the 10. It’s not that Bernard is ever likely to lead the league in touchdowns — heck, his running mate, Jeremy Hill, did that last year — but given his expected volume and breakaway ability, you’d expect a modest gain in TDs this time around. There’s nothing particularly thrilling about Bernard entering his fourth campaign, but he’s been a fantasy-useful player his entire career, and he might be entering the boring-but-thrifty veteran portion of the program.
Expected to be Cincinnati's lead back last season, Bernard instead battled shoulder, rib and hip injuries, missing three games and ceding the starting role to rookie Jeremy Hill, who never let it go. That's not an encouraging trend for an undersized player who'd already undergone ACL surgery in college. When healthy, Bernard still showed the incredible quickness, vision, balance and elusiveness that make him a threat to explode for a long gain on every touch. Although he bails out too often in pass protection, his 130 targets through two seasons demonstrate the Bengals' commitment to giving him a prime spot in their passing game to take advantage of his hands and ability to make defenders miss in space. The more physical, bruising Hill is a reliable asset on the ground, and Bernard likely will get fewer carries this season to limit the punishment he takes. That might actually be the best scenario for his career prospects, as he might stay more effective with a reduced workload.
One of the league's most exciting rookies last season, Bernard made an instant impact in the pass game and showed quick cutting ability as well as great burst despite seeing his carries limited by a timeshare with BenJarvus Green-Ellis. He'll again have to split off some carries to Green-Ellis and second-round pick Jeremy Hill this year, but appears poised to take over a more featured role in the Bengals' offense. A second-round selection in 2013, Bernard's final numbers were depressed by a lack of playing time alongside Green-Ellis – and yet he still racked up more than 1,200 total yards from scrimmage. He could have ended up with even more, but did struggle over the season's final three games, carrying 39 times for a total of just 77 yards. But the Law Firm seems in line to be phased out after his third consecutive season of sub-4.0 yards per carry, meaning that Bernard should see his carries jump well over 200 while retaining all his usefulness in the pass game. Despite being a smaller back at 5-9, 208, Bernard has so far looked terrifically durable, and even though Green-Ellis is a more prototypical short-yardage back, Bernard still saw six goal-line touches last season and should see that role expanded this year. He has all the goods to be a true three-down back, and he could finally see that role materialize this season.
The 37th overall pick – and first RB selected this year – Bernard has extremely quick feet and the vision and burst to break runs outside. Bernard's also a natural receiver out of the backfield and, as such, is likely to see plenty of third-down work. He'll likely begin the year as a change-of-pace runner and complement to BenJarvus Green-Ellis, but has the tools to be a productive three-down back should Green-Ellis miss time.
More Fantasy News
Output defies snap share
Bernard had only two carries for three yards and two catches for 12 yards in Sunday's loss to the Dolphins despite getting 51 snaps on offense, good for a 57 percent share.
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Modest output in Week 15
Bernard had five carries for 27 yards and caught both his targets for 10 yards in Sunday's loss to the Patriots.
Posts 40 percent snap share
Bernard had four carries for 15 yards and caught two of three targets for 31 yards in Sunday's loss to the Browns.
Minimal involvement in win
Bernard rushed once for four yards and caught one of two targets for eight yards in Sunday's win over the Jets.
Three catches Sunday
Bernard had three catches for 31 yards but just one carry that lost a yard during Sunday's loss to the Steelers.
Top News Stats Game Log Depth Chart/Snaps Opp Pass Def Alignment Splits Measurables Articles Outlooks More News
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Reading Challenges Galore!
Every once in awhile a book comes along that I want to read, but due to school or work I haven't had time to read it, let alone go to a bookstore (I know, these sound like nightmarish conditions, a lack of bookstore time is one of the levels of hell). But then there's a competition. Something that makes me make sure to go check out the book. That happened with Joss Ware's new "sighting contest." I was to go forth into the world and take a picture of her new book, Beyond the Night, in it's natural habitat, a store... though wouldn't it's natural habitat be my tbr pile? Ah, but an excuse to go to a bookstore is better than anything! So many books, including this one, have now made their way to my house... if only I'd get those 160 thumbnails done for class I could really go for a nice long read.
Posted by Miss Eliza at 2:41 PM 4 comments
Labels: Beyond the Night, Bookstores, Collen Gleason, Contest, Joss Ware, School
Name: Blake Ritson
First Impression: As the sweet Edmund who wins Billie Piper's heart in Mansfield Park.
Lasting Impression: Emma. Complete turn around, the sweet lovestruck Edmund was replaced with the smarmy, sleek, creepy... giving Mr. Collins a run for his money in his kiss assedness.
What else you've seen them in: Small roles here and there, but more notably a fixture among British mysteries, the likes of Lynley and Frost.
Can't believe it's them: Titus... icky icky, I feel unclean, I feel soiled. Memories I tried to bury are resurfacing... noooooo.
Wish they hadn't: The Bill... it's such a joke.
Bio: Making a name for himself as the Emo looking Edmund I was surprised that he actually had such depths to play the subtlety and smarm of Elton. I think we might just see a little bit more of him now that his depths are becoming apparent. It's not all about the looks! I didn't think he was attractive till he was slightly full of himself...
Labels: Billie Piper, Blake Ritson, Edmund, Emma Spotlight, Emo, Frost, Lynley, Mansfield Park, Mr. Collins, Mr. Elton, The Bill
Yes you can! Great News for Paranormal Fans! Being Human has been renewed for a third season! Piers Wenger, the lovely producer of Doctor Who and Sarah Jane, as well as the current head of Drama at BBC Wales announced yesterday that Being Human will be back. This is good news for fans, who in a few short weeks, will be going through withdrawal as the second season comes to a close. Being a huge fan of the show, this is good news and comes just at the right time, mainly after the second season's third and best episode. This season got off to a rocky start with our favorite werewolf, vampire and ghost involved in their own little dramas of girlfriends, vampire coup repercussions and gainful employment for the deceased, without realising the threat of some unknown scientific institution that was brought to their existence by Owen at the end of the first season. But thankfully, by episode three, it was back on track. It wasn't anything major, just a subtle shift wherein the characters acknowledged their growing separation and called a house meeting. This also resulted in the funniest scene ever in the show. I can't do it justice, so here it is in it's entirety thanks to YouTube (don't worry, no spoilers).
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As the Emma Spotlight continues, we turn to one of the more dubiously happy couples in Hartfield... but still, perfectly suited.
Name: Christina Cole
First Impression: What A Girl Wants, as Caroline Bingley's (Anna Chancellor's) daughter in what I like to fondly call, the revenge of the Bingleys. They want Darcy, and they want him now! Ironic that Christina went on to play Caroline in Lost in Austen.
Lasting Impression: Hex... ah, you little show that had so much hype and then failed miserably to meet all expectations... odd that once Christina's character, Cassie, was murdered the show was steadily getting better and then was abruptly cancelled.
What else you've seen them in: Christina is one busy busy lady. From appearing in some of the top TV shows to the best miniseries: Foyle's War, Marple, Doctor Who, Poirot, Jane Eyre, He Knew He Was Right, Lost in Austen to name a few. She is also slowly building a name in films, from Miss Pettigrew Live for a Day to Casino Royale. When you see Christina's name attached, you know it's like a standard for quality, a real seal of approval.
Can't believe it's them: Totally hitting on Jemima Rooper's Amanda in Lost in Austen! Too, too perfect, plus nice to have the shoe on the other foot from what was happening on Hex.
Wish they hadn't: I often forget that it is her in What a Girl Wants so have a few minutes of happiness, till Amanda Bynes shows... worst actress EVER. Why couldn't Jonathan Pryce, Anna Chancellor and Christina killed her and dumped her in the Thames? So I wish she hadn't let Amanda Bynes live.
Bio: Totally awesome in everything. But my favorite might be riding a donkey in the new Emma...
Labels: Amanda Bynes, Caroline Bingley, Christina Cole, Doctor Who, Emma Spotlight, Foyle's War, He Knew He Was Right, Hex, Jane Eyre, Jemima Rooper, Lost in Austen, Poirot, What a Girl Wants
Lost in a Good Book: Thursday Next Novel the 2nd by Jasper Fforde
Published by: Viking
Publication Date: March 31st, 2003 US, 2002 UK
When last we saw Thursday Next she was getting her happily ever after with Landen. Of course she had also saved Jane Eyre, even if she significantly altered the ending, eliminated Hades, imprisoned Jack Schitt, the Warmongering Goliath operative, within the pages of Poe's The Raven, ended the Crimean War and generally saved the day. But saving the day tends to get people looking at you as a hero, and heroes need to do the PR rounds, or so says Cordelia Flakk, Spec Ops one woman PR department, who has been desperate for a face to help Spec Ops gain a more friendly foothold with the public at large. After months of press junkets, Thursday has had enough, and after her "no holds barred interview" with Adrian Lush, which ended up being about her Dodo, Pickwick, she's had enough. It's time for her and Landen to settle down and let life get back to normal. But normal is a relative word for someone like Thursday, seeing as her day starts with hearing voices in her head, finding the lost Shakespeare play, Cardenio, getting on a Neanderthal hijacked skyrail where the first time she's shot and the second time, after her father saves her and tells her the world is to end in a few weeks, she's arrested for assaulting an unarmed Neanderthal and ends with Mycroft's retirement party where all the food is pear based and at the end Mycroft and Polly disappear. But despite all that and the SO-5 operatives that are trailing her in an ever changing rota (they keep dying) as well as the Goliath goons, she and Landen bravely try to carry on with their life together, which will soon include a baby. But a picnic leads to another bizarre occurrence of coincidences, confirmed by the Entroscope Mycroft gave her, and culminating in a Hispano-Suiza falling on their picnic, which just might have killed them.
Thursday has obviously too much to deal with, and after her hearing with SO-1 about the Neanderthal incident, things get even weirder. Laden is gone. He has been completely eradicated. Goliath has decided to prove a point. They want Jack Schitt back or Landen will stay gone, having tragically died when he was two years old. Thursday goes into a tailspin... she is still pregnant, but is the baby even Landen's? Where does she live? What has changed? As it seems, much is still the same, despite the eradication of Landen, time being very flexible. But how can she even get into The Raven to get Jack Schitt? The only person she knew of who could bookjump was the Japanese tourist, Mrs. Nakajima, whom she met at Haworth when she was young and again within the pages of Jane Eyre. To Osaka Thursday must go, on the off chance that she can find a clue.
On the short Gravitube ride to Japan she meets the man who she has been hearing in her head. Turns out he's fictional and is to represent her in her trial. Apparently there's an organization inside books, Jurisfiction, which like SO-27, monitors books, and she must answer for her crimes against Jane Eyre... mainly improving the narrative in an unauthorized manner. After another close call with negative entropy and Goliath, Thursday finds herself in the Great Library where she has been expected for some time. Thursday is destined to be a Jurisfiction PROs agent and they have been waiting for her in the Great Library, THE LIBRARY of all books. She is apprenticed to Miss Havisham from Great Expectations, who turns out to be, as expected, a bit of a man hater, but unexpectedly, a speed freak who loves to drive cars. After an unfortunate incident back in Swindon with Miss Havisham at the wheel, where luckily no one was killed, after Thursday's trial was postponed, Thursday must risk her life at a book sale to get a boxed set of romance novels for Miss Havisham before her nemesis, the Red Queen gets them. With a lot of cunning and a little trickery, Thursday passes her test and it looks like she might be a PROs agent yet! But is it a conflict of interest if she's taking the job just to get Landen back? Also is Poe really off limits to all PROs agents as Miss Havisham warns?
But between her duties at Spec Ops, the mysterious appearance of Cardenio, her new duties to Jurisfiction, her landlord, her pregnancy, her missing husband, the general election, Cordelia Flakk and her contest winners, and the fact that the world just might end in a few days, Thursday's life is more complicated then ever. Also the fact that only an evil genius could be behind the forthcoming apocalypse and her attempted murders by coincidence is unnerving to say the least. Hades is dead. Isn't he? But then who is this person of equal evil with the same initials who keeps offing the SO-5 agents and wants Thursday fitted for a coffin?
This book took a long time for me to get into, but it was totally worth the wait. So much of the beginning is tying up loose ends, to an extent. It's not that they're really loose ends even, more repercussions from what happened in the first novel that feel like loose ends while you're waiting for the novel to really start. Also the Neanderthal's are really kind of stupid, not intellectually mind you. I would say pointless, but I get the point of them, especially if you take into consideration animal testing and then genetic experiments, I see why they are valid, and I do love Granny Next's interaction with them, but overall I feel they detract from the book and the world Fforde has created. So once you get past the Neanderthals and Thursday's blissful honeymoon days of her marriage and Landen gets eradicated, the novel really starts to pick up. But it is not until she actually jumps into the Great Library and meets the Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat (previously the Cheshire Cat till county boundaries were redrawn) that I fell in love with this book.
The world of Jurisfiction is beyond anyone's wildest biblomanical dreams. It's a place where you can go from book to book, from back-stories to footnotes and partake in the book character exchange program. Where bowdlerizers are very dangerous and gammersites, especially adjunctavores that stripe an object of adjectives are a very real threat. The place is like a grown up version of Alice in Wonderland, very fitting seeing as who the librarian is. Then there is Thursday's teacher, Miss Havisham... she is outrageous, a wonderful contradiction! Fforde has taken a very sad, lonely woman and made her almost more alive and over the top than Dickens could have ever done... well he couldn't have really made her love of automotives known given the time period he wrote in. The fact that she wears trainers and carries a gun, to deal with her nemesis and the throngs of book buyers, is beyond hysterical. The scene at the book sale is one of the best in the book. With the injured Miss Havisham spurring Thursday on by telling her if she doesn't succeed against the Red Queen to get the trashy romance novels box set then she doesn't have a hope of becoming a Jurisfiction agent is pitch perfect.
The world within the world of books Fforde has created is what makes this series so wonderful. He has expanded on literature's beloved characters and given them truly paradoxical behaviors, but ones that we've long suspected they might hold. He has shown us something that we've believed in and held true for years but have never been told outright before. The world within books is far greater than we could ever imagine! It is best not to over-think this though... sometimes I'd find myself questioning the logic of his world, and in books it's best not too. Because between the pages and lines anything could conceivably happen so it's best just to enjoy the ride, just not with Miss Havisham driving. Also, I know Mary Anne Dashwood was driving a plane, but could you please get her out of the Victorian dress, thank you very much.
Labels: Cardenio, Cordelia Flakk, Entropy, Jane Eyre, Jasper Fforde, Jurisfiction, Landen, Lost in a Good Book, Miss Havisham, Neanderthal, Pickwick, Spec Ops, The Raven, The Red Queen, Thursday Next
I'm not buying that your over sized ipod touch is "magical and revolutionary." Sure you want us to all think we're friends as you sit down to read your new tablet... but it looked kind of unwieldy and awkward... not just the faux friend shtick. Personally I think you needed a Mies van der Rohe chair to set of the mise en scene... but that's just me. Many have waited with baited breath for the announcement of the Apple tablet... and after today I have to really question why. Waiting to make the decision of Kindle versus Sony Reader to see how Apple might clear the field and become victorious seems time badly spent. I don't think they'll be breaking any new ground, in fact they might just have helped the Kindle, with the iPad. It lacks originality, functionality and affordability. Some of the problems... size, price, having to have AT&T, the list goes on. I'm glad I have a Kindle and even if I had waited, I would make the choice again.
So how does it stack up against the Kindle? It's 1 1/2 times heavier than the Kindle. 1.56" taller and 2.17" wider, and 0.14" deeper making it much squarer. Anything bigger than the Kindle would be too large in my mind... and this is larger, plus doesn't maintain a book like aspect ratio which I expect from a reader, even if this is supposedly "so much more." Can we say shiny screen and retina fatigue? The liquid ink of the Kindle makes it easy and pleasurable to read... a few hours of this and your eyeballs might just melt out of their sockets.
In a downward economy will those who follow the cult of Jobs really be willing to shell out this much money for something so meh? People who truly want a reader will not go for it due to the cost and size, and those who just want another Apple gadget will be turned off by it just being a bigger and more expensive iPhone... they don't need another gadget. Plus with restrictions like AT&T, blurry imaging on the game apps, an inability to support flash in the web browser, make this look like a big misstep for Apple. But we'll just have to wait and see if people really are willing to shell out $500 to $800... that's a whole lot of Kindles and throw in a complete libraries of 1,500 books.
Posted by Miss Eliza at 3:26 AM 9 comments
Labels: Apple, AT and T, iPad, iphone, Kindle, Mies van der Rohe, Sony Reader, Steve Jobs
So, it might be Wednesday, not Friday, but at nine tonight, we still get the awesomeness! Psych returns for the back half of it's fourth season and I couldn't be happier... well maybe if we had actually gotten a Christmas episode this year, but that's quibbling isn't it? Also what was up with that? Monk decides to call it quits and then Psych fans have to suffer? No matching Monk Christmas special, so no special? Hence the move to Wednesday, they no longer have Monk to pair it with. Personally, I'm not sure if the Wednesday move is in the show's best interest, it's always done very well in it's timeslot and had virtually no competition, what with the ailing Numbers... But at least we have more! It's rare to see a quality show that's so funny and unique actually do well. With the combination of dark humor with all out silly antics and more 80s references than you can shake a stick this has to be one of the best mystery shows on the air. Also with James Roday and Dule Hill having more and more control over the show it can only get better! Plus, I'm sure one day they will make the complete leap and do a full musical episode... you know it's coming! As a treat, here's my favorite promo from last January....
Labels: Dule Hill, James Roday, Monk, Numbers, Private Eyes, Psych
Curse of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz
Published by: Dutton
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 544 Pages
"Lisa Lutz, author of The Spellman Files, is back with another story of the shenanigans of the Spellman family: The Curse of the Spellmans. The "parental unit" started a private investigation business when Dad retired from police work. His wife assists him and their two daughters, Isabel, (Izzy) a 30-year-old with a habit of being arrested, and Rae, a 15-year-old Cheetos-loving teen, would like to think that they help out in the family business. Especially where Izzy is concerned, this is a stretch. Brother David is a successful attorney who has nothing to do with the family enterprise. He has troubles of his own.
Izzy has been living in the apartment of a friend while he is away. When he returns unexpectedly, it quickly becomes clear that being roommates with an old, cigar-smoking, poker-playing, big drinker isn't going to work. Izzy moves home temporarily and then the fun begins. She decides that their new next door neighbor, John Brown, whose landscape gardening business she judges to be a cover, is somehow making women disappear. She gets herself invited to dinner, discovers a locked room, believes his name is phony, follows him everywhere, has a restraining order against her, and still she can't let it go.
Meanwhile, Rae has befriended a great guy, a cop named Henry Stone, who is almost too good to be true. The reader starts pulling for him and Izzy to get together right away, even though he doesn't deserve the aggravation. Lutz keeps the ball rolling faster and faster with David's problems, her parents' frequent vacations, which they refer to as "disappearances," and the fact that everyone in the family has secrets from one another. If there is any curse at work here, it is that all the family members are terminally nosy. What they discover about each other and the other players keeps you turning pages and hoping that Lutz is hard at work on the next installment of this zany family's misadventures."
If you are one of those "freaks" who is actually able to hold out the two years for the mass market paperback edition, well today is you lucky day! The Spellman Files series is on of the best series of books out there. Funny, interesting and a little but of a mystery to boot. Go! Buy! Now!
Labels: Curse of the Spellmans, David Spellman, Henry Stone, Izzy, Lisa Lutz, Rae, The Spellman Files, Tuesday Tomorrow
And Every matchmaker must have their match. Here's Emma's in the guise of Johnny Lee Miller.
Name: Johnny Lee Miller
First Impression: Trainspotting, duh!
Lasting Impression: Oddly enough Plunkett & Macleane, which I remember being so excited about, when really, it was so not worth getting excited about. Plus how bad was that soundtrack? It was even more jarring than A Knight's Tale, which somehow gets by on it's campiness.
What else you've seen them in: From big budget movies like Aeon Flux, to BBC period pieces like Canterbury Tales, to plain old British and American TV shows from Eli Stone to Inspector Morse, Johnny Lee Miller has been there and done that... having even been married to Angelina Jolie at one point.
Can't believe it's them: No freakin' way! He was on an episode of Keeping Up Appearances? That's just too too funny. Of course there's also The Bill and EastEnders as well!
Wish they hadn't: Mansfield Park due to my own personal hatred of everything to do with this adaptation. Don't bother trying to convince me otherwise, many have tried, many have failed. Johnny himself couldn't change my mind... though he is welcome to stop by and try.
Bio: Despite being in film and television for years it wasn't until the smash success of Trainspotting that he finally got real recognition. In recent years he's been on several failed American television shows and has recently gone back to the BBC, which I am very happy to see, it's great whenever he comes back, from Byron to Emma, he's a welcome sight.
Labels: Aeon Flux, Angelina Jolie, Canterbury Tales, Eli Stone, Emma Spotlight, Inspector Morse, Johnny Lee Miller, Keeping Up Appearances, Mansfield Park, Plunkett and Macleane, Sick Boy, Trainspotting
In honor of the new BBC adaptation of Emma that's finally airing stateside, I thought my ever fun to do actor spotlights should be Austen centric, concentrating on some of the couples of Highbury. Without further ado I bring you the actress playing the mischievous matchmaker herself....
Name: Romola Garai
First Impression: As the heart-breaker, Gwendolen Harleth, who gets more then she bargained for from a domineering Hugh Bonneville in Daniel Deronda.
Lasting Impression: Vanity Fair with Reese Witherspoon. Now I'm not saying I'm endorsing this movie or even liking it, I just thought that Romola was magnificently cast and then the director didn't even get the point of the book... there is NO HEROINE! You can't make Becky redeemable because she's being played by Reese! Directors and their radical ideas... get the best cast possible and then ruin it. Just watch the Andrew Davies version, it's very close to perfection.
What else you've seen them in: From smaller roles in BBC productions she's been working her way up in the film world. Though I've loved her since first seeing Daniel Deronda she probably didn't get more well known till Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights or get the critical acclaim she deserved till Atonement, but she's always at the top of her game. I loved her in As You Like It and the new Emma adaptation.
Can't believe it's them: She has to dance with Mister Collins from P&P in I Capture the Castle... ewwww, David Bamber, creepy, icky. I actually felt slightly unclean after this scene.
Wish they hadn't: Atonement... I know, I know, people love it and she got lots of critical acclaim, I just couldn't stand it. I was either wanting to feed Keira Knightly or counting the holes on the ceiling. They stretched it out and made it an unbearable bore, plus overly predictable. Just panning shots of the beach do not a good WWII drama make, pick any episode of Foyle's War and it captured it better than this snooze fest.
Bio: Keep an eye on her, she's going to be huge one day... perhaps quite soon. Also I'm really looking forward to Glorious 39, the new Stephen Poliakoff film that she's starring in with a who's who of Brits, from David Tennant to Christopher Lee! Plus the last lead of a Poliakoff... could that be a little lady by the name of Emily Blunt? And as a total random aside... I want her archery dress from Daniel Deronda.
Labels: Andrew Davies, As You Like It, Atonement, Daniel Deronda, Dirty Dancing, Emma Spotlight, Glorious 39, Highbury, Hugh Bonneville, I Capture the Castle, Reese Withersppon, Romola Garai, Vanity Fair
Ok, so I've really been wanting to announce this for a few weeks, proclaim it from hills, sing it from mountains, what have you... the hitch was I wanted to make sure it was happening. First weather intervened, then illness, thne the US Postal service was not up to their usual standard. But FINALLY! Today, in my mailbox was the thing I've been waiting for. As you hopefully all know I have a giveaway running till the end of the month for a copy of Jasper Fforde's new book, Shades of Grey. Well, if you look to my little side bar you'll notice a new word has been added, that word is "signed." That's right, thanks to "M" is for Mystery, you have a chance to win a signed first edition of Shades of Grey. So if you were waiting, for whatever reason, you have no excuses now! GO ENTER! Of course, if you'd like to stay, there's a lovely new video on the dangers of swans... you can always enter after you have been educated as to their dangers.
Labels: "M" is for Msytery, Giveaway, Jasper Fforde, Peril Infoganda, Shades of Grey, Signed, Swans
I'm sure everyone stateside is getting all ready for Sunday. What's Sunday you say? Well only the premiere of the new Emma starring Romola Garai and Johnny Lee Miller! Personally I think it's the best Emma yet, having extreme issues with the Andrew Davies one and some reservations about the Gwenneth Paltrow version. Romola is perfectly cast and Johnny Lee is surprisingly sexy. But in order to tide you over in your paroxysms of agitation of having to wait a few more days, PBS has put up a fun little quiz for those wanting to know how they'd be matchmade if they were to step amongst the inhabitants of Highbury. It was a fun quiz, though I'm sorry, I do not think that I am a match to Mr. Woodhouse! Just because I like to stay in and don't particularly like a loud party.... Knightly AT LEAST! That's all I'm asking... though funny how 0% had ended up with Elton... I think that, right there, says something, he can't even get a girl with a hypothetical online dating scenario. So head on over and tell me who they think you should end up with? Personally, choice of all Austen... Henry Tilney any day! But that's just me... how about you? Check out my polls in the sidebar... who is your dream Austen man?
Labels: Andrew Davies, Elton, Emma, Gwenneth Oaltrow, Henry Tilney, Highbury, Jane Austen, Johnny Lee Miller, Mr. Knightly, Mr. Woodhouse, Romola Garai
So, I don't know if I've stated this, but I'm a Smallville addict. I just can't get enough of Clark and Lois. Last week it looked like my wish might have come true, in the form of a possible tenth season, and with the "Absolute Justice" movie even coming in the next few weeks, this season is continually getting better and better. But today I am over the moon with glee... Martha Kent is returning to Smallville, as is a certain Perry White! Now, while I love the show, I thought the hustling off of Martha Kent to DC a little contrived and hokey... If she had to leave why didn't they coicide it with John Glover's leaving? Plus the fact that Clark can be in DC in two seconds and that Martha didn't come to Lionel's funeral... many plot holes there that need answering. But I might be willing to forgive them with the real life husband and wife team of Annette O'Toole and Michael McKean returning (both of whom I was lucky enough to see in Milwaukee earlier last year). People have been clamouring for McKean to return after his stellar one-off performance as Perry White way back in season three... we didn't even have Lois then! Think of that... Lois and Perry, fast friends or do you see I fight coming? I can't wait, not till May! You think they could hurry this along?
Labels: Annette O'Toole, Clark, John Glover, Lois, Martha Kent, Michael McKean, Perry White, Smallville, Spinal Tap, Superman
Grave Secret by Charlaine Harris
Published by: Berkley
Format: Kindle, 306 Pages
Harper Connelly and Tolliver Wells have barely recovered from their horrific experiences in North Carolina (read An Ice Cold Grave) when they decide to head to Texas to see their two little half siblings, Mariella and Gracie. They figure that it's going to be tough enough telling the girls that the two of them have gone from step siblings to being a couple, let alone the girls religious adaptive parents, Iona and Hank. On the way they stop off near where they grew up in Texarkana, to do a reading for a Lizzie Joyce who read about Harper and decided she couldn't rest until she thought of a reason to invite her to Clear Creek. Harper decides to throw out a few freebies for the Joyce's and Chip Moseley, the manager of their ranch and Lizzie's beau, before she get's to their grandfather, who is the reason for her visit. Harper unwittingly uncovers that not only had the Joyce's grandfather died of a heart attack induced by someone throwing a snake at him, but his caretaker had died after childbirth. Unconcerned with this bombshell they've dropped on the family, Harper and Tolliver head onto Dallas, and their own family. The reaction to Harper and Tolliver becoming a couple, and in fact becoming engaged, really shocks their family, even Tolliver's brother Mark is taken aback. This reaction on top of a multitude of other reasons, including Iona finally becoming pregnant, leads Harper to consider that perhaps her and Tolliver's dream of moving to Dallas and becoming more involved in their sister's lives is in fact unwise.
But everything takes a back seat when Tolliver's dad, Matthew, shows back up. The man who shared Harper's mother's slide into depravity. The drug addict who would willingly sell his own step-daughter to eager men. The drug addict who ruined their lives and wasn't their for them when Cameron went missing. He's been released "clean and sober" from prison, but more importantly he wants to "reconnect" with his family, surprising them on their day out skating. They desire to have nothing to do with him, making him resort to tailing them. But something worse happens...Tolliver is shot and it appears he might not have been the target. Bodies start piling up but the one body Harper hopes to find more than any other remains elusive. Will Harper even find Cameron? Also why where they attacked? Could the Joyce's case, whose missing baby is being looked into by Harper and Tolliver's old PI friend Victoria Flores, have a connection to Cameron? Was the answer to Cameron's disappearance closer than Harper even knew? And can Matthew really not be involved in all this? Thankfully Manfred shows up to land an ever eager hand.
While I will freely admit this was not my favorite in the series, which given the quality of the series is so not a slam, it was the most satisfying. Answers have been given and it all makes nice sense. Answers which you won't be hearing from these lips...or these nimbly typing fingers as the case would be. This book was far more personal then the other three, dealing with how bad their life was in the little trailer in Texarkana. Instead of an outside murder mystery plot driving the story, here the plot is driven by discovering the mysteries within these character's lives. We see more clearly then ever before the horrors of their past and how Cameron affected their lives. After the total disclosure and revelation of this book you feel like you can understand the characters better than before and that until now they were never truly formed, like something was missing. I also have to say, I loved the Joyce's. They were quite literally the Ewings of Dallas. This was like one long season of the most wonderful of shows with missing babies, hidden heirs, a murder or two and then, BAM, a kick to the gut with the fistful of answers you were waiting for. Also, I like Tolliver and all... but Harper and Manfred... hmmm... it has a certain kind of interesting allure... Also if you take issue with Harper and Tolliver, then you take issue with Clueless... it's the same resulting hookup!
Labels: An Ice Cold Grave, Book Review, Charlaine Harris, Dallas, Ewings, Grave Secret, Harper Connelly, Manfred, Tolliver
Could this possibly be the image for the cover of the new Terry Pratchett book I Shall Wear Midnight? All signs point to yes! About ten seconds after finishing Wintersmith, the third in Pratchett's popular Tiffany Aching series and the thirty-fifth Discworld book, I was clamoring for the next. Well this fall, that wait will be over. And as is the case when you're impatient like me, you tend to surf the net looking for any information you can... well tonight I stumbled on this gem. Bill Mayer, the artist behind the Wintersmith cover and the covers of the re-releases of Wee Free Men and A Hat Full of Sky happened to have this picture in his flickr stream... Sadly his website is under construction, so it's hard to find out any more corroborating evidence, though this was captioned: "New Terry Pratchett book cover!" Oh, I'm so happy to see this and can't wait to see what the British cover by Paul Kidby looks like, because, while I love this, it's heading in the fantasy headless torso direction like the previous Wintersmith cover, though the Nac Mac Feegles do help in that regard. Sadly Paul Kidby doesn't have anything up yet, but he is working on new covers for the first three books which will be re-issued when I Shall Wear Midnight comes out in September. Till then, I guess we must wait to find out if the rumors of Esk's reappearance are true... ah Terry, I wish you could write faster, but then a book a year is pretty awesome as it is.
Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 PM 1 comments
Labels: Bill Mayer, Discworld, Esk, flickr, I Shall Wear Midnight, Nac Mac Feegles, Paul Kidby, Terry Pratchett, Tiffany Aching, Wintersmith
In an interesting development for fans of Doctor Who, Christopher Eccleston has been cast to star in a one-off drama as John Lennon. Lennon Naked will be a 90 minutes movie centering on his evolution from Beatle to enduring and enigmatic icon, therefore Yoko will play an important part. Filling that part is the 9th Doctor's Torchwood associate Tashiko Sato, Naoko Mori. Naoko, besides being the sad sack of Torchwood (did she ever have a functional relationship?) might be known to non-Whovians as Sarah, Saffy's Baby Spice obsessed friend in Ab Fab, or even as the Spice Girls' pregnant friend in Spice World. The cast will be rounded off by Claudie Blakley. Plus, come on, Christopher, in his eerily ability to morph into someone new all the time looks very much like Lennon!
Labels: Ab Fab, Christopher Eccleston, Claudie Blakley, Doctor Who, John Lennon, Lennon Naked, Spice Girls, Tashiko Sato, The 9th Doctor, Torchwood
Now just because I've finished casting my leading ladies (and gents), don't be thinking that I'm done! Oh no! What about all those supporting players? Well... I do have a few ideas, not as solidified as say my previous choices, I have given them some thought... so here goes... the
ensemble! You know, to tide you over, seeing as I'm sure you've read The Betrayal of the Blood Lily at least once by now (it's been out a week already) and Turnip's book feels quite a ways away...
Name/Role: Raymond Coulthard as Colin Selwick
The whys: Sure I first saw him in knee breeches in He Knew He Was Right, but it was his sweet country farmer on an episode of Love Soup that made me realize he might have been made for period dramas, but he would look damn good as a certain Colin Selwick!
Name/Role: Jeremy Swift as Amy's Brother Edouard
The whys: Ever since he played Amelia Sedley's put upon brother in Vanity Fair (the good one with Natasha Little, not the crappy Reese one) I've habitually cast him in similar roles in my reading. So why not just have him pop by and play some pomposity Napoleonic style?
Name/Role: Maggie O'Neill as Miss Gwen
The whys: For some reason I never picture Miss Gwen as old as she is, hence Maggie O'Neill seems perfect. She's not actually that old, but there's something about her that exudes age and a domineering personality that would indubitably thwack you with a parasol.
Name/Role: Geraldine James as Richard's Mother, Lady Uppington
The whys: She's been around forever in miniseries and there's something about her that is at once motherly, but at the same time you don't want to cross her. A will of iron. That scene in He Knew He Was Right when she goes and confronts Louis... that is the Lady Uppington I know and love.
Name/Role: Frances Barber as the Marquise
The whys: Because I've always pictured an older version of Natalie Dormer as the Marquise... and Frances Barber sure looks the part. As for kind of scary and domineering... have you seen her on Manchild?
Name/Role: Jamie Sives as Tommy
The whys: As first Lieutenant Summers in To the Ends of the Earth, I wanted him to be the hero... so wistful... and so Tommy. Plus his guest spot in Doctor Who wasn't bad either.
Name/Role: Ed Westwick as Medmenham
The whys: Laugh all you want, but Medmenham is so a 19th century Chuck Bass.
Name/Role: Rupert Penry-Jones as Freddy
The whys: Sure he might be getting older, but I can't think of anyone who has the pretty boy, slightly vacant charm that Rupert has. Plus he can be nasty when he needs to be. A great versatile actor for a great foppish role, seeing as you need someone with real acting prowess in order to appear that doltish and caddish.
Name/Role: William Beck as Fiske
The whys: Because he looks like a fish! I mean, great actor, wonderful in Northanger Abby, really surprised me in Robin Hood... but blah blah.. he's a fish.
Labels: Chuck Bass, Ed Westwick, Frances Barber, Geraldine James, Jamie Sives, Jeremy Swift, Lauren Willig, Maggie O'Neill, Pink Carnation Spotlight, Raymon Coulthard, Rupert Penry-Jones, William Beck
So here's a bit of news that made my day... who am I kidding, it made my week, perhaps even fortnight, month might be pushing it, we'll have to see. Anyway, the lovely people over at Blog with Bite are a group of bloggers who "unite for a common purpose: an obsession with vampires, werewolves, fairies, witches, demons, shamans... ooh the paranormal list can go on and on." They are a group review club who pick about two books a month to review. Then anyone who wants to read the book and hand in a review before the given deadline has a chance to spread the word on the book and author as well as be in with a chance at the nifty Top Reviewer Award. The current selection was Soulless by Gail Carriger. I loved this book and felt it my duty to enter, I should also point out I've been wanting to participate for a long time but sometimes laziness will out. But as luck would have it my participation paid off! I still can't believe that I got the Top Reviewer moniker, it was a lot of bleary eyed disbelief coupled with bad typos when I announced my joy earlier today. So, if you feel like it, you can head over and see my review re-posted over there, and while you're at it take a look at the poll for Blog with Bite's next round of reading... perhaps you might get bitten!
Labels: Blog With Bite, Demons, Fairies, Gail Carriger, Shamans, Soulless, Top Reviewer Award, Vampires, Werewolves, Witches
I thought today I might do something a little different, a little historical, and a little contemplative. Here is the full text to Dr. Martin Luther King Junior's "I Have a Dream" speech:
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.
But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.
In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
Labels: I Have a Dream, Jr's Day, Martin Luther King
Name: Philip Glenister
First Impression: William Dobbin in Vanity Fair, when he hits his head on that lamp in the entryway.
Lasting Impression: Life on Mars, season 2, episode 7. Could I be anymore specific? I don't think so. But it's the episode where Gene Hunt is wrongly accused of a crime. It made me realize for the first time that this was really Gene Hunt's show and Sam, well... he didn't matter so much. My love of Gene Hunt is not unique, they so made Ashes to Ashes just for him, despite Keeley Hawes being the "big name."
What else you've seen them in: Besides being featured on my blog before... From losing life and limb in Cranford while educating the local youths, to Hornblower to more modern works, like Calendar Girls with Helen Mirren and State of Play with his Life on Mars co-star John Simm. Philip Glenister has been around for quite awhile, but it took a little Gene Genie to get this man some well deserved recognition.
Can't believe it's them: He looks so little in Hornblower, but then all those big named stars who started out here did... Jamie Bamber, Ioan Gruffudd.
Wish they hadn't: Demons... a Buffy-esque show with Mackenzie Crook where he donned a bad American accent... best just to forget about this one for all involved.
Bio: I love me my Gene Hunt! Plus is it just me or has he aged into his looks more?
Labels: Ashes to Ashes, Cranford, Demons, Gene Hunt, Hornblower, Keeley Hawes, Life on Mars, Mackenzie Crook, Philip Glenister, Spotlight, Vanity Fair, William Dobbin
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FineReader 14 Change Log
What's new in the latest version of ABBYY FineReader 14? Below there is a short information about FineReader 14 Updates.
Build 14.0.107.232
Part # 1300/21, 1301/20, 1322/20;
Maintenance release (bug fixes)
Release date: 8.10.2018
New and improved features:
OCR technology update
The core OCR technology update improves tables detection, document structure reproduction, adds recognition of Hanja symbols to Korean OCR, and provides increase of accuracy for Japanese language.
Note: OCR projects created with earlier releases of FineReader 14 will be automatically updated while opening them. The projects content will be kept intact.
Export to PDF/UA
Converted documents now can be saved to PDF/UA (in accordance to ISO 14289 standard specifications), which improves their accessibility to people who use assistive technologies, and helps to comply with accessibility regulations.
Improved creation of tagged PDF
Creation of PDF tags for all structure elements detected in a document (such as headings, paragraphs, lists, and so on) has been improved.
PDF 2.0 opening and viewing
The bug that might cause the program to crash after Windows 10 updates installation was fixed.
Other bug fixes
Part # 1300/18, 1301/17, 1322/17, 1341/10;
Updated privacy settings options for customers and users provided within the product
End-User License Agreement (EULA) updates
Part # 1300/17, 1301/16, 1322/16, 1341/9;
Cropping tool
Now pages in a PDF document can be cropped to desired area.
Replacing pages
Selected page(s) in a PDF document can be replaced by new page(s) from another PDF document.
Printing odd or even pages only
An option to print only odd or even pages of a PDF document was added to the print dialogue.
Printing PDF document with comments
To print PDF documents with markups and a list of comments, option “Print comments and markup” was added to the print dialogue.
Converting autodetected links (URLs) into permanent links in PDF documents
FineReader 14 detects and makes clickable Internet links (URLs) written only as plain text in a PDF document. Now such links can be easily determined by a pop-up message on mouse-over, and converted into permanent links to remain clickable even when the document is viewed in other PDF program.
Bugs fixes
Creating and editing links for non-text areas
A link can be added to an area, selected on a page, or existing image in a PDF document.
Maintenance release
Critical bug fixed: licensing malfunction in case of network installation with License Manager
Adding headers and footers
Headers and/or footers can be added to all or selected pages in a PDF document.
Moving text lines within a page
In digital PDF documents, a selected line of text can be moved to any place within the page.
Adding text lines
“Add Text” tool allows adding lines of text in PDF documents.
Creating and editing internal links
Internal links (hyperlinks for jumping to a specific place in the same document) can be added to any part of the text in a PDF document.
Adding and deleting watermarks
Watermarks can be added and deleted in a PDF document. Watermarks are texts or images that appear either in front of or behind existing content of a PDF document. For more information, please refer to User’s Guide.
Supporting Hebrew and Korean languages for comparing documents
For more information about comparing documents, please refer to FineReader 14 User's Guide.
Part # 1300/10, 1301/9, 1322/9, 1341/5;
Editing and creating external hyperlinks
External hyperlinks in PDF documents can be created, removed, edited or copied.
High resolution monitors support
Increased background recognition speed
It provides better user experience when working with scanned PDF documents.
Keyboard shortcuts support for people with disabilities
Part # 1300/8, 1301/7, 1322/7;
How to update FineReader 14?
"The RPC server is unavailable" error message appears when ABBYY product is started
Office 2016 crashes at launch when FineReader or PDF Transformer is installed
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The Head of the Well-known Scam BitConnect Finally Arrested
Dennis Sahlstrom Scams August 20, 2018 December 7, 2018 2 Minutes
The mastermind and the man behind the cryptocurrency company and scam BitConnect, Divyesh Darji – head of Asia, has been arrested as he arrived from Dubai. He and his conspirators are accused of ‘stealing’ millions of dollars from Indian investors.
BitConnect has been a dark cloud surrounding cryptocurrencies and has not been helping the mainstream acceptance of the new digital assets. Even Youtube was not able to work as a gatekeeper, to protect users from BitConnect advertising. Now, the terrible story continues to unravel around the world. This time, the main profile and mastermind of the scam, Divyesh Darji, has been arrested by the police, Gujarat CID, from Dehli Airport as he arrived from Dubai.
BitConnect had its registered office in London, but the address was just a front, and earlier this year, it was revealed that there was no office. The company was managed in Surat by Divyesh Darji, Satish Kumbhani and Dhaval Mavani. BitConnect promised investors an annual return of 365% or 1% a day, said an official. If that lure was not enough, the company also encourage larger investments for larger returns. For all different investments, you had to lock your money for 120 days.
Like with all Ponzi schemes, new entrants money pays earlier investors, and it went well to the beginning of 2018. When investors started to become skeptical and tried to withdraw their money, BitConnect could not sustain their operations and went bust.
Bitconnect and scams like it were a perfect storm. Why keep money in fiat, in government paper when its publisher can decide to take the wealth from the average Indian instantly. Instead catch this Bitcoin train so much in the media, with Bitconnect promising forever returns as it supposedly used invested bitcoin to pay for still other Bitcoiners’ returns.
P G Narwade of Criminal Investigation Department (CID-Crime) of Gujarat police said, “Darji was living in Dubai. A look-out circular was issued against him. The Immigration Department alerted us when he was on the way from Dubai to Ahmedabad, after which he was arrested today evening. The company came into existence in 2016, and in 2017, it launched the Bitconnect coin. It remained active till January this year. It released 2.80 crore coins, out of which 1.80 crore coins were sold to investors. The accused held seminars, events in India and other countries promising high interest — daily interest rate of 1 per cent — on investment in Bitconnect coins. The cost of one Bitconnect coin on January 16, 2018, when the company shut down, was USD 362.”
Even though it is good news that Darji has been arrested, the cryptocurrency market is unregulated, is new and still developing. Even most of the Initial Coin Offerings were scams according to a study, released earlier this year. In some sense, it is good that the BitConnect story is revealed so investors can be more careful. If something sounds too good to be true – it usually is.
Published August 20, 2018 December 7, 2018
Previous Post Survey Finds Widespread British Distrust of Blockchain and A ”Concerning” Lack of Understanding
Next Post Now You Can Earn Cryptocurrency for Watching Porn on Tube8
Crypto Surge Continues Over $9,400 in Bitcoin’s Best Q1 in 7 Years
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Hmm: Can't House Republicans Just Pass Trump's $5 Billion Wall Funding Request?
@guypbenson
The answer to the question posed in my headline is 'yes' -- theoretically. The GOP still controls the House of Representatives for the next few weeks, so if (still) Speaker Ryan and company can get their caucus in line, they could simply pass a DHS appropriation that meets the president's full request on wall funding. That would not only fortify Trump's bargaining position and apply pressure to Senate Democrats, it would also embarrass incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who just taunted her Republican colleagues for not having the votes. And the next House Republican leader is telling reporters that he's "100 percent" confident that he does have the votes:
McCarthy tells Fox News tonight that he has the votes for a House bill with $5 billion in wall funding. Q: Are you 100% confident? McCarthy: "Yes, I am." https://t.co/OTuZgIkWZA
— Felicia Sonmez (@feliciasonmez) December 12, 2018
All sorts of journalists who cover Capitol Hill are expressing skepticism over this claim, citing several factors: First, absenteeism. Dozens of lawmakers, including many defeated GOP incumbents, haven't been showing up for work lately. What are the chances leadership can wrangle them back to DC to participate in strategic show votes? Second, resentment. Many of those defeated Republicans, some of whom the president foolishly ridiculed, at least partially blame Trump for their losses. What's their incentive to help him out by joining a united loyalty front here, especially if they're considering future runs for their old seats in swing districts where Trump isn't at all popular? Third, efficacy. Would successful passage of this bill actually bring about a more favorable outcome when the shutdown showdown is eventually resolved? There are plausible explanations to answer that challenge in the affirmative, but I'm not sure they're overwhelmingly convincing.
On the other hand, leadership could make various appeals to their members on all three fronts, starting with the fact that these people are still duly-elected members of the United States Congress. They have a duty to see their jobs through to the finish line; the government is on the brink of a partial shutdown, and they should show up for work. Furthermore, taking Trump out of the equation, many of the people who lost their races have respect for Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy. They may be willing to help McCarthy avoid a humiliating failure in his very first important gambit as GOP leader. Can you imagine McCarthy signaling total confidence in a whip count and guaranteeing passage, then falling flat on his face? What a gift to Democrats. Republicans of all stripes may decide they have an interest in pitching in to avoid that fate. Finally, lame duck members can always frame their 'aye' votes as an effort to stave off an unpopular partial shutdown.
Relatedly, there are apparently agreed-upon bipartisan compromises on six of the remaining seven un-passed appropriations bills. As I mentioned earlier, this Republican Congress has already passed more appropriations bills than any Congress has done in more than two decades, so any partial shutdown would be even less impactful than we've seen in the recent past. Why not approve the other six bills, undercutting the typical "shutdown" fear-mongering talking points by making this an isolated fight over one department's funding? I'll leave you with quotes from two Republican Senators, one of whom says it looks like a partial shutdown may be inevitable -- and the other cheering on Trump's hardline stand regarding border security. "Lindsey Grahmnesty" is no more:
GOP Sen. John Kennedy says he thinks there will be a government shutdown over border wall funding. “President Trump does not look to me like he was bluffing” and Nancy Pelosi isn’t going to “agree to anything because she’s worried about her speakership,” he says pic.twitter.com/mShg9rlKL8
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) December 12, 2018
In February of this year, 44 Democrats, including Senator Schumer voted for a bill that had $25 billion for a wall. .... Democrats want Trump to lose more than they want the country to win. pic.twitter.com/U3L7qrkQbV
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) December 12, 2018
Also, if this sensible idea isn't going anywhere, Allahpundit is promoting a cheeky idea for how Democrats could troll Trump on the border wall. And what is American politics today, other than nonstop trollery? Here's one last thing worth reading, via one of the aforementioned House R's who fell short in November:
---> Opinion | Mia Love: Republicans have failed to bring our message to minorities. It’s hurting the nation. https://t.co/CtW1M3Mq4G
— Charlie Sykes (@SykesCharlie) December 12, 2018
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Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1895 - 1954)
Sat 22 Sep 1917
THE LATE PRIVATE SNOOK.
Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Snook, of Knox-street, Carrondown, have received official information that their son, Private Godfrey Sncok, 32nd Battalion, previously reported
Sat 22 Sep 1917 - Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1895 - 1954)
Page 42 - THE LATE PRIVATE SNOOK.
Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Snook, of Knox-
street, Carrondown, have received official
information that their son, Private Godfrey
Snook, 32nd Battalion, previously reported
missing, was killed in action on July 20,
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article87410215
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page8608906
THE LATE PRIVATE SNOOK. (1917, September 22). Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1895 - 1954), p. 42. Retrieved January 29, 2020, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article87410215
"THE LATE PRIVATE SNOOK." Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1895 - 1954) 22 September 1917: 42. Web. 29 Jan 2020 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article87410215>.
1917 'THE LATE PRIVATE SNOOK.', Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1895 - 1954), 22 September, p. 42. , viewed 29 Jan 2020, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article87410215
{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article87410215 |title=THE LATE PRIVATE SNOOK. |newspaper=[[Chronicle]] |location=South Australia |date=22 September 1917 |access-date=29 January 2020 |page=42 |via=Trove }}
Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1895 - 1954), Sat 22 Sep 1917, Page 42 - THE LATE PRIVATE SNOOK.
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Miami Port Tunnel clings to life
Miami Port Tunnel clings to life Oct 2009
Paula Wallis, TunnelTalk
The deadline has come and gone, but the State of Florida is refusing to give up on the $1.3 billion Port Miami Tunnel Project. After a week of ultimatums and accusations the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) reluctantly extended its deadline to give the City of Miami more time to get its funding together for the project.
Undersea tunnel to link Wilson Island and Dodge Island
Miami failed to deliver a $50 million letter of credit (LOC) by the State's September 25 deadline, jeopardizing Federal funding and causing the potential collapse of the entire project. In progressively heated letters, FDOT accused the City of backing away from the agreed terms of the financial deal.
Helena Poleo, spokesperson for Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, said the City is working in good faith to resolve the issue, but at close of business yesterday (Oct 1, 2009) the State still did not have the City's letter of credit in hand. FDOT senior office Kevin Thibault, fired off an email to City Manager Pedro Hernandez pushing for a speedy resolution. "We have not heard from you since Saturday, and would like to know what the City's plan of action is," said Thibaut. "As you know, the Secretary has secured extensions of time from the banks, TIFIA (Federal funding source), and MAT (Miami Access Tunnel concessionaire), to allow the City time to wrap this up. Please advise when we can expect the LOC," said Thibault.
According to reports, the concessionaire, lead by French contractor Bouygues, has lined up a low-interest Federal loan that is contingent on the other funding sources being secured.
Miami officials claim that City Manager Hernandez lacks the authority to issue the letter of credit without a vote of the Commission, and refuses to call an emergency meeting. The earliest the Commission could vote on the issue is at its October 8 meeting.
However, FDOT says that a tri-party Master Agreement between the City, the County and FDOT not only authorizes the City Manager to deliver the promised funding without a Commission vote, but obligates him to do so. The city now has until next Thursday to make good on its promise of funding, but its unclear what will happen if this new deadline is also missed.
Miami Port Tunnel finally a project! - TunnelTalk, Oct 2009
Miami Port Tunnel troubles continue - TunnelTalk, Sep 2009
Miami Port Tunnel on life support - TunnelTalk, Jan 2009
Miami still on hold - TunnelTalk, Aug 2008
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The Evolution of Private Capital Markets and Restructuring Dynamics
By Jeffrey R. Unger, September Guest Editor
With the exception of certain out-of-favor industries, such as retail and oil & gas, the pace of restructuring activity has been relatively slow over the last five years. Partially as a result, market participants have continued to anticipate potential catalysts for an imminent recession,...
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Jeffrey Unger is the founder and CEO of G2 Capital Advisors. An accomplished senior executive, investment banker, and restructuring specialist with significant domestic and cross-border experience, he has led organizations to profitability and exit strategies through both uptrend and downtrend cycles. Unger has led or participated in more than 200 M&A and financing transactions and has led more than two dozen restructurings and turnarounds on behalf of financial institutions in and out of bankruptcy as both a CRO and turnaround professional.
Newcomers: September 2019
TMA Talks: What the Z-Score Says About Risk of Default Today
Watching and Waiting
By Reed Gillis, Jeannie Kim, Luis Pillich
Retail Apocalypse? Don't Buy It
By Michael Appel
The Accelerated Chapter 11: Be Careful What You Ask For?
By Mark S. Indelicato
Bankruptcy Can Be Powerful Tool in Fiercely Litigated Disputes
By Jeannie Kim
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Royal Oman Force chopper transports aid to people in Muscat
Food inspection campaign in Oman results in two warnings issued
Only buy electrical devices with Gulf Conformity Mark in Oman
Violence erupts as Catalans vote on split from Spain
October 1, 2017 | 8:20 PM
Crowds defy Spanish efforts to thwart Catalonia independence vote
#Spanish police storm #polling station in #Catalonia independence #vote
Barcelona: Spanish riot police burst into polling stations across Catalonia on Sunday, confiscating ballot boxes and voting papers to try to halt a banned referendum on a split from Spain as Madrid asserted its authority over the rebel region.
The Mayor of the regional capital Barcelona Ada Colau issued a statement demanding "an immediate end to police charges against the defenceless population". Madrid said its police had acted in a proportionate manner.
Police broke down doors to force entry into voting stations as Catalans shouted "Out with the occupying forces!" and sang the anthem of the wealthy northeastern region. In one incident in Barcelona, police fired rubber bullets. Officers in riot gear hit people with batons and forcibly removed would-be voters, including women and the elderly, from polling stations. Catalan officials said over 460 people had been injured in the police crackdown and the Spanish Interior Ministry said 12 police had been hurt.
Central government's representative in Catalonia Enric Millo, referring to police action, told a news conference: "We have been made to do something we didn't want to do."
The referendum, declared illegal by Spain's central government, has thrown the country into its worst constitutional crisis in decades and deepened a centuries-old rift between Madrid and Barcelona.
It remained unclear what action the Catalan government might take. However much voting takes place, a "yes" result is likely, given that most of those who support independence are expected to cast ballots while most of those against it are not
Despite the police action, hundreds-strong queues of people formed in cities and villages throughout the region to cast their votes. At one Barcelona polling station, elderly people and those with children entered first.
"I'm so pleased because despite all the hurdles they've put up, I've managed to vote," said Teresa, a 72-year-old pensioner in Barcelona who had stood in line for six hours.
The ballot will have no legal status as it has been blocked by Spain's Constitutional Court and Madrid for being at odds with the 1978 constitution.
A minority of around 40 per cent of Catalans support independence, polls show, although a majority want to hold a referendum on the issue. The region of 7.5 million people has an economy larger than that of Portugal.
Differences were apparent in the conduct of the national Civil Guard and the regional police, Mossos. In Catalonia's pro-independence heartland north of Barcelona, the Catalan force made little attempt to remove people from polling stations.
Organisers had asked voters to turn out before dawn, hoping for large crowds to be the world's first image of voting day.
"This is a great opportunity. I've waited 80 years for this," said 92-year-old Ramon Jordana, a former taxi driver waiting to vote in Sant Pere de Torello, a town in the foothills of the Pyrenees and a pro-independence bastion.
The Catalan government said voters could print out ballot papers at home and lodge them at any polling station not closed down by police.
Elsewhere, people were not able to access the ballot boxes. In a town in Girona province where Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont was due to vote, Civil Guard police smashed glass panels to open the door and search for ballot boxes.
Puigdemont voted in a different town in the province. He accused Spain of unjustified violence in stopping the vote and said it created a dreadful image of Spain.
"The unjustified, disproportionate and irresponsible violence of the Spanish state today has not only failed to stop Catalans' desire to vote ... but has helped to clarify all the doubts we had to resolve today," he said.
Nicola Sturgeon, the pro-independence leader of Scotland, which voted to remain part of the United Kingdom in a 2014 referendum, said she was concerned by the images she was seeing from Catalonia.
"Regardless of views on independence, we should all condemn the scenes being witnessed and call on Spain to change course before someone is seriously hurt," she said on Twitter.
Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel tweeted: "Violence can never be the answer! We condemn all forms of violence and reaffirm our call for political dialogue."
Around 70 polling stations had been raided by police, Spanish Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido said.
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The aim of the raids was to seize referendum material and not to target people wanting to vote, another senior government official said. A top-flight Spanish soccer match between Barcelona and Las Palmas was played without any supporters in the stadium because of the unrest.
"FC Barcelona condemns the events which have taken place in many parts of Catalonia today in order to prevent its citizens exercising their democratic right to free expression," a statement on the club's website said. One analyst said the scenes being played out across Catalonia on Sunday would make it harder for Madrid and Barcelona to find a way forward.
"I think it is going to make the clash more intense and make it more difficult to find a solution," said Antonio Barroso of Teneo Intelligence.
Puigdemont originally said that if the "yes" vote won, the Catalan government would declare independence within 48 hours, but regional leaders have since acknowledged Madrid's crackdown has undermined the vote.
Markets have reacted cautiously but calmly to the situation so far, though credit rating agency S&P said on Friday that protracted tensions in Catalonia could hurt Spain's economic outlook. The region accounts for about a fifth of the economy.
O.J. Simpson freed on parole from Nevada prison
New Haj policy this week, Mumbai-Jeddah sea route to be revived
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Image: Wall of Crosses in Nogales, via Flickr user Jonathan McIntosh [CC BY 2.0, https://flic.kr/p/7a1pkS]
Borderlands of the sacred
by Rachel McBride Lindsey October 30, 2018
Tom Kiefer’s photography exhibit El Sueño Americano began more than a decade ago but has received national attention in recent months amid public concern with the implementation of Trump administration policies on immigration and border control. In December 2001, Kiefer moved from Los Angeles to the tiny desert town of Ajo, Arizona, some forty miles north of the Mexican border. His project, as he remembers it, was going to be “the things that make America, America.” Like others before him, Kiefer’s aesthetic of America explores national identity through banality of place and transfiguration of the familiar. To support his livelihood and give him the flexibility to focus on his portfolio, Kiefer picked up a day job as a part-time janitor in the Ajo Station of the US Border Protection.
Americans have long sacralized ordinary objects through memory work that reveals the power of the state, that transforms otherwise familiar, even banal, objects into the ties that bind daily life to regimes of power. El Sueño Americano fits within this bigger American story of creating the bogeymen who haunt us as we dream our better selves. Two recent examples paint a picture. As news reports detailing the detention of migrants on the southern US border began to circulate early last summer, Getty Images staff photographer John Moore photographed a two-year-old Honduran asylum seeker crying as her mother stands over her, hands against a Custom and Border Protection (CBP) utility vehicle as she is searched and detained. On June 17, 2018, seemingly in response to a litany of visual documentation from the border, the Administration for Children and Families at the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a series of images from various detention centers, including McAllen and Casa Padre (a government-contracted migrant youth facility in Brownsville, Texas). Each of these examples conveys a message about the American state through a pageantry of the familiar that the photographers’ trust their beholders to recognize.
Moore’s subject is humanity in crisis—people in migration, being detained, being reunited with their families, protesting, policing, and detaining other people. He has long been documenting migrants on the United States–Mexico border and the people he follows along their journeys are often the focal point of his photographs, drawing viewers into the complex social lives of persons so often caricatured in media coverage. At a soup kitchen in Hermosillo, Mexico, migrants rest beneath a mural of La Virgen de Guadalupe cradling the head of a brown-skinned man wearing a baseball cap. The Pietà motif is replicated throughout his portfolio, as appeals to the intimacy of family, of community, play upon registers of the sacred.
The HHS photographs also appeal to the power of the familiar. Here, the primary compositional subject is detention facilities, represented at Casa Padre through glossy portrayals of familiar objects in clean, bright private rooms and public spaces. In the McAllen series, HHS focuses several photographs around religious objects—a desk with a hand-drawn La Virgen de Guadalupe, a “Santa Biblia” on a bright blue bed, and another copy of the same Bible on a desk, this one with a white plastic rosary carefully staged between the pages. Through these series, HHS attempts to disarm public outcry by focusing on familiar, even ordinary, objects in their facilities. All of these photographs tell a story with an intent not only to document but to persuade. Visual propaganda is, of course, nothing new in the long, fraught history of American immigration and deportation. And yet no less significantly to understanding this moment, these competing photographic narratives of the US border with Mexico reflect how photography, as a visual grammar of American citizenship, traverses the borderlands of the sacred and the American state by classifying and curating everyday objects. Perhaps nowhere is this migrating sacred—between people, holy objects, and ordinary things—so clear as it is in El Sueño Americano.
According to CBP policies and directives, the material that Kiefer would eventually explore through El Sueño Americano is officially classified as contraband. The policy of collecting all objects on migrants’ persons when they are processed at border patrol stations reaches back into earlier eras. When Kiefer first arrived at Ajo, agents were donating confiscated nonperishable foods to a local food bank. But then a new station chief ended the practice—he disapproved of the use of company time to collect and transport the food. Kiefer later requested permission to take the confiscated foods to the pantry on his own time. When the agent responded with his blessing, Kiefer began to see what other items were taken from migrants detained in the facility: keys, clothing, water bottles, ID cards, wallets, toothbrushes, combs, medicine, toys, and other articles migrants had deemed essential to their journey and the start of their new lives. Among these “deeply personal items,” Kiefer recalls with pointed clarity the “shock and horror” of discovering Bibles and rosaries, along with other Catholic devotional objects.
He began to collect it all, discreetly tucking clothing and toiletries and religious objects in with the food he was permitted to collect. And then he took it all home. Some things he could donate to the local St. Vincent DePaul Thrift Store. But, as Kiefer reflected when we spoke in August, you “don’t donate a wallet or a rosary or a Bible,” at least not those still pulsating with the lives of the people from whom they were taken. He estimates that over the course of a decade he collected tens of thousands of objects that together amount to “an historical record of what took place in our country,” even reflecting that the collection is “kinda like the Ellis Island” of this period of American immigration history.
Through El Sueño Americano, Kiefer wants to move public debates around undocumented migrants from abstract, polarizing rhetoric to the tactile banality of everyday life—to replace the border wall with toothpaste and condoms and rosaries in the public imagination. It is a tall order. The ethical challenge of how to present these twice-stolen objects, of even how to arrange them, “to have dignity . . . dignity and respect,” initially kept Kiefer from photographing them. Could photographs of migrants’ belongings, reclassified under the authoritative regime of the American state as “non-essential, potentially lethal personal property,” restore human dignity to the migrants who had been so efficiently dehumanized?
Eventually, he began to stage the objects for his camera, creating photographs as well-ordered and stylized as modern graphic art. Over time, he has created both “mass assemblies”—a patchwork of condoms, rows of keys, tangles of rosaries—in order to confront viewers with the massive scale of confiscation and also intimate portraits of single objects—a bottle of cologne, for instance, or a child’s magic marker drawing of a dinosaur—in order to focus on the personhood of those whose objects we now behold. Across both aesthetic devices, Kiefer sees the objects in his collection (is it really his?) as “symbols of [migrants’] hopes, their dreams.” And something more. Tellingly, for Kiefer, the “power and poignancy” in these everyday products transforms each of them into “a sacred object.”
Several of the objects on display in El Sueño Americano are easily recognized and classified as religious objects—rosaries, Bibles, statues of Mary, holy cards. Such objects remind us that many migrants crossing the border are “devoutly religious,” as Kiefer put it when we spoke, and that confiscating these articles betrays, for him, the “absolute stinking hypocrisy” of policies in place to protect American values, among them the promise of religious freedom. Religious freedom talk, to use Tisa Wenger’s turn of phrase, has long been in the service of white racial privilege and American imperialism. We know, too, that border protection from the beginning has been steeped in racialized imaginations of American citizenship and that the history of race in the United States is also, at the same time, a history of religion. As much as any legal document or political commentary, El Sueño Americano invites scrutiny of the code-switching around religion, race, and citizenship in American public life: What does it mean for border agents, through the act of confiscation, to define religious objects as illegal contraband? Or, if we take the CBP mission literally, as within the potential class of terrorist weapons? How has the framework of religious freedom developed over the course of American history to protect certain objects, in certain spaces, in relation to certain people—and how has it been wielded to exclude other objects, spaces, and people from that protection?
But classifying religious objects in El Sueño Americano as in some fundamental way distinct from the other objects on display in the photographs misses the bigger picture. Every confiscated object is remade through the ritual of staging and photographing as Kiefer performs the priestly role of transforming mundane objects into sacred hosts, tabernacles of dignity that migrate across the borderlands of sacred and secular. On the surface, El Sueño Americano employs a visual strategy not unlike the HHS photographs of detention facilities. Both series, for instance, frame commonplace objects to familiarize their subjects, investing those objects with the power to invoke bigger truths, be it common humanity, for Kiefer, or, in the government series, a benevolent state. But beyond what Kiefer may mean by “sacred object”—and I think he is sincere in using that language—there is a reckoning at work in El Sueño Americano that differentiates it from the government photographs. Toothpaste, combs, nail clippers, bandanas, clothing, gloves, razors, rosaries, worn surfaces of La Virgen de Guadalupe, scuffed covers of Nuevo Testamento, each refer back to the bodies of those who have sought refuge in the grand, unfulfilled American promise of human dignity and who have borne the burden of its failure.
Americans, as I suggested at the start of this piece, have long sacralized ordinary objects through memory work that simultaneously discloses the power of the state. When Tom Kiefer likens his contraband collection of migrants’ objects to a modern-day Ellis Island, he is invoking this American habit. Shoes. Eyeglasses. Teddy bears. Rosaries. Cologne. Each of these, through the crucible of violence remembered, transubstantiates, becoming the flesh and blood of those whose bodies are no longer in our midst. And also becoming something that we can pick up, curate, and, with them, create the stories we tell ourselves. When Kiefer arranges verse from Emma Lazarus’s most famous sonnet—“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free . . .”—in the dry alphabet soup carried by migrants, he captures the dissonance between these stories and the violence we do in order to tell them. Here, Latino Catholicism and the American state do not generate the sacred so much as the act of confiscation exposes fault lines—borderlands—between objects, bodies, and beholders. As he surreptitiously collected these confiscated objects from CBP wastebaskets, Kiefer realized that, instead of him searching for America as he set out to do, “America was coming to me.” In these twice-stolen objects, cast away as contraband, he had found the things that make America, America.
AmericaartbordersimmigrationMaterial cultureMaterial Religionmemoryphotography
Rachel McBride Lindsey
Rachel McBride Lindsey is assistant professor of American religion and culture in the Department of Theological Studies at Saint Louis University. Her first book, A Communion of Shadows: Religion and Photography in Nineteenth-Century America, was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2017. She is co-director of Lived Religion in the Digital Age, an interdisciplinary research initiative funded by the Henry Luce Foundation.
Border Matters: Gender, Precarity, and the Body on Mexico’s “Forgotten Frontier”
Material mourning in the secular sculpture garden
from The Immanent Frame
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The Express Tribune > Pakistan > Punjab
HEC shuts down 34 postgraduate programmes
Commission says no varsity will be allowed to offer substandard education
By Ammar Sheikh
When contacted, HEC Spokesperson Ayesha Ikram told The Express Tribune the quality check was part of a continuous three-year process. PHOTO: FILE
LAHORE: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has decided to wind up 19 PhD, 15 MS and MPhil programmes at various public and private universities in Punjab on the varsities failure to fulfil minimum requirements.
As per data provided by the HEC, a copy of which is available with The Express Tribune, 31 PhD, 26 MS and MPhil programmes have been shut down at universities across the country with a large number of them based in Punjab.
The commission recognises 179 degree-awarding institutions, out of which 57 institutions are recognised in Punjab, according to the HEC website.
The HEC’s Quality Assurance Agency visited various universities and a large number of varsities in Punjab were found to be offering programmes without obtaining no-objection certificates or fulfilling the minimum requirements set by the HEC.
The commission members visited 46 universities in Punjab and the varsities have been told to either end the programmes entirely or stop further admissions.
On halt
As per the data of PhD programmes in Punjab, University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF) has been asked to halt its economics, environmental and resource economics programme.
Bahauddin Zakaria University (BZU) Multan has been told to wind up its agricultural engineering, microbiology and education programmes.
Beaconhouse National University (BNU) has been asked to close down its mass communication programme.
No further intake
The second category includes Minhaj University Lahore’s PhD programme in Islamic Studies, University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (UVAS) PhD programme in bioinformatics, HITEC University Taxila’s PhD in Mathematics and Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University’s PhD in biotechnology.
BZU Multan’s PhDs in botany, zoology, political science, Pak Studies, Arabic, communication studies, Islamic Studies and pharmacy programmes are also included on the list.
These varsities have been asked to stop further intake of students. Students already enrolled will be allowed to complete their degrees after deficiencies are rectified by the institutions.
For MPhil and MS programmes, Lahore Leads University has been told to stop further enrolment of students in its Islamic studies, education, physical education, English linguistics, English literature, Urdu, computer sciences, mathematics, economics, accounting and finance courses.
MPhil programmes for information technology and mass communication at Lahore Leads University and master’s in business administration, management sciences, higher education in leadership and management at Fatima Jinnah University have been halted.
All programmes at only 10 universities in Punjab have been cleared the HEC.
Official narrative
When contacted, HEC Spokesperson Ayesha Ikram told The Express Tribune the quality check was part of a continuous three-year process. The HEC has started its next phase, under which the remaining universities and programmes across the country will be inspected.
She added the HEC was committed to quality assurance and no varsity would be allowed to run these programmes without fulfilling the minimum standard of requirements set by HEC.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 2nd, 2016.
Read more: hec , PHDs
Private universities: PHEC to crack down against illegal sub-campuses
The commission showed serious concerns and decided to direct the university to immediately close its sub-campus
In a vicinity: HEC holds session on knowledge park
The park will help existing companies and new enterprises in contributing greater value to community
Monitoring performance: Team visits HEC affiliated institutes
The team is headed by the varsity’s vice-chancellor Khan Bahadur
More in Punjab
‘CPEC will benefit southern Punjab’
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Unexpected Philadelphia
kate mellina / dave christopher
The Great Photo Album Adventure (Part 10B): John the Barber
March 17, 2016 May 23, 2016 / unexpectedphila
(Continued from Monday, March 14. Click here to see Part 1…)
When word got around that South Philadelphia nightclub musician John Valente, Sr. had a local barbershop, visiting stars began dropping in.
(John the Barber, Jr. reflected in a shop mirror below photos of his –
and his dad’s – famous customers.)
Soon John, Sr. and John, Jr. (who joined his dad full-time after graduating from St. John Newmann High School in 1959) began cutting the hair of South Philadelphia celebrities like singers Bobby Rydell and Al Martino; comedians Guy Marks, Al Fisher and Lou Marks….
(A trio of articles about the shop’s celebrity customers, left. That’s John, Sr. on the right with
Jerry Vale and Lou Marks, Jimmy Durante, and Bobby Rydell.)
...Phillies baseball stars Jack Baldschun, Rick Wise and Johnny Callison; Palumbo’s bandleader Carmen Dee and emcee Bob London…
(That’s Palumbo’s bandleader Carmen Dee on top with his saxophone. John, Jr. still cuts
his hair. Bottom row: Comedian Guy Marks with John, Sr., Perry Como, and President Kennedy. Customer Mike Mangione, far right, was a local bodyguard for Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley.)
…and, of course, our very own South Philadelphia nightlife writer, Art Tavani.
WHAT HAPPENS IN THE BARBERSHOP…
Out-of-town stars soon joined the list: Drop-in customers included Tony Bennett, Robert Goulet, Joey Bishop, Henny Youngman…
(John, Sr. and wife Laura with Jimmy Durante, top left, and Joey Bishop, top right. Fisher
and Marks, Bobby Rydell and Al Martino cavort with John Sr. at bottom center.
The Valente sign has been there since 1934.)
…Lorenzo Lamas, Norman Brooks, Sergio Franchi, and the aforementioned Jimmy Durante and Jerry Vale.
Even the area’s top law enforcement officials got into the act…
(Customers from top left: Former Phila. deputy police commissioner Richard Zappelli,
Delaware River Port Authority police chief Vincent Borelli, Philadelphia Police
Commissioner John Timoney, and Daytona Beach chief Michael Chitwood, Jr.
Bottom left: Jimmy Durante poses with bandleaders Carmen Dee, left and Rocky Valentine –
a.k.a. Rocco Valente, brother of John, Sr.)
THE TRADITION CONTINUES
John the Barber, Sr. retired at age 57, following two coronaries. He died on June 23, 1981.
Today, John the Barber, Jr. and Stacey DiDonato keep the shop packed from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. with customers who have been going there all their lives.
John, Jr. once asked his father why he located across from Columbus Square Park (now mainly an athletic field), since the empty expanse meant so many less customers.
John, Sr. said he enjoyed looking out at trees and flowers.
“Besides, I knew I was a great enough barber that they would come from all over for me.”
He certainly had it right.
(When John, Sr. installed this lucky horseshoe above the barber shop door in 1934,
he accidentally placed it upside down, but it hasn’t affected the shop’s luck.
That’s a photo of customer Frankie Belgiorno with fighter Rocky Graziano.)
KEEPING UP WITH UNEXPECTED PHILA.
Interested in keeping up with our blog by email? Just click on the black “Follow” button at right, near the top of the blog, and you’ll receive an email every time we post an entry.
And, no, we do not accept or send ads, and we’ve never received an unwanted email from WordPress, our blog platform.
Click here to see more great 1960s photos from Art Tavani’s South Philadelphia photo album.
(John the Barber cuts hair from 7:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m., Tuesday
through Thursday. Stacy is also there on Friday and on
Saturday mornings by appointment.)
1960s Photo Album, South Phila. People & Places
1960s, Art Tavani, Arthur Tavani, barber, barber shop, Bobby Rydell, Jimmy Durante, John the Barber, John Valente, Philadelphia, Philly, South Philadelphia, South Philly, St. John Newmann High School
← The Great Photo Album Adventure (Part 10A): John the Barber
South Philadelphia Classics: A Man’s Image →
1960s Photo Album (16)
About this Blog (1)
Dumpster Divers (26)
Events with Kate & Dave (24)
Holidays in South Phila. (8)
Philadelphia People (4)
South Phila. People & Places (28)
Touring the City (& Beyond) (6)
VOTE Window Exhibit (12)
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ARC Disco
Upstate Concert Hall welcomes Cody Johnson on Friday, May 15th! Tickets $30 adv/$35 day of On sale Friday, Januar… https://t.co/D4Nkx3giVQ
Due to a unforeseen scheduling conflict, tonight’s Fetty Wap show has been postponed until 3/14. All tickets purcha… https://t.co/Gskd67hHQf
**SHOW ANNOUNCEMENT** Thursday, April 16 Beneath the Massacre With special guests: Towers * Balor * Blind Threat… https://t.co/HgmJPOfNlp
SHOW ANNOUNCEMENT! Sunday, March 29th POSSESSED With special guests: Pestilence * @TheBlackMoriah * Incontinenc… https://t.co/PSPM2uzZlu
And catch them live at Upstate Concert Hall on February 15th! https://t.co/Y0ZPnOP75k
Rob Zombie DJ Ginger Fish
7pm doors | 8pm show
The Palace Theater 19 Clinton Ave
Tickets on sale Friday, July 22 at 10am at Ticketmaster.com, Ticketmaster charge by phone 800 745-3000 and all Ticketmaster retail locations or the Palace box office 518-465-4663
As a rock n' roll icon and filmmaker with a unique vision, Zombie has a reputation for stretching the boundaries of both music and film. Already from Zombie in 2015 is a new concert album, Spookshow International Live, via Zodiac Swan/T-Boy/UMe. Selected and sequenced by Zombie from shows recorded during last year’s touring around the world, the album is a blistering set of 19 live performances. Zombie has achieved great solo artist success with several multi-platinum and gold albums. Zombie has sold more than fifteen million albums worldwide, and is the only artist to experience unprecedented success in both music and film as the writer/director of six feature films. Zombie’s Halloween, released in 2007, earned the No. 1 spot at the box office in its opening weekend. In 2013, Rob Zombie released his fifth solo album, Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendorfeaturing the hit “Dead City Radio”. And last year, Zombie released his first concert film, The Zombie Horror Picture Show and his annual Great American Nightmare ultimate Halloween events successfully scared and entertained scores of people in Scottsdale, Arizona and Villa Park, Illinois. Rob Zombie is currently in production for his seventh feature film, 31, one of the year’s most anticipated horror
movies, is also working on his next studio album, to be released this year via Zodiac Swan/T-Boy/UMe.
Cody Johnson - 5/15
Beneath The Massacre - 4/16
Robin Trower - 10/3
Schism - A Tribute To Tool - 2/14
August Burns Red - 4/9
Hot Chelle Rae: The Tangerine Tour - 4/11
Possessed - 3/29
TECH N9NE - 5/21
ALL TICKETS PURCHASED FOR 1/25 SHOW WILL BE HONORED. - 3/14
Reel Big Fish - The Life Sucks... Let's Dance! Tour - 3/8
Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Roadshow - 2/7
Melissa Etheridge - 4/13
1208 Rte. 146 Clifton Park, NY 12065
Ticketmaster: 1-800-653-8000
info@upstateconcerthall.com
Tickets available for purchase via ticketmaster.com, toll free at 800-653-8000, and in-person at the UCH Box Office.
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History of Tyva Kyzy
Posted on 16.12.2019 16.12.2019 by shaltay
S c r o l l D o w n
History of developing female throat singing in Tuva
Tyva Kyzy (Daughters of Tuva) is recognized as first and, to date, the only group of women performing throat-singing in Central-Asia. Kh mei, or throat-singing in Tuvan, is still considered to be a domain of male singers. This type of overtone singing is typical for nomadic people of Central Asia. In Tuva it has reached the level of true refinement with a large range of variety in styles.
Amongst the bright colors of the male kh mei voices in folk groups, the ensemble “Tyva Kyzy” is still the only female folk group performing kh mei.
From the beginning of 1990s till the 2000s the performance of kh mei by Tuvan women has given rise to a variety of thoughts and feelings among its people including admiration, surprise, mistrust and aversion to hearing it. Nowadays it has been changed by the ensemble Tyva Kyzy and other women who have been performing kh mei for public not only in Tuva but abroad as well.
Tuvan khoomei differs from the throat singing of other Central Asian regions with its variety of styles, technique, accuracy and unique performance qualities. It is known that male and female singers in Tuva perform the same styles of kh mei. The question “When did women in Tuva begin to perform kh mei?” has many contradictory answers among scientists, musical researches and performers.
According to some Tuvan traditions women were forbidden to perform kh mei because it could diminish the health of her male relatives and lead to difficulties during childbirth. The taboos around female kh mei often suppressed the few women who were talented by nature, and if they didn t follow them their relatives could force them not to sing.
Throughout the history of Tuvan music we see that women have long performed kh mei. Some of these women have kept their talents private and sung only in nature and for themselves. However there are facts in our history which tell us about female singers who were not ashamed or afraid to perform. They sang the styles of kh mei, sygyt and kargyraa to the Tuvan people who listened and accepted them positively. It has also been proven that females can perform this art without harm to themselves or complicating the birth of children. One of these brave and gifted women is Choldak-Kara Oyun who has remained a living legend. She is the mother of the famous throat singer Soruktu Kyrgys from the early 1900s who was adopted by another family. Choldak-Kara Oyun was the wife of a blacksmith and mother of his children. She sang kh mei throughout her life while milking her cows, singing lullabys to her children and sometimes while she was drinking Tuvan araga. Kara-Kys Namzatovna Munzuk, a famous Tuvan actress, remembered this woman, who was a grandmother of her husband.
In those times a Tuvan woman had many things to do. She had to keep her house clean and tidy, raise many children, make clothes and shoes from the skin of small horned cattle, feed her family, raise wheat and oats and look after her cattle. It was very difficult to find free time for singing kh mei and playing musical instruments, but now women can do anything. From ancient times to present, the performance of kh mei has given people a feeling of calm and good energy whether it has been performed by women or men.
In the Soviet era it was rare for women to perform on stage, an exception being during Republican festivals. Valentina Chuldum, from Mongun-Taiga, overcame such a difficult path. She toured musically to European countries in the early 1990s and with this opened a path for other young female musicians. With the start of the International Symposiums of Kh mei women could finally sing publicly.
To cite the thoughts of Khunashtaar-ool Oorzhak (“the Tuvan People s kh meizhi” 1932-1993) on the subject from the magazine “Kh mei” (1995), “We also have female performers of khoomei. If they ask me what I think about them I will answer that I think about them positively and I support them. There is no bad thing in this because this voice comes from nature and from a mother. As for me, I personally give them consultations. Girls voices are special, beautiful and unique in their own way.” This opinion about the possibility of organizing a female ensemble of khoomei singers was published in the same article, by Khunashtaar-ool Oorzhak.
Not knowing his opinion at the time, in May of 1998, lead by Choduraa Tumat, some women assembled an all-female group of throat-singers consisting of Valentina Chuldum, Shonchalai Oorzhak, Tatiana Saaya, Ailanmaa Damyran, Choduraa Tumat, Azimaa Kuzhuget and Ailan Ondar. They called the group Tyva Kyzy as Khunashtaar-ool Oorzhak had wished. In July 1998 Tyva Kyzy Ensemble performed for the first time as a group at the III International Symposium of Khoomei in Kyzyl. After their premiere contest performance several newspapers reported that this women s appearance on the stage was a “brave step of delicate women.”
The group has been valued for the originality of its repertoire and instrumentation. The repertoire is dominated by folk songs, performed to the accompaniment of traditional instruments. Folk songs are arranged so that they are traditional and authentically ‘Tuvan . Since 1999, Tyva Kyzy have successfully participated in various international festivals and given concerts in many different countries of the world.
The unexplainable timbres of the voice and throat-singing of the two main soloists of Tyva Kyzy are used to complement, rather than copying or repeating each other. The leading personalities in the history of the development of women performing kh mei, Choduraa Tumat and Aylanmaa Damyran, are carriers of the traditional style of performance of folk songs, and are able to accompany themselves on national instruments. They perform the different styles of Tuvan throat-singing (sygyt, kargyraa, khoomei, borbannadyr and ezengileer). The ensemble is accompanied by traditional instruments: igil, byzaanchy, doshpuluur, chadagan, khomus, shoor, and dungur by the young musicians and kh meizhi Sholbana Belek-ool (Chaa-Khol region), Ayzaana Khovalyg (Baryyn-Khemchik region), Olcha Tumat (Choon-Khemchik), Alltynai Khuurak (Kyzyl region), Ailang Ondar (Kyzyl). The aforementioned musicians of Tyva Kyzy successfully participated and won prizes in the International Festival of Music and Crafts “MIR SIBIRI” in 2012. In 2013, they won prizes in the Republican contest “Kh mei”, and Winner of the II degree in the Sixth International Ethno musicological Symposium “Khoomei is a Cultural Phenomenon of the Peoples of Central Asia”. The phenomenon of female throat-singing in Tuva is continuing to develop, but without the hard work of the members of Tyva Kyzy, female throat-singing may not exist in Tuva or in greater Central Asia. There is a growing body of scientists and ethnomusicologists from around the world who are interested in this musical art form and wanting to create a specialized body of literature devoted to the history and analysis of women s throat-singing.
Today we can say that due to the hard work on repertoire and the enthusiastic attitude of the female musicians themselves, the prestige of female throat singers in the republic of Tuva has increased. Now the world of ethnic music and the world of throat singing knows that the formation of Tyva kyzy has become one of the most interesting developments in Tuvan kh mei culture.
Music producer:
Choduraa Tumat Kolkhoznaya str.69 Kyzyl sity 667004 Republic of Tuva, Russia mobile: +7913-357-02-75 e-mail: tyvakyzy@list.ru skype: tumat1
Copyright © 2020 Tyva Kyzy - “Tyva Kyzy” (“Daughters of Tuva”) is the first and only women’s group in Tuva that performs all styles of Tuvan throat-singing.
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Головна The Reign of Elizabeth I: Court and Culture in the Last Decade
The Reign of Elizabeth I: Court and Culture in the Last Decade
John Guy
This book is about the politics and political culture of the ''last decade'' of the reign of Elizabeth I, in effect the years 1585 to 1603. It takes a critical and provocative look at the declining Virgin Queen. Many teachers and their students have failed to consider the ''last decade'' in its own right, or have ignored it, having begun their accounts in 1558 and struggled on to the defeat of the Armada in 1588. Only two major political surveys have been attempted since 1926. Neither allots adequate space to Crown patronage, Puritanism and religion, society and the economy, political thought, and literature and drama. This book will be indispensable to a fuller understanding of the age.
Видавництво: Cambridge University Press
essex624
earl373
cecil283
burghley268
patronage261
elizabethan254
reign168
privy157
perrot139
whitgift107
sidney106
privy council105
bancroft103
tudor97
bacon89
francis88
ecclesiastical88
parliament87
edward87
leicester86
vols82
faction82
davison75
earl of essex74
scottish74
scotland72
puritans70
cecils69
shakespeare67
nobility67
howard65
jonson64
collinson62
bishop61
sixteenth61
spenser55
ex officio55
polity51
philip51
queen elizabeth51
puritanism50
fitzwilliam49
revels48
councillors47
walsingham46
edinburgh45
archbishop44
marprelate44
roughan43
Catholic and Reformed: The Roman and Protestant Churches in English Protestant Thought, 1600-1640
Anthony Milton
Poetry and the Cromwellian Protectorate: Culture, Politics, and Institutions
Edward Holberton
The reign of Elizabeth I
Court and culture in the
last decade
Published in association with the
Folger Institute, Washington, DC
I CAMBRIDGE
PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK
http://www.cup.cam.ac.uk
40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA http://www.cup.org
10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia
Ruiz de Alarcon 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain
© Cambridge University Press
This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
Reprinted 1999
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
The reign of Elizabeth I: Court and culture in the last decade / edited by John Guy.
cm.
Includes papers presented at a workshop held at the Folger Institute,
Washington, DC, 4-5 October 1991.
Published in association with the Folger Institute,
Washington, DC.
ISBN0 521 44341 5 (he)
1. Great Britain - History - Elizabeth I, 1558-1603 - Congresses.
2. Great Britain - Court and courtiers - History - 16th century - Congresses.
3. Great Britain - Civilization - 16th century - Congresses.
4. Elizabeth I. queen of England, 1533-1603 - Congresses.
I. Guy, J. A. (John Alexander) II. Folger Institute.
DA355.R45 1995 942.05'5-dc20 94-42371 CIP
ISBN0 521 44341 5
Transferred to digital printing 2003
Introduction The 1590s: the second reign of Elizabeth I?
page ix
1 The patronage of the crown in Elizabethan politics: the 1590s
2 Regnum Cecilianum} A Cecilian perspective of the Court
NATALIE MEARS
3 Patronage at Court, faction and the earl of Essex
4 Peers, patronage and the politics of history
LINDA LEVY PECK
5 The fall of Sir John Perrot
HIRAM MORGAN
6 The Elizabethan establishment and the ecclesiastical polity
7 Ecclesiastical vitriol: religious satire in the 1590s and the
invention of puritanism
8 Ecclesiastical vitriol: the kirk, the puritans and the future king
of England
JENNY WORMALD
9 Social strain and social dislocation, 1585-1603
JIM SHARPE
10 Lord of Liberty: Francis Davison and the cult of Elizabeth
RICHARD C. McCOY
11 The complaint of poetry for the death of liberality: the decline
of literary patronage in the 1590s
ALISTAIR FOX
12 Summer's Last Will and Testament: revels' end
MARIE AXTON
13 The theatre and the Court in the 1590s
FRITZ LEVY
1 Quality of harvests in England, 1585-1603
2 Annual totals of persons accused of felony, Home Circuit,
2Q1
3 Proportion of persons accused of felony capitally convicted on
the Home Circuit, by year, 1585-1603
Many of the papers in this volume were first presented at a workshop held at
the Folger Institute, Washington, DC, on 4-5 October 1991. The theme of
the workshop was 'Court and Culture during the Reign of Elizabeth I: The
Last Decade'. Not all the contributors on that occasion wished to publish
their papers, while at the same time some highly relevant studies were being
undertaken by scholars who had been unable to attend. The outcome is that
four scholars were recruited to reinforce the 'original' team: Paul E. J.
Hammer, Natalie Mears, Hiram Morgan and Jim Sharpe. I am extremely
grateful for their contributions, and for those of the participants in the
original workshop. The workshop was sponsored by the Folger Institute
Center for Shakespeare Studies and was supported by a grant from the
Education Division of the National Endowment for the Humanities. I
would like to express gratitude to the Folger Institute staff, in particular
Barbara A. Mowat (Chair), Lena Cowen Orlin (Executive Director), Carol
Brobeck (Program Assistant), Ivy Gilbert (Program Assistant) and Molly
Haws (Administrative Assistant).
The editorial work was undertaken at the University of St Andrews. My
secretary, Lorna Harris, helped with correspondence and retyped the bulk
of the contributions to enable inconsistencies to be resolved. I am grateful
for her heroic support which was forthcoming at the time when I was
exceptionally busy as Head of the School of History and International
Relations. Rachel Guy assisted with the initial copy-editing and the preparation of the index. I remain irretrievably in her debt. I also wish to thank
Richard and Emma, who patiently observed the proceedings and showed
more tolerance and interest than I could reasonably expect. Last but not
least, I wish to express my thanks to William Davies and the editorial and
production staff of Cambridge University Press for their courtesy and
University of Ulster, Coleraine
AgHR
CSPD
HLQ
Agricultural History Review
Acts of the Privy Council of England, ed. J. R. Dasent et al. (new
series, 46 vols., London, 1890-1964)
Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research
Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, ed. Robert Lemon
(vols. i, ii, 1547-90); ed. M. A. E. Green (vols. iii-vi, 1591-1603,
and addenda, and vols. vii, xii, and addenda, 1566-1625;
London, 1856-72)
Dictionary of National Biography, ed. Leslie Stephen and
Sidney Lee (63 vols., London, 1885-1900)
Economic History Review
English Historical Review
Historical Journal
Huntington Library Quarterly
Journal of British Studies
Journal of the History of Ideas
Lambeth Palace Library
Modern Language Notes
Public Record Office, London
MS State Papers, at the Public Record Office
Studies in Philology
Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, and
Ireland, and of English Books Printed Abroad, 1475-1640,
A. W. Pollard, G. R. Redgrave, et al (London, 1926, repr.
Xlll
Ireland, and of English Books Printed Abroad, 1475-1640, A. W.
Pollard, G. R. Redgrave, et at., second edition revised by W. A.
Jackson, F. S. Ferguson and Katharine F. Pantzer (3 vols.,
TRHS
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society
Short- Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland,
Ireland, Wales, and British America, and of English Books Printed
in Other Countries, 1641-1700, D. G. Wing (New York, 1945-51)
In giving dates, the Old Style has been retained, but the year is assumed
to have begun on 1 January.
The 1590s: The second reign of Elizabeth I?
This book is about the politics and political culture of the 'last decade' of the
reign of Elizabeth I, interpreted to mean the years from 1585 to 1603. It will
open with a proposition, which goes like this: there were two reigns of
Elizabeth I, each with distinctive features. Her 'first' reign ended about
1585 with the dispatch of an English expeditionary force to the Netherlands. This seemingly dramatic reversal of the queen's non-interventionist
foreign policy was followed by the trial and execution of Mary, Queen of
Scots, and by the outbreak of war with Spain and her ally, the French
Catholic League. Mary's execution resolved one political and constitutional
crisis, but precipitated another. For the war engulfed multiple theatres:
English forces were deployed in France, the Netherlands, the Atlantic and
latterly Ireland. Costs and casualties were high. England was several times
threatened with encirclement by the superior forces of the CounterReformation.
The physical and emotional strains were acute. In politics the anxiety of
courtiers fused with the poverty of the crown and the competition for
patronage to kindle factionalism, self-interest and instability which - in the
shape of Essex's frustrated ambition - sparked an attempted coup. In the
country xenophobia, war-weariness, and the turmoil created by rising
prices, bad harvests and outbreaks of plague and influenza, fomented particularism and resistance to the crown's fiscal and military demands. All
this, in turn, triggered an authoritarian reaction from privy councillors and
magistrates, whose emphasis on state security, the subversiveness of religious nonconformity, and the threat of popularity' and social revolt became
obsessional.
We need to look no further than the Court to see a transition in train. A
traditional mystique surrounds the history, and in particular the definition,
of the Elizabethan Court, and this should be dispelled. In its physical aspect
the Court was the royal household, comprising perhaps 1,700 people.
Eighty to one hundred - chiefly nobles, privy councillors and intimate body
servants - were permitted routinely to enter the privy apartments, and some
500-600 others had access to the public rooms 'above stairs'. Another 1,000
or so lived or worked 'below stairs', performing duties in the royal palaces or
their environs as servants in the kitchens, pantry, bakehouse, spicery,
laundry, stables, falconry, etc. In this sense the 'Court' was like a luxury
hotel, though if so, it was a hotel on wheels, since it remained peripatetic
until 1625 because of its needs in respect of victualling, sanitation and
recreation. In particular, the summer progresses of Elizabeth were designed
as occasions when tableaux vivants, aquatic pageants, triumphal arches and
civic spectacles could promote nationally the cult of Astraea and the
'imperial' Virgin.
The Court was politically fluid and culturally polycentric. As well as
peregrinating more or less systematically between Whitehall, Greenwich
and Windsor between September and May, and visiting the houses of the
nobility and other locations within roughly a 100 mile radius of London
during the queen's summer progresses, it spilled over into the West End of
London, where the nobility were increasingly building city mansions, and
to the Inns of Court where revels were staged at Christmas in honour of the
queen.1 To the fixed elements of personnel and location must also be added
that of time. The Court as a political nexus comprised the queen and those
significant persons - nobles, office-holders and privy councillors - who
attended her presence at the particular moment in question. Simple to define
in theory, this entity was in practice kaleidoscopic, since it fluctuated
continuously as councillors and office-holders oscillated in the queen's
favour or migrated between the Court and their estates, or departed,
sometimes for years at a time, on military or naval expeditions, or were
despatched on embassies abroad. In this respect the Court was a hydra,
constantly sprouting new heads. It was in a constant state of flux. Poets and
dramatists described it as 'constant only in its inconstancy', and invoked a
wide range of metaphors - not to mention gossip and innuendo - to describe
the whirlpool of relationships in which the queen and her favourites lay at
the vortex.
Yet a clear change of personnel delineates the transition from Elizabeth's
'first' to her 'second' Court. Between 1588 and 1590 occurred the deaths of
four doyens of the first-generation establishment: Robert Dudley, earl of
Leicester (1588), his brother Ambrose, earl of Warwick (1590), Sir Walter
Mildmay (1589) and Sir Francis Walsingham (1590). Leicester was the
queen's first favourite. His influence had balanced, and complemented, if
not rivalled, that of Burghley in the Privy Council since 1562. Moreover, all
four were linchpins of protestantism. In particular, Leicester and Walsingham had championed the European protestant cause. Their deaths altered
the balance of opinion in politics and the Privy Council.
See also Linda Levy Peck, The Mental World of the Jacobean Court (Cambridge, 1991),
pp. 3-12.
