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milkweedman · 1 year ago

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HI! I'm buying a niddy-noddy but can't figure out what size - I'm seeing tons of sizes but does it actually matter? I spin using a drop spindle if that affects it!

Yes and no. You can wind your yarn into a skein on any size niddy noddy (or as I'm sure you know, on the backs of chairs, on your arm, around a book, etc) and it'll work just fine.

As far as I've ever been aware, there's only two things to consider when picking a niddy noddy size: how big your skeins usually are, and whether you want to do math.

Skein Size

If you've ever tried to wind what you thought was a decent sized chunk of yarn around a very large object, you've probably noticed that you ended up with a very disproportionate skein--long and skinny. Or the opposite--if you've tried to wind a lot of yarn around a small object, you may have found that you couldn't even fold it in half to finish it off, because it was too thick.

Those are pretty extreme examples, but they're the reason it matters. If you tend to spin small skeins, a small niddy noddy will make them look better as a skein. If you tend to spin huge skeins, a big niddy noddy will ensure you don't have to wrestle with your yarn at the end.

One thing to note is that you can wind around only two arms instead of all 4, like so:

(Image Source)

... following the path of the red line rather than the blue yarn actually on it. This is what I do for miniskeins on my average sized niddy noddy. So you can get a proportional smaller skein out of a bigger niddy noddy, but you can't get a proportional bigger skein out of a smaller niddy noddy. Your only recourse then is to split it into multiple skeins (or find something bigger to wind it around, ig).

So, my 2 yard niddy noddy (and since yards and meters are close enough to not matter in this discussion, please mentally substitute meters if that's your unit of measurement) makes a good skein out of 4 ounces (110 grams) of yarn--that's pretty much the ideal size niddy noddy for that amount. If your skeins are more like 2 ounces/55grams, a 1 yard niddy noddy might be ideal for you. If they're more like 6 ounces/170 grams, a 3 yard niddy noddy would probably be great. There are of course lots of niddy noddys that are fractions or mixed numbers of yards as well, which brings me to the other consideration:

Math

Niddy noddys are a little more ergonomic to wrap yarn around than most things, but their real feature is eliminating math. On my 2 yard niddy noddy, if my skein has 100 strands, then it's 200 yards. I never need to do any math--it's just count the strands, multiply by two.

A 1 yard niddy noddy is even better there--no multiplying ! The number of strands you have is the number of yards you have. Easy as pie.

A 30 inch/76 cm niddy noddy, though--or any niddy noddy that is not 1, 2, or 3 yards (if you are in the US, or meters elsewhere--and it's important to not accidentally end up with a yard niddy noddy if you don't use yards, because then you have to convert your final number into meters--which is of course math) is Lots Of Math. If I've got 100 strands on a 30 inch niddy noddy, that's 3,000 inches, which is... idk man, I'm not even checking that. 100 strands on a 76 cm niddy noddy isn't so bad--7,600 cm is obviously 76 meters, but what about 129 yards, hm ? What then ?

If you're scoffing and saying you love math and this deprives you of beloved math, then you should definitely get a non-whole number niddy noddy, because that won't cause issues for you. And if you carry your phone everywhere and can't realistically conceive of a scenario in which the above would inconvenience you, that's fine too !

If, however, you don't want to look for your phone or do math in your head every time you finish a skein, a niddy noddy in whole numbers of either yards or meters (whichever measurement system you actually use, as I said earlier) will eliminate math from your skeining.

So, in terms of size you as a drop spindle user (unless you use it in a way that results in 4 ounce/110 grams skeins) would probably get the nicest looking and most balanced skeins from a 1 yard or meter niddy noddy. And in terms of math that's also the 'absolutely zero math' niddy noddy, so for most people that's ideal ! You'd also be fine on a 2 yard niddy noddy (as far as I can tell, these are the 'standard' size for wheel users*, who almost all have niddy noddys or some other tool for winding yarn) but your skeins will look perennially skinny, even if it's a pretty big skein for you. If you think you're gonna get a wheel soon, or you've been eyeing those plying spindles, then a 2 yard would give you some room for expanding, too. Anything bigger than that is really only useful for people who frequently spin big skeins--such as those whose jumbo flyer on their wheel is just their everyday flyer.

Hope this helps !

*edit: had forgotten about the antique wheels with small bobbins and/or only one bobbin. In that case the appearance of the skein is gonna benefit from a smaller niddy noddy, because it yields smaller skeins. But again... it's just aesthetic.

#niddy noddy #spinning #handspun yarn

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foreverinthepagesofhistoryy · 11 months ago

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Wow…another chapter well done. I have to say as a great enthusiast of your blog and your wide knowledge of royals I really do enjoy your continued dedication to 🇪🇸 and their story. I do have a question for you I was hoping you could help me out with. I absolutely adore the Romanovs, and I know you know a great deal about them. I remember reading once that that King Alfonso of Spain (XIII) offered to bring them back before their execution, I cannot for the life of me remember where I found it. I thought I would see if you had ever stumbled upon anything of the sort when reading? ❤️

Awww hi! I agree, 🇪🇸 is such a good writer of the story and really brings it all to life!

About Alfonso and the Romanovs, I was definitely aware of this happening, only because I received the book “Race to Save the Romanovs” by Helen Rappaport as a bday gosh awhile ago and never read it, but looked at the pics and descriptions. I have never heard of this happening in my real time research and have never come across this. I couldn’t say if this happened or not, I am leading towards the negative because Helen Rappaport’s books are quite untrustworthy because she uses non-primary sources as recourses and direct quotes which isn’t good when your aiming for historical accuracy. If I were you, I wouldn’t make Helen Rappaport your main NAOTMAA author choice because of this.

@otmaaromanovas would know ALOT more on this particular topic than me so please ask her! Thank you for asking!

#answered ask #romanov #romanovs #king alfonso xiii

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rynnaaurelius · 9 months ago

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These sources seem very interesting. I would like them!

Sure. From my notes, so it's all in Chicago format and from jstor since that's what I use to download my stuff:

(the list got long, so under the read more)

Parker, Charles H. “Paying for the Privilege: The Management of Public Order and Religious Pluralism in Two Early Modern Societies.” Journal of World History 17, no. 3 (2006): 267–96. Some good explanation for imperial religious tolerance if you haven't seen it before! Covers Catholics under Dutch Protestantism as well as non-Muslim communities under the Umayyad dynasty and Ottomans—explains both the hierarchy in place, legal recourse and protections, as well as evidence of Christian/Jewish/Muslim communities informally crossing over and living together (e.g., Christians and Jews would both go to shari'a courts for recourse), repression (e.g., tribute was demanded, evidence of marginalization/submission in the social sphere in exchange for private worship), and attempts to manage conflict (e.g., instances of both Christians receiving dispensation to expand a church before they threatened to drag the Catholic French ambassador into it, as well as vigilante aggression against Christians when Western Europe felt like doing a little crusadin'). Explains a lot of the nitty-gritty.

Guidetti, Mattia. “The Contiguity between Churches and Mosques in Early Islamic Bilād Al-Shām.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 76, no. 2 (2013): 229–58. Talks about the connections between churches and mosques post-Muslim conquests and how they were built in parallel, sharing sacred space, and even partitioning buildings. Maps included!

SCHEIN, SYLVIA. “BETWEEN MOUNT MORIAH AND THE HOLY SEPULCHRE: THE CHANGING TRADITIONS OF THE TEMPLE MOUNT IN THE CENTRAL MIDDLE AGES.” Traditio 40 (1984): 175–95. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27831152. History of the Temple Mount after the Crusaders entered the chat. Kinda just including this because I think it's interesting. Also, fun fact, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre has been looked after by a Muslim family for centuries. 's cool stuff.

Dalachanis, Angelos, and Vincent Lemire, eds. Ordinary Jerusalem, 1840-1940: Opening New Archives, Revisiting a Global City. Vol. 1. Brill, 2018. The authors delve a lot into (as the title suggests) primary sources from the given timespan, analyzing the narratives surrounding the time. Covers a lot of stuff, from municipal elections to debates surrounding the British Mandate (despite citing Fanon and Saïd, the book is kinda reluctant to label a colonial duck a colonial duck, but does a good job explaining rhetoric flying around the Zionist movement and Arab nationalists post-WWI). I have read MOST of this book, fyi, not all of it; it's a great reference for censuses and letters between figures. But it's good especially for reading what people actually said at the time.

Mandel, Neville J. “Ottoman Practice as Regards Jewish Settlement in Palestine: 1881-1908.” Middle Eastern Studies 11, no. 1 (1975): 33–46. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4282555. Discusses late pre-Zionist Ottoman immigration policy, as well as increasing tensions courtesy of the empire trying to cut down on attempts by Jews to migrate to Palestine, and the process of creating colonial settlement pre-Mandate (particularly as antisemitic sentiment reached an ignominious height in their neighbor, the Russian Empire, resulting in an influx of Ashkenazi migration fleeing pogroms, full of people ripe to be radicalized into Jewish nationalism). Largely included because it is, I think, interesting to see that "pilgrimage" was never banned as a loophole for foreign Jews trying to migrate to Palestine (indeed, wasn't particularly questioned before either, for anyone entering).

