text:
Motion for Summary Judgment/Dismiss
Strict Liability Product
Strict Liability Product Design Defect Motion for Summary Judgment
Strict liability is for products, not services. But what if transaction is a hybrid product/service? Courts struggle with this issue.
In this motion, our lawyers seek a declaration from the court that the product/service in question should be viewed as a product for the purposes of strict liability.
IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR BALTIMORE CITY, MARYLAND
ESTATE OF PATRICIA MATTHEWS,
By her personal representatives James Matthews,
CINDY MARIE EVANS,
By her father and Next Friend, Steve Evans,
- Plaintiffs,
BALTIMORE MECHANICAL SYSTEM, INC.
- Defendant
CASE NO. 24-C-02-004042
Plaintiff's Motion for Summary Judgment as a Matter of Law Regarding Defendant's Status as a Manufacturer of a Product
Plaintiffs, Estate of Patricia Matthews, and Cindy Marie Evans, by her father and next friend Robert Evans, by through their undersigned attorneys, request that this Court rule, based on the undisputed facts, that Defendant is a manufacturer of a product for purposes of its strict liability design defect case.
STATEMENT OF FACTS RELEVANT TO THIS MOTION
This case involves the tragic death of Patricia Ann Matthews at the Jones Apple Plant in Baltimore, Maryland. On July 28, 2020, Ms. Matthews was working at Jones Apple Plant on a mechanical system built by Defendant. Ms. Matthews's job was to clean a strainer to the system twice a shift.
While cleaning a stoppage in the pipe system with a co-worker, hot slurry1 came out of a strainer. Ms. Matthews was caught in the path of the slurry. Ms. Matthews was taken to Bay View Medical Center where she remained conscious for six days and suffered in agony for 6 days until her death from third-degree chemical burns on almost 40% of her body.
In 1996-97, Baltimore Mechanical "re-built" a mechanical system for Jones Apple. Indisputably, Jones Apple designed the system.
Plaintiffs now bring a strict liability design defect claim against Defendant. Her lawsuit claims that along the piping installed by Baltimore Mechanical, there should have been a shutoff valve in front of and upstream of the strainer, so she could work on it safely. Had that valve been installed, Plaintiffs contend, Patricia Matthews's death would have been averted.
The extent of the evidence Baltimore Mechanical provided regarding their work is attached as Exhibit A, Baltimore Mechanical's Response to Request for Production of Documents. They have conspicuously not produced the original bid or any information that shows a complete listing of its costs in the manufacture of this system.
In analyzing the only evidence provided to Plaintiffs, it appears that $27,950.24 was spent on parts and $10,450.00 was spend on labor. See Exhibit B. The remaining approximately $103,000.00 left unaccounted for in this $144,000.00 contract. These efforts were spent installing two tanks that are not argued to be the mechanism of the product defect or the decedent's injury.
Did Baltimore Mechanical Manufacture a Product?
Baltimore Mechanical is expected to argue that strict liability is not a viable cause of action in this case because it did not provide a product. An examination of the Restatement (Second) of Torts, §402A, was adopted in Phipps v. General Motors, 278 Md. 337 (1976), is controlling but the Restatement leaves undefined the term "product." Other courts, in trying to define whether something is a product under Section 402A, have looked to the policy considerations underlying the strict liability doctrine. See "What Is or Is Not a Product Within the Meaning of Section 402A," 57 Marq. L. Rev. 625 (1974).
Phipps offered the following policy considerations for the imposition of strict liability:
(1) The cost of injuries caused by defective products should in equity be borne by the manufacturers that put such products on the market rather than the injured persons who are powerless to protect themselves;
(2) imposing strict liability on manufacturers for defective products is equitable because it shifts the risk of loss to those better able financially to bear the loss;
(3) consumer relies upon the seller in expecting that a product is safe for the uses for which it has been marketed, and that this expectation is better fulfilled by the theory of strict liability than traditional negligence or warranty theories; and
(4) requirement of proof of a defect rendering a product unreasonably dangerous is a sufficient showing of fault on the part of the seller to impose liability without placing an often impossible burden on the plaintiff of proving specific acts of negligence. Phipps, at 343.
These policy considerations are at play in the instant case. The cost of the injury is best borne by Baltimore Mechanical, as opposed to a nine-year-old Plaintiff in this case. Plaintiff's decedent, who was required to clean this strainer as her job, also had every right to believe that this product was safe.
Finally, Plaintiff will have the proof difficulties inherent in any products liability case if this case were to be tried on negligence only (e.g., trying to prove the subjective state of mind of the "Defendant" with respect to what it "knew"). This is particularly true in this case because Baltimore Mechanical's conduct occurred more than three years before Ms. Matthews was killed, increasing the difficulties in ascertaining all of the facts.2
These problems are not as prevalent in regular negligence cases where information regarding the defendant's conduct is more readily available. Accordingly, the rationale of applying strict liability to this case is met, underscoring that this case should fall under the purview of strict liability.
Maryland law is relatively sparse as to what constitutes a product. In Miles Labs, Inc., v. Doe, 315 Md. 704 (1989), the court with little analysis determined blood to be a product, even though the cost of producing blood and blood derivatives primarily involves the labor of procuring the blood itself.
Most jurisdictions find blood and blood derivatives to be a service. [See Liability of blood supplier or donor for injury or death resulting from blood transfusion, 24 A.L.R.4th 508.] Miles Labs, Inc. underscores the aggressive position the Court of Appeals takes with respect to what is a product, consistent with the policy articulated in Phipps.
Michalko v. Cooke Color & Chemical Corp. Is Directly on Point
In Michalko v. Cooke Color & Chemical Corp., 451 A.2d 179 (N.J. 1982), the Supreme Court of New Jersey remarkably addressed almost the identical fact pattern as the instant case, involving a design defect where an employee was using a rebuilt piece of industrial equipment that was rebuilt by the defendant but designed by the employer. The plaintiff operated in the course of her employment a thirty-five-ton transformer press. Occasionally, rubber strips from the press would fall out during the process. Her employer instructed her to hold them in a cavity of the machine with her left hand while she used her right hand to operate the press control panel. Following these instructions, she injured her left hand when it got stuck in the press. The press did not have safety devices that would have prevented the plaintiff's injury. Plaintiff's employer built the product at issue. Before plaintiff's injury, the defendant rebuilt the system according to the employer's specifications. Defendant's contract with the employer required it to follow the employer's drawings and specifications.
The New Jersey Supreme Court framed the issue as "whether an independent contractor that undertakes to rebuild part of a machine in accordance with the specifications of the owner has a legal duty to foreseeable users of the machine to make the machine safe or to warn of the dangers inherent in its use." Id. at 182.
The court stated that in strict liability, the focus is on the product and not the defendant's conduct. Id. The court held that strict liability principles apply equally to manufacturers who rebuild machines and manufacturers who make component parts, just as those principles apply to manufacturers who produce new products. Id.
Accordingly, the court ruled that when it is feasible for a contractor who is rebuilding a product to affirmatively incorporate safety devices and fails to install them, the manufacturer is deemed to have delivered a defective product. Id. at 183. Specifically, it said that the "fact that a product was built according to the plans and specifications of an owner does not constitute a defense based on strict liability for the manufacturer of a defective product where injuries are suffered by an innocent foreseeable user of the product." Id.3 This is so even when the contractor would not have discovered the defect with due diligence. Id.
Michalko Ignores the Product/Service Distinction Because It Is Not Applicable in a Design Defect Case
Michalko ignores the product/service distinction because parties cannot negligently design a service. In cases alleging a defective design in strict liability, the focus is not on the conduct of the manufacturer, but on whether the product itself is defective. Nissan Motor Co. v. Nave, 129 Md. App. 90, 118 (1999). Accordingly, the salient feature of a design defect is that it relates back to a product. Because a service necessarily involves "conduct" rather than a "product," a court would be required to evaluate the defendant's conduct if strict liability design defect cases were applied to services. Accordingly, a design defect claim must invariably involve a product.
Under Anthony Pools, Baltimore Mechanical is Manufacturer of a Product as a Matter of Law
After a conference with this Court, defense counsel informed Plaintiffs for the first time that he believes strict liability is not applicable, contending that Anthony Pools v. Sheehan, 295 Md. 285 (1982) is controlling. If Anthony Pools is controlling, Defendant should be deemed a manufacturer or seller of a product as a matter of law.
The plaintiff in Anthony Pools brought, among others, claims for breach of warranty and strict liability for personal injuries suffered in the use of a diving board at a swimming pool constructed by the defendant. The trial court dismissed the breach of warranty claim and the plaintiff's strict liability claim went to the jury. After a defense verdict, the plaintiff appealed.
The Court of Special Appeals reversed on the warranty question, finding that defendant Anthony Pools was a seller and manufacturer as defined by the U.C.C. The Court of Appeals affirmed but on different grounds, finding that the appropriate test in determining whether the warranty applied was the "gravamen test."
Although the predominant purpose of the contract involved the sale of services rather than of goods, the court held that under the gravamen test, the contract contained an implied warranty of merchantability.
A close reading of Anthony Pools underscores the Court's view of what constitutes a product for the purposes of strict liability because, while there was an issue as to whether the breach of warranty claims should go to the jury (which was resolved in favor of the plaintiff), there was no issue or debate as to whether plaintiff's strict liability claim should go to the jury even if the primary purpose of the transaction or the gravamen of the injury was a service. The Court of Special Appeals affirmed the trial court with respect to the strict liability design defect and its holding and rationale were adopted by the Court of Appeals.
The Maryland Court of Appeals made clear why there is a distinction between a warranty and strict liability in its explanation of why it will not extend the strict liability rationale to breach of warranty claims:
A number of commentators have advocated a more policy oriented approach to determining whether warranties of quality and fitness are implied with respect to goods sold as a part of a hybrid transaction in which service predominates. (citations omitted). To support their position, these commentators in general emphasize loss shifting, risk distribution, consumer reliance, and difficulties in the proof of negligence. These concepts underlie strict liability in tort. (emphasis added). See Phipps v. General Motors Corp., 278 Md. 336, 363 A.2d 955 (1976).
