text:
Organizer, Natalie Naomi May
Post-Doctoral Scholar at the University of Chicago Oriental Institute
Tel. (773) 702-2589
1155 East 58th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
April 8-9, 2011
- Introduction
- Conference Overview
- Goals and Aims of the Conference
- Program
- Abstracts and Bios
- Download Selected Bibliography
- Practical information
The purpose of this conference will be to analyze the cases of and reasons for mutilation of texts and images in Near Eastern antiquity. Destruction of images and texts has a universal character; it is inherent in various societies and periods of human history. Together with the mutilation of human beings, it was a widespread and highly significant phenomenon in the ancient Near East. However, the goals meant to be realized by this process differed from those aimed at in other cultures. For example, iconoclasm of the French and Russian revolutions, as well as the Post-Soviet iconoclasm, did not have any religious purposes. Moreover, modern comprehension of iconoclasm is strongly influenced by its conception during the Reformation.
This conference will explore iconoclasm and text destruction in the ancient Near Eastern antiquity through examination of the anthropological, cultural, historical and political aspects of these practices. Broad interdisciplinary comparison with similar phenomena in the other cultures and periods will contribute to better understanding them.
Conference Overview
Previous Research
Despite its importance, this subject has not received proper scholarly attention. In 1995 Bahrani defined the totality of relevant research as 'three brief articles': those of Nylander (1980), Beran (1988) and Harper (1992). We can now add to the list two articles by Bahrani herself (1995, 2004) 1, another contribution by Nylander (1999), an earlier one by Brandes (1980) and a recent article by Porter (2009). All these studies either treat particular cases of mutilation or certain aspects of its significance. Especially seminal in this respect is Bahrani's discussion of mutilation of an image as a magical and performative act.
Nevertheless, mutilation of image and text as a phenomenon remains a field awaiting systematic research. The specific framework for the previous scholarship has been assault on royal and divine effigies, although the phenomenon was in fact much more universal.
1The main ideas presented in these articles were also elaborated in chapters 1 and 6 of Bahrani's book Rituals of War (2008).
Reasons and purposes of iconoclasm
One of the main goals of the conference will thus be to establish which images were chosen for mutilation - a question naturally closely connected with understanding the purposes of the damage. The performative dimension underscored by Bahrani was important and probably even ubiquitous; but it was certainly not the only factor involved in the ancient Near Eastern destruction of images. The aims of such actions were multiple and interacted mutually in a complex manner. Consequently, the specific sort of damage and its possible relationship with the political and cultural setting has to be examined for each individual case.
Important to explore are parallels between the mutilation of humans and mutilation of images. As a parallel to the decapitation of flesh and blood enemies, statues were also beheaded and their severed heads mutilated. It was already Brandes who pointed to the severing of statues' heads and extremities as a practice known from the very beginning of Mesopotamian history. The purpose of this practice was symbolic, magical and performative, resulting in loss of power by, and 'murder' and humiliation of the depicted person. Magical actions of this kind are well known in various sorts of apotropaic ritual (e.g. šurpu). Images were perceived as living objects, parts of gods or persons; damage to the images thus inflicting damage on the depicted, divine or human, alive or dead.
Another form of damage to an image was its effacement, more precisely erasing its mouth or nose. Such action was clearly tied to the essential role of these organs for the image as an animated and living substance. Mutilation of the nose and the mouth was thus an act antithetical to the mouth-opening ceremony that brought an inanimate object to life. In general, every kind of mutilation had multiple implications. Severing of ears was aimed therefore not only at humiliation tied to one of the legal penalties for criminal offences, but also at depriving the depicted image of a wisdom symbolized in Mesopotamia by wide ears. Mutilation of symbols of divinity and divine protection had special meaning.
Iconoclasm and aniconism
Through various periods of human history religious iconoclasm connects with the prohibition of figurative representation. Conception of aniconism in the ancient Near Eastern antiquity differs from the modern one. For instance there was no general ban on images as such. Nonetheless, anthropomorphic cult statues were often replaced by divine symbols.
What was the significance of aniconism in the mutilation of ancient Near Eastern images? An attempt will be made to answer this question through exploration of Mesopotamian and Biblical approaches to aniconism and comparison of the role of aniconism in iconoclastic tendencies in Christianity and Islam.
Destruction of figurative complexes
The cases of systematic damage inflicted on a complex of images or statues are of particular interest. Those took place, for instance in the Assyrian palaces of Nineveh and, probably, Kalhu in the time of the Median-Babylonian invasion (612 and 614 BCE respectively). Destruction of the statues and steles of Gudea was similarly systematic. In the narrative reliefs of the Neo-Assyrian palaces, certain depictions or participants of certain scenes were selected for effacement. Sometimes objects along with human beings were chiselled out. The choice here was not casual but rather intentional. By investigating the motivations of those who carried out these actions, we can better understand the social, political, and ritual significance of the depictions themselves.
Iconoclasm and Spoliation
Very few intact divine statues have been found from the ancient Near East. Scholars have tried to explain this fact as the result of looting of precious materials or disintegration of perishable substances. But in fact all the discovered stone statues of gods suffered intentional damage. I believe that the absence among archaeological finds of cult statues or other divine statues in the round is, in first place, a result of their intentional destruction. This process is apparently tied closely with that of spoliation of the statues. In this project's context, a salient problem that needs to be explored is thus whether there was a connection between the abduction of and damage done to divine statues during warfare, and both the suppression of the subdued nation's cult and installation of the cult of the invader. Cogan (1974) takes the spoliation of divine images as a plain statement of divine abandonment. But in fact, in Near Eastern antiquity religious self-identification expressed through worship of a certain deity was a substitute for ethnic and national identity. Consequently the abduction and especially destruction of an opponent's cult statues had effects reaching far beyond a simple demonstration of power, although the significance of these actions in various periods may well have differed. It should be noted that in Assyria the imperial cult was established in annexed provinces and probably in vassal countries. The subdued population was obliged to worship Assyrian gods. Were the local cults also limited by the demolition or abduction of cult statues? It seems to me that each case should be explored individually. The deportation of the statues of Marduk and other Babylonian deities by Sennacherib could not put an end to their cult. But the uprooting of entire peoples usually drove them to accept the cults prevailing in their new places of habitation—to assimilation with the Assyrians or other ethnic and religious groups of the empire, as was the case with the Israelite tribes. Josiah's attempt to regain rule over all territories of Judah and Israel was accompanied by the installation of the cult of YHWH and destruction of cultic images of the other gods.
