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R. S. Johnson Fine Art (IFPDA)
645 N. Michigan Ave.
Phone: 312-943-1661 [email protected] http://www.rsjohnsonfineart.com
R. S. Johnson Fine Art is celebrating over 60 years in its spacious Michigan Avenue gallery. The gallery specializes in museum quality works ranging from Old Masters to Impressionism and Modernism. Featured artists include – Dürer, Rembrandt, Piranesi, Goya, Cassatt, Matisse, Léger and Picasso.
Over the decades, R. S. Johnson's expert staff has produced more than 170 scholarly catalogs and books, ranging from Old Master prints and drawings to the art of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These publications are respected internationally for their research and art historical contributions.
Indicative of the quality of the works shown as well as the gallery's academic nature, over seventy museums have acquired artworks from R. S. Johnson Fine Art. Recent acquisitions by museums include purchases by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Art Institute in Chicago, The National Gallery of Canada and the Musée d'art et d'histoire in Geneva, Switzerland.
Flight into Egypt
Pieter Brueghel the Elder
Betrothal of the Virgin
The Schoolmaster
Adriaen van Ostade
The Great Hunt
Jacques Callot
The Column of Marcus Aurelius
The Little Wooden Bridge
Anthonie Waterloo
The Great Landscapes III
River Scene with Village and Church
Hans Bol
Kermess
Sounding the Hunt in the Morning
Some of the artists available at R. S. Johnson Fine Art (IFPDA)
Ludolf Backhuizen (1)
Fra Bonaventura Bisi (1)
Hans Bol (5)
Schelte Adams Bolswert (1)
Louis Marin Bonnet (2)
Jacob Bos (1)
Jan Both (1)
Pieter Brueghel the Elder (2)
Jacques Callot (3)
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (2)
Lucas Cranach (1)
Nicolaes de Bruyn (1)
Nicolas De Launay (1)
Crispin de Passe (2)
Philibert-Louis Debucourt (1)
Stefano Della Bella (1)
Charles-Melchior Descourtis (1)
Pierre Drevet (1)
Antoine-Jean Duclos (1)
Cornelis Dusart (1)
Jean Honoré Fragonard (1)
Abraham Genoels (1)
Hessel Gerrits (1)
Giorgio Ghisi (2)
Hendrik Goudt (1)
Marcel Gromaire (2)
Carl Wilhelm Kolbe the Elder (1)
Jacques-Phillippe Le Bas (1)
Claude Lorrain (1)
Henri Mauperche (1)
Aelbert Meyeringh (1)
Jean-Michel Moreau (le Jeune) (1)
Gabriel Perelle (2)
Giovanni Battista Piranesi (3)
Harmensz van Rijn Rembrandt (3)
Roeland Roughman (1)
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (2)
Guisseppe Scolari (1)
Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (1)
Jan Van de Velde II (2)
Adriaen Van Der Kabel (2)
Jan Van Huchtenberg (1)
Adriaen van Ostade (3)
Jacques Villon (3)
David Vinckboons (2)
Anthonie Waterloo (5)
Jean-Antoine Watteau (1)


Think about it, as Christians, our lives were changed the moment we opened ourselves up to the radical love, teachings and story of Jesus. In the days of Jesus, He was seen as a radical. His teaching were out of this world. His ideas sounded crazy and His methods were strange. He constantly went against the grain, challenged the status quo, provided "weird" answers and asked thought provoking questions – through all of this, He revolutionized the world in the process and no where in the History of mankind has a Man been this influential and powerful.
Christians, let's be honest: If Jesus were to be here with us today, we would have probably crucified Him. We are no different than the Pharisees of His time. The Pharisees were not evil, they simply did not understand how big God was. They did not understand His love and His compassion. They went by the books and anytime their ideas, thoughts and way of life were challenged, they flipped and certainly not happy. Often at times, Jesus would ask them thought provoking questions and they would be quick to stone him – eventually, they got what they wanted by helping help crucify Him. Ask yourselves this question: As Christians, how many people have challenged our thought process with their doubts, questions or suggestions and what is our response to their inquiries? Often at times, it is not well received and I will be honest, sometimes, we would love to give them a slap.
Jesus told them to love their enemies just as much as He admonishes us to love ours today. He told them to help the poor and needy just as much as he tells us to do the same. He continues to challenge us to live fully for God and not be bound by legalism. We were set free for a reason, but we continue to bind ourselves for no apparent reason. If Jesus were not radical in words and in deeds, He wouldn't have impacted the world the way He did.
Just as much as Jesus was going against the grain, we are challenged to do the same in today's society. Think about it, the Pharisees and the people of His time were told to retaliate – "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth"; but what did Jesus say in Matthew 5:38-39, "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth. But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also." With everything in context and perspective, let's not forget how crazy this might have sounded. This was extremely radical! It was insane at that time to hear something like this; no wonder they wanted to crucify Him. For years, they were stoning to death people who will indulge themselves in sexually immorality, especially women – but Jesus once again disarmed them when they were ready to stone the woman. We often read this chapter and think of the Pharisees as hateful people, but they were only a product of their culture. They were doing what they knew and what they had been exposed to. So the teachings of Jesus were foreign to them. As Christians, culturally, we have also been exposed to certain things and a way of life. But we forget that Christ continues to change us through the Holy Spirit. Christ continues to work in us and through us. In Romans 12:2, we are told to renew our minds and not be conformed to things of this world: "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will" We forget that culture can be deemed as "things of this world" and the passage above clearly states that we should not be conformed to things of the world. Culture is needed and it is a beautiful thing and we are all part of different cultures, but when it comes to your personal culture affecting the Christ Culture, we often conform tot he latter. We refuse to love unconditionally, we refuse to forgive, we refuse to support, we refuse to accept and we refuse to help, we refuse to be questioned and refuse to be challenged, etc. Christ Culture calls us into a whole new family with different beautiful people from different ethnic backgrounds, different thoughts, different mindsets, different suggestions and different lifestyles. Christ Culture pushes us out of our comfort zone and propels us to exhibit the traits of Christ in and outside the circle of the Church and Christ culture should definitely supersede our culture. We are being moved away from our comfort zone to be make an impact.
As a Pastor friend of mine (John Pavlovitz) said: "I always hold on to the bigness of God; that He is not threatened by questions, or doubts, or the examination of everything, our history, tradition, doctrines, creeds. He is not afraid of them, and what is true, will always hold up under scrutiny." When we are challenged and questioned, we often get angry. When suggestions are made, which may go against the grain, we begin to feel insecure, we push back and the opportunity to have a great and open dialogue about Jesus turns into a war. We are admonished to study and show ourselves approved but do we actually do so? I'm not asking for us to argue, but we refuse to dialogue with those who might differ from us. We shun those who don't believe in exactly what we believe in. When our actions are questioned by believers and non-believers alike, instead of using this as an opportunity to educate, we fire back angrily and sometimes respond in hate and fear. With myself included, sometimes we feel as though we are better than those who have not yet "seen the light", so we automatically void of nullify their suggestions or questions and call them "faithless". We hate those who speak up boldly forgetting that they also have the same passion and desire for the Church just as much as we do. Just because they do not do things the way we have been conformed to do them, we disregard them and push them to the side.
With all that mentioned above, I am not saying we should all run around the world just accepting any and everything – but through the love of Christ, we should allow the questions, the doubts, the suggestions and even the denial. We should in all things, allow the Holy Spirit to work in and through us to bring about the salvation that is needed. We should allow our thoughts to be challenged, we should allow people to question us, because the God who hung on the cross 2,000 years ago is bigger than any question or push back. A the end of the day, He is the truth and He alone will stand firm amidst the doubt and scrutiny.
For a spiritual revolution to take place in our world today, we need to renew our minds, be open and led by the Spirit, be receptive to spiritual change and thoughts and be willing to sacrifice our pride and ego to better the Kingdom and Work of God.
As Christians today, I am convinced that if Jesus were here today, we would have crucified Him because his ideas, suggestions, thoughts would have also been radical as they were 2,000 year ago. Jesus revolutionized the world through radical teachings of love. He did not conform but went against the grain and that is what saved you and I. My question is, are we going to continue the Good Work He started with us or we are going to cling to legalism and conformation just like the Pharisees?
If you don't know, Scandal is not drawing you closer to God and probably moving you away from Him and maybe drawing you closer to hell. Yes,Hell.
Last night was the night for Scandal (Thursday Nights). Scandal is a hit ABC TV Show which portrays what probably goes on in our nation's capital. It is a show which has captivated the attention of many with its wonderful script and wonderful actors.
Just like every Thursday, about 70% percent of people on Twitter tweet about the show and yesterday was no exception. But something different happened this time around: a friend of mine who I am guessing does not watch the show, tweeted me and told me to look at her last ReTweet (RT). So I went on her Timeline (TL) and looked at her last RT and it was a tweet by Heather Lindsey. Now, Heather Lindsey is a very respected woman of God who inspire a lot of young women to be bold in God and to save themselves for marriage. I applaud her and respect her for that. We need more women like her in today's society. Heather's Tweet was something I totally did not understand. (Please look at the picture below).
Her question, "Is watching that TV show pulling you closer to Christ though?" really bothered me a bit and of course since my friend wanted me to see it, she obviously wanted my opinion on it, so I decided to write on this subject.
