text:
I'm just emerging from what were possibly the busiest few months of my life, and I've a powerful impulse to stare blankly out of a window for an extended period of time. But there's stuff to be done, and at the top of the list a final version of A Very Short Introduction to Ovid which needs to get to OUP by the end of January. Right at the bottom is writing a blog, probably, but I'm judging it'll get the writing juices flowing again.
So here's something on Ovid that's going into the book, but which I owe to a couple of former students, one of whom was getting married and the other finding material for a poet who was writing a poem for the wedding. The poem, by Ben Bransfield, is a glosa, a Spanish form which is an extended gloss (glosa) on four lines of pre-existing poetry. The four lines are quoted at the head of the poem, and each line in turn is quoted at the end of four ten-line stanzas.
The lines that Ben chose to gloss (the happy couple are keen and intrepid walkers) were these from Ovid's Ars Amatoria (1.493-6):
et modo praecedas facito, modo terga sequaris,
et modo festines, et modo lentus eas:
nec tibi de mediis aliquot transire columnas
sit pudor, aut lateri continuasse latus;
And now walk ahead, now fall behind,
now hurry, and now go slowly.
Nor be shy to slip past some of the columns
between you, or to walk side by side.
The first book of the Art of Love teaches its male readers how to find a lover and win her favour (Book 2 explains how to retain her affections, and Book 3 offers comparable advice, or at least claims it does, to women). Here the guidance is to engineer an apparently innocent encounter with the woman one is courting as she strolls in a colonnade, and it relates to the very earliest stages of a relationship.
Ovid returns to this scene in the Metamorphoses, and what he does with it is very clever, very beautiful and very Ovidian, or so it seems to me. We're in Book 11, at the end of an account of the singer Orpheus which began at the start of Book 10 with the death of his wife Eurydice at their wedding, bitten by a snake. Famously, Orpheus travelled down to the shades in search of her, and played his lyre and sang so beautifully that Persephone and Hades, queen and king of the underworld, restored Eurydice to him, on condition that he walked ahead of her up to the world of the living and never looked back. Of course, Orpheus cannot resist a backward glance at his beloved wife, and she slips away again, down to the land of the dead.
For the remainder of Book 10 we stay with Orpheus, listening to the songs he sings seated mournfully on a hill in Thrace, the familiar stories of Pygmalion and Adonis among them, and it's not until the following book that we finally take leave of him. Early in Book 11 Orpheus meets his death, ripped to pieces by envious Thracian bacchanals. His head and lyre are carried off by the river Hebrus, still singing mournfully, but his shade is consigned to the underworld (Met. 11.61-66):
umbra subit terras, et quae loca uiderat ante
cuncta recognoscit quaerensque per arua piorum
inuenit Eurydicen cupidisque amplectitur ulnis;
hic modo coniunctis spatiantur passibus ambo,
nunc praecedentem sequitur, nunc praeuius anteit
Eurydicenque suam iam tuto respicit Orpheus.
His shade goes under the earth, and all the places he had seen before
he recognises, and seeking through the meadows of the pious
he finds Eurydice and embraces her with his passionate arms.
Here now the two of them stroll together with steps synchronised,
now he follows her as she walks ahead, now goes ahead in front of her,
and now Orpheus gazes back in safety at his beloved Eurydice.
It's a very lovely moment. Reunited as shades, Orpheus doesn't need to worry this time where he's walking relative to Eurydice or whether he can look at her. It's witty on Ovid's part, and there's human warmth as well. But the scene also recalls that moment in the Ars Amatoria, and the allusion carries at least two characteristically Ovidian implications. One is that Orpheus and Eurydice are back, now that they are united in death, to how they were even before their ill-fated marriage day. They're lovers at the very beginning of their relationship.
Another implication gives us Ovid at his most self-aware. The Metamorphoses is a poem that delights in disorientating its readers, leaving us scratching our heads where exactly we are in a plot that's supposed to be moving inexorably from the beginning of time to the present day, and converging on the city of Rome as it does so. At the beginning of Book 11, by means of this reminiscence of the Ars Amatoria, we're being taken back to a stage in Orpheus and Eurydice's relationship which predates all Orpheus' grief and suffering, and that means all the action of Book 10. In fact here at the start of Book 11, with the suggestion that Orpheus and Eurydice are young sweethearts all over again, it's as if the tenth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses hasn't happened at all.
Lupus is the Latin for "wolf", but the man named Lupus is an excellent example of a scapegoat.
Still reading? C. Cornelius Lentulus Lupus, plain Lupus for short, was the unfortunate target of the most celebrated poem written by C. Lucilius, the pioneer of Rome's greatest gift to the literary world, verse satire. Lucilius' first satire described how the gods gathered to debate the deplorable state of Rome and pondered an appropriate punishment for the city. Their decision was to take revenge on a representative figure, and Lupus, a former consul and censor who between holding those offices had been convicted of extortion, fitted the bill.
Lupus was a perfect embodiment of Rome's wider corruption, according to Lucilius' account of things, and the satire recounted his alleged depravity in some detail. Lupus had died shortly before Lucilius composed his poem, and Lucilius is able to explain his death as the gods' ultimate decree, a death sentence for the criminal Lupus. Lucilius' poem only survives as fragments, but Seneca's Apocolocyntosis, his vicious satire on the dead emperor Claudius which recounts Claudius' banishment from heaven to the underworld, is modelled on Lucilius' attack on Lupus and probably gives a good impression of its style and impact.
It was a brutal attack, we can be confident of that. When Horace, Lucilius' successor in verse satire, recalls the treatment meted out to Lupus, his choice of words is significant: "Lupus overwhelmed by defamatory verses", in Latin famosisque Lupo cooperto uersibus (Horace, Satires 2.1.68). The verb cooperio is practically the technical term for stoning, vividly transforming Lucilius' satirical verses into stones cast at the malefactor until he dies. Stoning is classically the act of a collective, the people as a whole taking revenge on a single perceived wrongdoer, and that works well for Lupus, an individual at whom Lucilius encourages Rome to direct its anger in order to save itself.
It's only a step beyond stoning to see Lupus as a victim of scapegoating. This is the psychosocial process by which a group (generally experiencing a crisis of some kind) identifies an individual or another group as the cause of its own misfortunes, and thus feels justified in exacting revenge on them. It seems that the death of Lupus in Lucilius, with which his satirical attack culminates, satisfied the anger of the gods at Rome, and that his expulsion from the collective was a means to resolve Rome's crisis. This is a pattern of behaviour familiar enough to the Romans, a people with a strong collective ethos who also suffered plenty of crises. Turnus in Virgil's Aeneid, the individual whose death will end the conflict between the future components of the Roman people, figuratively ending a civil war, looks a lot like another scapegoat. One difference between Virgil and Lucilius is perhaps that Virgil was more aware of the sacrificial logic of his story.
But scapegoating is also a common feature of our everyday social life. Anyone who has experienced an intensely communal environment — a school is a good example, or an archaeological dig — will recognise the tendency for feelings of dissatisfaction and stress to find a target in an individual who in some way stands out from the group. Many of us will have been that victimised person at some time or another. Many more of us will have done the scapegoating, whether we're aware of it or not. A vivid memory of my own from school is of being in a group of boys in the playground making merciless fun of another boy. I realised afterwards that I had no idea why I had been doing it (the boy being bullied was my friend, for God's sake) and it set me thinking hard about what had come over me. I learned something important about my capacities, about the power of the need to belong and what it can encourage you to do, and that is no doubt why I still remember so clearly an event from 35 years ago, and still feel terrible about it.
A long and self-indulgent preamble, but some of you may understand why this of all topics is occupying me at the moment. I witnessed on Twitter a few days ago a textbook case of scapegoating, a marginalised group of people projecting resentment they very justifiably feel onto an individual irrationally identified as powerful and malign. The response to an innocent tweet had all the hallmarks of a scapegoating — the mobbing, the wildly disproportionate outrage, the unconvincing attempts to explain the behaviour in rational terms.
Let me say this again. I recognise scapegoating not because I can see the Romans doing it in their literature. I recognise it because I've done it myself. It is, in a terrifying way, the most human thing to do, answering a deep herd-instinct for self-preservation. But it is the very ugliest of things, too, this irrational aggression directed against an innocent.
So, a thought.
If you and a lot of other people are very, very angry with an individual.
If you can't quite call to mind what exactly it is, the heinous thing that this person did to you.
If what's bothering you, when you reflect on it, is really something else entirely.
If, as you are pillorying your target, you look around and the people joining in the attack are quite similar to you.
If it's kind of intoxicating, too, this righteous pursuit of the one we all identify as the malefactor.
There's a word for it, and you should stop.
in Bamiyan, Uncategorized
Lansdown Park
Dear Sir Aurel Stein,
I have just finished "On Alexander's Track Of The Indus". It has recalled many pleasant memories of days on the Frontier & many of the people you mention. My husband built the new British Legation in Kabul & was up there for five years.
I enclose a few photographs he took at Bamian. I thought you might care to see them. If you would like copies I will have enlargements properly done for you, there are a few more I will look up, but none giving the faithful detail of Monsieur Hackin's in the Guimet Musée Paris. He very kindly showed me his collections last year.
I have never been lucky enough to get up to Bamian British ladies were not encouraged to travel in Afghanistan & quite rightly but I regret Bamian & the Moving Sands. I met you at Government House Peshawar just before you left for Swat with the Metcalfes.
We hope to be at the dinner of the Central Asian Society next Wednesday, (my husband gave a lecture a semi-private one to the Cen. As: Soc: last year on his return from Kabul) & we are hoping to have the great pleasure of meeting you there.
May I say with what pleasure I have read your books though my scientific knowledge is lamentably small.
Yours v. truly,
Mary Amps
I am approaching my 100th blog on this site, an alarming thought, but this one takes me back to two of my very first.
Back in 2013 Dilek Taş, a Turkish researcher I was helping, had been investigating the Aurel Stein archival material in the Bodleian Library. There she came across some photos of Bamiyan that had been sent to Stein, and Dilek thoughtfully shared them with me. The late 1920s were an interesting time in Afghanistan, radical reforms by the modernising king Amanullah followed by a rebellion by Habibullah Kalakani–known less respectfully as Bacha-ye Saqao, "Son of a Water-carrier", and more respectfully as King Habibullah II–and Amanullah's overthrow. I wrote two blogs about the photos as I learned more about them. You can read here about life in the British Legation in Kabul as a civil war raged around it, and the first humanitarian airlift (and see some film of all that, too); and here about Mary Amps' successful later career as a breeder of (appropriately) Afghan Hounds.
The Legation party in a 1926 Wolseley tourer, with the larger of the Buddhas of Bamiyan behind them.
Things would've been a whole lot easier in 2013, and a bit less fun, if I'd known about the letter I've transcribed at the top, sent by Mary Amps in 1929 along with the photographs. I didn't find it then partly because the Special Collections of the Bodleian were at that time in the process of being rehoused (hence among other things Dilek being allowed to access the original photos, which seems pretty tricky now), but mainly because I'm a Classicist who doesn't have the faintest clue how archives work.
What does Mary Amps' letter tell us, though? It confirms that the Ampses, Mary and Major Leon Williamson, left Afghanistan in 1928, thus were not caught up in the airlift. It also squarely contradicts a suspicion I had had that Mary Amps herself was the figure third from the left in this photo:
In actual fact, as Mary explains, she didn't have any opportunity to travel around Afghanistan while based in Kabul. The male residents of the Legation certainly did: I've had the good luck of seeing two albums of photos of Afghanistan taken by the head of the Legation, Sir Francis Humphrys, and now in the possession of his grandson. I know who the central figure is in this image, Sheikh Mahbub Ali Khan, Oriental Secretary at the Legation, and talk about his later life here, but I now have very little idea who else is in the photo aside from the Buddha himself.
Something else the letter confirms, if it needs confirming, is that in the 1920s Bamiyan was the place every foreigner in Afghanistan wanted to visit. Monsieur Hackin, who showed Mary Amps his photographs of Bamiyan in the Musée Guimet in Paris, is Joseph Hackin, later the director of the French archaeological mission in Afghanistan (DAFA), who, with his wife Ria Hackin (French women evidently were allowed to travel), knew Bamiyan well. Here's one of Hackin's photos from a later visit, an excellent one: Jean Carl (a friend and colleague of the Hackins) abseiling down the larger Buddha.
The other site Mary regrets not visiting, "the Moving Sands" or Reg-e Rawan (ریگ روان), wasn't familiar to me, but it was vividly described, and its celebrity explained, by Alexander Burnes in the 1830s (and by Babur before him), and here is contemporary film of the place.
