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The Ground of Goodness

Since April we have been looking at our times as the age in which the limitations on humanity’s ability to continue growing as Homo Colossus start to bite. I’ve said what I think needed to be said, time to move on. We have a lot more territory to cover. Our next investigations will be looking into how a lifestyle of low consumption and non-aggression is both ecologically responsible and can teach us how to live a meaningful, high quality life. But first, this is the 100th post. It seems a good time to state again what Mindful Ecology is all about.

We need to wake up to the reality of our situation. We live in a molecular world that follows its own laws to create a spectrum of emergent phenomenon, a very tiny proportion of which we are able to become aware of through our senses and their technological extensions. The primary characteristic of our molecular world is its impermanence; it is everywhere in a state of flux due to the electrical forces that bind the atomic constituents of these molecules. It turns out that electricity, or more generally electromagnetism, is the great shaper of the world as we experience it at the human scale.

Physicists and chemists have taught about the electrical nature of the natural world in the tradition of materialism. Relativity teaches that energy and mass are not two different things and the conservation laws teach that energy and mass cannot be destroyed. The universe is functional across vast reaches of space and time and everywhere in space and time it exhibits, simultaneously, a wholeness that includes the tiniest quantum particles, the largest galaxies and everything in-between. Teachings like this are ways of reminding ourselves that what we encounter when we encounter non-living being is much more than just what meets the eye.

Eastern schools of yoga have taught about the electrical nature of our human nature in the tradition of contemplation using chakras, wheels of energy whirling around seed syllables. These chakras are said to be located at the primary ganglions of the body’s nervous system and at nexus points where the nervous system integrates the muscles, organs and bones. Teachings like this one about the body containing chakras are ways of reminding ourselves that what we encounter when we encounter another living being is much more than just what meets the eye.

Western schools of spirituality have placed great importance on contemplating the meeting point between God and man through time spent carefully considering Christ’s Sacred Heart, Crown of Thorns, Crucifixion and Ascension. Teachings like these remind us that our having a body cannot be separated from our spirituality and involves much more than just what meets the eye.

Complimentary teachings like these are ways of reminding ourselves that there is a basic goodness to existence in all its detail. The fundamental ground of our experience is that it all works so well together. Even when it doesn’t.

Recognizing the electrical nature of the world that is experienced at the human scale prepares us to better appreciate some of the implications of the modern world’s use of electricity. We all understand that it is the power plants that keep the lights on. Most people also know the majority of these power plants world wide use coal as their fuel, a dirty fuel that is the source of much of the excess carbon emissions driving climate change. What few seem to fully appreciate is the rate of growth these power plants are being asked to serve. Since 1980 the global demand for electricity has doubled. It is expected to double again by 2035. About thirty years for the first doubling, twenty for the second; how long should we expect for the next doubling of demand after that, ten years as per the trend? How long before even the most obstinate among us admits we are on an unsustainable trajectory?

We need to wake up to the reality of our situation. It is not a question of what new green techno-gadget we need to invent to keep the wealth pumps going but a question of what we can do to avoid being hit by the falling debris as the large life support systems of mankind’s built up, artificial environments come crashing down. We should be discussing triage techniques and battlefield tactics, not dreaming of self-driving cars and going to Mars. I ask all people of the beleaguered planet to consider the possibility that what ecology is teaching us today calls for a whole different point of view about what it is to be a human being and why we gather ourselves together in human societies and, perhaps most critically, how our species relates to the rest of the organic and inorganic environments which make up our one and only planetary home.

If one is convinced that the life we live now is unsustainable and has no future, what is a person going to do with such knowledge? It seems that there is so little an individual can do in the face of our collective choices driving our society to make a bad situation worse. If the only hope is for our society to wake up and start making sense, well, that I fear is not much of a hope at all. It looks all the world like our societies are hell-bent for leather on pressing this unsustainability just as far as it can go before crying uncle. Where then should we look for real work that just might be of real benefit to ourselves and, most importantly, might really benefit the next couple of generations that are going to have to live through environmental hell? What can we do? As it happens I believe it is only in the world of individual lives that the true balm for what ails us is to be found.

I am presenting the argument that the ecological crisis is a symptom. The disease is in how modern ideas about mankind’s role in the universe have poisoned our relationships with each other and the rest of the living and non-living world. My position is that we do not know our own minds well. We do not know what they are capable of in peak moments of bliss and cognitive clarity, nor do we comprehend how easily they can carry us away on delusional abstractions that have no basis in the reality of our molecular world. We are so in our heads we are at risk of losing touch with our body, the physical reality in which our lives unfold; so into our abstractions of economy and nationalism, status and hierarchy that we are losing touch with our need for clean air, water and soil. To be risking even the slightest chance of the kind of planetary chaos ecologists are warning us about, with the calm demeanor of our existing social discussions is, in my mind, a sure sign of collective psychosis.

Traditions of prayerful meditation and waking up are surrounded by a wall of Cosmic Foo Foo so high it is almost impossible to see the point. I am suggesting that most of that is just not relevant to what we are really trying to convey by these types of teachings. What we are trying to say has everything to do with waking up to the reality of your situation as it is in the here and now and as it will potentially become in the future. We have a funny habit of making ourselves slaves to our own ideas about ourselves and our world by forgetting that, as long as we draw breath, we are completely free to remake today. People walk away from lifetimes spent in bad marriages, fundamentalist religions and hateful ideologies all the time. One day some insight dawns and they see through some ignorance on their part which had lead them to believe in their own slavery. At that moment they are free and there is no going back because the truth of the insight is always right there in front of them, reflected in the ceaseless unfolding of reality as reality. There is no going back into the cocoon of make-believe.

I am convinced that the same one-way insight comes into the lives of everyone who plumbs the depths of what our ecologists are saying. This ecological insight is already pervasive, like a shadow running through our modern societies, and it is spreading. More and more people, young and old, will be caught and forced (or is that called?) to plumb these dark and depressing depths in their search for the truth. Mindful Ecology recognizes this process as a full blown hero’s descent into the underworld, the first step on the road to enlightenment. It offers both a like-minded community and an encouragement for a serious, daily practice of meditation. It is by developing the skills of meditation that we are able to begin to integrate our head’s knowledge with our heart’s responses to that knowledge. It is my position that we are in crisis due to a disease within our minds and bodies that cuts us off from our ongoing experience of the living earth. It is a disease with a long pedigree in the non-indigenous cultures of the East and West, but one that can be cured within the individual. Mindful Ecology seeks to live once again in a sacred world as our ancestors once did. That is what the world looks like to one who is awake.

Awake. Then we can trust to the wisdom of life itself to show each of us what individual way we must travel to remain on the path of beauty. Then we can trust the womb of emptiness from which all things come forth, instead of placing our trust in the fickle whims of social and religious totalitarianism. We do not need to wait for the fallen world to suddenly become less insane before stepping into the sacred world.

