The full dataset viewer is not available (click to read why). Only showing a preview of the rows.
The dataset generation failed
Error code: DatasetGenerationError
Exception: ArrowInvalid
Message: JSON parse error: Missing a closing quotation mark in string. in row 121
Traceback: Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/packaged_modules/json/json.py", line 153, in _generate_tables
df = pd.read_json(f, dtype_backend="pyarrow")
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 815, in read_json
return json_reader.read()
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1025, in read
obj = self._get_object_parser(self.data)
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1051, in _get_object_parser
obj = FrameParser(json, **kwargs).parse()
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1187, in parse
self._parse()
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1403, in _parse
ujson_loads(json, precise_float=self.precise_float), dtype=None
ValueError: Trailing data
During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1997, in _prepare_split_single
for _, table in generator:
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/packaged_modules/json/json.py", line 156, in _generate_tables
raise e
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/packaged_modules/json/json.py", line 130, in _generate_tables
pa_table = paj.read_json(
File "pyarrow/_json.pyx", line 308, in pyarrow._json.read_json
File "pyarrow/error.pxi", line 154, in pyarrow.lib.pyarrow_internal_check_status
File "pyarrow/error.pxi", line 91, in pyarrow.lib.check_status
pyarrow.lib.ArrowInvalid: JSON parse error: Missing a closing quotation mark in string. in row 121
The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/src/services/worker/src/worker/job_runners/config/parquet_and_info.py", line 1529, in compute_config_parquet_and_info_response
parquet_operations = convert_to_parquet(builder)
File "/src/services/worker/src/worker/job_runners/config/parquet_and_info.py", line 1154, in convert_to_parquet
builder.download_and_prepare(
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1029, in download_and_prepare
self._download_and_prepare(
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1124, in _download_and_prepare
self._prepare_split(split_generator, **prepare_split_kwargs)
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1884, in _prepare_split
for job_id, done, content in self._prepare_split_single(
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 2040, in _prepare_split_single
raise DatasetGenerationError("An error occurred while generating the dataset") from e
datasets.exceptions.DatasetGenerationError: An error occurred while generating the datasetNeed help to make the dataset viewer work? Make sure to review how to configure the dataset viewer, and open a discussion for direct support.
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float64 | text
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string |
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Blood of Dracula/Blood Is My Heritage/Blood of the Demon (1957) **½
With a title like that, you probably thought this was another Dracula movie. Well I guess that shows how much you know, doesn’t it? Actually, what we have here is another entry in American International Pictures’ late-50’s monsters-and-teenagers binge, made in the wake of I Was a Teenage Werewolf. And this particular movie has an interesting twist that separates it from its better-known cousins; alone among this crop of films, Blood of Dracula/Blood Is My Heritage/Blood of the Demon is told from a girl’s point of view.
That girl is Nancy Perkins (Sandra Harrison). When we first lay eyes on her, she is being driven to her new boarding school, the Thornedyke School for Girls, by her father (Thomas Browne Henry, from Earth vs. the Flying Saucers and The Beginning of the End) and his new wife (Gog’s Jean Dean). Nancy doesn’t much like the idea, and she likes her new stepmother even less. In fact, she suddenly lunges over the front seat to grab the steering wheel, and tries to jerk the car off the road into a deep ravine in protest of the whole situation. What can I say— she’s a troubled kid. Anyway, Nancy’s introduction to the school and its namesake headmistress (Mary Adams, from Diary of a Madman) goes smoothly, at least while her father is around to see it. But when five of her dorm-mates sneak into her room and start rifling through her stuff (hazings were a lot less involved in those days, weren’t they?), we get another little peek at Nancy’s dark side. Things really turn ugly when one of the girls finds Nancy’s framed portrait of her boyfriend, Glen (Michael Hall), and starts ribbing her about it— it’s like somebody suddenly reached over and threw a switch labeled “catfight!” The commotion brings the cranky old dorm mother rushing to Nancy’s room, and the other girls sneak away as fast as they can, leaving the new girl to face Madame Grumpus alone.
The fact that Nancy doesn’t rat out her obnoxious dorm-mates changes their feelings toward her a bit. The next day at breakfast, Myra, the leader of the pack (Gail Ganley, from Not of this Earth and Don’t Knock the Rock), offers to initiate Nancy into her secret sorority, the Birds of Paradise. Membership benefits include invitations to all the best parties; inclusion in any schemes for exciting trouble; rotating romantic access to Eddie (Anatomy of a Psycho’s Don Devlin), the school’s teenage handyman and the only boy on campus; and, most importantly, freedom from the pointless, petty harassment that the Birds of Paradise delight in heaping upon all non-members. Nancy doesn’t exactly turn Myra down, but her lukewarm and faintly contemptuous response makes it clear that Myra isn’t going to be able to control her the way she does the other Birds.
The Birds of Paradise, as it turns out, are not Myra’s only extracurricular activity. She’s also a teaching assistant for Miss Branding, Thornedyke’s science instructor (Louise Lewis, from I Was a Teenage Werewolf and The Vampire), and the relationship between the girl and her teacher seems to be one of full-scale mentorship. Myra is the only person in the whole school who knows anything about Branding’s secret experiments, whereby she hopes to prove that the human mind contains a power far more destructive than any product of human science. Branding’s reasons for pursuing this project are complex, and more than a little warped. She wants to convince the scientific world that her work is a more promising foundation for weapons research than nuclear physics, so that she can get herself put in charge of some sort of psychic Manhattan Project. When the leaders of the world fully grasp the destructive force that she has put at their disposal, they will realize that war has become a prospect too horrible to contemplate, and thus Branding’s work will paradoxically become the key to world peace. Myra herself, alas, will have comparatively little role in Branding’s project, because what she needs in an experimental subject is a girl of unusually fiery temperament, a sort of female version of I Was a Teenage Werewolf’s Tony Rivers. But as it happens, Myra thinks she knows someone who’ll fit Miss Branding’s bill perfectly.
Yep. We’re talking about Nancy. After testing the brevity of Nancy’s fuse by conspiring to have one of the other Birds of Paradise mistakenly dab acid on the back of her hand in science class (and what do you know— it’s damned short), Branding starts spending an awful lot of time with the new girl. Like Dr. Brandon in I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Branding convinces Nancy to let herself be hypnotized, and with a little assistance from an antique amulet the teacher picked up in the Carpathians, she gets results comparable to Dr. Brandon’s, too. Nancy begins turning into a vampire-like creature by night, drinking the blood of everyone who crosses her by day.
Soon enough, her nocturnal prowling attracts the attention of the police. Lieutenant Dunlap, the head of the investigation (Malcolm Atterbury, from The Birds and How to Make a Monster), and his chief medical examiner are baffled by the killings. The doctor can’t figure out how the dead girls lost so much blood when their only apparent injuries are pairs of tiny puncture wounds on their necks, while Dunlap can’t understand why anyone would want to kill any of the victims in the first place— everyone he talks to claims the girls had no enemies. But the real complications begin when the story of the Thornedyke slayings breaks out into the regional news. Within days, the board of trustees is talking about closing down the school, and Nancy’s boyfriend has come to Thornedyke to make sure she’s okay. By this point, Nancy has figured out that she most assuredly is not, and that, whatever is wrong with her, it’s all Miss Branding’s doing. And when she finds herself wanting to kill her own boyfriend for his blood, she goes straight to her mad scientist teacher looking for some answers, and ready to kick some ass if she doesn’t get them.
If the level of obscurity to which it has since sunk is any indication, Blood of Dracula wasn’t nearly as successful as I Was a Teenage Werewolf, I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, or Invasion of the Saucer Men, and if I had to venture a guess as to why, I’d say it probably had something to do with the title. Horror of Dracula and its successors wouldn’t be coming along to make the count respectable again as a modern horror icon for another year, and in 1957, the old Universal horror films were generally seen as sort of stodgy and quaint. AIP would surely have garnered much more attention for this movie had they called it I Was a Teenage Vampire instead, especially when you consider that neither Dracula nor even his blood is in any way involved in its story. It’s really too bad, because Blood of Dracula is a pretty entertaining little film, quite a bit more satisfying than I Was a Teenage Werewolf, even if it doesn’t rise to anything like the heights reached by I Was a Teenage Frankenstein. The best thing about it is the feminine focus of its story, which makes for an engaging change of pace from the other AIP teens-and-monsters flicks. The nasty politics of relationships among teenage girls has served as an extremely fertile seeding ground for horror films and fiction during the last 30 years, but in the late 1950’s, it was almost completely unexplored territory. Obviously, Blood of Dracula is no Carrie, but it certainly points in that direction, and does so fairly effectively.
On the downside, this movie is hampered by extremely bad acting from most of the cast, and the vampire makeup Sandra Harrison wears is absolutely ludicrous. The details of the plot also owe perhaps a bit too much to I Was a Teenage Werewolf; not only is Nancy Perkins really little more than Tony Rivers in drag, the motives of the two mad scientists— and even their names— are a little too similar for comfort. To some extent, this is compensated for by the fact that many of the most conspicuously retreaded scenes work much better this time around (the one in which Nancy finally turns on Miss Branding is only the most obvious example), but producer Herman Cohen really ought to have allowed screenwriter Ralph Thorton a little more time to recharge his creative batteries between films.
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cc/2023-06/en_head_0002.json.gz/line3
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__label__wiki
| 0.830122
| 0.830122
|
Reconstruction Education In The South:
The racial conflict of November 1898 in Wilmington clearly has its origins in 1865 when Wilmington was occupied by northern troops, and its elected government replaced by martial law. The reconstruction acts of the US Congress imposed an alien governmental system on North Carolina in which it had no voice, and gave no consent to. The State's exemplary public school system established by Calvin H. Wiley was destroyed by the war and replaced with a fraudulent carpetbag system replete with corrupt northern administrators.
The first excerpt below describes in general the condition of schools in North Carolina after the War and under the carpetbag government, and one can see how the specter of Republican party corruption gaining acendancy in the mid-1890's put fear in the hearts of many Wilmingtonians, and provided the impetus to force a "regime change" in 1898.
Education During Reconstruction
(Edgar W. Knight, Public Education in The South, Ginn and Co., 1922.
pp. 367-370)
S.S. Ashley, a minister from Massachusetts, was elected the first superintendent of schools for North Carolina under the reconstruction plan. He was a man of some ability, but very narrow in view and so prejudiced that he was not always cautious in his behavior. He was especially interested in mixed schools for the State, and this interest served to make him very unpleasant to the native conservative population.
His first report appeared in November, 1868, before the new educational legislation had been enacted, and showed that almost nothing was being done for public schools. The income for school purposes was very meager and in striking contrast to the liberal fund for school support before 1860.
Several outside agencies were aiding in education in the State, however, during this time. Among them were the Baltimore Association of Friends, the Soldiers’ Memorial Society of Boston, the American Unitarian Association, and the Peabody Board. The education of the freedmen was receiving attention from the Freedmen’s Bureau, the New England Freedmen’s Relief Association, the New York Freedmen’s Relief Association, the American Missionary Association, the Friends’ Freedmen’s Aid Association, the Presbyterian General Assembly, and other organizations. Through Reverend F. A. Fiske, of Massachusetts, an educational campaign for the freedmen was carried on by the Freedmen’s Bureau, and the Peabody Board was aiding several towns to maintain schools and was stimulating interest in public education generally.
Lack of funds, scarcity of teachers, defective legislation, uncertainty and confusion, partisan strife, and fraud and extravagance in the state government promised nothing but failure for the new school system, which was meeting obstacles at almost every point. Added to these ills was a decision of the supreme court which held that the provision of the school law of 1869 for local school taxes was unconstitutional and could not be enforced. And with public opinion so strongly against levying of school taxes under the radical regime, the entire school system was practically inoperative.
The legislature which met in the fall of 1870 was largely conservative and concerned itself almost entirely with the impeachment of Governor Holden. But two acts of educational importance were passed. One reduced the salary of the state superintendent from $2400 to $1500, removed the clerical force of the officer, and allowed him no funds for traveling expenses; the other looked to the better protection of the literary fund. Both acts reflected reaction to the radical regime, and that reaction continued for many years after the final overthrow of reconstruction. In the fall of 1871 conservative influence enacted a new school law to take the place of that of 1869 and with more liberal provisions for public education. Among these provisions was that of a property and a special capitation tax for school support. Plans were also provided for institutes for the training of teachers, and the report of the superintendent for 1872 was much better than that of any previous reconstruction reports of the schools work of the State. But conditions were yet far from satisfactory. The principle of public taxation for school support was receiving wider acceptance, but its application to the needs and conditions of the State was a more difficult task. Moreover, the fear of mixed schools and the agitation in Congress of the Civil Rights Bill added confusion and alarm.
Between 1873 and 1875 only slight improvement appeared. The concluding steps to overthrow the rule of reconstruction were taken in the constitutional convention of 1875, however, and in the campaign which followed the next year the work of the convention was of great political and social importance, because many changes were made which promised the promotion of better government in the State.
In many respects public education in North Carolina during reconstruction suffers when compared with that of the ante-bellum period. Teachers were paid a higher salary in North Carolina before the war than during reconstruction or until after 1900. A larger percentage of the school population was enrolled in school in 1860 than at any time during reconstruction. Moreover, the reconstruction regime failed to improve the provisions for state, county, and local administrative organization and supervision. Finally, evidence is strong that had the native conservative element of the State been free to act without unwholesome influences from the outside a safer and more adequate educational plan than that supplied by reconstruction would have been outlined and promoted.
Calvin H. Wiley was the great force behind the drive for outstanding public schools in antebellum North Carolina, superintending over a system far superior to the one imposed on the State after the War ended. Wiley served as State Superintendent of Public Instruction from 1853 to 1865.
Calvin H. Wiley and the Common Schools
(Guion G. Johnson, Ante-Bellum North Carolina, The University of North Carolina Press, 1937. pp.277-282)
Born in Guilford County in 1819 of Scotch-Irish descent, a student at Caldwell Institute in Greensboro and a graduate of the University of North Carolina, Wiley was already popular in the State as a lawyer, author, editor, and politician before his appointment as state superintendent of public instruction. He took to his office an enthusiasm for his work and a genuine devotion to North Carolina. His theory of education was the old Jeffersonian doctrine which had been expressed in the State since the time of the Revolution: popular education is the basis of a republic form of government. It was Wiley, however, who sought to popularize the theory in North Carolina. From Cherokee to Currituck, in his speeches, letters, and reports, he constantly preached the doctrine that a “system of common schools for a great and growing state is a vast and sublime moral obligation.”
During the twelve years that he was superintendent, he made the accomplishment of these objectives the chief duties in his office. He seldom had difficulty in obtaining legislation for improving the machinery of the school system. He gradually won the cooperation of the county and district committees, and in the end made the public schools a credit to the State. It was no idle boast when he declared in 1860, “North Carolina has the start of all her Southern sisters in educational matters.”
In 1860 Wiley had been in office only seven years; yet in that short period he had revolutionized the public school system of North Carolina. The number of school districts had increased from about 3,000 in 1853 to 3,471 in 1860; the number of schools from 2,500 to 3,082; the number of children in school from 95,000 to 118,852; the number of licensed teachers from 800 to 2,752; the expenditures from $150,000 in 1854 to $278,000 in 1860. He had been unable, however, to lengthen the school term; it remained at about four months until the close of the ante-bellum period.
