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Anti- and pro-refugee demonstrations held in central Prague
Opponents and defenders of refugees held rival demonstrations in the centre of Prague on Saturday afternoon. Around a thousand anti-immigration protestors led by populist MP Tomio Okamura gathered in front of the National Museum, some waving Czech flags and carrying anti-Islamic signs. Around 400 anti-xenophobia demonstrators gathered a little lower on Wenceslas Square by the statute of Saint Wenceslas. Some of the latter whistled while Mr. Okamura was speaking and there were verbal clashes between the two groups.
Indicted governor refuses to quit despite pressure from party leader
The governor of the Olomouc region, who has been charged with bribery, has refused to step down despite pressure from the head of his Social Democratic Party, Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka. Mr. Sobotka made the comments after a meeting with Jiří Rozbořil on Friday evening. Mr. Rozbořil's decision to remain in the post has been backed by the Social Democrats' regional committee. As indicted individuals cannot stand under party rules, he will not be able to head the Social Democrats' ticket in next year's regional elections. Mr. Rozbořil was arrested as part of an anti-corruption operation that has also involved senior police officers.
Mass for 25,000 culmination of first Czech National Eucharistic Congress
Over 25,000 Roman Catholics took part in a mass in central Brno on Saturday. The service on the city's Zelný trh was the culmination of the first National Eucharistic Congress held in the Czech Republic. Over 500 priests were among those in attendance at the mass, which was performed by such figures as Prague's Archbishop Dominik Duka, Archbishop Jan Graubner from Olomouc and the papal nuncio Giuseppe Leanza. Eucharistic congresses are common in states with large Catholic communities and are held every four years.
Babiš: Bartošek based own bill on text from gambling lobby group
ANO chief Andrej Babiš says the Christian Democrats' Jan Bartošek based a gambling bill he put forward on a document produced by a gambling lobby group. Mr. Babiš posted the two texts – which are almost identical in content – on his blog on Friday evening. Earlier in the week Mr. Bartošek strongly denied cooperating with gambling lobby group APKURS and demanded an apology from Mr. Babiš after he made a similar accusation. A representative of APKURS said the text posted online by the ANO leader was of a lower quality than its materials.
Three pedestrians hit by trams in three parts of Prague Friday night
Three pedestrians were seriously injured after being hit by trams in three different parts of Prague on Friday evening and night. A 32-year-old man was hit by the Biskupcova tram stop in Žižkov, a man of 27 was hit near the Invalidovna stop in Karlín and a 46-year old woman was hit at the Slavia stop in Vršovice, the spokesperson for the city's rescue services, Jiřina Ernestová, told the Czech News Agency. She said people needed to be aware that trams had right of way over pedestrians.
Conference on Czech Rome correspondent who saved 200 Jews planned
Preparations are being completed for a conference in Prague later this month focused on journalist Karel Weirich, who was a correspondent of the Czech New Agency in the Vatican and Italy and saved the lives of 200 Czechoslovak Jews during WWII. The conference takes place on October 26, two days before Weirich is set to receive the state honour the Order of the White Lion in memoriam. A recently published book has brought attention to the reporter, who was himself imprisoned for his activities helping Czechoslovak Jews interned in Italy.
Events held to mark International Archaeology Day
Events are being held in the Czech Republic on Saturday to mark the annual International Archaeology Day. Lectures, guided tours, exhibitions and workshops are taking place. People can for instance try elements of an archaeological dig for themselves at a Charles University building on Prague's Celetná St., while the Náprstek Museum will present the results of Czech digs abroad. Last year around 3,000 people of all ages turned out for a similar programme.


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A Itàlia es coneix com la Setmana Roja (Settimana rossa en italià) als fets produïts durant aproximadament una setmana (del 7 al 14 de juny de 1914) desencadenats per la repressió contra una manifestació anarquista contra el militarisme, en la qual van morir tres persones a causa de les bales dels carabinieri (policia militar que compleix la funció de cos de seguretat interna a Itàlia).

Durant els dies següents, i em mig d'una vaga general, tot el país es va convertir en un polvorí, produint-se manifestacions en les que es van enfrontar de forma violenta tant els vaguistes com les forces de seguretat, i en els que Errico Malatesta va tenir una actuació destacada, i és el principal instigador de la protesta inicial Benito Mussolini, qui des de la tribuna del diari del Partit Socialista Italià, Avanti!, va agitar les masses durant mesos.

Europa entrava aquell any a la Primera Guerra Mundial i els diferents actors revolucionaris estaven en un moment àlgid del seu poder de convocatòria i mobilització. Intel·lectuals marxistes com per exemple, Rosa Luxemburg, veien l'escala bèl·lica que s'apropava com un instrument útil per als interessos de la burgesia,
 i per aquest motiu des del camp de les esquerres més combatives s'oposaven amb força a la deflagració.

Itàlia va acabar entrant en el conflicte; encara conservaven patents els efects de la setmana roja.

Referències

Vegeu també
 Setmana Roja a Argentina
 Setmana Roja a Espanya

Segle XX a Itàlia
Història de l'anarquisme
Esdeveniments del 1914

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Today's Diesel price in Lower-subansiri (Arunachal Pradesh) is Rs. 61.78 per Litre. Last change in Lower-subansiri diesel price was on April 25, 2019 and it was increased by +0.07 rupees. In addition, we bring you the most recent diesel price changes in Lower-subansiri city. The diesel price is inclusive of Arunachal Pradesh state taxes.