Doumani, Beshara B. “Rediscovering Ottoman Palestine: Writing Palestinians into History.” Journal of Palestine Studies 21, no. 2 (1992): 5–28. https://doi.org/10.2307/2537216. I am including this because it's important to challenge Orientalist and racist priorities of who and what gets historicized into history, particularly with an area that people are obsessed with talking about the history of the land—the people, not so much.

Stroumsa, Gedaliahu G. “Religious Contacts in Byzantine Palestine.” Numen 36, no. 1 (1989): 16–42. https://doi.org/10.2307/3269851. This goes a bit back further, discussing the formation of different communities in Jerusalem and the formation of plurality in the populations, particularly with the EXTREMELY weird and oft-tragic relationships between Late Antiquity Jews and Christians (Roman rule excepted), as well as the beginning consequences of Islamization and conversions of communities of the period (hint: it didn't really make for a homogenous community lol).

Rabbat, Nasser. “The Meaning of the Umayyad Dome of the Rock.” Muqarnas 6 (1989): 12–21. https://doi.org/10.2307/1602276. The Dome of the Rock! It's important! We have no records explaining its deal! Read more to find out? Maybe.

Barkey, Karen. “Islam and Toleration: Studying the Ottoman Imperial Model.” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 19, no. 1/2 (2005): 5–19. Makes the argument that it's more useful to view tolerance as a bureaucratic matter than a theological one, which I think is closer to correct and more useful.

#resources #ottoman/byzantine Palestine #AND #The crusades #historicity

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justadram · 2 years ago

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How do you think a Christine de Pizan type figure would’ve been treated in westros?

Short answer is in my opinion a Christine de Pizan couldn't exist in Westeros, because I don't think the conditions are in place to create her.

Christine lives in the "medieval world" but the Renaissance is already underway in Italy at the time of her birth. She's educated by a scholarly father, which is what gives her the ability to become a professional writer, despite being a woman. Moreover, there exists an audience for her writing, which is also due to changing conditions in Europe. Widowed, she supported her family through her writing, sponsored by wealthy patrons, who were willing to buy her writing. Patronage was changing, and court members could read! and wanted to buy books! they had little libraries of their own! This is a real shift and relates to changing literacy rates and book binding.

I've talked about the high levels of literacy among the nobility in Westeros and how some of them are eager readers. But there is also rather bizarre apparent lack of non-noble literate people there, which would likely preclude Christine's education, even if there are those like Tyrion and Sam to read for pleasure. In high medieval Europe, the education of women, both noble and merchant class, really improved as fathers of wealth began to hire tutors for their sons and sometimes daughters too with the rise of universities and monastic and cathedral schools. By the late medieval era, boys and girls both are attending school in urban Italy, and that will only expand as literacy and the advent of the printing press comes about. Whereas, we don't seem to have an intellectual renaissance afoot in Westeros.

Also, the shows and GRRM seem pretty wedded to the idea that things were just like that in the medieval era, when it came to women. That's their supposed inspiration for the almost relentless violence against women, which is depicted, mostly without recourse. Most of world history post-Neolithic Revolution, is that of patriarchal societies--fact. However, it is not the case that women's existence in medieval Europe can be boiled down to accepted, expected violence. How does a woman ever come to a place of respect or prominence in a society built upon the kind of culture of constant violence against them we find in Westeros? I don't think they do. It's important to understand that the existence of queens or ladies doesn't mean equality for women or even any great respect for them in a feudal society, where vows bind you.

Now, Christine was a laywoman. However, before Christine ever rose to prominence, there was already a tradition in medieval Europe of influential, literate, educated women. Nuns! Convents actually offered women an opportunity for education, advancement, and authority well beyond what they could expect to exert as a wife and mother. Abbesses wielded great authority within their communities and without and could have access to great wealth.

St. Catherine of Siena is an example of how a religious woman could wield great influence even within the patriarchal hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Without her influence, the Avignon Papacy wouldn't have come to an end. Catherine was a female member of the Dominican Order, who rather adamantly preached for the pope to return to Rome. And he did. The most powerful man in Christendom did what a woman urged him to do! Then, as the Western Schism developed, she acted as a diplomat, penning letters to the princes of Europe and cardinals, urging them to support Pope Urban VI. And people took her seriously! And when she died calls for her to be canonized were loud.

Hildegard of Bingen is another example, an educated abbess, who authored a great deal, including medical text, and who predated Christine by hundreds of years. All of this is to say, Christine isn't an anomaly by any means, even if she's the first professional female author in Europe.

We've got the septas and the silent sisters in Westeros, and there are motherhouses, which we know precious little about. And while I'd like to say the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world sort of thing, historically, governesses occupied a rather precarious, vulnerable position in European households, easily impoverished and victims of the predation of men in the homes in which they were employed. Maybe septas are safer due to their religious background, but there isn't really any evidence that they exercise any great influence beyond their noble "classrooms" schooling the girls on the appropriate arts and learning.

Septas and septons exist on the council of the Most Devout, of course. There is that! But there's no evidence that this equality in the Faith extends to Westeros' society at large. Or that these women were producing any of the "histories" or songs or romances that nobles consume for entertainment or edification.

For all of these reasons, unfortunately, it's not just that I think Christine wouldn't be embraced in Westeros--I don't think she'd ever come to be there.

#meta monday #game of thrones meta #got meta #asoiaf meta

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theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin · 4 years ago

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How do you think the wizarding world would turn out with Hermione as Minister for Magic?

I mean, the Wizarding World’s already a horrifying dystopia so I’m not really sure it’d get any worse, but I also don’t think it’d really get any better. Just... different.

So, first off, my thoughts on the end of the last book.

The gang hasn’t solved shit.

Voldemort’s gone, sure, but all the underlying causes that made Voldemort are most definitely not. Things may calm down for a while because everyone’s a little shell-shocked by what happened but the attitude towards muggleborns isn’t any better, the rights for muggleborns aren’t any better, all the old families still hold all the power in the country via the Wizengamot, the ministry’s still lousy with both incompetence and corruption, and there’s still rampant racism everywhere you look.

Part of Dumbledore’s trouble is he’s an extreme believer in the great men theory of history. History is pushed forward by exceptional individuals who are able to turn the wheels of fate and pull thousands along with them. War erupted for Dumbledore because of Gellert’s ambitions, not because of rampant racism in Wizarding Europe and the increasing consequences of isolationism. Voldemort’s guerilla warfare was spurred on only by Voldemort himself rather than Tom Riddle taking advantage of deep societal issues in Britain.

To Dumbledore, Gellert and Voldemort have little to do with each other besides being Dark Lords. To him the first war ended and decades later for completely unrelated reasons trouble with Voldemort begin. He does not see that it’s the same fight, the same exact underlying causes, and that nothing has been solved. To Dumbledore, all they have to do is murder Tom Riddle and we shall finally have world peace.

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and a large proportion of the fandom easily accept this view.

Meanwhile, I’m laughing.

So, with that, Hermione gets elected minister.

First, I do think in some regards she’d do a very good job. She’s a control freak who thinks she knows better than everyone, but she can’t be bought and she’d do very well at reforming the ministry itself to make things run smoothly.

However, I imagine she’d immediately give into rank nepotism. She’d fire those she dislikes immediately and fill key positions with old friends, relatives of old friends, people who remind her of herself, etc. and see absolutely nothing wrong with this.

That said, I imagine the wizarding world has always been filled with rank nepotism, so this isn’t exactly news. However, it’s a little bad that Hermione the reformist would do it immediately without a second thought because who would let Draco Malfoy work in the government?

I imagine she’d also get... worryingly ambitious and essentially overthrow the government.

I can easily see Hermione getting rid of the Wizengamot. The entire thing represents a very non-democratic, traditionalist, outdated system of government to her in which old men from old families decide all their laws. Now, if Hermione tried to get rid of it in one fell swoop she’d probably immediately be voted out of office so I imagine she’d be very clever.

First, Hermione would make herself indispensable and basically make it unthinkable to vote for anyone but Minister Granger. And yes, I can see Hermione eventually enacting a Minister for Life bill because ain’t nobody better at the job than Hermione so why should anyone else ever have the job?

Slowly, she’d get rid of the lords holding the Wizengamot seats. She’d use real crimes for a lot of them, as we have those who did fund the Death Eater terrorist organization, but some of them would have crimes that are more... that they happen to have been born wealthy lords.

If troubles start up again in the meantime then I imagine Hermione would use that to bolster her hold on her power even more so and make arrests left and right. Trials would still happen, but the outcomes would be clear and brutal, and Hermione would do everything in her righteous power to eliminate what she sees as the dregs of British society.

Not to say she wouldn’t do good things. I imagine creature rights would make a huge improvement with her. She’d probably finally find a way to free the house elves and probably make the wizarding families pay reparations. I imagine there’d be laws to prevent child abuse and to make wizard orphans wards of the state with official wizarding orphanages or else foster homes.

Hermione would do a lot of good things that should have been done ages ago.