Not only divine statues were subject to spoliation and destruction. The choice of deported items is a clue to understanding the nature and purpose of the process at work here. Both textual and archaeological evidence shows that not all pillaged items were damaged. Thus the famous stele of Hammurabi, taken by the Elamites from Sippar to Susa, suffered practically no damage. Moreover, it became an object of reverence and pilgrimage at its new location. Sometimes the conqueror would incise inscriptions with his name or a dedication to his gods upon his booty. The Elamite king Inshushinak did this to objects he captured in Mesopotamia; as did Ashurbanipal to gods of the Arabs that then he returned to them. These acts of inscription served various purposes, but the primary effect was understood as performative. The inscribed object - divine statue, royal stele, and so forth - became subjugated to the king, whose name it bore through the magic power of the word.
Text destruction
Mutilation of texts was less common than mutilation of images—in most cases, monuments bearing the texts where simply annihilated. For example, only small fragments of the inscribed Assyrian steles were found in Ashdod and Samaria. The famous stele from Tel Dan that mentions the house of David, was also smashed, its fragments scattered on the gate square and probably beyond.
Nevertheless, it is common for monumental inscriptions to bear invocations against their destruction and curses against anyone daring to demolish them. In rare cases an inscription or a part thereof was erased while the monument was left intact, as with the Naram-Sin or Adad-nerari III steles.
Yet, "the possibly symbolic breaking, in front of the empty throne in the Nabu temple of humiliating Vassal Treaties forced by Assarhaddon on the Medes in 672" was already noticed by Nylander (1980). I my opinion it was more than just a literal and symbolic breaking of Median vassal obligations to Assyria, but the destruction of the very grounds of the empire together with the all the possible guarantees - human and divine - of obedience, which these tablets contained.
Goals and Aims of the Conference
The problems to be examined in the suggested conference can be summarized as follows:
- the purposes of the mutilation, in the framework of the choice of images and texts meant to be damaged
- the types of damage inflicted as a key to its meaning
- iconoclasm and aniconism
- the thoroughness of the injury inflicted on complexes of images and monuments
- the significance of the destruction and spoliation of pictorial and textual monuments in respect to territorial domination
- the significance of the mutilation and superimposition of texts
- iconoclasm and text destruction in European and Oriental Middle Ages and beyond — legacy or universality of phenomenon?
The exploration of these problems is conceivably to be carried out through the synchronic and diachronic interdisciplinary comparison with iconoclasm and text destruction in other cultures and periods.
Friday, April 8
9:00-9:15 am: Opening by the Director of the Oriental Institute (Gil Stein)
9:15-9:30 am: Introduction (Natalie Naomi May – the Oriental Institute)
Session 1. 'Iconoclasm Begins at Sumer' and Akkad
Chair: Miguel Civil
9:30-10:00 am: Christopher Woods, The Oriental Institute "Mutilation of Text and Image in Early Sumerian Sources"
10:00-10:30 am: Claudia E. Suter, University of Basel, Switzerland, "Why Gudea of Lagash?"
10:30-11:00 am: Joan Goodnick Westenholz, New York University, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, "Damnatio Memoriae: Destruction of Name and Destruction of Person in Third-Millennium Mesopotamia"
11:00-11:30 am: Coffee break
Session 2. Iconoclasm as an Instrument of Politics
Chair: Marian Feldman
11:30 am-12:00: Hanspeter Schaudig, University of Heidelberg, "Death of Statues and Rebirth of Gods"
12:00-12:30 pm: Angelika Berlejung, University of Leipzig and University of Stellenbosch, "Shared Fates: The Assyrian Religious Policy in the West"
12:30-1:00 pm: JoAnn Scurlock, Elmhurst College, "Getting Smashed at the Victory Celebration, or What Happened to Esarhaddon's so-called Vassal Treaties and Why"
1:00-2:00 pm: Lunch break
Session 3. How the Images Die and Why?
Chair: Robert Biggs
2:00-2:30 pm: Natalie N. May, The Oriental Institute "Ali-talimu, or What Can Be Learned from the Destruction of Figurative Complexes"
2:30-3:00 pm: Seth Richardson, The Oriental Institute "The Hypercoherent Icon: Knowledge, Rationalization, and Disenchantment in Mesopotamia"
Saturday, April 9
Session 4. The Ancient Near East beyond Mesopotamia
Chair: Janet Johnson
9:00-9:30 am: Nathaniel Levtow, University of Montana, "The Life and Death of Images and Texts: Correlations and Social Relations in the Ancient Near East"
9:30-10:00 am: Betsy M. Bryan, Johns Hopkins University "Episodes of Iconoclasm in the Egyptian New Kingdom"
10:00-10:30 am: Petra Goedegebuure, The Oriental Institute "Iconoclasm in Hittite Society: Certainly not Present, and Perhaps Impossible"
10:30-10:45 am: Coffee break
Session 5. Classical Antiquity, Byzantium, Reformation
Chair: Richard Neer
10:45-11:15 am: Silke Knippschild, University of Bristol, "Performing the Frontier: The Abduction and Destruction of Religious and Political Signifiers in Greco-Persian Conflicts"
11:15-11:45 am: Robin Cormack. University of Cambridge, Great Britain, "Looking for Iconophobia and Iconoclasm in Late Antiquity and Byzantium"
11:45-12:45 am: Lunch break
Session 6. Reformation and Modernity
Chair: Walter Kaegi
12:45-1:15 pm: Lee Palmer Wandel, University of Wisconsin-Madison, "Idolatry and Iconoclasm: Alien Religions and Reformation"
1:15-1:45 pm: W.J.T. Mitchell, The University of Chicago, "Idolatry: Nietzsche, Blake, Poussin"
1:45-2:15 pm: Irene Winter, Harvard University - Respondent
Abstracts and Bios
Angelika Berlejung, University of Leipzig and University of Stellenbosch, "Shared Fates: The Assyrian Religious Policy in the West"
The material remains of the Assyrian presence and religious policy in the West prove that they were not interested in the beliefs of the subjugated peoples but only in their taxes. Referring to the deportation of state gods, kings, and elites, the idea of this paper is that they shared the same fate: only the ruling divine and human elites, e.g., the state gods, kings, and ruling classes were deported while the local and family gods, as well as the majority of the non-ruling classes could live their usual life under Assyrian domination — as long as they did not start any anti-Assyrian activities.