Our neighbors need to meet people serious about harmonizing their minds with their bodies and their lives with the land. Not many are happy; sharing joy has become a work of great virtue. Not many are fearless; daring to know and yet enjoying life anyway has become a great witness. Not many are free; showing the power to choose kindness in our rude, violence-soaked cultures has become a great liberation. Working to spread the enlightenment of our endarkenment is the great work, the most meaningful of all work, for we hold the elixir of sadness in the compassionate heart that establishes each person in their own place.

Grateful and content we can move among our time as unshakable peacemakers. Grateful because we have conquered our fear and strong emotional resistance to seeing the emptiness of our glitz and glitter. Content because we have pushed worldly desire to its end in the nuclear cremation ground and in tasting the ashes of our shame learned the true value of a breath. Unshakable because in our hearts we have let sadness take root in compassion and let it school us in charity, selfless equality. We are peacemakers for we have communed with the bones of our ancestors in the earth, buried the hatchet under the tree feeding on fields of blood, and now carry our ebony flint sharp and our powder dry, ever ready as protectors of the land and human dignity.

It is an extremely beautiful and fortunate thing to be alive. As human beings we have the opportunity to share the most profound depths of one another, including the awe and wonder of our clear light of being. It is my conviction that each of us embodies a cosmic seed of sorts, that we have cosmic roots, that in a way we have all been here a long, long time even as we are thoroughly and completely mortal. In the exquisite moment, quick as a finger snap, is all that we dream might some day come true for us in our heart of hearts. In Isaiah we read “your Builder shall marry you.” The very sinews of deep time and deep space run throughout who and what we are. To see it we need only set aside the veils of aggression that blind us to the powerful electrical and elemental magic of ordinary life. Hate and pain blind us to the love that loved us into being and sustains us in that same love, inviting us to freely participate in it moment by moment. Peace wakes us up and opens the eyes of our hearts, allowing us to take joy in the good of others, in the fundamental goodness that is the ground of being.

Terrorism and Selfishness

One of the defining characteristics of our times we have yet to take up are the acts of violence haunting our headlines. Terrorism is designed to increase the amount of terror within the target population, obviously, but what does that entail exactly and why is it considered, at least by some, an effective means of war? This week I would like to offer a speculative model dealing with the why and how and pointing to what effective counter measures individuals might take for dealing with the psychological ramifications.

Terrorists, despite our own propaganda, do not commit these crimes just to be evilly evil. They have a strategic goal in mind. Now that Western societies are being targeted more frequently by such attacks, we should ask ourselves what they are designed to accomplish and how we might thwart these goals.

Terrorism is the concerted effort to increase the level of stress and fear in the psychology of the target population. Terrorism achieves its aim both by increasing the role of the unknown and unknowable within people’s daily lives and by increasing the sense that they are living in a meaningless universe where precious human lives can be so easily and so unexpectedly mowed down. Many traditional treatments of terrorism mention it is designed to demoralize the population; nihilism as a weapon of war.

In an attempt to cut through these abstractions let’s ask ourselves what happens to an individual that is suddenly confronted with a stressful and frightening event. Cognitive neuroscience can show us exactly why the ability of an individual to reason and think clearly is obstructed when they are terrified. Blood flow to the neocortex is diminished as the mid-brain and brain stem prepare to react to the threat. Stressed and frightened individuals do not make the best life choices. Nor do stressed and frightened societies. Terrorists, then, are seeking to pressure their target societies into making political, economic, and military mistakes which they can then exploit.

This model does imply that the behavior of societies and individuals are similar, a contentious point. However, it has the advantage of showing how a demoralizing process might actually occur.

So how does an individual react to being hurt or frightened? We are profoundly social creatures, we need one another. The first thing we do when hurt or frightened is call out for others: “Help!” This is all about the mid-brain and its processing of emotions. When emotions overwhelm us it is as if they are too large for us to contain, they feel as big as the sky and we need to be open to allow them to flow through us. Our first need or desire is to share these moments with others. We cope best with shock, grief and loss when we receive a nurturing empathy from others. This is very primal, rooted in the bond of infant and mother. Recall the preference for the cloth covered wire mother substitutes in the monkey experiments we looked at earlier.

If others are not around or unable to provide succor, the second strategy is executed and the individual prepares for fight or flight. If we call out and there is no one to come to our aid, we prepare to kill or to run away. If the avenues for escape or effective combat are unavailable the third and final strategy takes place as the individual freezes, like a mouse feigning death in the jaws of a cat.

  • Reach out for someone
  • Fight or Flight
  • Freeze

Neuroscientists have observed this threefold strategy seems to be built into most all creatures with mammalian nervous systems. Combining these two pieces of evidence about how human beings react to terror, namely with weakened reasoning and the primal threefold strategy, we arrive at an interesting model.

I am going to suggest that if an individual finds succor among friends the shock of pain and terror is most readily absorbed and the overall rationality of the situation can remain high. This follows directly from the nature of the emotional subsystems in which the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems work together to maintain homeostasis. Correspondingly, a close knit society with large reserves of trust among its citizens would be most likely to weather terrorist attacks well. If fight or flight is invoked, on the other hand, all the irrational horrors of crimes of passion or acts of war can be unleashed. Finally, if the enemy cannot be fought because they cannot be caught, and cannot be run away from because they seem to be everywhere – just what terrorism is seeking to accomplish – the catatonic state is produced where the will to act is thwarted. It is not that a frozen society stops moving but that it’s movements resemble circular thrashing. It finds itself incapable of taking effective action in dealing with the real causes of its pressures and contradictions.

We live in a time frighteningly dominated by a very lopsided, one-sided view of mankind. It excludes any possibility that acts of human kindness can take place without ulterior motives. Capitalism’s justifications for selfish behavior have now run through all our modern ideas: psychoanalysts insisting we are all at base narcissists seeking only and always our own pleasure; invisible hand economists assuring us that any thought of societies engaging in the exchange of goods and services on a principal other than pure, unadulterated selfishness is hopelessly utopian; biologists insisting that our bodies are nothing more than the vehicles by which selfish genes ruthlessly pursue their quasi-immortal life in some strangely mechanical Valhalla; theologians teach us we are all damnably selfish little beasts desperately in need of grace while their secular equivalents, the ad men, continue endlessly insisting we are all damnably unhappy and unsatisfied and desperately in need of, and selfishly deserving of, the latest widget; etc., etc., ad nauseam.

Well folks, congratulations. All this has left us uniquely vulnerable. In creating a metaphysic to justify not helping the poor of our planet, we managed to destroy every scrap of dignity and nobility inherent in the lives of human beings. Our hyper-capitalism has cut us off from the first means by which we might have absorbed the shocks of terrifying events. Ruthlessly selfish, when we in the modern world cry out for help we fear that only con men and thieves will respond.

Western pundits and academics serve as the moat for this Castle of Metaphysically Pure Selfishness. They continue doing everything they can to protect it yet we find the normality they claim to represent is hard pressed by the current attack.

This metaphysical castle in the air has been built on a foundation that denies the reality of interdependence; our complete and total dependence on others for our very sense of self, for the clothing we wear and every bite of food we eat, and by denying our complete and total dependence as a species on the planet’s intricately inter-meshed organic and inorganic environments from the poles to the tropics. Interdependence puts the hallucination of the self-made superman of our Faustian fantasies out to pasture.