Wiley also conceived the idea of licensing teachers. He prepared a form of certificate which was to indicate the grade or rank of the teacher on spelling, reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, and grammar, and sent these forms to the examining committees with the instructions that each teacher appearing before them should be given a graded certificate, figure 1 signifying the highest grade of scholarship and figure 5 the lowest. He encouraged teachers to continue their education; he urged the establishment of normal schools for the training of teachers; he recommended the creation of district libraries, the erection of district teachers’ halls, and the organization of county teachers’ associations. In 1858 he was still looking forward to the time when “every teacher in the State…will, annually, be carefully examined, and have his mental and moral character fully tested,” for he was still receiving such complaints as the following from Wadesboro: “The great obstacle to public schools in this county is the small number of persons who are qualified and willing to teach.”
The first convention of teachers which assembled in the ante-bellum period was that which met in Chapel Hill during the commencement exercises of the University in June 1831, and organized the North Carolina Institute of Education “to diffuse knowledge on the subject of education, and by every proper means to improve the condition of common schools and other literary institutions in our State.” In 1856 Wiley organized the
Education Association of North Carolina which the Legislature chartered in 1860.
Reconstruction as Re-Education
The Paradox of Jabez L. M. Curry, (pp.26-31, 33, 43-46)
The era after the War for Southern Independence is called Reconstruction. It would be more apt to call it Deconstruction. Constitutional law and state sovereignty were abolished in the South. In its place came a nationalized government, with the states as vassals to Washington’s authority.
Most important from Washington’s perspective, Reconstruction meant the re-education of the ‘rebels’, so that they would have the same mentality as Northerners and would never consider secession again. Via new Reconstruction constitutions, the Federal government controlled Southern education.
One Radical Republican said: ‘What can education do for the slave-holders? The majority of those who formerly held slaves are now just what they were before and during the war and I am extremely doubtful whether there are any means by which they can be made, as a class, good and loyal citizens…If pardoned, they will trouble every community in which they live with ill-concealed treason. They have already been sadly miseducated and would scornfully reject all proffers of education at our hands…What can education do for the non-slave holding whites of the South? Among this class are some intelligent men. But the great majority are deplorably ignorant. More ignorant than the slaves themselves… As long as they remain ignorant they will remain tools of political demagogues and therefore will be incapable of self-government. They must be educated; the duty is imperative. No state that has passed an act of secession should be allowed to take its former place in the Union without having first incorporated into its constitution a provision for the establishment of a free school system. A republic must make education universal among its people. Ignorant voters endanger liberty. With free schools in the South there could have been no rebellion. And free schools now must render impossible rebellion in the future.’
Jabez Curry retaliated against this false, politically motivated charge of Southern ignorance this way: ‘In 1860 the Northern states had a population of 19 million, had 205 colleges and universities, with 1,407 professors and 29,044 students. In the same year, the Southern states had a population of 8 million, 262 colleges and universities, with 1,488 professors and 27,055 students. These are the figures of the last Census before the war.’
And countering the charge that tax-supported schools were fundamental to a republican form of government, Senator Thurman of Ohio spoke against such an idea in Congress. ‘When did it (education) become essential to a republican form of government that there should be public schools and that everybody should have an equal right in those schools? If that is the case, how many republican states were there when the Constitution of the United States was formed? If universal suffrage and universal education upon a perfectly equal footing, applicable to all, are essentially indispensable requisites to a republican form of government, how many states have you now, sir, in the Unites States, that are republican in form? Why sir, the very statement of the argument shows its utter fallacy.’
Mr. Wickersham. The Radical Republican, then turned his attention to educating the blacks: ‘What can education do for the freedmen? Four millions of human beings have just been emancipated in the South. They are now without property, without the knowledge and habits of self-direction and self-reliance; they are ignorant, simple-hearted and superstitious… It still depends on the North – on us – whether the freedmen are to survive the “struggle for life” or like the native red-men, they are to perish…We all know that the freedmen must be educated. We all know that the education that they need is not merely to read and write but…as well to fit them for their new condition as freedmen and citizens…When our youth learn to read similar books, similar lessons, we shall become one people, possessing one organic nationality, and the Republic will be safe for all time. It is not the condition of things such that we may begin to speak of a national system of education?’
Jabez Curry countered the notion that blacks were illiterate before the war: ‘For a long time there was no general exclusion of the slaves from the privileges of education. The first prohibitory and punitive laws were directed against unlawful assemblages of Negroes and mulattoes, as their influence in exciting discontent or insurrection was deprecated and guarded against.
Afterwards, legislation became more general in the South, prohibiting meetings for teaching, reading and writing. The Nat Turner insurrection in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831, awakened the Southern states to a consciousness of the perils. Which might environ or destroy them, from combinations of excited, enflamed, and ill-advised Negroes…Severe and general as were these laws, they rarely applied, and were seldom, if ever, enforced against the teaching of individuals or groups on plantations, or at the home of the owners. It is often true that the mistress of a household, or her children, would teach the house servants, and on Sunday include a large number. There were also Sunday schools in which black children were taught to read, notably the school in which Stonewall Jackson was the leader.’
The speech by Senator Norton indicates that the nationalizing of education means the elimination of the states: ‘The Senator from Indiana claims…that Congress might legitimately take charge of the regulation of the school system of a state. I do not know that I quote his precise language, but the idea would seem to imply that if the State of Mississippi had a school system that was not agreeable to the Senator from Indiana or a majority of the Senators on this floor, they might correct that school system to comply with the views of the Senate of the United States…(Then) what becomes of the states? Why have districts or counties bounded by national or imaginary lines? Why have apportionment of the representatives in the other House, and in this (House) according to the states? Why not call us, as the Senator from Illinois says, all one people, one country and no state governments and no local governments at all?’
Many carpetbaggers held the deluded dream of ‘impregnating the South with Northern civilization.’ They enlisted the brute force of the military to actualize this dream. The Army confiscated Southern churches and the properties of many Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian congregations. Their ministers were called traitors. Northern ministers were installed at bayonet point. Federal government money paid their salaries and built new churches.
This was unconstitutional. It fused Church and State. These subsidized churches became governmental bureaucracies, promoting radical Republican policies. ‘Every innovation of the Executive was adopted as an article of religious faith.’
The Blair Bill: A Step Toward Nationalized Schools
Jabez Curry and his Peabody Fund had set the first stage for Northern control of Southern education by tying common schools to the carpetbag governments. Then Rutherford B. Hayes, both as President of the United States and a Trustee of Peabody, began the first tentative steps toward a federal take-over.
To develop a concept to do this, Hayes corresponded with an Army colleague, Albion Tourgee. Tourgee had been a carpetbagger and Justice of the North Carolina Superior Court. His vicious treatment of Southern whites resulted in him being called ‘Tourgee the Infamous’. Tourgee was also a best-selling novelist. ‘Bricks Without Straw’ and ‘A Fools Errand’ were thinly disguised allegories of Radical Republican ideology and educational plans for the South.
Tourgee claimed that the Southern states contained three-quarters of the nation’s illiterates. 45% of the voters could not read their ballots. Congress should distribute money based on illiteracy. All schools receiving aid would have to meet Federal regulations. Washington could supply one-half of the funds. Tourgee said this would increase the intelligence of voters (to become Republicans) and eliminate state rights sentiment. Tourgee, because of his association with Hayes, drew on the Peabody Fund as a model. Tourgee published a magazine, ‘Our Continent’, promoting Federal aid to education. ‘All other questions affecting national life dwindle to insignificance.’
When James Garfield was elected President in 1880, after Hayes, one-third of his inaugural address was devoted to education, using Tourgee’s ideas almost word-for-word. The efforts of Hayes, Tourgee and Garfield produced results. Senator Henry Blair of New Hampshire introduced a similar bill in 1884, ’86, and’88. Each time it passed the Senate but was blocked by the House. It called for fifteen million dollars the first year, then each subsequent year, one million less. After the tenth year, no aid. Funding was related to illiteracy. Also, for the first three years the states matched one-third of this amount, then equal funding. It was roughly based on the Peabody Plan.
To provide a glimpse into reconstruction education in Wilmington, this excerpt from the biography of northern educator Amy Bradley provides valuable insights. Bradley was connected with the US Sanitary Commission and the infamous Union League which served as a wedge between Southern blacks and whites. Her depreciating comments about the South and its people are revealing.
The Saintly Carpetbagger, Amy Morris Bradley
(D. C. Cashman, Headstrong, The Biography of Amy Morris Bradley, 1990. Broadfoot Publishing, 1990. pp.159-176)
On the day that President Lincoln died, 15 April 1865, a group of prominent Boston Unitarians published a pamphlet to describe the purpose of their newly formed philanthropic organization, the Soldiers’ Memorial Society. Edward Everett Hale served as its secretary and Mary Porter Tileston Hemenway [Mrs. Augustus Hemenway] was a member of the executive committee. The Pamphlet explained:
Our noble soldiers have done great work for the Nation, greater than they all knew. It seems to us that no more fitting memorial to their memory can be raised than a society in their name, to carry out their work and to make it effective for the renewed prosperity and firmer union of the country now and to come. We believe that the work of those who have been following the army with their hopes and prayers may now be well consecrated to the duty of uplifting all, white or black, in all States which have been the field of our victories.
It was not surprising that, after Amy’s six week holiday, she decided to offer her services to the group. Hale heartily endorsed her application noting that she was “one of the most efficient working agents of the Sanitary Commission who has been with the army from the beginning of the war.” He explained the Society’s organization; it was divided into two committees: Memorial and the Executive. The Memorial’s aim was to locate “the original letters or journals or notebooks of officers or privates who were engaged in the great war,” so that an eye witness history of the war could be written, while the Executive was to establish schools, hospitals, and asylums in Southern cities. He noted, “At this moment it is proposing to establish schools in the city of Wilmington, N.C.,” a place that had received a great deal of attention in Sanitary Commission Reports, following the fall of Fort Fisher in January 1865.
Amy’s experience as the Soldiers’ Journal editor made her obvious choice for the Memorial history project. She was instructed to show Hale’s letter to Mr. Knapp, who was now running the American Unitarian Society, an organization that was working hand and glove with the SMS, and then proceed to Bull Run where she would begin to collect materials. Hale had also suggested that she extend her itinerary so that she could tour some of the SMS facilities in southern cities and report her findings. He was particularly anxious for her “voice regarding one or more orphan asylums in Washington.” It is not known how successful Amy was as a memorials collector or fact finder before the SMS decided her talents could best be used in another capacity. She was advised that she had been appointed to serve as the official SMS agent in Wilmington. Since Amy’s reliability and sound judgment had been well established through her tenure as a Sanitary Commission Special Relief Agent, she was given “large liberty” in determining what needs should be met; however, she was asked to submit a monthly report on her progress. Hale, who had obviously been forewarned as to Amy’s penchant for overexertion, ended his directive with a note of caution, “that for our good quite as much as your own, the preservation of your health should be the first consideration.”
Amy replaced SMS agent the Rev. James Thurston, who had become embittered during his Wilmington tenure. He had met hostility: the prejudices of this land are marvelous. The jealousy as marvelous. Their pride as great as their necessity.” He had also discovered that “for obvious reasons” it was “the poor whites” who needed the most assistance: “They are the most neglected, the blacks have received the chief attention heretofore.” That “attention” had come through the efforts of the Freedmen’s Bureau, whose top administrator was Amy’s old Colonel Oliver Otis Howard, and the American Missionary Society, a group that began its work in Wilmington on 3 April 1865.
After Christmas 1866, Amy set out from Boston on a railroad journey that would take her south. It was not as a stranger that she negotiated the transfers in the depots of Boston, New York, Baltimore, Washington, and Richmond, but upon reaching Weldon, Virginia, she turned her back to the familiar and set out on a track that led into an alien region for which she had few guideposts. The Wilmington & Weldon road had once served as the lifeline to Lee’s proud army of Northern Virginia. That army had now surrendered, but its cause, leaders and veterans were venerated by the old white establishment who had fallen on hard times. If Amy had done her homework—and she always did, she would have known that Wilmington, a port on the Cape Fear River, was North Carolina’s most important city, with a population of 18,000. She probably had learned the tonnage of its naval stories, peanuts, and cotton exports in the pre-war years, but statistics do not give an accounting of a community’s character or charm, and northern history books tend to slight southern achievements.
She arrived in Wilmington before dawn on 30 December 1866. If she had been superstitious, she might have felt that even the elements were trying to tell her her “mission was doomed,” for “the snow was falling fast, making the prospect cold and cheerless.” Undaunted by her chilly reception, she got down to work shortly after light. She presented Hale’s letter of introduction to the Rev. S. S. Ashley, a New Englander who represented the interests of the American Missionary Society, the Freedmen’s Bureau, and who was described to her as “the superintendent of Wilmington Schools.”
Their conference was followed by a tour of Dry Pond, on of the city’ poorest white neighborhoods. Amy then paid formal calls upon Silas N. Martin, James H. Chadbourn, Edward kidder, and George Zadoc French, men of substance who might be empathetic to her “mission,” because of a shared new England background or identification with republican politics. This gentleman “though courteous in their reception frankly told her it was impossible for her to succeed.”
Their pessimism sprang from an understanding of Wilmington’s attitudes rather than any personal distaste for Amy or disdain for her proposed school. Since they held no grudge against northerners they may have discerned what other admirers had seen in her: “an interesting and attractive face,” manners that were “easy, graceful, and winning,” and a character that exuded “executive ability, energy, perseverance, and faculty.” However, they knew full well that in the emotional aftermath of defeat and devastation of reconstruction, Wilmington’s oldline conservatives would not be so charitable. Do-gooders from the North were not held in high esteem. As one put it:
Following the destruction of the Southern states, by armies of the Northern radicals, swarms of the riffraff of northern cities, the dregs of society, poured into the South. Among them were the females “Missionaries,” as they called themselves, with a “holier than thou” attitude. “How much better it is to do it our way,” said those arrogant New England “schoolmarms.”
She soon became a familiar Wilmington figure as she went from house to house to drum up interest in her proposed school. Even though some women pulled their skirts aside when she passed, or spat upon her, she held her head high and continued her rounds. On 5 January 1867, Silas N. Martin capitulated to her badgering and gave permission for her to produce the key to the Dry Pond Union Schoolhouse. Prior to the war, Martin and others had established Union as a free school but it had been abandoned in 1862. After receiving the key, Amy set up to work to make Union ready, and four days later welcomed three pupils.
After only two months in Wilmington it was obvious that Amy had managed the impossible. Sixty-two members of the Benevolent Society were meeting from 2 to 5 P.M. three afternoons a week to sew book satchels. The school had as many students as it could hold and there was a long waiting list. The increasing rolls had grown to such a degree that an additional teacher was required. Miss Claribel Gerrish from Dover, New Hampshire, reported to work 1 March 1867. Claribel’s arrival coincided with spring’s; the combination proved exhilarating. Amy now had someone to talk to, to walk with, and to share the work. Her upbeat frame of mind was reflected in her report:
The days are balmy and the sunshiny as a May or June day at the North. I have a day school of seventy-pupils thoroughly organized and classified; and industrial-school of thirty-three, and a Sunday school. Miss Gerrish is with me, and relieves me much in my day school. We have received a present from thirty-four gentlemen of this city, of $99.50, which has made it possible to place in the hands of our pupils all needed books, besides purchasing a magnetic globe, and making improvements in our classroom. Verily our Heavenly father has given His angels charge over me! Blessed be His name!
