text:
All the boys from One Direction are taking a couple...
I Hate You!!!32131511
- by Kaylee Riggs
- Rating:
- Published: 30 Jan 2015
- Updated: 5 Feb 2015
- Status: In Progress
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subset: commoncrawl


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Scholarships Awarded
OCEAN CITY – The Ocean City Hotel-Motel-Restaurant Association-sponsored scholarships were awarded during the February dinner meeting last week at the Princess Royale Hotel.
Diane Redman received the Kate Bunting Wor-Wic Community College Memorial Scholarship, named after one of the founding members of the OCHMRA. Michelle Sprague, a hard worker and student in pursuit of employment in the hospitality industry, received the OCHMRA Ken Barnett Memorial Scholarship. Parkside High School graduate Hillary Sherman was selected for the OCHMRA University of Maryland Eastern Shore's Hotel & Restaurant Program Scholarship.
A new scholarship has been named for a second generation board member who passed away unexpectedly last summer. The John "Tres" Lynch, III Memorial Scholarship was awarded to Wor-Wic culinary student Ron Brose.
BERLIN – The Eastern Shore Building Industry Association would like to announce the election of its Executive Committee and Directors for 2009.
Executive Committee named were President Don Messick, Messick, Inc.; First Vice President John Kotoski, River Run Development Associates; Second Vice President Michael DeChant, DeChant Appraisals & Realty; Associate Vice President Rod Flowers, SunTrust Mortgage; Secretary Jeremy Crawford, Bradco Supply Company; Immediate Past President John Capozzi, Capozzi Construction.
Directors named were Dennis Brilliant, GFL Roofing; Michael Carey, Harbourside Homes; Paul Coleman, Guardian Home Technologies; Colleen Deptula, Beach Construction; Larry Gehring, Reeb Millwork; Greg Griesser, Messick Inc.; Sam Hobbs, Delaware Lumber & Millwork; and Barry Waterman, Waterman Realty.
The Eastern Shore Building Industry Association is made up of professionals committed to achieving high standards in building through education, legislative review and networking of its members while serving as a voice of the building industry on the Eastern shore.
Top Sales Associate Named
BERLIN – Jenny Sheppard, sales manager for Sheppard Realty, Inc. in Berlin, recently recognized Malia Ricks as the top sales associate for the month of February.
In other company news, Ricks and Laura King just completed the Short Sale Seminar Class that was offered in February. Any questions on short sales can be directed to them at 410-629-0200.


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Corrections User Group
The Corrections User Group is MnCCC's largest user group working with all 87 Minnesota counties either directly or through agencies and the Department of Corrections. The Corrections User Group developed and maintains the Court Services Tracking System (CSTS) software, which is used by probation and parole officers throughout the state. Strategic Technologies, Inc. is the vendor who holds the maintenance & support contract for CSTS. Juvenile/Adult Information Management System (JAIMS), the Financial Tracking System (FTS), the Domestic Relations System (DRS) and the new CISRS program are also Corrections User Group managed programs. The Department of Corrections (DOC) is a member of the MnCCC Corrections User Group and the group works closely with the courts and BCA on both projects and training.
List of Officers, etc.
Chair: Dan Traun, DOC
Vice-Chair: Brian Kopperud, Dakota County
Past Chair: Tim MacMillan, Isanti County
Recording Officer: Amy Olson, Dakota County
DOC: Dan Traun
DOC: Dayna Burmeister
DOC: Sherry Hill
MACCAC: Julie Rud, Hennepin County
MACCAC: Brian Kopperud, Dakota County
MACCAC: Jon Ramlo, Rock/Nobles County
MACPO: Traci Green, Wabasha County
MACPO: Eric Johnson, Carver County
MACPO: Les Schultz, Brown County
ISSG Liaison: Dayle Moore, Nicollet County
MnCCC Board Liaison: Lisa Meredith, MnCCC
Enhancement/Design: Jennifer Nordine, Hennepin County
Standards: Heidi Rademacher, Dakota County
Facilities Admissions Committee Chair: Todd Benjamin, Anoka County
Rules & Regulations
Download the Corrections User Group Rules & Regulations PDF
Meeting Schedule
The Corrections Executive Committee meets the third Wednesday each month. Full user group business meetings are held in June and periodically throughout the year as needed.
- Enhancements & Design Committee
- Standards Committee
- JAIMS Committee - Todd Benjamin, Chair
Links to Forms and Files
- Enhancement Request Form
- Committee Report Template
- Reimbursement Form for MnCCC - 2020
- Can't find what you are looking for? Check the MnCCC Resource Center!
Contract Vendor(s)
The contract vendor(s) for this user group that provide(s) maintenance, support, development, and training services.


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What to Consider Before Tying the Knot: An LGBT Primer
As the tide of marriage equality begins to turn, with same gender nuptials becoming a reality for increasing numbers of couples, along comes a perfectly-timed guide to provide insight into what elements to consider before taking such a step. Pamela Milam, MA, LPC, a counselor in Dallas, TX, has just released an essential primer for any LGBT individual considering matrimony, Premarital Counseling for Gays and Lesbians. Drawing from her many years of experience as a therapist, Milam lays out common areas of potential discord couples may experience, and shares scenarios, gleaned from her patients, which demonstrate how such issues have played out for others.
While targeted towards those considering marriage, the issues she discusses are equally applicable for anyone interested in bettering their relationships, as the book touches on such considerations as religion, sex, monogamy, open relationships, degrees of "outness," having children, and much more. Recently, Milam graciously sat down with me to discuss the book, her personal journey, and issues within the LGBT community.
Thank you so much for taking the time to talk.
And you as well. I am a big fan of your novel, Songs for the New Depression, so getting the chance to chat is an added bonus!
I really appreciate that–thank you! But I want to talk about your book. After many years spent counseling individuals and couples, what prompted you to write a book–and why this one?
In my career, I've done plenty of premarital counseling with straight couples. I've listened to straight couples discuss their dating situations, their feelings about commitment, and eventually their plans for marriage. I've helped them understand each other better and move toward their weddings feeling stronger and more prepared for what marriage entails.
During much of that time, I was an unmarried lesbian. It was not lost on me that while I was spending many of my waking hours helping to launch and/or save heterosexual unions, I could not legally marry the person I loved most in the world.
Then, laws started changing.
Exactly. And as they did, I began receiving more and more phone calls and emails from gay and lesbian couples who were planning weddings and requesting premarital counseling. It's a relatively new phenomenon.
That's great that they're seeking that out…
Yes, it is. But I knew that for me to recommend a book to a gay couple, that resource needed to be tailored specifically to their situation, as there are particular issues gay couples routinely face which straight couples do not.
I was so glad to see you touching on issues specific to the LGBT community.
When I began researching the topic, it became clear that there was a need for a book of this kind. I found information about navigating the legal system and discovered an inordinate number of opinion pieces about whether gay people should be allowed to marry at all, but I did not find many materials specifically created to help gays and lesbians as they prepared to make a lifelong commitment.
I knew this book was needed, and I knew I could write it.
Out of all of the topics you touch on in your book, what stands out for you as the number one thing that most people don't consider before getting married?
Most of the premarital couples in my practice love each other and want a life together, but they don't always make enough room for individual differences. When those differences inevitably crop up, it can be disruptive and unsettling. I try to help couples manage and create space for variations in style, opinion, or thought processes.
Has writing the book changed your own relationship?
Yes, writing this book has strengthened my marriage. I've spent a great deal of time focusing on how to help couples ask clarifying questions rather than making assumptions. Because of that, those questions and answers are in the forefront of my mind.
I'm more mindful about checking in with my spouse and making sure I consider who she is and what she needs on a daily basis. I try not to assume I know what she's thinking or how she feels. I've also gotten to know myself better in the process.