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Chris & Allyson vs. Alaska (2016)
Chapter One: Vancouver and Boarding
Alaska is a ridiculous place.
Thousands of years ago, men crossed the ice-choked Bering Strait to explore a new land. Confronted by harsh terrain, brutal cold and terrifying fauna, most proceeded to the beautiful San Fernando Valley, or the beach resorts of Mexico.
But a ridiculous few stayed. They endured inhuman winters, and scarcity fueled their ingenuity. Every plant became a banquet; every carcass became a hardware store. The men could not flourish, as the cruel realm would not allow it. But they survived. Man and nature began an elegant dance that would last centuries.
Then white people showed up, gave those original men diseases and crushed their way of life. This took about 20 years, give or take a few.
The white people were also ridiculous, leaving behind comfortable homelands to have their spirits reshaped on the anvil of Alaska. Some sought the tops of mountains. Some sought gold. Some sought fishing grounds, to provide crab buffets for those who sought cruise vacations. In the decades that followed, white men also sought oil, and starring roles in Alaska-based reality television shows.
The white people achieved many things, but they did not tame Alaska. The place is too ridiculous. Today, visitors are surrounded by beauty. They are also surrounded by a land that is constantly trying to kill them and will surely succeed if they stay too long.
Fortunately, in the 21st century, two weeks isn't too long. So ridiculous white people can happily vacation there, and report back.
Welcome to Vancouver
The first visitors to Alaska supposedly came from Eurasia, trudging across a sheet of ice.
Why would they make such a journey? Probably to avoid creditors.
Today, many visitors make an equally riveting journey, entering Alaska from Canada. The only ice involved is in their Long Island Iced Tea, which was prepared by a cruise ship bartender. The cruise ships leave from British Columbia, so on a Thursday in July 2016, Allyson Jaffe and I woke up at 3 a.m. to fly to Vancouver.
We made the journey because we desperately needed to relax. 2015 was a year without vacation. Yes, there were long weekends here and there, but never a full week off. Failure to take a proper vacation in 2016 would almost certainly violate the Geneva Conventions. Alaska would be a new experience for both of us, the cell phone service would apparently be terrible, and it was far enough away to justify a two-week trip.
Also, Alaska has animals. I enjoy a good animal encounter as much as the next guy. But Allyson enjoys animal encounters more than life itself. I've seen photos of our wedding, and I've seen photos of Allyson looking at bears. I am not under the illusion that our wedding was the happiest moment of her life.
But back to Canada!
You've probably heard about Vancouver from your friend who loves pot. It's one of Canada's most exciting cities. While it lacks the enormous shopping mall of Edmonton or the annual cattle roundup of Calgary, it does have 2 million people, breathtaking coastal scenery, ethnically diverse neighborhoods, and a lot of pot. We were only staying one night, and we don't smoke pot. But we decided to enjoy as much of the city as we could.
Our base of operations was the Westin Bayshore. Allyson enjoys nice hotels despite the cost. I enjoy nice hotels and the chance to complain about the cost. We were therefore both pleased with the Bayshore. Situated on the sea wall in downtown Vancouver, it offers convenient access to anything a traveling couple could want -- even animals. After checking in and dropping our bags, we had lunch nearby. Returning to hotel, we looked out our eighth-story window at the heated outdoor pool below. And inside that pool was a harbor seal. This seemed like a good omen. Were we swimming in the heated pool, the encounter would have been a terrifying nightmare of furious, slimy blubber. From the eighth floor, it was cute, and it immediately made our entire vacation a success.
But why rest on your laurels? Vancouver is a city connected to the outdoors; when people smoke so much pot, they need green spaces to assist them in communicating with the universe. One of the finest green spaces in Vancouver is named Stanley Park (for the Stanley of "Stanley Cup" fame). It's right next to the Westin Bayshore. That day, there were gray skies over the green space, but Allyson was prepared.
This was a big deal. My wife is a resilient woman who gracefully deals with tremendous stress at her job. However, she is also a woman who brings a sweater when it's 95 degrees outside. She is not great at handling nature, and the weeks leading up to our vacation featured an online shopping spree for weather gear. She was ready. If it started raining frogs, Allyson wouldn't have run for cover; she would have enjoyed it as the chance to see more animals.
Vancouver's waterfront on a typically rainy day.
Looking out at the Lions Gate Bridge from Stanley Park.
Stanley Park's derivatve (but fun) Girl in the Wetsuit.
The Brockton Point Lighthouse, protecting Vancouver harbor.
A beluga whale at the Vancouver Aquarium.
Getting up close with frog friends at the aquarium.
The Vancouver skyline, spotted from Stanley Park.
Sea planes, and their gas station, near the heart of Vancouver's waterfront.
We set off on foot to see what Stanley Park had to offer. The park occupies the tip of a peninsula that defines the entrance to Vancouver Harbor. The perimeter is maybe 6 or 7 miles long, and the highest point is 300 feet -- so parts of the park feature stunning cliffs, and most of it is on a slope. Lesser cities would call that a great park and leave well enough alone. Vancouver decided to put all its eggs in one basket. Stanley Park features:
Hiking. There are miles of footpaths, both along the water and through the woods. There are also miles of rollerblading lanes, although we saw no rollerbladers. There's a good chance that someone on the Vancouver City Council was REALLY into rollerblading and held up the city budget until they gave him a win.
Great views of the water. Perhaps the finest view is on the harbor side of the peninsula, looking out at the Lions Gate Bridge that connects Stanley Park to North Vancouver. There's a "beach" there, which appears and disappears with the very active tides. We were there at low tide, so I was able to gleefully scramble over slime-covered smelly rocks while Allyson let me. As a bonus, we watched the birds of Stanley Park -- in this case gulls and ravens -- smashing shellfish open by dropping them against the slime-covered smelly rocks. This was technically our second animal encounter. Remember, not all of god's creatures are cute.
Intriguing statuary. Vancouverites (Vancouvians? Vancouverettes?) have a place in their heart for the "Girl in the Wetsuit," a clear rip-off of the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen. The girl is sitting on a particularly large slime-covered smelly rock. At low tide, she seems like an accomplished rock scrambler. At high tide she seems stranded. It's adorable. There's also a pavilion with a bunch of totem poles. If you visit the Pacific Northwest, you will see a lot of these. Judging from Stanley Park, the appropriate response is to get off your tour bus, take a picture, and vow to reflect on their spiritual significance at some point down the line.
A rose garden. Which was nice, but not so nice as to linger there in the rain.
The Brockton Point Lighthouse and the 9 O'Clock Gun. These relics hark to a bygone maritime era, when setting sail meant guaranteed adventures, venereal diseases and almost certain death. The modest lighthouse helped many a navigator find his way through the busy waters of Vancouver Harbor. The 9 O'Clock Gun was (and still is!) fired at 9 p.m. each day. In olden times, this helped vessels accurately set their chronometers. Today, it makes visitors almost choke on their late dinners, thinking that something in the harbor just exploded.
All these things were lovely, but they were a mere prelude to the crown jewel of Stanley Park: the Vancouver Aquarium. Our hope for this vacation was to see animals in the wild, but when you're spending thousands of dollars for two weeks away from home, it's never bad to hedge your bets.
The Vancouver Aquarium is an excellent facility, with everything you expect: Fish from around the world, marine life indigenous to the region, an impressive selection of souvenir magnets, and enough school-age children to make you wish for some kind of shark-feeding accident. It also has an outdoor section, which is kind of like seeing animals in the wild if you frame the photos carefully enough. Forty years down the line, you'll remember it as the wild.
Two creatures stood out. "False killer whales" live in the shadows of two other species. First, as their name clearly implies, they aren't quite killer whales -- and that clearly is a source of disappointment. Second, neither killer whales nor false killer whales are ... well, whales. They are in fact very large varieties of dolphin. It would be more accurate to call orcas "killer false whales," and false killer whales "false killer false whales." They have a FKFW at the Vancouver aquarium, and he's predictably moody and mysterious. You would be emo too, if your entire species was built on a series of lies.
The second standout was the beluga whale, a mysterious and milky white beast. It looks like a glop of mashed potatoes was shellacked in glue, then learned to swim with an absurd amount of grace. It reminded me of myself, when I swim without a t-shirt. Only, you know, graceful.
After the aquarium, we walked back to the hotel and relaxed for a moment; you should definitely catch your breath after accomplishing every goal of your two-week vacation within the first four hours. And then you should celebrate!
Gastown is the oldest neighborhood in Vancouver, and according to the city's tourism website it "grew from a single tavern founded by John 'Gassy Jack' Deighton back in 1867." Speculate wildly about why they called him "Gassy Jack," as your answer will probably be far more entertaining than the truth. Today, Gastown has a lot of restaurants and a lot of shops. It also has the virtue of being one mile from the Westin Bayshore, so when our concierge recommended a Gastown restaurant we decided to walk. The path was along the harbor, past all kinds of harbor-ish things -- the cruise ship dock, a sea plane terminal, and a weird house on stilts.
Our stroll through the drizzle eventually brought us to The Flying Pig, where we shared a communal dining table with a few 20something Asian girls. They weren't all that interested in hearing me wax poetic about beluga whales, so it was mostly a celebration between Allyson and me. On our way back to the hotel, we poked our noses in any souvenir shop that had a decent-sized bear statue near the entrance. Which is to say, we stopped in every souvenir shop we passed.
According to a Chinese saying, "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." As planned, our journey would be around 7,000 miles, and it actually began several months before with a series of non-refundable deposits. But the metaphorical "first step" had been a good one, and with our feet planted firmly on Canada's face, we were excited to push farther north.
Days Two and Three: More Vancouver, and Boarding the Millennium
It's fun to jog in other countries, to see how their fitness enthusiasts match up with the bat**** crazy exercise freaks at home. Do Canadians run with their arms totally straight? Are they all wearing leggings festooned with maple leaf designs? Do they INSIST on referring to distances using the metric system, or are they decent human beings?
On day two of our vacation, I got up at 6 a.m. to find out. The Westin has a great program whereby you call the front desk and tell them all your relevant dimensions. Then they have someone deliver socks, sneakers, shorts and a workout shirt to your room. After you're done, they charge you only $5, provided you leave all the sweaty, bacteria-ridden items somewhere in the room. This way, you can enjoy a brisk workout in the middle of your journey, without making the rest of the clothes in your suitcase smell like wet garbage on a summer day. Suited up in my rental gear, I hit the footpaths around the perimeter of Stanley Park. (Allyson slept in, to see if dreams are significantly different in Canada. Do they feature more bears? Are there more white people? She hasn't shared her conclusions with me.)
Canadians, as it turns out, jog roughly like Americans. You'd think that fleeing bears all day would make them faster, but I couldn't tell the difference. Stanley Park, however, is one of the most glorious jogging locations imaginable. The perimeter loop takes you past some extremely scenic waterfront, flanked by 100-foot rock cliffs in places. There's even a 60-foot rock spire, just off the shore, with a story: According to the Natives, a man was transformed into the rock by the gods, as a reward for his unselfishness. It's a wonderful reminder to be more selfish. The trail eventually passes under the Lions Gate Bridge, and it was easy to see a huge difference in the tide from the day before. The slime-rock beaches were now shallow waters filled with slimy rocks. Breathtaking stuff.
Back at the hotel, Allyson and I enjoyed breakfast in the hotel restaurant and planned the day. (I had scrambled egg and salmon tacos, the official breakfast of NAFTA.) There was a cruise ship waiting for us, and the cruise companies want you on board by a certain time. They do not mess around: If you are late, they will abandon you, faster than a "Maury" guest cleared by a paternity test. Also, before boarding the first time, you have to do some paperwork, put your home up for collateral, give a few tissue samples, swear a loyalty oath and undergo the ritual branding.