The grateful teachers paid to have a card of thanks printed in the 8 March 1867 Wilmington Journal. On the following day the Dispatch ran a front page article that made it clear that Bradley and company were not welcome in Wilmington:
Equally obnoxious and pernicious is to have Yankee teachers in our midst, forming the minds and shaking the instincts of our youth—alienating them, in fact, from the principals of their fathers, and sewing the seed of their poisonous doctrine upon the unfurrowed soil.
The South has heretofore been free from puritanical schisms and isms of New England, and we regret to see the slightest indication of the establishment here of a foothold by their societies professing the doctrines of Free Loveism, Communism, Universalism, Unitarianism, and all the multiplicity of evil teachings that corrupt society and overthrow religion.
There is no record as to whether Amy and Claribel sat down and had a good laugh or good cry. Although Amy considered herself a woman of the world, she was probably too naïve to realize why her school merited such an attack. As a straight-laced, almost puritanical woman, who was descended from American patriots, she would have found the free Lovism and Communist labels too absurd to even contemplate. However, her background as an active member of the Unitarian-Universalist establishment probably made it impossible for her to understand how a religion that was so well accepted in Boston was such an anathema to Wilmington. The editorialist’s more accurate charge that she was teaching a doctrine of offensive to her pupils’ forefathers did have merit for Amy never missed an opportunity to promote her political philosophy; however, the Dispatch article did her more help than harm, and in her opinion raised up “warmer friends.” It also brought the curious to her school who went away marveling at what they had seen.
By mid-summer Amy had all of the finances worked out for the new school system. Wilmington citizens gave her $1,000 to purchase land for the new building, which would be named Hemenway School, to honor Mary Porter Tileston Hemenway, who donated $1,000. The Freedmen’s Bureau added $1,804.45 for construction, and the Peabody Fund contributed $1,500 for teacher salaries. When Amy returned to Wilmington in October 1868, she could boast, “Everything hopeful here. A nice new school house almost finished—Isn’t it grand! And everybody so glad to see me.” In early November the old Union opened with 223 pupils and three teachers. That same month Amy paid Henry Taylor, a black contractor, $1,300, the last payment for the Hemenway School, which she opened to 157 students on 1 December. On 1 January 1869, Sarah Phelps went down to Masonboro Sound to open the Pioneer School to 45 students. No wonder Amy thought everything “grand,” in two short years she had grown form a one teacher, three pupil, one room school to a faculty of eight, 435 scholars, and three buildings.
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� Deal? Ryan Says He'll Delay "Reforms" of Motion-to-Vacate Rule; House Freedom Caucus Asks for Protection Against Attacks From Establishment Groups Like the Chamber of Congress | Main | The Second Coming of the ONT [Weirddave] �
Recommendations Thread
Anything you're doing or that you've bought that's worth mentioning, please mention.
I have two things. First, if you need a lap-pad, or "lap desk," sometimes they're called, I got the Logitech N550 with built-in speakers.
It works. It's only around $25. The speakers are about what you'd expect them to be, as they're built into a lap-pad. But they're better than computer speakers.
You just plug the USB cable into your laptop and they should work. (Um: sometimes you have to turn off a certain power-saving setting, which turns off power to USB devices when lower on power, in order to get them to work -- but it's not a defect with the device, you just have to go into your power saving settings and turn off "USB Selectivity Sensor" or something like that).
For $25, I'm pretty pleased.
Major Caveat: The $25 one is only for computers up to 13.3 inches or so. It says 14.1, but a computer that size will largely cover the speakers.
Anything bigger than that, it just won't fit.
If you're interested in a language, I'd get the Michel Thomas tapes (actually, now on CD's, of course). They're great. You pick things up quick.
He's a great teacher.
Here are few drawbacks, which I don't think are drawbacks, really, but, here they are:
1. It's expensive. Okay, this one really is a drawback. He divides his course into four parts, but really, you only need two. I think.
The four parts are Starter [French, or Spanish, or German, etc. -- he teaches a bunch], Total [Language], Perfect [Language], and Master [Language].
I think the "Starter" package is just a trial, and it's given a low price for a low buy-in, so you can sample it. But I imagine you could also skip it and just go to the "Total" level.
The two I imagine everyone needs are the "Total" package, for beginners, and the "Perfect" one, once you finish the other one.
I have heard bad things about the so-called "Master" level classes being a waste of money.
I got Perfect French and it was fantastic. A lot of drilling with some of the difficult bits of the language (pronoun placement, subjunctive mood).
Basically, his idea is to make you think about what to say, instead of just repeating stuff. He tells you the English, you supply the French. The fact that this is an active process (as opposed to passive repetition) makes it actually enjoyable.
You need the "Total" package for beginners, and when you're done with that, you go on to the Perfect. Again, not sure I'd bother with the "Master" level.
But even so, it's going to be $60 to $100 for the Total one (Spanish is cheap at $60, French is expensive at like $100), and then like $50 to $80 for the Perfect one (again, French is the most expensive... maybe it's the most popular? I don't know).
So it will be, for both parts, somewhere between $110 or so to $180 or so.
2. The CD's are short. He only provides about four and half or five hours of instruction on the Perfect French CD. I really wanted more. The packaging says something like "20 hours of instruction!," but only 4 1/2 or 5 hours are him; the other hours are some other instructor, who frankly isn't very fun to listen to. I don't know why -- it's the same basic technique. But I found the vocabulary-centered drilling to be boring and tedious, and precisely what I didn't like about learning a language.
The CDs he does, on the other hand, while short, are replayable. There's no way anyone's picking this up in one or even three goes, so you can (and in fact must) replay these guys four or five times. So it's not like you only get 4 1/2 or 5 hours of his instruction.
3. You must pause the CD after each prompt because they have not inserted any time for you to respond in. He is actually teaching two people, right in the room with him, who answer his prompts, and you they answer somewhat quickly -- so you really have to hit pause after each prompt to give yourself time to answer yourself.
On the French tape, the male student is pretty fast in answering. You'll never beat him.
This means you cannot use these tapes when driving, unfortunately.
4. His accent is not that good (though he knows how to speak French properly -- it's just that he's obviously a non-native speaker). He was a Hungarian Jew who taught himself a bunch of languages as a survival skill after WWII, so his accent is not native.
I don't think this is a big deal because anyone learning a language is going to hear the language from a lot of native speakers, too, and can adjust accent accordingly.
His gift is really breaking down how to learn a language, and demystify it, and cut through all the rules to just state the rules a simply as possible. In a lot of cases, he really cleared things up for me. There are rules in French which appear complicated for the order of pronouns in a sentence, when you use multiple object pronouns; he gives you three simple rules and takes care of 90% of it.
5. One more drawback, on that, is that some of his rules are really of that "90%" variety, and he either doesn't mention the other 10% or just glosses over with a sub-rule that sounds simple but is in fact hard to implement; but... I gotta say, for a learner, a slightly-incomplete rule which is correct 90% of the time but which is easily memorable and executable is ideal.
The other 10% of it is detail and nuance, which can be worked out later, as one progresses.
His 90% rules really give a learner what he needs: Confidence, and ease of application. Yes, as I was listening to him, I saw little things he was glossing over, but still, the scheme he presented was just so useful and empowering, I really can't hold it against him that he skimmed some complexities here and there.
Anyway, worth your money, if you're interested.
But, one caveat: I've only done one of these many, many packages. I assume his Total Spanish is as good as his Perfect French, but I'm not sure.
(But I should also point out that other polyglots recommend Michel Thomas and cite him as really, really gifted at breaking down a language into what you need to know to start speaking it.)
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Gethsemane Lutheran Church
Stream Worship
Life’s Milestones & Special Events
Wednesdays-Midweek Connections
Gethsemane Lutheran Children’s Ministry–Preschool
Jr High Youth
Sr High Youth
Mental Health Ministry
About Gethsemane
Pastors and Staff
ELCA-Evangelical Lutheran Church of America
Constructed in 1962, the Gethsemane Lutheran Church sanctuary was built on 10 acres of land purchased in 1960 that had been previously used as a cotton field. The new Gethsemane Lutheran Church serves as the replacement for The Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Church at 16th and Congress, now a historical landmark. The architectural design of the church is Gothic in concept and contemporary in design. Extensive stained glass work enhances the incredible beauty and uniqueness of the entire church while giving focus to the sanctuary.
Lower Level Entrance
to the Church Office, Meeting/Music Room, Altar Guild, Gethsemane Clothes Closet & Food Pantry Entrance consists of 2 separated doors which lead into the lower level sanctuary hall.
Lower Level Entrance Mosaics
There are 2 tile mosaics above the lower level entrance which represent and refer to bible scriptures. There are 3 more mosaics just inside the main entrance.
On the 10 acre campus, there is plenty of open room outside to run, play, fly kites, or have quiet time for prayer and reflection.
Gethsemane Memorial Garden
Near the main entrance on the east side of the entrance area are doors leading out to the small garden with a statue, a cross mounted on the wall, fountain and benches. It’s a great place to go quiet moments.
Educational Wing
The education wing extends outside to include 4 playgrounds and the Children’s Ministry. The education wing is dedicated as the Keith Leslie Johnson Memorial Education Wing in memory of the building committee chairman.
The sanctuary is to the right once you’ve come into the main entrance. The padded pews angle slightly toward the altar. The sanctuary has a very peaceful atmosphere and is certainly a work of art bathed in the light of the stained glass, and is daily open for prayer and meditation.
The stained glass windows in the sanctuary have a peaceful calming affect as the sun shines through them. Beautiful colors spray through-out the sanctuary as the light refracts through the glass onto the walls and floors.
Pipe Organ / Balcony Seating
On December 12, 1868, the first Swedish Lutheran liturgy was held in Austin, Texas. After that worship, Swante Palm, a scholar and later the Swedish vice-consul, was chosen as chairman. “We love to sing our inspirational hymns and therefore I want to say that we can easily secure a melodeon or small organ which some member of the congregation can play. There are those among us willing to serve as organist. It is our love of the old hymns that prompts me to mention this matter. An organ may be obtained at a nominal price, if not by actual gift.” By November 1900, Gethsemane Lutheran’s organist, Swante Palm was utilizing a small pipe organ purchased from the Hinner and Albertson Co. of Peking, Illinois. In June 1951, a second pipe organ was purchased from the Wicks Company of Highland, Illinois. In 1963, the organ was rebuilt and expanded after being moved to the current church. A great division of displayed pipe work was installed. In 1977, the instrument was expanded along with upgraded action and a new blower. Dedicated to the historical tradition of pipe organ music, in 1985, the congregation approved a major expansion. This step involved the purchase of a three manual Cassavant console, pipe work, the replacement of all wind-chests and mechanical components, additional pipes bringing the total to 1,763, addition of a Ruck Positiv on the balcony railing. The Gethsemane Memorial Pipe Organ consists of 38 ranks of pipe work. In 2002, a zimblesterm was added to give the beautiful sounds of chimes for worship.
Main Entrance Mosaics
There are 3 mosaics of Jesus above the entrance doors to the sanctuary. The 3 mosaics represent Jesus helping, suffering, and then forgiving. These mosaics were on the exterior when the church was originally built.
Mosaic tile inlays at each Sanctuary entrance door created by Jose Blanco.
Steffans’ Parlor
From the hall to your left just as you enter the main entrance is a room with a comfortable home-like atmosphere where you can easily feel relaxed and welcome. It’s a nice place to gather or get away for quiet, and small groups and weekly Bible studies meet here.
Multi-Purpose Room, Kitchen & Cafeteria
The gym serves as a great inside recreation or event space which transforms into a large cafeteria once all the tables have been set out and the kitchen is opened. It’s put to good use.
Educational & Children’s Wing
The educational wing includes several classrooms teeming with fun and interesting things to look at, along with a nursery with plenty of cribs to set the babies to sleep in. At the end of the hall there’s an exit out into the playgrounds and Children’s Ministry building.
The Gethsemane Stained-Glass Windows
Gethsemane is identified as the beautiful stained glass church on highway 183 between Lamar and Interstate 35. Gabriel Loire of Chartres, France created the incredible stained glass windows of Gethsemane in order “to give a mystical atmosphere so that those who come have an experience of joy through peace with the window”. This world-renowned artist introduced the world to this unique style of glass. He received the French Legion of Honor award and his recognizable work is installed around the world. When Gabriel was ever sad, he would pull out the drawings of Gethsemane’s windows done by the children of Gethsemane and his spirit would be lifted.
Each panel was created in Loire’s studio in Chartres and reassembled on site like a giant puzzle. The windows utilize over 150 shades of Chartres’ blue with other colors for highlight effect in the windows and the light does wonderful movement. The windows form the globe of a lantern, hanging as “a lighthouse set on a hill“. The altar in the center is the light, declaring the gospel story to the people of God in Austin and throughout the world.
The front wall is 40 feet tall and reflects the theme of Gethsemane with the hands of Christ in prayer and the words from the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus spoke to his disciples in Mark 14, to tarry, watch, pray, and rise. The outline of the cross is visible. This magnificent piece sets the theme, A Heritage of Faith, for the chancel and clerestory windows.
Stained glass is the traditional way to tell the stories of the Bible and the church. Gethsemane’s windows tell the story from creation in the northeast corner through the Old Testament covenants and promises on the east side. The floor to ceiling windows on the east and west sides of the altar proclaim the story of Jesus from birth to resurrection. The west clerestory windows tell the story of the early Biblical church through the church of our day, living with the Spirit in acts of grace, to the final “alpha and omega” window at northwest corner.
Children and adults alike are amazed at the beauty of these fabulous spirit-filled windows. Gabriel Loire has completed over 850 beautiful works around the globe. Some of the outstanding works are Tower of Joy for Children in Hakone, Japan; the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin, Germany; Salisbury Cathedral, Salisbury, England; Thanksgiving Square, Dallas, Texas; Whatley Chapel, Denver, Colorado; Moody Memorial Methodist Church, Galveston, Texas; Chapelle du College de la Salle in Cairo, Egypt.
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Called by Grace, Led by Faith, Welcoming All to Share God's Love
9:30am Sunday School
200 West Anderson Lane
Austin, Texas 78752-1197
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41st Annual Family of Gethsemane Retreat
Stream Christmas Eve at 7 pm
Advent and Christmas at Gethsemane
Thanksgiving Eve Youth-Led Worship
Angel Tree 2022
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About Special Topics: Swine Flu
Special Issue: H1N1: Swine Flu
Swine Flu: Issues to Consider for Study Abroad Programs
by Gary Rhodes, Ph.D., Director, SAFETI Clearinghouse
Most institutions have positive experiences with their study abroad programs. College presidents and government leaders continue to emphasize the importance of study abroad. Swine Flu is not the first health and safety issue to come to the attention of the study abroad field. The field has recently responded to other potential "worst-case scenarios", which have (so far) been localized problems, including:
The possibility of a similar situation with the spread of SARS or Avian Flu.
