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Thursday, September 23, 2010
Is This The Flatwoods Monster?
There can be few very people within the realms of cryptozoology and ufology that have never heard of the so-called Flatwoods Monster, or Braxton County Monster, of 1952 - a story that is told in-depth in Frank Feschino's 2004 book, The Braxton County Monster: the Cover-Up of the Flatwoods Monster Revealed.
And as Feschino notes in his book: "On the night of September 12, 1952, a shocked American public sought answers when strange unidentified objects were seen flying through the sky over Washington, DC, and the eastern United States..."
He continued: "One of the strange objects crash-landed on a rural hilltop in Flatwoods, West Virginia..." Feschino also noted that a group of schoolboys were witness to the descent of the device and, with two adults, "...headed off to look for the object. Soon a twelve-foot tall being from the downed craft terrified these innocent people."
So, what was the monstrous entity? A cryptid? An alien? Some form of definitively Fortean beast? Or something else? Over the years, a whole range of theories have surfaced, and, as with so many such cases, the debate continues.
Indeed, check out this link and you'll see that over at UFOMystic, good friend Greg Bishop has dug deep into this puzzle, and has addressed another angle - namely that relative to the involvement of Remotely-Piloted Vehicles of a definitively terrestrial nature.
And, on this latter point of the Machiavellian hand of officialdom possibly playing a role in the Flatwoods affair, I stumbled across something the other day that makes me wonder if it may well have some bearing on what was seen at Flatwoods.
Call me crazy (and doubtless some will!), but I think the following data - which is directly relative to the use of superstitions and paranormal entities and ideas in warfare - may well have a bearing on the diabolical beast of Flatwoods.
A couple of days ago, I obtained a copy of an April 14, 1950 RAND publication titled The Exploitation of Superstitions for Purposes of Psychological Warfare, written by Jean M. Hungerford, for the the U.S. Air Force.
The 37-page document is a truly fascinating one and delves into some very strange areas. But, what really caught my eye, was a section of the document that quoted from a book titled Magic: Top Secret, which was written in 1949 by one Jasper Maskelyne, a fascinating character (as the name-link demonstrates) who was up his absolute neck in new and novel ways to fool the enemy.
Hungerford quotes the following from Maskelyne in her report, which concerns a truly alternative psychological warfare operation that occurred during the Second World War, and less than a decade before the Flatwoods Monster was seen:
"Our men...were able to use illusions of an amusing nature in the Italian mountains, especially when operating in small groups as advance patrols scouting out the way for our general moves forward. In one area, in particular, they used a device which was little more than a gigantic scarecrow, about twelve feet high, and able to stagger forward under its own power and emit frightful flashes and bangs. This thing scared several Italian Sicilian villages appearing in the dawn thumping its deafening way down their streets with great electric blue sparks jumping from it; and the inhabitants, who were mostly illiterate peasants, simply took to their heels for the next village, swearing that the Devil was marching ahead of the invading English."
Hungerford continued to quote from Maskelyne's book in her report: "Like all tales spread among uneducated folk (and helped, no doubt, by our agents), this story assumed almost unimaginable proportions. Villages on the route of our advance began to refuse sullenly to help the retreating Germans, and to take sabotage against them; and then, instead of waiting for our troops to arrive with food and congratulations of their help, the poor people fled, thus congesting the roads along which German motorized transport was struggling to retire. The German tankmen sometimes cut through the refugees and this inflamed feeling still more, and what began almost as a joke was soon a sharp weapon in our hands which punished the Germans severely, if indirectly, for several critical weeks."
There are a number of issues worth noting here. First, the height of the Flatwoods Monster and the British Army's devilish scarecrow were the same: 12-feet. In addition, the cover of Frank Feschino's book shows the Flatwoods Monster emitting lights. And the 12-foot scarecrow in Italy gave off "frightful flashes and bangs" and had "great electric blue sparks jumping from it."
Second, the RAND report that specifically refers to this Italian escapade - that Jasper Maskelyne described in his Magic: Top Secret book - was prepared for psychological warfare planners in the U.S. Air Force. And, in his book on the beast of Flatwoods, Feschino notes that the Air Force took careful interest in the Flatwoods affair and what was being reported on the affair by the media.
The RAND report was submitted to the Air Force in April 1950, and Flatwoods occurred in September 1952. Is it possible that in this two-year period USAF psychological warfare planners created their very own - albeit updated and modified - version of the British Army's 12-foot-tall flashing monster to try and gauge what its reaction might be when unleashed upon an unsuspecting populace?
There's also the settings, too: the British Army's operation was focused on little, isolated villages in Italy. And Flatwoods is a little, rural town in Braxton County, West Virginia that, even as late as 2000, had a population of less than 350.
Those who suspect the the Flatwoods Monster was some form of cryptozoological creature, Fortean entity, or alien being, may well scoff at my speculations and musings.
However, when we can say for sure that the British Army was using 12-foot, illuminated scarecrow-style critters for psychological warfare reasons in the Second World War, is it really a stretch to think that the USAF might have tried something similar in 1952 with their very own 12-foot-tall freak?
One final thing: the foreword to Frank Feschino's book was penned by acclaimed ufologist, Stanton T. Friedman, who wrote the book Top Secret Majic (with a "j"). This should not be confused with Jasper Maskelyne's Magic Top Secret (with a "g)!
32 comments:
- Alfred Lehmberg said...
With all respect, Sir, something I don't give lightly, more up to date information can be obtained at:
While it remain that it might be as you say, the book quoted from is hugely flawed in execution —at no fault to the author— and it's cost Feschino's supporters 25 grand plus to terminate the contract with the errant publisher Quarrier Press so as to stop it's being published altogether. That book is dead and Feschino repudiates it.
The book to read (All 150 errors corrected) is —Shoot Them Down— and it makes a damned good data rich case for undeclared and secret air war with ET, where "Flatwoods" is only the "end of the story."
Now there's a story to chub your gnarlies, eh?
> www.AlienView.net
>> AVG Blog -- http://alienviewgroup.blogspot.com/
>>> U F O M a g a z i n e -- www.ufomag.com - September 23, 2010 at 4:49 PM
- Nick Redfern said...
Thanks for the info, Alfred!
- September 23, 2010 at 5:56 PM
Wow -- totally fascinating research and to think that an author's supporters spent huge sums to get an author's book retracted from the publisher -- amazing.
Does that pertain to the information Nick has posted in regards to the book in specific? It seems not to as Nick is posting the general description of the Flatwoods Monster. Certainly there would be further details that could lend to one or another interpretation but if the foundation of the incidence is faulty, then any continued analysis will have been misled at best.
Nick -- this is definitely another amazing layer to the psyops strangeness in the ufo paranormal scene. The parallel to the UK disinformation is amazing. - September 23, 2010 at 6:05 PM
- Nick Redfern said...
I don't unfortunately have the answers to the questions. But yes, my reference to Flatwoods is basically one that can be found anywhere on the net. In other words, the basics of the story are well known, and available via various sources, including Feank's book. - September 23, 2010 at 6:46 PM
- Red Pill Junkie said...
Well, it certainly sounds like an interesting possibility. However, right now I'm in the middle of Dolan's UFOs and the National Security State (vol. 1), where he shows the US Air Force was in a state of paranoia during the biggest UFO wave in modern history.
To think they would risk to test the psychological response of a carefully staged hoax under an already-nervous public whose interest in UFOs was growing by the minute, when the US government's main concern was to try to downplay the impact of UFOs and their inability to prevent them from invading the airspace of highly sensitive Federal & military installations —including the White House and the Pentagon!— is IMO akin to test the effect of adding more gasoline to a forest fire!
The idea could only be conceivable, if the psy-ops deception was carried out by a group outside the US National Defense System. Or a group that sought to ridicule the Air Force, and show their incapacity to contain the UFO problem —what's the distance between Langley and Flatwoods? ;) - September 23, 2010 at 7:12 PM
- Jeff Davis said...
Frankly, I think your common sense postulation is right on. Admittedly like any other stab at what "might be, or have been" it's a guess certainly, but it sure seems spot on with respect to basic informed deductive reasoning.
After having closely taken interest in the Fortean realms of the curious, UFOs especially, for the last 30-40 years, the human mind is many times the responsible causal vortex of perception based experience.
Certainly not always, but we just don't give the human mind enough credit do we? Maskelyne possessed one such mind for creating exceptionally formidable displays for what appeared to be real, that was not. I often wonder where we are REALLY at technologically speaking with respect to this same human propensity for the excellence of illusion. From Black Triangles to Phoenix Lights, how many of the things that give a clear visualized solid appearance, are in fact, clearly solid?
Admittedly, for an old UFO buff, not much fun to ponder, but utterly possible nonetheless. - September 24, 2010 at 11:48 AM
- Unknown said...
Excellent job Mr Redfern!
What if the Flatwoods mecha-monster was being used to scare the 'villagers' away from the site of a downed UFO, in order to give the military time enough to 'clean up'?
This reminds me of Dr. No's mechanized Dragon, used to keep nosy fisherman away from his island. Remember, Ian Fleming was in the intelligence service in WWII. Perhaps this same Maskelyne beast was his inspiration?
And finally, am I the only one that thinks the Thing on the book's cover looks like a Giant Dalek? That'd sure scare the hell out of me! - September 25, 2010 at 1:24 AM
- Alfred Lehmberg said...
Frank Feschino Writes:
Hey Alfred,
A great post in response to Redfern's scarecrow story. Yes, he should have read the new book and not the old incorrect one.
Just remember what Leavitt stated to me in his interview about what the USAF said about the "Flatwoods Monster."
This segment reads how Colonel Leavitt was called and ordered by the USAF to obtain samples from the Fisher Farm:
Frank: "Now when these samples were sent out, they were sent to
Washington directly. How did that process work."
Leavitt: "Air Force people, that's who."
Frank: "Now, they contacted you?"
Leavitt: "Yeah."