Leicester's death created a double vacuum. His voice in support of the
protestant cause was silenced. He also lacked a legitimate heir; hence the
members of his affinity were forced to seek a new patron and many gravitated towards Essex. Whereas Leicester's protestant zeal had hitherto held
Burghley's fear of fiscal and military overextension in equilibrium, now
caution and conservatism prevailed. Burghley (unlike his client Lord Buckhurst) was in tune with moderate puritanism, but he consistently favoured
realpolitik over religion in the making of foreign policy. At home he worked
pragmatically, if sometimes uncomfortably, with those who shared the
queen's abhorrence of nonconformity: Sir Christopher Hatton until his
death in 1591 and Archbishop Whitgift. In some respects Burghley became
a Polonius-figure in the 1590s: he was the supreme political survivor. Yet
this should not be exaggerated. Whatever view is taken of his role in the fall
of Sir John Perrot in Ireland (perhaps the murkiest episode in which
Burghley became embroiled), he retained his political edge.2 He lacked the
energy and conviction he had displayed in the 1550s and 1560s. This was
inevitable; but unlike Polonius his authority as Lord Treasurer was unsurpassed.
From the vantage-point of the reign of James VI and I, Francis Bacon
recalled how Elizabeth had 'allowed herself to be wooed and courted, and
even to have love made to her', observing that these 'dalliances detracted
but little from her fame and nothing at all from her majesty'.3 In these
remarks Bacon put his finger on the essence of Elizabethan politics: first,
that to succeed at Court politicians had to pretend to be in love with the
queen; secondly, that the conduct of the 'game' of courtship was Elizabeth's
most effective tool of policy. For the dithering, prevarication and generally
dismissive behaviour which was understood to be archetypical of the conventional 'mistress' provided Elizabeth with her weapons of political manipulation and manoeuvre. In order to beat her male courtiers at their own
game, she changed the rules and capitalized on the power granted to her by
virtue of her gender.
Hatton was Elizabeth's second favourite. After his death, Sir Walter
Ralegh seemed most likely to succeed. As captain of the guard he had
untrammelled access to the privy chamber, gaining influence to the point
where others felt threatened. But Elizabeth banished him from Court
(briefly sending him to the Tower!), when he seduced her maid. Sexual
jealousy was widely suspected: Elizabeth's vanity was the one constant force
of her reign. Ambassadors in the 1590s noted her extravagant attire and
low-cut dresses, yet she could barely ride, she wore a wig, her teeth were
See below, pp. 109-25.
Catherine Bates, The Rhetoric of Courtship in Elizabethan Language and Literature (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 45-88.
bad, and she placed a perfumed silk handkerchief in her mouth before
receiving visitors. When her third and last favourite, Essex, failed in
Ireland, his most flagrant offence was not to desert his post - though that
was heinous enough - but to burst unannounced into her presence at ten
o'clock in the morning before she had applied cosmetics. By his recklessness
he became the only courtier (other than the bedchamber servants) to have
seen the 'imperial' Virgin stripped of the veil of state. This was lese-majeste
and condemned him to disgrace.
In her 'second' reign Elizabeth's grip on events slackened markedly. In
her 'first' reign she knew her mind even when she procrastinated; her
judgement was not infallible, but her instinct was shrewd: often shrewder
than that of her privy councillors. As the 1590s advanced, her inaction led to
political marginalization as her mind and body aged. From 1585 onwards,
England was at war, the conduct of which required strategic planning and
instant reflexes. Since Elizabeth persistently dithered, decisions were taken
on her behalf, and for the first time she tacitly condoned the fact. Never
before had the queen allowed her councillors to seize the initiative, and
when they had done so covertly- for example in 1563,1566,1572, and most
sensationally in 1587 over the dispatch of the warrant for the execution of
Mary, Queen of Scots - she had reacted furiously. The danger in the 1590s
was that a disappointed councillor - such as Essex - having subverted his
instructions in favour of his own ambition and yet still failed, would pose a
direct threat to her monarchy.
In her 'second' reign Elizabeth declined to fill vacancies in the Privy
Council or to reinforce the nobility. The vast majority of Court offices
remained in the hands of her oldest friends and contemporaries. As mortality thinned the ranks, she refused not only to reward but even to replace
those with whom she had surrounded herself. After Burghley's death in
August 1598, the Privy Council was reduced to ten, fewer than half the
number when she came to the throne. A memorandum of 1598 drew
attention to 'Noblemen that have served in her Majesties warrs or borne
publick places, not being now of the Council'.4 Eight earls and eighteen
barons were listed as candidates for promotion. Yet only after Essex's revolt
did Elizabeth yield and promote the earls of Shrewsbury and Worcester to
the Privy Council.
In January 1589 Burghley had written: 'Her Majesty, finding a great want
of noblemen for Parliament, is minded to create some earls and barons.' But
nothing was done. Unlike her successor James VI and I, whose generosity
opened the floodgates, Elizabeth obstinately refused to use grants of honour
as political rewards. She had resolved to maintain the peerage as a select
See below, pp. 92-3.
caste for men of ancient lineage and to restrict its size in relation to the
availability of estates. This reflected her social conservatism. Despite some
claims to the contrary, Elizabeth's peerage creations more or less compensated for attainders and genetic failures in the male line. Yet the dynamic
political issue was not the size of the peerage, but the unsatisfied ambition of
the courtiers and military commanders who sought promotion during the
long war with Spain and remained unrewarded.
Fiscal considerations partially explain the dearth of peerage creations, but
it is less obvious why the lord lieutenancies were allowed to lapse after 1590.
County government had been markedly strengthened by the lieutenancy
system which had been reconstituted in 1585. The appointees assumed
responsibility for musters, militia training and the levying of militia rates. 5
Later civilian duties were added: law and order, management of food
supplies, collection of forced loans, detection of recusants, and enforcement
of economic regulations. The military and administrative significance of the
late-Elizabethan lieutenancies is obvious. Yet sixteen were left unfilled for
as long as three years, seven for as long as ten years, and thirteen were vacant
by 1603.6 In districts where vacancies arose, commissioners for musters
were appointed on an interim basis on the nomination of the Privy Council.
Robert Cecil compiled a list of those districts with vacancies to draw
attention to the need to make new appointments, but the queen declined
to act.
Where patronage and finance were concerned, Burghley's influence was
paramount after Leicester's death. The reservoir of patronage remained the
queen, who always retained a keen interest in the specification of grants.
However, bills for lands and leases required the signatures of the Lord
Treasurer, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Attorney- and
Solicitor-General, and in this process the Lord Treasurer's opinion was
decisive. Again, Burghley exerted a dramatic influence on the manipulation
of the customs revenues through farming, and on the exploitation of monopolies and concessionary interests. By 1585 it can be argued that a fundamental reconstruction of royal patronage was in train. 7 The main element of
this policy was the shift from a system of patronage based on leases or
alienations of the Crown lands to a system based on export concessions and
grants of commercial licences or monopolies. Burghley was prominent as a
patron of monopolies, both of imported commodities and domestic manufactures. Given the dearth of conventional forms of patronage after the
outbreak of war, it was but a short step to the use of monopolies purely for
Gladys Scott Thomson, Lords Lieutenants in the Sixteenth Century (London, 1923);
A. Hassell Smith, County and Court: Government and Politics in Norfolk, 1558-1603 (Oxford,
See below, pp. 36-41.
the purpose of rewarding courtiers, thereby shifting the costs of such
rewards from the crown to the commonwealth.
If, however, Burghley's was the dominant voice in patronage after Leicester's death, this does not mean there was a regnum Cecilianum. Burghley
himself was irritated by the term, and considered himself maligned. No
analysis of the politics of the 1590s will be entirely satisfactory until
second-rank councillors like Buckhurst, Howard of Effingham (created earl
of Nottingham, 1597), Sir Francis Knollys and Sir John Fortescue are put
under the microscope and our knowledge of Court networks is enhanced.
There is evidence of a political and social modus vivendi which broke down
as a result of ideological and political disparities. 8 The earliest ideological
fissures did not involve Essex, but rather Whitgift and (possibly) Buckhurst.
The latter pair entered the Privy Council in 1586 at Burghley's nomination,
but were less tightly aligned to Burghley in the 1590s.9 Whitgift and
Burghley differed fundamentally over the archbishop's anti-puritan campaign, which the Lord Treasurer several times compared to the 'Romish' or
'Spanish inquisition'. When in 1591 Lord Chancellor Hatton and Whitgift
promoted the prosecutions in Star Chamber of Thomas Cartwright and the
presbyterian leaders for sedition, Burghley was a conspicuous absentee. 10
Buckhurst was firmly attached to the Cecilians in matters of patronage, but
was recruited by Whitgift as a judge in the Court of High Commission in
1588. He stood apart from Burghley on religious policy. Whitgift outlived
Burghley, and was secure in royal favour until the queen's own death. He
was rebuked in 1595 over his attempt to issue the Lambeth articles, but the
setback was purely temporary; the queen's favour reached its zenith when
Whitgift's private troops played a crucial role in the defence of Whitehall
during Essex's revolt. It is conventional to observe that the Cecilians had a
monopoly of influence in the 1590s, but as long as Whitgift enjoyed unrestricted access to the privy chamber, Burghley was pushed onto the sidelines
where religion was concerned.
More generally, the politics of the 1590s were driven by the ambition and
spectacular misjudgements of Robert Devereux, the dazzling but paranoid
second earl of Essex. Essex's relationship with the Cecils soon became
the motor of political strife. Yet the relationship was ambivalent until
Burghley's death. Burghley had been one of Essex's guardians as a child and
a mutual respect endured between them even when they came into conflict.11
It is likely that the feud was primarily between Essex and Sir Robert Cecil,
who were roughly the same age. Physical attributes also came into the
See below, pp. 46-64, 65-86.
It is noteworthy that Robert Cecil systematically rebuilt the relationship with Buckhurst in
ecclesiastical politics after Burghley's death.
See below, pp. 12^-30.
equation: Essex was tall and well proportioned; his aristocratic bearing and
lofty disposition were legendary. By contrast, Cecil was only the second son
of the Lord Treasurer, and he suffered from a deformed spine and diminutive height: Elizabeth called him her 'little elf. Essex initially regarded
Cecil as a 'friend', but had little difficulty in disparaging him once friction
arose between them.
Essex was Leicester's stepson. He succeeded his stepfather as Master of
the Horse, and within three years had staked his claim to the mantle of the
European protestant cause. By 1591 he was said to be 'like enough, if he had
a few more years, to carry Leicester's credit and sway'.12 In 1593 he was
admitted to the Privy Council. But he made mistakes. By the end of 1596 the
feud between Essex and Robert Cecil had escalated into a factional battle to
dominate the Privy Council and control both royal policy and the succession
to the throne. Moreover, this battle was as disruptive as anything since the
death of Henry VIII, because Essex pursued ideology as well as patronage.
He embellished his chivalric protestantism with demands that the war be
run by generals and not civilians. He urged the switch to an aggressive
strategy in Europe and the Atlantic. By contrast, the Cecils, like Elizabeth
herself, saw England's goals as essentially defensive; designed to keep the
power of Philip II at bay and prevent Spain from seizing control of the
French Channel ports or intervening in Ireland.
In his rhetoric Essex advocated the values of aristocratic 'honour5, but in
practice he displayed a preference for methods of government more easily
adopted in Ireland than in England. By fighting duels and alluding to his
rights under the 'law of nature', he proselytized his belief in the nobility's
right to use violence in the defence of honour and the pursuit of political
ends. 13 The writings of Sir Philip Sidney and the chivalric pageantry of the
Accession Day tilts were crucial to Essex's self-fashioning, but the neofeudal dimension may be deceptive. It can be argued that beneath the
rhetorical smokescreen, Essex was the first politician since Richard III to
equate control of royal patronage with factional power. His pressure on
patronage at all levels created hostility even among those who were his
friends. Whatever the truth of this, his tactics were inept. When he sought
to build an affinity in the counties which disclosed elements of premeditated
military purposefulness, he overreached himself. For the subordination of
'overmighty subjects' to the crown, and the conduct of civil government by
law and not the sword, were shibboleths.
A sense of fin de siecle is crucial to an understanding of Elizabeth's
'second' reign. Contradictory forces charged the atmosphere: ambition,
CSPD, Addenda, 1580-1625, p. 320.
M. E. James, Society, Politics and Culture: Studies in Early Modern England (Cambridge,
1986), pp. 416-65.
apprehension, expectation, insecurity, authoritarianism, self-interrogation.
In Parliament the speeches and draft legislative proposals of ordinary
members revealed their deep-seated anxieties over crime, poverty and
unemployment. Since relatively little that was new was accomplished by way
of remedy even in the vastly overrated Elizabethan Poor Laws, it was
unsurprising that discord and displacement aggression characterized the
set-piece debates on purveyance, taxation and monopolies. The monopolies
debates of 1597-8 and 1601 produced the ugliest parliamentary scenes
before the revival of impeachment in the 162Qs, signalling unequivocal
resentment of the economic privileges and abuses promoted by courtiers
and privy councillors solely for their private gain.
Faced by pungent criticism and demands for a committee of inquiry in
1597, Elizabeth neutralized the attack by promising a commission to
investigate monopolies and by intimating that she would personally intervene to prevent dishonest patentees from invoking the royal prerogative to
impede legal actions in the courts. But the promised reforms failed to
materialize. After Parliament was dissolved in 1598, there were more new
monopolies granted than old ones rescinded. Shortly before the 1601 Parliament assembled, Lord Treasurer Buckhurst and Cecil attempted a lastminute survey of monopolies in an effort to prune the worst of them before
it was too late. But the task was not completed, and when the 1601 Parliament assembled, the outcome was a minor constitutional crisis.
Nor were the parliamentary allegations misplaced, since by 1601 venality
permeated the regime. A 'black market' was well established at Court in
which nominations to offices were overtly traded. For a minor post £200
would be offered, with competitive bids of between £1,000 and £4,000 for
lucrative offices such as the receivership of the Court of Wards or the
treasurership at war. There was even a queue for a minor Irish office that
Burghley wished to suppress: hard cash was offered 'in the Chamber and
elsewhere'. As Spenser quipped in 1591, 'For nothing there is done without
a fee: / The Courtier needs must recompensed be.'14 And since bids were
investments, extortion and embezzlement were rife. The royal household,
the Exchequer, and the Court of Wards (where Burghley himself presided
until his death) were all the subjects of spectacular scandals.
A list of Burghley's income as Master of the Wards during the last two
and a half years of his life shows that he accepted £3,301 from suitors as
'arrangement fees' for eleven grants of wardship at a time when his official
annual salary as master was £133. His profit tripled that of the crown, which
gained a mere £906 from these transactions. It was the crown's receipts that
were entered in the official records; Burghley's profits were listed in a paper
Mother Hubbard's Tcde, lines 515-16, in E. de Selincourt (ed.)j Spenser's Minor Poems
(Oxford, 1960), p. 210.
endorsed: 'This note to be burned.' Yet Burghley was the least unscrupulous of his contemporaries. Gifts of plate to privy councillors and judges
were frequent; the value of Burghley's own collection approached £15,000.
Yet opinion thought this sum modest in relation to his opportunities.15
By contrast, it was said of Sir Thomas Heneage in 1592, 'I think your best
friend unto him will be your £1,000.' And it was notorious that he accepted
£60 as Chancellor of the Duchy for subscribing a bill for a minor official.
When Sir John Carey learned that Elizabeth had criticized his wife for
selling minor offices in the garrison at Berwick, he complained, 'If her
Majesty would search into takers so narrowly . . . she might find takers of
another kind nearer hand, such as take more in one day than she [Lady
Carey] hath done in all her life.' Again, when Sir Thomas Shirley,
Treasurer at War, was accused in 1593 of misappropriating £30,000 per
annum of the funds allocated for campaigns in the Netherlands, the charges
were inter alia that he had 'infinitely bribed' Burghley's clerk to secure his
ends; had speculated with the soldiers' pay; sold concessions to army
victuallers; and operated as a moneylender. His income ranged between
£3,000 and £16,000 per annum, yet his official salary was £365. 16 It was
said of Robert Cecil, 'You may boldly write for his favour . . . You paid well
for it'! Whereas it took Burghley fifty years in office to build three houses
and acquire a landholding appropriate to a peer, his son accumulated larger
estates and built five houses in under sixteen years, even though Burghley
received more land by way of outright gifts.17
It is fairly observed that late-Elizabethan political history has rarely been
written in terms of the preoccupations of contemporaries. Crime, vagrancy
and economic misfortunes, especially catastrophic harvest failures in 1596
and 1597, headed the immediate list of concerns, and it has long been
debated whether or not these amounted to a 'crisis'. According to the Guide
Michelin taxonomy adopted by Professors Wrigley and Schofield, the distress of the 1590s constituted a two-star, but not a three-star crisis.18 The
emergency was not uniform in its impact, nor was irreparable damage
inflicted upon the agricultural and commercial infrastructures. Prices were
high, but economic growth continued, if at a slower rate than before. For the
J. Hurstfield, The Queen's Wards: Wardship and Marriage under Elizabeth I (London, 1958),
pp. 266-9; J. E. Neale, Essays in Elizabethan History (London, 1958), pp. 63-4, 72.
CSPD, 1591-1594, pp. 326-7; A. G. R. Smith, Servant of the Cecils: The Life of Sir Michael
Hickesy 1543-1612 (London, 1977), pp. 66-8; Neale, Essays in Elizabethan History,
pp. 65-6; P. W. Hasler (ed.), The House of Commons, 1558-1603 (3 vols., London, 1981),
III, pp. 375-6.
Lawrence Stone, Family and Fortune: Studies in Aristocratic Finance in the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Centuries (Oxford, 1973), pp. 56-9; Neale, Essays in Elizabethan History, p. 75;
Hasler, The Commons, I, p. 578.
E. A. Wrigley and R. S. Schofield, The Population History of England, 1541-1871: A
Reconstruction (London, 1981), pp. 332-6, 645-85, and passim.
first time since the epidemics of Mary's reign, population growth slackened
or was static, but mortality caused by starvation was concentrated in upland
areas where population density was low and crops were grown under
marginal conditions. By contrast, the plague and influenza epidemics that
decimated the urban communities were concentrated in London, the larger
towns, the mixed farming lowlands, and areas in the south and east of
England with well-developed communications.
While this analysis is statistically correct, there is something reminiscently Thatcherite about an explanation that concentrates on economic growth
at the expense of real people. Agricultural prices climbed higher in real
terms in 1594-8 than at any time before 1615. Real wages plunged lower in
1597 than at any time between 1260 and 1950.19 Perhaps two-fifths of the
total population of four million fell below the margin of subsistence. Whole
families were thrown onto parish relief, and the much-vaunted Poor Laws
proved inadequate to stem the tide. Poor relief was meagre in material terms
and operated chiefly as a placebo. Furthermore, it was administered by
parochial officials in ways which underscored the economic dependence of
the poor.
It is sometimes claimed that during the long war with Spain, Elizabethan
government succumbed to a mixture of external pressure and internal
structural decay. There was no slide to disaster in Elizabeth's 'second'
reign; the regime held together and the problems of James VI and I had
more to do with post-1603 events than with the legacy of Elizabeth I. Yet
the key to political stability in the 1590s was the solidarity of the elite.
Economic conditions accelerated a process of polarization between rich and
poor which subverted traditional perceptions of order and degree yet which
simultaneously fostered the values of authoritarianism and a class society. 20
The assize judges confronted a rising tide of property crime. It was no
coincidence that sitting alongside privy councillors in the Court of Star
Chamber, they took the criminal law into their own hands by remoulding
and reinterpreting it to enable offences against private property to be
punished as public crimes. Increasingly property-owners of whatever rank
or position identified themselves with the prosperity of the gentry against
the rabble. Lesser yeomen and tradesmen, whose ancestors had marched
Joan Thirsk (ed.), The Agrarian History of England and Wales, IV: 1500-1640 (Cambridge,
1967); E. H . Phelps Brown and S. V. Hopkins, 'Seven Centuries of the Prices of Consumables, Compared with Builders' Wage Rates', Economica, new series, 2 3 (1956), 296-314;
C. G. A. Clay, Economic Expansion and Social Change: England, 1500-1700 (2 vols., Cambridge, 1984); Keith Wrightson, English Society, 1580-1680 (London, 1982); Steve Rappaport, Worlds within Worlds: Structures of Life in Sixteenth Century London (Cambridge,
1989); Ian W . Archer, The Pursuit of Stability: Social Relations in Elizabethan
(Cambridge, 1991).
See below, pp. 192-211.
with Jack Cade in 1450 or camped with Robert Kett in 1549, now assumed
local office, settled their disputes in the law courts, and closed ranks against
masterless men, domestic servants, transient workers and urban immigrants. The link between poverty and unemployment, crime and disorder, is
highly complex; but no late-Elizabethan magistrate would have doubted
that vagrancy was criminal, that democracy was the worst form of government, and that plebeian forces were dangerously on the increase. The
aftermath of the Oxfordshire Rising of 1596, when two men were tortured
by the Privy Council to disclose a conspiracy that never was, vividly indexes
the paranoia of the establishment.21
As to religious divisions, these too were exacerbated during Elizabeth's
'second' reign, but in a highly insidious way. It can be argued that Whitgift's subscription campaign against the puritan ministers, promulgated in
1583-4, was only the first tier of a two-tier strategy.22 The second tier was
the reinforcement of the metropolitan authority of the southern High
Commission by the assimilation into current practice of the full range of
procedures governing ex officio investigations as set forth in the textbooks
and manuals of Roman canon law. It was a subtle and effective solution to
what Whitgift doubtless saw as an operational problem. It was entirely
within the remit of the lawyers and officials of the ecclesiastical courts, and
it avoided the political backlash which reinforcement by means of revised
instructions to the judges of High Commission would undoubtedly have
provoked while Leicester and Walsingham were still alive.
A legal challenge to High Commission brought in the Court of Queen's
Bench in 1591 by James Morice and the supporters of Robert Cawdrey
backfired, producing instead a vindication by the common-law judges of the
queen's 'imperial' authority as supreme governor of the church. In a
sweeping decision the judges held that the queen might empower High
Commission because 'by the ancient laws of this realm this kingdom of
England is an absolute empire and monarchy'. This was the language of
Henry VIII's Act of Appeals: the judges' decision meant that they interpreted Elizabeth's imperium to be as theocratic as Henry's.
The result was that the collision over presbyterianism and puritan nonconformity became a constitutional and not simply a religious confrontation. It raised the corrosive issue of the power of the 'imperial' supremacy
in relation to the functions of parliamentary statute and common law. The
polemical contest first waged in the reign of Henry VIII between the clergy
and the common lawyers over the Act for the Submission of the Clergy was
effectively resumed. In the 1530s the authoritative defence of the common21
J. Walter, CA "Rising of the People"? T h e Oxfordshire Rising of 1596', Past and Present,
107 (1985), 90-143.
law position had been written by Christopher St German, who also attacked
the theory of the undivided royal supremacy. He maintained that it was not
the 'vicar of God' but the 'king-in-Parliament' which was 'high sovereign
over the people'. 23 He agreed with Henry VIII that church and state were
coextensive. But he annexed the vocabulary of the 'mixed polity' in order to
argue that the king of England should govern in a parliamentary way.
By Elizabeth's 'second' reign, the 'mixed polity' was discredited since
Cartwright had advocated it as the ideal form of government in church and
state during the Admonition Controversy. The establishment view was that
sovereignty resided in the queen alone: the 'mixed polity' was incompatible
with a monarchical state. This marked a change. For hitherto the
'ascending' and 'descending' interpretations of the royal supremacy had
coexisted peacefully. The ambiguity had been disguised by the claim that
the royal supremacy was ordained by God, but that the people had given
their assent by their free votes in Parliament. This may be compared to a
man who fits two locks, each by a different manufacturer, to his front door.
The locks have incompatible mechanisms and different keys, but when used
in combination they double the level of security. Apologists from Stephen
Gardiner, writing his De vera obedientia in Henry VIII's reign, to Lord
Chancellor Hatton, addressing Parliament in 1589, took this prudent line.
But Whitgift's anti-puritan crusade and the judges' decision in Cawdrey's
Case precipitated a bolder discourse. Whereas in the 1560s and 1570s the
doctrine of 'mixed polity' was the prevailing orthodoxy in political discourse, by the 1590s careerists were advancing the thesis that Elizabeth
possessed an 'imperial' sovereignty, that she alone enacted the laws, and
that she herself was above the law by the prerogative of her imperium. Here
the circle of Richard Bancroft, John Bridges, Thomas Bilson and Hadrian
Saravia formed the vanguard. 24 (A similar swing to the right occurred in
Scotland, where James VI personally took the lead.) Moreover, these publicists aimed at a double target, since the view that England was a 'mixed
polity' was propagated not only by presbyterians, but also by Catholics
In a reading proleptic of Book VIII of Richard Hooker's Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity,
St German argued that all law, whether secular or ecclesiastical, was properly made by king,
lords and Commons in Parliament assembled, 'for the Parliament so gathered together
representeth the estate of all the people within this realm, that is to say of the whole catholic
church thereof. John Guy, 'The Henrician Age', in J. G. A. Pocock (ed.), The Varieties of
British Political Thought, 1500-1800 (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 13-46. Book VIII was left in
draft when Hooker died, and not published until 1648. For the significance of Hooker's
Laws as a critique of both extremes in the religious debates of the 1590s, see Peter G. Lake,
Anglicans and Puritans? Presbyterian and English Conformist Thought from Whitgift to
Hooker (London, 1988).
Lake, Anglicans and Puritans?, pp. 88-139; J. P. Sommerville, Politics and Ideology in
England, 1603-1640 (London, 1986); Glenn Burgess, The Politics of the Ancient Constitution
(London, 1992).
eager to frustrate James VI's succession to the English throne. The Jesuit
Robert Parsons held that the ruler's prerogative was strictly limited by law
and, following Bellarmine, that while the pope derived his powers directly
from God, kings drew theirs from the people. Whereas in the 1560s the
royal prerogative had been discussed and justified 'by the order of the
common law', in the 1590s it was annexed to the 'divinity' that hedges a
Of course, similar things had been said in the reign of Henry VIII, when
his advisers first experimented with the thesis of 'imperial' kingship. It is
easy to draw a straight line between Henrician and late-Elizabethan theory;
but this is misguided. Tudor and early-Stuart constitutional history
was not unilinear. In particular, the 'first' Elizabethan polity was quite
different. Shaped by the elite of the Privy Council, it was tantamount to
what Professor Collinson has called 'a monarchical republic'.25 Until 1585
or thereabouts the Privy Council's political creed may be summarized thus:
1. England was a 'mixed polity' in the terms defined by St German; 2. the
prerogative of the ruler was limited by the advice of the Privy Council; and
3. the assent of the whole realm in Parliament was required to effect
significant political or religious change and in particular to resolve the issue
of the succession to the throne.
This was Burghley's political creed in Elizabeth's 'first' reign. It is
therefore important that we recognize the corollary, which is that until 1585
he and the queen subscribed to discordant political philosophies despite
their enduring political relationship. Historians have conventionally treated
Elizabeth and Burghley as if they shared the same intellectual genes. The
reality is that they were virtually different species. The issue crystallizes on
the subject of 'councils' and counselling. Was the 'sovereignty' of the ruler
to be limited by the advice of the Privy Council? Like her father, Elizabeth
believed that her imperium was ordained by God alone and her prerogative
unlimited by her councillors' advice. The full implications of this dissonance did not become apparent until the collision over the execution of
Mary, Queen of Scots, but the issue had been alive since the religious
settlement of 1559, for on that single, but crucial, occasion, Elizabeth was
outmanoeuvred and manipulated by her councillors. Burghley had gone
further down the protestant road than the queen had either intended or
preferred. In this respect the 'first' Elizabethan regime was established on
false premisses.26
Patrick Collinson, 'The Monarchical Republic of Queen Elizabeth I', Bulletin of the John
Rylands Library, 69 (1987), 394-^24.
I have signalled this argument in 'The Tudor Age', in K. Morgan (ed.)> The Oxford History
of Britain (Oxford, 1988), p. 302, and also in Tudor England (Oxford, 1988), pp. 258-64. It
will be developed in my forthcoming Elizabeth I (Cambridge University Press).
So what happened after 1585? It will be an uphill task to argue that the
'second' Elizabethan polity was a 'monarchical republic'. The Privy Council
met nearly every day, sometimes both mornings and afternoons. But the
frequency of its meetings was dictated by the war effort. Attendances were
sparse: Robert Beale, the Privy Council's clerk, had on occasion to seat
himself among the lords to make up the presence. Debates were also
relatively few. When Burghley disagreed with Whitgift, he simply absented
himself from the Council. Most revealing of all, the Lord Treasurer sat
alone to authorize warrants for payment. He scrawled 'allowed by the lords
and others of the Privy Council... signed W. Burghley' on the back of each,
but it is clear from the context that his colleagues were not consulted. It was
a complete reversal of the collegiality of the 'first' Elizabethan regime
whereby warrants were authorized by three or more privy councillors at the
board, and a warrant signed by one councillor alone would be considered
invalid.27 When Essex's supporters complained of a regnum Cecilianum> this
was possibly the sort of thing they had in mind.
The watershed which permitted Burghley's integration into the new
order was the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. Faced with Catholic
conspiracy and Mary's title to the throne, the elite of the Privy Council
sought to limit the powers of the monarchy should Elizabeth die or be
assassinated. Not only were their initiatives in 'orchestrating' parliamentary
debates predicated on the view of England as a 'mixed polity'; Burghley's
contingency plans up to and including those of 1584-5 provided that, in the
event of Elizabeth's death, the Privy Council and Parliament should not fail
to act despite the lapse of their authority. His drafts for the succession
variously envisaged a 'Council of State', 'Great Council' or 'Grand Council'
which would form a provisional government in the absence of a ruler and
which would adjudicate the claims of candidates for the succession in
conjunction with Parliament.28 Not only was this aristocratic republicanism
The changing approaches in the Privy Council's system for authorizing payments between
1547 and the 1590s can be traced in PRO, E 404/105-135.
See especially PRO, S P 12/28/20 (fos. 68-9); SP 12/176/22, SP 12/176/28, SP 12/176/29,
SP 12/176/30; Henry E. Huntington Library, Ellesmere M S 1192, annotated and corrected
by Burghley; J. E. Neale, Elizabeth I and her Parliaments (2 vols., London, repr. 1969), I,
pp. 112-13; II, pp. 44-57; G. R. Elton, The Parliament of England, 1559-1581 (Cambridge,
1986), p. 362; Collinson, 'Monarchical Republic of Queen Elizabeth', pp. 418-22; Guy,
Tudor England, pp. 270, 332-3. Professor Collinson has recently argued that 'A breefe
discourse against succession knowen' (SP 12/176/32 (fos. 71-82)), which includes objections to the Interregnum scheme, should be attributed to Burghley. This is despite the fact
that the 'breefe discourse' has hitherto been attributed to Thomas Digges by Neale (see
above), and by Collinson himself in 'Monarchical Republic' (pp. 418-20) on the grounds
that its contents can be related to other papers more confidently attributable to Digges.
Collinson sets out the case for Burghley's authorship in the appendix to his Raleigh
Lecture for 1993, 'The Elizabethan Exclusion Crisis', Proceedings of the British Academy,
84 (1995), pp. 87-92. But the reattribution is unconvincing. It is suggested mainly on the
par excellence, one wonders how, if at all, the Privy Council's schemes differ
from the initial stages of the Revolution of 1688 when a committee of peers
and privy councillors formed themselves into a provisional government in
the absence of the king.29 These plans became redundant after Mary's
execution, since the succession of her son, the protestant James VI, became
(at least theoretically) assured.
The transition between what I have called the 'first' and 'second' Elizabethan polities was silently accomplished. Yet the writers, dramatists and
translators of the period interrogated the cultural attributes of change. This
inquiry was quickened partly by the decline of literary preferment after the
deaths of Leicester and Sir Philip Sidney, and partly by the sterility of the
'cult of Elizabeth' and the Accession Day tilts in the last decade.30 Writers
became fascinated in and after 1591 by the themes of kingship, authority,
and the acquisition and retention of power, particularly in relation to
humanist-classical definitions of 'virtue' in its civic and military aspects.
The role of 'counsel' and 'counselling' in monarchies and republics, and the
endemic problems of corruption and dissimulation, were put under the lens.
The aim was to explain how 'vice', 'flattery' and 'ambition' had come to
supersede the traditional values of 'wisdom', 'service' and respublica. Political commentary acquired Tacitean overtones which stressed how the
Roman emperors and their counsellors had corrupted one another. Tacitus
had long been available to humanists such as Guicciardini and Thomas
More, but was read in the 1590s as the historian who thought the past too
grounds that the author of the 'breefe discourse' intimates that he was the queen's 'sworne
servant', which Collinson believes indicates a privy councillor. But all incumbents of Court
offices, both salaried and supernumerary, and not just privy councillors, in the Tudor period
were supposed to take an oath to the ruler (usually administered by the Lord Chamberlain
or his deputy), and they were described in the official records as the ruler's 'sworn servants'.
In addition, every paid official and M P was required to take the oath of supremacy by
1 Eliz. I, c. 1. Digges was appointed General Surveyor of Works at Dover Harbour in July
1581. N o t only was this post salaried, it was more particularly within the establishment of
the Queen's Works, which in Elizabeth's reign was still considered part of the Court. Digges
appears in the Acts of the Privy Council, and voluminously in the State Papers in the 1580s,
when he was repeatedly writing to members of the Privy Council, especially Walsingham.
He was also an M P who acted regularly on behalf of privy councillors as a 'man of business'
in the Commons and its committees. H . M . Colvin (ed.), The History of the King's Works,
IV, pt 2 (London, 1982), pp. 757-60; M . A. R. Graves, 'The Management of the Elizabethan House of Commons: T h e Council's "Men of Business"', Parliamentary History, 2
(1983), 11-38; Graves, The Tudor Parliaments: Crown, Lords and Commons,
(London, 1985), pp. 148-50; Hasler, The Commons, I I , pp. 37-9. Moreover, even if it were
to be established that the author of the 'breefe discourse' was a privy councillor, this would
not be proof in itself that Burghley was its author. T h e authorship, nevertheless, remains a
very important issue. I am grateful to Professor Collinson for kindly sending m e a proof
copy of his article in advance of publication.
R. Beddard, A Kingdom without a King: The Journal of the Provisional Government in the
Revolution of 1688 (Oxford, 1988).
See below, pp. 212-28, 229-57.
complex and recalcitrant to be reduced to straightforward moral lessons.
Tacitus had given his descriptions of political conduct a distinctive moral
edge by arguing that Tiberius' greatest attribute was his ability to dissimulate. This approach permitted distinctions to be made between 'honest
servants' and 'base slaves'. Corrupt counsellors in turn became identified
with 'flatterers': the 'caterpillars' and 'subverters' of the commonwealth,
who sowed 'discord' and 'division', were greedy for wealth and titles, and
abused their power at the expense of the people for reasons of personal gain.
In the hands of Tacitean authors, the providentialist bias of the traditional
English historiography was dethroned in favour of a cynical and sceptical
outlook which intimated that great men attained their ends by the autonomous exercise of politic will, but did so with morally ambiguous results.
To those outside the Essex circle, Taciteanism was a model that objectivized fears of corruption, deceit and moral turpitude, and then linked them
by association to a specific factional group. To those within the circle, as
previously for Thomas More when compiling the History of Richard III,
Tacitus offered a model for comprehending the rule of a 'tyrant'. Yet in the
case of Essex's most intimate advisers, Tacitus also functioned as a handbook for political survival when subject to tyrannical rule: it appears that at
least on certain occasions, they had convinced themselves that Elizabeth fell
into this category.31 Their argument was that the distinguishing mark of
tyranny was the queen's capriciousness, especially in the matter of
favourites. All this sprang from Essex's frustrated ambition: he not only saw
himself as engaged in a factional contest with Robert Cecil, but also realized
that he was losing the battle. From his viewpoint, that could only mean that
Elizabeth relied on a 'favourite' or 'evil councillor' whose moral worth did
not justify his position. Discord and civil commotion were the inevitable
consequences, just as when Tiberius had abdicated his responsibilities by
choosing the ambitious and unworthy Sejanus as his chief councillor.
The least inhibited medium of late-Elizabethan political commentary was
the theatre; the pre-eminent Tacitean dramatist Ben Jonson, whose Sejanus
was first performed at Court during the winter of 1603-4. Jonson was
summoned before the Privy Council and accused of 'popery' and 'treason'.
By then, the hot political issue may have been less the resemblance between
'Sejanus' and the earl of Essex, than the assumed link between the play and
the trial of Ralegh for alleged conspiracy in the Main Plot of 1603. Jonson
denied the political charges, and the narrow issue of topicality is irrelevant.
What matters is the mental world which Sejanus evoked, and this was the
See below, pp. 277-8; J. H. M. Salmon, Renaissance and Revolt (Cambridge, 1987),
pp. 27-53; Salmon, 'Seneca and Tacitus in Jacobean England', in Peck (ed.), The Mental
World of the Jacobean Court, pp. 169-88; Fritz Levy, *Hayward, Daniel, and the Beginnings
of Politic History in England', HLQ, 50 (1987), 1-34.
mental world of the final years of Elizabeth I, because Jonson had been
writing the play for two years before its first performance.32 The resemblance to aspects of Ralegh's case may have been purely coincidental.
Whether or not the character of 'Sejanus' is taken to be modelled on that
of Essex, the play illuminates the Tacitean vogue. As one outmoded and
disillusioned senator observed to another:
We have no shift of faces, no cleft tongues,
No soft and glutinous bodies, that can stick,
Like snails, on painted walls; or, on our breasts
Creep up, to fall from that proud height to which
We did by slavery, not by service, climb.
We are no guilty men, and then no great;
We have nor place in court, office in state,
That we can say we owe unto our crimes;
We burn with no black secrets, which can make
Us dear to the pale authors; or live feared
Of their still waking jealousies, to raise
Ourselves a fortune, by subverting theirs.33
By contrast, the corrupt clients of Sejanus 'Know more than honest
counsels'. They knew how to clie, / Flatter, and swear, forswear, deprave,
inform, / Smile, and betray' to get their way. They knew how to 'Laugh
when their patron laughs; sweat when he sweats . . . Look well or ill with him
- ready to praise / His lordship if he spit, or but piss fair'.
From the more distant perspective of the reign of Charles I, Bishop
Goodman remarked of Elizabeth I's 'second' reign: 'The people were very
generally weary of an old woman's government.'34 The queen might have
died at any moment between 1585 and 1603. As time dragged on, it was clear
that James VI had the de facto claim to the succession: he was male,
protestant and available. Yet a peaceful accession was not a foregone conclusion. It wasfinallyengineered only because Robert Cecil had paved the way,
because a consensus emerged in the Privy Council and among the leading
Ben Jonson, Sejanus His Fall, ed. P. J. Ayres (Manchester and N e w York, 1990), esp. intro.,
pp. 16-22. It can be argued that some of Shakespeare's work, although Tacitean in neither
slant nor conception, represents the image of Essex, first in the character of Coriolanus, and
then in that of the duke of Buckingham in Henry VIII. Like Essex, Coriolanus had been a
great military hero, utterly convinced of his indispensability and so enamoured of his birth
and honour that he mistook martial for civic virtue, made unwarranted assumptions about
the extent of his popular support, and followed his own foreign policy against the dictates of
his government, only finally to lapse into treason. Whatever the truth of this interpretation,
it was not for nothing that the earl's accusers at his examination at York House in 1600
explicitly made the connection to Coriolanus. Again, the resemblance of Essex to Shakespeare's Buckingham is suggestive, though ultimately inconclusive. See below, p. 295.
Sejanus His Fall, ed. Ayres, pp. 77-9.
J. Hurstfield, Freedom, Corruption and Government in Elizabethan England (London, 1973),
nobility that James was the most realistic alternative, and because James
himself laboured systematically to build that consensus. What was never
obvious to contemporaries was that the period that I have called the queen's
'second' reign would last so long.
Of course, the thesis that there were 'two' reigns of Elizabeth I is
something of a tease. This book is less provocatively entitled The Reign of
Elizabeth I: Court and Culture in the Last Decade. I believe it includes
original and important contributions: perhaps the most fertile and arresting
essays on late-Elizabethan politics and political culture to have appeared for
thirty years. The book does not attempt to provide a full political narrative,
nor has it been the purpose of this introduction to provide a comprehensive
summary of the contributions, which should be read in their own right.
The purpose of the book is to invite readers - in some cases for the first
time - to consider the politics and political culture of the Virgin Queen's
declining years on their own terms and in context. The basic topography of
the long reign of Elizabeth I is familiar enough, but beneath the surface lies
a labyrinth of caverns which this book explores. It is striking how many
teachers and their students have failed either to consider the 'last decade' in
its own right, or have ignored it, having begun their accounts in 1558 and
struggled on to the defeat of the Armada in 1588, only to collapse thereafter
from mental and physical exhaustion. Only two comprehensive political
surveys have been attempted since 1926, when E. P. Cheyney's two-volume
History of England from the Defeat of the Armada to the Death of Elizabeth
was completed.35 One is Professor R. B. Wernham's After the Armada:
Elizabethan England and the Struggle for Western Europe, 1588-1595, which
appeared in 1984.36 The other is Professor Wallace T. MacCaffrey's Elizabeth I: War and Politics, 1558-1603, published in 1992. Yet Wernham's
agenda is exclusively the war with Spain (especially the land war in France),
while the third volume of MacCaffrey's trilogy is addressed to the politics of
war, and has little space to spare for the topics of Crown patronage,
puritanism and religion, political thought, society and the economy, and
literature and drama.
In the last resort what matters is balance, and the atmosphere and the
colour of the age. The atmosphere was claustrophobic in the 1590s since the
late-Elizabethan establishment felt itself increasingly beleaguered. It perceived the enemy within to be even more dangerous than the enemy abroad.
Works like Bancroft's Daungerous Positions and Cosin's Conspiracie, for
T h e first volume of Cheyney's study was published in 1914, and the second in 1926.
While this volume was in production, R. B. Wernham's The Return of the Armadas: The
Last Years of the Elizabethan War against Spain (Oxford, 1994) was published. T h e new
study extends the chronology of Wernham's original investigation to 1603 and its scope to
include later Spanish sea power and the Irish rebellion. M y general point that no historical
survey has adequately addressed the agenda of the present volume is unaffected.
pretended reformation not only provided the mise-en-scene, they showed also
that this establishment considered intolerance to be a virtue, and named it
'justice'. Even where conspiracy did not exist, it had to be invented. In his
chapter Professor Collinson has spoken of the 'nasty nineties', and I shall
not quarrel with that.
The patronage of the crown in Elizabethan
politics: the 1590s in perspective*
In February 1597, after learning of the initial discussions of the naval
operation that would become known as the 'Islands Voyage', Sir Francis
Vere observed to Sir Robert Sidney: 'Of my Lord of Essex's going to sea, I
am sorry to hear, unless I could persuade myself that before his going he
would furnish the court with offices, for that it will else prove his adversaries
work whilst he is absent.' 1 These comments were no doubt an allusion to the
events of the previous summer, when Sir Robert Cecil was finally successful
in obtaining formal appointment as Principal Secretary of State while Essex
was absent on the voyage to Cadiz, but their general import is no less
interesting. They contain several of the apparent truisms of Elizabethan
Court politics: the competition for patronage, the need for a constant
presence at Court, and the dual function of office under the crown as both
the prize and the instrument of politics. Such commentary is found
throughout Sidney's correspondence, which since its publication in 1746
has been one of the best-known sources for the Court politics of the 1590s.
The editor, Arthur Collins, then noted to a friend that in the Sidney Papers
'the intrigues of Queen Elizabeths court [are] more fully set forth than has
been published and wch shows how the Cecilian Faction Reigned'. 2
Quite ironically, perhaps, this eighteenth-century perception of the
* This chapter has been revised in the light of works published since 1991, the most important
being R. W. Hoyle (ed.), The Estates of the English Crown 1558-1640 (Cambridge, 1992).
Earlier versions were delivered to a seminar at the University of Birmingham in 1988 and a
conference on Patronage, Politics and Literature 1550-1660 at the University of Reading in
1989. Reference to the Penshurst Papers, the Dudley Papers at Longleat House, the Cecil
Papers at Hatfield House and the Pepys MSS is by kind permission of the Viscount De
L'Isle, the Marquess of Bath, the Marquess of Salisbury and the Pepysian Librarian.
L. Howard (ed.), A Collection of Letters (2 vols., London, 1753), I, p. 388,8 February 1596/7.
This letter is not included in A. Collins (ed.), Letters and Memorials of State ... transcribed
from the originals at Penshurst Place (2 vols., London, 1746) [hereafter Sidney Papers].
Maidstone, Centre for Kentish Studies, K[ent] Archives] O[ffice], U 1475 [Penshurst
Papers]/C 236/art. 26, Collins to William Pervy, 3 Sept. 1744.
The patronage of the crown in Elizabethan politics
relationship between the patronage of the crown and Elizabethan Court
factions is shared by the most advanced modern scholarship. Yet this
scholarly consensus is not completely convincing; if the underlying arguments are examined the relationship between patronage and faction is by no
means so clear cut, and a number of questions are posed that have yet to
receive answers. The earliest modern analysis of Elizabethan politics in
factional terms was that outlined by Conyers Read in the first decades of this
century during the preparation of his study of the career of Sir Francis
Walsingham. In what was essentially a revision of J. A. Froude's portrait of
the dedicated Walsingham and Lord Burghley managing the country on
behalf of a wayward queen, Read pointed to a serious difference of opinion
between the two over the conduct of foreign policy, about which the rest of
the Privy Council divided. But this factional dispute was inspired specifically
by the debate over intervention in the Netherlands, which was limited to
the decade 1575-85. The conciliar factions were to some extent shaped by
religious allegiances and clashes of personality, but they were not otherwise
concerned with issues of domestic politics. Nor was Read himself then interested in whether this factional division was continued into the succeeding
decade or came to an end in the years 1585-8.3
The connection between patronage and factional politics was first drawn
by Sir John Neale in his Raleigh Lecture of 1948. In what was a reappraisal
of the sixteenth century inspired by Sir Lewis Namier's earlier re-interpretation of eighteenth-century parliamentary politics, Neale argued that 'The
place of party was taken by faction, and the rivalry of the factions was
centred on what mattered supremely to everybody: influence over the
Queen, and, through that influence, control of patronage with its accompanying benefits.'4 If the distinction between party and faction was ultimately derived from Namier, Neale was nonetheless clear that the battleground was the Court, not Parliament: 'As we should expect, clientage
reached its fullest expression at Court. Here was the Mecca of patronage:
place and profit incomparable to be had through the favour of the great ones
of the land.'5 Yet while Namier had supplied a carefully articulated case for
the importance of the patronage of the crown to eighteenth-century politics,
Neale took it more or less as proven.6 Similarly the assumption that the
motor of faction was the pursuit of patronage was also taken for granted.
For a fuller discussion and references, see S. Adams, 'Favourites and Factions at the
Elizabethan Court', in R. G. Asch and A. M. Birke (eds.), Princes, Patronage and Nobility:
The Court at the Beginning of the Modern Age c. 1450-1650 (Oxford, 1991), pp. 283-5.
'The Elizabethan Political Scene', reprinted in Essays in Elizabethan History (London,
1958), p. 70.
The Elizabethan House of Commons (London, 1949), p. 23.
Namier's case can be found in The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III
(London, 1965 edn), pp. 16-17.
The relationship between factions of this type and Read's 'ideologically
driven' factions was never explored.
Neale did, however, develop several further very influential theories
about the politics of Elizabethan patronage. He argued that patronage also
gave the crown a potent instrument for political control and manipulation;
careful exploitation of its powers of patronage could thus become the key to
successful monarchical government. Elizabeth's skilful control of Court
factions, an argument Neale drew from Sir Robert Naunton's seventeenthcentury commentary Fragmenta regalia, by means of patronage thus became
an important theme in his revision of the queen's reputation.7 Yet he also
recognized that if this type of politics had worked successfully during the
first thirty years of the reign, the same could not be said for the final decade.
Precisely why there was a deterioration in the 1590s was less clear, however,
and he attributed it variously to the weakening powers of the ageing queen,
the strains of the war with Spain, and the possibility that 'the standard of
public morality was declining sharply in the last decade or so of the reign'.
He then confused the issue by drawing almost all the examples of patronage
disputes cited in 'The Elizabethan Political Scene' from the 1590s, and, as
he himself admitted, by relying heavily on the correspondence of Michael
Hickes, which was largely concerned with the administration of the Court of
Wards.8
Subsequent work on Elizabethan politics has in the main elaborated these
themes. Wallace MacCaffrey has argued that there was a deliberate employment of patronage to cement loyalty to the crown; that this was a Tudor
rather than a specifically Elizabethan policy; and that it helped to transform
the 'dynastic factionalism' of the fifteenth century into the Court- and
patronage-centred politics of the seventeenth. The successful exploitation
of patronage was a central element in the stability of Elizabeth's reign, for
which the credit went both to Burghley, whom he described as a 'patronage
minister', and to the queen, who created 'a rough system', for, by 'refusing
to limit her favour to a single favourite, she kept open a number of channels
to her bounty'. Unlike Neale, MacCaffrey did attempt an assessment of the
actual resources of patronage at the crown's disposal and having noted the
limited number of offices of profit available suggested that other forms of
'royal bounty' may have been more significant than office-holding.9 Law7
'Eliz. Political Scene', pp. 78-9. Future reference to Naunton's Fragmenta regalia will
be made to J. S. Cerovski's edition (Washington, DC, 1985). For reservations about the
reliability of the Fragmenta, see Adams, 'Favourites and Factions', pp. 280-2.
'Eliz. Political Scene', p. 74.
'Place and Patronage in Elizabethan Polities', in S. T. Bindoff et al. (eds.), Elizabethan
Government and Society (London, 1961), pp. 108-9. The argument is rehearsed with little
modification in 'Patronage and Politics under the Tudors', in L. L. Peck (ed.), The Mental
World of the Jacobean Court (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 21-35.
rence Stone advanced a similar thesis. While he accepted Neale's general
argument that patronage gave the crown 'great powers of leverage over the
nobility', he was also influenced by the contemporary debate over the
'General Crisis' of the seventeenth century, and the role of the expansion of
an essentially parasitic Court. This led him to suggest that the 1590s saw the
emergence of a specific crisis of patronage in which pressure on the finite
patronage resources of the crown from a growing population had by the end
of the sixteenth century created an imbalance between supply and demand
that neither Elizabeth nor the first two Stuarts were able to resolve. 10
This 'concentration on the politics of patronage' Christine Carpenter has
defined as a characteristic of 'the "new history" of the period'.11 For Linda
Peck, 'The basis of English politics in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was the patron-client relationship between the monarchy and the
most important political groups in the state, the peerage and the gentry.'12
Even Christopher Haigh, a critic of Neale on other issues, advances the
impeccably Nealean observation that 'the Court was the clearing-house for
royal patronage, and the distribution of patronage was a key to political
power'.13 The 'patronage system' features prominently in textbooks on the
period.14 More recently the relationship between factional politics and
patronage has been a leading issue in the debates over early-Tudor Court
politics, and, specifically, the apparently ideological factional struggles of
the 1530s.15 The connection between the two has been argued most strongly
The Crisis of the Aristocracy 1558-1641 (Oxford, 1979 edn), chap. 8. For further elaboration
of this argument, see also Stone, 'Office under Queen Elizabeth: The Case of Lord Hunsdon
and the Lord Chamberlainship in 1585', HJ3 10 (1968), 279; R. C. Braddock, 'The Rewards
of Office-Holding in Tudor England', JBS, 14 (1975), 29-30; L. L. Peck, 'Corruption at the
Court of James I: The Undermining of Legitimacy', in B. C. Malament (ed.), After the
Reformation (Manchester, 1980), pp. 77-8.
C. Carpenter, Locality and Polity: A Study of Warwickshire Landed Society, 1401-1499
(Cambridge, 1992), p. 4.
L. L. Peck, 'Court Patronage and Government Policy: The Jacobean Dilemma', in G. F.
Lytle and S. Orgel (eds.), Patronage in the Renaissance (Princeton, NJ, 1981), pp. 28-9. For
further recent general comment, see Peck, '"For a King not to be bountiful were a fault":
Perspectives on Court Patronage in Early Stuart England', JBS, 25 (1986), 31-61, and
A. Maczak, 'From Aristocratic Household to Princely Court: Restructuring Patronage in
the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries', in Asch and Birke (eds.), Princes, Patronage and
Nobility, pp. 315-28. V. Morgan, 'Some Types of Patronage, mainly in Sixteenth- and
Seventeenth-Century England', in A. Maczak (ed.), Klientelesysteme im Europa der Fruhen
Neuzeit (Schriften der Historischen Kollegs, Kolloquien IX, Munich, 1988), pp. 91-115,
on the other hand, does not address this subject.
Elizabeth I (London, 1988), pp. 88-9.
See, for example, A. G. R. Smith, The Government of Elizabethan England (London, 1967),
chap, v, 'The Patronage System'; and his Tudor Government (HA, New Appreciations in
History, no. 20, 1990), pp. 10-12.
For the disputed role of patronage-based factions in the fall of Anne Boleyn, see G. W.
Bernard, 'The Fall of Anne Boleyn', EHR, 106 (1991), 591-5, and R. M. Warnicke, 'The
Fall of Anne Boleyn Revisited', EHR, 108 (1993), 653-65, and the references cited there.
by Eric Ives, who claims that patronage 'produced the simplest form of
Tudor faction, the patron and the clients who depended on him and on
whom he depended'.16 But he and Pam Wright have also detected an
apparent reduction in factional tension over patronage in the middle years
of Elizabeth's reign. This stability he considers to have been an anomaly;
the factionalism of the 1590s was not so much a novel deterioration of
standards as a return to the Tudor norm.17
I have elsewhere advanced the argument that factional politics were not
endemic to the Elizabethan Court and must be seen as quite specific
responses to certain political conjunctures.18 Such an interpretation would
therefore fly in the face of this general agreement on the centrality of
patronage-based factions. A resolution is to be found in a re-phrasing of the
question. There is no need to dissent from the general agreement over the
factionalism of the 1590s; the issue is really the nature of the equally
generally perceived distinction between the 1590s and the previous decades,
if not the rest of the century. Had the patronage of the crown taken on new
significance during the course of Elizabeth's reign, or were the 1590s simply
a return to normal Tudor politics? The answer that will be advanced here
is a two-fold one:first,there had been a major re-shaping of the patronage of
the crown during the course of the century, and second, the 1590s saw a
dramatically different style of political behaviour. The conjunction between
the two created a new politics of patronage.
It is important to start by laying aside the assumption that the employment of patronage by the crown was political in inspiration, and to address
the subject instead from the contemporary perspective of the reward of
service. The issues involved were outlined succinctly by the earl of Salisbury on behalf of James I in 1608:
For as no Sovereign can be without service, nor service without some reward, so we
confess no prince is more desirous than we are to reward the merits of our servants
and other subjects in things that might befittingfor us to give, provided always that
E. Ives, Faction in Tudor England (HA, New Appreciations in History, no. 6, 1986), p. 7. A
similar approach is found in K. Sharpe, 'Faction at the Early Stuart Court', History Today,
33 (Oct. 1983), 39-46. Cf. Sharpens reference (p. 39) to patronage as 'the cynosure . . . of
early modern government'.
Ives, Faction, p. 21. P. Wright, 'A Change in Direction: The Ramifications of a Female
Household, 1558-1603', in D. Starkey (ed.), The English Court from the Wars of the Roses to
the Civil War (London, 1987), esp. p. 170. This point has also been made to me more
explicitly by Professor Ives in conversation.
See 'Favourites and Factions', Taction, Clientage and Party. English Politics, 1550-1603',
History Today, 32 (December 1982), 33-9, and 'Eliza Enthroned? The Court and its
Polities', in C. Haigh (ed.), The Reign of Elizabeth I (London, 1985), pp. 55-77.
the same be not prejudicial either to the main part and limbs [sic] of any revenue
which we are desirous to leave to our posterity.19
The basic definition of service was extremely loose. Claims for reward could
be framed in terms of service either rendered in the past, or to be rendered
in future, or both simultaneously. Henry VIII granted Sir Thomas Poynings a barony in 1545 cas well for some declaration of our goodness towards
him, as also to encourage him to serve us the better'.20 Service could be
either specific and contractual, or general. It was not necessarily directly
remunerated: wages were a descendant of the provision of board and
lodging in the household, and, as the transitional phrase 'board-wages'
reveals, were a consequence of the decline of the household, and therefore
intended primarily for those who could not maintain themselves on private
means.21 Nor were the fees attached to offices necessarily intended to supply
adequate reward for the services rendered; indeed they may have served
primarily as a formal symbol of the relationship between servant and
master. This would account for the widespread sixteenth-century practice
of supplementing offices with annuities.22
Office was not therefore assumed to be its own reward. The pattern was
more likely to be one of long periods of un-, or poorly, paid service in
expectation of a substantial reward at the end. The universally desired
reward was an estate of inheritance, for, as a medieval poet put it, 'servise is
non heritage'.23 Since this estate could be obtained most easily through a
direct grant, the late-medieval and Tudor monarchy faced the dilemma of
paying for generosity in reward through the alienation of its own landed
estate. For this reason policy towards patronage was an aspect of the crown's
overall financial policy, and changes in one had an immediate impact on the
other. The dilemma took on a particular form at the beginning of the
sixteenth century owing to three quite specific developments of the past two
PRO, SP 14/37/145v, also quoted, though in slightly different form, in L. L. Peck, Northampton: Patronage and Politics at the Court of James I (London, 1982), p. 29.
Quoted in H . Miller, Henry VIII and the English Nobility (Oxford, 1986), p. 34.
On board-wages in the sixteenth century, see Braddock, 'Rewards', 38. T h e decline of the
noble household is a theme of both J. M . W . Bean, From Lord to Patron: Lordship in Late
Medieval England (Manchester, 1989), and K. Mertes, The English Noble Household, 12501600 (Oxford, 1988).
Annuities had been the most 'open-ended' form of reward since the thirteenth century, see
Bean, Lord to Patron, pp. 13-14. By the sixteenth century they were used both to remunerate officers, see e.g. the 1515 Act of Resumption (below, p. 34), MacCaffrey, 'Place and
Patronage', pp. 114-15, and Stone, 'Hunsdon', and as compensation for surrendered
offices, see e.g. W . C. Richardson, History of the Court of Augmentations 1536-1554 (Baton
Rouge, La., 1961), pp. 181, 254-5, 258.
Quoted in S. J. Gunn, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk 1485-1545 (Oxford, 1988), p. 224.
For further sixteenth- and seventeenth-century illustrations of this crucial distinction, see
D . Thomas, 'Leases of Crown Lands in the Reign of Elizabeth I', in Hoyle, Estates of the
English Crown, p. 183.
centuries. The earliest was the final severance during the fourteenth century
of land held in feudal tenure from any meaningful obligations of service;
thus the crown was forced to reward the service of those who were nominally its chief tenants.24 The second was the disappearance in 1453 of the
crown's possessions in France as a source of reward.25 Ireland remained a
potential alternative, but Irish lands were not attractive, and in the sixteenth century they were largely reserved for service in the Irish administration and garrison, or for those prepared to settle or reside there. 26 The third
was the new concern to maintain the revenue from the Crown estate that
began with Henry IV's retention of the duchy of Lancaster in 1399, and
reached its highpoint under Edward IV and Henry VII. 27
The clearest illustration of the relationship between the politics of
patronage and financial policy can be seen in promotions to the peerage,
which is all the more striking given Elizabeth's reputation for parsimony in
the creation of peers. Underlying promotions was the unwritten assumption
that a peerage was an absurdity without sufficient landed wealth to maintain
the estate, and further that there should be a clear distinction in stature
between the various ranks of the peerage. Liberal creations of senior peers
would therefore necessitate substantial alienations from the Crown estate,
and it was precisely for this reason (give or take other political motives) that
the creations of Richard II and Henry VI were so strongly criticized.28
Elizabeth's parsimony is in fact an illusion caused by viewing her reign from
the perspective of the Stuarts, who essentially revolutionized the peerage.29
Between 1400 and 1603 the peerage was largely static both in overall
numbers, roughly between fifty and sixty, and in its internal composition,
the norm being a handful of non-royal dukes and marquesses, between ten
and twenty earls, another handful of viscounts, and (in the sixteenth century
at least) upwards of thirty barons.30
K. B. McFarlane, 'Bastard Feudalism', in England in the Fifteenth Century: Collected Essays
(London, 1981), p. 24. T h e running debate over bastard feudalism is not directly relevant to
this essay, but S. L. Waugh, 'Tenure to Contract: Lordship and Clientage in ThirteenthCentury England', EHR, 101 (1986), 811-39, contains a valuable discussion of this point.
For their earlier importance, see R. Massey, 'The Land Settlement in Lancastrian Normandy', in A. J. Pollard (ed.), Property and Politics: Essays in Later Medieval
(Gloucester, 1984), pp. 76-96.
The complaints of lord deputies when it was violated testify to the 'general rule', see e.g.
PRO, S P 61/3/97, 187, Sir James Croft to the duke of Northumberland, 27 July, 18 Nov.
R. A. Griffiths (ed.), Patronage, the Crown and the Provinces in Later Medieval England
(Gloucester, 1981), intro. p. 11. B. P. Wolffe, The Crown Lands 1461-1536 (London, 1970)
and The Royal Demesne in English History (London, 1971).
See, for example, the seventeenth-century observations by the marquess of Newcastle,
quoted in Peck, 'For a King not to be bountiful', p. 59.
As noted by Stone, Crisis, pp. 97-8, though this is not reflected in his further comments.
For the composition of the peerage in the sixteenth century, see the tables in Stone, Crisis,
p. 99 and Appendix VI, p. 758. In the fifteenth century the numbers were slightly inflated
Although there is no evidence that any figure either for overall size or
composition was ever established as optimal, it is difficult to avoid the
conclusion that the result was not wholly accidental. In other words the size
of the peerage was determined by the availability of estates. Replacing
political casualties posed no real problem in this respect, for the forfeited
estates of the victims could simply be re-granted to their successors. More
difficult was the failure of male lines through natural causes and the
subsequent dispersal of the estates through female inheritance. Thus while
at law earldoms and above descended only in tail male, there was nonetheless a general willingness to accord some recognition to female descents, and
many of the leading families of the Tudor 'new nobility' claimed historic
titles in this way: the Dudleys and the Grey viscountcy of Lisle and the
Beauchamp earldom of Warwick, Sir Anthony Browne and the Neville
viscountcy of Montague, and the Devereux and the Bourchier earldom of
Essex being the most obvious examples.31
Recruitment followed a consistent pattern. Leaving aside certain specific
exceptions, such as marital connections with the royal family (which
accounted for the ennobling of Charles Brandon and Edward Seymour),
new creations were made at the level of baronies, while the upper ranks were
replenished by the promotion of the wealthier barons and viscounts to
earldoms.32 In 1525 Lords Roos, Clifford and Fitzwalter became the earls of
Rutland and Cumberland and Viscount Fitzwalter. In 1529, in the largest
single burst of creations in Henry VIIPs reign, seven new barons were
created and Viscount Fitzwalter, Viscount Rochford and Lord Hastings
became the earls of Sussex, Wiltshire and Huntingdon. For all that is
written about the great plundering under Edward VI, the creations of his
reign followed his father's practice.33 During 1547 an earl holding the office
by baronies by writ, see K. B. McFarlane, The Nobility of Later Medieval England (Oxford,
1973), pp. 175-6.
The Dudley claim came through Edmund Dudley's marriage to Elizabeth, the Grey heiress.
See PRO, SP 10/1/104, Warwick to Paget, 24 March 1547. For the Devereux, see P. E. J.
Hammer, ' "The Bright Shining Sparke": The Political Career of Robert Devereux, 2nd
Earl of Essex', unpublished Cambridge Ph.D. dissertation (1991), p. 17. (I am most
grateful to Dr. Hammer for giving me a copy of his thesis.) For Browne, see J. A. Froude,
History of England (London, 1893 edn), VI, p. 153, though no source is given. On the
complications created by female heirs, see B. Coward, 'Disputed Inheritances: Some
Difficulties of the Nobility in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries', BIHR,
44(1971), 194-215, esp. 194-5, 198-9.
Miller, Henry VIII, pp. 11-12. Members of the royal family, however broadly denned, had
the first claim on the patronage of the crown (see McFarlane, Nobility, pp. 156-8), but since
this was not an issue in Elizabeth's reign, it need not be pursued here.
E.g. H . Miller, 'Henry VIII's Unwritten Will: Grants of Lands and Honours in 1547', in
E. W . Ives et al. (eds.), Wealth and Power in Tudor England (London, 1978), pp. 87-105.
Note, however, the initial rejection of Henry's 'deathbed' promotions by those proposed,
'thinkeng the land to litle for their mayntenaunce which was appoynted to them' (p. 88).
of Lord Protector and directly connected to the royal house became a duke
(Somerset), and a second, brother to the queen dowager, a marquess
(Northampton); a baron and a viscount became earls (Southampton and
Warwick); and four barons (Rich, Paget, Sheffield and Seymour of Sudeley)
were created. In 1550 two more barons became earls (Bedford and
Wiltshire), and a third a viscount (Hereford).34 In April 1551 on his
appointment as Lord Chamberlain of the Household, Sir Thomas Darcy
received a barony, and (significantly) 'for maintenance whereof he had given
him 100 marks to his heirs general and 300 to his heirs male'.35 October 1551
saw the last creations of the reign: the earl of Warwick became duke of
Northumberland ostensibly on appointment as Warden General of the
Marches (and on receiving many of the Percy lands); the marquess of Dorset
became duke of Suffolk, a title to which he possessed a claim through his
wife; the earl of Wiltshire, marquess of Winchester; and Sir William
Herbert, earl of Pembroke, a title to which he possessed a claim through an
illegitimate descent.36 Mary's major creations were restorations of the
victims of Henry VIII: the dukedom of Norfolk and the earldoms of Devon
and Northumberland. Her other creations consisted of one viscount (Montague) and five barons.37
At her accession Elizabeth was also faced with an issue of restoration, in
this instance the attainted Edwardian peers. At her coronation she made two
restitutions - the marquess of Northampton and Somerset's son, the earl of
Hertford - and created three new peers: two barons (Hunsdon and St. John
of Bletso) and one viscount (Howard of Bindon).38 More complicated was
the position of the two surviving Dudley brothers. In 1561 and 1562 they
T h e limited expansion of the Edwardian peerage is noted in M . A. R. Graves, The House of
Lords in the Parliaments of Edward VI and Mary I (Cambridge, 1981), p. 12.
Lords Russell and Paulet had received their baronies together with William Parr, the future
marquess of Northampton, on 9 March 1539. Russell was unusual in the extent to which his
estate was composed of ex-monastic property ( D . Willen, John Russell, First Earl of
Bedford: One of the King's Men (London, 1981), p. 122), but Paulet could not have been far
The Chronicle and Political Papers of King Edward VI, ed. W . K. Jordan (London, 1966),
W. K. Jordan, Edward VI: The Threshold of Power (London, 1970), p. 53. It might also be
noted that through his wife Suffolk was a member of the royal house as well. Pembroke was
the only man to rise directly to an earldom in the reign.
Mary's policy is discussed in G. W. Bernard, 'The Fourth and Fifth Earls of Shrewsbury: A
Study in the Power of the Early Tudor Nobility', unpublished Oxford D.Phil, dissertation
(1978), pp. 229-30, and D . Loades, The Reign of Mary Tudor (2nd edn, London, 1991),
pp. 52-3.
Hertford had been restored in blood by Mary in 1553. On 7 May 1559 he received a licence
to enter upon lands entailed by his father (Calendar of Patent Rolls, Elizabeth I, 9 vols,
London, 1939-86), I: 1558-60, p. 100; he did not receive a further endowment. Hunsdon
was an immediate Boleyn relation and had been a gentleman of Elizabeth's household in
1554 (APC, 1554-5, p. 25). Stone considers St. John and Howard of Bindon also to have
been royal cousins (Crisis, p. 98), but they were of minimal political importance.
received portions of their father's estate, and the barony of Lisle and the
earldom of Warwick went to Ambrose, the elder brother, in 1561. Robert,
the more politically significant, needed a separate and new creation. His
endowment on creation as baron of Denbigh and earl of Leicester in 1564
was the most generous single grant of a landed estate in the reign - he was
also the only man Elizabeth promoted directly to an earldom. 39 Only one
further creation was made in the decade, the promotion of Sir Thomas
Sackville, heir to the notoriously wealthy Sir Richard Sackville, to the
barony of Buckhurst in 1567.
The years 1570-2 saw the largest series of creations of the reign. The
upper peerage was replenished by the promotion of Lord Clinton and
Viscount Hereford to the earldoms of Lincoln and Essex, ostensibly for
service in the rebellion of 1569, and the 'restoration' of the earl of Kent. One
baron (De La Warre) was restored, and four (Burghley, Norris, Compton
and Cheyney) created. Cecil's barony may have been a consequence of his
services, but, despite his protests, he could certainly afford the dignity.
Norris had old associations with Elizabeth and had been ambassador in
France, but baronies were not usually awarded for diplomatic service and
'his living is known to be great' - his wife was a co-heiress of Lord Williams
of Thame. 40 Compton and Cheyney were devoid of political significance,
but they were the descendants of leading men of Henry VIII's Court and
notably wealthy. No less significantly, Sir Henry Sidney refused a barony in
1572 without a grant of lands from the crown, on the ground that his own
estate could not bear the dignity. 41 The first Lord Howard of Effingham was
under consideration for an earldom, but was rejected, apparently, because
'he hath not an earl's living'. 42 Similar concerns can also be found in the
proposals for a new series of creations in 1589, when lists of barons (all of
them principal officers of the crown) and wealthy gentlemen 'meet to be
advanced' were drawn up. 43 Nothing was done then, but the two creations
of the 1590s were men on these lists: the second Lord Howard of Effingham
became an earl (Nottingham) and Lord Thomas Howard (the duke of
Norfolk's second son) became Lord Howard de Walden. It is probable that
a similar pattern can be traced in the bestowing of knighthoods, although
T h e complexities of the Dudley restoration are discussed in S. Adams, 'The Dudley
Clientele, 1553-1563', in G. W . Bernard (ed.), The Tudor Nobility (Manchester, 1992),
PRO, SP 12/74/43, Walsingham to Cecil, 22 Oct. 1570. Walsingham described Norris this
way in requesting financial assistance if he was to succeed him in Paris, on the ground that
he was otherwise in danger of being 'charged above my calling'.
PRO, SP 12/86/159-v, Mary Sidney to Burghley, 2 May 1572. In April 1582, when Sidney
was approached about serving as Lord Deputy in Ireland for a third time, he demanded
both a peerage and an augmentation of his estate as the price, see KAO U 1475/C 7/art. 4.
PRO, SP 52/23/art. 6, Hunsdon to Burghley, 7 May 1572.
PRO, SP 12/222/32, 46-7.
the process would be more complex. In her instructions for Essex in 1599,
Elizabeth warned that knighthoods were only to be awarded to those who
deserved it by 'some notorious service' or those who had 'in possession or
reversion sufficient living' and claimed that sufficient moderation had not
been employed in the past - no doubt a reference to the 'Cadiz knights' of
The conclusion to be drawn from this survey is that honours, with certain
specific exceptions, were granted only to those who could already afford
them. The scales were weighted heavily in favour of the cadet lines of
greater families (the Howards being the greatest beneficiaries) and the
descendants of certain major office-holders: five baronies (Rich, North,
Williams of Thame, Buckhurst and Norris) were granted to families whose
fortunes were founded by officers of the Court of Augmentations. One
effect of this policy was almost to detach peerages and honours from any
'patronage system', since they were so rarely awarded for service. Attempts
to find a political motive behind specific creations, for example those of
1529, 1559 or 1570-2, may be misdirected.45 The crown's hand may only
have been forced by the desire to promote individuals to great offices of state
that were normally expected to be held by peers, thus Burghley's promotion
following his appointment as Lord Treasurer, or Lord Darcy's as Lord
Chamberlain in 1551. Elizabeth's conservatism did, however, create a specific tension over claims through the female line to extinguished peerages, for
fourteen peerages died out during the reign. Robert Sidney's vociferous and
obsessive pursuit of the Dudley earldoms of Warwick and Leicester during
the 1590s is a case in point. Yet there were quite valid reasons for resisting
his claims - notably the existence of two widowed countesses and the
dispersal of Leicester's estate owing to his debts to the crown and his
bequest to his illegitimate son - and we can query whether Sidney's lack of
success was the work of political enemies.46
J. S. Brewer (ed.), Calendar of the Carew Manuscripts (6 vols., London, 1867-73), III,
It has been argued (e.g. Miller, Henry VIII, pp. 22-3) that the purpose of the mass creation
of 1529 was to create a majority of temporal peers in the Lords. However, Henry Pole, Lord
Montague or John, Lord Hussey were odd choices if peers hostile to the church were
sought.
The discussion of Sidney's pursuit of the Dudley earldoms and estates in M. V. Hay, The
Life of Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester (1563-1626) (Washington, D C , 1984) is inadequate.
Peregrine Bertie managed to establish a claim to the barony of Willoughby d'Eresby by a
female descent in 1580-1, but only after considerable lobbying, see PRO, SP 12/144/51,
R. Bertie to Leicester, 11 Nov. 1580, and BL, Lansdowne M S 31, fo. 36, to Burghley, 13
Nov. 1580. Richard Fiennes and Edward Neville were unsuccessful in their respective
claims to the baronies of Saye and Sele and Burgavenny; see H M C , Manuscripts of the
Marquess of Bath, V, p. 91, and Manuscripts of the Marquess of Salisbury, III, pp. 251-2.
Neville is also discussed in Coward, THsputed Inheritances', 199-201. Sidney, Fiennes and
Neville were among those proposed for baronies in 1589, see PRO, SP 12/222/32.
If Elizabeth's 'policy' towards the peerage was very much within the Tudor
norm, her reign did see a major transformation of the patronage of the
crown. This, however, was as much the consequence of changes in financial
policy as the politics of patronage itself. Here the distinction between Henry
VIII's policy and his daughter's becomes most apparent, for Henry
employed a specific type of patronage that came to an end in the financial
collapse of the late 1540s, while Elizabethan practice was shaped by the
mid-century response to that collapse.
Henrician patronage was dominated by the 'royal affinity', a subject that
has only recently received serious attention. 47 The Tudor royal affinity was
the product of two major trends of the fifteenth century: the crown's
attempt to gain a monopoly over liveried retaining by creating its own
retinue or affinity, and the use of the Crown estate to support this affinity.48
Patronage was supplied by leases, annuities, rent charges and, most importantly, offices, particularly stewardships of Crown lands, rather than alienations. Offices of this type provided the crown with further specific forms of
service, in administration of the estate, in local government and in war. The
significance of the royal affinity to the raising of armies was made clear by a
statute of 1495, which stated that while all subjects owed military service, it
was 'specially suche persones as have by hym [i.e. the king] promocion or
avauncement, as grauntes and giftes of offices, fees and annuities, which owe
and verily be bounden of reason to gif their attendaunce upon his roiall
person to defend the same'. 49 The employment of offices in this way was
advocated by Sir John Fortescue in his proposals for re-endowing the
crown.50 As a policy it was pursued more or less consistently by Edward IV,
Henry VII and Henry VIII. 51 Under Henry VIII stewardships of royal
estates became one of the most widely employed types of reward. Many of
J. A. Guy, Tudor England (Oxford, 1988), pp. 165-8. D . Starkey, 'Intimacy and Innovation:
The Political Role of the Privy Chamber, 1485-1547', in The English Court, pp. 87-91.
C. Given-Wilson, The Royal Household and the King's Affinity (New Haven, Conn., 1986),
esp. chap. iv. Bean, Lord to Patron, pp. 205, 207, 210-11.
11 Henry V I I , c. 18, quoted in Miller, Henry VII, p. 133. T h e military function of the
affinity is further discussed in S. Adams, 'The English Military Clientele, 1542-1618', in
the proceedings of the Colloque on Patronage and Clienteles in England, Spain, France and
Italy 1550-1750, held at the Institut Francais (London) in May 1990 and to be published by
the Universite Charles de Gaulle-Lille III.
The Governance of England by Sir John Fortescue (ed. C. Plummer, Oxford, 1926),
pp. 143-4, 150-3.
For Edward IV, see D. A. L. Morgan, 'The House of Policy: The Political Role of the Late
Plantagenet Household, 1422-1485', in Starkey, The English Court, pp. 63-7. For Henry
VII, M. Condon, 'Ruling Elites in the Reign of Henry VIP, in C. Ross (ed.), Patronage,
Pedigree and Power in Later Medieval England (Gl
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Secret State of North Korea
Season 2014 Episode 2 | 53m 41s
FRONTLINE shines a light on the hidden world of the North Korean people, drawing on undercover footage from inside the country as well as interviews with defectors who are trying to chisel away at the regime’s influence.
Season 2014 Episode 2
Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Major funding for FRONTLINE is provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation, the Park Foundation, The John and Helen Glessner Family Trust, and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation.
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FRONTLINE investigates how Silicon Valley feeds the NSA's global dragnet.
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'An Exchange Student Appeared One Day'
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The Last Generation
Explore an island nation threatened by climate change through the eyes of three children who call call it home.
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Is 1919.cn scaling back in China?
China’s biggest online drinks retailer 1919.cn has reportedly closed 20 offline stores in Shanghai and is planning more closures nationwide amid the country’s slowing economy, according to Chinese media.
The news was first reported by Chinese website Digog, a retail trade news website. It said 20 of 1919.cn’s offline stores officially ended their business on December 11 in Shanghai, and the company is expected to close more stores across China.
The Chengdu-based drinks giant however downplayed the store closing in Shanghai as “store adjustment”. Its spokesperson told Chinese media 21st Century Business Herald that “partial store adjustment is a normal phenomenon” and the previous report was “erroneous”.
When reached by Vino-joy.com, the company refused to elaborate further on the news but assured that “the company’s operation in Shanghai at the moment is business as usual”.
China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba injected RMB 2 billion into 1919.cn
The news of 1919.cn store closing came this week on the heel of its successful Singles’ Day campaign, a mammoth online shopping extravaganza on November 11. Its total sales of alcoholic beverages including wine and spirits amounted to RMB 529 million (US$75.8 million), topping alcoholic beverage sales chart on the country’s major e-commerce platforms such as Tmall.com, Alibaba Auction and Ele.
Despite glowing sales figure from Singles’ Day, 1919.cn has been losing money this year. The company’s latest financial report shows despite its turnover of RMB 385 million (US$55.2 million) in first three quarters of the year, it is still at a loss of RMB 36.23 million (US$5.2 million).
Its growth strategy of combining online platform with offline stores and app sales nonetheless attracted attention from the country’s e-commerce giant Alibaba Group. Last October, the company received RMB 2 billion (US$290 million) investment from Alibaba. Its sales network has quickly expanded from its home base in Chengdu to a network of 1,800 shops across China today.
At the time of the investment injection, the company was planning to open 2,000 new stores by the end of 2019. The recent closing in Shanghai would signal a scale-back of operation at least at a time when consumer sentiment in mainland China is affected by the country’s slowing economy.
Founded in 1998 in China’s southwestern Sichuan province, the company’s rise to become the biggest drinks supplier to a country with 1.4 billion people is hailed by Wine Spectator as a “Chinese wine success story”.
Different from drinks merchants, which anchored their growth in first-tier cities like Shanghai or Beijing, its rise is attributed to its focus on lower tier cities in lesser developed regions of China before it circles back to cities like Shanghai.
The company’s sales are mainly generated through three channels, online platform, offline stores and app sales.
Vino Joy News is committed to bring you the most trustworthy news report on China’s wine industry. We’d like to hear your feedbacks and comments on our stories. You can reach us at info.vinojoy@gmail.com.
You can follow us on Facebook @VinoJoyNews and WeChat on 悦聊酒VinoJoyNews.
Tags1919 Wine and Spirits • 1919.cn • Alibaba Group • China's wine market • E-commerce
0 comments on “Is 1919.cn scaling back in China?”
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Tesla was just the beginning: Introducing the connected car landscape
Liz Slocum Jensen@whatliztweets May 11, 2016 5:01 PM
Until 2012, there had been no significant changes within the automobile industry for 15 years. But 2012 marked an inflection point from which myriad innovative opportunities emerged. Tesla showed us the power of a truly connected car with API’s that could remotely access a vehicle’s data and fix issues with over-the-air updates. Self-driving cars also became a tangible reality, with Google and Delphi demonstrating prototypes across America. Since then, in just a four-year period, the connected car market has transformed significantly. As of early 2016, the more active sectors with the most companies have been in ride hailing, aftermarket plug-in OBD-II dongle devices (on-board diagnostics refers to a vehicle’s self-diagnostic and reporting capability), and car rental/sharing.
The VB Profiles Connected Car Landscape maps companies and tracks innovation across the entire industry. It covers mobility technology from consumer apps and services to enterprise providers to big data to the Internet of Things (IoT). Both nascent firms and legacy companies are moving into this market with new business models. We will be updating the Landscape frequently with new entrants and keeping tabs on key trends.
Above: VB Profiles Connected Cars Landscape. (Disclosure: VB Profiles is a cooperative effort between VentureBeat and Spoke Intelligence.)
A high-resolution version of the VB Profiles Connected Cars Landscape is available for download here.
The on-demand business model
Beginning in 2012, on-demand, two-sided markets became one of the biggest trends in transportation and everyone’s favorite business model to emulate. Uber and Lyft inspired many niche copycats, such as HopSkipDrive, Shuddle (both rides for kids), and Wheeliz (wheelchair accessible peer-to-peer car rentals). T Dispatch even built an SaaS fleet management platform that can get a ride-hailing fleet up and running quickly.
However, since late December 2015, there has been a palpable shift in on-demand ride hailing, as services enter and exit the market at a consistent rate. Recently, Sidecar got acquired by GM, and Shuddle shut down its operations. Collectively, they had raised over $47 million dollars. This amount could not compete with the $8.3 billion and $2 billion in funding that Uber and Lyft have raised, respectively. Even though Sidecar was a pioneer when ride sharing was still an uncontested market, in the end it was out-maneuvered and out-financed.
Some are calling Uber the winner, especially in the U.S. This may appear to be the case in 2016. After all, when comparing Lyft and Uber, the consumer experiences feel identical, especially since many drivers work under both apps. But as the two companies simultaneously move into commuter carpooling, the types of customers who favor one brand over another might make the services somewhat distinguishable again. Outside of the U.S., Uber’s major Chinese competitor is Didi Chuxing, which has raised $5.3 billion and has partnered with Lyft, Southeast Asia’s Grab, and India’s Ola.
For the past few years, the ride-hailing space has kept us engaged with news about fierce competition, multi-billion dollar valuations, worker classification laws, municipality push-back, and strategic partnerships. Will the ride-hailing space ever become uneventful? For now, this sector continues to redefine itself frequently, as the dominant players work to find new markets and create strategic global partnerships, and the clones demonstrate whether their niche markets can create enough value.
Meanwhile, India is seeing growth in the last-mile delivery industry with The Porter, Blowhorn, and Let’sTransport. These on-demand services help people move anything anywhere. Considering that India has the highly efficient yet low-tech dabbawallah lunchbox system, I look forward to seeing how they can innovate logistics with a high-tech approach and whether these companies can find sufficient sustainability.
Finding value in car data
The OBD-II dongle area has become increasingly crowded with firms offering a developer platform for connected car apps. The big consumer players in the market include Automatic, Mojio, Dash, and Vinli. Existing standalone dongle-based apps include pay-as-you-drive insurance company Metromile and such fleet management companies as Automile. With so many developer’s tools, can we expect to see a barrage of connected cars apps in the near future? Most of these dongle platforms seed their marketplaces with similar apps, like fuel-efficiency calculators and trip logs. What other apps could we see by leveraging car data and integrating the car into the Internet of Things? Perhaps that most profound innovations around connected-car big data won’t be consumer-facing, but will focus on the enterprise side instead. Remote monitoring of the operations and status of vehicles will be relevant if we see a significant shift of car ownership from individuals to car-sharing or fleet management.
The end of car ownership?
Car ownership is radically changing. Even though it won’t go away completely, especially in rural areas where car owners use their vehicles daily, we already have a world in which not owning a car is finally an option for people in most high-density cities. Turo (formerly RelayRides), Getaround, and PPZuche enable peer-to-peer car rentals so that users can try all types of cars and owners can make money with their autos.
In San Francisco, Scoot’s electric rental scooters operate throughout the city and have expanded their riding range to 25 miles. Scoot also offers Renault’s Twizy (think urban golfcart), making a great use case for car makers and startups working together. At first, the Twizy was a concept car that Renault didn’t think could be viable in America. Scoot, however, in trying to recreate the European scooter culture in San Francisco, found the perfect American application.
At the airport, the rental car experience is getting less painful thanks to services from startups like Silvercar and Flightcar, who offer high-touch service, efficiency, and transparency of experience, along with high-end cars.
It is notable that the innovation in short-time car rentals has come from smaller companies like City Car Share and Zipcar, while it took very long for bigger companies — like Enterprise, Audi at Home, and BMW Now — to enter the space. These giants are now even using the term “sharing,” though when one entity owns the entire fleet, it’s rightly called “renting.”
The promise of autonomous vehicles
No overview of connected cars would be complete without mentioning self-driving cars. Mapping and vehicle-to-vehicle communication will play significant roles in progressing transportation toward full autonomy.
Quanergy is changing the LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) market with their low-cost 3D LiDAR sensors. The main issues with previous LiDAR systems was that they were very expensive (from $8000 to $80,0000) and that they had constantly moving parts. In early 2016, Quanergy announced a $250 solid-state LiDAR, which will make it easier and cheaper for robots of all kinds to sense what’s going on in the world around them.
GM recently acquired Cruise Automation, which developed an aftermarket kit that converts Audi A4 and S4s into self-driving cars and which was one of only thirteen approved participants in the California DMV’s Autonomous Vehicle Tester Program. GM isn’t wasting time with their new technology. They recently announced that they are partnering with Lyft to offer autonomous electric ride hailing by 2017. Meanwhile, Peloton is using radar and Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) to coordinate truck platoons that closely follow each other on the road. This automation technology creates fuel, safety, and logistical efficiencies in the transport sector.
To keep up with all of this innovation, maps will need to be more detailed and updated more often than is currently the case. Expect more comprehensive data collection, about things such as road markers and parking spaces, from companies like HERE.
Stanford Revs Institute for Automotive Research features an autonomous vehicle research section that highlights cars like Shelley, an Audi TTS Coupe that was developed to self-drive at high speeds under extreme conditions; and Marty, a DeLorean modified to test emergency handling scenarios by autonomously drifting. One hot topic in autonomous driving is robotic ethics. Researchers in the Stanford Revs program, in collaboration with philosophers, have done several field tests that are similar to Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics. The car’s actions can vary depending on whether its algorithm is weighted to favor of observing traffic laws or maximizing safety.
When considering where we might encounter autonomous vehicles in our everyday lives, I think we’ll initially see them in the form of truck platoons and in controlled communities that were specifically designed for autonomous driving. For the foreseeable future, connected cars will continue to be the prominent focus for the average consumer (before mass-market autonomous cars).
Distracted drivers and safety
Despite the many improvements in automotive technology and infotainment, the mobile phone is still a driver’s primary in-vehicle computing device. Our dependence on the phone has created a new, prolific hazard on the road. The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that texting while driving raises a driver’s crash risk by 23X. The ultimate solution is fully autonomous cars, but that reality is still too far in the future. We need a solution for now.
In the meantime, neither car makers nor telecom companies have figured out how to prevent drivers from interacting with their phones and keep drivers focused on the road. Cool voice technology and data-rich heads up displays make for stunning product demonstrations, but are still cognitive distractions. I founded Road Rules to automate tasks (such as responding to messages) so that drivers are not compelled to touch their phones when behind the wheel.
Until recently, transportation was dominated by legacy companies. Today, the “connected car” is no longer a buzzword or concept. The market is in full swing, with room for new opportunities, new players, and strategic partnerships with the legacy companies. Now, and over the next five years, we will see:
Machine learning/artificial intelligence optimize how we get around.
Data from the car, especially mobility habits, being leveraged by marketers to figure out how to sell you personalized goods and services.
Apple and Google pushing the driver experience to new areas via their infotainment platforms and possibly their own car offerings.
Whether Google, Tesla, and Lyft are able to make good on their audacious goals of offering autonomous cars to consumers.
Liz Slocum Jensen is the Founder and CEO of Road Rules, a company that automates tasks on drivers’ phones to limit driver’s distraction. You can track her 190+ company landscape here.
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Political Mother
Political, Societal Add comments
“The formality of weddings has never been a big thing for me,” Ms Gillard says. “I’m not an actively religious person, so you manage your relationships on the basis of whether you feel committed or not, rather than have you been through a particular ceremony. People have all sorts of choices – for me (marriage) doesn’t loom large.”
Julia Gillard .
Bannerman entirely agrees. He also entirely agrees with Ms Gillards estimation that motherhood and politics at the top level simply don’t mix. Consider Mark Latham. Not as a mother, although some might use that term in a derogatory fashion. His own focus on family would loom large in his failure, although from differing aspects than those which effect women in politics. Politics is most definitely NOT a mens only game, but women who believe that full-on motherhood and a top level political career are not only possible, but also achievable options together, simply aren’t being realistic.
Imagine, for example, Prime Minister Mother at an Asian Trade conference more concerned with her toddlers teething difficulties than avoiding being conned in trade negotiations. Yes, fanciful scenario and highly unlikely to ever occur, but Bannerman would ask the reader to consider just why said scenario would be so unlikely. The answer is quite simple. Motherhood and political leadership aren’t compatible. In fact, the very idea is laughable, just as is the concept of John W Howard caring about David Hicks.
Blundstone – Asian for Unemployment “You Want How Long Off????!!!!
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Movie Series
Hymn of Death
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You are watching now the Hymn of Death tv show has Drama Genres and produced in South Korea. Broadcast by Watch4HD.com and directed by ,
Kim Woo-Jin is a stage drama writer while Korea is under Japanese occupation. He is married with children, but he falls in love with Yun Sim-Deok. Yun Sim-Deok is the first Korean soprano. …
Actors: Ko Bo-Gyeol
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Guardiola plans to replace Kompany with Juventus star
Written by Stefan Vasilev on Tuesday 9th January 2018 15:44 PM
Picture: Станислав Ведмидь, cc by sa 3.0
Manchester City could snap up Juventus defender Giorgio Chiellini in bid to replace injury-prone Vincent Kompany, according to the Manchester Evening News.
Guardiola has complained about a lack of depth at the back this season following the injuries of Komapny and John Stones and sees Chiellini, 33, as the ideal solution to the problem. According to the Uk publication, however, the deal will only happen if the Citizens fail to secure their main winter transfer target – Barcelona’s Samuel Umtiti.
Umtiti has a release clause of €60 million but Guardiola could end splashing around £50 million to get him. It is understood Barcelona want to keep the French defender and are working to extend his contract.
Chiellini could cost the Citizens much less – in fact almost half than that – as only agent and player signing fees would be involved. His contract with Juventus runs out at the end of the season.
There has been no official comment from the player or club regarding such a move, but it is understood Juventus want to keep their long-serving defender.
Given his age and the slower pace of Serie A, Chiellini would likely accept any new offers coming from the Old Lady, but the option of gracing the Premier League for the first time in his career might hold some appeal for him.
By securing the depth in defence, Guardiola is looking to put the final stroke on an already impressive title challenge this season. The Citizens currently top the Premier League with a 15-point lead to second Manchester United.
Three cheers for the Royal Mail
Did you know that Cambridge United could have been Cambridge City? Did you even know of the existence of Cambridge City? No, well what about Cambridge..yes! Right, let’s...
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Three men allegedly stole victim’s motorcycle from the scene of fatal crash
Valley Jones | The BL 08/25/19, 22:27
Three men allegedly stole a victim's motorcycle from the scene of an accident in Detroit, on Aug. 24, 2019. (Pixabay)
A 22-year-old man died after crashing his motorcycle into a light pole in Detroit, then three men allegedly stole his motorcycle from the scene.
On Saturday, Aug. 24, the man was driving his motorcycle in the area of South Fort near Schaefer just before 11:30 p.m., according to a preliminary investigation. Police said he lost control and hit a light pole while traveling at a high rate of speed.
Three men on Harley Davidson motorcycles stopped at the scene, loaded the victim’s crashed motorcycle to a white Ford F-150 pickup truck and then drove away.
The victim was pronounced dead upon arrival at a nearby hospital.
Detroit police are still investigating the accident.
Tags:motorcycle crash stolen bike Categories: U.S.
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New year, new directors to come for Fiber and LUS
by Christiaan Mader
Photo by LeeAnn Stephan
The gist: Fiber and LUS have been formally split since the budget was adopted last year, but the search for new directors to run the now independent agencies was punted until the NextGEN affair was resolved.
Mayor-President Joel Robideaux intends to fill four vacant director positions this year. Fiber and LUS directorships have been vacant since the fall, when the council approved reorganizing Fiber into its own department. It’s an election year, which could complicate the job search, and Robideaux has been slow to fill other director level positions. LCG also currently has interim directors running the IT and planning departments. LCG Communications Director Cydra Wingerter says the search for an new IT director is starting this week.
Some background: LUS Fiber was created as a division of LUS, not a separate department of LCG. The two shared a director — until mid-last year, longtime LUS Director Terry Huval, one of Fiber’s founders — and shared some administrative staff. As Fiber’s operations have gotten off the ground, it’s built out its own support team. After the split, Fiber became its own department, not unlike public works or planning, and is separate from LUS. Since Huval retired last year, it’s been overseen by Interim Fiber Director Teles Fremin. Jeff Stewart serves as interim utilities director.
OK, so what difference does that make? Many have argued that Fiber has long needed its own dedicated director. The thinking is, it’s a $40 million a year operation that needs full-time attention to grow. That was Robideaux’s rationale when he proposed the split last year, and the council has come on board.
Fiber and LUS are financially intertwined, but the split shouldn’t change that. Fiber owes LUS $28 million for loans fronted by LUS in the system’s early days. Fiber has paid virtually only interest on that debt, but is scheduled to make big payments in the next few years, starting with a $1.5 million payment in 2019. Also, Fiber owes $110 million on bonds that are backstopped by LUS. In other words, if Fiber defaults on its bonds, LUS would be on the hook. Robideaux assured the council that LCG is ultimately responsible for Fiber’s debts, and nothing about the split changes the obligations.
Speaking of the council, the new city council will oversee Fiber once the charter amendments take effect in 2020. There was some question at Tuesday’s council meeting whether the split would swap out regulators. LUS is regulated by the Lafayette Public Utilities Authority, a council subset made up of the five city-majority council members. Establishing a city council negates the need for an extra body. Insofar as the LPUA governed LUS, Fiber was under its purview. But, by state law, Fiber is audited by the state’s Public Service Commission. The PSC, for instance, is reviewing the $1.8 million Fiber billed LUS for service to sewer lift stations that were hooked up but never turned on.