Id. at 294. In other words, the court clearly acknowledged that regardless of how this issue is resolved with respect to U.C.C. questions, strict liability is viewed with a lens towards effectuating the policy goals set forth in Phipps that exist in the present case. This makes sense in the same way as Michalko: if the issue is design defect, it has to be a product at issue.
In the final analysis, most products are, at least economically, more a function of labor than the cost of the raw materials. But that is not and should not be the standard of analysis. The question is "was a final product created such that it could be defectively designed." Baltimore Mechanical built and placed a finished product, a mechanical system, into the stream of commerce. As such, they should be held strictly liable, as a matter of law, for any defect that proximately causes injury.
Even if the U.C.C. Hybrid Product/Service Distinction Was Controlling, Defendant is Still a Seller/Manufacturer as a Matter of Law Under the Gravamen Test
Assuming, arguendo, that this court determines that the mechanical system built by Baltimore Mechanical is a hybrid product/service and the U.C.C. product/service distinction should be utilized, then the gravamen test should be used under Anthony Pools. The Court of Appeals held in Anthony Pools that:
Consumer goods that are sold which retain their character as consumer goods after completion of the performance promised to the consumer, and where monetary loss or personal injury is claimed to have resulted from a defect in the consumer goods, the provisions of the Maryland U.C.C. dealing with implied warranties apply to the consumer goods, even if the transaction is predominately one for the rendering of consumer services.
Id. at 298. Extrapolating this to the strict liability context, because this mechanical system "retained [its] character as consumer goods after completion of the performance," the gravamen test would apply. This test examines the cause of the injury, namely, did the injury or damages arise because of a defective product or due to the conduct of the individuals rendering the accompanying services?4
In this case, the focus is not on the individuals who did the installation, the service aspect of the work. Instead, the defect is in the product itself, the piping around the strainer and the absence of a shutoff valve on the pipes. This design problem cannot be as the result of a service but only the product itself.5
As a matter of law, Defendant manufactured a product. Accordingly, Plaintiff's requests that this Court rule as a matter of law that Defendant manufactured a product and is therefore strict liability applies.
Counsel for Plaintiff
1 Hot slurry is a mixture of water, sugar and chemicals heated to 180º.
2This problem is underscored by Plaintiff's Motion in Limine Regarding Tank Levels.
3Accord Hendricks v. Ercole, 763 F.Supp. 505, 513 (Kan. 1991) (holding that a non-designing manufacturer can still be liable for design defects it did not cause under a strict liability theory). See also Anderson v. Olmstead Utility Equipment, Inc., 60 Ohio St. 3d 124 (1991) (plaintiffs were injured when a rebuilt "cherry picker" failed, causing them to fall. The defendant rebuilt the aerial system of the cherry picker truck and installed the rebuilt system pursuant to a contract with the owner which called for a full teardown of the system and replacement of necessary parts. The court found that the defendant, through its remanufacturing and rebuilding of the system, was a seller and a manufacturer and was, therefore, subject to liability under theories of strict liability in tort as well as breach of contract).
4Of course, any design in a sense is the service, the thought of how something should be put together. But if this definition took hold, every product defect case would fail because it is the service part of the transaction.
5There are additional reasons why, as a matter of fact, this system should be construed as a product as opposed to a service. But these appear to be issues of fact, not law.
What Is the Difference Between Strict Liability and Product Liability?
Product liability the the general term for lawsuits against defendants for products that cause injury.
Strict liability is a piece of product liability. In a strict liability claim, the defendant does not have to be at fault to be found responsible. It allows victims to receive compensation from a defendant in the chain of distribution for a defective product even if that defendant was not negligent.
Strict Liability Related Links, Cases and Information
Overview of Strict Liability Claims
Lawyer Referrals (information for lawyers considering referring their products liability case to our law firm)
Sample Product Defect Complaint (utility pole explosion case)
Sample Products Liability Interrogatories (Plaintiff's example interrogatories)
Get more legal motions for summary judgment
Strict Liability | Product or Service | Summary Judgment Motion


text:
Marsh Awards for Innovative Projects
Thanks to the generosity of the Marsh Christian Trust, the National Churches Trust holds a competition to find the Christian congregations running the most innovative community projects made possible through the installation of new facilities and improved accessibility in a place of worship within the last five years.
The awards look for projects that show the positive impact installing community facilities such a kitchens, cafes, toilets and improved access at places of worship has on churches and local communities.
The award scheme is now open for your nominations until 13 January 2017.
If you are involved in a church that is serving its community in a new and exciting way, made as a result of changes or additions to the church buidling, why not consider a nomination?
Last year's winner was WiFi Wednesdays, a group that meets regularly at St Andrew's Church in Blagdon, Somerset, to develop IT and mobile phone skills. The church had previously been little used, but now, thanks to new facilities and excellent planning, it hosts a range of events designed to meet the needs of its local area.
For more information, visit The National Churches Trust.
Posted in Grants, News
Where We've Helped
Grants awarded »
For all our latest news, events and to join the conversation, follow us on Twitter @YHCT88
Subscribe to our newsletter for more information about grants we've recently awarded, our current news and up and coming events.
Grant Related Matters
Jonathan Stamp
yhctgrants@sky.com
vanbarassociates@gmail.com
© Yorkshire Historic Churches Trust
Site by Plump Digital

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Baileys Harbor
The Quonset Hut: Baileys Harbor's Movie House on the Lake
By Patty Williamson, Peninsula Pulse – July 13th, 2011
The Lake Theatre (later Lake Cinema) was a home for cinema in Baileys Harbor for 50 years. Submitted.
An ad for the Grand Opening of the Lake Theatre in 1947.
To the generations that remember World War II, Quonset Hut is a familiar name. Beginning in 1941, more than 170,000 of the homely structures were manufactured for the U.S. military in Quonset Point, R.I. After the war, they were sold to the public for $1,000 each. Some transitioned to civilian life as homes; most became businesses. Theatretreasures.org documents 93 that were turned into movie theaters in 26 states and four foreign countries. California had 18 of them and Wisconsin four, including the Lake Theatre in tiny Baileys Harbor.
Before they returned from service in 1947, Orville and Elton Voeks, whose parents owned the general store across from the Catholic church in Baileys Harbor, told the family they were interested in opening a movie theatre. At that time, the only movies north of Sturgeon Bay were those shown on Saturday nights in Sister Bay and on Sunday nights in Schram's Hall in Baileys Harbor (now the Harbor Fish Market and Grille) by Arthur Brungraber, a photographer from Jacksonport, who had begun his programs in the era of silent films.
The Voeks brothers had seen one of Wisconsin's other Quonset Hut movie houses and decided the price would fit their budget. Their sister, Ruby, was married to Thor Toft, a naval officer with a law degree and a nephew of Emma Toft. Thor helped his brothers-in-law by scouting out a likely location on Highway 57 in downtown Baileys Harbor.
Orville and Elton worked with Joe Zettel to prepare the foundation, and within months after their return home, the theater was in operation. (The prefab Quonset Huts had been designed for easy assembly – eight men could put one up in a day.) An open house was held on Saturday afternoon, Oct. 11, and four showings of the first film, Cheyenne, starring Jane Wyman and popular Milwaukee star Dennis Morgan, were held on Oct. 12.
The new theater had 323 cushioned seats – "as comfortable as your rocking chair" – and a soundproof "crying room" upstairs next to the projection booth for families with unhappy babies.
The Lake Theatre as it looked in the 1950s. The Cornerstone Pub is in the background, with the town hall behind the pub. Photo courtesy of the Baileys Harbor Historical Society.
"People had never heard of such a thing," Ruby Toft says. "Mothers, especially farm women who didn't have access to baby sitters, thought it was wonderful." (In later years, that private spot became a favorite of local teens, some of whom recall getting their first kiss there.)
Orville and Elton alternated the jobs of running the projector and selling tickets. At 50 cents for adults, they were seven cents higher than their competition, the Door Theatre on Third Avenue between Michigan and Louisiana Streets in Sturgeon Bay. Lake Theatre was open seven days a week, year round. Three different movies were scheduled each week, with two shows every night.
From the start, the theater drew huge crowds. Mary Ann Johnson, Baileys Harbor's unofficial historian, remembers going to the movies with her husband and two teenage children and getting a treat afterward at Swanson's Ice Cream Store to enjoy on their walk home.
"It was a wonderful family evening," she says. "Lots of lovely memories." She recalls that the theater made Baileys Harbor a special town. "Everyone went to the movies and talked the next day about what they'd seen."
In 1950, with the Lake Theatre going strong, Elton and Orville built the Skyway Outdoor Theatre on Highway 42 between Fish Creek and Ephraim. Of the more than 60 drive-in movie theaters that once operated in Wisconsin, Skyway is one of just 10 still in business.
In 1952 they sold the Baileys Harbor theatre to William Bunda Sr. Soon, as more people bought TVs for their homes, movie theater attendance dropped. Over the next 26 years, the cinema had three owners – George Gerdman, Frank Butts and Andy Redmann. Johnson fondly remembers Redmann, who was interested in culture and added art films to the usual bill of first-run movies appropriate for the entire family.
The last remnants of the Lake Theatre are cleared in 2001, when it was called the Lake Cinema. Photo by Carol Gresko.
Suzi Hass of Sister Bay remembers the promo video Redmann made that explained, tongue in cheek, the journey film took to reach Baileys Harbor, carried by a horseback rider, a tugboat operator, an ultralight flyer and, finally, a runner.
In 1984, Redmann sold the theater to Gary Goebel, owner of the Donna Theater in Sturgeon Bay, who would go on to lease the theatre to Tim Suick of Antigo in 1996. By this time, it was only open from Memorial Day to Labor Day, with tickets selling for $3.50.
