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The Meaning of Columbus Day
by Mac Chapin
A year ago I was walking through a shopping mall in north-
ern Virginia when I passed by a tobacco shop. A life-sized wooden Indian, clutching a handful of cigars, was guarding the door. Someone had taped a sign to its chest that read:"Happy Columbus Day." Shortly after, I came upon a statement made by President George H.W. Bush in 1989, on the eve of the 500th anniver- sary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas. He
called the Admiral's landfall"one of the greatest achievements
of human endeavor," and added,"I strongly encourage every
American to support the Quincentennary, and to discover the significance that this milestone in history has in his or her own life." But just what "significance" does Columbus Day have, or should it have, in our lives? It celebrates the day, 516 years ago, when three small boats carrying Spanish sailors "discovered" the Western Hemisphere. This Encounter of Two Worlds, as
it is often called, was the first step in a process that led, in
short order, to the conquest and European subjugation of the native peoples of this newly found continent. It determined the direction the Americas were to take from that point on, and when we contemplate the significance of Columbus Day in our lives we need to take into consideration the whole package, from discovery through conquest to domination. All of us were taught the history of the Spanish Discovery and Conquest of the Americas early on in school. Many bits and pieces of this history remain firmly lodged in our heads these many years later, yet strangely, for most of us they are scattered images that, if we inspect them carefully, don't fit together to form a very a coherent picture. They are, quite sim- ply, inadequate as explanations. This is in large part because our school lessons were based on historical accounts that were often incomplete and confused, and they were one-sided,
often flagrantly so, with a strong pro- European bias. This was the state of historical interpretation of the Spanish Discov- ery and Conquest of the Americas up through the 1960s, and it was this way across the hemisphere, from north to south. Since then, some of the drum- beating for European superiority has subsided—we are less likely to be told, for example, that the appearance of the Spaniards in Mexico was"the van- guard of the great European Advance toward the broader knowledge of man and of this planet," or that the Aztecs were "mentally deranged" and in the same league with the Nazis*—but many of the old biases and stereotypes have held on tenaciously and still inhabit the pages of popular as well as scholarly histories for adults and children. My subject here is the way historians have characterized this pivotal period in our history, and the consequences these characterizations have had on our thinking about the events themselves, the peoples who took part in them, and their suc- cessors, including all of us who currently live in this part of the world. I will draw primarily on the historical record from Central Mexico, where the Spaniards took on the powerful Mexica (Aztec) Empire, but the same characterizations, in roughly similar form, hold for the Spanish invasion of the Inca Empire to the south.
*Sources for all quotes, as well as additional information and sugges- tions for further reading, can be found at www.worldwatch.org/ww/ columbusday.
Wor l d Wa t c h | November/December 2008
Architect of the Capitol
Discovery and Conquest
On the evening of October 11, 1492, a fleet of three Spanish ships—the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María—was near- ing the end of a five-week voyage across the Atlantic. Their cap- tain, a Genoese navigator named Christopher Columbus, was standing on the deck of the Santa María when what appeared to be a light was spotted in the distance. Land was sighted sev- eral hours later, illuminated by the moon, and the following morning Columbus and a handful of his men took a small boat ashore on an island (no one is certain today which one it was) somewhere on the rim of the Caribbean Sea. The natives who came to meet them were peaceful, generous, and accommodating. Columbus wrote in his diary that "…they invite you to share anything that they possess, and show as much love as if their hearts went with it…." He went on to observe"…how easy it would be to convert these people—and to make them work for us."
Christopher Columbus landing in the Caribbean, 1492, as painted by John Vanderlyn. Vanderlyn and assistants worked on the 3.7 × 5.5-meter canvas for 10 years in Paris. It was placed in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in 1847.
Columbus made three more journeys to the New World, and in his wake came an ever-increasing procession of Span- ish ships. The Spaniards made their way past the Caribbean islands to the mainland, traveled along the coast of Mexico and Central America, and eventually trekked across the Pana- manian isthmus to the Pacific Ocean. Their primary quest was after riches, especially gold. During these journeys they learned of vast stores of wealth inland in the highlands of central Mexico. Here the narrative is transformed into a story that is, as the historian William H. Prescott noted, "too startling for the probabilities demanded by fiction, and without a parallel in the pages of history." In 1519, Hernán Cortés led "a handful of resolute men,"as one historian puts it, into the heart of the formidable and highly militaristic Mexica Empire. Two years
November/December 2008 | Wor l d Wa t c h
later they laid siege to the imperial city of Tenochtitlan and after just under three months of fighting emerged victorious, leaving it in ruins and the majority of its inhabitants dead. Ten years later, Francisco Pizarro marched straight into the jaws of the equally fierce Inca Kingdom in the Andean highlands. He had no more than 168 men under his command, yet in short order he brought the Incas to their knees and gained con- trol of the region. And these two civilizations were not only defeated. They disintegrated and disappeared and were never able to recon- stitute themselves. They left behind little more than a scattering of temples, pyramids, stone sculptures, and fragmentary his- tories of their former glory and achievements. And this hap- pened everywhere the Europeans went. Their victories over the New World kingdoms were swift and decisive, and within the space of a few decades they had taken the core areas of the hemisphere from top to bottom. Those native people who managed to survive had become either slaves or fugitives in their own land, and the history of the New World had been altered drastically and irrevocably. How did this happen? The traditional narrative of the Conquest weaves together several causal threads. First, the story goes, in Mesoamerica the Mexica thought the Spaniards were gods and were paralyzed with fear and unable to think or act rationally. Montezuma, the Mexica emperor, believed Cortés to be the god Quetzal- coatl, the Plumed Serpent, who was returning from the east to reclaim his throne, as had been foretold, and he was seized with panic. "He felt his empire melting away like a morning mist," in the words of Prescott. Another ingredient revolves around the nature of the New World empires: while they appeared to be mighty and substantial, they were in fact very fragile, for they depended on relentless exploitation of their subjects. The Mexica, we are told, enslaved their neighbors, exacted onerous tribute from them, and took them captive for ritual sacrifice. In short, they were brutal tyrants who were hated throughout the region. Cortés quickly picked up on these divisions and skillfully exploited them. He enlisted the Mexica's disaf- fected neighbors as allies, and the combined Spanish-Indian force overwhelmed the already panic-stricken Mexica. His advisor and interpreter (and mistress) in much of this ven- ture was the Indian maiden Malinali (generally referred to as La Malinche in Mexico, where the word malinchista has come to mean "traitor"). A third element of the traditional story paints the Spaniards as hardened, pragmatic soldiers experienced in the art of war- fare, while the Indians viewed warfare as a ritual to be fought according to strict, and greatly limiting, rules of engagement. The Spaniards, in the Indians' eyes, broke all the rules and dove in relentlessly for the kill. Beyond this, the Spaniards greatly outclassed the Indians with their superior military technology:"steel swords versus obsidian-edged clubs; muskets and cannon against arrows and spears; metal helmets and
bucklers in contrast to feath- ered headdresses and shields," according to one historian.And of course they came with horses and savage armored dogs, while their opponents had no animals to assist them. In short, the Indians were com- pletely outclassed militarily. A final ingredient is the European diseases against which the native peoples had no immunological defenses. But this was a late entry into the historical record and it played no important role in the traditional narrative as it developed initially. Lethal epi- demics of Old World diseases were described in contempo- rary accounts, often in great detail, yet historians had paid them little attention until sev- eral scholars dredged them out of obscurity in the 1960s. This revelation, which included claims of a catastrophic demo- graphic collapse among the native peoples, was at first met with skepticism, and although it has now gained general acceptance as a rightful piece of the puzzle, it rests uneasily amid the other features of the Conquest narrative. Many his- torians have been uncertain about how to handle it.
Evolving History
The historical record of the Conquest begins with the first- hand accounts of the conquistadors themselves. In Mexico, the most prominent of these were Cortés and Bernal Díaz del Castillo, whose True History of the Conquest of New Spain is generally considered to be the most accurate record of the armed conflict. These accounts are supplemented by docu- ments produced by a succession of Catholic priests, chroni- clers of different stripes, and assorted bureaucrats within the Spanish imperial system during the early sixteenth century. A large portion of this material was brought together and synthesized in the 1840s by the Boston historian William Hickling Prescott, who wrote the first systematic and com- prehensive histories of the Conquest. Prescott published His- tory of the Conquest of Mexico in 1843 and History of the Conquest of Peru in 1847. Both books by any measure are
Jay I. Kislak Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress
remarkable achievements—all the more so because Prescott was legally blind and was never able to set foot in either Mex- ico or Peru. He also only had the Spanish side of the story. While the Indians had incipient writing systems involving pictographs in Mesoamerica and knotted strings (quipu) in the Andes, these were rudimentary in comparison to the European alpha- bets and were effectively obliterated by Spanish priests in the first years after the Conquest. And even if they had possessed more sophisticated writing systems, it's likely that they would have been too confused and distressed to record their thoughts as they were being sucked into the chaotic maelstrom of the Spanish invasion. Some decades later, Catholic priests trained a select group of surviving Mexica to transcribe accounts of their vanished society in Nahuatl, their native language. But
From a series of eight paintings on the conquest of Mexico painted in the second half of the seventeeth century by unknown artists, this canvas—in key respects pure fantasy—depicts Cortés' attack on Tenochtitlan.
these codices contain no first-hand glimpses into the military campaign. Records exist of what the Spaniards thought the Indians were thinking, or wanted their readers to think they were thinking, but these are poor substitutes for hearing directly from the Indians, and the Spanish accounts are fre- quently self-serving and misleading. Moreover, Prescott was writing during the infancy of his- toriography, and his works are best seen as fusions of litera- ture and the first tentative steps toward"scientific"history. In his day, he was often compared to the historical novelists Sir Walter Scott and James Fenimore Cooper, and over the years analysis of his work has been the province of literary critics as
much as historians. He noted in his diary that with History of the Conquest of Mexico he was setting out to create"an epic in prose, a romance of chivalry." He succeeded brilliantly. First, he produced a riveting adventure tale in the best romantic tradition.History of the Con- quest of Mexico is an exhilarating read, replete with tense con- frontations and negotiations, ambushes, hair's-breadth escapes, daring battle maneuvers, blood-soaked massacres, treacherous duplicity, and ferocious hand-to-hand combat. Prescott used a variety of literary techniques, one being to place Cortés and his men in impossibly perilous situations and then have them miraculously and heroically break free at the last possible moment, ending his chapters with cliffhangers. To make this work, he frequently embellished and even restructured the factual record.It made for electrifying reading,and it is no won- der that his books have become the primary sources for vir- tually every movie ever filmed about the Conquest.
A Mexica priest offers a human heart to the god Huitzilopochtli in this illus- tration from the Codex Magliabecchi. The archaeologist who discovered the manuscript estimated it was completed around 1529.
But Prescott was also crafting a morality drama that show- cased the inevitable collapse of a morally depraved and despotic barbarian empire at the hand of a highly civilized and vastly superior European kingdom. In Prescott's eyes, the Mexica were savages of the most degenerate sort: they prac- ticed cannibalism, human sacrifice, sodomy, and various other crimes against nature, and they sadistically preyed on their neighbors. The Conquest was the work of Providence, an idea first put forward by Cortés and the others; it was a triumph of civilization over barbarity and of Christianity over pagan superstition. And indeed this came to pass amid extreme carnage and the razing of Tenochtitlan. Between 100,000 and 250,000 of the city's inhabitants died in the assault.Prescott informs us that the Mexica were doomed from the very start, and their empire "…fell by the hands of its own subjects, under the direction of European sagacity and science." The Mexica crumbled from
within and their fate serves as "…a striking proof, that a gov- ernment, which does not rest on the sympathies of its subjects, cannot long abide; that human institutions, when not con- nected with human prosperity and progress, must fall." He acknowledges that the Spaniards have been accused of excessive brutality, and he laments the loss of life."Yet we cannot regret the fall of an empire,"he reflects,"which did so little to promote the happiness of its subjects, or the real interests of humanity." Prescott personified this struggle in the contrasting figures of Cortés and Montezuma. Cortés is pictured as courageous, steadfast, self-reliant, a brilliant strategist and tactician, a skill- ful politician, and an unsurpassed leader of men. We see him leading his men fearlessly into the thick of battle, rousing his followers with impassioned speeches, and destroying pagan idols. By contrast, his Mexica counterpart is portrayed as dim- witted, vacillating, cowardly, and effeminate, a pathetic figure who, when he first receives word of the arrival of the White Gods in Mexico (it is in Prescott that Montezuma believes Cortés to be Quetzalcoatl), is racked with "paroxysms of despair."To be sure, Cortés has his defects—Prescott describes him as avaricious and "lax in his notions of morality"—but on balance he is an exceptional human figure: "a knight- errant, in the literal sense of the word."
Prescott's Legacy
Prescott's vision of the Conquest has had incalculable influ- ence on both historians and the general public throughout the world. His books have been popular in Europe, North Amer- ica, and Latin America since they were published. They can be found in virtually every library of any size in the United States and purchased off the shelves at Borders and Barnes & Noble. He is cited as a major influence by later historians, including Hugh Thomas, whose massive Conquest: Mon- tezuma, Cortés, and the Fall of Old Mexico (1993) pays trib- ute to the man he dubs "the great Bostonian." Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Barbara Tuchman used Prescott as her primary source for a short description of the Conquest of Mexico in her last book, The March of Folly (1984). Even The Rough Guide to Mexico (2007 edition) cites Prescott for its brief account of the Conquest. One aspect stressed by the Spanish chroniclers was that the American continent was inhabited by heathen savages, and the Spaniards were involved in a project to civilize it, especially through the imposition of Christianity. This was, they argued, a "just war" and regime change was in order. Later historians picked up this notion and carried it forward, not only in Spain but also in Mexico, although here there was some ambivalence (were the Indians really to be seen as the "true" Mexicans? or were the Spaniards their root stock?). Following their independence from Spain in the 1820s, Mexican scholars began searching for positive, heroic images of the pre-Hispanic peoples to burnish their national identity, but they could find little of value beyond some artwork and astronomy. The school textbooks they eventually produced