However, her enemies would suddenly find themselves without voice or recourse and then would disappear altogether. Then, anyone who dares speak out against her, racist traditionalist or not would also become her enemy. Pureblood children would be encouraged to snitch on their parents and neighbors, the adults then sent to wizard gulags (because Azkaban is so out dated, we can have the prisoners work and benefit society while the dementors also stand guard).

Well... I guess on Hermione’s quest to dictator for life/Wizard Stalin things do get worse. But hey, we did free the house elves.

#ask #anon #harry potter #head canons #hermione granger #epilogue #hermione granger as president for life

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skepticaloccultist · 5 years ago

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The Society with No Name

I had taken the train in from our temporary accommodation in the English countryside to deal with a few pressing matters back in London. Our house in Hackney has been packed, and while most of it will go to storage some is on its way to Portugal. We have taken offices there, and are preparing to sign the papers for our new home in Portugal in the coming days.

There are many things I will miss about London, though these days of plague mean that I miss them already. The bookshops and private libraries, the lectures and occasional events that bring me out into the night. But this country has become a shambles, and more sensible accommodation is in our future.

Among those things that I will think of even in the brightest of Portuguese sunshine is a place that I have come to consider a second home in London. One of the few reclusive lairs in central London that affords one such as myself a bit of respite, and a proper coffee, or whiskey as the case may be.

Located down a street too narrow for any but foot traffic, two right turns from Leicester Square station, is a rather peculiar building that seems to have grown like a weed among the more traditional structures around it.

Painted these days where there is wood on its two facades in a dark blue, the building is narrow at its base, a corner slot some 20 feet on either of its two street facing sides. Stretching some five or so stories tall it is impossibly angled outward over the sidewalk as it rises. Not in any modernist architectural style, just in a centuries long battle with gravity.

The door is nondescript, black painted wood under a stone mantel that bears the number "13", though the vagaries of London's postal code system mean that it hasn't had that number as a street address since shortly after Queen Victoria expired.

If one were to knock at the door, no one would answer. To enter, one needs to have a key.

+++

I became a member or "key holder" of the society sometime during the summer of 2009. It had long been on the fringes of my social group, small though it has always been. Though it was only through a chance meeting of a standing member that I was invited to join.

As many will know I have spent my life politely declining membership in a range of secret societies, handshake clubs, and masonic fraternities dressed up in various historic ethnographic fashions. I have never been much on membership in anything, initiatory or otherwise. I am not a very social fellow when it comes down to it.

It was the complete lack of any "club" like structure that the society presented that drew my attention. Members are not encouraged to interact, no events public or otherwise are planned. One simply pays annual dues and receives a key that grants them access to the building, including a small lobby bar staffed 24 hours a day, a number of rooms of various sizes furnished with arrangements of chairs and tables with doors that can be closed, and access to one of the largest private esoteric libraries in the world, taking up an entire floor of the building.

Not only is one not compelled by the society to interact with other members, but if you have not been introduced it is considered impolite to attempt conversation. Ideal for the recluse who seeks a perfect Turkish espresso at 1am, with the least amount of social interaction possible.

When one has entered through the front of the building the hall is modestly lit, a short entry that has a coat room to one side and opens into a sort of lobby, with a cafe style bar set into the rear of a small room, a few chairs and a table or two along one wall and three booths along another.

The bartender on duty never comes from behind the bar to serve, and it is expected that each member bus their own tables before they leave. A hallmark of the society is courteousness.

Opposite the entry way across the tiny lobby is the staircase, which goes upward around a tattery old iron lift. The stairs creak as you climb them, but the hand railing is fixed solid. Not something that can be said for the lift.

I have ridden the lift on several occasions, each time being reminded why no one ever rides in the lift. The noise alone is enough to think a banshee was the operator.

One climbs the slender stairs, pausing on the occasional landing to peer out of the crooked windows onto the street below. No one ever seems to be on the streets when you look out of the windows, regardless of how crowded the streets were just moments ago when you were approaching the building.

On each floor the stairs open to a landing that leads into various rooms. Some more private than others. The rooms are decorated minimally, with shelves of books and curiosities left over the years by members.

On the third floor is the library.

+++

The origins of the society seem to have come out of a select group within the British supper club the "Ye Sette of Odd Volumes." Members of that organization seem to have acquired the building in the early 1900s and from there the society evolved.

It is unknown to current members who actually owns the building, or if the society holds it in some obscure trust. Though a general trust fund was setup in the 1950s and covers staff pay and building upkeep, the annual dues each member pays seem to come to about the required budget each year.

The building was built sometime in the 18th century, though from its ill fitting the upper few stories must have been a later addition. Typical of the period the rooms are mostly wood trimmed plaster walls. Each of the member rooms is painted in a particular colour scheme, though these seem to change as years go by.

As was typical of societies of the early 20th century membership is coed, with women being key holders from the beginning. The only restriction to membership is that members must live within commuting distance of London. Those members that leave the region must relinquish their key. It is intended as a place of solitude for those who need it in their dealings with the city, a place to coordinate and consult with the volumes in the library.

It is said among older members that the building was a well known opium den in the late 19th century, frequented by literary types and dragon chasing aristocrats. The layout of the rooms certainly lends itself to the idea of opium beds and servitors, with the rooms' high ceilings perfectly suited to smoke filled chambers.

The rooms on the top two floors of the building are more open, like small ballrooms. Though furnished with a few chairs they are easily emptied out for purposes privy to only the society members behind closed doors. These rooms, unlike those on the lower floors, have windows that can be opened. It is considered polite to book a room ahead on the calendar if one plans to need it for more than a day, though exceptions are often made.

+++

Unlike the other floors, which are divided into smaller rooms, the landing of the third floor has only a single door, made of glass and requiring a key to open, the same as the buildings front door. This is the entrance to the society's library, a densely packed but well organized room full of books, maps, papers and other ephemera.

The society's library grew out of the private libraries and individual donations of previous members of the society, usually upon their death. It takes up the entire third floor, with fiction and other non essential volumes found across the shelves of many of the members rooms on other floors.

The first member whose private collection was to form the core of the original library, who willed a portion of their collection to the society upon their death, was William Sharp, former Golden Dawn member and founder of the Celtic Society. After his collection was sorted other members began to add works, then as members passed on it became a custom for their private libraries to be donated to the society.

By the end of the second World War a librarian had been employed as part of the staff trust. Initially just a job of sorting and keeping records it has evolved into a more curatorial role as the members who donate their collections often have a great overlap in their private libraries' holdings and there is only so much space on the third floor.

Works from the library can not be removed from the building. Anyone attempting to do so is banned without recourse. They may be taken to the members rooms but must be signed out at the time, though signing out is on an honors system of a paper list on a clipboard near the library door. In the history of the society a book has never gone missing.

The holdings of the library are much of what you would expect, rare volumes, original manuscripts. The society holds the personal papers and effects of several of its former members. Possibly my favorite object in the library, though in no way occult, is a stack of love letters written between botanist and writer Edith Wheelwright and Beatrix Potter in the late 1920s. An eloquent longing preserved in a private way that will never be seen by public eyes. The two women's handwriting alone makes one ache with decadence.

+++

The gentleman who primarily works behind the bar is an eloquent older Italian who speaks a dozen languages in passing and can read one's tarot on a rainy day. He makes a distinguished espresso as well.

I have long attempted to get him to stock some pastries at the bar but he refuses, serving only liquids hot and cold. On days where I am holed up in one of the rooms I often pop around the corner to an unremarkable ramen noodle shop. A tiny place decorated in a trendy colourful style but a passing bowl of noodles if one knows how to order.

I was able, sometime after a year or so of being a key holder, to insist that the bar stock my preferred bourbon. Though I had to personally supply the first few bottles kept behind the counter they eventually began to replenish themselves.

I do run into friends who are also members occasionally on the stairs, though more often I am in the building to meet them directly during daylight hours. The hours I generally keep tend to be late, and while there are others who frequent the society at similarly nocturnal intervals, like myself, they keep to themselves and their business.

It will be a shame to have to hand in my key in the coming month, I will be unable to spend as much time as I would have liked here in this comfortable late 19th century chair, whose time for a reupholstering was ages since, and to look out of the window on the landing outside of the library, where no one ever passes by below regardless of the time of day, and the park across the way from the building seems to go unnoticed to anyone but the squirrels.

Perhaps London will lure me back one day, after the plague and the war have passed? Previous members in good standing are always welcome to return if they find themselves living full time in London again. In the meantime I drink a final espresso or two from Silvio, taking the bourbon with me, and spend some time in the library saying my goodbyes.

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elenathehun · 4 years ago

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Watching the Clone Wars, part 7

Well, this is a better batch of episodes than last time, solely due to not having to actually skip an episode because it was too awful to watch. With that said, click on keep reading to see reviews of "Brain Invaders", "Grievous Intrigue", "The Deserter", "Lightsaber Lost", "The Mandalore Plot", "Voyage of Temptation", and "Duchess of Mandalore".