We all have our own issues we carry with us. Whether as individuals or couples, if someone wants to better their life, what steps would you recommend they take?
For a better life: Be honest and kind with yourself and others. That's the best place to start.
If someone is looking for a simple tool, I always recommend the "T-chart." Make a list of what is good/happy/healthy in your life on one side of the page and write down what is bad/sad/unhealthy in your life on the other side of the page. Put the list in order on each side of the chart, from most important to least important. Then take practical steps to increase the top 5 items on the good side and decrease or eliminate the top 5 items on the bad side. It sounds simple and it is.
So, no long hours on your couch? Just a simple chart?
Great news, right? Sometimes you don't have to dig deep into your own psyche or spend countless hours examining how you feel about your mother in order to improve your life.
As a therapist, with all of the LGBT folks you counsel, what do you see as the biggest issues our community is struggling with today?
In the gay community, people strive to find a feeling of belongingness. Many LGBT folks spend so much time trying to fit in that they forget who they are as individuals. There is a real danger of becoming "a gay cliché" instead of one's actual self. I've seen plenty of gays and lesbians lose sight of what makes them different, apart from being gay, and that's something that needs to change. Gayness is an identifier, but it doesn't have to be the identifier.
I can't say that's the biggest issue, but it's the one that comes to mind. The issues that loom larger, in fact, are the more political ones. As a group, we're striving to gain rights that should, at birth, already be recognized. My hope is that we can all move forward with self-respect and commitment to the cause, remaining undaunted by the barriers and frustrations we face as we claim those rights.
I've often felt that, after coming out, many LGBT folks stop growing emotionally. It's almost as if, because that event can be so traumatic, they feel like they've done the "hard stuff." But growth is a continual process, right?
It's ongoing, yes, and at the same time, I salute anyone who takes the time to rest after doing the hard work of coming out. If someone wants to relax for awhile, pat himself or herself on the back, well, that person has my respect. Self-improvement opportunities will always be available, and each person should be allowed to take advantage of those opportunities at in his or her own pace.
That's probably not the party line of most therapists, and it certainly doesn't ensure my job security, but it's very true.
If you were to chart growth and development on a graph over time, for most people there are spikes and dips, indicating times of extreme expansion and then periods of dormancy. I think that's normal and healthy.
Even being happily partnered for many years, I got a lot of helpful tips from reading your book. For those of us who have been in relationships for many years, are there common mistakes longtime couples make? What advice do you have on keeping relationships strong?
Before marriage, assumptions are the problem. After marriage, attitudes are the problem. It is a myth that communication is the main issue between long-term couples. Many times, couples come in for their counseling sessions communicating just fine. They are communicating bitter, resentful attitudes with crystal clarity.
It's not about changing how people communicate, the nuts and bolts of sentence structure or timing. It's about changing the way they think about each other and themselves – teaching them that it's okay to drop those defenses and be willing to love each other. When a loving attitude is conveyed, even in the midst of hard conversations, the relationship improves. The technical adjustments in communication only work when the underlying attitudes are positive and caring.
So it's all in the attitude?
Yep. And here is a tip that could possibly save many couples the cost of prolonged counseling sessions. A friend once told me that she knew four words that would save any marriage in the midst of an argument. Here they are: "You May Be Right."
Pamela Milam, MA, LPC, practices in Dallas, TX. Her new book published by ASD Publishing, Premarital Counseling for Gays and Lesbians, is available now at Amazon. She is currently at work on her next book, What Your Therapist Thinks About You, which will be released in the upcoming year.
Cross-posted on Huffington Post, Bilerico Project, and LGBTQ Nation.


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And you know the flow is on steroids this year right?
It's Loso just in case you ain't know so
I'm feelin like Arnold in the 70's in here y'know?
Real icy, Call me Arnold Froze-a-nigga or some'n
Yeah... I mean your wife like c'mon, life goes on
Steppin in the spot with that rich young on
Somethin crazy on my arm, yeah, yeah
We're so out of here baby, yo, let's go
[Verse 1]
They say New York's got a problem, I'm their solution
I'm the breath of freshness through this air pollution
Dog you the smog that clogged up the city
I jog through ya fog, dog I'm the Diddy
Of this rap marathon, I'm lyrically in great shape
My late tapes are like how to lose weight tapes
The worst entertainers use me like a personal trainer
They try to use my verses as gainer
But these lightweight rappers, don't know what they up against
I put they pockets on a weight loss supplement
You're powder sniffing if you can't see our difference
It's like dumbbell curls compared to powerlifting
The way I pull up in whips
It looks better than the pullups and dips
I'm being done by the bartenders
I mean maybe it's my star spending
But better get her to that car window
And shorty said her name was Carlinda
That's cool, now won't you get up in this car Linda
Later I could bend you like a car fender
Have that ass waking up tomorrow tender
The Perfect Pushup, it make ya pecs swell
I light the purple kush up, and then I exhale
You gotta breathe, one and then the two
I do a couple laps and be running it in 2
I'm nutritious, I ain't in GNC
Try the new dishes on the truck from GMC
He emcee, he ain't got to do no dancing
These diamonds are just so performance enhancing
I'm princess cut up, canaried them stones
And I'm well known for how I bury 'em home
I just do my thing, and then I carry 'em home
I mean the world don't need another Marion Jones you heard?
Crying, lying that she never did it
Some women are Clemons, they just keep going with it
Don't sweat it, be like Pettite, just admit it
And for the record they be saying Barry Bonds hit it
Get it? We outta here baby
Loso is so outta here baby
Street Fam is so outta here baby
And here's another hit Barry Bonds
Uhh, uh-huh ohh


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1 lb green asparagus ( removed bottom about 2 inch)
10 large shrimp (clean, deviened and slice half)
3 fresh clove garlic (peel and chopped)
1 medium carrot(peel and sliced)
2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp chicken bouillon powder
2 tbsp oil
1: Cut and wash asparagus in a medium bowl,microwave at high at 2 minutes.
2:Heat skillet or wok at medium high heat with oil and garlic,fry garlic until fragrant or lightly brown ,then add in clean shrimp and carrot together.
3:Quick fry for 30 seconds or until the shrimp curl,then add in asparagus,chicken bouillon powder and oyster sauce. Give a quick toss or use your spatula to stir well for less than 30 seconds ,check the seasoning ,dish out and serve warm.


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Norm Van Lier, one of the most popular players in Bulls history, was found dead in his Chicago apartment today. He was 61.
The cause of death was not released, pending a report by the Cook County medical examiner's office.
Van Lier had been working as a Bulls analyst for ComcastSportsnet Chicago after 10-year playing career.
He did not arrive for a scheduled appearance on the network's postgame show following the Bulls-New Jersey Nets game Wednesday night.
A Chicago Fire Department squad conducted a wellness check after he hadn't been reached Thursday morning. They discovered his body shortly before 1 p.m., and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Read more at chicagotribune.com.


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Call for info: (866) 278-1034
Last Updated: 17 hours ago
Summerville SC 29486
From $309,900 Why 'From' pricing?
New homes can be personalized to your needs and taste.
Builders pricing can vary greatly. Builders display base pricing because you have not selected your options and upgrades yet and some homes may indicate that the land cost is not included.
Elevation 0 1/25Previous Next
The Citadel is a one-story floorplan that features a large kitchen island and open living space. Additionally, the substantial rear porch is accessible from the owner's retreat, which features a walk-in closet.
Builder Community Sales Office
102 Delisle Court, Summerville, SC 29486
Sales Agent: Tracie Sneed
Hours: Mon - Sun By Appointment Only
Please be aware that current conditions may impact hours of operation.