Good riddance. Now is not the time for hubris, now is the time to admit we need one another. If the model I have suggested here has any merit, this is the most direct route to a robust and healthy response to terrifying events.

Pied Pipers

“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”
Aldo Leopold, The Land Ethic

We have been looking at our times through the lens of the Limits to Growth study and asking how these trends might unfold in the reality of our molecular world. To strengthen ourselves for the battering of history’s bitter headwinds we took some time to review the core values that inspired many of those involved in the founding of the U.S. as a democratic republic. We found our Deist forefathers were dedicated to creating a political space in which reason and debate might play a larger role than bullying force and conflicting claims to divine revelation. It was my contention that this governing apparatus had been so thoroughly taken over by business interests it no longer reflects any of the other values we still find in the will of the people. What is in the will of the people? Items like protecting our children from rampant gonzo pornography, violence worshiping video games, schools overrun with guns, and news of world events loaded with psychologically manipulative “spin.”

To run the risk of gross oversimplification to achieve a good summary statement we can hang our hat on as we think about these things, how’s this: the United States government, from the lowest bureaucrat to the highest office in the land, has put the needs of its businesses and financiers before the needs of its families and specifically its children.

There have always been competing interests between workers and owners, the highborn and the lowborn, but our time is characterized by an unprecedented inequality bearing witness that the balance of these competing interests has been lost. It is within this context that the malignancy of the politically dogmatic true believer grew cancerous on the body politic. Uncompromising, this new breed of American politician has no need for dialog or debate since they have no intention of compromising at any point. The most common outcome has been a stalemate that is keeping our country from effectively addressing or even discussing it’s ever increasing bundle of serious issues that are leading us to social and economic breakdown. Stalemate, by definition, ends the ability to bring intelligent adaptation to changing circumstances. It perpetuates the status quo, the current arrangement of power that places the needs of a rich CEO before the needs of a poor child every time.

It should go without saying that there are more than a few things we really should be working hard to adapt to just now. A few come to mind worth calling out just to remind us what the 3D reality of our molecular world is looking like these days out beyond our bewitching 2D screens. Changing weather patterns threaten the global food supply; if both the Russian and American breadbaskets have off years at the same time there are no contingency plans. The pressures leading to real bullets now being used in the race/class war are not being relieved nor is the desperation born of the decay of our inner cities. Any substantial disruption to the oil markets would send the global trade system into a tailspin and with that, who knows how many vital services would be found to no longer function? Perhaps most serious of all for our long term prospects is that with each passing day most people feel just a bit more cheated, taken advantage of and used by the powers that be. I won’t add to the list the many, many specifically ecological issues around depleted resource sources i.e. the over fished ocean, or the overwhelmed pollution sinks i.e. the tens of thousands of gallons of fresh water being poisoned every few minutes in the fracking fields and left to slowly seep into our aquifers.

It is not hard to understand why the Donald Trump campaign has been so popular in our time. Against this atmosphere of stalemate he comes presenting himself as the great deal maker. Against the political system dominated by wealth he comes claiming to be unbeholden to any special interests. It is not hard to understand how his campaign can be seen as a last ditch effort to save these democratic institutions of our forefathers by allowing him to execute a sort of radical reform from within. Who doesn’t hope for such a thing?

Bernie Sanders’ ‘socialist’ campaign was also offering the idea that a radical reformation from within the system is still viable. The criticism of Hillary Clinton is that while she claims to have absorbed Bernie Sanders’ message, she is a known entity with a long track record of fighting for her causes well within the confines of the status quo.

Donald Trump of course is just the opposite; a completely unknown political entity with little or no political record by which we might judge what his presidency might actually be like. He is an ink blot on which we are projecting our hopes and fears. Because the needs of our time are so great and the viable options so few, there is a very real danger that we might elect him for what we think he represents and find it has little or no relation to what a Trump presidency factually delivers.

Talk about being between a rock and a hard place. A vote for the status quo is a vote to allow the socially debilitating inequality to continue growing. A vote for the ‘change agent’ is a huge, unknowable wager on a person who at least seems to be a violent misogynist racist but also bears some of that coarse but honest manner we prize in the ideal of the American character; his refusal to kowtow to the scions of political correctness has struck many citizens as a breath of fresh air.

Which brings me to the point I want to make about our time for those of us who have struggled to obtain some grasp of the most probable outcomes of our current trends in light of self-evident truths. Our past choices have limited our present options. Eventually such a process leaves you with no good options, just a choice between lesser evils and sometimes it leaves you with no real choice at all. One of the most important points I have been trying to make is that the ecological crisis is the largest context – the one in which the crisis of civilization, of politics, economics and war will all play out. Here is the thing. The ecological crisis is a predicament we need to learn to live with, not a problem with a solution.

Far as I can tell this election year is just the same dynamic. Within the framework of acceptable political discourse there is, as yet, no way to discuss relevant adaptations to our most fundamental challenges. As long as we insist “the American lifestyle is non-negotiable” we will be unable to have any serious discussions about the most critical features of the changing reality we find ourselves in.

The alternative of course would be to begin to have a serious world-wide conversation about energy use, similar to what Jimmy Carter once tried to start. We would discuss what quality of life and a just distribution of goods might look like in an age of diminishing material throughput. We would discuss contingency plans for cases when natural disasters or acts of war cause large life supporting infrastructures to fail. Perhaps the biggest subject of all we really should be discussing this election year is the one James Kunstler tried to get us to start when he published The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America’s Man-Made Landscape in 1993; how will our nation of suburbs function once the cars run out of gas?

There is nothing we can do to get our single earth to supply the resources the industrial world wants to use to maintain its economic growth and technological progress. Whine, cry, stomp our feet, and pound our fists as we might, nothing is going to supply us with a second earth to use up. That is what it means that the unsustainable will not be sustained. As long as we are foolish enough to think this is a problem that can be fixed we will remain, personally and socially, susceptible to Pied Pipers promising us what we want to hear.

The good news is that the future will not fit in a box; not the economist’s or the ecologist’s, not yours, not mine. It will be fresh and full of surprises. Bleak as things might look at times, that is never the final word. The other good news is that leading a happily meaningful life is usually available to each of us the moment we choose to make it so. As contemplatives we do not wait for the world to be fixed before allowing ourselves to find peace within it. As contemplatives we do not shy away from the hard truths but use them to feed our compassion. What then is there to fear?

This is the Age of Ecology. To walk the path of beauty today necessarily entails embracing some form of Leopold’s land ethic. Serving the land aligns an individual with substantial alternative forces alive in the present moment, including the living heart of indigenous cultures everywhere, those we dismiss as “the poor.” Serving the land roots one in a value system that reaches far deeper than anything the ephemeral electronic culture can offer. Serving the land teaches one to think like a mountain.

A Changing America

Not that long ago American society was known the world over for its open trust and the coarse but solid manners of its simple folks who held to an ideal of the helpful neighbor. It was just not that long ago that very few people locked their doors all across rural America’s small towns. When asked in a poll if “most people can be trusted” in 1960 still 58% of those asked thought so, by 1998 only 33%. Today I expect it would be even lower. Trust is the fabric of society, sadly, ours has been tattered and torn. Once that has happened trust can only be rebuilt by being re-earned and that is a slow process. The people and their governments in our time are much like a couple tentatively willing to make another go of it after an episode of infidelity.