Vacation is supposed to be about adventure, though, so we decided to squeeze in a little more Vancouver. The concierge assured us that we could TOTALLY see the Capilano Suspension Bridge in time, so we stashed our bags and hopped in a cab.
Taking the long, scary entrance to Capilano Suspension Bridge Park.
The misty forests of Capilano park.
The Ewok village for tourists, at Capilano park.
One the skywalks giving you a different view of the forest.
It goes without saying that America has the BEST tourist traps. Our country has both Mystery Spots and Mystery Holes, proving that we didn't waste all the nation's ingenuity on the moon landing. But Canada is no slouch. In the 1880s, an engineer bought 6,000 acres of land along the Capilano River and strung a nifty little bridge across the canyon. (The modern version is 230 feet above the canyon floor and 450 feet long.) The various owners eventually realized that they could make a lot of money by charging people to walk across the bridge, for there is something in the human spirit that enjoys the vague threat of falling to your death.
In 2016, the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park is a very slick operation working in total synchronicity with the tourism industry. Meaning, it costs $40 to get in and it is usually overrun by Asian people with cameras by about 10 a.m. But it's still a good time.
It was drizzling when the cab dropped us off in North Vancouver. Tte park thoughtfully provides ponchos of the finest quality, but even fine-quality ponchos make you look like a sentient garbage bag. So we went with our regular coats. Crossing the bridge is a bit of a thrill, because it holds hundreds of people at a time and has a lot of give. It's the 21st century, so every person also stops every four feet to take a picture of themselves. (Allyson and I included.) So if you ever visit, block out at least 2.5 hours to actually walk the full 450 feet.
Once you're across, there's a lot more to see. The property has been improved over the years with a nice boardwalk, letting you stroll among the mighty trees of the Pacific Northwest. More recently, they put in an Ewok-style boardwalk that allows you to stroll near the tops of the mighty trees of the Pacific Northwest. And when you're done that, there's a THIRD boardwalk that lets you stroll on the side of a cliff, high above the canyon floor. If you believe in engineering, this is the park for you. If you're afraid of heights and think physics is a scam perpetrated by the Devil, you might want to hang out at the very nice gift shop near the entrance.
The park isn't particularly remote, but it gives you some glimpses of the forest ecosystem at work. There are slugs, and birds, and fish-filled ponds. There are also Asian tourists in the trees, carefully coordinating with Asian tourists on the ground to capture hundreds more camera angles than inferior American tourists. It is a symbiotic miracle of nature.
Allyson and I agreed that this had been a good call, and we caught a shuttle bus back to the Westin with plenty of time to spare. When we made it to the cruise dock and saw that there was no line, we agreed that it had been a great call. All the paperwork was knocked out in short order, ID cards were issued, and in mere minutes we boarded the Celebrity Millennium.
It says something about the modern age that our heads don't automatically explode at the notion of cruise ships. The explorers who "discovered" America set sail in pathetically small vessels that were filled to the brim with smelly people and disgusting provisions. The swimming pool of a modern cruise ship might be big enough to float one of those vessels. The Millennium is more than 900 feet long and 100 feet across; it can carry more than 2,100 passengers and another 1,000 crew. As cruise ships go, it's on the small side. It only has the one casino.
Our little piece of the boat was the strategically chosen cabin 9102. It was mid-ship, next to the one amenity no one uses: the library. It was also on the starboard side of the ship, which matters. We were travelling north, which is "up" on the map. That means Alaska was going to be on the right. If you're paying for a nice little private balcony, you want to have a view of something.
As rooms go, the cabin was perfectly fine. It had a decent bed, a tiny bathroom, and lots and lots of mirrors. This is a cruise ship trick -- mirrors create the illusion that any space is much bigger, so they put one on every feasible surface. (There were mirrors on the ceilings of the long corridors running the length of the ship.) The added benefit of cruise ship mirrors is that you have constant views of your aging, wrinkled skin, which makes you far more likely to spring for a $300 spa treatment at some point during the voyage.
The rest of the afternoon was spent getting to know our boat. Allyson had arranged for some kind of special status upgrade. (Cruise ships are all about bringing people together, and then finding ways to financially separate yourself from the riff raff.) The upgrade gave us access to an exclusive dining room, known as Blu; it had much cozier seating than the main dining room. We scoped it out.
Then we did the ship-wide muster drill, where people completely ignore instructions for when the boat sinks. Our muster point was the casino, and during the drill we spent a few minutes talking to Sherrie and Evan from Alabama. They were heading to a friend's wedding in Seward, and they were away from their kids. After the drill, we checked out the gym, and the theater, and the outdoor pool areas that no one would be using because, oh yeah, we were going to Alaska.
The boat shoved off in the late afternoon, and we stood on deck as the ship passed under the Lions Gate Bridge. Vancouver was now officially behind us.
On board the Millennium and ready to set sail.
The upper deck of the Millennium, foro brisk walks in brisk weather.
Our "exclusive" dining room for the week.
Ready to pass under the Lions Gate -- and head for the Inside Passage.
Not much sunning on an Alaska cruise, but just in case ...
Finding an indoor way to lounge.
If you've never taken a cruise, this is what you're missing.
Chefs get dessert ready as passengers tour the impressive galley.
We had dinner at Blu, where the tables are close enough to invite conversation with other guests. It's easy to talk with strangers on a cruise ship, because they've probably been drinking, and you always have this icebreaker: "CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS F***** SHIP?" We ended up chatting with Larry and Karen from Southern California. They were dedicated cruisers, as Larry was a retired IT executive.
After dinner, we took in a brief presentation on wildlife in the ship's theater, then watched about five minutes of comedian Dave Burleigh. Dave wasn't exactly bad, but we work in a comedy club, so it didn't feel like vacation to watch him.
The next day was more of the same. The Millennium was headed north toward the American border and the "Inside Passage." That sheltered nautical route winds along the islands near the Pacific coastline. However, it was going to take a day to get there. Cruise ships can max out at around 150 mph (I'm guessing), but in the interests of safety and comfort, sissy cruise ship captains are reluctant to go full throttle. That's why most cruises feature days where all you do is cruise. On Carnival ships, they call them "fun days at sea," because "drunk days at sea" is a little bit on the nose. They're good days to hit the gym, enjoy the spa, catch up on your reading, or eat your weight in buffet food.
We woke up at 8 a.m. and enjoyed the sight of some marine mammals playing in the ship's wake, just below our balcony. They were probably porpoises. Off in the distance, we saw the spouts of a humpback whale.
This was very exciting. But be forewarned. No matter what animals you see on an Alaskan cruise -- and no matter how long you spend staring at the water -- someone on board will have a better story when you're chatting at the end of the day. If you see porpoises and one whale, the people at the dinner table next to you will be chatting about the orca that jumped 100 feet straight out of the ocean right next to their cabin, did a full somersault and winked at them before landing in the exact center of a ring of assorted sea mammals engaged in choreographed water ballet. Just enjoy what you do see and try not to be jealous.
We enjoyed a few adult beverages during the day – but not too many. Alaskan cruises are active, with port excursions that are far more enjoyable if you're not perpetually on the verge of throwing up. It's better to not be drunk all the time, so we did not get a "drink package," instead choosing to pay for beverages a la carte. This was also a good math decision, as the only way to "save money" with a drink package is to have eight or nine drinks a day, every day. This does not stop most people on board from getting a drink package, and the ship's crew is trained to ask you repeatedly why you didn't buy a drink package, in a tone that suggests you might not be mentally competent enough to dress yourself. But if you're willing to be a little bit of a pariah, it's definitely the way to go.
We enjoyed a galley tour. You can't live on a cruise ship for a week and NOT wonder about the logistics (unless you are really devoting all your time to saving money with that drink package). The Millennium has facilities to feed 3,000 people multiple times a day. And most of the food is not, by any objective standard, bad. After sitting through a gussied-up sales pitch for the on-board restaurants that cost extra money, we participated in a group tour of the main kitchen, where the sausage is literally made. Or at the very least, removed from sausage storage containers and cooked.
At Allyson's urging, we played a little Bingo. It's not just for old people with no skill! All you need is a pulse and about $40 to rent two bingo cards. It was a great thrill as the very entertaining Mexican cruise director (who for some reason was a huge Philadelphia Eagles fan) helped us win no money whatsoever.
With the gambling bug now infecting both of us, we closed out the day with a post-dinner trip to the ship's casino. The main motivation was to check out a gambling machine called "Kitty Glitter." There's no way to improve on that fact with a joke, so I will simply report that it is a terrible video slot machine.
And at some point while we were sleeping off the day's excitement, we crossed over the American border to enter Alaska for the first time. At that exact moment, four humpback whales did simultaneous breaches while singing The Star-Spangled Banner. We missed it, as we were sleeping, but I'm sure the people next to us at breakfast the next morning saw it.
On to Alaska Chapter Two
In This Episode ...
Capilano Suspension Bridge Park
The Full Trip
Chapter Two: Ketchikan
Chapter Three: Icy Strait Point
Chapter Four: Juneau
Chapter Five: Skagway and Hubbard Glacier
Chapter Six: Seward and the Kenai Peninsula
Chapter Seven: Anchorage
Chapter Eight: Denali
Chapter Nine: Farewell
Send comments or questions to chris@dcstandup.com.
Copyright ©2018-2019, Chris White. All rights reserved.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Struggling retailer JCPenney has hired Jill Soltau as its new CEO, filling the shoes of Marvin Ellison, who departed abruptly in May. Earlier this week, JCPenney CFO Jeffrey Davis also decamped, leaving the retailer in the lurch. The news of Soltau's appointment sent shares of the retailer's stock up more than 10% upon the news. She was formerly the CEO of Joann Fabric and Crafts Stores.
Soltau is being heralded as an excellent choice, having spent a 30-year-career in retail. Prior to being CEO at Joanns, she was EVP and chief merchandising officer at Shopko. During her eight-year tenure at Shopko, she was also GMM of Apparel and Accessories. She also held senior positions in merchandising, planning and private brand management at Sears and Kohl's. She kicked off her retail career with Carson Pirie Scott in Chicago.
Soltau will fill the position Oct. 15 and will also become a member of the retailer's board of directors.
Inspired by those Instagram moments that make those stylish moms the envy of every social media, JCPenney has unveiled its new private brand: Peyton and Parker.
Beginning with a holiday line featuring coordinating family apparel, accessories and shoes, as well as home décor, the brand will roll out seasonally with capsule collections. Peyton and Parker will debut at nearly 400 JCPenney stores and at JCPenney.com beginning Oct. 19.
The introductory capsule features apparel and accessories with mix-and-matchabe cozy plaids, buffalo checks, rose gold sequins, glitter, navy stripes, ivory cable knits and denim. Mom can outfit her family, and her home, in Instagram-worthy styles at a great value.
Retails range from $8.40 for a girls' glitter crown headband to $30.80 for a women's plaid peplum top and $35 for a men's puffer vest. Home décor starts at $11 for a cable-knit stocking.
"Every family has a story to tell through photos and we created Peyton and Parker to give mom a fresh style perspective when sharing her family's lives on social media via fashionable squares. We are working with a targeted list of savvy mom influencers on Instagram who have an eye for tradition, photography and fashion to unveil this whimsical brand in a natural, organic way," added Harris.
Peyton and Parker will be promoted via an influencer campaign, email, social and digital marketing channels.


