#Swedish Mission Society is founded

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Today in Christian History

Today is Friday, January 6th, the 6th day of 2023. There are 359 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

786: Martyrdom of St. Abo in Tsibili, Georgia. A Muslim perfumer from Baghdad, he had become a Christian and attempted to strengthen Christians and win Muslims to Christ.

1088: Theophylact delivers a flattering address in Constantinople before Emperor Alexius that results in an unwelcome “promotion” to the position of archbishop of Ohrid, Bulgaria (now in Macedonia). Homesick, he will write obscure letters to distract his mind.

1374: Death of Andreas Corsini, Italian bishop of Fiesole. After a reckless youth, he converted and became a strict Carmelite, and was credited with being a prophet and miracle-worker. (Under the Florentine calendar his death is given in 1373.)

1422: Jan Ziska, blind Hussite general and master tactician, defeats Sigsimund of Bohemia at Nebovidy, one of many defeats he will inflict on Bohemia’s enemies.

1494: Columbus and his men celebrate the first mass in the Americas, on Isabelle Island, Haiti.

1628: Bribed by Roman Catholics, Turks in Constantinople seize a press that is preparing to print a small catechism written by Eastern Orthodox Patriarch Cyril Lukaris. Jesuits had already maneuvered to exile Lukaris for several months.

1771: First baptism takes place among the Moravian converts of the Saramaccas people, near where the Senthea River empties into the Surinam River. Chief Arabina, the mission’s first convert is baptized.

1772: Death of Samuel Johnson, a New England clergyman, educator, and philosopher. In 1724 he had opened the first Anglican church built in Connecticut, after which he had served as a missionary for the Anglican Church, and played an important role in setting the standards and curriculum for King’s College, New York, (later known as Columbia University).

1829: The Indiana State Legislature incorporates Hanover Academy, begun two years ealier with six students by Presbyterian minister John Finley Crowe. The school sits on land donated by Presbyterian Elder, Williamson Dunn, who becomes one of the trustees.

1835: Businessmen operating in China circulate a paper among themselves, calling for a “Morrison Education Society” to bring the gospel to China. The society is named for pioneer missionary Robert Morrison who had died a year earlier. They raise several thousand pounds to support the mission and offer the post of missionary to Samuel Robbins Brown.

The Swedish Mission Society is founded.

1844: Hermann Anandarao Kaundinya is baptized in Mangalore, India, with two other young Brahmans. He becomes a notable educator, pastor, and Bible translator in the Kanarese district.

1850: Conversion of Charles Spurgeon who will become one of the most notable pastors of all time. He had entered a little Methodist church because of cold and snow where a deacon told him to look to Christ. “I can never tell you how it was but I no sooner saw whom I was to believe than I also understood what it was to believe and I did believe in one moment.”

1852: Death in Paris, France, of Louis Braille, developer of the reading system of raised dots for the blind which bears his name. He is just forty-three years old.

1884: Death in Brno (in modern Czechoslovakia) of Gregor Mendel, a monk who through persistent experimentation had discovered the laws of genetics.

1894: Death of Theophan the Recluse, a Russian Orthodox author, priest, and bishop. He had written several works, among them a translation of the Philokalia, a famous collection of the church fathers. Typical of his sayings was, “Attention to that which transpires in the heart and proceeds from it—this is the chief activity of the proper Christian life.”

1902: Edith Warner, a Presbyterian missionary, sets out from Asaba, Nigeria, to become the first white woman to visit the East Niger.

1921: Death of Alexander Whyte, regarded as the finest preacher of the Free Church of Scotland. He had also served as professor of New Testament Literature at New College, Edinburgh, and wrote the popular Bible Characters.

1934: Peter Deyneka and four other men meet to form the Russian Gospel Association.

1948: Janani Luwum converts to Christianity in Uganda. He immediately asks his family to pray that he won’t backslide, but rather lead a godly life. Eventually he will become an archbishop and will be executed by the brutal dictator Idi Amin.

1973: Death in California of Pentecostal evangelist Tommy Hicks, allegedly of alcoholism. Nineteen years earlier he had packed stadiums in Argentina, winning thousands to follow Christ.

1986: Death in Grand Rapids, Michigan, of Elsie Rebekah Ahlwen. She had served as an evangelist among America’s Swedes and wrote the hymn “He the Pearly Gates Will Open.”

1992: Naimat Ahmer, a Christian educator and poet in Pakistan, is stabbed seventeen times in earshot of students by a Muslim who claims Ahmer has insulted Mohammad. Ahmer taught that Christ is the only way to salvation.

[rebeccalouisaferguson]

No one signs up for a Mission: Impossible movie without expecting to do a few stunts. But back in 2014, when Rebecca Ferguson was filming Rogue Nation, the first of the MI films in which she has starred as the international spy Ilsa Faust, the actress got something of a surprise. In a scene set at the Vienna Opera House, Tom Cruise (who plays the seemingly unkillable covert agent Ethan Hunt) planned for his character to exit the building, alongside Ferguson, via its roof. There was just one hitch: “She never told me—or anyone else—she was uncomfortable with heights,” Cruise says. Instead of suggesting the front door, however, Ferguson did what any self-respecting secret agent would. “She trained for it and did it. She confronted it full on,” Cruise says. “That is Rebecca. She knew it made the sequence, and she knew that she could trust me, and I could trust her. It is a lovely moment.”

The stakes are slightly lower on this rainy Monday morning in West London, but Ferguson’s not one to do anything halfway. It’s 8:58 a.m., and I’m sitting in a café when I receive a text: She’s running late but she’s en route: “See you in eight minutes on the dot.” True to her word, exactly eight minutes later Ferguson breezes into the café wearing head-to-toe black, with wet hair and a grin on her bare face. She shrugs off her dark overcoat, orders a fruit plate for the table and a latte and an espresso for herself, opens the book I’m reading to the first page, and declaims the opening lines as if she’s doing a dramatic reading. Then, when she spots the app on my phone transcribing our conversation in real time, the sly sense of humor I’ve heard about makes its entrance. “Penis! Yep, there it is,” Ferguson says, chuckling as the word pops up on the screen. She quickly adds, “Vagina! For equality…”

Warming to Ferguson is effortless. She exhibits an eager inquisitiveness and charming candor, and our discussion careens from marriage (“We live in a society where it’s kind of forced on us,” says Ferguson, who is married to Rory St. Clair Gainer) to the merits of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (“I just got goosebumps when you said it!”). This openness and wide-ranging interest might explain why she’s one of the most exciting, and busiest, actors working in Hollywood right now, with Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One out this summer, Dune: Part Two hitting theaters in late fall, and the acclaimed post-apocalyptic series Silo (on which she’s also executive producer) streaming now on Apple TV+.

There’s a lot of pressure on movies like the ones Ferguson is starring in this year. After Cruise was credited with saving last year’s box office with Top Gun: Maverick, the stakes for this year’s blockbusters are higher, farther, and faster than ever before. The pressure for tentpole films to perform is intense, but it also signals a chance for Ferguson, who appears in two of them, to become more visible than she has ever been. She’s a screen voyager whose adventurous spirit has led her across various genres, and her upcoming projects have taken her around the world—as well as out of it. For Mission: Impossible alone she has filmed in Italy, the United Arab Emirates, and the UK—and director Christopher McQuarrie was recently Insta­gramming cryptically from the arctic.

It’s no wonder Ferguson gravitates toward the peripatetic. Born in Stockholm in 1983, she was raised by a British mother, Rosemary Ferguson, and a Swedish businessman father, Olov Sundström. Rosemary was the daughter of Northern Irish and Scottish academics; she rebelled in her youth by moving to Sweden, where she found herself entangled in such glamorous projects as helping ABBA with the English translation of the lyrics from the 1974 album Waterloo. “She is rather eccentric,” Ferguson says with a smile.

Though separated, Ferguson’s mother and father both stimulated their daughter’s creativity, signing her up to do everything from music and gymnastics to tap dancing, modeling, and card playing. It was her mother who encouraged her to audition, at age 15, for the part of Anna Gripenhielm in the Swedish soap opera Nya Tider, which she landed and played in 1999 and 2000.

More than 20 years later Ferguson boasts a catalog of complex characters whose one similarity is that they hold their own against male leads played by the likes of Hugh Jackman (The Greatest Showman, Reminiscence), Jake Gyllenhaal (Life), and Ewan McGregor (Doctor Sleep). She also has two children to guide—a son, Isac, from her previous relationship with Ludwig Hallberg, and a daughter, Saga, with husband Gainer. Being a parent has, she says, been pivotal to her performance in the Dune films and her understanding of her character, Lady Jessica, the mother of Timothée Chalamet’s Paul. “She’s a mom protecting and training someone, something,” Ferguson explains. “I say something because she knows [she’s dealing with] an entity bigger than themselves. When Paul starts going off, she begins losing power, and it puts her on an unpredicted journey to discover who we are in response to other people. That’s when we find ourselves again.”

Ferguson doesn’t seem to have trouble figuring out who it is she is. Dune director Denis Villeneuve says, “Rebecca’s a passionate, warm human being who loves to quickly break the ice. She has a huge imagination. She’s someone who has no fear to walk into the zone of the unknown. She can make you believe in the extra­terrestrial, in other cultures, in different worlds or dimensions. Some actors are very down to earth, but she’s someone who can fly high.”

High enough, it seems, that Villeneuve expanded her role in the second installment of Dune, which is adapted from Frank Herbert’s beloved novel. “Lady Jessica kind of disappears in the second part of the book, and I made sure as I was writing the screenplay to do the opposite, to make sure that she will be active, to bring her back to the front of the story,” he says. “I’m looking forward for the world to see what Rebecca has accomplished. She’s not afraid to go very far away. She’s a force that I can count on.”

Or, at least, she can be counted on to stay surprising. While filming Dune in Jordan, Ferguson and Gainer organized excursions for the cast and crew so they could appreciate the places their work had taken them. “I rented a boat for the stunt team and the actors and took them out in Jordan to a place in the middle of the Dead Sea where you can see four different countries,” she says. “Seeing them dive for the first time, I enjoyed that.”

Ferguson is an actor who takes her work very seriously, but she believes a happy set is key to great creative collaborations. “She loves to have fun,” Villeneuve says. “It’s important for her to enjoy the moment and to create a lightness, make jokes and make sure that everybody is comfortable. She wants you to feel secure.” But she also wants to be pushed beyond her comfort zone, which has happened frequently on the Mission: Impossible films. “We don’t really work with scripts,” Ferguson says. “As someone who likes structure, I find it tricky, but it makes me confront the fact that I have zero control. There is method to the madness.”