I have a couple of questions of my own: Is watching the News pulling any of us closer to God? Is watching the NBA finals drawing us closer to God? Is watching the Olympics bringing you closer to God? Is reading a story book pulling us closer to Christ? Is reading the Newspaper pulling us closer to Christ? Is going for a jog pulling us closer to Christ? Is dancing at a friend's wedding pulling us closer to Christ? Is going to the beach to have a romantic time with your wife and husband pulling you closer to Christ? Is going to work pulling you closer to Christ? If Heather Lindsey's question is valid, then I assume that my questions above are valid as well, because questions like this only makes a person focus on what they can do to achieve Grace from God. In the Old Testament, people had to do things to get that Grace, but in the New Testament, Grace came down with Christ and shared with the world on the cross which is why Grace is unmerited Favor. We do not deserve it, but we have it once we come to accept Christ. These kind of questions do not help but steal the joy of individuals away and kind of guilt trips them in a way. As Christians, can't we allow people to enjoy a TV show with the God given peace in their hearts? As Christians, we sometimes become like the Pharisees (the religious people) by becoming standing blocks for others to be saved if we are not careful of what we say. I do not believe that this is a question Jesus would have asked his disciples, because Jesus DID go to parties with his entourage, he dined with sinners, he wept, he grieved, he was even hungry at some point, he dined with tax collectors, and etc. My point is, Jesus did everything any human can do and probably does. He was not half human, half God, He was was fully human and fully God and experienced anything we can experience on earth. Probably, Jesus might have watched Scandal to get a good laugh and enjoy the suspense if He was here as well. Jesus was not only reading the Torah, He was not always fasting, but He was always being fully God and fully human and doing things humans like to do. Guess what? The Pharisees were the ones who were not being fully human and enjoying anything humans could possibly enjoy, so they were always criticizing Jesus and always asking Him questions. They even questioned His holiness all because He was hanging out with sinners like you and I.
Let me be clear, Jesus was not conforming, but rather reforming through the expressing of love and by being human. I am not saying that we should conform as Christians to society, but we should not forget that we are humans saved by Grace. Jesus knew He was Holy, but never ones did he condemn, never once did he judge and we should follow suit and be the best we can be with Christ.
Watching Scandal is not a sin and watching the NBA Finals or Superbowl is not a sin either. It is a form of entertainment for humans. It is something which can help you get over the troubles in life. The Bible does advice us not to be mastered by anything. We should not be totally consumed with all these things, but consumed with the Word of God – that is a given, but we should enjoy the life Christ has given us, because He came to set us free. Under the law is sin and death, but under the Grace of Christ is Mercy, Love, Hope, Faith and Love.


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The LPL Spring 2022 Playoffs Postponed Due to Surge in Covid-19
appears in LPL Playoffs
You are here Home » The LPL Spring 2022 Playoffs Postponed Due to Surge in Covid-19
The LPL recently announced that their playoffs will be postponed until further notice due to the surge of Covid-19 in the country. As the region finalized the top 4 teams who will compete in the semifinals, concluding the first three rounds of the LPL Spring 2022 Playoffs. Unfortunately, the LPL will hold their playoffs at a later date when the situation in the country has settled down and it's safe for both the players and audience to play on stage once more.
The LPL Spring 2022 Playoffs Summary
Six teams in the LPL fought in the playoffs to secure the last two spots of the LPL Spring 2022 Playoffs semifinals, where they are awaited by Victory5 and Royal Never Give Up, who have both secured their Round 4 byes by placing in the top 2 of the regular season. Ultimately, Top Esports and JD Gaming were the teams that managed to defeat all the others and get a chance to win in the double elimination rounds.
pic.twitter.com/MGdXwNFvSg
— LPL (@lplenglish) April 6, 2022
The LPL Spring 2022 Playoffs postponed!
LNG, Weibo Gaming, and EDward Gaming, who were two of the favorites in the region, didn't make it into the double elimination rounds after failing to beat the other teams. Despite having a powerful roster revamp, the two teams who represented the LPL at Worlds in the past two years failed to get a chance to represent the region at the Mid-Season Invitational. As the suspense builds up, what are the chances these four teams take it all when faced against each other based on their performance in the regular season?
The Top 4 Teams of the LPL
Many of you are probably itching to watch the LPL crown it's newest champion, but the region won't be playing any time soon. However, we can use this time to discuss how the LPL Spring 2022 Playoffs might go depending on their performance and record so far. While the regular season results might not fully determine how a team will do in the playoffs, we can still make some assumptions based on the team's overall record.
1. Victory5
Victory5 stand at the top of the LPL with it's newly formed roster, which is a huge improvement compared to last season where they placed dead last with a record of 0-16. The team's star players include names like Rookie and Karsa, but it's the bot lane where V5 have found much success. The new tandem of ppgod and Photic have surprisingly worked out really well and have dominated every other bot laner in the region.
Rookie is ready to fight!
Rookie is still the mechanical keypoint at which the team finds themselves relying on when the going gets tough. He manages to play clutch when the team needs him to be which is a huge factor in the team's success. Karsa's experience and leadership managed to glue the team together to become a well-oiled machine despite all these players not having any experience playing together whatsoever.
2. Royal Never Give Up
Royal Never Give Up retains its spot as one of the most consistent teams in the LPL as they place second with a semi-revamped roster. After spending a year at the top lane, Xiaohu returns to the mid lane replacing Cryin. Meanwhile, Worlds 2020 semifinalist – Bin – leaves Suning Gaming to join the team as their top laner. With this roster, the team has managed to retain its strong-side top lane playstyle with a more reliable mid laner in the midst.
RNG is looking to defend their title!
The team sticks to its playstyle and manages to execute it perfectly every time. There are only a handful of teams that are able to play towards the top lane with as much success as RNG and none of them have managed to make it into the semifinals. This may be one of the reasons why this team might be making a comeback to the Mid-Season Invitations for a chance to defend their title and be the first team to win it thrice.
3. TOP Esports
TOP Esports is another top contender and tied at 11-5 alongside JD Gaming, Weibo Gaming, and LNG. They are a pretty strong all-rounder team that pretty much relies on the power of their individual talents rather than having their own identity and playstyle. However, Knight is the man that really carries the team through the depths and manages to save them when the other laners don't perform up to par in the games.
Knight carrying it to the international scene!
While the team had some struggles in the regular season, they managed to find a working formula when they introduced a new top laner in Wayward. He is pretty much an unstable factor in TOP Esports star player formula, but he is definitely better at his job as compared to Zoom, who hasn't shown impressive results. Whether or not TOP Esports reclaims the LPL title or not depends on how good Knight will play in the next few series.
4. JD Gaming
JD Gaming was pretty much a surprise. While they have already proved themselves as LPL champions and have been consistent in the past few splits, no one really expected them to push further, especially when Zoom and Lvmao left the team. However, the team's new bot lane seemed to have proven everybody wrong and gave them what they needed to compete at the highest level once again.
Don't count JDG out just yet!
The team barely beat Weibo Gaming to secure their spot in the LPL Spring 2022 Playoffs Top 4, but they managed to do so and convinced everybody that they're still in it to compete. JD Gaming and TOP Esports are looking to make it a rematch of the LPL 2020 season where these two teams were the giants of the region. JDG shouldn't be underestimated since they have every chance to make it to the top as well.
When Will the LPL Playoffs Resume?
The LPL Spring 2022 Playoffs will hopefully resume on April 12th, with the first match between Victory5 and TOP Esports kicking things off. However, there's always a chance that the schedule will be postponed further depending on the situation in the country. They could also move it to an online setting.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Pleasant quiet-natured ballads and country poprock/MOR, often lightened with strings, pedal steel guitar and soft airy male/female harmonies for a Carpenters 'Top Of The World' sort of sound. All original songs, including 'Job's Song' and 'Who made The Animals Eyes?' both written by Len's wife Heather. Snappy Mexican flavor to 'Mystery Tour'. Produced by Parchment's John Pac with Parchment providing backing vocals. (The Archivist, 4th edition by Ken Scott).


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FBI dive team joins search for missing 3-year-old Texas girl
SAN ANTONIO —
An FBI dive team has joined the search for a 3-year-old San Antonio girl reported missing two weeks ago, police said Tuesday.
Lina Sardar Khil was last seen in the playground of a northwest San Antonio apartment complex during the late afternoon of Dec. 20.
The 12-member FBI Underwater Search and Evidence Response Team flew in from Washington, D.C., Monday night and searched water bodies near the girl's family's apartment all day Tuesday, Police Chief William McManus said.
Appearing downcast, McManus said the team was merely checking a lead, of which there have been few.
"I wish I could be more uplifting. I know this looks like we're really onto something. But all we're doing here is following up," he said at a briefing at the search site.
Lina was last seen wearing a red dress, black jacket and black shoes and had her brown hair in a ponytail, police said.
The child's family had reported that she was at the playground with her mother, who had walked away briefly and found the child missing upon her return.
The family moved to the U.S. in 2019 from Afghanistan after fleeing from "threats that were posed to us," Lina's father, Riaz Sardar Khil, told KENS-TV.
Top headlines by email, weekday mornings
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Campus Safety is responsible for issuing timely warnings in compliance with the Jeanne Clery Act, 20 U.S.C. 1092(f). Timely warnings will be issued in response to reported crimes committed either on campus or, in some cases, off campus that, in the judgment of the University, constitute an ongoing or continuing threat to students and employees.
Anyone with information believed to warrant a timely warning should promptly report the circumstances to the Department of Campus Safety by phone at (805) 493-3208 or in person at the Campus Safety Office located in the Welcome Center adjacent to the east parking lot at Olsen Road and Mountclef Boulevard.
Campus Safety will consult, as appropriate and necessary, with other university officials regarding whether a timely warning should be issued. The decision to issue a timely warning shall be made on a case-by-case basis after consideration of the available facts, including factors such as the nature of the crime, the continuing danger or risk to the campus community, and the possible risk of compromising law enforcement efforts.
Timely warnings are considered for the following classifications of reported crimes: criminal homicide, sex offenses, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft and arson. Timely warnings may also be issued for other reported crimes as deemed appropriate under the circumstances. The decision will be made in compliance with the Clery Act and in an effort to prevent similar crimes from occurring.