Frank: "Through Washington."
Leavitt: "Yeah, they wanted to know what it was."
The USAF DID NOT know what the so-called "Flatwoods Monster" actually
was...That is why Leavitt was ordered to take samples from the site.
During the summer of the saucers in 1952, the Air Force was desperately trying to keep a lid on the UFO activity occurring over the United States. The UFO press conference at the Pentagon in July 1952 was proof of that.
Now also remember, on Sept. 12, 1952, the damaged/flaming Flatwoods
craft actually passed very low over DC heading west and flew
approximately 200 miles before it landed on the farm. Over DC, it was
seen flying very low by hundreds of witnesses.
Why would the USAF send a large flaming craft over the nation's Capitol with a scarecrow in it, if it were trying to cover up UFOs from the American public? Especially when the public was already panicked by the
July 19-20 and July 26-27 Washington DC scare only 6 weeks before!!!
Furthermore, what about the 102 documented locations where several UFOs were sighted that day!?
Frank - September 25, 2010 at 7:56 AM
- Nick Redfern said...
You make an interesting point on the Dr. No angle re the machanized dragon. It's interesting to note that Maskelyne was also involved in creating faked tanks (to fool the enemy) and other vehicle-oddities too! - September 25, 2010 at 9:33 AM
- Nick Redfern said...
Had I known the first book was incorrect then I would have read the correct one instead, and will now do so.
You state: "Why would the USAF send a large flaming craft over the nation's Capitol with a scarecrow in it, if it were trying to cover up UFOs from the American public?"
They wouldn't! I'm not saying that at all. Why would you assume that even if this scenario was real, that the device would be flown in a vehicle over the nation's capital before being unleashed at Flatwoods? I never even alluded to such.
That there were sightings at DC doesn't mean that this implied the device was flown over DC first. They could have been separate events.
You'll note that I was not dogmatic about the theory, which is precisely why the blog-post was titled as a question: "Is This The Flatwoods Monster?" Rather than: "This Is The Flatwoods Monster!"
The point I was making was that in WWII, we know that the British Army was using a 12-foot-tall construction that was full of lights and that provoked fear, as part of a psychological warfare operation that was targeting little towns.
And, the story was published in a 1949 book (Magic Top Secret).
We know that Rand prepared a report on this story in the following year, 1950, and that the report was specifically for the attention of USAF psychological warfare planners.
Then in 1952, we have this 12-foot-tall thing appearing in a little town, only 2 years or so after the USAF was told about the British psy-op by Rand.
It's entirely feasible that there is no connection. But, whether there is or not, there are some intriguing parallels, which suggest to me we would be wise to study further. - September 25, 2010 at 9:52 AM
- Alfred Lehmberg said...
"It's entirely feasible that there is no connection. But, whether there is or not, there are some intriguing parallels, which suggest to me we would be wise to study further."
_Entirely_ collegiate, I suspect Feschino must stand in agreement with you, only he'd likely add that one might also avail themselves more fully of the pointed study already done. Avail themselves, especially, given the bulk of the evidentiary audit trail comes _first_ from official Government documents, then the written accounts of state and local periodicals... and only _then_ the accounts of first person witnesses.
See if you were told that the Map —linked to above— reflected bona fide UFO activity in the area over ...a whole decade... it would still be impressive. Though, when one discovers that the map reflects bona fide activity over a mere 21.5 hour period... well... the old jaw has to drop and _bounce_, eh?
Feschino, while _not_, I suspect, trying to put words in your mouth, has been "burned" by Docca Nickel's roc-sized and wholly insulting "barn owls." He's going to be a little "shy" with regard to moving robot scarecrows, I submit.
...Apologies up front, Nick, for any insult you may have perceived. It's not there or was not remotely intended. - September 25, 2010 at 10:20 AM
- Red Pill Junkie said...
"The USAF DID NOT know what the so-called "Flatwoods Monster" actually
was...That is why Leavitt was ordered to take samples from the site."
And I lean to agree with that. But we have also need to keep this in mind: the different agencies conforming the US National Defense System did not work as a coherent unified group. For most of their history they have worked as independent factions, carrying their own secret covert ops.
While the USAF was the "public" face for UFO federal investigation, the CIA was conducting UFO research on their own —with file cases that MANY times never reached the hands of Ruppelt and Blue Book. And in the mean time, Old Man Hoover was also instructing his agents to keep an eye on the UFO problem.
The idea that the Flatwoods monster was some kind of psy-ops experiment intended to test the civilian reaction to an alien threat does sound preposterous, had it been orchestrated by the Air Force, who were indeed trying to "put the lid" on UFOs.
But, if it had been performed by the CIA's Office of Scientific Investigation unit —who months later were instrumental in the Robertson panel's conclusion that the public needed to be reeducated about UFOs— well, it kind of sounds more plausible.
The Robertson Panel's agenda seemed to be more concerned with public paranoia than the actual threat UFOs might represent. Maybe the Flatwoods monster case was part of this conclusion.
Anyway, Nick's hypothesis has been great food for thought :) - September 25, 2010 at 10:31 AM
- Nick Redfern said...
Hey Alfred
No need for any apologies, as there was no insult. I see it as a debate on a matter that is worthy of debate, and where people may have differing opinions - and that's all.
Nick - September 25, 2010 at 10:37 AM
- Alfred Lehmberg said...
That's a relief, Nick, as I've always counted you as one of the good guys in this "thing," — a real asset for my money... a true contributor, if I may. That said:
A solidly done data driven study of the whole "summer of saucers" affair only _culminating_ at Flatwoods, suggests, as I said before, a secret and undeclared air-war with ET. The fabric of the story is made from vetted cloth and there are no apologies, especially given the recent activities of Lesley Kean and Robert Hastings, that the ironic immediacy of these half- century events... is an ETH so far up the observer's nose one feels alien knees scrubbing ones top lip, eh? - September 25, 2010 at 1:58 PM
Any mention of Hastings requires reading James Carlson's expose on Hasting's research -- newly updated at realityuncovered.net
Indeed the two primary witnesses Hastings relies on -- Figel and Carlson -- both state that there was no ufos at the nuke sites. These are recent correspondences with Figel and Carlson. James Carlson's book, freely readable online, details exactly why the nukes went offline and also why there were no ufos witnessed. - September 25, 2010 at 7:19 PM
- Nick Redfern said...
Yes, I don't deny that Flatwoods could indeed have been alien. However, there is something I have noticed in certain significant cases - namely, that a genuine UFO event is then made more confusing by the insertion of a psy-op to confuse the affair.
Take Rendlesham Forest, for example, where we have some incidents that seem truly anomalous, but then made more confusing by the insertion of stories of mind-manipulation of some of the witnesses etc.
Same with the Contactees: I'm convinced that some of them may have had real experiences with something anomalous, but there's also data strongly suggesting a psy-op link to some of those cases.
On broadly this same topic, when I interviewed Rich Reynolds for my "Contactees" book, he told me that with respect to the French and Italy-based sightings of dwarf-like UFO entities in the 1950s: "...I don't think those cases were set-up or contrived by the government at all. But the CIA didn't know how things might go from there, with the Italian and French cases and other ones, and how they should deal with it if there might have been an invasion. So, they set up people in a UFO contrivance and studied the witness response, and probably studied the public and the media's response too."
And this is something I'm finding more and more - real cases, but that are confused by the addition of a psy-op element.
And maybe that comes into play with Flatwoods and the 1952 cases: real events coupled with a psy-op to further study public perception. - September 26, 2010 at 8:52 AM
"The USAF DID NOT know what the so-called "Flatwoods Monster" actually
was...That is why Leavitt was ordered to take samples from the site."
No? IF this were a psychological study on the effects of fear (a la Major Maskelyne and his gang of tricksters---(incidentally, anyone who bothered to read Paul gallico's classic novel TOO MANY GHOSTS (1961) has known about the good Major's efforts for years) the government would NATURALLY take the "usual steps" to add verisimilitude to the incident in hopes that suggestible people would then say ""The USAF DID NOT know what the so-called "Flatwoods Monster" actually
was...That is why Leavitt was ordered to take samples from the site."
Sorry, ALF, but one theory is as good as another in an incident this old.
Whether it was giant owls, robot scarecrows, an alien visitor, or hallucination has yet to be demonstrated. - September 26, 2010 at 3:48 PM
- Alfred Lehmberg said...
I beg your pardon "SpiralDance," but any mention of one James Carlson —a fellow seemingly created out of the whole cloth of "daddy issues" and klasskurtxian air to inconsistently crap on Hastings' stalwart initiative— is, for my money, abundantly countered on Frank Warren's very cogent site, _UFO Chronicles_, line, sheet, and toggle.
...And my apologies, Nick, but I've always found "Rich Reynolds" to be singularly underwhelming as a contributer where he is not laughably dubious with regard to a hard anthropomorphic and self-centering cant. There are other issues.
I suppose it must be a case of one man's cheese being another's rotten milk.
Say, perhaps Mr. Reynolds would like to debate the quality of his contribution with me... well... anywhere in cyber space where words can be tinkered on an electronic page, eh? Of course, there are prerequisite issues we'd have to wade through first, but I'm betting anybody you'd interview for substantive commentary would be up to it.
All that said, I wonder what Edward Ruppelt could have meant when he wrote on page 61 of his _The Report On UFOs_, "There have been other and more lurid duels of death." - September 27, 2010 at 5:07 AM
- Nick Redfern said...
Shadowcass has had problems leaving comments here today (the usual tech stuff, it seems), so I'm (Nick) posting the following for her:
On the question of "Could the eyewitnesses to the 'Flatwoods Monster' have been mistaken the answer is a resounding 'YES!'"
Case in point: "The Night that Panicked America". You've heard about it, I'm sure. It was October 30, 1938 and Orson Welles was presenting an adaptation of "The War of the Worlds" by H. G. Wells.
Many people who heard the broadcast fled their homes. There were some reported suicides. AND there were people who saw AND SHOT AT the "Martian Machines."