The Equestrian, likely the world's largest equestrian bronze, erected in 2007 at the El Paso, Texas, airport. Pictured with it are the sculptor, John Sherrill Houser, and the associate sculptor, his son, Ethan Taliesin Houser. The origi- nal title of the monument was "Don Juan de Oñate, icon for The Period of Spanish Settlement of the Southwest (1598 to 1680)." The title and site were changed after controversy developed about honoring a conquistador. It is one of 12 monuments planned to commemorate 400 years of El Paso history.
ital, and it sounds like a major development, one that would have a profound impact on the entire Spanish enterprise. Yet Prescott suddenly drops it, leaving it behind like a tiny, inconsequential island in the middle of his onrushing nar- rative of military and diplomatic adventures. When the Spaniards enter Tenochtitlan and come upon buildings whose floors are "…covered with prostate forms of the miserable inmates, some in the agonies of death, others festering with corruption; men, women, and children, inhaling the poison- ous atmosphere…," Prescott sees the cause of this "appalling spectacle" as starvation and dysentery, not smallpox. Later historians similarly mentioned epidemic outbreaks, especially of smallpox, but assigned them little importance. It is generally accepted today that 50–80 million people were living in the Americas in 1492, and that shortly after this time they suffered a precipitous demographic collapse. The collapse radiated throughout the hemisphere, hitting hardest
ended up highlighting cannibalism and human sacrifice, and native society in general (not just the Mexica) was depicted as cruel, twisted, and generally abominable. In the late nineteenth century, the educator and historian Justo Sierra, minister of education under President Porfirio Díaz, effused: "Ah! Mother Spain, your great shadow is present in all of our history; to you we owe civiliza- tion…." And in Breve Historia de México (1937), Mexican historian/philosopher José Vasconcelos wrote that "Spain destroyed nothing, for nothing worth preserving existed when she arrived in these territories, unless one sees as sacred all of those weeds of the soul that are the cannibalism of the Caribes [Indians of the Caribbean], the human sacrifices of the Aztecs, the brutaliz- ing despotism of the Incas." Similar arguments flowed from the pens of North American historians such as Hubert Herring and Henry Bamford Parkes, both writing in the 1960s. A closely associated, if somewhat less strident, assertion is that with the Conquest the Spaniards simply decapitated the indige- nous leadership of the two empires and took its place, leaving the body (the masses) more or less intact. In Central Mexico, writes John Edwin Fagg in Latin America: A General His- tory (1963),"…those who accepted Cortés in place of Montezuma paid tribute and permitted Christian missionary activities and lived very much as before."He adds, "If anything, the new regime was more agreeable than the Aztec despotism." This concept, which I remember clearly from my school days, has had considerable staying power and is still a strong feature in history books."Within these Indian kingdoms and communities,"writes Edwin Williamson in The Penguin History of Latin America (1992),"traditional life went on much as before, and, having accepted their new masters, it made sense also to accept their religion.""The top of the pyra- mid had been lopped off," writes Marshall Eaken in The His- tory of Latin America: Collision of Cultures (2007), "and the Spanish replaced the Aztecs as the rulers of the Mexicans."
The Diseases
As already noted, until the 1960s historians made no more than passing mention of disease epidemics in their accounts of the Conquest. Prescott injects but one brief description of a "…terrible epidemic, the small-pox, which was now sweeping over the land like fire over the prairies,smiting down prince and peasant, and adding another to the long train of woes that followed the march of the white men." This occurs as the Spaniards are heading for the final assault on the Mexica cap-
in the tropical lowlands and areas of dense settlement. Few regions escaped its reach, including remote corners where Europeans had never set foot. A number of scholars estimate that 90–95 percent of the native population died during the first century after contact. Others are more restrained, but all agree that the death toll was immense—the most catastrophic population disaster in human history. What caused this massive die-off? When the Spaniards laid anchor in the Caribbean they brought with them a cargo of virulent and utterly foreign pathogens: smallpox, measles, chicken pox, typhus, typhoid, influenza, whooping cough, bubonic plague, malaria, yellow fever, and others. The peoples of the Americas had been iso- lated from Eurasia for more than 20,000 years, had had no exposure to these diseases, and were without immunological
A Mexica illustration showing the effects of smallpox, from Book XII of the Florentine Codex, created between approximately 1540 and 1585.
defenses against them. Diseases that were generally mild in the Old World, such as smallpox and measles, became lethal in the New World ecosystem. Soon after they came ashore they morphed into what epidemiologists call "virgin soil epi- demics" and began to make the rounds, with disastrous effect. Community death tolls of 50–70 percent in a single pass were common. The depopulating of the Caribbean islands was well under way by the end of the first decade of the sixteenth century, and the Indians there were virtually extinct by mid- century. An array of different illnesses was most certainly involved. Smallpox, the most murderous of the lot, reached the Yucatán Peninsula by 1518 and the Mexica capital in 1519, just before Cortés's final assault, and the Inca Empire by 1526, fully five years before Pizarro and his 168 men showed up. The rulers of both kingdoms died and were replaced; lesser political and military leaders were also stricken, along with a sizeable portion of the general fight- ing force, and in the Andes civil war had broken out between the followers of the two remaining sons of the royal family.
Both regions were in a state of turmoil, and the ground was well prepared for the Spanish invasion. And the epidemics did not stop with the Conquest. They continued to rage unfettered, passing through in waves, some- times arriving in tandem. Before communities were able to recover from one attack, they were pummeled again, and again. Between 1520 and 1600, at least 14 distinct major epidemics of various illnesses were recorded in central Mexico, and no fewer than 17 passed through the Andes.Add to these all of the unreported "minor" epidemics and assorted Old World scourges making the rounds, and we can begin to understand the unrelenting ferocity of the microbial onslaught. When they struck, the epidemics immobilized entire com- munities and regions.With the majority of the people infected and many dying or dead, there was no one to care for the sick. Children and the elderly were utterly defenseless. Tradi- tional social mechanisms broke down, work in the fields came to a halt, and crops were left unharvested; trade networks and food distribution systems were cut. "And then came famine, not because of want of bread, but of meal, for the women do nothing but grind maize between two stones and bake it. The women, then, fell sick of the smallpox, bread failed, and many died of hunger." And, of course, "there were not enough liv- ing people to dig graves for the dead, so that death itself assumed the role of gravedigger.""Great was the stench of the dead,"recorded the Cakchiquel Mayas."After our fathers and grandfathers succumbed, half of the people fled to the fields. The dogs and vultures devoured the bodies. The mortality was terrible."
An Uneasy Fit
The evidence we now have for epidemics and the demographic collapse of the first century after contact is substantial. Much of the new information has been mined from the chronicles of Catholic priests—Bartolomé de las Casas, Bernardino de Sahagún, Motolinía, and others—and the reports of bureau- crats and Spanish landholders complaining about the disap- pearance of their labor force. The conquistadors, by contrast, barely mention epidemics (Cortés, for example, has just two brief mentions of smallpox, in his third letter to Carlos V) and this may at least partially explain their absence in the works of later historians, for history has traditionally been seen as a chronology of armed conflict and political intrigue, not the actions of microbes. Some historians have suggested that the conquistadors, with their attention quite understandably focused elsewhere, simply failed to pick up on the implications of the epidemics. The result of the new information is that virtually every history dealing with the European Conquest and domina- tion of the New World's peoples now includes something about the epidemics and the population decline. Even chil- dren's histories and elementary school texts contain short dis- cussions of these matters. Yet there is considerable variance regarding the role given disease in the drama that unfolded,
and figuring out how to deal with this has proved difficult. At one end we have William McNeill and Alfred Crosby, along with a small but well armed band of scholars, who argue that the epidemics, especially those of smallpox, played a major if not decisive part in the Spanish Conquest.Absent the epidemics, neither Cortés nor Pizarro would have prevailed— and it is likely, Crosby suggests, that Cortés would have ended his days spread-eagled on the sacrificial altar of Huitzil- opochtli, the Mexica Sun God. There would have been no catastrophic population disaster, and if the Spaniards had succeeded in colonizing the New World, it would have been similar to European colonization in Asia and Africa, with the eventual withdrawal of the colonizers. Hugh Thomas positions himself at the other extreme, calling the claims of Crosby and McNeill "extravagant." For him, the Spanish achieved victory over the Mexica because of their military and diplo- matic superiority, aided by allies recruited from among disgruntled neighbors of the Mexica. He esti- mates roughly 100,000 Mexica killed in the final battle for the city, with perhaps 100 Spanish soldiers dead. He concludes, "The difference be- tween the numbers of conquistadors and Mexica dead may be held to indi- cate the superior fighting skill of the former." He makes no mention of smallpox, which was raging through the city at the time, and while his 800-page book contains several descriptions of epidemics, they are slim and walled off from the main narrative. A similar approach is evident in the works of a number of other prominent scholars who deal with the Con- quest; they mention the epidemics but assign them little importance in their narratives, which are dominated by bat- tleground heroics and the political skills of the Spaniards. Now, one might consider it reasonable to assume that an army stricken by a disease that kills half its soldiers and sick- ens most of the rest would be seriously impaired in its ability to fight. One might also reasonably assume that wholesale death among the native peoples, where they were dying "in heaps, like bedbugs,"as the Franciscan priest Motolinía put it, while the Spaniards remained healthy, would have some impact on the course of events. Might not the decision of the Tlascalans and their neighbors to join forces with the bearded white men whose language was unintelligible to them have been influenced by the hope that such an alliance would pro- vide them with some measure of protection against the unseen and thoroughly mysterious plagues?
We know that the Black Death in fourteenth-century Europe, which left a death toll roughly one-third as devastat- ing as the epidemics of the New World and had a much shorter duration, filled the residents with paralyzing feelings of despair, anxiety, and flat-out terror."The apparition of Antichrist was announced many times and in many places," writes Philip Ziegler. "Floods, famines, fire from heaven were perpetually around the corner. The Turks and Saracens planned a descent on Italy; the English on France; the Scots on England." The major difference, of course, was that while it was only the Europeans' imaginations that were running riot, the Ameri-
Equestrian statue of Francisco Pizarro, in the central plaza of his birthplace, Trujillo, Spain.
cans actually were being invaded. Would not all of this—the phantom, deadly diseases; the breakdown in traditional social order; famine; and armed conflict by "a handful of resolute men" armed with steel swords and mounted on four-legged beasts—have had a profound influence on the collective psy- che of the native Americans? The impact of the epidemics was of course huge, but how might one go about explaining what it was? We have no solid evidence to argue a case one way or another. The Indi- ans left us no testimony; none of the Spaniards was system- atically monitoring this particular angle at the time; and in any event, neither the Indians nor the Spaniards understood where the diseases had come from or how they were trans- mitted. Yet beyond these considerations, historians have tra- ditionally ignored the effects of epidemics, largely because they feel uncomfortable with them. The epidemics are as
Indigenous supporters of the government demonstrate against a Santa Cruz province autonomy referendum declared illegal by Bolivian President Morales.
vaporous as mist; they work quietly behind the scenes and out of sight, and pinning down and describing their impact is essentially impossible. How, for example, would events have unfolded if no diseases had made their appearance? We can't begin to answer this question without diving head- long into pure speculation. In short, the role played by epidemics defies rigorous analy- sis. Discussions of disease and its impact are now obligatory, but they are generally framed as little more than add-ons that exist as capsules, insulated from the body of the narrative, which for most historians remains largely as Prescott created it. Thomas's Conquest: Montezuma, Cortés, and the Fall of Old Mexico is essentially an update, with additional sources, of the work of Prescott, and the epidemics have no particular part to play in it. There have been no more than a few partial, and not entirely successful, attempts to integrate this new dimension into history books in organic fashion, and many historians simply ignore it. Yet just because the ravages of deadly epidemics and the dramatic population disaster elude historical analysis doesn't mean that they didn't take place and had no effect, or min- imal—and unstated—effect. It also doesn't negate the fact that what happened was a human tragedy of monumental proportions. Disease, of course, didn't account for the entire death toll, at least directly, but it made all that followed pos-
sible and even inevitable. The epidemics swept across the American landscape like shock troops, and in their wake came starvation, the destruction of traditional institutions, and a profound sense of demoralization and spiritual confusion. They most certainly influenced the way the different Indian groups dealt with the foreigners, how they weighed the advan- tages and disadvantages of becoming allies of the Spaniards. Wouldn't the groups that joined the Spaniards have been more concerned for their own survival in a world suddenly turned treacherously lethal than in mounting a full-scale attack on the Mexica, however resentful they may have been? There is another problem with any project to reconfigure the story of the Conquest. The traditional, epidemic-free nar- rative served us very well for generations. We all grew up with it, we learned it in school, and most people in academia and in the general public feel entirely comfortable with it the way it stands. It"explains"the Discovery and Conquest of the New World in a manner that is coherent, elegant, and thoroughly satisfying, and it is exciting to boot—a true"epic in prose,"as Prescott put it. Can anyone imagine how the story would play in school texts, or on the silver screen for that matter, if the der- ring-do and heroism of the battlefield, with Cortés and his armored followers hacking their way through armies of bronzed warriors with plumed headdresses and obsidian- tipped war clubs, were to be replaced by communities over- flowing with dead and dying men, women, and children covered with suppurating sores and gasping for air?