When a determination is made that a timely warning should be issued, Campus Safety will take appropriate steps to ensure timely notification of the campus community. Options for notification include, but are not necessarily limited to, the University's mass notification system (phone, text and email), campus-wide e-mails, physical postings on doors and bulletin boards (resident halls, Student Union, cafeteria, Centrum, Pearson Library, and the Gilbert Sports and Fitness Center), or the Campus Safety website. The warnings will include some or all of the following information: the date, time and location of the reported crime; a summary of the incident; a description of the suspect and/or vehicle, if available; and any other special instructions or incident specific safety.
Campus Conduct Hotline
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(Campus Awareness, Referral, and Education)
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campussafety@callutheran.edu
Campus Safety Officers are are available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
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For After Hours Assistance Please Call Campus Safety at (805) 493-3208


The prophet Zarathustra arose in Persia 3000 years ago. His belief in a single God, Ahura Mazda, became the religion of Persia until Arabic Muslims invaded in 650 CE.
We visit Australian Zoroastrians, and British author Paul Kriwaczek talks about his fascinating search for the origins of this reputedly first monotheistic religion whose core beliefs foreshadowed Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
In the beginning of time, good and evil existed without coming into conflict. They were separated by the void. Ohrmazd, the wise lord, the strong and holy one, lived in highest heaven in endless light. But the evil Ahriman lay far, far away in deepest darkness.
Rachael Kohn: What could be more elemental to the human condition than the battle between Good and Evil? That's from the Creation account of one of the world's oldest religions, Zoroastrianism.
Hello and welcome to The Spirit of Things, with me, Rachael Kohn, here on ABC Radio National.
Rachael Kohn: Ahura Mazda is the God of the Zoroastrians and Zarathustra was his prophet. Some scholars believe Zarathustra was the first monotheist, but for his followers it's a moot point. They aren't on a mission to convert the world, or to prove their superiority to other faiths. Zarathustis, like the priest Tim Desai, are content to transmit the faith to the next generation.
Here's Tim reciting three prayers which speak of happiness to those who are righteous, praise the god Ahura Mazda, and recount the gifts of the Good Mind.
Tim Desai: So Rachael, this prayer that I'm about to recite, everyone would know it, whether they come from Iran or they come from Pakistan or they come from India. All Zoroastrians would definitely know this prayer, and I'll recite it for you. First is the Yatha Ahu Vairyo, then is the Ashem Vohu, and there is one prayer from the Gathas. And the Gathas is in the original language which has been written by Zarathustra. All three prayers are in the Avestan language. So first is the Yatha Ahu Vairyo.
Just as the King is all powerful, so is the spiritual leader. The gifts of Good Mind are given to those who work for Mazda and help his poor brothers. To be righteous is the highest good. Happiness is given to one who does righteous acts.
Rachael Kohn: Three prayers from the Zoroastrian scriptures, read by Tim Desai in the community temple in Annangrove, New South Wales. Later in the program we'll rejoin him and the past President of the Australian Zoroastrian Association of New South Wales, Dr Purviz Kolsawalla.
If this is all completely new to you, I'm sure there's one word that rings a bell: Mazda, the car, which does get its name from Ahura Mazda, Mazda meaning wisdom.
But Zoroastrianism gave the West more than that. According to intrepid journalist and author Paul Kriwaczek, Zarathustra's thought greatly influenced other religions and some infamous heretical movements, like the Cathars. But who was he? London-based Kriwaczek went on a journey in search of Zarathustra.
Paul Kriwaczek: Zarathustra, who may well have been a contemporary of Moses, again a prophet of the late Bronze Age, can be regarded differently, depending on whether you are a Zoroastrian believer or simply an interested party.
I would say as far as I'm concerned, he was a religious reformer who appeared in the late Bronze Age, maybe around say 1200 BC, to reform and revitalise the age-old Magian religion that the Iranians had brought with them from the steppes of Central Asia when they entered Persia. This very, very ancient religion related very closely to the religion that the Aryan invaders of India believed in, and looking at the earliest texts of Zoroastrianism and the earliest texts of Hinduism, you see extraordinary similarity in the language and the ideas.
So they had brought this religion along with them into Persia, or into Persia/Afghanistan, and in their midst arose probably a noble, from his name, probably quite wealthy, but who felt that this antique religion they brought with them was not adequate to service their needs in their new settled condition. After all, the religious requirements of a nomadic people riding the range, looking after their cattle and so on, are quite different from the requirements of a settled, agricultural nation. And so Zarathustra seems to appear just at the right moment to reform the antique religions that they had into something new and perhaps, in our view anyway, a little more ethical and moral.
Rachael Kohn: And his god, Ahura Mazda, after whom the car is named, was an invention of his?
Paul Kriwaczek: Oh no. No, the earliest level of Iranian religion comparable to the earliest level of Hinduism actually had four gods. What Zarathustra taught was that one of them, only one of them, was a true god. Ahura Mazda is a description, divine wisdom, rather than a personal name, so he raised just the one of those old Aryan gods to the position of sole god, and the others simply became aspects of his personality.
Rachael Kohn: Well the scared book of Zarathustra's teachings is that Vendidad, how do you pronounce that?
Paul Kriwaczek: Vendidad. I mean like in other religions, there are many layers of the sacred canon. The earliest are a series of hymns, some of which have actually been ascribed to Zarathustra himself, the so-called Gathas. These are hymns in praise of God.
Then over the course of centuries, and in fact millennia, other levels of sacred text were added to the Gathas, so that in the end, the complete canon, which is known as the Avesta and the commentary on that canon, which is known as the Zand, and the two are combined usually by referring to them as Zand Avesta, that is the complete canon, the equivalent of, say the Christian bible, where you've got ancient Hebrew texts, you've got texts dating from the last 200 or 300 years before the birth of Christ, and then in the Christian religion you have the writings of the apostles themselves, and Acts of the Apostles and so on. So you've got a multilayered canon of literature, and the same thing goes for the Avesta.
The Vendidad itself was compiled relatively late, and contains materials that date from long after the time of Zarathustra himself.
Rachael Kohn: Well I gather it wasn't easy to secure a copy, let alone translate it from the Pahlavi Farsi language. Is this where we find the teaching of the two powers battling for control in the world, Good and Evil?
Paul Kriwaczek: Well that is absolutely fundamental to the whole thesis of the Zoroastrian faith, and the question is whether this was a perception by the prophet Zarathustra himself.
Zarathustra's theology was extremely sophisticated. This was not simply the crude idea of a battle between one good power and one evil power, because in that case he would not have been a monotheist. As far as Zarathustra was concerned, there was one God, one eternal power, but that there were other forces working in the world: forces of good and forces of evil. It may very well be that before Zarathustra's time there had been belief in a good God and a bad God, because there is evidence from much later, admittedly, that some peoples actually did have that particular theology.
The early Slavs, for example, according to some classical writings believed in a Good God and a Bad God. No, Zarathustra was much more sophisticated. He saw one God, that within each of us there is a battle between Good and Evil. And our task is to support the good in ourselves and battle against the evil in ourselves, which seems to me an extraordinarily modern ethical notion.
Rachael Kohn: Indeed, but probably for Friedreich Nietzsche, who popularised in the West the name Zarathustra, when he wrote Thus spake Zarathustra, that kind of polarity within the human soul wasn't exactly to his liking.
Paul Kriwaczek: No, it certainly wasn't. Well, poor old Nietzsche. First of all, he was a very sick man, one has to remember. Eventually he spent all those last years of his in a quasi-coma, really out of touch with reality altogether. So I think a lot has to be forgiven him, but this is simply a personal view and not supported by very much scholarship I must say, but my personal feeling is that one of the things that he was fed up with was the hypocrisy of 19th century religion in which people acted in all kinds of ways and then went to church on Sunday, and claimed to be entirely good. He wanted to sweep all that out of the way.
He felt that Christianity was a religion for weaklings, that all this turn-the-other-cheek stuff was very detrimental to the health of any kind of society. And tracing back where all that good versus bad had come from, he came upon Zarathustra. Nietzsche's idea in Also sprach Zarathustra, (or Thus spake Zarathustra, was this idea that we need to surpass ourselves, that we need to become more than human, and he came up with this idea of the Ubermensch, very difficult to translate because it really means 'above man', Superman really, except that Superman is a guy in red tights wearing his underpants over his tights.
Rachael Kohn: Is that notion really found in Zoroastrianism?
Paul Kriwaczek: Well it could be regarded as a kind of distant reflection of some of the teachings of Zarathustra. I mean if you speak to Zoroastrians today they would be horrified to hear it suggested that Nietzsche's very bleak philosophy had anything to do with their beliefs.
Rachael Kohn: One of the other reflections you see in history from Zarathustra's dualistic view, is that to be found in the Great Heresy of Gnosticism, the kind of Christianity that the 13th century Cathars practiced. But they weren't really aware of having a Zoroastrian origin; how do you make the link between this 13th century heresy and Zarathustra, or Zoroastrianism?
Paul Kriwaczek: It's certainly true that they would have been horrified to be told that they were anything but perfect Christians. That is unquestionable.
Nonetheless, there was, according to contemporary sources, a very strong connection between the Cathar heresy of Western Europe in that mediaeval period, and the dualistic Christian heresies of much further east in Europe, notably the Bogomils of Bulgaria and Bosnia.
The Bogomils of Bulgaria and Bosnia seem to have incorporated a very dualistic idea into their particular religion. In any case there were certainly connection between the Cathars of Provence and the Pyrenean region and the Bogamils of Bulgaria. When one looks at the Bogomils of Bulgaria, one can then again ask, Well where did those dualistic ideas come from? One of my great discoveries, surely well known to historians but it wasn't to me, is how much influence there had been from Iranian culture over that whole area of the Balkans.