To me personally what the letter revealed was that interests of mine that I had thought were separate were in fact intertwined. The motivation for Mary Amps' letter to Aurel Stein, and the photos enclosed, turns out to have been Stein's On Alexander's Track to the Indus, Stein's account of his travels in Swat in 1926, the book that took me to Swat last summer. Her letter in fact intersects with the early part of the book, where Stein meets Sir Francis Humphrys in Peshawar before motoring up the "once blood-soaked heights of the Malakand" and into independent Swat with Herbert Metcalfe, Political Officer for the British territories in this section of the Frontier. Well, the Ampses were also at Government House when Stein was staying there. Mary Amps's letter to Stein is a piece of fan mail, then, but it's also clear that this cadre of Frontier operatives was small, and its members knew each other pretty well.
I belatedly discovered this letter pursuing a request from a graduate student for the photos Dilek had found (and it was an opportunity to give myself a break from Ovid, it is true), but it's all jolly serendipitous, because I think Mary Amps's letter will be where I start my Gandhara Connections lecture in a month's time.
A photograph I missed in 2013 (from microfilm, hence the poor quality), featuring Mahbub Ali, A. N. Other, and the smaller Buddha.
…was the heading The Times gave the letter Armand D'Angour and I wrote to them, a response to their article on a "puzzling" Greek inscription on the tombstone of Cecil Headlam, a successful author and cricketer, in the churchyard of St Margaret's, Hothfield, Kent. Since Greek script is incompatible with The Times' computers, our answer to the "mystery" is lacking some detail, so I'll set it out properly here. You'll have to work out what in it is Armand's and what mine, and I'll kid myself that you'll find that difficult.
Here is a good image of the inscription from Kent Online, where the story seems to have started:
As we said in the letter, a couple of observations are necessary before one can set about interpreting the text. Patrick Kidd, quoted in The Times article, spotted the misspelling in the second line, ΣΓΝΕΙΧΕΝ for ΣΥΝΕΙΧΕΝ, and Armand and I (and no doubt countless others) realised that the L in what looks like ΚLΙΝΗΝ in the third line cannot be right as L is not a Greek letter. It's Ε, and the word is ΚΕΙΝΗΝ, "that woman" or "her". It's hard to be sure from the photo how Ε has become L, but it may be erosion of the stone, lichen concealing the upper arms of E, or another mistake in the carving like the Γ in ΣΓΝΕΙΧΕΝ.
A final piece of useful information is that Cecil Headlam's wife was named Mary May.
This leaves us with the following text:
ΖΕΥΓΟΣ ΕΡΩΣ ΕΥΜΟΡΦΟΝ ΑΕΙ
ΤΑ ΜΑΛΙΣΤΑ ΣΥΝΕΙΧΕΝ
ΩΣ ΕΦΙΛΕΙ ΚΕΙΝΗΝ
ΩΣ ΤΟΤΕ ΜΑΙΑ ΦΙΛΕΙ
Set out as
ΖΕΥΓΟΣ ΕΡΩΣ ΕΥΜΟΡΦΟΝ ΑΕΙ ΤΑ ΜΑΛΙΣΤΑ ΣΥΝΕΙΧΕΝ
ΩΣ ΕΦΙΛΕΙ ΚΕΙΝΗΝ ΩΣ ΤΟΤΕ ΜΑΙΑ ΦΙΛΕΙ
this is more obviously a piece of verse, an elegiac couplet standard for an inscription of this kind.
Decapitalising, we have:
ζεῦγος ἔρως εὔμορφον ἀεὶ τὰ μάλιστα συνεῖχεν
ὡς ἐφίλει κείνην, ὣς τότε Μαῖα φιλεῖ.
We translate this as "Love always bound together the lovely union to the utmost:/ as he loved her, so in turn May loves him."
The most difficult part of the text is the τότε, "then", "next", as discussed on Twitter here. But the gist of the inscription remains perfectly clear, and it's a touching expression of love, not a puzzle or code.
I'm not at all sure what follows will cast any light on τότε or any other aspect of the inscription, but I discovered a bit more about Mary May and Cecil Headlam while pondering this epigram, and it makes for some interesting social history.
Mary May Headlam, née Fraser (on 16th July 1874, I think, in Inverness), was first married, to Edmund Hardie Elles, on 30th November 1897 at St John's Church in Peshawar, on the North-West Frontier (a building I tried and failed to visit last summer). They lived thereafter in Peshawar, Kolkata and various places in southern England. On the death certificate of one of her daughters (from as recently as 2004) Mary May is described as a book indexer and Edmund as a stockbroker.
But The Times has been concerned with Cecil and Mary May before. On 19th November 1912 it reported on Edmund Elles' petition for divorce:
The co-respondent [Cecil Headlam] first met the parties in 1904 and became an intimate friend. In 1911 the petitioner [Edmund Elles] became suspicious of the co-respondent's relations with the respondent [Mary May], who admitted affection for him and promised not to see or correspond with him. The petitioner left shortly after on a business visit to India. On his return to England he discovered that the respondent had left their children and was living with the co-respondent at the Grand Hotel Cosmopolite du Golfe at Wimereux, in France… Mr Justice Bargrave Deane pronounced a decree nisi, with costs against the co-respondent, and gave the petitioner the custody of the children of the marriage.
Divorce in 1912 (the decree nisi was granted on 18th November) was a very big deal indeed. There is an account of "Le Divorce, Edwardian Style" here, and the divorce of Edmund and Mary May Elles exemplifies what Evangeline Holland describes. Cecil and Mary May's adultery was a scandal. As it happens, the census of 1911 seems to capture Mary May Elles at home with her two daughters, 9 and 5, Edmund Elles absent and presumably in India, shortly before her departure for the Pas de Calais. One wonders if she ever saw her daughters again.
Mary May and Cecil were married in 1913 (Edmund remarried in 1915). Cecil died at Hothfield on 12th August 1934, after which Mary May becomes quite hard to trace. Cecil's elder brother Horace was married to another Mary whose dates are exactly the same as Mary May, which doesn't help. But I think she dies at Worthing in 1959.
Does that further information have any bearing on our interpretation of a Greek epigram? It gives it some kind of context, I think, and that's probably where I should leave it: this "lovely union" would not have seemed so to many of the Headlams' contemporaries. But I've an impulse to see in the τότε, and the peculiar expression of the second line, some reflection of the experience of a married woman loved but unable to return that love until marital breakdown meant she could.
Maybe someone else can do better.
in Roman Poetry, Uncategorized
Enjoy the promotional video for this fantastic new exhibition in the Ashmolean, running until January 12. There's a wonderful collection of artefacts on display, from Pompeii and elsewhere, and you can find me raving about it here, all thanks to a freebie from Sophie Hay. This piece, for example, combines at least three of my favourite things, Latin, Hercules, and piglets.
I have just one bone to pick, and it's with the encouragement to "seize the day" at the end of the video. Not that you shouldn't be prepared to commandeer a train if that's what it takes to get to this show — my problem is simply with "seize the day" as an English translation of Horace's motto carpe diem, which in the Latin is a much richer turn of phrase. As Tom Holland (another beneficiary of Sophie's generosity) pointed out to me, furthermore, once properly appreciated the full meaning of carpe diem would serve well an exhibition largely concerned with Roman foodstuffs and sensory pleasures.
Carpe diem originates in one of Horace's lyric poems, Odes 1.11, and it expresses a characteristically lyric sentiment: live for the moment. "Seize the day" captures that well enough, but "seize" does a poor job, really, of conveying the Latin carpe. To get a better sense of it, Nisbet & Hubbard cite approvingly (it is not always so) the ancient commentator Porphyrio: "the metaphor", Porphyrio writes, "is from fruit, which … we pick (carpimus) in order to enjoy."
Now, you might use carpere of picking or plucking a flower, too, and whether the day is a fruit or a flower it works well enough for Horace's poem, where the instruction, addressed to a woman named Leuconoe, also carries an erotic charge. But I think conceiving of the day as a metaphorical apple or plum (or quince, if you prefer) works best. What an apple on a tree represents is something needing to be exploited in a very narrow window of time, when the fruit is ripe but before it spoils. Life is to be enjoyed now, Horace insists, because who knows what will happen tomorrow.
Needless to say, the notion that life is an apple, and there's no time to waste before you sink your teeth into it, applies especially well to the unfortunate inhabitants of Pompeii in AD 79.
Joy in numbers
I do like a chronogram, an inscription (preferably Latin, for me) that encodes a date. In fact so big a fan am I that my one regret, should the proposal to remove the memorial to Cecil Rhodes on the High St facade of Oriel College in Oxford be realised, is that it would also obliterate a rather nice chronogram.
This example at Oriel can illustrate the principle of the exercise. The inscription, E LARGA MVNIFICENTIA CAECILII RHODES, "Out of the bountiful munificence of Cecil Rhodes", is in perfectly natural Latin, but if one adds up all letters which could also be Roman numerals (highlighted here: E LARGA MVNIFICENTIA CAECILII RHODES), one gets 50 + 1,000 + 5 + 1 + 1 + 100 + 1 + 100 + 100 + 1 + 50 + 1 + 1 + 500 = 1,911, or 1911, the date when the Rhodes Building, on the facade of which this memorial is set, was completed.
But it's another, less controversial, Oxford chronogram I'm concerned with today. Frewin Hall is a grand house in the centre of Oxford now incorporated into an annexe of undergraduate accommodation for Brasenose College. From 1887 to 1907 it was rented from Brasenose by Charles Shadwell, friend of Walter Pater and future Provost of Oriel. Over the main entrance to the house is written FREWINI CAROLVS LAETAT SHADWELLIVS AVLAM, with the numerically-meaningful letters, as I hope you can see at the top, highlighted. 5 + 5 + 1 + 1 + 100 + 50 + 5 + 50 + 500 + 5 + 5 + 50 +50 + 1 + 5 + 5 + 50 + 1,000 = 1888.
This strikes me as a particularly sophisticated example of the genre. The reading of an upper-case double-u as two Vs is witty, and the line is both metrical, a dactylic hexameter, and perfectly symmetrical in the disposition of the Latin words.
Which makes odder the things that have been (and are still) said about it.
An Oxford Childhood by Carola Oman describes the very privileged existence of the daughter of a Fellow of All Souls before the First World War. From 1908 the Oman family rented Frewin Hall from C. B. Heberden, the Principal of Brasenose who preferred to live on the main site. (Heberden was a Classicist, and before becoming Principal my predecessor-but-three.) At a remove of nearly seventy years (An Oxford Childhood was published in 1976), Oman slightly misremembers the details as she describes the inscription (p. 106):
There was never any chance of us buying Frewin Hall. It had belonged to Brasenose College since 1580. By New Year 1908 it had stood empty for seven years. Dr Heberdon, who had taken a lease from Dr Shadwell, who had gone off to become Provost of Oriel, had at last decided against retiring there. Shadwell had been an Oxford eccentric. He had rebuilt the west wing and added a sundial with what was called a chronogram to his facade. This read–
FREVVINI CAROLVS LAETAT SHADVVELLIVS AVLAM
People who knew said he had not got it quite right. Instead of saying that Frewin Hall delighted Charles Shadwell, it was saying that he delighted Frewin Hall. There was no doubt he had loved the house, and particularly his spacious lawn. If he detected a weed he would drop a massive bunch of keys as an order that it be instantly removed.
My question is, did Shadwell, as Oman suggests, really get it wrong? It would certainly be odd if such a perfectionist (the keys), who delighted in the eccentric precision required to compose a chronogram, even making perfectly symmetrical hexameters out of them (it's hard enough in prose, experto credite), admitted an elementary mistake in Latin.
Let's look at that Latin. What it certainly means is "Charles Shadwell brings joy to the Hall of Frewin", and this has not seemed an appropriate sentiment to attach to the front door of a beloved house. Here is someone else, claiming a close acquaintance with Shadwell even (and being spectacularly patronised by the author James Hilton FSA), interpreting it in a way that the Latin won't admit, but seems more natural: "Charles Shadwell rejoices in Frewen's Hall." But that would require the deponent laetor with an ablative, not the active laeto governing a direct object that we have.
I am here to rescue Shadwell's reputation, in respect of his Latin at least. And I think the key to understanding that laetat lies in Shadwell's activities at Frewin.
The Hall dates back to about 1600, although its main cellar is much older, circa 1100, a remarkable survival of a wealthy Norman house that stood on the site. (There's a fascinating analysis of the building here.) The name Frewin comes from Richard Frewin, who in the eighteenth century somehow managed to combine being a physician and Camden Professor of Ancient History, and gave the building a whole new wing. But Shadwell made his own significant additions to the building, bringing in the leading architect of nineteenth-century Oxford, Thomas Jackson, to add a full upper storey, in place of an attic, to the west wing above the main entrance. In November 1887 Shadwell informed the Bursar of Brasenose that he had "now settled with Jackson on the plans for the new storey at Frewen Hall" (details from Elizabeth Boardman's research here.)
Jackson's work at Frewin presumably kicked in after Christmas, and thus was carried out in 1888, as indeed the Arabic-numeral date under the sundial on the new facade indicates. (The sundial with its initials of Shadwell and his coat-of-arms is evidence also of his singular self-importance…) Our other witness reads the date in the chronogram as marking the year in which Shadwell took up residence at Frewin, but surely it's rather to this work of renovation that it refers. The natural way to read Frewini Carolus laetat Shadwellius aulam, "Charles Shadwell brings gladness to Frewin Hall", seems to me a reasonable expression of what architectural renovation achieves, at least given the constraints of the chronogram form. In other words Shadwell is telling us that he is bringing joy to Frewin, not Frewin to him, but what he's talking about is how he turned the building into a much happier example of domestic architecture. I agree, as it happens, but you can decide for yourselves if he (and Jackson) succeeded, from images before the intervention (the main entrance is to the left),
Royal Collection Trust https://www.rct.uk/collection/2922954/frewen-hall-oxford
and after:
The more attentive among you, incidentally, will have noted that the college containing the chronogram of Caecilius Rhodes and the college of which Shadwell became Provost are one and the same: Oriel. Shadwell was Provost of Oriel from 1905 to 1914, and we can safely assume he was responsible also for E LARGA MUNIFICENTIA CAECILII RHODES, and I would hazard for many other of these monumental brainteasers there may be scattered around Oxford.
Ll. (aged 51)
Some more images:
Frewin Hall pre-renovation, from the Illustrated London News (1859)
A drawing by Thomas Jackson of his proposed alterations
Unconscionable misinformation on the wall of the present-day Frewin Hall
Carola Oman and her dog Patch in front of Shadwell's chronogram
This is probably just silly. If so, all I can say is that it's the last desperate days of summer term, I've just shared my pitiful lack of acting ability with a bunch of colleagues and students, and my grip on reality is tenuous.
What I'm thinking about a lot at the moment is Hercules and his role as a culture hero, one aspect of which is the way that his name was commonly associated with landmarks. Mountains, islands, geological peculiarities, roads and hot springs all might have Herculean stories attached to them, often to the effect that he had brought them into being by means of his superhuman strength.
The mythical travels of Hercules, in the course of which he overcame various monstrous antagonists and left these marks in the ancient landscape, extended from Spain to the Black Sea, from Pakistan to Morocco. In North Africa the opponent he most often faced in folklore was Antaeus, a gigantic (see below) son of Earth who challenged all comers to wrestle him and drew constant strength from contact with his mother; Hercules defeated him by lifting him up off the ground.
I'm in the very early stages of researching Hercules and Antaeus, with the aid especially of Irad Malkin's Myth and Territory in the Spartan Mediterranean (CUP, 1994), but the thought behind this blog (certainly daft, as I've indicated) occurred to me while preparing a poem of Propertius, 3.22, for teaching. In this poem Propertius encourages Tullus to return to his native country, hymning the praises of Italy even as compared with the manifold wonders of the wider world. In the latter category he mentions some remarkable locations in southern Spain and North Africa (3.22.7-10):
tu licet aspicias caelum omne Atlanta gerentem,
sectaque Persea Phorcidos ora manu,
Geryonis stabula et luctantum in pulvere signa
Herculis Antaeique, Hesperidumque choros…
Though you might look upon Atlas who bears the whole sky,
or Medusa's head severed by Perseus' hand,
Geryon's stables, and the marks in the dust of wrestling
Hercules and Antaeus, and the dancing places of the Hesperides…
…there's no place like home.
All these locations look to me like landmarks that Propertius considers identifiable. Travellers could visit, I interpret this as saying, not just the Atlas Mountains, but also places identified by tradition as Medusa's head (maybe somewhere in the Gorgades Islands), the dancing circles of the Hesperides, goddesses of evening, the stalls where Geryon kept his cattle (before Hercules killed this monster too and made off with them)–and "the marks in the dust of Hercules and Antaeus as they wrestled". In the case of Antaeus, the location of his bout with Hercules, as Malkin explains, shifts westward with Greek colonization, Hercules' victory functioning as a template for Greek settlement in strange places, and continuing to do so as Greeks colonized more and more of the coast. No doubt the other places mentioned were equally mobile over time, even if Propertius seems to be thinking of precise locations in his day.
The travels and conquests of Hercules around the Mediterranean are typically understood by the Greeks and Romans as exploits imposing civilization on the wild or barbarian, and Diodorus Siculus (4.17.4-5) interprets the struggle with Antaeus in exactly these terms:
Setting sail, then, from Crete, Heracles put in to Libya, and first he challenged to a fight Antaeus, renowned for his physical strength and skill in wrestling, who put to death all strangers that he had defeated in wrestling; and Heracles grappled with him and killed him. Following this he conquered Libya, which was full of wild animals, and much of the desert (πολλὰ τῶν κατὰ τὴν ἔρημον χώραν), and tamed them (ἐξημέρωσεν), so that they were filled with farmland and all such other plantations as produce fruit, much of the land being vine-growing, and much olive-bearing. In general Libya, before that time uninhabitable because of the number of wild beasts throughout the land, he tamed and made second to no other country in its prosperity. Likewise by killing criminals and overbearing rulers he made the cities prosperous.
Libya, for Diodorus, is essentially North Africa west of the Nile valley. Hercules tames the land, renders it civilized, making it amenable to human habitation and sustenance. The dominant image of wildness is a prevalence of wild animals, but there is also a suggestion of land that is entirely deserted–something like our sense of desert–that Hercules restores to humanity and agriculture. The most pressing ecological issue in ancient as in modern North Africa was the desert to the south of the inhabitable coastal strip. I think we can understand what Diodorus had in mind when he describes a land that is fertile but needing protection from, so to speak, desertification: Hercules took the desert and made it bloom.
So what were Propertius' "marks of Hercules and Antaeus in the dust as they wrestled"? Most likely some specific location pointed out to well-heeled Greco-Roman visitors, and Ross McPherson points out below that Pliny the Elder (5.1.3) records about Lixos in Mauretania (modern Larache in Morocco) that there, according to fable, were located regia Antaei certamenque cum Hercule et Hesperidum horti, "the palace of Antaeus, the contest with Hercules, and the Gardens of the Hesperides", the latter on an island surrounded by an inlet from the sea (the serpentine character of the inlet explaining the serpent that guarded the Apples of the Hesperides). Pliny also records a tradition (5.5.31) that placed the Garden of the Hesperides at Berenice (Benghazi in Libya, formerly Euhesperides), which illustrates Malkin's point that the scenes of Hercules' exploits shifted as the Greeks travelled: Pliny writes grumpily about the "wandering tales of Greece", and the conflict with Antaeus was progressively sited (Malkin p. 181) near Cyrene in eastern Libya, at Barca a little further west, Benghazi, and Tingis (Tangiers), where Sertorius dug up his supposed bones (Plutatch, Sert. 9.3-4, with Adrienne Mayor, The First Fossil Hunters (2000), 121-6), as well as Larache (where the historian Gabinius, cited at Strabo 17.3.8, placed Antaeus' sixty-cubit-long bones, possibly a mammoth but maybe a prehistoric whale…). But a location either at Tangier or Larache would suit Propertius' purposes pretty well, in the far far West of the Known World.
All of which makes the theory I came up with even less compelling, but I'm committed now, so here goes: ancient wrestlers might fight on sand: the Latin word "(h)arena" means "sand", "a sandy desert" and "an arena", and the word for the surface on which Greek wrestlers fought might interchangeably be ἡ κόνις, "dust" (cf. Propertius' puluis) or ἡ ψάμμος, "sand", while Herodotus uses ἡ ψάμμος to denote the desert of Libya, 3.25, 4.173.* I found myself wondering, and I've explained the time of the academic year and my fragile psychological state, whether the marks in the dust left by the epic struggle of the giant wrestler Antaeus and the godlike hero Hercules, a location an intrepid ancient traveller might look upon, at least, were actually the dunes of the Sahara Desert.
Desert scene in modern Libya, from Wikipedia
* R. Katzoff, "Where did the Greeks of the Roman Period Practice Wrestling?", AJA 90 (1986), 437-40.
Ibant obscuri
A fond memory of tutoring, back when Chris Tudor, a.k.a. Massolit, was still an undergraduate, so one or two years ago. We were discussing a passage from Aeneid VI, the terrifying initial entry into the Underworld by Aeneas and the Sibyl of Cumae (6.268-81; David West's translation, lightly versified):
ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbram,
perque domos Ditis vacuas et inania regna:
quale per incertam lunam sub luce maligna
est iter in silvis, ubi caelum condidit umbra
Iuppiter, et rebus nox abstulit atra colorem.
vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus Orci
Luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae;
pallentes habitant Morbi tristisque Senectus,
et Metus et malesuada Fames ac turpis Egestas,
terribiles visu formae, Letumque Labosque.
tum consanguineus Leti Sopor, et mala mentis
Gaudia, mortiferumque adverso in limine Bellum,
ferreique Eumenidum thalami et Discordia demens
vipereum crinem vittis innexa cruentis.
They walked in the darkness of that lonely night with shadows all about them,
through the empty halls of Dis and his desolate kingdom,
as men walk in a wood by the sinister light of a fitful moon
when Jupiter has buried the sky in shade
and black night has robbed all things of their colour.
Before the entrance hall of Orcus, in the very throat of hell,
Grief and Revenge have made their beds
and Old Age lives there in despair, with white-faced Diseases
and Fear and Hunger, corrupter of men, and squalid Poverty,
things dreadful to look upon, and Death and Drudgery besides.
Then there are Sleep, Death's sister, perverted
Pleasures, murderous War astride the threshold,
the iron chambers of the Furies and raving Discord
with blood-soaked ribbons binding her viperous hair.
Here you can listen to Matthew Hargreaves reading this passage in the original Latin.
Chris, characteristically forthright even in his youth, offered a searching critique of Virgil's simile at 270-2. It wasn't much of a simile, he remarked, if it explicated a walk in darkness by analogy with a walk in darkness. A very good point. Similes are by definition comparisons of different things. A simile is in some respect like the thing it illustrates, of course, the clue's in the name, but must also, for it to be something different from a literal comparison and do some metaphorical work, be essentially different, too. In "I wandered lonely as a cloud", it is obviously essential to the impact of the figure of speech both that Wordsworth is not literally a cloud and also that he has in certain (unanticipated) respects behaved like one.
In Virgil's example, by contrast, the simile seems to be all similarity and no difference, not so much "I wandered lonely as a cloud" as "I wandered lonely as someone wandering lonely."
My answer to Chris back when–and some might consider this a desperate defence of Virgil–was that maybe this striking lack of figurative colour was actually the point. One of Virgil's achievements in this book of the Aeneid is to conjure up for the Underworld the eerie character of a place both animate and dead, a space full of shades of former humans who can interact with Aeneas, but whose existence is nevertheless of a fundamentally lesser kind. Aeneas, a live human moving through the Underworld, stands out from its inhabitants by possessing physical characteristics of the living such as weight (as when Charon's ferryboat, designed for insubstantial shades, ships water when he steps into it, 412-14), colour and even a voice (489-3, Aeneas' vivid encounter with his insubstantial former enemies at Troy, including the gorgeous image of Aeneas' fulgentiaque arma per umbras, "weaponry blazing through/amid the shadows"). The difference between the dead and the living for Virgil is light, definition and colour.
The passage we're looking at here offers the first glimpse of this gloomy, achromatic world. But Virgil calculates, I think, that introducing metaphor to this scene, in other words a simile doing the work a simile should do, will contradict the picture he's painting of a place lacking something essential to the world of the living; or to put that positively, seeking to convey the dreariness of the Underworld, he lets that lifelessness penetrate deep into his poetry. Virgil introduces a simile, a figure of literary embellishment (metaphor is readily described in ancient literary criticism as a matter of brightening a piece of writing, bringing light to it, e.g. Quintilian 12.10.36), but a simile that itself loses its life and colour as the poem accompanies Aeneas on his journey down to Hell.
I don't think Chris bought that all those years ago, and there's no reason why anyone else should.
I gave you Matthew Hargreaves' beautiful reading of these crepuscular verses earlier. He'll be reading them again, alongside many more, equally lovely, at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford on June 15th, alongside Dame Emma Kirkby, Lizzie Donnelly, George Sharpley, and the author—and tickets are available here.
Hercules Inc.; or, Ovid and the bovids
A few weeks ago my colleague Ed Bispham, after a visit to the archaeological museum at Chieti, alerted me to a piece of Ovidiana that was entirely new to me. It was a column excavated from the site of a sanctuary of Hercules Curinus on the slopes of Monte Morrone in Abruzzo, Italy, and among other graffiti scribbled on it were twelve hexameter lines of Latin poetry, with Ovid's name NASONIS written in another hand above them.
The lines are very hard to read, and what can be read doesn't correspond to any surviving works of Ovid, so it's assumed that they are being attributed to him rather than actually by him. Here is what is legible, anyhow, from M. Buonocore, L'Abruzzo e il Molise in et à romana (L'Aquila, 2002), p. 178:
What keeps it all quite intriguing, though, is where we are. Monte Morrone is just a few miles from Ovid's hometown of Sulmo (modern Sulmona). The site of the sanctuary, largely covered by a landslip in antiquity, was in fact popularly regarded in the Middle Ages as Ovid's villa, and the excavations that uncovered this column (and other items such as this very pretty statue of Hercules, also in the museum at Chieti) were commenced there in 1957, the 2,000th anniversary of Ovid's birth. So it's perfectly understandable that people have wanted to make something of the graffiti, even if it's just, in its way, a modern version of the medieval impulse to believe that Ovid lived here.
A striking fact, though, is that Ovid, who has a lot to say about Hercules and a lot to say about his birthplace at Sulmo among the Paeligni, never makes any reference to Hercules Curinus, the most important religious foundation in the district.
What's a blog for, though, if not to flog a dead horse? I'm going to suggest that we can still find the Hercules worshipped at Monte Morrone in Ovid's work. This will involve a rapid survey of the Hercules cult in central Italy, and then some close reading of a moment in Ovid's Metamorphoses.