Yet we must concern ourselves with historical interpretations of the Conquest. The events themselves are beyond our reach,
but the way we view them is not, and it is here that we are con- fronted with a long tradition of vilification of the native peo- ples of the Americas. Beginning with the Spanish chroniclers, historians have variously described the Mexica and the Inca, and by extension Indians in general, as defective. They are viewed as weak, irra- tional, ruled inordinately by superstition, incapable of think- ing for themselves, degenerate, unreliable, untrustworthy, passive, and fatalistic. Prescott's characterization of Mon- tezuma as a simple-minded coward has been recycled time and again and has been firmly lodged in our heads as symbolic of all Indians. Cannibalism and human sacrifice are consistently brought forth as proof of Indian savagery, and both the Mex- ica and the Inca are portrayed as bloodthirsty and tyrannical, traits that brought about their downfall. The Indians were outclassed on the battlefield, outmaneuvered diplomatically, and lured from their pagan ways with the more enlightened Christian religion, as evidenced by the mass baptisms that harvested upward of 10,000 new souls in a matter of hours (Motolinía estimated that he had performed over 400,000 baptisms over the years). Finally, the Indians proved to be "inefficient" as laborers—"so weak that they can only be employed in tasks requiring little endurance"—and had to be replaced with Negroes, "a race robust for labor." In other words, they didn't even make good slaves. Yet the native peoples had evolved an impressive variety of languages and cultures and levels of development, with two powerful and highly sophisticated empires standing atop
a landscape dotted with towns and villages of all sizes and
configurations. When the Spaniards first descended into the Valley of Mexico in 1519 they were awestruck. They had never witnessed anything even remotely similar."And when we saw
all those cities and villages built in the water," wrote Bernal Díaz,"and other great towns on dry land, and that straight and level causeway leading to Mexico [Tenochtitlan-Tlatelolco], we were astounded…. Indeed, some of our soldiers asked whether
it was not all a dream." By comparison, Madrid at that time
had fewer than 20,000 inhabitants. All of this intricate diversity began to unravel with the arrival of three Spanish ships, and events soon grew into a tragedy too great, and too horrific, to be grasped by the human imagination. The native peoples today have been reduced to ethnic minorities mired in chronic poverty. Most of them have taken refuge in or been pushed into remote regions, out of sight, where they lack the most basic social services. They are without political clout and are now being newly overrun by multinational oil and mining companies, soybean farmers, cattle ranchers, and loggers. It is, in effect,the Second Conquest. But there is some hope this time around. Indian organi- zations have sprung up to confront the outside threats and they
have begun to assert themselves in national politics in key
areas of Latin America. The age of extreme vulnerability to dis- ease has passed and, with the exception of a few of the more isolated tribes, epidemics are no longer a factor. Their increas- ing involvement in politics has had considerable impact in sev- eral countries, to the point where non-indigenous elites have sounded the alarm. The recent election of Evo Morales, an Aymara, to the presidency of Bolivia is one sign of a resurgence of indigenous self-confidence and determination. Certainly, huge economic, political, and economic obsta- cles still stand in their way. Although Indian peoples are mak- ing progress, the going is rough and they must still contend with the powerful prejudices and scurrilous stereotypes of Indians that have accumulated on Latin America's collective consciousness like barnacles on the underbelly of an old ship. These prejudices are ever-present in daily life, manifesting themselves in expressions such as "Don't behave like an Indian!" when someone behaves stupidly or obnoxiously. They are also laced throughout the seemingly innocuous his- tory books our children read in school. Just cast a glance around and you will see them, everywhere.
Visualizing Columbus Day
The traditional image of Columbus's discovery of the New World shows the Admiral stepping onto land with a flag in one hand and a sword in the other. He is surrounded by his fellow sailors, some of whom are carrying guns and swords. A friar strides next to Columbus holding a cross on high. The three Spanish caravels are behind them, bobbing in the sun-drenched Caribbean. Observing this triumphal scene are several diminu- tive, semi-naked Indians hiding in the bushes off to the side. I would like to suggest an alternative image, one that bet- ter represents what really occurred when the two halves of the world came together on the morning of October 12, 1492:
Four horsemen spur their steeds off the Spanish ships and make their way up the beach to high ground. The first horseman is Pestilence, and he is the most formidable of the lot. His com- panions are Famine, War, and Death. They pause briefly to sur- vey the landscape stretching out before them, then set off in the direction of the nearest community. The natives come out, ten- tatively at first, to greet them. They are healthy and well formed, and they invite the strangers to share their food and whatever else they might desire. And that was the beginning of their long and terrifying journey through the heartland of the New World…
Mac Chapin is an anthropologist who has worked with indigenous peoples in Latin America for over four decades. He is the co-founder and director of the Center for the Support of Native Lands, a non-profit organization based in Arlington, Virginia.
For more information about issues raised in this story, visit
w w. w o r l d w a t c h . o r g / w w / c o l u m b u s d a y .
General reading
Books for general audiences dealing with disease epidemics and population in the Americas in 1492 are Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond (1997, W.W. Norton & Co.); 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann (2005, Alfred A. Knopf); and Stolen Continents: The "New World" Through Indian Eyes by Ronald Wright (1992, Houghton Mifflin Co.).
Plagues and Peoples by William H. McNeill (1976, Anchor Press/Doubleday) deals with the role of disease epidemics in affecting the course of world history; and Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 by Alfred W. Crosby (Cambridge University Press, 1986) shows the biological basis for the spread of European colonialism, with a focus on the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand. An earlier book by Crosby, The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (originally published in 1972, second edition 2003, Praeger), is a classic and contains a revised version of his 1967 seminal article "Conquistador y Pestilencia: The First New World Pandemic and the Fall of the Great Indian Empires," which originally appeared in The Hispanic American Historical Review.
Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492–1650 by Noble David Cook (1998, Cambridge Univer- sity Press) is a comprehensive run-down of the various diseases that flourished in the Americas after European contact; and "Secret Judgments of God": Old World Disease in Colonial Spanish America, ed. by Noble David Cook and W. George Lovell (1992, University of Oklahoma Press) contains a useful selection of articles dealing with epidemics and their effects in colonial Latin America.
The Native Population of the Americas in 1492, edited by William M. Denevan (second edition 1992, University of Wisconsin Press), and Denevan's article "The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Ameri- cas in 1492" (1992, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 82:369-85) contain population estimates of the native peoples at the time of European contact. Numbers from Nowhere: The American Indian Contact Population Debate by David Henige (1998, University of Oklahoma Press) provides a detailed, and highly critical, assessment of attempts to estimate pre-Hispanic populations.
Endnote sources
Page 8
"He called the Admiral's landfall…."
"Message from President George Bush" in Christopher Columbus and the Great Voyage of Discovery, JoAnne B. Weisman and Kenneth M. Deitch (Lowell, Mass.: Discovery Enterprises, Ltd., 1990).
"'…the vanguard of the great European Advance…'"
Salvador de Madariaga, Hernán Cortés (1941) ), quoted in John A. Crow, The Epic of Latin America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), p. 82.
Maurice Collis, Cortés and Montezuma (London: Faber & Faber, 1954), p. 137.
Miguel Leon-Portilla, La Filosofia Nahuatl (Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1956), p.
were 'mentally deranged'
the same league with the Nazis
Page 9
"Then he went on to observe: '…how easy it would be to convert these people'…."
Samuel Eliot Morison, Christopher Columbus, Mariner (New York: New American Library, 1942), p.
"Here the narrative is transformed into a story that is… 'too startling for the probabilities demanded by fiction….'"
William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico (New York: Bantam Books, 1964 edition), p.
Page 10
"Beyond this, the Spaniards greatly outclassed the Indians with their superior military technology…."
Robert Ryal Miller, Mexico: A History (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985), p. 92.
Page 12
"Prescott informs us that the Mexica were doomed…."
'"Yet we cannot regret the fall of an empire,…"'
Prescott, p. 610.
"By contrast, his Mexica counterpart is portrayed as dim-witted, vacillating, cowardly, and effeminate, a pathetic figure…."
Prescott, p. 675.
"Even The Rough Guide to Mexico…."
As an additional example, a recent obituary for the anthropologist William T. Sanders, who specialized in early Mesoamerican civilizations, contains the following comment: "In part inspired by reading William H. Prescott's classic book History of the Conquest of Mexico, he earned his doctorate in anthropology from Harvard in 1957" (New York Times, July 16, 2008).
Pages 12 and 13
"The school textbooks they eventually produced…."
Enrique Krauze, La Presencia del Pasado (México: Tusquets Editores, 2005), pp. 86 and 87.
Page 13
"In the late nineteenth century, the educator and historian Justo Sierra…."
Quoted in María del Rosario Peludo Gómez, "Enemigos de la Patria y guerras inevitables: El discurso de la identidad nacional en México y España," Instituto Universitario de Inestigación Ortgega y Gasset, Biblioteca Virtual Española, 2006, p. 8.
"And in Breve Historia de México (1937)…."
The same year, respected Guatemalan historian and novelist Salomé Gil commented in Historia de la América Central: "When the Conquest of America took place Spain was perhaps the strongest and most advanced nation in the world. It brought to these countries a religion that was more pure and spiritual than the idolatry and animal worship that ruled in them, with the odious and barbaric practice of human sacrifice and cannibalism. It brought civil law that it had received from the most cultured and great nation of antiquity; a sonorous and harmonious language, a civilization, in short, that was a reflection of Greece and Rome" (Colección "Juan Chapín" Tomo I. Guatemala, Julio de 1937, p. 552).
"Similar arguments flowed from the pens of North America's historians…"
Hubert Herring declares in his A History of Latin America from the Beginnings to the Present that "Spain
did not introduce cruelty and war: exploitation was an old story to the Indians. Spain did not destroy human freedom: it had never been enjoyed by Maya, Aztec, Inca, or Chibcha [Colombian Indians]. Spain did not destroy ancient systems of noble moral standards: the Indians were masters of gluttony, drunkenness, sexual excesses, and refined torture. Spain brought changes to the Indian world, some for ill, some for good. It is possible that the Indians of Mexico and Peru had more to eat under Spanish rule, more protection against each other and against their masters, more security of life and happiness than they had had under Indian nobles and priests" (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961, p. 153).
In his enthusiastic introduction to a 1964 edition of Prescott's history of Mexico, Henry Bamford Parkes states: "…it can be agreed that the Spaniards brought to Mexico a higher civilization – higher in its technological development, its intellectual and aesthetic heritage, and its political and religious insti- tutions" (p. 10).
"In Central Mexico, writes John Edwin Fagg in Latin America: A General History…."
John Edwin Fagg, Latin America: A General History (New York: Macmillan, 1964), p. 131.
'"Within these Indian kingdoms and communities," writes Edwin Williamson….'
Edwin Williamson, Penguin History of Latin America (London: Penguin Books, 1992), p. 86.
'"The top of the pyramid had been lopped off," writes Marshall Eakin…."'
Marshall Eakin, The History of Latin America: Collision of Cultures (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), p. 74. Even Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa rolls up his sleeves and steps into the ring with an essay titled "Questions of Conquest," published in Harper's Magazine in 1990. He claims that pre- Hispanic Indian society in the Andes was "ant-like" and similar to a "beehive"; the masses had a follow- the-leader mentality and "lacked the ability to make their own decisions." With the Spanish victory, they "transferred automatically from the Incas to the new masters." (This essay ended up in a collection of the best essays of the year, compiled by Joyce Carol Oates: The Best American Essays 1991, New York:
Ticknor & Fields.)
"Prescott injects but one brief description of a '…terrible epidemic….'"
Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, p. 479.
"When the Spaniards enter Tenochtitlan…."
Ibid., p. 587.
"It is generally accepted today that 50–80 million people were living in the Americas in 1492…."
These figures have been, and still are, debated endlessly by scholars. William Denevan has taken an even hand in reviewing the conflicting estimates and has come up with this figure; see "The Pristine Myth:
The Landscape of the Americas in 1492," Annals of the Association of American Geographers (1992) 82:369-85; and The Native Population of the Americas in 1492, 2nd ed., Madison: University of Wiscon- sin Press. Also see David Henige Numbers from Nowhere: The American Indian Contact Population Debate (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press), 1998.
Page 14
"Community death tolls of 50 to 70 percent…." and "Soon after they came ashore they morphed into what epidemiologists call 'virgin soil epidemics'…."
See Readings, above.
'"And then came famine…."'
López de Gómara, quoted in Noble David Cook, Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492-1650, p. 67.
"After our fathers and grandfathers succumbed….'"
From Annals of the Cakchiquels, p. 16, quoted in Crosby 1967, p. 337.
Page 15
"If they had not made their appearance when they did, neither Cortés nor Pizarro would have prevailed…."
McNeill 1976, Crosby 1967.
"Hugh Thomas positions himself at the other extreme of the argument…."
Hugh Thomas, Conquest: Montezuma, Cortés, and the Fall of Old Mexico (New York: Simon and Schus- ter, 1993), pp. 741-2; Footnote 78.
"He concludes: 'The difference between the numbers of conquistadors and Mexica dead….'"
Ibid., pp. 528–9.
"A similar approach is evident…."
See, for example, J.H. Elliott, "The Spanish Conquest and Settlement of America" in The Cambridge History of Latin America, Vol. 1 (Colonial Latin America), ed. by Leslie Bethell (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 149–206; Inga Clendinnen, Aztecs: An Interpretation (Cambridge University Press, 1991), and "'Fierce and Unnatural Cruelty': Cortés and the Conquest of Mexico" in Representations 33 (1991), pp. 65–100; and Ross Hassig "The Collision of Two Worlds," in The Oxford History of Mexico, ed. by Michael C. Meyer & William H. Beezley (Oxford: Oxford Uni- versity Press, 2000), pp. 79–112.
'"The apparition of Antichrist was announced many times…."'
Philip Ziegler, The Black Death (Gloucestershire, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing Limited, 1991), p. 223.
Page 17
"Finally, the Indians proved to be 'inefficient' as laborers…."
Eric Williams, "Economics, Not Racism, as the Root of Slavery," in The Atlantic Slave Trade, ed. by David Northrup (Florence, KY: Wadsworth Publishing, 2001), p. 4. Williams was a prominent politician and histo- rian from Trinidad-Tobago.
'"And when we saw all those cities and villages built in the water…"'
Bernal Díaz del Castillo (translated and edited by J.M. Cohen), The Conquest of New Spain (New York:
Penguin Books, 1974), p. 214.