There are number of places to stay, including camping on-site, during the 4th Annual BIG MASS Tiny House Festival.
On-Site Camping Reservations CAN ONLY be made through the United Tiny House Association HERE.
Note: This is "dry camping" – there are no water or electric hookups for those camping on-site during the event. Also, the 4th Annual BIG MASS Tiny House Festival is a pet-friendly event.
Note: Be sure to verify the distance from your hotel to the 4th Annual BIG MASS Tiny House Festival.
Note: Cabin rentals and tent sites available. Be sure to verify the distance from your camp ground to the 4th Annual BIG MASS Tiny House Festival.


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Young v. Walmart, Inc.
NANCY YOUNG, Plaintiff,
WALMART, INC., an Arkansas Corporation authorized to do business in the State of Colorado, Defendant.
ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANT'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT AND DENYING DEFENDANT'S MOTION TO STRIKE OPINION AS MOOT
WILLIAM J. MARTÍNEZ, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Plaintiff Nancy Young ("Young") brings this case against Defendant Walmart, Inc. ("Walmart"), for injuries sustained in a Walmart parking lot in Cortez, Colorado (the "Store"). Young brings a statutory premises liability claim against Walmart under the Colorado Premises Liability Act ("CPLA"), Colo. Rev. Stat. § 13-21-115.
The matter is before the Court on Walmart's Motion for Summary Judgment (the "Motion") and Walmart's "Partially Unopposed Motion to Strike or Limit the Opinions of Plaintiff's Treating Expert, Brinceton Phipps, M.D." ("702 Motion"). (ECF Nos. 43 & 63.) For the reasons discussed below, the Court grants the Motion and denies the 702 Motion as moot.
The following summary is drawn from the parties' statements of material facts. The vast majority of the facts are undisputed.
In May 2016, the Store set up an outdoor garden center in its parking lot, as it had for each of the past five years. (ECF No. 43 at 3, ¶¶ 4-6; ECF No. 58 at 6-7, ¶¶ 4-6.) The garden center was cordoned off from the rest of the parking lot with a rope and "caution cones." (ECF No. 43 ¶ 8; ECF No. 58 ¶ 8.) Between 2011 and June 7, 2016, there were no issues or injuries reported concerning the safety of the garden center and its rope perimeter. (ECF No. 43 ¶ 7.) Young contends that Walmart inaccurately states that the garden center was used "without issue, " claiming that there may be issues or injuries that were not reported, and that the only way to definitively know would be to watch surveillance tapes for the time period. (ECF No. 58 ¶ 7.) Young does not, however, suggest that she has undertaken such a review or that there are, indeed, unreported issues or injuries. (Id.) It suffices to say that there is no evidence before the Court of any such reported issues or injuries.
On June 7, 2016, Young and nonparty-at-fault Angelita Randall-Salazar both went to the Store and parked in the parking lot. Randall-Salazar drove her Chevy pickup truck with a ball trailer hitch attached to the rear of her vehicle. (ECF No. 43 at 3, ¶ 10; ECF No. 58 at 7-8, ¶ 10; ECF No. 61 at 3, ¶ 10.) She backed into a parking space adjacent to the garden center, checked to make sure that her bumper was not hitting anything in the garden center, and entered the Store. (ECF No. 43 ¶¶ 11-12; ECF No. 58 at 8, ¶¶ 11-12; ECF No. 61 ¶¶ 11-12.) At some point, the garden center rope barrier got hooked on Randall-Salazar's trailer hitch. (ECF No. 43 ¶ 13; ECF No. 58 ¶ 13.)
When Randall-Salazar returned to her truck, she did not walk behind the truck. There is no evidence to suggest that Randall-Salazar noticed that the rope had looped around her trailer hitch or that there were any circumstances that would have made her think that the rope had attached to the vehicle. (ECF No. 61 at 3, ¶ 15.) Randall-Salazar drove off, not realizing that she pulled behind her the rope barrier of the garden center. As she did so, the rope was pulled across the parking lot and became taut, eventually "forming a V-wedge that closed in a scissor-like action upon the lower legs of [Young]." (ECF No. 43 at 4, ¶¶ 16-19.) Randall-Salazar heard people screaming, looked in her rearview mirror, and saw Young lying on the ground. (Id. at ¶ 20.) She stopped her vehicle and went over to Young. (Id.)
As a result of being taken out at the knees by the rope attached to Randall-Salazar's truck, Young contends that her pre-existing pigmented villonodular synovitis in her left knee was exacerbated, and that she suffered other injuries. (ECF No. 12-2 ¶ 10.)
II. LEGAL STANDARD
Summary judgment is warranted under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56 "if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(a); see also Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248-50 (1986). Whether there is a genuine dispute as to a material fact depends upon whether the evidence presents a sufficient disagreement to require submission to the factfinder or, conversely, is so one-sided that one party must prevail as a matter of law. Anderson, 477 U.S. at 251-52; Stone v. Autoliv ASP, Inc., 210 F.3d 1132 (10th Cir. 2000). A fact is "material" if, under the relevant substantive law, it is essential to proper disposition of the claim. Wright v. Abbott Labs., Inc., 259 F.3d 1226, 1231-32 (10th Cir. 2001). An issue is "genuine" if the evidence is such that it might lead a reasonable trier of fact to return a verdict for the nonmoving party. Allen v. Muskogee, 119 F.3d 837, 839 (10th Cir. 1997).
In analyzing a motion for summary judgment, a court must view the evidence and all reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Adler v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 144 F.3d 664, 670 (10th Cir. 1998) (citing Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587 (1986)). In addition, the Court must resolve factual ambiguities against the moving party, thus favoring the right to a trial. See Houston v. Nat'l Gen. Ins. Co., 817 F.2d 83, 85 (10th Cir. 1987).
Where, as here, "the moving party does not bear the ultimate burden of persuasion at trial, it may satisfy its burden on a motion for summary judgment by identifying a lack of evidence for the nonmovant on an essential element of the nonmovant's claim." Bausman v. Interstate Brands Corp., 252 F.3d 1111, 1115 (10th Cir. 2001) (internal quotation marks omitted). If the movant meets this burden, the burden shifts to the nonmovant "to go beyond the pleadings and set forth specific facts that would be admissible in evidence in the event of trial from which a rational trier of fact could find for the nonmovant." Adler, 144 F.3d at 671 (internal quotation marks omitted). A party must support an assertion that a fact is genuinely disputed by "citing to particular parts of materials in the record, including depositions, documents, electronically stored information, affidavits or declarations, stipulations, . . . admissions, interrogatory answers, or other materials." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c)(1)(A).
         "[C]onclusory and self-serving statements are insufficient to survive summary judgment." Ford v. West, 222 F.3d 767, 777 (10th Cir. 2000). Likewise, "general denials, or mere argument of an opposing party's case cannot be utilized to avoid summary judgment, " Pasternak v. Lear Petroleum Expl., Inc., 790 F.2d 828, 834 (10th Cir. 1986), and "[v]ague, conclusory statements do not suffice to create a genuine issue of material fact, " Ford, 222. F.3d at 777. Rather, "[t]o survive summary judgment, a nonmoving party must set forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial as to those ...