Structure might be appealing, but Cruise says Ferguson does just fine without it. “Her elegance and intelligence jump off the screen. She reminded [McQuarrie] and me of Ingrid Bergman,” he says. “We knew when we met her we had found our Ilsa. Rebecca is enormously talented, and when she decides to do something, she makes it happen.”

Throughout the Mission: Impossible franchise, Ilsa gives Ethan a run for his covert-ops money—and Ferguson promises that Dead Reckoning will once again up the ante. “I can tell you it is an explosive, dynamic film with incredible stunts you’ve never seen before,” she says. But the actor is also cognizant of how being known for characters like Ilsa and Lady Jessica may limit her ability to escape typecasting as an action hero version of the so-called “strong female character”.

“I feel frustrated by the pitfall of doing things that are not completely different, from a creative aspect,” she says. “People enjoy what I do, but it’s recognized in a similar way. It makes me see that I’m trying to put together something that is shaped by other people, and I want to break out of it.” Ferguson wouldn’t be the first actor to feel boxed in by type, but what would she like to do to free herself from preconceived expectations?

“It changes all the time,” she says. “I enjoy real stories and real people, but if I go back in history, whose story am I going to tell?” What she’d rather do is discover a script that grapples with messy humanity, the kind we all live with when we’re not super-spies or in a universe 20,000 years in the future. “That’s what I want to do,” she says, “but I don’t know where to find it.” Lucky for Ferguson, that mission is still possible.

[darkmaga-retard]

Blaise Malley

Sep 02, 2024

The two wars that have engulfed much of the second half of Joe Biden’s presidency are at risk of escalating. Ukraine has taken the war into Russia in recent weeks, and Washington continues to gradually lift its restrictions on how Kyiv can use American weapons. Meanwhile, the efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza appear to be stuck, and the risks of a wider regional war remain acute.

Against this backdrop, Swedish diplomat Hans Blix published a book, “A Farewell to Wars: The Growing Restraints on the Interstate Use of Force,” that argues that a number of factors, including fear of nuclear war, growing public aversion to armed conflict, and increased economic interdependence, greatly decrease the possibility of large interstate wars in the future.

Blix gained international fame as the head of U.N. inspection mission in Iraq (UNMOVIC) from late November 2002 until just before the U.S. invasion of the country on March 20, 2003.Hundreds of U.N. inspections that scoured the country found no evidence to support U.S. claims that Iraq had possession of or was developing weapons of mass destruction.

Last month, RS interviewed Blix, now 96, about how he developed the book’s thesis and whether the events in Eastern Europe and the Middle East in the months since its publication have affected his analysis in any way.

The full conversation is below:

RS: Considering years of brutal and devastating war in Ukraine, the Hamas attack on Israel, and Israel’s destruction of Gaza, is it not provocative to write “a farewell to wars?”

[xasha777]

In the opulent, antiquity-laden chamber of the Villa Chiericati, where crimson walls bore the weight of history and chandeliers cast a golden glow, stood Valentina, the notorious Red Cybersiren of the Veneto Resistance. Her vivid scarlet hair and intricate tattoos spoke of a fiery spirit, while her eyes, cool and calculating, betrayed a mind of circuits and steel.

The year was 2492, and Earth had long been under the dominion of the Extraterrestrial Federation. Humanity, resilient as ever, found its strength in rebellion. Valentina was a masterpiece of the Resistance's secret weapon program, a fusion of art and engineering, designed to infiltrate high society gatherings and extract vital information.

Tonight, her mission was to secure the ancient schematics hidden within the Villa's vault, believed to hold the key to an energy source powerful enough to fuel an uprising. Adorned with an electromagnetic corset, her body was a fortress unto itself, deflecting any unauthorized scans or probing attempts.

As she moved gracefully through the halls, her every step was a silent sonnet of rebellion. The Villa's guests, a mix of alien diplomats and human collaborators, were captivated by her presence. Yet, beneath the surface, her neural networks interfaced with the Villa's security, deciphering codes and disarming systems with each pulse of thought.

The night unfolded, a chess game played on the grand board of the Villa's luxuriant floors. Valentina danced with danger, her body language a code, conversing with the Resistance's moles through the language of espionage.

As the moon climbed the spine of the night sky, she found herself before the ancient vault door. With a mere touch, her fingerprints morphed into the key — the last descendants of the Chiericati lineage woven into her very skin. The door obliged, revealing the schematics, glowing with the promise of a new dawn.

She memorized the patterns in seconds, her eidetic memory locking away each symbol, each line. With the mission accomplished, Valentina offered one last pirouette, a silent goodbye to the life of deception. For once the power was unleashed, her role would shift from spy to warrior, a Cybersiren heralding the rise of humanity.

And there, in the heart of the Villa Chiericati, history took a breath, as if aware that the tides of power were about to change, with Valentina, the Red Cybersiren, as the harbinger of the storm to come.

[fuzzysparrow]

Who decides the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize?

The Norwegian Nobel Committee is a prestigious organization tasked with selecting the recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize. Founded in 1897, the committee is composed of five members appointed by the Norwegian Parliament. Their mission is to recognise individuals or organisations that have made significant contributions to promoting peace and resolving conflicts around the world. The committee's decisions are based on a careful evaluation of the nominees' achievements and their impact on society.

The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the world's most prestigious awards, recognising individuals and organisations that have made significant contributions to promoting peace and improving human welfare. The prize was established in 1895 by Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel and has been awarded annually since 1901. Winners of the award have included notable figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, and Nelson Mandela. The Nobel Peace Prize continues to inspire people around the world to work towards a more peaceful and just society and serves as a reminder of the importance of compassion, cooperation, and nonviolence in daily life.

[biglisbonnews]

How Did a Medieval Spice Cabinet Survive 500 Years Underwater? Built in 1485, the Danish warship Gribshunden served as the flagship and mobile seat of government for King Hans of Denmark and Norway. In the summer of 1495, Hans set sail for Kalmar, Sweden, where he was set to negotiate with Swedish leader Sten Sture the Elder. The goal of the mission was to convince Sten Sture and the Swedish council to give up their sovereignty and rejoin the Kalmar Union, which had unified much of Scandinavia under a single ruler (and which Sweden had left a few decades before, despite the union being named for a Swedish town). The ship itself had a role to play: to show Hans’s authority to the Swedish council. It was also laden with goods—from gunpowder weapons to artwork to delicacies—to demonstrate his power. However, while anchored in the Baltic Sea near the port of Ronneby, Sweden, Gribshunden mysteriously caught fire. Though the king wasn’t on board at the time, many crewmen were, in addition to all those pricey goods. Although the exact number of deaths is unknown, many of the crew of 150 were on board when the ship sank to the bottom of the Baltic with its precious cargo. Despite the loss of his ship, Hans continued his journey to Kalmar, where unfortunately, he never met with Sten Sture. Two years later, in October 1497, Hans defeated Sten Sture at the Battle of Rotebro. He went on to rule Sweden briefly—until they renounced him as king in 1501. In the 1970s, a local diving club came across a mysterious wooden wreck there, in 33 feet of water. It wasn’t until 2001 that the first archaeological excavations of the ship began, after one of the divers told local archaeologists about what they had found. It was another decade before the remains were identified as those of Gribshunden. All through the excavation of the wreck, remarkably preserved by the cold waters of the Baltic, amazing and sometimes odd artifacts have emerged and attracted media attention. In 2015, there was a nearly perfectly preserved wooden “sea monster” figurehead. In 2019, archaeologists discovered a well-preserved rare Atlantic sturgeon. Further excavations in 2021 revealed something even more remarkable: a treasure trove of spices, plant material, fruits, nuts, and cereals, that somehow survived underwater for more than 500 years. In a study published in the journal PLoS ONE, Brendan Foley and Mikael Larsson, archaeologists at Lund University in Sweden, examined the finds for new insights into how nobility lived and ate during the Middle Ages, and shed light on how these organic materials survived so long underwater. Foley and a team had been excavating the stern when they made the finds. “We think, but we’re not sure, that the back part of the ship is probably where the highest ranking individuals were situated,” says Foley. They sifted through the sand and silt and revealed almond shells and peppercorns. They recovered thin strands of saffron by hand. “We took four samples of botanical assemblage that included both local and exotic spices, fruits, and vegetables,” says Larsson, including black mustard, dill, clove, ginger, cucumber, grape, and berries such as blackberry and raspberry. “The botanical remains that really stand out are the exotic spices,” he says. Clove, ginger, and saffron had never been found before in the medieval Baltic. Larsson says that their work is the first anywhere in the world to find saffron in such a setting. “Finding it in a botanical assemblage connected to a shipwreck that is connected to a specific event also gives it a lot of context,” says Larsson. According to their study, the more exotic spices and foods would only have been consumed by the society’s wealthiest individuals. They were among the most recognizable markers of social status, especially on a ship. “These were likely foods exclusively for the king and his court,” says Larsson. “But what it also shows is the economical contacts that the royal court had at the time.” Though the geographical origins of saffron are not completely understood, it is thought to have originated in the eastern Mediterranean, and been grown in Southwest Asia and the Mediterranean basin. Ginger is believed to have originated in Southeast Asia, and cloves are native to Indonesia. Black pepper comes from South India. Despite this time being known as the “Dark Ages” in Europe, the finds show that Scadinavia wasn’t just a backwater of the world economy at the time. “The Danish crown was well integrated with the networks of continental monarchs,” he says. “And it also shows the growing international trade in the late medieval period.” Very few written records mention the consumption of spices and foods like these in Scandinavia, and their location in the wreckage of Gribshunden answers questions about who would have had access to them. “We suppose that they were used for consumption during the voyage or that Hans planned a feasting event once he arrived at the political meeting to show off his international connections and his knowledge of exotic foods or tastes,” says Larsson. Another question focuses on how these delicate organic remains were able to survive in the Baltic. “It’s a mystery,” says Foley. “We don’t know, we didn’t find any containers.” When they found the saffron, it was just in a lump in the sediment. “No glass jar around it, no ceramic jar, no wooden box, no silver box,” he says. It may have been stored in some sort of fine textile bag that disintegrated over the years—but somehow the spice remained. “The Baltic Sea is really weird,” Foley says. For one, it has the lowest salinity found in the global oceans. This, combined with low temperatures and low dissolved oxygen to feed microbes, have given the Baltic a reputation for remarkable preservation of archaeological material, specifically wooden shipwrecks, such as the fully intact Vasa, sunk in 1628 and raised in 1961. “That, to me, is the whole point of looking at shipwrecks,” in the Baltic, says Foley. “Stuff survives in water that just doesn’t survive anywhere else.” The preservation in the Baltic has the scientists thinking about other bodies of water that share some of its attributes. “With zero dissolved oxygen, low salinity, and right in the middle of the silk and spice routes from the Far East into Europe, that’s on my horizon,” Foley says. “I want to do a comparative study of the sites in the Baltic, Caspian, and Black seas.” https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/spices-500-year-old-shipwreck-baltic

[usafphantom2]

Gripen and historical Saab fighter jets participate in air concert season in Europe

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 07/17/2022 - 4:07 PM in Air Shows, Military, Saab

This summer in Europe, Swedish and Hungarian Gripen fighters will be accompanied by historic Saab aircraft for various appearances at air shows.