For example, two of the nations, the Serbs and Croats that we think of as part of the South Slav people, have at least names which when they first appear in history, are the names of Iranian nomadic tribes, moving westward. Now I'm not for a moment saying that Serbs and Croats are actually Iranians ethnically by origin, what I am suggesting is that those South Slav peoples were very strongly influenced by Iranian culture, the religious language of the Slavs, all Slavs, including Russians and Poles and Czechs and South Slavs, have a large proportion of Iranian vocabulary. Even the very word for God, in most Slav languages, is an Iranian word. The name for Heaven, Paradise, is an Iranian word.
The influence of Iranian on the Slavs is huge. It therefore seems to me not unlikely that the dualistic idea, the idea of the two powers battling it out, which is central to Zoroastrianism, came to the Balkans from an Iranian source, and given that we know that the Great Heresy and the Balkan Bogomil heresy were linked by people and writings, it seems to me therefore quite reasonable to suggest that ultimately the sources were Iranian ideas.
Rachael Kohn: The amazingly influential culture of the Iranians, as discovered by Paul Kriwaczek in his fascinating book In Search of Zarathustra.
Later we'll be speaking to two Zoroastrians in their temple, actually called a Dabre Mehr, on the outskirts of Sydney.
But Australian suburban life is a long way from the desert regions of Iran, where Paul Kriwaczek trekked to find the earliest evidence of Zoroastrian communities.
Paul, in your travels in Iran, you saw one of the earliest Zoroastrian temples; what did it look like?
Paul Kriwaczek: A box. Most early religions buildings were designed, particularly in hot countries of course, were designed for worship al fresco. The idea of going inside a building in order to worship was a rarity. So this temple that I looked at was a small, square building with a pillared portico out of the front, and steps leading up to it, and the only thing that tells you that it's Zoroastrian is that above the doorway there is that symbol, the faravahar or fravashi a very, very ancient symbol which appears not only in Zoroastrianism, showing a sacred being riding on a huge pair of eagle's wings and an eagle's tail. Every aspect of this image has particular symbolic meaning, but basically it shows a divine spirit riding in the air, and that is the course symbolism of Zoroastrianism, and there it is above the building.
Rachael Kohn: Well Paul, some people might know the term, Manichaeism because that was the heresy that St Augustine followed before he became a Christian. Now I think that's related to one Zoroastrianism's last great prophets, Mani, and you argue that Mani was an artist. Now is that a radical take on Zoroastrianism?
Paul Kriwaczek: Well no, it's not. But hang on a moment. It's not quite accurate to say that Mani was a prophet of Zoroastrianism. Mani was a product of that really weird time, the first two or three centuries of our era, in which heresies and forgive the word, madnesses of all kind, flourished all over the Middle East. I can't remember the exact number, but there were hundreds of Christian heresies, hundreds of Jewish heresies, hundreds of completely off-the-wall ideas going round in the Middle East in that period, and it was out of that context that Mani arose.
Mani combines elements of Christianity, of Judaism, of Zoroastrianism, and of other -isms that we've probably long forgotten, into his own particular theology, of which he was the spokesman and the prophet. One of the aspects of his religious view was the dualism that he had probably learned from Zoroastrianism.
Mani himself saw himself as a successor to Christ. He was also very strongly influenced by Buddhism, which he learnt about on his travels through Central Asia. At the core of his beliefs was a belief in dualism, the battle between Good and Evil, but he raised it to another level, and one which would later have a very strong influence on the Great Heresy and the Bogomils of Bulgaria. None of them saw the battle between Good and Evil really as taking place on earth, they saw the earth as itself the representative of Evil, and heaven was the representative of Good.
They believed that nothing good could take place in the world, in fact the followers of Catharism, of the Great Heresy, went even further and outrageously to the Christians and Jews of their day, believed that the God of the Bible was actually the evil force, and that Jesus Christ represented the good force, and the best that we could do on this earth is to get out of it as quickly as possible, because no good could ever come of anything here.
Rachael Kohn: Well another strand to this story and your search for Zarathustra, takes us to Mithras, the God usually associated with a bull, who first appears amongst the Indo-European peoples and then in Iran. What is Mithras' connection to Zoroastrianism?
Paul Kriwaczek: Well in Zoroastrianism, Mithras is the helper of Ahura Mazda, the God, the intermediary between God and humankind. And he is not a god in himself, even though many of the hymns are in praise of Mithras, nonetheless he is a subsidiary character, he's a bit like I suppose in Judaeo-Christianity, the Archangel Gabriel, so he is an intermediary, he is the person who regulates the dealings between humanity and God.
When he arrives in the Roman world, he has changed his situation completely. The thing is that we actually know very, very little about what Mithras, his Roman name, meant to the Romans. Certainly he had a cult following for a couple of hundred years. He was the favourite God of the Roman soldier, hence all the temples built all over the periphery of the Roman Empire, even as far as Hadrian's Wall, that at that time divided, you can't call it England because there were no English, but geographically England from geographically Scotland. So all of these temples to Mithras, but exactly what went on in them I'm afraid nobody knows because the devotees who were all men by the way, were sworn to secrecy and that code of silence seems to have worked. So nobody every wrote anything down, and all we have is a few references in a few classical authors, which don't really amount to a proper picture of what it was that the devotees of Mithras believed.
Rachael Kohn: And yet you do strongly connect Mithras to Zoroastrianism, and it's on the basis of that dualism alone.
Paul Kriwaczek: Well yes, that I suppose is one of my most tendentious claims. All I can say is that Mithras arrives from the Zoroastrian pantheon, he had been an ancient Aryan, that is, Indo-European God, long before Zarathustra, long before the birth of Hinduism, he was one of the four Gods of the ancient Aryans.
He, as I just said, he goes on in Zoroastrianism to become the helper of God, and then somehow he arrives in the Roman Empire. But one scholar has even suggested that it didn't really mean anything, that this was a kind of mystical social organisation, a bit like the Freemasons, with no importance than them in terms of religious history and that his religion was all full of lots of astrological mumbo jumbo and other exotic and exciting ideas that came from far away, which the Romans enjoyed, gave them a frisson and a feeling of exoticism.
I'm certainly in no position to give an answer to that. All I can say is that Mithra arrives in the Roman Empire from the Iranian rather than the Indo-European source, and that there is a connection with Iranian religion, and that he brought with them many Iranian ideas, one of which is that theme of dualism, the fight of Good against Evil, that I have taken as representing the spirit of Zarathustra in many other religions. People have argued that wherever you see dualism, you don't necessarily have to see Zoroastrianism.
I personally don't believe that human societies conjure up ideas out of whole new cloth. I think human societies are great borrowers, and where they see an idea that sort of rings in consonance with their own ideas, they will borrow. So as far as I'm concerned, where you see dualism, in the end it is traceable back to the Zarathustrian prophecies.
Rachael Kohn: Paul, you set out to find Zarathustra; do you think you achieved that?
Paul Kriwaczek: No, because the closer you get to him, the more mysterious his reality becomes. On the other hand, what I did discover was a wonderful story of the constant fight through all religions, through Judaism, Christianity and Islam, of Good against Evil, which as I suggest in my book, even in today's post religious countries, Western Europe for example, by reading the newspapers you can see that that's what we call Manichaean conflict between Good and Evil is still as alive today as it ever was.
And tracing that through all of the different religions, through all the different centuries since the demise of the ancient Iranian empire of Alexander the Great, I suppose has taught me, well it's taught me more about myself, as most searchers do teach the searcher more about him or herself than the object sought for. So I learnt a lot about myself, I learnt about human ethics and morality, and I learnt a lot about the hidden forces that shape our history, but that our school history books never usually tell us about.
Rachael Kohn: So Zoroaster remains more hidden than revealed, but I think your book is a great guide to seeing his signs in the present, and also in the past. Thank you so much for being on The Spirit of Things.
Paul Kriwaczek: My great pleasure, thank you.
Rachael Kohn: You never know where Zoroaster will turn up, including in Mozart's The Magic Flute. But to find out how, you'll have to read Paul Kriweczeck's book, In Search of Zarathustra - it's an adventure!
Rachael Kohn: Well now that you've got some idea of how ancient and influential the ideas of Zoroaster or Zarathustra have been, it's time to meet some Zoroastrians. Dr Purviz Kolsawalla is a former longstanding President of the Australian Zoroastrian Association of New South Wales. By profession he's a lecturer in Marketing and Management, but he's also a scholar of Zoroastrianism.
Tim Desai, is a Zoroastrian priest. They preside over a community that includes elderly members from India and young 'Kangaroo Zarathustis'. Purvez and Tim met with me in the Darbe Mehr, the temple, in Annangrove, New South Wales, where I was still getting acquainted with the surroundings.
Rachael Kohn: We're standing in front of a silver urn on which there's fire burning. What's the significance of the fire?
Purviz Kolsawalla: The fire is essentially the all-purifying spirit amongst Zoroastrianism, and I think we do is we worship fire, and that's why you know what you have in India what is called fire temples. And essentially in the fire temple also there is this kind of an urn on a much large scale. And you know, the fire is the great purifier, is how we look on it.
Rachael Kohn: Does the fire symbolise Ahura Mazda?
Purviz Kolsawalla: In a way it does, in the sense that it signifies light. Like you know, as you enter this building, it's called the Darbe Mehr, which means the House of Light, and I guess fire in that symbolic sense would also represent that you're awakening, there's light, there's truth and righteousness to these things.
Rachael Kohn: We're in a sort of chapel or a tabernacle, is it? How would you describe this particular small room?
Purviz Kolsawalla: We like to call it a sanctum sanctorium really. And both words, one is Latin and the other one tabernacle I thought would be more Jewish. But the person who originally set this up called it the tabernacle, and we've been calling it the tabernacle. It represents the fire itself or the room where the consecrated fire is kept.