What to watch for: Salaries for the new fiber and utilities directors. Last year, council members Bruce Conque, now LPUA chair, and Kenneth Boudreaux argued Robideaux set the salaries too low: $150,000 for the utilities director and $115,000 for the Fiber director. Qualifications and salary for the utilities director will be set in consultation with LUS’s consultant of record, NewGen Strategies and Solutions (no relationship to NextGEN). But the Fiber director’s salary is up to the administration, subject to approval of the city-parish council this year and the city council in the future. Wingerter tells me the $100,000 salary is not set in stone and could rise depending on candidate interest.
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Christiaan Mader founded The Current in 2018, reviving the brand from a short-lived culture magazine he created for Lafayette publisher INDMedia. An award-winning investigative and culture journalist, Christiaan’s work as a writer and reporter has appeared in The New York Times, Vice, Offbeat, Gambit, and The Advocate.
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News + Notes
Lafayette architect Henry Boudreaux convicted of felony theft
The gist: Lafayette architect Henry Boudreaux pleaded no-contest to theft over $25,000 in connection with allegations he bilked a Vermilion Parish couple during a massive renovation project to their historic home. No-contest has the same effect as a guilty plea.
Business + Innovation
It’s been a rough first half of 2019 for Waitr
The gist: Waitr started the year on a high, buying up equal-sized competitor Bite Squad and hitting $14 a share in March. Since then, the nascent public company hit the rocks, facing lawsuits, potential restaurant strikes and a stock that’s fallen below $7.
Lafayette’s healthcare economy is heating up
The gist: Oil and gas may still be down, but Lafayette’s healthcare economy has realized a series of wins over the last few weeks with good news from companies like VieMed, NeuroRescue and ThinkGenetic.
Council split may be thrown out for re-vote, flaring political tension
The gist: Only months to go before elections to seat new city and parish councils, and last fall’s vote to create the separate bodies may be thrown out. City and parish voting maps do not match underlying legal descriptions, an error of hasty work, which gives potential cause to invalidate the result.
What would Maurice Heymann do to build a brighter future for Lafayette?
Given that he fostered an industry that generates billions of dollars in GDP, it'd be great to ask him what he would do to get us out of the $10 billion hole our economy's in.
Irma Trosclair makes her case
The interim Lafayette school superintendent wants to make her job permanent.
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Don't miss a beat.
Weekly Wire
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5 worst fast food 'healthy' kids' meals
NBC Miami- Some of our favorite foods have made the list of the five worst “healthy” fast food kids’ meals. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine released the list Thursday as the summer season begins.
Javier Suarez is a father of two and said he sometimes takes his kids to eat fast food. “The thing is that I know they are bad, but when you are in a hurry at the end of the day, you have to feed him,” he said.
The committee said that foods listed as healthy really are not. Chick-Fil-A’s grilled nuggets kids’ meal, which topped the list, contains the same amount of cholesterol as a Big Mac, according to the list.
“It’s processed, they add salt to cook and preserve the food and it’s also the sides and the drink,” said Kasie Fondren-Jorquera, a registered clinical dietitian at Memorial Hospital Miramar.
Click here to read the full story.
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The Heart Truths
To Keep Singaporeans Thinking by Roy Ngerng Yi Ling 鄞义林
Are High Rents Stifling Businesses In Singapore?
Businesses Highlight Rents As Key Concern
Earlier this year, before Budget 2013 was announced, businesses had announced their own proposals for what they had hoped Budget 2013 would provide.
Many of these businesses highlighted rising rents as a concern.
In the Singapore Business Federation National Business Survey 2012/2013, “72% of (businesses) indicated reducing business costs as their top concern” (Chart 1).
Chart 1: Singapore Business Federation National Business Survey 2012/2013
Of the costs that are most concerning to them, rental costs came out top (Chart 2).
The Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Singapore had also conducted a Pre-Budget Roundtable 2013, and they had said that, 60% of businesses “are increasingly concerned about rising business costs, especially rental costs” (Chart 3).
Chart 3: Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Singapore Pre-Budget Roundtable 2013
Once again, they highlighted rents as a major concern – “81% of the respondents want measures to reduce or offset rental cost”. Very clearly, the high rents also prevent businesses from being able to do more for employees, as “many respondents indicated that the high rental costs affect their financial ability to invest in automation and staff training to enhance productivity.” They had also, “suggested that the government consider a one-off relief or grant to help the SMEs better cope with rising business costs, particularly rental costs, and other measures to provide more industrial land and office areas at affordable rates”.
Given that rising rents are a major concern and prevent businesses from passing on any savings to the workers, if you are the government, what would you do? Would you reduce rents?
I don’t have further access to information on the trend of the rising rents, so I am not able to make a further comparison here. Otherwise, we could also look at how fast rents are rising, and decide on how fast we think they should run.
The Government Controls The Rents
But your next question might be – but why would the government be able to control the rents? Well, because it does.
You see, the PAP government has its hands in all aspects of rent.
First, government agencies such as the Housing Development Board and the National Environmental Agency lease out spaces.
Second, the government runs two investment companies – Temasek Holdings and GIC and they have majority shares in private companies. Of the major real estate companies in Singapore – CapitaLand, Mapletree and Surbana, the Temasek Holdings has majority shares in them (Chart 4). Other real estate companies also has indirect investments from Temasek. For example, Fraser and Neave has in them shareholders such as DBS, which Temasek has majority shares in.
Chart 4: Temasek Major Investments Portfolio
Finally, non-real estate companies like the SMRT, which also lease out commercial units for rent, also have majority investments from Temasek.
So, you see, the government is a major player, if not the main player of the business of collecting rents in Singapore.
What Dr Aline Wong, Academic Adviser for SIM University, and who once helmed the Housing and Development Board and was Senior Minister of State (Health and Education) from 1995 to 2001, had said, would be more insightful. She had said that, “At a local level, there is tremendous competition for space. And the allocation system, if it depends on the market, may not be the most efficient, as it’s not where the local needs are.”
Given this scenario, do you think it is healthy that the government is a major rent-collector in Singapore? How does their involvement in almost all sectors of the property market allow them to control land, and housing prices and allow them to jack up prices beyond the affordability of Singaporeans? Also, how much rent is the government collecting exactly and how is it coming back to Singaporeans, or not?
Written by Roy Ngerng Posted in Uncategorized
September 21, 2013 - 12:26 pm Ng Lip Hong
this is strange. so what is your suggestion? that we don’t follow ALL the other countries with business that rent out space NOT to raise rent forever?
September 21, 2013 - 10:32 pm Namco
#CHANGE
Did you miss it? A government shouldn’t be run like a business. There is a need for a mindset change at the top of the echelon. First thing you have to ask yourself is what is the function of a government? Is it just to collect revenue and maximise profit, minimise losses? Or is there more to it? Why would the people need or vote for a government? You need to ask yourself very fundamental questions and do some soul searching, then you will slowly understand what fuels people like Roy to write such an article.
Having said that, rent must rise over time, but it must be at a pace that is sustainable, not like what is happening now. Ask Roy to show you some charts if you still can’t understand what he is getting at.
September 21, 2013 - 7:39 pm firez
We all know that.. how is that bad? I believe lip hong is asking you if there’s a better solution to our land scarce country. The hard truth is probably more than just facts but opinion…. poor
September 21, 2013 - 7:51 pm Ng Lip Hong
the problem is every where! look at who is replacing the mighty mcdonalds who couldn’t afford it. a local startup call sa sa!
The Big Mac has been priced out of Hong Kong’s most exclusive shopping strip to make way for yet another retailer eyeing the wallets of cashed-up mainlanders.
Despite McDonald’s being the world’s largest chain of hamburger restaurants, it still could not afford the rents in Causeway Bay’s Russell Street, and has been forced to move out.
Operated by McDonald’s Corp, the restaurant opened on the first floor of 8 Russell Street in 2006.
Donald Cheung Ping-keung, executive director of the landlord, Emperor International, said the 6,000 square feet shop had been leased to Sa Sa International Holdings for HK$1.58 million a month. Sa Sa will move in in October.
The rent is more than three times higher than the existing monthly rent of HK$500,000 paid by McDonald’s, which signed a lease two years ago.
Joe Lin, senior director of retail services at CBRE, said: “Retailers such as luxury watch and jewellery stores who are targeting mainland shoppers are eager to move into the street, as it has become the most famous shopping street to mainland tourists. [Luxury retailers] are willing and able to pay rent of HK$1.6 million for a shop in the street. Other retailers are able to afford a monthly rent of only up to HK$900,000, so it is inevitable that other non-luxury goods tenants have to move out.”
Lin said retail rents in Russell Street have jumped sevenfold since the Individual Visit Scheme, allowing mainlanders to visit the city, was launched in 2003. By last year, the average rent of street-level shops on the street surpassed Fifth Avenue in New York, making it the most expensive shopping street in the world, according to Cushman & Wakefield.
Fifteen of the 28 stores on the street are sellers of luxury watches and jewellery. Including retailers of cosmetics, a money exchange, high-end fashion and luxury accessories, there are 24 stores targeting mainland shoppers. Only four shops do not rely on mainland tourists.
Lai Wing-to, a veteran property investor who owned a shop in Russell Street, said: “The retailers open these shops as a way of advertising their brands, and they are also able to generate profit. In the last few years, it has been common to see mainlanders buying dozens of watches.”
Lin said the non-luxury retailers who are not reliant on mainlanders may generate only moderate profit and may have difficulty affording expensive rents.
McDonald’s is an example. A Big Mac meal cost HK$21. Even if McDonald’s paid no other operating expenses, it would have to sell one Big Mac meal every 35 seconds every 24 hours to pay a monthly rent of HK$1.58 million.
Beijing’s anti-corruption campaign and the economic slowdown on the mainland have meant that local sales of luxury goods have decreased significantly since early this year. But retail rents are expected to stay firm in the short term.
Cheung said there were hundred of international brands in the world and many of them were interested in expanding in Hong Kong. “But the growth in the rent will slow,” he said. “We won’t see a 20 per cent growth a year as we saw over the last few years. It will be flat, as rents have increased a lot over the last four years.”
http://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/1269772/big-mac-loses-prime-slot-make-chain
Lin said: “Even if the overall retail rents turn flat or fall, the rents in Russell Street would be the last to suffer.”
September 23, 2013 - 7:37 pm mandy
Ng Lip Hong,
So what is your point ? If you want to convince us it is everywhere speaking like PAP , may I suggest you stop responding to this site least it makes a fool of yourself and insulting the intelligence of the readers here. I’m sure if you post in STForum, you might gain more respect among the daft. It is like saying GST is everywhere when there is no GST for Hong kong, in the same way something the PAP will quickly point out using mediacorpse through some selective public to tell us that a toilet in Hong kong can buy you a flat in Singapore, while at the same time, conveniently compare to GST rate to some countries with higher GST but not to hong kong with no GST .
I don’t know what is your intention but at least stop insulting our intelligence.
That’s what happens when a government runs the country like a business. Singapore INC.
September 21, 2013 - 10:43 pm komatineni
honestly and pragmatically, this is how a nation should be run. If it’s not we can see examples throughout the world. Whether it’s developed or developing, there are limitless examples.
September 22, 2013 - 12:53 am firez
Lol. You obviously don’t understand what the singapore government is doing. There’s a reason why majority of these companies are government linked because we never want our lands to fall to private entities and have no control. Running like a business? I agree but if they are not doing a good job, the business won’t be so prosperous. Furthermore, if you mention about social issues, take a look at hong Kong. Is that really what we want? I may not think that this is the best system but it’s the best at the moment. Lastly, please be rreminded that our land is scarce, it’s natural for land to get mmore expensive. It’s a supply and demand issue.
September 22, 2013 - 4:25 pm Sgcynic
Our lands must never fall to private entities! But no problem with power generation plants, GLCs and other strategic assets! Uniquely Singapore. What irony!
September 23, 2013 - 10:36 pm Roy Ngerng
Businesses are prosperous? Tell that to the people who have seen their wages remained stagnant while prices increase and to the very poor where their real wages have dropped.
September 22, 2013 - 3:37 pm Anon
Very soon the serfs here will have to work 16 hours to afford a bedspace for 8 hours.
This can happen with a PM who is a mathematician only able to work with numbers and cannot quantify citizens’ happiness and well-being.
It’s better to have something to work for than having no work..
September 22, 2013 - 11:14 pm sally
Its better to work for high pay than low pay. Its also better to wait for better pay than to work for pittance.
September 23, 2013 - 2:31 am Anon
So it’s better to be a citizen only in name when in actuality one is a subject – a subject of the Kingdom of Lanfang?
Are you an eunuch in the service of the King of Lanfang?
September 23, 2013 - 11:38 am Ong
This is pure economics.. supply and demand. In many of the comments/articles, it talks about raising minimum wage, why is housing expensive? why is medical expensive? why is retail rents going higher? If you want to raise salaries, someone has to pay for it…. if it goes too high, business becomes unsustainable and companies will leave Singapore and then we will lose jobs. This is not that I want for myself and my next generation. Can we always subsidize? Look at Thailand now, the government is allocating so much money to buy rice/rubber from their farmers at way above international prices causing a huge deficit (of course there are other reasons contributing to the deficit). Eventually, it all boils down to a free economy and slight government intervention will be able to help those who are a disadvantaged. I Strongly agree with some comments in this blog that this is perhaps the best system at the moment.
” Can we always subsidize? ”
Of course not, but the government here will love to subsidize you here as they can raise the price way above the subsidy and then return a fraction of the excess profit as subsidy to make you feel happy and feel good. If you really observe, it always the same pattern, when the govt want to hike (property tax, gst), they will wayang the parliament debate and give you one-time rebate, but then you endup paying more after the rebate are used up.
September 23, 2013 - 11:18 pm Duh
That’s how I boil the frogs too.
Singapore is a planned economy. The free market is planned – there’s no free market when the government owns the largest companies in Singapore.
September 23, 2013 - 12:24 pm Pingback: Daily SG: 23 Sep 2013 | The Singapore Daily
September 23, 2013 - 5:25 pm Pingback: Singapore Has The Lowest Wage Share Among High-Income Countries | The Heart Truths
September 26, 2013 - 5:19 pm CoolKid.Asia
Yes, rent is stifling alot of NEW businesses, it keeps going up and new businesses who ae trying to make it are usually held back from growth due to the rise in rentals!
October 1, 2013 - 5:25 pm Pingback: How The PAP Squeezes Singaporeans Dry | The Heart Truths
January 26, 2014 - 12:51 pm Vote against PAP in 2016!
Remember rents is so high because of supply and demand situation. With the open door policy of foreigners including foreign companies especially those from India and China, there are many small setup shops especially those in IT, setting up small offices and cause a huge demand in renting offices.
And not only commercial rentals, but also residential rentals like HDB etc. Many Singaporeans took the opportunity to buy a second house and rent out their HDB, hence you can see many HDBs now more than 30% of them are foreigners renting it.
But sad to say, when PAP starts to clamp down on open door policy on foreigners, these artificial short term demands will dwindle over time. You will see many foreigners out of job and going back home, and less foreigners renting out on HDB, and those foreign SMBs companies who is unable to hire their own kind, forced to close shop, hence this will also diminish the demand for commercial office rentals.
January 26, 2014 - 1:29 pm Roy Ngerng
Rents are high because the government controls the prices of land and rents.
March 6, 2014 - 5:26 pm Pingback: Increasing S&CC: How The PAP Took $126 Millions Away | The Heart Truths
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June 3, 2015 - 1:15 pm renewal
Good respond in return of this difficulty with solid arguments and describing everything about that.
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July 1, 2016 - 4:50 pm Pingback: 77th street has closed down: Another victim of rising rents.
September 28, 2016 - 4:25 pm Pingback: 77th street has closed down: Another victim of rising rents. – Primabuzz
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The Enduring Appeal of Walls (for Troglodytes)
Published on December 28, 2018 December 29, 2018 by thekingsnecktie
During the presidential campaign, Trump’s crowd-pleasing promise to build a “big beautiful wall” along the US-Mexican border was the signature idiocy of his run. From the very start the idea was laughably simplistic, wrongheaded, impossible to implement, and—ironically—sure to be ineffective even if by some miracle it did get built. Which is to say, a perfectly Trumpian idea.
And Trump didn’t stop there. It wasn’t enough to promise the Great Wall of America. Mexico was going to pay for it. Hilarious!
I’ll admit that, when it seemed inconceivable that he would win, I mused to friends that it would almost be entertaining if he did win, just to watch his supporters’ frustration when Trump found that promise impossible to keep.
Sorry for jinxing that, America. My bad.
WALLS AND BRIDGES
Many column inches have already been devoted to the pragmatic problems (obstacles, one might say) inherent in trying to wall off our southern border: the irregular terrain, the mixture of public and private land, the insane expense, the sheer scale and scope of the endeavor, and on and on.
But the impracticality of the border wall is not really the issue. The issue is the absolute irrationality of the hysterical, xenophobic impulse that is promoting this incredibly pointless idea in the first place.
Illegal immigration is at historic lows. The undocumented immigrants already here constitute an indispensable element of the American economy, performing the menial, often backbreaking, low-wage labor that Americans won’t, often in the employ of the very people—the Trump family included—who consistently vote Republican and villainize them. Nor, contrary to what Fox News would have us believe, do we face anything like the refugee crisis that Europe is experiencing, let alone a marauding “caravan” of thugs and drug dealers along with the odd Al Qaeda infiltrator.
So Democrats should stop conceding this “border security” canard to Trump and the GOP. Every time Trump or one of his Republican flying monkeys screeches about “securing the border,” the Democratic response is always prefaced with an obliging concession that yes yes, border security is soooooo important. It even happened—repeatedly—in the great televised Oval Office smackdown where Pelosi and Schumer otherwise handed Trump his ass.
Can we stop this farce please?
At best, Democrats should say, “Yes, border security is important…..BUT YOU AREN’T TALKING ABOUT BORDER SECURITY!” It’s that last phrase that is always missing, the absence of which cedes Republicans points they don’t deserve.
Border security isn’t the issue here in the slightest. Yes, Virginia, we do have an immigration problem, but only in the sense of a broken bureaucratic system that has no mechanism for properly assimilating the desperate migrant people and their children who come to America seeking refuge and a better life, and for policing those among us who would exploit them. But what we don’t have—sorry Lou Dobbs—is an oceanic wave of murderous brown-skinned hordes swarming across the southern border to lace our water supply with meth and deflower virginal white womanhood.
No matter. Immigrants, legal and otherwise, do serve a crucial role for the GOP, in that demonizing and scapegoating a class of people—outsiders of some sort, invariably—is page one of the fascist handbook.
Accordingly, the wall is a solution in search of a problem, and a glaring example of the real issue, which is pervasive and virulent bigotry in this country, encompassing racism, xenophobia, nativism, and various toxic combinations thereof. That is the engine that drives the modern Republican Party (in the service of further enriching its wealthiest members), reaching its apotheosis under Donald Trump.
And that is why the wall has become its singular obsession.
GET YER SNAKE OIL HERE
Here’s the thing about walls. Throughout history they have promised an attractive, literally concrete solution to security, from medieval castle to continental superpower.
But they have never worked.
A wall or any other kind of barrier can serve a role, but it is not a panacea. A deer fence is good, if it’s high enough, and if your problem is deer. An offshore barrier is great in a hurricane, but there is always a storm so big that it can’t be stopped, and it’s useless if what you’re trying to keep out are birds, not rain.
The idea of a border wall is similarly ill-conceived.
It is a paradox of military affairs that it’s easier to defend than attack, but one nevertheless always prefers to be the attacker, as the attacker holds the initiative. Any defense can be overcome with sufficient time, resources, and determination. As Tim Rogers wrote in Splinter:
“Build a 10-foot wall and I’ll show you an 11-foot ladder,” said Obama’s Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson during a speech last September in North Carolina. “If somebody is motivated enough to leave Central America and travel the entire distance of Mexico and climb a 10,000-foot mountain, they’re not going to be deterred by a 10-foot wall.”
Yes, if we dropped everything else and devoted all our tax dollars and all our resources and deployed a goodly portion of our entire law enforcement community and our armed forces, we might be able—over several decades—to build and maintain a wall big and formidable enough to stop routine overland border crossings into the US via Mexico. Say, seventy feet high, topped with concertina wire, surrounded by trip wires, minefields, and moats filled with boiling lava, overwatched by armed guards with M-60 machine guns, surveillance satellites, and hunter/killer drones.
The immorality of such measures is self-evident in terms of disproportionality to the threat. It would also be an unforgivably immoral waste of money in light of America’s other pressing needs. (Kind of like India of the 1970s ignoring famine in order to build an atomic bomb.) More to the point, it would likely do nothing except inspire different forms of illegal entry via other access points and by other means. As it stands, a majority of undocumented aliens in the US entered legally and overstayed their visas. (Of those, the largest number come from Canada.
Give those facts, I support the notion of border fencing—or even “aesthetically pleasing steel slats,” as Trump calls them—at strategic portions of the southern border. I just don’t think a magical, continuous, impenetrable wall is called for, possible, or would even do the job for which it is envisioned.
May I humbly suggest that the ultimate solution to our immigration issues is to address the root causes of global inequality, oppression, and greed that drive the mass movements of people fleeing such troubles?
But that sort of nuanced, complex solution—one that requires thought, patience, and a belief in facts—finds little purchase in the dishonest, bare knuckles world of American politics, particularly when one of the two major parties is not interested in a real solution in the first place, only in whipping up its rabid base.
A GOOD GUY WITH A WALL
“Build the wall!” on the other hand, is a perfect tribal rallying cry, a ridiculous, effectively impossible fantasy reflecting the primitive, reactionary thinking of its adherents, not to mention their contempt for logic, justice, the rule of law, the reality of the national security situation, and simple physics. Watching a crowd of mouthbreathing Trump supporters shout it is like something right out of a Leni Riefenstahl retrospective.
The obvious parallel, of course, is guns. Like a wall, a gun is an appealingly simplistic, brute force solution to a threat. But also like a wall, it is not always the solution it promises to be, and in fact, is often lethally counter-productive.
Not being a pacifist, I am not saying there is never a time or place for firearms. (Omaha Beach is a good example.) But as I have written before, the knee-jerk mentality that a gun is always the best recourse—or any recourse at all—is wildly foolhardy, the product of fear, misplaced machismo, and the unrealistic wish for a quick fix. (See Why Can’t I Own an M-1 Tank? and Blood On Their Hands.)
The same goes for walls, although mercifully, being (mostly) passive in nature, they tend to be less actively destructive. But that does not make them any more useful when deployed in error or to no logical end.
WE DON’T NEED NO EDUCATION
Let’s review some of history’s most famous walls.
There’s Jericho, of course, brought down by some biblical bebop player.
There’s the Great Wall of China, which may have worked fine in 200 B.C.E., but now is little more than the name of a place to get good moo shu at the mall.
There was the Maginot Line, which stopped the Wehrmacht for all of zero seconds.
There was the ill-conceived Strategic Defense initiative—better known as “Star Wars,” but also dubbed the “peace shield” by its proponents—which was supposed to provide a kind of overhead wall (sometimes called a roof) against Soviet ICBMs. Whatever its ultimate value for Reagan bluffing in Reykjavik, it was never a viable idea in practical or strategic terms. Not for nothing was it derided as a “Maginot Line in space.”
In the present day, Israel famously uses a complex system of border defenses to protect itself, and more controversially, to extend its territory by means of settlements in Gaza and the West Bank. Trump and Netanyahu are therefore locked in a mutual cheerleading pact, each pointing to the other to justify his own actions on that count.
But if you think the United States should aspire to the security situation of Israel, you’re welcome to it.
The most famous wall of them all, of course, was in Berlin, which—anticipating your complaint—was unique in that it was designed to keep people in not out, the laughable rhetoric of the DDR notwithstanding. But the East German government was partially correct: the Berlin wall was intended to keep people out, because the transit of Westerners to and from the Soviet sector would expose the communist lie about the workers’ paradise. That those migrants were wealthy and free (by Warsaw Pact standards), and the German citizenry behind the walls impoverished and suffering—a reversal of the usual dynamic in a walled city—made no functional difference. Either way, inclusive or exclusive, the impulse behind the Berlin Wall was the same as all the others: a resort to the most primitive of methods to restrict the free flow of human intercourse.
I think we all know how that played out.
When I was stationed in Germany in the mid to late 1980s I visited both East and West Berlin frequently, right up to the month before the wall came down. (Some of my best friends were lucky enough to be present for the event.) At the time it was still an occupied city controlled by the major Allied powers, and American, British, and French soldiers like us had the right to travel to all four quadrants, in accordance with the Status of Forces Agreement instituted at the end of World War II.
Let me tell you, it was a surreal sight to see.
To watch a state so helpless to govern without that kind of unabashed brutality toward of its people, so terrified of the outside world, so bereft of humanity, that it would erect an enormous miles-long concrete monument to its own awfulness was unforgettable.
I sure didn’t think that thirty years later I’d be witnessing the rise of that same mentality in my own country.
HULK SMASH!
While we’re on the subject, can we stop for a moment and note that this week a second migrant child—an eight-year-old boy—died in the custody of Customs and Border Patrol as a result of contemporary American immigration policy?
In the wake of this tragedy DHS did step up its medical protocols. (That sound you hear is the barn door belatedly closing.) But Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen also issued a statement that surely ranks as among the most dishonest and despicable ever released by the Trump administration, which is saying something. “Our system has been pushed to a breaking point by those who seek open borders,” Nielsen said. “Smugglers, traffickers, and their own parents put these minors at risk by embarking on the dangerous and arduous journey north.”
What a vomit-inducing lie. The only reason CBP is overwhelmed is because the Trump administration—at the urging of that odious homunculus and Hair Club for Men reject Stephen Miller—instituted a “zero tolerance” / no triage policy for border crossers, to include asylum seekers, a policy that mandated detaining every apprehended migrant as well as taking children from their parents. To now cry that DHS is overwhelmed is the height of arrogance and dishonesty.
It is astounding to observe the yogi-like contortions of people like Nielsen and her bosses who seek to blame migrants for their own plight and for the jackbooted treatment that Miller has devised for them in our name. Chief among these is the battle cry that “They’re breaking the law!” by coming to the US without papers. This from people who won’t acknowledge that we stole this country from its original inhabitants in the first place.
That strict devotion to law and order miraculously vanishes, of course, when it comes to any of President Trump’s demonstrable lawbreaking, from felony campaign finance violations to conspiracy with a foreign power to defraud the United States, crimes which are greeted with a dismissive wave of the hand and the excuse that “these are minor violations” and that “everyone does it.” (Neither statement true, it ought to go without saying.)
It’s almost enough to make one forget Nielsen’s other howler of the week, her cavewoman-like pronouncement to Congress, “We need wall!” Perhaps, besieged as she is by the president, and now without the protection of her mentor John Kelly, she felt the need to demonstrate her neanderthal bonafides.
We don’t need to get into the Chinese finger-trap debate over “open borders,” an inherently deceptive phrase that the right uses to gin up fear within its base and beyond. It’s only common sense that any functional nation can and should have reasonable, civilized, yet effective border controls. Call me naive, but I think that can be done without turning the United States into an armed camp of nativist maniacs.
But as noted above, the Trumpian desire to build a wall, like the desire to ban Muslims from entering the US, to slash even legal immigration, and generally to betray the moral foundations of this country, is not driven by a legitimate crisis of any kind. It is driven by bigotry, nativism, and fearmongering plain and simple. Hateful though it is, some of that sentiment is at least genuine, and some of it cynical and employed only as a wedge issue for partisan gain, and I’m not sure which is worse.
After McConnell and Ryan patiently explained to him that they didn’t have the votes to fund the wall, Trump was briefly prepared to do the pragmatic thing and punt, for now…..until Coulter, Limbaugh, Doocy, et al said “jump” and he bolted from his seat, squealing “How high, milord?”
The right wing media and Vlad Putin must have a complicated custody arrangement for Trump’s testicles.
And so he reversed himself (no, you say!!!), dragged Congress back to Washington, and is currently holding his breath—and governance hostage—until he gets what he wants.
It was only weeks ago that Trump swore on national television that he would proudly own any shutdown and would not blame the Democrats.
Paging Captain Renault: Trump is blaming the Democrats.
Even without that airtight video evidence, Trump’s attempt to pin the blame on the Democratic Party is comical. The GOP controls the White House and both houses of Congress (to say nothing of a growing majority of the federal judiciary), yet it blames Pelosi and Schumer for governmental dysfunction?
The pettiness of Trump’s Christmastime shutdown—equal parts self-destructive and just plan destructive—is shameless, not to mention his wanton disregard for the general welfare he swore to protect. Its only point, of course, is to please his disciples by showing his symbolic commitment to the wall, even if it means amputating their collective nose to spite their collective face. How many federal workers—Trump supporters included—will go without paychecks at Christmas and beyond because of our infant-in-chief’s temper tantrum?
The shutdown is especially galling in light of the fact that the Trump administration has spent only a tiny fraction of the $1.7 billion already allocated for border walls. And to what end? As McConnell and Ryan conveyed to him, and as every other sentient politician knows, Trump does not have the support even within his own party to fully fund the wall, and he’s not going to be in a better position when the Democrats take control of the House on January 3, 2019.
But of course Trump Nation has generously overlooked other, related promises…..chiefly, that Mexico would pay for the wall, an assurance our fearless leader deployed almost daily on the campaign trail. So why is the American taxpayer now being asked to pony up $5 billion dollars to fund it? (The $5 billion figure is itself a joke, as the wall would cost much more—three to five times as much according to reliable estimates.)
I have previously addressed Trump supporters’ immunity to their hero’s blatant flip-flopping (The Death of Hypocrisy), a blindness best explained in terms of a literal cult (Drinking the Flavor-Aid). So at this point it’s not at all surprising that they are unmoved his bald-faced failure to extract penny one from Mexico, or to be embarrassed about it, any more than they are by his aforementioned lawbreaking. But it remains a towering monument to the bullshit slung by this consummate flim flam man.
Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi cut Trump down to size by quipping that the big beautiful wall is not only not being paid for by Mexico, but has now been downgraded to just “a beaded curtain.” Ouch.
Trump thought Christmas Day would be a great time to tweet some more about his would-be wall, including the boast that it would require an Olympic athlete to scale it. (Attention: Mexican Olympic team.) For sheer absurdity, that quote was right up there with the town hall in New Hampshire in 2015, when Trump was gushing about how no one would be able to scale his theoretical wall, and was suddenly struck with the fatal flaw in his plan: “Once they get up there there will be no way to get down….Well, maybe a rope.”
DECLARING VICTORY AND GOING HOME
And so here we are as we await the arrival of 2019. Nativism is an old and poisonous strain in the American bloodstream, and—apparently—it never goes away. It lives side by side with our self-flattering image of our country as a nation of immigrants, a melting pot that welcomes all, exemplified by the big green lady in New York harbor.
Masha Gessen, who knows a thing or two about fleeing repression, recently said that she finds it openly offensive when progressives cite the value of immigrants as part of their pushback against Trump’s xenophobic policies. The reason we ought to let these people into our country, she argues, is not because we benefit from immigration—although we do—but because it’s the right and humane thing to do.
She is correct, of course; Masha is rarely wrong. But that idealistic argument is not likely to find much purchase in a country such as ours that is demonstrably rife with bigotry and selfishness, where even the tangible benefits of immigration are not enough to convince millions of people to open their minds (let alone their hearts) on the topic of what Fox would call “fucking foreigners.”
Given the mess Trump is making of the US of A, it’s a wonder anyone wants to come here any more at all. Andy Borowitz presciently foresaw this way back in 2014, when he wrote, “GOP Succeeds in Making America a Place No One Wants to Sneak Into.”
Mission accomplished, guys. To borrow a phrase.
And now, for want of a border wall, the entire US government has ground to a halt.
So what’s the way out of this idiotic game of chicken that Trump has forced on us, given his juvenile sensitivity to humiliation? Writing in the Washington Post, Paul Waldman suggests what might be the best possibility:
(I)f there’s a glimmer of hope, it might lie in Trump’s willingness to describe any result, even the most abject defeat, as a spectacular win for him that was only possible because of his limitless brilliance. As depressing as it is, that’s what we might have to count on.
Tune in next week when Nancy Pelosi prevails, Trump folds, and then declares victory. And Republicans across America believe him.
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Iron Workers Local 8 endorses Judge Joe Donald for Wisconsin Supreme Court
“Judge Joe Donald has proven to be a tireless champion of Wisconsin’s working class people during his two decades on the bench,” said Tony Mayrhofer, Business Manager of Iron Workers, Local 8.
By Joe Donald - Nov 24th, 2015 08:54 am
MILWAUKEE – The International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers, Local 8 announced their endorsement of Judge Joe Donald for Wisconsin Supreme Court this morning.
“Judge Joe Donald has proven to be a tireless champion of Wisconsin’s working class people during his two decades on the bench,” said Tony Mayrhofer, Business Manager of Iron Workers, Local 8. “We need an independent justice who will help put government back on the side of working class people again, and we are proud to stand with Judge Joe Donald this election.”
“I am honored to have earned the support of Iron Workers, Local 8 and the men and women they represent,” said Judge Joe Donald. “Wisconsin residents need and deserve a fair, impartial justice who will restore checks and balances in state government. Every Wisconsin family, worker, and resident deserves access to a fair justice system, and that is why I am running for the Supreme Court.”
Judge Joe Donald is an award-winning, widely respected jurist with almost 20 years of experience presiding over civil and criminal court cases. With more than 350 jury trials under his belt, Joe is the most independent, most experienced and most qualified candidate for Wisconsin Supreme Court in the 2016 election.
People: Joe Donald, Tony Mayrhofer
Government: Wisconsin Supreme Court
Recent Press Releases by Joe Donald
Donald Campaign Releases First Digital Ad
Feb 3rd, 2016 by Joe Donald
“My campaign doesn’t have the help of unlimited, special interest money because I’m not interested in pursuing their partisan agenda.”
Judge Joe Donald slams Rebecca Bradley’s hyper-partisan campaign tactics
Feb 1st, 2016 by Joe Donald
Asks other candidates to join in new pledge to forgo special interest money & partisan help
Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele endorses Joe Donald for Wisconsin Supreme Court
Dec 18th, 2015 by Joe Donald
“Judge Joe Donald is a dedicated public servant who has consistently put politics aside to deliver justice fairly,” said County Executive Chris Abele.
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Follow the page Celebrities
Dwayne Johnson releases wireless headphones with Under Armour for $250
Dwayne Johnson wearing his new headphones. - [Today News / YouTube screencap]
The Rock has teamed up with Under Armour to make the wireless headphones for gym workouts with a lot of benefits.
by Andreas Fanos (article) and Matthew Couden (video)
June 29, 2018 at 2:38 PM June 29, 2018 at 2:38 PM
The Rock & Under Armour bring out new wireless headphones for workouts - Video
Wireless headphones are a dime a dozen with plenty of options to choose from with names like Bose, Apple's Beats by Dre, and Sony. Celebrity sensation Dwayne Johnson has teamed up with Under Armour and an electronics company called JBL to make ingenious wireless headphones for working out in the gym. Johnson always seems to be busy, whether being starring in movies or working out and now he has his own product to work out in.
Work out like The Rock
Can you smell what The Rock is cooking? Dwayne Johnson has approved the design and performance of the wireless headphones called Project Rock that are available for purchase through Under Armour's website and various Under Armour stores, as reported by Business Insider.
The headphones have been worked on for two years and are the first headphones under Dwayne Johnson's belt. The Rock has been a supporter and advocate of the brand for a while now.
As stated earlier, The Rock approved the headphones, as he worked out in them to test them out. The headphones come with a hefty price tag of $250 and are now available. Johnson commented on the process it took to get to the final product as he stated: "I prefer training in 'over the ear' headphones, but have been consistently disappointed with every pair, from every brand that just couldn't handle my workouts." The headphones have been getting good reviews from fans and critics alike.
I also added new “talk thru technology” which allows us to keep our headphones ON and listen to people trying to talk to us.
Yes, talking to people when they workout is shit gym etiquette but I had to circumvent the problem lol
https://t.co/ZhwDvvx7Cg
— Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) June 28, 2018
A lot of features for lifting
The unique headphones have the bull symbol that The Rock is known for and many buttons on the sides that serve different functions, like turning up the volume or pausing the music.
A special quality of the product is that they are said to be sweatproof so that they will not impair a person's workout. It can surely be annoying to have headphones with sweat all over them and then have to clean them.
The celebrity has also made a playlist to use with the product called Iron Paradise Airwaves, as reported by The Verge. He also has launched his own gear and training shoes, which he helped design.
The one other nice feature of the headphones is that they will not fall off while working out, which can be a pain when being in the gym. The material reported by The Verge is "SuperVent lining the perimeter of the ear pads for breathability alongside a so-called Under Armour grip material." The pads can be taken off for cleaning after periods of use.
The product also comes with its own ventilated case. There is no worry about how long they can be used before they need to charge, as it will last for 16 hours and it contains a feature with "a fast five-minute charge for an hour." The headphones can be connected to Siri and consumers can talk on the phone while having them on.
The product supports Bluetooth 4.1. Project Rock could be what individuals are looking for who work out in the gym a lot and want to be comfortable doing intense workouts like Dwayne Johnson and train like a bull like with these wireless headphones.
.@TheRock designed the uniform for the hardest workers in the room. Build the belief in the latest installment of #ProjectRock now. Shop now. https://t.co/gjoz9MG2TE pic.twitter.com/5tyzlasZ7B
— Under Armour (@UnderArmour) June 28, 2018
Actor on rumored TB12 film: ‘I think there are more chapters in the biopic of Tom Brady'
Actor Mark Wahlberg shares thoughts on Brady’s future: ‘Whatever Tom wants to do’
Andreas Fanos
Andreas Fanos is a 24-year-old journalist and author with a degree in Creative Writing and a Minor in History from Fairleigh Dickinson University. He is the only member in his family to graduate from college.
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View 23 pics | Celebrities
Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel's most loved up moments (warning: may cause major envy)
February 01, 2018 by us.hola.com
For those who are unfamiliar with the adorableness that is J-Squared, let us walk you through the Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel's most swoon-worthy moments, and why we want to find our own Justin 2.0. To celebrate Justin's 37th birthday, Jessica posted a photo of the two of them showing they are forever #relationshipgoals. "A picture says a thousand words. And thank goodness because there aren't enough to express ALL the aspects of my love and respect for you," she wrote on January 31, 2018. "Here's to a spectacular year ahead. I'm so proud of all you've accomplished and all that is ahead for you. plus you're a super hot dad. A ninja dad. A kiddie teeth brushing, Jedi sleep mind tricking, intimidating dad voice disciplining SUPER HOT DAD. I love you, you hot dad.. I'm here, right by your side, OG fan girl #1. Happy birthday, my beloved. Now go crush it this weekend at SB LII." Photo: Instagram/@jessicabiel
Justin Timberlake previewed his upcoming album Man of the Woods with Jessica Biel by his side in NYC . The singer, who first played every song, danced with his wife and mingled with friends and fans at the American Express-hosted party. Photo: Getty Images
Justin and Jessica along with their son Silas looked like they stepped out of a scene from Toy Story for Halloween. The singer wrote on Instagram: "If you see us in these streets then have your candy ready! Trick-Or-Treat, little homies! —Woody, Jesse, and Buzz." Photo: Instagram/@justintimberlake
Date night at the Open. Justin and Jessica made each other laugh and shared kisses while watching the US Open in Queens, New York in September 2017. Photo: WireImage
Jessica Biel was showered with kisses from husband Justin Timberlake for her birthday in March 2017. He wrote along with the photo: "You make me laugh. You make me smile. You make me LOVE. You make me want to be BETTER. Speaking of, it doesn't get any BETTER than you... Now, I know for sure that it's BETTER to be lucky than good. Ask me who the luckiest guy in the world is and I will tell you that you are looking at him. Happy Birthday, my heart. --J" Photo: Instagram/@justintimberlake
Justin proved that no matter what Jessica wore, he loved it. The Can't Stop the Feeling singer snapped pictures of his leading lady, who changed into a caped dress by Ralph Lauren, while on the Vanity Fair Oscars party red carpet. Photo: Mike Coppola/VF17/Getty Images for VF
After bringing down the house with his performance of Can't Stop the Feeling during the opening of the 89th Academy Awards ceremony, Justin planted a kiss on Jessica, who danced throughout the entire performance. Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Justin admired his wife's gold KAUFMANFRANCO gown throughout the evening of the Academy Awards, telling E! News "I call it perfection." Photo: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images
Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake continue to give us goals with every red carpet appearance and post they share. The musician recently set hearts fluttering when he penned a beautiful message to his wife writing, "Happy BAE-DAY, baby!! I can't put into words what you mean to me... You are the GREATEST Mommy and Wife a man could ever ask for. I love you to the MOON AND BACK!!! --Your Huz." Photo: Instagram.com/@JustinTimberlake
*Le sigh* The "Mirrors" singer wasn't afraid to show a little public display of affection at a 2012 basketball game when it came to Jessica.
And clearly Jessica felt the same way...
The fashionable pair only had eyes for each other at the 2012 Met Gala.
Let's be honest, Jessica's necklace might have been a showstopper in Cannes, but we much prefer her arm candy hubby from 2013.
Perhaps it's true: A couple that dresses together, stays together. Silas' parents couldn't have looked more adorable if they tried at the 2015 GLSEN Respect Awards.
Photo: Getty Images for GLSEN
See Justin really does wear his heart on his sleeve, but it was Jessica who packed on the PDA at the US Open in 2013.
How could you not love that face?! Jessica held close to Justin at a Lakers game in 2009.
He's her love and there's no other woman that could take her spot! (If you understood the JT reference, then congratulations) The "My Love" singer planted a kiss on his wife during Variety's 2012 Power of Women Event.
But seriously, these two give us goofy relationship goals all around!
We wouldn't mind Justin hanging over our shoulders in an adorable fashion as we walked the carpet at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party.
Someone please find us a man like Justin, who snaps a mental picture of us for later. (Jim Halpert anyone?)
Justin is a man who can admire his wife's glamorous attire and point it out for photographers around the world to snap. (Major brownie points)
When bae makes you giggle! We're pretty sure there's nothing more attractive than a funny man. The "Suit & Tie" artist had his wife in stitches laughing, while attending the 2016 Vanity Fair Oscars party.
So bravo, Justin and Jessica. You two have officially defined relationship goals, all while making us albeit slightly jealous. Continue to show off your adorable-goofy-romantic side everywhere you go, because we're watching!
Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel get the royal treatment: Check out their loved-up day in London
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For many people, yoga is more than an hour or two of exercise: it's a way of seeing life through the synergy of body, mind and spirit. Such is the...
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Immuno-, lectin-, and enzymehistochemical characterization of human bone marrow endotheliumee
L. C. Masek, J. W. Sweetenham, J. M.A. Whitehouse, U. Schumacher
'Homing' of hematopoietic progenitor cells to the bone marrow occurs during the clinical practice of bone marrow transplantation. Its mechanism is unknown, although adhesive interactions between hematopoietic cells and sinusoidal endothelium in the bone marrow may be implicated. Studies of human bone marrow endothelial cells have previously been limited by the lack of markers for these cells. In this report, we describe positive staining of bone marrow endothelial cells from human bone marrow trephine biopsies with antibody to factor VIII-related antigen (FVIIIR-Ag) (Dako, High Wycombe, UK), the plant lectin Ulex europaeus agglutinin-I (UEA-I), and two mouse monoclonal antibodies, BMA120 and QBEND/10. In addition, alkaline phosphatase could be demonstrated in the majority of marrow endothelial cells using a novel enzyme histochemical technique. These studies defined the marker profile of human marrow endothelium. The results of this study will facilitate the isolation and culture of human marrow endothelial cells for in vitro studies of their roles in hematopoietic stem cell homing.
Bone Marrow Cells
Plant Lectins
Ulex
Agglutinins
Bone marrow endothelium
Factor VIII-related antigen
Masek, L. C., Sweetenham, J. W., Whitehouse, J. M. A., & Schumacher, U. (1994). Immuno-, lectin-, and enzymehistochemical characterization of human bone marrow endotheliumee. Experimental Hematology, 22(12), 1203-1209.
Immuno-, lectin-, and enzymehistochemical characterization of human bone marrow endotheliumee. / Masek, L. C.; Sweetenham, J. W.; Whitehouse, J. M.A.; Schumacher, U.
In: Experimental Hematology, Vol. 22, No. 12, 01.01.1994, p. 1203-1209.
Masek, LC, Sweetenham, JW, Whitehouse, JMA & Schumacher, U 1994, 'Immuno-, lectin-, and enzymehistochemical characterization of human bone marrow endotheliumee', Experimental Hematology, vol. 22, no. 12, pp. 1203-1209.
Masek LC, Sweetenham JW, Whitehouse JMA, Schumacher U. Immuno-, lectin-, and enzymehistochemical characterization of human bone marrow endotheliumee. Experimental Hematology. 1994 Jan 1;22(12):1203-1209.
Masek, L. C. ; Sweetenham, J. W. ; Whitehouse, J. M.A. ; Schumacher, U. / Immuno-, lectin-, and enzymehistochemical characterization of human bone marrow endotheliumee. In: Experimental Hematology. 1994 ; Vol. 22, No. 12. pp. 1203-1209.
@article{bb0126e0e2b141a49cd188e6b9d1972f,
title = "Immuno-, lectin-, and enzymehistochemical characterization of human bone marrow endotheliumee",
abstract = "'Homing' of hematopoietic progenitor cells to the bone marrow occurs during the clinical practice of bone marrow transplantation. Its mechanism is unknown, although adhesive interactions between hematopoietic cells and sinusoidal endothelium in the bone marrow may be implicated. Studies of human bone marrow endothelial cells have previously been limited by the lack of markers for these cells. In this report, we describe positive staining of bone marrow endothelial cells from human bone marrow trephine biopsies with antibody to factor VIII-related antigen (FVIIIR-Ag) (Dako, High Wycombe, UK), the plant lectin Ulex europaeus agglutinin-I (UEA-I), and two mouse monoclonal antibodies, BMA120 and QBEND/10. In addition, alkaline phosphatase could be demonstrated in the majority of marrow endothelial cells using a novel enzyme histochemical technique. These studies defined the marker profile of human marrow endothelium. The results of this study will facilitate the isolation and culture of human marrow endothelial cells for in vitro studies of their roles in hematopoietic stem cell homing.",
keywords = "Alkaline phosphatase, Bone marrow endothelium, Factor VIII-related antigen, Lectins, Monoclonal antibodies",
author = "Masek, {L. C.} and Sweetenham, {J. W.} and Whitehouse, {J. M.A.} and U. Schumacher",
journal = "Experimental Hematology",
T1 - Immuno-, lectin-, and enzymehistochemical characterization of human bone marrow endotheliumee
AU - Masek, L. C.
AU - Sweetenham, J. W.
AU - Whitehouse, J. M.A.
AU - Schumacher, U.
N2 - 'Homing' of hematopoietic progenitor cells to the bone marrow occurs during the clinical practice of bone marrow transplantation. Its mechanism is unknown, although adhesive interactions between hematopoietic cells and sinusoidal endothelium in the bone marrow may be implicated. Studies of human bone marrow endothelial cells have previously been limited by the lack of markers for these cells. In this report, we describe positive staining of bone marrow endothelial cells from human bone marrow trephine biopsies with antibody to factor VIII-related antigen (FVIIIR-Ag) (Dako, High Wycombe, UK), the plant lectin Ulex europaeus agglutinin-I (UEA-I), and two mouse monoclonal antibodies, BMA120 and QBEND/10. In addition, alkaline phosphatase could be demonstrated in the majority of marrow endothelial cells using a novel enzyme histochemical technique. These studies defined the marker profile of human marrow endothelium. The results of this study will facilitate the isolation and culture of human marrow endothelial cells for in vitro studies of their roles in hematopoietic stem cell homing.
AB - 'Homing' of hematopoietic progenitor cells to the bone marrow occurs during the clinical practice of bone marrow transplantation. Its mechanism is unknown, although adhesive interactions between hematopoietic cells and sinusoidal endothelium in the bone marrow may be implicated. Studies of human bone marrow endothelial cells have previously been limited by the lack of markers for these cells. In this report, we describe positive staining of bone marrow endothelial cells from human bone marrow trephine biopsies with antibody to factor VIII-related antigen (FVIIIR-Ag) (Dako, High Wycombe, UK), the plant lectin Ulex europaeus agglutinin-I (UEA-I), and two mouse monoclonal antibodies, BMA120 and QBEND/10. In addition, alkaline phosphatase could be demonstrated in the majority of marrow endothelial cells using a novel enzyme histochemical technique. These studies defined the marker profile of human marrow endothelium. The results of this study will facilitate the isolation and culture of human marrow endothelial cells for in vitro studies of their roles in hematopoietic stem cell homing.
KW - Alkaline phosphatase
KW - Bone marrow endothelium
KW - Factor VIII-related antigen
KW - Lectins
KW - Monoclonal antibodies
JO - Experimental Hematology
JF - Experimental Hematology
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Study Reports a Steady Growth in Malta Ship Registration
A Maltese maritime consultancy firm has issued the third edition of a study giving a comparative breakdown of the costs involved in the registration of a vessel. The scope of the publication is to benchmark registration rates applicable to a selected number of flag states, subjectively determined to be Antigua & Barbuda, Bahamas, Cyprus, Hong Kong, Liberia, Malta, Marshall Islands, Norway and Panama. The study has extended the comparison to comprise pertinent criteria such as manning scales, the issue of registering mortgages and registration of bareboat chartered vessels amongst others. Various flag administrations have supported the study’s publication by contributing facts and figures. The Malta flag has grown considerably from 1,421 vessels under its registry in 2007, to 1,764 ships in 2012, with a registered gross tonnage of 44 million tons, making the Malta flag the seventh largest flag of registry on a worldwide level.
The study evidences the policy direction undertaken by the Malta Flag Authority, to enhance the standing of its registry by attracting younger tonnage and making it more expensive for older tonnage to register. The average age of the vessels under Maltese registry, which in 2012 represented the lowest recorded locally, is of 11 years against 16 years in 2007. The flag having the oldest fleet is that of Greece.
The publication concentrates on fundamental aspects when registering a vessel. These include the economical, fiscal, operational and political facets to ship registration. Other relevant considerations are the reputation of the flag at an international level, the freedom of trading to any geographical region as well as the professionalism of the flag administration.
For more information on ship and yacht registration in Malta, click here.
For further information on this study and any advice required connected to the registration of vessels in Malta contact us on [email protected]
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Video of Boy With Down’s Syndrome Hugging an Autistic Boy Goes Viral
BY Andrea Reindl | December 4, 2019 AT 11:59 pm
By Andrea Reindl December 4, 2019 at 11:59 pm
videohub / Twitter
It may not be obvious to everyone due to misrepresentation in the media, but according to the World Health Organization, there are more than 1 billion people in the world who have some form of disability. That statistic corresponds to about 15% of the world’s population, which means that a large chunk of people on the planet are not adequately or accurately represented when it comes to the media. Thankfully, there’s been a recent uptick in activism aimed at shining a light on positive stories that center around folks with disabilities. As these movements are quick to point out, there is no one way to be disabled, and not all stories of folks’ with disabilities are sad or depressing.
This point couldn’t be illustrated any clearer than by the video that the Spanish Language Facebook page Jalisco Oculto shared on Friday. The touching video of two young Mexican students interacting with each other quickly made waves, but not for the usual shocking or click-baity content. What made this video different from the usual internet distractions was that these boys both had special needs. According to the video description, one boy had Down syndrome while the other had Autism. The video’s caption reads: “A Down syndrome boy with a huge heart comforts his autistic classmate in his own way”.
The video quickly struck a chord with people, especially those who have family members with special needs.
The video first shows the boy with Down’s syndrome playfully waving his hand in front of his autistic classmate’s face. The classmate’s face visibly expresses emotion and, in response, the boy with Down’s syndrome leans in and wraps an arm around him, giving the boy a hug. The autistic boy appears to become more emotional and leans into him, his emotions seeming to grow on his face. The boy with Down’s syndrome simply hugs him harder, at one point rubbing and patting his back and appearing to wipe away his friend’s tears. After they break the hug, the boy with Down’s syndrome continues to try and cheer him up, holding up both of his friend’s hands playfully, seeming to urge him to dance.
The video became an almost instant phenomenon, wracking up 140,000 likes, almost 10,000 comments, and over 450,000 shares. Quickly, the video was shared to other social media platform like Twitter, Reddit, and Instagram, veritably taking the internet by storm.
On each platform, people flooded the comment sections with stories of the empathy and kindness that their loved ones with special needs have shown them. One Twitter user wrote: “This child remind us that love is instinct and love is innate and that hate is taught”.
The video seemed to resonate with people because of the unexpected friendship between these two boys.
According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), one out of every 700 babies is born with Down’s syndrome in the United States. Additionally, the CDC estimates that one in 68 children in the U.S. have autism. Needless to say, this means that children with special needs aren’t “unusual” in any way–they are part of our community like any other child.
The internet’s strong reaction to this video is proof that the world craves wholesome and uplifting stories.
While the news inundates us with stories of horror and tragedy, it is videos like this one that show us a lesson we all need to acknowledge: that empathy and love surround us all, even if we don’t see it all the time.
This woman made an astute observation about the high emotional intelligence of children with Down syndrome
My kid has Down syndrome and her cousin has autism. They communicate without words and “get” each other and others like them on levels the rest of us will never be able to attain. My child is one of the most intuitive and emotionally intelligent people I’ve ever known.
— 🖤 D 🖤 (@Crushing_Goals) December 4, 2019
Believe it or not, many of us have family members with disabilities. Many of us are disabled ourselves.
This person explains how mixed special needs classrooms can benefit all students
Students with Down syndrome tend to be friendlier, more social, and help provide a social interaction that is gentle. This helps students with autism develop their social skills without being overly stimulated, and also creates a friendlier environment in their classroom.
— Armando 🤘🏼🎄 (@GoRobot16) December 3, 2019
There is no need to segregate students with special needs, like some schools have trended towards doing. As Ari Ne’eman of The Autistic Self Advocacy Network states,”Segregated schools lead to segregated societies. Inclusive schools give us the opportunity for inclusive societies”.
This person expressed his gratitude for having children with special needs in his life.
We can learn a lot from those with Down syndrome & Autism. Blessed to be a father of two with autism. Get to see it everyday. 💙 https://t.co/9ylbZ5Lsof
— Chase Stuart (@cstu2) December 3, 2019
As we mentioned before, not all stories of those with disabilities are stories of sadness and tragedy. Many are stories of love, kindness, and learning.
This woman expressed her admiration for the Mexican school that encourages behavior like this.
Thank you for sharing this. It is beautiful. And I applaud the teacher and the school for allowing and encouraging this behavior. Bravo all around! 💙💙💙
— Lisa Nesbit Reuss (@randgmom) December 3, 2019
One could argue that this video went so viral because it showed the world behavior that we’re not shown very often. It would benefit all of us to act like the boys in this video and and express selfless empathy for no reason at all.
eduction humanity kindness health Twitter
Kobe Bryant’s Death Has Fans Mourning A Huge Loss: From Bad Bunny To Ricky Martin, Here’s How Latinos Are Reacting
By Justin Lessner January 27, 2020 at 2:07 pm
BY Justin Lessner | January 27, 2020 AT 2:07 pm
The news sent shockwaves around the world when it was announced that a basketball legend, Kobe Bryant, died on Sunday in a helicopter crash outside of Los Angeles.
Kobe Bryant, a legendary shooting guard for the LA Lakers was just 41 years old and was one of nine victims to have died in the accident. His death has brought together people from a diverse range of backgrounds, but it’s especially painful for Latinos, who were among the first to embrace the Black Mamba and with whom Kobe had a major impact as a member of the Lakers. Fans around the world are left mourning a basketball legend and processing his complicated legacy.
Death of the 41-year-old basketball legend shook communities around the world.
News broke on Sunday that the 41-year-old had died, along with nine others, in a tragic helicopter crash in the hills outside of Los Angeles. The identity of all aboard are still undisclosed at this time, pending further investigation and conversation with next of kin, according to an LA County Sheriff at a press briefing earlier today.
Bryant is survived by his wife Vanessa Bryant, and three other daughters – Natalia Diamante, Bianka Bella and Capri Kobe, who is only 7 months old.
While it was unclear who else was with Bryant at the time of his death, TMZ Sports confirmed that his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna Maria Onore, was one of the passengers who died in the accident. Gianna and Kobe were on their way to the Mamba Academy in Thousand Oaks.
Preliminary investigations report that the helicopter went down in dense fog that had grounded most other aircraft in the region.
Credit: Mark Terrill / Getty
Bryant was known to use his helicopter to commute between his home in Newport Beach and the Staples Center in Downtown Los Angeles. However, for this journey, he was commuting to a sports academy in the Valley.
Los Angeles is known for dense fog and this Sunday morning was no different. In fact, the dense fog had led to the temporary suspension of flights from LAX and most other civilian helicopter operations.
As news of the star’s death spread, so too did the heartfelt messages of loss and grief.
Credit: ABC 7 LA
“[This] is why I don’t wait for tomorrow,” J Balvin wrote. “So many surprises in life that the present escapes us.” Dozens of others weighed in as well.
AOC sent her condolences to the victims and their families in a tweet saying: “Deeply shocked at the news of Kobe Bryant and four others lost today. Sending all my thoughts to their families and loved ones in this devastating moment.“
Bad Bunny had a special message about the super star’s untimely passing.
Credit: BadBunnyPR / Instagram
“I never would have imagined this would hurt so much!” he said. “I still remember the first time I saw a game of basketball at 7 years old with my dad, and it was a game with this genius, and from that day forward he became my favorite player x100pre!! I’ve never mentioned it because it doesn’t necessarily have to do with music, but this man has been an inspiration in many aspects for me to be who I am today. RIP GOAT!!! Rest in PEACE!!!! Thank you for inspiring me so much!! Thanks for so many emotions!!! How sad I feel!!! A legend is gone!! Along with a beautiful child and basketball promise, Gianna… It breaks my soul too know that I was going to meet, and share time, with you soon…”
And Anuel AA shared his take on the tragedy, one that many people could relate to.
“Wow, my hero died,” he said. “This is unbelievable. I’m here crying as if I knew him, heartbroken. Rest in peace, legend, you left a mark on the world. May God continue blessing his family and fill them with strength. Wow what sadness. [Kobe Bryant] your name will live forever.”
Kobe Bryant shared a special kinship with his Latino fans, who he said were the first to embrace him.
Credit: KobeBryant / Instagram
As the tributes pour in, many are remembering the impact Kobe had on LA’s Latino community.
A few years ago, he thanked the Latino community for their support.
“Latino fans are important to me, because when I arrived [in Los Angeles] they were the fans who most passionately embraced me,” he said. Bryant added that his Spanish was “not that good,” but this appeared to have been a modest assessment, as he routinely conducted full-length interviews in Spanish, which endeared him even more to Latino fans. He said that he was inspired to learn the language because of his wife and because his Latino fans “mean everything” to him. He told Univision in a separate interview that he learned Spanish through watching telenovelas with his family.
However, Bryant’s story wasn’t one without its blemishes. He was accused of sexual assault in 2003.
Credit: Jerome Nakagawa / Flickr
Bryant’s sexual assault case was another scandal that rocked the sport’s world and his own image. The charges brought against him were serious. He was accused of raping a hotel employee while at a Colorado resort – a claim that he denied saying the sexual encounter was consensual. The case was eventually settled out of court, according to The Guardian.
As much of the world is still in shock regarding the untimely loss of such an iconic man, his success as a basketball great will live on.
Kobe BryantDeathReactionsTwitter
JLo And Shakira Are In Charge Of The Super Bowl Half Time Performance, But We Want To Know Who Will Be The Guest
By Alexis Barron January 23, 2020 at 9:38 am
BY Alexis Barron | January 23, 2020 AT 9:38 am
Pepsi / Instagram
There’s already so much stardom packed into one Super Bowl half time show with Jennifer Lopez and Shakira performing, that it’s hard to think how they’re supposed to condense it into a half hour show. To make things even more interesting, the internet has been wondering, who’s appearing on stage as a guest. And there’s already a fan favorite. Here’s everything you need to know.
How will they cram so much superstardom into such a 30 minute-long performance?
There’s already enough talk about this year’s Super Bowl performance. Are JLo and Shakira really not getting along in the days leading up to their show? Which hits will they be performing? And now, most recently, who will be joining the two Latinas in the watched-by-the-entire-world program? Twitter just voted and if it’s any indication of what’s coming, it should be interesting.
Their performance at the big game has special meaning for J-Lo and Shakira.
During an interview with ET Canada, the two expressed their excitement to be representing the Latino community. “I love that the Super Bowl has two women performing this year, that they have two Latinos performing this year,” J-Lo said in the interview that aired last September. “This is a marker of a new time, not just for the NFL but for the country.” “I’m honored, I’m humbled, to be next to J-Lo, representing the Latino community,” Shakira added. “It’s such an important force in the United States,” added Shakira.
The world was astonished when it was announced in 2019 that not only would Jennifer Lopez be headlining the halftime show, but also Shakira.
Both Latinas are two of the biggest names in music on one worldwide stage. And sharing the stage on this occasion seems to have been producer Jay-Z’s idea, so how could Lopez and Shakira say no? The two women spoke with ET Canada at the time of the announcement in 2019. Lopez said, “I love that it’s in Miami, it is a very Latino town.”
Who does Twitter think should join Lopez and Shakira on the halftime show stage?
From #CamilaCabello to #BrendonUrie, who do you want to sing the national anthem at the 2020 Super Bowl? Vote now! https://t.co/296vL4Xx1x
— billboard (@billboard) December 30, 2019
Billboard.com asked Twitter, “Who do you hope #Shakira & #JenniferLopez bring out as a guest during their Super Bowl halftime performance? Vote!”
The running rumor has been that Miami native Pitbull will be joining them.
Ja Rule, Pitbull and Beyoncé are rumored to also join the SuperBowl performance and if it does happen, I wouldn’t even be mad 🥵
— maria camila (@themissmaria) January 21, 2020
In fact, it’s reported that Pitbull has been pushing to get invited on the halftime show stage and his fans initiated a Change.org petition to get him added to the billing for the show
Fans believe there are obvious reasons why Pitbull should be the guest appearance.
Get ready to hear Mr. Worldwide once Super Bowl week kicks off. Pitbull is just waiting for his moment. pic.twitter.com/nlcSZDghLY
— Jamyeth Richards (@jammwoww) January 20, 2020
Almost immediately after J Lo and Shakira announced they were co-headlining the event fans started buzzing that Pitbull is a MUST-HAVE guest on the stage too. Turns out some big wigs in Miami feel exactly the same way.
Sources with direct knowledge tell TMZ, Pitbull’s camp has had talks with J Lo’s team and the NFL about making the guest appearance happen.
Pitbull in Talks with J Lo, Miami VIPs Pushing for Super Bowl Guest Spot https://t.co/Hqozz7bK3r
— TMZ (@TMZ) September 29, 2019
More than that, TMZ reported that honchos at Hard Rock Cafe International are pushing for Mr. Worldwide to get on the stage—Remember, the game’s being played at Hard Rock Stadium.
Everyone’s aware of the groundswell to have an authentic Miami artist to rep the city—and the obvious choices are Pitbull or Gloria Estefan.
Will Gloria Estefan make an appearance on stage during the Super Bowl 54 halftime show?
Yes +200
No -300
Odds via BetOnline pic.twitter.com/HzBnJBOnk4
— Odds Shark (@OddsShark) January 18, 2020
The thing is, Gloria’s already performed at 2 Super Bowls—’92 in Minneapolis and ’99 in—where else—Miami.
Sources connected to Roc Nation—which is producing the Halftime Show in conjunction with the NFL—say “other surprise acts” will definitely appear with Shakira and J Lo.
While there’s no deal in place yet, TMZ reports that everyone involved is aware of the momentum—public and corporate—to make room for Pitbull.
Twitter reactions to the question range from, “Pitbull, Yo!” to “Beyoncé” and even Camila Cabello.
Shakira's world cup performances have more views than all the Superbowl halftime shows this millenium COMBINED.
Think twice before you try to shade Shakira! pic.twitter.com/GBnXAS8Fi8
— I- (@shakirabowl) January 21, 2020
One Twitter user wrote: “Shakira is already bringing out JLo as a guest so that’s enough” another even speculated: “Beyoncé!” —do they want the stage to explode from all that star power? Tweeters also threw out Camila Cabello’s name a couple of times, as well as Gloria Estefan’s yet again.
It’s looking pretty likely the guest will be Pitbull.
Miami – are you ready for Super Bowl LIV? Yours truly is bringing the party to the @NFL Tailgate Tropicale! #GetReady and tune in to @NFLonFOX #SBLIV pregame on Feb 2! Dale! pic.twitter.com/325KsBTryZ
— Pitbull (@pitbull) January 20, 2020
Both singers have recorded duets with him, he’s from Miami, and he puts on a good show.
By now, the singers have laid out the songs they’ll be performing and the electrifying performances they have in store for the millions who’ll be watching. The fact that they have 30 minutes, tops, to do it all is even more bonkers.
Super BowlJennifer LopezShakiraTwitter
JLo’s Iconic Versace ‘Jungle’ Dress Broke The Internet— Now The Label Redesigned The Dress And Made The Pop Star The Face Of Their Brand
Alexis Barron / January 14, 2020 Alexis Barron
J Lo’s Famous Green Dress Has Made A Comeback In Versace’s Spring/Summer 2020 Campaign
Leah Scott / January 14, 2020 Leah Scott
Critics Are Left Scratching Their Heads After the Academy Failed to Nominate JLo For Her Role in “Hustlers”
Andrea Reindl / January 13, 2020 Andrea Reindl
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Workshop2015:logistics
Revision as of 12:08, 5 August 2015 by A.Piascik (talk | contribs)
1 Location Info
2 Travel Info
2.1 Airports
2.1.1 LPL - Liverpool John Lennon Airport
2.1.2 MAN - Manchester Airport
Place: Liverpool, UK
Venue: Open Labs next to the Astrophysics Research Institute
Dates: 10-13 November 2015
There are two airports providing access to the city of Liverpool.
LPL - Liverpool John Lennon Airport
Liverpool John Lennon Airport is located 14km from Liverpool city centre.
There is no rail link at this airport but there are frequent bus services to Liverpool South Parkway railway station which is NOT near the city.
Liverpool South Parkway is a double railway station providing two separate routes to Liverpool Lime Street or Liverpool Central stations, which are in the city.
A combined bus/train ticket can be purchased at the airport.
The bus services from the airport direct to Liverpool are numbered 500 , 86A and 80A .
These are operated by Arriva and also go via Liverpool South Parkway station.
Journey time to Liverpool is approximately 30 minutes.
MAN - Manchester Airport
Manchester Airport is located 57km from Liverpool city centre.
There is a rail link at this airport. Trains operated by Northern Rail go direct to Liverpool Lime Street station every hour, (Timetable).
The journey time is approximately 1 hour.
An alternative train route is from the airport station to Manchester Piccadilly station and changing there for a train to Liverpool Lime Street.
Several train companies operate this alternative route. The journey time is approximately 1.5 hours.
National Rail Enquiries is useful for planning rail travel with all UK train companies and for checking on delays or cancellations.
Retrieved from "https://web1.ast.cam.ac.uk/ioa/wikis/gsawgwiki/index.php?title=Workshop2015:logistics&oldid=2017"
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August 25, 2016 Joziah Thayer Uncategorized
The Traitors Cemetery: Burial Place of Turkish Coup Plotters — OffGuardian
by Gürkan Özturan, Katoikos Turkey has opened its first Traitors’ Cemetery in the aftermath of the July 15th coup attempt and Istanbul Metropolitan Mayor announced that the first burial has taken place. There is a place needed, to be called the cemetery of the traitors; all passers-by to curse when around it. All those walking […]
via The Traitors Cemetery: Burial Place of Turkish Coup Plotters — OffGuardian
Hillary Can See Russia From Her Server… — The Last Refuge
Clinton Email Scandal Widens – “The Access” Is the Quid Pro Quo… — The Last Refuge
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Spindletop Center receives funding to expand services
Spindletop Center, a local community center, will receive special Medicaid funding to expand its services to Jefferson, Hardin, Chambers and Orange county residents who have intellectual and developmental disabilities, mental health issues and substance abuse challenges. Under a statewide 1115 Medicaid Healthcare Transformation Waiver program, Spindletop will implement 14 projects valued at $37 million over a four year period.
These projects include physical and behavioral health care integration, a hospital-based substance abuse detoxification program, a youth respite program to divert teens from detention centers, housing for people with mental health issues, and expanded behavioral health crisis services.
“The purpose of this Medicaid waiver program is to achieve healthcare cost savings and improve outcomes by providing the right care in the right setting to reduce hospitalizations, emergency room use and criminal justice interactions,” said Chalonnes Hoover, chief financial officer for Spindletop Center.
“In addition to decreasing healthcare costs, these programs will be a boon to the local economy,” Hoover said. “They will add about 50 jobs at Spindletop Center and will increase business for the local companies we will use for renovating facilities and purchasing furnishings and vehicles.”
What cannot be counted in dollar figures is the reduction in the number of people who are suffering in the face of very difficult challenges.
“Between one in four or one in five people will struggle with mental health or substance abuse issues,” said Sally Broussard, chief authority officer for Spindletop. “About three of every 100 babies born have intellectual disabilities. It’s important for these people to access help in places where they will be treated with dignity and respect. They deserve to have available people who will treat them as a whole person, taking into account both their physical and mental health needs. We want to be leaders and innovators in that.”
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New assistance announced for storm damage
Rock group The Cult schedules Beaumont concert
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« Ghalib Says – 10
Who Wants Peace in the Subcontinent? »
What If India Were Not Partitioned?
This is the quintessential ‘What If’ question. It is counterfactual because now we can never know what would have happened if India had not been partitioned. But we can speculate about the possibilities and try and construct plausible scenarios for purposes of understanding and discussion.
In this post we argue against the scenario presented by Aakar Patel in his op-ed in The News on September 22, 2008. Aakar Patel’s one-line conclusion is that an unpartitioned India would have been a disaster for both Hindus and Muslims.
Let us first list the points we aim to contend:
Unpartitioned India would be the word’s largest country (1.4 billion people), the world’s largest Muslim country (500 million) and… the world’s poorest country (over 600 million hungry).
In undivided India, religion would have dominated political debate, as it did in the 30s and 40s, and consensus on reform would be hard to build internally. All energy would be sucked into keeping the country together. Undivided India would have separate electorates, the irreducible demand of the Muslim League and the one that Nehru stood against. A democracy with separate electorates is no democracy at all.
Hindus would never have been able to rule Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan or the Frontier.
Without Partition there would have been no Nizam-e-Mustafa.
The fault line of national politics in undivided India would have remained Hindu versus Muslim. Jinnah alone understood that from the start. Nehru and Patel understood it much later, agreeing to Partition. Gandhi never understood it; if he did, he never accepted it.
Three parts of undivided India had a Muslim majority. The west became Pakistan, the east became Bangladesh. Sooner or later, the north will become something else: the Muslims of Kashmir do not want to be India. But Indians do not understand that.
Let us now respond in order and present a different perspective:
Undivided India need not have been the world’s poorest country. The resources, attention and energy that have gone into the continued hostility since Partition could have been channeled into development. (See the cost of conflict estimated by the Strategic Foresight Group, Mumbai). The huge market and the complementarities of arbitrarily divided ecosystems could have yielded great benefits. Huge investments went into making up for the division of the Indus water system, for example.
A democracy need not be a mechanical and rigid system. Malaysia, with three, not two, hostile communities found a way to adjust its system of governance to suit its constraints. South Africa, with its bitter history of apartheid, found a way in its constitution to work around the hostilities. There was no reason India could not have found a similarly workable formula.
There is no reason to think in terms of one community ruling the other. Indeed, that is a framework that is incompatible with democratic governance. The fact is that almost right up to Partition, the Punjab’s Unionist Party had found a mechanism to govern with a coalition of the major communities.
Even after Partition there is no Nizam-e-Mustafa. The fact that a large number of Hindus in India today want the Kingdom of Ram does not mean that their demand needs to lead to a redefinition of India. These kinds of demands need to be resolved in the political arena.
Jinnah did not feel from the start that the fault-line in undivided India would have remained Hindus versus Muslims. In fact, Jinnah was the advocate of Hindu-Muslim unity because he believed it was possible. The management of any fault line is up to the leadership as shown by the examples of Malaysia and South Africa mentioned earlier. Ireland is another example.
Three parts of undivided India had a Muslim majority but the demand for Pakistan did not originate in these areas. In fact the Muslim majority areas of the west were the last to sign on and even then very reluctantly. The Muslims of Kashmir seemed quite satisfied with the situation under the Farooq Abdullah government. Their attitude is more a function of India’s mismanagement (and post-partition Pakistan’s incitements) than of some innate hatred of Hindus. There is no cure for mismanagement. Even the Muslim west and east could not coexist in the face of political folly.
It is quite possible to argue that there were many possible resolutions of the situation that prevailed in India in the 1930s and 1940s. It was a failure of leadership that the worst possible alternative was chosen. India lacked a statesman of the caliber of Mandela who could see beyond the immediate political gains and losses.
The cost of the Partition is hard to imagine – almost a million deaths, ten million homeless, and continued conflicts. Add to this the subsequent costs in Bangladesh and the ongoing ones in Kashmir. If the inability of Hindus and Muslims to live together is given as the sole reason for the Partition, it should be considered that in all the one thousand years that Muslims lived in India, there was never once this scale of conflict or bloodshed.
It was possible to live together. In fact Hindus and Muslims continue to live together in India even though their relations were poisoned and made immensely difficult by the fact of the Partition.
One could just as well argue that the Partition was a disaster for both Hindus and Muslims as also for the Sikhs whose homeland was cut into two. A united India would never have allowed the Saudis or the Americans to set up madrassas and train jihadis within its territories. Dim-witted dictators would never have been able to occupy the positions of power they were in post-Partition Pakistan and Bangladesh.
We can say that Manto in Toba Tek Singh had the right perspective on the partition of India.
Tags: India, Pakistan, Partition, Politics
This entry was posted on September 27, 2008 at 2:09 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
371 Responses to “What If India Were Not Partitioned?”
I think soon some kind of political stability would have emerged like a Hindu Prime Minister a Muslim Dy. Prime Minister.
Personally, I agree with you. Some formula would have emerged. Even in Lebanon, with its intense differences, a power sharing formula was agreed upon and provided stability for a considerable period of time. The fact that Lebanon was sucked into the Middle East crisis is a different story.
I feel the main point is that there were a number of possible solutions, some proposed by the British and some by the Unionists, all of which would have yielded less immediate pain and suffering and less longer term instability.
So the question is: Why did reasonable, highly educated individuals, fail to arrive at a sensible solution?
If one reads Shameful Flight by Stanley Wolpert (2006), it would seem that a main contributor was Mountbatten’s hurry to get back home to England. But, of course, there was more than that.
Zubair Osmani Says:
Without partition the subcontinent would have been a war turn region exploited by the world powers pitching one group or one religion against the other for their own specific interests. Unlike the present situation, one ethnic group would have striven to dominate the other, Hindus who had not ruled in a thousand years would have been slaved easily; it would have made no difference if there was a non Hindu ruler.
It would have been simple and easy to exploit the resources of the sub continent by keeping it in constant turmoil.
Look at Africa, a demographically homogeneous continent has been turned into battle field of tribes promoted by the ideology and corporate interests.
Partition was the best solution, even if Muslims were made to sacrifice more than the others.
I do not agree with you. Partition did not solve anything it only worsened the situation. A leader who considers his caste, community, or religion ahead of his nation is not a patriot.
It is not possible to devide nation on basis of religion, every nook and coner of india you have people of different religions, can you drive them out of their houses and promise a new house in a different land will they be happy? Has partition solved any problem?
People of different religions can coexist provided they dont mix community issues with national issues. Individual rights are important but they must be fought as citizens of the country. Religious rights of an individual is also important, even that can be fought for without harming national interest.
In conclusion, partition only gave extra power to politicians to rule (more countries, more states more polititians can rule) no benifit to the citizens, just loss of money time and life’s!!!!!
I agree with you 100 percent. Greed and dishonesty is the root cause of this problem we face today.
Ahmed Bihari Says:
Here’s democracy unlike Pakistan
Your argument is that the presence of more than one group in a country provides the opportunity for outside powers to exploit the situation.
After partition, India still has more Muslims than Pakistan but outside exploitation is minimal. Pakistan which was almost all Muslim was much more subject to outside exploitation. It seems that the factors that promote exploitation are different.
Malaysia had three very large and different groups but once they found a formula to co-exist, no one from outside could exploit them.
If diversity is a problem then it seems that partition is not the answer because it was Pakistan that was partitioned again, not India.
Diversity can be a source of strength or a weakness. It is a function of the leadership how they deal with diversity. It was for this that Nelson Mandela was awrded the Nobel prize.
One reason why Nehru and Patel agreed to parition was because they saw it as the only way that a strong centralized state could be created which could implement the congress parties agenda be it land reforms, nationalisation of industry, abolition of the caste system, Hindu law reform etc. The alternative model of a loose federation would have made it more difficult.
On the other hand, it might have been a good thing if the congress had faced credible opposition in the first 30 years of its rule.
Rohit,
Yes, this is a plausible reason for why Nehru and Patel agreed to partition. The alternative model would have made some things more difficult.
But how difficult? The question is: Was the price the political leaders were willing to pay for subsequent ease of operations worth the gains?
Would it not have made more sense for each side to have given up a little in order to preserve a peaceful subcontinent in which 10 million people did not have to leave their homes.
It is in this sense that one feels none of the leading politicians were able to see the larger interest. There was no one with the vision or stature of a Mandela.
Esh Bharti Says:
Actually there was a leader named Abul Kalam Azad with the vision or stature of a Mandela. But no one listened to him ,unfortunately.
suhail Says:
I think partitioning India was something the Brits did to vent out their frustration of them losing their “JEWEL IN THE CROWN”.and we indians(pro 1947) fell for it.India is a beautifull mix of hindu and muslim culture.I have grown up in Post Independent India where people live in harmony for most of their days.Politically motivated riots have happened in the past but India has remained true to its values.I think its not too late.Pakistanis and Indians are the best of friends when they are studyin overseas(my friends)which shows that we can live together without the hatred.I think if we unite India again,stress will again come back to its culture,its diverse beautifull people.How could we fall for The Brits after them having slaved us for 200 years.Shows how we INdians/pakistanis are so easily deceived.I think rulers like AKBAR(MUSLIM) truly understood the strenght of united India where the rich muslim and hindu culture would make the country the worlds richest.Lets start with open borders ,think of each other as humans first,pre 1947 Indians and reunite one day.
Suhail, This is an experiment that can be tried any time. Put a some Pakistanis in a group comprising Indians, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans, Arabs and Iranis and more often than not they will gravitate towards the other South Asians. With the Arabs and Iranis they may share a religion but with South Asians they share much more and that is what determines one’s level of comfort. Your observation about students overseas is quite right. You can also see the interactions of Punjabis abroad where the affinity of language between Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs outweighs the differences of religion.
We should not wait for the subcontinent to be reunited in order to see each other as fellow human beings. Who could have said that Germany and France in 1948 would be part of a united Europe fifty years later. Fifty years is a long time and we have no way of knowing what the politics of South Asia might be in the future. If we do away with the border lines in our minds and hearts the physical borders would lose much of their meaning. The starting point is to reject those who preach hatred.
man0jm Says:
Well said. To add to this, my personal experiences in US & EU 1. Many Pakistanis introduced themselves as Indians – if they were india haters, why would they do so? 2. I have been recipient of many acts of kindness by Pakistanis, when indians werent.
I really think the way forward to peace and growth is not encouraging stereotyping and biases, but both sides taking CBM’s by controlling the hawks within them.
If Sudan & South Sudan can talk to each other, why cant India and Pakistan?
Kabir Altaf Says:
Sometimes Pakistanis introduce ourselves as “Indians” because we don’t want to get into pointless discussions with well-meaning people about whether we support the Taliban or our mothers are covered in head to toe burka.
Unfortunately, our nation has a bad reputation these days (some of it well-deserved and some of it a result of highlighting certain aspects to suit various agendas)
Aakar Says:
The Daily Times has published an opinion piece on a new book about Jinnah. Very roughly put, it argues that the trajectory of Pakistan was not ‘negative’ (inspired by Jinnah’s charisma, which gathered Muslims under a two-nation banner), but ‘positive’ (meaning to say that India’s Muslims were — are — looking for something that they saw their faith promising them).
That Jinnah followed the Muslims into Pakistan rather than the other way around.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009128story_28-1-2009_pg3_5
Well, Dr. Ambedkar;s perspective on this issue is very valuable, since he was one guy who was neutral towards both Hindus and Muslims.
The movement for Pakistan was a mass movement, and it was backed up by the League’s success in the provincial elections held in the areas that comprise Pakistan today.
I think one problem is that most Pakistanis tend to view India as essentially homogenous and Hindu, while Indians have very different (and contesting) views on the nature of their country. National identity is a very problematic idea in an India of Punjabi Sikhs and Christian Tamils. India is an idea that is still evolving, and it is an idea that might not succeed.
And it is difficult for me to see why the areas that comprise Pakistan today would have chosen to remain in the Union once these divisions started surfacing. I think you are under estimating the power of religious nationalism.
SIranjeev Says:
Exactly my thoughts. Today, people consider Pakistan and the conflict in Kashmir as a major problem. But the truth is, if the partition had been denied, the subcontinent would have disintegrated into a full scale civil war. If we look around us, at each and every instance of a country where a minority felt alienated, demanded a separate state, and was denied it, we would see disasters. Be it Sri Lanka, be Syria, be it Ukraine. Ghandi and the leaders of the Congress of that day saved us from this fate. It’s hard to see so many people today, especially since the BJP came to power, criticise Ghandi. To me personally, the partition is what distinguishes India from every other nation. It’s a mark of the greatness of our land and its values. For where every other nation tried to take, we were willing to give. Jai Hind.
Siranjeev: I am not questioning your conclusion since there is no way of knowing that “if the partition had been denied, the subcontinent would have disintegrated into a full scale civil war.” You can’t claim something is “the truth” simply by declaring it so.
However, I am questioning your logic because in the very next sentence you affirm your belief that “each and every instance of a country where a minority felt alienated, demanded a separate state, and was denied it, we would see disasters.” If that is indeed the case, one could ask why India is not “willing to give” (your words) the areas in which minorities have felt alienated for over 60 years?
I am not stating India should do that. I am only asking why you don’t recommend it doing so given the logic of your argument.
Hi South Asian, Indian congress did not have the power to split India, it was British who split because Jinnah and Muslim League asked for it. Muslim League and Jinnah wanted to separate electorate based on religion, this could have permanently divided the country and could have been a source of conflict between politicians and us people. Off course this is a guess because we cannot know what would be, only what is.
Indian: The way I look at this is different. Take your claim that “it was British who split because Jinnah and Muslim League asked for it.” Did the British do everything that was asked of them? If not, why did they agree to this particular demand? And why did Jinnah and the Muslim League ask for a split of India? Did Congress actions have anything to trigger that demand?
Take the other claim that “Muslim League and Jinnah wanted to separate electorate based on religion.” Dr. Ambedkar also wanted separate a separate electorate for Dalits. The Congress accepted the first but rejected the second. Why? The effect of both would have been the same if your claim is right – that separate electorates divide and are a source of conflict. Did these contradictory actions have any bearing on what happened?
You are quite right that we will never know for sure but these sorts of questions can point us in the direction of useful research.
Vikram, It is difficult to underestimate the power of nationalism and religion after the conflicts of the 20th century.
On this blog we are trying to answer a few issues that preceded the conflict in India. As you mention, the idea of national identity is complex: the differences between Punjabi, Bengali and Keralite Muslims were just as profound as the ones you have mentioned – the subsequent contempt of West Pakistani Muslims for East Pakistani Muslims is just one example by way of evidence. So why did identity in British India get defined around religion and not around ethnicity or langauage? This was not an accident and we have referred a lot to the excellent book by Kamaljit Bhasin-Malik (In the Making: Identity Formation in South Asia) to explore this question.
Those who are interested in these issues know that there is no homogeneity in India just as there is none in Pakistan. The Muslim League tried to create a Muslim identity just as the BJP is trying to create a Hindu one. These attempts can have temporary political payoffs but ultimately do more harm than good.
The movement for Pakistan was not a mass movement to begin with. The League did very poorly in the 1937 elections but much better in the 1946 ones. What happened in the interim to change the opinions of Muslims? Even so, in interpreting the movement one should keep in mind that these elections were contested on the basis of separate electorates and a limited franchise. The majority of Muslims did not have the vote and most who migrated had no choice because of the scale of the riots in 1947.
The areas that comprise Pakistan today were the last to sign on to the Pakistan movement, if it can be called a movement. That is not where the movement began or was the strongest. There is no reason why they would not have remained in the Union given alternative representational arrangements. And even if they had wanted to separate they could have done so without so much loss of life and perpetual hostility – as for example in the case of the Czechs and the Slovaks. We have spent considerable effort on the blog establishing the crucial importance of electoral rules in political outcomes – see the posts on Malaysia and Japan.
The discussion on Dr. Ambedkar is a separate one. In brief, he was amongst the most highly trained, analytical and forthright personalities of that time. He was unusual because he did not start with a preferred position for which he then sought convincing arguments. On the contrary, he led with an objective analysis and put his weight behind whatever position was supported by logic.
It was in this sense that he was neutral. Otherwise he was bitterly opposed to the caste discriminations in Hinduism and ultimately converted to Buddhism with his followers. As for the Muslim League, irrespective of the merit of the case for Pakistan, he maintained that it was not negotiating in good faith by continuing to ask for more when earlier demands were conceded.
Dr. Ambedkar was a huge intellect and an immense resource. It goes to the credit of Gandhi and Nehru, that despite his criticisms of Hinduism, they included him in the first cabinet and entrusted him with the leadership of the constitution committee. That his views were not popular with the general voters is obvious from the fact that he failed to be elected to the Lok Sabha. His contribution to the political stability of India was invaluable. There was no one of his calibre in Jinnah’s team.
My impression was that the Muslim League’s movement was a mass movement, but I guess it was not that clear cut. I still dont see how some kind of ‘united’ South Asia would have survived, when almost all the countries here have serious internal conflicts.
Vikram, If you read Ramachandra Guha’s book India after Gandhi, you might find at least one answer to your question. The book is an expression of surprise that India has stayed together as one country when few expected it to do so.
There were serious internal conflicts in India (think of the separation sentiment in the South) and there still are. India has stayed together because of a proactive policy of conflict management and prevention – the creation of states based on langauge was an important element of this policy.
In essence this was strengthening a linguistic identity to tide over the time it would take to build an Indian identity. An identity built around language rather than religion is much more stable simply because there are many more languages than there are religions. A major Us versus Them polarity is much less likely to emerge.
So we are back to our question: Why was identity in the frst half of the 20th century in British India allowed (or encouraged) to emerge around religion rather than around language or ethinicity?
There are few conflicts that cannot be managed with intelligent policy. South Asia could have survived just as India has survived. At least there was a very good chance. After all, it had survived for a very long time before it broke apart.
Arun Gupta Says:
None of the movements in (divided) India has asked for parity of a numerically smaller community with a larger community. Separate electorates and complete parity at the Center were the All India Muslim League demands and there was no possible compromise that the Indian National Congress could make with that.
If there was a formula that could have worked, those people would have found it – they were in general smarter and more honest and sincere than the politicians we have today.
In any case, we’ve had 60 years to bring about a European Union-like situation, and that hasn’t happened. SAARC is a joke. I don’t need to invoke counterfactual history to prove this. If we could not get that to work, how would a united India work?
We still see most of Pakistan and some of Bangladesh and India still fighting the religious fights of the twentieth century. In Bangladesh the Supreme Court and in India the electorate seems to have rejected religion-based politics. The fight continues in Pakistan.
Arun: People have managed to find workable solutions in even more complex situations – Malaya, Lebanon, South Africa to take just a few examples. Mandela and the ANC could have done to the Whites in South Africa what Idi Amin did to Indians in Uganda but sometimes the larger welfare calls for accommodations, even major accommodations. The historical accounts that are being written after the release of the Transfer of Power papers (Khilnani, Seervai, Wolpert, Jaswant Singh, etc.) are not agreed that the situation was one without a possible solution.
I agree that SAARC is a joke but your inference is not valid. SAARC is a post-conflict organization, United India would have been a pre-conflict one. The fact that SAARC does not work does not imply that a United India would not have worked. It might have or it might not have for other reasons.
You are right that religion-based politics continues in Pakistan but the counterfactual that is relevant to this discussion is whether the area that now constitutes Pakistan would have seen the same conflict had Pakistan not been created?
Well, sometime between March 1940 and August 1947 was the point of no return regarding conflict/pre-conflict; and I place it closer to 1940 than to 1947.
Once the rhetoric started that “without Pakistan, Islam and Muslims will perish from India” (e.g., here is Jinnah, March 1941, Aligarh : Pakistan is not only a practicable goal but the only goal if you want to save Islam from complete annihilation in this country.), IMO, there was no going back.
Arun: I agree. I would also locate the point-of-no-return close to 1940. There is a post on the blog (The Road to Partition) that offers one chronology. It is open for discussion.
True, in fact my very first ever blog post was about the creation of linguistic states in India,
http://vikramvgarg.wordpress.com/2008/07/22/federalism-and-the-accomodation-of-minorities-in-india/
One note, please dont refer to the states of India as ‘provinces’, it is something that most Indians would detest. The very first line of the Consti is that ‘India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States’.
Changed. Thanks for pointing out the slip.
Vikram, SA – can one of you educate me on why referring to the states of India as provinces would cause Indians to squirm? Thanks.
i think that if there had not been a partition atleast what pakistan is right now would not have been this way Muslims wanted to be indipendent but they never were as dictatores in pakistan ruled the way they wanted if there had been one united india we surely would have become a superpower by now
Sameer, Your comment raises a number of important points that need to be discussed further:
1. Did Muslims want independence? What is the evidence for this assertion? Some answers to this question are provided in the post On the Emergence of Pakistan (https://thesouthasianidea.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/on-the-emergence-of-pakistan/). More Muslims stayed behind in India than moved to Pakistan. How is this fact reconciled with the claim?
2. What made it easier for military dictators to take over power in Pakistan compared to India?
3. What is the basis for the claim that an undivided India would have been a superpower by now? What are the essential requirements for achieving the status of a superpower?
Bloody Civilian Says:
an involved discussion about the possibilities of a non-partitioned india, and not even once does it mention the Cabint Mission’s Plan! how amazing!
not a single commentor, nor even the author has challenged the false assertion about separate electorates. it was swallowed line, hook and sinker.
the CMP was based on a single, joint electorate for all indians. there were no separate electorates. jinnah had long been making clear his disdain for separate electorates, and disuading his electorate from espousing them.
all indian leaders envisaged india to have universal adult franchise.
the CMP did not envisage a partition of any province. group B = united punjab, nwfp, sindh, baluchistan. group C = united bengal + assam. group A = the rest of british india.
the following is the picture after the success of the league in the 1946 elections (on a separate electorate, limited frnachise basis):
1. in the punjab, the ministry was formed by a congress + unionists + akalis coalition, not the league and their partners the communists.
2. nwfp had a congress ministry.
3. in group C, league had a lead of merely 3 seats, i.e 35:32.
so this was hardly a communal grouping. rather it was staunchly anti-majoritarian in case of groups B and C.
the CMP required the absolute minimum of the three subjects – defence, extrenal affairs and communications – to be central subjects.
group A, with its overwhelming congress majority could make the centre as powerful as it wished by giving it all conceivable government subjects, and the centre would still have controlled the defence and comms over the other two groups and held external affairs. that is, a unified military institution and command.
there was no parity at the centre, neither between the groups nor the two communities. each group had the power of veto, which is not the same as power to vote.. which was 201 to 73 in the INC’s favour.
grouping was compulsory only till the first general elections. that is, it was for the sole purpose of constitution making, as was the group veto. after that, provinces were free to abandon groups, or change from one to another.
under the CMP, no province was allowed to secede from india (notwithstanding INC’s long held stance that they would never deny a province’s democratic right to do so).
the league accepted the CMP. the congress claimed it accepted it without accepting the ‘compulsory grouping’ explained in the above paragraph.
No, the Cabinet Mission Plan called for Groups A, B, C to have their own assemblies to make their own constitutions. There was no center to speak of.
http://sites.google.com/site/cabinetmissionplan/
dr ambedkar’s book: it was written in december 1940. it could not have forseen 1946, let alone answer the question: “why did the league accept the CMP?”
Ambedkar’s book has a Jan 1, 1945 edition.
http://www.ambedkar.org/pakistan/
harsh vardhan Says:
partition is right.
Editor’s comment: Perhaps, but opinions differ. This is what Sunil Khilnani writes in The Idea of India: “Partition is the unspeakable sadness at the heart of the idea of India: a memento mori that what made India possible also profoundly diminished the integral value of the idea. It conceded something essential in the nationalist vision, the conviction that what defined India was its extraordinary capacity to accumulate and live with differences.” (pp. 201-202)
Whether it was right or wrong, it was clearly a failure of the human imagination and of human skills since no one started out wanting an outcome that cost a million lives, ten million displaced, and endless strife.
On this blog we are not trying to reverse history, only to understand why it turned out in a particular manner and what other possibilities were foregone. Is there something to be learnt from that history?
Harsh Vardhan, are you THE Harsh Vardhan? – The IAS officer who resigned to do a tremendous job at providing relief for the victims of the Gujarat pogrom?
Jainulabideen_Proud 2 B an Indain Muslim Says:
i’m not able to gues wat wud’ve hapend in unpartitioned India…. coz xcept Bangladesh, der r separatist movements all over india n pak wo want der own countries n regions.. but if india emerges sucessful in controlling it, it wud surely b 1 of d powerful C’tries in wrld 2day..coz 2 of us obtained N-power independently…
Jainul: What do you think are the chances of India controlling the separatist movements? What does India need to do to control them?
Jaswant Singh’s new book, “Jinnah – India, Partition, Independence,” was released on August 17, 2009. The following is a quote from the book:
The cruel truth is that this partitioning of India has actually resulted in achieving the very reverse of the originally intended purpose; partition, instead of settling contention between communities has left us a legacy of markedly enhanced Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or other such denominational identities, hence differences…
@SouthAsian
‘South Asia could have survived just as India has survived. At least there was a very good chance. After all, it had survived for a very long time before it broke apart.’
Could you please explain that when and how long it [South Asia] had survived before it broke apart.
Raza: I have been thinking how best to illustrate this. Let us see if this would work: Let us move back from 1947, year by year, and identify another time when one million people died and ten million became homeless because two communities wanted to live in separate countries of their own. Of course, if we move forward from 1947, we would arrive at another such date in 1971. We would also come to the unfulfilled demands of Khalistan, Nagaland, Mizoram, Pakhtunistan, Balochistan, Tamil Eelam, etc. that have been the cause of violence and deaths. Does this characterization seem reasonable?
Ganpat Ram Says:
The real paradox of Partition is that Hindus produce so many characters who spend their days fantasising about an impossible dream of undoing Partition, taking it for granted in their brain-free skulls that Hindus, Muslims and the rest will then live as one happy family…..