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+27 (0)83 564 6179 info@tours-capetown.co.za
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The Western Cape is Open for Business
Home / Blog / The Western Cape is Open for Business
The Western Cape government, together with Wesgro, has launched a 'We are Open' tourism campaign to attract visitors to the province in an effort to restart economic activity.
"We are ready to open safely, we are ready to start doing business again, and we are ready to start rebuilding our economy in the Western Cape. The We are Open campaign builds on our efforts to support the tourism industry during the COVID-19 crisis and, importantly, is also one of the first of our immediate action steps toward economic recovery in the Western Cape," said Western Cape Provincial Minister of Finance and Economic Opportunities, David Maynier.
The campaign's initial focus will be on domestic tourism under lockdown level two regulations. Using a mix of social content, digital display advertising and local influencers in KZN and Gauteng, the campaign will build awareness and drive key messages to audiences across the country who will be encouraged to book through targeted, compelling holiday promotions. The campaign will include a 'Kids stay free' initiative to encourage local families to visit the province.
"Many people's international holidays were cancelled due to the lockdown. But the Western Cape is full of experiences that match some of the world's favourite destinations and we want to show people just how diverse and world-class it truly is," said CEO of Wesgro, Tim Harris.
A Wesgro spokesperson added that while the campaign was launched as a direct response to the reopening of inter-provincial travel, We are Open was also designed to encourage visitors from both near and far (for when international travel resumes) to come and enjoy the world-class tourism experiences in Cape Town and the Western Cape.
A message to internationals
Beverley Schäfer, Deputy Speaker and Head of International Relations and Protocol for the Western Cape Provincial Parliament, said an aspect of the campaign related to the province's efforts to see the country's international travel ban lifted and to send a message to international source markets that the province was open and ready for international business, ahead of its peak tourist season in December, January and February.
She added that the Western Cape had reached its COVID-19 peak earlier than the rest of the country and had seen its infection rates declining for some time now. As such, there should be no reason that the province could not reopen as long as social distancing, mask wearing and other preventative protocols were followed.
"In terms of my responsibility of international relations for the WCPP, I support the tourism and business tourism sector being opened as quickly as possible. We cannot afford to have more jobs lost. We must show that, despite the necessary precautions that we will continue to follow, Cape Town is open for business. Tourism is the heart of our province. We also want our foreign residents who live and work here to return and continue to invest their time and money in our city and province," said Schäfer.
Western Cape Premier, Alan Winde, was quoted in media reports expressing similar sentiments:
"Given our capacity to respond to COVID-19, the fact that we have passed our peak and that we have put measures in place to support businesses so that they can reopen safely, there remains no rational reason to keep these businesses closed. If they can open safely, let them."
The question of quarantine
Aasa CEO, Chris Zweigenthal, told Tourism Update that part of the difficulty the industry was facing was that the government was giving no lead time for the relaxation of lockdown regulations. This would allow the tourism industry to plan marketing campaigns ahead of the borders reopening. The industry, therefore, had to take action now in the hope of salvaging some of the peak tourist season. He added that while the current declining infection rates indicated that borders would reopen soon, there remained one facet, related to quarantine protocols, that still needed to be resolved before this took place. "We understand why governments around the world have implemented quarantine periods for travellers, but ideally we wouldn't want to see this happening when South Africa reopens its borders. We don't see why this cannot be avoided through the use of screening, testing and other measures," said Zweigenthal.
"Self-quarantine has already been written into our legislation and we do not support a move to waste more taxpayers' money through the enforced quarantine of travellers in four-star hotels at this late stage of the outbreak, as it hinders travel. The infection already exists within our communities, which means that international visitors no longer pose much additional danger to us as long as they follow responsible social distancing protocols," added Schäfer.
Article by Sarah Robertson of Daily Southern and East African Tourism Update
Contact Person: Jacqui Braunlich
Email: info@tours-capetown.co.za
Address: Hout Bay, Western Cape, 7806, South Africa
© 2022 Tours Cape Town. All rights reserved. Created, Hosted & Promoted by iTTCONNECT


Amount of works is impressive: the replacement of the front and rear bumpers, front fenders and side skirts, new carbon elements on the doors, expansion and splicing the rear fenders, replacement of the hood and installation of the new aerodynamic wing. The front bumper has a new aggressive aerodynamic profile with stabilizers in the middle and side air ducts, the lower rubber skirt moved from factory bumper and fully retains its functionality.
New front fenders now have GT3 RS style ducts. It is functional and adds aggressive appearance of the car. Rear fenders have been enhanced using carboxylic linings. Special TOPCAR technology allows seamlessly splice carbon element with a metal body. Extreme temperatures or significant torsional body connection is not dangerous. A new rear bumper with additional side air ducts and big sport diffuser forms a finished appearance of extreme Porsche 991 Turbo / S.
An important nuance – each element of the kit Stinger GTR gen.2 made of carbon fiber by vacuum forming which among other things significantly reduces the weight of the vehicle!