Rachael Kohn: Now you're wearing a head covering. Is that for priests alone?
Purviz Kolsawalla: No, all Zoroastrians wear a head covering, and in fact maybe my father or my grandfather's days, people wouldn't be found without a head covering there. And gradually I guess we've lost it. But if I were performing my priestly duties I'd be wearing a turban, otherwise I wear this little cap and we call it a topi, which is the exact word for a cap.
Rachael Kohn: Tim, what goes into becoming a priest; how did you become one?
Tim Desai: Rachael the priesthood is traditionally a dynastic thing, hereditary. So if my father my grandfather and about four generations before them probably, were all priests. And the way it works is that you have to get your son initiated into the priesthood, and if they don't get initiated, and if two generations go away, then the priesthood hereditary is lost from the family.
Rachael Kohn: When were you initiated?
Tim Desai: I was initiated in about 1961, '62, and it's got to be done before you reach puberty. And it's ritualistic you know, the whole thing. You have to go through about three what we call baths. Really you stay in this confined space and you're supposed to do certain purifying rituals that you go through. And you go though this three times in ten days, and then after 30 days you become a priest. And you've got to know all your prayers by half, so there we have these 72 chapters.
At one stage in my grandfathers days, he'd know all the 72 chapters by heart, because then Zoroastrians were in a very oral tradition that has been handed down from family to family, and the priests are the ones who maintain this oral tradition all the time. But in my time, I probably learned about 36. Now my sons have become priests as well. One of them became a priest in about '94, and the other in about '97. And for them they had to just learn a few of the chapters. Like they would know the four chapters by heart, the main four ones, and the rest of them they could read through a book.
Rachael Kohn: Do all your sons become priests by definition? You don't choose one in particular?
Tim Desai: No, I think it depends. It could have happened that I would have elder son done and not the younger son, or the younger one and not the elder one, it's not enjoined that all of them have to become - but they'd have to learn all the prayers and things like that. So it took them about a year and a half of going every evening to a lady in Sydney, and she was thankfully close to us so she taught them the prayers.
Rachael Kohn: And do priests in the Zoroastrian tradition have to live a particularly pure life? What sort of obligations are upon you? I see you're smiling there.
Tim Desai: Rachael, the way it is, and I think this is very different from, say any other priesthood. In the sense the priests from other communities provide pastoral care to their flock as well. Whereas amongst the Zoroastrians that's not the case. The Zoroastrian priest is essentially just there to perform ritualistic duties and things like that. So when you ask me meanings of prayers I wouldn't know that. But someone like Purviz who's interested in the religion, would have done that sort of thing. And traditionally I think that might be the case, but this is how we've kept it like that.
Rachael Kohn: So the priests and the scholars are different classes in a way. The priests aren't always the scholars?
Tim Desai: They may or may not be kind of thing, yes. But like you've got some priests now who are real scholars as well and they're quite dignified.
Rachael Kohn: Tim, is there a supreme authority in the Zoroastrian tradition?
Tim Desai: I think that's another way we divert from say the Christian religion, where you have a head Pope kind of things, who decides all these matters within the church and there is a Council of Cardinals and things like that. Amongst the Zoroastrians, we don't have a head priest as such, and we don't have a council which imposes that these are the rules you need to follow for the rest of the community.
However we do have what we call the Chief Priest of one of the large Atash Behrams in India. That man is Dr Kotwal. Now he would be one who is one of these scholars, as wall as knows the rituals inside out kind of thing. So in that respect we really don't have a hierarchical system, Rachael.
Rachael Kohn: As we're standing in the Darbe Mehr in front of the sanctuary and in this lovely hall. Above the sanctuary is a very interesting symbol that I would love you to describe, particularly identifying its meaning. It looks like a man standing on an eagle.
Tim Desai: Yes Rachael, the symbol is called Fravashi in Avestan and Faravahar, in our present day Gujerati. It represents the human soul. The top part of it is the shape of a human being with a turban, because all Zoroastrians are supposed to cover their head. This particular symbol is holding a ring in one hand, that's a ring of covenant that we have made with Ahura Mazda of a god to follow his teachings.
The lower half of the body are the wing, they appear like eagle's wings. They represent our soul as it soars up to heaven after you're finished in this life. There are two strings attached at the end, they are the strings that we have at our kusti, that's a cord that we wear on our body, always, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Then there are 72 different feathers in the wings, they represent the 72 chapters of our prayers that we recite. And the letterings on the top are three Avestan Words, Humata, Hukta, Huvarashta. It means Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds. That's our Zoroastrian credo.
Rachael Kohn: Purviz, you mentioned the kusti. Now what is that for and what is it exactly?
Purviz Kolsawalla: There are two things that every Zoroastrian wears, men and women, and it's not only priesthood, everybody, and there are two garments, one is called sudreh which is an inner shirt made of white muslin, and a kusti is a cord made out of lambswool 72 threads woven together to represent the 72 chapters of our prayers. People wear it at the initiation and it can happen between the age of 7 to 11.
In ancient Iran it was 15 years of age, but today it's between the age of 7 and 11, where two priests make the child recite the prayers. The reason why we wear them is it's our symbol of our religion, also shows that we are Zoroastrians and hence representing Zarathustra. So that's the reason why we have sudreh and kusti.
Rachael Kohn: Purviz can people come in to the Zoroastrian tradition? Are there converts from outside?
Purviz Kolsawalla: I can answer this question in several steps. The original vision of Zarathustra was universal, in other words, anybody could have joined that religion. Having said that, we were never a proselytising religion. In other words, wherever we went we built empires, which stretched to a huge scope of land, but we never forcibly converted anybody to our religion. But if they wanted to get admitted into the religion, it was acceptable.
However with the advent of Islam some Zoroastrians fled from Iran and settled in India which was predominantly Hindu. It would have been impossible if we had started converting Hindus to our religion, we wouldn't have been allowed to stay. That's where we became an insular religion where only Zoroastrians who are born in Zoroastrianism can become Zoroastrians. In Iran it would be impossible to convert somebody from Islam, that would be punishable by death. So originally, Zoroastrian was an open religion, but then it became insular.
Having said that now, there is a certain group of Zoroastrians in USA who are accepting converts, only if they willingly want to join the religion.
Purviz Kolsawalla: It's probably only one of the major religions where it has not gone actively proselytizing people I guess.
Rachael Kohn: Yes, I guess Judaism is also one of those, and in fact there are some very interesting similarities. You just recently celebrated the New Year, Navruz. Is it the same time on the calendar in the Northern Hemisphere as in the Southern Hemisphere?
Purviz Kolsawalla: Yes. Navruz is celebrated around 21st March which is the spring equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. It goes back to several thousands of years even before Zarathustis. With the result today, Navruz is not only celebrated by Zarathustis, but by everybody who lives in Iran, Afghanistan, the Northern Russian republics, parts of Iraq, and it represents the coming of spring, which means after a very heavy winter where snow has covered everything the spring burst forth and it's a reawakening of life.
We call it Jamshidi Navruz, named after a very ancient thing called King Jamshid, who is almost identical to Noah. So this is why this religion's ceremony is always fixed on one day.
Rachael Kohn: Speaking of particular days, does Zoroastrianism have a sabbath?
Purviz Kolsawalla: No, Rachael the concept of a sabbath is Judaic-Christian, where the calendar is divided into seven days and one day is the sabbath day. In Zoroastrian calendar, we have 12 months of 30 days each, plus five holy days called the Gathas days at the end. Every four years we add the sixth day, or it was once in 120 years. The sabbath day as such in original Zoroastrianism were four specific days in a month. But since now we live in a Western world, Sunday is our sabbath now.
Rachael Kohn: In this community, in Sydney, how many are there, and do they come together every week?
Purviz Kolsawalla: No, because we live so far apart. To give you an idea of the numbers, we are approximately 1200 Zoroastrians, men, women and children in this city itself. Not everybody comes together but quite a large number belong to the Association and we meet at least on the second Sunday of the month here, plus on our festival days. But to answer your question, no, not everyone can get together.
Rachael Kohn: The Zoroastrian credo is good thoughts, good words, good deeds, and of course that's a very simplified version of the teachings of the faith, but how does a typical Zarathusti understand Good? What gives them that guide to decide what's a good word, what's a good deed what's a good thought?
Purviz Kolsawalla: A very interesting question. In certain religions it's clearly spelt out for you. Do it this way, and it's great, otherwise you can't. But one of the things from the Gathas, which is a two-stream, you use your own good mind to decide what is right and what is wrong. However, he is not dropping us in the middle without any guidance, he has given us his teachings. If we follow Zarathustra's teachings, if we understand them, then our own conscience, our own mind will tell you what is good or what's wrong.
That doesn't mean all Zoroastrians always do things good because we make mistakes, but Zarathustis enjoin that if you make a mistake, learn from it and don't repeat it again. This is one that separates Zoroastrianism from other religions. However you're given the freedom of choice. It's a huge responsibility put on thee human being.
Rachael Kohn: Well the notion of Evil then is very important, the sorts of things that one must avoid; what would they be?
Purviz Kolsawalla: The concept of evil, every religion tries to get a handle on it, and very few of them have got a total handle on it, including Zarathustism. Ahura Mazda, is our God, Ahura meaning Lord, Mazda being wisdom, is an all-good God. If that is the case, where does the evil come from? So in Gathas Zarathustra said there are two mentalities which are existing right from the very word Go. A good mentality and an evil one. They're not equal but they are always in conflict to the last day when the day of redemption takes place when all evil will be destroyed. Now where did evil come from? No-one really knows, but it does exist.
You can consider evil from your own mind, you could have evil thoughts, but then there is actually evil out in the world itself. But to tell you exactly where evil came from no-one can explain. But the only reasons why evil exists is otherwise how would you know what's good? Evil is a direct antithesis of good. And because we are supposed to do good thing, we have to recognise evil, and fight it, which every Zoroastrian does.