To begin with, the Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) in Gloucestershire and the Bray Airshow in Ireland will see Saab aircraft rise to the sky and perform to thousands of spectators. Those who see the aircraft closely will be able to track technological development from Lansen to the current Gripen E.

Gripen pilots will present world-leading capabilities that are the result of decades of technical development. From Saab's first aircraft, the B-17, to the present day, Saab has developed aircraft at the forefront of technology. Initially hired by Sweden in the run-up to World War II, demand grew as the Cold War intensified. For example, the Draken aircraft served in the Austrian, Danish and Finnish air forces.

The Cold War Saab aircraft were almost entirely built with their own technology, ensuring that Saab could improve capabilities with each aircraft successively. By the time Viggen rose to the sky, the pilots were flying with state-of-the-art data links and sensor fusion in their cockpits. The most important fighter in the world of its time, Viggen was the pioneer of the updated modern technology found in today's Gripen.

Saab has always worked on the development of future aerial combat systems, taking advantage of this long history of continuous technological development.

With more than 4,000 aircraft produced so far, there is extensive experience to take advantage of as new capabilities are developed.

It is easy to see how the technology displayed in the latest Gripen E fighter is the culmination of this journey. The Gripen was designed and built for continuous development and evolution, which means that the fighter can be upgraded while in service. The secret behind this is the modular design and a completely new avionics architecture. The project supports fast, easy and affordable upgrades, allowing the air forces flying the Gripen to perfectly take advantage of the capabilities of the future as they are developed.

Due to this wide range of game-changing features, the Gripen E is a multifunctional fighter. It can perform air-to-air, air-to-surface and reconnaissance tasks, even during the same mission. The pilot can change functions while on the air or act on several functions simultaneously, increasing flexibility.

Gripen is in service in the air forces of Sweden, the Czech Republic, Hungary, South Africa and Thailand, and will soon enter operational service in Brazil. In parallel to this, Saab has become a global partner with a growing focus on international cooperation. This cooperation is perhaps best demonstrated by the fact that about 35% of the components/parts of the Gripen come from the United Kingdom.

Saab's commitment to supporting countries in maintaining their people and societies safe is as strong now as it was in 1937, when the company was founded. All that has changed is technology, as Saab continues to look to the future and develop the technologies and capabilities of tomorrow.

Tags: AirshowMilitary AviationgripenRIAT - Royal International Air Tattoosaab

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Fernando Valduga

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in a specialized aviation magazine in Brazil and abroad. He uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.

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[scotianostra]

Scottish Arctic explorer John Ross died on August 30th 1856.

Ross was born in Balsarroch, West Galloway, the son of the Reverend Andrew Ross of Balsarroch, Minister of Inch in Wigtownshire, and Elizabeth Corsane, daughter of Robert Corsane, the Provost of Dumfries. His family home was on the shore of Loch Ryan, at Stranraer.

Amazingly aged only nine, Ross joined the  Royal Navy as a first class volunteer and was assigned to HMS Pearl. It soon sailed to the Mediterranean Sea, where it remained until 1789. He then served aboard HMS Impregnable for several months before a transfer to the merchant marine for eight years, before rejoining the Navy serving on several ships and rising through the ranks. It was no easy career for Ross, he saw quite a bit of action and was wounded several times, the most severe of these being in 1806 when boarding a Spanish vessel; he received wounds inflicted by a sabre and bayonet, and also suffered broken legs and a broken arm. For a time Ross was seconded to the Swedish Navy. In 1812 he was promoted to commander.

In 1816 he made contacts with British Admiralty, you gave him command over his first Arctic expedition. Goal of this mission was to find the way across Northwestern Passage, using two ships - his “Isabella” and “Alexander” that was command by Lieutenant William Edward Parry. They sailed around Baffin Bay, reached Lancaster Sound and the entrance into eastern gate of the Northwestern Passage. He did not travel far from there, returning home and reporting seeing mountains that later on turned to be a mirage.

Between 1829 and 1833, former lieutenant of John Ross, Lieutenant William Edward Parry, commanded another mission to the Northwestern Passage. On this journey, John Ross and his nephew James Clark Ross served as officers, managing to sail 600 miles more than on previous journey. This journey was responsible for discovering main axis of Northwestern Passage. They spend several years in the north, familiarizing themselves with the area, learning from Inuits, and traveling far to north. James Clark Ross even managed to lead the land expedition that found the North Magnetic Pole, on the June 1, 1831 in the Cape Adelaide on the Boothia Peninsula. Famous Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen found the North Magnetic Pole in a different location 71 years later (magnetic poles move over time due to the fluctuations in the Earth’s core).

After returning home, Captain Ross was welcomed warmly by Europes finest geographical societies, earning several medals, awards. He sailed once more to the Arctic Sea in 1850 in search for the missing expedition of John Franklin, but he never managed to find them.

Retiring to Stranraer, he never sailed again. His knowledge of the Swedish and Danish languages saw him consulting for the government about the Baltic regions as tensions with Russia increased and his later years were spent writing.

He died on 30th August 1856 while visiting London, where he is buried at Kensal Green Cemetery.

[architectnews]

Expo 2020 Dubai Sustainability Pavilion Building

Expo 2020 Dubai Sustainability Pavilion Building, Architect, UAE Design Project Photos

Expo 2020 Dubai Sustainability Pavilion Design

6 October 2021

Design: Grimshaw Architects

Photos by Phil Handforth

Terra – The Sustainability Pavilion at EXPO 2020 Dubai

Terra – The Sustainability Pavilion, opened to the public in 2021 as one of the top three attractions of the Dubai Expo 2020, and aims to illuminate the ingenuity and possibility of architecture as society looks to intelligent strategies for future sustainable living.

photograph : Dany Eid / Expo 2020

Drawing inspiration from complex natural processes like photosynthesis, the dynamic form of the Pavilion is in service to its function, capturing energy from sunlight and fresh water from humid air. The relationship of building to site, and to its physical and cultural contexts is critical, as the facility’s strength lies in its capacity to demonstrate a new way of living sustainably in a challenging desert environment.

Sited in a prominent location, the Pavilion structure works in tandem with the considered landscape of demonstration gardens, winding pathways and shaded enclaves to create an aura of magic punctuated by the sights, smells and tactile opportunities of nature. The gardens are both experiential and functional, setting the stage for the exhibition contents within and creating shaded gathering areas that will manage and distribute crowds while providing retail, food and beverage opportunities.

When creating a building with a goal of generating its own energy and water in a harsh climate, the solution cannot be driven by a single aspect of the design. To achieve net-zero, the design required a series of technologies, building systems and design solutions to act in unison. This self-contained, micro-ecosystem resulted from a combination of strategies: optimizing the natural conditions inherent in its location; working with and within them to maximize efficiency; and supplementing them with pioneering sustainable technologies to create innovative solutions

The design is driven by maximizing efficiency which it does by seeking shade in the one place available: below the ground. The Pavilion uses the insulating properties of the earth to shield it from the harsh ambient temperatures which can soar to 50 degrees in the warmer months.

photo : Dany Eid / Expo 2020

Most of the accommodation is below grade and cased with an earth roof system, creating a substantial barrier to help reduce its cooling loads and conserve energy. The above ground surfaces are clad with a gabion rainscreen wall – sourced with local stone from the Hajar Mountains – which provides enough thermal mass to absorb the heat while the stone’s natural color reflects the sun.

Flora and fauna sourced from the surrounding deserts – including some species that have been never been cultivated by humans – are arranged on the planted roofs and throughout the gardens, creating a water efficient landscape that functions through a series of closed loop systems designed to filter, supply and recycle water. The framing of these local topographical and floral features, combined with the technologies of water recycling and reuse, provide visitors a newfound appreciation of the unique region and its biodiversity. The site also includes areas for productive agricultural landscape featuring halophytic agriculture and other testing beds.

The culmination of the building’s systems can be found in the heart of the Pavilion, its large exterior courtyard. Borrowing from the vernacular of the region, the courtyard provides a large, passively cooled space for visitors. During the design, thermodynamic studies charting the prevailing breezes were used to shape the courtyard to allow desirable cool south-westerly breezes to enter while blocking warmer winds.

Soaring over the courtyard, the Pavilion’s canopy accommodates more than 6,000 sqm of ultra-efficient monocrystalline photovoltaic cells embedded in glass panels. The combination of the cell and the glass casing allow the building to harness solar energy while providing shade and daylighting to the visitors below. The experience in the courtyard is of being beneath a large shade tree with dappled light projecting onto the surfaces below. The form of the canopy works with the courtyard to direct cool air in, while simultaneously exhausting low-lying hot air through a chimney effect at the centre.

The canopy also serves as a large collection area for stormwater and dew that replenishes the building’s water system. The result is a structure that combines the most advanced technology in solar capture and a clear understanding of the natural conditions of the site to actively generate energy while passively cooling and enhancing the experience of the visitor. With over 6,000 sqm of exhibition space, the Sustainability Pavilion will enjoy a long life after Expo is over, transforming into a science museum and expanding on its mission of exploring sustainable practices and the critical stewardship of our fragile planet.

ENERGY E TREES The Sustainability Pavilion is complemented by an installation of Energy Trees which contribute toward its goal of producing its own energy. Nineteen E-trees ranging from 15-18m in diameter are dispersed throughout the site and provide 28% of the energy required to power the building. Inspired by the Dragon’s Blood, a tree found only on Socotra, an island 200 miles off the coast of Yemen, the E-Tree is designed to be a deployable freestanding shade structure that harvests the sun’s energy. The structure is constructed from steel and complex composites and has been optimized to support an 18m photovoltaic array.

Taking further cues from nature, the array follows the sun in the same manner as a sunflower, rotating 180 degrees throughout the course of the day to maximize the energy yield and increase the efficiency of the solar cells, before returning to its original position at night. Bespoke trapezoidal panels composed of highly efficient monocrystalline solar cells, embedded within three layers of glass, provide shade below without casting severe shadows or blocking views to the sky.