Angelika Berlejung is professor for History and History of Religions of Ancient Israel and its neighbors in Leipzig, Germany, and professor extraordinaire of Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Stellenbosch, South Africa. She is co-director of the excavation in Qubur al-Walaydah, Israel. She is specialized in the history, religions, and cultures of Syria and Palestine in the first millennium B.C. She is the author of Die Theologie der Bilder (1995) and of an "Introduction into the History and History of Religions of Ancient Israel," in Grundinformation Altes Testament (2010, edited by J. C. Gertz). She is currently working on a book on the Assyrian presence in the West during the Neo-Assyrian period, and on a catalog of epigraphical amulets of the first millennium BC.
Betsy M. Bryan, Johns Hopkins University, "Episodes of Iconoclasm in the Egyptian New Kingdom"
Iconoclasm, when defined as the mutilation or destruction of images or texts, can be identified in a wide variety of settings in ancient Egypt. Only several papers could begin to represent the breadth of time periods and environments that provoked iconoclastic behaviors. One of the best attested types of evidence derives from tomb texts and is seen in mutilated hieroglyphs, principally of animals, drawn and carved with physical impediments that prevented their potential danger to the deceased. These glyphs were so conceived already in the Old Kingdom and continued to appear in the Middle Kingdom and later (Orly Goldwasser, From Icon to Metaphor. Studies in the Semiotics of the Hieroglyphs). This class of examples will not be covered below but should be considered within the overall topic. Here, rather, episodes of iconoclasm as defined by the destruction or damage to images and texts already in use will be considered, and the examples derive from the New Kingdom, ca. 1500-1300 B.C. The paper will discuss both two- and three- dimensional examples of destruction and will attempt to evaluate the reasons for differences in the treatment of the materials. Further, some discussion of making images effective and then reversing the process will be in order and then it will be set next to the visual remains. Primary eras to be considered will be the mid-18th Dynasty (Hatshepsut and her contemporaries) and the Amarna period -- including mutilation by the Atenists and to their monuments afterwards.
Betsy M. Bryan is the Alexander Badawy Professor of Egyptian Art and Archaeology at Johns Hopkins University, where she has taught since 1986. Bryan specializes in the history, art, and archaeology of the New Kingdom in Egypt, ca. 1600-1000 BC, with a particular emphasis on the Eighteenth Dynasty, ca. 1550-1300 BC. Bryan's research interests include the organization and techniques of art production as well as the religious and cultural significance of tomb and temple decoration. As part of this research she has studied the unfinished elite painted tomb of the royal butler Suemniwet, ca. 1420 BC and is publishing it as a study in painting and its social meaning in the mid-Eighteenth Dynasty. Her current fieldwork is in the temple complex of the goddess Mut at South Karnak which she divides with the Brooklyn Museum's expedition.
Bryan has also been interested in the presentation of Egypt's visual history to the public and has curated two major loan exhibitions: Egypt's Dazzling Sun, on the art of the reign of Amenhotep III, as presented in Cleveland won the Apollo Award as best exhibition of the year. Bryan also worked with the National Gallery of Art for the traveling exhibition from Egypt, The Quest for Immortality. That exhibition featured art illustrating the New Kingdom concepts of afterlife.
Books by Dr. Bryan include The Reign of Thutmose IV (1991), Egypt's Dazzling Sun: Amenhotep III and his World (1992), The Quest for Immortality: Hidden Treasures of Ancient Egypt (2002), and a children's book entitled You can Be a Woman Egyptologist.
Robin Cormack. University of Cambridge, Great Britain, "Looking for Iconophobia and Iconoclasm in Late Antiquity and Byzantium"
In 1973 Peter Brown famously said "Altogether, the Iconoclast controversy is in the grip of a crisis of over-explanation." But the debate about the nature and significance of Christian iconoclasm still rages today across a broad band of interpretations, ranging between the extreme views that, on the one side, Byzantine iconoclasm was the crisis that changed Byzantium from being the continuation of the ancient Roman empire into becoming a medieval Christian empire in the east Mediterranean and at the other extreme that iconoclasm as a movement in the eighth and ninth centuries was virtually non-existent and passed unnoticed in its time.
But a Christian religious society that was based on Judaic traditions and the Ten Commandments inevitably was challenged to question the production and use of images — is it idolatry and so banned in the Old Testament? Can God be represented in art? There are from early on in the history of Christianity piecemeal episodes of hostility to the display of images in churches and of the destruction of images on pagan temples, such as some of the sculptures on the Parthenon in Athens when it was converted into a church. But a key question is whether, and if so when, the early church developed a coherent agreed "image theory."
Recent investigations of the outbreak of active iconoclasm in Byzantium around 730 and the continuation of state policy banning icons until 843, when the Triumph of the Church declared that the veneration of images was Orthodox doctrine, have been highly revisionist. The key studies are by Dagron, Decrire et peindre (2007); Brubaker and Haldon, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era c. 680-850 (2001, 2011); Noble, Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians (2009), and Brenk, The Apse, the Image and the Icon (2010). The growing consensus is that opposition to images has been exaggerated in previous histories and that interest in the question of the legitimacy of art was limited to a small circle of thinkers, mostly in Constantinople, and that thinking about art was different in Byzantium from the West. The problem lies in the nature of the evidence. The texts are few, and both ambiguous and deceptive as well as limited to the elite. The surviving images and examples of destruction are more direct to see, and the images are aimed at all levels of society, but they are equally hard to interpret. The aim of this paper is to react to the current literature and assess the character of "iconoclasm" in Byzantium.
Robin Cormack is emeritus professor in the history of art, University of London, research fellow, Courtauld Institute of Art, London, and lecturer in classics in the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge. He is currently a visiting scholar at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC (spring 2011).