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Home » News » How Arts And Culture Make New York A Place For All Of Us
How Arts And Culture Make New York A Place For All Of Us
by Michele Kumi Baer, Program Associate, Thriving Communities, The New York Community Trust
This piece originally appeared on Huffington Post and is reposted with permission.
Ask any New Yorker what makes this city a great place to live, and you will get an earful about the rich cultural life. From world-famous productions on proscenium stages to longstanding drumming circles in City parks, New York is home to an unparalleled variety of artistic activities that give New Yorkers a sense of belonging amid a dense, impersonal urban enclave; provide space for people to engage in civic action; and celebrate the beauty and ingenuity that exists within all of us.
A city like ours doesn't happen overnight. It is the result of centuries of migrations, policies, protests, and practices of people that value culture, heritage, and expression.
Over the next year, we have the opportunity to continue this legacy and sustain New York as a global cultural capital. As the City completes its cultural plan, a blueprint for cultural policy in the years to come, the federal government renews efforts to cut funding for the arts and basic social services.
We need a cultural plan that advances artistic practices and cultural institutions that serve New Yorkers who will be the most affected by proposed federal cuts, or we risk losing the diversity that makes New York City a cultural hub.
The concept of creative "placemaking" – that arts and culture help develop a place and its community – is not a new idea. At The New York Community Trust, we recently brought some of our donors together to learn about this phenomenon.
Since 2010, an organized national creative placemaking field has emerged, shepherded by the team at ArtPlace America. Increased attention to this work has sparked more investments at the nexus of arts and community development. We've seen it through philanthropic partnerships like ArtPlace, a funding collaborative that positions culture as a core sector for community planning and development, and newer endeavors like Upstart Co-Lab, which connects artist-innovators doing place-based work with impact investors who want to support it.
Policymakers also have taken note. In recent years, more municipalities have enacted cultural policy initiatives aimed at harnessing the power of the arts to increase wellness and social cohesion in their cities.
A recent study funded by The Trust identified several neighborhoods for strategic investment, including so-called "civic clusters," lower-income neighborhoods with a density of cultural assets that exceeds that of other neighborhoods with similar economics (e.g., Bedford-Stuyvesant, Flushing, Hunts Point), and lower-income neighborhoods that have fewer cultural assets than their peers (e.g., Corona, East New York, South Jamaica).
Many lower-income neighborhoods house community development corporations (CDCs), which have been creatively supporting their communities since the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation became the nation's first CDC in 1967.
Recently the Greater Jamaica Development Corporation (GJDC) has been working with the City Department of Cultural Affairs' Building Community Capacity (BCC) initiative (also funded by The Trust) to advance equitable development in Downtown Jamaica that is inclusive of culture, and it is exploring the development of a new artist housing development in the neighborhood. CDCs are well-positioned to help ensure local artists and cultural groups have a say in the future of their neighborhoods.
The City has put forward a proposal for its cultural plan (due out in July) to provide baselined funding for the Building Community Capacity initiative in the City's budget, and therefore remove reliance on a now at-risk federal Community Development Block Grant program for this effort to survive.
New York is a dynamic, creative place because of the plurality of cultural resources it houses in every borough. Artists are the problem solvers, truth tellers, community builders, and spiritual guides of our society. Our cultural traditions give us a sense of belonging, help us connect to our neighbors, and allow us to explore human ingenuity. Social, spiritual, economic, and health benefits are associated with culture, and recent research has the data to prove it.
The challenge for philanthropy and the City's cultural plan is to ensure that our arts investments keep New York a creative place for all of us.
The New York Community Trust
Virtual Employee Engagement through Virtual Conversational Leadership
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Learning to Unlearn|Jul 15, 2009 4:43 AM| by: guest
The Spirit of Education
The spirit of education is inherent in the word `education' itself. Education is that which brings out the best in the individual. It is assumed that everyone is born with certain inherent potentials and virtues as Plato would say. It is the task of the teacher to help the taught in self-discovery and thus make him realise his hidden potentials.
As one thinks, so he becomes is the old saying. As a matter of fact the spirit of education lies in developing self-awareness and such a consciousness as removes the barrier between the body and the soul. It is really amazing that with so much of potential knowledge within, the individual remains the victim of triple ignorance. While the individual is essentially a soul in a body, due to ignorance he forgets this fact and develops such a consciousness that he begins to identify himself with his physical body only.
The spirit of education lies in the fact that the individual must have a correct consciousness in regard to his physical body and the soul or the spirit which he has within himself. Recent researches in human physiology and psychology have provided sufficient evidence in support of the view that human thoughts play a very significant role in maintenance of health, both physical and mental.
Maya Pines(1) has summed up the present position in regard to the contemporary state of mind and matter and pointed out that brain scientists are studying the workings of the brain with a new technique known as biofeedback. The biofeedback technique employs electronic gadgets which measure and amplify the minutest physiological changes. According to Maya Pines, "The research confirms what Indian Yogis and Buddhist meditators have known for thousands of years – that it is possible, with training, for the mind to control the body."(2)
In the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo the main emphasis is on changing the consciousness. The individual must develop through meditation and yoga the divine consciousness. Hence it is rather satisfying for us to note that what has been known to the ancient Indian yogic tradition is now being discovered through the technique of biofeedback.
It has been further pointed out by Maya Pines that in Sanskrit there are twenty different names for varying states of `consciousness' or `mind'. Yet we are limited to these two words.(3) In other words, at present we have confined ourselves in regard to the powers of brain to two words, viz. consciousness and mind. But Sri Aurobindo has gone deep into the nature of consciousness as well as the different levels of mind in the context of Integral Yoga.
The future evolution of man will be in terms of cosmic consciousness and supermind. From mind to supermind is the real spirit of education. The present system of education is bookish and lays heavy emphasis on memory work. Children develop rote memory but little understanding and insight. There is little of creativity and more of mechanisation in the present educational theory and practice. The truth of the matter is that by and large educators are not aware of the true nature of man and hence all attention is paid to the outer self of the individual. The inner self or the soul is totally neglected. That is why there is a deep crisis in the present system of education all over the world.
Lecomte du Nouy,(4) while discussing the present scientific knowledge and its uses in the context of human destiny, has stated, "What characterises man, as man, is precisely the presence in him of abstract ideas, of moral ideas, or spiritual ideas, and it is only of these that he can be proud. They are as real as his body and confer to this body a value and importance which it would be far from possessing without them."(5) In other words, the importance and significance of the human body is to the extent the individual has in him correct notions of his spirit and soul.
The task today is to provide a correct view of man and the instrument of brain of which he is so proud. Our knowledge of brain and its functioning which we call mind is very much limited. On account of this limited knowledge we suffer from such ignorance as is extremely harmful. It is due to this ignorance that we are unable to discriminate between the real and the unreal.
Education as Light
The present system of education is so superficial that it fails in its main purpose which is to enable the individual to have a correct view of things. It is no wonder that in the ancient tradition, education has been described as light. Education is that light which removes darkness of ignorance and separateness. In the Vedic and Upanishadic literature utmost importance has been given on attaining the Light. Take for example the following prayers which were popular in ancient India:
(a) Let our meditation be on the glorious light of Savitri. May this light illumine our minds. (Rig Veda)
(b) The face of truth remains hidden behind a circle of gold. Unveil it, O God of Light, that I who love the true may see. (Brih. Upanishad)
The human aspiration for light is spiritual in nature for it enables the individual to go beyond the limitations of mind and perceive the real Truth, which is the spirit of education.
It is interesting to note that in the Upanishadic literature the Spirit and the Light go very much together. A typical example is given below from the Chandogya Upanishad:
"There is a light that shines beyond all things on earth, beyond us all, beyond the heavens, beyond the highest, the very highest heavens. This is the Light that shines in our heart." (3.13.7)
Here we find a reference being made to Light as Spirit. The real purpose of education is to discover this Light which shines in our heart. But the main difficulty is the barrier between the light within and the physical mind which is regarded today as the main instrument of knowledge. In order to remove this barrier one must try to be free from the mechanisations of human mind. In this context the following statement of Sri Aurobindo has significant relevance:
"The mere idea or intellectual seeking of something higher beyond, however strongly grasped by the mind's interest, is ineffective unless it is seized on by the heart as the one thing desirable and by the will as the one thing to be done. For truth of the Spirit has not to be merely thought but to be lived, and to live it demands a unified single-mindedness of the being…"(6)
Since the spirit of education is solely concerned with the inner awakening and realisation of the Self, the human mind with its faulty perceptions, prejudices, defective reasonings cannot be of any help. The human mind must be prepared for transformation through such education as lays emphasis on the Spirit and not on form. From mind to supermind is the evolutionary path which the spirit of education has to cover. Sri Aurobindo writes:
"A progressive evolution of the visible and invisible instruments of the Spirit is the whole law of the earth nature. Spirit has concealed itself in inconscient matter. It evolves into forms of matter by the working of matter forces. It is only when this has been sufficiently done, that it thinks of life. A subconscient life and its imprisoned forces were there all the time in matter and its forces. Afterwards came an evolution of mind in many forms by the working of liberated mind-forces. In those life-forces in matter and in the very substance of matter mind was latent. An evolution of mind in the living form by a working of liberated mind-force was the third chapter of the story. The third chapter is not completed, neither will it be the end of the narrative."(7)
Thus human mind in its present form and functioning cannot really understand the spirit of education. In order to do so it must become an instrument of Truth by fulfilling one of the following three conditions:
1. "Either it must fall silent in the Self and give room for a wider and greater consciousness;
2. "Or it must make itself passive to an Inner Light and allow that light to use it as a means of expression;
3. "Or else it must itself change from the questioning intellectual superficial mind it now is to an intuitive intelligence, a mind of vision for the direct expression of the divine Truth."(8)
The present system of education is devoted to intellectual questionings and does not try to develop a true vision and an intuitive intelligence for it is oblivious of the Spirit of education.
In order to make education an instrument of attaining higher consciousness and ultimately the divine consciousness we have to go deep into the inner world of the psychic and the Spirit. No amount of religious or moral education can really awaken the dormant Spirit and the Light surrounded by darkness of superficial knowledge.
The spirit of education has an inherent goal which requires every individual to make integral effort for inner growth and development so that his consciousness becomes cosmic. In 1912 the Mother wrote down some of the general aims which should guide humanity on its path to the Divine. These aims are meant for the individual as well as for the collectivity. But the general goal in terms of the spirit of education is to establish a "progressing universal harmony". This can be possible only if through education it is realised that human unity is necessary and it can be achieved not by emphasising the external conditions but through "the awakening in all and the manifestation by all of the inner Divinity which is One."(9)
To perceive One in all and all in One is an essential condition for realising the spirit of education. Each individual must make efforts for being "conscious in himself of the Divine Presence and to identify himself with it."(10) The real spirit of education demands this consciousness to be developed in the individual so that he may become aware of the Divine Presence in himself. Such a goal is not idealistic but concretely related to the requirements of "individual transformation, and inner development leading to the union with the Divine Presence."(11)
But such an individual transformation and inner development leading to the union with the Divine Presence cannot be possible without the corresponding social transformation which will create such an environment for the individual as will enable the growth and flowering of his total personality. The goal is action-oriented and, according to the Mother, threefold:
"1. To realise in oneself the ideal to be attained: to become a perfect earthly representative of the first manifestation of the Unthinkable in all its modes, attributes and qualities.
2. To preach this ideal by word, but, above all, by example, so as to find out all those who are ready to realise it in their turn and to become also announcers of liberation.
3. To found a typic society or reorganise those that already exist."(12)
Thus the spirit of education is concerned with the individual as well as with the society in which he lives. The individual and social transformations are complementary. They support each other. One is not possible without the other. But the main burden lies on the individual. He must do his duty, that is, he must develop first a genuine aspiration for his inner development and for a progressive union with the Divine Light. Without this aspiration the spirit of education cannot be realised.
But all individuals have to work and labour in terms of their uniqueness and the special potentials with which they are born and also must choose, according to the Mother, an external action in terms of their capacities and personal preferences.
The relation between the individual and the society can be harmonious if the spirit governing this relationship is kept active. Each individual "must find his own place, the place which he can alone occupy in the general concert, and he must give himself entirely to it, not forgetting that he is playing only one note in the terrestrial symphony and yet his note is indispensable to the harmony of the whole…."(13)
The value of this relationship between the individual and the collectivity is the same as that of a note to a symphony, the sole condition being the creation of harmony. Such is the spirit of education as must be realised if we want to go beyond bookish and mental education.
Sitaram Jayaswal
1. Maya Pines, The Brain Changers: Scientists and the New Mind Control, New York: Harcourt Jovanovich Press, Inc., 1973, quoted in The Span, February, 1975.
2. Ibid., p. 31.
4. Lecomte du Nouy, Human Destiny, New York: The New American Library of World Literature, 1949.
6. A Practical Guide to Integral Yoga, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1971, p. 321.
8. M.P. Pandit, Dictionary of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1966, p. 159.
9. The Mother, Conversations, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 1971, p. 1.
10. The Mother, Conversations, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 1971, p. 1.
11. Ibid., p. 2.
Tags: education, evolution, spiritual outlook
Author: guest