Supporting the array is an engineered carbon fibre structure inspired by the design of the steering wheel of a yacht. The structural design maximizes strength in its shape, with radial branches encircled by a compression ring while decreasing the load of the structure itself. Carbon fibre was chosen for its light weight which allows the form to extend unsupported for up to nine meters in all directions.

The E-Trees have become an integral part of both the exhibition and the Pavilion site – showcasing and educating visitors on the research on solar harnessing and panel technology – while at the same time, serving as an integral part of the systems that contributes to a net zero energy goal of the building.

photo : Dany Eid / Expo 2020

Terra Expo 2020 Dubai Sustainability Pavilion Design – Building Information

Project Data:

Client: Emaar Properties & Expo 2020 Dubai

Location: Expo Road Dubai South, Jebel Ali P.O. Box 2020 Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Website: https://ift.tt/3FmYDo0 Completion date: January 2021 Gross square footage: 17,000 sqm Project cost: confidential

Project Team:

Grimshaw: architect Buro Happold: engineering Desert Ink: landscape architecture

photo : Dany Eid / Expo 2020

Other Consultants:

Rice Perry Ellis: local architect Sherwood Design Engineers: civil engineering, water management Cerami: AV, IT, acoustics, security Tricon: food service Orca : crowd flow RWDI: climate analysis Thinc Design: exhibition design Eden Project: exhibition content TAW Weiss: maintenance Arch4Blind: accessibility Charcoal Blue: theatre design Lord Cultural: operations Friday Group: specifications

photo : Dany Eid / Expo 2020

Grimshaw Design Team:

Andrew Whalley – Chairman – Partner in Charge Matthew Utley – Principal – Director of Middle East Operations Mark Rhoads – Associate Principal – Project Director Casimir Zdanius – Associate Principal – Industrial Design Lead

Associate Principals: Iouyu Chen, Robert Young, George Hauner, Croz Crozling, Andrew Anderson

Associates: Jorge Salgado, Aimee Duquette, Aaron Vaden Youmans, Ross Goldsworthy, Woojae Sung, Andrea Debilio

Design Team: Zach Fine, Augustine Savage, Kyle Day, Renua Itsueli, Fernando Fisbein, Hannah Park, Anthony Mopty, Joana Torres, Justin Brammer, Mehnaj Tabassum, Diba Dayani, Mason Nabors, Albert Hsu, Kurt Hanzlik, Patricia McKee, Fan Cao, Kyle Spence, Vincent Velasquez, Max Dowd, Wooyoung Choi, Leland Jobson, David Mans, Greg Smith, Konrad Sobon, Raphael Ogoe, Alexandra Danciulescu

Photos: Phil Handforth

Sustainability Pavilion for Expo 2020 Dubai Design: Grimshaw Architects image courtesy of architects Sustainability Pavilion for Expo 2020 Dubai

Grimshaw

Expo 2020 Pavilion Abu Dhabi Sustainability

Expo 2020 Dubai Sustainability Pavilion building design images / information received 061021 from CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati Architects

Location: Jebel Ali, Dubai, UAE

Dubai 2020 Expo Pavilions

Dubai Expo UK Pavilion Design: Es Devlin photo by Alin Constantin ; image courtesy of Es Devlin Expo 2020 Dubai UK Pavilion Building

Dubai Expo Swedish Pavilion Building Design: Alessandro Ripellino Architects, Studio Adrien Gardère and Luigi Pardo Architetti photo courtesy of Swedish government Dubai Expo Swedish Pavilion Building

Dubai 2020 Expo Pavilions Design: Santiago Calatrava, Foster + Partners, BIG and Grimshaw Architects image courtesy of architects Dubai 2020 Expo Pavilions

2020 Expo Dubai Luxembourgish Pavilion Design: METAFORM Architects image courtesy of architects 2020 Expo Dubai Luxembourg Pavilion Building

Dubai World Expo 2010 Masterplan Design: HOK / Populous Dubai World Expo Masterplan

Grimshaw Architects

Dubai World Expo

UAE Architecture

Abu Dhabi Architecture Designs – chronological list

Dubai Buildings

Hyperloop Pods and Portals Design: BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group image from architects studio Hyperloop Pods and Portals in Dubai

Architecture Tours Dubai by e-architect

Dubai World Expo 2020

Comments / photos for the Expo 2020 Dubai Sustainability Pavilion Building design by Grimshaw Architects in UAE page welcome

The post Expo 2020 Dubai Sustainability Pavilion Building appeared first on e-architect.

[eluminium]

Raiding the Train: Endings

Hello Hello and welcome to all the endings for my Henry Stickmin Fanfaction, The Bowtie Bastards and their game Raiding the Train! All these endings are based on the endings gotten in Completing the Mission. 

WARNING! SPOILERS ARE COMING UP! IF YOU HAVE NOT PLAYED COMPLETING THE MISSION DO NOT CLICK “KEEP READING”. YOU HATH BEEN WARNED BY A SWEDISH GREMLIN.

     There are 4 categories, Toppat Related Endings, Solo Endings, Partnered Endings and Government Related Endings. They’ll come in that order.

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                                    ¤~Toppat Related Endings~¤

Toppat King - Due to the great rise of the Toppat Clan, The Bowtie Bastards team up with the government to try and take them down. They chase down Henry (similar to how he chased down Reginald in ItA if you pick the plastic ball) but just as it seems that Henry has lost he manages to use a Gadget Gabe tool to mind control/brainwash Couductor Elg. Since its such a taboo to betray someone in the Bowtie Bastards, especially the Conductor, the gang switch sides at her order and they force the government to retreat. Now with The Conductor firmly under his control, he's now the leader of both the Toppat Clan and the Bowtie Bastards.                                        

Ending name: Hats and Ties

Toppat Recruits - After being accepted into the clan, Henry has to return the Romanian Ruby as promised. But when the day they ruby is supposed to be returned comes a Bowtie Bastards spy inside the Toppat clan steals it from Henry. Reginald is furious and threatens to kick Henry out of he doesn't find the ruby in 12 hours. So Henry corners the Bowtie who stole the Ruby and makes him reveal where it is now. It's now on the Bowtie Bastards train back at earth and Ellie offers her help in retrieving it. They get down to earth and retake the ruby but Henry notices another valuable jewel that could boost his favor with Reginald, the Portuguese Purpurnite. He steals that too and with Ellie's help, he brings them back to Reginald. Reginald is surprised but delighted about the added bonus of the Purpurnite and promotes Henry and Ellie to high ranking positions within the clan, citing their loyalty, efficiency, and determination.  

Ending name: Risen Ranks

Toppat 4 Life - Henry hears that the Bowtie Bastards are currently in a really bad spot and vulnerable, so he plans an all-out raid on them because riches make clan better uwu. Unfortunately, they drag the attention of literally almost every faction out there, and now everyone wants a piece of the Bowtie pie. So a gigantic battle occurs and the Toppat's retreat to their space station when most of the other factions bail too. This leaves the Bowtie Bastards in ruin, yet the climate in the crime world has forever changed.                      

Ending name: New allies, New Enemies

Revenged - Henry fucking dead lol you cant choose this one

Toppat Civil Warfare - After being cut off from the Toppat clan the Henry squad is running low on funds with Ellie's sides constantly harassing them. While wandering the desert they find the Bowtie Bastards train and by twisting their story about being kicked out a bit they are granted sanctuary by Conductor Elg. But they keep secretly stealing cash from the Bowtie Bastards to fund the civil war against Ellie and the other Toppats. But one day the train stops and outside the train is the rest of the Toppat Clan because the Bowtie Bastards were actually allied with Ellie's side of the civil war. They basically set up a trap for Henry's side. A big battle then happens and Henry is clinging onto life so to get away, he plays dead. Ellie comes up to finish him once and for all but she gets backstabbed by Elg, who reveals that she allied with Ellie because the Bowtie Bastards wanted to forever shatter the Toppat clan by killing both sides of the civil war. Ellie dies and the Bowtie Bastards bail. Henry sneaks away with Dave and their fate is unknown.                                           

Ending Name: Forsaken and Fractured

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                                             ¤~Solo Endings~¤

Master Bounty Hunter - Henry gets a bounty on a high ranking Bowtie Bastards member by another crime organization (don't know which one yet) he finishes that bounty but gets captured by some members who force him to reveal who he was working for. When he tells them they freak out a bit and they throw him into a cell temporarily. He escapes of course but now he's started a full-on gang war between The Bowtie Bastards and the faction who hired him.   

Ending name: Accidental War Instigator

Stickmin Space Resort - A few members of the Bowtie Bastards (Including Conductor Elg) stay at the resort undercover because they want a nice week out. However, they commit way too many mildly irritating things by mistake and Henry decides that he want to be a petty bitch today. So he heads down and sabotages their train while also stealing the Conductors Bowtie aka one of if not the most important things to the gang. When they find out Henry SELLS the bowtie back to them for a hefty sum of money which is a huge embarrassment to the Bowtie Bastards.                                             

Ending name: Petty Business

Jewel Baron - After collecting the 3 jewels from earlier, Henry decides that 3 isn't enough. He hears about the Portuguese Purpurnite, which is currently owned by the Bowtie Bastards. So he goes, does his thing, and steals the precious stone.                                                 

Ending name: Gem Harvester

Free Man - A few months after the whole "getting captured by the Toppat clan and then escaping" thing Henry is actually trying to return to a more normal life. One day while he's doing some paperwork at his local bank a Bowtie Bastards raid happens at said bank and Henry gets shoved in a money bag. The next thing he knows he's on the bowtie bastards train because they accidentally took the bag he was in. As he's escaping he catches a TV broadcast about the attack on the bank. Apparently, all the money in that bank is gone, causing him and many others to basically be broke at the moment. So he uses some bullshit thing to teleport all the money back to the bank because he ain't gonna be broke again and he has interest on those savings. After that, he escapes and returns to his "normal" life.                                             

Ending name: Interest in Normality

Little Nest Egg - While Henry is trying to get all the riches he stole to a safe place some employees of the Wall try to recapture him because after Henry did the thing Dmitri found out Henry wasn't actually dead and got furious. But before Henry is completely screwed by The Wall he runs into the Bowtie Bastards. They offer to let him become a member and protect him if he gives all the riches to them. Seeing no other option Henry joins the Bowtie Bastards and then later defends the train when The Wall tries to raid it and capture him.          