In his numerous publications he explores Byzantine art and the iconoclasm in Byzantium ("The Arts during the Age of Iconoclasm" and "Painting after Iconoclasm," both 1977; "The Road to Byzantium," 2006). His selected publications include numerous books on Byzantine art: Writing in Gold: Byzantine Society and Its Icons (1985); Painting the Soul: Icons, Death Masks, Shrouds (1997); The Art of Holy Russia: Icons from Moscow 1400-1660 (1998, edited with Delia Gaze); Byzantine Art (2000); Through the Looking Glass: Byzantium through British Eyes (2000; edited with Elizabeth Jeffreys); Icons (2007); Sinai, Byzantium, Russia at the Courtauld, (Exhibition Guide, 2000); Handbook of Byzantine Studies (2008; edited and contributor with Elizabeth Jeffreys and John Haldon).
Robin Cormack is an editor for the Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies. He was curator of the highly successful exhibition Byzantine 330-1453 at the Royal Academy, London, in 2008/9.
Petra Goedegebuure, The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, "Iconoclasm in Hittite Society: Certainly not Present, and Perhaps Impossible"
There is no evidence for iconoclasm in Hittite society. The non-survival of especially larger-scale statuary makes an archaeological and iconographic approach very difficult, but textually there is not much material either. Hittite texts do not mention the intentional destruction of images, be it divine or human, not even of texts or inscriptions. The Bronze Tablet, a treaty between Tudhaliya IV (1239-1209 BCE) and his cousin Kuruntiya of Tarhuntassa, was found buried under the pavement near the Sphinx Gate rather than melted down, presumably after Kuruntiya had temporarily usurped the throne in Hattusa.
The absence of destruction might be coincidence, but the combination of the famous Hittite religious "tolerance," the near absence of mutilation of humans, and the distinction between physical form and soul of human and image (images were not typically considered animated) is not favorable to the occurrence of iconoclasm.
Nevertheless, the Hittite word for "image, statue, shape," esri-, derives from es- "to be," suggesting the identity of image and being for at least earlier stages of Hittite culture. This might explain that the Old Hittite kingdom (1650-1400 BCE) is also home to the few manifestations of what could be considered a form or precursor of iconoclasm, such as the damnatio memoriae of the ruling queen and the abduction of divine statues by Anitta (Old Assyrian trading period) and Mursili I (the Hittite destruction of Babylon).
I will sketch an outline of the political, religious, and social climate in the Old Hittite Kingdom and Empire period (1400-1180 BCE), and argue that — in contrast with the Old Kingdom — there was never a single moment in the Empire period where the different factors that may lead to iconoclasm coincided.
Goedegebuure is an Assistant Professor Hittitology in the Oriental Institute and academic contributor to the Chicago Hittite Dictionary. Her research interests cover Anatolia during the Old Assyrian karum period and Old Hittite history and culture on the one hand, and the linguistic analysis of Hittite and related Anatolian languages on the other hand. Her linguistic work focuses on four different fields of linguistics: discourse cohesion, deixis, syntax, and language change in contact situations. Among her recent publications are "Central Anatolian Languages and Language Communities in the Colony Period: A Luwian-Hattian Symbiosis and the Independent Hittites," "Focus Structure and Q-word Questions in Hittite," and "The Luwian Demonstratives of Place and Manner." She is currently finalizing The Hittite Demonstratives ka- "this," apa- "that," and asi "yon": Studies in Reference, Deixis and Focus for publication in the monograph series Studien zu den Boghazköy-Texten, and working on a new project provisionally titled The Core Cases in the Anatolian Languages: Semantics, Syntax, Morphology.
Victor Avigdor Hurowitz, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, "What's Wrong with Idols in the First Place?"
The demand for exclusive worship of YHWH ("Monotheism") and the prohibition on worship of idols have classically been considered the hallmarks of Israelite religion. These two demands are juxtaposed in the Decalogue leading to the assumption that they are related and that worship of idols was ipso facto a breach of monotheism. However, the opposition to worship of idols is not confined to the Decalogue, but occurs elsewhere throughout the Bible in law codes, narrative, prophecy, and Psalms. In these contexts the prohibition is not always linked to the monotheistic demand, but criticized explicitly or implicitly on other grounds as well. Moreover, in Mesopotamian writings, which are unabashedly polytheistic and where use of icons is taken for granted, we find instances of opposition to this or that cult statue as well as texts, which place certain requirements on a cult statue in order that it be considered "kosher," the implication being that if the requirements are not met the statue is invalid. This paper examines the gambit of anti-idol rationale expressed in Biblical writings. It also surveys the Mesopotamian texts with an anti-idol sentiment as well as the requirements for cult statues. It will be seen that the Biblical polemicists as well as the Mesopotamian authors were aware of some of the same problems inherent in the manufacture and worship of cult statues but related to these problems in different and opposing manners. Among the Biblical texts to be examined are Deutero-Isaiah's, Jeremiah's, and the Book of Psalms' anti-idol diatribes, and the stories of the Golden Calf, Gideon's Ephod, and Michayahu's cult statue. We also examine briefly the post-Biblical Epistle of Jeremiah. The Mesopotamian texts include the Verse Account of Nabonidus, the Crimes and Sacrileges of Nabu-shuma-ishkun, the Sun Disk Inscription of Nabobaladan, Esarhaddon's Babylon inscriptions, and the myth of Erra and Ishum.
Victor Avigdor Hurowitz, born in Philadelphia, is professor in the Department of Bible, Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva. He is a "cuneo-biblist" who illuminates the Hebrew Bible using Mesopotamian sources and applies methodologies commonly used in Biblical studies to explain Akkadian writings. He has written extensively on temples and cult, idolatry, and divination in the Bible and Mesopotamia; literary aspects of Akkadian monumental writings; Biblical Hebrew in light of Akkadian; and Biblical and ancient Near Eastern wisdom literature. His books include I Have Built You an Exalted House: Temple Building in the Bible in Light of Mesopotamian and Northwest Semitic Writings (1992), Inu Anum sirum — Literary Structures in the Non-Juridical Parts of Codex Hammurabi (1994), and Divine Service and Its Rewards. Ideology and Poetics in the Hinke Kudurru (1997). He was twice a fellow at the Annenberg Research Institute, Center for Jewish Studies, University of Pennsylvania. Hurowitz is currently completing a commentary on the Book of Proverbs for the Miqra Le-Yisrael Bible commentary series. Other ongoing projects include an inquiry into the form and symbolism of Solomon's Temple and a study of the manufacture and use of cult statues in the ancient Near East and Biblical reactions to these activities.