Meridian at Lakes of Cane Bay
We now offer LIVE VIDEO TOURS! Schedule your tour today - Click HereMeridian at Lakes of Cane Bay features an exceptional community design with world-class amenities within the master planned community of Cane Bay Plantation. Acting as a city within itself, Cane Bay hosts shopping, K-12 schools, and the impressive 54,000 square-foot YMCA. The future entrance from Black Tom Road located next to the community will allow homeowners a faster commute to highway 26.Impressive 1 and 2 story home designs are available within Meridian. These floorplans feature spacious living areas, beautiful kitchens, first floor guest suites, oversized walk-in closets, and more. Each home has elegant features including beautiful cabinets, high ceilings, refined trim detail, and stainless-steel appliances.Explore this resort-style community with lake front views and private wooded homesites in the distinguished community, Meridian at Lakes of Cane Bay.Visit the website Free brochure
Actual schools may vary. Contact the builder for more information.
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LONDON, March 15 (UPI) -- Skeletons found under a London square are the remains of victims of the 14th century epidemic known as the Black Death, archaeologists say.
The mass grave was discovered during archaeological work associated with the Crossrail project, a new line being built in London, the Daily Mirror reported. Archaeologists said pottery found with the skeletons dates from about 1350 and the layout of the bodies suggests a mass grave during an epidemic.
About 1.5 million people are believed to have died in Britain in the bubonic plague epidemic that peaked in 1348. The plague killed about one-third of the population of Europe.
By Thursday, 13 skeletons had been unearthed at the site in Charterhouse Square in Smithfield. A similar mass grave was found nearby almost 30 years ago.
Jay Carver, the lead archaeologist, said the find could be critical to research on bubonic plague and its history.
"Scientists hope to map the plague virus DNA. Biologists are researching ancient diseases in the hope of better understanding modern ones," he said.
Archaeologists hope that as they dig deeper they will also find remains of Roman London in the square.


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essential occupant / user practices
Fire Safety for All – Regional Implementation Model (Asia Pacific)
2019-10-21: Following the very successful Rehabilitation International Asia-Pacific (AP) Conference in Macau, at the end of June 2019 … https://www.rimacau2019.org/ … I was invited by the United Nations Economic & Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP – https://www.unescap.org/) to submit an Article on 'Fire Safety for All' to one of their upcoming publications.
Fire Safety for All … for vulnerable building users, including people with disabilities, young children, frail older people, people with health conditions, and women in late-stage pregnancy … is a critical component of Accessibility & Usability for All … the key factor in facilitating full social participation and inclusion.
Consistent with the philosophy and principles of Sustainable Human & Social Development, a concept which continues to evolve with robust resilience (despite many challenges) … and the 2015-2030 Sustainable Development Framework Agenda … implementation is most effective if carried out at Regional Level … adapted to a Local Context.
Full and effective implementation, in each separate jurisdiction, then requires:
- a robust legal base ;
- determined political will to implement 'fire safety for all' ;
- sufficient public financial resources for implementation – 'fire safety for all' is a social*, as distinct from a human, right ;
- a compassionate and understanding bureaucracy, at all institutional levels ;
- competent spatial planners, architects, structural engineers, fire engineers, quantity surveyors, technical controllers, industrial designers, building/facility managers, and crafts/trades people at all levels in construction organizations ;
- independent monitoring of 'fire safety for all' performance – self-regulation is NO regulation ;
- innovative, well-designed fire safety related products, systems and fittings which can be shown to be 'fit for their intended use'.
[ *Social Rights: Rights to which an individual person is legally entitled, e.g. the right to free elementary education [Art.26(1), UDHR], but which are only exercised in a social context with other people, and with the active support of a competent legal authority, e.g. a nation state.
Commentary: In contrast to human rights, it is not protection from the state which is desired or achieved, but freedom with the state's help.]
If Policy and Decision Makers are serious, therefore, about meeting the Safety Needs of Vulnerable People in Fire Emergencies … This Is An Absolutely Minimum Threshold Of Practical Action To Bring About Urgent Change …
Article for UNESCAP
Fire Safety for All – Nobody Left Behind !
The rising 21st Century Cities of the Asia-Pacific Region each encompass:
- a) an interwoven, densely constructed core ;
- b) a very large and widely diverse resident population ;
- c) a supporting hinterland of lands, waters and other natural resources ;
together functioning, under the freedoms and protection of law, as …
- a complex living system ; and
- a synergetic community capable of providing a high level of social wellbeing* for all of its inhabitants.
[ *Social Wellbeing for All: A general condition – for every person in a community, society or culture – of health, happiness, creativity, responsible fulfilment, and sustainable development. ]
In all areas of life and living in this City Community, every person is equal before the law and is entitled, without any discrimination, to equal protection of the law*. When they are in a building, for example, all of its occupants and users have an equal right to feel 'fire safe' as required by law. This must also include vulnerable building users, particularly people with disabilities.
[ *Refer to Article 12 in the 2006 United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which has been ratified by nearly every country in the world, including the European Union … and Article 7 in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.]
Current national building codes – where they exist – do not protect vulnerable people in fire emergencies: many countries have no legal provisions answering this crucial need, while a small group of countries offer only token, i.e. inadequate, protection. An ethical*, technical response is urgently required, therefore, at regional level in Asia-Pacific. The social, political and institutional challenges blocking effective implementation are immense.
[ *Refer to the 2016 Dublin Code of Ethics: Design, Engineering, Construction & Operation of a Safe, Resilient & Sustainable Built Environment for All. Download from: www.sfe-fire.eu ]
Note: A Regional Implementation Strategy is already in the course of being developed for Asia-Pacific (AP).
Fire Safety for All … for vulnerable building users, including people with disabilities, young children, frail older people, people with health conditions, and women in late-stage pregnancy … is a critical component of Accessibility & Usability for All … the key factor in facilitating full social participation and inclusion. This design objective is achieved by equitable fire prevention and fire protection measures, essential occupant/user practices, independent fire evacuation procedures, proactive management and, as a last but necessary resort, reliable assisted evacuation and/or firefighter rescue.
In the Smart City, nobody must be left behind !
During the first critical 10-15 minutes in a fire emergency – the time between when a fire is first accurately detected, warnings are transmitted, and firefighters arrive at the building – many people with disabilities are more than capable of independent evacuation using reliably functioning lift/elevator fire evacuation assemblies. Independent use of lifts/elevators by people with disabilities is essential during a fire emergency … and must be facilitated.
The enormous benefit for those vulnerable individuals who are capable of negotiating horizontal and vertical circulation routes by themselves is being able to evacuate a building and reach a 'place of safety' in the company of other building occupants/users. They remain independent, in control of their own evacuation, and able to leave without waiting for someone else to rescue them or render assistance.
Buildings must remain structurally 'serviceable' until all building occupants/users and firefighters have reached a remote 'place of safety'.
Management systems and fire protection measures in buildings are never 100% reliable. People with disabilities must, therefore, be trained to be self-aware in situations of risk, particularly in fire emergencies, and actively encouraged to develop the skills of self-protection and adaptive self-evacuation.
Essential Features At Building Design Stage
Fire Safety for All must be carefully considered at the initial stages of building design. To be effective, however, the following essential passive and active fire protection measures must be incorporated in buildings …
A. A smart 'whole building' fire emergency detection and multi-format warning system is an essential fire safety feature in all building types, new and existing. Vulnerable building occupants/users need much more time to react, and evacuate, than other users during a fire incident.
B. All building occupants/users must be provided with alternative, intuitive and obvious evacuation routes away from a fire outbreak in a building. A significant number of building users will never pass through the smoke generated by fire.