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A couple of tidbits from today's Deep Impact preview briefing
Today was the press briefing that previewed the upcoming Deep Impact flyby of Hartley 2. This briefing wasn't particularly well attended by press, because it's the sort of briefing where almost all of the information they would be relaying was already released -- these preview briefings are mostly for press who haven't been paying much attention. So there weren't any real surprises, as expected; most of what was said has already been mentioned in such places as the Deep Impact Hartley 2 flyby timeline I posted last week. (I should mention that I have recently corrected some errors in the timeline, most importantly my incorrect time conversions to UTC; I hadn't realized that Daylight Saving Time was still in effect here in California through November 7. To make things more confusing, this flyby is happening during the week when Europe will have shifted back from Summer Time, but the USA is still under Daylight Saving Time. Everything in my timeline should be fixed now.)
Still, there were a few interesting tidbits worth reporting. Tim Larson, EPOXI mission project manager, said that the 700-kilometer flyby distance was chosen both for spacecraft safety (to keep the spacecraft far enough away from the coma and its dust) and to allow it to track the comet nucleus comfortably within the spacecraft's maximum turn rate. For comparison, Deep Impact flew within 500 kilometers of Tempel 1.
Amy Walsh, EPOXI systems engineering lead at Ball Aerospace, said that the spacecraft launched with 85 kilograms of hydrazine maneuvering fuel. Five kilograms remain. One kilogram will be consumed between now and the end of this flyby. She pointed out the positions of the low-gain antennas on the spacecraft -- there are two, one on the side with the instruments and one on the side with the solar panel -- and she said Deep Impact should be sending telemetry through these antennas to Earth throughout the flyby, while the high-gain antenna will be pointed away from Earth.
Mike A'Hearn, principal investigator, said that Hartley 2 was chosen because it was small; they wanted to see something smaller than had been visited before. (Hartley 2 is thought to be 1.2 kilometers across, while the mid-sized comets we've visited before are 4-8 kilometers across.) He said that Hartley 2 was identified as a possible target as early as the time of the Tempel 1 encounter, but a different comet (Boethin) was selected first because the mission to it would be shorter. But Boethin completely vanished, which he said was likely due to its utter breakup. Boethin's disintegration was not witnessed but he showed an image from Hubble of another comet, LINEAR, breaking up. A'Hearn said that comet breakups are thus rare but not unprecedented.
All asteroids and comets visited by spacecraft as of June 2010
The total of four comets and nine asteroid systems (including ten separate bodies) that have been examined up close by spacecraft are shown here to scale with each other (100 meters per pixel, in the fully enlarged version). Most of these were visited only briefly, in flyby missions, so we have only one point of view on each; only Eros and Itokawa were orbited and mapped completely. When Hartley 2 is added to this montage, it will appear approximately the same size as Dactyl or Braille -- much smaller than the other four comets that have been visited to date (which are grouped in the lower right corner).
This image is also available without text, and as a larger version at 20 meters per pixel (8600x6250 pixels, 9.4 MB).
Image: Montage by Emily Lakdawalla. Ida, Dactyl, Braille, Annefrank, Gaspra, Borrelly: NASA / JPL / Ted Stryk. Steins: ESA / OSIRIS team. Eros: NASA / JHUAPL. Itokawa: ISAS / JAXA / Emily Lakdawalla. Mathilde: NASA / JHUAPL / Ted Stryk. Lutetia: ESA / OSIRIS team / Emily Lakdawalla. Halley: Russian Academy of Sciences / Ted Stryk. Tempel 1: NASA / JPL / UMD. Wild 2: NASA / JPL.
A'Hearn said that despite Hartley 2's small size, it puts out more gas every minute than Tempel 1.
He showed a video of ten days' worth of Deep Impact's observations of Hartley 2, which is very cool and worth watching several times. It jumps a bit because Deep Impact watches the comet for about 16 hours then turns to communicate with Earth for 8 hours. As the video goes on, you can see the comet brighten, which results from two things: the decreasing range from the spacecraft to the comet, and also the comet's increasing activity as it approaches perihelion (it passes perihelion on Thursday). You can also see that its activity is variable; you can even see jets of material coming out, at least I think I can see that. I asked A'Hearn if they could identify the comet's rotation pole yet and he said that ground-based telescopes still provide better data for that than the spacecraft does; but that rotation poles measured by astronomers using different ground-based telescopes are inconsistent.
One of the press asked a question about the layering on comet Tempel 1, and A'Hearn told a really interesting story about that. He said Tempel 1 has many layers ranging in thickness from 10 or 20 meters to half a kilometer. The solar system started forming with tiny dust grains accreting into bigger and bigger things. It started just with solids -- ice and silicates. Eventually you get a discrete body. Theories have predicted that once they grow as large as something like 50 or 100 meters, then they start to run into each other. It looks like layering on Tempel 1 was produced by multiple cometesimals coming together; the smaller one sticks to the nucleus by flattening out. It doesn't interpenetrate with the larger comet's substance. It doesn't compress a lot, we know, because comets' bulk density is low, they're highly porous. So we think this tells us how accretion at 50-100 meter size works. We don't have a numerical model of this though. It's a challenging thing to model.
The physics hasn't been worked out yet though, so it's kind of just a fairy tale story of unknown degree of possible-ness -- but it's one that I hadn't heard before, and fascinating to contemplate.
I asked also about the HRI images and how their processing was going to work. Deep Impact's highest-resolution camera has an intrinsic blur. A'Hearn said that the processing of those images will be done using methods established during the Tempel 1 encounter, but that the processing has to be numerically tuned in order to avoid "ringing" artifacts in the images. He said that the person who handled this for the Tempel 1 flyby will be at JPL to handle the processing for the Hartley 2 flyby.
Deep Impact Image: NASA / JPL
Read more: Animation, Comet 103P/Hartley 2, Comets, Deep Impact, Mission status, Pretty pictures, Small bodies, Small bodies missions, Space missions, Worlds