Although attendance at the Lake Theatre was not what it once was, some movies still drew crowds. (In 1994, this writer's family assured their visiting granddaughter there was no need to go early to see Forrest Gump – and we still remember the stiff necks that resulted from the 142 minutes we spent watching the movie from the last three seats on the north end of the front row!)
The final film screened at Lake Theatre in the fall of 2000 was Space Cowboys, starring Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones and James Garner. A year later, Goebel sold the theatre to its next-door neighbor, Associated Bank, for $121,000. Several residents stood by with cameras as the little theater was demolished to make way for the possible expansion of the bank. Ironically the bank – far from expanding – closed in 2009.
Of the 93 Quonset Hut movie theaters that blossomed after World War II, only 19 are still in operation, while many others have been repurposed. The Lake Theatre is one of the 24 that have been demolished, bringing an end to 53 years of dreams on the shore of Lake Michigan.
Ever Wonder…why are there two Egg Harbors?
White Cottage Red Door Opens in Former Ray's Cherry Hut
Sonny's Owners Purchase Cherry Hut Property
Bits & Bites: Cherry Hut Gives Nod to Nostalgia, Grasse's New Vibe & MAX Opens Updated Bar


text:
International Women's Day... a "proto-feminist" in China 2000 years ago
In the light of 𝘐𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘞𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯'𝘴 𝘋𝘢𝘺 2022 last Tuesday (March 8),
meet 𝗕𝗮𝗻 𝗭𝗵𝗮𝗼 班昭 (45-116 CE),
China's first and arguably most famous female scholar in ancient Chinese history.
Ban Zhou wrote the book Lessons for Women 女诫, in which she explains that, 40 years after being married at the age of 14, she had decided to write down things that, in her view, would be useful for every woman (especially for her daughters). From her descriptions we can learn about the discrimination against women since birth.
Her 2000 years old book emphasizes on the traditional virtues a woman must abide by at that time; proper virtue, proper speech, proper countenance, and proper conduct. Moreover the book includes 'guidelines' for women which are very traditional and for most unacceptable today such as do not distinguish or outperform your talents and intelligence, do not sharpen your language and speech, or do not seek outwardly beautiful or ornamented. Along with serve her husband, obey his parents, and refrain from confrontations with his family.
Today considered a feudal moralistic book by most, criticized for belittling women's social status and suppressing their pursuit of freedom, self-confidence and individuality. Though it is perhaps unfair and anachronistic to judge a 2000 year old historical figure by today's categories. Modern scholars regularly describe Ban Zhao as a sort of proto-feminist. Considering the book as a guide for women to play the "feudal society game" to earn power and respect from their male counterparts. A revolutionary advice in the book is that girls and boys should receive the same education until the age of 15.
Although she did not sharpen her language or speech, she definitely sharpened her own mind along with her expression and focus on femininity by appearance through clothing and for example make-up.
She became China's first and arguably most famous female scholar, especially as political advisor to Empress Deng Sui 邓绥 (81-121 CE) and historian in the court of Emperor He Di 和帝 (ruled 88-105 CE) with the contribution to complete and transmit Hanshu (漢書, literally the "Book of the [Former] Han"), the official dynastic history of the Western Han.
She also had great interest in among others astronomy and mathematics and wrote poems, commemorative writings, argumentations, commentaries, essays and several longer works. She was also an instructor of Taoist sexual practices for the imperial family.
While again many today would (rightfully) not agree with Ban Zhao's book about how women should or should not act, no one can argue with the fact that by owning her own femininity, Ban Zhao was able to succeed in a male dominated world 2000 years ago and be an example for other women at the time. She took the freedom to be whomever you wish without judgement or restriction based off of gender.
#chinesehistory #internationalwomensday #banzhou
Sources : https://sin-idioms.blogspot.com/2011/11/on-women-and-men.html https://heavyangloorthodox.blogspot.com/2016/07/a-few-words-on-ban-zhao.html https://beautymap.tumblr.com/post/73359623481/ban-zhao-a-feminist-of-her-time https://archive.shine.cn/sunday/now-and-then/Ban-Zhao/shdaily.shtml https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ban_Zhao https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lessons_for_Women


As a foreigner, there are so many aspects of life here in Spain where I just sigh and say "I wish we had that back home." I'm not just talking about tapas and cheap drinks, although that's what always comes to mind first, but also Madrid's library metro system. Huh? Yes, you heard that right, some of Madrid's metro stations have their own book collections available to the public. The genius of the idea lies not only in the fact that people can take out a book without going out of their way, but also how they can take the book on the metro, read it, and then drop it off at ANY other Bibliometro. Madrid currently has 12 stations using this system (See Below). While that doesn't seem like too many given Madrid has 289 stops, there is at least one on every single line so there is always a station nearby.
I hope I'm not the only nerd who is stoked about this idea so that we can spread the word. There is not a better way to feel like a Madridleño than to read Spanish books that you got from a secretive metro library. One can easily start reading after getting the Carné Bibliometro at one of the libraries which are open Mondays through Fridays from 13:30 to 20:00.


text:
genband
By WebRTC Digest Editior • News, Acquisitions
On May 23, 2017, Sonus Networks, Inc. & GENBAND announced a definitive agreement under which the two companies will combine to create a leader in next-generation communications networking. The transaction combines …
GENBAND Introduces WebRTC Client for Microsoft Lync
By WebRTC Digest Editior • News
On March 16, 2015 Genband announced its Real Time Communications (RTC) Client for Lync to seamlessly combine real-time communications with Lync Instant Messaging (IM) and Presence.
Genband Acquires Fring
On September 12, 2013 Genband announced that they have acquired fring's Over-the-Top (OTT) mobile IP communications service, which works across all major smartphone platforms.


text:
Truly Feel
January 26, 2021 InsightHazel
May Dyer
'Truly Feel' on today's 'I Think Speech' podcast
Greetings friends, As I may have mentioned here before, I am part of a group that meets to work with the 6B = The 6 Basic Exercises*, which are the fundamental basis for inner development on the path of the New Mysteries.
Kelsey Lubin
Today I am thinking about how to really live into the 3rd of the 6 basic exercises, which is about equanimity or the capacity to remain balanced & calm rather than reactive. I find that often the 1st step is to tune into my breathing. The rhythmic system brings order & harmony. In the 2nd panel of the Foundation Stone Meditation Rudolf Steiner tells us when we 'live within the beat of heart & lung' we are supported thru the 'rhythms of time'. They say time heals all wounds. We find our stability within the fluctuation, which reveals the true 'feeling of our own soul-being'.
When we 'practice Spirit Mindfulness', which is to observe the spirit behind mind, beyond matter, listening to the riddle it poses & the awareness it awakens, this brings us a steadiness of Soul, a balance of earth & spirit. When we unite our own 'I' our consciousness, with the 'I' or consciousness of the world, this weaving in our souls allows us to use our feeling life creatively. Emotion comes from motion; if the motion gets bent out of shape, we can change the shape to change the emotion. We can work with the feeling -Cultivate it – to change the atmosphere – to become steady – to feel deeper. Instead of being buffeted by the 'surging deeds of world evolving' we can take the reins of our emotion & steer it where we want to go – into a unity.
ctor Belwend
The will of Christ lives in our etheric body, it reverberates in us- & we receive grace when we recognize the will that lives in the etheric body of the other, our fellow human beings who are in the encircling round with us. And this is the true riddle. If we want to see Christ in our souls, we must see him first in the soul of the other by casting our light into the other, so that they can be reflected back to us like an after image. This is the purpose of community. Christ will weaves between human etheric bodies creating a kinship. It weaves between human etheric bodies & the etheric body of the world. To become conscious of this weaving we must align with the Beings of Light connected to the Sun, the 2nd Hierarchy, working in our etheric body, & co-create with them our own light with which to see Christ in the other, as well as the light holding sway in all life. We take the Sun that is enkindled by these beings into our feeling life to give light form, to create from it a balance. To transform the chaotic forces of emotion into the motion of life renewed. – To radiate equanimity.
Rudolf Steiner tells us that the elemental spirits that enter our etheric bodies with every perception, hear Christ in the world, Christ is with them in the etheric body of the earth, & this impulse is in us. Their task is to ask the question, the riddle: 'May human Beings hear it', to stimulate our response, our soul's light creating activity.
athy Foarly
So if thru Anthroposophia & Michael we develop a consciousness of these spirits, if we kindle our etheric bodies into an organ of light, this light itself is the balance that brings about healing; for it carries a consciousness of Christ living in us, & this prepares us for perceiving this Christic etheric presence in every expression of emotion calling for grace in ourselves & in the world, an opportunity for us to bring life into equilibrium.
All serious students are welcome to join: The ARC (Anthroposophical Resource Center in Atlanta) is inviting you to a Six Basic Exercise Practice Group
Time: weekdays 11am CT / 12:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Each weekday you are invited to join in a 15 minute practice group focusing on Rudolf Steiner's foundational exercises. We begin the time each day with a 5 minute leading thought focusing one aspect of the practice. We will follow that with a 5 minute period in which we turn off our cameras and practice on our own. After the five minute bell, we take 1-2 minutes to journal about our experience and the end the call with a 3 minute closing thought. Come when you can, and leave when you must. ~Angela Foster
Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/266986103?pwd=bXU4a0EvMmJkMDZTR0Rqcm0xZ0pUZz09 Meeting ID: 266 986 103 Passcode: 345338
https://earthsky.org/tonight/identify-the-stars-of-the-winter-circle
January 25, 2021 History, Insight, Poetry, RememberingHazel
In Honor of the anniversary of the vision of Paul on the road to Damascus I created this 'I Think Speech' Podcast
Dear friends –
We come here
To embrace what is common in each one of us –
Our love for a higher knowledge
which unites us in understanding.
Let this Light of Knowledge unite
Each and All of us,
Making rise in each,
The raising of the Other.