Silke Knippschild, University of Bristol, "Performing the Frontier: The Abduction and Destruction of Religious and Political Signifiers in Greco-Persian Conflicts"
Abducting or destroying religious or political symbols, which create or sustain a community's social identity, was an established practice of war in the ancient Near East. The Greeks in Asia Minor, part of the Persian empire, had some familiarity with the practice, notably following the quashing of the so-called Ionian Revolt. However, when the Persians abducted political signifiers from Athens and destroyed the sanctuaries of the Acropolis in the Greco-Persian Wars, they produced distinct and unexpected reactions. This paper focuses on Persian and Greek approaches to and perceptions of the destruction and the abduction of sacred or secular identifiers. It discusses the performances of power (and change of power) these practices constituted especially at the frontier and ensuing clashes of cultures.
Silke Knippschild is a lecturer in ancient history at the Department of Classics and Ancient History, University of Bristol. Her main research interests lie in the field of intercultural relations and cross-cultural influences between ancient Western Asia, Greece, and Rome. Her work is interdisciplinary in nature, drawing on written, art historical, and archaeological sources. She is currently working on a book entitled Images as Victims of War, dealing with the destruction of art and theft of political and religious identifiers in the first millennium BCE. She is also working on the reception of ancient art and is co-organizing the conference series Imagines. Imagines I was held at the Universidad de la Rioja in 2007, Imagines II (Seduction and Power) at Bristol in 2010, Imagines III (Magic and the Supernatural) will take place at Mainz in 2012.
Nathaniel Levtow, The University of Montana, "The Life and Death of Images and Texts: Correlations and Social Relations in the Ancient Near East"
Images and texts played central, correlating social roles in the ancient Near East. These roles varied depending on the form, content, and context of a given iconic or textual artifact across the stages of its creation, deployment, and destruction. More broadly, however, these cultural products and practices may be described as ways in which ancient Near Eastern societies represented divine and human subjects interrelating in ritualized social settings. The identity between the subject and object of a representation (e.g., the referent of an image and the image itself, or the content of a text and the text itself) was achieved in the ancient Near East through the ritual integration of its material form, semantic content, and interactive social role. Evidence of purposeful violence against images and texts richly illuminates this identity between "medium and message," and acts of iconoclasm and textual destruction were common, politically effective components of broader processes of social formation including imperial expansion.
My paper investigates these ritual, sociopolitical dimensions of iconism and textuality in the ancient Near East generally and in ancient Israel specifically. I focus on acts of textual destruction in particular, as a way to better understand the correlations between iconic and textual modes of representation and to gain insight into the iconic, numinous nature of writing in antiquity. I describe the variety of ways in which law codes, treaty tablets, written oracles, loan documents, and divine and royal statuary inscriptions were burned, smashed, buried, immersed, consumed, erased, and rewritten. I classify these practices according to a text's material form, literary genre, semantic content, historical context, social location, and agent and mode of destruction. I focus on a pool of mid-first-millennium Neo-Assyrian and Israelite sources associated with Assyrian and Babylonian imperial expansion in Mesopotamia and the Levant. I compare acts of textual destruction attested in these sources with correlating acts of iconoclasm and with a range of related practices including the mutilation of human bodies and the destruction of temples, palaces, and cities. My approach to the ritual, sociopolitical dimensions of textual destruction integrates recent perspectives on iconoclasm in the ancient Near East with recent discussions of writing and textual production in ancient Israel. I argue that the destruction of scrolls and inscriptions in the ancient Near East was a ritualized, strategic deployment of violence that targeted scribal representations of social relations and textual embodiments of political power.
Nathaniel Levtow writes about the history, literature, and religions of the ancient Near East and Mediterranean. His research focuses on Israelite religion, its ancient West Asian and Mediterranean cultural contexts, and its extensions and transformations through Greco-Roman Jewish and Christian traditions. His recent book, Images of Others: Iconic Politics in Ancient Israel (2008), examines the political aspects of Israelite and Mesopotamian iconoclasm. His current research interests include the social world of ancient scribes. In his writing and in his teaching, Levtow integrates the study of biblical literature with the cultural history of the ancient world and with social-theoretical approaches to the study of religion.
Natalie N. May, The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Organizer of the conference. Introduction and "Ali–talimi? Or What Can Be Learned from the Destruction of Figurative Complexes"
The cases of systematic damage inflicted on complexes of images or statues are of particular interest. The choice of objects for destruction here was not casual, but rather intentional. By investigating the motivations of those who carried out the coherent mutilations, we can better understand the social, political, and ritual significance of the depictions themselves.
What can we learn examining recarved and remodeled depictions of the Khorsabad palace courts I and VIII, including those excavated by the Oriental Institute and housed by the Oriental Institute Museum? I attempt to reveal the cause of the remodeling of the royal family member's image and argue that the reliefs' recarvings reflect Sargon's administrative reform. The remodeling of the Khorsabad reliefs is a good instance to demonstrate that recarving does not necessarily present iconoclasm.
Natalie N. May is an Assyriologist and art historian of the ancient Near East. She is a post-doctoral scholar at the Chicago Oriental Institute and the organizer of the conference. She is now preparing for publication a collection of articles on Urban Topography as a Reflection of Society, proceedings of a workshop she organized as a post-doctoral fellow of the TOPOI Cluster of Excellence, and working on the book Sacral Functions of the Neo-Assyrian King, which will publish her dissertation. Besides iconoclasm, her interests include sacred places other than temples in Assyria, Neo-Assyrian triumph, the theology of kingship in Assyria, and the intended archaization in the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods, so some of her recent and forthcoming publications: "Decapitation of Statues and Mutilation of the Image's Facial Features"; "The Qersu in Neo-Assyrian Cultic Setting: Its Origin, Identi?cation, Depiction, and Evolution"; "The Biblical Tabernacle and the Akkadian Qersu"; "City Gates and their Functions in Mesopotamia and Ancient Israel"; "Adoration of the King's Image; "Royal Triumph as an Aspect of the Neo-Assyrian Decorative Program"; "Triumph in the Ancient Near East: Pilgrimage and Musical Performance"; "'I Read the Inscriptions from before the Flood ...': Neo-Sumerian Influences in Ashurbanipal's Royal Self-image."