The most important role that Hercules seems to have fulfilled in central Italy, surprising as it may seem, was as patron of pastoral activity and commerce more generally, in particular the herding of cattle between highlands and lowlands, and the trade in the critical commodity of salt which seems to have shadowed the movement of cattle. The sanctuary at Monte Morrone stood adjacent to the calles or drove roads along which these cattle were herded, and the networks were extensive: it's no coincidence that the great sanctuary of Hercules in Rome, the Ara Maxima, stood in the "Cattle Market", the Forum Boarium, nor that elsewhere in the Forum Boarium there was a place called the Salinae or Salt-pans: the Forum Boarium marked the termination of the Via Salaria, the "Salt Road" by which (Pliny the Elder informs us, 31.89) salt from the mouth of the Tiber was transported into the interior. At Alba Fucens, a Roman colony lying between Rome and Sulmo, there stood a major shrine of Hercules Salarius, Hercules in his aspect as patron of the salt trade.
Hercules' patronage of this traffic could even turn him, a mediator through trade between the diverse peoples of Italy, into a god of Italy itself. In the Aeneid Virgil draws out the myth of Hercules' tenth labour that underlies this connection with cattle, his killing of Geryon in Spain and herding of the monstrous herdsman's cattle all around the north-Mediterranean littoral to Greece. In Aeneid 8, a book (in a poem) deeply concerned with Italy's unity and divisions, Hercules, in reference to his violent suppression of the malefactor Cacus, who had attempted to steal Geryon's cattle, is given a very suggestive epithet, the communis deus, "the god who is god for all" (8.275), a force for Italian unity. Aeneas will also unify this geographical space, but do it, as paradoxically as Hercules, by fighting a most divisive war within Italy.
As anticipated, a whistlestop tour of Herculean Italy there, but Filippo Coarelli can sum up the relevant bit: "in the great markets [Hercules] is always present as guarantor and intermediary. The cult of Hercules is thus closely connected with mercantile activity, especially in the Sabellic zone (i.e. central to southern Italy), where the divinity fulfilled the function of protector of herds and shepherds" (F. Coarelli and A. La Regina, Abruzzo-Molise. Guide archeologiche Laterza 9 (Bari and Rome, 1984), 87).
How can we drag this back to Ovid, though?
Well, Book 9 of the Metamorphoses (my favourite, as it happens) has a lot to say about Hercules, with Ovid having his characteristic fun at the expense of the greatest hero of them all. A key episode is the attempt by the centaur Nessus to carry off Hercules' wife Deianira, under the pretext of carrying her safely across the river Euenus. Hercules shoots Nessus dead, but as he dies Nessus persuades Deianira that his cloak, soaked with his blood, will restore Hercules' love to her should his affections ever wander. In fact, when Hercules does bring another woman home to Trachis, and Deianira sends to him "the shirt of Nessus" to win him back, Nessus' blood (contaminated, as the centaur well knew, by the poisonous blood of the hydra with which Hercules' arrows were tipped) causes Hercules a prolonged and agonizing death.
What interests me, though, is Hercules' angry speech to Nessus (and Ovid's account of its motivation) as the centaur attempts to make off with Deianira (9.118-28):
iamque tenens ripam, missos cum tolleret arcus,
coniugis agnouit uocem Nessoque paranti
fallere depositum 'quo te fiducia' clamat
'uana pedum, uiolente, rapit? tibi, Nesse biformis,
dicimus. exaudi, nec res intercipe nostras.
si te nulla mei reuerentia mouit, at orbes
concubitus uetitos poterant inhibere paterni.
haud tamen effugies, quamuis ope fidis equina;
uulnere, non pedibus te consequar.' ultima dicta
re probat, et missa fugientia terga sagitta
traicit. exstabat ferrum de pectore aduncum.
And now he had reached the bank, and was picking up the bow he had thrown over,
when he heard his wife's voice, and shouted at Nessus, who was preparing
to fail to honour the deposit: 'Where is the empty security of your
feet carrying you, impetuous man? It is to you, two-formed Nessus,
that I speak. Listen to me, and do not steal my property.
If no respect moves you, the wheel
to which your father [Ixion] is attached might dissuade you from this forbidden union.
But you will not escape, however much you trust in your horsy advantage:
With a wound, not my feet, I will pursue you.' Those last words
he makes good with action, and firing an arrow at Nessus' fleeing back
he pierced it. The barbed tip jutted out of his chest.
Hercules is a character in an epic poem, and speaks like one. He's a character in an epic poem, Ovid's Metamorphoses, that doesn't take itself at all seriously, mind you, so he's rather too blustering as he shouts at Nessus, tipping over into parody. But it seems to me that Ovid is using other ways of puncturing the pomposity of this epic hero, and it takes us back to the quite mundane associations we've considered that Hercules at Monte Morrone carried, especially in the eyes of a Roman elite that looked down on trade. What I mean is that Hercules' and Ovid's language here, particularly the phrases I've underlined (and struggled to translate satisfactorily), are strikingly commercial in character, nec res intercipe nostras especially (I wouldn't go to the cross for any of the others, but cumulatively they amount to something, I think): Hercules describes his wife as if she is a commodity, and Nessus as some kind of commercial rival trying to defraud him, their relationship a commercial deal that has gone sour. If so, it's classic Metamorphoses: the most heroic of heroes transformed into a businessman with his eye on the bottom line.
The business-savvy god was a familiar notion in this part of Italy, as much to a reader in Rome as anyone who had visited the Hercules Curinus, which any native of Sulmo surely had. So maybe we can see a faint connection between the shrine at Monte Morrone and Sulmo's most celebrated son, after all.
Ovid in Sulmona, from https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Statua_di_Ovidio,_Sulmona.jpg
While you're here, and if you live in or close to Oxford, on June 15, 2019 there is one-off performance of George Sharpley's dramatisation of selected scenes from the Aeneid, The Song of Arms and a Man. Performers, including Dame Emma Kirkby, will read Virgil's original Latin, drawing out the beauty of his Latin verse. It will be a fantastic evening, and the tickets, which are absurdly cheap, are available here.
F. van Wonterghem, "Le culte d'Hercule chez les Paeligni. Documents anciens et
nouveaux", L'antiquité classique 42 (1973), 36-48;
M. Torelli, "Gli aromi e il sale. Afrodite ed Eracle nell'emporia arcaica dell' Italia", in A. Mastrocinque (ed.), Ercole in Occidente. Atti del Colloquio Internazionale, Trento, 7 Marzo 1990 (Trento, 1993), 91-117;
Ll. Morgan, "A Yoke Connecting Baskets: Odes 3.14, Hercules, and Italian Unity", CQ 55 (2005), 190-203;
T. D. Stek, Cult Places and Cultural Change in Republican Italy (Amsterdam, 2009).
Jaw jaw
There's a moment in Aeneid 11 when the politics of Virgil's own time feel unusually close to the surface.
A council of the Latins has been called by King Latinus, and there's a hostile exchange of speeches between Turnus, Aeneas' great rival, and the troublemaker Drances. Despite the principle of my enemy's enemy, Drances is not drawn by Virgil as an appealing character.
Two hundred lines are devoted to this council in the Latin city. But when Turnus ends his impassioned refutal of Drances, the focus turns to what Aeneas has been up to all this time (445-6):
Illi haec inter se dubiis de rebus agebant
certantes: castra Aeneas aciemque movebat.
Thus the Latins debated among themselves on matters they could not decide,
in competition: meanwhile Aeneas was advancing his camp and his battle line.
Aeneas' action, so sharply contrasted with Latin debate, is expressed in less than a line, and yet what is described in those four words is a decisive step toward his conquest of the Latins. Virgil's implication is clear, communicated by form as much as sense: Aeneas is the no-nonsense man of action; Turnus and the Latins just a bunch of ineffectual wafflers.
The resonances with Virgil's own day here are strong. The indecisive exchange of speeches among the Latins suggests (a jaundiced view of) the political culture of the Republic, which could be dismissed as a time of unfettered expression and polarised political dispute, giving rise in turn to the conflict between citizens that had blighted Rome until Augustus put a stop to it. In Drances, particularly the way he is introduced at 336-42 (cf. Plut. Cic. 1.1), there seems to be a more specific allusion to the most celebrated practitioner of this old politics, the orator Cicero, and thus in his rhetorical conflict with Turnus a hint of Cicero's famous (and fatal) series of attacks on Mark Antony, the Philippics. Aeneas' military pragmatism, in contrast, is a model of the new, Augustan way of doing politics in Rome: decisive action by an individual, wasting no words and respecting no judgement but his own–autocracy, in a word.
Virgil may have expected his Roman readers to endorse this preference for deeds over words. But when the Latin council breaks up in panic as Aeneas' advance is announced, what I see is civil society collapsing before military force, and it's a moment I've been thinking about a lot during the parliamentary debates about Brexit. Many people are despairing of the "chaos" in the House of Commons, the MPs addicted to debate, incapable of reaching a consensus.
There's plenty I'm unhappy about right now in UK politics, don't get me wrong, but the sight of parliamentarians wrestling with their consciences in the most difficult political circumstances of recent times isn't one of them. It would be stretching it to call the Roman Republic a democracy, but democracy is most definitely what we're looking at in these indecisive parliamentary debates.
Yes, illi haec inter se dubiis de rebus agebant/ certantes, and all's (still, essentially) right with the world.
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Air instead of concrete: Plastic bubbles take 1,600 tonnes out of tower
23 October 2019 | By GCR Staff | 4 Comments
A two-building commercial and residential development in the Glückstein district of Mannheim, Germany has become the latest to cut weight and CO2 emissions by using the patented void-former system made from recycled plastic from Heinze Cobiax Deutschland.
Steel-reinforced plastic air bubbles replace up to 35% of the reinforced concrete required in slabs, which saves on materials and allows a shallower slab depth.
Void formers can go where concrete is not required for the slab's shear load bearing ability. In this instance around 60% of the slabs' area could be filled with void formers without risking structural weakness, the design and construction team told GCR.
They said they saved 1,613 tonnes of concrete in all and prevented 136 tonnes of CO2 emissions entering the atmosphere by the time the shell of the scheme's 13-storey tower was finished in July this year.
Void formers were specified because developer and builder Diringer & Scheidel Group (D&S) wanted the 24,300-sq-m scheme, set to be the new offices of insurance firm SV SparkassenVersicherung and to include 77 rented apartments, to achieve Gold certification from Germany's Green Building Council (DGNB).
Render of the two new SV SparkassenVersicherung buildings in Mannheim's Glückstein district (Sacker Architekten/D&S)
The shallower slab depth of 30cm also helped the tower meet a maximum height restriction of 53m.
Structural engineer Kronach + Müller was satisfied the air-filled slab would work even though the scheme, designed by Sacker Architekten, is in a seismic zone.
"As Mannheim is located in a category 1 earthquake zone and the site has been classified in subsoil class C and ground type class S, demonstrating seismic safety was particularly elaborate and difficult," said Walter Müller, executive structural engineer.
"The stable and even load transfer needed for this is achieved using shear walls on top of a total of 311 reinforced beam columns cast on site."
Thanks to weight reduction provided by the bubbles, it was possible to shorten the beam column length to 7m to 8m.
Void formers did, however, present a logistical challenge on the cramped site because it meant an additional material had to be delivered.
Even though the team asked for them to be preassembled into modules, there were still 8,866 units to receive, each 2,500mm long. In total, 16 deliveries had to be timed precisely to coincide with slab pours.
The modules, with steel reinforcements, are set into a layer of concrete to stop them moving (D&S)
"Cramped conditions and the vast amount of materials to be delivered, such as 16,000 m³ of concrete and 3,000 t of steel, made precise logistics planning unavoidable," said Walter Varady, site manager for Diringer & Scheidel Bauunternehmung.
The modules transfer load in two directions, preserving the static performance of the voided flat slab.
They are first set in a layer of concrete to bind them – a bond forming with the modules' steel casing – before being concreted over.
Heinze Cobiax trained workers in the technique before concreting began.
Construction kicked off in November 2017. A groundwater drainage system was needed, necessitating rear-supported sheet piling and gel injection foundations. Work on shell construction began in May 2018. Handover is scheduled for summer 2020.
Cobiax has been developing lightweight, ecologically efficient hollow core systems since 1997 and has been a permanent member of the Heinze Gruppe, an association of plastics technology companies, since 2016.
Top image: The patented Cobiax system consists of modules made out of reinforcement steel, 250 cm long, which the void formers are fixed into once the half parts have been installed (D&S)
Is this not the same principle as the void in hollow core precast slabs? Whilst good thinking, it is similar to a current building product.
Daniel Cooling on October 23rd 2019
Looks like someone reinvented the Kahn System floor.
Michael Smith on October 24th 2019
Sounds like an interesting idea but since the technique uses: "PLASTIC air bubbles" what about the carbon footprint of making the plastic and of the plastic itself?
James Williams on November 4th 2019
I recall this idea being a Danish invention a number of years old, originally call "Bubble Deck" I think. It was used on a number of projects in Australia. More recently, a startup in Hong Kong has used it, remarkably similar to the product featured.
Iain Mowatt FCIOB on March 9th 2020