Thank you to all who participated in the live stream of our event. Here is a link to the recording of 'Reclaiming the Wisdom of America' Love Donations Welcome
From Ite Van Til: Spirit of Place,
I am so happy you are there, so grateful you give your fragrance, your essence
To us, youngsters living together with you for years, gone out and dispersed, meeting each other after a year, and suddenly all four felt your presence at the same time.
To the farm barn where my love and i partied after our wedding
To the door where we first kissed
To the room where we looked at each other closely, speechless, and felt bygone times
To the house near the sea that we entered, visiting you as object for sale and feeling your presence in our guts, as you pulled us near
I long to feel you, to see you, to speak to you, as a friend
I know I need to let go of feelings and thoughts beforehand
Dear Spirit of Place
Please bear with us, one day we will meet
Special Thanks to our contributors:
Social Scientist Anne Nicholson, Anne Dale & Sally Greenberg
Singer/composer/producer: Ultra-Violet Archer
Stewart Lundy co-owns Perennial Roots Farm in Accomac, Virginia. Since 2010, he and his wife Natalie have farmed with a vision of reducing waste and growing as much of their own food as possible. They run a vegetable CSA as well as raising cattle, sheep, & hogs. They are currently finishing their own translation of Rudolf Steiner's Agriculture Course.
Rosemary McMullen, Ph.D. in English literature, taught several decades at the college level, is certified in poetry therapy, family constellations, Waldorf teacher training, and biodynamic agriculture. She has facilitated group work in many of the above fields. Publications include essays, poetry, and fiction. She is a professional editor; she researches and blogs on emergent topics: rosemarymcmullen.blogspot.com and TimeSculpture2011.blogspot.com
There are many of us that feel this theme of AMERICA is worthy of continued investigation. Our presentation is meant to be the start of an ongoing conversation. And so with that in mind I wanted to feature these other events, for those that would like to continue this work.
All Meetings begin at 7:30 with informal conversation at 7:15
Jan. 27, Feb. 3, 10, 24, March 3, 10 Exploring the Spiritual – Historical Background of America
Some members of our local community have been studying the Templar impulses and Carl Stegmann's work in his book "The Other America". These meetings will be carried by the following people: Betty Staley, Ann Matthews, Brian Gray, Alice Stamm, Sanford Miller, Paula Sullivan, and Rita Roxas.
Jan. 27: The Spiritual Geography of America
Feb. 3: A Native American Voice
Feb. 10: Founding Impulses
Feb. 24: Esoteric Background of Religions in America
March 3: Nineteenth to the Twenty-first Century: Impulses of a New Age
March 10: What are the Tasks of America Today: Kindred Souls
Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83508728525?pwd=U0dtcU5DWjd5UGVOd1pySmJZN1FoUT09
+16699006833,,83508728525#,,,,*644180# US (San Jose)
+13462487799,,83508728525#,,,,*644180# US (Houston)
Donate to Faust Branch
The Goddesses of America
A 7-week group course with Lila Tresemer
New group starting now, and you can join anytime
Few people realize that there clearly exist feminine archetypes ~ guiding lights that can help us balance the strong masculine energies that rule our nation, which can be physically located in the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
Jacob Needleman beautifully writes: "We need to rediscover the deeper, mythic meaning of our heroes and our nation…. Adults need mythic symbols just as much ~ or even more ~ than children. We need to remythologize the idea of America." (Excerpt from The American Soul: Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Founders, Penguin/Random House 2003)
Yerki Antrodorf
THE CALENDAR OF THE SOUL, by Rudolf Steiner, translated – with added titles – by Roy Sadler
(who would be happy to share in the comments section any thoughts anyone may have about the translations)
Epiphany IV
THE CONSECRATION OF THE WORLD
In winter's depths
true spirit presence warms;
it makes appearance real
and through the forces of the heart
empowers earth life's newborn glory;
the soul's revitalising fire in the human core
defies world cold.
Trinity II
THE CONSECRATION OF THE SOUL
To summer's heights
the sunlight's being rises;
it lifts my human feeling far and wide
and into the sublime, the cosmic harmony
wherein a dawning vision's intimating faintly,
in future you will know:
a holy being felt you now.
25 January 2021 – "Speaking with the Stars": Watch Bella Luna journey across a field of stars termed the "Winter Hexagon."
Tanya Jacobs
The Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul on the road to Damascus. Before this, he was known as Saul, "a Pharisee of Pharisees", who "intensely persecuted" the followers of Jesus.
The Acts of the Apostles says that Paul was on his way from Jerusalem to Syrian Damascus with a mandate issued by the High Priest to seek out & arrest followers of Jesus, with the intention of returning them to Jerusalem as prisoners for questioning & possible execution. The journey is interrupted when Paul sees a blinding light, & communicates directly with a divine voice.
Acts 9 tells the story as a third-person narrative: As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" "Who are you, Lord?" Saul asked. "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting," he replied. "Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do." The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.
Acts 9:3–9, NIV
The account continues with a description of Ananias of Damascus receiving a divine revelation instructing him to visit Saul at the house of Juda on the Street Called Straight & there lay hands on him to restore his sight. Ananias is initially reluctant, having heard about Saul's persecution, but obeys the divine command:
Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, "Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit." Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul's eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength.
Acts 9:13–19, NIV
Nikolai Bodarevsky
Acts' second telling of Paul's conversion occurs in a speech Paul gives when he is arrested in Jerusalem.[Acts 22:6-21] Paul addresses the crowd & tells them of his conversion, with a description essentially the same as that in Acts 9. Acts' third discussion of Paul's conversion occurs when Paul addresses King Agrippa, defending himself against the accusations of antinomianism that have been made against him. [Acts 26:12-18] This account is more brief than the others. The speech here is again tailored for its audience, emphasizing what a Roman ruler would understand: the need to obey a heavenly vision,[Acts 26:19] & reassuring Agrippa that Christians were not a secret society.
The conversion of Paul, in spite of his attempts to completely eradicate Christianity, is seen as evidence of the power of Divine Grace: "no fall is so deep that grace cannot descend to it" & "no height so lofty that grace cannot lift the sinner to it." It also demonstrates "God's power to use everything, even the hostile persecutor, to achieve the divine purpose." The transforming effect of Paul's conversion influenced the clear antithesis he saw "between righteousness based on the law," i.e. the letter of the law, which he had sought in his former life; & "righteousness based on the death of Christ," which he describes, for example, in the Epistle to the Galatians.
Interesting that in rural England, the feast day celebrated on 25 January, functioned much like Groundhog Day does in our modern-day US. With prophecies ranged from fine days predicting good harvests, to clouds & mists signifying pestilence & war in the coming months.
1366 – Deathday of Henry Suso, a German Dominican friar & mystic, the most popular writer of the 14th century. He is also notable for defending Meister Eckhart's legacy after Eckhart was condemned for heresy. Suso also studied philosophy in Strasbourg, where he would have come into contact with Meister Eckhart, & Johannes Tauler, both celebrated mystics. Suso was esteemed as a preacher, in the cities of Swabia, Switzerland, Alsace, & the Netherlands, speaking with individuals of all classes who were drawn to him by his attractive personality, & to whom he became a personal director in the spiritual life. Suso was reported to have established among the Friends of God a society which he called the Brotherhood of the Eternal Wisdom. The so-called Rule of the Brotherhood of the Eternal Wisdom is a free translation of a chapter of his Horologium Sapientiae, which did not make its appearance until the 15th century. Suso was beatified in 1831 by Pope Gregory XVI.
1586 – Deathday of Lucas Cranach the Younger, German painter.
1742 – Deathday of Edmond Halley, English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, & physicist. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain. From an observatory he constructed on Saint Helena, Halley recorded a transit of Mercury across the Sun. He realized a similar transit of Venus could be used to determine the size of the Solar System. He also used his observations to expand contemporary star maps. He aided in proving Isaac Newton's laws of motion, & funded the publication of Newton's influential Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. From his September 1682 observations, he used the laws of motion to compute the periodicity of Halley's Comet in his 1705 Synopsis of the Astronomy of Comets. It was named after him upon its predicted return in 1758, which he did not live to see. Beginning in 1698, he made sailing expeditions & made observations on the conditions of terrestrial magnetism. In 1718, he discovered the proper motion of the "fixed" stars.
1881 – Thomas Edison & Alexander Graham Bell form the Oriental Telephone Company.
1882 – Birthday of Virginia Woolf, English novelist, essayist, short story writer, & critic
1890 – Nellie Bly completes her round-the-world journey in 72 days.
1915 – Alexander Graham Bell inaugurates U.S. transcontinental telephone service, speaking from New York to Thomas Watson in San Francisco.
2011 – The first wave of the Egyptian revolution begins throughout the country, marked by street demonstrations, rallies, acts of civil disobedience, riots, labor strikes, & violent clashes.
~Having seen blue starlight filter thru
The outstretched wings of a bird
I stand before you naked & new…
Spirit of Place
January 22, 2021 History, Insight, Poetry, Rudolf Steiner QuoteHazel
Tune into TODAY's 'I Think Speech' Podcast
Dear Friends – Dorothy was right: There's no place like home. As we journey thru life, dodging the occasional wicked witch, the 'Spirit of Place', which perhaps drew us to our home, creates a definite ambiance that we live with. But do we recognize it? Do we honor it, & seek to know its nature? If we work to cultivate a relationship with our Spirit of Place, we might even discover a Munchkin or two, over the rainbow or just across the threshold…
Many indigenous & tribal cultures around the world are deeply concerned with Spirits of Place in their landscape. The concept has echoed thru the ages. It derives from an ancient & widespread knowing that our world is occupied by gods, or spirits, who want to be propitiated. Genius loci is the Latin term for the Spirit or Guardian deity of a place.