It has been established that what they saw and shot at were water towers and silos that they had seen on every day of their lives...but on THIS night they saw them as "alien machines."
Now...September 12, 1952. The Braxton County Incident.
What, if any, are the similarities? When Orson did his broadcast back in 1938 Hitler had already invaded Austria taken the Sudetenland (Czechoslovakia). Tojo was made "Minister of War" for Japan in July of that year and tensions were high world-wide. Everyone (with the possible exception of Neville Chamberlain) could see that war was coming,
In 1952 the Cold War was escalating. McCarthy's "Red Hunt" is in full swing---as is the war in Korea. And school children are being exposed to "educational films" like "Atomic Alert" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUqJ8XYYliA and "Duck and Cover" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvChsvdPGjA&feature=related
and EVERYBODY was seeing crap like THIS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V47Qs9Eyus&feature=fvw
In other words, there was (again) an underlying current of fear. - September 27, 2010 at 2:39 PM
- Nick Redfern said...
Shadowcass continues her latest comment:
THEN three children (ages 13, 12 , and 10) see "something" land on Mr. Fisher's farm. "I think that was a FLYING SAUCER!" cries Ed May (who is the oldest). "So do we!" chime in the others. And off they go to tell Kathleen May (mother of Ed and his brother, Fred) and instead of saying "Oh, you boys and your imaginations!" SHE immediately starts off for the farm with the three boys, two OTHER children, and a 17 year old National Guardsman named Gene Lemon. And Gene's dog who, reportedly, is the first to flee the "Thing." (The dog reportedly died two days later---but there are also people who claim it was still alive several YEARS after the encounter).
All the local reporter found the next day were tracks which he said were signs of a saucer landing but which later turned out to belong to Max Lockard's 1942 pick-up (he had been out looking for the flying saucer a few hours earlier).
Now, let's go back. There WAS a meteor that night which crossed three states and finally crashed into a hill about 12 miles away from Flatwoods. There were normal objects present which COULD have been "misidentified" due to increased adrenalin flow in the witnesses (aircraft beacons with flashing red lights and so on).
Kathleen May herself has said that what they saw was a "covert US Government aircraft" (not a flying saucer) which may be possible. As for the sickness the witnesses reported afterwards---this could have been to due the after-effects of the initial "panic" created by the belief that they were encountering a flying saucer and its inhabitant (adrenaline exhaustion and so on). OR it could have been some "relatively" harmless gas used by the pilot of the "covert craft" to scare away members of the public while repairs were being made---OR it could be that robots from space are hazardous to your health.
The truth is that we will probably never KNOW what really happened or didn't happen. What we DO know is that "Mr. Yeti" Ivan T. Sanderson took soil samples in 1952. He never made the results public. Now, we all loved Ivan but this is all of a piece with his "thunderbird picture" which he either loaned to some people (he could never remember who) or just plain lost. In other words, sometimes Ivan played a little fast and loose with the truth. I mean, he was a great guy...but there was a little P. T. Barnum in his soul, you know?
He didn't reveal the results because, in all likelihood, the results had nothing to reveal. It was just dirt.
But the Braxton County Incident remains a terrific story and I can understand why people might want to cling on to it---whether it's true or not. - September 27, 2010 at 2:43 PM
- Nick Redfern said...
And Shadowcass concludes:
I should add that both SPACE PATROL (starring Ed Kemmer who had been a POW in the camp featured the movie THE GREAT ESCAPE) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wymYaJcTrTA and Tom Corbett, Space Cadet (starring Frankie Thomas) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imMb8vXEYc8&feature=related were both all over radio, television, comic books, comic strips, lunch boxes and everything else in 1952 so the reaction of the kids should not be surprising.
And the Flatwoods Monster IS immortal. It is the description of this creature that inspired the appearance of Colonel Bleep, the first COLOR cartoon series ever produced for television http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iyb3qzx9Qk
Cass - September 27, 2010 at 2:45 PM
- NickJones said...
Just a bit of a tangent: are there any extant photos of the WWII 'scarecrow'? Are there independent witnesses to the scarecrow, or are we just going by Maskelyne's say-so? (and wasn't there a character with a similar name in Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow?)
- September 28, 2010 at 1:18 AM
- Nick Redfern said...
Coincidentally, I have spent a few hours in the last few days chasing down as much as I can on Maskelyne. I don't have photos of the Scarecrow yet, but I do have dozens of images of some of the other faked contraptions he worked on, such as faked tanks, trucks etc.
I doubt he simply made it up on his say-so, however, as he had a respected, proven background in this field with the military. - September 28, 2010 at 8:01 AM
It is as well to remember that the book MAGIC-TOP SECRET (ghost written by Frank S. Stuart) was published in 1949 and is not considered (by most) to be historically reliable in certain instances. More is claimed than Maskelyne actuually DID.
Nonetheless---he did a LOT.
And if you'd like to research Maskelyne's career for yourself you can begin here: http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/R/real_lives/jasper.html
and here: http://dictionaryofwar.org/node/672
And Seymour Reit's book MASQUERADE: The Amazing Camouflage Deceptions of WWII is well thought of. SOME used copies (and ojne collectible edition) are available from Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Masquerade-amazing-camouflage-deceptions-World/dp/0801549310
And Bookfinder.Com shows some 55 copies available from various sellers http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?isbn=0801549310&st=xl&ac=qr&src=dir
I mesn, if that's any help. - September 28, 2010 at 9:57 AM
- NickJones said...
Oh dear. As much as I hate to - er, rain - on this parade, checking the site through the second link at the bottom of the Wikipedia article (http://www.maskelynemagic.com/), it would appear that Maskelyne's veracity is indeed questionable. Not only was he a self-mythologizer, but his ghost-writer, a 'hack-for-hire', was prone to pad his work with pure fiction. The writer of the articles, Richard Stokes, was able to confirm this with Maskelyne's son, Alistair. Many official and nonofficial reports have taken his memoirs on faith.
- September 29, 2010 at 12:22 AM
- Nick Redfern said...
I think the important issue about Maskelyne is that his story appeared in a RAND report prepared for Air Force Psychological Warfare operatives.
We could hypothesize that even though his work on some highly novel projects can be validated, if this story of his was exagerrated, or born out of his imagination, there might be some irony in the issue of someone thinking that to use such a scenario still might be a good idea.
And, I still think, the vaguely human shape, the same 12-foot height, that both stories concerns sightings in little towns, and that this went to USAF psy-war people (who we know have played a role in UFO events, and taken an interest in such), suggests we should still dig deeper.
And there are, for example, other examples where stories of weird and legendary beasts may have been deliberately exploited by the official world, such as the following from Patrick Huyghe:
Then there's the 1950 novel by Bernard Newman (The Flying Saucer, which, coincidentally, has just been re-released). This tells the story of a cabal of scientists faking a number of UFO crashes around the world to try and unite the planet into a New World Order - albeit a benevolent one.
Of course, there have since, been rumors of faked UFO crashes to protect crashes of real military hardware, and the idea that governments might use the UFO issue as the next tool of fear to further erode our rights (via some form of hoaxed event), is something often discussed in ufological circles.
Newman's book is undoubtedly a novel, but he moved in official, espionage-based circles, and it'ss interesting that if you read his fictional tale (of 1950), you'll see it contains many themes that did not become commonplace in Ufology for decades (psy-ops to create faked crashed UFO stories; a secret cabal operating separate to the mainstream government etc).
So, in other words, the mere fact that RAND chose to prepare a classified report for the USAF that referenced the "scarecrow" story, may still have had some effect on its usage - true or not.
Sometimes, fiction can inspire reality in very strange ways. - September 29, 2010 at 9:18 AM
- Nick Redfern said...
The Patrick Huyghe link appears to have got muddled. Here it is again:
http://www.astralgia.com/webportfolio/omnimoment/archives/features/supernatural/index.html - September 29, 2010 at 9:21 AM
- Nick Redfern said...
hmmm, it's still not going direct to the link. Instead, copy-paste the link above, go to "Features" and then click on "A Supernatural Cover Story?" and that's the one.
- September 29, 2010 at 9:22 AM
- NickJones said...
You're right, Nick - I hadn't considered the idea of a fictional object being the inspiration for propaganda purposes. The Trojan Horse, fictional or not, must have inspired innumerable copycat schemes, so whether 'Il Spauracchio' existed or not is irrelevant to the case.
- September 29, 2010 at 3:20 PM
- Red Pill Junkie said...
"This tells the story of a cabal of scientists faking a number of UFO crashes around the world to try and unite the planet into a New World Order - albeit a benevolent one."
Nick: ALL New World Orders are benevolent... in the minds of the people fixed on establishing them, that is ;) - September 29, 2010 at 6:33 PM
- Nick Redfern said...
LOL, yes you're right! - September 30, 2010 at 9:33 AM
Is THIS the Flatwoods Monster?
http://www.wired.com/underwire/wp-content/gallery/cheesy-sci-fi/07_robotmonster.jpg - September 30, 2010 at 11:58 AM


text:
Facebook announced three new features Wednesday that are intended to boost civic engagement among users in the United States on its platform by connecting them more easily with their elected representatives.
The new offerings come as the social media juggernaut has sought to rehabilitate its image as a credible source of information following a wave of criticism after last November's presidential election that the company did too little to combat misleading or wholly fabricated political news stories during the campaign.
Among the features, Facebook will now allow a user to turn on a "Constituent Badge" to identify himself as living in his elected official's district. The opt-in badge will be visible when a user comments on content shared by his federal, state and local representatives.
Facebook also announced "Constituent Insights," which allows elected officials and other users to find local news stories that are popular in their districts.
"District Targeting" creates a new preset audience selection that lets politicians' pages target posts to people likely to be their constituents.
Facebook has continued to come under attack from prominent Democrats and some technology experts despite a raft of changes it has made in recent months that seek to help users consume more legitimate political news.