"Brain Invaders" (2x08)

I'd rate this as above-average. I am not really into horror as a genre, as I previously noted, so I was pretty grossed out by the brain worms. However, it was a pretty nice Ahsoka and Barriss episode, although I think it's a bit weird that four Jedi Knights/Masters are necessary to interrogate Poggle.

Anyway, it's not an episode of The Clone Wars without some unexpected graphic clone violence. I don't blame Ahsoka or Barris for killing poor Trap - I even think this was well-written and conveyed the desperation of their situation well - but good god, it was startling. Also tense: that final approach to the medical station.

Not good: Kit Fisto entering a ship that's infested with brain worms with no PPE. C'mon, man, I know your headtails are majestic, but keep it covered up! Also not super great: Anakin and Ahsoka's little talk at then end. A lot of their interaction just feels forced. I honestly feel like this should have been a dialogue of some kind between Ahsoka and Barriss.

"Grievous Intrigue" (2x09)

Sort of a meh episode. I understand Eeth Koth is a bit of a bad-ass in the comics, and that does sort of carry over in this episode, but mostly it just seems like a vehicle for various Jedi Masters to quip while crossing blades with this somewhat delightful murder-cyborg. Obi-Wan gives a furious monologue to Grievous, which rings a bit hollow since the clone army has had precious little screen-time (at least relatively speaking) to exhibit their loyalty or spirit.

Shout-out to Cody and those 212th soldiers dog-piling Grievous. If only you'd had a lightsaber, Cody, you probably could have killed him right then and there. And if the writers let you and your fellows out of the background more often, Obi-Wan's speech would have rung more true at the time this episode aired.

"The Deserter" (2x10)

I struggled with accurately summarizing why this episode left me cold. After all, the focus is split between Rex and the pursuit of Grievous, and I love most of the clone-centric episodes I've seen thus far. But after some thought, I realized this episode felt like the culmination of a character arc that never actually occurred for Rex, at least on-screen. After all, this episode is only the third time he's been promoted to something more than the token Clone Character Who Doesn't Die At The End - the previous two episodes I thought were legitimately Rex-centric were Season One's "Rookies" and "The Hidden Enemy". We still barely know the guy, but in this episode we watch him wrestle with doubt about his role and reason for existence when faced with a fellow clone who's made radically different choices than he has, before triumphantly stating his place is with the army. This feels like it would be a great episode, if only we were more attached to the character. Writers have to build-up to those kind of moments, or they ring false.

Anyway, is it just me or is Obi-Wan getting a little angry in this episode?

"Lightsaber Lost" (2x11)

I wasn't expecting much from this episode, but it was actually very good. Aside from the annoying Cad Bane arc at the beginning of the season, the Ahsoka episodes have been improving a lot this season - possibly because she's been separated from Anakin for a lot of them. Losing a lightsaber feels like the sort of problem a Padawan might face, and the solution feels like the sort of thing an impatient teenager would resort to. Tera Sinube is a gem - I am always a sucker for the elderly teaching the next generation, and he does it so well! The animation was well done too, especially in the chase scenes.

I've been ragging on TCW for it's lack of interconnectivity between episodes and episode arcs, but this is a stand-alone episode done right: it focuses on what a secondary character (yes, I know she's supposed to be a main character, but she doesn't feel like it quite yet), allows them to learn a lesson that develops their characters in an organic way, and reverberates through future episodes (I hope!).

"The Mandalore Plot", "Voyage of Temptation", and "Duchess of Mandalore" (2x12 -2x14)

Oof. So, this was the arc that actually made me quit watching TCW the first time around. I am very lukewarm on Mandalorians in general, so that wasn't great. But aside from that, and from the well-attested issue of everyone on Mandalore looking like a Storm Front fantasy, this arc exhibits the same structural writing defects the entire show has shown far - and honestly, life is too short to watch bad TV. At this point, I know this main issue will never be corrected in the entire show run, so I can accept it and push through in the name of completionism and writing research, but at the time I wasn't active in fandom and it was enormously easy to just stop watching and move onto other, better, shows and books.

Now, I thought long and hard about how to review these episodes, but I think it's useful in this case to interview them as a singular block instead of individual episodes. The story is largely cohesive, if a bit strained. It is essentially Palpatine's PT plot writ small: he wants to take over Mandalore (a reason is never really explicated in the actual story, so who knows why), and he's doing it by essentially creating a false war between the CIS proxies, Death Watch, and the Republic proxy, which is Duchess Satine. If all goes according to plan, Satine will be shown as ineffectual and unable to rule her people, and the GAR can occupy Mandalore for reasons of "public safety". This will inflame the Mandalorians, who aren't part of the Republic and don't want to be, and send them rushing in the arms of the CIS-allied Death Watch, starting a cycle of radicalization and violence which will end (at least from Palpatine's POV) with Mandalore firmly in his grasp, and all potential opposition killed in the Civil War he engineered.

As enormously stupid as the whole plot sounds, it's a valid historical tactic for imperial powers looking to expand. And that's lead us the the primary flaw of this story: The Jedi are the Bad Guys. Just ignore the tangled mess of Mandalorian canon, retcons, and expanded universe, past and present - in the show itself, they are presented as a smaller, weaker neighbor-state, and the Jedi are acting as agents of an expansionary military power, interfering with their internal politics specifically for the purpose of a soft invasion. And that's an interesting story! But that story is deliberately obfuscated and hobbled because the writers and producers of TCW were and are ever-so-concerned with making the Jedi as sympathetic as possible, even in situations where they shouldn't be.

Part of that hobbling is Satine's character. Satine is badly written, but she's badly written in a very specific way that has been common to most of the non-CIS political antagonists the show has presented thus far. Satine's most interesting characteristic is that she doesn't want to involve Mandalore with the war - and who can blame her? The Republic and the CIS have nothing to offer to her or her people. The only thing that will happen is the exploitation of Mandalore's natural resources (at best) or the destruction of her people, caught between two Great Powers who obviously don't care for her people's struggle. That's an interesting character, right? A POV we haven't seen in this show so far, which has consistently been from the Jedi POV, which is pretty firmly in the CIS = monsters and Republic = assholes (but democratic assholes!) camp.

But it's a POV that is pretty uncomplimentary of the Jedi role in this war, which means Satine must be crippled by an obnoxious belief in pacifism, like the unlikably-written Lurmen in season one, and also weighted down by a personal connection to an avatar of the Republic, like Senator Farr and his "family friendship" with Padme overcoming the fact that his people are starving and getting no support from the Republic. I have heard people argue that TCW, written as it was in the late 2000s, is reacting against the excesses of the War on Terror. I am less than convinced, mostly because every single anti-war character is reduced to a flat caricature of an annoying pacifist that can be safely defeated by the ever-so-kind warrior monks in the space of an episode or two before being cast aside for the next adventure.

Because Satine's motivations are poorly written, her actions don't make a lick of sense. In "The Mandalore Plot", she's clearly escorting Obi-Wan around under duress - but in "Voyage of Temptation", she's apparently going with the Senators willingly to the Coruscant, to essentially beg the Senate to not invade. Why not write her as an unwilling "guest" of the Republic, invited without recourse to defend her people's sovereignty? Well, that would show Obi-Wan in a very unflattering light, wouldn't it? But in "Duchess of Mandalore" she's back to being a prisoner in everything but name, escaping custody to receive an unaltered copy of her dead minister's speech.

Now, Obi-Wan helps her at that point...but it's clearly due to some poorly-written romantic feelings. I am not interested in any Padme/Anakin parallels, mostly because I find it incredibly tedious and honestly not helpful in exploring Anakin's Leap into the Dark Side. This story is a gigantic missed opportunity to show the Jedi (or at least, a representative of the Jedi) wrestle with their roles as avatars of the republic, when the republic is so obviously manufacturing a reason to invade Mandalore. Palpatine is obviously orchestrating this whole thing, but he still (at this point in the show) requires the consent of the Senate to essentially annex more territory - and the Senate is perfectly happy to give him that consent, by the way. There is a fantastic story on the Jedi side about the clash of ideals vs realities, and the writers totally side-stepped it.

But pulling the focus out a little further, that has actually been par for the course for most of the Obi-Wan stories of season 2. He's been consistently more and more irritated about the war as the season has gone on, and made some off-hand comments about the ungratefulness of the Republic populace that, in the hands of a more competent writer, could have been a multi-season character arc about loss of faith in fallible human institutions, which would dovetail pretty well with his characterization in both RotS and ANH. Instead, his character remains the static wise-cracking Good Guy; Satine is the Designated Love Interest, unable to develop along more interesting and independent lines; and this arc falls deeply flat as a result.

They're not the only characters who are horribly underwritten. I mean, here we are at the end of Season 2, and have we yet seen a sympathetic CIS character, or an accounting of how Palpatine was able to take advantage of already extant fractures in the Republic to create a shadowy cabal dedicated to tearing it apart? No. It's all war crimes and evil laughter so far. The Good Guys always win (until they don't), the bad guys are always Very Bad, and there are no shades of gray in this massive galaxy. Again, ignoring the complicated Mandalorian backstory, Death Watch is extremely under-baked as villains. There could have been a fascinating interplay between Satine and Pre about their different visions for their people's future, but just as Satine is a flat Pacifist caricature, Pre is a dull Terrorist caricature.