In my experience there remains in the American people a strong tradition of honesty and a rustic simplicity as a type of ideal sketch of our national character. Quick to help a neighbor in need, there was a time when the rest of the world was quite sure a citizen of North America would give you the shirt off their back if you needed it more than they did. These rugged people from a rugged land were, it used to be said, the salt of the earth.

This might seem like naïve nostalgia for a time long past, romantic beyond all recognition but it is just reporting what I experienced in my childhood a mere forty years ago or so. It is interesting to consider that this characteristic of widespread trust survived the corruptions of the robber barons and the hardships of the world wars and the Great Depression. It did not however survive the onslaught of modern neoliberalism and what is often known as the Washington consensus.

The constitutional republic sketched out in America’s founding documents is presenting the world with a theory of power. It claims there is no power humanity’s highborn masters can claim legitimately through either force or revelation. Power, this radical philosophy claims, is born from human understanding alone. Power therefore must be held accountable and able to explain itself. The “safety and happiness” of the people is the one valid aim of government once human understanding is accorded more power than the (always only temporarily effective) fearful threats and manipulation by tyrants or tyrannical ideologies. Of the people, by the people, for the people recognizes that sovereignty is in fact to be found legitimately here, in serving the needs of everyday life and no where else. All the citizens of a country are not born to be cannon fodder for a divinely appointed strong man or spiritual slaves to an army wielding holy man. If wars are to be fought they will be to protect this sovereignty, the sanctity of the people’s daily life, and not to rid the world of evil on holy crusades.

History taught the founding fathers that at times the people become swept up in harmful delusions and require their government to keep an eye on the long term safety and happiness of the culture and to distance itself from the popular fever. All the institutions of our representative republic, as opposed to direct democracy, were architected with this in mind. On the other hand history is also rife with examples of governments being swept up in harmful delusions when they are coupled with absolutist claims and projects. Here is where uniquely western institutions and norms such as a free press and the legitimacy of questioning authority come from.

It is all about leadership and authority. The radical philosophy claims that the self evident truths about human life structure the only legitimate ends society can pursue, namely the “safety and happiness” of the people. The means by which these ends can be pursued are those things by which human understanding can be made to increase, namely rational discourse concerning evident things. What the republic had to remain vigilant against were the mind manipulators pedaling utopias and doomsdays, true believers in the non-evident of whatever stripe.

An example of power that must explain itself is the difference between worker and CEO compensation the people within a society find proper. In the pre-Walmart days when mom and pop shops and small businesses carried the bulk of our economic dealings, the owners and executives made a fine living, though nothing like what is expected today. Part of the crisis of legitimacy that is consuming the liberal democracies in our time is just such corruptions of the transparency of authority. Since such wide economic disparities as we experience today cannot be justified reasonably alternative mythologies are needed; in this case neoliberalism’ gospel of Ayn Rand’s CEO as both Nietzschean superman and long suffering Christ-like savior. The people, though befuddled for a few decades by the massive misdirection provided by the modern media onslaught, are not buying it. Power, in this case, cannot explain itself.

That is the basic idea applied to the economic life we share. Economics is an important aspect of the interdependent globalization of our time. In the global order the United States has arguably been the most important stabilizing factor providing both the reserve currency and the largest military. When circumstance lead to it being the sole superpower, economically it was no longer the world’s largest creditor nation but the world’s largest debtor nation. International inertia has kept the stability of the US dollar through the continued special agreements that keep the cycling of petrodollars throughout our spheres of influence. The rest of the world has not been idle all this time while America went on a fire sale and became the largest debtor. Forces are in play now to remove the dollar from its role as the reserve currency and de facto currency for oil trades.

However important these economic considerations are they are hardly the only ones worth contemplating. The ideas and ideals of the radical philosophy our founding fathers managed to incorporate cut straight to the bone. They touch on the very ground of our human experience by declaring our equality.

That our government’s representatives would ever torture another human being in our name is an acidic truth of dark deeds performed in dark times. In the past, decency required denial and honest disgust trimmed the sails of the overly zealous. No one can read a work like Cry of the People by Penny Lernoux and believe the representatives of the U.S. government were always acting as agents of goodness and light long before the country so lost its way it started talking about legalizing torture. Still, the constraints I mentioned were in place and American’s image of themselves could still hold to the ideals of the helpful, if often misguided, neighbor.

Legalizing torture was a betrayal of all I love about what this country has stood for. Make no mistake. This sent a very, very clear signal to the rest of the world that America’s moral bankruptcy was complete. Vultures have been circling ever since. My hope is that after we have extracted ourselves from being the world’s sole superpower and source of its reserve currency and we collapse down to our real size, once the rubble stops bouncing, we will remember our ideals.

We want to be able to have meaningful lives by being free to pursue happiness that is rooted in the self-evident truth of our human nature. Our founding father’s conviction was that with basic reasonableness we can come together as a society to agree about how the real needs of human lives can be met, as opposed to all those fundamentalisms which would sacrifice meeting the real needs of human lives on economic, political or religious altars. America’s life, liberty and pursuit of happiness have been bowdlerized by corporations pretending to be politicians hired to sell consumerism as the be-all and end-all of our national identity. I don’t believe them. I think what they are selling is a lie. I think the American experiment has never been only about business and even now contains great potential for building strong, nurturing communities.

The hard times are upon us and in such times it is easy to get confused and wonder what the right things to do might be that would bring about actual benefit to ourselves and others. Following the trail of empathy acts as our Ariadne’s thread. To find the path of beauty through our times we need only ask ourselves will this or that increase or decrease the amount of trust and empathy in our daily lives and act accordingly.


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Only released in EOL distros:

lse_arduino: ardusim

Package Summary

Ardusim (Arduino Sensor Interface Module) is a library for interfacing a wide range of sensors with ROS over the Arduino microcontroller.

This package was design to work as a bridge between a wide range of sensors (analog, i2c, spi) and ROS using the arduino.

Supported Hardware

The following sensors are currently supported by ardusim:

gp_node or general purpose node, is a general implementation of the ardusim protocol. This node will ask the arduino which sensors are currently connected and start publishing all available sensors.

Published Topics

range (lse_sensor_msgs/Range) nose (lse_sensor_msgs/Nostril) tpa (lse_sensor_msgs/TPA) wind (lse_sensor_msgs/Anemometer)

~port (string, default: /dev/ttyUSB1) ~sonar_frame_id (string, default: /base_sonar) ~nose_frame_id (string, default: /base_nose) ~tpa_frame_id (string, default: /base_tpa) ~anemometer_frame_id (string, default: /base_anemometer)

The nose_node was designed for the LSE MOX nose equipped with the Figaro 2620 and 2600 MOX sensors. This is the setup used on the LSE Roomba.