For me, the 'Spirit of Place' refers to the unique, distinctive character of a location or abode; often cherished in folk tales, festivals & celebrations; explored by artists & writers thruout the ages. The concept is prominent in the invisible weave of culture -stories, art, memories, beliefs, histories, etc.; as well as in the tangible physical aspects of a place – monuments, boundaries, rivers, woods, architecture, rural crafts styles, pathways, views, etc… And of course we must include its interpersonal aspects, bringing in the presence of the ancestors.
These Spirits of Place are explicitly recognized by some of the world's main religions: The "Shinto gods" are called kami. They are sacred spirits which take the form of things in the environment, such as wind, rain, mountains, trees, rivers & fertility. Human beings become kami after they die & are revered by their families as ancestral spirits. Many Hindu sects work with this concept, as do Buddhists.
We might understand it thru the exploration of ley lines, feng shui, or perhaps feel it in urban spaces – in the architecture, back alleys or gardens. Modern earth art, or environment art, explores the contribution of natural/ephemeral sculpture as an offering to the Spirit of Place.
We will explore this for ourselves with Rosemary McMullen* during our Sunday Presentation 'Reclaiming the Wisdom of America', to help us create cultural forms that 're-enchant our land'. If we are able to live into our individual Genius loci, perhaps that will better lead us into a relationship with the overarching Folk Spirit of America that we all share. (Have paper & colored pencils at the ready)
Someone asked poet E. E. Cummings what home was for him. He responded poetically, talking about his lover. Home was "the stars on the tip of your tongue, the flowers sprouting from your mouth, the roots entwined in the gaps between your fingers, the ocean echoing inside your ribcage." What about you? If you were asked to write or draw a description of what makes your place a home, what would that look like? This seems like a good time to identify & honor the influences that inspire us to live into our inner sense of home, where the Spirits of Place hope to inspire us.
Rosemary McMullen, Ph.D. in English literature, taught several decades at the college level, is certified in poetry therapy, family constellations, Waldorf Education, and biodynamic agriculture. She has facilitated group work in many of the above fields. Publications include essays, poetry, and fiction. She is a professional editor; she researches and blogs on emergent topics: rosemarymcmullen.blogspot.com and TimeSculpture2011.blogspot.com
22 January 2021- "Speaking with the Stars"
ON THIS DAY IN Occult HISTORY
Francis Bacon – Ville Löppönen
1561 – Birthday of Francis Bacon – English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, orator, & author. He served both as Attorney General & as Lord Chancellor of England. After his death, he remained extremely influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate of materialism & practitioner of the scientific method during the scientific revolution. Bacon died of pneumonia, with one account by John Aubrey stating that he had contracted the condition while studying the effects of freezing on the preservation of meat. Rudolf Steiner speaks about him in a previous incarnation as Haroun al Raschid
1729 – Birthday of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, a German writer, philosopher, dramatist, publicist & art critic – one of the most outstanding representatives of the Enlightenment era. His plays & theoretical writings substantially influenced the development of German literature. He is widely considered by theatre historians to be the first dramaturg in his role at Abel Seyler's Hamburg National Theatre.
From Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies – Volume I, Lecture 11 by Rudolf Steiner:
"Another personality, very well-known to you by name, is of exceptional interest in connection with investigations into karma. It is Lessing.
The circumstances of Lessing's life, I may say, have always interested me to an extraordinary degree. Lessing is really the founder of the better sort of journalism, the journalism that has substance and is really out to accomplish something. Before Lessing, poets and dramatists had taken their subjects from the aristocracy. Lessing, on the other hand, is at pains to introduce bourgeois life, ordinary middle-class life, into the drama, the life concerned generally with the destinies of men as men, and not with the destinies of men in so far as they hold some position in society or the like. Purely human conflicts — that is what Lessing wanted to portray on the stage. In the course of his work he applied himself to many great problems, as for example when he tried to determine the boundaries of painting and of poetry in his Laocoon. But the most interesting thing of all is the powerful impetus with which Lessing fought for the idea of tolerance. You need only take his Nathan the Wise and you will see at once what a foremost place this idea of tolerance has in Lessing's mind and life. In weaving the fable of the three kings in Nathan the Wise, he wants to show how the three main religions have gone astray from their original forms and are none of them really genuine, and how one must go in search of the true form, which has been lost. Here we have tolerance united with an uncommonly deep and significant idea.
Interesting, too, is the conversation between Freemasons, entitled Ernst und Falk, and much else that springs from Freemasonry. What Lessing accomplished in the way of critical research into the history of religious life is, for one who is able to judge its significance, really astounding. But we must be able to place the whole Lessing, in his complete personality, before us.
We begin to get an impression of Lessing when we observe, shall I say, the driving force with which he hurls his sentences against his opponents. He wages a polemic against the civilisation of Middle Europe — quite a refined and correct polemic, but at every turn hitting straight home. You must here observe a peculiar nuance in Lessing's character if you want to understand the make-up of his life. On the one hand we have the sharpness, often caustic sharpness, in such writings as The Dramatic Art of Hamburg, and then we have to find the way over, as it were, to an understanding, for example, of the words used by Lessing when a son had been born to him and had died directly after birth. He writes somewhat as follows in a letter: Yes, he has at once taken leave again of this world of sorrow; he has thereby done the best thing a human being can do. In so writing, Lessing is giving expression to his pain in a wonderfully brave way, not for that reason feeling the pain one whit less deeply than someone who can do nothing but bemoan the event. This ability to draw back into himself in pain was characteristic of the man who at the same time knew how to thrust forward with vigour when he was developing his polemics. This is what makes it so affecting to read the letter written when his child had died immediately after birth, leaving the mother seriously ill.
Lessing had moreover this remarkable thing in his destiny — and it is quite characteristic, when one sets out to find the karmic connections in his case — that he was friends in Berlin with a man who was in every particular his opposite, namely, Nikolai; an example of a true philistine. Although a friend of Lessing, he was none the less a typical philistine-bourgeois; and he had visions, most strange and remarkable visions.
Lessing, genius as he was, had no visions, not even dreams. Nikolai literally suffered from visions. They came, and they went away only after leeches had been applied. Yes, in extremity they actually applied leeches to him, in order that he might not be forever tormented by the spiritual world which would not let him alone.
At the close of his life Lessing wrote the remarkable essay, The Education of the Human Race, at the end of which, quite isolated, as it were, the idea of repeated earth-lives appears. The book shows how mankind goes through one epoch of development after another, and how the Gods gave into man's hand as a first primer, so to speak, the Old Testament, and then as a second primer the New Testament, and how in the future a third book will come for the further education of the human race. And then all at once the essay is brought to a close with a brief presentation of the idea that man lives through repeated earth-lives. And there Lessing says, again in a way that is absolutely in accord with his character: The idea of repeated earth-lives does not seem so absurd, considering that it was present in very early times, when men had not yet been spoilt by school learning? The essay then ends with a genuine panegyric on repeated earth-lives, finishing with these beautiful words: "Is not all Eternity mine?"
When a man like Lessing utters a profound aphorism such as this on repeated earth-lives, there is, properly speaking, no possibility of ignoring it.
You will readily see that the personality of Lessing is interesting in the highest degree from a karmic point of view, in relation to his own passage through different earth-lives. In the second half of the 18th century the idea of repeated earth-lives was by no means a commonly accepted one. It comes forth in Lessing like a flash of lightning, like a flash of genius. We cannot account for its appearance; it cannot possibly be due to Lessing's education or to any other influence in this particular life. We are compelled to ask how it may be with the previous life of a man in whom at a certain age the idea of repeated earth-lives suddenly emerges — an idea that is foreign to the civilisation of his own day — emerges, too, in such a way that the man himself points to the fact that the idea was once present in very early times. The truth is that he is really bringing forward inner grounds for the idea, grounds of feeling that carry with them an indication of his own earth-life in the distant past. Needless to say, in his ordinary surface-consciousness he has no notion of such connections. The things we do not know are, however, none the less true. If those things alone were true that many men know, then the world would be poor indeed in events and poor indeed in beings".
George Gordan
1788 –Birthday of Lord Byron, a British poet, politician, & a leading figure in the Romantic movement. Among his best-known works are the lengthy narrative poems, Don Juan & Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, & the short lyric poem, "She Walks in Beauty".
He travelled extensively across Europe, especially in Italy, where he lived for seven years. Later in his brief life, Byron joined the Greek War of Independence fighting the Ottoman Empire, for which many Greeks revere him as a national hero.
He died in 1824 at the age of 36 from a fever contracted while in Missolonghi. Often described as the most flamboyant & notorious of the major Romantics, Byron was both celebrated & castigated in life for his aristocratic excesses, including huge debts, numerous love affairs – with men as well as women, as well as rumors of a scandalous liaison with his half-sister – &self-imposed exile.
He also fathered Ada, Countess of Lovelace, whose work on Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine is considered a founding document in the field of computer science.
Rudolf Steiner speaks about Lord Byron in the same lecture with Lessing- Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies – Volume I, Lecture 11:
"I began to take a special interest in the life of Lord Byron. And at that same time I got to know some Byron enthusiasts. One of them was the poetess, Marie Eugenie delle Grazie, of whom I shall have much to say in my autobiography. During a certain period of her life she was a Byron enthusiast. Then there was another, a most remarkable personality, a strange mixture of all possible qualities Eugen Heinrich Schmidt. Many of you who know something about the history of Anthroposophy will be familiar with his name.
He came to Vienna, a tall, slight man filled with a burning enthusiasm, which came to expression at times in very forcible gestures and so on. It was none the less genuine for that. And it was just this enthusiasm of Schmidt's that gave me the required "jerk," as it were. I thought I would like to do him a kindness, and as he had recently written a most enthusiastic and inspired article on Lord Byron, I introduced him to my other Byron enthusiast, Marie Eugenie delle Grazie. And now began a wildly excited discussion on Byron. The two were really quite in agreement, but they carried on a most lively and animated debate. All we others who were sitting round — a whole collection of theological students from the Vienna Catholic Faculty were there, who came every week and with whom I had made friends — all we others were silent. And the two who were thus conversing about Byron were sitting like this. — Here was the table, rather a long one, and at one end sat delle Grazie and at the other end, Eugen Heinrich Schmidt, gesticulating with might and main. All of a sudden his chair slips away from under him, and he falls under the table, his feet stretching right out to delle Grazie. I can tell you, it was a shock for us all! But this shock helped me to hit upon the solution of a particular problem.