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Using plastic spoons, forks, and knives for take-outs and quick meals is natural for most of us. Did you know these utensils we threw away create ~40 billion pieces of plastic waste every year in the United States? Made from petroleum by-products, plastic cutleries can also potentially release toxic chemicals into the food we eat. The environmental and health concerns lead Bakeys, an India based startup, to develop the world first edible cutlery line. The edible spoons are made from sorghum, rice, and wheat—tasty and nutritious to eat after your meals and almost as affordable as plastic spoons.
Bakeys was founded in 2010 in Hyderabad, India, by Narayana Peesapaty, an agricultural researcher who has a thorough understanding of the food production system and environmental impacts from plastic utensils. He was inspired by spotting others picking up food with Khakhra, a traditional breakfast cracker made from beans and wheat.
The edible spoons are made from a mix of sorghum flour, rice flour, and wheat flour. Using sorghum as the primary ingredient makes the spoons strong enough to support regular meals and not degrading within liquids. Sorghum also has superior environmental benefits—it can grow in 95% of the world's arable lands and requires far fewer nutrients, energy, and water compared to sugarcane, corn, and rice.
The edible spoons have no preservatives or trans-fat and less than 10 ppm gluten. It tastes like a regular cracker, providing essential nutrition like protein, carbohydrate, fiber, and calcium. The spoons come in multiple flavors including sugar and seven savory options.
The edible spoons go perfectly with ice cream, yogurt, stews, and a variety of soups. You can eat up your spoon as a post-meal snack. If you don't feel eating it, just throw it with other disposable waste or simply in the mud under plants. It will decompose in 3-5 days. The spoons have a long shelf life up to 2 years due to low moisture content.
This product launched on Kickstarter in March 2016 and raised $278,847 from 9,293 backers — about 14 times of its initial goal. The price is comparable to plastic spoons too. For $10, you can get a pack of 100 spoons in a flavor of your choice, and this even includes shipping. The estimated delivery for backers was this past April, but like most crowdfunding campaigns, the product is still under production with an uncertain delivery date. If you place a post-campaign order now on Kickstarter, you will probably receive it in December this year according to the website.


Madison, Wisconsin - It's hard to say what's more impressive over the sweep of Wesley Babcock's 40 years of bowfishing: the more than 18,000 carp and other fish he's taken with a bow and arrow, or the eye-popping lunker he hauled in last month from the Castle Rock Flowage.
Babcock, a biology teacher for the Pardeeville School district for 33 years, shot the quillback/river carp sucker hybrid while bowfishing on the Castle Rock Flowage.
Next, they moved on to a 3-foot circumference hoop they shot through the middle of and wrapped line around. Now they use a bottle reel which allows longer shots and fast retrieval of the line after shots.
Eight years ago, when the Beaver Dam Lake Improvement Association began offering a 50-cent bounty on each carp shot with a bow, Babcock and his 14-year-old son, Aaron, started shooting over there every chance they got.
Aaron died suddenly on August 26, 2004.
The elder Babcock continued to find peace and relaxation in bowfishing, shooting more than 2,000 every summer since. The total is now over 18,000. "I plan to back off after reaching hopefully, 20,000," he says.
Babcock was on the Castle Rock Flowage shooting carp and buffalo when he shot the carp sucker hybrid.
He knew it was huge for a sucker and started checking. The Bowfishing Association state record was 11 pounds and the official state record for quillbacks was 10 pounds plus change.
The fish weighed in at 18.17 pounds at a local grocery store.
John Lyons, a longtime DNR researcher with an encyclopedic knowledge of fish and a mission of updating George Becker's seminal Fishes of Wisconsin, a compendium of information about fish species in Wisconsin, indeed had never seen a bigger carpsucker. He looked at the frozen fish and sent photos and a small fin clip to a Tulane University expert, who concurred that the fish was the hybrid.
"This carpsucker is huge," Lyons says. "Based on my own field experiences and my quick review of the literature, this may be the largest carpsucker ever recorded anywhere.
Babcock hasn't decided whether he will have the fish mounted or have a replica made. In the meantime, he's back out there bowfishing.
His advice for novice bowfishers is to invest in a bottle reel and good arrows.