Whereas the whole history of India since the Muslim invasions has shown graphically and conclusively that Muslims hate the guts of Hindus, have always done so and always will. They follow a tough, extremely intolerant Mosaic religion, and are the last to accomodate mere idolators.
If Hindu India with 150 mllion Muslims lives on the edge of catastrophic explosion, tense with fear of Muslim eruptions, the solution of the INCREDIBLY stupid sick Hindu “intellectuals” like the donkey’s clown Puri is to introduce another 300 million Muslims into the explosive brew by undoing Partition……!!!!
I ask you !!!!!
Partition, by getting rid of two-thirds of a endlessly demanding and violent Muslim population to Pakistan, actually allowed Hindus the possibility of breathing in a free country.
No sane person wants to go back to Hell. That is what India would be if Partition were undone.
The paradox is that Hindus, who were SAVED by Partition, kept nearly all the good land in India, were given the chance for the first time in a thousand years to unite in one big state where they had a hige majority, often produce donkeys who want top undo the basis of this salvation.
Without Partition, in a couple of generations Muslims would be a MAJORITY in the Sub-continent. A camel brain like Puri doesn’t realise this.
Muslim Pakistanis almost NEVER, paradoxically, want Partition undone. They are PROUD of Pakistan and want to keep away from Hindus if they possibly can.
ANWAAR has pointed out that no less than two million of three million Bengalis pitilessly slaughtered by the butcherous Paki armies were Hindus ! This is a country in which Hindus were a helpless minority of hardly 10 per cent……They were put to wholesale Nazi-style genocide for no other reason than that they were Hindus.
Such are the Muslim “brothers” of Hindus. No people on earth hates Hindus even one-millionth as much.
Ganpat Ram,
I’m a “Muslim Pakistani” and I want Partition undone. That disproves your thesis all together.
KABIR:
You are the exception that proves my rule.
No wonder you want Partition undone, though. As I pointed out, if India, Bangladesh and Pakistan were united, in two or three generations Muslims would ge a MAJORITY. Foolish Hindus don’t realise this.
No, we sensible Hindus know Partition was our community’s salvation and DO NOT WANT YOU BACK, THANKS.
Away to Arabia !!!!!
Ganpat Ram Bhai,
“Away to Arabia!” I am not an Arabian. I am an Indian. My family is Indian. My culture is Indian. The languages I speak–Urdu and Punjabi– are Indian langauges. The classical music I sing is Hindustani classical. The food I eat is Indian. I have no interest at all in Arabs or Arabia.
Kabir Mohan
Ganpat Ram Bhai:
In the the words of Bhagat Kabir– a great Indian: “koee bolay ram ram koee khudai”. This is the true essence of Indian secularism, and what allowed Hindus and Muslims to live together for centuries with minimal issues. It was only when the British introduced seperate electorates and the competition for political resources became intense that communalism became an issue.
The motto of India is “Unity in Diversity”. Why do you want to turn Bharat into the Hindu equivalent of the “Islamic Republic of Pakistan”?
You are harping on an old tune, and it does not convince.
Muslims with few exceptions feel far more for Arabia than for India, and certainly loathe Hinduism.
I don’t blame them. It is their religion and choice. Only, don’t try to fool Hindus.
Bhagat Singh was a brave but foolish man.
In a united India, Muslims will rule as they will in as few decades be the majority.
Under Muslim power Hinduism will be finished. It led a slave existence in previous Muslim regimes. WE DO NOT WANT TO GO BACK TO THAT.
Arabia is the place for you.
Ganpat: This is not a fruitful line of argumentation. You cannot decide what would be the right place for anyone else – it is their choice. You could just as easily be asked to move to Nepal where there would be no danger of your being ruled by anyone else in a few generations. Nor would you have to live with people you don’t like. That would be equally pointless. You have to decide where you want to live and what you want to make of that place. You seem to have given up on the secular and democratic vision of India that Jawaharlal Nehru had espoused. I am intrigued what your vision of an ideal India looks like and if you were in the driver’s seat what would be the first half dozen policy measures you would put in place to get there?
Hayyer Says:
Ganpat Ram:
If over 700 years of Muslim rule could not reduce Hindu majority in India it is unlikely that a few decades would have done so.
Hindus don’t live tense in fear of Muslim eruptions. If anything it is Muslims who have reason to live in tension.
The three countries are separate now; what is done is done. The best that they can do is to try and get along.
SouthAsian:
It seems you will not accept that Hindus and Muslims do differ profoundly in their loyalties and allegiances and that is the fundamental reason why they formed separate nations once the British decided to quit.
Blaming the British is very callow.
Islam is an extremely powerful religion. Muslims in the Subcontinent feel the terrific pull of Arabian history and culture and have huge contempt for the Hindu heritage. They identify with their Arab converters not their now remote Hindu ancestors. Jinnah is a good example. He came from a Hindu family a couple of generations back, but totally rejected any Hindu links.
Fair enough. No one is obliged to love Hindus or Hinduism.
However, Hindus do have to try and survive. Under Islamic rule, there was no equality or hnour for Hinduism. At best it hung on as a despised slave religion.
Now, Hindus are concentrated in one big state, and have a big majority. Partition got rid of two-thirds of the endlessly threatening and violent Muslimas, who have their own countries.
I have read the bitter old arguments prior to Partition, and was chilled by the extent of hatred and contempt for Hindus they show.
Let us not go back to all that. It was a terrible world.
Steps to help India?
Eradicate illiteracy. Make healthcare universal. Carry out serious land reforms. Make hiring people in industry easy. Fence the borders to prevent Muslim illegal immigration. Get a tough army to withstand Pakistan and China. Ensure equality for monorities.
Such are my thoughts.
Ganpat: All your steps to help India make sense. I am not sure though how you will go about the last one – “ensure equality for minorities”?
I notice you seem to be avoiding the major part of my message.
However, so be it.
By equality for minorities I mean exactly what any civilised state would have. India is certainly Hindu-dominated and ought to be a Hindu state to give Hinduism honour. But that does not mean in the least that Muslims should be discriminated against. They should have equality in law and their religious observances and places should be respected. There should be a single legal code all should be subject to and steps should be taken to help Muslim women escape the particular disabilities they suffer. All this is commonplace.
Ganpat: The specification is ideal and perfect. I am not sure how it can be achieved simultaneously with intense hatred, contempt, bitterness, resentment, and the desire to send all of them to Arabia where their entire loyalties lie? Can one be socially civilized and individually uncivil at the same time?
The less Hindus have to do with Muslims, the better for them.
Reading post-Independence Indian history, I am struck by how the frightening pressure and fear of the Thirties and Forties was replaced by a much calmer world in India once the Muslims quit and went off to Pakistan.
The fifties were in many ways India’s happiest times, because the Muslim population was proprtionately at its lowest.
A lesson in that for Hindus.
Muslims are a tough bunch. As they increase in numbers, they become more and more demanding and threatening.
I don’t think reminding Muslims that their heritage is basically Arabian is an insult. It is an honour for them to recall their allegiance to the homeland of Mohammed.
Nor did I say Indian Muslims should be sent to Arabia. I merely told Kabir that that is where he should look to as his culture was centred on it.
I have no gripes against Muslims of the Subcontinent. If they destroyed Hindu temples, I blame the Hindus for not having the guts and efficacy to defend them.
I don’t blame Muslims for their love of Islam. It has a great culture behind it and I am sure it is in many ways better than Hinduism.
As a Hindu I am loyal to my religion, but I am sure it is far from perfect and I do not claim it is beautiful. It is mine, that is all.
The Hindus have their country and Muslims theirs.
Let us live in peace and see how to develop them.
As Nehru said, wisely: “If so many people do not want to be in India, hiow can we and why should we compel them?”. That was his final verdict on Partition, and I thnk it stands. Patel remarked, also wisely: “Let the Muslim League develop 20 per cent of India, and we will develop the rest.”
Agreed?
Ganpat: Not agreed; rather totally perplexed. “The Hindus have their country and Muslims theirs.” So what is the country of the 150 million Muslims who are citizens of India?
Nehru and Patel may have agreed to Partition, but Gandhiji was always against it. He told Jinnah in 1944 that he did not believe that Hindus and Muslims were seperate nations. He said “I have never heard of sons of converts claiming to be different from the parent stock”.
My culture is not in Arabia. I am South Asian and “Hindustani”. I do not speak or read Arabic, I do not eat Arab food, I don’t wear Arab clothing. I have nothing in common with Arabs, except perhaps nominally a religion– which I’m not really that interested in anyway.
If the Hindus don’t even have India, what country have they?
Of course there are minorities as in every country and I have said they deserve equal rights.
So what is the problem?
Ganpat: Kabir beat me to the punch on this but I would like to add something. I don’t think it is enough to say that minorities ‘deserve’ equal rights. I feel the correct perspective is to think of all citizens having equal rights that are inalienable. Minorities should not have a status that is at the mercy of someone’s dicretion. One can think of this as the difference between the status of courtiers under a king and bureaucrats governed a civil service code. This difference in status makes all the difference to behavior. When a bureaucrat violates the terms of his service, he or she can be dismissed or put in jail. But even those in jail retain an inalienable right to their status as equal citizens.
In a sense, the US violated this principle when it interned Japanese-Americans during WW2. It has since apologized for the error. Citizenship should have no relationship to religion, caste, ethnicity, language, color, or sex.
India belongs to all its citizens– Hindu, Muslim Christian, atheist, whatever.
Ahsan Ahmed Pitafi Says:
Ganpat Ram you are right at your place but we can not depend over some statements which were given by Nehru because no one is perfect on earth .We are just trying to end all problems which were created between two nations in 20 centuary because I can not watch any more certain deaths of the soldiers .
SouthAsian, Kabir:
You are talking about another subject altogether.
I see no reason why Muslims in a Hindu India cannot have equal rights if Hindus in a Protestant Christian UK can have equal rights.
Muslims have 60 states or so that are Muslim; there are scores of Christian states, many very liberal like the UK. Why not just ONE Hindu state, if liberal?
The issue we were actually discussing was the pros and cons of Partition.
My view remains that the Hindus had a VERY narrow escape thanks to Jinnah. Muslims in the Subcontinent are well on their way to a majority in the Subcontinent in a few decades. 1947 was a chance for Hindus to have a Hindu-dominated country, and they got it through Jinnah.
Well done, Jinnah. I hope the fierce pride of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis in their countries and separation from Hindus will keep us separate. That is best for ALL.
I have read the bitter attacks on Hindus by Muslims in those decades leading to Partition. They breathe a hate and alienation that Hindus would be EXTREMELY stupid to submit themselves to again by undoing Partition.
Partition has given Hindus the best chance for a decent life they have had since the Muslim invasions. I devoutly hope they keep it. Above all things, I fear the insinuating voice of Muslims who try to undo Partition, and the folly of Hindus who listen to them.
Hindus and Muslims are much better off where they are, mostly in separate countries.
Pakistan is run down by Hindus, but it was a great ideal for Muslims who sought a truly Muslim society that they could develop free of a Hindu environment. It was a great POSITIVE experiment, and that is how Muslims think of it. They can work to sort out its difficulties at present.
Just keep us poor Hindus out of your way. We have been badly burnt in our association with your fierce Mosaic THRE IS ONLY ONE GOD faith.
Not all “Muslims” are the way you think. Personally, I think everyone is entitled to worship god in the way they like. My relationship with god is personal and I’m no one to impose a particular view of the divine.
Prior to Partition Hindus and Muslims lived peacefully together overall. Muslims even sang the Meera bhajan “Shyam piya more rang day chunaria” (a bhajan which I love by the way) only changing “Shyam” to “Khwaja” and addressing the song to Moinuddin Chisti. Indian Islam is not Arab Wahabbi Islam.
Also, I object to your term ‘Muslim invasions”. The Mughals may have been foreigners but they became Indian. They gave Indians some of the most beautiful aspects of our common culture, such as the Taj and Hindustani Music, even Mughlai cuisine.
I think trying to separate what is “Hindu” and what is “Muslim” in the Indian context is really foolish.
Ganpat: I have already acknowledged your opinion as one in the spectrum that has a very wide range. You are entitled to it. My interest is to figure out what kind of India you want. What do mean by a Hindu state? Is it the kind of state that Tagore, Nehru, Gandhi, and Sarojini Naidu had in mind, or is it different? If so, what is the difference?
I am also unconvinced that the Hindu state you seem to be articulating can be liberal at the same time. Liberalism cannot have intolerance as a foundation.
And finally, I don’t see how you can speak on behalf of all Muslims, past and present. You can speak for yourself and let other people present their opinions both in agreement and disagreement. Those are the rules of a debate. You can’t logically say “that is how Muslims think of it.” You can say “that is how I think Muslims think of it.” And then you would have to leave open the possibility that you could be wrong.
The impression I form is that your position is similar to the one expressed recently by Varun Gandhi. We have talked about it earlier on the blog. It can be accessed here in case you want to pursue that discussion.
SouthAsian, Kabir, Hyvver:
A Bharat Ratna is (seriously) too little for the truly unsurpassed service Jinnah rendered to the Hindus.
It was little short of divine mercy that this man, whose grandfather’s family was Hindu, created Pakistan and in this way gave three quarters of the Subcontinent, and almost all the desirable lands, to the Hindus. As he correctly pointed out, it is much more than they have had for a long time.
Hindus would have been in the pit of sheer hell by now had Pakistan not rid them of two-thirds of the appallingly violent, despotic and blackmailing Muslim population.
Hindus also need to be devoutly grateful to their other saviour, Nehru. His hot temper saved us in 1947 when he threw out the Cabinet Mission Plan whereby large Hindu and Sikh areas would have remained under Muslim control while large Muslim areas would all be under Muslim control too. The centre would be feeble, and regions would be free to secede if they wanted. The Muslims, a qurater of the population would have parity at the centre. It was a formula to destroy the Hindus. Nehru threw it out and saved them.
No wonder Islamists are whining about Partition. They knows that all Muslims got under it was a bum’s deal of two widely separated areas, mostly the worst bits of India.
Saying that inundating the country with Muslims would make it peaceful is like saying that making a small fire in a house far bigger will protect the house.
We Hindus are wll rid of Muslims, mate. Don’t let’s get mixed up with these dangerous fanatical characters again.
Muslims also want Pakistan and Bangladesh to survive. They don’t want to get back with Hindus. Good for them.
Been there, done that, not going back again! Away with foolish delusions.
Ganpat: Your opinion has been registered. Repetition does not make an argument stronger. Personally I am delighted with your stroke of good luck and wish you all the best.
Why one Hindu State? Many Hindus will find it suffocating to have a religious state. The way you are arguing for a liberal Hindu state, India is a de facto Hindu state so what is bothering you?
There is one point which bothers me though. Why aren’t there several secular countries having Muslim majority? Will someone answer that?
Anil: The question you have asked is an important one. Let me rephrase it:
Why aren’t there countries with Muslim majorities that are secular?
While this is not my area of expertise, let me start a discussion. This is a complex question some of whose complexities are obvious and some hidden.
One of the hidden complexities is the fact that we live today in the age of the nation-state which is a form that is less than 200 years old. One peculiarity of a nation-state is that it has a written constitution (leaving aside the special case of England) and this constitution has to declare the orientation of the state. Given that there is no distinction between Church and State in Islam (the Caliph is simultaneously the religious and secular head) it is an impossibility for a Muslim majority state to declare itself secular in its constitution.
This is a legal conundrum that Kemal Ataturk tried to resolve by coercion in Turkey. The real question that we need to ask is how countries with Muslim majorities (regardless of whether they call themselves Islamic or secular) deal with the religious beliefs of non-Muslims who live in the same territory?
Here the record is quite mixed – some do much better than others. So we have to go further and investigate what the local factors might be that determine whether the record is good or bad. This is a task for readers with more knowledge of the comparative record.
It is interesting, however, to go back prior to the age of the nation-state because there one can judge simply on the basis of the record – the constitutional conundrum not being relevant. We again find a mixed record. For example, in the article by Amartya Sen that I had referred to in the post on Akbar, Sen writes:
Western detractors of Islam as well as the new champions of Islamic heritage have little to say about Islam’s tradition of tolerance, which has been at least as important historically as its record of intolerance. We are left wondering what could have led Maimonides, as he fled the persecution of Jews in Spain in the twelfth century, to seek shelter in Emperor Saladin’s Egypt. And why did Maimonides, in fact, get support as well as an honored position at the court of the Muslim emperor who fought valiantly for Islam in the Crusades?
Many non-Muslim historians have commented that in Jerusalem, the most contentious city because of its shared heritage between the three major Semitic religions, the most tolerant periods were those when the city was under Muslim control. A new book by the Templeton Foundation (Religious Tolerance in World Religions, 2008) has useful material on the historical record. Most of the book is available on the Internet and Chapter 12 (starting on page 274) has relevant information about Jerusalem.
Even in India, although this may be more contentious, the Mughal period is not classified as particularly intolerant and one cannot point to religious persecutions that were any worse than have taken place in a secular India.
So the question we have to ask (and not just for Muslim majority countries) is how majorities treat those who do not share the majority religion. And why, within the same culture, some periods are much more intolerant than others? If we can get a handle on this we may be able to recommend measures that would eliminate intolerance at the level of the state. It may never be possible to eliminate it at the level of the individual.
In his book on Jinnah, Jaswant Singh cites a scholar on Islam, who says that Islam is a “theocentric but not a theocratic” religion. So, all activities revolve around god. the “good” orthodox Muslims cannot concieve of seperation of church (in this case mosque) and state, of religion being something that you practice in the privacy of your home, and not in the public sphere.
Without being able to conceptualize the seperation of church and state or the public sphere/private sphere distinction, a country cannot be secular.
Apparently this is the crux of clash and not the clash of civilizations. Non Muslims don’t care how Muslims find it difficult to separate church with state therefore depend on their tolerance for equal rights. They expect quid pro quo, if we give constitutional rights for equality we should get the same from Muslims states.
Anil: This is a problematic proposition. Suppose Muslim states don’t guarantee equality; would we (I presume you mean India) also do the same? Is this a point of principle or of tit-for-tat? If the latter, India may go into a deep slide.
Secondly, the issue is really one of equal rights. Is it possible to guarantee equal rights even if the state is non-secular? I hope someone who knows more can inform us of the status of guaranteed rights in countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Algeria, Morocco, etc.
Third, if the tit-for-tat logic is to apply to Muslim states, would India guarantee equal rights to Christians because countries with Christian majorities have constitutionally guaranteed equal rights for non-Christians? So, India would have equal rights for some minorities and not for others? What will happen if some Christian countries renege on equal rights? If some Indian Christians originated in those countries, would they lose their equal rights?
I didn’t say we should reciprocate in the same way. I am merely speculating on reason for rancour.
Anil: Sorry, I misread your comment. I see the point you are making. There is also the other side to that. For all its talk of Muslim brotherhood etc., it is quite obvious that the successive governments in Pakistan have never given any importance to the well-being of Muslims in India. Their narrow self-centered actions have brought untold misery on Indian Muslims because of the rancour that has been generated.
This also highlights the lack of logic in the demand for Pakistan. Ostensibly, the intention was to provide political protection to the Muslims who were living in provinces like UP with large Hindu majorities. Muslims in Muslim-majority provinces like NWFP had adequate protection any way because of their numbers. Pakistan left behind all the Muslims that were considered vulnerable and constituted a new country in areas that did not need protection. The group that came out worst was of Muslims left behind in India deprived of political leadership. To make things even worse, subsequent actions of Pakistani governments ensured that more rancour was generated in India against Indian Muslims.
This is the real test for India. Pakistani Muslims will do nothing to make the lives of Indian Muslims tolerable. Indians have to rise the challenge. It is a huge moral test – the kind of test the requires a Gandhian vision.
I can say something about Malaysia. The Indians and the Chinese have constantly resented the Bhoomiputra policies which guarantee reservation to a class of Malays (I am not sure exactly whom the reservations are guaranteed for), who invariably happen to be muslims as well. During lunch chats with my chinese colleagues they tell me that if Singapore was a part of Malaysia, our senior management in the Singapore Co affiliate would all be Malays and not Chinese though the majority in the populaiton is Chinese. Indians, Christians and the Chinese in Malaysia have always dreaded the imposition of Shariah. There are parties that are calling for a Saudi-style Shariah in their political rallies. The minorities in Malaysis continue to live in Malaysia even when they can affort to live in Singapore because Malaysia offers a cheaper and better quality lifestyle and the Shariah threats are only sporadic in nature.
There have been issues in Malaysia about muslim apostates and the jurisdiction of the Shariah court that have troubled inter-community harmony. Lately, there have been issues with the movement of a temple that is being objected to by the muslims.
I believe Malaysia survives through all these despite Islamic influence because of its pre-Islamic culture of syncretised growth of culture that has continued to a large extent till the global Islamization wave caught up in Malaysia too.
I don’t hear much about Indonesia.
SA, muslims make an argument that Chirstian states do not let them practice a key aspect of their religion – polygamy. In that way, they are not giving equal treatment even in civil matters.
Anil I agree with you about quid pro quo. But I also think India, as a secular state and as a democracy, should hold it’s self to higher standards than “Islamic Republics” and oil rich middle eastern kingdoms.
SA, I want to add a qualification of the tolerance you speak of in the medieval period. I beieve that kind of tolerance is a rather low standard when speaking of tolerance to minorities in today’s world. Would Saladdin have let one of the Maimonides become his deputy or his stand-in? Never. Letting the maimonides settle down in his empire and go about their daily business is one thing and letting a person from the minority rise up to governing a state is another. I don’t think we could ever have seen a Barrack Obama type leader in the medieval times. There was a limit to the tolerance of the medieval times that one should be aware of and medieval tolerance should not get overrated. .
Vinod: This is an issue we should address with some care. First, one could argue that the extent and intensity of the intolerance we have seen in the modern era is unprecedented – where in the past would one find the equivalents of the Holocaust, the Partition of the Indian subcontinent, the Apartheid in South Africa, the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, the decimation of native populations in North America and Australia, etc.?
In some sense this is not the most interesting aspect. I feel the past has to be evaluated in terms of its own norms, not the norms of the modern era. And within the norms of any era it becomes useful to look at variations. Why at a particular time were some parts or some regimes more tolerant than others? That could tell us that we might be missing something important. If people of the same religion or culture could display variations in tolerance, there might be some other variable involved that we might be overlooking. It could be some political aspect that we are not aware of and have not looked for. In such cases most people find it easier instead to make sweeping generalizations for which no research is required.
As for Maimonides, as Professor Sen has mentioned, Saladin not only supported him but gave him a place of honor at his court. We have already recorded in an earlier post the composition of Emperor Akbar’s cabinet – it ought to be considered a great sign of trust and religious tolerance to assign the control of the finances and the military of the empire to individuals belonging to groups that most people think in terms of hated enemies. If some Muslims were reading this discussion, they would surely point also to the fact that a black slave was the first appointed muezzin of the Islamic faith.
So, either we are misinformed about the norms of earlier times or we are judging them too harshly.
Partition means Muslims can now peacefully develop their Pakistan with a mainly Muslim personality, and Hindus can develop an India with a mainly Hindu personality. The two can live separately. A very good result. I have many many criticisms of Nehru, but his decision to accept Partition SAVED the Hindus.
Without it, there would have been an unimaginable bloodletting and Muslims would have seized far more land than they got. Hence their gripe about Partition.
Ganpat Ram
You have read the hate mongers among the Muslims prior to partition. Have you read the hate mongers among the Hindus? It is a long list starting with Dayanand Saraswati and Vivekananda (though the latter claimed to be reasonable).
India has the right to be a Hindu state IF it gives equal rights to minorities.
I am glad you admit Partition was a piece of enormous luck for Hindus.
Even Muslims are better off with it. Hindus and Muslims have quarreled so much that without Partition there would have been total chaos and bloodshed.
Indian Muslims tend to whine rather than use the ample opportunities they have to biuild decent lives. They do not deserve the sympathy you waste on them.
I am VERY happy Indians, Paks and Bngladeshis will live seprate lives forever. GOOODO!!!!!!
If Hindus wanted a Hindu state they would vote in those political parties that want a Hindu India. Why argue on this site? Address your questions to Indian Hindus and ask them to vote for the Parivar group.
You have an idea of Muslims; and you insist that it is the only correct idea. There is nothing to be done about that. It is what fanaticism is usually about.
HAYYER:
Calling those fanatics who warn about Muslims because of universal experience of Muslim fanaticism is a very cheap polemical device.
You seem to be dead set on whitewashing Islamic imperialism.
By your standard Hitler would come across as a trusting and tolerant ruler because he entrusted much of France to Marshal Petain, a French soldier belonging to a group most Nazis would think of as hated enemies.
There were plenty of Hindu collaborators with Muslim rulers. They stood by as these rulers committed monumental atrocities agaibst their people and destroyed Hindu temples.
Ganpat, if you think SA is whitewashing, do you realize you are painting in black and white?
VINOD:
What would it take to convince you that Muslims had a profound opposition to the Hindus in the times of Muslim rule in India?
The FACT that rulers like Aurangzeb rpeatedly expressed acute contempt and for Hinduism and the desire to eradicate it is not enough for you.
The FACT that Muslim rulers destroyed vast numbers of Hindu temples on any number of pretexts is not enough.
The FACT that Hindus were subject to all manner of disabilities under Muslim rule is not enough.
Then what is?
As for Hindus having collaborated with Muslim rulers…..So what? Did not Indians collaborate with British rulers?
As for the idea that a British census can create the Hindu-Muslim split: what sort of unity was it that could be split so easily?
Why dream about a unity that is illusory?
Just accept the division and live with it. India puts up with a separate Lanka and Nepal, which have infinitely more in common with India culturally than Pakistan and Bangladesh….Why can’t it accept a separate Pakistan and Bangladesh?
Ganpat, I dont see how you can claim that Lanka and Nepal have “infinitely more” cultural similarity to India than India does to Pakistan. As far as I am concerned, in cultural terms South Asia is mostly a cultural continuum, apart from communities on the fringes like Sri Lanka, Nepal and Kashmir that are related to the continuum but not part of it.
What distinguishes India from its neighbours like Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan is the strong (but often strained) mass and constitutional commitment to pluralism and democracy. They are the foundations of our Republic. To some extent Bangladesh is similar to us in this regard.
I agree with you that romanticizing about a possibly illusory past will not solve the problem of community relations in India, but neither will blaming all the country’s ills on the perceived malevolence of a particular community.
VIKRAM:
May I remind you that the great majority of Indians are Hindus, and that Nepal and Sri Lanka share a huge heritage of religion and culture with the Hindu majority in India since they are Hindus or Buddhists – followers of a daughter religion of Hinduism?
So it is arrant nonsense when you say these countries do not share more cuturally with India than Muslim countries like Bangladesh and the former West Pakistan.
Mr. Ram, I am well aware of the demographics of my country. The point I am trying to make here is that culture does not stem just from religion (although it is an important source) but also from language and history. A Hindu Tamil does have something in common with an Assamese Hindu, but he/she also has something in common with a Tamil Christian.
If religion was the sole determinant of culture and nations, then ‘East Pakistan’ wouldnt have fought a war of independence and become Bangladesh (i.e. nation of Bengalis).
India shares culture with all of its neighbours, but their politics and Constitutions are very different.
If language is what counts with you, there is no case for any kind of united India, or united Pakistan.
We all speak different languages.
Stop fooling yourself. The idea of a united India is primarily based on the Hindu heritage. Without it there will be just a bunch of independent states.
You can fool yourself all you like. The Muslims are NEVER coming back to join the Hindus. We have gone our separate ways, and a jolly good thing too. Islam is too intolerant.
Ganpat, you have completely missed the point of this post by SA. It is not about calling for a unity of India and Pakistan. So pls stop belabouring that irrelevant point. The point of this post was about how an analysis is more often than not tainted with the simplifications about others derived from one’s prejudices. It is about deriving lessons from history on arriving at sound judgment in difficult scenarios.
Vikram: I agree with the point you have made (culture does not stem just from religion) but want to push further on two subsequent comments: that religion is an important source of culture; and on the nature of the relationship between conflict and culture.
We have had this discussion earlier with Mazhur who took a position similar to Ganpat Ram’s that religion is the source of culture. In general, a stronger case can be made that culture is the larger category and culture subsumes religion. Thus religion becomes one element in a culture. For example, we talk about the culture of the Punjab which includes Punjabis of all religions. Similarly, as you mention, there is Tamil culture which also cuts across religions and has some of the same religions as in the Punjab.
When a community converts to a new religion it’s culture essentially remains the same – only some practices change. This is what explains the existence of syncretic communities that are perplexed at the attempts of purists to force them into one religion or the other. Even those who do not believe in any religion belong to one culture or the other.
Regarding conflict, there is nothing that prevents conflicts within cultures. There can be inter-cultural as well as intra-cultural conflict. Intra-culture conflict can be driven by differences over some element of that culture like religion (e.g., a conflict between Sikh and Muslim Punjabis) or some dimension within the religion itself (e.g., caste). There are often intense quarrels over property within families that share all elements of a given culture.
Your conclusion is absolutely correct – there is a shared culture in South Asia but the politics and Constitutions of the countries comprising South Asia are very different.
Mr. Ram, For the majority of Indians, language counts along with religion, caste and nationality. They are part of people’s identity. Trying to form nationalism based on religion does not appeal to the majority.
It is time for you to open your eyes and your mind.
ISRO has Hindus, Muslims and Christians speaking different languages, but that does not stop them from being an organization and achieving collective goals, does it ?
Judging by some of the comments on this post, Hinduism is just as intolerant as Islam. Rather, intolerant people exist among followers of all religions.
Now back to the topic of the post.
The mistake many people make is imgining thsat Pakistan was due solely to Jinnah.
In fact, by 1945 it was a mass movement. Jinnah or no Jinnah,it would have dominated Indian politics.
However Hindus and Muslims might have co-existed in the past – even setting aide the actual grisly record of communal battles – in modern times, as thy became much more self-conscious about communal identity, they could no longer co-exist. Co-existence was a feature of a pre-modern age. In modern times, Muslims wanted Pakistan.
You cannot escape the diffuculties of modernity by praising the past, as many are doiung here.
Hindus and Muslims no longer, if they ever did, trust each other. Each expected the worst. It was time to part.
Ganpat: The following points need attention in your comment:
1. There is no one on this blog who thinks that Pakistan was due solely to Jinnah. You were the only person who did so. It is good that you have joined the majority.
2. Assertions are not enough by themselves. They are only starting points and need proof of have credibility. You need to cite evidence of the “grisly record of communal battles” in the past.
3. Co-existence could not have been a feature of a pre-modern age if the latter was also riddled with grisly communal battles. There is a contradiction in this claim.
4. You need to support the claim that in modern times as people become more self-conscious about communal identity, they cannot co-exist. How would you apply this to the history of Europe?
5. Does this imply that as people in India become more self-conscious of their caste identities they would no longer be able to live together?
6. Your claim that in modern times “Muslims wanted Pakistan” needs elaboration. How would you explain that more Muslims stayed in India than moved to Pakistan?
7. You misunderstand the debate on this blog by thinking that people are trying to “escape the difficulties of modernity by praising the past.” The objective is to study the past to understand the present; and also to see how the past is re-invented to justify the present. This is the standard task in thousands of history departments in the world; there is nothing odd or fearful about it. Knowledge of the past does often shake one’s certainties about the present. Some are excited by the prospect, others are afraid of it. Often the latter groups try to stop the study of history. That becomes part of politics.
8. You make a strong claim that “Hindus and Muslims no longer, if they ever did, trust each other.” You need to cite evidence for that without resorting to the label of ‘collaborators’ for all those who did trust each other. Labeling also does not count as proof. In fact, dismissing everything and everyone that does not agree with one’s position and repeating one’s assertions is an indication that one wishes to engage in polemics not debate.
9. If it turns out that your claim is indeed true, the task for the participants on this blog would be to rebuild that trust.
10. Nothing is forever. There may be a time to part and there can be a time to get together again. It depends upon the needs of the times. We are in one boat now buffeted by the storms of globalization and climate change. In one boat we need to row together lest we drown. It is not wisdom to practice one’s prejudices on a sinking boat.
The following is a third century BC inscription from the Twelfth Major Rock Edict of the Mauryan emperor, Ashoka:
‘… On each occasion one should honour the sect of the other, for by doing so one increases the influence of one’s own sect and benefits that of the other; while by doing otherwise one diminishes the influence of one’s own sect and harms the other. Again, whosoever honours his own sect or disparages that of another, wholly out of devotion to his own, with a view to showing it in a favourable light, harms his own sect even more seriously. Therefore, concord is to be commended, so that men may hear one another’s principles and obey them …’
1. Did more Muslims stay in India than went to Pakistan?
Not if you know anything about the numbers. Pakistan and Bangladesh constituted two-thirds of the Indian Muslim population. According to me. two-thirds is twice as big as one-third. Correct me if I am wrong.
It is true actual Muslim migration, though one of the biggest mass movements in history, was of a small portion of the Musloim populaion within the new borders of India. But did that imply these Muslims had no enthuisiasm for Pakistan? Not at all. Thety were the main supporters of Pakistan, in Indian elections. The rest of the Muslims joined in later.
2. What proof of Hindus and Muslims not trusting each other in modern times, you ask. May I point to the Pakistan movement? Isn’t that evidence enough and more?
3. As for earlier times, I cannot summarise the vast evidence in an inch. I would advise you to study the history of Muslim temple-destruction in India. There are few large and really old Hindu temples left in areas of India longest under Muslims. You have to go to South India for those. This is enough to show you the Muslims deeply despised Hinduism. It is no more persuasive to pretend Hindus loved Muslim rule than that Arabs were happy under Western rule. Do not prescribe colonialism for Hindus. I see an Islamist imperialist tendency in you.
4. It is tough luck if the Pakistanis got the worst of the deal under Partition. That boat is over-populated, increasingly waterless and is siunking. Don’t try to take over the Hindu share. That’s all I ask. They decided to go, and they should stay gone.
Ganpat:
1. We are obviously talking of different numbers. I am talking about the proportion of the total population of Muslims in the newly created India that migrated to Pakistan. That constitutes a strong test of whether they did not want to live in India. You have to remember that elections before 1947 were not based on universal suffrage.
2. As I have mentioned times change and people change with the times. One can argue that the British also ruled repressively in India (Plassey, 1857, Jallianwala Bagh) yet all Indians (Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs) find it possible to co-exist with them. The Nazis carried out genocide against the Jews and they have learnt to live together. The Americans bombed Vietnam to death and they have learnt to co-exist. You may wish to live in the past but everyone does not have to be bound to your preferences.
3. If you talk for a mile and cannot spare an inch for evidence all your talk is in vain. What you see in others depends upon the eyes you see with. I have mentioned that labeling does not substitute for evidence.
4. Your statement “that boat is over-populated, increasingly waterless and is sinking. Don’t try to take over the Hindu share” is disconnected. Please do not be fearful – no one is trying to undo history. I have said before I am delighted you have a secure space.
I see you try to avoid facing up to historical facts with rather feeble subterfuges.
1. Indian elections under the British had a restricted electorate, true, but no historian I am aware of doubts that the Hindu population by and large supported the Congress and the Muslims by 1945 overwhelmingly supported the Pakistan movement. The electoral restrictions applied right across the India of that time, and it was consistently in the part that became the India of today that the Muslims most strongly supported the Pakistan movement. Jinnah himself was Bombay-based, and other important early leaders came from the UP.
2. Co-existence is inevitable on Earth, but the Hindus and the Muslims have quarreled so much that it would be the height of folly to bring the two together again in the same country. People like Nehru and Patel were far from fanatical Hindus, yet they took the decision to have Partition once they realised the alternative was a permanent Muslim veto on everything that happened in India, that in effect a minority would be holding the rest to ransom with civil war and massacre a perpetual reality. I respect their decision, which saved most of India.
3. I don’t blame the Muslims for their devition to the Islamic identity. It is a very proud and magnificent heritage, and they have every right to take pride in it. But Hindus too, respect their heritage, however measly it seems to Muslims. We are glad of a chance tio develop our Hindu identity in India, without the Muslim veto.
4. Every serious historian accepts that Muslims destroyed Hindu temples on a mass scale. Are you disputing this?
5. Germans and Frenchmen live in the EU, but they are not divded by Islam, and had to go through two world wars. Hindus and Muslims are profoundly different, and should stay by and large in different lands. Certainy India can trade with Pakistan, just as it does with Peru. Other than that, it should be a strict non-interference, comment or connection other than good neighbourliness as with, say, Burma.
6. Every serious historian knows Muslims destroyed Hindu temples en masse. Are you seriously disputing that?
In all sincerity, given your views that Hindus and Muslims are well rid of each other, why are you commenting on a blog called “The South Asian Idea?”. We are not called the “Akhand Bharat Idea”, the “Indian Idea”, or even the “Pakistani Idea”. Our use of the word “South Asia” should let you know of our ideology and our belief in promoting peace and tolerance in the Indian Subcontinent.
Kabir, I dont think that having a contrary view should irk people who promote peace and tolerance. Just saying.
How ironic and telling that people like you make a big thing about your devotion to the Indian cultural heritage, yet try to evade accepting that there was a massive Muslim destruction of Hindu temples.
Are those Hindu temples not a very important part of the Indian heritage?
This lack of concern about the destruction of the temples gives the lie to your praise of about South Asia’s cutural unity, etc etc.
I take it you welcome debate, that you don’t just think your views should go unquestioned. That is why I participate in this debate.
Muslims need people who will argue with them, politely but firmly.
Apologies for the accidental repetition of the question about Hindu temples above.
I wait for your answer.
Were the temples destroyed or not?
Don’t Hindus have aright to be concerned about that?
Can that concern be dismissed as that of a minority, as Romila Thapar suggests? Does the Thapar principle apply to all historical crmes, like the Holocaust, for example?
Ganpat: Many temples were destroyed. I haven’t come across a count; if you have let us know and cite the source. Everyone has a right to be concerned. The concern cannot be dismissed as that of a minority without evidence. Your concern is very obvious and has been registered. I am not sure if the entire German race or all of Christendom is being held accountable for the Holocaust which is a historical fact.
I believe people like Romila Thapar have done a measureless amount of harm to Hindu-Muslim relations.
You recommend her atrociously dishonest argument that the Muslim destruction of Hindu temples like that of Somnath was not motivated by Islamic hatred of a rival faith, Hinduism.
This is adding insult to the injury Hindus have suffered. If Hindus destroyed mosques on the same scale would you or any honest person buy the claim that this had nothing to do with Hindu intolerance of Islam? Obviously not.
General Dyer claimed that his massacre of Indians at Jallianwalla Bagh was not motivated by prejudice against them. No serious person accepts this, though as a matter of fact some local Sikh leaders felicitated Dyer.
Why then attempt similar arguments to whitewash Islamic crimes against Hindus?
Would you accept the attempt of upper caste Hindus to argue that their maltreatment of Dalits had nothing to do with caste prejudice?
Muslims would do far better to admit the history of Islamic intolerance, and try to be tolerant.
Ganpat: I fail to understand how Romila Thapar has done a “measureless amount of harm to Hindu-Muslim relations.” Clearly her argument differs from yours but does that necessarily make it “atrociously dishonest”? Is everyone who disagrees with your opinion dishonest, deluded, or a collaborator?
Your example of General Dyer reiterates the point that there can be more than one interpretation of the same event. The task of the historian is to examine the evidence not to call the other side names. If you have a different opinion you need to point out where you dispute the evidence.
It is not for me to tell anyone what to do. Everyone is entitled to their opinions but if they wish to participate in a debate they have to defend their opinions with evidence and logic.
The popint I was making was that Thapar applies to Hindu history standards of evaluation she would not think of applying to other histories. That is why she is deeply dishonest.
Thapar suggests that the destruction of Hindu temples by Muslims need not be held tio mean these happened because of Muslim bias against Hinduism. She would NEVER apply the same principle to Hindu crimes against Muslims such as the Babri Masjid destruction or Gujarat, would she?I clearly pointed out that General Dyer could be absolved of racial bias against Indians, by the Thapar method which you praise.
So I have clearly indicated what my argument is about.
Do not pretend not to understand.
Ganpat: I would expect Romila Thapar to apply exactly the same methodology to Babri Masjid as she applied to Somanath. She would look at all the contemporaneous documents and sources and lay them out for review by others. From these she would draw her own conclusions and also enable others to draw theirs. In the case of Babri Masjid the task is much easier because the documents are readily available and in languages that are accessible.
The Dyer incident would also be examined in the same way and the available evidence would be weighed in the court of history. Taking one position or the other based on ideological or nationalist preferences does not qualify as rigorous analysis.
Your last sentence suggests that along with Romila Thapar you also consider me deeply dishonest. As I have mentioned before, if your starting position is that anyone who disagrees with you is deeply dishonest there is little prospect of resolving the differences. The only option is for us to retire with grace.
ModerateIndianHindu Says:
1. Great discussion, enjoyed reading it. The depth of knowledge of you all is amazing. I agree with Ganpat Ram that the Hindu and Muslim nation has gone so wide apart that integration is impossible…. But I do hope that one day India and Pakistan can have open borders, if not integrated population like Germany. Open borders could be an interim step before unification, if that happens in my lifetime!!
2. Ganpat Ram – Bitterness does not help, educated people like us can bring a change to move forward from prejudice and work together for the betterment of the society.
Yes, I agree atrocities were committed on Hindus during Muslim rule. But that has nothing to do about religion… this is an innate human nature that unfortunately represses the downtrodden and has shown time and time again all over the world.
Hindus repressed Dalits for ages… hot molten lead was poured in the ears of dalits who happen to listen to vedas and other hindu religious recitals. Was this religion based prejudice? NO – it was power based… upper caste hindus had a perceived power and they abused it.
British and also Nadir Shah repressed Indians (Hindus and Muslims alike) ….Colonial powers repressed slaves both Black and White, European settlers in US repressed Native Americans, Australian natives is the same story, Christians repressed non Christians, Sunnis repressed shias…. list goes on and on… so the common thread there is not the religion but raw human instinct of hunger for power and resulting abuse.
I would equate the abuse listed above to a small token exercise of abusive power by a govt office babu(clerk) in India today – he has a perceived power to delay you a phone connection or delay your customs clearance and by golly he exercises that – I don’t believe he will distinguish between religion in exercising his abusive power.
The power in modern times has translated to electoral power and hence manipulation by conniving politicians. Illiteracy, poverty and uneducated masses get manipulated by such hate mongers.
Descendents of American Slaves carried a chip on their shoulder for generations, and some still do live in the past…. But successful African Americans are those who have come to terms with the historical facts and learnt to move forward. We should all do that.
2. SouthAsian – Great effort in moderating the discussion.. and your knowledge is awesome !!
Moderate Indian Hindu: You have summarized the discussion very well and extracted the key point that is relevant. Belonging to a religion and being ideologically motivated by it are two completely different things. This is a distinction that many people overlook. The Mughals who invaded India were Muslims but it was not Islam that motivated their invasion. Had that been the case, Aurangzeb would not have spent half his life fighting the Muslim kingdoms in the Deccan. The Khilafat Movement was supported by Gandhi, opposed by Jinnah, and crushed by Kemal Ataturk. Political considerations almost always override religious ones.
When one reads the history of India over the last one thousand years one never comes across an instance of a purely Muslim army arrayed against a purely Hindu army – there were always people of both communities on either side. All the battles were driven by control over territory and sources of revenue, never by religion. I was reminded of this again while reading a short story by Prem Chand (Rani Sarindha). It is about Bundelkhand which is in the news these days – readers would find the story of interest for more than one reason.
The irony is that those who are motivated by religion are particularly prone to violence against their co-religionists whom they consider not sufficiently religious. This is what the Taliban are doing in Pakistan and what the RSS has been doing in India.
When we oversimplify religion we exacerbate the divisions in society for reasons that have almost no support in reality. Many thanks for your very valuable comments.
Siddharth Says:
We Indians and Pakistanis come with so much baggage.
Here are the identities I most identify with: I am a human, a lover of rock and roll, a beer connoisseur, a photographer, a cartoonist, and an atheist.
My “Indianness” is primarily culinary, linguistic, and related to pop culture. I come from a Pakistan bordering state (Rajasthan), and I can assure you no one ever thinks/talks about Pakistan there. I have lived a good 13 years of my life in South India. No one thinks/talks about Pakistan there either. There are primarily only two places in India where Pakistan is an issue people discuss: in the chatty circles of Mumbai and Delhi (I have lived 5+ years in both cities).
I don’t know if this is a good thing or bad, but Indians on an average don’t care about Pak either way.
Do excuse me for not contributing anything relevant to this debate/discussion. I just hope we call all just chill out and get along. Wishful thinking, I know.
Siddharth: There could be a bit of natural parochialism involved in this phenomenon – I doubt if people in Rajasthan think or talk much about South India, or vice versa, either. In normal circumstances this lack of involvement would not matter but the circumstances are far from normal – the nature of India-Pakistan relations could cast a huge shadow on the welfare of over a billion people in South Asia. For that reason alone, the Indian government has a very active public policy stance vis a vis Pakistan. Whose views is it representing if the people are not involved in the debate or are indifferent to it? Could it become like the situation in the USA where American citizens are not interested enough in the Middle East thereby allowing neo-cons the opportunity to take liberties in that sphere?
Siddharth Singh Says:
SouthAsian,
The problem is that Rajasthanis, or the people living in rural areas of any state in India, Pakistan or any other south Asian country have a lot of problems of their own to worry about anything else. International relations is last on their minds. Hence I wouldn’t be too surprised to see such indifference of people beyond India too (I can only speak about what I have noticed, everything else is speculation).
I too fear that the international policy will be taken over by jingoistic neo cons in our subcontinent. In fact, haven’t they already? At least, in my eyes, we might be heading in that direction.
Siddharth: In Pakistan the neo-cons have undoubtedly taken control. In India, there have been ups and downs but the general trend is towards a hardening stance. I keep thinking if this represents the preferences of the rural populations which are still the majority in both countries. How does one find out? In the theory of democracy, the will of the people drives the policy of the governments. In our times, the ruling cliques manipulate and manufacture the will of the people with control of information and its abuse backed by money. This was at the back of mind in the two posts about Kashmir (here and here).
Just keep Pakistan an uninterrupted parliamentary democracy for a sufficiently long time (two decades at least) and things will improve; some kind of South Asia will emerge.
Everything else is wishful thinking.
Arun: I agree, although keeping Pakistan ‘civil’ for two decades is a tough order. A lot of smart politics by India would be needed to finesse such an outcome. My fear is that Indian democracy itself might be squeezed over two decades if it does not deliver benefits to the majority of its population.
Very interesting discussion, and an unusually high content to vitriol ratio. My compliments.
I tend to agree with Ganapat Ram for the most part, though his feisty and robust language seems to have caused a great deal of perplexity. In my experience in discussing with members of the Pakistani intellegentsia (defined as those who write more or less coherently on blogs, op-eds etc.) I have found (with a handful of exceptions) that any Indian (especially if he should come across as a Hindu) that expresses himself vigorously in opposition to the Pakistanis’ received verities is reflexively dismissed as a Hindu fanatic, and put in a box with Thakre, Modi et al. It is to this blog’s credit that this didn’t quite happen to Ganapat Ram, but it came mighty close to happening.
Being grateful for a Hindu majority state, where for the most part Hindus feel free to be Hindus without feeling that they are on sufferance from the rulers is not the same as being a Hindu fanatic or an intolerant person. India (aspirationally at least) is a country where the question of sufferance does not arise (which fact is what protects the dignity and natural rights of its minorities), whereas Pakistan, in the best of possible worlds, is a country that is modeled on exactly this idea of sufferance and “tolerance” of the despised inferior.(in the less-than-best scenario, the minorities are systematically exterminated and degraded, both in fact and in aspiration). Like Ganapat Ram, I thank the Almighty that this idea, and not Muslims per se, has in effect been quarrantined in Pakistan, and pray that India wises up and keeps its ideological borders secure and well-policed.
Bharat: Thanks for the compliment; it is much appreciated.
This is not a partisan blog and does not suffer from the self-imposed burden of having to defend specific positions. The response to Ganpat Ram was not undertaken from the position of a “Pakistani” blog. Rather, it was an attempt to engage logically with his arguments. In the end it was a draw as neither side was able to make headway but hopefully other readers were able to benefit from the exchange.
On your second point, I have mixed feelings. You make an important distinction that it is not Muslims per se but the ideological stance that is quarantined in Pakistan that is problematic. If Pakistan had not been created, India would still have been a Hindu majority state. Therefore, being grateful for Partition does not seem relevant from this perspective. There might be other benefits for India but acquiring a majority is clearly not one of them.
I am having trouble parsing
“You make an important distinction that it is not Muslims per se but the ideological stance that is quarantined in Pakistan that is problematic. ”
It is not clear whether you are saying that the distinction (ideology or mindset vs religion) is problematic; if so, how is it problematic?
The subcontinent was always nominally Hindu-majority, even before British times, so that is irrelevant to discussion about partition. The exact question that divided the country was whether any group should be privileged enough to have a veto power over pubic decision, in law as well as in fact. Pakistan’s Constitution clearly states that Muslims shall have that power, and it has proved so in fact, with everyone else living in terror of the whims of Muslims, and that being perfectly legal. The ideology of India, while accepting some safeguards for various vulnerable elements of society, emphatically does not privilege any group over any other. Hindu numerical majority by itself is meaningless (as it has always existed, yet arguably in many parts of India over many periods of history Hindus lived in terror of Muslims, along with kings, nobles, and so on. India (despite occassonal and sporadic outbursts of Hindu supremacist sentiment along with violence, has by and large never sought to reverse the scales on Muslims; an equal and free status is more than sufficient for Hindus. The opposite of such equality and freedom is what is quarantined in Pakistan.
Bharat: I was reiterating the point you had made in your earlier comment: “I thank the Almighty that this idea [of sufferance], and not Muslims per se, has in effect been quarantined in Pakistan.”
I felt this was an important and valuable distinction because it identifies the real problem – the idea adopted by the people in Pakistan. This gets us away from the position that the problem resides in the religion itself. Just as an idea can be adopted, it can be un-adopted – this is a normal part of political struggles.
Constitutions do not explicitly need to privilege groups – the majority is automatically privileged if democracy degenerates into majoritarianism. It is the minorities whose rights have to be protected against the abuses of majoritarianism. Pakistan has failed completely in this endeavor; India has done much better but there is room to do more.
Satyajit Says:
Nice topic, heated debates.
Hindus had been under Islamic rule for a over 700 years. Politicians, intellectuals, and other secularists cannot just expect Hindus to forget the past!!! Past is past, but it matters.
Can the Jews ever forget Holocaust. Never. They should never.
That secularism is enshrined in the Indian Constitution is itself a miracle considering the history of Hindus. Which other country would have allowed for such a document of rights after being so brutally ruled? None!!! Israel is also a Jewish state.
Having said this, I believe for the future of India, secularism is important. There is simply no other way to manage a country like ours. Why should Hindus, who form the majority, give equal rights and equal consideration to all minorities? They should because India is now looking to unify all its people under a common banner. In other words if Hindus want a better life, and a greater say in their country they have to make sure that the minorities, feel as Indian as they do!!! However painful and unfair it may sound, this is the best way forward now.
Those who preach secularism, and I am one of them, should also acknowledge and accept the fact that in India, Hindus had been brutalized in the past by Islamic rule.
Preaching secularism without accepting the fact that Hindus have for centuries suffered under foreign domination, is absolutely wrong!!! We in this country have quotas for the Dalits, because it is widely understood that they have suffered, and the quotas are a way of addressing historical injustice. The Hindus are merely asking that politicians, minorities and other groups accept the fact that Hindus have suffered.
Presently, there is no acceptance of that fact. People get angry when they hear a politician make speeches about secularism without even showing remorse for the injustice Hindus have suffered.
A society gets stronger when, every group condemns and protest, injustice against any community. In our country how many Muslim leaders have come out and accepted the fact that Aurangzeb was a murderer who brutalized Hindus? Why is their silence on that issue? Is it because they see nothing wrong with it? Why is it that the English media is silent about past atrocities committed by Muslims rulers, but makes noise about BJP, Advani and other hindutva parties? Why is it that we do not have a national remembrance day for the Hindus who died during Islamic invasions? These are double standards.
Let me summarize by saying this- Secularism asks a lot from Hindus, and Hindus have accepted secularism because they kmow it is important for their country, but then they also see that they alone compromise. They see that their pain is not seen heard or felt by politicians, and that is when many of them start doubting secularism.
Pakistan, is a nice country. It has a different take on the History, but for how long are we going to deny the truth? Pakistan and India can be one country, but let us first agree on our past!! Let us at least understand why Hindus are angry. After all India gave birth to Hinduism, and Hindus are the original residents of this ancient land.
When Aurangzeb and other Islamic rulers who killed Hindus are celebrated as national heroes, how would Hindus react? I wonder.
For India and Pakistan to be one, we will have to start with the history, then move forward slowly. Will they ever be one, I do not know, but I want them to. Yes, after all the past I am of the opinion that we are one people divided by religion, but divisions are meant to be sealed, and communities (under appropriate conditions – too many to list here) heal. Hope for the best.
arsalan Says:
I’m from Pakistan, I just want to say that the Indian Partition was a really great mistake. Over a million people got killed due to violence created by the ill designed partition. Just ask yourself, are the lives of 1 million innocent people of South Asia really less important that the greed of power hungry political entities such as the Muslim League and Congress.
Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs were living peacefully until the British arrived. Its not just Pakistan or India, everywhere you look while withdrawing the British Empire broke up all of its colonies.
Unfortunately, the bulk of Pakistanis and Indians have been brainwashed due to institutionalized propaganda, and remain in complete denial.
Arsalan: This is a complex issue and it can be easily over simplified. I believe that attributing the one million deaths to the greed of power hungry political entities like the Muslim League and the Congress would be one such over simplification. We have the benefit of hindsight that the key players did not have when they were negotiating. I don’t think any of them wanted one million deaths or indeed believed that such an outcome was possible. We can fault them on poor judgment but not on inhuman intentions.
There is little doubt that the British were interested in prolonging their rule as long as possible and their strategies were geared to that end. Recall that the major anti-colonial uprising of 1857 was a united movement. It was in the interest of the British to divide and conquer – they gained an extension but at huge cost to the people of India. Part of the blame has to be shared by the Indians who fell for this tactic. I feel the main parties were conscious of this and tried, as evidenced by the many attempts to build united coalitions till late into the 1920s, but they lost control on both sides to the fringe elements that valued ideology over compromise.
It is ironical that both Indians and Pakistanis have forgiven the British but remain unforgiving of each other.
Bala Krishnan Says:
Deart southasian,
I am sure sounthasian is a Muslim who longing for a united India or a very foolish Hindu who is ingnorant of Muslim psyche.
is there any country in the world that can co-exist with a Muslim population of more than 30%? Impossible. The fundementals of Islam dictates Jihad is the only option to liberate from non-mulsim rule – if in all countries the Muslims do not attempt now only means, they are not ready for such a combat. Why East Timur or south Sudan drifting away? It is impossible to live honourably by non Muslims in a Muslim majority country. Can you show a single nonMuslim living honourable in any of the 57 islamic countries? No. you cannot find.
If India had not been divided, India would have gone under a terrible civil war killing millions and would have created far greater a Muslim country comprising almost all of north India. Every Indian, Hindus and Muslims and Sikhs for that matter, would have been carrying AK47 and suicide belts same like happening in Pakistan (every Pakistani got either AK47 or other kind of guns – I talk to them)
If anyone dreaming of coexistence withe Muslims honourable, they are living in a fool’s paradise.
Bala Krishnan: There is a larger issue embedded in the point you have made. Throughout most of the human history we know, people have found it difficult to coexist with those who are different whether they are minorities or not. There have been ups and downs but the essential inability has not disappeared anywhere. The variations over time have been quite significant. We find the Christian countries relatively tolerant today (although note the treatment of the Roma in Europe) but for centuries there was intense anti-Semitism culminating in one of the most tragic episodes in history. The Islamic world is going through its phase of intolerance now as you have pointed out but there was a time when Muslim countries were the most tolerant. Many unbiased historians have recorded the fact that when Jews were hounded out of Christian countries they were given refuge in Islamic ones. Intolerance is not intrinsic to religions but springs from many different contextual reasons.
This inability to coexist is not confined to differences in religion. Discrimination based on color, language and ethnicity has been a constant throughout history. And even beyond this, where people share all these attributes, the powerful have not been averse to treating the weak with brutality. You will not have to look far to find many examples.
In such a context, it is a disservice to continue the pattern of demonizing others based on broad generalizations and a partial knowledge of history. What is needed are concerted and united efforts to find ways to reduce prejudice and discrimination. The task is not hopeless. Look at the history of the United States starting with the extermination of the native Indians and the enslavement of the Africans. Today there is a President with the middle name of Hussain. It needs people of the calibre of Martin Luther King to travel this road of healing. Look at the history of South Africa where decades of brutal exploitation of the natives has given way to a reconciliation under the guidance of Nelson Mandela. It is indeed ironic that both King and Mandela take their inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi.
I appreciate your moderate approach to every issue. Yes you are right – we must hope for a better future of co-existence. I am a post graduate in History and had more liberal views than you until I start to live in an islamic country. I intereact wtih Muslims from Indonesia to Algeria and I found them, individually taken, very nice persons devoid of any extremist thoughts expressed in daily interactions. That matter gives us hope, as you professed, for a great change as happened in Christian world. Fanatism among Christians is not eliminated in mind and thought and it is shown whenever they got a chance to express it. But in the modern secular world, Christians have learnt to love and accommodate persons other religions unlike Muslims.
This does not preclude us to ignore the current realities – if we ignore, it means ‘deliberate suspension of disbelief’ and it is very dangerous for our (if we both are Hindus otherwise read my religion’s) future survival.
Somehow or other I must wish you all the best for your chosen middle path which may shed some light to those who drift to extremisim and enable them to go back to more humane society.
Bala Krishnan
Bala Krishnan: I see human beings as bundles of contradictory passions that, most of the time, keep each other in check. Once in a while, some one passion takes control of their lives to the exclusion of others – and these are the dangerous times. These passions are so raw and so close to the surface that it seems the very idea of a match can set them afire – and this makes instigators so dangerous. If one reads Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan (in English) or Qurratulayn Hyder’s Aag ka Darya (in Urdu) or Yashpal’s Jhutha Sach (in Hindi) one can get a sense of how people can live together for years and then one day have no compunction in the most brutal carnage.
This is the problem of induction (that you cannot always infer the future from observations of the past) that Bertrand Russell illustrated with his fable of the benevolent farmer. In his book, The Black Swan, Nassim Taleb has used this fable to reflect on the fate of the increasingly integrated German Jews in the 1930s.
A good book that has been mentioned on this blog is Secularism Confronts Islam by Olivier Roy. Roy describes how Christianity was dragged kicking and screaming into the secular world and then asks: “But if Christianity has been able to recast itself as one religion among others in a secular space, why would this be impossible for Islam?”
His answer is worth reading but a point he makes is that one would be led completely astray if one started the argument from dogma (Christian or Islamic). He strongly recommends a sociological approach based on a concrete analysis of Muslim practices that is often at variance with dogma just as the practices of many Catholics are at variance with the dogma regarding contraception. If one focuses on practice, Olivier claims, one would find that the majority of Muslims in countries with non-Muslim majorities have already adjusted to a secular world. And he makes an important point in describing his book: “Fundamentalism touches only a minority of believers, and many people defined sociologically as Muslims have no religious practices. But I have deliberately concentrated on what has caused problems.” Overlooking this fact carries “the risk of an obvious distortion.”
I see our task as keeping individuals from inflaming human passions and progressing to a stage where differences of opinions can be resolved through debates and discussions. This forum is intended as a contribution to that effort.
If I may intervene in this one on one conversation, the last couple of posts by Bala Krishnan and South Asian are very heartwarming and also conceptually deep. Bala Krishnan shows a tremendous control of his bundle of passions and I like South Asian’s description of a human being as such a bundle.
I would like to add a political dimension to this in two ways. If one divides all political thought into conservative, liberal, and radical in terms of the kinds of thinking they portray rather than the substance of their thought, then liberal thought stands out as that thought which is able to reason about things in parts rather than wholes. It breaks the whole problem down into parts and then analyzes the parts and their relationships to each other and to the whole. On the other hand, conservative thought and radical thought treat wholes very much as totalities. This does not mean there are no parts in such systems but rather that the parts are not given their due. (Some liberal strands give too much weight to the individual and not enough to the social whole for example and then this also veers away from abstract liberal thinking.) This part-whole relationship (the study of which is called mereology in philosophy) in liberalism – as opposed to that in conservative and radical thought – is crucial to the moderateness of liberalism. That is why liberalism exists between the two extreme poles of political thought.
The other dimension about liberalism is its “meta” nature. This is that it houses many different subsystems under it and is a highly abstract principle unlike conservative principles or radical principles. This abstractness is both a strength and a weakness. The strength is that it does not prejudge human nature much because it has very little content. The weakness is that people find it difficult to live with such an abstract system, they need more concreteness which both conservative and radical thought offer.
I include all religions as well as conservative economic theories within conservatism and I include all extreme leftist and rightist movements and theories under radicalism. The truth about human beings lies somewhere in between. However, this simple unilinear classification is a bit awkward because political thought actually requires a multidimensional space to classify it. In any case, this will suffice for my purposes.
To conclude, I would add that the posts above exemplify liberal thought even if the people who posted them may not be liberals.
Arun: This is a very insightful and useful perspective. I would add two things. First, the liberal strands that give too much weight to the individual and not enough to the social whole fall in the category of libertarianism and begin to trend into the type of radicalism you have defined. Second, you have described pure modes of thought. Obviously the situation becomes more complex when we are dealing with individuals. The sociologist Daniel Bell who died earlier this month had an interesting “triune” characterization of himself: “a socialist in economics, a liberal in politics, and a conservative in culture.” As we agree, individuals are a complex bundle not only of passions but of modes of thinking. This makes it all the more important to capture more accurately the essence of the various segments of the South Asian population.
Arun Pillai in his brilliant analysis of the theoritcal thought process and its classifications looks to our subject from another plane. The strange thing I notice that it is impossible to visualize the mindset of a non-Muslim living in a Muslim countries (all the 47 Islamic countries are fanatical in nature except little moderate Turkey and Malasia). Non-Muslims’ subdued existence in Islamic ambience is to be experienced rather than studied.
Once I had an argument with the IndianMuslim office boy over the work matters totally unrelated to any religions, suddenly I found him shouting all over the vast office saying “if anybody insult my prophet, I will kill him even if he is my son” – all the muslim staff had the impression I had insulted the prophet. Everyone knows what is the punishment of insulting prophet or Islam – here where I live is 10 years jail after namesake trial and in Pakistan death penalty, only two witness required which is easy to get. This is the way nonmuslims are subdued all over the islamic world. Somehow I escaped that ordeal, but the threat is always dangling over a non-muslim’s head all over the islamic world.
Regarding the possibility of transformation of mind of an islamic extremist to liberal or moderate, I had one Egyptian fanatic ( an engineer !!) came to my office as newly appointed. He refused sit in my large room saying I am a Hindu hence not a human being – equal to monkey or pig (he told it to another muslim colleague). Gradually over months I had discussions opening up his mind and mine too, and he was surprised to find that many other ideas exist in the world. He said to me that 35 years of his life in Egypt, he had not seen any such idea or books to make him understand other cultures. This means 47 islamic countries are closed societies, strictlycontrolled by their autocratic governments. My engineer friend had a metamorphosis, now he does’t follow Islam, doesn’t do daily prayers, eventhough I intended only to make him moderate. Now he says that all religions are fake, only psycho therapies. Now he is of the opinion that Islam inevitably heavily impairs intelligence, it deadens imagination and hinders logical thinking and produces as the end result a general mental degradation in the believer.
Regarding the Hindus’ position in the face of growing Muslim extremism in India, Hindus should take the teaching of The Art of War by Lao Tsu. The Art of war teaches us to rely not on the liklihood of the enemy not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him, not on the chance of his not attacking but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.
Bala Krishnan: As I said before the scenario you have described is accurate – it is not much fun to be a non-Muslim in a Muslim majority country; for many it is not even much fun to be a Muslim in a Muslim-majority country. This is a fact. My interest is in how one generalizes from this fact. Two options are open. One can say that the situation results from something that is intrinsic in Islam which has existed from the day of its birth – one would then find some explanations for the exceptions of Turkey and Malaysia you have mentioned.
Alternatively, one can look for a more historical explanation. One could argue that the social situation in Egypt was quite different under King Farouk, Gamal Nasser and Hosni Mobarak, respectively, although the majority was Muslim throughout. Ditto for the Shah in Iran, Zahir Shah in Afghanistan, Bourguiba in Tunisia, etc. The task would then be to explain what happened in the post-colonial era that gave rise to fundamentalism and to Islamism as a political ideology.
A comparison can illustrate the point I am making. Till the 1960s in the US South, Blacks and Whites did not eat at the same counter, did not sit in the same bus, did not attend the same schools, and did not us the same toilets. Blacks were deprived of the vote and could readily be accused of rape and lynched with or without recourse to the law. Would it have been correct to generalize from these facts that they were due to something intrinsic in Whiteness or Christianity that had persisted for ever? If so, how would one explain the election of Barack Obama half a century later?
As for Muslims in India, the perspective you recommend can very easily turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Americans had a choice after 9/11 to treat the incident as a crime committed by people who were Muslims or to launch a War on Terror whose main proponents were Muslims. The latter alternative suited a pre-existing agenda of the neo-conservatives but it has not served either the Americans or the rest of the world well. I am not sure Lao Tsu’s The Art of War is the right approach. Idealistic as it may sound, I would prefer Dale Carnegie’s The Art of Making Friends and Winning People.
Bala Krishnan: You succeeded in converting a fanatic into a liberal.
Anil: Can the individual be classified as a liberal? It seems to me he swung from one extreme position to another. A person cannot be liberal while holding such blanket opinions like “all religions are fake, only psycho therapies” or that “Islam inevitably heavily impairs intelligence, it deadens imagination and hinders logical thinking and produces as the end result a general mental degradation in the believer.” This reflects an inability to think through issues and a tendency to take refuge in some overarching belief. There are literally millions of people who defy this stereotype. Religion is a part of this world that cannot be wished away. What is to be avoided is the desire of some to impose their faith on others and secular laws ought to be employed for that purpose.
Actually I also think all religions are fake and comic. I thought I was liberal so assumed this fellow is liberal too. Now I realize I am a fanatic.
Anil: You can believe whatever you want but if you believe that people holding other views are mentally impaired then there is a problem. Liberalism doesn’t have much to do with belief or lack of belief in religion – it is an attitude of mind. Atheists and agnostics can be liberal, conservative or radical. So a person who believes all religions are fake does not automatically become a liberal by virtue of that position – it is possible that you are a liberal while the individual under discussion is not. I was commenting on the individual’s perspective that “Islam inevitably heavily impairs intelligence, it deadens imagination and hinders logical thinking and produces as the end result a general mental degradation in the believer.” This flies in the face of evidence – surely there are many Muslims who are just as intelligent and imaginative as anybody else. Are those who do not believe in religion more intelligent as a group than those who do?
Apparently holding extreme view is fanaticism. Why? If some arrives at a view after much thought, not in sync with politically correct wisdom do we regard this fellow a fanatic? Even if this fellow has an open mind and willing to change his views on hearing counter arguments?
I don’t think so. Important thing is to have an open mind and willingness to tolerate and respect other person’s contrary views. Holding extreme view alone does not make some one extremist until he begins to impose his views on others.
Anil: I agree with what you are saying but there are some terms that need to be defined with more clarity. Someone holding extreme views is, by definition, an extremist but an extremist is not necessarily a fanatic. At the same time, it is possible to be a fanatic without holding extreme views at all. The following description from Wikipedia is useful in making the distinctions:
Fanaticism is a belief or behavior involving uncritical zeal, particularly for an extreme religious or political cause or in some cases sports, or with an obsessive enthusiasm for a pastime or hobby. Philosopher George Santayana defines fanaticism as “redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim”; according to Winston Churchill, “A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject”. By either description the fanatic displays very strict standards and little tolerance for contrary ideas or opinions.
The behavior of a fan with overwhelming enthusiasm for a given subject is differentiated from the behavior of a fanatic by the fanatic’s violation of prevailing social norms. Though the fan’s behavior may be judged as odd or eccentric, it does not violate such norms. A fanatic differs from a crank, in that a crank is defined as a person who holds a position or opinion which is so far from the norm as to appear ludicrous and/or probably wrong, such as a belief in a Flat Earth. In contrast, the subject of the fanatic’s obsession may be “normal”, such as an interest in religion or politics, except that the scale of the person’s involvement, devotion, or obsession with the activity or cause is abnormal or disproportionate.
There is a tendency to generalize when it suits us. I remember in office when a Dalit does something silly, the refrain would be ‘ye log kabhi nahiiN sudherenge’ while for the same stupidity by an upper caste, the individual will be cursed.
Anil: If one is prejudiced against a group any untoward act of a member of that group is automatically attributed to some genetic characteristic of the group. Where no such prior prejudice exists the act of an individual is seen as no more than the act of an individual. Two things are needed to fight against this virtual auto-response. First, one should consciously refrain from generalizing from the individual to the group. Second, one must subject one’s prior prejudices to critical examination.
Well said, southasian, your approach is laudable, your argument convincing. However, when facing the realities, human being tends to drift towards formation of more prejudices and join extreme ideologies. Sometimes such experiences injure even the secular minds and force him to take sides.
At a Christian church function at the Church compound in the Gulf, Indian classical Bharatanatyam dance by young girls was scheduled. As everone knows, almost all Bharatanatyam themes are based on Hindu mythology and on that day some Lord Siva theme was chosen. Halfway through the beautiful performance by many girls, a Christian father angrily appeared on the stage and told to stop the dance. He shouted, why you praise Siva while Jesus Christ is the saviour of the world? – Everyone there looked the scene in disbelief. The girls on the stage started crying and they left the stage in great humiliation.
What generalizations should we get from that scene? An isolated incident or expression of Christian fanatism that pervades among the priests and his followers!! How do we fight such extremist ideas? Following Dale Carnegie or Lao Tsu?
As Anil Kala mentioned about the attitude towards Dalits, I must admit that the greatest injustice to any human beings is done in the name of caste among Hindus in India. This attitude is changing among Hindus, but before it gradual death, it should be accelerated, othewise Hindus has no right to speak about injustices happening around the world.
Yesterday I had long discussion with an Iranian sunni Muslim, he said that being a sunni in Shia Iran is a hell life. He says that before any conversation begin, a shia will ask – are you a sunni, if yes, they turn their face and stop talking further. He talked a lot about injustices in Islam. Here comes the point made by Southasian. Generalizations are often misleading which means human psychology has a tendency to see the forest but not individual trees.
Bala Krishnan: In my view no generalizations can be made based on that scene – it would not make sense to argue that the problem derives from Christianity or is latent in all Christians. One person wished to impose his personal preference over that of the collective and he should have been restrained by the organizers (who had given permission for the event to be performed in a Church) or charged with disrupting order. Neither Dale Carnegie nor Lao Tsu are needed in this case, just the application of social norms or the law.
In my view humans have a very hard time seeing the forest. They just see individual trees and project them onto an imagined forest. Where the imagined forest gives rise to negative feelings, they do not really see the individual either – they see an image of the individual that conforms to the image of the forest. The conception of the forest in most cases is a outcome of early childhood socialization that is never challenged by any kind of mature and objective investigation.
You are a recent participant on this blog and have probably missed the discussion that took place on this topic earlier. One illustrative text was a research report by Latika Gupta (I am Hindu, You are Muslim). Another example can be the typical reaction of South Asians newly arrived in the US towards African-Americans.
I believe that the reason we generalize is that at the pscychological level we need to find something to lasso emotions. Incidents such as the one Balakrishnan described generate a lot of anger. This anger triggers the rational mind to find an explanation very quickly to explain and justify it. Under the influence of such strong emotions the rational mind cannot do a good job. It will be unable to engage in the exercise of making distinctions. Hence it latches on the easiest generalization that is available in our instincts (a storehouse of “emotional ideas”). A truthful and patient approach requires immense control over emotional behaviour.
It is easy to hold dispassionaate views so far as one’s life is not affected. One incident may not be representing the whole and generalizations often ignore individual positives. This is really utopian approach – it will not cause any social change for the better. This is equivalent to an anecdote of an Ayurveda doctor or vaidyan sent to plot for removing the exisitng bushes and weeds for preparing the ground for cultivation of some vegetable. The Ayurveda doctor returned without doing anything because he could not cut any plants or weeds saying that all the plants and vegetation growth there have some kind of medicinal value in Ayurveda. How can an ayurveda doctor destroy medicinal plants. Too much neutrality by the onlookers will help the evil to grow only.
I will mention some more incidents. The Arab or Muslim mentality is of hate or degrade to other religions. Say 99% Muslims hate other cultures – that leaves 16 millions muslims being moderate, tolerant or allowing mentality. How do we conclude? siding with the 16 million or condemning 1584 millions? If we find excuse for all evil things, it is not conducive to human civilizations.
For example, from where do they get teachings or inspiration to have this attitude for the below mentioned actions? should it not be condemned? or fought against?
All know about the plight of labourers in the gulf area. I happened to meet one Egyptian engineer carrying a stick on he back, under the shirt, and while supervising the building construction work, he will beat randomly to the workers buttocks with the stick, hardly of course, to push them to work harder. Severe beatings only to non-muslim labourers. I came to know about the incident, and I asked him, pretending I am a Muslim, he told me that ‘we should beat kafirs whenever we get a chance. Prophet told us llike that and heaven is assured for whoever punish kafirs. That Egyptian is an engineer, not ordinary person and his belief is not fake, he genuinely believe so.
Another incident experienced by me. I was little raising my voice to a cleaning man (a Hindu from Tamil Nadu) because he was looking offensively, staying frozen at passing ladies in that huge shopping complex where I was on duty of supervision. Suddently a Syrian guy from a shop (he is very friendly to me) and we had the following conversation.
Syrian – dont shout him – he doesn’t know what is right and wrong
me – what you mean by that.
Syrian – he has no relilgion – so how can he know right and wrong?
me – He is a Hindu – Hindus know what is right and wrong – they have a lot of teaching available from childhood.
Syrian – No No – Hinduism is not a religion – they worship trees, fire, cows, stone etc. That cannot be a religion.
me – then what is religions
Syrian – The only true religion is Islam – through Islam only one can know right and wrong and learn how to live as human beings
me – what about Christian and Jews
Syrian – they were revealed religions of course – but they were corrupted – By coming of Islam, Christian and Jews religions became obsolete, unwanted.
me – Oh I see – like that – ok ok (knowing that more argument is dangerous for me I stopped the conversation)
The Syrian guy was a graduate from Damascus university. I could not find a single Syrian or palestinians or jordanians, sudanese etc having a liberal, hateless views whether he be labourer, doctor, engineer, or Phd holder.
This Muslim mentality is widespread – what should be conclude – Should we enlighten them enmasse or condone as exception and continue our moderate journey. This mentality in a different form is with the Hindus – in matters of hating Muslims – hate of Muslims in Hindus may be due to the stubborn attitude of Muslims to hate other religions.
My opinion is we should fight idelogically even if the ideals are restricted to a small minority and we should treat as a whole because then only we can prevent the minority becomes a majority attitude.
Bala Krishnan: Your objective is to decide what steps to take to prevent a negative minority attitude becoming a majority attitude. But the situation of Islam you are concerned with is different from the above. In your estimation 99% of Muslims are already affected. So the real question should be: What is to be done now that the disease is so far advanced? I would be interested in hearing your recommendation.
Personally, I have to keep going back to taking a historical perspective. Even if one accepts your claim that 99% Muslims are affected today there is still the dimension of time – has it always been like this since the birth of Islam?
The comparison is again with the American South – there was a time when 99% of the Southern Whites thought of the Blacks as subhumans to be treated as such with whipping, sexual abuse, buying and selling, etc. But that culture no longer exists now or, even if it does, those kinds of practices are impossible today.
The British colonialists held exactly the same opinion of Hinduism that your Syrian friend does. But they don’t do so any more. Generalizations across space and time have to be made with care.
The human tendency to generalize cannot be helped but we should make sure that the generalizations stand up not just against contemporary facts but also against historical evidence and reasoned analysis.
I may conclude this topic from side with the following comments. If we compare with current realilties of the Islamic world with that of whites-blacks or British-Hindus attitude, we would still be evading the main issue. Whites-black or British-Hindu polarities have no ideological basis like Nazis had one for hating jews. British on Hindu treatments has no religious connotation, it was rather political and whites never spoke of any solid ideological base for their treatment.
I am lucky to be able to learn Arabic and thereby able to read the Quran word by word with root meanings and many of Hadiths. Islam has defined as Allah’s wish or order explained very clearly their ultimate aim to be achieved in this world and beyond, and also defined how to achieve this goal and it is very very harmful to the existence of other religions and noreligious peoples as well. We cannot say it is wrong from their viewpoint and they believe that if it is Allah’s order, all human beings should obey. It becomes harmful when majority of humans are in the other side of the river – inevitable bloodbath is predicted if Muslims have the means to do it because they have the will based on solid ideological foundation and they have a very clear hierarchy to execute their ultimate goal. This goal was with all the Muslim invaders all over the world but the concentrated on personal pleasures instead of sustained efforts to achieve the goal, but in the recent history the ordinary Muslim people helped with their literacy took over the responsibiltiy to achieve the aim.
Lessons from the history defy any such eventuality as you rightly pointed out, and history is supposed and surely will, progress to a perfect system of peaceful coexistence. To release the steam from the swollen egos of the ordinary Muslims, and this misguided goal (from non-muslim perspective) is soley perpetuated by the dictatorial rulers of the Islamic countries, the other side of the world should relentlessly contest idelogically, even not to shun forceful battles if necessary to win the war.
The current situation in the islamic world is a pointer that the progress of history from bad to good, worst to best cannot be stopped. The flow of history could be blocked for a while, but it will find its way to escape the stagnant lake that human beings occasionally make like the current islamic world. However historical progress is manmade, and everyone should in his own way contribute his share individually and collectively in harmony with peaceful existence as far as possible, just like Southasian is tirelessly working on.
Bala Krishnan: A few points in your comment need elaboration:
1. I feel you are using the term ‘ideological’ too narrowly; anything the derives from a central idea is ideological by definition. The attitude of Whites towards Blacks during the period of slavery was based on the idea of racial superiority just as the attitude of Europeans towards Jews during the period of anti-Semitism was also a statement of racial superiority. While the objective of the British colonialists was economic, the political domination of India was justified by the ideology that found expression in the notion of the White Man’s Burden – the divinely ordained mission to civilize the half-savage, idolatrous natives living in the dark ages and unable to govern themselves. If you look at the Christian missionary literature of that time you will see the characterizations of Hindus flowing from the ideology of religious superiority.
2. I feel it is an error to infer the behavior of a people by a line-by-line reading of their religious dogma. If you read the Bible in the same way you will run into similar problems. This is a characteristic of the monotheistic religions all of which claim to be the ‘true’ religion of the ‘chosen’ people. There are fundamentalists in each of these faiths who wish to interpret the texts literally but they are in the minority. There are also times in history when there are upsurges of such fundamentalism – historians of Christianity would readily point to the Crusades, the Inquisition, the forced conversions of native Americans, the burning of witches, the expulsion of Jews, etc. But all such episodes are now a part of the past.
3. One has to give more weight to evidence than to assumptions. If Muslim invaders all over the world did not pursue the goal that you attribute to them, perhaps the goal was not important to them. To continue to hold to your assumption in the face of so much evidence and to attribute the outcome to everyone pursuing personal pleasure is a logically weak position. This reiterates the problem of inferring goals, objectives and behavior from dogma.
4. The task of social scientists is to explain such episodes contextually and to prevent the spread of racial, ethnic or religious stereotypes that claim to be true across time and space. We cannot solve problems by stereotyping.
Yogesh Says:
If India had not been partitioned then sub-continent would have been like Sudan. Communal riots would have been a norm because both islamist and hindu fascists cannot live under totally different cultures and values. Thank God it happened and both nations can now concentrate on uplifting their people.
Yogesh: Yes, it could have been like that but was it inevitable, the only outcome possible? That is the real question of interest. A number of thoughts come to mind:
1. It is intriguing that the country (India) that still has significant religious diversity is doing much better than the one (Pakistan) where such diversity has been eliminated.
2. If one draws the parallel of religious diversity with racial and ethnic diversity one can look at the example of the US. The racial antagonism was far worse in the US (with one group being enslaved and segregation being legal ) than religious antagonism in India. Yet, today a mixed race person is the president of the country and the racial divide is being eroded (see attached link for the most recent evidence). This suggests that there is an alternative (albeit difficult) to work at such problems and not to opt for the easy and populist solution of radical surgery.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/us/20race.html?hp
3. Regarding your point of “totally different cultures,” the US example remains pertinent. One could have said that the black and white cultures were totally different and drawn a line on that basis. But the evolution of race relations shows that would have been a simplistic interpretation of culture. It is a coincidence that one of the recent posts on this blog (On Culture and the Clash of Cultures) is about this very topic:
https://thesouthasianidea.wordpress.com/2011/03/18/on-culture-and-the-clash-of-cultures/
1. I would say India is doing so well ONLY because it is too diverse, no group is absolute majority to rule the others in a bias manner. Hindus may be 80% but they are themselves into groups like castes, north-south-marathi-bengali etc. State wise no state has its diktat in policies of whole country whatever be size of state or its economy. Thus any central government has to take into account considerations for all sates. (Its not perfect as some governments have been biased towards states run by their own governments)
2. As far as comparison with US is concerned, blacks have been accustomed to culture of whites. There is only north-south differences in terms of culture. For India such peace would have come only if Hindus were islamisized because if you take example of India, muslims still have it their way and they are not going to mend “anything” about themselves. Call me biased or whatever but muslims as theists are very different from any other religions. Christianity has reformed but not islam. So I am sure that a united India was a terrible idea for Hindus. You can see this from treatment of Hindus in pakistan and bangladesh where still force conversions are taking place in 21st century, so I would say good that we got rid of them and they got a seperate country for themselves.
Yogesh: I agree with you that India’s strength is its diversity. But an unpartitioned India would not have lost this diversity.
Re the US, the issue is whether a problem is posed by the occurrence of “totally different cultures” (as you had mentioned earlier) or not being accustomed to different cultures (as you are now suggesting). If the latter, it would be difficult to argue that Muslims and Hindus were not accustomed to each other’s culture after over a thousand years of coexistence and given that the majority of Muslims were converts from Hinduism.
Partition has still left a very large number of Muslims in India, larger than the population of most other countries. But India is at peace (if there is a war it is with the Naxalites) despite the fact that Hindus have not had to Islamize. What exactly is it that Muslims are not “mending”?
India is at Peace – but I would say that is because of Hindus/Sikhs etc not because of muslims. And I am afraid situation is not going to be same when muslim population will outnumber Hindu population, it will either result in 2nd partition (as asked by Imam Bokhari of jama masjid yrs ago) or slowly Hindus are going to be persecuted in India itself. I am not saying majority of them are extremists nor I am questioning their patriotism but majority of them are muslims first and Indian second.
Try to implement uniform civil code in India and you will see whether muslims will accept/mend or not. Try to break a Temple for development for city and you wont notice it in any news but break a masjid for development whole country will come to standstill.
Yogesh: I see what you mean. But if the two foregone outcomes of Muslims outnumbering Hindus (when is that projected to happen?) are equally bad (another partition or persecution of Hindus), it would be a folly not to take preemptive steps to forestall the outcomes. What is the solution you have in mind?
I dont see a easy solution, all what can be done is to educate the muslims and implement reforms that are required, Their modernization is imperative. There are many muslims who are liberal but a significant portion is not which is the root problem anywhere.
Situation would have been less alarming had muslims from North India would have been asked to leave to East and West pakistan while all non-muslims in India, in my opinion it would have been unfair to ask South Indians muslims to leave due to cultural differences. Before you confirm me as some sort of Hindu extremists, you should note that Sardar Patel was also of similar opinion. Sounds hard but would have resulted in better stability for both nations and their people, you dont see riots in Greece and Turkey which did such population exchange after WWI.
Yogesh: Are you recommending something that goes beyond the 2006 Sachar Committee Report? (The official report is here and the quick summary can be accessed here on the Wikipedia site.)
I am intrigued by your observation about South Indian Muslims. Does that imply that what is at issue is not religion per se but cultural differences between North and South? If so, do these differences affect all Indians or just Muslims?
Also, you have left the situation very vague in this sentence: “There are many muslims who are liberal but a significant portion is not which is the root problem anywhere.” What would be your best guess about the breakdown between liberals and others amongst Muslims? And to what extent do you think it differs from the breakdown amongst non-Muslims?
Another thing to be a bit careful about is that not being a liberal is not necessarily a problem – conservatives are a part of every society and often constitute the majority and do not pose any problem. You are making the transition from liberals to illiberals to extremists – these are a much smaller subset of non-liberals.
Here is whats going on and what will continue in India once their population gets more than Hindus
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Pakistani-Christians-convert-to-Islam-because-of-threats-and-intimidations-21041.html
Am I being paranoid, or just learning from history and present ? Whats your take, you “really” think India can remain peaceful with so many muslims ? What do you think is the difference in Indian muslims that they wont go same route as their pakistani and bangladeshi brethen.
All sub-continent muslims were not force converted during mughal rule but a significant portion of them did convert because of presecution. Infact with exception to Indonesia and Malaysia islam had spread only to those areas which were under muslim rule, other than that it could not impress the masses. Take for example Nepal and Sri Lanka, both have mere 7% muslim population while areas next to them were highly islamisized. What do you think is the reason that Awadh and Bengal had such high portion of muslim population while Nepal doesnt, mountains ? then how about Kashmir. I hope you have read something about case of Kashmir too. With this I rest my case.
Yogesh, before you rest your case I’d like to see you answer the questions that SouthAsian has raised in the comment above. Thanks
Vinod: We have not heard back from Yogesh and I am not pursuing the argument further since it needs the prior questions to be answered to make sense.
Yogesh has repeated the claim that the population of Muslims will exceed that of Muslims in India. He has not given the basis for this claim. I had provided the link to the Sachar Report and it summary for this purpose. In the section ‘Removal of Common Stereotypes’ it has the following bullet point:
“That there is “substantial demand from the community for fertility regulation and for modern contraceptives” and over 20 million couples are already using contraceptives. “Muslim population growth has slowed down as fertility has declined substantially”. This does away with the concern that Muslim population growth would be able to outnumber Hindus or change the religious demography in any meaningful way.”
This is just to keep the discussion in the realm of reality but the real point is more complex. It is one that Professor Nivedita Menon has raised in her writings: Why should it matter even if the claim were really accurate and Muslim population were to exceed Hindu population? India is a secular democracy, not a religious majoritarian state. Why should the religion of citizens be an issue?
This thought came back to me when I read a column in the NY Times that non-Hispanic Whites would become a minority in the US by 2050. The author, a well-known professor at Harvard University, characterizes the scenario as “an even more wonderfully diverse America.”
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/05/as-minority-populations-grow/?hp
Clearly, what one sees depends upon the glasses one wears. And also one should not forget self-fulfilling prophecies – if one sees diversity as a problem, it is very likely to turn into one.
SA, hard questions and conversations are difficult to take for those who want to hold on to simplified digestible versions of the complexity that reality presents.
A great resource for South Asians and a great platform for academic freedom in the region. I wonder if you could comment on the following supposition: That the twin occupation and division of Kashmir was a direct consequence of the division of India? Bearing in mind that the two-nation theory of Pakistan and the secular reasoning of India continue to drive both countries’ continued occupation.
Tanveer: I feel there can be little doubt that Kashmir becoming a problem is a direct consequence of the division of India. On his recent visit to the subcontinent, PM Cameron said as much in plain words. Once it became a prize of war, everyone forgot about the welfare of the Kashmiris themselves or, to be more generous, couldn’t figure out how to reconcile it with their own narrow interests.
himanshu bagaria Says:
whatever it is but one thing for sure indian cricket team would have been the strongest in the world with the lights of sachin, waqar younis, wasim akram, imran khan, kapil dev, saeed anwar…just imagine!!!
Himanshu: I see no reason why India and Pakistan separately cannot have strong cricket teams given their large populations and the fact that cricket is such a passion in both countries. There is something fundamentally wrong with the organization of the game in both countries that comes in the way of better performances.
The real cost of the separation, in my view, has been the division of natural eco-systems that could conceivably lead to conflict over water in the not-too-distant future. The shrinking of trade and the separation of families have been other major losses. On top of these, a great cost has been imposed by the continuing conflict that has diverted resources from welfare to war to the extent that almost three-fourths of the populations in both countries continue to live in poverty.
I find it impossible to justify these outcomes in any kind of humanistic or moral perspective nor can I see how they could be justified.
sree Says:
You have pointed out to the diversion of resources towards war or military expenditure as a cost of partition. Even if partition had not happened wouldn’t India have to spend on its defense expenditure vis-a-vis China.
Do you really believe that the partition and the bad relations between the two countries is the cause or the most significant cause for poverty in the subcontinent?
Another statement you made, which I don’t understand is “India lacked a statesman of the caliber of Mandela who could see beyond the immediate political gains and losses”. I don’t think there is any autonomous whites majority region in South Africa, or there exists any form of power structure whereby whites have any sort of independence separately from the rest.
sree: I am looking at the issue in an incremental perspective. We can assume that the Partition would have made no difference to the allocation of resources vis-a-vis China. But the additional resources needed to defend hostile borders created by partition would have been avoided. Therefore the total allocation to defense expenditures would have been lower in the absence of partition. That is the argument in theory.
One cannot say if something is the definitive cause or the most significance cause of something else outside the world of controlled experiments. What I am suggesting is that if the additional resources allocated to defense expenditures had not been necessary they would have been potentially available for allocation to welfare. Whether they would have been actually used for the purpose is impossible to say. At least, the argument that poverty is due to lack of resources would have been less credible.
The argument about leadership does not depend on color. It is a general point about conflict resolution. Sometimes the collective welfare is enhanced if the parties to the conflict agree to settle for less than their maximum demands. Mandela could have pressed for a complete marginalization of the Whites – justice and morality were on his side – but he gave up some of his claims in the greater interest of South Africa. My argument was that the same vision and level of statesmanship was not seen in pre-Partition India.
Without partition the overall defense expenditure might have been lesser, but the gains would have been offset by increased cost in maintaining internal security and law and order.
Regarding the point on “the lack of a statesman of Mandela’s calibre”, my question was not about color of the leader. My point is, as far as I know, there is no structure of government or provinces in South Africa whereby whites (the minority) enjoy any form of autonomy or independence from the rest. I don’t know if they asked for any separate powers or for the creation of any autonomous province from a region with white majority. Mandela’s vision was for a South Africa with all the communities as equal stakeholders. I don’t think it is any different from what the Indian leaders desired prior to partition or how they charted the country’s path after partition.
sree: These comments are better addressed by switching the order of the two points. The comparison with South Africa is a general one not related to specifics. The point I am making is that both places involved a conflict between two communities. In one place an arguably better resolution was achieved because the parties were willing to compromise, to each give up something for the greater good of the collective. The subsequent costs of internal security are an outcome of how the conflict is resolved. If a mutually satisfactory arrangement is achieved, the costs would be minimal. However, if the collective is maintained without a satisfactory resolution, the costs would indeed be very high. The counterfactual under consideration in this post that the Partition would not have occurred if the conflict had been satisfactorily resolved.
i do not know how many of my friends who have narrated their views above has survived during painfull times of partition of india. on that it is pain giving to read muslims are intolerant. if so was the situation than how it became non-muslims who survived in india in majority and with freedom and rights during the approximately 300 years rule of muslims over india. of course a muslim can not tolerate an act which is against the nature. one more thing to be discussed here is it was not the muslim league or any muslim leader who spoke regarding two nation formula. it were them who at that time were paid workers of British East India Company. who open fired on the beloved father of the nation SRI MAHATMA GANDHI. they with intensions well known to them put the entire country on fire and still people like them do not want peace in our heaven land INDIA.
WE ALL NEED TO WORK FOR THE RIGHT AND PEACE
YogeshYogesh Says:
Non-muslims are majority in India because muslims refused to live as a single country and got a separate country otherwise they form approx 1/3 the population of sub-continent. Also Hindus were not absolutely meek whom muslims could butcher at their will, they faced constant opposition from various Hindu and Sikh kings time to time. As far as tolerance of muslims of concerned, perhaps pakistan is a brilliant example.
Yogesh: I feel this discussion would benefit from being placed in a larger context.
First, it is useful to separate religion from politics. All religion is not about politics and all politics is not about religion. Christianity came to India almost 2000 years ago as a religion that had very little to do with politics. The British colonialists came much later to trade and not to spread religion. Similarly Islam came to India with trade almost 1500 years ago, not to conquer. The invaders came much later to conquer but not to bring religion. If religion had been the motive Babar would not have unseated Lodhi; they would have joined forces to fight non-Muslims. Nor would Nadir Shah and Abdali attacked Muslim kingdoms in India and Aurangzeb would not have spent half his life in conflict with Muslim rulers in the Deccan. The generals of Akbar’s army would not have been Rajputs. The Nizam would not have sided with the British against Tipu. The history of those events was not driven by religion.
Second, it is useful to make a distinction between the age of empires and the age of nation-states. In the former, territorial expansion was the norm. Alexander, Changez Khan, Babur all belonged to the age of empire. It would not have made any sense to them to be told that they were breaking some international treaty by crossing some non-existent border. It is a mistake to morally judge one age by the rules of another.
Third, tolerance is a multi-dimensional concept. One can imagine a thought experiment in which, say, a Swedish human rights lawyer is asked to rank the countries of South Asia on a scale of tolerance. What would comprise that scale and what do you predict would be the outcome? Then suppose, he/she is asked to do the same for provinces within India. What would be the ranking? What conclusions would one derive from this exercise?
sochta hoon Says:
Here is a Pakistani muslim who wishes there was one united India but realizes that it is way to late to turn back now. Jinnah did not wish for the Pakistan in front of our eyes today. Forget about Muslims versus Hindus and Sikhs, there are muslims killing other muslims in a country founded on the basis of “Islam”. It’s disgusting really and I hope someone gets the courage to revolt to bring about change. But I know no one will. Anyway… I just wanted to say that I, as an individual, consider all Indian’s, whether Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, etc. as my brothers and sisters and wish them the best; even if I do not get the same treatment in return. It is ok.
In your argument you mention the Nizam-e-mustafa, but you don’t give enough detail to back up your argument. Why did the people want the Nizam-e-Mustafa when the countries split? Why was it thought to be a good idea and supported?
Reader: Nizam-e-Mustafa was mentioned in Aakar Patel’s original op-ed to which the post on this blog was a rejoinder. In support of the creation of Pakistan, he had written: “But Pakistan was formed out of a positive desire, not a hatred of India. Allama Iqbal articulated something that the majority of the subcontinent’s Muslims felt and feel: the desire to live under Nizam-e-Mustafa. This was not possible without Partition, which did not change the demography of what was to become Pakistan. Hindus would never have been able to rule Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan or the Frontier. Partition was not about that. It was about what kind of rule these places would have. The politics of Pakistan are about how to capture this desire and turn it into a constitution.”