Let me tell you of it quite objectively, as a matter of history. All that they had been saying about Byron had made a strong impression upon me, and I began to feel the keenest need to know how the karmic connections might be in the case of Byron. It was, of course, not so easy. But now I suddenly had the following experience. — It was really as if the whole picture of this conversation, with Eugen Heinrich Schmidt being so terribly impolite with his foot! — as if this picture had suddenly drawn my attention to the foot of Lord Byron, who was, as you know, club-footed. And from that I went on to say to myself: My beloved teacher, too, had a foot like that; this karmic connection must be investigated. I have already given you an example, in the affliction of the knee from which Eduard von Hartmann suffered, of how one's search can be led back through peculiarities of this kind. I was able now to perceive the destiny of the teacher whom I loved and who also had such a foot. And it was remarkable in the highest degree to observe how on the one hand the same peculiarity came to view both in the case of Byron and of my teacher, namely, the club-foot; but how on the other hand the two persons were totally different from one another, Byron, the poet of genius, who in spite of his genius — or perhaps because of it — was an adventurer; and the other a brilliant geometrician such as one seldom finds in teaching posts, a man at whose geometrical imagination and treatment of descriptive geometry one could only stand amazed.
In short, having before me these two men, utterly different in soul, I was able to solve the problem of their karma by reference to this seemingly insignificant physical detail. This detail it was that enabled me to consider the problems of Byron and my geometry teacher in connection with one another, and thereby to find the solution".
Steiner continues this thread in Karmic Relationships, Vol. V: Lecture IV
"The two men were there before me in this inner picture. And the karma of my teacher, as well as the peculiarity of which I have told you, led me to the discovery that in the 10th or 11th century, both these souls had lived in their earlier incarnations far over in the East of Europe where they came one day under the influence of a legend, a prophecy. This legend was to the effect that the Palladium, which in a certain magical way helped to sustain the power of Rome, had been brought to that city from ancient Troy, and hidden. When the Emperor Constantine conceived the wish to carry Roman culture to Constantinople he caused the Palladium to be transported with the greatest pomp and pageantry to Constantinople and hidden under a pillar, the details of which gave expression to his overweening pride. For he ordered an ancient statue of Apollo to be set at the top of this pillar, but altered in such a way as to be a portrait of himself. He caused wood to be brought from the Cross on which Christ had been crucified and shaped into a kind of crown which was then placed on the head of this statue. It was the occasion for indulging in veritable orgies of pride!
The legend went on to prophesy that the Palladium would be transferred from Constantinople to the North and that the power embodied in it would be vested eventually in a Slavonic Empire. This prophecy came to the knowledge of the two men of whom I have been speaking and they resolved to go to Constantinople and to carry off the Palladium to Russia. They did not succeed. But in one of them especially — in Byron — the urge remained, and was then transformed in the later life into the impulse to espouse the cause of freedom in Greece. This impulse led Byron, in the 19th century, to the very region, broadly speaking, where he had searched for the Palladium in an earlier incarnation."
1849 – Birthday of August Strindberg, a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist & painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over 60 plays & more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography, history, cultural analysis, & politics. A bold experimenter & iconoclast throughout, he explored a wide range of dramatic methods & purposes, from naturalistic tragedy, monodrama, & history plays, to his anticipations of expressionist & surrealist dramatic techniques. From his earliest work, Strindberg developed innovative forms of dramatic action, language, & visual composition. He is considered the "father" of modern Swedish literature & his The Red Room (1879) has frequently been described as the first modern Swedish novel.
During the 1890s he spent significant time abroad engaged in scientific experiments and studies of the occult. A series of psychotic attacks between 1894 & 1896 (referred to as his "Inferno crisis") led to his hospitalization & return to Sweden. Under the influence of the ideas of Emanuel Swedenborg, he resolved after his recovery to become "the Zola of the Occult". In 1898 he returned to playwriting with 'To Damascu's, which, like The Great Highway (1909), is a dream-play of spiritual pilgrimage. His 'A Dream Play' (1902) – with its radical attempt to dramatize the workings of the unconscious by means of an abolition of conventional dramatic time & space & the splitting, doubling, merging, & multiplication of its characters – was an important precursor to both expressionism & surrealism. He also returned to writing historical drama, the genre with which he had begun his playwriting career. He helped to run the Intimate Theatre from 1907, a small-scale theatre, modelled on Max Reinhardt's Kammerspielhaus, that staged his chamber plays (such as The Ghost Sonata)
Rudolf Steiner gives an amazing account of his former life in as an initiate in ancient Egypt, in a karmic knot with another. They then both reincarnated together again Strindberg as Julia & his friend as Titus Livius. This account must be read in full.
1901 – Deathday of Queen Victoria ruling over the United Kingdom, Ireland & India. She inherited the throne aged 18. The United Kingdom was already an established constitutional monarchy, in which the sovereign held relatively little direct political power. Privately, Victoria attempted to influence government policy & ministerial appointments; publicly, she became a national icon who was identified with strict standards of personal morality.
Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg. Their nine children married into royal & noble families across the continent, tying them together and earning her the sobriquet "the grandmother of Europe". After Albert's death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning & avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, republicanism temporarily gained strength, but in the latter half of her reign her popularity recovered. Her Golden& Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration.
Her reign of 63 years & seven months is known as the Victorian era. It was a period of industrial, cultural, political, scientific, & military change within the United Kingdom, & was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. She was the last British monarch of the House of Hanover. Her son & successor, Edward VII, belonged to the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the line of his father.
Victoria wrote an average of 2,500 words a day during her adult life. From July 1832 until just before her death, she kept a detailed journal, which eventually encompassed 122 volumes. After Victoria's death, her youngest daughter, Princess Beatrice, was appointed her literary executor. Beatrice transcribed and edited the diaries covering Victoria's accession onwards, & burned the originals in the process. Despite this destruction, much of the diaries still exist.
1910 – Deathday of Johann Steiner, father of Rudolf Steiner
"One spring day in 1860, an autocratic Hungarian magnate, a certain Count Hoyos, who owned several large estates in Austria, dismissed his game-keeper, because this game-keeper, Johannes Steiner wanted to marry Franziska Blie, one of the Count's innumerable housemaids. Perhaps the old Count had a foreboding as to what a great spiritual revolution would be born of this marriage. (The baroque palace of Hom, where it happened, is still in the possession of the Hoyos family, and stands today just as it was one hundred years ago.) So Johannes Steiner had to look for another occupation, and got himself accepted as a trainee telegraphist and signalman by the recently opened Austrian Southern Railway. He was given his first job in an out-of-the-way request stop called Kraljevic (today in Yugoslavia), and there his first child, Rudolf, arrived on February 27, 1861. On the same day the child was taken for an emergency baptism to the parish Church of St. Michael in the neighboring village of Draskovec. The baptismal register was written in Serbo-Croat and Latin, and the entry still can be read today as of one Rudolfus Josephus Laurentius Steiner. "Thus it happened," Rudolf Steiner writes in his autobiography, "that the place of my birth is far removed from the region where I come from."
From the severity of the Puszta the family moved, when the boy was two years old, into one of the most idyllic parts of Austria, called "the Burgenland" since 1921. Comprising the foothills of the eastern Alps, it is of great natural beauty, very fertile, and drenched in history. It takes its name from the many Burgen, i.e. castles which at different times of history were erected on nearly every hill. During recent excavations coins bearing the head of Philip of Macedonia, the father of Alexander the Great, have been found near Neudörfl, where the Steiners now settled, and where a daughter and a younger son were added to the family.
The management of the Austrian Southern Railway seems to have taken a sympathetic view toward the promising boy, and agreed to move father Steiner as stationmaster to several small stations south of Vienna, so that the eldest son was able to attend good schools as a day student, and finally in 1879 could matriculate at the Technical University of Vienna, then one of the most advanced scientific institutions of the world. Until then Rudolf Steiner's school life had been fairly uneventful, except that some of his masters were rather disturbed by the fact that this teen-ager was a voracious reader of Kant and other philosophers, and privately was engrossed in advanced mathematics." ~From the intro to Christianity as Mystical fact
Sunday 24 January 2021 – Reclaiming the Wisdom of America –
2–4 pm CST – An interactive Zoom Presentation with
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Rosemary McMullen, Anne Nicholson, Stewart Lundy, Sally Greenberg, Anne Dale
* Anne Nicholson, Social Scientist & tech guru is our Host
* Sally Greenberg – Opening Verse: Walt Whitman-Leaves of Grass
* Hazel Archer will explore the concept of Columbia as the Folk Spirit of America, as seen from the perspective of the Native Peoples', as well as the Founding Fathers. How do we renew this for our age of the consciousness soul, as a preparation for the unveiling of the New Isis-Sophia in the 7th epoch – to fulfill the true destiny of America?
* Stewart Lundy of Perennial Roots Farm brings the connection of Bio-dynamics
* Rosemary McMullen sets the scene for the ancestors – 'Land Acknowledgement', as a way for each participant to look at their current placement in America. A look also at how The 3 Realms of Culture, Rights, Economy, becomes 4-fold when we bring in the element of Ecology.
* Artistic gesture: The Spirit of Place (Paper & Colored pencils suggested)
* Sally Greenberg & Anne Dale: a contemplation of the expression of our Civil Responsibility that recommits us to our core values, to one another, & to the Spirit of Place & Time.
* Breakout Groups: Social Sharing – What do you see is wanting to come into being in America? How will you contribute to it? Each will share their artistic creation in relation to these questions to see if something new arises.