W. J. T. Mitchell, The University of Chicago, "Idolatry: Nietzsche, Blake, Poussin"
This lecture aims at a diagnosis of the return of idolatry and its "evil twin," iconoclasm, in contemporary global political culture, and especially in the contemporary tendency to conceive of war in religious, Manichean terms, as a struggle between Good and Evil. Working through the transvaluations of the idolatry/iconoclasm complex in the philosophy of Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols and Thus Spake Zarathustra) and the paintings of William Blake, the lecture stages a re-reading of Nicholas Poussin's classic "scenes of idolatry" in The Adoration of the Golden Calf (London: National Gallery) and The Plague at Ashdod (Paris: The Louvre). This reading is designed to overturn the canonical view of Poussin as a conventional moralizer whose pictures endorse the brutal iconoclasm mandated by the Second Commandment and reveal him (as in Blake's description of John Milton) as "a true poet, and of the devil's party." The lecture concludes with a return to contemporary scenarios of ethnic cleansing in the war for possession of the "holy land" of Israel-Palestine.
W. J. T. Mitchell is professor of English and art history at the University of Chicago. He is editor of the interdisciplinary journal, Critical Inquiry, a quarterly devoted to critical theory in the arts and human sciences. A scholar and theorist of media, visual art, and literature, Mitchell is associated with the emergent fields of visual culture and iconology (the study of images across the media). He is known especially for his work on the relations of visual and verbal representations in the context of social and political issues. Under his editorship, Critical Inquiry has published special issues on public art, psychoanalysis, pluralism, feminism, the sociology of literature, canons, race and identity, narrative, the politics of interpretation, postcolonial theory, and many other topics. He has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Morey Prize in art history given by the College Art Association of America. In 2003, he received the University of Chicago's prestigious Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching.
Selected Publications: What do Pictures Want? (2005), The Last Dinosaur Book: The Life and Times of a Cultural Icon (1998), Landscape of Power (1992), Iconology (1987), The Language of Images (1980).
Seth Richardson, The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, "The Hypercoherent Icon: Knowledge, Rationalization, and Disenchantment in Mesopotamia"
The most overt acts of icon destruction in Mesopotamian antiquity belong to the military campaigns of the Neo-Assyrian period. While these acts have rightly drawn attention for their ritual, theological, and political significance, I investigate them as conscious products of and stimuli to a changing intellectual milieu. Without discounting icon destruction as universal problems of representation, and Assyrian representations of the acts as having venerable Mesopotamian precursors, I wish to focus on the ways in which first-millennium BC iconoclasm responded to and informed parallel intellectual currents such as the rationalization of knowledge, a growing antiquarianism, and a disenchantment with place that the age of empires ushered in. We should look at Neo-Assyrian icon destruction as reflective of very immediate concerns, albeit in traditional grammars-of-action, and productive of new beliefs and problems as well.
Seth Richardson is interested in rewriting the history of antiquity around its divisions and multiplicities. In the context of the present conference, he is concerned with the nexus of changes in political and intellectual life and in the pressures that imperial life brought to bear on traditional thinking. In other areas, he works on state collapse, with a historical focus on the late Old Babylonian period: on texts, archives, and prosopography, but also on theoretical approaches informed by political science and comparative literature.
His related work on rebellion in the ancient Near East looks at such factors as non-state actors, disenchantment from state ideologies, and borderlands identities. Mesopotamian conceptions of political geography form another facet of his work, including state efforts to control open space and rural social orders.
His current projects include work on ancient labor, theory-of-value, and scope-of-the-economy; the development of Old Babylonian divinatory literature; a "new military history" of Mesopotamia; and a historiographic appraisal of the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem in 701 BC. He has been assistant professor of ancient Near Eastern history at the University of Chicago since 2003.
Hanspeter Schaudig, University of Heidelberg, "Death of Statues and Rebirth of Gods"
Modern concepts in the West, dominated by Jewish, Christian, and Muslim beliefs, in general hold it that the idea of god implies that this entity is fundamentally transcendental, immutable, and immortal.
Moreover, the "unborn unbegetter" is neither born, nor does he father divine children. When applied to the ancient Near East, these concepts are quickly contrasted with very different notions of the divine.
There, gods were born, and they could die or be killed. There are cases of gods who seasonally die and rise again, i.e., gods of vegetation and fertility. These cases however will not be investigated in this paper. I deal with the topic of gods dying or being put to death in the course of conflicts between other gods or even humans. This paper discusses the relationship between a deity and his or her cult statue which he or she inhabits in the human world, and what it means when the statue is damaged or destroyed, and restored again. I discuss the reasons why a god could be put to death, and who was entitled and able to do so. And the paper discusses the ways how — after such a fatal conflict — the changing interpretation of a deity's role and identity could take effect in the process of restoring the cult statue, giving the deity a "second chance."
Hanspeter Schaudig is an Assyriologist with a special interest in the literature and history of Babylonia and Assyria in the first millennium BCE. As his dissertation he prepared a new edition of the inscriptions of Nabonidus and Cyrus the Great. His second book, Explaining Disaster, is completed and will be published shortly. It deals with historical omens and legends, and how the Babylonians explained catastrophes as divine punishment. Great attention is given to the way major disasters like the Ibbi-Sîn Disaster or the devastation of Babylonia by Kutir-Nahhunte and later by Sennacherib were systematized and fitted into a religious-historical framework that allowed Babylonia to maintain the assertion that its national god, be it Enlil or Marduk, nevertheless was the superior agent, even in times of defeat. The issue of abduction, destruction, and restoration of idols is closely linked to this larger topic, which then may as well be dubbed "Surviving Disaster."
JoAnn Scurlock, Elmhurst College, "Getting Smashed at the Victory Celebration, or What Happened to Esarhaddon's so-called Vassal Treaties and Why"
As the Medes stormed through the palaces of Assyrian kings, they took time out from looting and indiscriminate slaughter to deface Assyrian reliefs and to destroy key documents, particularly copies of the so-called Esarhaddon Vassal treaties to which their ancestors had been parties. It is here argued that the motivation for smashing these tablets was to cancel the appended curses so as to avoid the divine consequences of betrayal.