I have to give a special mention to the horrible Love Confession of "Voyage of Temptation". This is the episode where Satine is written most consistently as Peak Pacifist. If she had instead been written as anti-war (but not necessarily a philosophical pacifist), her escape from Tal Merrik would have been a great inversion of that trope - and in fact, I thought it was at first, when she "confessed", and then had to make an annoyed face when Obi-Wan didn't immediately play along. Instead, they played it straight, and I've never felt more simpatico with a villain than when Tal Merrik complained about their timing. That fact that Satine's "pacifism" is then used as an excuse for Obi-Wan and Satine to hesitate to kill a terrorist, leading Anakin to kill him...like, c'mon. I get it, the writers want to show his fall to the dark side, you gotta play the ominous theme music, but is this really a particularly evil act by Anakin? I'm gonna be honest, if a cop or an armed civilian kills a mass shooter, no one is castigating them for doing so, but instead congratulating them for stopping a murderer from killing again.

Final note and the only one that explicitly addresses the Mandalorian elephant in the room: I hate the Darksaber. Like, I know we all gave KJA shit for the original Darksaber novel, but the fact that Filoni (or Lucas?) repurposed the name for a SPECIAL MANDALORIAN LIGHTSABER fills me with intense rage. They're fucking gun knights, you coward, stop inserting your weird Arthurian hard-on into my western samurai sci-fi pastiche.

And that's it for this batch of episodes. Up next: Boba Fett makes his first appearance in our chronological viewing, and we return to Mandalore a second time, much to my sorrow.

#watching the clone wars #star wars #star wars tcw #television is hypnotoad

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highnoonratfilms · 4 years ago

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Environ-mentality short film Idea and Pre - production work for After Effects work and Final Film

With the growing issue that affects us all, I have become more aware of our effects on the environment. Living in a world that largely powers itself using NON-SUSTAINABLE fossil fuels. It makes me think we are not doing enough, and some people don’t know enough about what we can do. Examples across the world show us we can do more, but why are we not? Examples include Iceland's Carbfix project, that captures Co2 and other acidic atmospheric gasses, liquidizes them then pumps them into the bedrock bellow where they then become stable minerals. (At the time of writing this) Morocco has the largest solar farm in the world as of 2020 (NOOR POWER PLANT) with an estimated size equivalent to 3500 football pitches. Iceland is powered 100% by sustainable energy and it took 4 years for Morocco to produce 49% of their energy sustainably. Why is it then that the UK and US are doing so poorly in the field of renewable energy? Accounting for 37.4% of renewable energy from the UK and a shocking 11% produced in America.

I want to discuss the damaging effects Co2 emissions from non-sustainable fuel sources has on the environment around us such as Air pollution, climate change, causing weather patterns to become more & more unpredictable, damage to the ocean, the loss of wild areas due to population and how ultimately greed and selfishness is hurting the world we inhabit. What we can do to change future for the better.

With this type of topic there is a lot of organizations who would love to be given the chance to spread their message. So, I would like to give them the chance to do just that,

I plan to approach certain companies or individuals offering them a chance to offer contributors for the film or to give their input. Such as Liverpool Friends of the earth, WWF to discuss the earth hour that happens once a year across the globe and Sea Legacy which is a company devoted to saving the oceans across the world and the wildlife that inhabit it.

Sea Legacy

Liverpool Friends of the earth https://friendsoftheearth.uk/groups/liverpool

WWF UK - 01483 426444

Stephenson Institute For Renewable Energy

I will need to need to research the topic a lot more than I have done because I feel as though I do not know enough yet to make a compelling piece of work. Although it is very quickly becoming a topic of great interest to me.

My Reading List for this topic will be.

Ahluwalia, V., 2013. Environmental Studies. New Delhi: The Energy and Resources Institute.

Berners-Lee, M., 2019. There Is No Planet B. Cambridge (Reino Unido) [etc.]: Cambridge University Press.

Klein, N., 2015. This Changes Everything. New York: Penguin books.

Wallace-Wells, D., 2019. The Uninhabitable Earth. 1st ed. New York, New York: Crown Publishing Group.

Inspiration for the film has come from personal interest. As well as other documentaries and docuseries out there, such as Kiss the Ground, Our Planet (including BTS) and Down to Earth. I have also been a plant-based eater for just over a year now, I originally turned plant-based to improve my health. Although after some time I have discovered that there are lot of benefits to the environment when people lower their animal product consumption. (not to say animal products are the only problem with the food industry)

I was also watching ‘I Am Greta’ the documentary about Greta Thunberg and her journey to where she is today, bringing awareness to the climate crisis across the globe resulting in the Fridays for future movement. Which inspired a tremendous amount of school children to protest against their governments attitude towards climate change.

Equipment & Budget:

Canon eos M50 mirrorless camera + 15-45MM CANON LENS E-MOUNT £499.00

SanDisk Extreme 64GB £28.00

TAKSTAR SGC-598 + POP FILTER £29.95

DEAD CAT FILTER £5.99

Manfrotto tripod £50.00

RODE Wireless Go Lavalier microphone £159.99

Acer Nitro 5 + Samsung 500GB SSD + 16GB DDR4 SODIMM RAM £700 -£800

Adobe Premiere-pro + Adobe Photoshop + Adobe After Effects £16.24 creative cloud for students

B-Roll Recourses - I was given access to the extinction rebellion footage directly from them after being granted access for free.

The other stock footage has came from Pexels.com where all footage falls under royalty free and creative commons footage.

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militant-holy-knight · 5 years ago

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On a 500-acre campus in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Middle East scholar Raymond Ibrahim was finally allowed to give his speech before a packed, mostly civilian audience at the U.S. Army War College's Heritage and Education Center. Based on his book, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War Between Islam and the West, Ibrahim covered the 7th-century origins of Islam, its conflict with Christianity during the hundreds of years that followed, and revisionist attempts to deny Islam's history of violent warfare and supremacism.

Ibrahim, a Judith Friedman Rosen Writing Fellow with the Middle East Forum, was on the receiving end of such an attempt in June 2019, when the Council on American-Islamic Relations and other Islamists convinced the U.S. Army War College to disinvite Ibrahim from his original appearance, fallaciously accusing the son of Egyptian immigrants of being a "bigot" and "white nationalist."

However, Ibrahim wasn't alone. In its press release, CAIR ridiculed the War College as "an academic institution run on taxpayer funds" that was "poised to exacerbate longstanding problems such as racism and human rights violations that exist within the US military."

Ibrahim explained that CAIR is "well aware how important it is to dominate the historic narrative." He pointed to his reliance on primary source material and actual quotes from jihadist and Islamists to support his view that there is "a continuity between past and present; Muslim religious leaders and jihadists see Christianity as both antithetical to the Islamic world and inherently ripe for conquest or conversion."

It took a letter signed by ten congressmen to Army War College commandant Major General John S. Kem, as well as a National Association of Scholars letter to President Trump that included 5,000 signatories, to convince Army leaders to reinstate Ibrahim's invitation.

When CAIR learned that Ibrahim was set to return to the Carlisle campus, it responded by once again suggesting that the Army War College suffers from an "internal problem with white supremacists and white nationalists within its ranks," while claiming that Ibrahim's talk would "instigate hatred against Muslims."

Undeterred by his Islamist critics, Ibrahim began his presentation by saying that "since 9/11," it has "become popular" for media and academia to whitewash the Koran's objectionable passages. "They say Mohammad may have done bad things, but so did King David and Abraham," he said. The difference, Ibrahim noted, is that the Torah acknowledges the wayward path of these leaders and advises against following them, unlike the Koran.

For argument's sake, Ibrahim offered to "put aside what the Koran says" and "see what Islamists have done." Beginning with the Islamic conquests of the Middle East and North Africa, Ibrahim argued that Islamists' consistent goal has been Western submission to Islamic supremacy. This region, which is identified today as Muslim-majority, was home to more Christians than Europe in the 7th century. What remained after the Arab Muslim invasion became "the West." Ibrahim quoted historian Franco Cardini, who wrote, "Repeated Muslim aggression against Europe in the 7th and 8th centuries and again in the 14th and 18th centuries was a violent midwife to Europe."

Ibrahim referred to the late historian of Islam Bernard Lewis, who said, "We forget that for a thousand years since the advent of Islam from the 7th century to the siege of Vienna in 1683 Christian Europe was under constant threat from Islam, the double threat of conquest and conversion violently wrested from Christendom." Ibrahim noted that modern historians often fail to acknowledge this simple truth.

He argued that Mohammad's guidance to spread Islam was the motivation behind the Islamic conquests. The only way peace could be achieved was through acceptance of Islam by conversion, enslavement, or paying the jizya — an enormous annual tribute that the caliphate levied on non-Muslims.

Short of these options, a non-believer's only recourse was to fight to the death. Ibrahim quoted what Islamist conqueror Khalid bin Walid said to a Byzantine general before the Battle of Yarmuk in 636 C.E.: "We Arabs are in the habit of drinking blood and we are told the Romans are the sweetest of its kind. Where you love life, we love death."