* Anne Nicholson: Plenary- Closing
* Anne Dale – Closing: Verse for America by Rudolf Steiner
We are bringing Anthroposophy to the People! Our presentation will be screened along with many other offerings from around the country in conjunction with 'The People's Inauguration'.
Only 100 zoom slots, so don't be late
Time: Jan 24, 2021 02:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)
https://zoom.us/j/7052931041?pwd=Q1RNcDliYS9QK3JDV1hNQ1pxUmwwZz09
Meeting ID: 705 293 1041 – Passcode: dove
Dial by your location-Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/a961qZZhF
Meeting ID: 705 293 1041 – Passcode: 664936
for more info. contact Events & Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer-Ginsberg hag@rsChicago.org
Mental Pictures
January 21, 2021 History, Insight, Rudolf Steiner QuoteHazel
Listen to the 'I Think Speech' Podcast for Today.
"To meditate is to become a stage where the eternal and transitory meet, so that our actions can become those of the eternal, for which we are but mediators; we are the eyes and the hands of the primal spirit, who sees and creates through us. Out of the spirit, then, let us create a better world."-Rudolf Steiner
Hima af Kint
Dear Friends – Our imaginative cognition is a treasure when it spins out scenarios that are aligned with our higher "I". Then it's an indispensable tool in creating a reality that brings in the flow of the universe. Nothing manifests on the material plane unless it first exists as a mental picture. We can form images of the tools we hope to wield in the world, & the conditions we'd like to inhabit.
Rachel Handly
But for most of us, the imagination is as much a curse as a blessing. We are just as likely to use it to conjure up premonitions that are at odds with our conscious values. Fearful fantasies regularly pop up, many disguising themselves as rational thoughts & genuine intuitions. They hijack our psychic energy, directing it to exhaust itself in dead-end deliberations.
Meanwhile, ill-suited longings are also lurking in our unconscious mind, impelling us to want things that aren't good for us. Anytime we surrender to their allure, our imagination is practicing a form of black magic.
Berty Willis
These unsavory aspects of our imagination are what Zen Buddhists describe as the chatter of the "monkey mind." If we can stop associating our sense of self with this endless surge of slapdash distractions & fruitless fantasies, then we can 'Be Here Now' to see what is actually needed.
di Vinci
But whether our imagination is in service to our noble ideals or in the thrall of compulsive fears & inappropriate yearnings, there is one thing for sure: These thoughts can become prophesies.
Of course many of our visions of the future do not come to pass – Thank the good gods – The situations we expect to occur & the experiences we rehearse & dwell on, all the worry about the future, just zaps us, & lames our will. It's downright self-destructive to keep infecting our imaginations with pictures of loss & failure, doom & gloom, fear & loathing.
Freddy Zentral
The far more sensible approach is to anticipate blessings…
Len Kemmer
"Learn to dance, or else the angels in heaven will not know what to do with you". ~Saint Augustine
21 January 2021 – "Speaking with the Stars"
Yee Young Lee
259 – Deathday of St. Fructuosus, bishop of Tarragona arrested during the persecutions of Christians under the Roman Emperor Valerian. He was burned at the stake in the local amphitheater.
304 – Feast Day of St. Agnes of Rome a virgin martyr, 1 of 7 women, who along with the Blessed Virgin Mary, are commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mass. She is the patron saint of chastity, gardeners, girls, engaged couples, rape survivors, virgins, & the Children of Mary. Agnes is depicted in art with a lamb. The name "Agnes" is derived from the feminine Greek adjective meaning "chaste, pure, sacred"
1793 – After being found guilty of treason Louis XVI of France is executed by guillotine
1841 – Birthday of Édouard Schuré, a French philosopher, poet, playwright, novelist, music critic, & publicist of esoteric literature. Born in the old cathedral city of Strasbourg. As a young boy he experienced events that, "Ieft traces upon my thoughts, to which my memory returns ever and again." The result of these events he called "inner vision, evoked by impressions of the external world." The first of these experiences occurred shortly after the death of his mother, when he & his father visited a resort in Alsace. On the walls of one of the buildings the ten-year-old boy saw a remarkable series of frescoes, depicting the world of undines, sylphs, gnomes & fire-spirits. Before these representations of the Elemental Beings, the boy was transported into another world, the world of creative fantasy. Like a talisman, the pictures awakened the magic forces of wonder in the child soul, & the result was a new perception.
Not long after the death of his father, which occurred when Schure was fourteen, he visited Paris, & saw for the first time the classical sculptures in the Louvre. The beauty of the Venus di Milo, of Dionysus, of the wounded Amazon, penetrated deeply into the boy, awakening in him a love & appreciation for the world of ancient Greece, which was to play so significant a role in his later work as a playwright. In these sculptures Schure became aware of the fact that a divine beauty can be made manifest in physical substance through the magic of art. At about this same time Schure read a description of the Eleusinian Mysteries of Ancient Greece, & the inner pictures this evoked were so vivid, so compelling, that he dedicated himself to the task of recreating the sacred drama of Eleusis for modern humanity. For Schure was convinced that through the experiencing of such a drama, people of modern times can acquire a totally new conception of the relationship between the spiritual striving of the ancient world & the religious conceptions of today.
Parallel with these experiences of soul & spirit, Schure's early years were devoted to formal education. Eventually he received his degree in law at the University of Strasbourg, but he never entered into practice. He visited Germany, remaining there for a few years, during which time he wrote Histoire du lied published in 1868. In this book he expressed his love for music & poetry which had been enhanced by his personal acquaintance with Richard Wagner, then living in Munich.
Shortly after his return from his travels in Germany, Schure married the sister of his friend, the composer Nessler. They moved to Paris, where Schure continued his writing & studies, making friends with some of the most important men & women in the cultural life of France of his time. With the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, Schure & his wife went to Italy.
In Florence Schure made the second great friendship of his life. One day Malvida von Meysenbergs, the devoted admirer & helper of the philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, introduced Edouard Schure to a Greek lady, Margherita Albana Mignaty. The meeting made a profound impression upon Schure, an impression he was to recall clearly in the last year of his life: "When I saw those great sunny radiant eyes directed questioningly upon me, I felt my consciousness almost desert me, for my whole being seemed called upon to reveal itself." In the presence of this beautiful woman, so reminiscent of the women of the classical Greece he so deeply loved, Schure once again found access to the spiritual world opening within him. In Margherita Albana Mignaty he discovered a soul to whom the unseen world was as immanent as the physical. This direct relationship with the spiritual world was the result of the death of her child, which had taken place some years before. Through their many conversations, Schure's own spiritual perception broadened & deepened beyond anything he had previously imagined. He referred to her as his Muse, & saw in her a "spirit that moves mountains, a love which awakens and creates souls, and whose sublime inspiration burns like a radiant light." on one occasion he asked her how she acquired such precise knowledge of the spiritual history of humankind, such intimate details concerning long-forgotten antiquity. Her reply was profoundly simple: "When I wish to penetrate to the very depths of a subject, I shut myself in my room and reveal myself to myself." Through the inspiration of Margherita Albana Mignaty 'as a testimony of a faith acquired and shared,' Schure's book The Great Initiates came into being.
Schuré now turned increasingly to the esoteric & the occult, his major influence being the famous French occultist-scholar Fabre d'Olivet. In 1884, he met the founder of the Theosophical Society Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. Although unwelcome in the Theosophical Society, he nevertheless entered.
In 1900, the actress Marie von Sivers came into contact with him because she intended to translate his works into German (The Great Initiates, The Sacred Drama of Eleusis & The Children of Lucifer). At the German Section of the Theosophical Society, he met the Austrian philosopher & later founder of Anthroposophy, Rudolf Steiner. In 1906, Sivers brought about a meeting between Schuré & Steiner. Schuré was deeply impressed & thought of Steiner as an authentic 'initiate' in line with his The Great Initiates. After hearing Steiner lecture in Paris for the first time in 1906, Schuré in an ecstatic state ran home & wrote down the entirety of the lecture from memory. This first lecture, & the other lectures in the series (which Schuré wrote down) were published as Esoteric Cosmology. Subsequently, Steiner & von Sivers staged Schuré's esoteric dramas at the Theosophical Congresses in Berlin & Munich. Schuré's The Children of Lucifer, served as a precursor of Rudolf Steiner's own esoteric dramas.
In 1908 Schuré brought out Le Mystère Chrétien et les Mystères Antiques, a French translation of Steiner's work Christianity as Mystical Fact & the Mysteries of Antiquity.
Édouard Schuré was often visited by Rudolf Steiner in Barr, Alsace. Steiner produced many of Schure's plays. In speaking about his book The Great Initiates Steiner says: "Édouard Schuré speaks about the 'Great Illuminated,' the Great Initiates, who have looked deeply into the background of things, and from this background have given great impulses for the spiritual development of mankind. He traces the great spiritual deeds of Rama, Krishna, Hermes, Pythagoras and Plato, in order to show the unification of all these impulses in Christ…. The light streaming from Schuré's book enlightens those who wish to be firmly rooted in the spiritual sources from which strength and certainty for modern life can be drawn." ~Rudolf Steiner
1924 – Deathday of Vladimir Lenin
1950 – Deathday of George Orwell
1959 – Deathday of Cecil B. DeMille
* Artistic gesture: The Spirit of Place
Inaugurate Change
Here's the 'I Think Speech' podcast for today's post
Dear friends – Today is January 20th 2021 – Inauguration day. Many folks are holding fear around displays of violence, apes ponding their chests & the like. Of course it's our job to create peaceful thought-forms that counteract these fearful imaginations. In a conversation yesterday about the state of the world, a friend used the term: Entre chien et loup which is a French idiom that literally means 'between dog & wolf.' It's used to describe twilight or dusk, when the light is tricky & it's tough to distinguish between a dog & a wolf. But it may also suggest a situation that is a blend of the familiar & the unknown, or even a moment when what's ordinary & routine becomes unruly or wild. Entre chien et loup suggests an intermediary state that's unpredictable or beyond our ability to define. This seems to be one of the main themes for us right now.