Published Topics

nose (lse_sensor_msgs/Nostril)

~port (string, default: /dev/ttyUSB1) ~frame_id (string, default: /base_nose)

The roomba_sonar_node was created for the LSE Roombas equipped with an array of 5 Devantech SRF08 rangers.

Published Topics

sonars (lse_sensor_msgs/Range)

~port (string, default: /dev/ttyUSB1) ~frame_id (string, default: /base_sonar)

The thermistor_node was created for facilitating the thermistor based anemometer calibration.

Published Topics

thermistors (lse_sensor_msgs/Thermistor)

~port (string, default: /dev/ttyUSB1) ~frame_id (string, default: /base_thermistor)

Custom Nodes

Ardusim is also available as a library on the ardusim package. This can be used to make custom nodes with any desired combination of sensors. To start your own node check the Code API page.

Arduino Source Code

The Ardusim source code for the arduino can be downloaded from the isr-uc-ros repository from the downloads section.

Communication Protocol Documentation

The Ardusim protocol is described in ardusim_protocol.pdf.

2020-01-11 12:26

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text: category: Libs requires: cygwin libQt5Core5 libQt5Gui5 libstdc++6 zlib0 sdesc: "Qt C++ application framework (SVG loader)" ldesc: "Qt is a cross-platform application framework for desktop and embedded development. Qt enables programmers to create advanced GUI applications once and deploy them to Windows, Mac OS X and Linux without rewriting the source code. Companies using Qt can leverage software investments made on one platform across many others." external-source: qt5-svg


text:
User Tools

Site Tools

Spontaneous is an important element of Odyssey of the Mind that must not be forgotten. Teams should practice spontaneous at every meeting.

No one is allowed to watch spontaneous on competition day. All 7 team members may enter the room, but only 5 will solve the problem. The remaining team members will remain in the room as observers only.

Scoring will vary according to the problem, (high score for the day could be 50 or 500), but the maximum scaled score will be 100 points, which accounts for approximately 1/3 of the total possible points (long_term + style + spontaneous). Separate judges score the spontaneous portion of the tournament.

Types of Spontaneous Problems

There are three types of problems: verbal, hands-on, and verbal hands-on/combination.

  • Verbal: This will be a problem read to the team and asking them to think of answers to a question, such as “name things that have a base.” They will brainstorm (usually silently) for one or two minutes and then the team must give responses. Score will be based on whether the answers are common (“A lamp has a base”) or creative (“Rules are the basis of good behavior”). Some method will be given for determining in which order the team members give answers (they might go consecutively around a table, or they might flip cards, for example.)
  • Hands-on: This will be a problem read to the team, and then, usually, given to them in hard copy to look at while they work on a solution. They will be asked to do something with a set of given materials. They might be given some period of time to plan the solution and then some period of time to work. Or they might just be given one period of time to solve the problem. Hands-on problems might ask them to build something, create a picture of some kind, get objects into a target area, arrange elements in a certain order and so forth. The team may or may not be allowed to talk during any part of the solution time.
  • Verbal/Hands-on Combination: This will be a problem, usually with two parts, that is read to the team one part at a time. In Part 1, they may be asked to make or build something. In Part 2, they may be asked to give verbal responses about what they have made or use the item(s) in a skit.

In January 2015 this clarification was released detailing a new version of the verbal problem:

“We have added a new procedure in SOME types of verbal problems. In these problems, team members will be given paper and pencils and are allowed to brainstorm during think time. They are allowed to write down the responses that they will use during response time. They may write as many as they wish and are not limited to those responses when it is their time to respond. During response time they will be able to refer to their own lists, so that they may choose the responses they think are the MOST creative or give a new response. Each team member will also have a set of cards with two values on them (for example one card may say 2/4; another 3/6)…. When they give a response they will decide if their response is creative and will hold up a card. The judges will then score that response using the lower number if they think the response is common, and the higher number if they think it is a creative response. A card may only be used once. As a result, teams can impact their score by predicting the creativity of their responses. The more creative responses should have higher numbers and questionable responses should have lower numbers.”

Spontaneous Advice

There are some strategies that will help teams as they solve the problem:

  • Never argue with the judges. While team members may ask questions, they must always respect the judges' decisions.
  • Have the team choose a “problem reader”. While the whole team should read and listen to the problem, the reader spends extra time understanding the rules and scoring, especially for a hands-on problem.
  • “If the problem doesn't say you can't do it, assume you can”. Be creative in your solution, but questions are allowed.
  • Have each person be an “expert” in a different area, such as movies, sports, art, etc. so that they think of many different answers
  • Practice a variety of spontaneous problems. Teams won't know what type of spontaneous they will get on competition day so it's best to practice all three kinds often.

Practicing Spontaneous

Teams should practice at least one spontaneous problem at every meeting. Teams should always discuss what went well and what could they could have done differently. THERE IS NO OUTSIDE ASSISTANCE IN SPONTANEOUS. Coaches may give direct feedback on the team's performance. Parents are encouraged to help their children practice spontaneous at home. The dinner table is a great time to work on verbal problems!

Spontaneous Resources

Practicing spontaneous is the best way to improve. Luckily, thousands of spontaneous problems have already been written and are easily accessible. Here is a database of almost 200 spontaneous problem files organized by problem type.

Below are websites which also host several hundred spontaneous problems.

Northwest PA Odyssey of the Mind

Example Spontaneous Videos

Below are videos of spontaneous problem sessions, along with problem introductions and debriefs.

Heads and Tails (hands-on)

Buckets (hands-on)

Perpetual Motion (hands-on)

Up, Up, and Away (hands-on)

Spontaneous on Competition Day

  1. All team members and one adult report to the Spontaneous Holding Room if one is being used.
  2. When the team is called, ONLY team members may go to the Spontaneous Problem Room.
  3. Upon entering the Spontaneous Room, a judge will tell the team the type of problem.
  4. The team members will be given one minute to decide which five team members will participate.
  5. The non-participating team members may stay in special seats set aside for them in the room.
  6. All team members should be certain they are not wearing a watch or other item that could beep. Teams may keep track of the time, but not have a stopwatch or timer or a watch with an alarm set.
  7. The five team members participating will be given two written copies of the problem in order to be able to read along as a judge reads the problem. Any interference from the non-participation team members will be penalized by removal of the nonparticipating team members.

It is extremely important that teams and coaches understand that on tournament day, a team should not discuss the problem they were given until the end of the competition day, not even to tell the coach the type of problem they had. And after competition, no one may discuss the problems outside their own homes until after all competitions end for that Odyssey year!

spontaneous.txt · Last modified: 2016/01/12 02:31 (external edit)


text:
Tutorial Program

The tutorial program of the ACM Multimedia 2002 conference is an opportunity to get information on the latest developments of the field, exposed by leading experts.

Please refer to the appropriate tutorial ID for your subscription to an event.