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Now College has its own intranet facilities, which connects different LANs of all departments, Training & Placement Cell, Academic Cell, Examination Cell, Admission Cell, Administrative, Accounts office and Central library by Fiber Optics Cable using managed switches. This facilitates Web Based E-mail services, On-line teaching materials, Sharing of Information, resources and valuable data among students, faculties and offices.Computer Science Department has separate Internet lab which provides Internet service through Sify (5.12 Kbps) and BSNL 2Mbps Broadband connection. Lab uses Network Security Firewall provide safe and secured Internet service to all end users. This facility accounts to all students on the High-End Systems, which is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The facility has been extended to various departments, Library and different offices. Extension to Hostels through wireless LAN is under process.


While we wait for Spider-Gwen to return (and *any* news about Miles!), Kyle and Nour catch up on recent developments including (the lack of) Secret Wars news and check in with Gwen and her Amazing Friends in Spider-Verse #4 and 5.
Vulture's Spider-Gwen Trailer – Article and the Trailer!
Gwenpool (yes, really) and look, a video!
More Kyle (and now Nour!) at Nerds Unchained. Interested in writing for the site? Just let Kyle know!


Published: 20th November 2014 at 6:14 am. Posted in Blog.
Share the post "Bamford Edge"
Bamford Edge is deemed to have some of the best views in the Peak District National Park, and when you're standing on Great Tor looking out, it's not hard to see why. There are fantastic panoramic views in all directions; facing south west you can see the Hope Valley, north west you can see past Ashopton Bridge to the Derwent Valley, and looking west you can see Win Hill, and Mam Tor.
I arrived with plenty of time to spare as this was a location I had not previously visited, and I wanted to have time to have an explore and try out some different compositions before the light reached its best. After a good nosy around the rocky edge and moorland behind, I started off shooting facing the Hope Valley, looking back along Bamford Edge in order to show the afternoon light on the rocks and the dappled sunlight in the valley below.
Late afternoon looking back along Bamford Edge to the Hope Valley.
Next I turned towards the reservoirs, and as it was an extremely windy day I first used my 10 stop ND (neutral density) filter to show the motion of the clouds across the sky.
Long exposure using a 10 stop neutral density filter to show the motion in the clouds.
Two photographers I met whilst out shooting, it was a pleasure to meet you both!
This is my favourite image from the trip, showing the view along Bamford edge to the reservoirs, with warm evening light hitting the slopes of Win Hill and the hillsides beyond.
After shooting the reservoirs I turned west in order to include the setting sun in my shot.
Looking west straight into the setting sun, towards Mam Tor and the Great Ridge.