text:
Item #0159
50-70 days. Discovered by Sir Joseph Banks in New Zealand during the 1770 voyage of Captain James Cook, and enjoyed by 18th century gardeners, New Zealand is not true spinach, but a great way to have spinach flavor all summer. Also known as perpetual spinach, it loves the heat, and produces abundantly. Noted for high vitamin content, especially vitamin C; it was served on Captain Cook's ship to prevent scurvy. Small, young leaves can be eaten raw, or cooked. Bothered by almost no insects, even snails and slugs! Drought tolerant once established, but grows best with moderate moisture.
This packet sows five 9-foot rows.
Seedling Image
Days to Emerge:
Seed Depth:
Seed Spacing:
Row Spacing:
When to sow outside: RECOMMENDED. 1 to 2 weeks after average last frost and when soil temperature is at least 65°F.
When to start inside: 2 to 4 weeks before average last frost.
Harvesting: Cut 3" - 4" leaves from the branches as you need them. Do this on a continual basis to encourage more young, tender growth. Do not eat the larger leaves, the flowers, or the seed pods.
Artist: Toni Bond
Item #0159
4.00 grams
In early fall, it pays to keep an eye on nighttime temperatures so that you get your frost-sensitive crops harvested before the first frost.
Salads don't have to end with spring! A crisp, colorful salad may be the perfect dish on a hot summer's day, and some varieties of greens excel despite…More…