C. All fire evacuation routes in a building must be accessible for building occupants/users, and be sufficiently wide to accommodate contraflow, i.e. building users evacuating while firefighters enter the building at the same time. Under no circumstances must 'stay put' policies be normalized, or practiced.
D. Phased horizontal evacuation must be facilitated, in design, by providing 'buffer zones' around fire compartments, and adjacent 'places of relative safety'.
E. All lifts/elevators in a building must be capable of being used during a fire emergency. This is already the case, in most countries, with firefighter lifts.
F. Fire protected evacuation staircases must be sufficiently wide (1.5m between leading handrail edges) to facilitate contraflow and the assisted evacuation of manual wheelchair users; they must open into fire protected lift/elevator lobbies at every floor/storey level, and open directly to the exterior at ground level.
G. Sufficiently large, fire protected 'areas of rescue assistance', where people can safely wait during a fire emergency, must adjoin each evacuation staircase on every floor/storey above ground level. When calculating space provision for evacuation and waiting areas in buildings, the minimum reasonable provision for people with disabilities must be 10% of the design building occupant/user population; for people with activity limitations, minimum space provision must rise to 15% of the design occupant/user population.
H. Such is the universal level of fire compartment unreliability, that lift/elevator lobbies and 'areas of rescue assistance' must be fitted with an active fire suppression system, i.e. water mist … an environmentally clean suppression medium which is person-friendly, and will not greatly interfere with visibility.
I. In tall, super-tall and mega-tall buildings, every 20th floor/storey must be an accessible 'floor of temporary refuge' … and the roofs of those buildings must be capable of being used for aerial evacuation.
J. In health care facilities, e.g. hospitals, the fire safety strategy must always be to 'protect in place'. Patient evacuation is highly hazardous, and unacceptable.
K. Fire defence plans* must demonstrate a proper consideration for the fire safety, protection and evacuation of all building users/occupants, with a particular and integrated focus on people with activity limitations.
[ *Fire Defence Plan: A pre-determined and co-ordinated use of available human and material means in order to maintain an adequate level of fire safety and protection within a building and, in the event of an outbreak of fire, to ensure that it is brought speedily under control and extinguished … with the aim of minimizing any adverse or harmful environmental impacts caused by the fire.
Commentary 1: A Fire Defence Plan is developed for a specific building at design stage. It later becomes the basis for an occupied building's Fire Emergency Management Plan.
Commentary 2: A Fire Defence Plan is usually in electronic format and/or hard copy and comprises fire engineering drawings, descriptive text, fire safety related product/system information, with supporting calculations, and the fire test/approval data to demonstrate 'fitness for intended use'.]
#FireSafety4ALL #NobodyLeftBehind #VulnerableBuildingUsers #PwAL #PwD #NeverStayPut #Firefighters #FFsafety #WTC911 #GrenfellTowerFire #Reality #Reliability #Resilience #Redundancy #Sustainability #SDG's #SocialRights #HumanRights #InternationalLaw #UDHR #unCRPD #whoICF #SFE #Buildings #HongKong #Macau #China #AsiaPacific
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Saturday, December 11, 2010
The End of an Era, Rapidly Approaching
Tonight I'm feeling a bit wistful at the thought of finally completing my grandmother's quilt. It's been a project that on one hand, I have treasured, but on the other hand, has had me terrified – terrified that the finished product would not be something that my grandmother would have liked, or that I would not be up to completing the task correctly.
There have been some major hurdles – trying to decipher the pattern for the blocks by trial and error - coming up with a design that incorporated both my grandmother's blocks, and my aunt's dark gold border around them - finding era-appropriate fabric - and making that fabric look "old" so that it would blend in with the 1940s feed sacks my grandmother used. These problems solved, I was making good progress reproducing the blocks until I figured out a way to "improve" them, and ultimately rendering most of them unusable in the process. Frustrated, I set the project aside for more than two months. I finally got inspired again last night and salvaged four of the blocks, to complete the corners. I was able to keep the dark gold border done by my aunt, thereby making this a "three generation quilt."
This evening, as I pin-basted the quilt to the batting and backing, listening to the howling wind and snow outside, I thought of the first quilt I ever made – a Dresden plate made from another grandmother's blouses. It, too, was basted on what was (up until tonight) the worst blizzard we've had since moving here, twenty-some years ago. It seems I do my most significant work while the snow piles up outside.
Basting completed, it will next be hand-quilted, once I come up with a design. I've jumped the most difficult hurdles with the quilt and it should be easy enough from this point on, which almost makes me a little sad. After 70 years, and three generations, the quilt is nearly complete. It will be the end of an era.
7 comments:
Congratulations, I am in awe. CLAP CLAP CLAPReplyDelete
And, it is gorgeous!
Thank you, Carol! Got any ideas for the quilting?ReplyDelete
Congratulations, Karen! I'm sure your grandmother would be very proud. :-)ReplyDelete
Thanks, Elizabeth!ReplyDelete
Wow Karen, just wow. I'm sure your grandmother would be so proud and happy you completed it. What a treasure. Congratulations!ReplyDelete
Thank you, She!ReplyDelete
While my ancestors did not quilt, they were into cross stitch. My mother started a sampler in the 1950's before I was born. While it never reached 70 years or 3 generations in the making, my mom did finish it in the mid 1980's. Since it was free hand, and no one since her has mastered that art, I am glad that she finished it. I am sure that your grandmother is happy that you took interest in her quilt and have taken the time to complete it.ReplyDelete


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Mets first baseman Ike Davis has looked terrible all year. He missed some time in spring training with a mysterious ailment—doctors identified Valley Fever, a lung infection—and, after a torrid stretch at the end of spring, OPSed .550 in April and .439 in May. There's plenty of talk of sending him to the minors to fix his problems.
What are those problems, anyway? David Schoenefield says Ike can't hit the outside pitch. Bill Petti says pitchers won't throw him fastballs.
And Mike Francesa, the WFAN eminence, says it just might be the "jungle fever."


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I was so confusedThanks for all the help. I had no idea that I had so many options. Now I can make an educated decision.
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Plan Basics and Options for Health Insurance Plans offered through the Exchange (Open Enrollment Oct 1, 2013)
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Pie charts didn't catch on until the middle of the 19th century, however. Then they were used in combinations with maps to convey additional data, and expanded in shapes to include rings and "doughnut" charts. (The food imagery even carries into many languages, such as French, where a pie chart is called le camembert after the wedges of cheese it resembles.) But it took a woman presenter, famous nurse and noted statistician Florence Nightingale, to advance the pie chart in the uses for which we know it today. From the New York Times article:
|Nightingale's pie charts
Florence Nightingale drove home the impact of poor sanitary conditions on mortality rates during the Crimean War by reconfiguring a pie chart, varying the length, rather than the width, of the wedges, so that the graph resembled a cock's comb. As the historian Hugh Small notes, Nightingale may not have invented statistical graphs, but "she may have been the first to use them for persuading people of the need for change."You'll see few pie charts in scientific papers, as they are not considered ideal for many scientific displays. In fact, Nightingale's design improves upon the original in a way that was much later confirmed by research at AT&T Bell Laboratories, showing that comparison by angle is less accurate than comparison by length, something her design incorporates into the pie chart.
I asked readers on The Eloquent Woman on Facebook to guess which famous woman helped advance the pie chart, and Emily Dust Nimsakont was first out of the box with the correct answer. She wins a set of The Eloquent Woman's magnetic poetry. Congratulations, Emily!


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It is a mistake, plain and simple. I normally don't like to tell people who specialize in a business how to run it, since they probably know more about their business than I do - but sometimes the mistakes are just so glaring. I don't care how many analysts are poring over how many books at Countrywide. BAC's error is not misjudging the value of Countrywide now, but misjudging the macro environment in which Countrywide operates.