I often marvel at how varied the canine species can be dogs all shapes & sizes – & they all have their origins in the wolf. In my neighborhood right in the middle of the city of Chicago we see coyote. This is always a thrill for me. Can we embrace the wild, the unpredictable, the un-tame? For that liminal place holds the potential for change. And as we know the loyal dog can also bite. But it can also be lazy. They say: 'You can't teach an old dog new tricks'. Maybe that's why we also need the wolf.
To fear the wolf is to miss the opportunity to tap into its essence, which can be turned to the good. Many conservationists say reintroducing the wolf into the wild brings a better balance to the ecosystem. If we try to suppress these impulses they just come out sideways, & we get the wolf in sheep's clothing, which in my thinking is much more lethal. How can we let the howl of the wolf alert us to the fact that the checks & balances are needing adjustment. How can the howl be heard, so that the call for freedom can be transformed from an unconscious selfish impulse where the pack runs in for the kill; channeled instead into a call for a true freedom which serves the good of all.
Tyler Marnie
"The spiritual beings who apart from ourselves inhabit the spiritual world look with satisfaction and approval upon our thoughts about their world. They can help us only if we think about them; and although we may not have attained to clairvoyant vision into the spiritual world, if we know about these spiritual beings they can help us. In return for our study of spiritual science help comes to us from the spiritual world. It is not merely the things we learn, the knowledge we acquire, it is the beings of the higher Hierarchies themselves who help us when we know about them…The spiritual world helps us. We have need of it, we must know about it, and unite ourselves with it through conscious understanding". ~ Rudolf Steiner – GA 168 – How Can the Destitution of Soul in Modern Times Be Overcome? – Zurich, October 10th, 1916
Jilly Bean
THE WANDERING STARS
The Word in me,
the fire of the night,
the memory in my heart
of every tone of dark and light,
is poetry the wandering stars bequeath…
The Moon, the goddess of appearance,
experience… of biding time… and time
she hides… she's there, the keeper of my rhyme:
I am your witness… I attend life's dance…
Mercury, if I let him, invites my foolery,
a freedom freer than a king may seek
or even feel… as healing depths of being
are whispering… there's always another way…
Venus is welcoming… she has the art
of listening… she trusts me, guards my love
and hears my pain… and I open my heart
as she says… I accept you as you are…
The Sun, the god of my complete being,
unveils the morning hours, opens flowers,
his light resounding in the depths of joy,
announcing… I abound… I ground love's powers…
Mars acts in my blood, encouraging me.
He is my Lionheart, and I obey
his aim within me, willing me to wake
and work: wake up, he says… it's time to change…
Jupiter, if I care, forms my space
and cleans my spirit, showing me over and over
where peace goes peace follows, and where I focus
I am… and everything is in its place…
Saturn, my end and my beginning,
evade you as I do I do not lose you.
You knew what moved me… and here, now, reviewing…
you're asking… are you doing what you came to do…?
The poetry of who I am becoming,
invites my heart,
my future in my dark,
to speak to the wandering stars…
Inspired by Playing with Paradox, a mask workshop at the Stourbridge Glasshouse College with Michael Chase, working with the planetary archetypes. The words the planets speak (in italics), were used 'to charge' the actors to prepare them to play in the planetary masks (except for the sun, who we didn't work with).
This planetary order of the ancient Greek Mysteries (that has still been used by Rudolf Steiner) was only changed at the time of Copernicus. In it the ♀ & ♂ planets, Venus & Mars, have a mirrored relationship either side of the sun.
As we look up may the hemisphere send down its spirit greetings,
~Roy Sadler
* Sally Greenberg–Ending Verse: Alice Walker-America


text:
UN-Truth
It was about the United Nations now it's much more
Follow @Marianhouk
"Reading out text messages from the authorities is not journalism"
'Outgoing UNGA President on Gaza in September 2009: "This situation threatens to become even more serious if immediate measures are not taken
"Israel controls the West Bank" – says IDF Brigadier General ***
"Israel Defense Ministry rules the West Bank" ***
"Israel has never annexed the West Bank" – group argues ***
"Israel's legal position…"
"Israeli PM Netanyahu: We are planting here, we will stay here, we will build here, this place will be an inseparable part of the State of Israel for eternity" …
About ***
F.A.Q ***
Getting it: Journalism (cont'd)…
Getting it: Journalism ***
Here it is: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) ***
Mahmoud Abbas resigned as Palestinian Prime Minister in September 2003 ***
Munib Masri to Robert Fisk: how Fatah-Hamas reconciliation deal came about
Previously published articles – not (or no longer) visible online
UN-Truth.com – Marian Houk's blog
UNSC Resolution 1701 – Lebanon
War on al-Qaeda: more questions than answers
Academic studies and research
Ambassadors and other diplomats
Boundaries & Borders
Cluster Bombs
Conference on Disarmament
Hariri Commission of Inquiry
International Atomic Energy Agency – IAEA
International Committee of the Red Cross – ICRC
International Court of Justice – ICJ
International Humanitarian Law
International Tribunals
IT and the UN
Journalism and Journalists
Law of the Sea Convention
Middle East Peace Process
Millennium Goals
Negotiators and negotiations
Nuclear technology and weapons
Palestine & Palestinians
Register of damages due to The Wall
Sexual Exploitation, Abuse, and Harassment
Shebaa Farms
STL – Special Tribunal for Lebanon
Sudan – Darfur
Sudan – Southern Sudan
UN Administration
UN General Assembly
UN History
UN Humanitarian Efforts
UN Peacekeeping
UN Secretary-General
United Nations Agencies and Programmes
US in UN
West Bank incl East Jerusalem
Bahrainis go to UN in Geneva to discuss their government's implementation of its human rights treaty obligations
Here is a photo of the Bahraini human rights defenders who travelled to the UN Office in Geneva to participate in the Human Rights Council's discussion, on 21 May, of their country's implementation of its human rights treaty obligations. This group feel strongly that there should be major improvements:
This photo was posted and announced on Twitter via @DominicKavakeb, who Tweeted tonight:
"Great photo outside the Palais Des Nations after the #BahrainUPR #Bahrain http://yfrog.com/esr09yij"
This group, in fact, brought their "Arab Spring" experience to the international community, in their appearance at the UN Human Rights Council's "Universal Periodic Review" [UPR] of Bahrain's human rights performance [vs its treaty obligations].
Al-Jazeera's report on Bahrain's UPR, including a Q+A with opposition politician Khalil Al-Maqzooq, is posted Youtube here.
The official governmental delegation of Bahrain was headed by H.E. Dr. Salah Bin Ali Mohamed Abdulrahmah, Minister of State for Human Rights.
It's interesting that, several weeks before the date of the UPR, the Human Rights Council "selected the following group of rapporteurs (troika) to facilitate the review of Bahrain: Uruguay, Saudi Arabia and Spain". Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have reportedly been discussing some kind of unity. Saudi troops entered Bahrain last year to help quell "unrest".
During the UPR, the Saudi representative said that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia "commended Bahrain for its efforts in preserving peace and stability for the people".
According to the draft version of the Working Group report on Bahrain, available online on Wednesday, Bahrain told the Human Rights Council that "the Kingdom does not pretend to be perfect and free from some of the obstacles that hinder the implementation of the recommendations and commitments, but with determination and will of honest work Bahrain will overcome these constraints".
A violent Bahraini security services repression of a pro-reform demonstration on February 14 became the focal point Bahrain's "Arab Spring" movement.
The official delegation said in their prepared statement that, in the wake of "events Bahrain underwent during last year in the months of February and March … HM the King initiated number of drastic but gradual steps aimed at restoration of the situation in the aftermath of the events, beginning with conducting a National Consensus Dialogue including various components of the Bahraini community. A complete review was made through the dialogue sessions with respect to a series of important local issues and resulted in a number of demands for reforms in political, social, economical and human rights areas; most important of was the ratification of a number of constitutional amendments and modifications of a number of Bills".
In addition, the delegation also "briefed on the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) which was formed by a Royal initiative and which came up with a series of recommendations which have been accepted by Bahrain. Then a National Commission was formed presided by the Chairman of the National Assembly to follow up the implementations of BICI's recommendations in collaboration with all governmental and non-governmental bodies. A large part of BICI's recommendations have been completely implemented while others are currently being implemented".
States who are members of the Human Rights Council made comments in a segment of the debate called "Interactive Dialogue", including the U.S., which said that it "commended the establishment of the BICI [Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry] but was concerned that several of the Commission's most important recommendations had not been implemented. It remained concerned by the failure of the State to effectively investigate and prosecute alleged human rights abusers and the on-going prosecutions of 20 medical professionals and Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja".
The delegation noted that "a number of officials who committed violations during the unrest events of 2011 have been referred for accountability, in the meantime 142 ongoing investigations resulted in 9 prosecutions so far. A special investigation unit in the Public Prosecution was established to investigate and consider reports and complaints of alleged torture, cruel and inhuman treatment".
The delegation spoke about "HM the King's call for the establishment of an Arab Human Rights Court to deal with all human rights-related cases" … which was as a result of the King's "firm belief of the political leadership of such court under the successive changes and events the Arab World was witnessing" — meaning, in other words, because of the Arab Spring.
Egypt noted, however, that "Egypt supports all the national efforts undertaken to tackle human rights challenges" — indicating that it did not support the creation of any "Arab Human Rights Court:.
The delegation also noted that Bahrain has established "a Special Compensation Fund for Victims and Relatives of Victims who were affected by the recent incidents".
Posted on 22 May 2012 Author Marian HoukCategories Human Rights, United NationsTags Bahrain, Human Rights, human rights treaties, UN Office in Geneva, Universal Periodic Review
Previous Previous post: Welcoming the agreement to end Palestinian prisoners' hunger strikes
Next Next post: It says a lot: there's a new satellite TV Palestine Prisoners Channel