Sunday, December 1st, 2002
9:00 - 12:30
TS1 (full day) Multimedia Technologies and Applications in the New Internet World
Nicolas Georganas (University of Ottawa, Canada)
TS2 Methodologies and Software Systems for e-Learning
Timothy Shih (Tamkang University, Taiwan)
TS3 Data Compression for Multimedia
Jean-Luc Dugelay (Institut EURECOM, France)
14:00 - 17:30
TS4 Learning Object Metadata: Supporting Share and Reuse Through Standardized Metadata
Maciej Macowicz (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland)

Monday, December 2nd, 2002
9:00 - 12:30
TM1 Wireless Multimedia
Borko Furht (Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, USA)
TM3 SMIL 2.0: Interactive Multimedia on the Web
Lloyd Rutledge (CWI, Amsterdam)
14:00 - 17:30
TM4 The Evolution of Networking Protocols to Meet the Requirements of UMTS and 3G Services
Ibrahim Haddad, Samer Hawwa (Ericsson Research Canada)
TM5 Multimedia Content Protection in the Digital World
Ahmet Eskicioglu (City University of New York, NY, USA)
TM6 Content Networking - Architecture, Protocols and Practice
Markus Hofmann (Bell Labs Research / Lucent Technologies, Holmdel, NJ, USA)


text:
MMP Cibatu Warehouse

Located in the east of Jakarta, MMP Cibatu Warehouse was build in a land area of 50.000 m2. Cibatu Warehouse was build in September 2017, and officially operational in December 2017 with a Nett Lease Area of 32.216 m2

Location : Scientia Boulevard, JABABEKA V
Land Area : 50.000 m2
Warehouse Area : 32.216 m2
Floor Load Cap : 4 tom/ m2
 Clearance Height : 12 m
 Specification : Siper Flat Floor FF 35 & Building fire Sprinkle


text:
Invitation to Press Conference on Sept. 6th 2016

Geneva, August 11th, 2016 MMT SwissConnect in Switzerland hereby invites to attend a press conference in Plan-les-Ouates, Geneva that will take place on Tuesday, September 6, at 4:30 pm.

You are cordially invited for the presentation and cocktail

Peter Stas and Philippe Fraboulet will present latest developments on the spin-out of Manufacture Modules Technologies Sarl. from the Frederique Constant Group. Combining the very best of Swiss engineering and our passion for technology, MMT SwissConnect is heavily investing in new employees in Geneva for the ongoing research and development, helping to create the next generation of smart wearable and applications.

MMT will continue to be a key OEM Software/Hardware Supplier for the Swiss Watch Industry. The company is independent and has an inclusive Philosophy.

MMT has been inventing the new technologies that have helped shape the Horological Smartwatch Platform. Under it’s trademark MMT SwissConnect, MMT will continue to innovate and will expand into the development and manufacturing of new modules and mobile applications. At the Press Conference, we will be presenting a preview of the SwissConnect Gym App, SwissConnect Analytics to keep track of accuracy of a mechanical watch collection and SwissConnect Password to keep passwords safe.

We wish you a warm welcome at:

MMT SwissConnect
1st floor
Chemin du Pré-Fleuri 5
1128 Plan-les-Ouates
Geneva – Switzerland

Yours sincerely, Philippe Fraboulet CEO, Manufacture Modules Technologies Sarl.


text:
Written and directed by Zach Braff
Miramax/Fox Searchlight (2004)
102 minutes

by Susan Starr and Kevin Kocur

Suzan Sez:

“Garden State” is a wonderfully surreal movie. From a funeral featuring a woman with a pronounced Jersey accent singing “Three Times A Lady” to a rain-soaked trip through the wilds of suburban New Jersey, the movie has scenes that look bizarre but feel real.

Zach Braff wrote, directed and starred in the movie. He plays Andrew Largeman, who has returned to New Jersey for his mother’s funeral. “Large” is an aspiring actor who lives in LA. He is so emotionally stunted that he is only offered mentally disabled roles. When he returns home, he goes off all his meds and has to deal with old family trauma. Andrew’s old friends are mostly aimless, stoner losers. The movie almost painfully captures a sort of suburban anomie where it seems like there is nothing to look forward to but the possibility of getting laid or getting high. This is especially true of Mark (Peter Sarsgaard), Andrew’s grave digging friend.

Andrew wanders around his hometown, riding a motorcycle/sidecar left to him by his grandfather, and going along with whatever happens to him. At a visit to the doctor he meets Sam (Natalie Portman). She is a motor-mouthed, oddball person that in real life you would either really love or really hate. The dialogue between Sam and Andrew made me really believe they were falling in love. Sam has a rather rude line about what she thinks of people who ride in sidecars (“If you ride in the sidecar that makes you someone’s bitch”) which made me laugh as I thought of Kevin riding in a sidecar for the Minnesota 1000.

The imagery used in the movie is very effective, the dialogue is smart and realistic and the acting is wonderful. The soundtrack was great!

Kevin Sez:

Good movies are harder to write reviews for then bad ones. Really bad/stinker films practically write their own review. That being said, the timing for this review couldn’t be better. The bike featured in “Garden State” is a Russian sidecar rig and I had spent part of the weekend in a Russian sidecar rig. Coincidence? Probably. But I enjoyed this film almost as much as I enjoyed riding around in the hack.

OK, so I admit it: it’s hard for me not to like Zach Braff. I mean the guy writes, directs and stars in his own movie and insists that the main character ride a motorcycle! And not just any bike, but a Russian-built Dnepr with sidecar. Dnepr owners already know that these bikes can be a wee bit tempermental, but a fun and capable ride all the same. So it was no shock to me that the DVD extras featuring the bikes (two matching hacks were used for filming) mentioned that they almost never seemed to start on cue. Of course they also mention that the total budget for two motorcycles with sidecars was something like $5000. I guess you do get what you pay for. None the less, if you’re a fan of Russian Iron you’ll appreciate the many shots of the Dnepr throughout the film—sometimes ridden three up! Although I really had to laugh at Zach’s character getting popped by The Man for doing 82 MPH in a 25 zone. 82 on a Russian hack?! Perhaps the cop who clocked “205 Tilley” made a cameo appearance here….

The only other comment I will make regards the “non-DOT approved” head gear worn. Large wears a beanie-type helmet, Mark opts for something that resembles a BMX helmet and Sam is wearing a foam helmet that reminds me of something that might be worn by passengers on the “wheelbase-challenged” bus. Not meaning to sound like a Safetycrat here, but C’mon people! Obviously if they’re going for a visual pun it’s lost on me. It should also be noted that the movie’s R rating is largely due to strong language. Don’t have this one cranked up when the kiddies are around!

Trivia time: Before filming, Zach Braff did have to take motorcycle riding lessons in the dead of winter in Queens, NY. He did all of his own riding in “Garden State” and his character on “Scrubs” rides a scooter in nearly every episode. Perhaps the Bike Bug has bitten? All of the songs featured in the movie were handpicked by Braff. The tombstones in the pet cemetery were made by the cast and crew, and feature their own deceased pets’ names.

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text:
Main Page

From Missouri/Kansas Scanner Radio Wiki
Jump to: navigation, search
Welcome to the Missouri/Kansas Scanner Radio Wiki Project
Missouri/Kansas Scanner Radio Wiki is a web based project designed specifically for radio communications and public safety scanner hobbyists across Kansas and Missouri. Here, you will find a myriad of articles and useful information that should help you get the most out of the radio scanning hobby.