Rachael Kohn: I understand that to keep on the straight and narrow, each Zarathusti can appeal to his fravashi or khuda.
Purviz Kolsawalla: Yes, that's very much so. In Zoroastrianism there are three spiritual components. One is the soul, which every living being has, we just call the all-one, but there is the essence of God, the goodness which is there in every living thing, that's called fravashi.
That's a guide which God has put in you to show you the right path. And when you ask for help your own frawashi helps you, which is important. But also when a person like Tim recites prayers the fravashi of the dead, they help every living being, not only Zarathustis, everybody. Actually they are the spirit of people who are living and dead. The concept of angels and archangels is Judaeo-Christian, is similar in Zoroastrianism, our angels are called yazatas Which means the beneficial beings, and amesha spentas, seven of them, which are the bountiful immortals. So they are there to help.
Rachael Kohn: Tim, you've been a priest for the Zoroastrian community now for many years; do you see changes in the younger generation?
Tim Desai: Rachael, I think really one sits down and wonders what the Zoroastrian community will be like 20 years from now. I think what someone was telling me was that we've had in this Western liberal society, there is change going around that we really don't how it will be like 20 years from now. But as far as the youth go, all being initiated into the religion, and I think at some stage they would all accept that they are Zoroastrians, and they will ultimately look after Zoroastrianism in Australia as well. And it might be a completely different picture from what we have them in India probably for that matter.
Rachael Kohn: Is it hard for example, to get young people to wear the garments that identify you as a Zoroastrian?
Tim Desai: Yes. The sudreh and kusti that all Zoroastrians are supposed to wear, I think they've more or less been dispensed with by the women, I think it doesn't go with their fashion sense I guess. But amongst the boys, they still follow it, like my sons would wear it every day to school unless there is a sports day around when they wouldn't wear it. And somehow, after some time there are more sports days than study days at school. So one has to understand that. But I think even they appreciate that there is certain things, certain responsibilities which they have.
Rachael Kohn: How about reaction to them, do they have any problems with Australians understanding their obligtations, their identity?
Tim Desai: I don't think they go about showing themselves off as Zoroastrians in the first place, and I think some of them would be very worried to stand up in class and say they're Zoroastrian, as the word itself, no-one would have heard about kind of thing. But as they grow older I think they feel proud about their heritage.
Rachael Kohn: Well 1200 seems like a pretty good number for Sydney, but what's the picture of Zoroastrians around the world, where are they largely located?
Purviz Kolsawalla: The exact number of Zoroastrians is not known because the census in every country doesn't ask about the religion, especially when you're a small religion. But it's estimated there are only 200,000 Zoroastrians throughout the world. That's all. We are a diminishing race, the reason being our rate at which we breed is less than 2, so we're not even replacing our numbers.
The largest amount of Zoroastrians outside Iran, because no real numbers on Iran are available, is in the city of (Bombay) Mumbai. So India has the largest number of Zoroastrians, but today they're all moved out to the diaspora in the Western world, so that almost every Western country now has a Zoroastrian presence. Which is good in one way that we are spread out, but bad in another because if the numbers go too low, then it's beyond the time of repleneshing itself. We are at the crossroads at the moment. That's exactly like my ancestors were when they left Iran and came to India.
Rachael Kohn: Purviz Kolsawalla is a former President of the Australian Zoroastrian Association of New South Wales, and Tim Desai is the community priest. They were speaking to me in their temple, or Darbe Meher in Annangrove, New South Wales.
I don't know about you, but I wouldn't mind having a khuda, or guardian angel, to look after me.
That's the program, remedying our amnesia about one of the world's great religions, Zoroastrianism. It was originaly broadcast on the 9th May 2004.
You can have a look at the Temple and our guests as well as read an excerpt from Kriwaczek's book In Search of Zarathustra by going to our website, that's abc.net.au/religion and following the prompts to The Spirit of Things.
The program is produced by me and Geoff Wood with technical production by Angus Kingston.


Submitted by Gary O. Spessard1, Wan Kit Chan2, and S. Masamune2.
Checked by Trina Kittredge and Robert V. Stevens.
A. Thallium(I) 2-methylpropane-2-thiolate. A 500-mL, round-bottomed flask equipped with a magnetic stirring bar and a pressure-equalizing dropping funnel to which a nitrogen inlet adapter is attached is charged with 47.2 g (0.189 mol) of thallium(I) ethoxide (Note 1) and 200 mL of anhydrous benzene (Note 2). Over a period of 15 min 19.2 g (24 mL, 0.213 mol) of 2-methylpropane-2-thiol (Note 1) is added. The reaction mixture is stirred under a nitrogen atmosphere for 1 hr and the resulting precipitate is collected by filtration. After washing with three 100-mL portions of anhydrous pentane (Note 3), 48.5–51.2 g (90–95%) of the product is obtained as bright yellow crystals, mp 165–170°C dec (Note 4). This material is sufficiently pure for use in the following steps.
B. S-tert-Butyl cyclohexanecarbothioate. A solution of 4.38 g (0.030 mol) of cyclohexanecarboxylic acid chloride (Note 5) in 150 mL of ether (Note 6) is placed in a dry, 500-mL, round-bottomed flask equipped with a magnetic stirring bar and a gas inlet. The system is flushed with nitrogen and the solution is cooled in an ice bath. Stirring is initiated and 8.82 g (0.031 mol) of the thallium(I) 2-methylpropane-2-thiolate prepared in Step A is added. After the resulting milky suspension is stirred for 2 hr at room temperature, the fine precipitate is removed by filtration through Celite (Note 7) and washed thoroughly with four 50-mL portions of ether. The combined filtrate and washings are concentrated on a rotary evaporator to give a pale-yellow oil, which is distilled under reduced pressure through a 5-cm Vigreux column. After separation of a forerun, 5.36–5.44 g (90–91%) of the colorless thiol ester is collected, bp 100°C (7 mm) (Note 8).
C. S-tert-Butyl ester from cholic acid. A dry, 250-mL, one-necked, round-bottomed flask is equipped with a magnetic stirring bar and a nitrogen inlet adapter; the system is purged with, and maintained under, dry nitrogen. After 4.90 g (0.0120 mol) of cholic acid (Note 9), 1.33 g (0.0131 mol) of triethylamine (Note 10), and 60 mL of dry tetrahydrofuran (THF, (Note 11)) are placed in the flask, a stoppered, pressure-equalizing dropping funnel charged with a solution of 2.18 g (0.0127 mol) of diethyl phosphorochloridate (Note 9) in 30 mL of dry THF is attached to the top of the nitrogen inlet adapter (see Figure 1). The solution is added to the stirred reaction mixture over a period of 5 min and stirring is continued for 3.5 hr at room temperature. The dropping funnel is removed, and the reaction mixture is taken up into a dry, 100-mL syringe and transferred to a dry filtering apparatus. This apparatus is shown in Figure 2. The glass-fritted filter funnel of medium porosity with a built-in vacuum adapter is connected to the middle neck of a 500-mL, three-necked, round-bottomed flask. A calcium chloride drying tube is connected to the vacuum adapter and a nitrogen inlet adapter is attached to the top of the filter funnel. The precipitated triethylamine hydrochloride is now removed from the reaction mixture by stoppering the nitrogen inlet adapter and using the positive nitrogen pressure to force the solution through the glass frit. Dry tetrahydrofuran, 40 mL, is used to rinse the original reaction flask. The stopper of the nitrogen inlet adapter (Figure 2) is removed, and this washing is transferred via the same syringe to the filtering apparatus and forced through the filter in the same manner described above. One of the stoppers of the three-necked flask is replaced by a nitrogen inlet adapter and the filter funnel is replaced by a mechanical stirrer. As the filtrate is stirred at room temperature, the remaining stopper is removed and 3.90 g (0.0133 mol) of thallium(I) 2-methylpropane-2-thiolate is added. After the addition is complete, the neck is restoppered, and the resulting mixture is vigorously stirred under nitrogen at room temperature overnight. The precipitate is removed by suction filtration through Celite filter aid (Note 7) and washed with three 30-mL portions of THF. The filtrate and washings are combined and concentrated under reduced pressure, and the resulting residue is dissolved in 160 mL of ethyl acetate. This solution is washed with two 100-mL portions of aqueous 5% NaHCO3, then with 50 mL of aqueous saturated NaCl, and finally is dried over anhydrous Na2SO4. The solvent is removed by rotary evaporator to afford a white, gummy paste which crystallizes upon trituration with 20 mL of acetonitrile. The crystals are collected by suction filtration to afford 4.2 g of crude product. Recrystallization from 90 mL of hot acetonitrile provides 3.5 g of the thiol ester as small white needles, mp 166–167°C (Note 12). A second crop of 0.5 g, mp 165–166°C, can be obtained upon concentration of the mother liquor to approximately 30 mL, for a combined yield of 70%.
1. Thallium(I) ethoxide and 2-methylpropane-2-thiol were purchased from Aldrich Chemical Company, Inc.
2. Benzene, reagent grade, was purified and dried by first removing the benzene–water azeotrope by simple distillation and then collecting the remaining liquid under an atmosphere of nitrogen.
3. Dry pentane was obtained by allowing practical grade pentane to be shaken with and then distilled from concentrated sulfuric acid.
4. The product should be stored in a dark bottle under an atmosphere of argon to prevent discoloration and possible decomposition.