My experience has been primarily understanding and evaluating companies from the equity perspective, but that definitely doesn't mean that I ignore the fxed income side. I am just not better at it than the other guys. What I have been noticing of late is that credit markets have been screaming murder for some time now, and the equity markets have been humming along new bullish highs and trading runs as if nothing is truly wrong. This is a strong indicator that momentum trading has again taken control of the markets. It is an environment where price trumps value. The last time this came to a head was the dot com bust. It took many institutional and individual investors 5 to 6 years to break even. Some never recouped their losses. Well, my gut has been telling me for about a year and change now that we are back there again. 2008 thus far has done nothing but confirm that we have come to a head. The pic above was an actual shot (one of very many at various locations) of the run on Northern Rock Bank in the U.K. This was real, and it was indicative of a real problem.
Well, we had a very recent run on the bank here in the states as well. There were pictures all over the web when it occurred, and now mysteriously, they are all gone. All I was able to retrieve was this screen capture of a thumbnail from Blownmortgage.com. Just as the pictorial remnants of the run have somehow disappeared, so has the equity markets prudence in the face of such a run. You can guess which bank got ran on.
There were companies in the dot com era that made purchases that they thought were risky but potentially profitable, and in more severe cases such as the internet media companies, many have dwindled down to mere pennies per share, ex. Razorfish, et. al. So, historically, companies have had the hubris of BAC to go on and lose most or all of thier investment.
I have been using this chart a lot lately, and it looks like I will be using it a lot more.
If the housing market goes anywhere NEAR its historical trends, we are going to see 30% to 40% drops in real prices. Many people poo-poo this notion, calling it apocalyptic. This is silly to me. Why didn't they poo-poo the notion of 40% to 200% price increases in the same time frame? Isn't that even more dramatic? For some reason, investors - individual and professional alike - have a hard time avoiding following the crowd. They try to catch bottoms (a risky and foolhardy endeavor in my opinion), time tops, and always seem to believe something will bounce back or XYZ asset will never go down in price over the long term (ala Fitch Ratings HPA models or the Japanese real estate market).
But BAC is Value Investing Like Buffet
No they are not. They are gambling like cowboys. The caveat to the Buffet argument is that BAC didn't buy the assets of Countrywide, they bought the whole company, kit and kaboodle - including the liabilities. I can understand if they bought just the servicing arm, but they didn't. Believe me, it is possible to pay less than zero for a company. The last time Buffet bought a financial company steeped in liabilities and risks on the cheap, he regretted it and realized that no matter how cheap he got the assets, he still overpaid. Risk vs. Reward: don't just stare at the reward side of the equation. If you must, simlpy reminisce on Solomon Brothers. In other words, the cost for buying Countrywide could easily be more than what is paid for it.
CFC is dangerous, plain and simple. The residential housing chart clearly shows how far out of whack housing values are in historic real terms. Come on, this makes the remnants of the Gold Rush look mild. If values come anywhere near the mean values of growth, BAC will be paying the CFC bill for a long time, and they will be paying a lot more than $6 billion, the cost of acquisition. Now, I hear there are performance covenants and guarantees in the purchase which may smooth out the pain, but CFC is in a world of hurt, and doesn't have much wiggle room to offer incentives. As I have stried my best to insinuate, it is possible to get CFC for free and still lose money. I know BAC has been in the business longer than I have been short CFC, but I made more money on that short than they did on their $2 billion investment. Sometimes, you are just wrong.
As of last month, CFC had more nominal dollars in REOs than they did market cap. Now, just add all of those garbage loans, the plethora of law suits, a few SEC and state banking authority investigations in a pot with a market where housing value corrects 30% in real terms with inventory building higher and higher, and we have a bitter tasting brew indeed... I hope those BAC shareholders have strong stomachs.


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Voyage 10. MUSIC MADE OF BODY AND SOUL
Περιήγηση 10η. ΜΟΥΣΙΚΗ ΨΥΧΗ ΤΕ ΚΑΙ ΣΩΜΑΤΙ
MAN IS BY NATURE A MUSICAL BEING; meaning that the song, the combination of music and lyrics, together with movement or dance, has always been a fundamental characteristic of humans, serving their various needs. Besides, music, speech, and dance, a "Holy Trinity" according to Palamâs, show how close the relationship between sound, body and soul is.
"Music – speech – dance: a Holy Trinity" (Kostês Palamâs)
The strange thing for us is that the ancients, even the primitives, felt the impact of musical sound onto their bodies much more intensely than modern humans. Obviously, Christianity and the Occidental mentality are largely responsible for the enormous degradation of our senses. Thus experts of many disciplines are now required to work together in order to fully understand this subject in depth.
Natural sounds played a key role in the genesis of music: sounds of Nature, human voices, the sounds of their tools, constituted raw "materials" that gradually began to take shape. According to Darwin, a primary stimulus has been the animal cries, especially during breeding season, when an orgasm of sounds and movements prevails, so rich and varied that man inevitably imitates responding to that call of Nature's Choir. Man, however, as a species of the animal kingdom, has congenitally had his own "repertoire" which he gradually enriched – initially by imitation and later by inspiration.
The emergence of art was directly linked to elementary manifestations of magic, even before the latter was systematized to some form of religion. Cave paintings, of a much later period compared to music, are examples of utilitarian art: men tried to exorcise the animal they depicted so as to have plenty of game, or propitiate its "spirit" in case of an awe-inspiring beast. That is why the cave paintings are usually not found in the "living room" of the cave, but deep inside, at the "sanctuary"…
Spirit propitiation had broader applications: e.g. to natural phenomena that seemed supernatural, or during work time to coordinate movements, or even to master the "spirit" of the stone or wood that men wished to turn into a tool. Music played a key role in such cases. But it was lost in the mists of time. Today, millennia later, we can comfortably admire the cavemen's performance in visual arts. But who has ever listened to their songs?
The question above is rather rhetoric. However, there is another question that is crucial to be answered: What is music? What's its origin?
What is music? What's its origin?
Music is found everywhere, in every culture or civilization, even the most isolated tribes: it is a characteristic of the human species – perhaps of other species, as well. At any rate, music is influenced by all aspects of a culture or civilization, including socio-economic organization, lifestyle, climate, technology… The emotions and ideas expressed by music, the situations in which it is played, the attitudes toward musicians and composers – all these vary according to space and time.
As we have said, music has probably had its origin in the sounds and rhythms of Nature. Men most likely imitated these phenomena using similar patterns with repetition and tonality. Even today musicians at times deliberately imitate natural sounds: folk fiddlers trill like birds, while Beethoven's "Pastoral" 6th Symphony recreates the soundscape of a thunderstorm. Sometimes onomatopoeia is related to shamanistic beliefs or practices.(a) It also serves entertainment and edutainment, or practical purposes (such as lure of animals in hunt).
If the imitation of a bird song is considered music, then the bird song itself may also be regarded as music! Indeed, according to a study of zoomusicology,(b) bird songs are based on musical principles: those of repetition and transformation. And it's not only birds: whales and dolphins have also exceptional vocal capabilities, while monkeys are unrivaled on drums and percussion while beating hollow logs, perhaps in order to demarcate their territories, creating rhythmic patterns in which some experts detect elements of "dialogue", "call and response".
Of course, everything depends on our definition of music – that is, whether a "musician" has the intention to stir up emotion through his sounds, which is probably linked to his ability to reflect about time (past and future). Men became artists sometime between 60 and 30 thousand years ago creating cave paintings, jewelry and other artifacts, while they started burying their dead with rituals. It was a form of "cultural revolution". If we assume that those new forms of behaviour suggested the emergence of consciousness, then music – as we know it – appeared in the same period. But this is a rather narrow conception of music. As it usually happens in Africa so far, in prehistory too the concept of music was broader, including dance and worship. At that time it also served communication among the members of a group of people helping to coordinate action and strengthen their bonds. Thus, its role was crucial to their survival.