Frankly, I don’t know what the term means. I can only guess it is a synonym for an imagined ideal world that existed at some earlier time, a kind of garden of Eden. And I really doubt Muslims felt the need for that kind of world. They had been living in India for a thousand years without feeling that need. And, even when Pakistan was created, the majority of the Muslims in what is now India did not go over to the garden of Eden. Furthermore, Muslim religious groups were largely opposed to the creation of Pakistan which undermines the entire hypothesis.
As far as I can make out, it was a hollow religious slogan used for political purposes. The fact that it was a hollow slogan was proved by the fact that no Nizam-e-Mustafa emerged in Pakistan – it was the same old exploitation of the powerless by the powerful. In real terms, religion turned out to be irrelevant as was to have been expected.
You can read more coherent explanations (hopefully) of why Pakistan was created here:
https://thesouthasianidea.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/on-the-emergence-of-pakistan/
Methinks thou protesteth too much, Balakrishnan & Ganpat Ram.
SA, compliments on a blog that touches the raw nerves left behind by the tearing up of India abruptly, painfully, into 3 parts. That neither Hindus, Muslims, Indians and Pakistanis wanted it, suspected it or have been able to get over it half century later, is proved by the cognitive dissonance I see up here.
Please dont think this mega-disaster was about welfare of people.
It was about politics, and power lay with leaders. As history tells us, no player – Gandhi, Nehru, Jinnah, Golwalker, MA Azaad – expected freedom early, nor did any want a broken-up india – freedom had been promised 25 years earlier and not given – Churchill declared India unfit for self-rule.
So, why did British withdraw, despite US no longer supporting India’s independence after 1940?
1. Gandhi had strategically crippled India’s imports as also it’s trade through civil disobedience. What use is a colony that does’nt earn?
2. Murderous attacks on ~100,00 Brits – Calcutta presidency (Bose) – Punjab (Mashriqui) and starting in Bombay presidency.
3. UK’s crying need to rebuild it’s economy and society post WWII.
The allies’ concerns in a post WWII context were :
1. India’s (Bose) growing links with enemies – Germany & Japan
2. Growing belligerence and closeness between Muslims in USSR and ME
3. Shutdown of trade interests by a fortress india
So the solutions were –
1. Weaken india to enable continuing military and trade interests,
2. Create a buffer of secular Muslims between the radical Muslims in Baltics & Arabia. Thats why it needed to be where it is, though the demand for a Muslim state (not country) arose from Bengal, not Punjab.
3. Install leaders who were natives but western in mindset, (Nehru & Jinnah – weak, resurrected leaders, amenable to West)
Indians fell into the trap. Mountbatten knew, and escaped quikcly thereafter to ensure no late-stage reconciliations surface, leaving both countries tending to their colossal losses.
Today, interest is falling in the buffer state that served it’s purpose well in the past 50 years, as the new threat is China
The geopolitics will realign soon, however whether India and Pakistan will act strategically and in their own interests remains doubtful. Both countries have weak, corrupt leaders presiding over thinly veiled colonial systems.
rated r Says:
no i am not agree with u. un partition india is new power in army airforce and navy. we can rate our gdp rate up to 8-9% like china. we have wast area something 40,00,000sqkms. and + tibeat 12,50,000 + hindu state napel 1,44,000 + bhutan 38,000. it is batter for super power like china. we can bild wast army and bild big airforce and navy so we can abale to counter china. pooraity is lost in unpartition india after sez’s. so i think it is batter world for india.
Lexie Says:
Can someon just tell me if it was a good or bad thing?!?
Hey Lexie. I dont think that question can really have any answer. We cant turn the clock back and press play again with a different track.
Whatever has happened has happened, and we can only look to build a more peaceful future.
Vikram: That was not the question Lexie asked. He didn’t ask if a different track could be played now. He asked whether the track that was played was better or worse than the one that was not played. Of course, this does not have a simple answer. Different people would answer it differently based on what impact the choice had on their lives. Some who thought what happened was good now feel it was actually bad; some who thought it bad are now quite happy with how things turned out. To some, it made no difference either way.
Some people use a particularly simple measure: Anything that caused one million deaths, ten million homeless, separated families, and perpetual conflict in the region could not have been good in any real sense. Surely, better resolutions were possible.
Thanks SA. When I said the question cant really have an answer, I was actually half thinking along the same lines as you have stated, that different people will have different perspectives. Now that you have put it down, it makes a lot more sense.
Vishnu Sharma Says:
Partition was completely unnecessary and wasteful of lives and resources. People would not have been displaced and Muslims would have been more modern and progressive in a United India. The Muslim Majority provinces of Punjab, Sindh, NWFP, Balochistan, East Bengal and Kashmir would have had Muslim chief Ministers and more Muslims in their legislatures.
Urdu and Hindu would have been official Languages of India. Indian strength in Sports and India’s power would have been greater. Indian economy would have enjoy a boost.
There would have been no nuclear arms race in the region and all efforts would have gone into improving the standards of living of the people and the infrastructure. Women would have greatly benefited and would have been educated and modern in outlook. It would have allowed more freedom for individual Indian families to settle in any part of India and call it home or go on vacations to different parts of United India.
There would have been a melting pot of ideas and customs. Islam would not have been in any danger because in Muslim majority provinces, Islamic practices would always have been respected since Islam is respected in the India which came after 1947. The Indian Army would have been non political and professional and would have been the guardian of India’s large borders.
Gandhi, Nehru and Jinnah and Liaqat Ali should not have been born.
Instead we needed leaders like RajaGopalachari, Patel, Ghaffar Khan, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Allama Mashriqi, at the helm to decide the future of Greater India with care, responsibility, even temperament and wisdom.
People who never brought religion into politics and make a stern tradition of it.
I think one country that would have been almost certainly better off had their been no partition would be Afghanistan. I am certain that the Soviet Union would not have thought about attacking Afghanistan had they been neighbors of undivided India. Almost all the Indo-Aryan populations share an admiration for the Pathans and a soft corner for Afghanistan. They are different from us, but the people most similar to us than the rest of the world. Undivided India would have formed a great partnership with them, in contrast to the current battle for influence.
Vikram: My reply would be that Afghanistan, in all likelihood, would also have been better off.
This is an excellent discussion forum. I have gone through most posts. By opinion I can safely categorize them as hard liner Hindus, Liberal Hindus Atheists, Nationalists, fundamental Muslims, Liberal Muslims, Indian Muslims Pakistani Muslims (Just my View). But irrespective of your differences all opinion posts have some degree of logic. And no one out here is driven by sheer hatred. ( Trace of xenophobia in here and there though). Keep posting more logical and informative posts brothers..
aman: Thanks for the frank evaluation. Please keep us on our toes by pointing out any trace of xenophobia whenever you come across it on this forum. It is worrying that you can match a person’s opinions with dimensions of his/her personality. It suggests the identity interests not facts are driving opinions. Also, that facts are interpreted in a way to be compatible with prior positions. We need to overcome such prejudices if we wish to grow intellectually.
KTShamim Says:
Hindus believe in a caste system. Their books preach the same and many Hindu leaders practiced the same. Muslims are worst than Shooders. That Hindu leaders decided to abandon their religious teachings of caste and adopted democracy is fact and excellent. That Muslims decided to abandon Qur’an and adopt religious caste is also sad.
But the principle reason for creating Pakistan, a secular Pakistan, given Hindu religious dogmas and practices of 1940s was very much right.
KT Shamim: Castes exist in the subcontinent. Effectively, all religions there comprise castes in one form or another. Among Muslims, there are the ashraf and the ajlaf; the syeds do not like to marry among the non-syeds; the fair do not like to marry among the dark, etc.
Hindu religious dogmas and practices did not emerge as a surprise in the 1940s. As you state, they have existed for centuries. So one can ask, why the demand for Pakistan arose only in the 1940s? Something else must have been going on that you have ignored.
Yousuf Says:
I’m a Muslim living in Pakistan. I support the undivided India .because in today’s Pakistan the real power is in the hand of Americans and Saudis while the Pakistanis themselves are killed everyday by jihadists of America .and I’m pretty sure that Pakistanis themselves are as well fed up of partitions and Islamists .
A hindu Says:
partition was a blessing for hindus. if the partition not happened, india’s neighbor would have been afghanistan. and Fata would have been in india. pious muslims were then doing their jehad in indian cities without any control. hindu girls would have been chased as jannat hoor.
anarchy had been prevailing and india could be in place of sudan and pakistan.
By this logic it might make sense to partition India even further. Then messy Pakistan and Bangladesh would also not be neighbors. Also, I don’t see the connection with the welfare of girls – it doesn’t look like they are having a very good time anyway.
united india would have 33 % muslims with independence to move anywhere. poor, uneducated and hungry mobs of muslims from afghanistan and bangladesh would have come to indian cities without any control. continuous rioting could happened as a norm. what kind of development can be thought in that condition.
partition thinned the muslims, it separated their strength in three parts and now in india we hindus could manage them effectively. border controls mean that poor and uneducated muslims can be stopped from entering and spoiling indian atmosphere.
proof of my statement is that even today thousands of muslims try to sneak into india from bangladesh and our border guards have to work hard to stop them.
for girls also, islamic society could have been worse than a hindu dominated society. some cultural issues are same for girls on both side but overall see indian women/girls, they are conquering every field. paki girls, they are in burqa or if for some time out of burqa than wait, sharia can come any time in near future.
A hindu: You are entitled to your hypotheses. I am not entirely convinced by the logic of the arguments.
First, that Hindus could not ‘handle’ 33% Muslims but only 11%. That logic also suggests that things would be better with even fewer Muslims. So why not make separate countries out of some Muslim majority areas?
Second, continuous rioting is taking place in many parts of India even now and has nothing to do with Muslims. Why not make separate countries out of those areas?
Third, if thousands of poor people streaming into places is such a big problem, why not make Bihar independent and put border guards around it. Thousands of poor people from there are streaming into all parts of India and are not welcome in many of them.
Fourth, Paki women are indeed in trouble but Paki women do not represent all Muslim women. Do read Amartya Sen to note that Bangladeshi women are doing better than Indian women on many social indicators.
Fifth, Sharia can come any time in the future but so could the Sri Ram Sena.
let me be clear about your idea of further dividing india that we hindus will not let it happen because-
i. those areas which became pak were not stronghold of ancient aryan religion and u find very few holy places of hindus there. while in mainland every inch was contested with muslims and taken back by heroes like marathas, jats etc. Before coming of English , India was dominated by hindus. so no question of giving it to few muslim pockets now.
ii. we know how to tackle few muslim pockets and when the time comes a solution will be devised for this problem. so no need to divide india further.
iii. things would certainly be better without muslims but not by giving land to them. hindus of this generation have learnt their lessons well. we have a grand army and we have seen from israel that how to tackle islam. we will follow the same route.
now, about rioting. out of every 100 riots in the world muslims are involved in about 80- 90. see pakistan (land of pure islam). it is the prime example of real character of muslims. we hindus have no problem with few muslims who can be used as cheap labor but a united india with muslims everywhere, would have been a hell for peaceful people like hindus.
All this geography and history you are citing is new to me but let others comment on its veracity.
south asian, u have asked a question that should india be partitioned further. i answered it.
keep in mind that these are complicated issues so answers can not be politically correct ones.
now in place of debating u just ducked these. possibly because answering these will show ur ideological side, which i guess somewhat but will comment later.
A Hindu: We are too far apart in our understanding of the situation to have a useful discussion. However, this is an open forum and I am hoping someone else would step into the debate.
A hindu: I am not saying you are right or wrong but your arguments don’t make sense.
Present day Pakistan is the cradle of Vedic civilization. No mention of Ganga in Rig Veda, it either did not exist or was inconsequential, the most important river was Saraswati ( now disappeared) followed by Indus so you are wrong that the land occupied by Pakistan was not stronghold of ancient Aryan religion. Marathas(Shivaji) did not fight Muslims but supposedly tyrannical ruler why else he had Muslims generals (Ibrahim Khan as Navy chief and Siddi Ibrahim as artillery chief? Later Marathas were fighting each other and and everyone for purely political gains.
Question is were Hindus at peace prior to arrival of Muslims or swelling of Muslim numbers?
You say that these are complicated issues so do complicated issues must have politically incorrect answer? Why would disagreeing with you would be due to ideological reasons alone?
Anil: Yes, that part of the old India is indeed the cradle of the Vedic civilization, central to Buddhism, and contains within its boundaries the Mecca and Medina of Sikhism.
You will find the following about the Sri Maata Hinglaj mandir of interest:
“To still the divine dance, Tandava, of Lord Shiva following the death of Dakshayani, Lord Vishnu scattered the remains of her embodiment over various places of the Indian subcontinent. It is said that the head fell at Hingula or Hinglaj and is thus considered the most important of the 51 Shakti Peeths. At each of the Peeths, Bhairava (a manifestation of Shiva) accompanies the relics. The Bhairava at Hinglaj is called Bhimalochana, located in Koteshwar, Kutch. The Sanskrit texts mention the part as ‘Brahmadreya’ or vital essence.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinglaj
http://www.dawn.com/news/1101465/footprints-when-maata-calls
And read this to see what connects these geographies:
http://www.dawn.com/news/1101851/train-to-pakistan-2014
sorry to say that but I want to tell you that as i am living in Pakistan there are women’s in each type of works.They are in forces ,in politics,and in each department of government or private sectors and they are not forced to wear burqa and the area in which I am living there are 30% hindus who are totally free to do whatever they want .
rediff Says:
I think at the end of the day, the order in which people in general see their identity is different from a Hindu and a Muslim. I might see myself first as a human, then as an Indian by culture/geography/civilization/etc, then as a Bengali by sub-culture/geography/language, and finally as a Hindu by religion. On the other hand, my Muslim neighbor sees himself as a human first, an Indian second, a Muslim third and fourth as a Bengali. In fact, for him #3 might also supersede #2. While I am an Indian Bengali Hindu in that order, he is a Muslim who happens to be Indian by geography and Bengali-speaking. This ultimately depends on his level of immersion into Islam as a religion. In the modern globalizing world, there is a trend that globalization is creating a stronger pan-universal Islamic identity, while for Hindus we don’t know ABC of Vedas or anything (not speaking for all Hindus, but talking of urban educated middle class in general). The strength of a Muslim in faith is very universal, this is not a bad thing by the way. They have their Ummah, Buddhists had their Sangha, Vaishnavs also have a very similar outlook out of the Hindus. In a united India, the Muslim 35% voting block would have remained intact. The non-Muslims would be hapless politically. South Asian Muslims are sorting out their ethno-linguistic identity issues after they have secured themselves homogeneous religion-based states. Hindus see caste and language as superseding the religious identity. During the Nellie massacre in Assam, the RSS lamented that the Assamese were not distinguishing between Bengali Hindus and Bengali Muslims. RSS is a lame attempt from the Hindu side to inculcate the type of organic unity that Muslims have by faith.
So overall, Hindus have been saved by Partition and will be better off with even less Muslim percentage within India. See the political power that Muslims have in India by being only 15%. They can indulge in tactical voting to ensure Modi wins least possible seats. This unity would have persisted even if Muslims were 35%.
Rediff: These generalizations are much too broad. There are all sorts of people in all religions – they see the various dimensions of their identity in different orders and even these orders change over time. One glance at history will show show the orders of the Indian identity changed from 1857 and 1914 (the birth of the Ghadar movement) to 1937. A timeless and frozen representation is worse than useless.
When I read your comment: “In a united India, the Muslim 35% voting block would have remained intact. The non-Muslims would be hapless politically,” I can just wonder how many subscribe to this sentiment and who they think they are insulting by expressing it.
And, in conclusion, I just have to repeat the question I have asked in response to an earlier comment: “If Hindus have been saved by Partition and will be better off with even less Muslim percentage within India” then why hang on to areas with a large percentage of Muslims? Whey not reduce the percentage of Muslims in India even further?
SouthAsian: Not sure what you really mean by these comments. The facts are that minorities (Hindus, Sikhs, Ahmadiya, now Shias) have shrunk in Pakistan and Bangladesh, and grown or stayed stable in India.
Dont think it is debatable who chose the right way from a human perspective.
Does that mean muslims are evil? To me, it doesnt – it just means radicals among them overpower the rest, and their religious-social systems do not safeguard conscientious objectors within. This is not a happy state of affairs either for Muslims, or the country.
To suggest more partitions will solve this problem is luducrious, as if the 2 partitions of 1947 worked out so well. All that the partition achieved was isolating the larger peaceful communities from interacting with others at huge costs, and growing power to radical elements within.
Anil kala
just for your information Rig Veda 6.45.31 mentions ganga also in the nadistuti (Rig Veda 10.75). i will answer rest in detail.
Yes you are right about ‘nadistuti’ mentioning both Ganga and Yamuna but still it is dominated by rivers flowing in to present day Pakistan.
Makarand Says:
What are all you guys? expert historians? I am truely impressed by every contributer on this blog… btw I only read the first few responses from 2009… All of you sounded very knowledgeable and very respectful of each other even while disagreeing with each others views… also got a lot of insight into the partition era through this reading…. thank you all for a nice blog.
May 8, 2014 at 9:30 am | Reply
Makarand: Thanks. This is the kindest comment I have seen in six years. No one here is an expert on history. We are all ordinary folks – tinkerers, tailors, soldiers, and (the occasional) spies – trying to learn from each other while respecting each other’s often quite different opinions. Some of the people who have been around since the beginning feel they know each other well enough to be quite open in what they say. We try and simulate a coffee house conversation – start with something quite off-the-wall and see if we can make sense of it through discussion. The secret of this blog is that most of the time the commentary is much more useful than the post that was the trigger.
If India were not partitioned “Osama Bin Laden” would have been caught in india , not Pakistan ,
sooner or later Islam will show its colour , the less of it , better ,
Instead I will say there is no way India could have remained united till this time , demand of partition came from muslims , and it happened again in Kashmir , a “Freedom Struggle for Islamik nation ” , it happened in Chechenya , it is happening worldwide , in some way or other ,
Amit: Right now all we can see is saffron – the more of it the better, I suppose.
There was a freedom struggle in India as well against the British. Where ever there is oppression there will be a freedom struggle. I don’t see what’s wrong with that.
if you support so called ” freedom struggle ” based on muslim identity ,that starts with slogans of “Yahan chalega kya ,Nizam A Mustafa ” ( Law of Prophet will rule here ) , and Hindus r asked to leave valley , 3 days continuously Mosque play same tape through there loudspeakers asking pandits to leave Kashmir , 1000s are killed , temples burnt , then
how you even ask the question “If India were not divided ” ,
“A freedom struggle against Oppression” that’s very illusive term , problem is Islam can assume oppression when there is none, Islamik religion is so much mixed with politics that failure to establish an Islamik state can be seen as Oppression in Islam , because there is a concept of “Islamik state” , world is divided between Darul Islam and Darul harb ,
there is no Parallel of this in any other religion ,there will always be candidates willing to finish unfinished business of centuries to convert the whole world to ” Darul Islam ” and so a freedom struggle for Muslim identity is inherently dangerous , will be violent always , because killing kafirs is good , and Islamik state will be hell for Kafir , how much religious freedom minorities get in Islamik state is well known ,
but that’s not all , where is peace in Islamik world , when there is no Kafir to fight , shea – sunni kill each other .
Amit: Are you against violence or just against green violence? All violence of the oppressors against the oppressed is to be condemned but there are few places in the world where such violence has not occurred. There is little need to revisit the violence against blacks in America or against Jews in Europe. Dr. Ambedkar’s The Annihilation of Caste has just come out in a new edition. Do read it, you might see closer to home some other forms of violence and parallels with Shia-Sunni killings. If every incident of violence were to lead to a partition we would all be living in kingdoms of one.
As for religion and politics, there is a long history of Christianity to learn from. And, isn’t that what is idolized by the RSS – just arriving late to the party.
There are two types of thought processes. In one, you start with a conclusion and look for selective evidence to support it. In the other, you start with all the evidence and reach a conclusion even if it challenges your prior beliefs. Which process is to be preferred is a choice we all have to make for ourselves.
Well you have not answered it yet , “oppressed” ? in what sense ? as I have pointed out Muslims don’t need “oppression ” to start Freedom struggle , Its all there in Political Ideology of Islam ,
There is much difference between “caste Violence ” and ” Shia -Sunni or violence against Kafirs “, Fact is that “caste discrimination ” can be eliminated , its a social phenomenon and its on its way out ,
while root of “Shia Sunni” differences lies in hardcore Islamik Beliefs , which even permit annihilation of others ,this is not something curable .
Yes RSS has a political cultural Ideology , but that is not the one of establishing Sharia Courts and giving death punishment to Non believer , something many muslim countries are doing now , in 21st century, the Magnitude of Islamik Fanaticism sets it apart from any kind of fanaticism that exist now .
But most important question is , struggle against Caste discrimination started from within , it was Hindus like Raja Rammohan ,Jyotiba who started these social reforms ,
It was Christian nations who opposed Hitler and fought him ,
where is such reform in Islam ? you people don’t even accept valid criticism , but try to silence the critic , a mob controlled by Maulavi and Mulla’s , it has not changed a bit in 1400 years and this way it will not change in next 1000 years .
Amit: Instances of oppression are not difficult to figure out. I gave two historical examples – blacks in the US and Jews in Europe. Palestinians ‘(Sunni, Shia or Christian) are oppressed in Israel; presently, all minorities are oppressed in Pakistan.
I have an objective question for all readers:
Shias and Sunnis have been in India for a thousand years. Over these thousand years how many killings can be attributed to Shia-Sunni violence and how many to inter-caste violence? Estimate a very rough number per year – suppose it is X for the former and Y for the latter. Then normalize it for the different population bases. Assume that Shias and Sunnis together were a quarter of the population of pre-partition India. Therefore, if the populations had been similar the comparative numbers would have been 4X and Y.
Now compare 4X and Y. Which do you think, based on hard statistics, would come out greater?
This should not become a test of loyalty so that ‘you’ identify with ‘your’ people and ‘we’ identify with ‘our’ people. This is not a ‘you’ versus ‘us’ forum.
What would you conclude from this exercise? A blanket condemnation of ‘some’ people and a weak defense of ‘other’ people or an understanding of the roots of violence? If violence were so clearly associated with religion would one see the very similar violence against women in both groups?
For the people at the wrong end of violence it is little comfort that the violence is social or is on its way out. Are Jews supposed to feel good that it was Christian nations who fought against Hitler?
Whether things change or not I don’t know. In the midst of sectarian killings in Christianity, it would have seemed to observers that it would never end but it did. Even caste discrimination that has existed for thousand of years and is a part of hardcore beliefs is finally fading away. Things change.
Hindu dalit caste were treated very badly , that’s for sure , but it has not been a tradition of violence and killing against any caste , some incidents might have happened ,
but that’s nothing comparable to the Violence that has happened in the name of Islam , against the Infidel and among muslims,
and what is happening in Nizeria right now , whats happening in Kenya , in Pakistan , Iraq , Iran,
killing are carried out daily and “civilized world ” does not even takes time to react , “oh Allaho Akbar bombing is a daily act of muslims” people think across world , no need to react ,
this needs a deep Introspection ,within Islamik world .
Amit: Some incidents might have happened, no need to react. This needs a deep introspection within (and without) the ‘Islamik’ world.
visit http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/ the number of “some incidents ” is “75 ” for last week only , although this is anti islamik propaganda site , but all credit for these high numbers goes to ” believers ” .
Amit: I am afraid you missed the irony re “some incidents.” We are still looking for that comparison of 4X and Y in India. If violence were related to religion, the objective numbers would tell the story and speculative discussion would become unnecessary. There is not much to be gained by referring to propaganda sites. Here is a link to Human Rights Watch which is a lot more credible: http://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6a83f0.html
“Between 1994 and 1996, a total of 98,349 cases were registered with the police nationwide as crimes and atrocities against scheduled castes. Of these, 38,483 were registered under the Atrocities Act for the sorts of offenses enumerated above. A further 1,660 were for murder, 2,814 for rape, and 13,671 for hurt.”
Looking for a simple theory attributing violence to religion cannot explain long periods of very different levels of violence over time or great variations across space. For example, Shias are being oppressed in Pakistan but not in India. Should one attribute the problem to Pakistan or to Islam? And why so much more in Pakistan now than 50 years ago? Those are the really interesting questions.
Propaganda does not means that they lie , instead they give source of all info and that info is available from elsewhere too like cnn or telegraph.co.uk ,
in india or elsewhere murder is done for personal rivalry , land , wealth etc , rape because of lust , these r not done because somebody is dalit , you will find such cases against people of all caste , including Dalit ,they too do such crimes 4 times more Rape happens in USA which has 4 times less population than india (effectively 16 times) , but no body says that they are doing this because they r dalit or Thakur or Brahmin or christian ,but when it is categorized like Dalit or Brahmin it can be given any hue , but same logic does not apply to Islamik Violence
Islamists r doing it on name of religion , you can hear it from there own mouth ok ,
I am astonished at this denial of Islam being source of Violence , when Terrorist themselves accept it what more proof is needed ,
its simple why Shia Sunni Don’t fight in india , Hindus constitute more than 82% of country and muslims r simply not allowed ( or free ) to go on Rampage whenever they like , also muslims r living in a Kafir majority nation so obviously they will like to unite among themselves , yet Shia Sunni riot do happen in india ,http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/the-lucknow-connection/
One should attribute the Shia Persecution to Sunni Islam , because it has been allowed to flourish in Pakistan not in india for reason I stated above , so the problem is Islam .
Secondly in India a SC/ST atrocity case can be registered for using “foul language” , calling “Caste related words” etc etc , and many times a large number of such cases r false,
there is no point in comparing crimes of general nature with Violence that is does in name of Islam or other Religion ,
I am sure murder and Rape happen in Pak and Bangladesh too and if they r categorized they can be presented as “against shia ” “against sunni” etc , and they can be added to my list of Islamik violence , I am not talking about that , but of those violence when the terrorist themselves r accepting it that they r doing it for Glory of Islam , or for establishing an Islamik Sharia nation ,
Amit, per my knowledge, every religion that has come into being leaves room for some kind of violence. There was a time when Shaivite kings would fight Buddhist and Jains in India. And even Jains have some legends of violence against Buddhists ! See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madurai_massacre
Regarding violence in the Muslim world and India today, the major difference is that at a key moment India had an enlightened that enacted many laws (often contrary to orthodox Hindu doctrine) to check Hindu on Hindu violence (be it caste or gender or linguistic group related). Also, political institutions were created so that all different groups of Hindus have a voice in the government. Therefore, the markedly less Hindu on Hindu violence in India.
If there is more violence in the Muslim world, it is due to political circumstances and not some inherent feature of Islam. Note that there are Muslim majority countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Turkey that have far lower levels of violence than India does.
Vikram: Thanks for the input. We have been stressing on this blog the perspective that there is an intimate relationship between politics and religion.
The simple point to be considered is the following:
If one locates the roots of violence in religion, it is impossible to explains very significant variations in violence across time and space (as you have also noted).
If one locates the roots of violence in politics, it becomes much more possible to explain the variations. Religion then emerges as one of the instruments of politically motivated violence.
It is quite true that there is a huge upsurge of violence in a large swath of the contemporary Muslim world. The interesting question is why now? That takes us to rewarding explorations of contemporary politics and its historical antecedents.
If one were to take a recent case in India, I would consider Muzaffarnagar. Did some dormant religious passions come alive all of a sudden or was there electoral politics underlying the incident? What is the objective verdict?
It is also true that religious passions once inflamed tend to get out of control and take on an autonomous life of their own. People actually do start believing in divine responsibility to purify the world even if that involves killing others. It happened in the Crusades and it is happening in parts of the Islamic world today.
Waleed Noor Says:
The issue of land reforms, or lack thereof in Pakistan as opposed to India, gets very little attention in Pakistani debates. Was the preservation of feudal structures not the single most potent reason for Muslim League (ML) to push for partition? After all ML was essentially a party of feudal lords. This raises some questions:
Did Jinnah believe that a ruling class of feudal lords would bring about modern social capitalist development in Pakistan? Did he not clearly see the “class” interests involved behind the “Two-Nation” façade? Or did he just hope that the feudal lords could be subordinated as was done by the British?
I believe that up until the 1946 Punjab election, the ML was mostly a party of urbanites and bourgeois from the Muslim minority regions of India, especially Delhi and UP. The nature of the party changed dramatically after the 46 elections, with the influx of Punjabi zamindars. This was driven by the exigency of winning the elections, and post election calculations.
I believe the note by Prof. Ralph Russell elsewhere on this blog also hints that the League did not have much of a base amongst the lower class Muslim population, and had to resort to heightened religious rhetoric to bring them on board.
Therefore, I would say that it is unlikely that Jinnah thought in the way you are suggesting. He was tangled up in a web of his own (and Congress’s) making by then.
Waleed Noor: In my opinion, Vikram is correct in his observation. The ideas that became Pakistan originated with Muslim elites in areas where they were in a minority, primarily UP and Bengal. The fear was that they would lose in relative terms if and when power was allocated on the basis of votes. Jinnah was a lawyer – his primary interest was to preserve as much representation in power for the Muslim elites as he could once the British left. He tried first as a member of Congress and failed; he then switched to become an advocate for an exclusively Muslim party. Jinnah was not an economist. There is no evidence that he ever thought about economic development or its nature or who would lead it. Part of it may have been because, frankly, it doesn’t seem Jinnah ever felt Pakistan would really come into being. In that sense, Pakistan was the failure of Jinnah’s gamble.
What happened after the partition? Was there violence of peace?
Veronica, partition failed to resolve the political conflicts in the erstwhile British India to the satisfaction of all parties. That this was the case in the newly formed state of Pakistan is clear by looking at the events of the Bangladesh Liberation struggle and the eventual secession of Bengali speaking areas.
In India, partition only served to marginalize the Muslim populations further, and left a lasting legacy of doubt and hostility between Hindus and Muslims.
There is certainly no peace to be found in South Asia after partition.
Kabir Mohan Altaf Says:
Vikram’s answer is basically acceptable. However, from the Pakistani point of view there are a few issues:
1) “the newly formed state of Pakistan”: Pakistan and India were formed at the exact same time out of British India. “India” and “Pakistan” are exactly the same age.
2) In Pakistan, we do not use the phrase “Bangladesh Liberation Struggle”. This phrase is too closely aligned with the Indian and Bangladeshi POV. In Pakistan, we refer to 1971 as the “Fall of Dhaka”. There was a civil war between West Pakistan and East Pakistan, which resulted in the secession of the Eastern Wing.
3) Vikram neglected to mention that Kashmir is the unfinished business of Partition. As a Muslim-majority state, it should logically have gone with Pakistan. However, since it was not part of British India and the ruler was a Hindu, he chose to accede to India. India and Pakistan have fought 4 wars over Kashmir, territory that both of them control in part but claim in full.
I fully endorse Vikram’s conclusion, but I wanted to put across the Pakistani point of view as well.
Your comment on No 3 is exactly the expansionism that Muslims believe in that creates disharmony. You do know that India had and has a far bigger muslim population than Pak. So by your logic, all of India should belong to Pakistan? Please learn to accept that India & Pak do NOT represent Hindu & Muslim religions but political entities, like all nation states are.
Had Jinnah & Nehru not fallen into the divisive and bloody trap set by Brits at the time of leaving, there would not have been the horrendous loss of lives started with Moplahs, led to partition and still continued in Kashmir, now in Assam, and that has taken untold lives of people in Pak.
No, my point # 3 is not “expansionism”. It is simply an acknowledgement of the reality that there is a dispute regarding Kashmir. Kashmir is Muslim-majority and as such logically should have been Pakistan. The Partition of British India (NOT “India”) was carried out on the basis of the Two Nation Theory with Muslim-majority districts going to Pakistan. The complicating factor was that Kashmir was a princely state ruled by a Hindu Dogra king.
And of course “all of India” should not belong to Pakistan. The Muslim-majority areas in the Northwest and the Northeast went to Pakistan. Nowhere else in British India was there such a concentration of Muslim-majority areas.
Your conclusion that modern “India” and “Pakistan” are political entities is true. On that, we agree.
it was not necessary to partition India because Hindu and Muslims were living with each other from centuries..
As United India we might become super power country..
As United India we may be most prosperous area of earth..the problem was with our leaders who have took a very difficult way which is still creating big problems..
As United India we can save several lives who are dying on borders to defence their nation..
I like the way you think. Rather than remain stuck in what might have happened in the past, you are concerned about lives of people here and now. Kudos. I agree with your observations, and it is only through constructive dialogue that we can disengage from the destructive cycle set in motion 75 years ago by a withdrawing colonial power, and hope to create a brighter future for our children.
I find the use of the term ‘logical’ in the context of ethnic/territorial disputes unsatisfactory. In such disputes, what can seem eminently logical to one person might seem completely illogical to another.
In the specific matter of partition and Kashmir, I would like to remind you that the partition agreement did not agree to any general ‘logic’. It merely established three principles:
1) There would be independent states of India and Pakistan created out of British India.
2) Princely states had the option of joining either of them, or remaining independent.
3) Provincial assemblies (with the exception of Punjab and Bengal) would vote to either join India or Pakistan. The Punjab and Bengal would vote on a plan of partitioning along religious lines or joining India or Pakistan in their entirety.
As Jammu and Kashmir was a princely state, it was well within its rights (as per the partition agreement) to stay independent. There is no provision for any reorganization of a princely state along religious lines.
The question then was what the general population of the state desired, and the reality is that we simply dont know. The political organization that could claim to be the most representative of Jammu and Kashmir was the National Conference led by Sheikh Abdullah. And there is certainly no indication that the NC and Abdullah were interested in a merger with Pakistan. Indeed, the Pakistani government at the time denounced him and did not recognize him in any way. On the contrary, NC workers assisted the Indian army during the 1947-48 war.
So the question of Kashmiri accession to Pakistan simply doesnt arise, much less being ‘logical’ as you are asserting.
Vikram,
Princely states may theoretically have had the option of remaining independent. In reality, they were forced to join either Pakistan or India. The Nawab of Hyderabad did not want to join India. The Indian government forcefully conquered that state. The Nawab of Junagadh acceded to Pakistan. But because the state was Hindu-majority, India insisted on a plebiscite. It is quite curious that in the case of the only Muslim-majority state that is in India, the Hindu Dogra king was allowed to choose for the Kashmiri Muslim people.
Partition was done on the basis of Muslim areas going to Pakistan. Kashmir bordered both new domains and could have gone either way. But as a Muslim-majority region it would have made sense for it to become Pakistan.
I suppose we will just have to agree to disagree.
Kabir, what is being argued is the antithesis of any multi-cultural democratic people. Specifically, please re-consider why you assume that Muslim-majority states should have gone to Pakistan and that would have made the Partition the best thing that could happen? Extending your ‘logic’, India should have become a Hindu country post-partition with Muslims left behind as second class, not responsible citizens. It didnt and thank god it didnt go that route.
I believe everyone agreed (at least some time) that it was a power struggle among leaders to fill the shoes of retreating colonial power, not theological – the ambition of a few well-off muslims to preserve their fiefdom even if it costed lives of a million Muslims and non-believers. It’s so sad to see educated people failing to see such a colossal human tragedy we should have resolved never again have to, but are suggesting how it should have been more ‘fair’ to their side??
Please, this is not a personal attack but a challenge to remove cognitive biases many of us seem to suffer from, when we should have learnt better, and become better people. Sadly we have not, and seem destined to repeat our history.
We will have to agree to disagree. You think you are right. I believe that a Muslim-majority state was necessary if British India’s Muslims were to be free of Hindu domination. Given that the logic of Partition was the Two-Nation Theory, Kashmir as a Muslim-majority state should have been part of Pakistan. For various reasons that did not happen and many Kashmiris feel that they are still Occupied by India.
This view may not be palatable to you, but it is the Pakistani nationalist viewpoint.
“Partition was done on the basis of Muslim areas going to Pakistan.”
No such condition was agreed to by the Congress and Indian nationalists. One could argue that partition was agreed to as a settlement to create a Muslim majority nation state in the subcontinent. Then it was up to the various political entities in the British Indian empire to join this nation state, join India or stay independent.
Let us not forget that the vast majority of princely states did join India or Pakistan without overwhelming pressure. Many did not, and these have to looked at on a case by case basis. States like Kalat and Manipur were forced into joining the new South Asian republics, and these disagreements form the basis of the long running insurgencies there.
In Hyderabad, the ruler unleashed a private militia on the people of Telangana, with some parallel to the Bangladesh genocide. Indian intervention was absolutely essential, and once Telangana was secured, the vast majority desired to be part of India.
In Junagadh, 99% of the population voted to join India.
In Kashmir, the situation was totally different. First of all, demographically the state was not a simple ‘Muslim majority’. It had various regions with differing ethnic makeups. The valley was overwhelmingly Muslim majority. The Chenab valley in between Kashmir and Jammu was 60-40 Muslim- Hindu. And then Jammu was overwhelmingly Hindu majority. Ladakh was Buddhist majority. Pakistan forcibly tried to take over the state (a policy it has continued to this day) and failed.
Again, I dont really see what the Pakistani argument regarding Kashmir is, especially given that Pakistan is now not the only Muslim majority state in South Asia.
Once again we have to agree to disagree. You clearly have an Indian nationalist perspective, which for obvious reasons, I cannot agree with. Why is it that Hyderabad Deccan was an “insurgency” and in Junagadh the choice of the Muslim Nawab can be ignored, but in Kashmir, the decision of the Hindu Dogra king is sacred? This smacks of double standards. Either the ruler decided in all cases, in which case Kashmir “acceded” to India and Pakistan should stop complaining. Or the people decided in all cases, in which case Kashmiri Muslims have still not been able to exercise their right to self-determination.
And Partition was done on the basis of the Two Nation Theory (You may not like it, but this was the case). The idea was that Muslim-majority areas would go to Pakistan NOT remain in the Hindu-majority Republic of India. This is why Punjab and Bengal were split. Kashmir is (and was) solidly Muslim-majority. As such it should have been part of the Islamic Republic. Kashmir remains the unfinished business of Partition.
What point does ‘agreeing to disagree’ when one side is continuously sending terrorists and murderers to the other side, firing on villages on the other side ?
This is either naivety, or a tacit approval of the Pakistani army’s policies.
Kabir, you may not agree with an indian nationalist ‘perspective’ but what exactly is your perspective? To me it seems filled with dichotomy.
If you claim the idea was a homeland for Muslims, then you are being most unfair to Muslims, Christians etc who stayed in divided India, because you accept they are not citizens but aliens living in india at the pleasure of Hindus.
Make up your mind please.
Anil Kalai Says:
I am curious that Nehru was alive till 1964, why didn’t Pakistan insisted on Plebiscite when he was alive? After all he was the one who agreed for plebiscite.
man0jm,
Of course those Muslims who chose to stay behind in India are Indian citizens. India claims to a secular state, so they are not living there at the “pleasure of Hindus”. That does not change the fact that the Islamic Republic of Pakistan was formed as a homeland for all British India’s Muslims, according to the Two-Nation Theory.
Vikram: Please let’s not get into whose “side” is doing what. If you read well-reputed Pakistani newspapers such as DAWN, you find that Indian troops have killed four civilians so far in the Sialkot sector. The story as reported in India is something else. Obviously, as a Pakistani I will trust my own news sources more than anything coming out of the rival country.
My contention is that all of this is cross-border hostility is a symptom of the underlying Kashmir dispute, which must be solved through diplomacy and by taking the Kashmiri people (from both sides of the LOC) on board. That’s all I’m going to say, lest you accuse me again of “siding with the Pakistani Army”.
Kabir, what does firing in Jammu, in the Samba sector have anything to do with Kashmiri Muslims ? And I ask you again, on what basis is Pakistan a party to the Kashmir dispute ?
Since you have talked a lot about ‘logic’, please use some yourself. Does it make sense for the Indian army to start firing across the LOC ?
Regarding your claims about Pakistan being a homeland for all of British India’s Muslims, please refer to Vazira Zamindar’s work on how quickly the new Pakistani state moved to stop Muslims moving from India to Pakistan. And neither Pakistan, nor Bangladesh (both states for Muslims) are ready to accept the stranded Urdu speakers in Bangladesh. What are the conditions of Indian migrants in Karachi ? They are still officially called Muhajirs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qasba_Aligarh_Massacre
Pakistan is a party to the Kashmir dispute because it controls 1/3 of the territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Any map published outside of India shows the LOC as distinct from a permanent border.
Indian troops are killing Pakistani civilians in Sialkot. I’m sure Indian media accuses Pakistan of starting the firing. Our media says the exact opposite. You are free to believe the version that suits you.
At a time when Pakistan is fighting domestic terror and is busy at the Afghan border, India may have decided that it will take advantage of Pakistan’s “weakness” by heightening tension on the astern border.
I see no point in further engaging with you. You are an Indian nationalist and I am a Pakistani nationalist. Our worldviews on this issue will never converge.
I’m sorry but this is not a response based on fact or analysis discussions. From all the comments one can see Muslims speak about partition with pride and a deep hurt at not being able to gain a bigger land area, (which is why I called it expansionism earlier) and others speak of it as a tragedy that hurt unity, and convenient references are sought to justify their stances
There can be no settlement if the 2 parties cannot listen to each other, re-examine their positions, and explore a middle ground to align with present realities.
With the tinker, tailors, soldiers (& spies) thinking this way, I now understand better why there was a partition, since these exact same positions were exploited by the powerful for themselves, while people lost everything they had & were killed horrendously.
I also believe that neither Pakistanis nor Indians have learnt any lessons from this massive human tragedy (much bigger than the holocaust) and the history will continue to repeat itself.
Subscribing to this blog has been a real eye-opener to bigotry, and I thank the authors and the commentators for helping me see that everyone DOES NOT want peace or prosperity. But there’s very little to be gained by continuing, hence I wish you all a good year ahead, and unsusbscribe from this blog.
man0jm: That is a cruel beginning to 2015. It is devastating to be labeled a bigoted blog after eight years of trying to provide a space for reasoned discussion.
We do not choose our world – there are people with differing views out there which makes our life difficult. We can choose to ignore them at the cost of existing in a cocoon of like-minded persons or we can engage them in the hope of contributing to change. It is a frustrating process especially when people do not wish to engage in debate and sometimes we also feel like giving up.
We cannot grudge you your choice except to say that you would be sorely missed. We need participants like you in the difficult task on which we have embarked.
I apologize for not being clear. My use of “bigotry” does apply, but not intended for the creators of this blog. It was to describe the level to which discussions, if they can be called that, have sunk to. If I hurt your feelings by making a blanket statement, I am truly sorry.
My view is, while we cannot and should not ignore the tragic past, let us draw lessons which help us move beyond the conflicts to secure a better life for people in India and Pakistan – an objective I believe you shared in one of your comments. I have been following this blog for a year plus, but the acrimony & tendency to “dig into” stereotypical positions is really sad.
And thank you for the gracious message to stay. I will and try to contribute to the blog in whatever small way I can.
This discussion is sliding into emotional ground. I personally think J & K should have gone to Pakistan due to large Muslim majority. If a new state was carved out of India, rightly or wrongly, on the basis of Muslim self rule then J & K logically goes to them. The question however is would that have made the two neighbors less hostile to each other?
Anil: This is a regional forum not beholden to nation-states or political parties. It also aspires to cater to a learning community. Therefore, our primary focus is on facts that are documented. I am extracting a long passage from a book which I feel states the facts quite accurately and objectively. They can form the basis for a useful discussion if we wish to carry it forward.
The book is The Aftermath of Partition in South Asia (Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia, London/New York, 2000) by Tai Yong Tan and Gyanesh Kudaisya. There is no evident reason to accuse the authors of any particular bias. The extracted text is from pp. 218 to 220 in this version of the book on the Internet:
https://books.google.com.pk/books?id=aPOBAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA218&dq=indian+princely+states+partition+choices+tai&hl=en&sa=X&ei=2LuvVJHDGYnmati5gZAM&ved=0CBoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=indian%20princely%20states%20partition%20choices%20tai&f=false
“On 15 August 1947, the princely states were advised by Mountbatten to choose between India and Pakistan. By July 1947, a newly established Department of States set out the procedures for transfer of power to take effect for the princely states. As an interim measure, these states were to initially sign a ‘stand still agreement’ with the Dominions of India and Pakistan. This was to enable the princely states to continue ‘business as usual’ in areas such as transport and trade and communications until each individual princely state signed a permanent ‘Instrument of Accession’ with either India or Pakistan.
In deciding whether to accede to Pakistan or India, the princely states were advised by the British to proceed on the basis of geographical contiguity. As they were excluded from the 3 June Plan (which had required the Muslim majority provinces to decide whether to join Pakistan as a whole or be partitioned) the choice of whether to accede to India or Pakistan could not be determined on the basis of the religious composition of the minority population in the princely state. The option of a boundary demarcation, as the Radcliffe Commission was implementing for the international boundary between India and Pakistan, was therefore not applicable for the princely states. In any case, to impose boundaries on the princely states was simply impossible, given their haphazard geographical spread across the subcontinent. Furthermore, the situation in many princely states was compounded by the fact that Hindu rulers often presided over Muslim populations and vice versa.
Although the British had advised the rulers to consult their populations before signing the ‘Instrument of Accession’, they were none the less concerned that the decisions of some princely states might jeopardize the territorial integrity of India and Pakistan. The neatest solution, according to the British, was for the princely states to join the Dominion with which their territories were contiguous. Such a prospect created a conundrum for Kashmir, which had the singular advantage of being geographically contiguous with both India and Pakistan and, on that basis, could accede to either.
By 15 August 1947, most princely states, except Hyderabad, Junagadh and Kashmir, had acceded to India. Hyderabad and Junagadh, both with Muslim rulers and Hindu majority populations, did not hold out for long and were forcibly ‘integrated’ within months of independence as a result of police action started by the Congress-led Indian government. In the case of Kashmir, its Hindu ruler, Maharaja Hari Singh, showed open reluctance to accede to either of the two new dominions. Although he was caught in the unenviable situation of being the Hindu ruler of a Muslim majority state, he still entertained thoughts of making his kingdom an independent country in its own right. Following the ‘logic’ of partition, Kashmir, with a Muslim population outnumbering the Hindus three to one, should have gone of Pakistan. Yet, Hari Singh as a Hindu ruler naturally felt a greater sense of affinity with India. Therefore in 1947 he found himself in a difficult position, having to decide upon the future of his state by joining either India or Pakistan. Prem Shankar Jha, a political analyst, offers the following explanation for the difficulty of the Maharaja’s position:
Prior to July-August 1947, Hari Singh was unable to make up his mind not so much because he was indolent or weak, but because he was being pushed powerfully in two opposite directions. He was drawn to India by his own religion and antecedents, but was being impelled towards Pakistan not only by preponderance of Muslims in the state, and its close geographical and economic links with that dominion, but by everything that was important to him personally – power, status, and prestige.
In the prevailing circumstances the Maharaja held out. As he weighed his options, Hari Singh worked out a ‘stand still’ agreement with Pakistan, but delayed signing the ‘Instrument of Accession’. For its part, India decided against entering into any agreement with Kashmir, perhaps not wishing to have its hands tied by a ‘stand still’ agreement. However, the situation changed dramatically in October 1947 as trouble broke out in the district of Poonch close to the Pakistani border when Pathan tribesmen invaded Kashmir. Thinking that this was a Pakistani plot to start a rebellion in his state to overthrow him, the Maharaja panicked and turned to India for help. On 26 October 1947, in return for India’s assurance for military aid to help stem the tribal attack, the Maharaja signed the ‘Instrument of Accession’ and, as a result, Kashmir joined the Indian Union. Pakistan protested by sending its troops which challenged the Indian army on Kashmiri soil, therefore starting the first armed conflict between the two countries.
This sequence of events (which led to Kashmir’s merger with India) has been challenged endlessly by Pakistani interpretations which argue that the so-called tribal invasion was actually an internal popular revolt against the Maharaja, evidently in protest against the actions of his troops involved in ‘ethnic cleansing’ against the Muslims. Some other non-Pakistani scholars have also lent support to this interpretation. For instance, Alastair Lamb has argued that Kashmir’s accession was the result of connivance between Mountbatten and Nehru. Lamb has asserted that the British were keen to keep Kashmir within India for geo-strategic reasons. He has cited the Radcliffe Commission’s award of three Muslim majority tehsils of Gurdaspur district to India as proof of British complicity in preventing Kashmir from acceding to Pakistan. The Gurdaspur award gave a land link to Kashmir, making its accession to India possible. The validity of the ‘Instrument of Accession’ signed between India and Kashmir has also been questioned. It has been alleged that the document was fraudulent, as the Maharaja had been forced to sign it under duress.
There remains no doubt that political leaders in both India and Pakistan regarded Kashmir as a territorial prize too important to be lost to the other side. To both the countries the option of an independent Kashmir was simply unacceptable. The Maharaja’s right to independently decide the future of his state was given little heed, as both countries harboured their own territorial ambitions for Kashmir. As Robert Wirsing explains:
It is clear…that the contention that India’s intervention in Kashmir at the end of October was entirely reactive, unpremeditated and entailed no territorial ambitions whatsoever – and that it was implied in the White Paper (which India published on Jammu and Kashmir soon after her intervention in the state) essentially an afterthought – is not worth a moment’s consideration. Neither, however, is the contention that Pakistan was an innocent bystander, the unfortunate victim of an Indian plot.
Eventually, Indian troops were flown into Kashmir after signing of the ‘Instrument of Accession’. They were able to quell the rebellion and push the armed tribesmen out of Srinagar, the capital. The Pakistani troops, however, retained control over a thin slice of the valley in the west as well as large tracts of mountainous wasteland in the north along the borders of Afghanistan and China. Kashmir was therefore divided along the ‘line of control’ where the troops stood when a ‘cease-fire’ agreement was imposed by the United Nations on 31 December 1948 in response to growing international pressure. At present these ‘lines of control’, instead of formally demarcated and internationally recognized borders, held by Indian, Pakistani and Chinese troops, determine the geography of Kashmir as well as the fragile peace which exists there.
The stalemate that was created in 1948 has defied a solution over the past fifty years, despite endless rounds of diplomacy, repeated attempts at mediation and constant international pressure. Ideological constraints and domestic politics within India and Pakistan have conspired against a compromise on this issue. While India maintains that the relinquishing of the predominantly Muslim territory would weaken her secular polity, Pakistan fears that giving up its claims over Kashmir would be tantamount to compromising the very ideological basis of Pakistan as the homeland of Muslims in South Asia.
India has continued to maintain her hold over Kashmir on legal grounds, citing the ‘Instrument of Accession’ signed by the Maharaja in 1947 as an irrevocable and final settlement of the issue. The validity of this claim has, however, been challenged as the ‘Instrument of Accession’ was conditional upon a plebiscite which was promised but never took place. Pakistan thus considers Kashmir as an ‘unfinished business of partition’, arguing that if Hyderabad and Junagadh, both Hindu-majority states with Muslim rulers, had gone to India, it was only logical that Kashmir, a Muslim-majority state with a Hindu ruler, should have come to Pakistan.
The refusal of the either country to concede has created a virtual deadlock which belies hopes for a peaceful solution at least in the foreseeable future. Kashmir continues to remain a stark and poignant reminder that after half a century the ‘unfinished business of partition’ continues to exact a heavy toll on peace and stability in the region.”
SA: It really doesn’t matter now who was right concerning J & K. This article is about speculating, so I was merely thinking if Kashmir had gone to Pakistan without any quarrel then may be the hostility between India and Pakistan would not have been so pronounced. In such an event political trajectory followed by Pakistan hardly gets affected. This would leads to very bleak scenario concerning Bangladesh.The scale of tragedy there would be unimaginable without India’s intervention.
Anil: Thanks for reminding us that the article was intended to open up the space for speculation not for stating hard and fast positions that were non-negotiable.
I don’t quite follow the point you are making. Clearly, if there had been no dispute over Kashmir, hostilities between India and Pakistan would not have been so pronounced if there had been any at all. But why would that leave the political trajectory followed by Pakistan unaffected? That is not clear to me.
SA: I am not very good at History so may be I am wrong. I don’t think coup staged by Ayub Khan had anything to with India or Kashmir so Pakistan would still have martial law, may be no war with India in 1965 but again Kashmir or India did not play any role in West Pakistan’s disdain and neglect for East Pakistan so it is likely that political set up in Pakistan would have been similar to as it really was, that is West part alone would have wielded political power. It appears unlikely that a ,militarily and economically strong West Pakistan would have allowed a Bengali from East Pakistan to become prime minister so events unfolding in East Pakistan would have been exactly the same as it really happened except an indifferent India would have shut door on exodus from East Pakistan and not have meddled with Mukti Bahini. Pakistani army would have easily slaughtered Mukti Bahini therefore the scale of misery there would have been many times more grotesque. Today East Pakistan would still be around but rife with insurgency.
Righ Wing Says:
Great knowledge of history is shown by all of you. But I prsnly feel that if Kashmir is an integrated part of India, you can see & judge situation of both POK & Indian Kashmir. It is pretty much clear that Indian govt. developed Kashmir a lot while Pakis just spread terror & terror camp.. also in recent elections in J & K, heavy turnout shows people of Kashmir have faith in Indian democracy.
First of all, please realize that “POK” is an extremely offensive term. What you call “POK” is properly known as Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. Second of all, the Pakistani military presence in Azad Kashmir is nothing like the amount of troops in Indian Kashmir. By and large there has been no uprising in Pakistani Kashmir, with people demonstrating their desire to be rid of Pakistan.
On the issue of the elections in Jammu and Kashmir, one can argue that the reason people in the Valley voted in such huge numbers was to keep the BJP out. Also even the mainstream “pro-India” parties have always said that the elections are for development and not a substitute for a political resolution to the Kashmir problem.
Kabir/Right Wing:
I am closing this discussion as it is beginning to lose readership for the blog. As Anil reminded us, the original article was intended to speculate on what might have happened if India had not been partitioned. The intention was never to decide the rightness or wrongness of the Kashmir accession. Having stumbled into that we have given enough space but the discussion has not resulted in much light. I hope you will accept this editorial decision in the right spirit.
“Clearly, if there had been no dispute over Kashmir, hostilities between India and Pakistan would not have been so pronounced if there had been any at all.”
I am surprised with this statement. The roots of extremism, manifesting ‘unofficially’ as terror groups and officially as not allowing trade relations to develop etc lie deep inside the Pakistan movement, with the Hindu vs Muslim reasoning at the core of mass appeal of the Pakistan movement, which has been pointed out many times on this blog.
Kashmir is merely a site for Pakistan to deploy its extremist machinery. If it wasnt Kashmir it might have been some other region in India, where the bogey of discrimination against Muslims would have been used. Indeed this has already been the case, else why did the Pakistani military orchestrate the Mumbai massacre ?
Things in Kashmir were undoubtedly magnified by India’s broken promises and political machinations in the valley. Had India not resorted to political repression in the valley, there probably would have been no popularly supported insurgency in Kashmir. But had Pakistan not been inclined to enter into the Kashmir conflict, it is more than likely that the Indian state and Kashmiris would have found a less bloody solution to the conflict, as had happened in Mizoram.
Vikram: Your response seems contradictory to me. In the first part you say that even if there had been no dispute over Kashmir, Pakistan would have found some other excuse for conflict since extremism was built into its character – this is a genetic argument to which there can be no answer. In the concluding part you say that had Pakistan not been inclined to enter into the Kashmir conflict (which would have been the case if there had been no dispute over it), there would have been a more peaceful scenario.
in my view, your understanding of what led to the Pakistan movement is incomplete. Re-reading the first two chapters of Sunil Khilnani’s The Idea of India should add the necessary nuances.
SA, I can post this comment elsewhere if its not suitable for the discussion but I am really interested in understanding your perspective here.
My claim was not based so much on the reasons for the Pakistan movement, but more on the mechanics and ground level consequences it had, quoting from the post ‘Governance in Pakistan: A Good Analysis’,
“It hardly needs to be said that if appeal to sentiments of this kind helped to mobilize the mass support without which Pakistan could not have been won, it also strengthened the religious (or pseudo-religious) fanaticism which Jinnah had opposed.”
By the late stages of the Pakistan movement Jinnah was already being sidelined by the more extreme sections of the movement, take for example, the blacking out of his August 11 speech. It would also be interesting to see the makeup of the Constituent Assembly he was addressing.
But it seems obvious to me that a Pakistan in which religious fanaticism had gained the upper hand so quickly would end up in conflict with its largely Hindu neighbor. Pakistan ended up in conflict with its own eastern wing which was accused, among other things of being ‘too Hindu’, and there was certainly no Kashmir conflict there. It helped install and sustain a fundamentalist government in Afghanistan, and that had nothing to do with Kashmir.
If the Pakistani military’s conflict with India is only about Kashmir, why did the Mumbai massacre happen ? Why the ISI support to the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which clearly has as its goals to destroy the Indian Republic and annihilate Hinduism and Judaism.
A good idea to stop this bickering over Kashmir. I find it surprising that northern UP, which had the most muslims at the time, but noone ever discusses why they were’nt in a Muslim Homeland. This is how powerful agenda setting works, I guess.
2. A quick study of the history of Cyprus, South Africa, Malaysia, India, Israel, Persia, Poland, Ireland, Sudan all show that after the colonial rule ended, all went through a partition, which were followed by at least a war and/or a partition, sometimes more. India has been no different. It’s the ideological justifications created for the partition that made it so bloody, and it continues to fester three quarters of a century later.
manOjm,
I agree with you that the “bickering” over Kashmir is not getting us anywhere. Deeply entrenched nationalist positions will prevent us from looking at the issue with whatever “objectivity” we can find.
I do have two points about this last comment of yours though:
1) UP was always a Muslim-minority province. The backbone of the Pakistan movement was there because they were the most concerned about how they would deal with the Hindu majority in an undivided India. The provinces that today make up Pakistan were solidly Muslim-majority and so weren’t too invested in the Pakistan movement until relatively late. Recall that in undivided Punjab, the Unionist Party was mostly in power and they didn’t have any particular “Muslim” agenda. It is one of the ironies of history that those who were most committed to creating a Muslim homeland didn’t realize that they would lose their own actual homeland if their ideological project ever came to fruition. The whole UP scenario has been explored by Qurrutulain Hyder in “Meray Bhi Sanam Khane” and “Aag Ka Dariya”.
2) Israel/Palestine was perhaps an unfortunate example to add in this list of countries partitioned after decolonization. Unlike British India where the Indian National Congress, The Muslim League and the British agreed that Partition was the best (or the “least-worst” option), the Palestinian Arabs never consented to give 50% of their land to a small Jewish minority. Israel unilaterally declared independence which led to a war. Then again in 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. That land is still today internationally considered Occupied Palestinian Territory. In the India/Pakistan scenario, there is no international consensus that either party is occupying the other’s land (despite what both sides feel). Palestine remains one of the most important unresolved human rights issues of our time.
Anyway, I absolutely agree with you that we should not forget the millions who lost their lives or were made homeless by Partition. The bloody nature of that Partition as well as the four wars fought between India and Pakistan and the ongoing territorial disputes have created an atmosphere of such distrust that when it comes to the current cross-border firing most Pakistanis are not willing to believe a single thing coming out of Indian newspapers and vice versa. The whole saga of the “Pak Terror Boat” is another example.
The question is how do we get over that distrust? I believe that on an individual level, Indians and Pakistanis can be friends (as long as we don’t start arguing over contentious issues) but our national governments are really not interested in “Aman” despite whatever lip-service they give to it from time to time. It seems to me that as of now the best option the two countries have is a cold peace such as Israel has with Jordan or Egypt, which is really just the absence of war. Perhaps this is too cynical.
On 1, Nationalism as long as it means pride and working for one’s country, it’s all good. Sadly, both in India & Pak, it appears to have come to mean warring with others !! On the facts, look at an interesting set of maps and draw your own conclusions http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00maplinks/modern/maps1947/maps1947.html. Note the province of Khulna & Murshidabad for example.
On 2. I agree a cold peace is the start point. The real risk to Pak & india people is the building of military complexes by their governments – Pak has completed this, leading to economic drain, armed violence and military regimes. India seems to be building it. Once these complexes are in place, they must fund war-mongering propaganda, like US – WMD’s, extending democracy etc – everything becomes grist for the mill.
In my opinion, indians and pakistanis, instead of falling for jingoism like “the unfinished agenda” etc, should push their governments to do more for their citizens, rather than war with others – covertly or overtly. Let it become a healthy competition between the 2 nations, not a destruction theme.
SA, there is a big problem with the narrative you have presented on Kashmir. The Nawab of Junagadh (a state with an overwhelming Hindu majority) was courted by the Pakistani authorities and even acceded to Pakistan on 15 September 1947. How was the acceptance of this accession consistent with the ‘logic’ of the two nation theory that had been frequently been alluded to above ?
Junagadh was neither contiguous to Pakistan nor a Muslim majority state. So why was this accession accepted ?
It is quite clear what was going on. Two new states were born, and like any state both tried to gain as much territory for themselves as possible. Pakistan made a move and did not get the outcome it wanted, and has been unable to reconcile with this reality ever since.
The narrative you have presented also claims that the invasion of the Pathan tribesmen from Pakistan was a ‘spontaneous uprising’, this view has been firmly discredited by military historians like Christine Fair.
Vikram: That was not my narrative in that it was not written by me. The book is part of the Routledge series which has global credibility. As I said, there seems no reason to accuse the authors of any particular bias.
The reason to present the narrative from a respected source was to remove doubts about the clear choice given to the rulers of the princely states and the non-binding guidelines that were suggested to them. What comes across very clearly is that when it came to the test, both countries acted in unprincipled ways to maximize their territories. Much suffering has ensued from this unprincipled behavior. Any subsequent attempts to find justifications for the behaviors cannot ignore that starting point.
As mentioned in my response to Kabir/Right Wing, discussion on the rightness or wrongness of the Kashmir accession is closed as it is hurting the blog.
Fa Xian Says:
I am Chinese, and even I am saddened when reading about the Partition of India. Surely unity would ever be preferable to disunity? Even most mainlanders and Taiwanese people would put aside differences and come together — if it meant averting the possibility of war forever. Do you truly have no regrets? Have none of you wondered, “What if?”
Fa Xian,
I think all South Asians have at some point wondered “what if?”. Partition was a huge tragedy for those who lost their lives and their homes. At the same time, as a Pakistani, I am glad that I have my own nation-state and my own identity separate from India. There were many reasons (some good and some not) why Muslims in British India felt they could not live in a Hindu-majority country where they would be at a perpetual disadvantage under a one-man-one-vote democratic system. Also, please remember that there were many attempts over more than two decades to find a compromise that would have left India united. For various reasons, a workable solution was not found.
Anyway, it has now been over six decades and most Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are (I assume) quite happy to live in independent nation-states. We can be good neighbors, but there is now need to give up our own identities.
Finally, there were wars in India even when it was “united”. Some would argue that it was the British that really made India one country. Even then, there were over 500 princely states that were nominally independent.
Kabir, South Asia includes Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bhutan, all of whom were not party to the partition or involved in it in any way. So your claim of ‘all South Asians’ pondering ‘what if’ cannot be correct.
Vikram, of course you are right. I was using “South Asia” to mean “British India”.
Fa Xian, I think the situation between mainland Han Chinese and those on Taiwan cannot be compared to that between Pakistanis and Indians.
Between the Kuomintang that succeeded the Qing dynasty, and the CPC, the dispute was primarily was one of the economic system to be adopted in a modern China, and the foreign backers of each party. There were also disputes regarding the political system to be adopted, although these really became salient only after Taiwan became a full fledged democracy.
Most importantly, the CPC and the Kuomintang did not have differing definitions of the Chinese nation they claimed to speak in the name of.
If today, reconciliation is possible between the CPC and Taiwan, one big reason is that the CPC has practically abandoned the CPC economic system, and moved towards a more capitalist one. State owned enterprises still control most upstream industries and play a major role in the PRC economy. However, this extensive role of the state in the PRC’s economy is a structural consequence of the CPC’s political system, and not the result of widely held belief among the Chinese about the state’s role in the economy.
Also, I doubt if any real unification between the PRC and Taiwan can take place unless mainland China becomes a democracy like Taiwan (i.e. the CPC abandons both its economic and political ideology), or the US withdraws from the region and the PRC can take over Taiwan by force.
Vikram you are right, the situation in PRC and Taiwan cannot be compared – after all they didnt kill a million and displace 10 million.
75 years after this tragic events, I see on this blog 2 kinds of comments – 1. Parition justified our ideology & we regret we didnt kill and displace more 2. Partition was a shameful event and we should learn from it and resolve never to have anything like this again.
Take your pick.
man0jm, I hope you don’t place me in the “we regret we didn’t kill more” category. That would be really unfair. While I don’t want Pakistan to not exist as a nation-state, I’m certainly not happy about the human cost of that decision. Many members of my own family lost their homes in what is now India.
Perhaps an equivalent feeling could be that of those “liberal Zionists” who acknowledge the Palestinian “Nakba” but still believe that there was a need for Israel to exist. I think Pakistan needed to exist but of course Partition was a tragedy.
Partitions are messy events but realistically most nation-states were formed through some such events.
Kabir, that was put very well. And I really meant ‘categories of comments’, not persons – it would be too pretentious to judge people by what they write on a blog. Peace !
Manoj, I am not sure what you mean. The Chinese Civil war (between the KMT and CPC) killed 8 million people, almost the entire population of Taiwan consists of Han Chinese displaced from China’s southern provinces.
I also think you need to revise your understanding of partition violence. The roots of the intense sectarian violence, especially in Punjab go back a long way into colonial policies of land allocation and militarization of the Punjabi peasantry. If anyone’s conduct was shameful, it was the British colonialists, who after manipulating and exploiting Indian (especially Punjabi) communities for so long to entrench and prolong their rule, showed no interest in maintaining order during the transfer of power.
There was a political disagreement between the principal politically active agents in British India, and no resolution that could have maintained the unity of British India could be agreed upon. There is nothing to feel ashamed about here and there is no point in blaming this and that person.
Had the colonial authorities fulfilled their duties, the non-Muslim population of Pakistan would not have shrunk so dramatically from nearly 20% in 1941 to 1.5% in 1951. It might have gone down to 15% perhaps, with the urban Hindus of Punjab leaving (many of whom did leave before the bulk of the violence), just like it was mainly the urban Muslims of Delhi and UP left. The memories of migration would have been of seeking a new life and cultural security, but without the bitterness and animosity that has come to characterize it.
I will argue that despite the increasingly Islamist nature of the Pakistan movement in its later years, this 15% minority, would have been an important bulwark against fundamentalism, much like Indian Muslims were crucial for Indian secularism in its early years and even today.
Anyone who is at all interested in the Partition and the creation of two new dominions out of British India should perhaps watch the series “Pradhan Mantri” available on Youtube. Though it is Indian Nationalist in presentation– a fact made amply clear in the opening moments of Episode 1 where Jinnah is depicted as a classic soap opera villain– the events depicted seem to me to be quite real. The series covers the history of the Republic of India from 3 June 1947 to the present day. There are episodes on the wars with Pakistan, The Babri Masjid demolition, the Gujarat pogroms, etc. Honestly, in the later episodes it’s a bit anti-BJP. So if you can separate out the program’s bias, it is an interesting refresher course on history and current events.
I agree with you – the series gives an accurate and comprehensive picture of major events in 40’s and 50’s, from the leaders’ perspective.
Prabhjot Singh Says:
Only Indian and Pakistan govt fight ,people still love each other.I don’t know the name of a single person from Pakistan whom I hate,So I even don’t have a reason to hate Pakistan and its same with the Pakistani people too. I don’t know what would have happened if India was not partitioned but i know that I could have more friends than I have now.
I wonder if this entire discussion is premised on the right assumptions. Starting with the title of the post (and the general label of ‘Partition of India’), I feel that we predispose the discussion towards a negative evaluation of the fact that two, not one sovereign political entities emerged from the British Indian Empire (BIE). We also forget that even after ‘partition’ the border between India and Pakistan was open, and it was only in 1965 that we started having the kinds of restrictions that we have today.
But most importantly, we fail to separate the violence that accompanied the political emergence of India and Pakistan from the BIE from the political arrangement itself. This violence, a dark spot on human history was the fault of the British authorities abandoning their duty to uphold order and their intense miltarization of the Punjab during the century of their rule.
Pratap Bhanu Mehta has also noted in a recent column that we should stop looking at the political actor’s of the 1940’s in terms of heroes and villains in the context of partition. Instead we should look at the various aspirations of the communities that resided in the BIE that lead to the Indian Independence and Pakistan movement.
A recent book by Venkat Dhulipala presents a rich history of the Pakistan movement, in particular how the Urdu speaking Muslims of North India, who had a major impact on Pakistan in its early years saw the demand for Pakistan.
http://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/books/book-review-the-promised-land/99/
Vikram: The original post was not premised on any assumptions. It posed the standard counterfactual question: What would have happened if India had not been partitioned? Of course, there are positive and negative opinions and the idea was to provide a space to articulate them. Even Dhulipala, in the review you have linked, has a perspective on the question: “In fact, so fixated have we been on the idea that the bad guys were the ones who wanted territorial Partition that we often forget that the cost of territorial unity was always going to be religious conservatism. Territorial unity required the partitioning of social orders; not the modern ideas of citizenship”.
I believe the argument is contestable because post-partition India did not become free of different social orders and, more damaging to the hypothesis, post-partition Pakistan that did become much more free of social differences, did not become religiously liberal – in fact it became even more conservative.
It is true that the commentary on the post drifted into unrelated issues of the genesis of the partition and the attribution of responsibility but commentary is never in control of the author. This blog is in agreement with Pratap Mehta that there is not much to be gained by looking for heroes and villians. Just as a reminder, the following was posted on the blog quite some time back: https://thesouthasianidea.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/jaswant-singh-the-road-to-partition/
I do feel that looking at the aspirations of communities is not sufficient because the aspirations are shaped by events. It is the events that need to be focus of analysis.
Note: Dhulipala’s article is archived in the Best from Elsewhere section of the blog:
https://thesouthasianidea.wordpress.com/from-elsewhere/#88
Param Siddharth Says:
I am an Indian, and let me tell you, there is no discrimitnation here.
The creation of Pakistan was a big mistake.
I am an Indian, and I am telling you that Muslims live happily in my country.
Those who think that Muslims are discriminated here have false thoughts.
Hope people will understand it someday.
Appreciate the article, Indian Hindus are equally responsible for creating a country Pakistan, so called upper caste Hindus were treating Muslims as bad as untouchables, Jinnah has realised this well in advance, once India becomes independent country then the Muslims minority will not be treated well by upper caste Hindus, they (Hindus) will never give an equal opportunity to Muslims in terms of education and other opportunities, certain extent this is true.
Hindus were vegetarians and they don’t like to see other people eating meat, secondly Muslims were creating problems for Hindus such as throwing meat bones on Hindu majority streets, purposely praying on the street and creating an unpleasant situation to Hindus.
We cannot look back to the past what has happened and there is no point in turning back to history pages, rather we should look forward to patch up the relations, Pakistan is still an underdog country and they should work to heal the wounds and look for an economic development, health and education with the help of its neighbours than finding ways to take revenge in the name of Kashmir. Creating a separate country or Kashmir becoming part of Pakistan will not solve the problem in fact this will further escalate the problem, it is too bad for China, who will have more Muslim neighbours in the western part of the country and the current situation in China will lead to bigger problem.
Muslims per se are the most conservative in the current world and undemocratic society with very stringent one-sided rules, severe punishments and with highest level of human right violations. thanks
Australian: I am intrigued by your closing comment: “Muslims per se are the most conservative in the current world and undemocratic society with very stringent one-sided rules, severe punishments and with highest level of human right violations.”
First, how does one arrive at this conclusion? For example, what are the stringent one-sided rules under consideration and how do they compare to rules in other religions? Second, is there need to see democracy in a global geopolitical perspective? For example, Iran was a democracy in 1953 which was toppled by the US and replaced by an undemocratic system (Obama has now apologized for that). The Saudi regime is the dearest ally of the US and has been protected all along. Do these aspects relate to religion or the politics of oil? Third, is there a table of human right violations per 100,000 population by country? Here is one list I found showing the ten most extreme violators:
http://maplecroft.com/portfolio/new-analysis/2014/12/03/human-rights-deteriorating-most-ukraine-thailand-turkey-due-state-repression-civil-unrest-maplecroft-human-rights-risk-atlas/
Shivatejas Bettadapura Says:
Interesting and informative article.What hasn’t been discussed is that a unitary country like modern India with a strong center was not on the table. The choice in 1947 was between accepting the Cabinet Mission plan and Partition. If Partition had been avoided and CMP adopted, then some princely states would have seceded. The young nation would have quickly balkanized, within a decade or so.
Secondly, a single South Asian country would have got dragged into the turbulence of the greater Middle-east. Delhi would have been unable to handle this without some measure of devolution or decentralization (unacceptable to Nehru and Patel at the time).
All of you have framed it in terms of Hindu-Muslim relations, most arguing that they would have equilibrated over time and some arguing that they would have continued to remain bitter. While the rhetoric of the Muslim League certainly invoked imagined Muslim greatness in the past and how that could be realized in Pakistan, what people have ignored is the strong zamindari angle to the opposition of the ML to the egalitarian impulses of the Congress. In undivided India, Congress would have found it impossible to enact land reform in large swathes of territory that forms Pakistan today.Witness how Pakistan has been unable to enact land reform to this day. Without land reform, the country would have struggled with continued poverty on account of entrenched caste equations and inequalities.
Shivatejas: Thanks for an intellectually stimulating comment, precisely the kind the post was intended to elicit.
As you mention, devolution or decentralization was not acceptable to Congress at that time while the League was in favor of it. One wonders if no compromise could have been found short of partition? Regarding your argument about the princely states, even following partition India could only retain territories in the northwest and northeast by recourse to force so the problem you allude to wasn’t exactly avoided by partition. As for balkanization, Europe can be considered balkanized but does that make it particularly disadvantaged compared to South Asia. According to some, the competition amongst smaller states is a spur to innovation and progress.
It is not clear to me what would have led an undivided India to be dragged into the turbulence of the middle east. Would it have been because of its large Muslim population? India still has a very large Muslim population that is not pressing it to be involved in the turbulence of the middle east.
Your point about land reform is plausible except for the fact that there does not seem much difference in the continued poverty in both India and Pakistan. It is not as if land reforms in India have had much of an impact on poverty. Was partition a price worth paying for such minimal impact?
Speaking as a young south Indian, I would say Partition served us. The first generation of Partition refugees lost a lot and they feel a nostalgia for an undivided country.
India as it is is much much stronger than a fragmented south asia could ever have been: with a common market, with free transport of goods and people across the length and breadth of the country and allegiance to a liberal Constitution. The combined strength of Rajasthanis,Gujaratis and Malayalis is far bigger than Junagadh,Kathiawar and Travancore.
The point about Muslims is worth talking about. The mistake most Pakistanis make is that they “homogenize” India’s Muslims. Tamil Muslims are proud of their Tamilness, Malayali Muslims are Malayali first and many Kannada Muslims have made valuable contributions to Kannada literature. Pakistanis’ view of India is dominated by North India and the Muslims of the Gangetic plains. Here too, the fact that today, UP and Bihar Muslims aren’t interested in the events of the greater Middle east owes probably to the fact that after 67 years, we in India have been able to build a civic identity owing largely to a highly liberal and non-sectarian definition of nationalism(the originality of the Congress version of Indian nationalism has to be thanked for this). Without Partition, I feel we would have continued to think of ourselves as Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, etc. I for one would never want to live in a confessional state.
India has progressed from a “ship-to-mouth” existence to being a food grain exporter. Of course, agricultural research is responsible for this but in large measure, productivity in farms was boosted by land reform. Lazy, city-based zamindar elites were replaced by hard-working peasants. India has been able to build a substantial rural farming elite. You hear about farmer suicides and get the impression that Indian farmers are struggling, but the bigger story is that farmers today want to send their children to the best schools and get into debt for that.
In short, to quote MJ Akbar, the idea of India is a modern idea, the idea of Pakistan is an outdated idea. It would not have died even if Partition were averted.
Shivatejas: You are assuming that if India had not been partitioned it would have fragmented into dozens of states like Junagadh, Kathiawar, and Travancore, etc. No such tendencies were in evidence during the years leading up to 1947.
I agree on the problem of homogenization but you can appreciate that this was precisely what happened in the years leading up to 1947 creating the impression that all “Muslims” wanted to separate whereas that was clearly not the case. Also, do consider where the categories of Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs came from. Last week Professor Romila Thapar was at the Lahore Literary Festival and was reported as follows – http://www.dawn.com/news/1165001:
“In fact, till the British conducted their first census, there was no concept of religious minorities and majority in the subcontinent. The census purely divided the people on the basis of their religious identity without taking sects into consideration. If this had been done, she said, the Bhakti-Sufi sects would have come up as a majority. Most people only followed the popular folk traditions and did not push religious identity till the colonial thought process pushed them to do so.”
Whether India is an importer or exporter of grains has very little impact on poverty – the statistics on rural child malnourishment are shocking. See this report:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/08/business/global/a-failed-food-system-in-india-prompts-an-intense-review.html?pagewanted=all
I repeat the point that partition did not contribute sufficiently to poverty reduction in India to justify its human costs.
As for MJ Akbar, this blog considers his book to be bad history: https://thesouthasianidea.wordpress.com/2011/04/30/tinderbox-the-past-and-future-of-pakistan-%E2%80%93-a-review/
Asian Says:
Be one again. Please.
LeGrand Says:
In the last 5000 years, India (subcontinent) remained as one country for only 500 years. So the concept of partition seems too natural to India
Im an 18 year old northern indian hindu …first and foremost let me congratulate you on this blog .!!….
Im proud of my patriotic indian muslim brethren who chose to stay back in india during the partition… It goes to show that the idea of pakistan is not as strong as some pakistanis may think.. hindu numbers have dwindled there while muslims numbers in india have grown here.. nd just becoz i am secular does not mean i forget the way abrahamic relegions treat hindus . Dirty words like kaafir … My god …. Let me make it very clear to you here on this blog HINDUS ARE NOT IDOLTORS AND POLYTHEISTS.
I think its important to mention tthis as ive read reports online and watched clips of pakistani talkshows on youtube where people speak of being taught anti hindu hate in school textbooks and whatnot…
All abrahamic relegions have this view .
1)we dont worship idols rather we worship through idols… See it like this .. you love your mother … And say you have a photograph of her and someone asked you to spit on it .. would you? YOU wouldnt ,saying that it would be disrespectful … Lets get logical here .. the photograph is paper and plastic and cant think, move, speak ,see and feel emotions the way your mother does … So insulting the photo ,an inanimate object, shouldnt be such a big deal . Yet it is …. Becoz you see the shadow of your mother and maybe the photograph offers you solace and comfort when you are away from her, miss her and only wish to be with her… So much emotion for a mortal being , then how can i disrespect the image of my god , becoz even in the lifeless stone metal and wood idols … I see him … Do i love the photograph more than my mother .. no way!! i dont look at it when im with her .. same goes for hinduism .. the idols are a way for us to concentrate in prayer ..
2)hinduism is essentially a relegion with one god only -brahma – all the others are extensions of him in various forms.
Hindus dont worship cows like a god but since in our scriptures they are seen as pure,sacrificing, maternal& innocent figures ..they are placed on a pedestal and so are all of gods creation .. think about it how can i praise him and not appreciate this world he created .
Anyways …that was that … It bothers me that hinduism and some eastern religions freak people out so much?? I dont see hinduism as pagan but even if it was … What is it to you … Live and let live .. unless you thrive on expansionism and proselytizing.
anyway back to the topic … Since we dont live in an ideal world id say- no, i dont think the india and pakistan shoould merge … Atleast not for another 30yrs or so
… Let the scars of partition scab over and let the two countries develop &evolve and then if there is still longing for each other then maybe just maybe .. who knows ..
But plz rein in your radical islam .. id rather die than see myself or the future generations live under the the vitriol filled atmosphere of a religion that hasnt evolved with the centuries and continues to be oppressive in this day and age .. proof is all over the world ..
We in india are fighting against caste system with the help of our constitution , reservations in schools colleges and offices ,reformation drives etc
Id like to see a similar change in the muslim world .. im in no way saying that all muslims are like this .. infact we have muslims family friends that are we so close with that i call them mamu mami ( uncle & aunt ) . Some members of my extended family came from lahore during partition and one of them even studied medicine at lahore medical college .. and she regales us with stories of pakistan sometimes… So No hate here .. bt i cannot and will not stand anti hindu sentiments ..
kpr: Welcome to the blog and thanks for the appreciative words. In response to your comments, I would like to raise a few points for discussion in the spirit of this blog.
1. I don’t believe it is justifiable to attribute the decision of many Muslims to stay in India to patriotism and by implication that of those who left to lack of patriotism. There were very violent riots on both sides of the border, especially in Punjab and Bengal from where the majority of the migrations took place, and many who left their homes had no option but to flee to save their lives.
Patriotism is not a good touchstone in any case for such decisions. Many South Asians have migrated to the West to better their lives. Should we attribute a lack of patriotism to them?
Finally, Muslims in India ought to be seen as Indian citizens like all other citizens. Implicit arguments pertaining to their patriotism are a subtle form of discrimination – the ‘othering’ of a group not quite considered at par with the majority.
2. I don’t believe you need to defend Hinduism vis a vis the Abrahamic faiths. It’s an ancient tradition that has no need to comply with the norms of Abrahamic faiths. As for ‘dirty words’ they are floating all over the place on every side and need to be ignored if we are to move forward.
3. I am most concerned about your last sentence: “I cannot and will not stand anti Hindu sentiments.” This puts you in the same category as the angry Muslims who cannot stand anti Muslim sentiments. If that is the case, the critique of angry Muslims loses force. Unless we develop the ability not to be provoked we will always remain at the mercy of those who benefit by inflaming our emotions.
4. Your sentence “plz rein in your radical Islam” is problematic. Why is it mine? What is the basis for that claim?
Historically, India was like a small continent comprised of many countries/nations/states. That’s why India was called the Subcontinent also.
Historically, every part of the world that had the economy to generate enough surplus and establish a state (which was not forcibly taken over by another) was a country. National consciousness only arrived in post enlightenment Europe in the 18th century as people sought a new source of sovereignty following the delegitimization of monarchies. Due to the various twists and turns of history, and the preexisting demographics of religion, it culminated in monolingual nation states. These monolingual nation states, the borders of most of which defied natural logic set the stage for the two Great Wars in Europe.
In India, the history of nationalism begins with the 1857 war. Most nationalist movements in India, evolving as they were under a multilingual, multireligious empire took on a more broad based definition of the nation than religion or language. It is the events from 1857 to 1947, that form the core of nationalist memory in India today. The independence movement still shapes how Indians think about politics.
Vikram: This is a very important subject you have touched upon. I would like to move it forward by submitting the following observations:
“Historically, every part of the world that had the economy to generate enough surplus and establish a state (which was not forcibly taken over by another) was a country.”
The concept of ‘country’ is a very late arrival. Historically, there were states of different forms but they cannot be classified as countries the way we know them today. They were either city-states, principalities, kingdoms, or empires.
“National consciousness only arrived in post enlightenment Europe in the 18th century as people sought a new source of sovereignty following the delegitimization of monarchies.”
This may not be strictly correct. For example, the city-states of Athens and Sparta exhibited quite a fierce ‘nationalism’ over two thousand years ago. The 14th and 15th century city-states of Milan, Florence, Venice, etc., were at war with each other and are well known. Machiavelli is the best-known name associated with this period.
Also, many empires only disintegrated after WW1. The Russian Empire even later.
“Due to the various twists and turns of history, and the preexisting demographics of religion, it culminated in monolingual nation states.”
Monolingual nation-states did not emerge out of a natural process. A lot of ethnic cleansing was involved in creating linguistic homogeneity. The Slavic episode is still fresh in our memories. We should remain aware of how European nation-states came into being. A little bit of that is discussed in a review of Tony Judt’s monumental work Post-War: “He also observes that because war, genocide, and ethnic cleansing had separated the fractious, ethnically diverse regions of Eastern Europe into tidy, homogeneous nation-states, “the stability of postwar Europe rested upon the accomplishments of Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler.”” (http://nymag.com/news/features/64626/)
Also, there are still a number of nation-states in Europe that are not monolingual – Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, UK, among them. Even the US is not monolingual. Also, some city-states have survived into the present era, e.g., Monaco, San Marino, etc. These are sub-national states – surrounded by nation-states in which people are of the same ethnicity and speak the same language.
“In India, the history of nationalism begins with the 1857 war.”
We tend to refer to this as nationalism but it was more an anti-colonial movement.
“Most nationalist movements in India, evolving as they were under a multilingual, multireligious empire took on a more broad based definition of the nation than religion or language.”
I wish that had been the case. The Indian Western-educated elite was unable to think beyond the European nation-state as the norm. This was what led to Muslims suddenly beginning to think of themselves as a separate ‘nation.’ The same trend continues today with the desire of some to transform India into a Hindu state.
India was and still is a civilizational-state and that is the way it should have been imagined.
“Monolingual nation-states did not emerge out of a natural process. A lot of ethnic cleansing was involved in creating linguistic homogeneity. The Slavic episode is still fresh in our memories. We should remain aware of how European nation-states came into being.”
I was including all the nastiness in the ‘twists and turns of history’, I should have a more deliberate word. But the key point I want to emphasize here is the religious demographics. Medieval Europe was overwhelmingly Christian (with a splattering of Jews), and the various denominations of Christianity played a key role in the formation of national identities.
The nation states that emerged in Europe, were thus not only monolingual, but monoreligious (at the level of Christian denomination) as well. There were exceptions as you point out, but this was the norm. A similar process seems to be underway in the Middle East as well.
Both modern day Indian nationalism and even Hindu nationalism essentially imagine India as a civilization state. Indeed, so does Muslim nationalism in modern South Asia. Its just that they refer to different civilizations.
With the establishment of the first Persianate state by the Ghaznavids in Lahore, a policy continued by future Turkic/Iranic rulers in the Delhi Sultanate, Deccan Sultanate and the Mughal Empire a decidedly Persianate Muslim identity emerged in the Northern regions of the subcontinent. The surplus generated in these states was appropriated to develop a Persian based culture in South Asia.
I dont think this attempt to create a Persianate culture would be such a problematic historical memory given that India was plural long before the establishment of these states. But the fact that it was accompanied by wanton destruction of the existing heritage and the removal of Sanskrit and other Indian languages from the court and literary circles created a very different impression of this period among different groups. Support to native traditions seems to have been sporadic and token. (I would be interested to know how Richard Eaton explains Aurangzeb’s artillery bombardment of the Bamiyan Buddhas.)
Perhaps for a lot of the Muslim elite, the roots of the demands for Pakistan can be found in the desire to see this Perso-Islamic culture form the basis for a modern Muslim (or even secular) culture in South Asia. This can be seen for example, in the elevation of Urdu to a ‘sweet’ ,’beautiful’ inclusive language, even though its vocabulary and modes of expression are overwhelmingly Persian.
It is ironic then that the key modern expression of the culture Persianate Muslims in South Asia came from Mumbai in India rather than Pakistan. But in India, there is not contradiction between the growth of this culture and the rendering of Indian epics on the modern medium of television. See any Indian channel, and you will see a seamless blend of shows based on the stories of the Buddha, Mahabharata and Akbar-Birbal. Turn on Indian radio, and you will hear mushairas and bhajans. The Indian state supports AIR Akashvaani in Hindi and AIR Urdu.
So how then is India not a civilization state ?
Vikram: Thanks for the response. Here are some further comments:
On religious demographics: It is not clear how various denominations of Christianity played a key role in the formation of national identities. When the English Protestants and Catholics were in conflict they were both English. It was similar in the other countries of Europe. In the Middle East today, if Sunnis ad Shias are arrayed against each other in Iraq, they are both Iraqis.
On India as a civilizational-state: One can imagine India as a civilization but as soon as one begins thinking in terms of Hindu or Muslim nationalism, one has transitioned in real terms to the paradigm of the nation-state.
A civilizational-state, if it had been imagined, would have been a different model, one accepting its composite Indian-ness without making exceptions. But the thinking you have outlined, one of grievances, whether justified or not, precluded that outcome and led naturally in the direction of the nation-state model. From there followed the construction of different civilizations each glorifying its own nation-state.
As for the grievances, you have to cite more evidence for the wanton destruction of existing heritage and the removal of Indian languages from literary circles. If Muslim identity emerged in the northern areas of the subcontinent, how did it manage to eliminate Indian languages all over India? If the destruction happened sequentially, one has to provide the sequential evidence of the measures that eliminated Indian languages. To take a more recent example: Are Indians abandoning mastery of their own languages for English voluntarily or was/is there a systematic design to eliminate Indian languages from offices, courts, and literature?
There can be a quite different perspective on the phenomenon you have mentioned. It is but natural for a foreign group coming from outside India to bring along its own traditions. But it is remarkable how quickly the Muslim foreigners were Indianized giving rise to what is referred to as the Ganga-Jamni tehzeeb (civilization) in Northern India. This is not to say that there were no political conflicts but it would be hard to argue that political conflicts did not exist in India before the arrival of the foreigners.
William Dalrymple provides one example of this Indianization in his research on the tradition of erotic literature in India (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2008/jun/26/india-the-place-of-sex/):
“It was not, therefore, during the Islamic period that the dramatic break with India’s erotic traditions occurred; instead that change took place during the colonial period with the arrival of evangelical Christian missionaries in the mid-nineteenth century.”
This, despite the fact that, in Dalrymple’s words:
“Islam brought with it to India a very different attitude toward sexuality, which was much closer to Eastern Christian notions—the environment in which so many early Islamic attitudes developed—and which divided the mind from the body, and the sensual from the metaphysical. Like much early Christian thought, Islam emphasized the sinfulness of the flesh, the dangers of sexuality, and, in extreme cases, the idealization of sexual renunciation and virginity…. Yet, remarkably, Islamic rule did not disturb the long Indian tradition of erotic writing. The Kamasutra survived and in time even helped to convert to the life of pleasure India’s initially puritanical Muslim rulers.”
The same was the case with music, language, religion, lifestyles. The syncretism of the period was quite remarkable – what Dara Shikoh described in his Majma-ul-Baharain: The Commingling of Two Oceans.
However, if you are arguing that the foreigners should never have come to India in the first place you are being ahistorical. There were no ‘countries’ at that time, only empires with no fixed borders. Just read the history of England to see how many different foreign groups went and ruled there and became English in turn – even the present royal house is German in origin.
There was no “India” before August 15, 1947. Before that, there was British India and a bunch of princely states. Before the British, there was Hindustan (which did not include all of what is today India). This idea that “India” was always one united country and its boundaries were recognized as such is completely ahistorical.
The Republic of India and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan are exactly the same age. Both are socially constructed entities. Neither was ever inevitable.
A Pung Says:
India and China are great nations but greatness is not automatic. It requires quality leadership during important moments in history. Unfortunately, Indian leadership of the forties was short-sighted and lacked quality. China seized its moment by emerging as one giant nation after its communist revolution and has never looked back. India missed its opportunity when the British left. Instead of having one voice to represent the Indian nation, it got two and later, three. Three voices to represent the opinion of one nation – that is ridiculous and self-defeating as more often than not, they drown each other out. The partition of India was a monumental failure of the prevalent Indian leadership and a historical error which, unfortunately, will probably never be undone. India is not great anymore and will not be until it’s division is undone. Instead competing with nations such as China and the United States, India has been reduced to a ‘regional power’. China makes sure that the distraction of Pakistan keeps India too busy to compete with it – a distraction which would not have existed in a united India.
The evidence for the damage done to native traditions by the invasion and subsequent policies of Turko-Iranian invaders is overwhelming.
1) Change of official languages. Before replacement by Persianate dynasties, North India was ruled by the Shahis (Sanskrit), Gurjara-Pratihara/Vaghela (Sanskrit, Gujarati), Pala (Sanskrit, Pali) dynasties. Central India was ruled by Yadava dynasty (Kannada, Sanskrit). None of the invading dynasties (Delhi/Gujarat/Bahmani/Bengal sultanate) retained these official languages. In South India, which was under the Vijaynagar Empire (Kannada, Telugu) neither the Qutb Shahi nor the Adil Shahis maintained continuity.
Sanskrit, Marathi and Kannada did not return as official languages until the Maratha Empire and Wodeyar kingdoms were established. And Tipu Sultan changed the official language of the Wodeyar to Persian again.
The pattern is clear.
2) Loss of patronage for native artists. The example of Vidyapati illustrates this. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/627989/Vidyapati
“Many of these love songs were written in the court of Shiva Simha, grandson of Vidyapati’s first patron. When in 1406 Muslim armies routed the court, Shiva Simha, Vidyapati’s friend and patron, disappeared, and Vidyapati’s golden age was over.”
2) Contrast with the policies of similar invaders in Central Asia. The Samanids, Ghaznavids, Seljuks who were Turkic maintained Persian as the official language of the Iranian lands they conquered. In Iranian history, they are renowned for being Persianate states who restored Persian to a high status after Arab conquest. This is what allowed folks like Rumi (surplus of Seljuks), Hafiz (Timur, Muzzafarids) etc to thrive.
By contrast, native Indian poets like Kabir, Tulsidas and Surdas had to make their own living. Narsinh Mehta had to live in poverty.
4) Destruction of architectural legacy. Koenraad Elst has an adequate response here to Eaton’s thesis. http://www.outlookindia.com/article/vandalism-sanctified-by-scripture/213030
I do not accept Elst’s thesis that temples were destroyed because of Islamic scripture, there are plenty of examples of the original Muslims not harming the holy buildings of other religions. The real reason was more likely Turko-Iranian contempt for Indic traditions.
But it is clear that there was no norm of temple destruction in India. No Hindu/Buddhist/Jain scripture talks about it, and the example in the Ramayana is the very opposite. The handful of examples Eaton are not enough.
And then, there is just the simple fact that in North India, where Hindus are the overwhelming majority, and were an even bigger majority a hundred years ago, not a single major temple of the kind found in South India survives.
5) Behaviour of other Muslim communities in India. Contrast the Muslims of Kerala, Dawoodi Bohras and Ismailis to the Persianate Muslims.
I would like to remind of you of your own words where you once mentioned that Muslims in the Middle East do not want to suffer the same fate as the native Americans. Neither did the native Indians. Persian culture may have a lot to be admired, and Indian traditions may have many flaws, but I doubt the vast majority of Indians wanted to become Persianized.
“However, if you are arguing that the foreigners should never have come to India in the first place you are being ahistorical.”
Lest I be misunderstood, this is not my argument at all. Given the experience of the Parsis, the Arab Muslim communities on the west coast, a syncrectic Indo-Islamic culture would have emerged in the North in any case with the migration of sufis, artists and noble men from Central Asia.
It is only the actions and policies of the Turkic rulers and the inability to look at them objectively which is the stumbling block.