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Research & Innovation Office
Research & Innovation Office
Partnerships & Innovation
Research Professor Series
Bright and Hutchison receive 2020 Distinguished Research Lectureships
Published: April 5, 2021 • By Chris Yankee
Victor M. Bright of the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering and Kent Hutchison of the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience have been selected to receive the 2020 Distinguished Research Lectureship.
The Lectureship is among the most esteemed honors bestowed by the faculty upon a faculty member at the University of Colorado Boulder. Each year, the Research & Innovation Office (RIO) requests nominations from faculty for the Distinguished Research Lectureship, and a faculty review panel recommends one faculty member as a recipient. Two faculty members were selected for 2020.
Professor Victor Bright
Victor M. Bright is a professor of mechanical engineering and an assistant vice chancellor for research at CU Boulder. His research activities include nanoscale mechanical systems, sensors and actuators, and electronics integration.
Bright served as the associate dean for research in the College of Engineering & Applied Science from 2005-2007 and as chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering from 2009-2013.
Prior to joining CU Boulder, he was a professor of electrical and computer engineering for the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. During 2004, he was a Visiting Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH-Zurich), Switzerland.
Bright was the co-chair of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) 2005 International Conference, and the Technical Chair of the Transducers 2015 International Conference. From 2005-2018, he was an editor for the Micromechanics section of the journal Sensors and Actuators A: Physical. Bright is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and a Fellow of IEEE.
Bright is the recipient of the 2010-2011 CU Boulder Faculty Assembly Award for Excellence in Service and the recipient of the 2007-2008 CU Boulder Faculty Assembly Award for Excellence in Research, Scholarly and Creative Work.
He received his Bachelor of Science Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado Denver in 1986, and his MS and PhD degrees from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1989 and 1992, respectively.
Bright has more than 300 publications in the field of sensors and microsystems, and has advised more than 50 PhD and MS graduate students during his career.
Bright's lecture, which will focus on microscale sensors and machines, will be held in the fall.
Professor Kent Hutchison
Kent Hutchison, adjunct professor of psychology and neuroscience at CU Boulder, was recently appointed to a faculty position at the Anschutz Medical Campus where he is a professor of psychiatry in the University of Colorado School of Medicine.
Hutchison has been an NIH-funded scientist for 20 years and has published numerous papers in the area of substance use. In recent years, he served on the National Academy of Sciences committee that reviewed the effects of cannabis on health and published a summary report in 2017.
Hutchison is the principal investigator or co-investigator on four NIH-funded studies that examine the effects of cannabis products–such as flower, edibles and concentrates–purchased in the state of Colorado. Specifically, the studies are designed to compare the effects of cannabidiol (CBD)-only, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) combined with CBD, or THC-only on cognitive outcomes, anxiety, opiate use, and pain, in patient populations using a mobile pharmacology lab.
The mobile lab allows for the assessment of blood levels of THC and CBD and a test of whether blood levels of these cannabinoids predict the effects of cannabis on key outcomes including reductions in pain and opiate use.
Hutchison is working to establish a National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Center of Excellence, spanning the Anschutz and Boulder campuses, to facilitate research on the health effects of cannabis across the lifespan.
116th Distinguished Research Lecture: Understanding the Risks and Benefits of Cannabis Across the Lifespan
This event took place on Thursday, April 22, 2021.
Support or learn more about the Building Equity in Our Community of Academics (BECA) Fund discussed during Professor Hutchison's lecture. The fund provides support to underrepresented students majoring in Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Hutchison's Lecture: Understanding the Risks and Benefits of Cannabis Across the Lifespan
On Thursday, April 22, Professor Hutchison will deliver the 116th Distinguished Research Lecture, Understanding the Risks and Benefits of Cannabis Across the Lifespan.
His presentation will focus on two areas of research, driven by the following questions:
How does the presence or absence of the primary constituent cannabinoids (e.g., THC and CBD) influence the health effects of cannabis products?
How do the health effects of cannabis products differ across the lifespan?
The overarching objective of this research is to provide patients, their family members and public health officials with data that can be used to reduce the potential for harm and maximize the potential benefits of cannabis and hemp products.
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I've been working on my 2012 Creating My Goddess Year workbook (click on the link to get your own) by Goddess Leonie and one activity is to come up with a list of 100 Things To Do in 2012 (except of course that there is a second number 86 on the list, so technically it's 101 Things). I wasn't going to post this publicly, but I figure, why not? Maybe if I post it then I will be more likely to do all of this stuff. There are several that I don't know if I can accomplish it, like #2, but that doesn't have to stop me from dreaming.
The list function in HTML coding automatically sets the numbers, so from #87 to the end I included a parenthetical note of the number those things have in my binder, so it's easier to keep track in the future.
send thank you cards from the wedding!
stop lying to my GYNO – start doing monthly BSE!
(100) come up with a system to reward myself if I do things on this list, like 1-10 things, 11-20 things, etc.
I hope to be able to use this post to keep track of which things I've done and which I haven't. So if you see anything is in bold text, that means I consider it completed. If it's a hyperlink, that means I've completed it AND wrote a post about it.