Music evokes strong emotions and opens paths to other states of awareness. In general, strong emotions are associated with evolution (reproduction and survival). Darwin pointed out the importance of music to sexual selection.(c) Singing and dancing require large energy reserves. Therefore, a singer-dancer, like a peacock displaying its feathers, is more likely to attract a mate to date. There is a counterargument though: in most species using singing in the selection of mates, it is the female that chooses and the male that sings – as a rule alone. In the human species, however, music is mostly a team sport where everyone is involved. Man is the only mammal having mixed choirs (with men, women and children). Something similar is found only in certain species of Australian and African songbirds with males and females singing in chorus.
The first musical "instrument" was obviously the voice of man who, even before he could master speech, had a vast range of expressive sounds: singing, humming, whistling (a gamut of styles), producing various sounds through the mouth, imitating natural sounds, shouting, laughing, crying, coughing, yawning… (See Darwin's The Origin of Species on music and speech). Add motion to all these sounds: not only dance, but also grimaces, gestures and movements of individual body parts (head, arms and legs). Similarly, the first percussion "instruments" were hand claps, finger snaps, stones, wood and whatever could be used to accentuate rhythm. Man-made instruments appeared much later when humans started making tools.
Let me make clear by the way that talking about "men", in fact, I refer to the Hominini. The oldest tools found in today's Tanzania were made 2.6 million years ago, that is, before the emergence of the various human species (Homo). We suppose that the first tools were made by Australopithecus who transmitted this knowledge to Homo habilis. Our ancestors passed to a new phase of tool-making 1.7 million years ago with Homo erectus. I maintain, therefore, that sound preceded speech and that music, song, a capella (without instrumental accompaniment), emerged together with voice as a characteristic of some Hominini or even Hominids. Besides, we already know that music was not born with Homo sapiens – who, as they say, were musically not as talented as the Neanderthals!
"The Singing Neanderthals"
(Steven Mithen)
In the beginning was the sound:
music is older than speech
In his study The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body, Steven Mithen, an archaeologist and professor of early prehistory at the University of Reading in England, expands mainly two ideas: a) the parallel development of what modern man calls music and language, and b) his original idea that the Neanderthals had a peculiar proto-music/language: it was holistic (not composed of segmented elements), manipulative (influencing emotional states and hence behaviour of oneself and others), multimodal (using both sound and movement), musical (temporally controlled, rhythmic, and melodic), and mimetic (utilizing sound symbolism and gesture) – "a pre-linguistic musical mode of thought and action." That is why, as Manuel de Falla and Federico García Lorca have said, "many suppose that chanting is the earliest form of language." (See Voyage 4).
In her review on Mithen's book, Ellen Dissanayake of the University of Washington in Seattle initially lists the… ocean of knowledge such a study requires: evolutionary theory; human evolution (social lifestyle, environment); palaeoarchaeology (linguistic and musical abilities and their development); anatomy (ear, vocal tract, brain and musical capacities); neurobiology (brain chemistry, musical cognition and emotion, neuroanatomy of music); origin and evolution of language (similarities and differences with music, semantics, syntax, prosody); music-like communication systems in other animals (non-human primates, whales, birds, etc) and their relevance to human communication; music psychology and linguistic behaviour in infants and children; ethnomusicology; the art and practice of music; as well as the findings of music therapy and the psychology of musical emotion. We can additionally mention biomusicology and evolutionary musicology.
Those "Singing Neanderthals", according to Mithen, had a vocal tract and respiratory control that could have enabled speech, but they lacked the neural network that was necessary for language. This simply means that in the beginning was the sound: music preceded speech.(d) Moreover, pre-sapiens hominids such as the Neanderthals probably lacked metaphorical thought – the ability to have in mind at the same time information from several different cognitive domains. Symbolic artifacts have not been found in their dwelling sites, indicating the absence of symbolic thought and hence symbolic utterance: spoken language. Yet the challenges faced in such a hostile environment during the Ice Age required complex emotional communication and cooperation. So they developed a "music-like communication system that was more complex and more sophisticated than that found in any of the previous species of Homo". Mithen emphasizes the importance of "emotional intelligence" – the ability to express one's feelings with face, voice, and body, and decode the emotional signals of others.
Music as the Mother of Speech
(Rousseau, Herder, Humboldt, Darwin)
Singing was also preferable to talking. Why were the symbols of spoken words less reliable than an emotional melody? What were the pros and cons of language?
What is language? What's its origin?
"What is language? What's its origin?" – reads the notice at the entrance of a Congress Palace where a thought-provoking international symposium is taking place. Inside the building, of course, everyone… disagrees with everyone else; however, there is a recurring theme of almost paramount consent, something that escaped even Darwin's attention: a prerequisite for the emergence of language, they say, is that there must be trust within the tribe – what we now call "society"! Therefore, some kind of social transformation generated unprecedented levels of public trust, liberating a potential for linguistic creativity. Under normal conditions, as the saying goes, "words are cheap", "double-talk", unreliable symbols on which the tribe could not count for survival – in other words, language was not trusted to become an evolutionarily stable strategy.
When a cat purrs, the signal constitutes direct evidence of the animal's contented state. We trust the signal because it just can't fake that sound. Vocal calls of the primates may not be so trustworthy. Their social intelligence is characterized as "Machiavellian" – self-serving and without moral scruples. Monkeys and apes often attempt to deceive one another, while at the same time remaining constantly on guard against falling victim to deception themselves! Paradoxically, this very trait is theorized as blocking the evolution of a language-like communication among them! A verbal signal sounds like the shout "Wolves!" by a shepherd trying to fool the others in the well-known pedagogical moralizing story. Once proven false nobody takes it for granted or even cares. Therefore, socially reliable institutions are necessary, where every scoundrel, either "monkey" or "shepherd", is accountable. In a hunter-gatherer society, a basic mechanism inspiring trust is the collective ritual. (In our society, all the above adequately explain our crisis…)
Baby talk and the embryo's audio stimuli
Last but not least is what we call "baby talk" – not the talk of a baby still unable to speak, but the one used by adults (usually mothers) while addressing infants, touching and caressing them: a melodic and undulating language, combined with strong gestures, exaggerated facial expressions and rhythmic head and body movements. This is indeed a language as the baby understands the meaning of all these sounds and movements: that is, comprehends the mother's intentions. In this sense, such a language is similar to music having two main functions: to strengthen the mother-child relationship, and help the infant to speak. This way its chances of survival increase. Man's ability to synchronize himself with an external pulse – which is probably unknown to other mammals, including primates – derived from the primordial mother-infant interaction which in time transformed itself into a proto-music, and also a proto-language.
"Baby talk" has a similar "vocabulary" in all cultures. The way mothers and babies raise and lower their voices, change simultaneously expressions and move their hands is similar everywhere, despite linguistic differences such as between musical and dynamic languages. The reasons may be genetic or environmental – in the sense that all embryos grow in a similar environment and can hear twenty weeks before birth, far longer than other animals, most of which cannot hear before birth. During these weeks, the human fetus can also perceive movement and orientation. In addition it senses the emotional state of the mother via the internal sounds of her body (voice, heartbeat, footsteps, digestion, etc.) and in this way adjusts its postnatal demands (e.g. crying), improving the chances of its survival. The embryo's capacity to learn and remember sound patterns seems to confirm this theory. In this case, the internal sounds of the human body and their relationship with the emotional state may be associated with the relationship between audio-rhythmic patterns in music and their strong emotional charge.