The possibility of all technology around the world failing, resulting in a worldwide crisis at the end of the millennium (Y2K).
Health and safety issues have continued to grow in importance for institutions, students, and parents. One of the health issues that is gaining in attention and could affect our programs in Mexico, in the U.S. and other countries abroad in a significant way is the possibility of a Swine Flu pandemic.
The Current Situation:
Concerns about Swine Flu have been impacting study abroad programs currently in Mexico and those with plans to begin through the summer. At this time, it is important to bring your campus crisis management team (including health center and risk management/insurance representatives) together to make sure there is collaboration to monitor the situation and develop a plan for students already in Mexico as well as what to do about programs that will be leaving for Mexico. I would suggest contacting your emergency assistance and insurance providers to confirm support for students, faculty, and staff who may come down with the flu to find out how they will be treated in Mexico. Another possibility is to bring them home after they are infected and decide how that would be supported. Find out what other colleges and universities in your area are doing to provide local guidance. I would also suggest communicating with your international partners in Mexico to confirm the situation in the city where your program takes place.
Plans and information continue to change on a regular basis. The World Health Organization raised the alert from level five (5) to level six (6) on June 11th after raising it from level four (4) to level five (5) on April 29th (http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en). As of this date, they noted that 74 countries had officially reported 27,737 cases of influenza A(H1N1) infection, including 141 deaths (http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_06_10a/en/index.html).
The most significant change to support U.S. college and university study abroad program development and implementation was published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on May 15, 2009, when they removed the “Travel Health Warning” suggesting against travel to Mexico. It has been revised to be a "Travel Health Precaution" for Mexico.
Travel Health Precaution
“CDC’s Travel Health Warning recommending against non-essential travel to Mexico, in effect since April 27, 2009, has now been downgraded to a Travel Health Precaution for Mexico” CDC Mexico Travel Health Precaution.
“At this time, CDC has removed its recommendation that U.S. travelers avoid travel to Mexico. CDC continues to recommend that travelers visiting Mexico take steps to protect themselves from getting novel H1N1 flu. (Posted to the CDC website on May 15th).
As of May 7th, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico resumed normal operations (Consular Services) at the Embassy and Consulates across Mexico. (U.S. Embassy in Mexico - Press Releases '09)
The following statement from the U.S. Embassy in Mexico suggests that not all flu is swine flu and that going to a hospital or health clinic may provide exposure to others with swine flu. That reinforces the importance of pre-planning for potential medical care in Mexico at this time:
“The U.S. Embassy reminds U.S. citizens in Mexico that most cases of influenza are not “swine flu”; any specific questions or concerns about flu or other illnesses should be directed to a medical professional. Mexico City medical authorities urge people to avoid hospitals and clinics unless they have a medical emergency, since hospitals are centers of infection; instead, those with health concerns are encouraged to stay home and call their physicians to avoid potential exposure.”(U.S. Embassy in Mexico - Public Announcement)
The U.S. Department of State removed its Travel Alert for Mexico related to H1N1, (U.S. Department of State Travel Alert No Longer in Effect), although it maintains a Travel Alert for Mexico related to security issues in Mexico (U.S. Department of State Travel Alert - Mexico - Security).
New Challenges: International Travel for U.S. Study Abroad Students to Countries Around the World: As many of the cases of Swine Flu have impacted U.S. citizens, countries around the world are on a heightened alert with concerns that U.S. citizens traveling abroad may be infected by Swine Flu. The CDC has suggested that U.S. citizens with symptoms of influenza-like illness should not travel. There is concern that if a student or anyone on a flight is found to have symptoms of H1N1, that all the passengers could be delayed. (Announcement: Possible International Travel Delays Due to Novel H1N1 Flu Screening Procedures )
Background Information: Swine Flu
(from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/key_facts.htm)
What is Swine Influenza? Swine Influenza (swine flu) is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza virus that regularly causes outbreaks of influenza in pigs. Swine flu viruses cause high levels of illness and low death rates in pigs. Swine influenza viruses may circulate among swine throughout the year, but most outbreaks occur during the late fall and winter months similar to outbreaks in humans. The classical swine flu virus (an influenza type A H1N1 virus) was first isolated from a pig in 1930.
How many swine flu viruses are there? Like all influenza viruses, swine flu viruses change constantly. Pigs can be infected by swine influenza and human influenza viruses as well as swine influenza viruses. When influenza viruses from different species infect pigs, the viruses can reassort (i.e. swap genes) and new viruses that are a mix of swine, human and/or swine influenza viruses can emerge. Over the years, different variations of swine flu viruses have emerged. At this time, there are four main influenza type A virus subtypes that have been isolated in pigs: H1N1, H1N2, H3N2, and H3N1. However, most of the recently isolated influenza viruses from pigs have been H1N1 viruses.
Swine Flu in Humans
Can humans catch swine flu? Swine flu viruses do not normally infect humans. However, sporadic human infections with swine flu have occurred. Most commonly, these cases occur in persons with direct exposure to pigs (e.g. children near pigs at a fair or workers in the swine industry). In addition, there have been documented cases of one person spreading swine flu to others. For example, an outbreak of apparent swine flu infection in pigs in Wisconsin in 1988 resulted in multiple human infections, and, although no community outbreak resulted, there was antibody evidence of virus transmission from the patient to health care workers who had close contact with the patient.
How common is swine flu infection in humans? In the past, CDC received reports of approximately one human swine influenza virus infection every one to two years in the U.S., but from December 2005 through February 2009, 12 cases of human infection with swine influenza have been reported.
What are the symptoms of swine flu in humans? The symptoms of swine flu in people are expected to be similar to the symptoms of regular human seasonal influenza and include fever, lethargy, lack of appetite and coughing. Some people with swine flu also have reported runny nose, sore throat, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.
Can people catch swine flu from eating pork? No. Swine influenza viruses are not transmitted by food. You cannot get swine influenza from eating pork or pork products. Eating properly handled and cooked pork and pork products are safe. Cooking pork to an internal temperature of 160°F kills the swine flu virus as it does other bacteria and viruses.
How does swine flu spread? Influenza viruses can be directly transmitted from pigs to people and from people to pigs. Human infection with flu viruses from pigs are most likely to occur when people are in close proximity to infected pigs, such as in pig barns and livestock exhibits housing pigs at fairs. Human-to-human transmission of swine flu can also occur. This is thought to occur in the same way as seasonal flu occurs in people, which is mainly person-to-person transmission through coughing or sneezing of people infected with the influenza virus. People may become infected by touching something with flu viruses on it and then touching their mouth or nose.
It is critical that faculty, staff, students, and parents put appropriate perspective on the possibility of the spread of Swine Flu. While there have been no reported cases of study abroad participants being ill or dying because of Swine Flu, it is critical for institutions to analyze the issues and risks for their faculty, staff, and students. We have developed a document on our Study Abroad Student Handbook, offering perspective and resources for students and parents: Special Issue: Swine Flu. In the article, we direct students to communicate with the study abroad office staff, a physician, and to check on their emergency assistance plan and coverage:
Putting Swine Flu Into Perspective
One suggestion is that institutions should consider reviewing their emergency planning methods using a potential Swine Flu pandemic as a "worst-case scenario". Study abroad administration is complex and involves administering the responsibilities of a full university in another part of the world. As a result, responding to any serious health and safety issue is best done if it is a part of an effectively run program that receives institutional support and has colleagues to assist in the various issues that come up during a crisis. The possibility of a Swine Flu pandemic falls into this category.
Preparing for the worst-case scenario requires a broad-ranging review on issues from medical care abroad, emergency evacuation policies and options, refund policies, separation of faculty, staff, and students if on-site administrators are the ones who become sick, having 24-hour support in the U.S. and abroad, maintaining updated information about Swine flu’s impact in any place where a program takes place, where excursions go, and where students go during independent travel.
If an institution integrates this into their crisis management planning, this can become and opportunity to be prepared for other crises not foreseen by faculty and staff. This is also an opportunity for study abroad administrators to take on a an active role in on-campus crisis management planning as this is a problem that could just as easily affect the city where your campus is in the U.S. This is an opportunity to prepare on campus and prepare abroad in an integrated fashion.
Key personnel to involve in planning, for a comprehensive university, could include:
U.S. college or university/Study abroad program support team
Student affairs administrators
Study abroad administrators
Campus security/police officer
Risk manager/insurance coordinator
President or chancellor’s office
Other on-site staff
Student representative
Support Abroad
On-site program administrator
On-site health provider
On-site counseling provider
Insurance representative
24-hour assistance company
U.S. government representative (Embassy or Consular official)
Local emergency assistance provider
In developing an effective preparation for this or any other possible crisis abroad, it would be good to have a Crisis Management Team in the U.S., a Crisis Management Plan, and policies and procedures which have been tested abroad.
As you consider the response to Swine Flu and put it into the perspective of preparing for or responding to potential or real crises abroad, following are ten steps to consider:
Ten Steps for Effective Crisis Response Planning
Centralized Support and Planning: Include Cross-Campus Planning for All International Programs (Study Abroad, Research, Internships, Service-Learning, Athletic Teams, etc.) and Decision-Making
Develop a Balanced Campus-wide Response – Don’t Over- or Under- react - Leadership Needs to Be Organized, Consistent, On Message, Calm, and Appropriate to the Incident
Keep Campus Response Team Current With Relevant Data
Monitor Broad Ranging Data/Situation Regularly Using Resources Including:
US Govt (CDC, State dept.);
International Institutions (WHO);
Country(ies) Impacted (Mexican govt, US Embassy, Mexico);
Field-based (NAFSA, URMIA, ACHA); and
Regional – other study abroad programs based near your US or International Campus
Provide Information for Faculty, Staff, Students, and Parents with Perspectives, Links, and Advice on Response
Have Emergency Communication Plans in Place
Maintain Quality Insurance and 24 Hour Emergency Assistance Coverage
Have a Contingency Fund for Special Support and Extra Costs Associated With Emergencies, Including Program Cancellation
Have Emergency Cards and Other Emergency Information Readily Available in Multiple Locations for Faculty, US and International Staff, and Students
Develop Emergency Action Plan, Practice Your Plan (with All Partners – Faculty, Staff, Students, etc.), Update Your Plan, Practice Again
Following are links to several resources that may help your institution develop its Crisis Management Team, Crisis Management Plan, and policies and procedures.
SAFETI Audit Checklist:
SAFETI Adaptation of Peace Corps Resources:
Crisis Management Handbook
Developing an Emergency Action Plan
Emergency Action Plan Outline
Crisis Management Workbook
National/Regional Crises
The Crisis Management System
SAFETI Resources for Crisis Management :
Developing a Campus Crisis Management Team
Student Study Abroad Safety Handbook
Personal Emergency Action Plan
Emergency Action Plan Step
Impact on Students
The Center strongly suggests that institutions provide information to parents and students, including travel and country-specific warnings provided by the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization (WHO). The Center also suggests you seek alternative information from international sources in the European Union, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and from the World Health Organization. (Please see below for links to these resources).
As program support varies from institution to institution, develop a method monitoring the situation daily, reviewing the possible impact of Swine Flu on students and programs, and updating emergency plans accordingly. Develop a process for deciding whether or not to cancel programs in affected areas, reviewing transportation plans, or postponing pending study abroad programs in certain areas due to a potential health risk. For students returning from affected regions, inquire to see if your institution encourages you to get a check-up at your campus health center and remember to report any Swine Flu-like symptoms.
Other Information Resources
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have both provided resources and information to help you understand Swine Flu.
CDC Swine Flu Info
WHO Swine Flu Info
U.S. Government Resources:
Swine Flu Travel Alert
Pandemic Flu Fact Sheet
Travel Warnings and Consular Information Sheets
Crisis Awareness and Preparedness
Help for Americans Abroad
Medical Information for Americans Traveling Abroad
Tips for American Students Studying Abroad
U.S. Embassies and Consulates General
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Swine Flu Main page
Find more links to other Swine Flu-related information including Key Facts, Outbreak Information, and Professional Guidance
Advice for Travelers about the Flu
Updates on Swine Flu
Lists most current information on outbreaks, including regional information.
CONAHEC (Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration) H1N1 Flu and International Education Information and Resources Website
Advice for international educators to help in developing an appropriate response.
Advice for travelers regarding Swine Flu
Canadian Government-Current Health Issues
Provides updated information on Swine Flu, including Public Health Agency of Canada recommendations
United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Provides travel advice and fact sheet on Swine Flu
Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Travel bulletin for health, with specific information and links about Swine Flu
The Center for Global Education’s Resources:
SAFETI Adaptation of Peace Corps Resources
Study Abroad Student Handbook
Medical Care and Insurance
Basic Health and Safety
Higher Education Association Information
Health and Safety Good Practices
Media Resources:
CNN: Health
Los Angeles Times: Health
New York Times: Swine Flu
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Under Review: ‘The Debt’
Directed by John Madden (“Shakespeare in Love” and “Proof”) and written by Matthew Vaughn (“Kick-Ass,” “X-Men: First Class”), “The Debt” is an American remake of a 2007 Israeli film that takes place in two different eras. It follows a trio of undercover Mossad officers, each of who are played by two actors. The film is compelling, gritty, exciting and heartfelt and really showcases the talents of everyone involved, especially the women who play Rachel Singer in the film, Jessica Chastain and Helen Mirren.
The story starts off in 1997, where we see the reunion of three retired Mossad officers: David (Ciarán Hinds), Rachel Singer (Mirren) and Stefan (Tom Wilkinson). They have lived the latter half of their lives being celebrated for bringing to justice a Nazi war criminal (Jesper Christensen), who was responsible for the torture, death and experimentation of countless Jews during World War II.
When Rachel is being honored at the book-launch of her daughter’s retelling of what happened 40 years ago, we are transported to the ’60s — where we get to see the events, but not the way it has been told. The true version of the mission has been hidden by the three agents all of these years.
I don’t want to get too much into the story because the anticipation and surprises are part of what makes the movie so touching and exciting. The three younger versions of the characters are played by Sam Worthington, Jessica Chastain and Marton Csokas. The duality of these characters is enhanced by the moving and heartfelt authenticity each actor brings.
Each character has a motivation to succeed in this mission. David lost his family during the war because of the Nazis, Stefan is the less-serious of the group even though he is the commander of the mission and Rachel is trying to prove herself and this is her first time in the field. The objective is clear, Rachel and David pose as a married couple who are having trouble conceiving and they go to Doktor Bernhardt, who is now living as Dieter Vogel, a gynecologist in East Berlin.
When their mission to capture the doctor and escape the country goes wrong, they must keep him under constant guard in their tiny apartment until they can find another way to escape. This begins to take a psychological toll on each of the captors as he begins to play with their minds hoping they will lose their temper and kill him. One of the most affected by this is Rachel, who has some deep-rooted connection to the Jews tortured past and this diabolical monster of a man.
The film is constantly moving, which is good for pace, but its constant shift back and forth from the past to the present might make the continuity hard for some to comprehend. The movie has some deep emotional undertones as we see Rachel, David and Stefan struggle with the raw emotions brought to the surface by their close proximity to this prisoner.