Ending name: TRAINed for Thievery

Clean 'em Out - Henry's gotten very comfortable in a life of riches after his successful robbery of the Toppats but he forgot someone from his past. Ellie. After she escaped The Wall she came to look for revenge on Henry for abandoning her. She tries to rob him but Henry catches her. During their confrontation, the Bowtie Bastards suddenly appear (having planed a robbery on Henry for a while) and rob Henry while he is busy with Ellie. Ellie is now totally lost because she focused so much on revenge and Henry is dirt poor again, so they make an uneasy alliance to get the stuff back with Henry promising to give half to Ellie so she'll help him then leave him alone after they're done. When they finally steal all the things back Henry can either betray Ellie again or hold up his part of the deal.                                            

Ending name if Henry betrays Ellie again: Taker of Opportunities

Ending name if Henry doesn't betray Ellie: Unanticipated Teamwork

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                                        ¤~Partnered Endings~¤

Pardoned Pals - After being pardoned, Henry and Ellie start accumulating into normal society for once. But when they stumble upon The Bowtie Bastards during a failed heist, they take advantage of the chaos to try and get some loot for themselves. But they get caught. However, they use some big brain plays to convince the cop who caught them that they were trying to put the riches back from where they were stolen. They return the big treasures (to keep the cover) but they manage to get away with some smaller loot.                 

 Ending name: Old habits pay Off

Capital gains - After Henry and Ellie become part of the 1% the Bowtie Bastards take an interest. (because they hate rich people since they benefit from the society that oppresses others and they especially hate rich people who were poor once yet they don't help out the current poor) They steal a lot of riches from the duo and flee. Henry and Ellie aren't gonna let these bowtie bitches steal their loot so they attack the train with the tank and not only steal their stuff back but also all the Bowtie Bastards loot as well. Conductor Elg is also gravely injured by them and its unknown if she survives or perishes.                   

 Ending name: Dragons on their Hoard

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                                 ¤~Government Related Endings~¤

Special BROvert Ops - Henry and Charles are called to order by General Galeforce to deal with a huge security breach. You see, the Bowtie Bastards have gotten their hands on the plans for a superweapon. Henry must steal em back before they do something nasty with it. Of course, he does but they don't manage to escape before the Bowtie Bastards shoot them down. They both survive with some injuries but now they're stuck without any way to contact anyone.                                                      

Ending name: Stuck

Valiant hero - A few weeks have gone by since Charles'es death. General Galeforce, seeing how much Henry is grieving, decides to let him look at what would be Charles'es next operations if he survived and possibly take part in any of them to "finish any work left". Henry notices that the next big (and last) operation Charles was given was a raid on the Bowtie Bastards. Henry agrees with the military to take part in the raid with other military members. But a few days before the scheduled raid Henry catches a TV broadcast where it's revealed that the remaining Toppats who escaped the exploding space station were picked up by the Bowtie Bastards. He sees red, finds the train, and totally destroys the Bowtie Bastards by himself. He murders all the remaining Toppats by hand and Conductor Elg as well, for accepting those rats into her organization.                                                   

Ending name: In His Honor

Triple Threat - Following many successful attacks on many factions by the Triple Threat Trio the Bowtie Bastards see them as too much of a threat to keep alive, so they capture the Triple Threat Trio and lock them in the train. While they try to escape both The Wall and the Government arrive too either rescue them or recapture Ellie and Henry. With the chaos erupting from all these factions interacting the Triple Threat Trio gathers important info on many factions that the Bowtie Bastards have and then they bail after almost being capture by The Wall. With all the information the Bowtie Bastards had on other factions the Government starts to crack down hard on them all, causing great panic in the crime world.                                                   

Ending name: Crime World Butterfly Effect

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Those are all the current endings for Raiding the Train! I might change them up if i feel like it but for now, this is it. Thank you for reading!

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 4.14

43 BC – Battle of Forum Gallorum between the forces of Mark Antony, and legions loyal to the Roman Senate under the overall command of consul Gaius Pansa. AD 69 – Vitellius, commander of the Rhine armies, defeats Emperor Otho in the Battle of Bedriacum to take power over Rome. 966 – After his marriage to the Christian Doubravka of Bohemia, the pagan ruler of the Polans, Mieszko I, converts to Christianity, an event considered to be the founding of the Polish state. 972 – Co-Emperor Otto II, a son of Otto I (the Great), marries the Byzantine princess Theophanu. She is crowned empress by Pope John XIII at Rome. 1294 – Temür, grandson of Kublai, is elected Khagan of the Mongols and Emperor of the Yuan dynasty with the reigning titles Oljeitu and Chengzong. 1471 – In England, the Yorkists under Edward IV defeat the Lancastrians under the Earl of Warwick at the Battle of Barnet; the Earl is killed and Edward IV resumes the throne. 1561 – A celestial phenomenon is reported over Nuremberg, described as an aerial battle. 1639 – Imperial forces are defeated by the Swedes at the Battle of Chemnitz. The Swedish victory prolongs the Thirty Years' War and allows them to advance into Bohemia. 1699 – Khalsa: The Sikh religion was formalised as the Khalsa – the brotherhood of Warrior-Saints – by Guru Gobind Singh in northern India, in accordance with the Nanakshahi calendar. 1775 – The first abolition society in North America is established. The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage is organized in Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush. 1816 – Bussa, a slave in British-ruled Barbados, leads a slave rebellion. For this, he is remembered as the first national hero of Barbados. 1849 – Hungary declares itself independent of Austria with Lajos Kossuth as its leader. 1865 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is shot in Ford's Theatre by John Wilkes Booth; Lincoln lives till the following day. 1865 – U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward and his family are attacked at home by Lewis Powell. 1881 – The Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight is fought in El Paso, Texas. 1890 – The Pan-American Union is founded by the First International Conference of American States in Washington, D.C. 1894 – The first ever commercial motion picture house opens in New York City, United States, using ten Kinetoscopes, a device for peep-show viewing of films. 1900 – The Exposition Universelle begins. 1906 – The Azusa Street Revival opens and will launch Pentecostalism as a worldwide movement. 1908 – Hauser Dam, a steel dam on the Missouri River in Montana, U.S., fails, sending a surge of water 25 to 30 feet (7.6 to 9.1 m) high downstream. 1909 – A massacre is organized by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenian population of Cilicia. 1912 – The British passenger liner RMS Titanic hits an iceberg in the North Atlantic at 23:40 (sinks morning of April 15th). 1928 – The Bremen, a German Junkers W 33 type aircraft, reaches Greenly Island, Canada - the first successful transatlantic aeroplane flight from east to west. 1931 – The Spanish Cortes deposes King Alfonso XIII and proclaims the Second Spanish Republic. 1935 – The Black Sunday dust storm, considered one of the worst storms of the Dust Bowl, swept across the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles and neighboring areas. 1940 – World War II: Royal Marines land in Namsos, Norway in preparation for a larger force to arrive two days later. 1941 – World War II: German and Italian forces attack Tobruk in Libya. 1944 – Bombay explosion: A massive explosion in Bombay harbor kills 300 and causes economic damage valued then at 20 million pounds. 1945 – Razing of Friesoythe: The 4th Canadian (Armoured) Division deliberately destroyed the German town of Friesoythe on the orders of Major General Christopher Vokes. 1958 – The Soviet satellite Sputnik 2 falls from orbit after a mission duration of 162 days. This was the first spacecraft to carry a living animal, a female dog named Laika, who likely lived only a few hours. 1967 – Gnassingbé Eyadéma overthrows President of Togo Nicolas Grunitzky and installs himself as the new president, a title he would hold for the next 38 years. 1978 – Tbilisi Demonstrations: Thousands of Georgians demonstrate against Soviet attempts to change the constitutional status of the Georgian language. 1981 – STS-1: The first operational Space Shuttle, Columbia completes its first test flight. 1986 – The heaviest hailstones ever recorded (1 kilogram (2.2 lb)) fall on the Gopalganj district of Bangladesh, killing 92. 1988 – The USS Samuel B. Roberts strikes a mine in the Persian Gulf during Operation Earnest Will. 1988 – In a United Nations ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland, the Soviet Union signs an agreement pledging to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. 1991 – The Republic of Georgia introduces the post of President after its declaration of independence from the Soviet Union. 1994 – In a U.S. friendly fire incident during Operation Provide Comfort in northern Iraq, two United States Air Force aircraft mistakenly shoot-down two United States Army helicopters, killing 26 people. 1999 – NATO mistakenly bombs a convoy of ethnic Albanian refugees. Yugoslav officials say 75 people were killed. 1999 – A severe hailstorm strikes Sydney, Australia causing A$2.3 billion in insured damages, the most costly natural disaster in Australian history. 2002 – Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez returns to office two days after being ousted and arrested by the country's military. 2003 – The Human Genome Project is completed with 99% of the human genome sequenced to an accuracy of 99.99%. 2003 – U.S. troops in Baghdad capture Abu Abbas, leader of the Palestinian group that killed an American on the hijacked cruise liner the MS Achille Lauro in 1985. 2005 – The Oregon Supreme Court nullifies marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples a year earlier by Multnomah County. 2006 – Twin blasts triggered by crude bombs during Asr prayer in Jama Masjid, Delhi injure 13 people. 2010 – Nearly 2,700 are killed in a magnitude 6.9 earthquake in the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. 2014 – Twin bomb blasts in Abuja, Nigeria, kill at least 75 people and injures 141 others. 2014 – Two hundred seventy-six schoolgirls are abducted by Boko Haram in Chibok, Nigeria. 2016 – In Japan, the foreshock of Kumamoto earthquakes occurs.

[uncivilengineering]

What Kind of Two Years Has it Been

At the end of an experience, and therefore a blog, I usually write a reflection on the experience. The Master's programme ended six years ago and due to life and procrastination and other excuses, I'm finishing this blog only now. But this delay has its advantages, because I know how the story ends and I can tell you what happened to the characters. So maybe, for the first time, this is truly an epilogue.

The journey to this program started in 2012. I was living in Germany and working as a consultant. I always knew I wanted to work first before continuing with any kind of education, because toward the end of undergrad, I had classes with grad students and the ones who had work experience before going back to school seemed to bring more to the experience from applying what they learned from the real world. As I researched Master's programmes, I focused my search in Europe because I was still paying off the loans for my Bachelor's degree. I Googled another program when the MIND programme turned up in the results. After a process of applying, obtaining references, phone interviews and traveling to Munich from Stuttgart to take the GRE in Germany (really), even though this is Europe, the choice came down to Humboldt University in Berlin, with a scholarship from the DAAD, and the MIND programme, with a scholarship from the European Commission. (Lappeenranta University of Technology in Finland takes a close third because I had a really, really pleasant scholarship interview with a very pleasant young man and sometimes I think about how my life might be different if I went there and studied Innovation Management instead.)