5. Cyclohexanecarboxylic acid chloride may be prepared in the following way: a pressure-equalizing addition funnel fitted with a nitrogen inlet tube is attached to a 500-mL, round-bottomed flask equipped with a magnetic stirring bar and also charged with 12.8 g (0.100 mol) of cyclohexanecarboxylic acid (purchased from Aldrich Chemical Company, Inc.) and 250 mL of anhydrous ether. (Anhydrous benzene may also be used.) The ethereal solution is cooled to ice-bath temperature and 25.4 g (0.200 mol) of oxalyl chloride (purchased from Aldrich Chemical Company, Inc.) is added over a period of 20 min. Under nitrogen, the resulting solution is stirred for 26 hr before it is concentrated on a rotary evaporator to afford a pale-yellow oil. Distillation of the oil yields 13.5 g (92%) of cyclohexanecarboxylic acid chloride as a clear, colorless liquid, bp 75°C (30 mm); IR (liquid film) cm−1: 1800 (strong).
6. Anhydrous ether was obtained from Mallinckrodt Inc. and used without further purification.
7. Celite (C-211), purchased from Fisher Scientific Company, was washed thoroughly with ether.
8. The spectral characteristies of the product are as follows: IR (liquid film) cm−1: 1675 (strong); 1H NMR (neat) δ: 1.42 [s, 9 H, C(CH3)3], 1.0–2.0 (m, 10 H, all CH2 in cyclohexane portion), 2.3 (m, 1 H, CH).
9. Cholic acid and diethyl phosphorochloridate were obtained from Aldrich Chemical Company, Inc.
10. Triethylamine was purchased from Eastman Organic Chemicals.
11. Tetrahydrofuran, reagent grade, was refluxed over and distilled from lithium aluminum hydride immediately prior to use (see Org. Synth., Coll. Vol. V 1973, 976 for warning).
12. The spectral properties of the product are as follows: IR (CHCl3) cm−1: 3600 (sharp, weak), 3430 (broad, medium), 1675 (strong), no absorption at 1700.
Other methods that can be used to prepare thiol esters from carboxylic acids include the use of aryl thiocyanates,14 thiopyridyl chloroformate,15 2-fluoro-N-methylpyridinium tosylate,16 1-hydroxybenzotriazole,17 and boron thiolate.18 Direct conversion of O-esters to S-esters can also be effected via aluminum and boron reagents.19 20 21 However, the applicability of these14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21 and other methods,22 23 24 25 including the carboxyl group activation by means of 4-dimethylaminopyridine (DMAP) and dicyclohexylcarbodiimide (DCC),25 to the selective thiol ester formation discussed above has not been clearly defined.
Department of Chemistry, Saint Olaf College, Northfield, MI 55057.
Department of Chemistry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T6G 2G2. The present address of S. Masamune is the Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139.
Taylor, E. C.; Robey, R. L.; Johnson, D. K.; McKillip, A. Org. Synth., Coll. Vol. VI 1988, 791.
Field, L. Synthesis 1972, 106.
Masamune, S.; Kamata, S.; Diakur, J.; Sugihara, Y.; Bates, G. S. Can J. Chem. 1975, 53, 3693. Yamada, S.; Yokoyama, Y.; Shioiri, T. Chem. Pharm. Bull. 1977, 25, 2423.
Gais, H.-J. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. Engl. 1977, 16, 244. The preparation of an alkanethiol ester requires a trace amount of the corresponding sodium thiolate.
Masamune, S.; Hirama, M.; Mori, S.; Ali, Sk. A.; Garvey, D. S. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1981, 103, 1568; 9 10.
Mukaiyama, T. Synth. Commun. 1972, 2, 243.
Bates, G. S.; Diakur, J.; Masamune, S. Tetrahedron Lett. 1976, 4423.
Masamune, S.; Souto-Bachiller, F.; Hayase, Y. unpublished results.
Corey, E. J.; Brunelle, D. J. Tetrahedron Lett. 1976, 3409.
Grieco, P. A.; Yokoyama, Y.; Williams, E. J. Org. Chem. 1978, 43, 1283.
Corey, E. J.; Clark, D. A. Tetrahedron Lett. 1979, 2875.
Watanabe, Y.; Shoda, S.; Mukaiyama, T. Chem. Lett. 1976, 741.
Horiki, K. Synth. Commun. 1977, 7, 251.
Pelter, A.; Levitt, T. E.; Smith, K. J. Chem. Soc., Perkin Trans. I, 1977, 1672.
Hatch, R. P.; Weinreb, S. M. J. Org. Chem. 1977, 42, 3960.
Neiss, B.; Steglich, W. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl. 1978, 17, 522.
Chan, W. K.; Spessard, G. O.; Masamune, S. Org. Synth., Coll. Vol. VII 1990, 87.


Famous people in Russia and abroad strive to stand out. Many of them afterwards regret that they did not listen to the voice of reason when choosing an outfit. Today we will talk about the most horrible images of stars.
Nargiz Zakirova once put on a black gauze dress for a social event.
Photos "they tried but failed"


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Blockchain innovation: put aside the fear of being first
Fear of being first is becoming a recognised phobia in the modern corporate landscape, where technological change is happening at a dizzying pace, and making the wrong move can end in disaster.
The fear of being first often results in companies being behind the curve on technological innovation
Change represents a terrifying dilemma to corporate executives who are considering updating their technological systems: do they fix only the things their staff are telling them that are outdated and need fixing, or do they completely overhaul the system from the ground up?
Such binary decisions are akin to flipping a coin as there are two sides to any dilemma. Indeed, in his 1962 study Diffusion of Innovators, Everett Rogers – an American communications sociologist – saw essentially two groups: early adopters and late adopters.
Early adopters take the biggest risks: early versions of technology can be riddled with bugs and expensive to implement. But the benefits are usually that the vendor of the technology is keen to display users prominently, so will give them preferential treatment in pricing terms and IT support.
But this fear of being first becomes more prevalent in global commerce as technological change moves ever more-swiftly forward.
What is this fear of being first?
It usually manifests itself in delays in decision making: indeed, some of the biggest decisions made at executive level in the modern corporate world is over a company's technological response to change.
The biggest fear is that – for whatever reason – you made the wrong decision. If a company employs a chief technical officer (CTO) in charge of a legacy IT system which still does the job, but does it slowly, requiring substantial IT support, and large numbers of staff to operate it – what should his approach be?
Legacy IT systems can be tough to replace: the biggest issue is resistance from staff
He might get many emails and calls every day advising what needs fixing in this system. But he might have other ideas: bin the lot and totally rebuild his company's technology network.
Here, he's likely to meet the first resistance from the staff and managers who are most vulnerable to losing their jobs if the legacy system is replaced.
"This can be made doubly hard if the company does not have a 'digital first' culture in place," says Shamus Rae, head of digital disruption at KPMG in a tech strategy report from earlier this year.
"And in many businesses where the majority of what they do is still non-digital, there is an understandable reluctance to change."
But the CTO is likely to have his own doubts. The questions he's likely to be asking himself might be: what if this new tech reduces our compatibility with our clients? Or if the costs outweigh the benefits? What if it simply doesn't work? Or if the technology evolves or develops into something much better next year?
Understandable reservations given the costs of replacing systems or adopting new technology, and blockchain is no different.
Loadstar, the supply chain magazine, reports that in May, Paul Brody, global blockchain leader for EY told members of the Blockchain in Transport Alliance that he'd been involved in the development of a blockchain-based system for a client that met all technological and cost requirements, only to be told that it had decided not to take it.
When asked why, the client simply replied: "We don't want to be first."
Rae at KPMG understands this reluctance. He says: "The mere threat of changing how a business operates will be enough for many – from board level downwards – to try to resist embracing digital technologies fully."
The downside of delay
Delaying decisions on adopting new technologies can come at a terrible price: none displayed more succinctly than mobile phone producer Nokia and its decision to stick doggedly with its increasingly-outdated Symbian smartphone platform when Google's Android and Apple's iOS platforms where quickly becoming the industry standards.
Nokia resisted change, hanging on to its Symbian system when the world was turning to Android and iOS
Nokia had at one time been the world's biggest distributor of mobile phones, but weakening sales eventually led to the sale of its mobile business to Microsoft in 2014.
But in terms of blockchain, where new use cases are being developed every month, the potential downsides of not being an early adopter are becoming clearer every week.
Financial services firms are experimenting and developing cross-border payments systems using blockchain that could, very soon, become the industry standard. In this industry the competition is so intense, if you don't move swiftly, you die.
This could also be true of supply chain or international trade finance – a traditionally dusty world of paperwork-heavy documentation and slow-moving, step-by-step processing.
Blockchain's distributed ledger technology has the potential to thoroughly disrupt this industry and the winners will be the ones whose ability to reduce the bureaucratic processes by hours or even minutes can reduce delivery times by days or even weeks.
Overcoming the fear of being first
First of all, let's add a caveat here: there are genuine reasons to fear being the first to move. As noted above, early innovations can be quirky, bug-ridden and expensive to implement. The real fear should be: the fear of getting left behind.
But there should be no reason to fear being among the early adopters. Let's have a closer look at Everett Rogers' diffusion of innovations. It's a simple bell curve with the distribution laid out as below:
As can be seen, the majority of adopters of new technological innovations comes later along the innovation cycle.
These are the ones who have seen the benefits through their rivals and are keen to hop aboard when costs and risks are lower. But this can come at the risk of losing customers to the innovators and early adopters.
Shamus Rae at KPMG believes that if you are going to put digital innovation first, it must be at the heart of everything you do.
"That will probably mean picking apart everything you do now and rebuilding it from scratch," he adds.
It also means refusing to listen to those voices that tell you, as a chief technical officer, that your new plans will mean job cuts and the installation of expensive new technology.
This is a powerful rallying cry from the anti-digital brigade, says Rae. "Instead, you need to illustrate the value the technology can bring to the business, and how it can help you achieve more for your customers and keep ahead of the competition."
He concludes: "At the same time, you also need to help your people realise that the bigger threat to their jobs is not the technology, but the failure to adopt it."