Whether you're new to the hobby-or-you've been involved with it for many years, we're confident you'll find this resource very informative and useful!

Most of our wiki articles are arranged geographic location and contain information about the following:

  • State, County, and Local 9-1-1 dispatch centers ("PSAPs").
  • Specific law enforcement, fire, and emergency medical agencies.
  • Different radio systems that are being used across the region.
  • Patrol zone and response area maps (where available).
  • 10-code listings and other radio codes and terminology used by different public safety agencies.
  • and much more!

Missouri/Kansas Scanner Radio Wiki allows anyone to add and/or edit information-a collaborative effort-that is available to the entire public safety radio monitoring community. If you see a page that contains wrong, outdated, or poorly organized information, you can click the edit tab at the top of any page to make the appropriate corrections. In fact, we encourage people to add, edit, and update content as much as possible. That's the whole point of a collaborative wiki project: working together to create and maintain a great resource for everyone.

If this is your first visit, check out this page to see how you can edit any page instantly, or visit this page for more information about our project and how to become involved with it.

At this time, we only allow anonymous edits and contributions. Due to the high amount of spammer registrations and posts over the past couple of years, new user registration has been suspended indefinitely.

If you'd much rather browse around, simply scroll down and click on a county or topic that catches your interest.

Enjoy your visit!

Kansas City Metro (Kansas Side)
Kansas Counties
Kansas City Metro (Missouri Side)

Missouri Counties
Miscellaneous Resources
Regional/Statewide Public Safety


text:
VIS3105 - Visual arts studio 5 - 2018

12 points, SCA Band 1, 0.250 EFTSL

Undergraduate - Unit

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Art, Design and Architecture

Organisational Unit

Gippsland Centre for Art and Design

Chief examiner(s)

Tony Hanning

Tony Hanning

Not offered in 2018

VIS2104Not offered in 2018 or VIS2114Not offered in 2018

Independent research into historical and contemporary concepts related to individual work. General aspects and themes including metaphor, myth, narrative, imagination/fantasy, the spiritual, sign and symbol. Consolidation of relevant technical and procedural processes. Students complete a folio of art work and keep a journal in relation to the set projects. Studio practice may be undertaken in complementary areas such as painting, photography and sculpture.

On successful completion of this unit, students will:

  1. have a working general knowledge of historical and contemporary concepts related to their own work and that of their peers and be able to articulate these concepts
  2. have a conceptual framework for their own work
  3. know how to begin to consolidate and resolve technical and procedural processes relevant to their work
  4. have a high level of independence with regard to researching ideas and source material
  5. have a broad interest and appreciation of contemporary art practice and culture.

Folio: 80% + Journal: 20%

Workload requirements

8 studio hours and 16 independent study hours per week

See also Unit timetable information


WARC-Identified-Payload-Type: application/xhtml+xml

text:
Wednesday, 12 May 2010

Who is Chet Bozdog?

Who is Chet Bozdog? Is he the suffering one lurking in the shadows, like Lonnie Donegan in the dream I had years ago? Or is he the angel (see note) that follows me in the desert when I burn? I have seen this angel five or six times now, always sneaking around. Is that Chet?

O Master, Chet Bozdog is the global head of technology corporate and investment banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He is not the suffering one or the desert angel.

Who is Chet Bozdog? Is he the voice that calls from the cellar? At night I hear that voice. I will not venture down there. I am not ashamed to admit that I am afraid. What does Mr Bozdog want with me?

O Master, Mr Bozdog doesn't want anything with you. He has his hands full at the minute dealing with Jon Krahulik and Riaz Ladhabhoy. He has just taken them on. Jon as managing director and global head of clean technology investment banking, and Riaz as director in the same group.

Who is Chet Bozdog? I wonder if he is the pain in my chest, the demonic fire, that almost kills me when I get too close to the lower levels. Oh, he is no angel! He is the pain. He is the dark fire. Fire without light! But how can that be? Who is Chet Bozdog?

O Master, are you listening to me? You're getting worked up about nothing. I'm sure Chet Bozdog doesn't even know who you are. He's a technology freak or something. Not the mystical type.

Who is Chet Bozdog?

Oh, for crying out loud!

Note: this angel isn't my angel, my Gillian.


text:
Berlin Stories
by Robert Walser (1956)
translated from the Germany by Susan Bernofsky (2012)
NYRB Classics (2012)
139 pp

When discussing Robert Walser, a somber mood seems most appropriate. After all, in 1933, Walser was forcibly confined to a sanatorium, where he spent the next twenty-three years until, on Christmas Day, 1956, he went for a walk and died alone in the snow. Yet when one reads this collection, Berlin Stories, one cannot help but notice the vibrancy, the wonder at life: “A lager please!” is the simple line with which he begins one story here. It seems impossible to get from such exuberance to that lonely Christmas Day.

In the summer of 1905, when he was 27, Robert Walser had just published his first book and decided to move to Berlin to live with his brother, a successful stage-set designer. Berlin Stories is a collection of . . . well, not really “stories” — sketches, ruminations, bursts of thought — about Berlin. The book itself is divided into four sections: “The City Streets,” “The Theater,” and “Berlin Life” contain pieces written mostly between 1907 and 1911 (the years during which he also wrote and published The Tanners (my review here), The Assistant, and Jakob von Gunten); the final section, “Looking Back,” contains pieces written up to 1917, after he had left Berlin. The pieces are each very short, most only two or three pages, with sentences that run on and on, filled with energy.

It’s primarily in the early pieces that we see such punch and thirst for life. The first piece in the book, written in 1907, is entitled, “Good morning, Giantess!” and here Walser wanders out early, before traffic begins, into the streets of Berlin. Soon the early risers start coming out into the street, and Walser laps up the variety:

You encounter eyes as you walk along like this: girls’ eyes and the eyes of men, mirthless and gay; legs are trotting behind and before you, and you too are legging along as best you can, gazing with your own eyes, glancing the same glances as everyone else. And each breast bears some somnolent secret, each head is haunted by some melancholy or inspiring thought. Splendid, splendid.

“Beautiful park, I think, beautiful park” ends another piece that Walser, filled with wonder, wrote in 1907. The crowds of people continually enthralled him. He would describe the mass as a collective whole and then break it apart, looking into the heart of the individuals, often providing the darker parts of the sketches. “Friedrichstrasse,” one of my favorite pieces, describes a busy street during the day, but look how things change when Walser examines the street as night falls, recognizing something deep in each of his fellows:

and yet: what a ravishing, beguiling haste can be seen in all this ostensible packed-in-ness and sober-mindedness. The sun shines here upon countless heads in a single hour, the rain dampens and drenches a ground that is anointed, as it were, with comedies and tragedies, and in the evening, ah, when it begins to grow dark and the lamps are lit, a curtain slowly rises to reveal a play that is always sumptuously full of the same habits, acts of lechery, and occurrences. The siren Pleasure then begins to sing her divinely enticing, heavenly notes, and souls burst asunder amid all these vibrating wants and dissatisfactions, and a disgorging of money then commences that baffles the modest, clever understanding and can scarcely be envisioned, even with effort, by the poetic imagination. A bodily dream rising and falling with voluptuous breath then descends upon the street, and everything races, races, races with uncertain step in pursuit of this all-encompassing dream.