I'm sure there was a long decision process and I'm sure I spent a lot of time thinking about it, like most decisions. This all took place eight years ago and I cannot remember the salient details. But I can imagine that I felt like it was time to leave Germany, even though I love (LOVE) Berlin, and the appeal of having an adventure in two countries (I didn't yet know that Asia was on the table) was great. So I gave notice at the consulting firm, said goodbye to my friends in Stuttgart, (wrapped up my last performances as a roller skating Greek muse in the local military base's production of Xanadu - that's real) and moved to Sweden.

In the two years that ensued, I met the best people, took wild risks, had the best time, made my dreams come true and had the adventure I sought. I lived.

I lived in Sweden for a year and was inspired by their example of how to treat guests in your country. I had a job interview in a sauna in the winter and learned what gender equality in society might actually look like. After an application process, I had the opportunity to spend a semester in Thailand. In Thailand I learned how to get from the university to town (Bangkok) and back again. I hosted a cultural show that lasted for eight (or more?) hours. I felt closer to my mom than I had ever understood before. C pointed out that after the midterm exams, I have sat for exams on three continents. I celebrated my birthday at a German brewery in Bangkok. I saw Angkor Wat after the semester ended. I went to all the Disneylands in the world (at the time...back then, there were only 11 parks). I didn't stay long in Austria, but I was there long enough to experience a Buschenschank and run into visa problems. I also saw Carousel and Cabaret in German, and puzzled as to why it was an hour longer than Cabaret in English, which I saw soon after on Broadway. In Glendale I lived in a conference room turned into an ad hoc intern bullpen for four and a half months writing my thesis. I saw things I had been nearby my entire life but never dreamed of seeing in reality.

Blogs are cheesy and navel-gazey but I am glad I did it. I am glad that this and the Germany Part I blogs exist. Sometimes I will look at an old post because someone asked for a travel recommendation (for example), and I will discover something that I forgot. I didn't remember that I was contacted by Swedish public radio to talk about the 2012 United States election. I forgot I had this conversation at NASA JPL about living in Germany. So what's the moral of this paragraph? If you can't blog, at least journal. You think you will remember the exciting things that happen in your day to day life but the truth is, you won't. I am proof!

What happened to everyone? Some stayed in Europe. Some went home. Some went home in Europe. Some got married. Some had babies. Some moved to Amsterdam. Many stayed in Sweden. When I left C, she wanted to stay in Italy. She has since worked her way up to an awesome job at a major company and had a baby! A has moved and is engaged to be married! I was happy to attend C's wedding in Ankara in 2015. I was happy to attend Z's wedding in Czechia last year, and to see my friends again at both.

What happened to me? I accepted an internship in Florida where I spent about five years (and made a bunch of new friends and had a bunch of good times) before moving back to the country where I left when this all started. To be honest, I never expected to be back. Not in this country. In 2017, I was fortunate to attend my class reunion in Leiden; it was also the celebration of the closing of the program. They invited all alumni back to watch the last class graudate. I met the newest generations of the program and saw a lot of old friends. It was just like old times. I came to the first afternoon of the organized program. I thought we would observe the new kids doing their work. No. We kicked off with a case exercise and divided into groups to discuss and then present our results. Our groups consisted of current students, alumni, professors and mentors. In Europe, we are all equal. It was just like old times.

The rest of the program consisted of lectures, discussions and watching the final presentations of the graduating class. Before I left for this trip, I joked that my master programme was ending because it lost funding (truth) from the European Commission because of Brexit (also true but I didn't realize it until I got there and they confirmed that Brexit was one of the factors that cut funding to the programme). There was a party the final evening. In the way that we do. I remember telling all my friends that it would be a very long time before I will see them again. I couldn't foresee an immediate excuse to get to Europe and hang out with them. The day I returned to work in Florida from the trip, I received an email about joining a project that is based in Germany. If I chose to accept this mission, I would have to move to Germany for a period of time. What.

I learned later that, basically, someone found out that I know German. (I promise that I have other skills.) When I was in high school, if you told me I was going to move to Germany, I would have said that you're crazy. I was just this nerd who went to Space Camp and really liked The West Wing and Saturday Night Live. If you told me I was going to move to Germany twice, I would have said, "Then why did I spend all this time learning Spanish?" (among other questions) I know that's true, because I did ask myself that in the first two months of intensive language school in 2010. But the truth is, Germany made things happen for me. When I talk to young people who (for some reason) ask for my advice, in addition to telling them to "follow your dreams," I also tell them the story of how moving to Germany (the first time) changed my life. (And then I tell them why so they know I'm not exaggerating.)

I couldn't refuse. I'm back in Germany. I'm working on getting better at German.

I should have seen this coming. The fall I moved to Sweden in 2012, I came back to Germany to celebrate Thanksgiving. During my Swedish spring, the squad from Germany came to visit Sweden and I put in my tea and hairspray requests (from dm, of course). After my thesis defense in 2014, my first destination was Nuremberg to see E, then on to Quakenbrück to wait with C who was finishing her defense. I attended S's wedding in Leipzig in 2015. I went to Oktoberfest in Munich in 2016. The point is, I cannot stay away from Germany. This is evident and not a surprise.

So far, I have been fortunate that this opportunity has allowed me to meet up with so many friends. A and M are in Amsterdam and have introduced me to Y and T, who are also in the MIND network. S is back in Oslo from Thailand. A is in London. S has moved from Stuttgart to Berlin. A and P and B and K and E are in New York. I still cite the meal in Haarlem (note that's Haarlem in the Netherlands, not Harlem, but I can see why you might be confused because I just mentioned New York) as the best I've ever had and J told me that the restaurant has received a Michelin star since 2014 when we were there so now it's overpriced and overrated. So funny! At Z's wedding in Czechia last year I was happy to reconnect with A, B and M. Everyone else, I'm coming for you! (And I mean that in the creepy way!)

What's going to happen next? Let's find out! Thank you for reading and joining the adventure.

Good night, have a pleasant tomorrow and see you in the future!

Lauren

[resbangmod]

Resbang 2015 Throwbacks, Week 5

Time to get hype for this year’s Resbang, and what better way to do so than to check out the ghosts of Resbangs Past!

Come say hi to this year’s participants and mods on Discord!

This year’s schedule can be found here: beep

Check out these entries from resbang 2015!

[M] Coin Operated Boy [Stein/Marie]

Marie Mjolnir is an engineer working for Baba Yaga Enterprises (B.Y.E), a group currently holding the monopoly on their patented cyborg systems, created from years of now-illegal human experimentation. Marie, whose job is to find out how to synthesize emotions using these Cyborgs, would rather work her second job as a Vulture picking spare parts out of landfills for her resistance group. Yet, when Marie finds an abandoned cyborg, lacking both serial and model numbers, taking him in and finding out he has had his emotional receptors traumatically compromised, she realizes he could prove the catalyst for dismantling B.Y.E entirely. And as she begins to fall, both for the cyborg codenamed Franken Stein, as well as down the rabbit hole of his past, she realizes that, in love with a man who has to learn his feelings all over again, going after the person who hurt him in the first place is biting off more than she could ever hope to chew.

Warnings: Dystopia, Mentions of Prior Abuse, Torture

by author: @dollypopup​

with artist: @legendaeriedere​

Read it here: [ao3] [tumblr]

View it here: [tumblr]

[K+] Snowfall Never Lies [Soul/Maka]

Maka Albarn is the best personal assistant at Grigori Solutions. She’s a hard worker, well liked and inching closer to her ultimate goal of returning to school and becoming a business woman, just like her Mama. The road to her dreams isn’t an easy one, but nothing, not even kitschy office parties, a vendetta with the I.T. department, a flirty new employee or a mysterious food thief are going to keep her from achieving her goals, whatever they may be at winter’s end. Office AU

Warnings: none

by author: @Meisterful

with artist: @swordbreaker​

and artist: @fist-first​

Read it here: [ff.net]

View it here: [Swordbreaker06: [tumblr]] [Fist-first: [tumblr]]

[T] Maka’s Delivery Service [Maka & Soul, Stein/Marie, Tsubaki/Black Star]

Maka Albarn is a witch. Like the few who are able to use magic today, she follows a sacred tradition carried out for hundreds of years: when a young witch reaches the age of 13, she sets out to live in a town where no other witches reside to complete one year of independent training. On the day of her 13th birthday, Maka is packed and ready to go. She, with her trusty companion cat Blair, flies off for a year away from home in the big city.

Very loosely based off of “Kiki’s Delivery Service.” Will explore themes of friendship, abuse, near-death experiences, healing, and (of course) magic. Featuring gender neutral Crona, Stein and Marie expecting a little one, Wes living in the woods composing music, pretty much all the major characters making at least one small appearance, and some awful Google-Translated Swedish.

Warnings: mentions of abuse and neglect, blood, major character injury, hospitalization

by author: @tamashii-resonance​

with artist: Smolscythe (@tinycatsandfruitsnacks​)

Read it here: [ff.net] [ao3]

View it here: [dA 1, 2] [8tracks] [tumblr]

[T] Endeering [Soul/Maka, Stein/Marie, Tsubaki/Black Star, Anya/Tsugumi/Meme, Akane/Clay]

Stumbling upon a hidden society of centaurs, almost dying, and possibly making the biggest mistake of his life wasn’t exactly a part of Soul Evans’ plans. Yet, here he is- trying to integrate himself into this incredible world in the middle of a centuries-old war, falling in love with a magical creature, and finding out that all is not what it seems. The only thing left to wonder is- can a human really keep up and make a difference?

Warnings: swearing, violence, mild blood/gore, character death.

by author: @grigori-girl

with artist: @queen-korri

and artist: Makthemeister (@mrsashketchum)

Read it here: [ff.net]

View it here: [Queen Korri: soundcloud] [Makthemeister: tumblr]

[E] You Are the Wilderness [Stein/Marie]

Their idea of a good time wasn’t to be stuck in an enchanted spell-book. The Witch’s Grimoire was the last place they expected to end up in when Lord Death sent them on a group mission, but there they were. And, between the pig costumes, wandering into the woods with no sense of direction, being cast as the grandmother while being THE Death Scythe, and the fluffy wolf ears, Azusa, Marie, Spirit and Stein find themselves grumbling as they work their way through each story in hopes of coming out of it with some dignity still intact. But if Spirit pulled his tail one more time, Stein was going to dissect him, again: story-line be damned.