I was impressed at how each set of actors mimicked their counterparts to convey the sense that they were the same person. It was interesting to see the end result of whom each of them become, as was going back to see their physical and emotional journey to get there. Chastain really surprised me with the level of toughness she brought to the portrayal of the heroine.
So are you planning on seeing “The Debt” in theaters? If so what makes you want to see it the most; the actors, story or genre? Leave a comment and let us know.
“The Debt” is rated R for violence and language and opens in theaters today.
Tags: "The Debt", Ciaran Hinds, Helen Mirren, Jessica Chastain, John Madden, Matthew Vaughn, Sam Worthington, Tom Wilkinson
Posted 31 Aug 2011 by Adam Poynter in Reviews
← Closer Images of Henry Cavill as Superman in ‘Man of Steel’
Filming Underway on Ben Affleck’s ‘Argo’ →
Jessica Chastain in Talks for Iron Man 3 / It's Just Movies 24 04 12
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ZAMBIA - Appointment of Auxiliary Bishop of Chipata
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - On December 10, 2022, the Holy Father appointed rev. Gabriel Msipu Phiri, of the clergy of Chipata, currently in charge of raising funds for diocesan activities, as Auxiliary Bishop of the same Episcopal See assigning him the Titular See of Are of Mauritania.
His Exc. Msgr. Gabriel Msipu Phiri was born on 13 July 1964 in Vubwi. He attended St. Augustine's Major Seminary in Mpima, Kabwe, and St. Dominic's Major Seminary in Lusaka. On September 15, 1991 he was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Chipata.
He has served in various capacities and carried out further studies: parish vicar in Chadiza (1991-1994); parish priest in Chadiza (1994-1995); treasurer general, parish priest of Mchini St. Athanazius and of Mbwindi (1995-1998); vicar general, parish priest of Mchini (1999-2001); he holds a Certificate in Spirituality and Spiritual direction at the Institute for Spiritual Leadership in Chicago, United States of America (2001-2002); director of the Mphangwe Prayer Centre, diocese of Chipata (2002-2003); vicar general and administrator of St. Anne's Cathedral (2003-2005); holds a Degree in Business Administration from St. Augustine's University in Mwanza, Tanzania (2005-2008); Bursar General and Human Resource Officer, Diocese of Chipata (2008-2009); vicar general and parish priest of Mary Mother of God (2009-2010); Bursar General, Human Resource Officer and parish priest of Mary Mother of God (2010-2012); finance and administration manager at the Episcopal Conference of Zambia (2013-2021); since 2021, Manager for Diocesan Income Generating Activities
MOZAMBIQUE - Appointment of auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Beira
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - The Holy Father has appointed the Reverend Fr. António Manuel Bogaio Constantino, M.C.C.J., until now provincial superior of the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus and chair of the Conference of Religious in Mozambique, as auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Beira, Mozambique, assigning him the titular see of Sutunurca.
Msgr. António Manuel Bogaio Constantino, M.C.C.J., was born on 9 November 1969 in the diocese of Tete. After completing his prepostulancy with the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus in Nampula and attending the seminary in Matola, he carried out his novitiate in Uganda. On 10 May 1997, he took his first vows in Kampala and later obtained a bachelor’s degree in theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. On 10 June 2000, he gave his perpetual vows in Rome and was ordained a priest on 13 June 2001 in Beira. He completed a degree in journalism in Madrid, Spain, from 2001 to 2007.
He has held the following offices: collaborator on the journal Mundo Negro; editor of the journal Vida Nova and collaborator at the Catechistic Centre of Anchio (2008-2011); parish priest of Anchilo, in the archdiocese of Nampula; parish priest of São João XXIII in Chitima and of Santa Maria in Mucumbura, in the diocese of Tete (2011-2016); since 2016, provincial superior of the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus, Maputo; substitute chair of the Conference of Religious in Mozambique (2018-2019); and from 2019, chair of the Conference of Religious in Mozambique.
In addition, he works at the Instituto Superior Maria Mãe de África and in the Commission for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life of the Episcopal Conference of Mozambique.
SOUTH AFRICA - Resignation of the Bishop of Kroonstad
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - The Holy Father Francis has accepted the resignation from the pastoral care of the Diocese of Kroonstad (South Africa) presented by His Exc. Msgr. Peter John Holiday.
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Posted on January 30, 2013 February 2, 2013 by raannt
Sharon Needles’ Debut Album and Video: This Club Is A Haunted House! A Review!
Wow…we’re not even sure where to start. Well…If you didn’t know that Sharon Needles, winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 4, was releasing an album, guess what…Yep, she released an album, coincidentally the day after the premiere of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 5. The album, titled PG-13, was released at the same time as the video for her first single This Club is a Haunted House and later be releasing a documentary about the making of the video titled Sharon Needles: Parental Guidance Suggested and will also be releasing a book titled This Book is a Haunted House later this February about the making of the video. (Can you imagine if Nicki Minaj or One Direction released so much fan merch about the making of their videos??? They’d be millionaires…Oh yeah.)
So with all this hype about the release of her album, video and merchandise, how good is the album, really? Pretty damn good. And we were surprised because as much as we love Sharon Needles and are huge fans, we started to wonder if maybe she was shooting for the stars too early. Not at all. She’s one devil of a rock star baby! We had the opportunity to interview Sharon last year, and we were excited to see that her music and her art in the album stayed so true to our interview Sharon Needles Has Balls!
The album consists of 12 songs. The opening song, This Club is a Haunted House, opens with narration by RuPaul, much like his famous Supermodel song. In fact, much of the song, as well as the video, is a parody of other artists that you realize instantly that Sharon Needles has a talent for collaborating pieces of other people’s work and poking fun at who she likes the most. You also see collaboration with Amanda Lepore, Ana Matronic of the Scissor Sisters, Jayne County and even a cameo from her boyfriend Alaska. This Club is a Haunted House is a strong club song and will be remixed a million times.
Interestingly, her pop song, Call Me on the Ouija Board, is probably one of our favorite songs on the album. Imagine One Direction meets Jeffree Star meets teenage Satanic pussy cat cheerleaders…and we mean that as a compliment. Love this song! Can’t wait for this video!
Dead Girls Never Say No is highly reminiscent of 80’s bands like, interestingly named, Dead or Alive. She also say’s “I’ll be a Rosemary’s Baby Tonight” playing off of the horror movie reference of her first track This Club is a Haunted House, where she mentions horror movie direction William Castle. Sharon definitely knows her shit!
The next track, Drink Til I Die, is like 90’s easy listening queen Basia on crack. Kind of like filler for the album.
I Wish I Were Amanda Lepore (Ft. Amanda Lepore) is a pop dedication love song of sorts. Who really cares, right? It’s about Amanda Lepore. Period. The song is ok, but a little weak.
Why Do You Think You Are Nuts is where the true Sharon Needles shines! We love this track! And maybe because it reminds us of small punk rock bands organizing in garages across the Midwest in the late 80’s. Although, this is a band that will make it! If Sharon had released an entire album of this kind of music, she probably wouldn’t get the pop/club attention she’ll get otherwise, but this is her best work on the album.
Disco Ball…I’m gonna take you for the spin of your life? No thanks. Really bad lyrics. Enough said.
Of course we loved Dressed To Kill because it’s like a mature version of that punk rock band mixed with the 80’s sound of Dead or Alive, with a little glam rock glittered around in the background. Perfection.
If Sharon Needles were the villain in a James Bond movie, Let’s All Die would be the title of the film…and the theme song. We loved that she sings, no one gets out alive, a play on words of the title of the bestselling biography about Jim Morrison of The Doors. Are we reading to much into this…probably.
Kai Kai (Ft. Ana Matronic and Alaska) Really??? The song is really not bad, but just a year after Let’s Have a KiKi…with a member from The Scissor Sisters??? Yeah really, because this is Sharon’s humor poking fun at the gay obsession with that damn song. She also pokes fun at it in her video for The Club is a Haunted House when she says the first line of Let’s Have a Kiki. A kai kai is when two drag queens date…or screw. So to anyone who says, “She copied that song“…you’re an idiot!
Everyday is Halloween is the definite depressing ballad of the album. We can already imagine thousands of kids laying in their bedrooms, dressed in drag totally relating to these songs! Every teenager needs an idol, right? Well…adults need idols too!
In Hail Satan (Ft. Jayne County), the real Sharon Needles is back! We are so happy she ended the album with this track, which is so true to some great punk bands, with those combat boots thumping, heisting beer bottles in the air! Great song baby!
And there you have it…the most confusing album since Britney Spears released My Prerogative! And we love them both! Maybe Sharon hasn’t found her exact sound yet, but give her a break, she’s not Leann fucking Rimes for Christ’s sake! Her album is experimental, yet mature, confusing, yet direct, beautiful…yet haunting.
Check out her video below and go buy her album on iTunes.
Read our interview Sharon Needles Has Balls HERE!
Read all of our RuPaul interviews and updates, just search for RuPaul in our search box!
And if you’re gay or like gay people…follow us:
VnDvH
Previous PostPrevious RuPaul’s Willam Belli and Detox: Boy is a Bottom…NEW Video!
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Leonardo San Roman
Home/2018 MBDA Matchmaker, 2018 Monday Speakers/Leonardo San Roman
Leonardo San RomanNMSDC2018-10-13T15:19:36-04:00
DOT Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization’s Procurement Assistance Division
MBDA Signature Session: Government to Business (G2B) Exchanges
Monday, Oct. 15, 2018
Leonardo San Roman currently serves as a Small Business Specialist for the DOT Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization’s Procurement Assistance Division.
In this capacity, he helps small business owners to market their products and services and increase the participation of small businesses in DOT procurement opportunities. He also assists the OSDBU Director on special projects.
Prior to joining DOT, Mr. San Roman served as Project Manager for the Plans, Policy, and Resources Directorate with the Naval Audit Service.
Previously he served as the Finance Director for the Senate of Puerto Rico.
He has also served as the Deputy Director for Administration, Budget and Finance for the Office of the Governor of Puerto Rico at the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration in Washington, D.C.
Adrienne C. Trimble
Henry Childs, III
Dave McMurray
Brian Reaves
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More Than Decoration: Barn Stars Sustain the Spirit of Folk Tradition
Written by Patrick Donmoyer in the Features category and the Spring 2021 issue Topics in this article: barn stars (hex signs), barns, Berks County, Bucks County, Deitsch Eck Restaurant, Eric Claypoole, folk art, Harry Adam, Jacob Zook, Johnny Claypoole, Johnny Ott, Kutztown Folk Festival, Lehigh County, Milton J. Hill, Montgomery County, Northampton County, Pennsylvania Dutch (Pennsylvania German), Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center, Schuylkill County, tourism, Wallace Nutting
Features appear in each issue of Pennsylvania Heritage showcasing a variety of subjects from various periods and geographic locations in Pennsylvania.
Two barn star painters, Eric Claypoole and Andrew Shirk, work on the Hutchinson Barn, near Vera Cruz, in 2020. The barn features star patterns, distinctive to the Lehigh Valley region, with raindrops and floral borders.
Photo, Patrick J. Donmoyer
The rungs of the extension ladder echoed across the hollow as the barn star painters prepared to ascend the facade of the barn to begin their third and final day of work. Carefully selecting their brushes and colors, the painters took their places 20 feet above the barnyard where they worked their magic. With rapid and calculated movements, they began applying the paint to the rough contours of the wooden siding, alternating between steady and fluttering brushstrokes to follow the variable woodgrain. Carefully layering black against chrome yellow over a solid white background, they completed a series of eight-pointed stars enclosed with elaborate borders and punctuated with smaller rosettes, arranged symmetrically across the red forebay of the barn. Despite the complicated surface of the tongue-and-groove fir siding, the newly painted stars appeared to emerge as if from a memory in the old wood. The colorful geometry coincided precisely with the template provided by the weathered remnants of the previously existing historic barn stars, cultivated by many generations of painters interacting with the exposed wood and the elements. When the painters finished for the day, cleaned their brushes, and packed in their ladders, yet another decorated barn had been revived from dormancy in the rolling hills of the East Penn Valley, the epicenter of a living tradition.
For well over a century, the decorated barns of Berks and Lehigh counties have captivated and puzzled visitors from across the nation. Elaborate geometric murals, depicting radial star patterns, are the focal point of a comprehensive decorative scheme. Articulated with rosettes, crosses or teardrops between each star point, barn stars complement other decorative elements, such as painted trim and arches accenting windows and doorways against the solid paint of classic barn red. These agricultural artistic expressions, rendered in vivid contrasting colors, shine forth from the landscape of southeastern Pennsylvania, visible across fields and valleys and inviting the eye and the imagination to engage the culture of the region.
Although commonly known as “hex signs” today, these traditional murals emerged from the folk-cultural imagination of the Pennsylvania Dutch, who once in the local vernacular simply called them Schtanne, or stars, an epithet rooted in generations of artistic expression favoring the geometry of celestial forms. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, craftspeople generously applied these patterns to everyday objects used in the home, on the farm, and in the church. Spreading across all aspects of secular and sacred material culture, these colorful, geometric stars were a sustained and constant presence, an impression of the studded mantle of the heavens above.
Photographed around 1890, this barn located in Greenwich Township, Berks County, bears classic eight-pointed stars with braided borders and six-pointed rosettes between each star point.
Christopher Witmer Collection
No one quite knows who the first painters were to climb ladders and bring these formerly intimate artistic renderings of the stars out of the home and into the light of the sun. But by the middle of the 19th century, large-scale murals of these celestial motifs had already become well established as an artistic form and were magnified enough to engage viewers at a distance traveling through the rural Pennsylvania landscape. Whether by intention or by accident, the barn stars had become the most publicly visible indicator of the cultural presence in the region. They became synonymous with the Pennsylvania Dutch experience.
It is this very experience itself that in recent years has fallen into perceptual decline with the waning of the use of Pennsylvania Dutch as an everyday language in Berks and Lehigh counties, the consolidation of some old family farms into large agro-industrial operations, and the ever-present encroachment of housing developments and warehouses on the formerly pristine rural landscape. Barn stars and the historic structures they adorn have become objects not only of celebration but also concern. It was once estimated that there were less than 200 decorated barns in southeastern Pennsylvania, where most are located, and that bit by bit these numbers were beginning to dwindle through neglect or development.
This perception that the tradition was under threat prompted me to photographically document the region’s decorated barns. Although my study originally began in 2008, I have continued with vigilance over the past decade to not only capture snapshots in time of the region’s barns but also to regularly monitor the landscape for changes and variations as the years pass.
Barn star painter Eric Claypoole of Lenhartsville, Berks County, deftly stripes the edge of an elaborate rosette pattern produced for the Kutztown Folk Festival in 2018 to promote the region’s living traditions.
Photo, Naomi Pauley, Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center, Kutztown University
Although statistics from my most preliminary work proved that concerns about protecting the region’s historic barns are warranted, I did discover that the painting of barn stars appears to be a healthy, living tradition. I documented approximately 450 barns in Berks County alone and well over a hundred more in adjacent counties, especially Lehigh, Northampton, Montgomery, Bucks and Schuylkill, and a few in Lebanon and Lancaster.