Hillary Clinton, who ran for president as a Democrat last year but lost to President Donald Trump, a Republican, said last week that Facebook was flooded with false information about her during the campaign and that people were understandably misled.
She said she wanted Facebook to curate its network more aggressively.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Sprinkles Monthly Extra Sidebar
Monthly Kit Info:
- Includes 3.5 sheets of stickers.
- Large sheet measures 7" x 4.75", half sheet measures 3.5" x 4.6"
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Stickers are various sizes and are formatted to fit in the Erin Condren Vertical, Horizontal, Hourly, and regular sized Monthly planners.
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Colors of the actual kit may appear different due to the differences in monitor or device output.


text:
Book flights to Geneva
Book a flight to Geneva with Qatar Airways and experience a modern European metropolis that retains much of its old-world charm.
The birthplace of luxury watch-making, Geneva is the centre of international diplomacy and finance. Renowned for its snow-capped Alps and delectable chocolates, it is also a cultural haven, where you can hear just about every language in the world.
If quality R&R is what you're looking for, look no further beyond this piece of paradise. Lakefront promenades, breathtaking views and impressive buildings make for a fascinating stroll during your Geneva travels. You can also eat your way around the globe, thanks to a burst of culinary flavours that are sure to satisfy every palate.
Geneva travel highlights
With its eclectic mix of museums, gourmet restaurants, exclusive shops and Bohemian towns, Geneva is the epitome of sophistication.
Tourist attractions
Geneva has a total land area of less than 16km. But what it lacks in size, it makes up for in attractions. On Lake Geneva, it will be hard for you to miss the Jet d'Eau, one of the tallest fountains in the world, at 140 metres. It has been a crowd-drawer since 1891, with its jet spewing 500 litres of water per second, at a speed of 200kph.
The historic cathedral of St. Pierre, a magnificent structure that combines several architectural influences, is a sight to behold. Put on your walking shoes and climb the 157 steps to the top of the cathedral's towers, where you will be rewarded with a panoramic view of the city.
You can also satisfy your cultural curiosity at one of Geneva's several museums and galleries, the largest of which is the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire. It has more than 7,000 exhibits on display, from prehistoric artefacts to modern masterpieces. No trip to Geneva is complete without visiting the Bâtiment des Forces Motrices, an old hydroelectric station in the middle of Rhône River that has been converted into a cultural centre.
Get a feel of the city's Bohemian character when you visit the Quartier des Grottes, a neighbourhood featuring quirky buildings. It has a long history of social resistance, with residents thwarting several government attempts to demolish and modernise the area. Today, artists, poets, artisans and young professionals call Grottes home. It also features several cafés, restaurants, studios and second-hand bookshops. -
Leisure activities
Travelling to Geneva is an ideal opportunity to switch off and just commune with nature. Take a stroll through the city's sprawling green spaces. Parc des Bastions and Parc de la Grange are full of walking paths and feature attractions such as fountains and a giant chessboard. Alternatively, you can hire a bicycle and see the city at your own pace.
There are also major events like the motor show in March, and the music festival in June, which are worth attending. Another area suited for sedate activities is the Carouge, a Mediterranean-style hamlet known as Geneva's "Little Italy". It has several restaurants, cafés, a museum, and an Olympic-sized swimming pool, if you want to take a dip. -
Swiss cuisine has been influenced by traditions and tastes from Germany, France and Italy. Café du Soleil, located in Place du Petit-Saconnex, reputedly serves the best fondue in Geneva. Fondue is a dish of melted cheese served in a ceramic pot – heated with a lamp – in which you dip pieces of bread using a long-stemmed fork. Raclette is also a popular Swiss dish made by heating a wheel of cheese and scraping the melted part on jacket potatoes, gherkins and onions.
A gourmand's paradise, Geneva is home to several Michelin-starred restaurants. As a cosmopolitan city, it is also a perfect location to sample the world's dishes. The area around the railway station is packed with budget outlets, but there are many mid- to top-range venues nearer to the centre. For a taste of the real Geneva, head for Edelweiss Manotel, which has live traditional music to accompany your meal. -
You can buy some of the world's best chocolates from specialty stores during your trip to Geneva. If you're looking for fine jewellery and designer timepieces, then you've come to the right place. The city is home to a plethora of boutique shops and centuries-old luxury brands.
For souvenirs, such as cuckoo clocks, make your way to the streets that connect the lake with Gare de Genève Cornavin. For more generic, high-ticket brand shopping, look out for department stores in the city centre that specialise in clothing and electronics.
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There were a number of carved stone figures placed at intervals along the parapets of the old Cathedral; some of them represented angels, others kings and bishops, and nearly all were in attitudes of pious exaltation and composure. But one figure, low down on the cold north side of the building, had neither crown, mitre, not nimbus, and its face was hard and bitter and downcast; it must be a demon, declared the fat blue pigeons that roosted and sunned themselves all day on the ledges of the parapet; but the old belfry jackdaw, who was an authority on ecclesiastical architecture, said it was a lost soul. And there the matter rested.
One autumn day there fluttered on to the Cathedral roof a slender, sweet- voiced bird that had wandered away from the bare fields and thinning hedgerows in search of a winter roosting-place. It tried to rest its tired feet under the shade of a great angel-wing or to nestle in the sculptured folds of a kingly robe, but the fat pigeons hustled it away from wherever it settled, and the noisy sparrow-folk drove it off the ledges. No respectable bird sang with so much feeling, they cheeped one to another, and the wanderer had to move on.
Only the effigy of the Lost Soul offered a place of refuge. The pigeons did not consider it safe to perch on a projection that leaned so much out of the perpendicular, and was, besides, too much in the shadow. The figure did not cross its hands in the pious attitude of the other graven dignitaries, but its arms were folded as in defiance and their angle made a snug resting-place for the little bird. Every evening it crept trustfully into its corner against the stone breast of the image, and the darkling eyes seemed to keep watch over its slumbers. The lonely bird grew to love its lonely protector, and during the day it would sit from time to time on some rainshoot or other abutment and trill forth its sweetest music in grateful thanks for its nightly shelter. And, it may have been the work of wind and weather, or some other influence, but the wild drawn face seemed gradually to lose some of its hardness and unhappiness. Every day, through the long monotonous hours, the song of his little guest would come up in snatches to the lonely watcher, and at evening, when the vesper-bell was ringing and the great grey bats slid out of their hiding-places in the belfry roof, the bright-eyed bird would return, twitter a few sleepy notes, and nestle into the arms that were waiting for him. Those were happy days for the Dark Image. Only the great bell of the Cathedral rang out daily its mocking message, "After joy . . . sorrow."
The folk in the verger's lodge noticed a little brown bird flitting about the Cathedral precincts, and admired its beautiful singing. "But it is a pity," said they, "that all that warbling should be lost and wasted far out of hearing up on the parapet." They were poor, but they understood the principles of political economy. So they caught the bird and put it in a little wicker cage outside the lodge door.
That night the little songster was missing from its accustomed haunt, and the Dark Image knew more than ever the bitterness of loneliness. Perhaps his little friend had been killed by a prowling cat or hurt by a stone. Perhaps . . . perhaps he had flown elsewhere. But when morning came there floated up to him, through the noise and bustle of the Cathedral world, a faint heart-aching message from the prisoner in the wicker cage far below. And every day, at high noon, when the fat pigeons were stupefied into silence after their midday meal and the sparrows were washing themselves in the street-puddles, the song of the little bird came up to the parapets--a song of hunger and longing and hopelessness, a cry that could never be answered. The pigeons remarked, between mealtimes, that the figure leaned forward more than ever out of the perpendicular.
One day no song came up from the little wicker cage. It was the coldest day of the winter, and the pigeons and sparrows on the Cathedral roof looked anxiously on all sides for the scraps of food which they were dependent on in hard weather.
"Have the lodge-folk thrown out anything on to the dust-heap?" inquired one pigeon of another which was peering over the edge of the north parapet.
"Only a little dead bird," was the answer.
There was a crackling sound in the night on the Cathedral roof and a noise as of falling masonry. The belfry jackdaw said the frost was affecting the fabric, and as he had experienced many frosts it must have been so. In the morning it was seen that the Figure of the Lost Soul had toppled from its cornice and lay now in a broken mass on the dust-heap outside the verger's lodge.
"It is just as well," cooed the fat pigeons, after they had peered at the matter for some minutes; "now we shall have a nice angel put up there. Certainly they will put an angel there."
"After joy . . . sorrow," rang out the great bell.
Return to the H.H. Munro (SAKI) library , or . . . Read the next short story; The Innocence of Reginald


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The International Tribunal of Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS)
A Special ITCCS Communique: May 3, 2017
Breaking News Report on the disruption
of the Ninth Circle cult's sacrificial rituals on April 30, 2017
Last Sunday night, special ITCCS teams assisted by police and citizen volunteers successfully stopped the Catholic Ninth Circle sacrificial killings in Zwolle Holland, Dijon France, and Lucerne Switzerland. In six other cities in Europe, similar killings were either cancelled or moved to other locations because of the threat of disruption.
The Common Law Sheriff's Office of the ITCCS, which helped to coordinate these actions, has issued an internal report which we quote in part:
"With the help of local sympathetic police our teams went into action in the designated locations commencing 22:30 hours GMT on 30 April. As we anticipated, our best successes occurred in the locations that had not been publicly announced, where we surprised the cult members as they prepared for the ritual killings.
In Zwolle, Dijon and Lucerne we arrested a total of nineteen individuals and released eight children from captivity. All of the latter were under the age of five or six and were slated for torture and killing; they included five boys and three girls. The cult members we apprehended were turned over to local police after being questioned and their statements were recorded by our teams. (Note: See our separate report on these statements and accompanying evidence retrieved at the sites)
In Rome, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Brussels and Geneva our actions were blunted by the presence of armed paramilitary units at the cult locations. Considering the proximity of these locations to the leaders of the Ninth Circle this was anticipated. Nevertheless we have learned that the planned killings at these major sites were in fact postponed or relocated to elsewhere, possibly because of the public announcement of these locations.