Unlike modern historians who identify the various inter-civilizational wars of this age as ethnic and nationalistic, Ibrahim emphasized that the primary sources clearly show that these ongoing battles were manifestations of jihad, inspired by Koranic scripture. He called this tendency "a historic fact that modern day historians censor."

Ibrahim showed that modern jihadists "belonging to groups such as ISIS are well-versed in Islamic historic military jurisprudence" and the Koran and point to historical precedents to justify their violence and brutality.

At the fall of Constantinople, Sultan Mehmed II motivated his jihadists with the same instructions invoked by modern-day ISIS: "Recall the promise of our Prophet regarding fallen warriors in the Koran; the man who falls in combat will be transported bodily to Paradise [and] will dine with Mohammed in the presence of women."

Next, Ibrahim recounted the American experience with the Islamic Barbary pirates in 1785 and 1786 that attacked U.S. merchant ships and enslaved American sailors. In an effort to ransom the slaves, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams entered negotiations with Abdul Rahman, Tripoli's ambassador to Britain. The American diplomats futilely explained that they "had done them no injury" and "consider all mankind our friends."

Abdul answered that "it was founded on the laws of their Prophet, written in the Koran that all nations not acknowledging their authority were sinners, that it is their religious right and duty to make slaves of non-believers, and all Muslims slain in battle were sure to go to paradise." America's conflict with Islam did not begin on 9/11. Rather, it dates back to the time of America's Founders.

To underscore this message, Ibrahim cited Theodore Roosevelt's 1916 book, Fear God and Take Your Part, where the former president pointed out, "If the peoples of Europe in the 7th and 8th centuries, and on up to and including the 17th century, had not possessed a military equality with, and gradually a growing superiority over the Mohammedans who invaded Europe, Europe would at this moment be Mohammedan and the Christian religion would be exterminated."

The great English statesman Winston Churchill also criticized Islam for institutionalizing slavery. "The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman is the absolute property — either as a child, a wife, or a concubine — must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men."

Ibrahim rhetorically asked, if the violent history of Islam is so well documented, "so ironclad," then "why don't we know about it?" Older historians who studied Islam unprejudiced by political correctness reached conclusions that no longer comport with what the public is told. Conversely, modern historians get away with academic malpractice by reducing previous Islamic studies scholarship to outdated myths.

This is all part and parcel of what Ibrahim referred to as "propaganda as a form of jihad," misinformation of which academics and groups such as CAIR are the most vociferous defenders.

Meanwhile, CAIR, an unindicted co-conspirator in the nation's largest terrorism finance trial and an accused Hamas-supporter, engaged in "propaganda jihad "by working to suppress Ibrahim's historical review, a practice consistent with Islamist suppression of different religious beliefs.

In the end, Ibrahim gave Army service members and the community a coherent and fact-driven presentation of Islamic history that everyone in America should hear, one that dispels the many false, politically correct notions about the nature of Islam. It lays bare the inconvenient truth that Islamic ideology is what motivates Muslim jihadists to perpetrate acts of terrorism against non-believers, both domestically and abroad.

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bylagunabay · 4 years ago

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Miraculous Medal Novena & Memorare

HEALING TESTIMONIALS

These short testimonials are well worth reading and studying.

MIRACULOUS MEDAL NOVENA

While the first Miraculous Medals were being produced in 1832, Paris was hit by a cholera epidemic, claiming more than 20,000 lives. In June, the Daughters of Charity distributed the first 2,000 medals, especially to infected people who filled the hospitals. Healings multiplied. The rest who wore the medal remained protected from the disease and from fear and distress.

1 Cure of M. Fermin, A Priest—1834

"To the glory of Mary conceived without sin, I, Jean Baptiste Fermin, unworthy servant of the Blessed Virgin, and subject of M. Olier, have, together with my Superior and confrères, thought it my duty to transmit to our very honored Father, an account of the special favor accorded me.

Many persons knew what I suffered for six whole years, how I was worn out with a nervous, worrying cough, whose attacks were so frequent and so prolonged that one can scarcely imagine how I ever survived them. My physician himself told me that, for the first three years, my life was in imminent danger, and if in the last three I was less exposed to death at every step, as it were, the giving way of my stomach, the weakness of my chest, were such that all my days were filled with bitterness, and new crosses were laid upon me.

O, Mary, how deplorable was my condition when you cast upon me a look of mercy! The 15th of November, 1834, I was sent a medal, struck in honor of the Immaculate Conception, and already celebrated as the instrument of many miracles. In receiving it, I was penetrated, for the first time, with a strong feeling of confidence, that this was the Heaven-sent means by which I would reach the end of my afflictions; I had not foreseen this hope, still less had I excited it, for I believe I can say, conscientiously, that I felt naturally disinclined to ask a favor of which I deemed myself unworthy. However, the feeling became so strong that I thought it my duty to consider it prayerfully next morning; and not to oppose so good an impulse, I determined to make a novena, and I commenced it on the 16th.

From that moment my confidence was boundless, and like a child who reasons no longer, but sees only what he feels sure of obtaining, it sustained me amidst the new trials to which I was subjected; for on the 19th, and several days after, my sufferings were redoubled, affecting at once both stomach and chest. On the 22d I felt considerably better, on the 23d I believed myself strong enough to abandon a diet on which I had subsisted a long time, and on the 24th I wished to eat just what was served the Community; that very morning I commenced, like the hearty seminarians, to take a little dry bread and wine, and it agreed [126]with me. Thus my desires were accomplished.

I had implored the Blessed Virgin to give me health to live according to the rule, and she had done so; but a good Mother like Mary would not leave her work imperfect, and she chose the very day of her Conception to bestow upon me her crowning favors. I was still troubled with a slight indisposition of the stomach accompanying digestion after dinner, but it was not positive suffering, and even this remnant of my old infirmity disappeared entirely.

On the eve of that Feast my devotion to Mary, which had lost a little of its first fervor, was, when I least expected it, excited anew, and I felt urged to implore the consummation of a good work so happily begun. I did so that evening, and next morning at prayers, at Mass, at my thanksgiving, and it was in finishing this last exercise before a statue of the Blessed Virgin, after a most fervent prayer, that I realized the recompense of my confidence—I felt assured that my petitions had been granted.

Since then I have experienced no indisposition worthy of attention. I was able to fast the Ember week before Christmas and the eve of that great solemnity; I sang the ten o'clock High Mass the fourth Sunday in Advent; I followed all the offices of the choir on those days the Church consecrates to the celebration of our Divine Master's birth, and, instead of regretting these efforts, I find in each one of them a new motive for blessing the Lord and testifying my gratitude to our good Mother.”

2 Ajax Francois / Bergie Chanlatte

Among those who were praying Novenas at the shrine were Ajax Francois and Bergie Chanlatte. Both are from Haiti and attend Creole Masses in their parishes, seated together at the shrine on Tuesday, still praying the Novenas.

“This is really part of my culture coming from Haiti,” Francois said. “I have been Catholic all of my life. I went to all Catholic schools. I have been praying the Novenas as long as I can remember. I always wear my large cross during Novena prayers because it helps me to feel the power of these prayers.”

Chanlatte said that she has been bringing all her special intentions to her Novena prayers. She said that she had a laundry list of prayers that have been answered by praying either Novenas for nine consecutive days or for nine consecutive weeks. She said that she has particularly had prayers of a very personal nature answered.

“I don’t share my Novena list, but I have been blessed. When you sit in a place like this and pray you know that God is hearing you. That’s why I love my Catholic faith. I live as a Catholic and I will die as a Catholic. I will always pray Novenas,” Chanlatte said.

3 Geraldine Dennis

Geraldine Dennis, a member of St. Raymond of Penafort in Mount Airy, said that she has also been blessed by praying Novenas. She said that she usually prays her Novenas to a certain saint, like St. Rita. She prays them along with her other daily prayers. This includes three to five rosaries, a prayer to St. Michael, prayers to Sorrowful Mary and chaplets.

“Usually Novenas are prayed to saint, at the shine to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal,” Dennis said. “Many non-Catholics think that we, as Catholics, pray to saints. We do not pray to the saints or to Mary, but we always pray to God. We understand that once someone is a saint when they die they go into heaven.

“So, they are alive. We are not worshiping the dead. What we are actually doing is taking our prayers to them knowing that they are in heaven near God and Jesus. We are actually asking them to pray for us. It is just like when you know someone who is holy and close to God, you ask them to pray for you,” Dennis said.

Dennis said that the Novena prayers have much intimacy in them. She usually will write down a list of all the prayers others have asked her to pray. For instance, they may ask her to pray for them to recuperate, receive assistance in the financial area or for a family member who have lost their way.

It is from this exhaustive list that Dennis will pray her Novenas, usually for nine consecutive days. “When you consolidate all the prayers and all the people you are praying for, your prayers become more powerful. All that I know is that it brings more intimacy with God praying this way. I have done Novenas to the Holy Spirit, the Immaculate Heart, St. Therese and others. It really deepens your spiritual relationship with God,” Dennis said.