subset: commoncrawl


text:
- Multi-platinum band and its video production partner move from non-PC hardware to Dell Precision workstations with NVIDIA Quadro professional graphics for superb processing power and speed
- Technology enables "massive acceleration," allowing video team to render 3D scenes "in seconds instead of hours"
- "A Light That Never Comes" music video and making of video released today
|October 15, 2013 - When Linkin Park needed powerful technology to produce their latest music video, they turned to Dell. The multi-platinum rock band is premiering today "A Light That Never Comes" in collaboration with electro house DJ Steve Aoki, created using Dell Precision workstations with NVIDIA® Quadro® professional graphics processors. Known for such #1 rock songs as "Burn It Down," "The Catalyst," and "Numb," and equally recognized for their embrace of technology and innovation, the Grammy-winning band has won Best Rock Video three times at the annual MTV Video Music Awards and garnered multiple nominations for Best Visual Effects and Best Special Effects.
Seeking to create an ambitious 3D world for their latest music video, Linkin Park and longtime visual effects and design company Ghost Town Media switched from non-PC hardware to powerful Dell Precision workstations and NVIDIA Quadro graphics processing units (GPUs), designed to provide superior solutions for graphics-intensive professionals in fields from video editing to engineering. Ghost Town Media principal and creative director Brandon Parvini worked closely with Linkin Park member and video director Joe Hahn to bring Hahn's narrative-driven vision to life.
"Joe and I have worked together on many Linkin Park videos over the last few years, and we have a shorthand language that helps move things along. But for this project, we knew that we needed the right hardware and software to make it feasible," says Parvini. For "A Light That Never Comes," Hahn imagined navigating a cyberpunk CG landscape that captured the feeling of purgatory, a digital city where each Linkin Park member, and collaborator Steve Aoki, could be seen performing in their own separate districts as the song moves toward a transformative climax.
Ghost Town leveraged the most powerful high-end Dell Precision T5610 and T7610 tower workstations which now feature new NVIDIA Quadro K6000 GPU and can be paired with 30" and 24" Dell UltraSharp monitors. They also used Dell's M6800 mobile workstation with the NVIDIA Quadro K5100M, the most powerful GPU ever built for mobile systems. Both tower and mobile workstations were supplemented by Microsoft Xbox Kinect for live 3D capture, and the GPU-accelerated Maxon Cinema 4D software for modeling, animation and rendering.
"With a CG-heavy project like this, we needed strong processing power and speed," explains Parvini. Dell Precision workstations with NVIDIA GPUs "take the graphics load off the core CPU" and provide "massive acceleration" that facilitates lightning-fast rendering, allowing complex 3D scenes to be rendered "in seconds instead of hours."
While Ghost Town Media has traditionally used non-workstation class hardware, says Parvini, as the company has gotten into heavier 3D effects they have found "a lot more horsepower" in GPU-accelerated platforms like Dell workstations with NVIDIA Quadro GPUs. "We're a small company and need extreme efficiency to hit project deadlines. Dell helps us save a lot of time, not to mention money; otherwise, we'd probably need to outsource complex renderings to international vendors."
"Ghost Town and I have had a great creative partnership through the years. We have been able to come up with elegant creative solutions on the cusp of the digital graphics frontier that is constantly changing. Dell and NVIDIA have armed us with more firepower to create at a much higher rate," said Joe Hahn, Linkin Park. "Often times, rendering shots are like watching paint dry but Dell workstations have enabled us to work at a faster pace and give us wings to be much more creative."
The making-of video, with a behind the scenes glimpse at the technology and workflow used to create the video, is available exclusively on www.dell.com/linkinpark. To view the full music video, check out the 48-hour exclusive on http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2013/10/15/new-linkin-park-music-video-premiere/2987271/ and www.youtube.com/linkinparktv after October 17.
Additional Quotes
"Linkin Park and Ghost Town Media created a new ground-breaking pipeline and workflow for 3D model creation for 'A Light That Never Comes' music video," said Andy Rhodes, executive director, Dell Precision Workstations. "With the unmatched power and reliability of Dell Precision workstations and NVIDIA graphics, Linkin Park can achieve detailed 3D modeling, render times and creativity that were previously not possible."
"We designed the Quadro K6000 to give artists and designers unprecedented power and flexibility to tackle even the most demanding graphics projects using the new Dell Precision workstations," said Sandeep Gupte, senior director of product marketing for the Quadro Professional Graphics Business Unit at NVIDIA. "The innovative work by Linkin Park and Ghost Town Media shows what can be accomplished when technology helps unleash new creative possibilities."
About Dell
Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) listens to customers and delivers innovative technology and services that give them the power to do more. For more information, visit www.dell.com.
Dell World
Join us at Dell World 2013, Dell's premier customer event exploring how technology solutions and services are driving business innovation. Learn more at www.dellworld.com and follow # DellWorld on Twitter.
For more information on why video pros are switching to Dell Precision media and entertainment solutions, visit www.dell.com/linkinpark
Related Articles
- Dell Delivers Most Powerful Workstations Enabling Professionals to Design Faster Than Ever
- Pixomondo Brings "Game of Thrones" to Life and Pays Homage to "Star Trek" Franchise with Complete Dell Solution
- Award-winning Animation Studio Blue Zoo Turns to Dell to Ramp Up Rendering for New TV Series and Move into Feature Films


text: Eli's Cheesecake is happy to celebrate its 32nd birthday, as well as the 32nd annual Taste of Chicago, and the 175th birthday of the city of Chicago. We will have a surprise celebrity guest to help with the cake cutting and a visit from the Eli's Slice. Join us on Wednesday, July 11 at 11am at Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park for the celebration!


text:
Today we let Katie and Tristan sleep in a bit before we got them up to head to Seßlach, a walled city nearby. We told them it would be like a real life Carcassone and it did not disappoint. We parked outside the city walls and entered through a pedestrian portal near the church.
After admiring the inside of the church we made our way down a street to another pedestrian gate on the other side of town right next to the town brewery. After running in and out of the tiny portal a few times we turned and went down the alley to the main town square. While some of us poked around admiring the fountain and the signs on the shops, Stefan and Opa visited the metzgerei to get some schinken for a picnic lunch.
In the meantime some of us had walked down the street and discovered the main gate into town. Tristan really wanted to go up in the guard tower so I explored a bit down the path and found an open door. I called him and we went up together and shouted down to the others from the stairs above the street. As everyone else joined us we just kept climbing higher until we reached the top level where we could look out the windows and arrow slits. We saw a pigeon and a few pigeon eggs outside.
I suggested that we get a group shot on the guard tower stairs for Nana and Opa's holiday card but Opa reminded us it was approaching noon and the backerei would be closing so we walked back up the street, past the square, and turned right to reach the bakery. We got some rolls and also some desserts for our picnic. We decided we would eat on a bench outside the main gate and then do a group shot on the tower stairs so we headed back that way stopping at a blumen shop to pick up some fresh fruit. Tristan and I were laughing that we had visited the butcher and the baker, we just needed to find a candlestick maker.
Outside the gate we actually found a picnic table and had our lunch. After lunch we did get our group shot despite a man trying to park right in the middle of it. Opa decided to take a bag back to the car while we continued to the other main gate. We went up the guard tower however and Opa went out the gate to see the cemetery. Katie and Tristan stood in a window shouting Opa at the top of their lungs out an arrow slit where they could see him. This proved ineffective though so we caught up with him back in the street. After a quick spin on some playground equipment we piled back in the car.
The next stops on our agenda were two churches near Lichtenfels. First we visited Vierzehnheiligen and then we visited Kloster Banz where we also had cake and cappuccino. After the chuches we drove around Lichtenfels before going to dinner at the Staffelberg Bräu before returning to our apartments for the night.