What appears to be tipping the scales is the half dozen or so barns each year on which designs are being repainted or
painted for the very first time. Although some of these barn stars are the work of property owners, farmers or other individuals trying their hand on a single barn, the majority have been quietly added to the landscape by professional barn star painter Eric Claypoole of Lenhartsville, Berks County, and a few others like him. A second-generation painter and generous bearer of tradition, Claypoole has taught at least a half dozen other people who help him on painting jobs to keep up with the growing demand for barn decoration in the region.
Through the efforts of Claypoole and others following in his footsteps, I have witnessed firsthand how barn star painters, past and present, stand at the crossroads between tradition and innovation, community identity and popular culture, and preservation and progress. Striking a delicate balance, barn star painters elevate modest agricultural structures to celebratory expressions of the culture, stimulating interest in a visible and long-lasting contribution of value to the local community.
Milton Hill painted these designs in watercolor on paper in 1899, when he was in his sixth and final year at the Virginville one-room schoolhouse. He carried them in his painter’s toolbox throughout his career for nearly six decades.
Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center, Kutztown University (Gift of Esther and Harold Derr)
This transformation of the landscape, although highly significant, is nothing new. Previous generations of painters navigated similar eras of immense cultural change in the 19th and 20th centuries, and their legacy continues to leave lasting impressions in today’s landscape. Among the most influential and prolific of these artists was Milton J. Hill (1887–1972) of Virginville, Berks County.
In 1902, at the age of 14, Hill began his profession as a third-generation barn star painter under the tutelage of his father John M. Hill (1850–1933), who in turn learned from his father Jacob Hill Jr. (b. 1818). Against a family backdrop of the painter’s trade, Milton’s proclivity for geometric art had already begun to blossom by the time that he completed his sixth grade education in a local one-room schoolhouse. He had experimented with watercolors and produced a series of precise star patterns that he carried with him in his painter’s toolbox for the duration of his career, spanning six decades. As a professional contractor, Hill painted and wallpapered houses, decorated and grained furniture, and even worked on the occasional church steeple, but his real passion was painting barns. By the time of his retirement from barn painting in the early 1960s, Hill had decorated dozens of barns with a unique signature barn star that he developed around 1910, an innovation that would revolutionize the local art form. Consisting of an eight-pointed, multilayered starburst with an elaborate interlaced border executed in 10 colors, the “Hill Star,” as it would later be called, was the most geometrically sophisticated barn star found anywhere in the region.
Kutztown photographer Wallace A. Dietrich (1853–1909) documented Milton Hill and his painting crew around 1907. Hill is standing on the painter’s lift, center, with cousins Oscar Adam, left, and Wilson Adam, right. Below are members of the Stein Family posing with their horses in front of their barn near Moselem, Berks County.
Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center, Kutztown University
Unlike some local barn stars, which were painted and repainted with little variation from generation to generation, the Hill Star was an innovation, a departure from the uniformity that tends to follow strict adherence to traditional forms. Hill’s work did not so much push the boundaries of traditional art but rather expanded the range of possibilities open to future generations of painters in the region. Likewise, many of the region’s historic barn stars are unattributed, because they were not originally signed like much of the art produced today. Hill’s work, on the other hand, was so noticeably different that his eponymous star served as a kind of visual calling card advertising his work throughout the region.
Venerated barn star painter Milton J. Hill of Virginville, Berks County, paints one of his classic, elaborate signature stars on the barn at his family farm. Hill began painting barn stars decades before the term “hex sign” was introduced through tourism.
Pennsylvania Folklife Society
Although Hill’s work was innovative, it also was produced in a manner consistent with the traditional art form as a reflection of his community’s values and aesthetics. Later widely accepted as part of the standard corpus of the region’s folk art, the Hill Star is a testament to the way in which traditions have the capacity to grow and change with each generation, simultaneously evolving and reinforcing folk-cultural identity.
At the same time that artists like Milton Hill were working and painting as a seamless continuation of local tradition, travel writers from outside of the region were providing romanticized accounts of the decorated barns and the supposed meanings behind their work. In 1924 retired Congregational minister Wallace Nutting of Framingham, Massachusetts, published a travelogue entitled Pennsylvania Beautiful, featuring photographs and reflections on the rural landscape and architecture of southeastern Pennsylvania. Amid his descriptions of colonial taverns and bucolic landscapes, Nutting penned the first interpretive account of the decorated barns of the Pennsylvania Dutch.
Proposing the idea that these decorations were supernatural in origin, Nutting claimed they were applied to barns as protection against witchcraft, and he used the term Hexafoos, meaning “witch foot,” to describe the tradition, in his words, “as a kind of spiritual or demoniac lightning rod!” Although the Pennsylvania Dutch were no strangers to folklore concerning the supernatural, Nutting’s explanation was largely contrived. By virtue of national distribution, however, Pennsylvania Beautiful reached readers across the United States and beyond, firmly establishing the expectations of visitors to the region that magic was afoot among the Pennsylvania Dutch. In the 1930s and 40s Nutting’s account went on to directly inspire the coinage of the popular terms “hex marks” and “hex signs,” the latter of which remains in predominant use today.
Milton Hill’s signature star pattern consisted of an eight-pointed starburst and an elaborate border of interlacing arcs. The design is executed in several variations with up to as many as 10 different colors.
By the time Nutting’s account first appeared in print, Milton Hill had already been painting barns for well over 20 years. It wasn’t until the 1940s that he even became aware of the circulation of Nutting’s theories, and no inkling of these accounts rang true for local painters, who continued to think of their work simply as “stars.” Another prolific barn painter, Harry Adam (1915–2005) of Edenburg, Berks County, who began his career in 1936 as an apprentice to Hill, was equally dismissive of the term “hex sign.” Adam not only painted stars but also served as Windsor Township tax collector and owned and operated a paint store, where he supplied professional-grade enamels to many local barn star painters. In an interview in the early 1960s, Adam gave his appraisal of the notion of the hex sign: “I doubt if some of those self-styled ‘hex’ sign painters have ever actually raised a ladder against a barn, let alone paint one.”
This contentious comment was most certainly directed at one of Adam’s customers, a local painter named Johnny Ott (1890–1964), who conferred upon himself the humorous title “Professor of Hexology.” Ott painted a wide variety of tourist goods from his studio on the side porch of the Lenhartsville Hotel, where he was proprietor and bartender. Adam and other contemporary barn painters were well aware that Ott never painted a barn in his life, but Ott’s unique artwork had become quite popular with the rise of tourism in the region.
Notably, Ott was a bit of an outsider among the rural Pennsylvania Dutch, not only because he was a Catholic in a decidedly Protestant region but also because of the hexologist persona he developed to promote his work. Beginning in the 1940s Ott had been a painter of decorative tinware, with traditional curvilinear motifs of hearts, birds, tulips and some star motifs. Although in 1955 he explained to reporters from the Pittsburgh Press that he painted his first “hex sign” on a wooden chair for his wife sometime in the late 1940s as a tongue-in-cheek “prank,” the concept apparently was so successful that he began to routinely paint hex signs, first on hubcaps, milk cans and a wide variety of household objects, before shifting to painting on commercial signboard sometime around 1951.
In 1953 Ott made his first appearance at the Kutztown Folk Festival, where he offered explanations of his work, competing with the venerated barn star painter Milton Hill, who had also joined the festival for the first time the same year. By this time, Hill was widely credited with having been the first barn star artist to paint traditional designs on commercial signboard, an innovation in surface media that Ott had presumably copied. Yet in their own right, both artists were pioneers in their craft — Hill with his elaborate signature star patterns painted on commercial signboard and Ott with the first commercial hex signs as tourist novelties in an altogether new visual vocabulary that differed from the strictly geometric designs painted on local barns. Although their legacies differed dramatically in content, their combined impact in the 1950s revolutionized the tradition on every level.
The prolific Johnny Ott of Lenhartsville, Berks County, was the self-proclaimed “Professor of Hexology.” He launched and standardized the modern artistic imagery of commercial hex signs and their meanings.
Collection of Patrick J. Donmoyer
Johnny Ott’s persona as a hexologist set the standard for what would later become an artistic trope among the Pennsylvania Dutch. Claiming supernatural power in his work, he invented a series of codified signs combining the whimsical motifs he had originally painted on tinware with loose geometric star patterns inspired by local barns. Each sign had a succinct meaning, such as “Love and Romance,” “Success and Prosperity,” “Sun and Rain,” and even a sign based on a Roman Catholic rosette window, which he called the “Daddy Hex,” the supposed progenitor of all hex signs. Ott was as much a showman as he was an artist, entertaining his clients with tall tales about the supposed magical influence of his work, so that each customer not only received a piece of his art but also a personal encounter with the mysterious hexologist.
Ott’s crowning achievement was in the decoration of his own establishment, which today is the location of the locally renowned Deitsch Eck Restaurant. Ott created a series of murals featuring a wide variety of folk art designs, which later became a tourist attraction in and of themselves. Some of these murals were recently recreated in 2020 as a restoration project by hex sign painter Ivan Hoyt, a craftsman who has been demonstrating at the Kutztown Folk Festival for more than 40 years. Hoyt’s panels were made to cover and protect some of the fragile original paintings
that Ott produced in the early 1950s. Johnny Ott had also teamed up with the silkscreen printer Jacob Zook of Lancaster in the mid-1950s, and together they established the corpus of standardized commercial hex sign patterns and meanings that are commonly marketed at tourist destinations in Lancaster even up to the present day. Zook had begun screen printing in 1942, first producing images of the Amish and horses and buggies for novelty shops, but
his business began to boom when he became Ott’s “apprentice.” Many of the earliest of their collaborative pieces feature the printed signature “Zook and Ott.” Through a complimentary and noncompetitive agreement, they cross-promoted one another’s work — Ott’s work of the more valuable hand-painted variety, Zook’s mass-produced and affordable.
Together, their work dominated the tourist markets throughout the region, especially Lancaster County, where fascination with the Amish drew tourists from across the nation. Although historic barns decorated with stars are rare in Lancaster County because Old Order Amish and Mennonite communities did not paint them, the success of Zook’s hex sign enterprise fostered the common misperception that these groups did paint them. Even Ott himself sometimes donned plain garb as part of his hexologist persona, conflating the Amish in the American imagination with commercialized hex signs.
The celebrated barn star and hex sign painter Johnny Claypoole of Lenhartsville painting at an outdoor festival and displaying a wide range of patterns. Claypoole was the protégé of Johnny Ott, and he carried on many of Ott’s original designs and techniques.
Courtesy of Eric Claypoole
Nevertheless, Ott later recanted to reporters from the Allentown Morning Call in a clever media stunt published just two days after his death on July 29, 1964. He confided that he was no magician or worker of miracles and that any powers ascribed to his work were purely in the minds of his customers. This “mind over matter” explanation would later be repeated by Ott’s protégé and local apprentice, John P. Claypoole (1921–2004) of Lenhartsville, Berks County.
Sometime in 1961 Claypoole responded to a classified ad in the local paper placed by Ott, who was in poor health at the time and eagerly seeking an apprentice to carry on his business. Claypoole was an ornamental metal worker who had only recently moved to the area from Philadelphia with his family to rediscover his rural roots on his maternal side in northern Berks County. Although Ott initially demanded a $3 cash payment in advance for each painting lesson, he never once actually permitted Claypoole to pay for his apprenticeship.
Ott bonded easily with Claypoole and taught him not only his unique line of commercial designs but also the technical art of painting. Both men were gregarious storytellers and Roman Catholics, and Claypoole readily adopted Ott’s repertoire of stories and explanations. By the time that Claypoole took Ott’s place at the Kutztown Folk Festival in 1964, he had also adopted the nickname “Johnny” as an homage to his mentor.
Although Johnny Ott never painted on barns, his legacy impacted the traditional barn star art forms indirectly through his protégé Johnny Claypoole, who eagerly painted barns at every opportunity, in addition to painting the commercial hex sign patterns developed by Ott.
The Sunday Barn in Perry Township, Berks County, bears three classic Hill Stars. They were originally painted sometime in the 1940s, repainted by Johnny Claypoole in the 1980s, and most recently repainted in 2010 by Eric Claypoole.
Claypoole formed a painting crew with his sons, and together they repainted a number of barns in northern Berks County beginning in the early 1970s. Claypoole may have painted less than 20 total barns during his career, but his work was well-publicized and did much to promote the continuation of the tradition in the decades following the retirement of other well-established barn painters such as Milton Hill and Harry Adam.
Claypoole also is credited with having first publicly described an important element in repainting historic barn stars — the so-called “ghost” effect. A form of differential solar weathering, this occurs when painted elements, such as barn stars or even commercial signs painted on wooden siding are exposed to the elements for decades, whereby a pronounced relief forms in the surface of the wood. This process leaves behind an ephemeral image that can be used to repaint historic barn stars. Although it is likely that artists have been making use of the “ghost” for centuries, it was Claypoole’s very public persona that raised awareness of this intriguing interaction between the artists and the elements.
A relief of a barn star, called a “ghost,” forms after decades of direct exposure to the sun and the elements. Geometric areas with multiple layers of paint are protected, while the background gradually recedes. This highly complex ghost is all that remains of an elaborate star from the 1920s, attributed to Milton Hill.
Eventually, as Johnny Claypoole’s career began to wind down, his son Eric Claypoole, who grew up at his father’s side in the studio and helped on barn painting jobs, eventually became the leading painter in the Claypoole family. Johnny Claypoole’s final barn star job was in 1995 — a repainting of an original Milton Hill star from the 1940s on a strawshed — while Eric did the high work on the upper gables.
Since first helping his father, Eric has gone on to paint more than 85 barns, many of which are historical restorations, while others are original designs inspired by years of working as both a commercial painter and as a restoration carpenter throughout the region. His work combines influences from his father and Johnny Ott, as well as Milton Hill, Harry Adam and countless other unknown painters whose works continue to offer insight and inspiration.
About a quarter of the barns that Eric Claypoole painted were supported by funding from the Pennsylvania Dutch Hex Tour Association, one of the oldest tourist organizations in the state, founded in the 1950s for the purpose of stimulating interest in the region through its decorated barns. The novel concept of a local driving tour of decorated barns inspired many other regional tours throughout the United States, including the barn quilt tours that are popular in central and western Pennsylvania and throughout the American Midwest.
Although the original Hex Tour mainly provided a map advertising local businesses with information about where to find barn stars, the organization eventually teamed up with the Kutztown University Foundation to fund half of the total cost of painting for selected barns visible along public roadways. Originally started around 1996 by David Fooks, former director of the Kutztown Folk Festival, as a collaboration with the Hex Tour Association, the Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center, and the KU Foundation, this project has gone on to fund the repainting of dozens of barns located in the vicinity of northern Berks County. This institutional support has helped to maintain the character of the landscape and has made possible the continuation of the tradition for a wider number of barn owners, many of whom own modest family farming operations.
The Sharadin Barn at the Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center at Kutztown University features this classic eight-pointed star. The heavy weathering on the barn siding reveals details of previous iterations of patterns weathered into the surface of the wood under the painted star.
In addition, the Hex Tour’s efforts led to a collaboration with Pennsylvania’s Americana Region, Berks County’s visitors bureau, which resulted in the creation of the most comprehensive map and driving tour of the decorated barns in northern Berks, known today as the Barn Star Art Tour. The route, which covers more than 40 miles of winding backcountry roads, features three dozen stunning examples of the region’s decorated barns.