Come party with us! Join us for our 8th Annual Fundraiser to support Pro Rata. Come experience the raffle, silent auction, and great entertainment. Enjoy tunes from The Gentlemen's Anti-Temperance League and tasty food. Watch our Facebook page and subscribe to our email list to get updates about what will be available to bid on!
Cost: $40-80, tax deductible after $50. You pick your price!
We use a sliding scale for our events and performances because part of our mission is to keep them inclusive and accessible.
Ticket price includes two drink tickets for wine or beer (cash bar is available) plus 5 raffle tickets.
Children under 13 are welcome and do not require a ticket.
All proceeds raised at this event go directly to helping support Theatre Pro Rata in making smart, vivid, varied, and gutsy programming.
But, really, this party is all about getting to spend quality time with those who continually support and believe in making high quality theatre accessible to as many people as possible. So come on out on the 28th to Party with Pro Rata! We can't wait to celebrate you!


NEW Student Online Registration for 2019-2020 school year.
This link is for students who are not currently enrolled in any SVUSD school.
New and Returning Student Online Registration deadline has been extended to July 16. Please complete your online registration as soon as possible. The online registration link will be unavailable July 17-July 25. Registration for new and returning students for the 2019-2020 will reopen on July 26, 2019.
Monday – Friday 7:00am – 6:00pm PST.
If you still have questions, please contact your school during office hours.
PLEASE NOTE: You will need an email address in order to register.
For technical support, visit online support or you can call PowerSchool Support at 866-752-6850 Monday – Friday 7:00am – 6:00pm PST. If you still have questions, please contact your school during office hours.


text:
Tower! 3D
Tower! 2011
Tracon! 2012
O. R. Tambo International Airport Airport [FAOR] for Tower!3D
by Nyerges Design
IATA: JNB, ICAO: FAOR
O. R. Tambo International Airport north east of Johannesburg, South Africa. Originally called Jan Smuts International Airport (former ICAO code FAJS) then renamed Johannesburg International Airport in 1994 and then became O. R. Tambo International Airport in 2005 whereupon the ICAO code changed to FAOR.
There are six terminals at the airport, but these can be broken down into three major areas. 1. the international terminals; 2. the domestic terminals; and the transit terminals.
The airport handled over 21 million passengers in 2017.
O. R. Tambo International Airport has two runways (one pair of parallel runways). There used to be a third runway, 14/32, but was closed due to the danger it posed. It is now taxiway.
Runways 03L/21R and 03R and 21L.
Requires Tower!3D SP3 or Tower!3D Pro SP2
BUY $9.99
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Tag Archives: Gay Lesbian and Bisexual
History, Queer Saints and Martyrs
Nov 1st: All (Gay) Saints
November 1, 2014 Terence	5 Comments
Today is the feast of All Saints. For us as gay men, lesbians in the church, this begs the obvious questions: are there gay saints? Does it matter?
Some sources say clearly yes, listing numerous examples. Others dispute the idea, saying either that the examples quoted are not officially recognised, or denying that they wer gay because we do not know that they were sexually active. Before discussing specifically LGBT or queer saints, consider a more general question.
Who are the "Saints", and why do we recognise them?
All Saints : Albrecht Dürer
Richard McBrien gives one response, at NCR on-line:
There are many more saints in heaven than the relatively few who have been officially recognized by the church.
"For every St. Francis of Assisi or St. Rose of Lima there are thousands of unknown and long forgotten mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, grandmothers and grandfathers, aunts and uncles, cousins, friends, neighbors, co-workers, nurses, teachers, manual laborers, and other individuals in various kinds of occupations who lived holy lives that were consistent with the values of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
"Although each is in eternal glory, none of their names is attached to a liturgical feast, a parish church, a pious society, or any other ecclesiastical institution. The catch-all feast that we celebrate next week is all the recognition they're ever going to receive from the church."
"The church makes saints in order to provide a steady, ever renewable stream of exemplars, or sacraments, of Christ, lest our following of Christ be reduced to some kind of abstract, intellectual exercise.
Two things are important here, especially at this feast of "all" saints: the category of saints is far larger than just those who have been recognised by a formal process; and the reason for giving them honour is to provide role models. It is not inherent to the tradition of honouring the saints that they should be miracle workers, or that we should be praying to them for special favours – although officially attested miracles are part of the canonization process. This formal process did not even exist in the early church: it was only in the 11th or 12 the century that saint making became the exclusive preserve of the Pope.
It now becomes easier to make sense of the gay, lesbian and transvestite saints in Church history, and their importance for the feast of All Saints.
All SaintsCatholic_Churchgay church historyGay Lesbian and Bisexualgay saintslesbian saintsLGBTqueerReligion and SpiritualitySainttransvestite saints
SS Symeon of Emessa and John: Hermits, Saints and Lovers
July 21, 2014 Terence	Leave a comment
The information for this pair of same sex lovers is sparse, but the story important. I quote directly from the LGBT Catholic Handbook Calendar of gay & lesbian saints :
"The story itself is about a same-sex relationship. Symeon..and John…. meet on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. They become friends and "would no longer part from each other". In fact they abandon their families and go together to dedicate their lives to God. In the monastery they first join, they are tonsured by the abbot who blesses them together (Krueger 139-141, 142). This seems to refer to some early monastic version of the adelphopoiia ceremony."
Twenty nine years later, they part and their stories diverge. Simeon wants to leave John, as he had earlier left his wife, and becomes know as a "fool for Christ". But:
The extent of the relationship is revealed at this point. John is not keen for Symeon to leave. He says to Symeon "……Please, for the Lord's sake, do not leave wretched me….Rather for the sake of Him who joined us, do not wish to be parted from your brother. You know that, after God, I have no one except you, my brother, but I renounced all and was bound to you, and now you wish to leave me in the desert, as in an open sea. Remember that day when we drew lost and went down to the Lord Nikon, that we agreed not to be separated from one another. Remember that fearful day when we were clothed in the holy habit, and we two were as one soul, so that all were astonished at our love. Don't forget the words of the great monk…Please don't lest I die and God demands an account of my soul from You."
Halsall states that this was not a sexual relationship, but it is clearly an emotionally intimate, same sex relationship. At a time when "marriage" did not carry the same meaning that it has today; when many religious married couples, even outside holy orders, were encouraged to remain celibate; and given that they had entered a monastery before living together as hermits, this is unremarkable.
But as an intimate relationship over nearly thirty years, consecrated by the abbot in a rite of adelphopoiia, their story, vague and indistinct as it is, must surely be taken as yet another dimly remembered tale of gay lovers, buried in the history of the Christian Church, that modern scholarship is beginning to uncover.
Their feast days are celebrated together on 21 st July (Orthodox calendar).
Gay Lovers in Church History (queerhistory.blogspot.com)
Sergius & Bacchus, 7th October: Patron Saints of Same Sex Lovers? (queering-the-church.com)
Gay Lesbian and BisexualLGBTloversqueer saints and martyrsReligion and Spirituality
50 Pastoral Ministry, 60 Marriage / family, Catholic_Church
Belgian Bishops: Church Must BeMore Welcoming to All.
February 12, 2014 Terence	Leave a comment
Reporting on the the Religious Information Service release of some European results of the global survey on marriage and family, Vatican Insider has a snippet from Belgium that will not surprise LGBT Catholics – but is of great importance to us, and the for relevant discussions likely at the family synod. The Belgian bishops have concluded that the Church need to be "more open and welcoming" – especially to gay people and remarried divorcees.
"Belgian Catholics expect the Church to welcome everyone, regardless of differences or mistakes made. This especially true when it comes to gay people and remarried divorcees," SIR says.
"Belgian Catholics, inspired by Francis, are calling for a mother Church that embraces all: hence the need to grow in the faith and form lively communities," SIR highlights. The questionnaires also placed an emphasis on the essential role women can play in Church life: "It is they who pass on the faith to children and guide them," Belgian Catholics point out.
– Vatican Insider.
Gay Marriage, Ireland: Archbishop Supports Civil Unions. (queeringthechurch.com)
Footnote to Report of German Bishops to Vatican in Preparation for Synod on Family: Swiss Catholics Weigh In (bilgrimage.blogspot.com)
Vatican Asks Bishops to Consult Laity on Same-Sex Marriage, Contraception, Divorce (news.queerchurch.com)
Pope Francis, on Why and How the Church Must Change (queeringthechurch.com)
Francis, and the Real Threats to Marriage (queeringthechurch.com)
BelgiumCatholic_ChurchEquality / InclusionExtraordinary Synod on Marriage and the FamilyGay Lesbian and Bisexualglobal consultation on marriage and familylgbt CatholicsLuxembourg
November 10: Phyllis Lyon & Del Martin, Pioneer Lesbian Activists
November 9, 2012 Terence	Leave a comment
Del Martin
b. May 5, 1921
d. August 27, 2008
Phyllis Lyon
b. November 10, 1924
"Two extraordinary people … that have spent the greater part of a half century … fighting for their right to live the way so many of us, frankly, take for granted."
– San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom
Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon founded the first lesbian organization in the United States and have fought for more than 50 years for the rights of lesbians and gays. On June 16, 2008, Martin and Lyon became the first gay couple to be legally married in California.
Martin and Lyon both earned degrees in journalism. While working as journalists in Seattle, the two became romantically involved. The couple relocated to San Francisco and moved in together on Valentine's Day 1953.
In 1955, finding it hard to develop a social network in San Francisco, Martin, Lyon and a small group of women founded the first lesbian organization, called the Daughters of Bilitis. The name was inspired by Pierre Louys's "Songs of Bilitis," a collection of poems celebrating lesbian sexuality.
Though it was intended to be a secret society, Martin and Lyon wanted to make the Daughters of Bilitis more visible. The group began publishing a monthly magazine, called The Ladder, which was the first-ever lesbian publication. As editors of the magazine, they capitalized the word "lesbian" every time it appeared.
In 1964, while fighting to change California sex laws criminalizing homosexuals, the couple joined religious and gay community leaders to form the Council on Religion and the Homosexual (CRH). This organization was at the forefront of the movement to gain religious support on gay rights issues. Both women served on the founding CRH board of directors.
In 2004, when gay marriage was offered in San Francisco, Martin and Lyon were the first to wed. A California appellate court ruling subsequently invalidated their marriage. Then in May 2008, a California Supreme Court decision provided same-sex couples the right to marry. On June 16, 2008, they were the first same-sex couple married in California. The wedding was officiated by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.
Martin and Lyon have published two books together, "Lesbian/Woman" (1972) and "Lesbian Love and Liberation" (1973). On their 50th anniversary, the documentary "No Secret Anymore: The Times of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon" premiered. In 2005, the National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association inducted Martin and Lyon into the LGBT Journalists Hall of Fame for their pioneering work on The Ladder. In 2007, they received the 2007 Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) Pioneer Award.
"Del Martin & Phyllis Lyon." (The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Religious Archives Network).
Kornblum, Janet. "Gay Activists Blaze Trail for half century." USA Today. March 4, 2004
"Lesbian Pioneers Wed at San Franciso City Hall." CNN. June 17, 2008
Streitmatter, Rodger. "Phyllis Lyon & Del Martin." National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association: LGBT Journalists Hall of Fame. June 5, 2008
Gordon, Rachel. "Lesbian Pioneer Activists See Wish Fulfilled." San Francisco Chronicle. June 16, 2008
Marshall, Carolyn. "Dozens of Gay Couples Marry in San Francisco Ceremonies." The New York Times. February 13, 2004
McKinley, Jesse. "Same-Sex Marriages Begin in California." The New York Times. June 17, 2008
Lesbian/Woman (1972)
Lesbian love and liberation (The Yes book of sex) (1973)
Battered Wives (1976)
No Secrets Anymore: The Times of Del Martin & Phyllis Lyon (2003)
Groundspark: Igniting Change Through Film. Del Martin and Phyllis Lyons's Wedding Video
Queer Ministry & Reconciliation (queertheology.blogspot.com)
gayGay Lesbian and BisexualhistoryLesbianLGBTqueer
August 10: Andrew Sullivan
August 10, 2012 Terence	Leave a comment
b. August 10, 1963
Andrew Sullivan is an author and journalist who regularly appears on national television and whose commentary is featured in major national publications. He is a leading advocate of same-sex marriage.
"The most successful marriages, gay or straight, even if they begin in romantic love, often become friendships. It's the ones that become the friendships that last."
Andrew Sullivan was born in South Godstone, a small town in southern England, in 1963. After earning a B.A. in modern history from Oxford University he received a fellowship to study at Harvard University, where he earned a masters degree in public administration and a Ph.D. in government.
In 1986, he began at The New Republic (TNR) and in 1991, he was named the magazine's editor, the youngest in its history. In the five years Sullivan was at the helm, the magazine's circulation grew and advertising revenues increased. Sullivan expanded TNR's sphere beyond politics to cover such cultural topics as same-sex marriage and affirmative action. He created a stir by publishing excerpts from the controversial study on race and IQ, The Bell Curve.
In the 1990's Sullivan became known for his writing on gay issues. His article "The Politics of Homosexuality" has been called the most influential article of the decade in gay rights. Virtually Normal: An Argument About Homosexuality was the first book to advocate civil marriage rights for gay couples. Sullivan also publishedLove Undetectable: Notes on Friendship, Sex, and Survival and edited a reader,Same-Sex Marriage: Pro and Con.
As a practicing Catholic, Sullivan has challenged the Roman Catholic Church's position on homosexuality. In Virtually Normal he takes the position that the Bible forbids homosexuality only when it is linked to prostitution or pagan ritual.
Sullivan started his blog, The Daily Dish, in 2000. His articles have appeared in The New Republic, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Postand Esquire. He is a regular guest on The Chris Matthews Show, Charlie Rose, Anderson Cooper 360°, Meet The Press, Face the Nation, Nightline, NPR's Fresh Airand Larry King Live.
TIME Magazine Bio
Selected works by Andrew Sullivan:
Love Undetectable: Notes on Friendship, Sex, Survival. Vintage, 1999.
Same-Sex Marriage, Pro and Con. Vintage, 2004.
The Conservative Soul. HarperCollins, 2006.
Virtually Normal. Vintage, 1996.
Catholic_ChurchGay Lesbian and Bisexualsame – sex marriage
91 Books, Bible
Sharpe, Keith. The Gay Gospels
Sharpe, Keith. The Gay Gospels: Good News for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered People . Winchester, UK: O-Books.
gayGay Lesbian and BisexualGospelLesbianLGBTtransgendered
Nyland: Study New Testament For Lesbians, Gays, Bi, And Transgender
Nyland, Ann. Study New Testament For Lesbians, Gays, Bi, And Transgender: With Extensive Notes On Greek Word Meaning And Context
Uralla, N.S.W.: Smith and Stirling.
gayGay Lesbian and BisexualLesbianLGBTNew Testamenttransgendered
Bible, spirituality
Glaser, Chris: The Word Is Out: Daily Reflections on the Bible for Lesbians and Gay Men
Gay Lesbian and BisexualLesbian
91 Books, Ministry and liturgy
Duncan: Courage to Love
Duncan, Geoffrey. Courage to Love: Liturgies for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Cleveland: Pilgrim Press.
Gay Lesbian and BisexualLGBT
biography/ memoir, Catholic, Ministry and liturgy
Curoe, Carol: Are There Closets in Heaven?
Curoe, Carol Are There Closets in Heaven?; A Catholic Father and Lesbian Daughter Share their Story
Gay Lesbian and BisexualLesbianlgbt inclusion in church