Warnings: Explicit Sexual Content, Canon Typical Violence, Bad Puns.

by author: @dollypopup

with artist: @soundofez

and artist: @chaoticlivi

Read it here: [ff.net][ao3]

View it here: [Soundofez: tumblr] [ChaoticLivi: tumblr (NSFW), dead link]

[T] Day-old Grease Stains [Black Star/ Death the Kid, minor Soul/Maka, Crona/Maka, Tsubaki/Liz, Stein/Spirit]

After several years of working at a failing branch of a multinational fast food franchise, Black☆Star still doesn’t know where he’s going with his life, or if he’s going anywhere at all. When a courtesy call from a government employee informs him that his estranged father has been sentenced to death, Black☆Star is forced to come to terms with the family he has, and to make the best of being directionless at 24. Avoiding fights is recommended, but not entirely feasible, and the end of the day it’s about friendship, found families, and not judging the new guy too harshly.

Warnings: Minor character death, alcohol use, brief mentions of gore

by author: @blackstar

with artist: @treeofjessie

Read it here: [ff.net][ao3]

View it here: [tumblr 1, 2, 3]

Some of the art is no longer at the links provided, because of the tumblr titty ban! If any of the artists, authors, or their partners see their resbang team is missing art, and they want to be included to the throwbacks (without titty), please shoot us​ a message!

[kmjbsweet]

5 Interesting Swedish Nonfiction Books

1) Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II by Mitchell Zuckoff

"On November 5, 1942, a US cargo plane slammed into the Greenland Ice Cap. Four days later, the B-17 assigned to the search-and-rescue mission became lost in a blinding storm and also crashed. Miraculously, all nine men on board survived, and the US military launched a daring rescue operation. But after picking up one man, the Grumman Duck amphibious plane flew into a severe storm and vanished.

Frozen in Time tells the story of these crashes and the fate of the survivors, bringing vividly to life their battle to endure 148 days of the brutal Arctic winter, until an expedition headed by famed Arctic explorer Bernt Balchen brought them to safety. Mitchell Zuckoff takes the reader deep into the most hostile environment on earth, through hurricane-force winds, vicious blizzards, and subzero temperatures.

Moving forward to today, he recounts the efforts of the Coast Guard and North South Polar Inc. – led by indefatigable dreamer Lou Sapienza – who worked for years to solve the mystery of the Duck’s last flight and recover the remains of its crew.

A breathtaking blend of mystery and adventure Mitchell Zuckoff's Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II is also a poignant reminder of the sacrifices of our military personnel and a tribute to the everyday heroism of the US Coast Guard." (Good Reads.com)

2) This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland by Gretel Ehrlich

"Ehrlich unlocks the secrets of this severe land and those who live there; a hardy people who still travel by dogsled and kayak and prefer the mystical four months a year of endless darkness to the gentler summers without night. She discovers the twenty-three words the Inuit have for ice, befriends a polar bear hunter, and comes to agree with the great Danish-Inuit explorer Knud Rasmussen that “all true wisdom is only to be found far from the dwellings of man, in great solitudes.” This Cold Heaven is at once a thrilling adventure story and a meditation on the clarity of life at the extreme edge of the world." (Amazon.com)

3) The Nordic Model: Scandinavia since 1945 by Mary Hilson

"The political structures of the Scandinavian nations have long stood as models for government and public policy. This comprehensive study examines how that “Nordic model” of government developed, as well as its far-reaching influence.

           Respected Scandinavian historian Mary Hilson surveys the political bureaucracies of the five Nordic countries—Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden—and traces their historical influences and the ways they have changed, individually and as a group, over time. The book investigates issues such as economic development, foreign policy, politics, government, and the welfare state, and it also explores prevailing cultural perceptions of Scandinavia in the twentieth century. Hilson then turns to the future of the Nordic region as a unified whole within Europe as well as in the world, and considers the re-emergence of the Baltic Sea as a pivotal region on the global stage.

The Nordic Model offers an incisive assessment of Scandinavia yesterday and today, making this an essential text for students and scholars of political science, European history, and Scandinavian studies." (Good Reads.com)

4) The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia by Michael Booth

"Journalist Michael Booth has lived among the Scandinavians for more than ten years and has grown increasingly frustrated with the rose-tinted view of this part of the world offered up by the Western media. In this timely book, he leaves his adopted home of Denmark and embarks on a journey through all five of the Nordic countries to discover who these curious tribes are, the secrets of their success, and, most intriguing of all, what they think of one another.

Why are the Danes so happy despite having the highest taxes? Do the Finns really have the best education system? Are the Icelanders as feral as they sometimes appear? How are the Norwegians spending their fantastic oil wealth? And why do all of them hate the Swedes? In The Almost Nearly Perfect People, Booth explains who the Scandinavians are, how they differ and why, and what their quirks and foibles are, and he explores why these societies have become so successful and models for the world. Along the way, a more nuanced, often darker picture emerges of a region plagued by taboos, characterized by suffocating parochialism, and populated by extremists of various shades." (Good Reads.com)

5) The Tattooed Girl: The Enigma of Stieg Larsson and the Secrets Behind the Most Compelling Thrillers of Our Time by: Dan Burstein, de Keijzer, Arne, and John-Henri Holmberg

"The fascinating stories behind what have been rightly called the "hottest books on the planet": The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

Through insightful commentary and revealing interviews, you will enter the unique world of Lisbeth Salander, Mikael Blomkvist---and of Stieg Larsson himself---discovering the fascinating real-life experiences and incidents involving Swedish politics, violence against women, and neo-Nazis that are at the heart of Larsson's work.

John-Henri Holmberg, a Swedish author and close friend of Larsson for more than three decades, provides a unique insider's look into the secrets of the author's imaginative universe, his life, and his ideas for future books---including the mysterious "fourth book" in the series, which Larsson had started but not finished at the time of his death." (Amazon.com)

[apenitentialprayer]

European Christianization and the Eternal Fate of Pagan Ancestors

”The relationship between the living and dead members of their clan has long been seen as an essential one in early medieval society. The dead constituted an age class that continued to have a role and to exercise rights in society. Archaeologists have suggested that the rich grave goods in burials of the ate fifth and sixth centuries were evidence of this importance in Reihengräberzivilization, in which ancestors played the role of intermediaries between the clans and tribes (Stämme) and the gods. Kurt Böhner and others have thus suggested that Christianity, which greatly lessens the role of the dead, must have had a fundamental impact on the place of the dead in in Merovingian society: “The profound change that Christianity brought with it is shown most clearly with relationships with the dead. Although these were once ancestors of many clans and tribes in which they lived on and enjoyed divine or quasi-divine veneration, they now entered the eternality of Christ.” As evidence of this essential transformation in relationship between the living and their ancestors,  Böhner cites the famous passage from the Vita S. Vulframni in which the Frisian duke Radbod, about to be baptized, asked Wulfram, the bishop of Sens, whether there were many Frisian kings and princes in heaven or in hell. Wulfram answered that, since these praedecessores had not been baptized, they were surely in hell. Hearing this pronouncement, the duke determined not to be baptized, saying that he could not do without the company of his predecessors. This text, whose importance for historical ethnography Herwig Wolfram has emphasized, seems however to contradict other archaeological evidence which, as we shall see, places in doubt Böhner’s interpretation both of the process of Christianization and of the account in the Vita Vulframni.