Vikram: Let us accept all the facts you have mentioned. But facts have to be interpreted in some framework. The framework you are employing seems problematic to me for the following reasons:
1. Surely you cannot be arguing that there is a moment in time before which a pristine culture exists and after which traditions are wantonly destroyed. The Turkic invaders were not the first invaders of the Indian subcontinent. Before them there were the Huns and before them the Kushans. These invasions too must have caused some destruction of traditions. And there were constant expansions of empires within the subcontinent simply because there was no united Indian entity in those times. You must definitely have read about the Kalinga War nothing like which has reputedly happened in India before or after.
What might be called the natives of India (the first settlers) were driven into the forests where they survive today not very different from Native Americans and where their indigenous languages are dying out. Sanskrit was replaced by Pali when Buddhism emerged as the ruling religion. At some point, the tradition of varna was imposed, the consumption of beef was curtailed, whole segments of society were declared untouchables. All these can be considered wanton destruction of preceding traditions. One only has to refer to Dr. Ambedkar’s The Annihilation of Caste to accept that radical interventions in tradition were the norm, not the exception, in the times we are talking about.
And such interventions are not limited to olden times. After 1947, the attempts to impose Hindi on other languages – a displacement of tradition – were curtailed only after fierce resistance. Similar was the case of the attempt to impose Urdu in Pakistan.
2. One cannot compare Parsis and Arab communities on the west coast with the Turkic invaders. The first arrived as refugees, the second as traders; it is natural for such groups to assimilate rapidly within the host communities on whose goodwill they survive. The Turkic invaders arrived as rulers of small kingdoms; you would expect some differences in their behavior. Your comparison with invaders in Central Asia is also problematic. Persian was the dominant language of that region. Even the Turkic invaders to India did not bring their own language with them but the dominant Persian language. This need not be all that surprising. The language adopted by the Russian nobility was French though no one seems to have imposed it on them.
3. It was to highlight these comparisons that I mentioned the analogous history of Britain. It was invaded continuously from Europe and was under Roman, Danish, Saxon, and Norman rule for periods extending over centuries. The Normans made French the language of the court and the British Royal Coat of Arms even today has its mottos in French (See here: http://resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/questions/motto.html). Latin came to Britain with the Romans, feudalism with the Normans. All these could be considered major destructions of preceding traditions. See the timeline and facts of British history here: http://resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/questions/history.html
4. The really relevant point is that after all these invasions, impositions, and destructions, there emerged an English identity that went on to create the biggest empire in the world instead of lamenting wanton destruction of some pristine culture of the Britons. The analogous question is: Did the Turkic dynasty ever become Indian in a similar sense? There were continuous intermarriages and as early as Jehangir many of the Mughal rulers had Rajput mothers. If one argues that the lineage can never be accepted as Indian then one is indirectly arguing that India can only be a nation-state of and for Hindus. But that is not what Indians would own up to asserting. So, there is a contradiction in the argument that needs to be resolved. And this unresolved contradiction would, in my opinion, stand in the way of Indian civilization achieving its potential.
5. This brings us to your concluding sentence: “It is only the actions and policies of the Turkic rulers and the inability to look at them objectively which is the stumbling block.” It is not clear what it is a stumbling block to? As I said in the beginning, let us accept all the facts you have enumerated and conclude objectively that in comparison to all other invaders in history the Turks were the worst, then what? What would be the implication of that for the India of today?
1. SA, no disagreement over the fact that Central Asia (esp. its South-East) has always been part of the political matrix of the subcontinent. And invasions and incursions have gone both ways, and my framework is certainly not one of the corruption of a pristine culture. My stress was on the policies of Turko-Iranian rulers, particularly their linguistic and religious policies. In particular, since these policies seem to be relevant to people’s political and social views even today.
2. Regarding language, I have some new information from Dr. Audrey Truschko that indicates that my previous views were incorrect. Perso-Islamic rulers (as she calls them) did mostly adopt local languages for administration. It was not really until Akbar that Persian was declared and firmly became the official language of the Delhi polity. Sanskrit was never used as an official language by South Indian kingdoms, the Gupta’s and Harsha did use it in the North but it was gradually restricted to literary and religious purposes in subsequent Indic kingdoms.
Truschko in fact mentions that when Shivaji made Sanskrit the official language, it had been so long since Sanskrit was used for such mundane purposes that his officials had to invent Sanskrit equivalents for many Persian words in use.
3. We are now left with religious policies, particularly temple desecration. Structures like Nalanda and Somnath become institutions and enduring parts of people’s identity. Nalanda especially was patronized by a succession of Indian kings (both Hindus and Buddhists from its inception till its destruction by Khilji, and no Muslim king revived this institution). Sites like these were not only for Hindus and Buddhists inside India, but also maintained enduring networks between India and South East and East Asia, which became linked spiritually and materially.
In this matter, the record of India’s Turkic rulers, with the exception of Akbar seems very problematic. Add to this the fact that the overwhelming majority of structures built by Muslim emperors were mosques and other Persian inspired architecture (with Indian embellishments) and we can start seeing why the attitudes towards those rulers are often hostile. Wrongly or rightly, temple desecrations are a reminder of how helpless and powerless Hindus were.
It is quite possible that my understanding of the temple issue is also incomplete, but I find Eaton’s explanation very unsatisfactory. If the destruction of your opponents prestige religious structures was such a big part of Indian politics, why didnt the Marathas and Sikhs go around destroying Mughal mosques ?
Since identities are intimately connected to history, it is quite clear that if Muslims regard political control of India by Turkic families as their high point in India (although this view has now started to be questioned by Muslims themselves), and Hindus see it the same period as one of helplessness, a civilization state project based on the Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb will not succeed (not to mention the regional limitations of such a strategy).
Instead, a nationalist strategy where Indians jointly resist a colonizer, and the entire idea of the strong dominating the weak seems much more promising. And when one resists through a political strategy which allows the weakest member of the society to take part in the struggle, and politicizes each section of society, preparing the grounds of democracy, the chances of success increase dramatically.
A nationalist movement of this kind will produce a civilization state that allows cultures within itself to express themselves. And this is what has happened in India, notwithstanding the intense politicization of linguistic and religious identity, most groups in modern India has been able to express themselves and develop further.
brqp Says:
Backtracking from the Cabinet Mission Plan was a blunder committed by Nehru which led to the Partition. Azad writes in India wins Freedom
விஷ்ணு கார்த்திக் Says:
May 5, 2015 at 12:12 pm | Reply
Hindus don’t rule anything India! India is a DEMOCRATIC secular country.
The Partition is big load of Bullsh!#t! only muslims were given a chance to go to form a “Islamic country” but Hindus were not given a chance.. they’re worthless i guess!
Paksitan is an Islamic country but India has be a Democratic pseudo-Secular country(AKA Anti-Hindu) because Hindus don’t deserve anything!
I swear to God Gandhi&Nehru were the real anti-hindu people and Jinnah was the TRUE Hindu saviour who wanted to take away all the muslims away from Indian sub-continent!
Vishnu: Your comment is perplexing. At first, it seemed you were proud that India was a democratic secular country and of the fact that the concept of ruling, at least permanently, doesn’t make sense in modern democracies. But then you defined the worth of Hindus by their having a Hindu state. And you have termed India pseudo-secular because it is allegedly anti-Hindu. Finally, about Gandhi, Nehru and Jinnah: It seems to me that the last thing Jinnah intended was to be a true Hindu savior. Also, he never wanted to take Muslims away from the Indian subcontinent, only to have self-rule in Muslim-majority areas. And, if he really thought he could take away all the Muslims to the latter areas, he made a tragic error in judgment. It is impossible for me to pull all these thoughts together and would request you to clarify what kind of country you would like India to be today.
APUNG Says:
India should not have been divided in the first place. It was a crazy idea propounded and supported by Jinnah and others. In a country like India where you find Muslims in every village and town, the idea of partition was ridiculous because it was impossible to have a complete exchange of populations like the exchange that occurred in the Greece-Turkey scenario. So if you a partition a country on the basis of religion, then no partition would make sense unless there was a complete and total exchange of population which was impossible in the Indian context. So, the only result of the partition was that the Muslim majority areas of British India which had 70% population of Muslims increased that majority to 90% and despite this increase due to the mass migration of Muslims and Hindus, as of today, there are 150 million Muslims still living in India. So the purpose of partition was not served at all. Infact, there was no logic and rationale for the partition. If anything, the entire idea of Pakistan was propounded by the influential upper class Muslims of Uttar Pradesh who wanted a country of their own where there would be virtually zero influence of other religions. Unfortunately, a substantial number of middle class Muslims and poor Muslims also bought into the idea as they fell victim to the fear-mongering of the Muslim League. Further, the Hindu-Muslim riots pushed the leaders of the day into a knee-jerk reaction of accepting partition without fully understanding its implications. An opportunity to stay united was lost and a message was sent for generations to come that Hindus and Muslims cannot live together in peace.
birla Says:
Azad was not very influential. Nehru & Patel were. Once Nehru rejected the 1946 Cabinet Mission Plan, all hopes to avoid the Partition were gone. Jinnah had accepted the Plan.
SA, let me reposit my question in a simpler form.
Why was the Congress definition of Indian nationalism not reflective of India’s composite civilization ? And subsequently, how do the theoretical underpinnings of the modern Indian nation state not reflect the ideal composite nationalism you describe ?
Vikram: Sorry for a very delayed response. I have done fairly extensive reading so as to make what I believe is an accurate assessment of the historical record.
I believe one can say that there was no one definition of Indian nationalism that reflected the Congress position. It is fair to say that the top INC leadership (Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Azad) were keen on the INC standing for a composite nationalism. However, the lower tiers of leadership and the majority of Congress rank and file were much more inclined to the Hindu revivalist position. One indicator of this was the struggle over the language supported by the INC. Gandhi, Nehru, Patel and Azad tried their best to advocate Hindustani but the factions headed by PD Tandon, Govind Das and others succeeded in their campaign for Hindi as part of their Hindu, Hindi, Hindustan platform. The pressure that was built for Hindi persistently described Urdu as an alien language and insisted that Hindi be cleansed of all foreign contaminants. The extremely rapid Sanskritization of Hindi that followed on All India Radio, much to the annoyance of Nehru, was the result of the success of this campaign. Language policy was one concrete manifestation of how the desire for a composite nationalism expressed by the top leadership was negated by INC rank and file.
This probably also explains why so many Muslim leaders including Jinnah, Iqbal, and Maududi who started off aligned with Congress or parties allied with Congress broke away over time once the weight of the lower tiers of INC leadership became obvious.
As far as the modern Indian nation state is concerned, it has moved a long distance from the the commitment of the early leadership to composite nationalism. Theoretical underpinnings are not the best barometer of the state of play. Rather, one should look at concrete manifestations. Any time a senior minister can divide the nation into Ramzadas and Haramzadas without any censure or penalty, it should be obvious that composite nationalism is dead, at least for the moment.
Vikram: Here is a tantalizing glimpse of contours and possibility of a composite culture and also of its fragility which Dalrymple labels ‘heartbreaking’. It is not really the religion or ethnicity of the ruler that determines the outcome but the spirit of the enterprise. The question for us today is whether we want a composite culture in which everyone has an equal sense of belonging and respect or do we want ‘our’ side, however we define it, to be calling the shots while being nice to the ‘others’. The two are not equivalent.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/jun/25/renaissance-sultans/
“The question for us today is whether we want a composite culture in which everyone has an equal sense of belonging and respect or do we want ‘our’ side, however we define it, to be calling the shots while being nice to the ‘others’.”
If this is indeed the case in India, it is because the vision of the Constitution has not been achieved and the ideals of the freedom fighters forgotten. The communally biased freedom fighter is the exception, not the norm.
The culture produced and practiced by the majority of Indians is still a composite one, with even more influences than before. But yes, a major section of the middle class that has embraced political Hindutva, and Western materialist mores.
Vikram: I feel the key point to grasp is that the vision of the Constitution was not singular. The leadership championed a vision that was not owned by the majority. There is nothing wrong with that except to note that the nature of the contestation widened the divisions in society – Gandhi was murdered for being ‘pro-Muslim.’
“The extremely rapid Sanskritization of Hindi that followed on All India Radio, much to the annoyance of Nehru, was the result of the success of this campaign. Language policy was one concrete manifestation of how the desire for a composite nationalism expressed by the top leadership was negated by INC rank and file.”
SA, this debate was about the official language of the Indian Union government, it has nothing to do with nationalism per se. If the INC rank and file expressed a desire for a Sanskritized Hindi as the official language, it perhaps reflected the desires of their constituents. If it doesnt, the official language can be changed (as indeed it has).
The decision about what should be the official language of a modern nation state should be made by the majority, no matter how lofty the goals of the minority that oppose it.
I would agree with your argument here if the Congress rank and file overruled the top leadership on matters of religious equality and freedom, and giving religion a presence in the nationalism. The negation of the vote on including God in the Preamble and the affirmation of religious freedom as a fundamental right clearly indicate that the rank of file shared the basic values of the Congress leadership.
Vikram: I was not pointing to the debate over the official language of the Indian Union government. My reference was to the contestation over the language in which the official transactions of the INC were to be conducted and recorded. Gandhi convinced the INC in 1925 to employ Hindustani as official language for the conduct of its proceedings. The top leadership supported this position but it triggered an ultimately successful resistance led by the second tier leadership.
The debate over the official language of the Union government came in the twilight of the struggle for composite nationalism. The Constituent Assembly was formed in December 1946. At its initial session the Rules Committee decided that the Assembly proceedings would be in Hindustani or in English. By the fourth session in July 1947, this position was abandoned in favor of Hindi.
I have no problem with the adoption of Sanskritized Hindi as the official language of India. My aim was to highlight the struggle between composite nationalism and religious nationalism as reflected in the struggle over the particular register of language to be adopted. One cannot subscribe to composite nationalism and majoritarianism at the same time.
Also, it is impossible to separate nationalism from language in the Indian context both in the first half of the 20th Century when languages were assigned religions and in the second half when linguistic identities served as the basis for articulating sub-national demands which were accommodated by the reorganization of states along linguistic lines.
A reference I consulted is Language Conflict and National Development: Group Politics and National Language Policy in India by Jyotirindra Das Gupta. It is availabe on the Internet at: https://books.google.com.pk/books?id=qGACL5YJRjEC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
For a more recent example from Europe of the intertwining of nationalism and language, seehttp://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2012/11/language-and-nationalism
There seems to be an insistence on seeing the composite Indian nationalism in the Hindustani language which was heavily, heavily Persianized. It was spoken as a link language by many due to economic and political compulsions, much like English is today. Maybe the majority simply had an aspiration to speak a language that was more rooted in their soil, and saw the making of Hindi as official language part of that goal. There was no summary removal of Persian and Arabic words from the Hindi language. Its just that proportion of Sanskrit words has increased.
I see the composite Indian nationalism in the language Aamir Khan uses in his introduction in the show Satyameva Jayate and Bollywood cinema uses in general.
Vikram: Surely the point is not what you or I or the majority desires as the official language of India. It is a matter of historical record that the leadership of the INC voted for Hindustani as the language of record of the INC as also of the Constituent Assembly. Is this an incorrect statement? If not, what was the reason for that choice? Surely, the leaders of the freedom movement had the intelligence to see whether it was a language used mainly due to economic and political compulsions on top of being heavily, heavily Persianized. Why did the great freedom fighters make such an obviously ridiculous choice?
SA, the discussion started with a original claim was that the demand for a Sanskritized Hindi versus Hindustani reflected the communally prejudiced nature of the majority of Congress members.
That is the claim I am contesting, not whether Hindustani was the language of record for the INC. There are many reasons why Hindustani could have been chosen, perhaps the leadership genuinely thought it could have brought more politically powerful Muslims into the party.
However, if we say that even an aspiration to use more Sanskrit vocabulary is communally biased then there isnt much room for negotiation. In your opening argument, you equated this aspiration to Hindu revivalism. Sure, some extreme arguments might have been used in the language debates, but that surely doesnt mean that the bulk of Sanskrit proponents were Muslim haters. You further extended this to claim that Jinnah, Iqbal and Maududi might have left Congress because it was filled with such people.
Please find me the prominent Congress leaders who:
1) Claimed Hindus and Muslims were completely distinct and could never live together.
2) Proclaimed a man convicted of murdering a Muslim as a ‘matchless warrior of Hindus’.
3) Advocated the creation of an Indian state with Hinduism as an official religion where all other religions would have inferior status.
Vikram: The claim was that the adoption of Hindustani was an attempt by the INC leadership at a composite nationalism. The resistance in favor of Sankritized Hindi was a part of the Hindu revivalist movement and is described as such in books on the language controversy. The record also shows that the campaign was carried out not on linguistic terms but on those of purification. There is no argument with the rights or wrongs of such a political campaign except that it was not compatible with composite nationalism. There is no necessity to have a composite nationalism.
“The leadership championed a vision that was not owned by the majority.”
SA, I have already mentioned that the Constituent Assembly decisively negated the proposals by the right-wing lobby to give religion a major say in national organs, and to give preferential status to any particular religion. This shows that the majority was with the leadership on this issue, but not on the language issue.
If indeed the majority did not share a secular vision for the Indian state, it could have voted in the appropriate party and gotten the Constitution amended. In fact, the Constitution became even more clearly secular in the 1974, a non Congress party with a leadership more right wing was voted in, major amendments to the Constitution were made, but the secular aspect was untouched.
Now a right wing party is in power, but the PM only reaffirms the Constitutional commitment to religious equality. So how does the majority not agree with the leadership on these matters ?
Vikram: “the PM only reaffirms the Constitutional commitment to religious equality.” I wonder if someone can design an interesting study to validate that claim.
One can see how the equation of more Sanskrit vocabulary as opposed to Perso-Arabic as Hindu extremism, falls into the trend line of denouncing ‘Satyagraha’ as a ‘Hindu’ word alienating to Muslims, yoga as something unIslamic, the singing of Vande Mataram as anti-Muslim, i.e. anything with any Indian roots is unMuslim.
Why is this is the case ? N. Hanif points out that Islam entered India more as “empire and culture, than spiritual message”. (Islam and Modernity: Pg. 260). So the constitutional guarantee of professing and practicing Islam freely did not mean much to many of the Muslim leaders of the time. What was more important to them was the preservation of Muslim political power and supremacy of the high Muslim culture of North India, even at the expense of the culture of the other Muslim communities of the subcontinent.
One can see here the key difference between leaders like Azad and Khan Abdul Ghaffar who emphasized the spiritual dimension of Islam and its impact on and blending with subcontinental traditions, versus leaders like Iqbal and Jinnah who stressed more on political power and the Persianate culture of North Indian Muslims.
Vikram: You are reversing the situation here. Place it in the historical context in which anything with Muslim associations was anti-Indian requiring purification (like Ghar Wapsi). Given the demographics, one claim had much more latent power than the other with all its political implications. Read the note on Shuddhi on the Arya Samaj website: http://www.aryasamaj.com/enews/2012/jan/4.htm
Both sides had cosmopolitans and communalists in their ranks and the communalists carried more weight in the end. That can be read as a democratic majoritarian outcome which is fine. It would be good to go back and re-read the first chapter of Sunil Khilnani’s Idea of India. There were a number of competing ideas at the outset and one of them emerged dominant. That too has lost its hold over time. The objective here is not to assign blame just to record the transition.
I am sure there were people who felt (and who still feel) that anything with Muslim association was anti-Indian requiring purification, and the Arya Samaj was one of them. But it is incorrect to ascribe this view to the majority of Hindus, otherwise they would not spend millions of dollars supporting a film industry in which Indo-Islamic culture is pervasive and Muslim artists ubiquitous.
On the contrary, the idea that anything that happened in India before the establishment of Muslim political dominance is either seen as communal or inferior by a much larger proportion of the Muslim elite. This is why even the Islam in South India and Bengal, which did not have the political dimension is not seen as authentic by them.
Vikram: I am sorry I have fallen behind but I do intend to reply to your excellent comments. In the meantime, I am thankful to Kabir for forwarding a link to a very rich debate organized by the Asia Society on the legacy of partition. This should prove useful to all the participants on our forum:
http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2015/07/india-and-pakistan-the-legacy-of-partition.html
Vikram: The psychology of human beings is complex – they can hold seemingly contradictory positions. Thus, Pakistanis can enjoy Indian movies and be anti-Indian at the same time. But, of course, what is the view of the majority (or of a minority) is an empirical question that cannot be presumed.
I couldn’t figure out your second paragraph.
SA, I doubt Pakistanis watch ‘Indian’ movies. It is more likely ‘Urdu’ movies with Muslim stars ?
I would actually like some solid data on how popular Hindi movies are in Pakistan. My thesis would be that even though some sections of urban Pakistanis watch both American and Indian movies, they employ various justifications to see the Indian movies as essentially Muslim products.
Regarding my second paragraph, it is an observation I have made before. There is immense confusion among the Muslims of North SA regarding attitudes to SA history before the establishment of Muslim led polities. The very identity of Muslims in this region has become tied to political power and purported Iranian/Arabic origins. The Islam in Bengal was very different, and the Bengali Muslims were not seen as authentically Muslim by the Pakistani elite.
Vikram: I can only attribute such gross misperceptions to the lack of communication between the two countries.
Some of the links below will be of help:
http://movies.india.as/2013/03/popularity-of-bollywood-movies-by.html
http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2011/11/28/city/karachi/for-many-pakistanis-india-already-mfn/
http://foreignpolicy.com/2010/03/15/how-pakistan-fell-in-love-with-bollywood/
The entertainment pages of Pakistani newspapers are full of the comings and goings of Shahid Kapoor, Deepika Padukone, and Hrithik Roshan because these stars have fans in Pakistan.
Incidentally, Indian TV is even more popular with the middle class especially with women. This has none of the Urdu/Muslim links of Bollywood that you mention.
http://www.aawsat.net/2013/08/article55310054/pakistans-housewives-take-indian-soaps-to-heart
Vikram: As for your second paragraph, I feel the generalization about North South Asia is too broad. Muslims in NWFP were with the INC almost till 1947, those in Punjab were happy with their Unionist coalition, those in Balochistan were uninvolved. The movement for Pakistan was dominated by Muslims in Bengal and UP. So, it is not clear how “Islam in Bengal was very different.”
It was only after political differences arose between West and East Pakistan that the West Pakistani elite began to denigrate all aspects of Bengaliness including the authenticity of its religion.
As a general point, regional chauvinism is widespread. The stereotype of the Bengalis has them considering themselves much more intellectual than other sub-nationalities in South Asia. At one time the attitude of North Indians towards South Indians was also quite problematic. It is reassuring that this has changed significantly as the Indian economy has integrated. But note the attitudes towards people from regions that are less integrated, e.g., the Northeast.
SA, it is important to note that the debate between Persianate Hindustani and ‘purified’ Hindi as the national language was an elite one. I havent heard of too many pro-Hindi or pro-Sanskrit mass agitations, certainly nowhere near the scale of pro Telugu/Bengali/Tamil movements.
The nationalism of the Congress Command, and the Hindu right were among the myriad other nationalist movements (communist, Dravidian, Dalit) active in the anti-colonial movements and the eventual outcome in the Constitution was a compromise between these movements. Granville Austin’s book details these deliberations and compromises.
The point of disagreement remains that you ascribe the desire for a Sanskritised Hindi to a *mass based* Hindu revivalist movement. It is not at all clear that the Hindu revivalist movement had mass appeal. Remember that the Arya Samaj only really gained prominence in Punjab where Hindus were a minority. In the first election after independence (1951), the largest political formation after the Congress was the left with about 20% of the vote, the Jana Sangh managing only 3%.This trend remains in subsequent elections. It is not clear why a Hindu revivalist electorate would continue supporting the secular Congress and not migrate to the Jana Sangh.
And if indeed we accept the argument that the majority on both sides was communally inclined, it puts into focus into the nature of religious syncretism in the subcontinent. It seems that it was unable to withstand the test of modernization and mass politics. Why was this the case ?
Vikram: The answer to most of these questions is best articulated by Sunil Khilnani and Pratap Bhanu Mehta. The fact is the the pre-1947 nationalist movement was very elitist. It could not be classified as a mass movement from below in any way. In this context, the relevant observation is that not the masses but the leadership of the INC, leaving aside those at the very top, were motivated by revivalist sentiments. This leadership then aroused people, by playing on their prejudices and fears, for particular outcomes that accorded with their preferences. The language movement, orchestrated from above, was one example of this. Khilnani goes so far as to say: “Hindu nationalism was a real mover in the agitation for Partition, both directly through the organization and action of Hindu communalists, and through its influence within Congress” (The Idea of India, pp. 161-2). And he also articulated the divisions with the leadership: “But its [Hindu nationalism’s] definition of an Indian nation was an ever-present imaginative magnet, the pole against which men like Gandhi and Nehru constantly had to act” (op cit, p. 161).
In this framework, the claim is not that the people on both sides were communally inclined. Rather, that the leadership on both sides opted to push communal buttons at various points in time. This practice continues to this day.
Your comment that there couldn’t be a Hindu revivalist electorate because the Jana Sangh managed only 3% of the vote is commonly made but requires unpacking. The best counter-example is from Pakistan. It is readily believed that all Pakistanis are infused by an Islamist sentiments, yet the religious parties hardly ever get more that 5% of the seats in parliament. How and and on what basis people vote is a complex matter involving as it does a tradeoff between material interests and psychological satisfaction. The theory of the rational voter can explain this seeming conundrum.
Also, for the sake of general interest, there should be clarity about what is meant by Hindustani. It was not that a Persianate Hindustani and and a Sankritized Hindi existed at the same time and a choice had to be made between the two. Professor Frances Pritchett who taught Urdu and Hindi at Columbia has a very useful page on issues of language: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00urduhindilinks/hu_history_books.html
In this list, there is a particularly good history of Hindustani by Dr. Tara Chand (1944). He clarifies that the term Hindustani referred to Khari Boli which was the lingua franca of the Upper Ganjetic Doab: “Hindustani is thus no new-fangled name, invented to replace Hindi and Urdu, but a well-recognized and old established term for the speech which is the common basis of its two divergent forms, Hindi and Urdu.”
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00urduhindilinks/tarachand/03misconceptions.html
“Your comment that there couldn’t be a Hindu revivalist electorate because the Jana Sangh managed only 3% of the vote is commonly made but requires unpacking. The best counter-example is from Pakistan. It is readily believed that all Pakistanis are infused by an Islamist sentiments, yet the religious parties hardly ever get more that 5% of the seats in parliament.”
SA, there can hardly be any comparison between the Jana Sangh and the Islamist parties of Pakistan. The Jana Sangh from the start accepted democratic and constitutional politics, and agitated on specific issues like cattle slaughter, uniform civil code and language. Even if defined India as a culturally Hindu country, there was no proposal from it to usher in a Hindu state.
The comparison with Pakistan’s Islamist parties is improper because they are demanding the implementation of an Islamic state, while the state already claims to do this as it has declared itself to be an ‘Islamic Republic’ and the constitution gives Islam a position of primacy in the country.
If Pakistanis are not infused by Islamist sentiments, why not give equal citizenship to the Ahmedis and the Hindus ?
Vikram: You misunderstood the argument and also made an incorrect assumption.
There are exclusively Islamic parties in Pakistan that accept democratic and constitutional politics and participate regularly in electoral politics. These include the Jamaat-e Islami and various factions of the Jamiat-e Ulama-e Pakistan. Pakistanis are infused with Islamic sentiments, therefore, according to your logic, they should vote for such parties so that the country has a more religiously oriented leadership than it has now. The fact is that they don’t. That shows that voting behavior is not simplistic and that the vote is not entirely determined by religious inclination or preference.
Yes, there are Islamist groups in Pakistan that are not part of electoral politics like the various lashkars but it is not that case that there are no religious parties committed to electoral politics and offering voters a choice.
khemesh Says:
undivided india will be more beautiful country of mixed several cultures and united nation will be a message for the world how to live unite together. it will just like a garden of several beautiful flower. and its constitution consist of secularism equality democratic value helps to stable and develope the country. but this stupid partition was injustice and illiterate decision. which gave only problems to both the country like terrorism, war etc
undivided india could have very large area and population recources etc.
khemesh: What has happened has happened and in terms of human cost it was an immense tragedy. But there is nothing that prevents each country in South Asia from striving to be an example of how to live together internally and externally. Unfortunately, most of them have failed to do so and it is useful to think about the possible causes.
Vikram: An amusing example of what is considered shuddh Hindi in India – involves Christine Fair. There seems a lot of confusion at the level of the masses!
http://www.ndtv.com/offbeat/american-was-refused-by-autowala-heres-her-revenge-in-shuddh-hindi-777934
SA, there is no confusion. In India, Hindi is understood to be a dialect continuum, i.e. there are many Hindi’s. Of these, the masses are most influenced by the Hindi of Bollywood, Hindi television and increasingly advertisements. But most speak a combination of Hindi and English, or Hinglish.
Shuddh Hindi here just means Hindi without any English words.
Vikram: Perhaps post-1947 Shuddh Hindi means Hindi without any English words but earlier it was very much focused on purifying the local vernacular of Persian and Arabic accretions. All histories of that period document that. A good reference is Religious Controversy in British India: Dialogues in South Asian Languages edited by Kenneth W. Jones (SUNY, Albany, 1992).
Moulin Says:
Partition of India wasn’t something totally new. Partition of Bengal was a fair precursor
Moulin: Bengal was reunited after the partition you mention. Should that also be taken as a fair precursor for the future?
SA, regarding the popularity of Indian movies in Pakistan, my specific claim is that ‘Muslimness’ plays an important part in how these entertainment products are consumed. I doubt a movie like ‘Baahubali’ would get any audience in Pakistan. So Pakistanis arent really watching these movies under an ‘Indian cinema’ umbrella, but picking and choosing specific movies based on a variety of factors, the Muslimness of the product being a major one. I am sure the same applies vis-a-vis Hollywood products (by both Indians and Pakistani), but the filters there are very different and much more limited.
My perception here has developed by following articles on Pakistani newspapers and social media trends.
Regarding the attitudes of Muslim elites in North India, I wouldnt include NWFP elites in that category and I very much doubt they would like to be called ‘Indian’. I specifically include first the UP elite and the Punjabi elite in this category. Ajmal Kamal provides a good perspective on this,
“After dealing with the 1857 Mutiny (or the War of Independence if you like), the British colonial authorities decided to replace Persian with English at the higher levels of education, administration and judiciary and with the local vernaculars at the lower levels of primary education, thana, kutchery, post office, land revenue, irrigation etc. At most places this did not create a problem, for example in Sindh and Bengal, respectively Sindhi and Bengali were adopted for this purpose. But it did create a problem in that portion of the ‘Hindi Belt’ which was later designated as United Provinces (called North West Provinces and Oudh then). A huge ruckus ensued as a result of associating the language to this or that script, although the public (which was till then referred to as ryot or subjects) was mostly illiterate and had nothing to do with either the Persian or the Nagri script. But since the area was close to Delhi, where the post-Mutiny Muslim elites still had economic and cultural clout, the knowledge of the Persian script was made compulsory for those wishing to be employed at different lower levels of administration etc. However, a vast part of the area’s population was learning the Nagri script. They too aspired for those sarkari jobs and found the doors shut to them because of the script condition. This led to a campaign which demanded that the knowledge of the Nagri script be also made a criterion of eligibility.
In 1900 an order was issued by the Lt. Governor of the NWP&O, Anthony McDonnel, which accepted this demand. The order did not remove the Persian script or replace it with Nagri, but the spectre of erosion of the Muslim elite’s monopoly over government jobs made this into a big political controversy within the province, and government jobs and ‘patronage’ came to be known as the means for ‘survival’ of the Urdu language. A strange phrase of ‘Urdu ki khidmat’ (service to Urdu) was invented, which is still current. (Have you ever heard a boatman claim that he is serving the river, or the boat?) The immediate purpose of this identity campaign was to make more jobs available to those who were proficient in reading and writing Urdu in the Persian script. The linguistic community was divided into the Urdu-walas and Hindi-walas and both camps began to make extravagant claims about their separate ‘languages’. Both bragged about their language being spoken in the whole subcontinent; a claim which was fraudulent from the point of view of those speaking Bengali, Tamil, Sindhi, Gujarati and so on.”
http://www.dawn.com/news/1156166/columnthe-uses-of-language-snobberyurdu-the-identity-politics
Note that in 1900, the use of Devanagri was not acceptable to the Muslim elite of UP, despite the fact that they were a minority and most of the population did not understand the Arabic script. Attitudes like these form the background of later conflicts over language in the subcontinent which we have been discussing.
Vikram: The notion of a Muslimness filter is truly amusing. Believe me people in Pakistan can keep their politics and entertainment separate. There is lot of Anti-Americanism yet Hollywood films remain very popular. China is Pakistan’s best friend yet no one watches Chinese movies unless they are pornographic. You can only verify your suppositions with a visit – seeing is believing. One contra-indication to your hypothesis is the immense popularity of Indian soap-operas on TV. There is no Muslimness there to serve as a justification.
As for Baahubali, I don’t know much about it but looking it up on Wikipedia tells me it is a Telegu movie. If so, it will not be a surprise if it is less watched in Pakistan. People wish to understand what is being said and at the very least want to have the script dubbed. My sense is most people watch Indian movies for the ‘item songs’ (nothing could be more anti-Islamic) and savor the double-meanings. If they don’t understand the language the pleasure is lost.
It is unfortunate that you quote Ajmal Kamal to support your argument on language. That is like quoting Huma Yusuf to make a point about Ibne Sina’s science. Ajmal Kamal is not a scholar. He just has a hypothesis like you and me and many historians have dismissed it as incorrect. You would be much better off reading a scholarly account of the language controversies. I had linked one in an earlier email. Here is the link again: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00urduhindilinks/king/king.html.
In particular, look at Chapter III. You will note many interesting facts and realize your mistake of conflating scripts with religion – not all Hindus favored Nagari and not all Muslims favored the Persian script. The key decisions were being made by the British and not by either Hindus or Muslims. The British were partial to the Persian script for their own reasons that the book explains. Also, the Nagari script was opposed not just by many Muslims but also by many Hindus. In Bengal, with a very significant Muslim minority, there was no demand for either Persian or Bengali in a Persianized script.
The language issue was complex and one can’t leave it to the mercy of newspaper columnists like Ajmal Kamal.
SA, yes of course, not ‘all’ Hindus supported Nagari and vice versa. But the reasons for the opposition were instrumental (as the book you linked clearly points out), in the sense, that they would lose an advantage. I understand how the ‘Hindu’ and ‘Muslim’ differences crystallized and got accentuated as the Raj went about setting itself up and recruting/interfacing with the locals. In fact, even caste divisions crystallized much in the same way in that time, and have sharpened even more since independence.
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7191.html
I am not sure why Ajmal Kamal’s argument is much different from that in the book. Kamal is thorough with his references. His argument is presented in a different way, putting a spotlight on the attitudes of elite Muslims who dominated ‘Muslim’ political activism. You mentioned Bengali, and that asks the question, why was the Bengali script acceptable to Bengali Muslims, but Nagari not to UP Muslims. Like I said earlier, the main reason for this has to be that Islam in the North Indian Muslim elite was a political and social identity. The language and script of administration is an important sign of who is in power, and hence the reluctance to let go of it.
I hope you understand the immense confusion and frustration such attitudes lead to among the majority. Nobody can justify the tyranny of a majority, but on matters like the official language, the majority point of view has to hold, and then others accommodated. It is quite clear that the majority in UP desire Hindi in the Nagari script to be the official language. A logical compromise would have been to use both Hindi and Urdu in the Devanagari script, but it is the elite Muslims who associated script and religion.
Vikram: You are making an elementary mistake by conflating interest group politics with religion. Interest group politics is the universal norm. Whenever a group has power it is not willing to relinquish it. It has nothing to do with religion accept by coincidence. You associate the difference between Bengal and UP to a special kind of Islam. A more convincing explanation would emerge by examining the gains and losses of a particular stance. The gains that were at stake in the UP were not so in Bengal. That is also why there were people of both religions on both sides of the political conflict.
To push this further, on can say that the majority in UP or India desire social justice. Does that convince those who hold economic power to concede it to them. In this case there is no religious complication since the majority on both sides belongs to the same religion.
SA, hardly a couple of CM’s in India are from the so called ‘high caste’ families. The overwhelming majority come from the peasant communities and OBC’s who form the plurality of the Indian electorate and commander the vote of farm labourers due to their economic dependence on them.
The ‘high castes’ (Brahmin, Bania and Kshatriya) hardly make up 15 % of the Indian population and the establishment of democracy by a Constituent Assembly where members of such groups were in a majority would be tantamount to a relinquishment of political power according to me. Similar things could be said of post apartheid South Africa.
I dont think people in India desire social justice, although they are not opposed to it. In fact this conversation points us to why this might be the case. The very nature of politicization in the subcontinent has been identity based, starting with Hindu-Muslim and then later on after independence with caste. Where there has been political mobilization based on economic justice, there has been land redistribution. Actually, most of India has since quite a bit of land reform (see Table 4 in this paper http://www.agrarianstudies.org/UserFiles/File/1Bakshi_Social_Inequality_in_Land_Ownership_in_India.pdf) and the high levels of inequality are more a consequence of an urban rural divide and general population increase.
So all in all, yes a lot of Indians have given up unfair economic power (starting with the abolishment of zamindari) when confronted with an articulate political movement.
Another example of a group willingly relinquishing power and becoming part of a democratic order,
http://political-science.uchicago.edu/faculty-articles/Rudophs%20–%20Baviskar.pdf
might I add that whitehall already decided to divide India because they did not want a powerful coloured country, the same as they european powers did to the Arabs and created Isreal, nothing against Jews but these were the same people who turned back Jewish refugees and alerted the Nazis to their Jewish communities.
Jinnah wanted autonomy not a separate country. This was the work of the Colonial Government and yet the sub-continent still cannot see that!
I too agree with the author, some other solution would have definitely worked out if India was not partitioned. But it was something that was bound to happen as a result of de-colonization, as it happened everywhere else in the world. We can sit here ask this question because more then half a century later we now understand what happened in British India and every where else in the world.
Here’s something else to ponder about, what would have happened if Pakistan was formed, but for some reason, the Indian Muslims changed thier minds at the last moment and had decided to stay where they were?
Maryam, partition ultimately was the result of the specific modes of politicization of first the educated elite and then the masses of British India, and the inability or disinterest of leaders to check this mode of politicization. I think demographic trends also played a part, with the proportion of Muslims in the entire subcontinent rising from 19% in 1871 to 25% in 1941, with particularly sharp increases in Punjab (40% to 60%) and Bengal (50% to 56%).
Other colonized areas of course went through a similar process, but the question could be asked if India can include Hindu Tamils, Bengali Christians and Rajasthani Muslims, why not Punjabi and Sindhi Muslims ?
Regarding the question you have put forward to think about, I feel that your premise is incorrect. The overwhelming majority of Indian Muslims stayed where they were. The Muslim population of the current day India decreased only slightly from 13.4 % to 10.4%. Most of those who left were forced to do so. Today the Indian Muslim population is back to 14%.
The far more dramatic change has been in the Hindu population of Pakistan and Bangladesh. In Pakistan, the Hindu population dropped from 19.7% in 1941 to 1.6% in 1951. In Bangladesh, the change has been more gradual, but just as decisive, 29.61% in 1941 to 22.89% in 1951, and just 9% as of 2011.
Dehlavi Says:
A perfect article, Altaf! Couldn’t agree more. Partition sowed the seeds of the worst ever family feud ever!
Raman Sehgal Says:
I must appreciate South Asian for patiently replying to comments (I just read few of them) and wishing for united India.
In the hindsight – we all r wise. My analysis is that Partition was a god send gift to Hindus (minus the tragedy of millions killed in ’47 riots). The terms of the partition as set by Jinnah (or British) were impractical. You have mentioned the example of Malaysia, Lebanon and S. Africa. Lebanon is no example to follow and S. African division r racial not religious. The only relevant example is that of Malaysia. Well in Malaysia i dont think Chinese or Indian came to that country as conquerors or destroyed their heritage or culture. Their past is not soaked with blood – moreover it is the Indians and Chinese who earn money and provide for the welfare for the Malayans ( I am no expert on Malaysia – correct me in case i am wrong).
But in case of Hindus and Muslims in India – the history is socked in blood since the first arrival of muslims. The old wounds would have opened sooner or later. We could not resolve the Hindu-Muslim conflict till past is not acknowledged and forgiven / forgotten.
To know the root of Hindu Muslim divide – read the following : http://ramansaigal.blogspot.in/2016_03_01_archive.html
Raman: What can I say except that beliefs, especially strongly-held ones, need to be cross-checked against facts. You want to believe that the Muslim-Hindu past is “soaked in blood”. Perhaps the entire sum of casualties in the Muslim-Hindu interaction was less than the total casualties in the Kalinga war alone. Do look it up.
That period of history, whichever part of the globe you look at, was one of warfare. Do you believe when the Aryans or Alexander or the White Huns or the Mongols or the British came to India there was no bloodshed? Have you boycotted Britishers or Christians (who came as conquerors and ridiculed Indians as uncivilized) because of that? But the incredible part is that in today’s era when civil war has disappeared from most of the world, it is still going on in India between the state and the Adivasis and there is no lack of violence between the upper and lower castes. If you cannot resolve what you call the Hindu-Muslim ‘conflict’, can you resolve the inter-caste ‘conflict’ over which Dr. Ambedkar tore up a major text? I agree that the resolution of all conflicts requires forgiving and forgetting but it seems that you believe some are exempted from the requirement.
I can’t understand how you believe Partition was a “god-sent gift to Hindus”. I suppose you mean in the sense of getting rid of Muslims. But there are still more Muslims in India than there are in Pakistan. Not only that, India has had to divert considerable resources to fighting wars and protecting itself from terrorism. This is a strange gift indeed.
You claim Lebanon is no example to follow. Well, it handled its religious complexities without killing a million people and making ten million homeless. To me that makes it a worthwhile example. Regarding South Africa, it is also a better example of handling differences than India – it doesn’t matter whether the difference was religious or racial. As far as Malaysia is concerned, the majority could very well have decided to decimate those who were earning all the money (as happened in Indonesia) and holding all the government jobs. They succeeded in finding a power-sharing formula which the Indian leaders failed to do. All these are facts that you can read up.
1. Fights between humans had been going on since ages and will continue till eternity. Hoping for a peaceful world is a wishful thinking.
2. Pre-abrahmic fights were secular – for which there can be a solution or the solution can be found by the passing of the main protagonist – whose ego would have been the cause of the fight.
3. But the scriptural hatred has no solution – it will continue from one generation to another. The muslims have been fighting non-muslims since mohammed’s time and will continue doing so till the time islam exists.
4. The hindu genocide is the greatest in history – read : https://themuslimissue.wordpress.com/2015/08/31/islamic-invasion-of-india-the-greatest-genocide-in-history/
5. muslims hatred towards hindus is scriptural and no one can erase it – read my above link.
6. muslims with 25% population wanted parity with hindus – but r muslims of malaysia willing to provide parity to heir non-muslims subjects when they constitute around 40% of population.
7. We on the hindsight are all wise – india with strong centre is still not able to resolve inter state issues – how do u think weaker centre would have resolved issue with hindu-muslim states having separate constitutions – we need to be practical and not dreamers.
8. partition was blessing for Hindus – as hindus got united and muslims turned weaker in all three states. there was no blame game for the failure of hindu or muslim state – which otherwise would have been the case.
Raman: Re your claim that “The hindu genocide is the greatest in history,” I believe this will become the accepted truth in India because of majoritarianism. Unlike you, I don’t think this will be good for India in the long term. In the rest of the world, ordinary people have very little interest in Hindu-Muslim issues. The only people who reflect on it seriously are scholars with a specialization in South Asia. I doubt if they would come to the same conclusion. If you have read any reputed scholar supporting this claim, do let me know.
1. I had posted the links on the details of the temple destruction – I do not find the post – I presume u might have deleted it by mistake – for i am sure u r not a believer in censorship.
‘The Moslem Conquest of India’ from ‘Story of Civilization’ by Will & Ariel Durant [Volume 1, Chapter 16]
The Mohammedan Conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precarious thing, whose delicate complex of order and liberty, culture and peace may at any time be overthrown by barbarians invading from without or multiplying within.
The Hindus had allowed their strength to be wasted in internal division and war; they had adopted religions like Buddhism and Jainism, which unnerved them for the tasks of life; they had failed to organize their forces for the protection of their frontiers and their capitals, their wealth and their freedom, from the hordes of Scythians, Huns, Afghans and Turks hovering about India’s boundaries and waiting for national weakness to let them in.
For four hundred years (600-1000 A.D.) India invited conquest; and at last it came. The first Moslem attack was a passing raid upon Multan, in the western Punjab (664 A.D.) Similar raids occurred at the convenience of the invaders during the next three centuries, with the result that the Moslems established themselves in the Indus valley about the same time that their Arab co-religionists in the West were fighting the battle of Tours (732 A.D.) for the mastery of Europe.
But the real Moslem conquest of India did not come till the turn of the first millennium after Christ.
In the year 997 a Turkish chieftain by the name of Mahmud became sultan of the little estate of Ghazni, in eastern Afghanistan. Mahmud knew that his throne was young and poor, and saw that India, across the border, was old and rich; the conclusion was obvious. Pretending a holy zeal for destroying Hindu idolatry, he swept across the frontier with a force inspired by a pious aspiration for booty. He met the unprepared Hindus at Bhimnagar,slaughtered them, pillaged their cities, destroyed their temples, and carried away the accumulated treasures of centuries.
Returning to Ghazni he astonished the ambassadors of foreign powers by displaying “jewels and unbored pearls and rubies shining like sparks, or like wine congealed with ice, and emeralds like fresh sprigs of myrtle, and diamonds in size and weight like pomegranates.”
Each winter Mahmud descended into India, filled his treasure chest with spoils, and amused his men with full freedom to pillage and kill; each spring he returned to his capital richer than before.
At Mathura (on the Jumna) he took from the temple its statues of gold encrusted with precious stones, and emptied its coffers of a vast quantity of gold, silver and jewellery; he expressed his admiration for the architecture of the great shrine, judged that its duplication would cost one hundred million dinars and the labour of two hundred years, and then ordered it to be soaked with naphtha and burnt to the ground. Six years later he sacked another opulent city of northern India, Somnath, killed all its fifty thousand inhabitants, and dragged its wealth to Ghazni.
In the end he became, perhaps, the richest king that history has ever known. Sometimes he spared the population of the ravaged cities, and took them home to be sold as slaves; but so great was the number of such captives that after some years no one could be found to offer more than a few shillings for a slave. Before every important engagement Mahmud knelt in prayer, and asked the blessing of God upon his arms. He reigned for a third of a century; and when he died, full of years and honours, Moslem historians ranked him as the greatest monarch of his time, and one of the greatest sovereigns of any age.
Seeing the canonization that success had brought to this magnificent thief, other Moslem rulers profited by his example, though none succeeded in bettering his instruction. .In 1186 the Ghuri, a Turkish tribe of Afghanistan, invaded India, captured the city of Delhi,destroyed its temples, confiscated its wealth, and settled down in its palaces to establish the Sultanate of Delhi- an alien despotism fastened upon northern India for three centuries, and checked only by assassination and revolt.
The first of these bloody sultans, Kutb-ud-Din Aibak, was a normal specimen of his kind -fanatical, ferocious and merciless. His gifts, as the Mohammedan historian tells us, “were bestowed by hundreds of thousands, and his slaughters likewise were by hundreds of thousands.. “In one victory of this warrior (who had been purchased as a slave), “fifty thousand men came under the collar of slavery, and the plain became black as pitch with Hindus.”
Another sultan, Balban, punished rebels and brigands by casting them under the feet of elephants, removing their skins, stuffing these with straw and hanging them from the gates of Delhi. When some Mongolian habitants who had settled in Delhi, and had been converted to Islam, attempted arising, Sultan Ala-ud-din (the conqueror of Chitor) had all the males -from fifteen to thirty thousand of them – slaughtered in one day.
Sultan Muhammad bin Tughlak acquired the throne by murdering his father, became a great scholar and an elegant writer, dabbled in mathematics, physics and Greek philosophy,surpassed his predecessors in bloodshed and brutality, fed the flesh of a rebel nephew to the rebel’s wife and children, ruined the country with reckless inflation, and laid it waste with pillage and murder till the inhabitants fled to the jungle.
He killed so many Hindus that, in the words of a Moslem historian, “there was constantly in front of his royal pavilion and his Civil Court a mound of dead bodies and a heap of corpses, while the sweepers and executioners were wearied out by their work of dragging” the victims” and putting them to death in crowds.”
In order to found a new capital at Daulatabad he drove every inhabitant from Delhi and left it a desert; and hearing that a blind man had stayed behind in Delhi, he ordered him to be dragged from the old to the new capital, so that only a leg remained of the wretch when his last journey was finished.
The Sultan complained that the people did not love him, or recognize his undeviating justice. .He ruled India for a quarter of a century, and died in bed. His successor, Firoz Shah, invaded Bengal, offered a reward for every Hindu head, paid for 180,000 of them, raided Hindu villages for slaves, and died at the ripe age of eighty. Sultan Ahmad Shah feasted for three days whenever the number of defenseless Hindus slain in his territories in one day reached twenty thousand.
These rulers were often men of ability, and their followers were gifted with fierce courage and industry; only so can we understand how they could have maintained their rule among a hostile people so overwhelmingly outnumbering them. All of them were armed with a religion militaristic in operation, but far superior in its stoical monotheism to any of the popular cults of India; they concealed its attractiveness by making the public exercise of the Hindu religions illegal, and thereby driving them more deeply into the Hindu soul.
Some of these thirsty despots had culture as well as ability; they patronized the arts, and engaged artists and artisans–usually of Hindu origin– to build for them magnificent mosques and tombs; some of them were scholars, and delighted in converse with historians, poets and scientists. One of the greatest scholars of Asia, Alberuni, accompanied Mahmud of Ghazni to India,and wrote a scientific survey of India comparable to Pliny’s “Natural History” and Humboldt’s “Cosmos”.
The Moslem historians were almost as numerous as the generals, and yielded nothing to them in the enjoyment of bloodshed and war. The Sultans drew from the people every rupee of tribute that could be exacted by the ancient art of taxation, as well as by straightforward robbery; but they stayed in India, spent their spoils in India, and thereby turned them back into India’s economic life.
Nevertheless, their terrorism and exploitation advanced that weakening of Hindu physique and morale, which had been begun by an exhausting climate, an inadequate diet, political disunity, and pessimistic religions. The usual policy of the Sultans was clearly sketched by Ala-ud-din, who required his advisers to draw up “rules and regulations for grinding down the Hindus, and for depriving them of that wealth and property which fosters disaffection and rebellion.”
Half of the gross produce of the soil was collected by the government; native rulers had taken one-sixth. “No Hindu,” says a Moslem historian, “could hold up his head, and in their houses no sign of gold or silver…or of any superfluity was to be seen…. Blows, confinement in the stocks, imprisonment and chains, were all employed to enforce payment.”
When one of his own advisers protested against this policy, Alauddin answered: “Oh,Doctor, thou art a learned man, but thou hast no experience; I am an unlettered man, but I have a great deal. Be assured, then, that the Hindus will never become submissive and obedient till they are reduced to poverty. I have therefore given orders that just sufficient shall be left to them from year to year of corn, milk and curds, but that they shall not be allowed to accumulate and property.”
This is the secret of the political history of modern India. Weakened by division, it succumbed to invaders; impoverished by invaders, it lost all power of resistance, and took refuge in supernatural consolations; it argued that both mastery and slavery were superficial delusions, and concluded that freedom of the body or the nation was hardly worth defending in so brief a life. The bitter lesson that may be drawn from this tragedy is that eternal vigilance is the price of civilization. A nation must love peace, but keep its powder dry.
3. In case u want to have more detailed information – kindly read Ram Swarup and Sita Ram Goel.
Mr. Sehgal, the reasoning methods involved in the study of historical and social realities have to be more subjective and accommodating of varied perspectives.
One of the principal reasons is that data are hard to come by, and even when present are highly subjective, given that they represent a particular person’s beliefs and interests. Therefore, relying on a single account is bound to lead to a limited understanding.
The account you have quoted from, comes from a particular historian, who had a strong position in general, against religions, and thus was inclined to see the role of religions in history and the information from his sources in a negative light. This is not ‘wrong’ but it is only one perspective.
The same holds for Ram Swarup, Sita Ram Goel, and Romila Thapar as well. There is no ‘right’ answer in history, we can only try and interpret our already limited, biased and inaccurate sources in myriad ways, and put together a point of view.
This is why I find the term history very limited, histories is a better term in my opinion.
To put things more directly, if being Muslim automatically meant such a deep hatred of India and its traditions, then people like Mohamed Rafi and A.R. Rahman would not exist, much less be pillars of our culture today.
Raman: I would like to mention two points. First, Will Durant is not considered a scholar of South Asia. At the end of the narrative you have quoted he arrives at the grand generalization: “This is the secret of the political history of modern India. Weakened by division, it succumbed to invaders; impoverished by invaders, it lost all power of resistance, and took refuge in supernatural consolations; it argued that both mastery and slavery were superficial delusions, and concluded that freedom of the body or the nation was hardly worth defending in so brief a life.” Do you subscribe to this? Is it possible that some may still be afflicted by “supernatural consolations?”
Durant’s history is like that James Mill, who, by the way, has a much greater reputation. Have you read his History of British India, especially the long essay “Of the Hindus?” Would you cite that as acceptable history? If not, why not?
Second, the facts you state in terms of the number of deaths may well be correct but it would still not constitute genocide. You have to be careful with the use of the term which is defined as follows: “Genocide is the intentional action to systematically eliminate an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group.” The emphasis is on the word ‘intentional.’ Hitler’s extermination of Jews constitutes genocide; so does a number of massacres in Bosnia. However, despite many deaths in the two World Wars, and in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, these do not fall under the category of genocide.
Who the writer is not important – important are the facts presented – and then we can interpret the facts based on our biases.
That is y I am mentioning SR Goel and Ram Swarup – they have collected the facts from court records of muslims emprerors, muslim writers, inscriptions, etc. These have not been challenged (to the best of my knowledge – in case u know of study that refutes their study – do let me know) – so we take it as true.
Genocide : let us not go into semantics – the facts is Islamic murderers have obliterated all other religions, cultures of west and central asia, north africa – u can choose whatever word to describe it – bu the facts will remain the same.
My suggestion is y dont muslims acknowledge these facts. U were not responsible for the massacre and most likely nor were your ancestors (they are likely to be converts from hindusim) – once facts r acknowledged – and appropriate apology made – one can find a solution for peaceful co-existence in present and future. But muslims r so brainwashed with lies that they r told muslim invasion was god sent opportunity to make us civilized people.
Can u elaborate how Mohammed bin – Quasim or Ghori or Ghazanavi r projected in Pak books?
Let us face the harsh truth and move on.
I presume you r as much of the armature historian as I am. We rely on scholars words – who have spent their life unearthing truth. But how do we know whose version is true as any person will tend to put his/her bias into the study and twist the facts to suit their own conclusion? The answer is above is let them debate – this way we will come to know who stands on strong or weak wicket.
To give you an example on temple destruction – Richard M Eaton professor of history, University of Arizona (a marxist) has written a well researched book on temple destruction in India.
Lot of seculars give reference to Eaton’s book in order to downplay the Hindu voices on destruction of thousands of temples. You can find lot of articles referenced to Eaton.
Now Dr. Elst – a camp follower of Ram Swarup and SR Goel has written a rebuttal to Eaton’s book – here is the link : http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/ayodhya/eaton.html
Now – a normal inquisitive person (which I am) would like to read a rebuttal to Dr. Elst write-up so that we know the bottom of the truth.
There was an article by an American Scholar (Stanford University) -Audrey Truschke – stating the same thing as other seculars that temple destruction – as imagined by hindu right – is a myth.
I wrote to her asking for the rebuttal to Dr. Elst’s write-up. I did get few replies but when i kept on insisting on her reply to Dr. Elst – she went silent.
From above what conclusion would a lay person like me draw – that Dr. Elst is speaking the truth – but in case tomorrow – someone comes with better replies and nails Dr. Elst study – I will change my stand.
This is a normal process.
The scholarly study of Ram Swarup and SR Goel has not been refuted by any of the secular scholars.
https://vhsindia.org/en/list-of-mosques-in-various-states-which-were-built-after-demolishing-hindu-temples/
http://voiceofdharma.org/books/htemples2/
There r documentary and other evidences to the above list – so no secular scholar dare refute the above – instead these so called scholars label RS and SRG as hindutva ideologues without bothering to counter them scholarly.
The remains of Ram Temple at Ayodhya were found during excavation – what better proof u want. recently a road side mosque in Karnataka was partly demolished for widening of road – at its foundation – the pillars of hindu temple were found – where is bias in this study.
I have written on Hindu- Muslim divide / hate – what r the causes and how to bridge the divide :
http://ramansaigal.blogspot.in/2016_03_01_archive.html
your comment would be appreciated.
Mohammed Rafi, AR Rehman etc – i will write on them and post link here in few days.
This explains AR Rehman, Mohammed Rafi and millions of other good muslims :
If Islam is Evil then how come majority of muslims are normal people like non-muslims?
The core / centre of Islam is Koran and complementing it are Hadiths and Sira. In reality, we do not know what happened in Arabia in 7th century but the picture drawn from hadith and sira (though written around 200 years from Mohammed’s death) is evil, at least towards non-muslims and females.
The history of islam testifies its spread through sword, destruction of various religions and cultures that came in way of Islamic juggernaut but there have also been great muslim scientist, musicians, poets, humanists, sufis, etc. – who vouch for truthfulness of islam and are proud of being muslim. How can we explain the goodness if Islam is evil?
The best way to explain the above dichotomy is allegorically through the transverse concentric waves that emanates when a heavy object is dropped in water.
The origin / center of the wave is Koran, Hadith and Sira – it produces the concentric wave pattern of crests and troughs. Crest (high point) being visible part of islam is political Islamism as practiced and preached during medianian era while trough (low point) is invisible part is a spiritual Islam as preached during the meccan era.
As the wave travels further from its center it gets weaker and in case some other light object is dropped in water the main wave’s intensity gets weaker and sometimes the effect of the main wave vanishes and only the wave of the lighter object is felt (depending on how further the object is dropped from the main center and how heavy the object is in comparison to the main object).
Wahabism / Deobandi only believe in the main wave emanating from Koran, Hadith & Sira and that too only the crust part of Islam (since trough part has been abrogated in Koran). Their objective is to destroy any other smaller waves that originates in the Islamic spread from the presence any Sufis (Baravelvi), Shias (Ali, Hussien, Hassan), Ahmadi, etc. The closer they get to the center of the concentric wave ie 7th century Islam – more evil their ideology becomes. Further they r from the core – more moderate they are.
Now large number of muslims, even deobandis, who believe only in the original wave and no other sect (smaller waves) too are nice people – this can be explained by the fact that these people mainly believe in the trough (meccan) part of the wave and not the crust (medinian) part.
Now the other sects of Islam like Shias, Ahmadi, Ismali, Baravelli, etc can be allegorized as being independent centers that emanates their own waves within the large spread of Islam. The ones that are closer to the main core eg Shias are only little bit less evil than wahabism Islam since the effect of the original wave is too strong. But the ones that form the independent core having their own waves at the periphery of the Islamic spread like Ahmadi or Sufi sects have very less element of the original evil wave since it has been superimposed by the waves of their own sects. These people though calling themselves muslims – are moderates, nice normal people like any average non-muslims.
The above allegory can be put to test in the following cases :
Akbar initially was a die hard islamist (closer to the Islamic core) killed several innocents just because of their different faith, once he started getting away from the main Islamic center , he started getting liberal to such an extent that he started a new faith Din-e-elahi and in true sense laid the foundation of mughal empire in India
And opposite happened to Aurangzeb, he was initially liberal but soon started getting closer to the Islamic core – imposed Jaziya, started converting non-muslims and fought with them all his life – thus was instrumental in demise of mughals.
All scholars of Islamic golden age were rationalist who considered Koran as created and not divine ie away from its evil center even Dr. Abus Salam – a devout muslim was a Ahmadi – who have their own philosophy and are thus away from the main core plus have their own waves that nullify the evil waves of main Islam.
Baghdadi, Osama-bin-laden, etc are the ones who are closer to the center of islam as they want to bring back 7th century Islam – hence they r pure evil.
Similar examples can be seen in nation states – the ones who r closer to the evil center r worst in human rights and treatment of minorities whereas those who r at the periphery of the Islamic spread r better
So in conclusion – the closer one is within the concentric circles to real islam the more evil he will be and farther one is from the core and under the influence of the divergent waves (sects) – better the person will be.
Raman: Your comment “If Islam is Evil then how come majority of muslims are normal people like non-muslims?” triggers the following thought:
Let me break this into two parts: (1) Islam is Evil and (2) the majority of muslims are normal people like non-muslims.
First, are all non-muslims normal people? If not, is the ratio of normal to abnormal people different in different religions? If so, what is the evidence for that claim?
Second, if the majority of muslims are normal people, why does it matter whether Islam is evil or not? It seems to have no impact on the majority of muslims.
I recommend reading Olivier Roy’s Secularism confronts Islam. He explains why one should start with the lived reality of people rather than from scriptural texts in order to arrive at sensible conclusions.
SA : Islam is evil :
We all have characteristic of grey – none of us (that includes holy saints or hardened criminals) is pure black or white. But it requires an evil ideology to turn an otherwise sober person into a criminal. The more one is attracted towards Islam (the trough portion) – the more evil he/ she becomes. There r umpteen examples. The the reason for this is exclusivity and hatred towards non-muslims – and it is scriptural.
have u ever wondered y muslims cannot live in peace with any other non-muslim community – start from Philippines and end in US. – it is the same story everywhere. The only only common element among diverse people is Islam – so the blame has to go to Islam
Leave aside non-muslims – muslims cannot live peacefully among themselves. Have u ever wondered y? What reason do u give yourself? Do u blame all others except Islam – as is the norm of the muslims.
Yes – one need to form an opinion with the lived reality of people – but muslims fail in this respect. This can be applicable to Jews and Christians – whose scripture is as evil as koran or hadith – but they have moved on from these scriptures and formed a new narrative – which sadly muslims have not.
Let me know what wrong you found in my write-up.
Raman: I have no issue with your position. You are entitled to your conclusion and can defend it if you have ascertained your facts from a reliable source and verified and cross-checked them.
On this blog the emphasis is on logic and on that score I still have some questions:
First, if “the majority of muslims are normal like non-muslims” what exactly is the problem? Why does it matter that Islam is evil if it has no impact on the majority?
Second, If the Torah, Bible and Koran are equally evil but Jews and Christians have moved on why do you believe muslims are different and will never do so? Suppose you had lived at the height of the Christian Inquisitions, would you have predicted that Christians would move on? If not, how can you be absolutely sure that muslims won’t? That is a non-scientific attitude because one can never predict the future with complete certainty. You would have to ask if you are being dogmatic because you don’t want to concede a possibility that contradicts your present beliefs.
Having ones own Position : It is obvious every person is entitled to have his/her own opinion but the purpose of debate is to challenge the opinion of the other person – not for one up-man-ship, but to delve into truth. Every person has limited range to look at the things – but it can be widened but the perspective of various people. So I have given my facts / opinion – I can be wrong – so it is your intellectual duty to either accept my facts / opinion or to reject or alter them by providing different facts or opinion. With honesty we can come to the same conclusion.
Even 1% of muslims – if affected my the evilness of islam will make a huge number ie 15 million – just imagine 15 million jihadist planning to kill infidels and establish khalifa-u-din rashida where sharia rule the supreme.
The problem is that if the evil ideology is kept intact – it can entice an otherwise normal muslim into a killing machine – so the only solution is to tamper with the ideology so that no one kills others because of the scriptures.
Torah : Jews r a closed group – they dont want to push their ideology down your throat – they think they r chosen people – they have right to think whatever they want – as long as they do not interfere in my life – equally i have the right to think i am the only chosen person created by God – as long as I do not make you change your ways and do not interfere in your life.
Bible : Christians did have a problem – and the way out of the problem resulted in killing of million of innocents just because they did not agree on which type of same god they should worship.
Looking back – Christians had the advantage of benign image of christ – who was not a political figure – though their scriptures r as evil as koran and hadiths.
Islamic hope – similar tinkering can be done in islam – in fact one sudanese mulla suggested that only meccan islam should be taken as eternal and medianian islam should be considered to be relevant to mohammed’s perisod only. This can be a solution to the islamic scriptural problem.
But sadly that mulla was killed – I dont see any islamic intellectual speak in a way to find scriptural solution.
I do have an idea – but that is too radical.
Raman: I don’t hold a brief for Islams and Muslims. My interest is only in the logic of the argumentation. So, for example, I find problematic your retrospective explanation for the reform of Christianity. If “Christians had the advantage of a benign image of Christ,” how come they killed “millions of innocents”?
SA, the problem with christianity and islam is exclusivity.
read the complete analysis here : http://ramansaigal.blogspot.in/2016/02/abrahamism-andhinduism-can-they-adapt.html
Till reformation Christians took literal meaning of bible resulting in a situation similar to that of today’s Islam. But Christianity has survived reforms only due to the benign image of christ. Every now and then u can hear pope alter their stand on long standing issues like homosexuality, abortion, contraceptive, etc. This change will enable Christianity to move with times. I often say to myself that the day Pope announces that salvation can be attained by different means ie it is not exclusive to Christ – I will turn myself Christian – because its exclusivity will be dead.
Muslims need to get more honest about Islam and at least start debating on reformation in Islam – how and what can be reformed – only then muslims can think of moving with times.
Raman: In my view, the “benign image of Christ” seems to be an irrelevant variable in your equation. Were the pre- and post-reform images of Christ different? If not, then what it did have to do with the reform?
SA – apart from the difference in the image of the respective founders (Mohammed and Jesus) – there is not much difference between Islam and Christianity :
Read the verses from Torah, Bible, Koran and Hadith – u will not be able to distinguish to which book a particular verse belongs :
http://www.alternet.org/30-most-violent-exhortations-bible-torah-and-quran?page=0%2C0&akid=12406.115193.jf924k&rd=1&src=newsletter1024522&t=5
But looking in hindsight – we can say that Christianity survived close scrutiny of its scriptures because of benign image of Jesus. Islam does not have this escape valve.
Raman: You have simply repeated the statement you had made earlier: “Christianity survived close scrutiny of its scriptures because of benign image of Jesus.” You have not responded to the logical challenge posed to this claim: Was the image of Christ different before and after the reform?
I think Christ remained the same – since he surely is depicted as a selfless person (turn other cheek) but the Judaistic philosophy surrounding Christ got demolished and is still in process of getting demolished. I think most Christians in west – do not read or follow bible but do have a nice image of christ plus there r cultural reasons to remain within the community. I have not seen anyone defend objectionable verses of bible – they try to wriggle out of it or r simply embarrassed.
Sadly, islam does not have the luxury of christianity.
Raman: What does it mean that “Islam does not have the luxury of Christianity.” What is the “luxury” of Christianity now that the image of Christ is accepted as an irrelevant variable?
I have asked this earlier: If you had been living during the middle of the Christian Inquisition would you have predicted with certainty that the Biblical philosophy would get demolished? If not, how can you make the same prediction about Islam with so much certainty?
SA, Where is Jesus irrelevant – take an example of a fruit – where pulp is judaistic theology and jesus is seed. Pulp got vitiated but seed remained healthy. So pulp was discarded and seed gave birth to a new Christian theology.
Whereas in Islam the pulp (Islamic theology) and seed (mohammed) both r rotten.
Every religion had its share of reforms. Christianity went back to its New Testament or rather jesus and is healthy and reforming or trying to reform with each passing day.
Islam too had its age of reform in the form of Wahabism – where Wahab wanted to take islam to its pristine past to the days of mohammed and sahaba. He preached the removal of all the impurities of sufis, shias, baravelli, etc. from Islam. ISIS or Al Queda r the reformist movements of the islam – taking it to its original roots.
But let us imagine – u have some theoretical ways to reform Islam – what would that be – can u change koran or reject hadith (as some koran only muslims r doing) ?
Raman: We have now exhausted this subject and should let it rest. Thank you for your contributions.
Life at the very personal level:
http://tribune.com.pk/story/1147164/music-composer-feroze-nizamis-widow-wants-go-back-india/
These are great BBC documentaries about India’s frontier railways. You can view them to think over the implications of partition or the romance of rail travel. What struck me was the stark reality of poverty and the struggle to survive. Surely all development should be focused on individuals and communities and not on the achievement of abstract ideas and objectives:
The second episode (connection with Nepal) also illustrates how different the lived realities of religion in Indic lands were/are from the compartmentalized thinking that were imposed from above.
Rehan Khan Says:
kashmir is a integral part of india so stop assuming about that whether they want to live with india or with na-paki.
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The Amazing Race 17 Season Finale Rankings
Twelfth episode
“Got GPS?”
UNITED KINGDOM – GHANA – SWEDEN – NORWAY – RUSSIA – OMAN – BANGLADESH – HONG KONG – SOUTH KOREA – UNITED STATES
Previously on TAR: Eleven teams set off on a race around the world for one million dollars. From the beginning, teams sank, crashed, and clashed.
Some got stuck, overheated, and overwhelmed. Along the way they experienced emotional highs and lows. Eight teams came up short.
Home shopping hosts Brook & Claire got off to a smashing pair. Along the way the pair maintained their sense of humour and sense of style as they overcame grueling tasks and the first ever Double U-Turn to secure their place in the Final Three.
In the first leg, dating couple Jill & Thomas won the Express Pass and later used its “game-changing” power (which it wasn’t) to avoid potential elimination. Then on the couple’s athleticism and strategic decisions took them all the way to the Final Three.
Doctors Nat & Kat approached the race with surgical precision using every tool at their disposal. Even in the face of insurmountable obstacles. The pair’s calm and steady attitude helped to earn them a spot in the Final Three.
Coming up tonight: One of these three teams will win the million dollar prize and The Amazing Race.
NUMBER OF EPISODES A TEAM HAS BEEN MENTIONED IN THE ‘PREVIOUSLY ON’ SEGMENT
CHAD & STEPHANIE 7
BROOK & CLAIRE 5
KEVIN & MICHAEL 4
NAT & KAT 4
JILL & THOMAS 4
CONNOR & JONATHAN 2
RON & TONY 1
ANDIE & JENNA 1
KATIE & RACHEL: 1
GARY & MALLORY: 1
NICK & VICKI: 1
EDITOR’S NOTE: Bob Eubanks appears in this episode. It aired before he passed away a couple of years ago. ‘Tis an honour to speak about his presence in The Amazing Race franchise. Just like what I have done since my uncle Alvin passed, I hope whatever I do here today provides entertainment, smiles, laughter, and intelligence.
Phil described the Express Pass as a game-changing power. Ugh, whatever you say, Keoghan.
– Phil introduces us to Seoul. Its name means “capital city” (how appropriate and lame), and with one of the most highly advanced infrastructures on the planet as well as dedicating itself to cutting edge technology.
Within the extremely sophisticated futuristic cityscape, the Temple of Heaven was built for South Korea’s only emperor.
You can really hear Phil’s Kiwi accent when he tries to pronounce the word ’emperor’ as ’emperuh’.
– Jill & Thomas, who were the first to arrive at an unspecified time, will depart at 3:57am.
Thomas’ nerves are getting to him. Jill tries to get him to relax.
Isn’t this an odd situation? Jill is calming Thomas down as if it is his personal fight to ensure an all-female duo does not win this season, and he must serve as the champion for all men and anti-feminists everywhere.
– Thomas reads that they must fly to Los Angeles.
On Korean Air? Not wise.
– A song plays in the background instantly as Phil talks about Los Angeles being the final destination city. I recognize the song immediately.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F57P9C4SAW4
Yep, it is indeed Katy Perry’s California Girls.
I mean California Gurls. I have spent the past five years thinking Katy knew how to spell.
All joking aside, this is important to point out because the TAR 15 finale used another Katy Perry song.
“What? Being the only licensed pop artist in TAR? I wouldn’t dare hog the show like that.”
Because Waking Up In Vegas was used when Las Vegas was introduced as the final destination city in TAR 15.
Do Bertram Van Munster and Katy Perry have a secret deal where she makes a hit song about the final destination city for the upcoming season right before it airs?
Although making that song about Wyoming in TAR 8 may have not been a big success.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Do California Gurls and Waking Up in Vegas sound very similar to anyone else?
– When they land, they must travel to the Port of Long Beach and find Pier J to receive their next clue.
Pier J of the LBC-P, motherf–ker.
– Jill has the greatest opening confessional of the season.
JILL: We have ran hard, worked hard, and played hard.
Why the long look, Thomas?
You didn’t know you were dating Zoe?
By the way, what is TAR’s obsession with Los Angeles?
Since TAR 11, this has been the first season to not have a LA starting line. We thought “hey, they found cities to use in the US other than Los Angeles”, but clearly if the race does not start in LA then it must finish there.
This will also apply to TAR 25 when they began the race in New York. Sure enough the journey ended in LA just three weeks later.
– You know what else is ridiculous? Between using California Gurls at the start of this episode, and making teams travel to Long Beach, production has been trying really hard to force me to reference Snoop Dogg once more.
If I had known this, I would have eased off from talking about him both times during the South Korea leg!
If only production chose Tupac’s California Love. It would have been a much better choice than Katy Perry.
Hell, Wave’s California may have been a bit more bearable too. . .or maybe that’s just my childhood nostalgia coming into play. Wave may have been a one-hit wonder for a reason.
Sigh. I guess I can get over this. Five seconds of Katy Perry is not the worst thing in the world, I s’pose. Shall we proceed?
– Jill & Thomas are shown in the taxi.
THOMAS: I can break out my Spanish skills in Los Angeles finally.
JILL: Yeah.
Yes Thomas, you received such a good post-secondary education that you are all too eager to show off your fluency in another language. Not to mention you are bragging about it in front of Jill. We get it. She didn’t go to some high end college to immerse herself in another language that you were privileged to attend.
– Brook warms up her hands as her and Claire depart at 4:23am. They have four hundred dollars for this leg of the race which they can use on all of the hookers and blow that they need to get to the finish line.
No wonder Brook is warming up her hands–she is cold from the withdrawal symptoms.
– Brook says her and Claire do well under pressure because that is their daily working environment.
I have a feeling Brook is having an easier time reading “Go to Long Beach Port” compared to “Drive yourselves to the North Korean border to the tongue rolling bridge, and cross the hagatanakana river.”
– Claire thinks that if Brook and her stayed focus to run a clean leg and use their communication skills, and everything they are blessed with, they will take first place.
That’s a long list of things to go right for you to win this leg, Claire.
“Yeah, maybe we won’t be the first all-female team to win. . .”
– Brook has one wish of her own.
BROOK: We need to beat Thomas. He’s just so hungry.
And smug.
BROOK: We need to be as hungry as Thomas. And I am STARVING.
We’re not used to this level of competitive intensity from Brook. Energetic is one thing, but outright aiming to eliminate the competition is on a whole new level.
– Nat & Kat depart last at 4:27am. Yes, all three teams begin this round within thirty minutes of each other. That gap is approximately twenty-two times smaller compared to the gap between Nat & Kat and Nick & Vicki.
– They enter a cab as Nat produces the international signal for a telephone.
Although she looks more like she is at a punk rock concert at the moment.
– Kat reveals that they both lived in Los Angeles for four years.
What? They have a Hong Kong advantage and now they have a LA advantage? RIGGED!
Actually all three teams are relatively familiar with Los Angeles.
Jill & Thomas: Spending nearly their whole lives in Marina Del Rey.
Brook: Originally from San Diego a.k.a. the second largest city.
Nat & Kat: From Newport Beach and Santa Monica.
Claire: Born in Reno, but has worked with a San Diego sports affiliate for a while now.
Furthermore, Kat explains that they went to UCLA together and that’s how they met. As somebody who went to university in Kelowna, I can tell you that you do not really get to explore the city surrounding your campus due to the lack of time during the school year.
Unless you don’t take your studies seriously, of course.
NAT: Hopefully it’s a sign of good mojo for the rest of the leg.
Good mojo?
If I know anything about the history of The Amazing Race, there is no such thing as “good mojo”.
– Kat is used to do bring it at their toughest moments even when tired at their job.
– Jill & Thomas are first to the airport as the sun rises.
“Time to do crunches in flip flops.”
You know you have played too many racing games when you think the arrows on the ground are turbo boosts.
– Brook & Claire enter the airport next. Brook low fives Thomas.
If Brook was truly starving, she would eat Thomas’ hand.
– Jill pipes in.
JILL: You two look cute in your matching outfits.
What matching outfits? Ugh, let’s ignore what Jill says for now.
QUESTION: What do you call two shopping hosts who intentionally mark up the price for the items they are selling?
Cheetahs.
– BROOK: Traveling around the world on this race we wanted to leave a little bit of Brook and Claire flair everywhere we went. We decided to bring additional flair for the final leg.
“Sprinkle some flair here, sprinkle some flair there. . .”
Yes, Brook even announces their flair. Doesn’t that break some sort of etiquette?
“This is the team that has been my strongest competition since the start of the race?”
“A team whose wardrobe for the final round is inspired by one of the worst video games of all time?”
– Nat & Kat are last to the airport. Nat is happy there are two all-female teams at the end.
In 2015, viewers would find this factoid yawn-worthy.
Given the current climate surrounding feminism in North America, I wouldn’t be surprised if Nat making a remark like that would be deemed controversial as some viewers may get all upset saying “Oh, she’s turning it into a man-hating gender. . .thingy”.
Truth of the matter is that most of the all-female teams in the US version sucked in the first sixteen seasons. I won’t bother rehashing the list of the limited exceptions once more, but it is a big deal that we’ve got teams of Brook & Claire and Nat & Kat’s calibre in the final leg of the race.
If it were the Asian version, it would be a case of “been there, done that”.
– Nat’s factoid turns into a discussion of Thomas being the only guy.
“What the f–k did I do to you, Nat?”
JILL: You are the last man standing.
If only they sat in a circle like this in Long Beach during the 60s. Hell, you’d probably still have two women in cheetah pants and bows in their hair back then too. It would be a much more interesting experience for Thomas.
– NAT: Thomas is going to have to race his butt off to avoid being beat by the girls.
Am I missing something? Are there additional stakes involved if Thomas loses to a pair of women? Will he have to go through castration?
Which I guess certainly helps if you have two anaesthesiologists around for the procedure.
– You know it is early in the morning because Jill sounds super stoned. That’s what twelve rounds of the race does to you.
JILL: You’re just one of the girls.
KAT: He’s a girl.
BROOK: So pedicures later?
Brook laughing at her own jokes once more.
“I can’t believe I am thinking this, but I really hoped Connor & Jonathan would be here instead right now. Maybe even that YouTube kid too.”
Imagine if you replaced Thomas with Dan Foley from Survivor: Worlds Apart in this situation, and Jill was his daughter?
JILL: You’re one of the girls, Dan.
DAN: . . .
KAT: Oooo, you’re one of the girls.
NAT: One of the girls!
KAT: Tee hee.
DAN: Nat.
BROOK: Want to get a pedicure later?
(Everyone laughs but DAN.)
DAN: Brook. I mean it.
CLAIRE: Yeah, time to put on a bra and pick some flowers–
(Everyone laughs again but DAN. His face going red.)
DAN: Yeah, and your mother is a whore too.
(Everyone pretends to think this is not what DAN said.)
BROOK: Then he can go jazzle his va–
DAN: SHUT THE F–K UP, BROOK!
EVERYONE ELSE: Wow, uh. Geez. Okay, Dan.
DAN: I’m tired of being the victim all of the time. You are all promoting misandry and I for one do not like it!
Then Dan watches the episodes at home and becomes the least popular contestant of all time. The end.
– We fast forward to 6:30am. Brook & Claire used some of their four hundred bucks to purchase Starbucks coffee. Everybody is at the Korean Air counter. I am confident they are all on the same flight.
And why does a Korean Air travel agent have a sign by his keyboard with a bald eagle beside the words “We The People”?
– Yep. Everybody is on the same flight. You know that intense close-up they do of each racer as the final plane prepares to take off?
Well, Brook is the first person to have one while wearing a freakin’ bright pink bow on the side of her head like she is a first grade student named Emily.
Be prepared for The Amazing Race Canada 4 when I will be the first to run the final leg with a man bun.
Nat tries her best with the close-up, but she is clearly uncomfortable.
See? Kat and Claire know how to pull it off.
– The flight takes off and. . .
F–K THIS! Katy Perry’s California Gurls starts playing again. While it’s a ten second segment for the viewers at home, the passengers on the plane had to listen to it for ten straight hours.
Right about here is where the pilot ejected himself from the plane and safely landed on a sand bar in the ocean. Or maybe it was an atoll. I don’t know.
Somehow the flight lands in LA. Nobody flew with Korean Air ever again.
– Apparently it is now time to do some sight-seeing of the Mecca of TAR.
The infamous traffic!
The Santa Monica Pier where Jim took a nail to the knee and Gredenko lost his arm!
Ah! The California beaches where countless dating couples on TAR have filmed their audition tape including the famed Garrett & Jessica.
I doubt the water is as fiery as Jessica, ohohohoho!
Oh em gee! The Griffith Observatory AND the Kodak Theatre? These three teams really deserve the red carpet treatment, m i rite?
And lastly, Sunset Boulevard. All of these iconic landmarks in one city. I feel like a wide-eyed motherf–ker in a candy store just by watching this.
– Teams finally land in LAX.
Where international travel is anything but lax.
– Oh yeah, the Katy Perry song goes on for an awkwardly extended period of time as Nat & Kat and Brook & Claire are running out of the plane and the song is still playing.
Or that guy is playing the song really loud through his headphones.
– For some reason, the song stops abruptly when Jill & Thomas are shown exiting the plane. The intense TAR showdown music takes over. Thank god.
– Nat & Kat are first into a cab; Jill & Thomas are second. Brook & Claire appear to be a few minutes behind.
NAT: I’m glad you are a fast driver. We really need a good taxi driver today.
THOMAS: Let’s hit this man. Bob and weave, please.
This is confusing because his real name is Bob Weaver.
– Brook says she would rather be in LA traffic than Bangladesh traffic.
These three teams will be the only residents of California who will see a traffic jam in LA and think “you know what? It’s not so bad.”
– Nat & Kat observe cranes and platforms high up in the air as they approach the pier. Nat is starting to put this information together.
NAT: I am wondering if we are going on those platforms.
**Confessional cut.**
NAT: I hate heights. They’re not my biggest thing. It’s my biggest fear.
Kat expresses great sympathy.
Look at how much Nat’s tongue is pushed against her cheek. It is ready to burst through to the other side.
– Nat & Kat have their clue. They are welcomed to “the drop zone”. Much like TAR 25’s LA port, we are told this is the second busiest port in America.
Yes, even busier than the pier in Baltimore.
Apparently over fourteen thousand cargo nets pass through each day. Fun fact.
This number is indeed believable.
– Phil says teams will ride a tiny elevator to the top of the crane. Receive a clue, get strapped into a bungee swing, and plummet 150 feet towards the water. Yeah, they won’t even be touching the water. Weak.
– Nat wants to go fast because she doesn’t want to think about it. She reflects on past points in the season where she freaked out about doing the heights task (e.g. only the gondola task).
KAT: Nat, you’re fine. We’re on a gondola. We’re on a gondola. We’re on a gondola. We’re on an unstable gondola that hasn’t been upgraded in over sixty years in the middle of the Arctic Circle. It is wobbly and if we fall we will certainly die, but you’re fine.
“Why aren’t Kat’s reassurances working?”
– Nat wants somebody to hold her hand, but nobody does. She says before the race her heart would go super fast even if she thought about a heights task.
“Should’ve stayed home and had a V8.”
NAT: I really don’t want to think about it because I’ll start losing my mind.
KAT: Take deep breaths Natty, we’ll be fine.
Or take several rapid shallow ones.
– Jill & Thomas and Brook & Claire enter the pier. Nat & Kat go inside of the elevator.
Evidently Kat went to the Hayley School of Helmet Wearing.
Thankfully Nat also isn’t claustrophobic.
– She asks if she can have her eyes closed when pushed off the ledge. I would be amazed if production is able to find a way to force her eyes open.
– Jill & Thomas are in the cab as they see the cranes. Thomas wonders aloud if it is bungee. Jill doesn’t know, and also panics.
It’s like somebody being blue shell’d for the first time.
– Brook & Claire comment on the obvious.
CLAIRE: They’ve got the free falling thing you don’t like, Brook.
BROOK: Oh dear. I think it’s about to happen, and I’m going to have to deal with it.
“DEAL WITH IT, BROOK!”
Geez, Taylor. Tone it down.
– Nat & Kat are on top of the crane. Jill & Thomas are second to the clue box.
Which we get to take a full look at the clue.
– We see a camera operator walking backwards as he films Nat & Kat. At one point we see him have to lift his right leg over an obstacle as he continues to move backwards.
Now that would be a tough task. You sir are impressive.
– Claire screams after Brook reads the clue. They are screaming, and it “hasn’t even started yet”, as Rupert would say.
– Kat is first to walk out onto the ledge. Nat talks about her strategy.
NAT: It’s mind over matter. I’m thinking I’ll be okay. I don’t really believe any of that but I’m trying to save myself right now.
– Jill & Thomas see Nat on the crane.
Yes, they only figured that out in this moment.
Thomas has as much sympathy as Nat does.
– Jill hopes Nat can’t do it and they get to bypass her. What are the odds of that?
Surprisingly high right now.
“Don’t screw me over a million dollars, biatch.”
I thought a team would never ever quit a mandatory heights challenge in the final leg, but Hussein found a way to surprise us all.
– Commercial break. We resume. Nat opts to take a four hour penalty. Jill & Thomas are now in the lead.
– Nah, just kidding. Thomas promises Jill he will hold her hand during the leap.
Brook & Claire share a headbutt.
BROOK: I don’t understand this. Do you?
CLAIRE: Does it just drop?
“I hope not. . .”
– Nat slowly walks along the platform.
NAT: Can I close my eyes?
INSTRUCTOR: Not yet.
Kat just hangin’ out alone.
So is Jill. Only Thomas and Kat are not afraid of this challenge.
– Nat is now hanging on the edge with Kat. How is she doing?
I wonder if the It Gets Better campaign can also apply to people who are about to experience a bungee jump?
The power of friendship!
– The guy counts down and releases Nat & Kat.
Cue Nat’s eyes being closed.
Mmmmm drop!
– They drop and the bungee begins acting like a giant swing.
“Weeeeeeeee!”
– The other two teams react to Nat & Kat’s drop.
Jill feels even worse than she did before.
BROOK: WHAT?!
That also applies to Brook.
She might be the daughter of Tyler Denk’s mother.
– Nat & Kat are finally slowing down on their bungee swing.
KAT: As soon as we finished, she said “this is the scariest thing I have ever done and I’m not doing it again.”
Producers should make her do it for a second time just for the hell of it. Everyone on the race thinks you do the jump once and that’s it. Making people do it a second time would be an incredible twist. Potentially boring television if nobody is scared, but still hilarious.
– Nat & Kat land on a tiny square target in the water.
Pilotwings?
NAT: I didn’t even pee my pants!
The first sign that somebody peed their pants is if they say “I didn’t even pee my pants”. Fact.
– Jill & Thomas drop next. Producers only show them for a few seconds before Nat & Kat return to the ground. Nat discovers a new love.
NAT: I’ve never loved asphalt so much.
Unfortunately Nat will have to wait five years before the SCOTUS ruling will legally sanction it.
– While Kat tries to give a confessional about how proud she is of Nat for doing something she was terrified to do, the serious atmosphere is disrupted by the fact a safety instructor is struggling with a strap around Kat’s crotch.
Oh c’mon! We know full well he could get the strap off a few seconds earlier. It isn’t that difficult!
– Nat & Kat read a clue which tells them to ride a helicopter to a surprise destination. Nat does not fear helicopters.
– Brook & Claire say their final words to each other before the final drop.
Because you may never have the chance to say those words again.
BROOK: I just don’t like free falling. Just to free drop is not my bag.
I don’t think that’s a saying, Brook.
BROOK: That’s when I just about lost my bananas.
The constant bright colours, the watermelon to the face, one of them always having a flower in their hair, and now discussion of bananas? I think we are a pineapple and a Don Ho song away from Brook & Claire converting to Hawaiinism.
– Brook screams and screams and screams and screams as they swing. She manages to hold the note of her last scream for a good four seconds.
If Brook was Mrs. Peacock from Clue, Mr. Green would have been inclined to slap her in the face by now.
I love how she tries to use her right hand to control the speed of the swing. Ain’t gonna happen, Brook.
– Jill & Thomas are second to have their clue and read that this is to beat the freeway traffic. They start running.
“RUN! GET TO THE CHOPPA!”
They are in California and refuse to use the former governor? Disappointed.
Brook & Claire bond together as they also land on the square target.
BROOK: I thought I was gonna die! I’v never been so happy to see a dingy or a Scuba Steve in my entire life!
A Scuba Steve reference?
While I may have referenced Scuba Steve a couple seasons earlier, Brook is the first TAR contestant to do so. Big Daddy was already well over ten years old by the time TAR 17 aired.
– Claire is shocked to see they will be riding a helicopter.
– We now cut to the helicopters.
Helicopters tend to be occasionally used during a TAR finale. I am sure somebody out there knows the exact count. Off the top of my head I think of TAR 11, 17, 20, and 24.
Okay, maybe not that many.
– Nat & Kat say they have never been in a helicopter before. Jill & Thomas are next.
THOMAS: I wonder where we are going.
It’s almost as if it is a mystery or a surprise destination.
– Brook & Claire are loving this more than any other round (even though they are last).
– That classical soundtrack you hear in every movie when a military marches or a space ship blasts off begins to play. Jill & Thomas attempt to solve another mystery.
This is what a team looks like when leading during the final leg of the race.
I love how Los Angeles is treated as the only city in all of the United States on The Amazing Race.
Don’t we have a finale to get to or are we going to watch helicopters for the next thirty minutes?
– Nat & Kat observe that there is a stadium up ahead.
“You’re going back to the TAR 4 starting line!”
– Nah, just kidding. It’s the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena. Nat & Kat figure out that’s where they are.
I wonder if there is a Goodyear blimp constantly hovering above the Rose Bowl. How else would they get this shot of the helicopter?
– Nat & Kat disembark and run to an unusual clue box.
I think it’s the first time that teams show up and have to pick from A-B-C. Apparently it is easier than the traditional 1-2-3.
– It’s the final Roadblock.
I think it is long established that I would prefer the Sir Richard Rose Bowl.
Although the prize money is substantially lower.
– Phil explains to us that the Rose Bowl is one of the most famous stadiums in the world (I know that is not true because I never heard of this place until today), and the beloved Tournament of Roses parade is a beloved New Year’s Day event for over one hundred years.
New Year’s Day and no snow? This is a strange sight for a Canadian like me. Maybe it was just an unusual year.
A super creepy float, but no snow here either.
Dang. There’s never any snow on New Year’s? Bizarre.
– Phil says teams will be facing a task that requires mental and physical stamina to complete this difficult feat. What is this task, exactly?
Building dreams, friendships, and memories. The hardest thing to do in life.
– Just kidding. They have to decorate a float that would normally take ten thousand man hours (what about woman hours considering who the Final Three is?) to complete, but instead all they have to do is decorate three sections of an official float in the Tournament of Roses competition. Once the floral designer approves of their job, the 2009 Rose Queen will give them their next clue.
That is not the type of person I picture to be a floral director.
I really wanted her to be the Rose Queen.
Although I am afraid she would have kidnapped Brook for being Ms. Popular and have her in the trunk of her car.
“They were just going out for breakfast on her birthday! The jawbreaker was just a mistake, I tell you!!!!”
– Nat is observing what the expert is doing on the other float as an example.
First step: Glue the flowers onto the edge of the float.
It is boring to watch people glue flowers on a float as the final Roadblock of the season.
The contestants get the short end of the deal as their assigned section to glue forces them to crouch or kneel.
Second step: Putting sticks into holders then place it into styrofoam on the float.
– Nat says this is not her thing because she is a left brain person.
– Jill & Thomas arrive at the task. They have had a strategy where the Roadblock count for their team is designed for Thomas to do the final task.
And leave it to a season with five female racers at the end where the lone male is stuck with a Roadblock hint that says “Who’s bright enough to float?”
This is by far the most feminine final Roadblock they have done in TAR history. Jill & Thomas regret their strategy immediately.
Woops. My bad.
The Tournament of Roses: Destroying Thomas’ Dreams, Friendships, and Amazing Race Memories
– Thomas says he is not crafty or a decorator and would have been better for Jill to do.
If only Thomas didn’t drop An Introduction To Float Decorating 111 in his first year at Notre Dame.
– Jill observes Thomas’ lack of craftiness. They talk about how it was a mistake. Jill was hoping for something involving upper body strength.
– Brook is in the helicopter and identifies the stadium.
BROOK: I LOVE COLLEGE FOOTBALL!!!!
Americans and their obsession over football. Something I will never understand.
– Brook opens the clue. You can identify the exact microsecond where she comprehends what the Roadblock task is for today.
BROOK: . . .
BROOK: !!!!
Geez. Brook is going to be the first person to have a heart attack on the race out of pure excitement.
She might also be the first person to start freakin’ dancing with the clue.
“wtf brook?”
CLAIRE: That had Brook all over it. I’m like “there’s the crown, there’s the sash”. Go ahead. This is all Brook. It’s what she does in her free time.
“Go play with your friends, but remember to be home by six.”
Who puts mustard on a petal?
– Brook talks about her history of being on floats and her “float brigade”. These are her people.
These are not Thomas’ people.
– Nat continues to copy the example. Thomas is going as fast as possible to make sure he is doing everything correctly. Not sure what that logic is, but whatever. Nat asks for a check. Everything is good except her flowers aren’t prepped correctly.
– Intense music begins to play. I don’t think flower decorating can be seen as exciting no matter how hard you try.
– Nat’s float is now approved.
Yes. See our supreme leader.
When I think of supreme leaders, I think of Alanis Morisette. I guess this is close enough.
– Nat opens the next clue after a brief hug with Kat. It’s a riddle. Who jumped over the candlestick?
No, it’s a bit more difficult this season. Teams must answer these three questions and combine them to create their next route marker location.
– Nat & Kat run away to the row of taxis waiting for them.
– Nat & Kat decide to only go with a taxi driver who has an iPhone. Wow, this really is 2010.
Did producers arrange for exactly three taxis to show up to the Rose Bowl? If so, wouldn’t it be unfair if one of those taxi drivers really sucks at their job?
– The first driver doesn’t have an iPhone. There is actually a lot of taxis waiting. They enter the second cab.
(NAT is holding a Motorola Razr in her hand.)
NAT & KAT: Sancho Panza?
DRIVER: Yeah.
KAT: Do you know or no?
DRIVER: . . .
“Linguistic barrier within Pasadena? Ain’t nobody got time for that.”
“What the hell did I do?”
– Lots of cheering. Nat & Kat have yet to find a cab. Commercial break.
– We resume. Nat & Kat approach a driver.