"The human being is a musical being by man's very nature". (Iégor Reznikoff)
"Man", Iégor Reznikoff remarked,(e) "is a speaking being. However, I am absolutely sure that he is also a musical, a singing being, like the birds. We know that the various species of birds are also distinguished by the way they sing. The same happens with humans who are distinguished not only by their speech, but also by their singing.
"These features, I believe, are part of human nature. They are deeply connected with man's organic nature – his ears and throat, that is, his vocal capacities. That's how he is born and created since his conception. A child e.g. can hear even when it is in the womb of its mother as a fetus and remembers some elements of music and its mother's voice or her song.(f)
"Music is deeply rooted in humans. Singing is a characteristic of the human species. It is not something recent in man's social life. The mechanism of hearing and its relationship with speech is characterized by complexity and located deep inside the brain. Thus it cannot be something recent. In short: the human being is a musical being by man's very nature."
Generally speaking, the different species are born as tabula rasa regarding their acquired qualities – those that must be gained after birth, depending on the current conditions faced by each species for its survival. But they bear in their DNA all those inherited capacities and qualities that emerged as acquired (upright position, articulation, etc.) and ensured the survival of the species during the millennia of its evolution. It is where all the wisdom of the past is stored – together, of course, with natural musical capacities.
However, talent, an innate musical inclination or "musical ear", do not characterize all persons but rather a minority. How comes that some of them can sing beautifully or at least correctly, while others, who equally love music, sing out of tune?
"There is innate musical disposition, musical talent, which is often hereditary: see the Bach family", said Professor Demetris Thémeles "But in general terms, everyone can learn music up to a point. Most people sing out of tune because they've had no proper musical education – except in some cases where they may have some physical problem e.g. hearing impairment. Or they may listen properly and have some feel for music, but face some problem in the larynx muscles. There are cases of distinguished musicians, productive composers, who are 'cacophonous', that is, they cannot sing well because of such problems."
Nevertheless, in the Third World and, moreover, in the countryside, anywhere far from metropolitan urban centres, that is, wherever children are naturally brought up, almost everyone can sing and dance well. How comes? Here's an answer by Ellen Dissanayake:
"It is not spoken language itself that overlays or stunts musical ability, but the factors in modernized societies that have made music a specialty – individuality, competitiveness, compartmentalization, and institutionalization – reinforced by the high degree of literate (not oral improvisatory) training required to read (and compose) musical scores as well as literary texts. In small-scale pre-modern societies (and in any large modern sub-Saharan African city, as well in children anywhere who are customarily exposed to frequent communal musical activity), everyone participates in music – regularly, spontaneously, and wholeheartedly – and benefits thereby from the many adaptive advantages" it offers.
You can see, therefore, how crucial is the role of the mother, as well as that of the family or social environment in general, for the development of a child's innate musical inclination. This must be the explanation for the existence not only of musical families, but also of musical tribes such as gypsies and blacks. Not everything is hereditary, despite the important role of heredity: the potential capacities must be cultivated; otherwise they remain dormant, inert, like some atrophic member.
"We can say that African Americans have this divine gift", Reznikoff commented, referring to the innate inclination, the special talent. "Africans have a long tradition in music and singing. Furthermore, they have kept some primitive ways of expression and emotion, and thus they are probably closer to antiquity. The ancient Greeks also loved singing and dancing very much, as the Arabs do now.
"Since we are human beings, with the senses of audition and vision, it happens that we have constants in art. These constants in music have to do with the natural laws of resonance and consonance: when a chord is vibrating, it follows the laws that govern the sound, producing sounds and harmonics that delight our ears – therefore, our bodies respond.
"It is striking that an instrument like the cithara can be found in all cultures. The behaviour of a string and our bodies is the same everywhere. Something similar happens with the auloi. Note that these instruments have been used in different ways in all cultures. But with few exceptions, and apart from modern Western civilization, we can see everywhere the same musical laws to apply. It is a global concept of consonance precisely because we are dealing with a natural law.
"This concept, however, was lost since the early 19th century when the piano was introduced into music changing the natural tuning of the instruments; because the piano is tuned differently, with the equal intervals of the tempered scale. This tuning is wrong if we consider it from the point of view of natural resonance. It is due to the enormous development of music – but a kind of cultivated, sentimental, conceptual music which has abandoned its natural foundation that is rooted in our body and soul.
"The same has happened in painting: we have the ancient art or even iconography, and then we have the art of beauty, even if it depicts saints or Theotokos. See Raphael's Madonna: she is really beautiful, her movements are beautiful, and art lies in this beauty, not in the power exerted deep inside your soul by an icon. We have lost these deep roots related to our biological bodies – because we must not forget that we are material beings obeying to natural laws. Nowadays art is too conceptual as e.g. abstract art, or even electronic music with computers.
"In antiquity people had delicate, fine ears catching all nuances. The lyre was a 'soft' instrument like the old traditional ones. When one listened to music on those instruments, he used his spirit even more – let us also remember the long texts of old songs. Now, of course, we have all those huge pieces of machinery with the many decibels! All instruments are amplified and modified for that purpose. The violin is already a 'hard' instrument like the piano.
"I personally believe in a natural approach of antiquity – without imitating and copying it. We must go back to the delicate acoustics of antiquity, because finally man remains the same body and soul. These natural laws – so rich that they have created all those cultures – are like oxygen for us. In the big cities, of course, we may live in air pollution but we are not made for this: it is better for us to breathe fresh air…
"Music's purpose in antiquity was not just fun. It mainly had to do with the invisible world. This is also true for the Pythagoreans, and later for the Platonic school or previously for the Orphic tradition which influenced the Christian Church. For the Orphic tradition, music actually serves as a link to the invisible: for the preparation of the journey of the soul after death to eternity"…
The "labyrinth" of Reznikoff's thought, the contraposition between "soft" and "hard" instruments may confuse us. The key to grasping its essence lies in that apt example from the art of painting. Sweet melodies and gentle voices e.g. in most lullabies are the equivalent of Raphael's Madonna. Quite the contrary was what Plato has suggested about children that cannot go promptly to sleep: "mothers do not offer them peace, but rock them instead, and in this artless way they make the kids fall asleep". If you experiment, they say, you see that the… Platonic technique is highly effective!
A similar misunderstanding seems to obsess psychotherapists who choose music with soft sounds, having waters trickling and birds singing as a… garnish in the background. Exactly the opposite was what the ancients were after during their psychotherapeutic rituals with the deliberately intense and monotonously repetitive music.
"Fire cleanses, while water purifies", said Plutarch. Catharsis in ancient Hellas was the mental and moral purification through Dionysian ecstasy.(g) Using suitable melodies and rhythms, they caused the mentally disturbed person to flush to such a degree that a reaction would follow bringing him back to his previous normal condition. They were methods of magic surviving even in the "civilized" world until the 60s. Now that we have become so very "cultured", musical sounds can hardly excite us…
Catharsis was the mental and moral purification through Dionysian ecstasy. The spectators of tragedy were subjected to catharsis through feelings of pity and fear caused by the heroes' suffering and tragic end. (Aristotle)
"There was a close link between swamps (sources of infections and fever), the subsequent neuromental disorders and their cure with music in the therapeutic rituals of the Korybantes and the Bacchantes",(h) wrote Denise Jourdan-Hemmerdinger in the synopsis of her paper on Music in the Therapeutic Rituals of the Korybantes and the Bacchantes, at the Musicological Symposium in Delphi in 1988. "These data allow a better reading of ancient texts. We can reconstruct them not anymore in an entirely irrational context with widespread mysticism, but in a reality with tragic experiences in the time line.