JoAnn Scurlock, a native of Kansas City, Missouri, received her BA and PhD from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations of the University of Chicago. She has authored two books: Magico-Medical Means of Treating Ghost Induced Illnesses in Ancient Mesopotamia (2006) and Diagnoses in Assyrian and Babylonian Medicine (2005). She has written extensively on Mesopotamian magic, medicine, death customs, the military, and other aspects of cultural history. She taught in the history department of Elmhurst College.
Claudia E. Suter, University of Basel, Switzerland, "Why Gudea of Lagash?"
No early Mesopotamian ruler has left us so many statues as Gudea, who reigned in the city-state of Lagash toward the end of the third millennium BCE. Many of them were decapitated and the surviving heads show damaged facial features. His stelae, which commemorate temple building activities, have been found even more mutilated, an assortment of muddled fragments with the ruler's face effaced. Gudea's reign fell in a time not long after the collapse of the centralized state of Akkad and partly overlapped with the formation of another centralized state under the Third Dynasty of Ur. The kings of these states claimed control over Mesopotamia or even the entire universe. By contrast, Gudea wanted to be seen and remembered as a traditional city-state ruler. This contribution tackles the question why his monuments were deliberately destroyed.
Claudia E. Suter studies ancient Near Eastern images and texts; among her interests are visual and verbal communication, image-text relationships, the representation of power, and cultural identities and ideologies of ruling classes in pre-modern societies. Her publications include Gudea's Temple Building: The Representation of an Early Mesopotamian Ruler in Text and Image (2000), "Between Human and Divine: High Priestesses in Images from the Akkad to the Isin-Larsa Period," and "Luxury Goods in Ancient Israel: Questions of Consumption and Production." Together with Christoph Uehlinger she edited the volume Crafts and Images in Contact: Studies on Eastern Mediterranean Art of the First Millennium BCE (2005). She is now working on comprehensive edition of Samaria ivories.
Lee Palmer Wandel, The University of Wisconsin-Madison, "Idolatry and Iconoclasm: Alien Religions and Reformation"
Sixteenth-century iconoclasts called the things they attacked "idols," linking them to objects that Europeans were encountering in the Western Hemisphere. My paper explores further the interplay of incarnational theology, the material culture of Christianity, and conflicting conceptualizations of worship — the relationship among human beings, the things they make, and God — among sixteenth-century European Christians. It draws upon specific case studies of iconoclasm, iconoclastic theology, and narratives of "idolatry" in both the Old World and the New.
Lee Palmer Wandel is professor of history, religious studies, and visual culture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author of Always Among Us: Images of the Poor in Zwingli's Zurich (1990), Voracious Idols and Violent Hands: Iconoclasm in Reformation Zurich, Strasbourg, and Basel (1994), The Eucharist in the Reformation: Incarnation and Liturgy (2006), and most recently The Reformation: Towards a New History, all with Cambridge University Press. She is co-author with Robin Winks of Europe in a Wider World, 1350-1650 (2003). She has been a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, a Guggenheim Fellow, and most recently a senior fellow at the Institute for Research in the Humanities. Currently, she is working on a study of catechisms and the construction of religion in the Reformation.
Joan Goodnick Westenholz, New York University, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, "Damnatio Memoriae: Destruction of Name and Destruction of Person in Third-Millennium Mesopotamia"
This talk considers the effectiveness of the curse for the protection of the image of the deceased individual. In particular, the specific destruction of images of a ruler after his death, whether real or imagined, is investigated. The belief that the one who destroyed a person's name was thought somehow to have destroyed the person and that this carried forward beyond the grave was fundamental to the Mesopotamian religious community.
Joan Goodnick Westenholz has directed her research on ancient Mesopotamian studies, especially the subjects of religion and literature. She has investigated Mesopotamian theological conceptions and the practice of religion. All her investigations have integrated the image and the text as she did in a course she gave with that title at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and in her article, "The King, the Emperor, and the Empire: Continuity and Discontinuity of Royal Representation in Text and Image."
In particular, she has concentrated her efforts on the understanding of the heroic epics of the Sargonic kings of the first empire-building Dynasty of Akkade, placing them in their historical framework and historiographical context in her book Legends of the Kings of Akkade (1997). The mutilation of the image of the Old Akkadian king was discussed in her review of "The Old Akkadian Presence in Nineveh: Fact or Fiction." The treatment of the memory of these kings was reviewed in "The Memory of Sargonic Kings under the Third Dynasty of Ur."
In June 2010 Joan Westenholz organized a symposium on "The Icon and the Idol, Aniconism and Iconoclasm: The Problem of Divine Anthropomorphic Images" at Käte Hamburger Kolleg, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany.
Christopher Woods, The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, "Mutilation of Text and Image in Early Sumerian Sources"
This paper investigates the earliest Mesopotamian references to the purposeful destruction or mutilation of texts and images as attested primarily in third-millennium textual sources, analyzing the textual attestations in connection with the contemporaneous evidence for such desecrations known from the archaeological record. Evidence from legal, historical, and literary texts is discussed. Particular attention is paid to the prohibitions against the mutilation, removal, and deportations of stelae and statues as described in the curse formulas of the earliest royal inscriptions. Such injunctions, based upon these early templates, would become a hallmark of later Mesopotamian curse formulary. A lexical and contextual analysis of these attestations within the framework of the royal rhetoric is also provided. On the level of literary analysis, it is argued that such acts of mutilation — the erasure of the royal name in particular — were understood as inversions of the common Mesopotamian literary topos that regarded naming and being as conceptually inseparable.
Christopher Woods is associate professor of Sumerology in the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Near Eastern Studies. His interests include Sumerian grammar and writing, and early Mesopotamian religion, literature, and culture. His recent publications include The Grammar of Perspective: The Sumerian Conjugation Prefixes as a System of Voice (2008). He is presently working on two book manuscripts: Materials for the Sumerian Lexicon 18: Igituh, Idu, Lanu, and the Group Vocabularies (MSL 18) and Gilgamesh in Sumerian Literary Tradition.


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On May 30, 2017, the Defense Department successfully intercepted an InterContinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) target during a test of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) element of the nation's ballistic missile defense system, according to a Missile Defense Agency (MDA) news release.
The successful test was conducted by the Missile Defense Agency, in cooperation with the U.S. Air Force 30th Space Wing, the Joint Functional Component Command for Integrated Missile Defense and U.S. Northern Command.