NAT: Who is Sancho Panza?
I bet cabs have a tough time wrapping their head around being asked a ‘Who?’ question rather than a ‘Where?’ question. That’s not in their job description. Maybe they should ask the police officer who Sancho Panza is. He could be some sort of Pasadena bandit.
– Thomas is second to complete the Roadblock. Brook clearly didn’t make up any time.
– Nat & Kat get into a cab and use the cell phone to call an information centre and ask them to use Google. Jill & Thomas are in the same situation with their cab driver.
After he couldn’t answer the questions himself, of course.
– Nat is using the cell phone as she awaits her Google request.
NAT: Please, I’m in a race for lots of money. It’s very important.
DISPATCHER: Okay. What’s my cut?
“Er, the prize is in Canadian money. It’s not worth much, trust me.”
Note to all future racers: Say it won’t be long and exploit the foot-in-the-door approach as much as possible.
It’s stressful Jill & Thomas’ driver is hesitant to give up his cell phone.
– Jill is given the cell phone and begins speaking to dispatch.
But those privileges are immediately taken away.
I think he needs some Sancho Prozac.
– Back at the Roadblock, Brook praises the adhesiveness of some of the material before finishing the task. She skips and hops when she sees the princess.
BROOK: Ah! It’s a princess! Hi! I love your crown!
Yippeee!
– Thomas is on the phone. The dispatcher does not have Internet or Google.
What business in 2010 doesn’t have Internet? Incredible.
Nat’s dispatching service, however, does. Geez, I wonder which one does better financially?
– The dispatcher HANGS UP on Thomas and Thomas starts badgering the driver.
THOMAS: Does anybody not have Internet at their house?
“And if you say they don’t, I will start wiping your car seats with my rose hand.”
– The driver does not fully understand what is going on, but tries to be helpful.
GPSs might be smarter than you think, Thomas. In forty metres, turn right onto Panza’s master.
THOMAS: No sir, sir, listen, listen!
The GPS can talk to the rose hand because Thomas don’t wanna hear it.
– I am pretty sure the guy’s first language is Spanish. For some reason Thomas is not showing off his espanol skills.
THOMAS: Listen to me. I need. Somebody. To do an Internet search for us.
I feel bad for the driver who has to listen to Thomas wile trying to not think about the dead body Thomas appeared to chop up with his demented hand.
Even Andross’ hand raises fewer questions from the taxi driver.
THOMAS: A Gooooogle search.
Goooooooogle. You know, like the first million dollar question on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?
– The taxi driver responds in a way that confirms this guy must be fairly old.
– In the clue at the bottom has three blanks followed by Studios. Nat pieces this together and asks the dispatcher if there is a place called Quixote Studios.
– Thomas makes one last plea.
THOMAS: The Internet? Do you know what the Internet is?
DRIVER:. . .
“Do I?”
Wow. Fifteen years since a computer with Internet became a household fixture and this guy has yet to be exposed to it.
Can you imagine if he tried to understand Nat & Kat’s request for an iPhone? That might take an additional fifteen years.
– Brook & Claire enter a taxi. Claire instantly declares they need Internet.
BROOK: Can you take us to a place that has Internet? We need Internet.
“Inter. . .what?”
– Nat and the dispatcher are working together as she tells her there is a place called Quixote Studios. She directs Kat to tell the driver to go there.
We have nine people working together on these clues and Nat is the only one making any progress.
NAT: Can you take us to Quixote Studios?
DRIVER: . . .Hotel Studios?
NAT: Quixote Studios.
DRIVER: Quixote Studios????
So let me get this straight. We have five out of six racers who have a great familiarity with Los Angeles. Three taxi drivers who also have been driving around town for years. This is 2010, and they have all of the technology in the world to either figure out this puzzle or know where Quixote Studios is.
The fact very little progress has been made is amazing.
– Brook & Claire go the safe route as they ask their driver to take them to a hotel.
– Thomas’ driver is using the cell phone. Thomas begs to use it again but refuses to give it up. Wow.
JILL: Oh my god. This is crazy. This is crazy. We need to get off.
This is the part where he automatically locks all doors.
Jill tries to give sign language a shot.
Jill is frozen as she maintains the pose hoping the taxi driver understands what she wants and gives her the phone.
And this is why I will never ever say Gino & Jesse have had bad luck with taxi drivers.
Jill stabs her hand with a pen just to stop herself from uttering a ‘F’ bomb or throwing the taxi driver out of the cab to make it an impromptu self-drive leg.
I am surprised they have not opted to go with a new taxi yet.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Do you recall earlier how I thought it was suspicious a bunch of taxis were waiting outside of the Rose Bowl? Well, many places online firmly believe non-English speaking taxi drivers were dispatched to the Rose Bowl. This explains why all three teams have been struggling to communicate with their driver.
In other words, they are bound to be in better shape if they jump out, right? Not necessarily.
Pasadena’s demographic is 33% Hispanic. Therefore, they have a one-in-three (or higher since minorities tend to be taxi drivers) of finding another driver who may not speak fluent English.
– Nat fires away her next question of “I am the place to hear the Symphony in the Glen”. The dispatcher instantly answers with Griffith Park.
– Brook & Claire arrive at the hotel.
The twist: The hotel only has dial up.
– Just kidding. They enter a room with a computer and two attendants. Brook shows her short list of trivia questions.
It’s 2010. Nobody reads books anymore.
Claire isn’t checking answers, by the way. She is logging into her Facebook. It has been three weeks and is suffering from major social media withdrawals!
– Jill & Thomas’ taxi driver continues to be hilarious.
JILL: No. We need to go to a computer.
(DRIVER points to his GPS.)
JILL (recycled audio clip from earlier): No, that’s your GPS. That’s not a computer.
JILL: No.
THOMAS: All we need is somebody with a phone.
I bet this would be solved if Thomas started speaking Spanish which he loves bragging about.
JILL: No, that’s not a computer sir! Thank you for the offer.
I am amazed Jill & Thomas have not tried an alternate strategy yet.
“I don’t get them. When I go out, all I need is a Swiss army knife and a GPS. After that I can survive for at least a month.”
– We cut to Quixote Studios.
If Phil says this is the most famous studios in the world, he deserves to be kicked in the kiwis.
– Nat & Kat only needed the answers to the first two questions because they already knew Monroe’s Year of the Itch was seven (The Seven Year Itch).
When combined, the answer is Quixote Studios Stage 7 in Griffith Park.
Yes, floral design and Marilyn Monroe trivia on the final leg of the race. Did we mention how this season is dominated by all-female teams?
This is a rare finale where the same team has held onto the lead from the moment they enter the final destination city.
KAT (reading clue): Hat’s entertainment!
– Phil chimes in that since the invention of television, Hollywood game shows have tested people’s knowledge of trivia. After twelve exhausting legs, teams will be tested if they have been paying attention to everything around them.
And by everything around them, it is just the pit stop greeters.
“Get your Plinko board sprayed or neutered.”
Card Sharks?
– Anyways, what should have teams been paying attention to?
Well, this wall is a big hint. There is the Croatian greeter from TAR 12 just above the woman from the TAR 4 beach round in Malaysia (I think). I think the guy below her might be from TAR 14’s India round (the nose flute guy).
So do teams have to know every pit stop greeter in TAR history?
– Flashing high above the teams are pictures of 48 different people wearing hats.
Which includes the TAR 11 Chile construction guy in the Valley of the Moon and the TAR 10 Vietnam lady, I believe.
Eleven of these forty-eight people are greeters from this season who welcomed them into the pit stop (Phil leaves out that the other thirty-seven are greeters as well).
The guy second from the top left corner in the red hat was the second pit stop in TAR 4. The guy in the second row and third from the left was the greeter from the Sphinx.
The guy in the top row one spot away from the top right corner was the Australia greeter who saw BJ with no pants.
The guy in the third row and second from the left was the Kazakhstan greeter in TAR 13.
Oh, and the guy in the bottom right corner is definitely from TAR 7.
– Using the control pad in front of them, teams must type in the number assigned to the hat-wearing greeter and select the eleven greeters and put them in the correct spots.
Well, that makes things a bit easier. Plus it has a GPS.
When done correctly, this is what their final board will look like.
NOTE: There is a Wiki page which lists all of the greeters in TAR history divided by season. It should be noted I was right on the six or seven I committed myself to guessing in the past few minutes.
ANOTHER NOTE: It would have been much funnier if they included Ian and his hat and pretend he was a pit stop greeter.
– Once done correctly, legendary host (and presently dead) Bob Eubanks will give them their next clue.
What is with TAR 15 and TAR 17 picking people who they thought were going to die in the next few years to give out the final clue for the race? Did they scan through a list of ageing beloved American entertainers and decide “hey, let’s give this guy a shout”?
Am I the only one who thinks Paul Begala could be Bob Eubanks’ long lost son?
Give it twenty years and maybe Paul Begala will get a call to do the TAR 67 finale.
– Bob has to do a promo for a show that he doesn’t even host.
BOB: I’m Bob Eubanks. This is so exciting! Watch!
Which is also the same word he used to introduce his own sex tape.
Geez, they even give Bob the sparkly tooth treatment? Who the hell does he think he is?
Jim & Misti?
Did they all think “let’s just copy Swanky Kong’s style?”
– We get one more glimpse of the board before we cut to Nat & Kat. It turns out they play each pit stop greeter’s intro in full motion video for a second before the monitors switch.
This guy has issues. Apparently he is from the eighth round of TAR 2.
It is Bob Eubanks’ first bit of exposure to sunlight all day long.
Bob keeps up a steady jogging pace as the silhouettes run to their appointed station.
I haven’t seen silhouettes run around this much since I had to choose a save file for Mario Party 5.
In a jerk move by production, the leading team is assigned the station furthest from the door. The other two teams are able to make up five seconds just like that because they will have to run a shorter distance to their stations.
Evidently, Bob Eubanks is assigning himself the middle station. Perhaps he is such a big TAR fan that he can complete this task through process of elimination because he recognizes the other thirty-seven greeters.
– I can’t imagine Jill & Thomas’ taxi driver being able to operate the control pad. Nat & Kat try to look for the Eastnor guy.
“Welcome to Eastnor. Normally I would show off my long flowing hair underneath, but producers insisted I wear this ridiculous helmet! I said give me a few extra pounds and I’ll don this costume.”
Nat points him out on the board.
“Here at The Amazing Race, you’re not just a number to us! . . .Actually, you are.”
– Kat is certain when she sees the Accra lady. It turns out it is the rural Ghana lady.
Don’t trust a zombie on a task like this.
– Nat says the Accra round was in a market and the other was a school. Kat realizes their error and makes the swap. The background likely helped.
Market lady.
School lady.
It should be noted Nat & Kat have yet to find the market lady. Nat is overwhelmed.
Bob should start imitating Jeff Probst and constantly comment on Nat & Kat’s progress.
In fact, he should have copied Jeff Probst’s commentary in Survivor: Fiji’s day 27 immunity challenge by saying “Nat & Kat switch the market lady into leg three. . .and it’s a good thing they did, Nat & Kat win the clue!” or something like that.
– Nat & Kat go with who they think belongs in leg 2.
Oh my word. That’s the greeter from the very first pit stop in TAR history. Nat & Kat just mixed up an Africa leg in 2010 with an Africa leg in 2001.
He started the hat-wearing trend of pit stop greeters. Hey Bertram and Elise, give this guy his goddamn royalties!
KAT: I don’t remember seeing him, but okay.
Eh, it was only nine years.
– Brook & Claire are researching the final answer.
When a camera is pointed at your face, I guess you have no choice but to do your job for once. Why is the camera filming this guy rather than Brook & Claire who are doing the task?
Maybe because Claire is picking her nose. Ewwwwwww.
You really do forget the cameras are there after three weeks of running the race.
If you could access Google, this challenge was really easy. It didn’t cure Claire’s Seven Year Nose Itch, though.
– Brook & Claire re-enter their cab and say they were fast. Of course it is going to be quick. I used to play in online versions of Survivor which had live trivia challenges, and I know one guy who only needed ten seconds to Google an answer. Knowing it off the top of my head only gave me a six or seven second advantage.
It would have been funnier if their taxi driver asked “What is Griffith Park?” to keep up the unhelpfulness of taxi drivers.
One day I will see roads like this.
– Troubling music plays as Jill demands they exit the cab.
JILL: We need to get out of this cab. We need to get off–
THOMAS: I KNOW! WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?
At least the muscular dude is having a good time on the billboard.
– They decide to stop in the middle of what appears to be a red light. Jill is able to get out on her side.
Thomas not so much. What is with teams not being able to open passenger doors this season?
– Thomas grunts but nothing changes.
Looks like an upper body task involving opening doors would have worked better for Jill as well.
– Jill & Thomas check out a place for Internet. Were they smart and go to a populated area where plenty of people have smart phones or a location likely to have a good computer?
Nope, they choose a skilled labour shop that deals with repairing televisions (those still exist?).
THOMAS: Hello. We need to use your Internet. Desperately.
LADY: . . .
Judging by how she is blurred, there is a good chance she may not speak any English.
Furthermore, Thomas better not leave the clue on the counter as he reads the sign that the shop is not responsible for goods left behind in the shop.
JILL: This couldn’t be worse.
The million is slipping. History will be made. . .and the lady on the computer couldn’t have a more boring pose.
– Nat & Kat recognize the Korean greeter.
“There has to be a way to make this task easier.”
Kat remembers this guy because of his inability to grow a proper moustache.
The board is slowly coming together.
– Nat reveals that her and Kat took several notes during the race. This is what several teams have done since the logic puzzle in TAR 12. In fact, memory challenges will get increasingly more random in subsequent seasons and using notes will become forbidden.
Perhaps Nat can’t read her own writing. A true doctor.
“It’s time to use our handy dandy notebook!”
Yes, Steve from Blue’s Clues would ace any final memory challenge in TAR history. The guy keeps track of everything!
– Kat checks her notes and sees the lady from the Accra market. The Zambian greeter has been dethroned. They find the lady on the border and “the guy in the sweater”.
– Jill & Thomas find somebody out on the sidewalk.
THOMAS: Do you have the Internet we can use really quick?
THOMAS: THE INTERNET.
The person he is shouting at sounds like they are fluent in English, by the way. At this point I am convinced all of Pasadena is screwing with Jill & Thomas.
JILL: We need to get out of here. This is like the worst area. What are you doing?
THOMAS: I don’t know what I’m doing.
That explains a lot.
– Nat & Kat try to nail down the Russia rounds. The guy from leg 6 does not come to them.
How do you forget Ron Jeremy on The Amazing Race?
Instead they choose the guy from the second Russia leg in TAR 13.
It’s the mutual thinking pose.
– We cut back to Brook & Claire in a cab.
BROOK: Literally we could be first or last. This could go either way.
Actually, you’re second. Fail lol.
– Do you know the crazy wailing Sydney guy from TAR 2 that I was making fun of earlier?
Well, he’s an honourary Russian now.
– Nat & Kat start doubting themselves that the guy from Australia may or may not be Russian.
I know that look. Nat is stressin’ and counting down the minutes until the next team shows up.
– Commercial break. We resume. Nat & Kat finally plug in Ron Jeremy for leg 6.
Shhhh. Don’t disturb Bob. He is sleep standing.
– Leg 7 is trickier as they initially choose the Get Out of Jail free card.
He is from the seventh round of TAR 15. You know, the one where Maria & Tiffany cried as they quit the race.
“Forgetting my hat is a capital offense.”
– They erase the Dutch guy quickly. Nat skips to the Hong Kong and Oman rounds where they identify the two people fast.
Repeating the same city in the following leg truly is as forgettable for the racers as it is for the viewers.
– This is coming down to the nitty gritty. Nat & Kat are about to submit a guess, but need to bet on who the seventh pit stop greeter was during the race. If they are incorrect, it could prove to be very difficult to know not only which one is wrong but how many as well.
In other words, it could be the perfect window of opportunity for Brook & Claire to steal it away from them. If this were a modern season, a hashtag would appear at the bottom of the screen.
Like this one, for example.
– Nat identifies the correct Russian guy.
Perhaps Bob Eubanks saw him and blinked twice as a tell.
– How do teams know if they are right?
New school logo. . .
. . .becomes a clue envelope graphic.
– Nat & Kat run over to Mr. Eubanks.
NAT: Can we hug you? I’m all sweaty.
If this were a present-day season, we would have yet another hashtag on screen.
– Bob presents them with their next clue.
While Nat is the one who wants to hug, Kat is the one he has his eye on.
Even if Nat is ready to go in on the attack.
I never thought I’d see the day where an all-female team would be in first place heading to the finish line as they hug Bob Eubanks in front of 48 pit stop greeters on a digitized board.
BOB EUBANKS: This is a good job.
Now Bob is just making it awkward.
– Nat & Kat read they must travel by taxi through LA’s congested streets to the finish line–Greystone Mansion. We learn nothing about this mansion. Only that the first team to check in wins the million dollar prize.
Greystone Mansion–known most for hosting the finish line for The Amazing Race 17.
– Bob plays favourites as he wishes them good luck. Nat & Kat hop into a cab.
And right back on the phone they go for directions.
– For the second season in a row, a team completes the final task before any other team shows up. It’ll take a flat tire for this to have any suspense.
Brook & Claire are likely accepting this as their fate as well.
– They arrive at stage 7 and read the clue. What do two home shopping hosts on television think when they realize they will meet Bob Eubanks?
They go straight in for the hug as if they are Dr. Evil and Bob Eubanks is Scott.
“I’m not freakin’ Frankenstein, give your home shopping hosts a hug.”
BOB: Come with me!
Not happening. Brook would rather strangle a beloved TV host. So that’s how he died.
Between Nat insisting to hug Bob while she was sweaty, and Brook & Claire flinging themselves onto him upon entering the studio, you would think they are wearing beer goggles which mistaken him for Justin Timberlake.
CLAIRE: Good ol’ Bob is just standing there and I’m like. . .
Say whaaat.
– Brook continues to hop and skip in the shadows. She adds in a few incomprehensible words but the editors picked out a couple pieces of it.
BOB: Good, you’re my idol too.
I doubt Brook & Claire playing at a station closer to the door will not make up enough time to catch up to Nat & Kat.
– Brook & Claire talk out the task.
BROOK: The first place we went to. . .was the UK. So who was in hats that we saw in the UK?
Considering the UK has thousands of years of history, you may have a lot of options.
BROOK: This is gnarly.
Uh oh, this is the second time Brook has gone into Bethany Hamilton mode. I guess the bow in the hair may have been responsible for her new Hawaiian lingo.
Perhaps they both grew up playing Super Mario World. Who knows.
– Brook tells Claire to look like a guy who looks like Eastnor Castle. I am pretty sure she is implying someone who looks like they fit in with medieval times rather than someone who physically resembles a castle or a battlement.
CLAIRE: It’s 27! He’s in the knights thing.
Armour? Armour is the thing?
No, not Under Armour, Brenchel. Give it a couple years.
– You know who would hate this task?
Them. They would have never been featured in this task.
– Brook & Claire lock in their first answer.
BROOK: Why didn’t we pay attention to the hats people wore?!
Because nobody ever asks for a kiss on the hat, Brook.
– Claire knows the second greeter was the market lady; Brook identifies her. We cut to Nat & Kat a couple of times as they sit in traffic.
NAT: They could completely pass us right now.
Wow, Nat and the editors. You guys are doing SUCH a good job at making this suspenseful. I am so convinced Nat & Kat are going to blow a forty minute lead because of traffic jams. *eyeroll*
I doubt “It’s kind of trafficky” will be a leading team’s final words before losing The Amazing Race.
– Brook & Claire are almost done the challenge.
#7 and #14 need to start their own sitcom together.
– They put in Ron Jeremy as the leg 6 greeter. All they have left is the woman from leg 4. Seconds later they find her and lock in to answer correctly.
Nobody has the heart to tell her she is out of the running for the million dollars. Just let her have this moment, guys.
– Brook & Claire run up to Bob Eubanks. Brook tries to pry the clue away from Bob’s hands, but she is stuck waiting for him to say “here is your next clue”.
“You’re my idol et al, but could you hurry it up, Bob? We’re trying to have the only international season in TAR history to have all-female teams finish in 1st and 2nd before you’re gone.”
– Brook opens the clue as she reads it along with Claire and Bob.
You’re not fooling anyone, Bob. We all know you need your reading glasses to see the clue.
“I didn’t even get a sweaty hug.”
“What up wit dat?”
“Sigh. Jill & Thomas aren’t coming, are they?”
– Brook & Claire jump back into the cab. They yell at the driver to go super fast but he hasn’t paying any attention to them.
Cell phones truly are distractions for taxi drivers this round.
– Claire hopes the other teams get lost. This leads to Jill & Thomas’ concession speech.
JILL: This is brutal. Seriously brutal.
THOMAS: We should’ve gotten another taxi. Get back to the States and we have more of a language barrier than out of the country.
JILL: This totally screwed us.
“At least we’ve got GPS.”
– Thomas attempts a romantic moment which Jill is not too thrilled about.
It is about as romantic as Hank’s advances from Corner Gas.
– It is tough to screencap it, but during the kiss Jill does this weird twitch as if she is trying to get away from the kiss. You won’t catch it on a first viewing, but when you do notice it the comedy of this scene skyrockets.
Editors re-emphasize how big Los Angeles is.
– As expected, Brook & Claire’s taxi knows exactly where he is going. They start getting excited.
Eeeeeeeeek.
CLAIRE: We get to step on the mat and meet Phil!
– More traffic showdowns.
BROOK: Can you make us win? Go faster. We’re gonna win!
Brook uses every psychological trick she can.
Don’t worry, sir. They are equally crazy in both English and Spanish.
KAT: I’m having heart palpitations.
NAT: Don’t be afraid to honk. We like honking.
Kat is visibly wincing. Three weeks of living off of energy drinks to keep the fatigue away has really strained her heart.
If the driver was on a game show, it would be “Which Request Should I Be Listening To?”
– Nat praises the driver’s honking abilities.
NAT: Nice move.
Some people prefer a mate who is smart, funny, and/or good-looking, but not Nat.
She digs a guy who knows how to honk and bypass LA traffic congestion.
BROOK: Are we almost there?
CLAIRE: Maybe this is a shortcut!
They really made a leap from such a vague statement.
Nat can’t stop stressing out.
– Claire does the most inaccurate impression of Phil.
CLAIRE (serious tone and with BROOK joining in at the end): Brook & Claire. You are the. first. female team. To ever win. The Amazing Race.
Nat & Kat could win the race, but Brook & Claire could effectively brainwash Phil with this technique and reverse the outcome of the season.
– We wait until a taxi pulls up into the mansion.
What good is showing the door opening if we can’t see who is inside?
– But who we do get to see is all of the teams cheering in a fast motion clip which shows Chad clapping at record speed.
“Slow down, buddy!”
There is one person who isn’t clapping, though.
It’s Phil. He couldn’t care less about who wins.
He just wants to show off his damn eyebrow raise. You think after 17 seasons he would learn a new move.
– We finally see the team running into the mansion.
I would say Nat & Kat’s win is a certainty at this point, but then I remember the Misa & Maiya incident. If only they had made it to the finish line of TAR 20.
The final tricky task is that these are switching staircases like in Harry Potter. A beloved addition to Greystone Mansion.
Why are Gary & Mallory specifically being shown?
Oh. Uh, welcome back guys.
Contrary to what other teams feared at Elimination Station, Katie & Rachel did not in fact tackle Nat & Kat or Brook & Claire if they were the first team to arrive at the finish line.
Phil offers up a low five, but Nat & Kat are too pumped to even notice.
NAT (jumping up and down): Are we first are we first are we first?
Geez. I forgot how short Phil is.
PHIL: Four continents, thirty cities, 32, 000 miles, Nat & Kat, you have made Amazing Race history as the first all-female team to win The Amazing Race.
FIRST PLACE: NAT & KAT
“Really? I thought it’d be Andie & Jenna.”
Okay, maybe Katie & Rachel aren’t as excited once they hear the news verbally.
PHIL: And you have won the one million dollars. Congratulations.
“But you aren’t even listening, so we’ll keep the million here at CBS headquarters.”
“Can we have it so we can pay off our student loans?”
PHIL: Can you believe it?
Ron & Tony approve of the victory.
– Phil asks a boring relationship question about Nat & Kat. Then he wants to talk about diabetes. You can probably fill in what Nat says (she wants to show diabetics they can be active).
– Kat knew Nat had strength, but amazed by the degree of her strength and how she never complained.
“Except when it comes to heights.”
– Brook & Claire run onto the mat.
Connor tries to taunt Brook with his flexibility.
It’s okay, Nat & Kat. You’re allowed to hug losers.
PHIL: You’re the second team to arrive.
SECOND PLACE: BROOK & CLAIRE
“And brought great shame to the home shopping industry. Seppuku with a katana, now on sale for just 39.99 where you only have to pay for shipping and handling, is your only way out!!!!!”
– Phil can’t help but out the feat.
PHIL: Another all-female team. One and two for the women. Congratulations.
Lost the title by mere minutes but has already recovered enough to dance.
– Phil asks them about how much fun they had.
CLAIRE: We literally laughed our way around the world.
PHIL: I know that.
Wow. Phil totally dissed Claire. He is essentially telling her that she stated something so painstakingly obvious.
“If you lean just a little bit closer to Phil, I can start a new Slap Count.
– Brook said Claire shocked her including taking a watermelon to the face or scaling a canyon.
BROOK: The ideal of being a strong woman either means that you are Grumpy Boots or that you’re this really masculine gnarly chick. No! You can be feminine and still tap into that femininity while being a strong woman.
There’s nothing wrong with being a masculine gnarly chick though. . .right, Brook?
– A minimal reaction occurs as Jill & Thomas jog onto the mat.
THIRD PLACE: JILL & THOMAS
Phil tries his best to not laugh at them.
PHIL: You were so consistent.
JILL & THOMAS: Yeah. We know.
PHIL: You’ve made a few mistakes along the way, but nothing like today.
“Thanks for reminding us, buddy.”
– Jill is trying to talk about the experience in a confessional.
JILL: This has been–
Hold up!
JILL: I don’t even know why I am crying. Why am I crying?
Because something else needs to happen when you don’t have Carol & Brandy to yell at all of the female racers that are at the finish line.
Can you imagine what would have happened if Nat & Kat U-Turned Carol & Brandy instead of Chad & Stephanie? An all-female team victory wouldn’t even be a topic at the finish line.
BRANDY: Why did you U-Turn us? It’s obvious you should have let Brook & Claire go as the bigger threat.
NAT: But we won–
BRANDY: I don’t wanna hear it!
– Jill & Thomas talk about how this was a special experience and loved it.
And I will never speak of them again.
– Just like the trend which started in TAR 16, some of the eliminated teams get some final words. Mallory says she is the youngest of four and happy to spend time alone with her dad.
The cameras don’t even bother trying to include Gary.
She starts crying and asks if she can race again.
A request she will make one too many times, unfortunately.
Oh, and Stephanie wants to tell her future kids about this experience.
It makes you realize how much editors and producers wanted to push Chad & Stephanie as the new stars of TAR–it just didn’t quite happen.
Somehow Nick & Vicki had enough time to get to the finish line despite checking into the South Korea pit stop twelve hours after the Final Three teams.
– Nat & Kat get the final words.
NAT: It’s about time a girl-girl team won The Amazing Race. We’re just proud and honoured to be that team. It’s probably been one of the best experiences of our entire lives. Kat and I both think it’s life changing.
KAT: It’s just priceless. It really was.
Yep. Linzes still have it covered for the best final words to end the season. Now I don’t think there is anything else but to finally close this season out.
Yep. It’s over. See you in September for the next–
PHIL: And now for a special sneak preview of next season’s Amazing Race!
I am nervous.
– Commercial break. We resume with the sneak preview.
Next Time on TAR:
PHIL: They are some of the most memorable, dynamic, and interesting teams to ever run the race.
And nope.
Gary is dynamic?
Somewhat true.
They needed to show seven past teams, but one finally fit the description.
PHIL: They didn’t come in first, some didn’t cross the finish line, but you loved them anyway.
I loved Nick & Vicki, but I don’t think any other fans really did.
The ORG community does not love him.
Yay! Somebody else who fits the description.
They’re back just one season later?! Hooray!
Michael & Louie? F–k me.
PHIL: For these teams, The Amazing Race competition has always been unfinished business.
Unfinished motherf–king business, that is. This is serious stuff.
PHIL: Now they’re going to get another chance to run the race again.
Another motherf–king chance.
We get it. Returning players.
NO!!!
PHIL: Dig deep and prove they are the best.
Only if you were in Bali for TAR Asia 1.
The best? But none of them won. Therefore, nobody is the best. And I doubt “the best” will be going to the Egyptian Pyramids during the middle of the Arab Spring.
Or maybe they are just trying to copy the Endurance logo.
PHIL: What will it take to win a million bucks?
Huh. Mount Rushmore nor the White House has been a route marker location in TAR.
“We’ll do anything to whore ourselves out on reality televisionnnnnn.”
PHIL: You’ll find out when your “favourite” teams return to finally finish what they started.
My favourites! The favourite f–king team and definitely most memorable out of all 21 international English-speaking seasons are coming back!!! They get shown for a total of 0.1 seconds compared to everybody else who is prominent being shown for up to two seconds, but it still counts! (Seriously, I’m not joking about their lack of screen time in this preview.)
PHIL: And prove they deserve another shot. The new Amazing Race–in high def. The Amazing Race: Unfinished Business.
“Coming this spring–you finally notice my botox shots!”
– Tragically, the preview does not end here. One team in TAR history is hired specifically to do this commercial. Can you guess who it is?
JET: This is amazing. Logan will be pissed.
CORD: That’s exactly what I was gonna say.
In the previous sixteen seasons of TAR US, the winners always get the final words.
However, in a season featuring the first all-female winners in US history, the final words go to. . .the f–king cowboys? Ugh. That’s already one strike against Unfinished Business. It invaded a very special moment for TAR.
TAR 17, perhaps the greatest US season since TAR 12, has its final moments overtaken by a lousy preview for the upcoming season. Why did they have to do this to us?
But alas, it is time to wrap this season up.
BROOK ROBERTS.CLAIRE CHAMPLIN 6.4
NAT STRAND.KAT CHANG 10.8
JILL HANEY.THOMAS WOLFARD 4.5
MALLORY 1
JET.CORD 1.1
4th Dustin & Kandice 3.17 – Used Yield, saved by NEL once
3rd Ron & Kelly 3.00 – Yielded, saved by NEL once TAR 7
3rd Jill & Thomas 3.00 – Used U-Turn once and Express Pass TAR 17
6th Azaria & Hendekea 3.00 – TAR 12
4th Hayden & Aaron 2.92 – Saved by NEL once TAR 6
2nd Dustin & Kandice All Stars 2.92 – Used Yield TAR 10
2nd Bransen Family 2.85 – Saved by NEL once TAR 8
1st Linz Family 2.77 – Used Yield TAR 8
3rd Joe & Bill 2.76 – FF, saved by NEL twice TAR 1
3rd Margie & Luke 2.75 Used U-Turn once TAR 14
5th Henry & Bernie/Bunn-Eh 2.75 – Yielded TAR Asia 3
8th Rob & Amber All Stars 2.75 – Used Yield, Choked TAR 11
1st Flo & Zach 2.69 – FF, saved by NEL twice TAR 3
3rd Ken & Gerard 2.69 – FF TAR 3
4th Oswald & Danny All Stars 2.67 FF x2, Used Yield, saved by NEL once TAR 11
2nd Ken & Tina 2.64 – FF, saved by NEL once TAR 13
2nd Jet & Cord 2.58 – Saved by NEL once TAR 16.
2nd Colin & Christie 2.54 – FF, Yielded, and saved by NEL once TAR 5
2nd Tara & Wil 2.53 – FF TAR 2
1st Rob & Brennan – 2.46 FF TAR 1
1st BJ & Tyler – 2.46 FF, Used Yield, and saved by NEL twice TAR 9
1st Vince & Sam 2.45 FF TAR Asia 3
1st Nick & Starr 2.45 FF TAR 13
1st Tyler & James – 2.38 FF TAR 10
2nd Frank & Margarita 2.38 – FF TAR 1
2nd Kris & Jon 2.38 TAR 6
1st Tammy & Victor 2.33 Used U-Turn Once TAR 14
2nd Rob & Amber 2.31 TAR 7
1st Richard & Richard 2.27 FF TAR Asia 4
1st Adrian & Collin 2.23 FF TAR Asia 2
1st Meghan & Cheyne 2.00 FF TAR 15
2nd Eric & Jeremy 1.69 FF TAR 9
lol 3rd Marc & Rovilson 1.46 Used Yield and Yielded TAR Asia 2
1) Brook & Claire
HOW THE F–K WERE BROOK & CLAIRE NOT INVITED BACK FOR TAR 24?!
TAR 17 is the final of the three non-returnee seasons that I had yet to watch in its entirety. Therefore, over the past five years I have been repeatedly told that Brook & Claire are not only one of the best teams to ever race in any international version over the past five years, but a contender to be ranked with some of TAR’s legends from the early years.
For those of you who do not know, Brook & Claire were invited for TAR 18 but Claire was pregnant. In fact, they talk about it during their appearance with Nat & Kat on The Early Show after the season finale aired (Harry WhatsHisFace asked to see her baby bump during the interview).
Fine. Producers did not exactly fail when it came to re-casting Brook & Claire for TAR 18 since it was out of their hands.
However, where the hell were they for TAR 24? There has been absolutely no evidence to suggest they were called to appear for TAR 24. Neither Brook nor Claire were pregnant at the time. In fact it wasn’t until as of a few weeks ago it is now Brook who is super pregnant. She probably had the child by now. I mean, she looked super pregnant.
As I have mentioned numerous times throughout the season, only TAR Asia was capable of producing awesome all-female teams. In America, we barely have a few that meet the standard after sixteen freakin’ seasons.
Brook & Claire and Nat & Kat nearly doubled the number of great overall all-female teams on that list. I would even add Katie & Rachel, but their bad luck with a flight to Europe and their lack of air time doesn’t allow them to quite make the cut.
I hate the idea of labelling Brook & Claire as “mactors” because of their careers in television and also because I can’t think of a single home shopping host or on-field sports interviewer who has a mainstream following. So Brook & Claire are just regular people to me.
Well, not so much regular people as they are what I picture human versions of Odie and Garfield would be in real life. I find it impossible to watch Brook and not think of it being what it was like if Odie’s personality was thrown into Samantha Jones’ body.
Despite all of the jokes we can make about Claire being not quite in perfect shape, taking watermelons to the head, vomiting in a Hong Kong bathroom, and being stuck with crappy Roadblocks, her and Brook were fast. Brook’s energy was definitely infectious.
Claire always had this attitude of “It sucks” but then the competitive spirit within her to have something to prove overrode that saying “You shall not lose” all season long.
They were the first team since Brian & Greg since TAR 7 to intentionally choose outfits that they knew were hilarious. This was frequently referred to as “Brook & Claire Flair”.
But praising an all-female team just because of their choice of outfits would be downright insulting. No, they are much more than that. They were rarely in danger for the first eight rounds of the race to the point they intimidated Jill & Thomas. Jill & Thomas didn’t even hesitate to U-Turn Brook & Claire during the Double U-Turn in Bangladesh. Never forget teams were more threatened by Brook & Claire than they were of Nat & Kat.
Claire wasn’t the only one susceptible to ridiculous injuries. Remember when Brook sliced open her eye on the car door when running to the pit stop in Norway and merely found it hilarious? It’s that bizarre sense of humour which kept us watching them every round.
Also, I need to re-emphasize how the watermelon incident video did go viral before TAR 17 started. This reached to people in the world who aren’t fans of competitive reality TV–it may have been six months since I mentioned this, but dudes I knew in high school who did nothing but play Starcraft still talk about this video five years later. I bet they are unaware this was from a show called The Amazing Race.
These are all contributions Brook & Claire made to the series in just twelve episodes. Nowadays we have teams who are unable to do anything in thirty-one episodes of TAR.
I doubt you would see Flight Time & Big Easy start kissing elderly Korean taxi drivers.
In conclusion, I have one thing left to say: Out of all of the teams to play the US version of TAR, I will go on record to state I believe Brook & Claire are the team I not only want to see play for a second time more than anyone else, but think they would really lock down a similar mainstream legacy which Charla & Mirna held for a few years–except this time it is a legacy that will not polarize the audience.
Seriously, producers. What the hell were you smoking when casting for TAR 24?
2) Nat & Kat
DISCLAIMER: Zabrina & Joe Jer were the first all-female team to win in The Amazing Race franchise.
With that out of the way, let’s talk about Nat & Kat as the first all-female winners in the US and comparing them to Zabrina & Joe Jer.
Zabrina & Joe Jer did not impress the audience on a regular basis and were never dynamic enough (along with much of the tasks and route in TAR Asia 1) to be cemented in the viewers’ memories. Partially because Zabrina already worked in television from a production standpoint, and Joe Jer was a mild-mannered DJ.
There were fewer teams (ten) and a whopping five NELs (one of which saved them during a round where they had bad luck), and did not win any of the first twelve legs, thus taking a few points away from the history they made.
Meanwhile, Nat & Kat had a bit more personality, connected with the audience in a much more substantial way, was never saved by a NEL, and won five out of twelve rounds. Holy cow.
Nat & Kat are pretty much the prototype of a the all-female team I expect to do well in The Amazing Race. This is why it is no surprise that a team like them was never cast in the first sixteen seasons.
An all-female team that is well-educated in the sciences, make an effort to keep fit, sharp when talking to others in a social setting, not particularly focused on being flirtatious, and in their late 20s to early 30s will create very dangerous team. Nat & Kat covered all of these to be a well-rounded team without any major weakness during the race.
Perhaps the only weakness is that they are not truly Type A personalities. Of course, anyone whose primary relationship on the race with Brook & Claire will probably not seem very Type A.
However, this was supported by the fact that the two times Nat & Kat were in danger came during the two Ghana legs where Kat was not aggressive when selling sunglasses, and the other being when Nat & Kat id not speak up more to their crappy taxi driver in the following round.
Nat & Kat’s well-roundedness is why they were the first all-female team to win a season rather than a team like Lyn & Karlyn who, while being the first all-female team to make it to the Final Three, never really had a shot at winning. No matter who you are, you can make it to the end with a “just don’t be last” strategy by being logical, but you also need to have skills and abilities to put you in the winner’s circle at the end of the season. This is coming from someone who loves Lyn & Karlyn.
I am very happy with how Nat & Kat were portrayed. Editors could have easily turned it into a sob story of how Nat is a diabetic. As someone who works in a pharmacy, I get a glimpse into how much a condition like that can occupy what you do in your everyday life.
Just imagine if Bethany Hamilton had Type 1 Diabetes. You can just picture millions of people saying “omg, it doesn’t matter what she has done, she’s so inspirational omg omg omg”.
With Nat on the race course, I love how it’s “I don’t give a f–k what you think about my Type 1 Diabetes, I will kick your ass no matter where we go as long as it’s not Accra”.
I love the focus and intensity Nat & Kat had all season long as well. As somebody who has been a vegetarian for seven years, I love how Kat threw her 17-year meat restriction out the window and chowed down on a sheep’s head. Nat was -terrified- of heights, but didn’t let that slow her down as well.
In addition, Nat & Kat outwitted producers by asking a local to use his own money to buy a map for them. You can’t beg for money on the race, but they figured out you can ask others to spend cash for you. Brilliant.
They were also the only team out of the top seven to never receive a penalty all season long. From the Jumba Wumbas and onwards, everyone else screwed up reading the rules at least once (although there is a rumour floating out there that Nat & Kat may have made the same mapping error as Gary & Mallory did–I believe Mallory said that in an interview, actually).
We should also give credit to Nat & Kat for saving Brook & Claire from elimination in Bangladesh. Nat & Kat were not U-Turned when they reached the Double U-Turn board, and could have easily done nothing and let Brook & Claire die that leg. Fortunately, Nat & Kat decided to not only rescue them by U-Turning Chad & Stephanie, but also produce Chad’s hilarious reaction of “Big smart doctor can’t put a bicycle together; how is that Ph.d treating ya?”
Nat & Kat’s competitiveness and ability to kick ass was so strong that they are partially responsible for making the final round a no-contest, and to my knowledge, their driver didn’t have the mystical powers of a GPS like Jill & Thomas’ did.
They started out the season by being a team where the only competition they could win was Kat in the Smelliest Shoes challenge, but they really nailed this season.
If you want an all-female team who specializes in humour, crazy antics, and entertainment value, Brook & Claire would be your weapon of choice.
If you want an all-female team that is a bit more subdued, but have a scary level of focus, intensity, and overall competitiveness, Nat & Kat would be your team.
Some say it is a letdown that Brook & Claire did not win, but I don’t see it that way at all. I mean, it would have been hilarious, but we can’t have everything in the TAR universe.
Especially when it comes to casting choices for Unfinished Business, and the overall promotion of the season in the TAR 17 finale drawing attention away from Nat & Kat’s win.
P.S. Katie & Rachel tackled Nat & Kat once the credits started rolling. They forced an ankle lock on each of Nat & Kat until both agreed to verbally assign their TAR 17 title to Katie & Rachel, thus becoming the true first all-female team to win the race.
3) Nick & Vicki
4) Gary & Mallory
5) Chad & Stephanie
6) Connor & Jonathan
7) Andie & Jenna
8) KevJumba & Michael
9) Jill & Thomas
I would have ranked Jill & Thomas one spot below Katie & Rachel, but thought they deserved a slight bump up due to circumstances of pity.
No matter how you slice it, any co-ed or all-male team in the Final Three against two all-female teams will have a negative reaction from the audience and claim relatively few fans as their own.
Jill & Thomas became the first team to earn the Express Pass in TAR US history, but also demonstrate how useless and irrelevant the twist is. Fast forward five years later and producers have yet to learn this lesson.
Because nearly every team around them was far more dynamic and entertaining, we learned very little about this couple. They got along well, they had a consistent pace throughout the race, and had a few lucky breaks go their way. This team was never really in trouble all season long.
They can be grateful for leaving a couple of legacies behind for future seasons besides being the answer to a trivia question.
Whenever I see somebody trying really hard to bite into an apple, someone who brags about their strength in an obscure subject during their university days, those who struggle to close their mouth after receiving surprising news, or a couple who just loves some Bangladeshi sugar cane, I will always think of Jill & Thomas.
And for a couple that is otherwise too normal and bland for television, this is all they can really ask for in a season like TAR 17.
10) Katie & Rachel
11) Ron & Tony
1) Gloucester, Massachusetts, USA -> England, United Kingdom, London (according to Nick Decarlo)
2) St. Petersburg, Russia -> Muscat, Oman
3) Dhaka, Bangladesh -> Hong Kong, China
4) London, England -> Accra, Ghana
5) St. Petersburg, Russia -> St. Petersburg, Russia
6) Muscat, Oman -> Dhaka, Bangladesh
7) Accra, Ghana -> Riksgransen, Sweden-Norway Border
8) Accra, Ghana -> Accra, Ghana
9) Riksgrandsen, Sweden/Norway -> Narvik, Norway
10) Seoul, South Korea -> Los Angeles, California
I hate putting the season finale of TAR 17 in such a low spot, but compared to how well many of the other rounds were put together during the season, I think this is a worthy ranking of it.
Perhaps my two biggest complaints about this round is that not only did they choose to go to the overused city of Los Angeles, but they also had the Rose Bowl float as the season’s final Roadblock.
Furthermore, a season where teams were frequently on an even playing field turned into a rare blowout where Nat & Kat had an early lead and nurtured it to grow and grow until everyone could forecast their victory by the halfway point of the episode.
In addition, it has been unofficially confirmed (but heavily speculated) that production intentionally sent non-English speaking taxi drivers to wait outside of the Rose Bowl. On one hand I appreciate the difficulty for teams to communicate with their cab, but on the other hand it feels like it is bordering the realm of tampering with the race.
Although if producers did not do this, we would not get Jill & Thomas’ driver bragging about how his GPS can do everything including shining your shoes, fixing your computer, and cooking microwave popcorn for you.
Lastly, another annoying part of this round is producers sullying the celebration at the finish line by focusing on the promotion of Unfinished Business. That’s a pretty giant “f–k you” to a season that had been incredible over the past twelve weeks. Especially when Unfinished Business’ quality will come nowhere near to TAR 17.
We did have an awesome final task as we saw 48 pit stop greeters wearing hats over the past decade, and a Bob Eubanks cameo. It just would have been much much much better if Nat & Kat and Brook & Claire entered this task at the same time and ultimately be a battle of who can pick out Ron Jeremy in Russia faster.
The finale simply couldn’t reach the bar that the past eleven rounds had set for this season.
11) Hong Kong, China -> Seoul, South Korea
12) Narvik, Norway -> St. Petersburg, Russia
Season Rankings Updated
Spoiler alert: You won’t have to scroll much before you see TAR 17.
1. The Amazing Race 5 – 9.2/10
2. The Amazing Race 12 – 9.0/10
5. The Amazing Race 17 – 8.65/10
If producers of ageing competitive reality shows need to know what it takes to make a strong season after being on the air for a decade and having done so many seasons before, this is the quality you are still capable of reaching.
When I was in high school, a mark of 86% or higher was considered an ‘A’. I think TAR 17 is worthy of this grade.
The only reason I put this above TAR 9 is because while Eric & Jeremy vs. BJ & Tyler may be one of my favourite rivalries with an overall fantastic conclusion as the hippies take the prize, TAR 17 had a bit more depth to its cast.
Brook & Claire, Nat & Kat, Nick & Vicki, Chad & Stephanie, and Gary & Mallory with a couple of other teams in the supporting role makes for an insane cast to have squished into one season.
With only one team going on record to return to play again, this makes TAR 17 an overall hidden gem of the series. There is so much more to it than just being “the first time an American all-female team won”.
Visits to Ghana, the Arctic Circle, Bangladesh, and a hilarious round in Hong Kong made for the best route designed since TAR 12. Seriously, TAR 14-16 had the least inspired race courses, and TAR 17 decided not to fall into a rut.
Watermelons to the face, car slices to the eye, apples being bitten, shoes being smelled, testicles being crushed, butts falling on ice, and YouTubers having dreams crushed all made for a hilarious season.
There was also a high level of penalties this season which is unusual for TAR US. Heck, it is in that mid-range of penalties with TAR Canada 3.
So why does this season not get ranked any higher regardless of a great cast, worthy all-female teams, and a wonderful route?
Well, there is a couple of mistakes producers make.
a) The start of the modern day Express Pass. It was irrelevant in TAR 17, and am happy people like Hamilton & Michaelia are saying it is also irrelevant now.
b) The first leg in St. Petersburg was such a mess for producers to the point they intentionally equalized everybody in the following round, and erased Nick & Vicki’s Speed Bump. That is sloppy for TAR standards.
c) The last couple of legs were not exciting, and Los Angeles is a lousy place to finish a season.
Overall, this is the last truly great season TAR US will produce for a long time, and thank god we had something to break the awful trend of seasons between TAR 14-16. Ratings were at its lowest point after TAR 16, and TAR 17 is exactly what was needed for the series to be recognized as a mainstream hit. The praise for TAR 17 will be so strong that the audience will continue to follow the series until producers lose their trust with TAR 24.
It is amazing to think out of all twenty-six US seasons that this is the season I followed the least during its original airing. Oh well. That’s what happens when TAR 14 and the premiere of TAR 15 temporarily killed my spirit.
8. The Amazing Race 11: Real All Stars – 7.2/10
9. The Amazing Race Asia 2 – 7.19/10
10. The Amazing Race (1) – 7/10
11. The Amazing Race Asia 4: “The Race of a Lifetime” – 6.81/10
12. The Amazing Race 13 – 6.8/10
13. The Amazing Race Asia 3: Toughest Race Ever – 6.7/10
15. The Amazing Race 4 – 6.25/10
18. The Amazing Race Asia 1 – 4.55/10
19. The Amazing Race 8: Family Edition – 4.0/10
20. The Amazing Race 6 – 3.9/10
That does it. My longest review of any season to date is over. Sorry it took me so dang long to blog about this season, but I am happy I treated this season as something special rather than glancing over it briefly like I used to do in the past.
TAR 17 reinvigorated the audience again after a bad spell in the TAR timeline. Producers have the buzz that they want, but what can they do to keep it alive?
Well, why not another all-star season? TAR 11 did a better job with its all-star version compared to Survivor and Big Brother. They are capable of doing it again, right?
Unfortunately, times have even changed for TAR, and a golden opportunity to recreate past glory will instead descend into some of the most biased and questionable casting decisions ever made in any returnee season of a reality show.
That’s right. I get to talk about one of my least favourite pre-season stories in TAR history that surprisingly few people have heard about.
P.S. TAR 18 is the very last season to air before I started this rankings blog nearly five years ago. Can you believe it?
This entry was posted in The Amazing Race, The Amazing Race 17 and tagged amazing race 10, amazing race 17, bob eubanks, bob eubanks is amazing, bob eubanks is awesome, brook and claire amazing race, brook and claire flair, brook roberts, elise doganier, final hat challenge, jill and thomas, jill and thomas amazing race, jill haney, kat chang, kelowna, logan saunders, los angeles, nat and kat, nat and kat amazing race, nat strand, okanagan, phil keoghan, rose bowl, supacoowacky, thomas wolfard, vernonbc. Bookmark the permalink.
3 Responses to The Amazing Race 17 Season Finale Rankings
Do we get rank the teams and rank the legs listings with explanations for all entries?
P.S. Yes, the casting for Unfinished Business was terrible, in my opinion, but I also think that the season improves from that point onward. At least after the first leg and a bit.
Who do you consider as the strongest all female team to ever run the 26 season of the US Amazing Race?? I really don’t know if it is between the chipmunks or Nat and Kat…..maybe the chipmunks because their average is higher perhaps? I don’t know…..I also agree about Brook and Claire matching the legacy of my Goddesses Charla and Mirna though. However, it is quite sad that Charla and Mirna did not receive too much credit from casual TAR fans, especially Mirna, who I thought worked the hardest on the show….I dare say she matches Zach and Margie for being the hardest worker…I still consider Charla and Mirna a strong all female team despite the fans calling them the “lesser team” to most of all female teams…I really wanna know if you think Charla and Mirna is a strong, average or a weak team because for me, I consider them a strong team maybe slightly above average because Mirna’s airport savvy is a HUGE and MAJOR factor of the game, and it has always been….
thesupacoowackiestblogintheuniverse says:
I remember reading somewhere online a couple months ago that people thought Mirna was a jerk for insinuating she has to “work harder than anybody else because Charla is a little person”.
Regardless of how uncomfortable that statement may be, it is true. When you look at how much Mirna did in every task and pursuing the best flights possible, her work ethic is undeniable, and it got them all the way to Final 3 in All Stars, and one bad flight is the only reason why they were eliminated halfway through in TAR 5.
So yes, I definitely consider Charla & Mirna a strong team.
As for who may be the strongest between Nat & Kat or the Chipmunks. . .well, Nat & Kat haven’t had a chance to play for a second time yet.
The Chipmunks weren’t exactly huge threats in TAR 10, and were more like social outcasts. They were also prone to making minor mistakes in both of their seasons.
Nat & Kat never truly screwed up during TAR 17, and also didn’t have anybody who wanted to U-Turn them. Unlike the Chipmunks who were going to be Yielded three times if not for their insane luck in each of those legs.
I have to say Nat & Kat are the strongest. They won a ton of legs, won the freakin’ race, rarely made stupid errors, and got along with everybody well.
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Wild Welfare director selected as finalist in animal welfare awards
Animal Welfare, News
We are absolutely thrilled to announce that Wild Welfare’s director has been selected as a finalist in a prestigious animal welfare awards.
Having been chosen from hundreds of other nominees by a panel of judges from within the animal welfare community, Georgina Groves has been selected as a finalist in the 2019 CEVA Animal Welfare Awards.
Wild Welfare’s Projects and Development Manager, Sophie Khan, said: “I’m absolutely delighted that Georgina’s dedication and tireless commitment to improving animal welfare has been recognised.
We’re all hoping her brilliant work stands out on the night and she is named the winner – it will be very well-deserved.”
CEVA’s annual animal welfare awards are dedicated to recognising and celebrating individuals and teams that go above and beyond for animal welfare, and they act as a platform for showcasing the amazing work going on in the UK and around the world to help animals.
The Charity Contribution of the year award that Georgina is one of three finalists for CEVA’s Charity Contribution of the year award, one of eight award categories featuring in this year’s awards, others include Vet of the Year and Charity Team of the Year.
On April 3rd an invited audience will have the chance to see short videos of all the finalist’s work in animal welfare and the winners will be announced. You can watch Georgina’s nomination video HERE.
Image: Georgina Groves being filmed for the CEVA Animal Welfare Awards finals.
Previous winners of CEVA awards include Lesley Winton, founder of the Winton Foundation for the Welfare of Bears, who won Charity Professional of the Year in 2017, Jenny Bunting who received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018 for her work with greyhound welfare and one of Wild Welfare’s trustees, Dr Heather Bacon, who in 2016 won the Chris Laurence Vet of the Year Award.
The CEVA awards recognise the huge amount of work there is to be done globally to improve animal welfare and uses the event to shine a light on the dedicated passion of individuals and teams in making welfare change.
~ENDS~
For more information or interview requests please contact Wild Welfare on communications@wildwelfare.org
Wild Welfare is a global organisation committed to improving animal welfare for captive wild animals. By uniting the world’s leading zoos, zoo associations and animal welfare organisations, we build trusting partnerships that help provide long-term solutions to critical wild animal welfare issues.
Our vision is to end the suffering of captive wild animals around the world and ensure full and sustainable protection is given to all animals in human care. Find out more at www.wildwelfare.org. Registered charity in England (no.1165941).
Image © Wild Welfare: Charity director Georgina Groves.
Ensuring robust animal welfare laws post-Brexit
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Enforex - Salamanca
If you find this site helpful, please tell a friend!
http://www.enforex.com
Students Referred: 1197
view evaluations | rate school
Instructions & Pricing
Levels: Beginner to Intermediate
School Size: Medium
Deposit or Fee: US $100.00
- Hourly Cost: US $36.00
Class Instruction
- Class Size: 5 to 9 students
- Hours per Week: 18
- Weekly Cost: US $100 - $199
- Min. Weeks Study: 2
Live w/ Family
Share Apartment
Private Apartment
Internet at School
Excursions (fees)
Teen Programs, DELE Preparation, Instituto Cervantes
Learn Spanish in Spain, a country that offers everything you could possibly look for in a place to live: good weather, a vibrant social life, excellent cuisine, friendly inhabitants, rich culture and traditions, a fascinating history, and a varied landscape from the lush mountains of the north to the beautiful beaches of the Mediterranean.
Spanish has grown over the past decades to become the most popular and widely spoken language in the western world, bar English. With statistics like these it is easy to understand why one might choose to learn Spanish in Spain. Close to half a billion people speak it as their first language, with a population close to that of the United States speaking a variety of forms across South America and just short of 50 million people in Spanish speaking the peninsular strand.
While different environments, heritages and political alignments have evolved into different accents and vocabularies both within each of the Spanish-speaking countries and, most markedly, from one country to another, standard Spanish (as in the traditional sort developed in the kingdom of Castile over the course of centuries) still remains the overwhelmingly dominating material underpinning all forms of modern Spanish, to the point where the rule is common understanding between people stemming from places as distant as Argentina and Catalonia, for instance, with the occasional instances of incomprehension standing out as recurrent but utterly solvable exceptions.
NOTE: students should verify details with school in case they have changed since this listing was last modified.
More language schools in Spain
Return to the Spanish Language Schools Directory
Popular Phrase: abcs in spanish | Conjugated Verb: hospitalizar - to hospitalize [ click for full conjugation ]
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Publisher: HarperCollins e-books
Once again, #1 New York Times bestselling author Julia Quinn transports her readers to historical romance heaven! Quinn’s Just Like Heaven is the dazzling first installment of a delightful quartet of Regency Era-set tales featuring the romantic exploits of the well-meaning but less-than-accomplished Smythe-Smith musicians—in this case, a beautiful violinist in the pitiful group who has her sights set on marrying the last unwed Bridgerton…unless her handsome, love-struck guardian has anything to say about it. Bridgerton fans will cry, “Encore!”—as will every reader who adores England’s Regency period and great love stories that are smart, witty, and lighthearted.
Julia Quinn started writing her first book one month after finishing college and has been tapping away at her keyboard ever since. The #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than two dozen...
Her Wanton Wager
Grace Callaway
A Wager She Can't Afford to Lose
When her brother falls into the clutches of gamester Gavin Hunt, feisty heiress Persephone Fines will do whatever it takes to save him. Hunt offers her an outrageous proposition: he will release her brother … if she can resist six nights of seduction. Can she withstand the scoundrel's wicked charm—and the shocking desire he rouses with each touch?
A Bet He's Determined to Win
A product of London's violent stews, Gavin Hunt has clawed his way to success and power. Now he will stop at nothing to achieve his life-long goal: revenge upon the man who betrayed him. He plans to seduce his enemy's sister … but doesn't count on losing his heart. Will he give up his need for vengeance—or risk forsaking the only woman he's ever loved?
From Six Nights ... to Forever
As the battle of the sexes rages on and seduction flares into uncontrollable passion, Gavin and Percy must also fight a hidden enemy. Only by trusting one another can they defeat the threats of past and present. In this high-stakes game of love versus sin, what will be the outcome of … Her Wanton Wager?
Length: Full-length novel
Sensuality: This is a hot historical romance with sizzling love scenes
The Mayhem in Mayfair series (hot historical Regency romance):
Book 1: Her Husband's Harlot
Book 2: Her Wanton Wager
Book 3: Her Protector's Pleasure
Book 4: Her Prodigal Passion
The Heart of Enquiry series (hot historical Regency romance):
Prequel Novella: The Widow Vanishes
Book 1: The Duke Who Knew Too Much
Book 2: M is for Marquess
Chronicles of Abigail Jones (hot historical paranormal romance):
Book 1: Abigail Jones
Foreplay - The Ivy Chronicles
Pepper has been hopelessly in love with her best friend's brother, Hunter, for, like, ever. He's the key to everything she's always craved: security, stability, family. But she needs Hunter to notice her as more than just a friend. Even though she's kissed exactly one guy, she has the perfect plan to go from novice to rock star in the bedroom: take a few pointers from someone who knows what he's doing.
Her college roommates have the perfect teacher in mind. But bartender Reece is nothing like the player Pepper expects. Yes, he's beyond gorgeous, but he's also dangerous and deep—with a troubled past. Soon what started as a lesson in attraction is turning both their worlds upside down, and showing them just what can happen when you go past foreplay and get to what's real. . . .
A Perfect Bride
Samantha James
The incomparable USA Today bestseller Samanth James cordially invites you to Regency England for a Sterling affair . . .
Perfectly Marvelous
Devon St. James must surely be dreaming! She closes her eyes in London's poorest slum, and awakens wrapped in fine linens . . . staring into the eyes of the most gorgeous man she has ever seen! Sebastian Sterling, marquess of Thurston, is clearly shocked to have a girl from the streets in his bed, though the heat of the desire burning in his gaze is unmistakable. But if he believes Devon will easily submit, he is quite mistaken!
What the devil has he done? It's bad enough their family is already mired in scandal, now Sebastian has to deal with the exquisite young beauty in rags he had impetuously carried into his home! Worse still, the lady is driving the serious, responsible marquess to distraction with her fiery spirit and breathtaking sensuality. But perhaps, just perhaps, with some of Sebastian's private schooling, this low-born enchantress can learn refinement and manners—and be miraculously transformed from merely his passionate obsession into . . .
Protecting Tanner Hollow - Four...
Four nail-biting novellas in one!Lethal HomecomingNolan Tanner never got over Kallie Ainsworth's sudden, unexplained departure. Now when he comes to her rescue after an attempt on her life, all the old feelings come rushing back.Lethal ConspiracyWhen professional fundraiser Lillian Maloney sees her father's campaign manager commit murder, she goes on the run from the men he hires to kill her. A close call brings firefighter Jason Tanner to the rescue, but the killer is closing in . . . Lethal SecretsSomeone wants Honor McBride dead. When Eli Murphy helps her change a flat tire and discovers the danger Honor is in, he longs to help--but Eli has secrets of his own that could get them all killed.Lethal AgendaWhen Detective Derek St. John rescues a woman he's met only once before--and has never been able to forget--he finds himself falling for her. But he'll have to keep Claire Montgomery alive if they're to have a future together.
Everyone in society knows that the marriage of Lord and Lady Hammond is an unhappy one. Everyone knows they have barely spoken to one another in over nine years. But what no-one in society knows are the reasons why ...
Lady Viola Courtland was a romantic and impulsive young girl when she fell instantly in love with the handsome and dashing Viscount Hammond. Unbeknownst to Viola, John Hammond had already given his heart to the only woman he would ever love—his cousin's wife—but he was in dire financial straits and desperately needed to marry a wealthy heiress. In Viola, he thought he had found the perfect woman—beautiful and rich with a sweet nature. But Viola was neither practical nor sensible when it came to marriage, for she fully expected her husband to love her and was determined to settle for nothing less. Soon, however, John's secret was unwittingly revealed, but by then they were married and it was too late. Until one day, John finally came to his senses and prayed it wasn't too late to win back the love of his very own wife.
The Way to a Duke's Heart - The...
Historical romance readers can’t wait to learn The Truth about the Duke, Caroline Linden’s wonderful series about three English brothers on a quest to restore their family name, seek their fortunes, and find true love. The Way to a Duke’s Heart is the thrilling final chapter, as a charming, pleasure-seeking nobleman takes on the serious business of uncovering a blackmailer, and enlists the help of a beautiful, no-nonsense businesswoman who, against her better judgment, finds herself falling for the rake. A RITA Award-nominated author who, as Julia Quinn says, “touches every emotion,” Caroline Linden once again demonstrates why she is a true fan favorite, especially for those who adore the exciting romantic adventures of Liz Carlyle and Elizabeth Boyle.
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Author, columnist Sam de Brito..
Author, columnist Sam de Brito found dead
Fairfax columnist and author Sam de Brito has been found dead, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.
He was found dead in his North Bondi home this morning.
Family say they ‘await the results of a Coroner’s report’.
De Brito, 46, wrote a regular column called All Men Are Liars for Fairfax publications including The Age since 2006.
He also wrote five books, including The Lost Boys.
‘Sam, 46, has revelled in parenthood and was a wonderful and devoted father to his young daughter, Anoushka,’ his family said in a statement.
‘He will also be remembered as a loving son, brother, nephew, uncle, cousin and friend, as well as a distinguished columnist and author.’
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Honda reveals the specs and final production form of the Honda e
The compact EV will have a range of up to 136 miles.
The Honda e has been fully revealed in its final production form and it looks like they've built the perfect electric city car. The Honda e will be available in two power options: 134 hp or 151 hp and both will produce 232 lb-ft of torque. 0-62 will happen in 8 seconds and its 35.5kWh battery will have a total range of about 136 miles. As for charging, the car will have fast-charging capability and can get to 80% capacity in just 30 minutes.
You'll also find a wide array of tech with features like a Side Camera Mirror System that does away with traditional side-view mirrors and instead gives you that view via two six-inch screens inside the car. Additional features include pop-out door handles, a five-screen full-width digital dashboard, and an AI-powered Honda Personal Assistant.
The Honda e will only be available in Europe and is now availabe for pre-order in the UK, Germany, France, and Norway.
honda.co.uk
Honda EEVCity CarsHondaElectric Cars
Honda's e Prototype brings a better look at their retro-inspired EV
The new prototype builds on the well-received 2017 Urban EV Concept.
Aston Martin reveals the production-ready, limited edition Rapide E
The super sedan gets an all-electric upgrade.
Fisker teases the production version of its EMotion EV
The Tesla-fighter is said to have a 400 mile range.
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Mexico the Cookbook
Phaidon delivers what may be the definitive cookbook on a cuisine many of us (especially you Californians out there) can't get enough of, and that's a good plate of Mexican food:
"Mexico: The Cookbook is the definitive bible of home-cooking from Mexico. With a culinary history dating back 9,000 years, Mexican food draws influences from Aztec and Mayan Indians and is renowned for its use of fresh aromatic ingredients, colorful presentations and bold food combinations.
The book features more than 700 delicious and authentic recipes that can be easily recreated at home. From tamales, fajitas, and moles to cactus salad, blue crab soup, and melon seed juice, the recipes are a celebration of the fresh flavors and ingredients from a country whose cuisine is revered around the world.
Organized by food type/style (Street Food, Starters, Drinks, Fish and Seafood, Meat and Poultry, Vegetables, Pulses and Rice, and Dessert), Mexico: The Cookbook also includes an extensive introduction to Mexican culinary history, ingredients, and techniques, while a Chef Menu section proffers inspirational recipes and menus by some of the world's most prominent Mexican chefs."
$50 (Oct), Phaidon
PhaidonBooks
Phaidon takes a comprehensive look at Stateside cuisine with America: The Cookbook
Almost eight-hundred pages of our nation's best dishes.
China: The Cookbook delivers a comprehensive crash course on authentic Chinese cuisine
650 pages of some of the world's most beloved dishes.
The Photographer's Cookbook
An incredible collection of some of the most iconic photographers and their favorite recipes.
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FJ Company reveals its new collaboration with menswear designer, Todd Snyder
The special edition features custom color and interior options hand-selected by Todd Snyder.
Bring a Trailer launches its Plus and White Glove services
The new services help sellers improve the quality of their listings.
You can now skip the line for an Icon Bronco...for a price, of course
It's going to cost you more, but it'll be helping a good cause.
Bugatti sheds some light on one of the most valuable cars of all time
The Bugatti Atlantic Chassis no. 57 453 hasn't been seen since 1938.
Petrolicious is launching their first magazine with their new membership program
The new subscription service launches this April.
BMW Classic adds a rare 1600 GT to its collection
The car took seven years to restore.
Porsche's second RS 2.7 Prototype is going up for sale later this month
Signal Gold never looked sexier.
Formawerx has created the ultimate key for vintage Porsche drivers
A key worthy of one of the most iconic cars in automotive history.
Aston Martin's DP215 joins one of the most incredible car auctions this year
The car was the first to break 186 mph at Le Mans.
Bonhams announces the sale of one of the most coveted Ferraris in the world
Many consider the 1962 250 GT SWB one of the greatest sports cars of all time.
One of the three Paris-Dakar Porsche 959s is going up for sale
The sale will coincide with Porsche's 70th Anniversary celebrations.
Mecum adds a stunning 1958 Porsche 550A to its Monterey Auction
The rare race car won 3 titles during the 1958 racing season.
This 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO is expected to fetch more than $45 million dollars at auction
The car will go up for sale this August at RM's Monterey auction.
Peter Sellers' 1961 Aston Martin DB4GT is going up for sale this fall
One of the finest examples of the coveted grand tourer.
East Coast Defender reveals its re-imagined Range Rover Classic
The first car is based on a 1995 long wheelbase model.
This jaw-dropping 1957 Ferrari 250 GT 'TDF' is coming to RM's Monaco auction
The 15th of 17 examples.
Cars from Caroll Shelby's personal collection are going up for sale this summer
24 cars from his personal collection will be available.
Pirelli launches a tire worthy of the most expensive classic car in the world
The new Stelvio Corsa tire will be fitted to the Ferrari 250 GTO.
Bonhams announces the sale of John Surtees' single-owner BMW 507
Purchased new in 1957.
Voitures Extravert is converting vintage 911s into all-electric cars
The conversion will be available for '70s and '80s 911s.
Land Rover is restoring one of its first cars for its 70th Anniversary
This original launch vehicle was missing for 63 years.
RM Sotheby's announces the 'Exclusively Porsche - The 964 Collection' auction
Said to be one of the most extensive and exclusive collections of 964s in the world.
Barrett-Jackson is putting the first ever Shelby GT350 up for auction
The car is a pre-production prototype.
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Search Results for 'LGBT culture'
Soul in the Blue
SOUL IN The Blue, a DJ night of some of the finest soul and funk ever made, returns to The Blue Note this Saturday from 9pm.
CURFEW @ The Cellar
CURFEW, THE new DJ night at The Cellar Bar, Eglinton Street, returns for 2012 this Saturday with doors at 10pm.
Seminar to highlight needs of older LGBT community
Kilkenny Advertiser / NewsFri, Nov 04, 2011
In preparation for 2012’s “European Year of Active Aging”, an innovative new seminar has been organised to explore ways to ensure that older Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) people have the best possible opportunities for living a positive and active life.
MUSIK @ Kelly’s
THIS SATURDAY will see the launch of MUSIK, the new club night in Kelly’s, Bridge Street, which will feature new and vintage hip hop, soul, disco, house, electronic, and indie.
Silent disco for Galway children and teens this Saturday
Galway Advertiser / NewsThu, Oct 14, 2010
A silent disco is some of the best fun you can have, but while they are held regularly for adults, children should get to enjoy this unique experience as well.
After the phenomenal response to their first house classics party earlier this year, Disconauts Padraic & Keith are going back to their roots again this Saturday 9 October in Deeper with a selection of house, disco, proto-house (and perhaps even pop) anthems from the vaults that have helped form the Disconauts' sound and indeed the sound of today's house music.
Twenty-first Galway Pride Festival to begin today
Mayor of Galway Michael Crowe will launch the 21st consecutive celebration of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Pride today (Thursday). The festival will run from today until Sunday with celebrations from sporting events to art exhibitions, and the annual Pride festival, taking place around the city.
Galway LGBT group Amach! is striving to build a society of inclusiveness
Galway Advertiser / NewsThu, Jul 22, 2010
Galway has changed considerably since the eighties and early nineties when Nuala Ward, the chair of new Galway lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) group Amach! says she and her colleagues were met with indifference, fear and a lack of understanding.
Gay community host ‘Stand Up’ sports day
Kilkenny Advertiser / NewsFri, Apr 09, 2010
'Stand Up' is an awareness week beginning Friday April 9 to 18. This week has been developed by BelongTo which is a national LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) youth organisation which works to combat homophobia in young people.
Mayo Advertiser / NewsFri, Apr 09, 2010
A disco will be held in the Arts Centre, Charlestown on Saturday April 10 from 5pm to 7pm.
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1010 S Pearl Expy, Dallas, TX 75201, USA
| +1 214-748-8900
Photo courtesy of Pecan Lodge
BBQ Worth the Wait at Pecan Lodge
The lines are long (expect to wait at least an hour) at this young barbecue joint tucked inside the Dallas Farmers' Market—but the tender, perfectly smoked meats are worth the wait says Daniel Vaugh, barbecue editor of Texas Monthly. "They have incredible brisket and giant beef ribs," he says. Watch for a brick-and-mortar outpost slated to open this spring—menu standbys like bacon-and-chile-flecked mac and the "trough" meat-sampler, pictured here, are sure to make an appearance.
By Jen Murphy , AFAR Contributor
Lindsey Chandler
Eat Texas' Best BBQ at Pecan Lodge
There is a reason that this BBQ joint inside of the Dallas Farmer’s Market usually has a line wrapping and winding around the entire length of the shed: it’s been ranked as the No. 2 BBQ place in the state by Texas Monthly and the No. 9 'Best Restaurant' in the city of Dallas by D Magazine. The line is absolutely worth it. Make some friends while you are waiting and then enjoy brisket, pork ribs and bacon topped mac 'n' cheese that will leave you so full and satisfied you may feel like you don’t need another meal for days.
Flash Parker
AFAR Ambassador
Check in at the Pecan Lodge
The Pecan Lodge has a reputation for being one of the best barbecue joints in Dallas, and the line at the Farmers Market to prove it.
I didn't have time to wait in line, but ran into a few friendly folk that willingly shared their take with me. I'm not sure that I'd be so generous in their position; the food at this joint is outrageously delicious. Get in line early, and come hungry. I suggest you try the Hot Mess, then find someplace to have a nap.
Bronwen Gregory
AFAR Local Expert
Dallas' Deep Ellum BBQ Bliss
This family owned, indoor and outdoor BBQ and Southern food heaven on Main Street and Pryor Street in the Deep Ellum district of Dallas is almost too delicious to believe. Once only a staple at the Dallas Farmer's Market, the demand grew to be so huge for their food made from scratch and local resources that they launched the restaurant in spring of 2014.
You'll be sure to arrive and find a serious wait to get in and order, but the waiting is half the fun. Your'e allowed to order drinks while you wait and there's more often than not, live music on the back porch that you can hear while you wait.
Here are their smoking and serving hours, but do know they often run out of items on the daily menu (or everything) before closing hours. This is a great, outdoor dining spot in the heart of Deep Ellum that has you thinking you're tucked away somewhere in the starry Hill Country backroads, instead of the heart of downtown Dallas.
Tuesday through Thursday 11 AM to 3 PM.
Friday and Saturday from 11 AM- 10 PM.
Sunday from 11 AM to 3 PM.
Farah Fleurima
Among the Finest BBQ in the Lone Star State
The line coursing through the Dallas Farmers Market says it all: There's some serious food here. Folks queue up early for some epic 'cue, and Pecan Lodge, with a slew of accolades, is among the best in the city, even earning top honors from Texas Monthly magazine. Get there early, or grab a few friends and order a mess of the housemade sausage, tender brisket and smoky ribs to share. Ordering the crispy-outside-moist-inside burnt ends is a must—unless they've already run out!
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CALL +64 9 360 1990
Francesca Rudkin
Retail, Corporate, mid-low range
Francesca Rudkin has been voicing television and radio commercials, television documentaries ( DO OR DIE -Lost at Sea, Lost in the Bush), TV series (Towies Emergency) and TV Promos (Nivea and Sex in the City), and radio shows for over 20years. Francesca is the voice of Rialto Channel on Sky TV, and over the last 18 months has become the go to fill in host for Newstalk ZB's Jack Tame's Saturday show and Weekend Collective, and has just completed 7 months hosting the Sunday Session. Francesca is also a well known film reviewer, writing for NZ Herald's Timeout magazine, and contributes to Jack Tame's Newstalk show. She is also an accomplished TV producer and presenter.
Main Reel
Phone +64 9 360 1990 Email info@wom.co.nz
Phone +64 9 360 1990 Email » info@wom.co.nz
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Dear Jed: Apology Rejected
By Jeff Kaplan
I've got to admit it, Jed. You almost had me going there.
Nice touch, that "apology" of yours. "This past year was frustrating on many levels for 49ers fans," you wrote. "For that, I want to apologize to you and everyone that cares deeply about this team."
And then, at the podium, you stepped right up and doubled down: "This season wasn't fun. It wasn't fun for me, it certainly wasn't fun for the fans, and I truly am sorry that we had to go through this year."
Even some of your harshest critics were impressed. "He acted with contrition and humility," said one. "He acted the right way. He acted like the man he needs to become."
And even I myself was tempted. As I said, you almost had me going there.
But then I realized, we've been here before.
Let me tell you a story, Jed. It had been a dark time for the Niners. In only a few short years, they'd gone from powerhouse to laughingstock. They had a poor roster that had been poorly coached, but the issue went much deeper than that. After a series of dubious ownership decisions, the Niners—organizationally—lacked any shred of credibility. The fans, purportedly "Faithful" or no, expressed the one doubt that makes owners quake: they doubted whether the owners even wanted to win.
So as the fresh young face of the ownership group, you stepped up to put that doubt to rest. With every ounce of your conviction, you put it in no uncertain terms: "I promise I won't rest until we reestablish a championship culture."
And the fans, as desperate and foolish as fans often are, believed you.
That was eight years ago.
Now let's fast-forward to yesterday, and let's see if this sounds familiar, Jed. It had been a dark time for the Niners. In only a few short years, they'd gone from powerhouse to laughingstock. A poor roster, sure, but a coaching staff that was the league's worst by a country mile, led by the most poorly-equipped head coach ever. And organizationally, the Niners lacked any shred of credibility. The fans, purportedly "Faithful" or no, expressed the same doubt: they doubted whether the owners even wanted to win.
So though neither as fresh nor nearly as young, you stepped up to put that doubt to rest. With every ounce of your conviction, you put it in no uncertain terms: "I want this team to win. Nobody wants this team to win more than I do. And I'm going to work at it every day to make sure that we get back where we belong." You even went so far as to add the classic huckster's favorite line: "You can trust me."
Some fans, as desperate and foolish as fans often are, will again believe you. But dare I say, the smart ones won't.
Oh, don't get me wrong. If you know nothing else—and, by now, it's clear that you might—you know how to deliver a speech. And sure enough, "nobody wants to win more than I do" is at least as stirring as "championship culture." But you can't erase those years in between. And it's those years that prove it. You're lying again.
As the press more or less pointed out, you already had a championship culture. Despite his faults—many of which I've detailed here—Jim Harbaugh produced one immediately. If nobody wanted to win more than you, then you should've kept Harbaugh. Or, upon firing Harbaugh, you should've hired someone who, at least theoretically, could've won just as much.
Instead, you hired Jim Tomsula.
Yesterday, you were asked to explain. "In terms of Jimmy T.," you said, speaking as if Tomsula were some kind of mob-enforcer, "we took a chance on somebody that we believed strongly in, certainly his character, his leadership ability, what he was able to do, and ultimately that didn't work out, and I feel like, watching what my uncle did, watching what my grandfather did, you have to learn from mistakes, you have to learn from failure, and we didn't get this one right."
So let's unpack this. You "believed strongly" that Tomsula could produce wins at a Harbaugh-like rate, in light of "his character," "his leadership ability," and "what he was able to do." These, of course, are lies. We're talking about a coach who couldn't articulate a coherent sentence, let alone a coherent vision. Do you actually expect me to think, for a single second, that you interviewed Tomsula and came away "believing strongly" in "his leadership ability"? Believing that Tomsula would win more than Harbaugh?
It's possible, I guess. But there are two possibilities, and only two. One is that you actually did, in which case you're a complete idiot. The other is that you actually didn't, in which case, despite what you just told us, you don't care about winning, or at least you don't care nearly enough. I subscribe to the latter view, if only because you seem much more conniving than dumb. But in the end, it doesn't matter. In either case, you're totally unfit for your job.
Which brings us back to your purported "contrition and humility."
As I'm sure you know, there's a P.R. tactic known as a "non-apology apology." Here's what Wikipedia says: "A non-apology apology is a statement that has the form of an apology but does not express the expected contrition. It is common in both politics and public relations. It most commonly entails the speaker saying that he or she is sorry not for a behavior, statement or misdeed, but rather is sorry only because a person who has been aggrieved is requesting the apology, expressing a grievance, or is threatening some form of retribution or retaliation."
And this, in fact, is what you did. Faced not only with the fans' grievances, but also with their threatened retaliation (and even their actual retaliation, if you consider those rows and rows of empty seats), you said you were sorry. But specifically, you said you were sorry "that we had to go through this year." As if this year was just bad luck.
No, Jed. You didn't have to go through this year; you chose to go through this year. For God's sake, don't you realize what you've done? Eight years ago, you asked us to stick with you as you reestablished a championship culture. We did, and then you did; we joined you on the long, slow climb up the mountain, and then we finally reached the summit. And then, out of some fit of self-righteous pique, you simply threw it all away. And now that we're down at the bottom again, you've got the gall—the absolute gall—to ask us to stick with you again. To trust you. Because, hey, no one wants to win more than you.
Forget it, Jed. It's too late. You can hire whomever you want; now that you know that you must make a splash, I'm sure that you'll go after all the big names. (I'm not sure why any of them would work for you—after all, look how you treated the last big name—but who knows, one of them might.) But I invested in you, and you punished me for it. I simply refuse to invest again.
Especially because, as it turns out, I don't need you.
This season, for the first time in 35 years, I didn't watch the Niners play. I kept tabs on them, enough to know that you'd succeeded in dragging them back to oblivion. But thanks to you, I didn't invest in them. I didn't invest any time, money, labor, or love. I invested those in other interests, which deserved them more. And, again, thanks to you, I didn't miss the Niners at all.
But it was actually even more than that. I celebrated each embarrassing loss. I treasured each empty stadium-seat. Any failure that you could suffer, I wished for you to suffer it. And no matter whom you hire next, I still will wish you to suffer it. For what you did to this glorious team—for turning the league's greatest franchise into one of its very most pathetic—I will wish you to suffer.
And so it's hit me, a truth that I'd been running from but now can simply no longer escape. I'm no longer a Niner fan.
And this site, I know, is for Niner fans.
I've been so honored to have this platform these last seven years. Reaching thousands of you every week was an incredible thrill. And receiving your feedback, whether it was positive, negative, or just plain nutty—Lucky Phil, I'm looking in your general direction—was incredibly gratifying. All in all, this site has given me some of the best times I've ever had.
Thank you, David, for this great opportunity. And thank you, dear readers, for all your support. I won't miss Jed. But I will miss you.
And, indeed, you can trust me.
By: Dan b
Date: Feb 2, 2016 at 5:26 AM
Comment: Fair winds and following seas. I always enjoyed your articles and felt like you could articulate my doubts and frustrations better than I. It's sad to see you go. You will be missed.
By: Lucky Phil
Date: Jan 31, 2016 at 2:49 PM
Comment: Questions I ask myself. 1) What happened to Brandon Thomas? Did he get shot in a drive-by? 2) What happened to Jimmy T? I think I saw him at Subways rolling meatballs, can anyone confirm that? Please don't let that Son Of A Bitch roll the meatballs! 3) What happened at Chipotle? I went to lunch their last week, I can't step away from the toilet for longer than 5 minutes. I hear they are closing their doors for two hours in Feb. to "Discuss the Menu". After I heard that their stock price jumped 10%. 4) Who the f$#k is voting for Trump!!? You motherphuckers should be deported! 5) Sarah Palin?? WTF is she talking about!! 6) Hillary Clinton xxo. With an ass like that you know she's getting Kanye's vote. 7) What's the beef with Kanye and Wiz Khalifa, anyway? Can't us black people all just get along? Wait a minute I'm not black, I don't care. 8) When do the Oscars start? 9) Why did Kim Karadashian take an x-ray of her ass? She should get a CAT scan of her forehead and prove to me her brain isn't fake. 10) Why is Flint, Michigan drinking brown tap water? And who the hell told them that water was OK? Shit, My toilet water looks better than that. 11) God Damn what happened to my country?
By: NinerTy
Date: Jan 27, 2016 at 9:10 AM
Comment: Thanks for saving us from having to read and hear your whiny crap about a team you claimed to support. When you support a team, which evidently is called being a fan, you ride and die with that team. You are not the owner, GM, or anyone else in administration. So, you live with the moves they make. But you want to win now! And if you don't, you will take your ball and go home! Good! Because when the Niners start to win again we won't have to deal with your little WHINY ASS!!!
By: EastCoast9er
Comment: Round of applause
By: Hayward Niner fan
Comment: I can't believe I wasted time reading this article. Fan is short for fanatic and you are not that. Glad you are done being a "fan." There are 31 other teams that can read your pointless articles.
By: Dallas Niner Fan
Comment: Yea, I have a great joke. 9ers management.
Comment: Does anyone have a good joke? Your not helping me out here. Well hell, you know what that means. I'll have another dumb joke, tommorrow, then.
Date: Jan 15, 2016 at 12:48 PM
Comment: I'd also like to say, for people that misunderstand me, Chip is miles ahead of Jimmy T. Jimbo was the fat kid standing on the railroad tracks, waiting for the train. Think about it. For those of you that are a little slow, you might might want to count the seconds. You might surprise yourself today! On second thought just don't catch any [email protected]%[email protected] trains!
Comment: My impression of Chip Kelly coaching the Eagles this year was a fat kid standing on railroad tracks playing "Don't Blink" with a locomotive... You Win Chip!
Comment: Memorable Embraces of 2016 1. El Chapo "Hugging Sean Penn was like squeezing a bag of love in a field of burning cow dung". 2. Jed York "Hugging Chip Kelly is like squeezing a bag of S#$! Until it overflows with warmth and joy". 3. Chip Kelly "Hugging Jed York is like holding a flaccid penis, you just want to choke it to death because it's so useless". 4. Trent Baalke's wife "Hugging Trent Baalke is like squeezing a baseball bat, solid and dependable, and if I could snap his neck over my knee I would". 5. 49er Fans "Embracing the Niners is like Face Palming yourself with a bag of a horse s#$!"
Date: Jan 14, 2016 at 11:31 AM
Comment: Niners screw up again, hire Kelly.
By: Nick
Comment: I have been a Niner fan since 1981 and have seen and witnessed many niner memories good and bad. But I can relate with Jeff's article as I have now become non emotional about my beloved team. IMO the saddest day in niner history was Eddie stepping down as Owner and the York's taking over and ruining this once proud franchise. Nothing has changed with this team by firing Tomsula as he is simply the latest scapegoat with Baalke still employed as GM. I too have not seen the Niners play this season and have not invested my time and money on this team anymore. In sincere apologies are just that I reach out to other Niner faithful to not spend any more time and money on this team until real changes happen and it starts with the Yorks and their "yes man" Baalke.
By: Matot Maiocco
Comment: In un-related news, Geep Chryst met with Baalke for his exit interview. Sources say the meeting went well. During the meeting Geep asked Trent, "How did I do?" Baalke's reply was, "Well, Your performance as OC has been consistent, in 1999 your Chargers ranked 30th in the league in offense, in 2000 - 29th and last yr. 31st in total offense. "Exactly" replied Geep. After a short 5 min meeting, Geep Chryst has accepted the position of HC for the S.F Forty-Niners.
By: Matt Maiocco
Comment: For over six hours Lucky Phil has been in a meeting with the S.F Forty-Niners. Sources say Baalke has been impressed with Lucky's stamina, he has been kicking Jed in the ass for over two hours.
By: Blue Balls In Minnesota
Comment: Ooh Shit.
By: Mr. Potato
Comment: Feels good not to be a Bengals Fan
By: Seahawks Fan
Date: Jan 8, 2016 at 6:44 PM
Comment: Don't bet against the Seahawks this weekend in Minnesota. When asked about the frigid weather in the northern state, Russell Wilson said, "Don't worry, I play better in cold weather". When Seahawks center, Patrick Lewis was asked why Russell is so confident, he replied, "Russell's big hands will help with the freezing temps ... but my balls still feel ice cold".
Comment: To quote Neil Armstrong, "One small bowel movement for Lucky Phil, One humongous pile of [email protected]$# for mankind". Think about it, Jed. You need a big swinging dick in Santa Clara. And no one swings a bigger dick than me. Just get out of my way. LOL
Comment: A short note to Jed. Hi there. Nice to see you at the comment boards, again. Now, there are some people that question my sincerity or senility, ok, but no one can question my passion for the Niners. They are my crack cocaine! I can't live without it. I tried but I just can't do it. So, Here's my reason for the note. Jed.You're going to Kill Me. You're seriously going to kill me. If we hire another Sing or Jimbo that's it I'm done! This team is killing Lucky Phil! Ok, so I'm offering my services for free. I can help, I know I joke around, but trust me I have keen eye for talent and I have a brilliant strategic mind. And I'm offering you my services for free. Yes, Free. I'm bringing my talent to Santa Clara. Just send an email to Kaplan, he knows how to get a hold of me. Follow me boys, I'm one bowel movement ahead of the curve.
Comment: For those of you fans wondering when ESPN would make a 30 for 30 documentary on the Niners changing of guard from "Jim to Him?". They are in production now. The working title is The Flaccid Penis and the Fluffer: The Rise and Fall of Jed York.
Comment: A prerequisite for the next Head Coach of out beloved S.F Forty-Niners. 1) Lets make sure he can breathe through his nose. Maybe Jed can crawl across his desk and pinch our prospective HC's nose for a minute. If he can't use his nose, he's probably brain dead. We don't want that. 2) Does he believe God will show him the way? No, God will not show you the way! I want I guy that walks on water and shits gold bricks. I want a God, not a follower of Bullshit. 3) How do you lead a team? 4) How do you win respect? 5) Show me creativity and excellence. 6) Name a coach you worked with that you admire, what did you learn? 7) Who do you want to QB this team next year and why? 8) Are you another flaccid penis in the room or can we expect something more. 9) Drop your pants ... and Bend Over! Jed give me a call your too damn stupid to get this right.
By: 49ersJimmy
Date: Jan 8, 2016 at 7:29 AM
Comment: Mr. Kaplan, I hope this is not your last post. You have been my favorite writer on this website. But good luck and don't give up your love for the 49ers!
By: Fresh
Comment: Spot on article, but I dont agree w not being a fan anymore. But the thing is I dont have to. Its his choice, good for you for being honest. Wish you would still write articles but I get it, best of luck.
By: sanfran49erfan
Comment: I can empathize with this article, because I too "quit" on the niners this year. I no longer watched the games or gave more than a flirting glance towards them after around week 5. The ownership threw my team away and if they weren't going to try, I wasnt investing. I'm nit gone for good, but this is the first year, ever, I didn't even realize it was the end of the year. Jedi York has made me not care, and that's frightening...
By: Terry B.
Comment: Right, CJS, you moron. A real fan is someone who celebrates while the owner runs the team into the ground, fires successful coaches, and hires people like Mike Singletary and Jim Tomsula that no other team would even dream of making a head coach. Someone who cheerleads moves like that, now THAT's a real fan. Idiot.
By: Niner fan no more??
Comment: You are getting a rough rap for saying how you feel in this article, but there have to be many more just like you out there. We need to ask, "what really is a fan?" I have loved the Niners since I was 10 years old but I found myself caring less and less this year what happened to them as a team. I have reached the point where I no longer allow myself to get emotionally invested in the team. I can' t do that to myself anymore. I can't care so much about something that someone else (York) is destroying. I can't invest my time, energy, or money into that, because if I do then I am rewarding Jed. I will read the headlines, I will follow all of their roster moves, I will follow their players performance, I will follow the teams successes and failures....but i will not return to being a fan (and all that that entails) until Jed proves to all of us that he is finally going to do what it takes to make the 49ers a winner again.
Date: Jan 7, 2016 at 12:20 PM
Comment: cynic, I'm right there with you brother.
By: Paul
Date: Jan 7, 2016 at 11:07 AM
Comment: When they hired/promoted Jim T I was thinking you can't be serious. I feel for him, because a lot of players retired or were lost in free agency after he was hired. With the loss of talent it would have been hard for any coach to win 8 games. I give credit to York for a few things: 1) Realizing that Jim T can't turn this around, and not dragging this out for another year. 2) Hiring Jim Harbaugh York gets the blame for so many things: 1) Sticking by a GM rather than a great coach 2) Keeping a GM that is a big part of the current problem, 3) Leaking or not stopping the leaks. 4) Always talking about his uncle that seems to not be helping. 5) Never earning a real job. Jim Harbaugh is a strange and stubborn guy. His brother is more reasonable and doesn't wear out everybody as much. Jim Harbaugh hasn't won a championship in College or the NFL as a player or coach. I think his stubbornness will prevent him from a championship. If York can get someone that can turn around the team in a few years I'll feel he gets it, but for now I'm glad I have the NFL package so can switch around to watch interesting.
By: Zion Niner
Comment: Jeff, I couldn't agree more. The years after Mariucci were a joke, and it took a long, hard fight to get the pro bowl level roster we had when they hired Harbaugh. Three NFC championship games, a Superbowl, then an 8-8 season and he gets kicked to the curb. Wow. Oh, and then the "JimmieT" season. Wow. And now Jed wants us to rewind the clock again and be nice little fans. I don't think so. I'm still a huge fan, love watching them, etc, but I aint spending a dime on the York cash cow until I see some real changes. The Yorks and Baalke can take a hike. Go Niners!
By: Scott Bennett
Comment: Brutal Brutal Brutal and spot on in every sense of the words. Thanks
By: cynic
Comment: I'm still a fan but I agree with a lot of this. I stopped watching games this season, the first time I've ever really done that, mostly because it looked like the team has given up (punting from the 37 yd line with a tie game in the 4th???). I was also rooting for them to lose, to be embarrassed, for Jed to be a national laughingstock just so others would feel my pain. This is not a good place to be for anyone, especially a fan.
By: Taylor
Comment: For someone who doesn't "need" the 49ers that was quite the book. Seriously, I found this article to be an embarrassment for this website. Do I need 49erswebzone? Not really. But my family has been season ticket holders since 1973 and I have been attending games since I was five in 1974. We were fans before a single Lombardi graced the halls of the 49ers compound. And I watched every game this year. Some of them were damn good games. So cry me a river with your"I don't need you" BS. I don't watch for Jed York, I watch for Bowman, Staley, Boldin, and all the other men on the team I respect. This article is pathetic and nothing more than a pathetic crybaby rant of epic proportions. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out Kaplan. What a pathetic person you are to make this about you. No one will miss you, this is for sure. But the real fans will watch the games every year, just like I did as a young boy in the 70's before any legend and lore even existed.
By: CJS
Comment: "I'm no longer a Niner fan." We all realized this as soon as you started writing here, but it's taken you this long to catch on?
By: Tom
Comment: Thank god for small favors, at least we won't have to look at your whiny, crappy articles anymore.
By: Jan
Comment: I have always enjoyed your articles, Mr. Kaplan, whether I agreed with them or not. I, too, have been a Niners fan for many years -- long before the Montana era. And the Yorks have tried my very last nerve. I will always "keep an eye" on the Niners, but no longer will I live and die by how they play. That passion has been knocked out of me by Jed's ego-driven hogwash. Maybe he can fool some of the fans some of the time, but no longer this one. Good luck to you and good luck to the Niners. They're gonna need it.
By: JCC
Comment: I really do understand your frustration Mr. Kaplan. I wanted to walk away from watching the 49er games SO BAD this year but guess what? Couldn't do it. No matter how poorly they play, how totally inept their coaching and ownership is--at the end of the day, when you've been a 49er fan as long as I have, to see Jim Marshall run the wrong way for a "TD" and see Dallas trounce us in the 1970 NFC championship game, you DREAM that maybe some day Clark and Montana would hook up for the most iconic pass catch of all time. And then everything changes. Do you watch the 49ers only because you expect them to win another SB? Perhaps you should take a step back and think about how much pure JOY this franchise has given you and and all the rest of us football junkies since whenever.....just sayin'
By: Diluvs49ers
Comment: Well now that was quite a statement, Jeff. It is true Jed f-ed up BIG TIME, but to quit on the 49ers is NOT the answer. I hope the front office and owners pull their heads out of their asses and get back to what the Niners do best.....win games and put fans in the stands. #49faithful
By: kieth coster
Comment: Spoken like a true Seattle Seahawk fan, YOU Jeff won't be missed.
By: robert ethan
Comment: Aw, now Jed York won't be able to sleep at night. Someone named Jeff Kaplan rejected his apology.
By: George Cerda
Comment: I think I know where you're coming from. I'm not writing this in attempt to lure you back, although I'm sure, myself included, we'd love for you to stay. Sometimes you just cease to care for something anymore, the passions gone. Its truly unfortunate that your fandom didn't end on your own terms and for that I'm sorry. Wishing you all the best.