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Bacilloflagellomera pecticornis är en tvåvingeart som beskrevs av Papp och Silva 1995. Bacilloflagellomera pecticornis ingår i släktet Bacilloflagellomera och familjen lövflugor.

Artens utbredningsområde är Peru. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

Källor

Lövflugor
pecticornis

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Two employees have been fired from a New York City restaurant after they created and filmed a "Putin burger" in celebration of the Russian president's birthday.
The video agency Ruptly, owned by the Kremlin-backed news outlet RT, on Oct. 7 ran a story about Lucy's Cantina Royale in Manhattan, featuring a 1,952-gram burger in honor of Vladimir Putin's birth year.
Perhaps the gram measurement in a country where ounces are used was the first tip-off that the celebration was staged.
When Russian journalist Alexei Kovalev contacted the restaurant, representative Sean Ryan said his establishment "had never in any form celebrated the birthday of Vladimir Putin." Ryan said that the waitress had "lied about a school film project," and was suspended pending investigation.
Russian independent channel Dozhd TV confirmed on Wednesday that the employees broadcast by RT offering the burger — Darya Pauto, a bartender, and Tamara Ilizarova, a waitress — had been dismissed.
Pauto, who said she had worked at the cantina for two and a half years, learned of her suspension from the news. "Tamara, the waitress, was just filmed in the feature. I was the one to make the campaign," Pauto said.
Confronted with Kovalev's findings, RT said they had "no reason to doubt the authenticity of the story" and quoted an interview by the state-run news agency TASS with "Lucy bar manager Ted Bryan" as proof.
Ruptly subsequently removed the burger story from its website, saying it "did not meet editorial standards" but copies remain on other channels.


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About NCN
NCN Council
Call timeline
NCN Panels
Call results
NCN Funding schemes
3D printing and electrospinning at the service of tissue engineering
Principal Investigator: Dr hab. Eng. Izabella Rajzer, University of Bielsko-Biała
Project title: Layered scaffolds for nasal cartilages reconstruction fabricated by 3D printing and electrospinning
Funding scheme: SONATA BIS 5, announced on 15th June 2015
Damage to the cartilaginous tissues of the nose poses a serious problem not just for the patient, but also the laryngologist and the plastic surgeon. The nose gives personality to the face and may make it ugly or beautiful; it is made up of bone and cartilage covered with skin. Due to its specific structure, cartilage has limited regenerative ability. The search for new materials that could facilitate the reconstruction of the damaged tissue has led to the development of a promising new interdisciplinary field known as tissue engineering, which aims to reconstruct and restore the function of damaged or removed tissues and organs. In broad strokes, cell samples are taken from the patient and cultured on a special substrate in the lab. The material serves as scaffolding for the new cartilage and is dissolved once the latter has acquired the desired mechanical properties. The tissue is then transplanted into the damaged area of the patient's body.
The substrate-scaffolding should have a spatial, porous structure that would allow cells to build their own matrix, enable penetration of the forming tissue, and facilitate the delivery of nutrients. The pore size should be adjusted to the growth of specific tissue cells. In addition, the physical, chemical, and mechanical properties of the biomaterial, which will not change once the tissue has healed, should likewise mirror those of the cells in question. The scaffolding must be able to biodegrade once it has played its role, and the products of its degradation should not be harmful or induce inflammation. Many laboratories around the world have been investigating the possibility of using composite substrates for tissue reconstruction, but their products still fail to meet the above requirements and adequately stimulate tissue growth.
The objective of the project is to develop layered, spatial substrates for the reconstruction of the cartilaginous tissue of the nose. It uses two different methods (3D printing – the FDM technique, and electrospinning) to produce hybrid substrates that, on one hand, ensure the mechanical stability of the porous construct, and, on the other, stimulate the chondrocytes to grow and build the tissue thanks to their nanofibre structure and modification with active agents. The hybrid biomaterials thus produced combine two or three different polymers (polyesters and hydrogels), growth factors and drugs. Owing to the modification of the 3D (FDM) printer purchased in the framework of the project, we will be able to print out spatial, three-dimensional substrates with the use of composite filaments created in our laboratory and modified with various active agents. Printing with polymer filaments (as compared to the traditional methods) will also allow us ensuring the appropriate composition of the substrate by giving us the chance to select and combine filaments while printing. Modifying the scaffolding by adding nanofibres with growth factors and drugs will help create an auspicious environment to stimulate the growth of cells and promote the process of cartilage formation.
Dr hab. Eng. Izabella Rajzer
Graduate of the Faculty of Materials Science and Ceramics at the AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków. In 2006, she successfully defended a doctoral thesis in the field of materials engineering. In 2007-2008, she completed an internship at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (Barcelona, Spain) in the group of Professor J.A. Planell. In 2016, she defended a habilitation thesis devoted to polymer-ceramic biomaterials designed to assist the regeneration and mineralisation of bone tissue. She manages six research projects financed by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and the National Science Centre. She currently works as Associate Professor at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Bielsko-Biała.
Date of publication: 5th Jan, 2018
Council of the NCN
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Leonid Grigorjevič Ivašov (* 31. srpna 1943, Frunze, Sovětský svaz) je ruský generálplukovník v záloze.

V lednu 2022 obvinil ruského prezidenta Vladimira Putina, že se snaží vyprovokovat válku s Ukrajinou kvůli udržení u moci, a vyzval ho k odstoupení.

Život
Absolvoval vojenskou školu v Taškentu. Během invaze vojsk Varšavské smlouvy do Československa, která ukončila Pražské jaro, byl velitelem roty v sovětské armádě. V roce 1974 vystudoval Vojenskou akademii M. V. Frunzeho v Moskvě.

V letech 1976 až 1984 pracoval na ministerstvu obrany jako pobočník ministra Dmitrije Ustinova. V roce 1987 se zde stal vedoucím odboru.

V letech 1996 až 2001 byl náčelníkem hlavní správy mezinárodní vojenské spolupráce na ministerstvu obrany Ruské federace; do jeho gesce spadala spolupráce mezi členy Společenství nezávislých států. V červenci 2001 ho Putin z funkce sesadil.

V prosinci 2011 avizoval zájem kandidovat do funkce prezidenta Ruska ve volbách roku 2012. Ústřední volební komise však jeho nominaci z administrativních důvodů odmítla.

V roce 2003 založil Všeruské důstojnické shromáždění, které sdružuje důstojníky ve výslužbě s konzervativními názory a jehož je předsedou. Na stránkách této organizace v lednu 2022 jejím jménem publikoval výzvu, v níž ruského prezidenta Vladimira Putina vybídl, aby se zřekl "zločinné politiky provokování války" a odstoupil. Ruské občany vyzval, aby aktivně protestovali proti propagandě a rozpoutání války s Ukrajinou.

Válka by podle Ivašova mohla přinést desítky tisíc obětí na obou stranách. Pokusy přinutit lidi hrozbami a ultimáty, aby milovali Rusko a jeho vůdce, jsou proto podle Ivašova nesmyslné a nebezpečné. Ukazatele ve všech životně důležitých oblastech se podle něj stále zhoršují. "Vedení země chápe, že není schopno vyvést zemi ze systémové krize a rozhodlo se pro politiku znamenající definitivní zničení ruské státnosti a vyhubení původního obyvatelstva země," uvedl Ivašov.

Reference

Externí odkazy

Ruští generálové
Ruští politici
Narození v Biškeku
Narození v roce 1943
Žijící lidé
Muži
Ruští odpůrci ruské intervence na Ukrajině


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