Delay in adopting new technology can be damaging, both in terms of sales and reputation.
But, there are also examples where putting an organisation's full weight behind a particular technology can also have disastrous consequences, particularly at the early adoption stage as developmental changes and refinements can leave you looking outdated even after you've spent millions on something that is ostensibly new and top of the range.
But the blockchain innovators are already out there: the banks have been among the first to test out new trade finance and supply chain management platforms and adopting new cross-border payment systems.
Municipal governments have also been at the heart of blockchain innovation, using distributed ledger technology to test out new systems of voting and managing services.
Other commercial applications are on their way – indeed the patent offices are awash with blockchain patent filings, with companies such as WalMart, Facebook, Ford Motor, IBM and Bank of America among the most active.
These are the innovators and now is the time for those businesses that don't want to miss the bus to jump on board and become early adopters.
Most companies can confidently put aside their fear of being first – simply because they have already been beaten there.


* A 10% discount applies if you are a member FQCC.
The chalet has two bedrooms.
Pets are allowed on condition that they commit no damage and they are kept on a leash.
Note that if guests do not show up for their booking and they have not canceled at least 15 days in advance we will take a penalty of 30% of the total reservation.


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Movie Review ~ Ad Astra
by Joe Movie Review	• Tags: 20th Century Fox, Anthony Katagas, Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Donald Sutherland, Ethan Gross, James Gray, Liv Tyler, Marc Butan, Ruth Negga, Tommy Lee Jones
Synopsis: Astronaut Roy McBride undertakes a mission across an unforgiving solar system to uncover the truth about his missing father and his doomed expedition that now, 30 years later, threatens the universe.
Stars: Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga, Donald Sutherland, Liv Tyler
Review: It's well-documented (on this site) that I'm a sucker for any film set in space so it was probably always a given that Ad Astra was going to rank high with me. Unless it was just a film where Brad Pitt watched Melissa McCarthy's Tammy on the International Space Station for two hours, chances are I'd find something to like about it. Thankfully, this features no McCarthy stinker but is instead a James Gray directed thinker and it is a wonder to see and feel. With an excellent production design and stellar technical features across the board, Ad Astra might not be exactly the pulse-pounding action film advertised in trailers but it's a worthwhile excursion into deep space with an A-list movie star continuing a 2019 winning streak.
Years into the future we've made advancements in our space exploration. We have colonized the moon and have ventured further into our solar system, establishing an outpost on Mars and sending manned expeditions to look for intelligent life in distant galaxies. It was on one of these expeditions that H. Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones, The Homesman) went missing on his way to Neptune. Sixteen years later, a series of solar flares are threatening Earth and grow more dangerous with each passing day. Scientists have pinned the source of these anomalies emanating several light years away. From an insolvent spaceship long thought lost. Near Neptune.
That's when Roy McBride (Brad Pitt, The Big Short) is brought in. A decorated astronaut known for his calm demeanor even in the most stressful of circumstances (his heart rate never goes above 80, even when involved in a catastrophic event), he's the only son of Clifford McBride and hasn't quite gotten over the absence of his father during his formative years. Though he's followed in his father's footsteps, he can't get out of his shaow. Now, with new intelligence gathered, the military has evidence that Roy's father might not be as missing in the line of duty as they once thought. Hoping to stave off the global event on the horizon, the military asks Roy to venture to the ends of the galaxy to locate his father and stop him from plunging the Earth into ruin. Along with Colonel Pruitt (Donald Sutherland, The Hunger Games), an old friend of his father's, Roy first travels to the Moon, then Mars, and then…well, you'll see.
Director James Gray has had an interesting career up until this point. Starting out with five very New York-centric films that feel, to me, very similar, he hit upon something truly wonderful in 2016 when he adapted the bestselling novel The Lost City of Z. The trouble is, Amazon Studios who did not quite know how to release it correctly, distributed it and it unfortunately was lost in the rubble. Three years later Ad Astra almost suffered a similar fate when it was caught in the crossfire after Disney bought 20th Century Fox and moved around its release date. Thankfully, the studio heads at Disney stuck with their plans to release it and even if they've still slightly bungled the marketing of the film they have given it a decent sized push.
It's not exactly a spoiler to say Ad Astra is more heady drama than sci-fi action film like Gravity or The Martian. It's more cerebral than anything else and at 122 minutes doesn't mind taking its time to get to the point. Taking a cue from Kubrick, Gray isn't above letting the audience make up their own minds about plot developments and meanings behind what goes on the further Pitt's character travels toward his long-delayed reunion with his dad. I'm sure they'll be a lot of analysis as to the psyche behind Roy, the distance he travels, and the outcome of it all but it's best to go in knowing the film isn't all action.
Not that Gray doesn't feature several impressive sequences of thrill along the way because he sure does. From a cat-and-mouse chase played in fraught silence on a lunar surface to a recon mission that takes a freakish turn, Gray surprised me at the lengths he was willing to go to keep Roy and the audience off balance. On the other hand, there are a few moments that could be tightened up a bit; shoring up some of the more protracted passages would help us arrive at the final act a hair more alert. Though it may be traveling further into slightly more spoiler-y territory, I was disappointed to see Ruth Negga (World War Z) and Liv Tyler (Robot & Frank) not utilized more in their tangential roles. Negga's character, especially, seems like there was something left on the cutting room floor.
Like the aforementioned Gravity and The Martian, the movie fires on all cylinders when its just the audience and the star and Pitt is more than enough to hold our interest. Coming off the rousing success of July's Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (which will most likely garner him another Oscar nomination and likely win), Pitt has come back this year in a big way. I wouldn't be opposed to seeing him a double nominee at the end of the year, being recognized for his work here would be rewarding another side to his acting that we don't get to see that often. While Pitt has played drama before, he's never been as focused or introspective as he is here. There's a lot going on and Pitt handles it all with a master's touch.
Looking back now, it likely was a wise move by Disney to reposition Ad Astra out of the summer movie season and get it into theaters after the heat died down. Now, it doesn't have the weight of "summer blockbuster" to live up to or, looked at another way, live down. Now, the movie can be looked at for the drama it really is at its core. The visual effects and production design could get some awards love and, while the movie may alienate some, I found a lot to take away from Gray's familial space drama and Pitt's, ahem, stellar performance.
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New question for Stefon Diggs: Can he help the…
New question for Stefon Diggs: Can he help the Vikings win at New York?
Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Stefon Diggs celebrates after catching a 13-yard touchdown pass during the first half of an NFL football game against the Miami Dolphins, Sunday, Dec. 16, 2018, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Andy Clayton-King)
By John Shipley | jshipley@pioneerpress.com | Pioneer Press
PUBLISHED: October 4, 2019 at 12:13 pm | UPDATED: October 4, 2019 at 3:05 pm
The Stefon Diggs drama has not been a total bust for the Vikings. At least they can keep the New York Giants guessing about whether one of the NFL's best receivers will play Sunday at the Meadowlands.
Diggs missed practice Wednesday for reasons not related to an injury, and his availability for Sunday's noon kickoff was up in the air after he participated in an outdoor practice Friday at TCO Performance Center in Eagan.
"You're asking the wrong person, boss," Diggs said when asked if he'll play against the Giants. "Ask my coach."
Mike Zimmer didn't add any clarity.
"I don't know. We'll see," the head coach told reporters.
If Diggs sits Sunday, it won't be as punishment for missing practice on Wednesday.
"No, he's already been punished," Zimmer said.
Playing in the first season of a five-year contract extension worth $14.4 million annually, Diggs is one of the NFL's best. Only 25, he averaged 75.5 receptions and 873.2 yards in his four full NFL seasons but has only 13 catches for 161 yards this season and expressed frustration with the passing game on Thursday.
He's not alone there. After a 16-6 loss last weekend in Chicago, there was more than enough frustration to go around, although teammates insisted this week they've moved on. Minnesota's passing game is among the league's worst, ranked 31st in a 32-team league with an average 169 yards a game. Quarterback Kirk Cousins' 64.6 completion percentage ranks 25th among quarterbacks with at least 30 attempts.
Last season, his first in Minnesota after signing a three-year, $84 million contract, Cousins passed for 4,298 yards and 30 touchdowns, although his QB rating was 88.6, his lowest since becoming a full-time starter. Zimmer expressed optimism that Cousins, ineffective against the Bears until a fourth-quarter drive with time running out, will bounce back this week.
"I feel good about it," he said.
The time for a bounce-game game appears right. The Giants' defense ranks 25th in the 32-team league after giving up an average of 389.2 yards and 24.2 points a game. The question for Diggs is whether Zimmer feels the receiver would help the Vikings win after missing the first of the team's three weekly practices.
"I have to watch tape," Zimmer said Friday.
Diggs told reporters Thursday he missed practice because of a cold, then added fuel to rumors that he is unhappy in Minnesota and wants to be traded — which started after Diggs posted some ambiguous tweets and started following a few New England Patriots on Instagram.
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"I feel like there's truth to all rumors, you know?" he said. He declined further comment on Friday.
The Vikings (2-2) have been one of the NFL's best rushing teams in the early season, ranked third in the NFL after averaging 155.5 yards a game — despite being limited to 40 against the Bears. Focus on the running game has drawn some of the blame for the dip in passing numbers, but Zimmer said that's not the case.
"We're going to try to have balance, but the passing game, there's a lot more to it than just throwing and catching," he said. "You've got to have a firm pocket, you've got to have protection in the right place, we can't miss our blocks; and then we've got to throw it and catch it — be in the right place, be in the right depths, all kinds of things."
Stefon Diggs
John Shipley
Twenty-seven years in newspapers, 16 with the Pioneer Press. NHL, MLB, NFL, NBA, NCAA, Olympics. American mongrel: Bay Area, Chicago, Milwaukee, Iowa City, St. Paul.
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