text:
Lightning rod Washington housewife Michaele Salahi — she of did-she-or-didn't-she White House gate-crashing fame — appeared on TODAY's fourth hour Thursday, where she detailed the tongue-lashing she received from Whoopi Goldberg on "The View" Wednesday. But as she talked to Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb, she was dealt another smackdown from her own reality-TV costars.
Salahi — who along with her husband, Tareq, made national headlines last November for allegedly crashing President Obama's first state dinner (they said they were invited; the White House begged to differ, and feds even investigated charging the couple) — stars with four other D.C. doyennes on "The Real Housewives of Washington, D.C.," and the quintet had appeared on "The View" Wednesday to promote the reality series' Thursday night debut.
Drama quickly ensued on "The View." While Salahi bickered on-camera with fellow D.C. Housewife Lynda Erkiletian about a drink-throwing incident caught on tape for the reality show, "The View" host Whoopi — who wasn't part of segment — walked into camera range. She touched Salahi's arm, and according to a "View" spokesman, told Salahi to get back on track and talk about the White House gate-crashing incident.
U.S. & World
What happened backstage?
What happened next is a topic of debate. The spokesman said Salahi accused Goldberg of striking her. Salahi said she did no such thing, but was nonetheless subjected to an expletive-laced tirade from Goldberg when the cameras stopped rolling.
"I was in the back, and Whoopi came into the room and said, 'Eff this, eff that, did you say I effing hit you?' " Salahi told Kotb and Gifford. "I said, 'Bring me the person, Whoopi, I never said you hit me.' I started crying because now I have someone that I don't even know, I'm a guest on her show, and they're berating me with 'Eff this.' "
Salahi continued: "At the end, [Goldberg] said, 'You have to know me, I just say eff this, I don't mean it. I just say eff you, but I didn't mean that. You understand that.'
[But] I don't know her personality," Salahi added. "I know her from the movie 'Sister Act,' so I don't expect that sister to be saying 'Eff you.' "
As Salahi gave her account of the "View"-haha and then once again detailed the gate-crashing incident, her fellow D.C. Housewives were becoming visibly unhappy that a group interview was turning into a solo act.
Housewife Mary Schmidt Amons finally shook her head and said, "We're tired of still hearing this and talking about it. This is a show about five people, not one couple. We're just so finished with it. We're so disappointed with it."
Housewife hubbub
At that point, the gloves were off: Several other Housewives began attacking Salahi.
Catherine Ommanney, for one, said working with Salahi was less than enjoyable. "We don't have much in common, to say the least, and to be associated with her, and have to be around her husband…."
But the most damning put-down came from Erkiletian, who says she's been friends with Salahi for 15 years. She said she now sees her in a different light.
"I did have what I felt was a trusting, loyal friendship, and I feel that like, [in] many cases, [the Salahis] have misrepresented themselves," Erkiletian told Kotb and Gifford. "They make things up as they go along; they live a phony, fake Bonnie-and-Clyde life."
Erkiletian also said her charity work has been undermined by the Salahis, whom she accused of profiting in the name of charitable causes. "You see people running wild saying it's for a charity, and it goes into their pocket," she said.
Gifford asked Erkiletian if she was actually accusing the Salahis of impropriety. "Oh, absolutely," she responded. "I'm not the only one. The Washington Post has like 15 articles about it."
The discussion then devolved into a free-for-all, with Salahi saying, "You're so angry and jealous." Kotb and Gifford seemed amused when D.C. Housewife Stacie Scott Turner made a plug for the show's relative refinement.
"What's so interesting about the show is that we think it's a little bit more sophisticated than some of the other [Housewife reality shows] have been," Turner said. "You won't see hair pulling, weave pulling."
Gifford quipped, "I don't know, we may see that soon."
Still, to be sure, the story of Tareq and Michaele Salahi's White House adventure continues to dog the couple 10 months after the fact. Salahi claims "The View" producers were told not to refer to Salahi as a "gate crasher" during her appearance Wednesday — but show panelists Sherri Shepherd and Joy Behar still employed the term. And Salahi also claimed that when Shepherd told Salahi "You should be in jail" on air, the "applause" sign lit up for the audience.
She said, she said
Salahi told Kotb and Gifford Thursday that she couldn't understand why Goldberg came on camera to tell her to talk about the White House to begin with, since she wasn't the one directing the conversation.
The "View" spokesman said Salahi indeed did accuse Goldberg of striking her, and said the accusation was "completely unfounded and erroneous."
"After the show and after being told she was being accused of hitting Ms. Salahi, Whoopi then proceeded to defend herself verbally from this baseless claim in a heated exchange with the Salahis," the spokesman's statement read.
Salahi's attorney, Lisa Bloom, issued a counter-statement, saying, "Mrs. Salahi's overall experience on 'The View' was degrading and demeaning."
As for Goldberg, on "The View" Friday she displayed no remorse for her run-in with Michaele Salahi — and claimed husband Tareq helped fan the flames backstage.
"Michaele was very upset about what I did. I told her that she knew I didn't hit her. And yeah, you know how I said it: choice words," Goldberg told viewers.
"And I make no apology for my choice words," Goldberg added, referring to her profanity. "Her husband got in my face, had his BlackBerry out and started taking pictures of me. There was even more, choicer words — you could have cut 'em with a steak knife."


text:
Here's oneHere's anotherprices are steep though...FYI: BBTS has change the expected arrival to May.
6090 Yen = about $50.95 US. Based on the auction I posted above, shipping on that one was $17. US.
Quote from: jedijaybird on May 2, 2007, 12:27 PMHere's oneHere's anotherprices are steep though...FYI: BBTS has change the expected arrival to May.Holy crap on a stick, pricey indeed. Sure hope BBTS comes through.
Sure hope BBTS comes through.
Quote from: DSJ on May 2, 2007, 10:11 PM Sure hope BBTS comes through. I'm still trying to figure the BBTS thing out. I have so many questions about it...If Japan retail was around $51 and then they have to pay to ship them to the USA from Japan, how are they making any money at $60? It doesn't make sense for them to sell them at basically their cost like that. There is no way that they could have ordered them directly through Medicom any cheaper, that is something that has never happened before and it would be a huge violation of Medicom's agreement with LFL if Medicom sold to a USA merchant directly... I just don't get it I guess.
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text:
Questions and Answers About Orientation Week
Where do I have to go and when?
The first event you have to attend is the welcome by our rector. This is held by subject on Tuesday. You can look at the Bachelor's Orientation Events to see when exactly you have to go somewhere.
What happens the whole week?
During Orientation Week the older students explain the most fundamental parts of your studies. On the first couple days you have welcome events and an introduction to your subject. A rally is held on Friday, during which you and your group can discover the city and university together while solving problems. The last days are reserved for tours of the institutes and a technical project day. Your student representative council will provide you with more exact details about the week but you can find a rough overview here.
What happens on October 3 with the national holiday?
On German Unity Day, the University is actually supposed to be closed. Your representative council has however organized some events for you, which you can see in the weekly schedule for your particular course of study.
I can't come one day. What do I do?
Please tell your student representative council. They can tell you what you should do so that you get the most out of the week. Here you can find an overview of the student representative councils.
My subject is not in the subject overview.
In this case, please contact us so that we can help you find your student representative council. You can reach us via email at firstname.lastname@example.com.
I have questions about the exact schedule for the week.
Contact your student representative council. The people there plan the week's details and can help you. Here you can find an overview of the student representative councils.
What do I need to bring the first day?
The most important things to bring are time and a good mood. An umbrella in Aachen is never a bad idea, you should also bring some water.
Can I or should I bring my parents?
Please don't. The lecture halls have limited capacity and have just enough room for the number of new students.
I've heard the week is basically all alcohol and parties.
This is a common misconception, which is actually not true. The majority of the week is made up of orientations, welcome events, and learning about your studies. A bar, or café, or party is often visited in the evening to round out the day. However, this is not mandatory and no one is forced to go to a party or drink alcohol. Glass bottles are not permitted on RWTH grounds.
I don't drink alcohol due to my religion or personal convictions. Is that a problem?
No, not at all. Alcohol is not an explicit part of the orientation week. Regardless of alcohol, please make note that glass bottles are not permitted.
Glass bottles aren't permitted? Why not?
RWTH does not have its own campus but rather is very integrated into the town center. When thousands of first-year students explore the city during the rally, bottles inevitably fall on the ground now and then. Glass bottles break and leave shards. Schools with holiday camps and cobblestones are located near the rally. By banning glass bottles, we avoid having shards everywhere.
How much time should I reserve for the Orientation Week?
We recommend that you assume the Orientation Week will last all day each day. On the first day your student representative council and older students will tell you the exact details of what you are doing when during the week.
I'm a first-year Master's student. Is there an Orientation Week for me too?
That depends on your student representative council and your faculty. You may find your course of study in this list. If not, please try contacting your student representative council.
I am enrolled. What do I do till Orientation Week?
Although not mandatory, we do recommend the bridge courses. Focus is not only on the fundamentals of certain subjects but also on social components – meaning you can already meet your fellow students here.
I have a disability. Is the week handicap accessible?
Please contact your student representative council. A large part of RWTH's grounds is handicap accessible and your student representative council can ensure in advance that you are in a group that will avoid non-handicap accessible spaces. Here you can find further information and contacts.
What do I need to do before Orientation Week?
You need to transfer your semester fee and upload a photo for your BlueCard, the student ID, to RWTH SelfService before coming to orientation. You will only be sent your Semester Ticket, which allows you to ride all the busses and trains in NRW, once the University has received your payment for the semester fee.
How do I get my student ID?
You will receive the BlueCard, which is the student ID at RWTH, after you have transfered the semester fee and uploaded a photo to RWTH SelfService. You will receive an email notifying you when you can pick up the card. We have a separate FAQ page on this topic, which can help you further.
I have a BlueCard without a chip – how is that going to work at the dining halls?
Student Services have changed over to a chip card payment system at most dining halls some time ago. If you have ordered a BlueCard without a chip, you can get a Student Guest Card and pay with it. You can find further details about that here.
How do I create my RWTH email address?
You can find a detailed description on registering for RWTH's online services here.