Radbod died in 719 and, it can be assumed, joined his damned ancestors. Around the same time or shortly before in the Rhineland near Alzey, Frankish nobles were founding a funerary chapel that served to preserve the memory of their pagan ancestors and, in a functional sense, to Christianize them retroactively. The church in question was Flonheim, and the careful archaeological study of the site by Hermann Ament suggests that the theological response to Radbod’s question presents only part of the eighth century reality. On December 29, 1876, the parish of Flonheim was destroyed by fire. During reconstruction between 1883 and 1885 it was discovered that the church stood on the foundations of a much older building, within which were found ten Frankish burials. The oldest portion of the church was a tower, the upper part of which was Gothic; the lower, Romanesque of ca. 1100. The foundations of the Romanesque portions of the tower, a crypt, were older still; and directly under this oldest portion of the old church, was a particularly rich Frankish burial. Ament’s examination of grave goods and his reexamination of the nineteenth-century report of the excavations demonstrated that the graves were part of a larger row cemetery, traces of which had been found in the 1950s elsewhere in the village. Moreover, the ten graves appear to be those members of a wealthy clan. That in the Merovingian period a family would erect a mortuary chapel in which to bury its members would hardly be remarkable; examples are common, particularly even earlier ones in the more Romanized areas of Europe. What is remarkable, however, is that Ament’s dating of the burials, particularly of grave 5, the one directly under the tower, is so early that the burials must predate the erection of the church (first mentioned in 764/767) and, in the case of grave 5, the conversion of Clovis. Ament compares this grave -in its depth (greater than the others at Flonheim), in its furnishings, and in its relation to other graves- to grave 319 at Lavoye. The rich furnishings of grave 5 include a famous golden-handled sword and other weapons and ornaments which both in their forms and variety argue for a date conclusively for a date contemporary with the tomb of Childeric (481). Ament sees grave 5 as a founder’s burial, like that at Lavoye. Around it, in the sixth and early seventh centuries, other clan members were buried. When the chapel was built, the importance of this founder’s burial was still recalled, and its builders included the other clan graves within the confines of its walls. The erection of a chapel over the graves of a clan and the particular position given to the clearly pre-Christian burial both strongly suggest that the continuity between pre-Christian and Christian members was not broken by baptism. In fact, on a physical, structural level, the founder was given a burial infra ecclesia after the fact, thus including him in the new Christianized clan tradition. Ament has compared the situation at Flonheim to those at Arlon, Speiz-Eingien, Morken, and Beckum and suggests that these other Merovingian churches containing Frankish burials may well be similar to Flonheim; for the chapels also appear to postdate the earliest burials. The American archaeologist Bailey Young has compared these apparently ex post facto Christianizations to observations of Detler Ellmers on Swedish cemeteries and suggests that the practice of assimilating pre-Christian ancestors into the Christian cult of the dead may be detected there as well. In Sweden, with the coming of Christianity, churches were generally built near the preexisting sepulchers of prominent families, and the last furnished burials are therefore older than the actual cemeteries. Elsewhere, pagan remains were moved into Christian burial places. The most famous Christian reburial in the North is that of the Dane Harold Bluetooth’s pagan parents Gorm and Thyre at Jelling. Harold first buried his parents in a wooden chamber covered by a large mound surrounded by standing stones in an outline of a ship, giving them a traditional pagan burial. After his conversion around 960, he had his parents’ remains removed to a church. Excavations of the present stone church (ca. 1100) indicate three previous wooden churches and a large, centrally placed grave containing the disjointed remains of a man and a woman obviously reburied there after the disarticulation of the skeletons. Harold’s runestone explicitly announces that the monuments he created were dedicated “to his father Gorm and his mother Thyre,” although it goes on to say that Harold “made the Danes Christian.” In both Frankish and Scandinavian situations, the archaeological evidence seems to contradict the explicit statement of Wulfram. How is the historian to resolve this contradiction? I would suggest that it arises from two sources. The first is the difference noted above between the intellectualized articulation of belief by clerical elite and the actual societal practice, lay and clerical. The second is the way the specific circumstances of Radbod’s aborted conversion color both the question and the response, making them part of a discussion of salvation in modern Christian terms, when the real issue is ethnicity and hegemony in eighth century Frankish terms. In the case of Flonheim and similar burials, the meaning of the construction of a Christian church over a pagan tomb is implicit: the ancestors have been conjoined in the new cult as they were in the old. Conversion is not an individual, but a collective, act that involves the entire clan and people, a fact long recognized about two groups of Franks - those of Clovis’s generation and their descendants. The collective nature of conversion implicitly applies to a third group of Franks as well, their ancestors. Although Gallo-Roman authors like Gregory of Tours have emphasized Clovis’s conversion, that does not mean the Franks had lost respect for or interest in their pre-Christian ancestry. Witness the literature of Merovingian Frankish genealogy, the Liber historiae Francorum, among others. Retroactive conversion is not articulated; indeed, it would be difficult to reconcile that orthodox Christianity. But in the symbolic and ritual structure that solidified and expressed the values of Frankish-Christian civilization, a place was found for their ancestors. Here, as in the example of the ritual humiliation of the saints I mentioned earlier, the physical juxtaposition presents a meaning in a Wittgensteinian sense which was apparently accepted by the lay founders of the church at Flonheim as well as by its clerics. Perhaps, although we cannot be sure of how much they knew of its origins, even the monks at Lorsch, to whom the church was given in the 760s, perceived this meaning. Thus the Franks of Flonheim, pagan and Christian, could keep each other company in the next life but not, apparently, Radbod and his pagan ancestors. It is tempting to cast this distinction in terms of the supposed two stages of conversion, the first represented by a maximum accommodation to  pagan tradition; the second (and this being the case with Radbod), an insistence on an inner meaning of Christianity. In fact, this approach will hardly suffice. Frisia was, in the early eighth century, hardly into a second phase of conversion; it was at the first stage of a process that would take generations. Rather, we should consider the specific context of the efforts to convert Radbod and his Frisians. Wulfram’s contact with the duke was part of the Frankish effort to subjugate the Frisians, an effort in which conversion was specifically conversion to Frankish Christianity. After Pepin II defeated Radbod in 694, he sent Wilibrord to convert Radbod and his people. Wulfram’s efforts were part of this mission. Pepin’s intention was specifically to establish a Frankish political and cultural basis in order to pacify the region. Conversion and baptism at the hand of a Frankish bishop would have meant, then, the acceptance of a specifically Frankish ethnic identity and the rejection of Frisian autonomous traditions, political and cultural. Radbod would really have cut himself off from his ancestors, but not merely by being assured of heaven while they languished in hell; for he would have become, in a real sense, a Frank. A similar break with their ancestors was demanded of the Saxons during the eighth century. It is hardly happenstance that the earliest condemnations of traditional Germanic burial sites in favor of church cemeteries was specifically directed at Saxon Christians: “We order that the bodies of Christian Saxons be taken to the church cemeteries and not to the burial mounds of the pagans.” Likewise, the famous Indiculus superstitionum was directed specifically at those “sacrileges at the tombs of the dead” performed by the Saxons. In the case of both the Frisians and of the Saxons, the bonds uniting the conquered people to their independent ancestry had to be broken because they were a source of anti-Frankish ethnic and political identity, not simply because they were pagan in a narrow religious sense. In the entirely Frankish contexts of Flonheim, Arlon, Spiez-Einigen, and Morken, though, conversion did not mean the rejection of a cultural and political tradition. It meant instead the confirmation of tradition through the acceptance of a new and more powerful victory-giver, Christ. The benefits of such a conversion could be shared with the past as well as with the future. - Patrick J. Geary (Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages, pages 35-41)

[pope-francis-quotes]

9th August >> (@VaticanNews By Robin Gomes) #Pope Francis #PopeFrancis discusses populism in #Europe, also touching upon politics, migrants, the Pan-Amazonian Synod, and the Church's evangelizing mission. @LaStampa

Pope Francis: isolationism and populism lead to war

In an interview with the Italian daily La Stampa-Vatican Insider, Pope Francis says that Europe needs to respect identities of peoples without closing itself in. He touches upon several issues such as politics, migrants, the Synod on the Amazonia, the environment and the evangelizing mission of the Church.

By Robin Gomes

Europe must be saved because it is a heritage that "cannot and must not be dissolved". Dialogue and listening, "starting from one's own identity" and from human and Christian values, are the antidote against “sovereignism” and populism, and are also the engine for "a process of relaunching" that never ends.

Pope Francis spoke about these and other issues with Domenico Agasso, the Vatican expert and coordinator of “Vatican Insider”, the online project of Italy’s daily newspaper "La Stampa".

Europe and its founding fathers

The Pope hopes that Europe will continue to be the dream of its founding fathers. It is a vision that became a reality by implementing the historical, cultural and geographical unity that characterizes the continent.

Despite Europe’s "problems of administration and internal disagreements", the Pope is optimistic about the appointment of Ursula von der Leyen as President of the European Commission. He is happy about her appointment “because a woman can be the right person to revive the strength of the founding fathers.” “Women”, he said, “know how to bring people together and unite."

Europe’s human and Christian roots

According to the Pope, the main challenge for Europe in relaunching itself comes from dialogue. "In the European Union we must talk to each other, confront each other, know each other", says the Pope, explaining how the "mental mechanism" behind every reasoning must be "first Europe, then each of us".

To do this, he says, "we also need to listen", while very often we only see "compromise monologues". The starting and relaunching point, he explains, are the human values of the person. It is a fact of history that Europe has both human and Christian roots. “And when I say this,” the Pope says, “I don't separate Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants. The Orthodox have a very precious role for Europe. We all have the same founding values.”

Identity that is open to dialogue

The Pope explains that each of us is important, no one is secondary. Hence in every dialogue, “we must start from our own identity”. He gives an example: "I can't do ecumenism if I don't start from my being Catholic, and the other who does ecumenism with me must do so as a Protestant, Orthodox etc... Our own identity is not negotiable; it integrates itself.”

The Pope said that the problem with exaggerations is that we isolate ourselves without opening up. Identity, he says, is cultural, national, historical and artistic wealth, and each country has its own, but it must be integrated with dialogue. It is crucial that while starting from one’s own identity, one needs to open up to dialogue in order to receive something greater from the identity of others.

Never forget, the Pope says, that “the whole is greater than the parts.” Globalization and unity”, he says, “should not be conceived as a sphere, but as a polyhedron: each people retains its identity in unity with others".

“Sovereignism” and populism

The Pope expresses concern about what he terms as “sovereignism” which he describes as an attitude of isolation. He says he is worried about speeches resembling those of Hitler in 1934 that speak of “Us first. We... we...”

While “sovereignism” involves closing in upon oneself, sovereignty is not, the Pope explains. Sovereignty must be defended and relations with other countries, with the European Community, must also be protected and promoted.

“Sovereignism” is an exaggeration that always ends badly: "it leads to wars", the Pope says. Populism, he explains, is a way of imposing an attitude that leads to “sovereignism” and should not be confused with "popularism", which is the culture of the people which needs to be expressed. Suffixing “-ism” to “sovereign”, the Pope says, is bad.

Migrants: primacy of right to life

On the issue of immigration, Pope Francis stresses on the four principles of welcoming, accompanying, promoting and integrating.

The most important criteria in this, he says, is the right to life, which is linked to conditions of war and hunger that people flee from, especially from the Middle East and Africa. Governments and those authorities are required to think about how many migrants they can take.

The Holy Father also calls for creative solutions, such as filling up labour shortage in the agricultural sector. Some countries have semi-empty towns because of the demographic decline. Migrant communities could help revitalize the economy of these areas.

Speaking about war, Pope Francis says “we must commit ourselves and fight for peace.” Hunger mainly concerns the African continent which, he says, is the victim of a cruel curse, that it should be exploited. Instead, he says, part of the solution is to invest there to help solve their problems and thus stop migratory flows.

Urgency of the Amazon Synod

On being asked about the Synod on the Amazon in October in the Vatican, the Pope says “it is the ‘child’ of ‘Laudato si’”. He clarifies that “Laudato si” “is not a green encyclical but a social encyclical based on the “green” reality of the custody of creation.

“It will be our synod of urgency”, the Pope says, expressing shock that on Earth Overshoot Day, 29 July, man has already exhausted all the regenerative resources for the current year. This, together with the melting of the glaciers, the risk of rising ocean levels, the increase in plastic waste in the sea, deforestation and other critical situations, he says, makes the planet live in "a situation of world emergency”.

Synod, work of the Holy Spirit for evangelization

The Synod, however, the Pope points out, is not a meeting of scientists, politicians or a parliament. “It was convened by the Church and will have an evangelizing mission and dimension. It will be a work of communion guided by the Holy Spirit.”

The important themes of the event are those concerning "the ministries of evangelization and the different ways of evangelizing".

Amazonia key to the future of the planet

The Pope explains the choice of Amazonia for a synod is because the region involves as many as nine States. "It is a representative and decisive place. Together with the oceans, it contributes decisively to the survival of the planet. Much of the oxygen we breathe comes from there. That's why deforestation means killing humanity.”

Politics

Asked about politics, the Pope says that "the threat to the lives of the populations and the territory derives from the economic and political interests of the dominant sectors of society". Thus politics must "eliminate its connivances and corruptions”. “It must take concrete responsibility, for example on the subject of open-cast mines, which poison water and cause so many diseases".

Hope in young people

The Holy Father expresses confidence in young people and their movements for a new attitude towards the care of Creation, like the Swedish teenage activist, Greta Thunberg, who is leading a worldwide protest against climate change. The Pope says he was moved to see a placard of hers that read: “We are the future”. It means promoting attention to the little everyday things that "affect" the culture "because they are concrete actions", the Pope says.

Topics

POPE FRANCIS

INTERVIEW

EUROPE

AMAZONIA

POLITICS

MIGRANTS AND REFUGEES

#SINODOAMAZONICO

09th August 2019, 13:23