MEMORARE

Fr. Claude Bernard is credited with spreading the devotion to the Memorare after the prayer cured him of a serious illness. St. Mother Teresa used it extensively with wonderful results, even changing the weather.

1 Maura Roan McKeegan

Not long ago, I went through a very difficult and intense period of suffering in my personal life. There were times when I did not know how I would make it through the next ten minutes with the level of suffering I was enduring, let alone the next hour, day, or week.

Throughout this time, I prayed traditional novenas, Rosaries (especially the Seven Sorrows Rosary), and many other prayers. But during those instances of immediate and almost unbearable need, the Holy Spirit reminded me to have recourse to the Emergency Novena. Nine Memorares (with a tenth for thanksgiving).

With the first few Memorares, I began to breathe more easily. By the end of the last ones, I felt increasing peace. What was even more amazing, though, is that every single time I prayed the Emergency Novena, my prayers were immediately answered. Every emergency was resolved. Every prayer that came forth from the depth of my heart was heard. Every cry of spiritual agony was answered.

2 Lori Hadacek Chaplin

When Mother Teresa had an emergency, she and her sisters would pray the Memorare nine times for what was required, adding a 10th prayer as a thank you for the Blessed Virgin’s intercession.

Msgr. Maasburg in his book, Mother Teresa of Calcutta: A Personal Portrait said this about the saint’s practice: “She took the collaboration of Heaven so much for granted that she always added a tenth Memorare immediately, in thanksgiving for the favor received.”

The saint didn’t dub the devotion the “Flying Novena.” That title came later when people realized that this prayer works fast when said with confidence and faith.

Two of the most memorable answers to this novena happened when I prayed for my eldest daughter, Ella. She was suffering terribly from a toothache. Feeling helpless about what I could do for her, I said the Flying Novena. After I finished the prayer, I called her, and she told me that the pain, mercifully, had eased up noticeably.

The second time was when Ella was photographing a wedding. I got a frantic message from her, saying that the lens cleaner had seeped inside her portrait lens and the liquid had completely fogged the lens making it unusable. I told her that the lens would clear when the cleaner evaporated. She said she didn’t have time to wait — a quick search had told her that it could take days to clear — and asked that I pray.

As soon as I finished the 10 prayers, the lens was back to normal. Ella told me, “Mom, it happened too fast to be a coincidence.”

#catholic #healing #miracles #Miraculous Medal #memorare #mary #virgin mary #novena

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pentanguine · 5 years ago

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for the quarantine asks, 19, 22, 26 (milk is not a juice!), 33, 38, 49, 50 :)

19. That book you were forced to read for class but actually ended up enjoying?

Ok, unlike the majority of people (or so it seems), I actually loved The Great Gatsby. It’s well-written, it’s got great characters, and it’s a classic tale of gay yearning. What’s not to like.

22. What was your “phase” when you were younger? (i.e., Mythology Nerd, Horse Girl, Space Geek, etc)

My childhood was a neverending succession of phases, including the Bear Phase, the Pirate Phase, the Fairy Phase, and the truly iconic Victorian Orphan Phase, in which my friend and I were the tragic young wards of the Lord of the Manor, who was involved in all sorts of nefarious deeds that could only be thwarted by our ingenuity and pluck

26. You can only have one juice for the rest of your life, what is it?

Fuck you, I was absolutely planning to put cow juice if anyone asked. Since you have barred me from that recourse, I’ll say lemon juice.

33. If you could own any non-traditional pet (dogs, cats, fish, rodents, etc), what would it be?

Assuming that this would be physically, financially, and ethically possible, I’d like to have a deer. I’m enjoying getting to know the deer around my house on my walks, and it would be fun to have one who wasn’t afraid of you and who could make a little deer bed somewhere in your home.

38. Favorite mid-2000s song

You know me too well my dear. I’m going to have a terrible time answering this question if I think about it for too long, so I’m going to go with my instincts and say Mama, by MCR

49. What’s something that you don’t have a picture of that you wish you did?

I went as Eponine for Halloween one year in high school, and I was very proud of that costume! I made a paper rosette and I spent half an hour safety pinning various reddish brownish fabrics around one of my dad’s baseball caps to make her distinctive hat from the musical. It was the most effort I’d ever put into a Halloween costume! My mom did take pictures, but then our house got broken into and everything got stolen, so rip.

50. How are you at climbing trees?

I’m great at climbing up trees, but I’m not as good at getting down. My formative training was on a magnolia with branches down to the ground like a veritable ladder, so while I have a lot of practice with scampering around in branches, I never got good at scaling a trunk to get to the branches in the first place

#personal #do you ever reach the stage of tired where your body wants to sleep so badly but your mind wants to stay awake so badly #cause if i go to sleep then it'll be closer to tomorrow #and today has been going pretty well #so i don't want it to end in case tomorrow isn't as good

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highnoonratfilms · 4 years ago

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Environ-mentality short film Idea and Pre - production work for After Effects work and Final Film

With this type of topic there is a lot of organizations who would love to be given the chance to spread their message. So, I would like to give them the chance to do just that,

Sea Legacy

Liverpool Friends of the earth https://friendsoftheearth.uk/groups/liverpool

WWF UK - 01483 426444

Stephenson Institute For Renewable Energy

My Reading List for this topic will be.

Ahluwalia, V., 2013. Environmental Studies. New Delhi: The Energy and Resources Institute.

Berners-Lee, M., 2019. There Is No Planet B. Cambridge (Reino Unido) [etc.]: Cambridge University Press.

Klein, N., 2015. This Changes Everything. New York: Penguin books.

Wallace-Wells, D., 2019. The Uninhabitable Earth. 1st ed. New York, New York: Crown Publishing Group.

Equipment & Budget:

Canon eos M50 mirrorless camera + 15-45MM CANON LENS E-MOUNT £499.00

SanDisk Extreme 64GB £28.00

TAKSTAR SGC-598 + POP FILTER £29.95

DEAD CAT FILTER £5.99

Manfrotto tripod £50.00

RODE Wireless Go Lavalier microphone £159.99

Acer Nitro 5 + Samsung 500GB SSD + 16GB DDR4 SODIMM RAM £700 -£800

Adobe Premiere-pro + Adobe Photoshop + Adobe After Effects £16.24 creative cloud for students

B-Roll Recourses - I was given access to the extinction rebellion footage directly from them after being granted access for free.

The other stock footage has came from Pexels.com where all footage falls under royalty free and creative commons footage.

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lupine-publishers-sjpbs · 4 years ago

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Lupine Publishers | Usa Facing to Challenge for the Future: Domination or Cooperation? the Final Choice

Abstract

The path we have attempted to describe briefly in the previous pages shows the evolution of a society that no longer seems able to make head or tail of what is going on in a moment of great difficulty. An incredulous society faced with facts it fails to understand but that it seems incapable of questioning. It remains locked in an ideological impasse between the return to ancient glories and ostentation of the past, and the idea that instead a new road must be found at the end of a journey that has come to a dead-end. So it is driven towards a form of “compulsion to repeat in a regressive manner”. In 1949 British historian A. J. Toynbee in his book entitled Civilization on Trial made the point that an individual’s character (and I would say also human society’s) is always forged by having to face setbacks and obstacles. However, the toughest situations are those that arise in the middle of fortunate, prosperous periods that people fatuously believe can never end. In such situations people, fighting with destiny, give in to the temptation of looking for scapegoats who will bear the burden of their own incompetence. But trying to saddle someone else with one’s own responsibilities in hard times is even more dangerous than believing in everlasting prosperity. Toynbee postulated that the real challenge at that time came from Western society’s enormous technical progress that made it the master of non-human nature. It was indeed this magnificent advance in the knowledge of “secrets” that had illuded the past generation to the point of daydreaming that conveniently history had come full circle [1-4]. The extremely perspicacious Toynbee already saw the risk of a decline of our society. Much water has passed under the bridge of history, but his considerations have indeed been borne out, also as regards the role of Asia in terms of global domination. In fact in his posthumous work Mankind and Mother Earth Toynbee already saw that Western Europe had lost its leading role to the United States. Having said this he believed that American supremacy would not last longer than that of the Mongol Empire a mere two generations! Looking ahead, he felt that it was quite likely that leadership in the future would pass from America to East Asia [5,6]. Today we are facing a new chapter in history, one in which the United States must try to map out the role it intends to play. Whether this will be oriented towards a dangerous hegemony or possibly will experiment a role that is more oriented towards promoting cooperation. As the great Bard wrote -‘To be or not to be: that is the question’. For the very first time after the collapse of the Soviet empire, the United States is faced with a new situation. It no longer has a well-defined enemy as the USSR had been; it is no longer the world’s only power as has been the case for the past twenty years; it can no longer play a dominant role, because its very own history means that its cultural model is now open to debate. It seems unsure of which role to play: one of continuity with the past twenty years or one more oriented towards the legitimation of a position focused on reducing global tensions [6-12].