Berlin Stories isn’t the easiest book to review. As I mentioned, most of these aren’t traditional stories and, other than being about “Berlin,” there is no other continuity. But the composition of the collection itself is quite brilliant and offers a narrative of Walser’s time. We see Walser on that first page bursting out into the empty streets of the early morning, and the pieces that follow show Walser getting to know the busy city. Then we read Walser’s thoughts on the theater, where he spent considerable time since his brother was such a success. Then, if the sketches in “The City Streets” were bustling, “Berlin Life” steps back and lets a bit more silence enter. But not as much as comes in the final section, “Looking Back.” I said above, “It seems impossible to get from such exuberance to that lonely Christmas Day.” These final pieces retain the vibrancy and lust for life that the earlier ones had, but the tone is a bit more subdued and a sense of loss pervades.

This little collection concludes its narrative with a piece from 1917 entitled “A Homecoming in the Snow,” so we almost get to that Christmas Day, after all, though the tone here mingles with sweetness:

On my way home, which struck me as splendid, it was snowing in thick, warm, large flakes. It seemed to me as if I heard homeland-like sounds ringing out from afar. My steps were brisk despite the deep snow through which I was assiduously wading. With every step I took, my shaken trust grew firmer again, which filled me with joy the way a child rejoices. All former things bloomed fragrantly and youthfully in my direction, like roses. It almost appeared to me as if the earth were singing a sweet Christmas melody that was at the same time a melody of spring. [. . .] I considered the snow itself a splendidly warm coat.

Perhaps I’ve been looking at that Christmas Day in 1956 from the wrong perspective all this time.

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text:
Change Location × Brighton, United Kingdom (BN1 1UG)

    Recent Locations

      Brighton films

      Bad Boys for Life
      The Gentlemen

      Featured movie trailers

      Featured film reviews

      • The Hate U Give poster image

        The Hate U Give

        Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

        It's seriously satisfying to watch a screen version of a young-adult best-seller that knows what it's doing, and gets... (read more)

      • A Star Is Born poster image

        A Star Is Born

        Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

        Nobody ever lost money remaking "A Star is Born," Hollywood's favorite tragic romantic fable. Whether it's ... (read more)

      • Crazy Rich Asians poster image

        Crazy Rich Asians

        Justin Chang, Chicago Tribune

        Los Angeles Times Before it whisks you off on the sunniest, most extravagant Singaporean holiday imaginable, "Cr... (read more)

      Quick film browse


text:
< Back to Our Clients

Art and Design

Corporate and Trademark

Yvonne Ellen

Founder,creator and originator of Yvonne Ellen, established 2013.A contemporary designer with a strong passion for unique and quirky things.

The brand is a reflection of Yvonne’s love of beautiful vintage bone china, unexpected illustration and colour, and aims to deliver enchanting, out of the ordinary designs that evoke a sense of nostalgia. This established Yvonne Ellen as highly covetable, gathering press acclaim in the UK and internationally. Having collaborated with companies including Liberty London, Anthropologie and Triumph, the brand continues to gather momentum and grow.

It all started with a hand illustrated vintage tea set, made as a gift for a friends wedding. “I wanted to give a gift that was both beautiful and unique which I had struggled to find on the high street. Following some fantastic feedback and admiration of the piece, I decided to take the leap into selling my designs to a wider audience”.

Yvonne trained as a printed textile designer at Nottingham Trent University, and her journey so far has found her working as a print designer selling designs to the likes of Ted Baker, Topshop, Whistles, Oasis, Warehouse, Coast, Debenhams and Superdry.

Brand Values

Brand Extension Vision

To build a wide range of well-designed and maintainable market leading products, which will in turn increase brand awareness & admiration. Increase the different ways in which consumers can encounter and experience Yvonne Ellen products to drive sales and profit.

Awards & Campaigns


text:
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text:
4/20 Munchies

20 April 2017

By / Multitrix

Munches on 4:20 go mainstream

If you and your pals have celebrated the 4:20 high holiday for marijuana hard and have the munchies today fear not. Every other junk food brands marketing professionals are working to ensure that in your haze, you'll reach for their brand of “blazed”, formerly known as glazed doughnuts, as well as Pizza, burgers and  so on, proving that this holiday is becoming as commercialised as Christmas or Valentine’s Day.

4:20, as the holiday is known, is when brands want you to get baked on their goods. Even the mainstream brands, such as Pepsi, Chipotle, Burger King and Denny's, have all alluded to 4:20 on social media in previous years.  And as countries slowly continue to legalise marijuana, acknowledging 4:20 can still be a tricky business move. So brands do it in a wink and a nod for consumers who know that "fried" doesn't exactly refer to chicken, but ensure they stop just short of spelling it out in fear of pushing away their other customers.

Take for example Ben & Jerry's "Half Baked" and "Phish Food" ice-creams and "Dave Matthews Band Magic Brownies," which capitalise on the spirit of 4/20. "Jerry and Ben started the company in 1978, and they were definitely two hippies that were — enjoying life, as they say," said spokeswoman Lindsay Bumps.

This holiday, Ben & Jerrys are also introducing a new menu item: The Chill-aco, a waffle-cone taco with two scoops of ice cream and caramel drizzle.

 "it gives it that ooey-gooey component," Bumps said. "I think a lot of brands aim to stand out on this day. We're really known for our tongue-in-cheek humour but it's pretty coincidental that coming out on the 20th," said Bumps, the Ben & Jerry's spokesperson. "That's the official line."

The cannabis industry however, doesn’t love the pile-on from junk-food brands, which they say promotes negative stereotypes about the lifestyle. Some say Cannabis is a wellness product.

We do not want people to believe that you just get munchies, and you're just reaching for junk food. It’s part of a healthy lifestyle,
said Olivia Mannix, chief executive of Cannabrand, a marketing agency for cannabis companies.

Bottom line is cannabis smokers are a really good spending demographic that encompasses everything from 21-year-old stoners, to CEOs, to your grandma. But it will take time for all your favourite brands to be blunt about it as even though Ben & Jerry's has a good sense of humour on Twitter, they have to be careful not to go too far.


text:
BODACH • AISLIG 1980 Jesień 2015

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This is a blend crafted from fine old single malt and single grain whiskies - Glenrothes, Glengoyne, Bunnahabhain, Tamdhu, Port Dundas, Cameronbridge and North British. Having been married together these vintage spirits were further matured at our Coleburn Distillery dunnage warehouses to become the truly unique dram that it is today. The deep and musing scents of warm winter spiced fruits, softly melting toffee and butterscotch, melds into a brighter sweet vanilla medley. By gently leading these opulent propositions to the palate, sweet stewed fruits and honeyed spices team with sugary cereal and toffee apple to create an enchanting inspired spirit – a whisky that dreams are made of.
Aged 35 Years
  • All 5 whisky regions
  • October 2015
  • Bourbon barrel
  • Sherry cask
  • 1