More than two-thirds of these barns were painted by Eric Claypoole, who has to date worked on more barns than any other known painter in the history of the tradition. Working at the pace of between three to six barns per year, he will soon exceed 100 barns — a monumental contribution to the craft.
Although Claypoole’s work ranges from the colorful commercial hex sign patterns invented by Johnny Ott to the strictly geometric traditional barn stars, his true love is in experimenting with geometry and exploring the historic barns bearing the works of generations of painters before him. It is in the space between these two parallel artistic trajectories that he finds meaning in his work.
Claypoole often explains to his customers that he prefers to think of “what the designs represent,” as opposed to
the strict literal meanings supplied by Ott, Zook and others. The commercial designs are more simplistic in content: hearts represent love, distelfinks (gold finches) stand for prosperity, sunbursts are symbolic of abundance and fertility, and so on. Yet, the significance of older, geometric patterns remains more elusive.
Eric Claypoole restores a 7-foot Milton Hill Star on the Sunday Barn, based upon the deeply weathered “ghost” on the surface of the barn wood.
Paradoxically, although the barn stars are part of what sets the Pennsylvania Dutch cultural landscape apart, they are also echoes of artistic expressions common to agrarian folk cultures throughout the world, across all places and times. “The stars,” Eric Claypoole explains, “are as old as time,” and the whirling effect in a barn star, produced by a pinwheel of contrasting colors, captures something of the essence of “the generations of humanity spinning through time.”
Indeed, the colorful barn stars are emblematic of the continuation of tradition over many generations, based in the passing down of artistic techniques and the celebration of the Pennsylvania Dutch culture’s agrarian roots. The stars are simultaneously symbolic of the community’s desire for continuity and connection with the past, as well as the degree to which change and innovation are necessary components of a living tradition. Whether denizens of Berks and Lehigh counties or visitors from other parts of the world, new generations have the opportunity to engage the stars as artistic expressions of the region and explore new ways of creating, experiencing and sustaining America’s unique folk art traditions.
Donmoyer, Patrick. Hex Signs: Myth and Meaning in Pennsylvania Dutch Barn Stars. Kutztown, PA: Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center, 2013. / Ensminger, Robert F. The Pennsylvania Barn: Its Origin, Evolution, and Distribution in North America. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. / Fooks, David. “In Search of America’s Oldest Hex Signs,” Der Reggeboge 36, no. 1 (2002): 21–27. / —. “The History of Pennsylvania’s Barn Stars and Hex Signs.” Material Culture 36, no. 2 (Fall 2004): 1–7. / Marshall, Jeffrey L., and Willis M. Rivinus. Barns of Bucks County. Doylestown, PA: Heritage Conservancy, 2007. / Shoemaker, Alfred L. Hex, No! Lancaster, PA: Pennsylvania Dutch Folklore Center, 1953. / Yoder, Don, and Thomas E. Graves. Hex Signs: Pennsylvania Dutch Barn Symbols and Their Meaning. 2nd ed. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2000.
The Barn Star Art Tour showcases the region’s premier decorated barns set within the active agricultural landscape of northern Berks County. The tour was produced by Pennsylvania’s Americana Region in cooperation with the Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center at Kutztown University. For more information, go to visitpaamericana.com/partner/hex-barn-art-tour.
Patrick J. Donmoyer is the director of the Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center at Kutztown University. He is the author of several books, including Hex Signs: Myth and Meaning in Pennsylvania Dutch Barn Stars and the recently published Painter of the Stars: The Life and Work of Milton J. Hill. His articles for Pennsylvania Heritage include “The Easter Egg: A Flourishing Tradition in Pennsylvania” (Spring 2020) and “Kutztown Folk Festival: America’s Oldest Folklife Celebration” (Summer 2019).
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11 West Church Street, Williamsport, PA 17701
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Sight & Sound - Moses 6/27/23 (Tuesday, June 27, 2023)
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Returning to the stage this year is Moses! Set adrift as a baby, he is an unlikely hero—until God calls him to lead His people out of Egypt and into the Promised Land.
Dutch Apple "Newsies" 7-5-23 (Wednesday, July 5, 2023)
Stop the presses! This Disney film is now a hit musical based on a true story. Fill up with all your favorites from this delectable dinner buffet, while Jack Kelly turns on the charm and inspires us all to Sieze the Day!
Waterfront @ Silver Birches Fall Foliage Train (Thursday, September 28, 2023)
Enjoy fall in the Poconos, hopefully when the area is at it’s colorful peak! Be treated to a warm welcome featuring coffee and apple streusel cake at the Silver Birches,
Dutch Apple "Escape to Margaritaville" 11-5-23 (Sunday, November 5, 2023)
Want to get away from it all? Grab the family or maybe a few friends, and come enjoy the funny, yet heart-warming musical that tells the story of a part-time bartender/singer who falls for a career-minded tourist.
Bird-in-Hand Stage - Our Christmas Dinner 11/14/23 (Tuesday, November 14, 2023)
It’s the most wonderful meal of the year! Grab the family and enjoy “Our Christmas Dinner” at the Bird-in-Hand Stage, where you will first be treated to a fabulous lunch smorgasbord...
American Music Theatre - The First Noel (Wednesday, November 29, 2023)
Gather your group for this special holiday “outing”. Begin with some free time at the festive Kitchen Kettle Village, along with lunch at the Kling House Restaurant.
Sight & Sound - Miracle of Christmas 12/14/23 (Thursday, December 14, 2023)
How it all began! This is the very first production ever performed on the stages of Sight & Sound Theatre. The original Christmas story of a journey to Bethlehem...
Tours All Tours On with the Show (All) New York City - 2023 Sight & Sound - Moses 6/27/23 Dutch Apple "Newsies" 7-5-23 Waterfront @ Silver Birches Fall Foliage Train Dutch Apple "Escape to Margaritaville" 11-5-23 Bird-in-Hand Stage - Our Christmas Dinner 11/14/23 American Music Theatre - The First Noel Sight & Sound - Miracle of Christmas 12/14/23
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St. John the Wonderworker
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O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that taketh refuge in Him.
Psalm 34:8 [33:8, Septuagint]
The chief aim of Christian life is communion with God. Communion with God was, in fact, the natural state of humanity before the Fall. “Through the Fall of man, this communion with God was broken,” writes Bishop Atanasije (Jevtic), “and liturgical and eucharistic living [. . .] was distorted.” To live liturgically is to return to communion with God through the Holy Spirit by participating in the shared life of the Church — the Body of which Jesus Christ is the Head. This is achieved by offering one’s life as a sacrifice to God: “everything is received from God as a gift of his Goodness and Love and everything is returned with gratitude” (Bishop Atanasije, “Liturgy and Spirituality”).
Bishop Atanasije with St. Justin Popavić (+1979)
Bishop Atanasije with St. Justin Popović (+1979).
This state of gratitude is called εὐχαριστία, or ‘eucharist,’ in Greek. After the Fall, humanity struggles and suffers because it tries to live a non-eucharistic (thankless) life in a non-eucharistic (thankless) world. In the liturgical worship of the Church called the “Divine Services,” we return to a eucharistic way of life through prayer: worshiping God in gratitude, love, peace, and joy.
The Son of God with Adam & Eve in Paradise before the Fall
The Son of God with Adam and Eve in Paradise before the Fall.
Liturgical worship consists of singing and chanting psalms and hymns to the Lord. In his Epistle to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul describes Christian fellowship: “Be filled with the Spirit; speaking one to another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father” (Eph. 5:18-21). Singing psalms and spiritual songs was the foundation of the communal spiritual life for New Testament Christians and it remains the foundation of the Orthodox Divine Services, wherein the “early Church” of the Apostles lives. “Giving thanks always” is the eucharistic way of living that results from being “filled with the Spirit.”
Adam & Eve hiding themselves in shame from God after sinning (left) Adam & Eve’s expulsion from Paradise and the Cherubim guarding Paradise east of Eden (right)
Adam and Eve hiding themselves in shame from God after sinning (left).
Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Paradise and the Cherubim guarding Paradise east of Eden (right).
Motivated by repentance and love, Christians enter into the living stream of the Divine Services in order to be “transformed by the renewing of [their] mind” so that they are no longer “conformed to the world” (Rom. 12:2). Having been broken down by sin and wearied of living non-eucharistically in a Fallen world, the Christian yearns for wholeness; yet wholeness can neither be found in the world nor within oneself. It is hard to be renewed if one exclusively relies on improvised prayer, for “out of the heart come forth evil thoughts” (Matt. 15:19). This is why early Christians traditionally immersed themselves in the three thousand year-old Psalms of King David — a man after God’s own heart (1 Sam. 13:14) — whose heart was acceptable to God (Ps. 51:17[50:17]). If we both listen to the words that are prayed and chanted and are also attentive and watchful, those words can become the voice of our spirit crying out to God. The words of the Holy Spirit animating the psalms, prayers, and hymns of the Church are one means by which we can be refashioned into the godly likeness (Gen. 1:26) that Adam and Eve shared before the Fall.
The principal means by which we can grow in the likeness of God is by frequently preparing for and receiving the Body and Blood of Christ. By offering His human nature as a sacrifice on the Cross, Christ has given us His Body and Blood, which is the source of everlasting life (John 6:35-69). Out of thanksgiving for the gift of everlasting life, and because our Lord Himself gave thanks on the night he first instituted the Mystical Supper (1 Cor. 11:24), His Body and Blood is called Holy Eucharist. Since the earliest days of Christianity, Holy Eucharist has been central to Christian worship.
The healing power of God’s love, whereby we grow in His likeness, is most perfectly experienced through Holy Eucharist received during the Divine Liturgy — the most important Divine Service of the Church. Within the Divine Liturgy, we experience the Kingdom of Heaven, which “is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17). Celebrating with all the faithful in the Divine Liturgy is the entire community of angels and saints who precede us in the faith. In the Divine Liturgy, we are close to them because we all join ourselves to the Lord, Who joined His Divine Nature to our human nature. “He who loves God lives the angelic life on earth, fasting and keeping vigils, praying and singing psalms and always thinking good of every man,” writes St. Maximos the Confessor (+662) (“First Century on Love” #42). How can we not think good of everyone, when “he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17)? The prayer life of the Church is of vital assistance in helping us to experience God’s love, whereby we are made whole, one in spirit, and full of peace and joy. The prayers of the Church reawaken a eucharistic way of experiencing life; the Divine Liturgy reveals a vision of a eucharistic world. When the prayers and the Divine Liturgy are joined together, they enable the Christian to walk in the Garden again, experiencing a eucharistic world eucharistically.
The Hospitality of Abraham Icon was painted in the early 15th c. by St. Andrei Rublev. It depicts the three angels who visited Abraham at the Oak of Mamre, often interpreted as a foreshadowing of the Holy Trinity.
Please join us for prayer at St. John the Wonderworker Orthodox Church. You may view the schedule on our monthly calendar.
The services are sung and chanted in English. We predominantly use Russian common tones (Obikhod) with some Serbian & Greek special melodies.
Typical Schedule for Divine Services
Matins: 6:30 am
Vespers: 6 pm
Divine Liturgy: 10 am (followed by Trapeza/Lunch)
View our full schedule
We have a YouTube page! Hear Fr. John’s Homilies!
For an excellent series of articles by Fr. Seraphim Slobodskoy on “The Divine Services,” read this.
For an excellent series of articles by Fr. Victor Potapov on Vespers, Matins, and the All-night Vigil, read this.
St. John the Wonderworker Orthodox Church,
304 Blair Blvd
Eugene, Oregon 97402
frjohn@stjohnthewonderworker.org
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Here, There & Everywhere by Chris Roberson
Mahesh Raj Mohan
Issue: 3 October 2005
Roxanne Bonaventure is unique. Raised by her widower father, the ultimate absentminded professor, in England, Roxanne grows up lonely, but independent. Professor Bonaventure knows he can't provide his only child with the attention she needs, so he sends Roxanne to America. Situated among gifted and talented youth, she no longer feels unique—but her life soon takes a fateful turn when she encounters an old woman in the woods near her school. Dying of a mortal wound, the woman gives Roxanne a silver band. Roxanne soon names the bracelet the Sofia (Greek for "wisdom"), and discovers it is a time machine. As Roxanne grows older, she embarks on several adventures, and she and her father learn the bracelet's "rules": time traveling to the past or future doesn't necessarily change her timeline, it just spins off into other worldlines. By following the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, this neatly sidesteps all of the usual time-travel paradoxes, and gives Roxanne almost superhuman power. (The Sofia steers her away from any worldline that would put her in harm's way—unless she desires otherwise.)
Roberson has a gift for creating colorful characters. The early chapters with Roxanne as a child are excellent, and as she ages, my sympathy remained with her. During Roxanne's adventures through time we are introduced to Sanford Blank, a mysterious and famous detective from Victorian England, who teaches her groovy martial arts. We also meet a collection of hilarious "time guardians" of one allegiance or another, and it's lots of fun to see Roxanne outwit them. As the novel progresses, however, it does become increasingly episodic. I didn't realize it at the time, but Roberson had initially written many adventures as stand-alone episodes that were originally published at Opi8.com and other places. Even so, the novel has enough connective tissue to keep it from descending into fix-up-ville.
Despite the novel's overall light tone, it never shies away from aging or mortality. Roxanne's mother has long been deceased, something that has obviously affected Roxanne, informing her inability to maintain lasting relationships; Roxanne continues to age in subjective time throughout the narrative; and the novel's narrative voice changes subtly as well. It's worth noting that Chris Roberson is also obviously a Beatles fan (and any readers who are Beatles fans will be in for a treat with the excellent first chapter). Roxanne Bonaventure even begins to resemble a heroine from a Beatles song; in her elusive nature there's a bit of Penny Lane, and even Eleanor Rigby.
Of course, Here, There & Everywhere is not entirely without flaws. One section deals a little too breezily with women's roles through the ages: "That periodically women were unfairly treated, and denied their proper role in society, cannot be disputed . . . But such periods are mere transitions, and over the long haul cannot sustain . . . In the vast majority of instances I have seen, the only power men possessed was simply that which the women allowed them to have." (239-40) This sort of "aw shucks" statement comes off as a shoddy consolation prize, and a little self-congratulatory. If Roberson had left this section out, I think the book would have been much stronger. He has considerable powers of imagination, and it would have been interesting to see his take on a matrifocal society.
Aside from that criticism, I found the book fun on several levels. Roberson seasons the tale with many pleasant tips of the hat to old masters like Heinlein and Bradbury, but the ending is pure, nonironic SF that evoked Clarke and Asimov for me. Roberson is a gifted fantasist (his exceptional short story "O One" from Live Without a Net proves he ain't no one-trick pony) and I certainly look forward to his future stories. Here, There, & Everywhere can be enjoyed as a breezy and light-hearted adventure, an excellent entry in the "Many Worlds" time-travel canon, and a sober examination of loneliness. I recommend it.
Note: Here, There & Everywhere had an earlier life as a shorter POD-produced book entitled Any Time At All . Both feature stunning cover art by John Picacio, one of the most gifted cover artists working today.