Introduction

This doubt sums up the country’s dilemma. On the one hand Obama is in favour of a constructive dialogue, one not only based on military power. On the other hand his political opponents consider this to be a sign of weakness, they want the US to continue to play the dominant yet disastrous role embarked on in the Bush era. But times have changed and this position is no longer tenable. The Republicans’ deep-rooted cultural model has led them to believe they are omnipotent, making Obama’s rivals incapable of learning history’s lesson and turning over a new leaf [13]. To think that America’s first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, in the middle of an extremely stormy period reminded Americans that: ‘The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion [14-17]. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country’ Figure 1. The history of the United States and the cultural model that has asserted itself has been primed by the unjustified idea of infinite technical progress. It has adopted technical knowledge as being the basis for unquestionable moral guidance. Whereas an awareness of the limits of that model could well bring down the castle of dreams of unlimited success on which it is based [18].

Figure 1: The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational min.

Dramatically, the USA has illuded itself that the time of omnipotence never ends, a mistake the ancient Romans also made, and that the sun could be halted at the zenith indefinitely without even pronouncing Joshua’s password. However, as the tenth chapter of the book of Joshua says: ‘And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord harkened unto the voice of a man [...]’. So requests like the one above stand even less chance of being heard. Unrestrained liberalism without moral rules has ended up by eroding US society, instead it must be relaunched by such rules to achieve a social cohesion capable of reconstructing a foundation of shared values. This is the first problem, because if the US fails to question its social and economic model it will never manage to understand the new role that the march of history is asking it to play. Or it manages to question its unequal society or it becomes extremely difficult to understand what role a great power like the USA can possibly have in a globalized world. Also Ortega Gasset highlights how coming face to face with suffering and a new awareness this provokes is decisive in order to rethink the sense of human society and solidarity. The United States cannot set itself up as the champion of world social values before experiencing suffering as a result of becoming aware of its own unequal, sick society that, if left to its own devices, could well end up losing itself. The Obama presidency has tried to propose a new model, the right one [19]. But this change questions those wellestablished powers that control the media and that, opposed to this action, weaken it and make it more difficult. In a country where 19% of the population find it difficult to read and understand a newspaper article, media communication becomes a difficult tool to fight against. The dominant approach seen in past years is deeply engrained in a highly oligarchic society that wants to maintain its position in spite of a society that is weakening at the base. It has pursued this course by always displaying a military force for which the USA spends 50% of global military expenditure. But even the armed forces are showing signs of weakness given that the number of suicides is sometimes higher than those who die in battle [20].

This choice has led to other countries rearming for instance, Russia and China have started to spend on weaponry again. And while Russia has lost power its nuclear arsenal still remains intact. Other levers used to exercise its dominant power have been to extend US models of the economy and consumption to countries with different histories and recourse to the use of finance governed by lobbies whose interests do not always coincide with those of the USA. Exporting entrenched lifestyle and consumption models to other countries with different histories and traditions presents the risk already indicated by Toynbee in 1948 and as mentioned previously in La Competizione Collaborativa. ‘Other countries have absorbed our economic models while maintaining their own cultural models; their history has become part of ours and we must learn to live with it. It is unclear, said Toynbee, how they will react to this Western occupation’. The first reaction he saw was the creation of a Soviet communist empire, however, in Civilization on Trial he stated that it was likely that in the long term India and China would have a much greater impact on life in the West than the hopes of Russia and its Communism. And this is exactly what has happened!

The reactions foreseen by Toynbee were due to the fact that only models of consumption had been exported but not the religious roots, because the economic model could propagate in far less time than a total global culture. And so the Chinese were given a stone instead of bread, whereas the Communist ideal gave them a few grains of nourishment for that spiritual life without which people cannot survive. Today China has to face social problems that its need to grow rapidly had put to one side, in particular the longstanding conflict between its urban areas and agricultural world [21]. The exercise of financial dominance, instead, is especially evident in tensions that have developed between the dollar and the euro. The weakening of the dollar could have oriented “markets” to choose the euro as the reserve currency, perhaps even the settlement currency for oil. In order to dissuade this idea the weakening of the euro would seem like a good move.

Weakening the euro meant weakening Germany, but as the German Bund is much stronger than the US Treasury Bond this meant that the euro had to be progressively surrounded and weakened. As in World War II Germany was defeated by conquering Greece, Italy and, lastly, France , with the Normandy landing. In the same way the financial markets first attacked Greece, then Portugal, Ireland and lastly, Spain and Italy. It must be admitted that these countries, which mostly have strong roots in Catholicism, had done everything to get into trouble without any help! Concerning this game plan, we must first get the facts straight. The attack on Italy got under way in early July 2011, playing on the country’s fundamentals and the risk of a possible default. But the fundamentals were exactly the same as they had been at the beginning of the year, when the risk represented by the country’s growing debt was already quite clear. A trend of rising interest rates could have been unsustainable for Italy’s financial equilibrium and economy. Despite the fact that everything was already clear in January the rating agencies didn’t see any country risk but then this oversight was rapidly remedied in July when Italy’s Treasury Bonds came under fire. In the meantime the bloody campaign in Iraq had come to an end with the announced withdrawal of American troops, also thanks to the capture and killing of Osama Bin Laden two months earlier on 2 May 2011. But the Middle East question continued to be an open issue for the world, together with the unresolved issue and consequences of its threat to Israel [22].

The autumn of “our discontent” grew worse and financial tension hit Italy enabling Wall Street’s merchant banks to make profits by speculating on the country’s Treasury Bonds. It must be said that in the past ten years Italy had made all the wrong moves, by increasing the debt to capture votes and failing to make the necessary reforms, and so the action was quite justified and, what is more, Italy served it up on a silver plate. However, the anomalies of the rating agencies’ assessments continued although to a certain degree they loosened their grip. In January 2012 the agencies lowered their ratings for nine European countries and the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) started to become a target for gamblers. But exactly one week later, for the first time, the spread between Italian and German bond rates dropped to 400 base points.

There was an evident contradiction: how come the rating was cut while the spread improved? Technically there was no explanation. But for those interested in coincidences, that same day the Council of Europe stated it would take a harder line as regards the embargo against Iran by ceasing to buy Iranian oil starting from the end of June. As regards Italy, from that moment on the conflicting trend between an improving spread and a rating, public debt, employment and GDP that were getting worse continued to be unexplainable. Are markets rational or not? As always, the most obvious answers are those that are less easy to see [23,5].

And lastly, the current dilemma concerns the role of the BCE as regards the EFSF. Positions of the markets and the Bundesbank have hardened, in particular the latter feels it should not give an open-ended guarantee to purchase bonds on the secondary market. On the other hand, without a protective shield acting as a disincentive against speculation of US banks, which can operate in a market without the rules applying to European banks, and with a Fed monetary policy oriented towards printing an unlimited supply of money, the fund would certainly not last long on the secondary market. The problem for Italy doesn’t change because it needs to cure the ills of its public finances or it will always be an easy target for speculation [11,8]. But the action of markets and media focus on them make it easy to lose sight of the real problem: is it right to say that markets are rational and never make mistakes as economic theory would have us believe, or is this not true? If, in terms of finance, we are not just rational but also act based on our emotions, and if as a consequence markets are not rational (or not entirely so), the conclusion we can come to is that their trend is perhaps more comprehensible if we understand the true, undeclared interests that move those operators who are mainly capable of influencing the underlying market trends. The choice between a dominant or cooperative position is in effect the key issue for the future of the USA. And the outcome will largely depend on the ability of those governing the country to manage to bring order to and create an equilibrium within the country and the world a finance, which currently seems completely free to act independently. Today such an oversized financial compared to real economy represents a mortal threat to a return to a focus on people and the real economy. This is the challenge not only facing the USA but also the entire world. So it would seem that the very history of the USA, as it has developed over a period of time that enables us to grasp the sense of what has inspired it, is the most obvious demonstration of the theory on which this and my previous book are based. The economy and finance are not the foundation on which to build a good society, that is, a cohesive society inspired to realize values that put people at the centre of our interests [14,10]. Exactly the opposite is true: a good society is the foundation on which to create the conditions for a durable, long-term economic and financial equilibrium.

Conclusion

When I came to the end of my previous work it was still not yet clear how an interpretation of the facts could be confirmed by history. Although I have now made considerable headway the same words I wrote then still hold good today. ‘In a context of uncertainty unparalleled in history, one that in no way compares to developments in our ability to dominate nature, people now aspire to a valid order that can remain under their power. An order that is both useful and promotes human progress, capable of reconciling humanity with the extent of its scientific knowledge, which today is perceived as an absolute value, placing it at the service of the search for a more widespread common good’. (La Competizione Collaborativa) Now, perhaps, the boundary of the enigma and this hope seem better defined and can therefore lead to a clearer answer for everyone, while remaining fully aware, however, that responsibilities are always an individual concern. Let us hope that in the middle of all this confusion and uncertainty we manage to see the light and find the right path to follow. A path that humanity must find in order to fulfil its destiny and its unique and creative mission on this Earth.

https://lupinepublishers.com/psychology-behavioral-science-journal/pdf/SJPBS.MS.ID.000159.pdf

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