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Hello Everyone,
I just started java programming and I 'm having some road block in doing a simple multi-dimensional array. I want to build an array with five names two females and the rest male. I want to be able to print names with their gender in one column numbered 1 thru. 5.
Any help on this or any examples?


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Social Media Update : Boomers, YouTube, Mobile vs. desktop, Millennials and more
The social media field is about to heat up with the approach of Valentine's Day, and a ton of spring events and activities. If we can get people to stop the fake news and click bait of the elections, and concentrate on what's hot for marketing, the graphic designers could go to work.
- The Importance of Social Media in Experiential Marketing Campaigns
- From Millennials to Boomers: Connecting with Members at Every Age
- Lunch Bot, Anyone? How Brands Can Use Chatbots in Advertising
- Publishers are missing the jump from desktop to mobile
- 30 Killer Tips to Become a Master Social Media Manager
- The Key to Social Media? Think Like a Publisher
- Mobile vs. desktop in the world of Millennials
- YouTube Statistics will blow you away


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Important: This post earlier goes hand in hand with Abigail's story, must read both if you haven't yet: (In)validity and (in)admissibility of out-of-state documents and affidavits: the CPLR 3212/2309(c) – RPL 299-a 'Bermuda triangle'
Abigail C. Field-
At Naked Capitalism Michael Olenick detailed how easy it is to spot the industrialization of document creation and execution–really, evidence manufacture–by looking at where people signing the documents are. Based on his analysis of Palm Beach County records, there's factory floors in:
"35 different states, and 101 different counties…
"…California overall notarized 815 Florida assignments, 32.6% of the total. Florida, which you'd expect, came next with 610 assignments, or 24.4% of the total, followed by Minnesota (9.3%), Texas (7.3%), Ohio (4.8%), Georgia (4.5%), Louisiana (2.8%), and Nebraska (2.6%). All other states had less than 2%.
Banks and their vendors like LPS run these knock-off document factories, producing documents that are just like those cheap purses with fake luxury labels sold in Chinatown. That is, the documents look right but couldn't be more false.


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After years of slow progress, the Republic of Korea is eager for a breakthrough in development of the country's wind resource. Wind capacity reached 233 MW last year, but the aim is to increase that by more than a third in 2009, according to government sources. Some call the target overly ambitious. The government, however, appears bent on convincing sceptics, having announced a plan to boost the proportion of renewables in the total energy mix to 4.3% in 2015, 6.1% in 2020 and 15% in 2030, compared to 2.4% in 2007.
One-third of the KRW 111.5 trillion ($74 billion) cost of the initiative through 2030 will be paid by the state, with the rest is to come from private investors. The government is also promising to set a 2012 target and by then introduce a renewables investment fund and amendments to any regulations hindering renewable energy growth.
The determination to create a domestic market can only aid Korea's budding wind turbine and turbine component manufacturers as they continue to penetrate the global wind sector. In December, contracting and engineering firm Doosan claimed to be the first company in Asia to be developing a 3 MW offshore wind turbine and in January industrial machinery manufacturer Unison erected a prototype 2 MW onshore turbine for testing throughout 2009. The company, which already markets a 750 kW wind turbine internationally, is in negotiation with potential customers for the new turbine, according to Unison's Hyunjin Kim.
The Korean wind market is already supported by a fixed power purchase price of KRW 107.29/kWh ($0.072/kWh) that decreases annually by 2%. Other support includes generous help with installation costs; low interest loans for manufacture and purchase of wind power plant, which companies have five years to start paying back over a ten year repayment period; and a corporate tax exemption of 20% of the cost of an installed wind farm, according to quasi-governmental agency Korea Energy Management Corp.
Last year, market prices for electricity were so high in Korea that Gangwon Wind Power (GWP), the operator of the country's largest wind farm, a 98 MW installation in Gangwon province, shunned the fixed power price on offer and chose to sell its electricity directly through the electricity exchange, says Woonki Sung of American firm Darby Overseas Investments, which has acquired a 32.4% ownership stake in GWP. At the same time, 2008 was an excellent wind year. "We anticipated net income of the company to be about KRW 6 billion ($4 million), but the actual net income of the company for 2008 came to KRW 12.9 billion ($8.6 million)," states Sung.
Other companies are also betting on Gangwon province: in November, Japan's Eurus Energy Group and Korean engineering and construction corporation Posco inaugurated the 40 MW Taegisan Wind Farm, using 20 Vestas 2 MW turbines.


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STUFF4 Case/Cover for Huawei P9 Plus/Flower Fields/Floral Garden Flowers I51F63EIQ
- - Product Code: I51F63EIQ
- - Availability: In Stock
This pack includes: 1 x Protective Case carrying the Flower Fields design from the Floral Garden Flowers collection. Protect your Huawei P9 Plus with these designer hard back cases. Made from toughened polycarbonate plastic, they will protect your phone from bumps and scratches and keep it in pristine condition. These cases come with the Flower Fields design printed directly into the back surface to bring life and style to any smartphone. These designs were carefully crafted here in the UK by our in-house team of specialist designers and they are transferred directly on the cases using the very latest in case decoration technology. Image Representation: Please note that all images used are for illustrative purposes only and may not always be a perfect representation of the product being purchased. We do always try to portray the best possible likeness but areas such as the colour and design positioning may vary slightly. Images by Awaken Images
STUFF4 Case/Cover for Huawei P9 Plus/Flower Fields/Floral Garden Flowers I51F63EIQ


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Celtic now know they will face Cliftonville of Belfast in the first Champions League match of the new season, but manager Neil Lennon is still unsure just who will be in his squad.
The Parkhead boss has added Dutch under-21 defender Virgil van Dijk to his playing staff as the Celtic stars return to work and pre-season training.
But key midfielder Victor Wanyama is now all but certain to leave the Scottish champions, with Cardiff now in the hot seat to sign him despite Celtic agreeing a near $20 million deal with Premier League Southampton.
Wanyama's agents reportedly began talks with Southampton on Tuesday as Celtic awaited bids from the likes of Everton, Cardiff City and Arsenal.
But his agents denied the reports and insisted they were awaiting permission to talk to Cardiff as Southampton's offer wasn't acceptable to the player.
"We are not in talks with Southampton and have not been since their final offer of terms, which was more than two weeks ago," his agent Ivan Modia told Sky Sports.
"The news of the fee being agreed may just be coming out now but we see little sense in a fee being agreed if there is no reasonable prospect of the player's terms being met.
"To suggest we are talking with Southampton is totally false, their offer was way below Victor's expectations. There is no chance of him signing the deal on offer and, in fact, both Celtic and Southampton were informed of this some time ago.
"The player will not be forced into a corner to accept the Southampton deal, just because it is good for Celtic. Remember, he has been with the club for two years now -- without a pay rise -- and has given them wonderful service ever since he arrived.
"Added to this is the fact that by Celtic refusing him permission to join Queens Park Rangers last summer, Victor lost more than £1m in potential salary earnings, yet he just kept his mouth shut and continued to be a model professional."
Modia confirmed interest in Wanyama from other clubs and said, "We know there is interest from elsewhere and Victor is obviously open to those prospects. He is currently back in Kenya and hopes that Celtic will adopt a more reasonable approach and take into account the service that he has given the club so far and the rest of these issues.
"Nobody at Celtic can question his attitude and he is hopeful he can leave on good terms with the club. He loves the club and its fans, he's played his heart out for the jersey but he didn't quite expect that it may end like this."
The 21-year-old has spent just two seasons in Glasgow after his move from Belgian side Beerschot for just over $1 million in 2011.
One player definitely available to Lennon for the new season is the young Dutch defender van Dijk who has signed from FC Groningen in a deal worth up to $4 million.
A statement from Celtic read: "Celtic are delighted to announce that defender Virgil van Dijk has joined the club from FC Groningen.
"The Dutch Under-21 international has signed a four-year deal with the Scottish champions, and he becomes the latest player to join Neil Lennon's squad during the close season following the arrival of striker Amido Balde from Portuguese side, Vitoria Guimaraes."
Rated as one of the best young players in Holland, van Dijk added, "I'm a strong defender and I'm good in the air, but I also like to play football on the ground, and I hope that we'll do even better than we did last season."