Unfortunately, in Washington DC our team was unable to intervene and we must assume the cult performed their killings. Several of our team members there were arrested by plain clothed officials and are still being held in communicado. We have yet to receive a report from the teams that were to strike at the cult centers in Tara Ireland and in Vancouver and Montreal Canada.
In general our actions were a definite blow to the Ninth Circle and to the confidence of its members. Of great satisfaction to us was the increased cooperation of elements of the local police who assisted us in detaining the cult members. We can say with certainty that the tide is turning."
Of equal importance to these actions has been a back channel communication that was received yesterday by the ITCCS Central Office from a party claiming to represent an element within the Catholic Curia in Rome (the College of Cardinals). This party has requested an immediate meeting with ITCCS officials.
The Vatican-run Ninth Circle cult has been forced once more onto the defensive, and lives of the innocent have been saved. Divisions are clearly appearing within the Vatican hierarchy and we suspect more revelations soon, especially as politicians in the European Union are beginning to debate the Ninth Circle atrocities.
To all people of good will and to all our affiliates we ask you to not forget that despite this victory the Ninth Circle killings will continue, and our efforts must therefore never slacken. We welcome the flood of new volunteers into our ranks and urge them to undergo our common law Sheriff training programs to equip them to stop once and for all the torture and killing of our children, and those responsible.
More announcements are forthcoming. Please share and post this widely.
A Special ITCCS Report
3 May, 2017


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text:
Fives years is five years. Except…
It's been five years since we moved to Marshfield.
Those five years have flown by in the blink of an eye.
It's also been five years since I left DC.
But when my plane touched down here tonight, it all felt like a lifetime ago.
Same five years. How can it feel so different?
You guys should have seen me tonight. Fumbling to purchase a SmarTrip card, trying to figure out which side of the Metro platform to stand on, acting like a total tourist as we transferred from the yellow to the blue line. Oh! oh! and I almost forgot about the time I knocked my suitcase down the up escalator as we exited at Federal Center SW. Nothing but suave. Yes. Suave.
My public transit skills have evaporated, my mental maps have faded, and my sense of where I am in the city is basically gone, gone, gone. I'm no longer the young, metropolitan woman I'd spent six years becoming. Five shorts years — and I've completely unbecome.
And also rebecome. A pretty poignant reminder of what time can do.
It's so interesting to be back here. So exciting. Somehow scary all over again.
And in a few short hours, it's exhausted me. So. Netflix in the hotel room until this midwestern local yokel ventures back out into the big city for a few days.
Can't wait to tell you all about it!
Sidenote: Melissa McCarthy's Spy, which we've discussed before, is SO DAMN FUNNY. Sexy and reckless! Love!


text:
But because of time constraints and my constant company (that seems to need constant enertaining???) I decided to perfect the tart that I had messed up so bad last week. I think I did it!!!
This is the same tart recipe that I got from Nikki of the Canary Girl. Since then though I have modified it til it is almost unrecognizable! It is truly one of the most versatile tart recipes I have ever used. It is fast and simple and a great way to use up that over ripe fruit!
Apricot Ginger Tart
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup powdered sugar
6 ounces (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
3 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
a pinch of salt
juice of 2 lemons (around 1/2 cup)
1/2 inch piece of ginger peeled and minced
5 apricots peeled and sliced (place in boiling water and then ice water to help peel them easier)
Preheat your oven to 300ºF/150ºC.
Add the flours, powdered sugar and butter to your food processor and pulse until it comes together in a dough.
Press the dough into a tart pan, using your hands and fingers to spread the dough evenly.
Par bake the dough about 20 minutes.
Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly.
Raise oven temperature to 350ºF/175ºC.
While cooling, combine the filling ingredients.
Beat eggs first, then add remaining ingredients, except the apricots, whisking well to combine.
Pour filling into tart shell, and then arrange the apricot slices in filling.
Bake about 25 minutes, or until set.
Garnish with powdered sugar if desired.
Happy Entertaining!!!


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Shopping for a new home is an emotional experience. It is, however, also a business transaction, and must be treated as such.
Three of the most devastating things that can go wrong are:
* Paying too much
* Losing a dream home to another buyer
* Buying the wrong home
When you have a systematic plan before you shop, you'll be sure to avoid these costly errors. Here are some tips on making the most of your home purchase:
Get the information you need
What price do you offer a seller? Is the seller's asking price too high? Is it a deal? Your own research is important, as is the assistance of a Realtor. A professional Coldwell Banker Realtor can offer an unbiased opinion on the value of a home, based on many factors and a great deal of information. Without knowledge of the market, your offer could be too much. Or worse, you could miss out on a great buying opportunity. Hire the right person and trust that person to represent your interests.
Buy YOUR home
What do you need and want in a home? Sounds simple, but clearly identifying your needs and bringing an objective view to home shopping leaves you in a much better position. How much space do you really need? Too small and you may feel like you live in constant clutter. Too big and maintenance may become too daunting. Outline all of your priorities, and work on finding not just a great home, but a great home for you.
Check the title
Before you sign any document, be sure the property you are considering is free of all encumbrances. As a part of his or her services, a Coldwell Banker Realtor can supply you with a copy of the title to ensure there are no liens, debts, undisclosed owners, leases or easements against the title.
Update the survey
Before the purchase is completed, an updated survey is essential. This report will indicate boundaries and structural changes (additions to the house, a new swimming pool, neighbor's new fence which is extending a boundary line, etc.), and will guarantee that you are indeed getting what you pay for.
Minimize the unexpected
For $300 – $500, a professional inspector will conduct a thorough inspection of the home. His/her expertise can mean the difference between uncovering major flaws before or after you own a home. Make the final contract subject to the report's findings.
Get pre-approved
It only takes a few days to get financing pre-approval. When you are shopping for a home, this gives you more power. A seller is more likely to consider an offer from a serious buyer.
Remember additional costs
Besides the funds for the purchase of a home, you'll need funds for items such as loan fees, insurance, legal fees, surveys, inspections, etc.
Take a deep breath
Before you sign, ensure that all documentation clearly reflects your understanding and conditions of the transaction. Has anything been forgotten? Don't rush. You could lose money, financing, or even the sale if you attempt to push things through too hastily.


text:
Friday, December 31, 2010
Holy Mary, Mother of God and "the best of all possible worlds"
13 comments:
Wow, it's been many many years since I've read True Devotion or any works by St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, but this article certainly brings to mind and rivals his work. I've never read or even heard of Dom Prosper Gueranger, thanks for this.
- December 31, 2010 at 6:06 PM
- James Zahler said...
I'm hoping that you might expound on this part a little bit more: "any particular nature cannot be better than it is without becoming a different nature; yet God could have created species of higher perfection than he did in fact create." By nature, I understand you to mean something like human nature or the angelic nature. However, what do you mean by "species of higher perfection"? I'm used to seeing species being used to separate things which have different natures (dogs, humans, etc). Are you talking about separate individuals who share a nature? In other words, are you saying that God could have populated the world with human beings other than you, me and Adam who would not have chosen to sin? (Like the Virgin Mary) Or would they have to be something totally other than human beings?
I'm asking because the other day I was pondering the problem of evil, and I thought a response for why God would create such a broken world is because He loved me. If He didn't make me, the sinner, He would never be able to save me and invite me into Heaven, where we will be united for eternity. I am not sure that He could make "me" and have it still actually be me if I was created already perfect… could He? I certainly wouldn't have the same experiences, which seem to be an essential part of who I am as a human being. These experiences have affected my personality and make me a unique individual. Of course, we are talking about God. If there was a way to logically do it, I'm sure He could.
Peace and love in Christ,
James - December 31, 2010 at 8:44 PM
Aquinas states in the article you cite (ST I 25 6 ad3):
"The universe, the present creation being supposed, cannot be better, on account of the most beautiful order given to things by God; in which the good of the universe consists. For if any one thing were bettered, the proportion of order would be destroyed; as if one string were stretched more than it ought to be, the melody of the harp would be destroyed. Yet God could make other things, or add something to the present creation; and then there would be another and a better universe."
So, contrary to what you seem to suggest, Aquinas doesn't hold that God could make *this* universe better; rather, God could make a better universe (but then, it wouldn't be *this* universe).
I think this is an important distinction to maintain. - December 31, 2010 at 9:41 PM
That is an important distinction and one that Leibniz was quite aware of, having read Thomas' work. He writes: "I call 'World' the whole succession and the whole agglomeration of all existent things, lest it be said that several worlds could have existed in different times and different places. For they must needs be reckoned all together as one world or, if you will, as one Universe." In other words, we know that since God elected this world, it is either the best of all possible worlds or at least a part thereof. If God has created another, better, universe, He has not unmade this one, and so it remains part of that beautiful order of creation.
Leibniz, in fact, is in agreement with Thomas that (1) almost any thing in the universe could be improved considered only in itself or in tandem with any group of things not amount to the whole universe, (2) to actually elect for that improvement would actually be to create a less perfect universe. You already quoted Thomas. Here is Leibniz: "One may imagine possible worlds without sin and without unhappiness, and one could make some like Utopian or Sevarambian romances, but these same worlds again would be very inferior to ours in goodness."
And since the article seems to suggest that no Christian should follow Leibniz on this point (even though, it is little else than the opinion of St. Thomas), I must add that Leibniz was Christian and that he follows up the portion I quoted by appealing to the Exsultet: "O certe necessarium Adae peccatum, quod Christi morte deletum est! O felix culpa, quae talem ac tantum meruit habere Redemptorem!" - December 31, 2010 at 9:50 PM
Regarding Thomas' quote, he accounts for creating superior substances ("He can always make something else better than each thing made by Him.") and for improving the accidents of substances ("God can make better the things He has made.") In other words, God could have changed the world in either fashion you propose.