"Thus, the biological and pathological cause of hallucinations reappears as an archetype of the mythological and dreamlike world of fantasy. Although the monotheistic religions expelled the ancient gods who played a therapeutic role, they did not eliminate malaria – a scourge as old as the world but always present. This Thraco-Phrygian and Orphico-Pythagorean music therapy survived more or less in some folk, religious or pagan, traditions.
"What did these specific kinds of music consist of? What level of body and soul did they affect on? How and why were they effective? The texts give us an idea. Can we get even further? Obviously, if we work on this rich and diverse file with a fortunate conjuncture of data of the geographical and ethnological hematology, and medical anthropology – sciences that already contain a wealth of information – adding the results of ethnomusicological studies, without forgetting medieval and ancient musicology, either Oriental or Occidental."(i)
Scientists, albeit disconnectedly, managed to do some ethnological, musicological and medical research in Asia (India, Indochina, Siberia), Africa (Ethiopia, Senegal), America (Haiti, Native Americans: Indians and Eskimos), and Europe. Such phenomena in our area were observed in Magna Graecia, especially around Taranto, with the famous tarantella dance that was used as a key element of the musical exorcism to counteract the poison of the tarantula spider.
Part of the same tradition is a centuries-old, mainly Thracian, fire ritual called anastenária (nestinarstvo). The oldest written information about such barefoot dances on smoldering embers is found in Euripides' The Bacchae. Later Strabo spoke of Artemis' priestesses in Asia Minor and Italy performing such dances at will. In Byzantium the dancers were called "psychária" or "asthenária" (hence anastenária or nestinari), while around 1800 such rituals were prevalent not only in the Balkans but also throughout Anatolia.
Anastenária's most striking feature is probably this "incombustibility", or "immunity from fire" – the (seeming, at least) negation of a natural law. This part of the ritual stirs our imagination so much that almost everyone forgets to mention the key role of music and dance which, as many experts say, contribute to an emotional release and thus have a therapeutic effect on the participants. In a sense, therefore, the ceremony is a psychotherapeutic ritual system.
Music and dance contribute to an emotional release
and thus have a therapeutic effect on the participants.
These systems, according to Levi-Strauss, provide the patient with a gateway to express inexpressible states. During the therapeutic process the participant receives from outside a social myth that has no conflicts and, therefore, does not correspond to his previous personal condition. In this context, reality is compelled to identify with this social myth. Without music and dance, however, methexis is not possible:
"Monotonous music", the psychiatrist Constantinos Constantinides wrote in his Notes on Fire Walking of Anastenária and a Possible Explanation of Incombustibility, "is a prerequisite to a change of mental mood, creating an equivalent emotional state, and triggering the subcortical (motor and emotional) centres, so as everything is automatically and easily executed, eliminating the inhibitory effect of the cortex.
"Motivated in general also by music, dance is known as a largely automatic event and as such a new prerequisite to the creation of the whole mental ecstatic state, and even more if it is religious. That is why all primitive religions are 'danced'; all happy events are 'danced'. When dancing, there is a peculiar emotional state; there is more automation and unconscious function; there is more or less self-absorption and a break of contact with the environment. One could say that dance is a certain step to ecstasy, opens the way to the phenomenon of ecstasy."
"Dance is a certain step to ecstasy, opens the way to the
phenomenon of ecstasy." (Constantinos Constantinides)
"Music in particular seems to coordinate a tendency to group unification", another psychiatrist, Pantelés Kranidiotes, commented on his part, analyzing Anastenaria as a Psychosomatic Phenomenon. "C[onstantinos] Romeos realized just that, saying 'music makes the human soul to feel such desolation that it desires to mingle with the other dancers seeking to let it go'. On the other hand, P[olydoros] Papachristodoulou underlines the impact of music on these people saying that music 'exerts some particular influence on the nervous system of hysterical, naïve peasants'.
"But anyway, regardless of the quality of the receiver, everyone would perceive this fascinating power of music, if above all he experienced the crucially overwhelming davul in the 'hangout', where 'all the spectators were agitated and rocked' under its sounds.
"Emotional arousal is inevitable when music is more familiar. This is obviously the aim of conflating this religious ceremony with songs, which clearly translate the various deepest emotions of the people's psyche and where above all is the dominion of heroic elements, which can only bring about an arousing, wild ecstasy.
"This combination seems much more efficient to induce the required emotional orgy than the ecclesiastical chants and hymns, which are totally absent in this religious ceremony, as they produce a rather static ecstasy.
"This music of fire dancers, which over the centuries is familiar to them, is a creation and property of their own emotional universe and that is why it can definitely stir it and indeed with an intensely arousing way. But here it seems that rhythm plays the main role in music and – as the musicologist Mr. [Pantelés] Kavakópoulos says – 'what excites the fire dancers is the davul with its varying rhythms'."(j)
Rhythm, inextricably connected to dance, is the first musical element man experiences. The first sound the fetus hears is mother's rhythmic heartbeat, long before it enjoys her singing – if, of course, she has a sweet voice. But even if she doesn't, the pulse is there, recorded in the deepest subcortical centres of the brain; when excited, man's inhibitions are neutralized and that's how he is overwhelmed with ecstasy, acting not as an individual but as a member of a group.(k) Melody, the second element of music, on the other hand, is intentionally monotonous and persistently repetitious, while the lyrics are just as rudimentary: precisely to prevent the re-activation of the cortex and achieve the culmination of ecstasy.
The first sound a fetus hears, mother's heartbeat, is recorded deep
inside the brain; when excited, man's inhibitions are neutralized and, ecstatic, acts not as an individual but as a member of a group.
Such phenomena could not go unnoticed by ancient Greek philosophers who have seen with their own eyes how crucial the role of rhythm is for the preservation, modification or loss of ethos in music. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and others have investigated the ethos of rhythm, melody, genera and harmonies or modes, not only because music was the foundation of education, but also because – quite rightly – they considered music as a form of language, capable of expressing as much as speech and exerting a catalytic effect on people, especially youth.
"There is nothing among people that is performed without music", Aristides Quintilianus used to say, while Plutarch noted that "the formation and preparation [of young people] to be good [citizens is achieved] through music", for Orpheus' art is beneficial "on everyone and every well-instructed act", concluding: "Foul music and wicked songs lead to prodigal morals and unmanly lives, and men to indulgence and flabbiness and effeminacy"…
The ethos of music is generally distinguished as exuberant – the one causing agitation or excitement; restrained – that is, the opposite; or serene – that calms down. Apparently these comprehensive philosophical studies were based on observations on ancient folk rituals similar to the musical therapeutic ceremonies. Philosophers have found that every rhythmic or melodic movement causes certain emotional reactions, positive or negative – depending on the intended purpose. Thus they concluded that the sounds with the beneficial effects should be praised and the others to be condemned.
The ethos of music – of rhythm, melody, genera and harmonies or modes – was distinguished as exuberant, restrained, or serene.
Naturally, the concept of ethos, which was the focus of attention of every philosopher, was also used for the condemnation of every musical innovation by the conservatives, as we have already seen in our previous Voyage. In no way, however, does this fact mean that musical ethos is worthless for us. Why else should that ancient Hellenic concept be adopted by Persians and Arabs?
On the other hand, isn't this concept completely unknown today? Why should we care about the ethos of music (and not only of music) in an exceptionally unethical era in every respect? Isn't it an… anachronism?
Dear reader, my dearest fellow traveler, don't you think that having come thus far, it means there is a deeper and serious reason?
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After the Voyages during the MEDITERRANEAN PERIPLUS,
let's sail on to some Chronicles, ONCE UPON A… WAVE!
"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."
(Charles Darwin)