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Suddenly, energy regulator Ofgem has opened up a debate on a possible return to competitive bidding for renewable energy contracts (see page 34), similar to the discredited Non-Fossil Fuel Obligation that operated in the UK until the last decade. This system awarded contracts to the lowest bids to reduce the cost of renewables, but it neither sparked the construction of significant volumes of capacity nor helped create a substantial domestic manufacturing industry. Now Ofgem raises the prospect of a single energy purchaser who would contract for electricity from generators and sell it to retailers, which risks upsetting the current competitive market.
Is the market regulator seriously suggesting that two decades of market liberalisation be reversed? Of course not. But these suggestions in its Project Discovery discussion document are designed to shock the government and electricity sector into swallowing the medicine, unpalatable to some, that is needed to keep the lights on beyond 2015.
Project Discovery is the regulator's year-long study to find out whether the current market is able to continue delivering secure energy supplies over the next 10-15 years. Ofgem is nervous. It says that a staggering £200 billion of investment is needed in UK electricity and gas to avert the prospect of power cuts. This will cause customers' electricity bills to rise by 20%. One thing is clear: the current market rules which it imposed on the sector ten years ago to reward predictable generation and drive down prices are inadequate. They will not deliver that level of investment - and they have certainly never done variable sources of power, such as wind, any favours. That Ofgem now admits state intervention is needed to support the UK's green agenda and maintain security of supply is akin to a Road to Damascus conversion - albeit one that is long overdue. A significant sign of a change of heart towards renewables came in October's first Project Discovery consultation, which found that without hefty investment in renewables, electricity prices could rise by up to 60%. Given the regulator's dire warnings over the years of the cost implications of renewables deployment, it is a welcome about turn.
Another change is the UK regulator's apparent willingness to learn from its European neighbours, who have already designed markets to integrate large quantities of variable renewables. One example is Spain, whose system of centralised dispatch of renewables was set up to deal with the country's high penetration of wind - which, at times, supplies over 40% of total electricity. Spain shows that wind can participate fully in wholesale markets - and what can be achieved if the system operator is allowed to control and monitor wind generation on the system.
Whatever market is fashioned in the UK, the object is to provide a stable framework for investment. The change is expected to be significant. Yet the last time the UK introduced wholesale change of the electricity market - in 2001 - the trading arrangements took more than three years to plan and execute. With £200 billion of investors' money needed, will the prospect of a stable market to come compensate for another three-plus years of uncertainty?
Janice Massy is Windpower Monthly's UK & Ireland correspondent.


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Teen health relates to all the health issues confronting young people, which may be negotiating safer sex and choice making about tobacco, alcohol and illicit drug use. This is the forum for discussing anything related to this issue
Use this control to limit the display of threads to those newer than the specified time frame.
Allows you to choose the data by which the thread list will be sorted.
Order threads in...
Note: when sorting by date, 'descending order' will show the newest results first.
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Dubai, Dubai Marina, Escan Tower
No Commission applies on this rate !!
All charges and Fees are included in the rate !!!
Daily: 467 AED
Weekly: 3201 AED
Monthly: 10000 AED
*Fixed price for long stay can be provided upon request.
For Inquiries: Call or Message 0504958400 (Ashad)
This 2 Bedroom is located on 18th floor Escan Tower, Dubai Marina.
The apartment is Fully furnished and ready to move in, size is 1338.40 sq.ft. and it got with new double bed and a Living room with sofa where we take care to bring you all the comfort.
We also provide: washing machine, fully equipped kitchen with cooker, cutlery & crockery and kettle, television, free high-speed internet wireless, bed linen and towels.
The 2 Bedroom is comfortable and perfect choice for 2 or 4 people. Our facilities are swimming pool, gym, Central A/C & Heating, security. Also, the beach is reachable by car or metro.
Pets are not allowed.
Smoking is not allowed.
Please, note: Passport /ID copy must be provided upon check in.
Standard check-in will be 2 pm
Standard check-out will be 12 pm.
Enjoy your stay!
Minimum Stay: 7 Days
Bathrooms: 2
Bedrooms: 2
Price per night: 467 AED
Check-in Hour: After 14:00
Cancellation: Cancel up to 24 hours in advance.
Check-out Hour: Before 12:00
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Hello everyone!
Currently Karen who is the creator of Sweet Sunday Sketches is have a DT call on her blog. I thought I would have a go, you never know unless you try right?
So here is this weeks sketch
and here is my submission
I decided to have a play with the My Friend stamp set accompanied by Always Elegant. I did some second stage stamping with the main image of flowers and leaves. I also did quite a bit of sponging to make some of the panels 'pop'. The little vintage brad was dipped in white Staz-On to change the colour a little.
I hope you all like my card,


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- Kids' Club
- WiFi
- Car park
- Air conditioning
- Spa
- Accessible
- Family
- Gym
Choose your room
With a stay at Hotel Santos Val De Neu in Naut Aran (Baqueira-Beret), you'll be convenient to Baqueira Beret Ski Resort. This 5-star hotel is within the region of Valle de Aran Museum and Vielha Ice Palace. Pamper yourself with a visit to the spa, which offers massages, body treatments, and facials. A spa tub and a sauna offer a relaxing way to wind down after a day on the slopes. Additional amenities include complimentary wireless Internet access, babysitting/childcare (surcharge), and ski storage. Featured amenities include complimentary high-speed (wired) Internet access, a 24-hour front desk, and an elevator (lift). A roundtrip airport shuttle is provided for a surcharge (available on request), and self parking (subject to charges) is available onsite. Make yourself at home in one of the 120 guestrooms featuring minibars. Complimentary wired and wireless Internet access keeps you connected, and satellite programming provides entertainment. Conveniences include phones and safes, and you can also request cribs/infant beds (complimentary).
Useful information:Tourism Registration Number: HVA000822
Other names for Hotel Val De Neu:
Val De Neu G L


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I note that Elizabeth Moon is completely omitted from your lists. Not surprising I suppose as her "space operas" don't appeal much to me either. While I find them comparable to say, Andre Norton, they are nothing to "write home about" as they say. Still, there are 3 books that (admittedly in my opinion) rise almost to the level of stand-out literature.
As you can probably deduce from my screen name, I've long been fascinated by the paladin character. On the whole you almost had to go into historical works to find good and straight treatment of the paladin. Galahad, Roland, these you can find. Lancelot the flawed and fallen paladin is the more frequent model used by modern writers. Interestingly Michael Moorecock makes a connection with these and others at least obliquely in his "Eternal Champion Cycle". There is what looks like an attempt at an almost direct connection between Elric and Roland.
Most often today the parody is the chosen approach to the paladin. The idea of a champion dedicated to good (or dare I say it, God. Especially the "Christian" God.) is not so much "in favor" at the present time. Tolkien wasn't worried about that of course. Aragorn, Frodo, and especially Sam are arguably models of the paladin. C. S. Lewis's Ransom , while a not so subtle Christ figure is also a paladin. Today however in the hands of writers such as Mercedes Lackey the paladin is more often treated as a buffoon than a character to be handled seriously.
Enter Elizabeth Moon and "Paksenarrion". While I'm sure there are those who will totally disagree with me, I find this trilogy (The Sheep Farmer's Daughter" , Divided Allegiance, and Oath of Gold ) one of the best works of high fantasy (or simply fiction for that matter) post Tolkien. If you haven't read it, try it. While the second in the set is slightly flawed compared to the first and third (the subject matter it deals with is heavier and thus requires more a critical look) It is still well above the norm. This is (I believe) quite simply the best handling of a very difficult character I've read in modern literature.
That of course always causes me to wonder what happened in most of her other works. I suppose it could simply be that they are aimed at a younger audience and therefore far simpler. A lot of authors write what I used to call "rent books". It seemed maybe the rent was due and they needed some income. A rather pompous thing for me to say if you think about it as I haven't been published (yet I hope).
So, that's my take on Elizabeth Moon. She wrote one of my favorite books (The trilogy here being considered one book. There are several single volume editions) and some of the ones I've found most forgettable. I hope that the magic of Paksenarrion will reappear, but even if it doesn't I still have the first "epic".


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Nature Drawing - Fractal Series - 13 Guanacaste, Costa Rica
11.0" x 8.5"
Nature Drawing - Fractal Series - 1 Guanacaste, Costa Rica
Mixed Media
Photograph on Paper - When walking on the beaches.. Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, and Cost Rica, there are certain times of day, ebb and flow, sediment viscosity, conditions for Nature to create beautiful but temporary drawings. The patterns I have photographed are fractals in nature that repeat on the beach, on the river deltas, on the mountain ranges, all over our earth and on other planets that have ever had running water. A fractal is a natural phenomenon or a mathematical set that exhibits a repeating pattern that displays at every scale. It is also known as expanding symmetry or evolving symmetry. If the replication is exactly the same at every scale, it is called a self-similar pattern.


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In this book, Martin Gardner, best known for his columns on recreational maths in Scientific American and the many books collecting this material, surveys a wide range of mathematical magic. Many of the tricks described require little or no dexterity and nothing except readily available props, such as cards or dice, and so are suitable for the beginner.
This is the story of Sarah Flannery, who at age 16 won the titles of 1999 Irish Young Scientist of the Year and European Young Scientist of the Year for her innovative work on cryptography. Written by Sarah with her father David, who taught her mathematics from a young age and encouraged her mathematical flights, the book is an engaging mix of mathematical exposition - always clear and rigorous but never dull - and first-person descriptions of the storm that erupted when the world media latched onto her story. Easily written in a friendly style, you could imagine that this is the adventure of someone you know.
"Math Chat" began as a live phone-in TV show in the USA, spawned a newspaper column and a website, and now it has produced a book. The whole project was the brainchild of Williams' College mathematician Frank Morgan and has both stimulated interest in maths across a broad range of the community and led to the formation of highly successful undergraduate research groups in mathematics.
Computers can do many things, but there are some things they can't do. They certainly can't play tennis or the violin, but those aren't the kinds of thing we're concerned with. There are computational questions, questions of the kind that we would naturally turn to a computer to help us with, that, in fact, they cannot answer (and nor, therefore, can we).
"The pleasure and interest of being a scientist need not be confined to those gifted people who have the ability to pursue the highly specialised studies which are necessary for those who would reach the main frontiers of scientific advance." G. I. Taylor, one of the great physicists of the twentieth century, among the last masters of both theory and experiment.
This is one of the world's outstanding pedagogic texts. It has the rare distinction of being a mathematics book that has sold a million copies. The COMAP project is a coalition of leading mathematicians and educators, directed by Solomon Garfunkel, who over a period of twelve years and five ever-expanding editions have created a beautiful introduction to the practical applications of some of the most important areas of discrete mathematics.
John Haigh takes the above quote as the epigraph for "Taking Chances", and makes his own significant contribution to scientific literacy. He concerns himself with "games of chance" in the broadest sense, from the National Lottery, quiz shows, casino games and card, dice and coin games, through game-theoretic "games" such as military conflicts, to all types of sports.
Avid readers of popular books on the laws of nature are tolerably familiar with a number of facts. They know that electricity, magnetism and the weak force between elementary particles have been unified, that Einstein's theory of special relativity arose from an attempt to reconcile Newtonian mechanics with the laws of electromagmetism, and that his later theory of general relativity had something to do with the structure of spacetime.