Regarding your second paragraph, see my note about the Exsultet in my previous comment. Also, Leibniz at least certainly believes that no substance could suffer the smallest change and retain its unique character. He asserts this at many points, especially in his correspondence with Arnauld, but what he says here of the world could be said just as well of a person. "Thus, if the smallest evil that comes to pass in the world were missing in it, it would no longer be this world." Of course, the world itself is the best possible world; you are not necessarily the best you there is, likewise for myself. But then again, "God has imprisoned all in disobedience that He might have mercy on all", so I don't think you or me not being a marine (be the best that you can be) is a death sentence, but as you indicated, part of God's loving plan. - December 31, 2010 at 10:10 PM
- Father Ryan Erlenbush said...
@ Anonymous (6:50am) and Anonymous 7:10am,
I would ask all to please give some sort of tag or ID or something (at least at the end of your comment), so that we can engage in discussion without constantly referring to countless "anonymouses".
I will respond more fully to the discussion of Leibniz and Thomas sometime in the next 24 hours.
Happy New Year! - December 31, 2010 at 10:56 PM
- Father Ryan Erlenbush said...
@Dismas, "The True Devotion to Mary" has had a great impact on my life. DeMonfort's Marian devotion has, in many ways, become my own.
I agree that Gueranger sounds a bit "Montfortian" in his reflection! I am quite sure that this French Benedictine will serve you as a good and trustworthy friend in the spiritual life.
Blessings to you! - December 31, 2010 at 11:00 PM
- Nick said...
Judaism is full of paradoxes - the paradox of redemptive suffering, for example - which Christianity has assumed, and Mary's Divine Maternity fits right in with the rest of them. In fact, Mary's Divine Maternity is, so to speak, after Jesus' Hypostatic Union, which is another paradox: The paradox of the Creator becoming creature, God becoming man. After this Mary's Divine Maternity is the paradox of the Creator taking on creaturehood from a creature, being concieved in a creature, being born of a creature, being cared for by a creature, and obeying and imitating a creature: That is, God assuming humanity from Mary, who's humanity He had created; God being conceived (by God) in Mary, who is finite while He is infinite; God being born of Mary, who's creation God caused to be; God being cared for - fed, warmed, bedded, guided, protected - by Mary, who is sustained, provided for, guided and protected by God; and God obeying and imitating Mary, who is full of grace because of Him and who imitates Him.
- January 1, 2011 at 4:41 AM
- Father Ryan Erlenbush said...
@Mark, I don't know what you are trying to imply -- you seem to indicate that I have been unfaithful in my presentation of St. Thomas, and that Thomas and Leibniz are of the same mind.
Leibniz (and others of his school) maintain that this world is the best world that could possibly be, that no better world could have been created, that it is the best of all possible worlds.
I have stated, following St. Thomas, that this world is not the best of all possible worlds, better worlds could have been created. Indeed, considering accidental perfection, even this world itself could be better (while still being substantially the same).
Yes, of course "this universe", supposing the present creation, cannot be essentially more perfect without ceasing to be "this universe" ... I admitted as much when I said that any particular nature could not be created better while still remaining itself (hence, the nature of a horse is such that it cannot be essentially better while still remaining the nature of a horse).
However, even "this universe" could be accidentally better or worse while still remaining "this universe" -- for example, the universe became accidentally better when Christ was born (while remaining essentially "this universe", one and the same).
I don't know what you are trying to do ... but I think you are muddying the waters, rather than clarifying with distinctions. - January 1, 2011 at 9:59 AM
- Father Ryan Erlenbush said...
@Anonymous (6:50am),
I have already responded to some of this in my comment back to Mark; however, I will add just a bit more here.
You are trying to say that Leibniz and Thomas are of the same mind ... I will not go into Leibniz's theory any further, since it is not really what I am after; but let me present Thomas' mind more clearly, then it will be obvious that Leibniz is far off.
St. Thomas certainly maintains that there is a beautiful order in the universe -- here you and I are in agreement.
However, he does not claim that this order is the most beautiful order possible, or that nothing greater could have been created.
True, if God had created an essentially different universe, it would no longer be "this universe", but it could still be a greater world with greater order and perfection.
Moreover, even this universe itself could be accidentally more perfect -- God does not need evil in order to do good!
Even without sin, God could have brought about a good equal to the Incarnation. Even without evil, God can still bring about equally great goods.
As you present Leibniz, it seems that God NEEDS human beings to sin in order for him to have the ability to make something good. What impiety!
Indeed, God does bring good from evil, and some goods perhaps are such that they would not have been brought about without the previous evil (like the Incarnation).
Nevertheless, we must maintain that God could have brought about other goods, and even greater goods -- so that the universe could be either accidentally or even essentially greater than the universe which now exists.
So, to be very clear, St. Thomas differs from Leibniz on two points:
1) God could have made a different world greater than the one which he did in fact create.
2) Even this world which God did make, could have been greater (by having a higher degree of accidental goodness).
Thus, this is not the best of all possible worlds -- excepting in relation to the humanity of Christ (the hypostatic union), heaven (the created vision of God), and the Blessed Virgin Mary (the Mother of God). - January 1, 2011 at 10:11 AM
I am the poster of anonymous 6:50 & 7:10. I hadn't posted to a blog like this before, was a little overwhelmed with all the options, and settled on anonymous for ease's sake. Per your request, I've added my name. Also, sorry for the late reply, but I didn't have computer access yesterday. Anyway, I want to address the two points of divergence you posed (ignoring the point about God being able to do good without evil; a point on which Leibniz is agreed, and I see no reason to pursue), which I believe will resolve down to one, and then to look at that difference.
First, let me emphasize again that for Thomas the accidental "improvement" of this universe is actually a step backwards because it interferes with the order of this universe. "No other order would be suitable and good to the things which now are" (ST I.25.5 r3). Also, "The universe, the present creation being supposed, cannot be better, on account of the most beautiful order given to things by God; in which the good of the universe consists" (ST I.25.6 r3). Please note that for Thomas it is the beautiful order in which the good of the universe consists.
Thomas does allow for substantial changes. "God can do other things and impose upon them another order" (5 r3) "God could make other things, or add something to the present creation" (6 r3). For Leibniz, such changes are indeed possible, but they would not represent improvements, unless they are actual (because if they are better, God has chosen them. If God has not chosen them, that is so because they are not better). That is, if this is the only world, it is the best in itself and no accidental changes or substantial additions/subtractions could improve it. If there are other worlds, the one universe (i.e. all creation) is the best in itself--again without any possible improvement in its order--and our world is a part of that overall order.
On that point are Thomas and Leibniz agreed? No, and here we do see a difference. Their positions split as they consider the consequences of God's perfect power, wisdom, and goodness on His creation. For Leibniz, those attributes mean that God knows what is best (wisdom), elects it (goodness), and carries it out (power). Thus, we have full confidence that whatever the overarching order/narrative of the universe is, it is uniquely the best. For Thomas, concerning God's activity "God cannot make anything better than He makes it, because He cannot make it from greater wisdom and goodness" (6 r1), but concerning what God effects, He could have done differently since "the divine wisdom is not so restricted to any particular order that no other course of events could happen" (5). In other words, while God is best, as are the beatific vision, and the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the humanity of Christ, the universe as a whole is not the kind of thing that can be a unique best.
Now, whether Leibniz or Thomas is right, whether there is a uniquely best universe and so God has made it or whether there is no uniquely best universe but what God has created is still ordered as best as it might be, I don't know. On both accounts, God creates with perfect wisdom, goodness, and power. That is the important thing. Whether the universe can be a best and so it is or whether it can only asymptotically approach the best and so is doomed to have an infinity of betters, I am not particularly concerned.
(1) This world is perfectly ordered so no accidental change could improve it (although accidental changes could improve parts of it, that would throw off the perfect harmony orchestrated by God in His Providence).
(2) There may (Leibniz) or may not (Thomas) be a best of all possible worlds. If there is, God has chosen it. If there is not, then obviously God has not.
Let me know what you think. I'm quite convinced that (1) is right for both Thomas and Leibniz, and I'm pretty sure that my claims for Thomas on (2) are accurate, but maybe I'm reading him wrong there. - January 2, 2011 at 9:12 PM
- Father Ryan Erlenbush said...
First, thank you for entering into this discussion ... it is obviously a bit more philosophical than the post is aimed at, but I think find it most enjoyable none the less!
Also, thank you for using an ID ... it really does help a lot!
Regarding your points -- I agree with (2), Leibniz and Thomas are certainly of diverse opinions regarding whether or not there can be a best of all possible worlds ... Thomas certainly holds that there is not and that this world is not the better than all other possible worlds. Here we are in agreement.
Regarding (1), I think that we are somewhat in agreement and somewhat opposed.
I read Thomas as saying that this world, given the current order, cannot be improved ... that is, given the current state of affairs, simply adding another star or angel would mess things up.
However, I think he means to say that, even in this world, another order could be established (without essentially changing this world) which would accommodate a greater perfection.
Here I refer to words which you cite from St. Thomas: "the divine wisdom is not so restricted to any particular order that no other course of events could happen" ... there is room for many options, it is not as though only one outcome is possible. [I do recognize I have not proven from St. Thomas' words that these other possible options are better than the current state of affairs]
In fact, I am perplexed by the idea that accidental improvement is not possible ... the universe is constantly having accidental improvement, since new human souls are constantly being created. Thus, the universe we now live in is not as perfect as it could be, because it will become more perfect tomorrow when there are more human souls in it...
Indeed, there will be a certain point when this growth in perfection stops (at the end of time), but even then we will say that the universe would have been more perfect if we had not sinned -- for God surely could have given us the graces of the Incarnation through some other means, if man had not sinned.
Leibniz seems to me to have a ridiculous optimism -- though, perhaps, I am not giving his theory enough credit.