By: Edd
Comment: Jeff, respect your opinion and share your frustration, but: There are actually quite a few sports franchises worse than the 49ers. York is just a rich kid thrown into a position he wasn't qualified for, but that's life with the rich. I believe he is learning from mistakes, though they should never have been made. The Harbaugh situation was a mess, but I have to admit that Harbaugh's refusal to improve his offense may have contributed to his firing. Tomsula was probably a last resort after failue to hire one of the higher profile candidates. Owners are rich and they are never going to answer to you, the fan. If Jed really wants to win (and I believe this), you will see a good HC hire. Dont give up on the 49ers just yet.
By: Dan Waterman
Comment: Don't trust a word he said however, it was nice to see him eat a humble pie. The reason of my feeling is that the problem (Baalke) still exist, if Jed was sincere he should have cleaned the house like Detroit did. 49ers as a team has two basic problems. 1) John York (extremely miser/cheap person) 2) Jed York (an ego maniac). How this will be resolved only God knows.
By: BigandBold
Comment: Dear Jeff... This article, like Ivory soap, was 99 and 44/100 pure. Everything you wrote had merit - until you got to the part where you quit. Not a fan? Really? Maybe had you lived through the years between Brodie and Montana you'd be a bit tougher or have a truer frame of reference. Shame on you Jeff. Jed York is a liar. That's easy. Jim Tomsula is a buffoon. That's easy. Being "faithful" when the team is winning? Well, that 's easy too...
Comment: Can't say that I blame you one bit. I have been a Niner fan all of my life since YA Tittle. Now I feel like I want to throw up when I think about the Niner organization. I have actually rooted for the other team hoping that this back stabbing organization would fail and this nightmare would end. Jeff, we are really going to miss you. I respect your decision but, please reconsider for the simple fact that we need you more than ever to help us get through this nightmare. If you ever change your mind myself, Lucky Phil and the gang will welcome you back. Best of luck. hey Lucky, go cards.
By: Mike D
Comment: Dear Jeff, you almost got me there, until I realized most of your articles are mostly hate towards the Niners. Maybe your related to Ray Ratto
By: Jeff
Comment: I've been a fan of San Fran for as long as I can remember to my early childhood when Joe Cool was just being the man we now know he is today but I never give up and I never turn my back on the niners and my faithful brothers & sisters I will always be a faithful till the good lord calls me home and whoever they get I don't care because I will still be there day in and day out and the only thing you can really say is good about all this is that at least we ain't the Cowboys they haven't done shit since 1996 with a record of 152-152 . We at least came one pass away from winning are 6th Super Bowl and I know we will be back there again way before Dallas even plays a playoff game again so with that 49's Faithful till I die
By: VBN
Comment: Sorry, not sorry.
By: Iain tinney
Comment: I don't really know the York family personally, I've been a 49ers fan my whole life, I've had the good and the bad joe/Jerry/ Eddie/ Walsh years, the list goes on, I don't want to judge anyone but this year was hard I just hope changes can be made to make the 49ers play at the standard I hope they can. Always faithful .
By: Michael Roma
Comment: I totally agree with you on the whole Jed York is messing this team up. But to say your no longer a fan is disgraceful. I enjoy reading everyone's work about my beloved team but reading your last part is sad. But hey if your a true faithful you'll be back. We all say dumb things when we're mad.
By: Darrell G
Comment: Fair winds and following seas Jeff. Reading this made me realize I have also been a fan for 35 years. Since the Saints comeback game. Wish you would reconsider, but it is what it is.
By: Nick S.
Comment: You won't be missed Kaplan. You started out strong, but then you fell in love with the sound of your own voice and started writing yourself into every article. This last piece of fail is just the sad cherry on top. Please never come back.
By: LaMattsBlue
Comment: Don't let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya.
By: Chavans
Comment: It is always a pleasure to read your articles, Jeff. You are a very talented writer and deep thinker. You can see into the heart of issues and separate the wheat from the chaff. What you stated about JY is right on. He is incompetent and disingenuous. The team is a toy for him in addition to being a means of making money. Sometimes, rich people think they are entitled to do whatever they wish, just because they think no one can stop them. They forget, however, that the fans can stop them. The fans have power because they are the ones who buy the tickets that make the profits. If they stop buying and profits dive, a change in approach will be made, even though the owner's attitude may remain the same. You see and verbalize this reality so well. By writing articles like this, you can help bring about change in sports just as other writers do in politics. It helps us to see the king without his clothes on, and it also reveals that reality to the king.
By: BadgerHawk
Comment: Its the NFL- Not For Long
By: SoulfulDynasty49
Comment: To Jeff Kaplan, I have no idea how you got to be a writer for this column, other than the fact that an absolute idiot will be listened to or read by someone. And it doesn't mean that the writer makes sense or has a meaningful thought, which by the way, you don't! For you to turn your back on the team because they lost and YOU BELIEVE that the owner is a liar, I really wonder how your life is going? Why didn't you leave the country when Bush accused Saddam Hussein of having WMD's and all of the free world knew he didn't? Actually, it's not too late! Don't leave angry. Just leave!
By: Phil C.
Comment: Jeff, after you finish typing your "article" do you rub one out as you go back and read over it?
By: Todd
Comment: Yeah, the hell with Baalke and Jed York.
By: niner
Comment: funny how york was so pushy about harbaughs losing to Seattle but said nothing about Tomsula or baalke. he paid harbaugh 20 million for 3 championships and a super bowl appearance. he is paying tomsula 14 million for garbage. should have just paid ji,m. York is so dumb he'd work for tomusla at 7-11. hey jed, make sure momma never disowns you.
By: Mike
Comment: Good riddance ! Your articles are crap anyways, bigger cry baby than Kawakami and Damon Bruce ! Get the fuck out of here.
By: Philip
Comment: This is the first year I have ever played fantasy football. I saw this season coming.
By: Kevin
Comment: Well I guess u were never a fan.I've been a niners fan since 79' I've just about seen it all....Good times and bad times,wins losses, its all part of football..35 yrs and now your not cause your mad! Waaaash! I admit that we have the 3 fkn.stooges in front office but....U WONT B MISSED!
By: RJ
Comment: Good riddance, who needs you!
By: Chris P.
Comment: Dear Jeff, We won't miss you. You are not as big a deal as you think you are. Thanks for feeling like you needed to announce to the world that you're no longer a Niners fan. This article was just a long winded Niners bashing salute to your ego. You've been up, down, left and right on the Niners, their coaches, and players for years. There was never any consistency or credibility to what you wrote so take your pen and go somewhere else and don't come back.
By: Isaiah
Comment: I am a fan of the San Francisco 49ers. Forever. When my family stuffs my dead body into a casket, and buries it in the ground -- I'll be a 49ers fan. My allegiance to our team is not dependent on the success of the club. Even if they never win another game, I'm a 49ers fan. -- EVEN. IF. THEY. NEVER. WIN. ANOTHER. GAME. People like me are known as The Faithful. Mr. Kaplan, we don't know you. You are not one of us. Just go.
By: Bobbi9698
Comment: If Wellington Mara, the Rooney family, or Robert Kraft apologized to their fans after a bad season, it would be believable. These are owners who stick by their coaches through winning and losing. They consistently win because their staff--players and coaches--feel a certain sense of loyalty from the ownership and trust them not to make stupid and capricious decisions based on emotional immaturity. There are no more loyal fans than Steeler fans--and they have the most female fans too--because there ownership is steadfast and dependable. Our ownership, like Cleveland's and Washington's throws away Quarterbacks and Coaches like dirty toilet tissue. And, this, by the way, is not a formula for success...look at who holds the most Superbowl trophies. So, the only solution at this juncture is to continue to boycott all things York--tickets, schwag, etc. Continue the banners, billboards, ads, etc. The only way to obtain a stable, mature ownership in San Francisco, whoops Santa Frickin' Clara, is to get the entire York/DeBartolo clan out of the Bay Area. There simply is no other way.
By: Karen Zoller
Comment: Dear Jeff, I appreciate the straight forward candor in all you said. I agree with you about the greatest franchise being made a laughing stock by an idiot. Letting go of Harbough who all the team respected was idiotic. He not only taught them but gave them the strength to believe in themselves as players. Kaepernick would be a great example and what about all the players who suddenly decided to retire. I have to disagree and not being a 49er fan. I am fanatical about the 49ers. I fell in love with Steve Young (The south paw) and have loved them ever since. It is not the players that destroy the beauty of watching football. For the most part they work hard. Kaepernick worked harder then any QB in the NFL. I know his personality didn't always click with the media and some of the players. But he is a quiet guy to begin with. He wanted to win. He did not want the lime light. He was convinced they could and would have had Harbough stayed. Putting a read option quarterback in the game and trying to make him stay in the pocket is so wrong. In my eyes they took a splendid QB and ruined him. It's alright. He will be back only for someone else. He will win!
By: Not Sean
Comment: He Sean, he shouldn't have fired the good coach he already had last year. And a good dick-sucking would, in fact, be a good start to making me feel better. I bet that's your answer for everything.
Comment: This one's for you Dosia510! "Grow a pair and take it like a man"? What in the hell are you talking about? Why don't you grow a pair and Give It Like A Man! Jesus Christ, "Take it like a man" is the worst advice you can give guy. Why don't you a Grab A Pair .... That's what a man feels like! Go Cardinals!!!
By: RonMexico
Comment: bye vrabbit2
By: sean
Comment: You guys make me sick. What do you want him to do? He fired the coach and apologized to the fan for the poor season. Does he need to suck your dicks???
By: KapGottaGo
Comment: Love the passion...but don't quote wikipedia next time....if you get it from wikipedia just use the citations at the bottom...
By: RishikeshA
Comment: Thanks for your views Jeff. The Niners first broke my heart in 1957 when they blew a big lead against the Lions and lost. The next week the Lions blow out the Browns 59-14 for the Championship. That should have been our first title. We had to wait almost a quarter of a century until we won our first title. I can't tell anyone to follow the team or not. What I know is by going through all the tough times. when a Camelot comes along it is oh so sweet.
By: dtg_9er
Comment: Every fan has a right to quit being a fan, so good luck Jeff. My fandom has never relied on owners but has often had to be patient to outlast bad ownership (Warriors). Jed is not the worst owner we've seen in the bay area and it seems obvious he wants the team to win. His publicly evolving maturity has become part of the show. Looking forward to next year...go niners!
Comment: Jeff It's great to see you back! Well, Maybe not back...but good to hear your alive. I thought this season might have killed you. But hey who are we kidding we have lived through this before. LOL. I missed you buddy. No one can incite a riot better than a Kaplan article. I don't know how you do it. It's like you have a pack of wolves trolling the Webzone. They have waited all year ... to rip you a new one. Enjoy it! This one will be special. Hey Jeff, What do you think about the Arizona Cardinals? I need a team and I'm going with the Cardinals. Do the Cardinals have a Webzone? You really shouldn't let your writing talent go to waste. It's been a blast reading your stuff. Go Cardinals!
By: TruthTeller
Comment: To all those saying "good riddance" and calling Kaplan out for abandoning the team or complaining, YORK IS BANKING ON YOU MOUTHBREATHERS BUYING TICKETS TO THIS DISASTER. No where in all of my years has anyone said you have to support every move your team makes and believe everything they tell you. If that's your belief, you probably have a soft head and poor critical thinking skills.
By: Marco
Comment: Lucky Sperm Jed is an incompetent weasel. He has created a rat ship. The best thing 49er fans can do is give Lucky Sperm Jed and his low IQ parents an empty stadium next year. Maybe then their hand would be forced, and Larry Ellison could buy the team.
By: GM
Comment: In a nutshell why the league fans as a whole despise 49er fans; spoiled, with this verbose sense of entitlement that somehow the NFL world owes them a championship, that somehow because an owner stumbled upon genius 39 years ago means they are owed genius forever. Get over yourself. Like any other sports fans 49er fans don't have any special claim to every HOF QB or WR or CB than the other 31 teams. Somehow there's this myth you can just go out and find genius as if it's sitting on a shelf at a corner store. Jed is not perfect but you really think owners apologize to their fan base on a regular basis? You think Ellison as an owner would apologize for mistakes? And please don't tell me that any owner wouldn't do "x" because ... Success doesn't mean someone is perfect. Name one owner in the last 5 years that has apologized to the fan base the way Jed did yesterday. Some 49er fans don't deserve the history and legacy of this team - they act just as petulant and spoiled as the man they claim was "born with a silver spoon." You sir, deserve to live in Cleveland or Jacksonville or Philadelphia or Miami or Tenesee or Houston or Detoit.
By: zoob
Comment: @Webzone Commenter you should shut up because you don't know any thing about me or my football background.
By: Webzone Commenter
Comment: Have a good life you looser! we don't need anymore fairwearhte bandwagon jumping fans around here. Cant even wait around to see how things turn out can you? Good, I don't want you around here when we win the super bowel; you'd just find something else to wine about! I don't know why anyone would not give the benefit of the doubt to someone who hired head coaches like Singleterry and Tomlusa, but you just won't will you? Well, bad luck in whatever you do from now on. Maybe wright about something you KNOW something about, now like football which you never played. It makes me laugh that you think you know more than our coaches! Have a nice life, and Good ridance! I bet the Raiders need more fans1!!!
By: zoob123
Comment: This year didn't watch 49ers play. I didn't purchase any tickets to watch 49ers loose. Dork destroyed this team with the help of his worst Manger blood brother Baalke. Because of Baalke, Jim Harbaugh is not our coach. Baalke is an absolute poison for 49ers. He and his incompetent scouts are drafting garbage year after year with 12-14 draft pics each year. Now instead of getting fired, he is interviewing coaches and will draft again. Dork should sell this team to worth owned because we already know what is going to happen next year; 6-10 season. I will not purchase either regular ticket r season ticket this year like i didn't for 2015 sean.
By: dan
Comment: Good. One less hack writer to clog the feed.
By: Jesse Dumas
Comment: Jeff, yours is the work that made me want to write for this site. I've been struggling for two months now to put into writing what you just said here and you said it, as usual, perfectly. The comments you're getting now are ridiculous, "bandwagon fan" accusation et all. I'm going to stick around and write about the wreckage, but you're feeling of betrayal and desire for York to fail on a personal level are things any thinking-fan would be and should be feeling right now. Best wishes, let us know if your writing will be elsewhere.
By: Ditch
Comment: Have a nice life! Don't come back here looking to start writing articles when we become relevant again. Your acting like a 12 and nothing like a faithful!
By: leaphall
Comment: hey man u cant give up member joe and jerry wen we knew we wer gona win.in r minds but also in are hearts jed will find out soon enogh about that balke and fire him.in my apoin he shud hire mclune back and go beg harbah on hands and nees then weed have a dynasty
By: IowaNiner16
Comment: "Take it easy Francis"
By: Ex Niner Fan
Comment: Since October, 1980, the San Francisco 49ers had been a big part of my life. I sucked it up through the dog years or Erickson, Nolan and Singletary, after the inept Dr. York derailed the team with his ham-handed handling of Steve Mariucci. Finally, through an incredible stroke of luck, when Jed York signed up Jim Harbaugh, it really felt like 1980 all over again, and I really thought history was repeating itself. It is just mind boggling that Jed would turn out to be a bigger fool than his father. Simply unbelievable that this could be happening! You indeed nailed it Jeff - Jed York has put himself in a position where he is either a fool or he is lying. Actually, he is both. I just dumped my two SBLs at Levi's Stadium. I got about 75% of what I paid for it, so it was a loss. But that loss is nothing compared to the gain I'm making by not having to keep buying season tickets to watch a dog meat team that is an insult to not only the legendary 49ers teams of Brodie, Montana and Young, but even the 2010-2013 team. Most importantly, I will not be contributing another penny to the York family wealth. There are 30 better NFL teams and a dozen college football teams to watch.
By: Dosia510
Comment: This piece sounds like a bitter, spoiled fan piece to me. Grow a pair and take it like a man. You dont even know what jeds going to do yet and already your bashing him. Give him a chance to do what he is saying he is going to do. If he doesnt, then write your tantrum article.
By: leakyfausett
Comment: I am sure there is still room on the Seattle band wagon. "Well Bye"
By: Giants9ersfan
Comment: WTF? - I fell like some that are writing about the 49ers (Kawakami and others) are seemingly just trying to "one-up" each other on insane stories/articles. I mean, for that, excellent article.
By: DC
Comment: The San Francisco 49ers don't need B.S Fans like you bro. One less bandwagon fan us faithfull have to worry about
By: BorneAgain
Comment: That was a pretty cynical diatribe of a rant. Investing in watching a professional football team is a choice not a mandatory option especially for 35 years. When it comes down to it, there are seats that face the field they are meant for you to sit down in and just watch. Wanna watch from home, there's a channel in high definition for that. Taking a team and making it your own is whats wrong with sports. Just because I wear the shirt, the hat buy the jersey they are mine. No they are not, these players are just young men they have no obligation to make our lives better a lot of them don't even know what a 49er is both football player wise and or a long bearded man panning for gold. Years ago I attended 49ers Training Camp in Stockton, just generally speaking to a rookie he kindly said you know what I'm from Alabama I don't know even know what California is. That should some it up there, they are just young mean going to work. Ownership, front office, players just people going to work but we get to follow it on a beat by beat basis. A choice, not mandatory.
By: Fan since 1968
Comment: what's the point of this response? Think about it. No disrespect but there's no point to complain, move forward and let's see what happens.
By: Joey
Comment: Buh-Bye
Comment: Well damn
By: RamItOn
Comment: I clicked on this link and was excited! to see Jeff's name in the byline--he's back!!!!!!!!! I am no longer excited, but very disappointed. We'll miss you, Mr. Kaplan. Reading your pieces was always the highlight of this site and of my day. Good luck in your future endeavors, and if you decide to return, we will accept you.
More by Jeff Kaplan
My Niners Are Dead
All Articles by Jeff Kaplan
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Indigenous referendum expected within three years
Australians will have the chance to vote on changing the constitution to recognise the nation's first peoples within the next three years.
But Indigenous Australians Minister Ken Wyatt says strict conditions must be met before a referendum can be held.
"We need consensus, but we'd need the right set of words," he told ABC radio this morning.
"What people don't realise is that whatever words you insert into the constitution, they can have significant implications way beyond the simple wording."
Indigenous Australians Minister Ken Wyatt says strict conditions must be met before a referendum can be held. (AAP)
Mr Wyatt will detail his plan for achieving constitutional recognition in a speech to the National Press Club in Canberra.
The minister said he and Labor counterpart Linda Burney needed to find an approach to get everyone onside.
"Linda Burney and I will be charged with finding that consensus that our people agree to, that the majority of Australians would accept and the majority of states and territory," he said.
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"It's a high hurdle to have to leap over, but it's one that protects our democracy."
The minister says the concept has strong corporate support and is hoping organisations will back it, like they did at the 1967 referendum.
Australians overwhelmingly voted on that occasion for changes to the constitution to include Indigenous people in the census and allow the federal government to create laws for them.
"We've got to go back to the model of the '67 referendums where the unions became leaders, where churches and external organisations, but our own Aboriginal organisations need to also be at the forefront of all of that process."
Linda Burney will also be on board with the project to get results within three years. (Supplied)
Developing an indigenous voice to parliament must also be part of the process, he said.
"When I take the notion of the voice, that voice was not just a singular voice, it is voices at every level."
"It is unfinished businesses, but I think there is a tremendous groundswell of goodwill."
The Uluru Statement from the Heart in 2017 called for a First Nations Voice enshrined in the constitution and the creation of a powerful "Makarrata Commission" of elected elders that would supervise agreement-making between government and indigenous people.
But the proposal was shot down by former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, who said the advisory body "would inevitably become seen as a third chamber of parliament".
Mr Wyatt's address comes six weeks after the Perth MP became the first Aboriginal person to have ministerial stewardship of indigenous affairs.
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Minister rules out selling NBN to Telstra
Communications Minister Paul Fletcher has ruled out selling the National Broadband Network to Telstra when the rollout of the $51 billion project is finished.
Telstra raised the prospect of acquiring the network or striking a deal with the government over the network last year.
Mr Fletcher pointed to safeguards within existing laws preventing a retail telco like Telstra from owning the network, saying the measures were good public policy.
"A clear feature of the policy structure is that NBN cannot be owned by a vertically integrated telco," he told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
"In other words, somebody who delivers retail telecommunications services cannot own NBN. That's baked into the legislation."
Mr Fletcher, who took over the communications portfolio after the coalition was re-elected in May, said the government needed to ensure the owner of a wholesale network did not also supply retail services.
"I don't see any scenario in which the very clear legislative restriction on the NBN being owned by a company which is also a retailer of telecommunications services is changed," he told the newspapers.
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"I don't see any prospect of that restriction being changed."
Macquarie Telecom, which offers NBN services, welcomed news the broadband network would remain independent of any retailers.
The company accused Telstra of abusing its market power by frustrating and delaying completion of the NBN, through its monopoly control over the country's copper network.
The rollout of the NBN is expected to be completed next year, but Mr Fletcher said the government was still "quite some way" from looking at any change of ownership to the taxpayer-funded network.
"NBN should be allowed the time and space to complete its rollout and establish a sustainable pricing model without having to 'second guess' how this would affect a privatisation process," Macquarie Telecom said.
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Download the My Football Live App now!
Staff writer 1527800523
The My Football Live App is the NEW home of news, information and content for Australian football fans on your mobile. It is available for download now via the App Store and Google Play.
Don't miss out on all the FIFA World Cup behind the scenes footage from the Caltex Socceroos! PLUS you also get access to exclusive Westfield Matildas content, breaking news from the Hyundai A-League and Westfield W-League, and all the action as the FFA Cup heats up.
This is the app that will get you closer than ever to all the latest news from Australian football in one place. You can also personalise your experience based on what you want to see.
Live streaming in the app will be available for key games in the FFA Cup and every game of the Hyundai A-League.
If you have the existing Hyundai A-League app and have automatic updates turned on, your app will have updated to the new My Football Live app. If you don't have automatic updates turned on, you will need to visit the App Store or Google Play to update manually.
If you have the existing Caltex Socceroos app, you will need to download the new My Football Live app now via App Store for iOS and Google Play for Android.
Download the My Football Live app now from the App Store for iOS and Google Play for Android
Can I watch the Caltex Socceroos & Westfield Matildas on the App?
Yes! All Caltex Socceroos & Westfield Matildas friendlies played in Australia that are shown on Fox Sports, will be available to watch live through the App.
Can I watch the Hyundai A-League Westfield W-League on the App?
Yes! All Hyundai A-League matches will be available to watch live through the App.
Yes! Select Westfield W-League matches played in Australia that are shown on Fox Sports, will also be available to watch live through the App.
How much does it cost to watch football on the App?
The App will be free to download, with live matches being unlocked via the Telstra Live Pass.
Telstra Live Pass, a live, fast and data free inclusion is available to all Telstra mobile customers free of charge.
Non-Telstra customers can purchase a $99.99 annual Live Pass, $16.99 monthly Live Pass, $4.99 weekly Live Pass.
What features are on offer?
The "My Football Live App" will be the home of news, information and video for Australian Football on mobile devices.
The "My Football Live App" will allow fans to live stream all Hyundai A-League matches, select Westfield W-League, FFA Cup, plus friendlies for the Caltex Socceroos and Westfield Matildas matches played on home soil.
What if I don't live in Australia?
The My Football Live App is available to download from the App stores World Wide. However, you will only be able to watch games live if you live in Australia.
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Vicky's IVF story
We are going to be parents again!
Me and my partner Vikki have been trying to naturally conceive for over 2 years and after fertility investigations, we discovered our difficulties were due to male factor infertility (myself). NHS options weren't considerable as we both have had children before. We were advised to try IVF, in particular a procedure called ICSI. We decided to explore our options and decided upon abc ivf at Harley Street.
Cost wasn't necessarily a deciding factor as I had put aside money for 2-3 treatments if needed. Right from the start, from our first consultation to us leaving the clinic yesterday, we were made to feel welcome, appreciated and important. They explained all the procedures and what was involved and are willing to answer a whole bunch of questions that you may have. We pretty much started the ball rolling straight away after our first consultation, and after speaking with Sherry, who was absolutely lovely, we knew we would be looked after. The medications which are included in the cost were delivered on schedule and my partner started the journey for us, emailing and calling abc as and when required. We got to the egg retrieval stage and were directed to their partner clinic at St Pauls (CREATE Fertility) who were equally as welcoming, professional and courteous. Afterwards, we were kept updated on the fertilisation of the eggs and ended up with a good quality blastocyst which was put back a short while afterwards.
We can now happily say that we have a developing foetus with a little heart beat ticking away after Alison at abc ivf did the scan to confirm that the embryo had implanted and it was a viable pregnancy!
The IVF journey is a worrying time and there can be ups and downs, but abc ivf have been wonderful.
This is our first attempt at IVF and we can genuinely say that using abc ivf has been superb for us and we are now expecting our baby.
Everyone has been so friendly and warm, so now we are back in the hands of the NHS and feel a little sadness that we are now discharged, so to say, from abc ivf. We will keep in touch with all the team for sure, and want to extend our huge thanks to everyone at abc ivf. Our baby is due in November and none of this would have been possible without any of them. They're absolute stars.
If you are considering IVF then abc ivf really are a testament to the position we find ourselves in today. We are now going to become parents again. Love and thanks to all at abc ivf!
Martin and Vikki x
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Abbas blames Hamas for trying to kill Palestinian PM
Palestinians in Hamas-ruled Gaza protest Palestinian Authority leaders. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)
(Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)
WhatsApp Email https://worldisraelnews.com/abbas-blames-hamas-trying-kill-palestinian-pm/
Seven days after a roadside bomb nearly killed the Palestinian prime minister as he traveled to the Gaza Strip, Abbas stopped blaming Israel, pointing his finger instead at the Hamas terrorist group.
Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas spoke out at a meeting Monday of the Palestinian leadership in Judea and Samaria, pointing definitively at Hamas as the perpetrators of an attempted assassination last week of PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah.
“We are fully aware that Hamas is the one who stands behind that incident and carried it out,” Abbas said.
Last Tuesday, Hamdallah entered the northeastern Gaza Strip in a convoy of cars to inaugurate a wastewater treatment plant. A roadside bomb was detonated almost immediately, damaging the last three cars in the explosion and injuring several of their passengers. Hamdallah was not hurt in the incident.
The initial reaction from PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ office was that Hamas “bears full responsibility for this treasonous aggression,” a logical step considering that the terrorist organization holds the Strip in an iron grip. Later that day, however, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh talked to Hamdallah and according to Ha’aretz, they agreed that “Israel and its collaborators” were responsible for the attempt on the prime minister’s life.
Officials in both rival camps put forward the theory that since Hamas and the PA are ostensibly trying to revive their reconciliation efforts, Israel would benefit from such an attack as it has an interest in sowing suspicion between the two groups and torpedoing their unity talks. Jerusalem, for its part, had no comment on the attack.
Hamas went on to condemn what it called a “criminal act,” quickly announced an investigation, and soon afterwards said that several suspects had been arrested.
According to the Jerusalem Post however, in his speech Abbas dismissed these moves, stating, “We don’t want anything from them,” and slammed “Hamas and its illegitimate authorities” for rejecting the Ramallah-based government’s attempts at unity.
In the same speech, the report said, Abbas called US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman a “son of a dog” for saying that Israelis “are building in their [own] land.”
AbbasAssasinationHamas-Fatah rivalryRami Hamdallah
I found a very interesting article on World Israel News! Click to read this: --> https://worldisraelnews.com/abbas-blames-hamas-trying-kill-palestinian-pm/
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You are viewing the November 15, 2017 daily archives
Is It Legal For An Older Man To Court A Child Bride In The U.S.?
By: Nurith Aizenman | NPR
Posted on: Wednesday, November 15, 2017
Recent stories about men in the fundamentalist Christian community who “court” young women, including teenagers, raise the question: Is underage marriage even possible in the U.S.?
With Trump Back In D.C., Mueller’s Investigation Enters The West Wing
By: Tamara Keith | NPR
Special counsel Robert Mueller is interviewing current aides about the Russia matter. The White House says it’s cooperating — but that doesn’t mean the process isn’t stressful.
Official: Execution Called Off Due to IV Issues
LUCASVILLE, Ohio — Ohio’s prisons director says he called off the execution of a condemned killer after members of the state’s execution team told him they couldn’t find a vein to insert an IV. Prison chief Gary Mohr says the team made several attempts Wednesday to find a spot on 69-year-old inmate Alva Campbell to… Read More
WOUB-HD to Re-Broadcast ‘Anne of Green Gables’ Dec. 31 at 2 p.m.
By: Emily Votaw
Anne of Green Gables is a story of childhood – a slice of life narrative that follows the precocious orphan Anne Shirley as she comes into adulthood and ultimately sacrifices her dreams for a life of simple pleasures. Written by Lucy Maud Montgomery in the early 20th century, the book is now taught all over… Read More
WOUB-HD
2nd Ohio State Lawmaker Resigns Over Inappropriate Behavior
By: Julie Carr Smyth | AP Statehouse Correspondent
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – The second Ohio state lawmaker in a month has resigned amid allegations of inappropriate behavior. State Rep. Wes Goodman, a Cardington Republican, resigned on Wednesday. Republican House Speaker Clifford Rosenberger says he learned of Goodman’s inappropriate behavior Tuesday and confronted him immediately. No details have been made public about what Goodman’s… Read More
Head of Consumer Protection Bureau Resigns, Expected to Run for Ohio Governor
WASHINGTON (AP) – Richard Cordray, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and an appointee of former President Barack Obama, has announced his resignation. Cordray plans to resign his office by the end of November. He is expected to return to his home state of Ohio to run for governor. The Democrat has been… Read More
Controversial Mine Safety Nominee Faces Final Vote
By: Becca Schimmel | Ohio Valley ReSource
A Senate vote is scheduled for Wednesday on confirmation for President Trump’s nominee to lead the Mine Safety and Health Administration, or MSHA. The country’s top mine safety position has been vacant since January as coal mining fatalities have risen to a two-year high. Trump’s choice to fill the post is facing opposition from congressional Democrats and… Read More
coallaborOhio Valley ReSource
Buy Local This Holiday Season at the Holiday Bazaar at the Dairy Barn
The Dairy Barn Arts Center invites the community to attend our annual Holiday Bazaar, an Athens shopping tradition! The Holiday Bazaar will feature regional artists selling unique handcrafted gifts to help you get a start on the season’s shopping and will occur Friday, December 1 from 3-8 p.m. and Saturday, December 2 from 10 a.m.-5… Read More
Dairy Barn Arts Center
Families Offer One Another Hope Following Tragic Loss
By: Grace Warner
In 2015, my brother, Bryce Warner, 16, of Dayton, Ohio, took his life. Since then it has been my mission to tell this story: In 2008, our community lost a dear friend, Jocelyn, daughter of Mandy Hartlage, at the age of 15. Seven years later, our community was shook by the news of my brother,… Read More
OU Percussion Ensemble Presents Works by All Female Composers Nov. 16
On Thursday, November 16 at 8 p.m., the Ohio University Percussion Ensemble will present a concert made up entirely by works crafted by female composers in the Glidden Recital Hall on the Ohio University Athens campus. The performance will be directed by professor Roger Braun and graduate teaching assistants Forrest Yankey and Ryan Swanson. “A… Read More
Ohio University School of Music
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August 18, 2016 November 6, 2017 Phil
Back in the early 1980s when Pete and I were preparing to open Pronto Ristorante, we figured it would be a good idea to learn more about Italian cuisine. So we signed up for an “Italian immersion cooking school” taught by the legendary Marcella Hazan in Bologna, Italy.
Phil with Marcella Hazan in Bologna, Italy
Every day, we would start out bright and early by going to the central market, where under Marcella’s guidance we would select the best seasonal produce, cheese and meats for the daily meal, and finally head off to the pasta maker.
About 10 a.m., we’d start to prepare the daily feast – cutting and chopping, braising and blanching, and finally sitting down to our “lunch” at about 2 o’clock (well-lubricated with wine by then).
The pasta was ALWAYS topped with grated or shaved PARMIGIANO REGGIANO cheese – except if it was a seafood pasta. Never, NEVER on seafood, we were told (which, by the way, I think is a bunch of hooey).
So it was a pure delight when Marcella told us one afternoon that we would arise at the crack of dawn the next day to visit a Parmigiano Reggiano cheesemaker at his farm.
The Parmigiano Reggiano Wheel
There we watched the time-honored, centuries-old method of making and forming the cheese. But that wasn’t the end. Next we headed off to the CONSORTIUM, a place where cheesemakers from all over the region brought their wheels to age.
As a fellow foodie, you know that Italy produces some of the best cheeses in the world…think Buffala Mozzarella…Gorgonzola…Pecorino Romano.
But perhaps the most celebrated of them all is Parmigiano Reggiano, from the Emilia Romagna region around Bologna and Parma in northern Italy. The hard, granular, nutty flavored cheese is ONLY produced in this tightly regulated area, and is certified P.D.O. (Protected Designation of Origin).
The Region - Bologna, Parma, Modena
Every step of production is highly controlled. It starts with unpasteurized cow’s milk…grass-fed, and not from just any cows, but especially two breeds: the highly prized Razza Reggiana (red cow) and a variety of Dutch Holstein. The cows’ feed is regulated and the milk for the morning processing must have been produced within the last 24 hours.
Grass-Fed Razza Reggiana Cows
There are about 600 certified cheese makers in the region and all use the identical process, making their cheese every day in vats that produce two wheels, each weighing in at just under 100 pounds. Next the cheese is put into metal molds for a couple of days to set. Then it’s imprinted and put into a brine bath for 20-25 days. After the brining, all 600 of the cheese makers send their wheels off to consortiums where they are aged a minimum of 14 months and up to 4 years. The wheels are continually tested, tasted and monitored by experts at the consortium, and those that come up short are fire-branded with a huge X. The wheels that pass the rigorous inspection process are also fire-branded – only this time with the coveted and certified PARMIGIANO REGGIANO logo.
Cheesemakers - 2 Wheels Per Vat
Brine Bath - 25 to 30 Days
Brine Bath
On the Way to the Consortium
Ready to Rack
Fire-Branding the Logo
The Official Logo
I’ve visited the consortiums. Huge machines move, turn and rotate the wheels, stacking them in long corridors where you’ll see as many as two dozen wheels stacked. A single aisle might have over 2,000 wheels. With hundreds of aisles spread amongst several consortia and an average price of about $1,800 per wheel, the math gets staggering. And it all begins with mom and pop cheese makers.
My Wife Joanne, My Son Steven, and My Daughter Jennifer in the Consortium
The Consortium - Aged Up to Four Years
Yes, PARMIGIANO REGGIANO is expensive – these days about $20 per pound. The price varies depending on how long it is aged, and what season it is made. Experts disagree on which season is best. Spring cheese boasts herbal notes. Summer cheeses are richer in color and have a slightly acidic taste, while fall cheeses tend to be slightly oily and sharp. Winter cheeses are said to be mellower and sweeter. I confess, I’ve never done a side-by-side comparison. I just like ‘em all.
An interesting side note: After the cheese makers lift and form the wheels, the vats are left brimming with WHEY, which is used to feed the special pigs that produce the highly prized PROSCIUTTO di PARMA.
Cheese and Prosciutto Di Parma Ham
After the Wheels are Removed... A Big Vat of Whey for the Pigs
Prosciutto Di Parma Pigs... a Diet of Whey
The Final Product - Prosciutto Di Parma
Grated Parm is wonderful on pasta, especially fettuccine carbonara and on salads and vegetables (just do not grate it ahead of time). I like taking a vegetable peeler and peel off ribbons. It’s fun as well to take a non-stick skillet and pile in a couple of tablespoons of grated Parm. Let it melt into a disk, remove it, and allow it to set. What do you have? PARM CRISPS. Eat ‘em by themselves or crunch them up in salads. Use the rinds to flavor soup. No worries about chemicals. IT’S JUST CHEESE.
Hand Grated on Pizza
Always Grated by Hand
Do Not Grate the Cheese Ahead of Time
Fettuccine Carbonara
Top with Parmigiano and an Egg
More Carbonara
Frico... Parmesan Crispy Chips
Some folks substitute GRANNA PADANO for Parmigiano. It also comes in wheels, which are the same size and color as the Parmigiano Reggiano. Production is also somewhat regulated. It’s made in regions north of Emilia Romagna. But there are no feed controls and no regulation of the breeds of cows. Moreover, milk produced over several days can be used. It’s not bad. But it’s NOT as good.
Grand Padano... Kind of a "Budget" Parmigiano
Scraping the bottom of the cheese gene pool, we come upon what in America is called Parmesan: grated cows’ milk cheese. It often contains non-cheese products such as cellulose. Don’t bother.
Side note #2: As you may know, southern Italy has summer temperatures soaring to levels significantly higher than the north. Cows can’t tolerate that kind of heat, and consequently you won’t find Parmigiano-style cheeses. So instead they tend to top pasta with intensely flavored bread crumbs. This is especially common in Sicily. It’s wonderful. The heat is also why, in the 19th century, the area around Naples imported water buffalo from India (who love the heat) and began producing Buffala Mozzarella cheese.
In Sicily... Bread Crumbs... Not Parmigiano
On and on….Bread sticks…veal parmigiana (which also tends to feature mozzarella…chunks sprinkled with real balsamic vinegar, not the cheap stuff…..and dinner party appetizers with fresh fruit and nuts and wine….LOTS of WINE !
Parm Breadsticks
Bread Sticks Dough
Veal Parmigiana (Mozzarella Frequently Used in Addition to Parmigiano)
Drizzled with Balsamic Vinegar
Parmigiano Rinds in Soda
Appetizer or Dessert
Behold! Parmigiano Reggiano
W.T.F.
Food, Travel Italy Leave a comment
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The Piece of Cod that Passes All Understanding →
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Cultural & Academic Films
This library of academic and cultural films features collections from the Academic Film Archive and the Media Burn Independent Film Archive, as well as a selection of documentaries created by Dorothy Fadiman. In addition, films from the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology are presented including those by Watson Kintner who used film to document his world travels, and the popular television show from the 1950s: “What in the World?”
TEDWomen 2016
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VIEWS TITLE DATE ARCHIVED DATE PUBLISHED DATE REVIEWED DATE ADDED CREATOR
Sisonke Msimang: If a story moves you, act on it
by TED.com
Stories are necessary, but they're not as magical as they seem, says writer Sisonke Msimang. In this funny and thoughtful talk, Msimang questions our emphasis on storytelling and spotlights the decline of facts. During a critical time when listening has been confused for action, Msimang asks us to switch off our phones, step away from our screens and step out into the real world to create a plan for justice.
Topics: Tedtalks, TED, Talks, Africa, Internet, activism, collaboration, communication, community, empathy,...
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Qatar Airways takes delivery of two new freighters
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On Tuesday December 22, Plaintiffs in Precision Associates Inc., et al. v. Panalpina World Transport (Holding) Ltd., et al. filed…
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School Psychology Specialist
Attain New York State certification
Alfred University's MA/CAS program offers both in-depth coursework and extensive practical experience. You will be placed in a school each semester completing practicum and course assignments. The MA/CAS in School Psychology is the only non-doctoral degree in psychology through which individuals can be certified in New York State.
School/Division
School of Graduate & Continuing Studies
Main Campus - Alfred, NY
School Psychology Specialist (MA, CAS)
Andrea Burch
burcha@alfred.edu
The School Psychology Specialist program is approved by the National Association of School Psychologists and accredited by the New York State Education Dept.
We are part of a small university that provides individualized attention in a student-centered, close-knit environment. Faculty and students develop close working relationships that foster student growth. Through a process of individual feedback and goal-setting, students acquire the applied skills and self-awareness to become successful professionals. We do this within an educational context that promotes respect and appreciation for individual, family, and cultural diversity.
CoursesClick to Close
MA/CAS Course Sequence
First Semester
PSYC 601 Foundations of Cultural Diversity (1)
PSYC 603 Foundations of School Psychology (3)
PSYC 607 Learning and Cognition (3)
PSYC 626 Psychological and Educational Measurements (2)
PSYC 627 Norm-Referenced Testing I (2)
PSYC 636 Foundations of Interpersonal Effectiveness (3)
PSYC 637 Introduction to Group Dynamics (1)
PSYC 656 Field Experience in School Psychology (1)
PSYC 606 Advanced Developmental Psychology (3)
PSYC 629 Social-Emotional Assessment (3)
PSYC 632 Norm-Referenced Testing II (2)
PSYC 638 Psychotherapy and Behavior Change (3)
PSYC 639 Exceptionality in Learning and Behavior (3)
PSYC 657 Field Experience in School Psychology II (1)
PSYC 628 Academic Functioning (3)
PSYC 641 Introduction to Family Therapy (3)
PSYC 646 Consultation and Prevention (3)
PSYC 658 Clinic Practicum I (3)
PSYC 671 Statistical Analysis and Research Design I (3)
Fourth Semester
PSYC 609 Physical Bases of Behavior (3)
PSYC 642 Advanced Topics in School Psychology (3)
PSYC 651 Academic Interventions (2)
PSYC 659 Clinic Practicum II (3)
PSYC 664 Practicum in Academic Interventions (1)
PSYC 695 Professional Practice Seminar (3)
PSYC 667 Internship in School Psychology I (9)
PSYC 668 Internship in School Psychology II (9)
Minimum Total Credit Hours Required for the Program: 79
Requirements Click to Open
The program consists of two years of full-time study followed by a full year internship. Due to our strong practical focus, our students spend at least some time in a school during every semester. In addition, students work at our division's outpatient mental health clinic, the Child and Family Services Center, for their second-year practicum. At the end of their first year, students must pass a written qualifying examination in order to move to the second year.
MA/CAS Handbook
Admissions Criteria Click to Open
Admission to the program is based upon a holistic assessment of your academic and professional accomplishments.
You must present evidence of successful completion of undergraduate coursework in the following subject areas:
Statistical and/or Experimental Methods
And at least one of the following areas:
Developmental (Child and Adolescent) Psychology
Other courses, such as Tests and Measurements, Learning or Educational Psychology or other courses in Education are looked upon favorably.
Practical experiences in Psychology or Education, as well as any other relevant experiences, are seen as valuable preparation for the program.
To apply, the following must be submitted to the Graduate Admissions Office:
Application form and fee
Official transcripts of all undergraduate and graduate coursework
Scores from the GRE general test
Brief personal statement of your program interest
Statement of research interests (for the Psy.D. program only)
Because of the high level of maturity, sensitivity, independence, and flexibility necessary in the program, an on-campus interview is required. You will be contacted for an interview once all application materials have been reviewed.
Master's/Certificate of Advanced Study (Specialist): February 1st - priority deadline
Applications are considered after February 1st on a case-by-case basis until the class is filled
Sara Love
Assistant Director of Admissions
Financial Support Click to Open
All full time students entering graduate programs in School Psychology, Counseling, College Student Development and Education at the University are granted a general graduate assistantship for $3,000, which requires the student to work 5 hours per week for a professor or university division. Students are responsible to the faculty or staff member to whom they are assigned. Letters offering the assistantships are sent to all accepted students with their acceptance letters. The first year positions may involve working for faculty members or in university offices. Second and third year positions are more likely to make use of student's school psychology-related skills.
There are a small number of competitive assistantships providing 100% of tuition that are earmarked for students their second and third years of the program.
The Office of Student Financial Aid assists graduates in obtaining additional forms of assistance whenever possible.
Field Experience Click to Open
Alfred University is known for its emphasis on field experience. Practica are associated with most of the major core courses, and give students an opportunity to understand the complexities of school systems, practice applied skills, and become familiar with the role of the school psychologist. In the course of training, you will gain experience at all educational levels in schools with diverse pupil populations relative to cultural-ethnic backgrounds, disabilities, and economic levels.
In the Schools - every semester
First and second semesters:
You will be placed in a local public school one day per week
Learn the roles of the school psychologist
Practice skills learned in class
Supervised by an on-site school psychologist, in coordination with a School Psychology faculty member
Third semester:
You will return to field placement school to complete your projects associated with the Consultation and Prevention course
Fourth semester:
You will be involved with planning, conducting, and evaluating an academic intervention in a local school district (associated with the Practicum in Academic Interventions course)
In the Child and Family Services Center
Second year students complete a two-semester practicum at the Child and Family Services Center (CFSC), which is both a training clinic and outpatient mental health clinic run by our division. Students may provide assessment, counseling, play therapy, family therapy, and group therapy to individuals and families from the underserved rural communities surrounding Alfred. We also have a newly trained therapy dog, Blue, to use in animal-assisted therapy. If appropriate, students also provide consultation at clients' schools.
The CFSC contains state-of-the-art digital recording and observation capabilities. All treatment rooms are equipped with microphones and video cameras that are wired to a control room which contains monitors through which faculty supervisors and students can observe sessions in real time. Live supervision utilizes wireless netbook communication or a telephone intercom system between the faculty supervisor and student. Sessions can also be digitally recorded and archived so that faculty supervisors and students may review sessions in order to improve skills. Students engage in collaborative problem-solving with their peers and faculty supervisor, and stay well informed about cases through direct observation, videotapes, and group supervision.
During the Internship
The final year of the program consists of a full-time internship in a public school system.
This experience is the culmination of the student's classroom learning and previous fieldwork and allows the student to perform the duties of a school psychologist under the supervision of an on-site school psychologist and a School Psychology faculty member.
Most of our students complete their internships within New York State, but students may choose to seek internships in any state. During their internship, students return to campus three times per year for seminars and group supervision activities. Students generally receive a stipend from the school in which they intern.
Mission and Goals Click to Open
Our mission is to prepare school psychologists for professional practice in schools and related child and family settings.
Our program strives to produce school psychologists with the personal qualities, interpersonal skills and awareness, and the ethical sensitivity predictive of success in a broad array of social, economic, and political contexts.
Develop an understanding of service delivery programs within a context respectful and appreciative of individual, family, and cultural diversity.
Develop an awareness that their personal characteristics and interpersonal skills affect the quality, social validity, and acceptability of the services they provide.
Abide by ethical standards as they relate to the historical foundations of the school psychology profession and the current guidelines for practice.
We also strive to produce school psychologists competent to access a broad range of theoretical and practical approaches with sufficient depth to be effective, flexible practitioners.
Develop proficiency in data-based decision-making using traditional and alternative approaches to the assessment and evaluation of children's academic, behavioral, and emotional problems.
Develop proficiency in the design and development of programs to intervene both directly and indirectly with children's academic, behavioral, and emotional problems. These programs will include academic strategies, behavior modification, crisis intervention, and counseling techniques that are implemented in a timely manner.
Another goal is to produce school psychologists who have an understanding of the basic principles of human cognitive and emotional development and their relationship to the functioning of children within a school setting.
Develop an understanding of the development of both normal and exceptional children.
Gain knowledge of general and special education services and legal guidelines, as part of understanding the educational and sociopolitical climate of their school districts.
Develop skills in consulting and communicating with school professionals and parents.
Develop skills in the prevention and remediation of academic and emotional problems in children.
Our final goal is to produce school psychologists competent in the comprehension and application of research to professional practice.
Acquire a foundation in the scientific knowledge base of psychology and education, as well as an ability to evaluate and utilize research in their practice.
Develop proficiency in ongoing program evaluation, so they make informed decisions based upon objective data in developing services for children.
Develop a knowledge base which includes the updated and appropriate use of information technology in their practice.
Outcomes Click to Open
Alfred University's School Psychology graduates are extremely successful in obtaining employment.
Graduates of the program often receive multiple job offers, with recent starting salaries reported to range from $38,000 to $46,000 for the Master's Program. Our graduates are working in New York and over 20 other states, ranging from Florida to California and Hawaii. They are working in rural, urban, and suburban locations.
The success of AU graduates relates to a number of factors, including:
The active maintenance of an AU job network through alumni and professional contacts of the program faculty.
Increased training, allowing school psychologists to serve in a wider variety of roles, in a variety of settings.
Federal and state legislation which has resulted in increased hiring of school psychologists.
A continuing national shortage of school psychologists.
Our MA/CAS graduates have found employment as psychologists in:
Mental health agencies
School Psychology graduate students work closely with the Career Development Center in seeking employment.
All Alfred Faculty/Staff
Assistant Professor School Psychology
Counseling & School Psychology
Brad Daly
dalyb@alfred.edu
Lynn O'Connell
Professor School Psychology
oconnelm@alfred.edu
Science Center Room: 408
All Alfred Facilities
The Child and Family Services Center
Herrick Memorial Library
Students interested in the School Psychology Master's program may also consider the following similar programs:
School Psychology Doctorate
Pre-Art Therapy Advising
We'll Help You Find the Answers
All Graduate Programs
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Minden Nevada, NV Information
> Nearby Towns
> Minden Nevada
Minden Nevada
Minden NV can be found just 45 minutes south of Reno and only 20 minutes from Lake Tahoe. Read More
Artistic Viewpoints
Barone and Reed Food Company
Best Western Minden Inn
Modern accommodations to explore the nearby Sierra's.
A charming Nevada casino-hotel offering 200 rooms including suites, deluxe rooms, RV parking and motel style lodging. Modern accommodations and casino entertainment.
Holiday Inn Express & Suites - Minden NV
Minden hotel in the Carson Valley offering modern amenities.
The towns of Minden, Gardnerville, and Genoa make up the "Carson Valley" which offers great mountain views, four seasons, and plenty of sunshine.
The area offers spa resorts, hotels, motels, bed and breakfast inns, campgrounds, and RV parks.
Activities include ballooning, boating, helicopter tours, fishing, skiing, snowmobiling, all types of water activities, hiking, biking, and horseback riding.
Minden, the county seat for Douglas County, is at the base of the Sierra Nevada range. Life in Minden offers the conveniences of small town living with all of the facilities of Lake Tahoe (20-25 minute drive) or Reno (45-50 minute drive) within easy reach. The towns of Minden, Gardnerville, and Genoa make up the "Carson Valley" which offers great mountain views, four seasons, and plenty of sunshine.
The Town of Minden, Nevada, is located near the center of Carson Valley just east of Lake Tahoe and South of Nevada's Capitol in Carson City.
Services/Amenities
Minden is home to several locally-owned shops and restaurants. There are also a few fast-food restaurants, a movie theater, and other retail chains to supply your every shopping need. The area offers spa resorts, hotels, motels, bed and breakfast inns, campgrounds, and RV parks. In the true Nevada tradition, Carson Valley also plays host to casino resorts that include great dining and well-appointed rooms.
For hiking, biking, or horseback riding on scenic trails, Carson Valley is unsurpassed.
Hiking opportunities range from flat trails bordering the valley’s Carson River to alpine trails topping 10,000 feet in the Sierra Nevada to the west. Easy trails of two to three miles in length such as Spooner Lake, Curtz/Summit Lakes, and Hot Springs Mountain beckon the recreational hiker. For the more advanced, there are seven to ten mile trails like Marlette Lake, Horse Thief Canyon to Willow Creek, and Burnside Lake to Charity Valley. Serious hikers will want to try longer or more strenuous trails such as Job’s Peak, Mount Ralston Peak, or the Five Lakes Trek. And hikers can travel all or portions of the breathtaking 165-mile Tahoe Rim Trail.
Cyclers can choose a number of century (100 mile) rides, including the Carson Valley Century that features 5,500 feet of climbing and travels over Kingsbury Grade, along Foothill Road, to Diamond Valley, Turtle Rock, Jacks Valley, and the Pine Nut mountains. You can also take any of the loop rides that comprise this century, from the relatively flat East Valley Road to the up and down Emigrant Trail/Diamond Valley trainer. A bit farther afield, rides like the 85 mile Lemond loop that includes 8500 feet of climbing challenge even the most experienced road rider. Mountain bike aficionados will also find both easy and challenging trails in and around Carson Valley.
Carson Valley horseback riding ranges from short organized trail rides to horse camping on rides that last a week or more. To the west, you can ride portions of the Tahoe Rim Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail, or the Tahoe to Yosemite Trail. To the east, the Pine Nut mountains beckon, with opportunities to ride along sand washes, explore old mining trails and jeep trails, or head out cross-country.
Minden has its own casino that is located centrally, close to local hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation.
Other activities include ballooning, boating, helicopter tours, fishing, skiing, snowmobiling, and all types of water activities.
Dangberg Home Ranch Historic Park
The Home Ranch was once the center of operations for a 48,000-acre ranch. Built beginning in 1857 through the early 1900s, the ranch house, old stone cellar, laundry, and carriage house are open for tours Wednesday through Sunday. This is Old West history at its best! Open mid-April through December. Tours available by advance reservation only.
If you are traveling from Lake Tahoe National Park to Gardnerville, the best route is to take NV-28 east for approximately 10 miles. At the junction with US-395, turn south and travel another 20 miles to Minden.
Incline Village, NV
Zephyr Cove, NV
Genoa, NV
Glenbrook, NV
Dollar Point, CA
Sunnyside, CA
Brockway, CA
Crystal Bay, CA
Tahoe Donner, CA
Tahoma, CA
Washoe City, NV
Escape to a Perfect Cabin Getaway in Lake Tahoe
Other Minden Nevada Resources
Minden, Nevada
Minden is a small town of about 3,000 people located in Douglas County, Nevada.
Connect with travelers planning a visit to Lake Tahoe.
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The Shoes at Marc Jacobs Will Help You Soar to New Heights (Literally)
The designer presented sky-high platform shoes at his spring 2017 runway show.
By Kristen Bateman
NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 15: Models walk the runway at the Marc Jacobs fashion show durin New York Fashion Week at Hammerstein Ballroom on September 15, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images)Getty Images
At the Marc Jacobs spring 2017 runway show this afternoon, all eyes were on the extreme seven-inch platform heels.
Similar to last season, when the designer sent models down the runway wearing teetering gothic platform boots, Karlie Kloss, Bella and Gigi Hadid, and a slew of other “It” girl models wore rave-ready, sky-high shoes while navigating several large puddles on the runway. NBD. The footwear looks included shoes with knee-high buckles, funky Mary Janes, and flashy boots printed with streaks of color and cartoon imagery. And as if the models weren’t tall enough (Karlie Kloss is six foot two, by the way), the crazy shoes made the already-towering ladies look superhuman.
Marc Jacobs isn’t the only one to indulge in crazy footwear this season. At Hood By Air, designer Shayne Oliver sent down two-way cowboy boots with pointed toes on both the front and back of the shoe. Thom Browne, master of quirky accessories, designed platform wedges with whale and sailboat cutouts, while heels at Libertine were covered in orange–to-pink ombré fur. One thing is for certain when it comes to runway shoes: The more outrageous, the better.
RELATED: 9 Eye-Catching Shoes From NYFW
NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 15: A model walks the runway, shoe detail, at the Marc Jacobs fashion show durin New York Fashion Week at Hammerstein Ballroom on September 15, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images)Getty Images
The show marked a new change for the label. Last month, Jacobs announced that he'd be showing at 2 p.m., instead of his usual 6 p.m. time slot, on the last day of New York Fashion Week. The designer also held his show at Hammerstein Ballroom, a major concert hall fit for a collection that featured looks suitable for a music festival, rather than the Park Avenue Armory, where the designer has traditionally presented his clothes. To accompany the designer's over-the-top designs, the show featured an ethereal set decked out in gorgeous hanging light bulbs à la Yayoi Kusama, which made for a pretty cool Instagram photo op.
Though Jacobs is one of the major designers who has yet to adopt the “see now, buy now” concept, his epic platforms, especially the sandals paired with thigh-high printed socks, presented a styling trick we’d love to try for fall.
Marc Jacobs explains why he prizes style over fashion:
KeywordsfashionNYFWMarc Jacobsshoes
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Win Back Your Finance
Al Rajhi Bank launched a unique promotion for its customers all over the Kingdom whereby every business day, a customer could get the Personal Finance he took paid back to him. The Bank set the amount of SR 85,000 as the maximum limit of paid back finance.
The promotion will be running from 9 Jumada I until 9 Jumada II, corresponding to April 1 – 30 April 2012G, and is applicable to any customer’s application for Personal Finance or Personal Re-finance that is approved by the Bank. All approved applications are automatically entered into the daily electronic draw, allowing customers the chance to win back their finance. One winner will be chosen every workday, a total of 22 winners throughout the validity period of the campaign.
The promotion is considered to be an extension of the benefits offered by the Bank to those able to get finance from all branches, which make up the largest network of branches in Saudi Arabia. Their applications are processed within 30 minutes, a record period achieved by the Bank with regards to quickness of service.
In addition, it is a known fact that Al Rajhi Bank carried out a number of competitions with cash and other valuable rewards as worthy prizes. The Bank ran the “Your cash is waiting for you” card campaign through which users of Al Rajhi cards could win back the cash they spent while outside Saudi Arabia. Also, for two years running, it put up three apartments per year for the Al Rajhi Credit Card campaign.
Furthermore, in an effort to fulfill its cultural and creative goals, the Bank launched the Ladies Painting Competition 3 years in a row. The winning artists received praiseworthy cash prizes.
The Bank continues to develop its banking products with emphasis on making the most up-to-date electronic services and investment tools available to customers. It aims to provide innovative banking and investment services, especially those online services. The Bank achieved leadership in the local market by offering new electronic channels that fulfill the needs of customers and their expectations, while saving them both time and money.
The ongoing commitment of the Bank and the provision of care to customers culminated with the presentation of high quality products and services that have received a number of international awards from independent financial institutions located all around the world.
Winners names:
Fahad Ali Mohammad
Falah Mohammad Namash Al Shemmari
Salma Abdul Rahman Ayed Al Hejeli
Maha Moqbel Ghoneim Al Rahili
Mohamed H.Al Shamrani
Bandar A. F. Al Salmi
Homud Al Rasheed
Mishrea Khalaf Al Otaibi
Mohammed Ali Al Jodaiee
Jabbar Odah Al Shahrany
Ahmed Yahya Dokman
Saleh Awwad Al Mutairy
Khaled Hamed Al Harthy
Ahmed Mohammed Aqeely
Nayef Abdulrahman Al Mutairy
Raed Hamed Al Alawy
Abdulrahman Saud Al Harbi
Saud Ayed Al Subaie
Wedad Eid Al Yubi
Fayez Ali Al shehri
Fuhaid Mohammed Al Shammari
Hazmi Fuhaid Al Subaiee
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Arts & CultureLast Take
Can a parent’s perspective aid our understanding of Scripture?
John J. Conley March 22, 2018
There it was again.
I was serving as a blind referee for papers submitted to a contest for a scholarly theological prize. One essay analyzed the use of the term ektroma in Saint Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians: “Last of all, as to one untimely born [ektroma], he [Christ] also appeared to me” (1 Cor 15.8).
At first, the paper offered a classic exegesis of the text. It studied the vocabulary. The word ektroma literally means “the aborted one” or “the miscarried one.” It is usually translated into English by the more genteel “one untimely born.” A few aggressive translations render it as “runt.” The author then explained different theories of the meaning of this obscure text. Was Paul alluding to the fact that he was a disciple of Christ for a shorter time than the other apostles? Did it indicate his lowly, sinful status when he was called to preach the gospel?
I recoil when I read autobiographical explanations of someone else’s work. But not in these cases.
But then the paper suddenly veered into first person. The author revealed that he was the father of a child who had recently died in a miscarriage. Subsequently, he had joined a support group for Christians who had lost a child through abortion, miscarriage or childbirth. Pouring out his grief, he spoke of the inestimable worth of the child he and his wife had long sought but had now lost. Rather than being an insignificant piece of matter, the ektroma now emerged as a being of incomparable worth. He proceeded to interpret Paul as being precious in God’s eyes because he was a tragically lost child. The commission to preach the gospel did not emerge on a neutral timeline; it was a consummate gift to a young human being who had been left for dead.
I was reviewing a new history book for an interdisciplinary journal. The monograph dealt with the decision of a 17-century widow to abandon her teenage son in order to enter the convent. The author explained that such abandonments, which often enraged the children, were not uncommon in this era. Why did a practice that would seem so objectionable today receive commendation in the church of that period? How could maternal abandonment have become a virtue?
As the author pondered the theological justifications for this practice, she also moved into the first person. She revealed that she is a mother of a child with Down syndrome and recounted the many challenges she faces in finding proper medical care, education and spiritual support for her beloved daughter. Her poignant narrative of her own relationship to her child made the earlier practice of maternal abandonment for the sake of the cloister even more disturbing.
The claim that maternal and paternal thinking are different from generic human thinking touches an indisputable truth.
When I read such autobiographical explanations of someone else’s work, I instinctively recoil. I am old enough to have been raised in the (now old) New School’s methods of literary analysis. We are to interpret a text or a life in terms of the inner structure of that work or life. We are not to project our own history or emotions or causes into the subject at hand. We are to respect the distinctive universe integral to each artwork. Never perfectly achieved, third-person objectivity remains the ideal. There is a steely beauty to such an approach, emphasizing the otherness of form and of facts. The danger of eisegesis when we interpret someone else’s book or geography in terms of our own idiosyncratic experience is real. Truth can yield to sincerity. Rational argument can surrender to emotional narrative.
As the two authors I evaluated indicated, certain people have an existential privilege in discerning the truth in analogous situations. The father of the child lost through miscarriage helped me to grasp the centrality and worth of the ektroma in Paul’s analogy, something I had missed with earlier lexicographical interpretations of the passage. I have long wrestled with the church’s centuries-long tradition that religious life was objectively superior to the state of marriage—a position that justified both paternal and maternal abandonment—but the detailed testimony of a woman facing the challenges of a special-needs child brought the problem with this position into a lacerating focus.
How identity politics is hurting human freedom
John J. Conley
What is the link between mental suffering and artistic creativity?
With all of its dangers, the growing postmodern claim that maternal thinking and paternal thinking are different from generic human thinking touches an indisputable truth. And the two authors I encountered deepened this truth by unveiling the suffering and regret that can swirl around the child one lost and the anxiety and joy that can enfold the child one raises.
This is a type of narrative thinking where the heart still has its reasons.
I question the applicability of "New School" literary analysis to Scripture. The Living Word is more than a text. Scripture study is good, but means little if we don't pray with Scripture, and enter into it with our whole being.
"The church's centuries-long tradition that religious life is objectively superior to the state of marriage" is irritating and mostly wrong, if maturity is the earthly goal of religion. Sexuality, with parenthood being its usual result, can mature people far more quickly and certainly than spirituality. Under the best of circumstances, being a parent is 24/7, lifelong formation in self-giving, and it cannot be revoked. Under difficult circumstances, being a parent can be a lesson in maintaining sanity in impossible situations.
A parent's understanding can aid our understanding of Scripture, so can a woman's understanding of Scripture. We seldom hear a woman's understanding of Scripture. The story of Martha and Mary is a story about a fight between two sisters. We never hear an interpretation of the most obvious part of the story, primarily because only men interpret Scripture. The story of Jesus defending the woman caught in adultery is about ending the death penalty for women in the matter of adultery. No wonder women loved Jesus extravagantly - he allowed them to live in the same situations in which men were allowed to live. A woman was the only human to anoint Jesus. What does that mean for the role of women in the church? Anointing was so important in the ministry of Jesus that it is part of his title - Jesus the Christ. Surely the fact that only a woman anointed him has meaning for choosing leaders in the church - perhaps church leaders should be required to have the endorsement of women before becoming bishops, cardinals, and popes. The church would be radically different if the consent of women were required to designate church leaders.
Some things cannot be understood from an "objective" viewpoint. Scripture is one of those things.
Kate Gallagher
At last... I read a lot of "spiritual" books which are learned, insightful, helpful and full of truth. Essentially without exception the authors are priests or religious. Consequently there is sometimes a disconnect. Once you are married and/or become a parent, you are fundamentally changed and can no longer approach God as a single independent person. (I've tried; it doesn't work.) No doubt the same must be true of other vocations (e.g teacher, health care.) Anyway I think there's a crying need for solid spiritual/exegetical/theological advice/direction by people whose vocations are not holy orders. (Those are great too but necessarily incomplete.)
More: Education / Family Life / Pro-Life
John J. Conley, S.J., is a Jesuit of the Maryland Province and a regular columnist for America. He is the current Francis J. Knott Chair of Philosophy and Theology at Loyola University, Maryland.
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Home » The Religious Village Blog » Sda Hymn 633
Sda Hymn 633
Blended Service with Hymns & Choruses; Coffee Bar is available; Sunday School, 9:45 a.m.; Worship Service, 11 a.m.; Lenen Lunch, Wednesday, March 28, noon at Levant Wesylan Church; Message: Jesus.
Furthermore, we have not generally included SDA periodicals or foreign language. nor have we listed all Bibles, pamphlets, tracts or hymnbooks found on the. Hodge, Charles, Essays and Reviews (NY: R. Carter & Bros, 1857), 633 pp.
Sda Hymn Book Go & quot; Dutch treat & quot; paying your part or half of the lunch or dinner check. Jewish internet dating sites facilitates Jewish singles to meet more people with similar interests that it was always possible without the Internet.
Jan 29, 2005. through publications and presentations. grisda.org. Faith and. It is a hymn praising the Creator for the mind- boggling. ary to the Old Testament (New York: Hebrew Publishing, 1914), 633, 34; BDB, 888, 89; K. Beyer, Die.
Evening 7:30 with hymn-sing. First Rev. Homer Sykes May, DD, pastor. Worship 10 and 7:30. Sermons, "The Best Things Remain," "Preparatory for Holy Communion." SS 11:15; CE 6:30. SEVENTH DAY ADVENTIST.
SDA hymnal provides all of the Adventist 695 songs + Midi for these songs. Virus Free Download SDA Hymnal app for Android. SDA hymnal provides all of the Adventist 695 songs + Midi for these songs.
Message: ”The Good Life” – The Door to Freedom; scripture; youth concert, 5 p.m. Audio of weekly messages are posted on www.bpumc.com Tuesday: Al-anon, 7 p.m. Wednesday: Women for Missions, 9 a.m.;.
About SDA Hymnal This sda hymnal with music is totally free and you can download the music to listen offline from anywhere. The best hymns from the Seventh-day Adventist church. You will find all of the 695 adventist hymns to help in your worship.
Some Key Events in Seventh-day Adventist History: A Chronological List. Published. ____WM–117 SONG TO THE SUN Aug 85 A special hymn in the new hymnbook. ____WM–633 LETTER FROM AN AHS WORKER Oct 95 Index: AHS.
SDA Hymnal DATE OF PUBLICATION: DECEMBER 2003 ~ WM 1180 Our official hymnbook, the Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal, was produced by a nineteen-member group (called the Hymnal Committee) in the early 1980s.
Major Religions In Vietnam "Mitt, here’s how it is, brother: The college deferments, we can debate that — but you hid behind your religion. You went to France to be a missionary while guys were dying in rice paddies in Vietnam. Prior to 1975, the numbers of Vietnamese coming to Victoria were low. They included orphans from the Vietnam
Apr 13, 2012 · To download the SDA Hymnal PowerPoint, please follow these steps.1. Click the link below.http://www.mediafire.com/view/?qg76vi0wylgix7w2. Look to the upper right area.
Seventh Day Adventist hymnal 63 (Shona, English & Ndebele/Zulu Lyrics in Description) JustImagine Pictures 1 year ago. 4,103. 3:28. Hymn 177 Hakuna usiku uko in Shona hymnal rsnmug 11 months ago. 2,473. 5:21. Mira seGamba utarise mhandu – Stand like the brave Christ in Song Hymn #225
See more of Shiloh Seventh-day Adventist Church on Facebook. Log In. Forgot account? or. Create New Account. Not Now. 633 visits. Related Pages. Tand J Enterprise. Local Business. Rockwest Pathfinders. Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal – Hymn 10. See More.
St Leo The Great Catholic Church Bonita Springs Fl Extensive list of all players to kick field goals of 60 yards or more in the history of football. (The first was 65 yards in 1882.) This includes NCAA, NAIA, NJCAA (Junior College),Interscholastic (High School), NFL, Arena football (AFL), minor leagues (NMLF, AFA), Canadian football (CFL) and Mexican football (ONEFA). Includes both placekicks and drop-kicks.
We are all beautiful, and all are welcome to worship and lead at CPC. This week we’re thankful to have Ted Lassagne lead our hymns, and the Covenant Choir will lift us up in song. It’s Birthdays and.
This Software is the digital version of Iwe Orin Ijo Onitebomi ti Nigeria. It is developed with the aim of reaching out for Christ and bringing back the glory and.
Jun 13, 2015 · At the Milton Seventh-day Adventist Church we live to glorify God. He is our Creator, Savior and Friend. “Jesus Is Coming Again” Hymn #213 Welcome & Prayer Pastor Matt Church Alive!. “When We All Get To Heaven” Hymn #633 Praise Team: Nick White, Don Campbell, Don Ehrhardt
Southern Gospel concerts in the Southern California area
Belo Horizonte | Brazil. Nazareth, Ethiopia; Parnamirim, Brazil; Belo Horizonte, Brazil; Belo Horizonte | Brazil
The Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal is the official hymnal of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and is widely used by English-speaking Adventist congregations. It consists of words and music to 695 hymns including traditional favorites from the earlier Church Hymnal that it replaced, American folk hymns, modern gospel songs, compositions by Adventists, contemporary hymns, and 224.
Fritz Reiner’s First Commercial Recordings in 1938. Fritz Reiner’s first commercial recording was made on November 22, 1938 with 60 musicians primarily from the New York Philharmonic 13.The recordings were made in Carnegie Hall, recorded by RCA Victor engineers.
Blended Service with Hymns & Choruses; Coffee Bar is available; Sunday School, 9:45 a.m.; Worship Service, 11 a.m. Worship: 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday School, 10 a.m.; Morning service message: Jesus.
"When We All Get to Heaven" is a Christian hymn written by Eliza Hewitt in 1898. Hewitt praises the wondrous love of Jesus and looks to the day we will all be.
Seventh-day Adventist hymnal is Hymns and Tunes for Those Who Keep the Commandments of God and the Faith of Jesus
Sep 18, 2009 · There are 225 passages of Scripture in the Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal, consisting of 135 response readings, 14 Canticles and Prayers, 36 calls to worship, 13 words of assurance, 14 offertory sentences, and 13 benedictions.
The Battle Hymn Of The Republic – Part 1 (Robin Herd). 8. The Battle. $20 U.S. & CN (Plus PS&H). 15-633. The Truth About Seventh-day. Adventist. Frances.
On this page you can read or download sda bemba hymn book in PDF format. If you don’t see any interesting for you, use our search form on bottom ↓.
SDA Hymnal contains all hymn lyrics of the Seventh-Day Adventist Hymnal, including all responsive readings. However, it does not include any sheet music or audio files. However, it does not include any sheet music or audio files.
Child Singing Gospel Music
Major Religions In Vietnam
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Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A)
College: College of Liberal Arts & Communication
Department: Art + Design
The Department of Art at Arkansas State University will provide an educational environment that fosters the creation and understanding of art. Students in art develop insight, sensitivity, and perception toward all aspects of nature while building individual expressive responses. Aesthetic and functional values, creative ideas, and media skills are developed through instructional guidance and applied experience in the studio and classroom.
Some of the courses may involve field trips to Memphis Brooks Museum, The Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock, or other regional art collections. Arkansas State University is an Accredited Institutional member of the National Association of Schools of Art and Design.
Why the BFA?
The Bachelor of Fine Arts degree programs are designed to prepare students for professional careers as a classroom art teacher, graphic designer, or studio artist. The BFA in Graphic Design is the initial professional degree, and it is the requisite degree for the student who plans to pursue a studio-oriented post-baccalaureate degree.
If you are an entering college Freshman, please visit the Undergraduate Admissions website to apply to ASU.
Transfer students should first visit the Undergraduate Admissions website to apply to A-State. Transfer students should submit a portfolio prior to enrollment in Art Department courses.
BFA/Transfer Review Policy
BFA review (ART 3330) is viewed as a counseling/advising practice for all art students, and, in
addition, it is an admissions screening procedure for students interested in pursuing the B.F.A. Degree
in Art or Graphic Design. Students should enroll in ART 3330 after completing 30 hours of ART/ARTH
courses and before completing 40 hours of ART/ARTH courses. Prerequisites are ART 1013, ART 1023, ART 1033, ART 1043, ARTH 2583, ARTH 2593, 9 hours additional studio/design courses. Students enrolled in the BFA programs must pass the BFA Review PRIOR to enrollment for 4000 level ART courses.
Transfer review (ART 3330) provides an opportunity for students joining us from other programs
to acquire a realistic assessment of their status vis-a-vis our program. Ideally, the transfer review should occur prior to enrollment in ASU art department courses. Should the transfer student intend to enter the B.F.A. Degree program, this review will serve as an admission screening process as indicated above. Transfer students must enroll in ART 3330, BFA Review during the first semester of enrollment at ASU.
The Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design is intended for the student who wishes to study graphic design as it applies to print and digital production.
The Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design with the Emphasis in Digital Design is intended for the student who wishes to focus on web design and other digital applications of graphic design
No grade below C in courses with an ARED/ART/ARTH prefix may be applied to the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. A cumulative 2.75 GPA or higher in all courses with an ART/ARTH/ARED prefix is required for the BFA degree.
Accredited by NASAD
Arkansas State University is an accredited institutional member of the National Association of Schools of Art and Design.
Graphic Design: 2019-2020
Digital Design: 2019-2020
Contact the Department of Art+Design
Dr. Temma Balducci
Room: 103A
Fine Arts Center
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The Gospel of Grandpa: part 1 | part 5 | part 7 | part 8 | Amazing Encounter
Ram Ramakrishnan
A leading astrological researcher, based in Hyderabad, India.
Ram says: "Like every one else, I too am a traveller adrift in this journey of life, in the quest for the Truth. Circumstantially, I am a graduate in Mathematics and worked as a computer analyst programmer for 15 years before giving up all commercial activities to take up full time astrological research, which I have been doing for more than a decade now."
You can write to Ram: Click Here
1. May All Beings Live in Harmony
2. May All Beings Live in Harmony (2)
3. Under the Sacred Peepal Tree
4. Tsunami Reflections
5. Destiny and the Dog
6. Patriotism and Sportsmanship
7. What Is & What Is Not
8. Colours of Life
9. (A)political Life
10. Man & Woman
11. Myth & Math
12. Honey! We shrunk the Gods!
13. Kosmic Kolams
14, Perfection Spells Myth
15. Astrology & Sexuality
16. Pondering Imponderables
17. The Happisad Theory
18. To Be, or to Become
19. Dogs and Gods
20. Prediction
21. Discovery
21. Embarkation
A Felonious Fellowship
Tirpuday Runs Away
Beckoning of an Émigré
Bound to die...
Ganesha the God
Life and Astrology
Amazing Encounter with Destiny
Naadi-Shastra
The Gospel of Grandpa [part seven]
What Is... And What Is Not
What is and what is not? Is whatever that is perceived "real", or is reality beyond perception? Questions such as these occur to everyone at some point during their lifetimes. With some it happens at an early age, with others later. But none manage to find answers. Even if some were to do so, their explanations are so befuddling that they raise more questions than those they are supposed to answer. Ram Ramakrishnan argues that such is life and the quest for the Truth!
Questions of this kind often occurred in the minds of the children and grandpa. Whether the latter induced them in the former, whether it was the other way around or was it only a coincidence, it was difficult to say. Grandpa explained to the children his understanding of the mechanism of life as we know it. He believed that every point in time-space gave birth to a unique multi-dimensional globe of perception. What physical form each globe acquired depended on the attributes of the time-space point. Every globe would intersect with other globes around. The space of intersection between two globes defined and described all interactions between them. Every globe had a time span of existence at the end which it would cease to perceive and be perceivable by other globes.
The children asked, 'Would grandpa include all living creatures in the set of entities that conform to this definition?' Grandpa answered in the affirmative.
'Would grandpa include abstract concepts—like a government body, a social institution in the set of entities?' The answer was a less confident affirmative.
'Would grandpa include all inanimate objects in the set of entities?' The answer continued to be in the affirmative, but vague.
The trio had been to see the latest sequel of Star Wars just a week before. And in the morning's newspaper there was an article that, about a decade from now, the US Army would be introducing robotic soldiers and other countries would follow suit in the years ahead. Could the likes of C3PIO, R2D2 and the real robotic soldiers to come in the near future be included in the set of entities that could be imagined to be globes of perception?
'Logically, yes', opined grandpa.
'But', said the children, who with time had developed the confidence of arguing every point without being impertinent, 'how could one differentiate between a robot and a human, or for that matter between any two globes of perception if they were to come into being at the same instant?'
Grandpa firmly believed that a point in time-space can give rise only to one unique globe. However, he asked the children to help him in doing an analysis of the geographic distribution of human births in time which would provide a rough estimate of the probability of more than one globe coming into being at a point in time-space. The children were only too willing!
The files with demographic information that grandpa had brought out from his shelf when he and the children had discussed the devastation caused by the tsunami had not been returned to its original place and still lay on the table. They leafed through it to locate the birth rate prevalent in India at this time. The children got out their geography book to find the total area of the country. Grandpa then explained how to compute the number of births per day per square kilometre, which the children immediately did and arranged the computed figures in a table as below.
Births per Day, per Square Kilometer
1. Birth rate 23.8 per 1000 per year
2. Population 1,000,000,000 approximately
3. Births per year 23,800,000
4. Births per day 65206
5. Land area 3,300,000 square kilometres
6. Births per day per square kilometre 0.01976
7. Births per hour per square kilometre 0.000833
The birth rate was one child a day for every 100 square kilometres! Grandpa reminded the children that population density is also factor to be considered to arrive at more reasonable figures. For this it would perhaps be more appropriate to study the figures for the national capital territory of Delhi which is almost entirely urban. The basic data for Delhi were as follows:
Basic Birth Rate Data for Delhi
Area: 1,483 square km
Population: 13,782,976 rounded off to 13,800,000
Birth rate: 25.6 per thousand per year
The children quickly recomputed birth figures for Delhi and arranged them in another table as below.
Birth Rate Comparison
1. Birth rate 23.8 per 1000 per year 25.6 per 1000 per year
2. Population 1,000,000,000 approx. 13,800,000 approx.
3. Births per year 23,800,000 353,280
4. Births per day 65206 968
5. Land area 3,300,000 sq km 1,483 sq km
6. Births per day per sq km 0.01976 0.6527
7. Births per hour per sq km 0.000833 0.0272
The figures for Delhi were about 33 times higher than the national average. Even then there were only 2 births in every 3 square kilometres per day. The hourly rate was 3 births for a 100 square kilometre area.
This done, the children were eager to know what the astrological significance of this result was. Grandpa drew a circle with a representative diameter of 11.25 kilometres which would give the representative area of the circle as 100 square kilometres approximately. On the diameter he marked three points—one at the centre and two on either side of it that were two thirds of the distance of the radius, which marked possible places of birth in a given minute. The exercise was to analyse the following:
the difference in longitudes for three points
the difference in the position of the ascending degree at each of the three points
the observable differences in application of astrological rules to such charts
Considering Delhi's latitude to be 17º north, the radius of the latitudinal circle at this point will be 6101 km and the circumference of the latitudinal circle will be 38349 km. A one kilometre distance at this latitude will therefore be equivalent to 0.009387 degree longitude. The assumed birth points marked on the circle above were 3.769 kilometres apart. The longitudinal distance between each point was 3.769 * 0.009387 = 0.03538 degrees = 0º 2' 07" approximately.
Grandpa switched on his computer and drew a chart for an arbitrary date and time (July 1, 1988, 11:30 am) for the terrestrial co-ordinates 17N00, 75E00 and time standard -05:30 off GMT. He then drew two more charts with time and longitude reduced by 20 seconds and 2' 07" respectively in one and both increased by this margin in the other. The results were tabulated by the children as below.
Variant Birth Time
Chart-1
1. Time 11:29:40 11:30:00 11:30:20
2. Longitude 074E57:53 075E00:00 075E02:07
3. Ascendant 09° 04'11" 09° 11'01" 09° 17'52"
The difference in the rising degree between each chart was 6'50" Grandpa described two astrological procedures that immediately came to his mind that could be expected to give divergent results even in charts with such small differences. The first was to do with transits while the second was related to the concept of divisional charts.
Saturn takes about 912 days to cover 30 degrees. In a day this would average 0.03289 degrees = 0º 1' 58". Saturn would transit over each natal ascendant (or any other point of the natal chart) during its apparent geocentric orbit with a variance of 3.75 days. In this time the Moon would have moved about 45 degrees and the Sun by 3.75 degrees. The collective influence of the celestials over the natal ascendants will be different as they will be placed at different locations in the zodiac.
Astrology prescribes use of divisional charts for accurate prognosis. The smallest of these divisions is 1/150 of a sign that spans 6' of arc. As the difference between the ascendants in the three charts is more than this measure, the ascendant in each case will be in a different division. The attributes for each of these divisions can be very different that can result in the globe of perception defined by them imbibing divergent characteristics.
Even though the exercise that had been done so far was very rudimentary and was based upon a number of assumptions, the children were indeed awed at the prospect of being able to verify grandpa's notion of unique perceptive globes. All this brainstorming began after dinner and it was time to go to bed. The children looked out of the window at the night sky. The stars winked at them. Were they also globes of perception? Surely they too should be...
Here ends this chapter of this continuing story. Read more from — The Gospel of Grandpa — 1 – Beings in Harmony 2 – Beings in Harmony [2] 3 – Sacred Peepal Tree 4 – Tsunami Reflections 5 – Ebb & Flow of Life 6 – Patriotism & Sport 7 – What Is & What Is Not 8 – Colours of Life 9 – (A)political Life 10 – Man & Woman 11 – Myth & Math 12 – Honey! We shrunk the Gods! 13 – Kosmic Kolam 14 – Perfection Spells Myth 15 – Astrology & Sexuality 16 – Pondering Imponderables 17 – The Happisad Theory 18 – To Be, or to Become 19 – Dogs and Gods 20 – Prediction 21 – Discovery 22 – Embarkation Amazing Encounter with Destiny I Am Destiny Tirpuday Runs Away A Felonious Fellowship Beckoning of an Émigré Oh Boy! You're bound to die... Astrological Living Profound Trivialities Ganesh, the God Parents by Choice Whither Moksha? Tale of Two Testimonies Astrology Science Thy Will Be Done Astrology Ethics
Web www.astrologycom.com
Articles | AstroMatch | Search | Books | Contact | Forum | Postcards | Glossary | Links | Site Map
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B&B Gayton - norfolk
Gayton
Get to Gayton
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1 Gayton Road, Grimston, PE32 1BG Grimston, United Kingdom
The Old Bell is situated within the quiet, Norfolk village of Grimston. It offers free Wi-Fi and a restaurant just 20 minutes’ drive from the market town of King’s Lynn. Guests can enjoy home-cooked dining within the Old Bell's restaurant.
Linden Bed & Breakfast
Linden, Station Road, Hillington, PE31 6DE Hillington, United Kingdom
Offering three charming en suite rooms, Linden Bed & Breakfast has a beautiful countryside setting in the village of Hillington, West Norfolk. It features a garden, free parking and free Wi-Fi, 3 miles from Sandringham.
Congham Hall Hotel & Spa
Grimston, PE32 1AH Grimston, United Kingdom
Nestled within the beautiful Norfolk countryside on the edge of the Sandringham Estate, Congham Hall is a privately owned Georgian manor house situated 20 minutes' drive from the sandy beaches of the North Norfolk coast.
Narpenny House
Narborough Road, Pentney, King's Lynn, Norfolk., PE32 1JD Narborough, United Kingdom
Featuring free WiFi and a terrace, Narpenny House offers accommodation in Narborough. Free private parking is available on site. The rooms include a flat-screen TV. You will find a kettle in the room. Extras include free toiletries and a hair dryer.
Ashwood Wing
, PE32 Gayton, United Kingdom
Located in Gayton in the Norfolk Region, this holiday home is 50 km from Norwich. The unit is 49 km from Bury Saint Edmunds. The unit fitted with a kitchen with an oven and toaster. Towels and bed linen are available at Ashwood Wing.
Keepers Cottage
Keepers Cottage is a holiday home featuring a garden with a barbecue, located in Gayton. The unit is 49 km from Norwich. There is a dining area and a kitchen complete with an oven and a toaster. A TV and DVD player are offered.
Hadleigh Farm Barn
, PE32 1LP Gayton, United Kingdom
Hadleigh Farm Barn is a holiday home located in Gayton, 46 km from Skegness. The property boasts views of the city and is 10 km from Kings Lynn. A dishwasher and an oven can be found in the kitchen and there is a private bathroom.
Red Lodge bed and breakfast
Red Lodge Country House, Narford road, Narford, PE32 1JA Swaffham, United Kingdom
Red Lodge bed and breakfast is set in Swaffham, 46 km from Norwich and 49 km from Bury Saint Edmunds. Free WiFi is provided and free private parking is available on site. Some units include a seating area for your convenience.
Shambles Cottage
, PE32 Grimston, United Kingdom
Shambles Cottage is located in Grimston. The accommodation will provide you with a TV. There is a full kitchen with an oven and a refrigerator. Featuring a shower, private bathrooms also come with a bath or shower.
Ashwood Manor
Ashwood Manor is a holiday home located in Gayton in the Norfolk Region and is 50 km from Norwich. It provides free private parking. Free WiFi is provided throughout the property.
Linhay
, PE32 1BG Grimston, United Kingdom
Linhay is a holiday home located in Grimston, 44 km from Skegness. The property is 11 km from Kings Lynn and free private parking is available. Free WiFi is offered throughout the property.
Willow Tree Farm
Field Farm. Hillington, PE31 6DL Hillington, United Kingdom
Willow Tree Farm offers accommodation in Hillington. Free WiFi is offered throughout the property and free private parking is available on site. Rooms have a flat-screen TV and DVD player. Some rooms include a seating area where you can relax.
Ffolkes Arms Hotel
Lynn Road Hillington, PE31 6BJ Hillington, United Kingdom
Just 3 miles from the Sandringham Estate, the family-run Ffolkes Arms Hotel features en suite rooms, 2 cosy bars and free Wi-Fi throughout. There is ample free secure parking. The bars at Ffolkes Hotel have open fires, and offer bar meals and ales.
, PE32 1LE Gayton, United Kingdom
Located in Gayton, this holiday home is set 11 km from Kings Lynn. The unit is 29 km from Hunstanton. Free WiFi is offered throughout the property. There is a dining area and a kitchen.
The Crown Inn
Lynn Road Gayton, PE32 1PA Gayton, United Kingdom
With parts dating back to the 13th century, this 16th-century inn is now a small country pub offering free Wi-Fi, 2 bars, a separate restaurant and comfortable accommodation.
Waters Reach
Set in Gayton in the Norfolk Region, this holiday home is 11 km from Kings Lynn. The property is 29 km from Hunstanton and boasts views of the city. Free private parking is available on site. A dishwasher and an oven can be found in the kitchen.
Grays Cottages
Grays Cottages is located in Gayton. The accommodation will provide you with a TV. There is a full kitchen with an oven and a refrigerator. Featuring a bath, private bathrooms also come with a bath or shower.
Pentney Park
Main Road Pentney, PE32 1HU Narborough, United Kingdom
Offering a seasonal outdoor pool and children's playground, Pentney Park is set in Narborough in the Norfolk Region, 50 km from Norwich. Kings Lynn is 14 km from the property. The accommodation features a seating and dining area.
High Cottages Bed and Breakfast
13 St Andrews Lane, Congham, PE32 1DS Gayton, United Kingdom
Offering free bikes, High Cottages Bed and Breakfast is located in Gayton, 7 miles from Kings Lynn. This quiet property has free WiFi access and offers free parking.
The Jays
Set 11 km from Kings Lynn and 29 km from Hunstanton, The Jays offers accommodation in Gayton. The unit is 36 km from Ely. Free private parking is available on site. The kitchen is equipped with a dishwasher and there is a private bathroom.
bedandbreakfast-inn.co.uk allows you to search, compare and booking of accommodation located in Gayton. In particular, the site highlights the B&B.
in ≡ the list among the different options select B&Bs, or next to the number of accommodation facilities, found in Gayton select B&B
B&B Gayton - norfolk.
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IAAF.org: Sun makes it three in row in Beijing Marathon
In the absence of 10,000m Olympic Champion Xing Huina, Sun Yingjie, sixth in the 10,000m in Athens, was the star athlete attracting big interest from the Chinese press. Before the race Sun revealed that she suffered a minor injury in Athens, but that she had recovered quickly.
Sun finished the Beijing Marathon in 2:24:11, which gives her the seventh place in the world list this season, for the third consecutive title in Beijing.
07.01.2020 Berliner Neujahrslauf-Teilnehmer spenden über 7.400 Euro an die Björn Schulz Stiftung
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Business & Developmentby Fern Shen9:00 amJan 27, 20170
Cross Street Market vendors plead for help from City Hall
No moving expenses are to be paid to merchants, while the developer’s lease will be frozen for 50 years
Above: John Murphy and Anna Epsilantis (left) confront mayoral advisor Jim Smith (far right) about the treatment of Cross Street Market’s merchants by a developer. (Fern Shen)
Thanks to a fire drill that flushed top officials out of City Hall, merchants who feel they are being unjustly driven from city-owned Cross Street Market by the private developer overhauling it had some unique access on Wednesday.
“This is wonderful. You were on my list to call!” said Anna Epsilantis, of Big Jim’s Deli, approaching James T. Smith Jr., chief of strategic alliances for Mayor Catherine Pugh.
Smith, Pugh and dozens of City Hall staffers and visitors were milling around outside the building awaiting permission to return inside.
“Arsh has a lot of money, but he doesn’t have the right to come in and treat people this way,” said Kevin O’Keeffe, an Otterbein resident supporting the merchants.
O’Keeffe was referring to Arsh Mirmiran, principal at Caves Valley Partners (CVP), which has told 17 merchants operating out of the three-block-long, cement-block building in South Baltimore they must clear out before May 1.
CVP’s lawyer has said the merchants will not be receiving any moving or relocation expenses to get them through the estimated minimum 10 months the market will be shuttered for renovation, according to John C. Murphy, attorney for the businesses.
Without financial assistance to help them pay for moving freezers and other big equipment to another location or into storage for months of inactivity, Murphy said, the process will bankrupt many businesses, some of which date back generations.
“They are really just pushing us out,” Epsilantis said.
“I’ll look into it,” Smith told them, trading business cards with Epsilantis, who gets emotional when asked about her chances of returning.
Eggnog served up recently by Anna Epsilantis, owner of Big Jim’s Deli, one of the Cross Street Market businesses told to vacate by May 1. (Fern Shen)
Like other merchants in the market, a Federal Hill fixture beloved by many but in need of a facelift, Epsilantis has received a letter of intent from CVP that includes the monthly lease she would have to pay after renovations are complete.
“It’s more than I can afford,” she said to a reporter, her eyes welling with tears. Non-disclosure language prevented her from revealing the lease amount.
But according to Steve’s Lunch owner John Nichols, who had not yet received his letter, other merchants have been told their rent would be double or triple what it is now.
Young: “I Don’t Have Any Control”
With the city contributing $2 million towards the $6.5 million renovation under a lease agreement announced in November, Murphy and his clients have been pressing local politicians for help.
So far, they’re not getting far.
City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young, approached by Epsilantis after the Wednesday Board of Estimates meeting, said there was little he could do.
“I don’t have any control over it. I’m not on the board” of directors for the Baltimore Public Markets Corp. (BPMC), Young said, referring to the entity that signed the lease.
(The market board’s chairman, Downtown Partnership President Kirby Fowler, has not returned a call from The Brew seeking comment.)
Pugh, approached by Murphy about the merchants’ plight during the spending board’s “pre-meeting,” told him, “I will look into it.”
Area residents have discussed the need for a makeover for the market for years. (Fern Shen)
Responding to our recent query, Pugh’s spokesman had this reply on her behalf:
“I understand that the developer and Baltimore Public Market Corporation have been working collaboratively with the existing merchants and community to develop a plan for Cross Street market. Hopefully this dialogue will result in positive results for stakeholders while also realizing the full potential of market.”
Murphy said Pugh may be under a mistaken impression.
The agreement hammered out by her predecessor and approved by the Board of Estimates in November, he argues, requires little meaningful help from the developer.
“The reality is that the merchants got thrown under the bus by the carelessness of the prior administration which negotiated the deal,” Murphy said.
Developer: Positive Outcomes for All
Mirmiran has responded vigorously to his critics in public meetings and recently on the Internet, with a new website featuring renderings of the finished market and point-by-point rebuttals.
“Please read crossstmarket.com, then vote in this absurdly worded poll – UNREAL!” he tweeted recently.
He was referring to a Baltimore Business Journal poll that suggested the Cross Street renovation might exacerbate the problem some see with too many bars in Federal Hill.
Asked repeatedly by the The Brew to comment on the matter, Mirmiran has declined, pointing a reporter to his Cross Street Market website.
Arsh Mirmiran discusses Caves Valley Partners’ planned redevelopment of Cross Street Market. (Fern Shen)
“CVP and its team will offer the group assistance in their efforts and the hope is to take the passion of the surrounding communities for the current merchants and channel it to achieve positive outcomes for all concerned,” the text reads.
The site says CVP could assist current merchants in finding temporary space near the market and notes that “relocation and build-out expenses in this scenario would be paid for by the new landlords.”
Under a second scenario in which the merchants are offered space far from their customer base at the Lexington or Hollins markets, the language is unclear. This “could have resulted” in the Markets Corp. paying relocation expenses, it says.
A third scenario says that CVP “offered to finance” the shutdown period, referring apparently to a loan to be repaid upon returning.
Murphy called these offers vague. None signifies a firm dollar commitment on the part of CVP.
Murphy estimates that fair moving and relocation expenses, required under state law, would be more like $50,000-$60,000.
One of the merchants being told to leave Cross Street – Kwan’s Fresh Produce – was previously at the Belair Market and was paid $25,000 by the city to move, when that market was closed in 1995, he said.
Murphy argued that merchants are being treated better at city-led renovations planned at the Lexington and Hollins markets. “Why the Cross Street businesses are being treated differently is inexplicable to me,” he said.
No Fee Increase for CVP
Murphy may not have made much headway with Pugh Administration officials, but he seems to have raised the eyebrows of Comptroller Joan Pratt, who sits on the Board of Estimates with the mayor and City Council president.
Murphy has pointed out to Pratt some unusual features of the pact the board approved in November.
It included reference to a management agreement that locks in CVP’s payments at $120,000 a year for the next 50 years. (See “renewal” language, page 13, section 10.)
But the summary of the agreement presented to the board makes no mention of the fact that it allows the developer to renew monthly lease payments at $10,000 for the next half-century.
Real estate leases for residential and commercial property typically include increases based on the Consumer Price Index.
“If it had been formally approved, the city Real Estate Department would have presumably picked up this glaring deficiency,” said Murphy, who has asked the board to reconsider its November 9 approval.
Pratt, asked this week about the provision, was clearly concerned about it.
“It doesn’t make sense that for 50 years, it doesn’t increase,” she said. “We’re looking into it.”
Nunnally Brothers Choice Meats at Cross Street Market traces its business back to 1875. (Fern Shen)
Business & DevelopmentJan 9, 2020
Praise and concern about Caves Valley’s 318-unit apartment building plan
“Beyond our wildest dreams,” one said, while another urged more focus on the ailing retail: “I don’t care whether more apartments are built.”
Business & DevelopmentDec 9, 2019
Property owners accuse Mayor Young of favoring a project by his campaign treasurer
Martin Cadogan is a principal behind a 100-unit apartment building that would greatly alter the historic Tractor Building at Clipper Mill.
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