Mahesh Raj Mohan's previous publications at Strange Horizons can be found here and here. He has also been published at The Internet Review of Science Fiction , The Alien Online , and Scifaikuest . He lives in Portland, OR, with his lovely and talented wife Sara Strohmeyer, who is also a writer. He is working on several short stories and a novel. He can be found on the web at http://moksh.blogspot.com.
© Copyright 2005 Mahesh Raj Mohan
About Mahesh Raj Mohan
Mahesh Raj Mohan (email Mahesh) is a writer who lives in Portland, Oregon, with his lovely wife, Sara Strohmeyer. His nonfiction has appeared at Strange Horizons , IROSF , and the Alien Online . He has also published haiku at Scifaikuest and is currently working on several short stories and a novel. His online home is: http://moksh.blogspot.com.
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Helen H. Marburger Photograph Album, 1920-1926
The Helen H. Marburger Photograph Album is comprised of 395 photographic prints, 58 nitrate negatives, several poems, and ephemera documenting the interests and activities of a woman tentatively identified as Helen Marburger--an Oregon Agricultural College student--between 1920 and 1926. The album also includes images of Marburger’s friends and family; Oregon Agricultural College; recreational activities including hunting, camping, and swimming; and Oregon landscapes and landmarks.
Fredell, Helen Marburger (1902-)
ID: P 341
2 boxes including 395 photograph prints and 58 nitrate negatives
The Helen H. Marburger Photograph Album is comprised of approximately 450 photographic prints, negatives, and items of ephemera generated between 1920 and 1926. The album contains only minimal annotations and none of the people appearing in the album are identified by name. However, the album is tentatively identified as featuring and having been created by Helen Marburger based on a comparison of the album’s photographs with images from the 1925 and 1926 Beaver Yearbooks.
The album predominately documents the recreational activities of Marburger. It also features numerous other women, men, and children, apparently friends and family of Marburger. Several other women in the album attended Oregon Agricultural College (OAC), including Jessie Armstrong, a 1925 graduate who is pictured throughout the album.
The album contains 385 mounted photographic prints. Photographs taken at OAC are comprised of scenes of women on campus in 1924-1926, with photos of Marburger and Armstrong wearing graduation gowns and mortarboard caps. The majority of the album documents recreational activities such as camping and hunting trips, horseback riding, picnicking, and swimming. Regional landmarks appear throughout the album and include Mt. Rainier; Tule Lake; the Central Oregon lava fields; the Oregon coast; and Crater Lake National Park. The album also includes photographs from Thanksgiving (1924), a Labor Day trip to Garibaldi, Oregon (1925), and an Independence Day celebration (1925). While the majority of the album’s photos appear to have been taken in Oregon, the album does contain photos from outside the state, including images of the Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago.
In addition to the mounted photos, the album includes 10 loose photographic prints depicting Marburger posing around campus; the Women’s Building; ROTC cadets and band; a ship off the Oregon coast; and two images of football coach Paul J. Schissler—one as a young man and another clipped from the October 1927 edition of the OAC Alumnus. Also included are 58 loose nitrate negatives comprising similar scenes and subject matter as the collection's prints. Some of the negatives duplicate prints found in the collection.
The album also contains several loose, typed sheets of literary quotes and short poems by a number of writers including Edgar Guest, Edward Rowland Sill, and Alexander Pope. It also includes a program for the 1927 Mother-Daughter Banquet; a ticket stub for the 1926 Homecoming game (University of Oregon vs. Oregon Agricultural College); and a “rook” ribbon, a green ribbon traditionally worn by freshman women on the OAC campus.
The loose prints, typed pages, and ephemera have been removed from the album and stored separately. The nitrate negatives have also been separated and are housed in offsite storage.
The origins of this photograph album are unconfirmed. Based on photographs from the 1925 and 1926 Beaver Yearbooks, the album may have been created by Helen Harriet Marburger.
Helen Marburger studied chemical engineering at Oregon Agricultural College. While at OAC, she served as an officer for the OAC chapters of Chi Epsilon (a civil engineering honors society) and the Chemical Engineering Society, and was a member of the Sigma Kappa sorority. Marburger graduated from OAC in 1925 and joined the master's program in chemical engineering at Washington State College (now Washington State University). Marburger married George H. Fredell in approximately 1926 and he passed away in 1929. Marburger eventually married Herbert Johnson, a mining engineer.
Author: Trevor Sandgathe
Statement on Access: The collection is open for research.
Preferred Citation: Helen H. Marburger Photograph Album (P 341), Oregon State University Special Collections and Archives Research Center, Corvallis, Oregon.
Acquisition Note: The Helen H. Marburger Photograph Album (P 341) was a component of the Horner Museum holdings before being transferred to the Oregon State University Archives in the mid-1990s where it became a part of Harriet's Photograph Collection (HC3405). An independent collection was created for the album within the Special Collections and Archives Research Center in November 2017.
Camping--Oregon.
College students--Oregon--Corvallis--Social life and customs.
College students--Recreation--Oregon--Corvallis.
Crater Lake National Park (Or.)
Fredell, Helen Marburger, 1902-
Hunting--Oregon.
Oregon Agricultural College
Outdoor recreation--Oregon.
Rainier, Mount (Wash.)
Women--Education (Higher)--Oregon--Corvallis.
Nitrate negatives.
Photograph albums.
Photographic prints.
Additional information about Helen Marburger can be found in the 1925 and 1926 Beaver Yearbooks. Other collections of photographs and ephemera documenting the experience of women on the Oregon Agricultural College campus during the 1920s can be found in the Activities of Women Scrapbook (MSS ActivitiesWomen); the George J. and Florence Badura Collection (MSS Badura); and the Florence Gradon Scrapbook (MSS Gradon). The Chemical Engineering Department Records (RG 153) begin in 1930, shortly after Marburger's graduation.
Materials related to 20th-century outdoor recreation and tourism in Oregon include the Lucy Lewis Scrapbook (MSS Lewis), Mount Hood Area Excursion Photograph Album (P 310), Banes-Howland Crater Lake Auto Trip Photograph Album (P 339), and the William L. Finley Papers (MSS Finley).
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By RICK SINNETT, contributing writer
Man drove car into river to wash it...
MONROE — On July 9, a 62-year-old Sultan man was cited for releasing an “unwholesome substance” into the Skykomish River at the Lewis Street boat launch. He put his car in the river and got stuck in a failed attempt to wash it, from what he told police. The result was his 2000 Toyota Camry needing to be towed out and the driver being arrested and possibly fined between $103 and $5,000.
The car’s owner stated he drove down the boat ramp onto the exposed river bank with the intent to wash his car when he got stuck. The arresting officer’s report states the driver was not drunk or on drugs.
An oily sheen was reported on the water surface by the responding officer. City Stormwater Compliance Coordinator Vince Bertrand was called to the scene to inspect the car for leaks. It was determined the pollution was from accumulated road grime.
The man was cited and arrested for littering.
The issue with the attempted riverside wash is that not even boats are supposed to be washed at a boat launch, let alone a car.
Larry Altose, a spokesman for the state Department of Ecology, expressed the importance of proper boat launch protocols for cars and boats.
He said boats are to be washed in designated areas. This is not only to avoid introducing an invasive species to the local waters, but to prevent polluting the river with detergents. The phosphates in soaps and other detergents take up free oxygen in water, upsetting the food cycle for marine life and suffocating fish.
Washing a car introduces pollutants other than detergents, mainly oil. Altose explained that oil (commonly from the car’s crankcase) is “directly toxic” and can introduce mechanical problems to animals such as damaging fish gills and preventing waterfowl from being able to float. Any filter feeding animal, like clams, can become inedible due to the pollutants, if not die altogether.
“Many cities have guidelines for washing cars,” Altose said. The most common guidelines are to wash your car at carwash where the used water is separate from the storm drains and then recycled. However, if you’re washing your car at home, Altose said to do it in your yard to prevent the runoff from entering the storm drain system, which keeps phosphates away from marine animals.
The Monroe Police Department and the Department of Ecology for Washington State emphasize that boat launches are for taking watercraft in and out of water only, and that boats and cars should be washed in the proper designated areas.
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Q23/27/31/35 Stock
1938 - 1971 District line
The Q stock operated on the District line and comprised of refurbished G23, K27, L32, M35, N35 and some ‘H’ stock. These operated from 1938 until 1971.
The Q stock served the District line and comprised of rebuilt trains from between 1923 and 1935 which where constructed with hand-operated doors, being converted to air-operated doors from 1938 and a series of purpose built carriages. The carriages where sub-classified according to their original build dates and operated on the District line until their withdrawal in 1971.
The introduction of the G stock was to replace the wooden build B05 stock which originated from the early days of electrification the Metropolitan District Railway (MDR) and where in urgent need of replacement. The motor carriages in the B stock where constructed from a steel under-frame and where converted into trailers however these where in need of replacement by the mid 1930s.
The London Transport Passenger Board (LTPB) as a part of the New Works Programme between 1935 and 1940, commissioned the Q stock as a part of a wider project to modernise the Underground network. The costs to convert the existing rolling stock, with many years of operational life, was significantly cheaper than ordering a new rolling stock, the combination of the rolling stocks on the District line would enable a single fleet to have a greater operational flexibility with the conversion of the hand-operated doors to air-operated doors improving passenger safety on the line.
Older rolling stock, the C, D and E stocks where not compatible for use with air-operated doors, and where subsequently left out of the Q stock project. These where reclassified to H stock because they had hand-operated doors and where gradually withdrawn throughout the 1950s. The F20 stock was not able to be operated with the remainder of the fleet on the District line and was left out of the Q project, also, with the trains being transferred to the Metropolitan line in the early 1950s.
The Q stock was primarily made up of converted rolling stock, however there where additional units that there also added to the fleet. A further 25 driving motors and 183 trailers where absorbed into the Q38 stock, being constructed in 1938, these where later converted for use with the R stock motor carriages from 1947. This lead in some of the carriages having a strange appearance with the flat-sided clerestory roofed carriages to the flare-sided domed roofed Q38 stock.
The converted stock:
Initial Rolling Stock
Constructed In
Reclassified As
The Q stock served the District line for the majority of its life. Following the withdrawal of the F20 stock on the East London Line, today a part of the London Overground network, some units where transferred in 1963. The Q stock was also occasionally used on the Circle line, mostly on a Sunday, to allow the District line drivers to remain familiar with the route.
The conversion of many of the Q38 stock trailers into R stock trailers began in 1947 and began the first shrinkage to the stock which was assisted with the conversion of the H stock carriages to allow for air-operated doors. The first major withdrawal of stock began in the 1960s with the introduction of the A60/62 stock on the Metropolitan line, following the transfer of the P stock units from the Metropolitan line further to the stopping of District line services stopping at Houslow West in 1964. The introduction of the CO/CP stock from the the Hammersmith and City and Circle lines saw a further withdrawal between 1970 and 1971, which had been released from the introduction of the C69/77 stock. The final passenger journey on the Q stock was in 1971, with the carriages that where converted for use with the R stock where withdrawn in 1983.
District line: Ealing Common depot
District line: Gunnersbury
District line: West Ham
Interior divers motor
Interior non-drivers motor
A few selected videos about the Q23/27/31/35 stock from YouTube.
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August 24, 2022 by Bruce Stoker
My siblings and I are big fans of the TV show MASH. One of my favorite bits is from the “Bug Out” episode in which Radar, the company clerk, brings Col. Potter his lunch, a cold Spam sandwich, which Potter rejects, ordering Radar to tell the mess sergeant to get the kitchen back together. When Radar returns a few minutes later, Potter says, “Seems to me I’ve seen that Spam before.” “But it’s warm now,” says Radar. “Got the stove set up?” Potter asks. “I kept it under my arm,” says Radar. “Pass.”
Sometimes “new” really isn’t different; sometimes it’s the same old thing rewarmed, rearranged, or refurbished. As much as I like finding good deals on new gadgets, I really have to watch for the fine print that identifies the product as refurbished. New-to-me used objects might be good bargains at some level, but not when they’re somebody’s old junk cleaned up for a quick sale.
Unfortunately, it’s far too easy for us to do the same with our spiritual lives. While we talk about the new life we desire to have through our faith in Jesus, sometimes we find ourselves tucking our cold, dead sinful lives under our arms to warm them up a bit or cleaning off enough grimy residue of sin that we look just a bit more shiny, hoping nobody looks too closely. Sometimes folks who put their faith in Jesus experience a dramatic change – new vocabulary, new habits and activities – but are not willing or able to sustain the change for long, at least not on their own. Other folks get stuck in the transition, somewhere between the old life and the new life, and find themselves wavering back and forth between the way they “used” to be and they way the want to be and ought to be, again, struggling on their own.
Sometimes it’s an intentional cover-up, like with the false teachers we’ve been watching through our studies in 1 Timothy and Galatians. Paul describes such people as “having a form of godliness but denying its power” (2 Timothy 3:5). However, sometimes it’s just a matter of the on-going struggle that many face, probably most of us. It’s the struggle Paul describes about himself when he writes, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (Romans 7:15).
Even though we might find some comfort in knowing that even Paul struggled with this problem, we can’t settle for the same-old thing when we know that God has done so much more to make us new through Jesus. It’s one thing to be honest about our past, but Paul reminds us that we really have been changed, writing in 1 Corinthians 6:11, “And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
That’s a great part of the Good News we have to offer in the Gospel, that even though we’re all sinners with a past, we also have a new present, a new future, a whole new life. If we forget that aspect of the Gospel and its effects in our lives, then we don’t have much of an answer when people ask us, “What’s new?” If all we have is a new schedule for Sunday mornings, a new vocabulary for when we hit our thumb with a hammer, or new habits for dealing with life when it throws us yet another curve ball, then it’s not really a new life, just a new cover on the same-old life – warmed up, polished up, mostly made up – and most people are just going to pass on it.
What we need to do, then, is let God truly transform us and then live like it so that others can see what’s new without having to ask. Then, when they do ask, we need to tell them what we found, as Peter tells us in 1 Peter 3:15, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”
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Warning from Former Senators
A Washington Post open letter from 70 former senators from both parties:
Congress is not fulfilling its constitutional duties. Much of the responsibility rests on the Senate. We are writing to encourage the creation of a bipartisan caucus of incumbent senators who would be committed to making the Senate function as the Framers of the Constitution intended.
As their first priority, the Framers explicitly entrusted all legislative responsibility in Article I of the Constitution: “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” To the extent that Congress doesn’t function as the Framers intended, policymaking is left to the less democratic executive and judicial branches.
Examples of Congress ceding its powers to the executive through the years include the power to regulate international trade, the power to authorize the use of military force in foreign conflicts and, when the president declares national emergencies, the power of the purse. In addition, the partisan gridlock that is all too routine in recent decades has led the executive branch to effectively “legislate” on its own terms through executive order and administrative regulation. The Senate’s abdication of its legislative and oversight responsibilities erodes the checks and balances of the separate powers that are designed to protect the liberties on which our democracy depends.
Anecdotally, we have been told by sitting members that the diminished state of the Senate has left them doubting whether there is any point in continuing to serve, and it has caused potential candidates to question whether the reality of Senate membership is worth the considerable effort and expense of running for office.
Labels: American Constitution, Congress, Constitution, government, political science, politics, Senate, separation of powers
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End of preview.