In any case, I don't think it is helpful for Christians to constantly claim that, whatever happens happens for the best. Sin is constantly at work, corrupting the good -- God does bring it back into perfect order, but it would have been better if we and all the angels had gone to heaven ...
I will very happily read any response you offer ... but I must confess now that I may not have time to respond to it. So, I will leave you with the last word, if you wish to take it.
Blessings. - January 4, 2011 at 9:39 AM
Leibniz does have a kernel of truth in his "best of all possible worlds" argument. The reason he gives for his argument is that the world we live in now is "simplest in hypotheses and richest in phenomena" - which it is. Our world is the "best of all possible worlds" because it was created with the best laws of physics (and we can also point to the "fine-tuning" arguments that show how well it was designed for man). Where his argument doesn't work is when he tries to explain things by an exaggerated essentialism, arguing that God created the perfect number and kind of monads, etc. The argument works if all we're looking at is the laws of physics; it doesn't if we're concerned about substances and accidental perfections.
In Christ,
Seraphim - June 19, 2011 at 9:24 AM
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Saving for a down payment is often the biggest hurdle for a first-time homebuyer as median incomes, rents, and home prices all vary depending on where you live.
There is a common misconception among homebuyers that a 20% down payment is required, and it is this limiting belief that often adds months, and sometimes even years, to the home-buying process.
So, if you can purchase a home with less than a 20% down payment… why aren't more people doing just that?
One Possible Answer: Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI)
Freddie Mac defines PMI as:
"An insurance policy that protects the lender if you are unable to pay your mortgage. It's a monthly fee, rolled into your mortgage payment, that is required for all conforming, conventional loans that have down payments less than 20%.
Once you've built equity of 20% in your home, you can cancel your PMI and remove that expense from your mortgage payment."
As the borrower, you pay the monthly premiums for the insurance policy, and the lender is the beneficiary. The monthly cost of your PMI depends on the home's value, the amount of your down payment, and your credit score.
Below is a table showing the difference in monthly mortgage payment for a $250,000 home with a 3% down payment and PMI vs. a 20% down payment without PMI:
The first thing you see when looking at the table above is no doubt the added $320 a month that you would be spending on your monthly mortgage cost. The second thing that should stand out is that a 20% down payment is $50,000!
If you are buying your first home, $50,000 is a large sum of money that takes discipline and sacrifice to save. Many first-time buyers save for 5-10 years before buying their homes.
To save $50,000 in 10 years, you would need to save about $420 a month. On the other hand, if you save that same $420 a month, you could afford a 3% down payment in less than a year and a half.
In a recent article by My Mortgage Insider, they explain what could happen in the market while you are waiting to save for a higher down payment:
"The time it takes to save a (larger) down payment could mean higher home prices and tougher qualifying down the road. For many buyers, it could prove much cheaper and quicker to opt for the 3% down mortgage immediately."
The article went on to say,
"Since renters typically devote a higher percentage of their income to housing than homeowners, providing flexible down payment options can help renters with solid earnings purchase a home – and gain a fixed-rate mortgage with principal and interest payments that will not increase over the life of the loan."
If the prospect of having to pay PMI is holding you back from buying a home today, Freddie Mac has this advice,
"It's no doubt an added cost, but it's enabling you to buy now and begin building equity versus waiting 5 to 10 years to build enough savings for a 20% down payment."
Based on results of the most recent Home Price Expectation Survey, a homeowner who purchased a $250,000 home in January would gain $50,000 in equity over the next five years based on home price appreciation alone (shown below).
Bottom Line
If you have questions about whether you should buy now or wait until you've saved a larger down payment, let's get together to discuss our market's conditions and help you make the best decision for you and your family.


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During the many months that my last home was on the market I lived in a constant state of fear, a maddening limbo of not knowing if or when the house would sell, not knowing where I would be living in the months or years ahead. It's a bit of a first-world problem to have, owning a house to sell, I understand this, but because I was doing it alone it will go down as one of the most stressful things I've ever lived through.
I never once looked at real estate listings because the the whole idea seemed masochistic when potential buyers would come and go without showing any interest. I told myself to wait until I'd gotten a solid offer, but when that finally happened, the buyers wanted a 30-day escrow. I quickly secured a loan, but when I started researching houses that would fit my needs I realized how impossible it would be to find something in four short weeks, something I would want to sink all that money into yet again.
My mother said we could live in her basement until I found what I needed, but that would mean living and sleeping in the same room as both girls and both dogs and commuting over 45 minutes to their schools in the morning. I'd have to pack up the dogs and my laptop and work at a dog-friendly coffee shop every day until school was out, then the 45-minute commute back to the basement. Although my mother was a saint to offer this, and I am so lucky to have this kind of option should everything go horribly wrong, it just wasn't ideal. Plain and simple, I don't think I could resist eating all of my stepfather's bologna.
My mother says that what happened next is a result of all those times she put my name on the prayer list in the temple, and if that is true, thank you prayer list. Prayer list, you saved me and my girls from months of disgruntled living. You also saved my stepfather's bologna.
About a week into escrow I was driving home after dropping Leta off at school when I saw a FOR RENT sign in the yard of a home about a half-mile from where I was living. From the outside the house looked like it was in good condition, so I jotted down the number and made a call to ask three questions that would determine whether or not I would ask the fourth:
1) How much is rent?
2) Is there a fenced-in backyard?
3) Do you allow pets?
The landlord answered yes to all three so I asked the fourth:
4) Where's Waldo?
That afternoon she let me take a look at the place, and I brought Tyrant along so that he could give me his opinion. The layout was fine, there was a bedroom for Leta and a separate bedroom for Marlo, and there was space for the office. I wasn't a fan of the paint colors, the wallpaper, the light fixtures, or the carpet, but the price was so affordable that none of that really mattered. Here was a viable option for me and the girls, one that suited our basic needs and would save my mother the hassle of housing her 37-year-old daughter.
Tyrant's opinion? "Can you tell your mom to put my name on the prayer list?"
This would also allow me some time to get my bearings after months of living in a sort of suspended state, to figure out what I really wanted in a home instead of prematurely jumping at the first thing to catch my eye. This goes directly against how I normally make big decisions. I don't like to lollygag or dawdle. My gut is very opinionated and often right, so when I see something I like I go after it. But when I'm dealing with the kind of money that goes into a down payment and a mortgage? Maybe it's time to tell my gut to shut it.
So I signed a lease. And now I'm living in a home where if the dishwasher breaks, I don't have to buy a new one. This feeling of freedom and relief after all those months of not knowing and now living in a space that someone else has to take care of should probably be illegal.
Also, the girls have settled in here so seamlessly, and that's the most important component to all these very fortunate events falling into place. My girls feel at home.
I've been living here only a month, but I've already started to put together a list of things to look for when I decide to buy again, a list informed by all the things that I didn't like about the houses I previously owned. You may be surprised to hear this, or maybe not, but the one thing that bothered me the most about the three houses I've owned is the size of the last one. One day I'm going to write a book about living in a very big house and I'll call it "Very Big Unhappiness."
Never have I wanted to simplify more than I do now, that's what that last home taught me more than anything. And since I have some time to breath before signing my name to another 30-year mortgage, that's what I plan to do.
Here are the make it or break it items:
– A fenced-in backyard for the dogs
– A dedicated space for my office
– A separate bedroom for both girls
– A garage
– Washer and dryer hookups
– A kitchen that does not need a total overhaul
– A working stove on which Ryan Gosling can make me pancakes made with almond flour
Here are the things that would be nice to have:
– A bathroom for the girls and a separate bathroom for me
– A bedroom for guests
– Lots of natural sunlight
– A patio
– A storage space where I could set up the dogs' crates
– White walls
– Hardwood floors
– A dungeon
I'm really curious what you guys have learned from owning homes, or what you would look for if you were seeking to buy one. What are your must-haves? What has surprised you?
This post was sponsored by BHI. Explore the benefits of a newly built home.


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For immediate release | September 28, 2012
Reach teens and tweens with YALSA's fall online course
CHICAGO — School and teen services librarians find their roles evolving constantly, and many are now called to serve tweens and teens. What are the differences in need between these two age groups, and how do librarians successfully serve both? Find out how in Navigating the Divide between Teens and Tweens, a new online course offered in fall 2012 by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). The self-paced course takes place Oct. 1 to Oct. 29 and costs $155 for YALSA members, $195 for ALA members and $215 for nonmembers. Navigating the Divide between Teens and Tweens is accredited for 1 CEU.
Students in the course will:
- Become familiar with local, state and national standards for service to tweens and teens;
- Identify three areas for personal improvement based on standards observed;
- Complete an environmental scan of their library;
- Define two differences between tweens and teens;
- Identify two methods to improve their library's marketing to target tweens and teens;
- Evaluate your current space in terms of local and national standards and identify two areas of improvement;
- Evaluate current collection development policies in terms of local and national standards and identify two areas of improvement.
This class will be co-taught by Beth Gallaway and Alissa Lauzon of the Haverhill (Mass.) Public Library. Discounts are available for groups of ten or more, and all YALSA e-courses are available for licensing; contact Eve Gaus at firstname.lastname@example.com or 1 (800) 545-2433, ext. 5293, for more information.
For more information on YALSA's online courses, please visit www.ala.org/yalsa/onlinecourses.
For more than 50 years, YALSA has been the world leader in selecting books, videos, and audiobooks for teens. For more information about these awards or for additional lists of recommended reading, go to www.ala.org/yalsa/booklists. For more information about YALSA, please contact us via e-mail, firstname.lastname@example.com, or by phone, at 1 (800) 545-2433 ext. 4390.
Eve Gaus
Program Officer
Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA)
firstname.lastname@example.com ext.5293
Featured News


text:
The Select Cage Series Play Top Bird Cage features a cage top playpen which provides your bird hours of enjoyment and exercise. This cage is designed for cockatiels to parrots and is built in the U.S.A.
The Select Series cages offer quality craftsmanship at an excellent value! This bird cage features a top-opening playpen Heavy-duty push button door lock is more difficult (if not impossible) for a bird to open vs. a simple latch.
All Select Cages includes 2 solid wood perches, 4 stainless steel cups, pull out grille and rolling caster stand. The three metallic finishes - Jade Green, Garnet Red and Cobalt Blue - have a double ladder playtop and solid cup doors.
Color Options:


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San Pablo Laminate Floor Installation
Wood flooring is costly, so for people who are working on a tight budget, laminate flooring is an amazing alternative. Laminate is one of the cheapest flooring options in the San Pablo market, but amazingly, it can give you the look of real natural wood. It has a clear wear layer on top that prevents damage and stain that may be caused by any spillage or accumulated dirt.
At a fraction of the cost, you can get the appearance of expensive solid hardwood. Moreover, laminate flooring is easy to clean and maintain. It has a long lifespan and approximately lasts for about a decade.
If you just bought laminate flooring and didn't know how to install it, you can seek help from professional installers. After all, they have the right equipment, resources, and the skill to carry out such precise installation that you need. We highly encourage you to partner with a flooring company that will walk you through the whole installation process. Bay Area Custom Floors Inc. is a full-service San Pablo, CA flooring company that is committed to serving you well! We can install your laminate flooring in any area of your house, or your commercial property.
Call Bay Area Custom Floors Inc. at (925) 320-3955 to get a free consultation!
Installation Method
Laminate floors are often not suspended on the floor surface but installed as floating floors. Meaning to say, they are not attached to the subfloor but connected. This method is called the floating floor method. Foam materials are rolled out and taped together as an underlayment. After that, the laminate planks are laid out. These laminates form a single heavy unit of flooring.
To connect the laminate planks, they are either glued or snapped together. Unlike the joinery used in hardwood, laminate wood planks are attached through the outer grooves, then angled to one another. Subsequently, a folding mechanism takes place. One board is folded down to become the same level as its companion board.
To give you an idea of the step-by-step procedure of laminate floor installation, here is a summary of instructions:
Plan the Floor Layout
The first thing to do is to test-fit the laminates, connect several of them, and see how they appear on the floor surface. Planning is an essential phase. Without it, there's a possibility that some of your planks will be put to waste, or you might repeat the process all over again. This is why seeking a professional installation service is more recommended. Installers can easily make the plan of floor layout and know which one best fits the area that must be covered.
Spread of Underlayment
As mentioned earlier, there should be an underlayment beneath the laminate flooring. This serves as protection to moisture and somehow keeps the laminate planks in place. The underlayment sheets should be rolled out in such a way that they touch edge to edge with one another, not overlap. Tape may be used for securing the position of the foam sheets.
The manufacturer might have provided a specialized type of underlayment, such as a peel-and-stick type. This is much easier and more secured to use than the one without. So, you can ask your laminate floor provider for this or your flooring company partner for the installation.
Place the First Row of Planks
The first row of planks is supposed to be laid on the part with the longest wall, where you should start. Installers have the equipment to cut off tongues of the laminate with ease. Those with trimmed edges should face the wall. To avoid wide gaps, scrap wood can be used in the spaces.
Continue with the Succeeding Rows
Applying a slightly different method, the next rows should be placed with laminate planks. To increase steadiness in place, a hammer can be used in tapping the planks to make sure they are properly positioned on the underlayment.
Installation of the Last Row
Remember, the flooring and the wall should at most have a ¼-inch gap in between. For the last set of planks to fit, a circular saw can be used to trim edges. Again, you don't need to worry about this as your installers are ready with the essential equipment for the laminate floor installation. Using the same tongue and groove technique for plank-fitting, the last set of sheared planks are to be installed.
Finally, spacers must be removed. Then, the installers may put up a baseboard molding just next to the perimeter of the room. Moldings are going to be responsible for concealing the gaps on the walls.
Talk to Our Installation Experts
If you live in San Pablo, CA, and are in need of floor services such as laminate floor installation, we got your back! Bay Area Custom Floors Inc. is a prime local flooring company that consistently serves different clients only with the best flooring services. We are committed to providing you with a flawless transaction and excellent services. We install flooring materials both in residential and commercial properties.
Call Bay Area Custom Floors Inc. at (925) 320-3955 and get a free quote now!


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How to Robochop
From March 5-20, 2015 the custom ROBOCHOP app allowed users around the world to remotely command one of four giant robotic arms and instruct it to grab and sculpt a prefabricated 40 x 40 x 40 cm durable foam cube using an external hot wire tool.
CODE_n 15 is now closed. We intend to run the robots again at some time in the future. If there is a chance to produce your design, you will receive a further email.


text: When you bring additional fields into a conversion, Quickbase often finds inconsistencies. For example, say you're converting your Companies column into its own table. One company, Acme Corporation, has offices in New York, Dallas and Portland. So, when you add the City column to the conversion, Quickbase finds three different locations for Acme. A single value in the column you're converting can only match one value in any additional field. Quickbase needs you to clean up the extra cities before it can create your new table. To do so, you have one of two choices:


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By EDITH M. LEDERER
Romania's President Klaus Iohannis did find something positive from the COVID-19 crisis.
"While the pandemic affected almost all aspects of our lives," he said, "it also provided us with opportunities to learn, adapt and do things better."
Two of the most closely watched speeches on Tuesday were delivered by U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
In an Associated Press interview on Saturday, Guterres warned that the world could plunge into a new and probably more dangerous Cold War if China and the United States don't repair their "completely dysfunctional" relationship. "Unfortunately, today we only have confrontation," he said.
Biden said in his U.N. address that the United States was not attempting to be divisive or confrontational.
"We are not seeking a new Cold War or a world divided into rigid blocs," he said. "The United States is ready to work with any nation that steps up and pursues peaceful resolution to shared challenges even if we have intense disagreements in other areas."
Speaking later, Xi said disputes among countries "need to be handled through dialogue and cooperation."
"One country's success does not have to mean another country's failure," Xi said. "The world is big enough to accommodate common development and progress of all countries."
By tradition, the first country to speak was Brazil, whose president, Jair Bolsonaro rebuffed criticism of his handling of the pandemic and touted recent data indicating less Amazon deforestation. He said he was seeking to counter the image of Brazil portrayed in the media, touting it as a great place for investment and praising his pandemic welfare program, which helped avoid a worse recession last year.
Bolsonaro said that his government has successfully distributed first doses to the majority of adults, but doesn't support vaccine passports or forcing anyone to have a shot. He has said several times in the past week that he remains unvaccinated. He had COVID-19 last year.
Brazil's health minister, Marcelo Quiroga, who was with Bolsonaro, later tested positive for the coronavirus and will remain in isolation in the United States, the government said. Quiroga got his first shot of coronavirus vaccine in January.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Racism, climate change and worsening divisions among nations and cultures topped the agenda Wednesday as leaders from China to Costa Rica, from Finland to Turkey to the United Nations itself outlined reasons why the world isn't working as it should — and what must be done quickly to fix it. Said one country's president: "The future is raising its voice at us."
For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began early last year, more than two dozen world leaders appeared in person at the U.N. General Assembly on the opening day of their annual high-level meeting Tuesday. In speech after speech, the atmosphere was somber, angry and dire.
Chinese President Xi Jinping warned that "the world has entered a period of new turbulence and transformation." Finland President Sauli Niinistö said: "We are indeed at a critical juncture." And Costa Rican President Carlos Alvarado Quesada declared: "The future is raising its voice at us: Less military weaponry, more investment in peace!"
Speaker after speaker at Tuesday's opening of the nearly week-long meeting decried the inequalities and deep divisions that have prevented united global action to end the COVID-19 pandemic, which has claimed nearly 4.6 million lives and is still raging, and the failure to sufficiently tackle the climate crisis threatening the planet.
COVID-19 and climate are certain to remain top issues for heads of state and government. But Wednesday's U.N. agenda will first turn the spotlight on the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the controversial U.N. World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, which was dominated by clashes over the Middle East and the legacy of slavery.
The U.S. and Israel walked out during the meeting over a draft resolution that singled out Israel for criticism and likened Zionism to racism — a provision that was eventually dropped. Twenty countries are boycotting Wednesday's commemoration, according to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which urged more countries to join them "in continuing to fight racism, bigotry, and anti-Semitism."
Following the commemoration, heads of state will start delivering their annual addresses again in the vast General Assembly hall. Speakers include King Abdullah II of Jordan, Indonesian President Joko Widodo and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Perhaps the harshest assessment of the current global crisis came from U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who opened his state of the world address sounding an "alarm" that "the world must wake up."
"Our world has never been more threatened or more divided," he said. "We face the greatest cascade of crises in our lifetimes."
"We are on the edge of an abyss — and moving in the wrong direction," the secretary-general warned.
Guterres pointed to "supersized glaring inequalities" in addressing COVID-19, "climate alarm bells … ringing at fever pitch," upheavals from Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Yemen and beyond thwarting peace, and "a surge of mistrust and misinformation (that) is polarizing people and paralyzing societies."
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the pandemic was a reminder "that the entire world are part of a big family."
"But the solidarity test that we were put to failed us miserably," he said. "It is a disgrace for humanity that vaccine nationalism is still being carried on through different methods," and underdeveloped countries and poor segments of societies have been "literally left to their fate in the face of the pandemic."
As for the climate crisis, Erdogan said whoever did the most damage to nature, the atmosphere and water, "and whoever has wildly exploited natural resources" should make the greatest contribution to fighting global warming.
"Unlike the past, this time no one can afford the luxury to say, 'I'm powerful so I will not pay the bill' because climate change will treat mankind quite equally," the Turkish leader said. "The duty for all of us is to take measures against this enormous threat, with a fair burden-sharing."
Bulgaria's President Rumen Radev is seen on video screens as he addresses the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly remotely, Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2021 at U.N. headquarters. (Spencer Platt/Pool Photo via AP)