'An Incredible Accomplishment'
«The intercept of a complex, threat-representative ICBM target is an incredible accomplishment for the GMD system and a critical milestone for this program», said MDA Director Navy Vice Admiral Jim Syring. «This system is vitally important to the defense of our homeland, and this test demonstrates that we have a capable, credible deterrent against a very real threat. I am incredibly proud of the warfighters who executed this test and who operate this system every day».
This was the first live-fire test event against an ICBM-class target for GMD and the U.S. ballistic missile defense system.
During the test, an ICBM-class target was launched from the Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Multiple sensors provided target acquisition and tracking data to the Command, Control, Battle Management and Communication system.
The Sea-Based X-band radar, positioned in the Pacific Ocean, also acquired and tracked the target. The GMD system received the target tracking data and developed a fire control solution to intercept the target.
A ground-based interceptor was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, and its exo-atmospheric kill vehicle intercepted and destroyed the target in a direct collision.
Flight Data Slated for Evaluation
Initial indications are that the test met its primary objective, but program officials will continue to evaluate system performance based upon telemetry and other data obtained during the test.
The test, designated Flight Test Ground-Based Interceptor-15, will provide the data necessary to assess the performance of the GMD system and provide enhanced homeland defense capabilities.
The GMD element of the ballistic missile defense system provides combatant commanders the capability to engage and destroy intermediate and long-range ballistic missile threats to protect the U.S. The mission of the Missile Defense Agency is to develop and deploy a layered ballistic missile defense system to defend the United States, its deployed forces, allies and friends from limited ballistic missile attacks of all ranges in all phases of flight.

subset: commoncrawl


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The Ukrainian power grid hack that reportedly left 700,000 homes in the dark just before Christmas highlights how the critical infrastructure sectors must step up to the plate and work harder to keep the bad guys out.
It is a safe bet that few industrial control systems (ICS) critical infrastructure organizations would rate their cybersecurity as excellent. If they know this, the hackers do too and that makes them an easy target. In the Ukrainian instance, the payload was delivered via spear phishing exploits and then looked for a certain running process common to SCADA systems. When it found it, it killed the process and overwrote it, effectively making the device useless.
There was nothing uncommon about the hackers' payload delivery and therefore it was something that could have been prevented or, at a minimum, limited the likelihood of occurrence with extra training on the user environment. But ICS critical infrastructure does have unique challenges due to the very nature of the business:
* Siloed culture – Traditional IT groups and their Operational Technology (OT) counterparts are distinct silos. If they do not define clear roles and work together toward a common goal, the organization becomes its own worst enemy. OT teams who have little experience with IT are on a steep learning curve, and IT groups who have the experience with the technology generally do not understand the OT needs of the organization. This causes organizational friction and poor communication that malicious actors are more than happy to exploit
* New technology, no training – As legacy SCADA systems sunset and organizations refresh their technology, many groups who grew up in the analog world are finding themselves in a foreign digital and interconnected world. This convergence is creating an interoperability risk that opens the doors to adversaries. As employees with little IT background start operating IT based equipment, it takes time for them to understand the risk for devices that previously did not have corporate connectivity. Even worse, some of those devices are exposed to the internet, increasing this risk. This allows attackers to use traditional avenues to establish a presence in the SCADA environment. The combination of ICS technology convergence coupled with a culture not prepared to handle the issue will likely be a primary factor of an ICS breach.
* Misguided Vendors – Silicon Valley vendors generally do not understand the OT environment and, as a result, end up falling short on their needs. On the flip side, traditional ICS vendors see the technology market growing and, to grow business, start offering IT based solutions without fully understand today's cyber risk landscape. The risk is having OT groups who don't fully understand the cyber risk landscape entering into contractual agreements with vendors who don't fully understand them either. In the end, we are vulnerable because we deploy vulnerable systems.
So what's the path forward? As a former CISO in a critical infrastructure sector, here are a few things that can help:
1. Lead by example. Successfully evolving culture is dependent on your organization's leadership lifestyle choice. It's no different than your personal health. You can eat right, exercise and do the hard work in the right areas and you will change your out come by living a low risk life. Or you can keep doing what you are doing, ignore the warning signs and roll the dice. The choice is yours to either be a change agent or not. IT and OT groups need to have a very professional and frank conversation about doing what needs to be done for the sake of lowering their risk.
2. Use an intelligence driven defense. Intelligence helps you make decisions and take action. You cannot defend yourself properly unless you know what your risks are. An intelligence driven defense must be a part of your enterprise risk program. It takes effort, but it's possible to spin up a capability in months, not years. The key is to make yourself and your organization defendable to malicious actors, defendable in court, defendable to regulatory action and defendable to your brand, both personal and organizational.
3. Manage your Vendors. A conversation needs to be had between IT, OT and organizational counsel. Vendors tend to react to the market place, and if more ICS sectors begin placing sound cyber security contractual language in their solicitations, the vendors will move in the right direction. However, be prepared for the reality that your costs may go up because you are asking them to do more. Either your vendor needs to take action via a contract line item or you do so upon delivery. The bottom line is we are vulnerable, in part, because we deploy vulnerable systems. It's time to start changing that outcome.
4. Compartmentalize. Yes, this is an area that takes a significant amount of effort but it must be done. Any breach will be significantly less damaging if you compartmentalize your vital infrastructure from your non vital and remove significant avenues of approach that actors are utilizing. In ICS, one suggestion is the implementation of data diodes for compartmentalization.
Intelligence can drive ICS critical infrastructure to make decision and take action, and it serves as the foundation of information that will change outcomes. In the case of the Ukrainian power grid attack, it could have prevented so many people from losing something so important.
This story, "Ukraine power grid hack: What happened and what needs to change?" was originally published by Network World.


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Get a Handle On Part Orientation for Visions Sake
If a vision system can't repeatedly locate parts because of wide variations in part orientation, size and appearance, then vision inspection yield and reliability will be significantly reduced.
These variations include:
- Part contrast
- Multiple parts
- Changes in lighting
- Image focus
- Degraded appearance
- Partially-hidden parts
Cognex offers part and feature location software called PatMax® which utilizes advanced geometric pattern matching technology to reliably locate parts. Even in challenging conditions, this tool can significantly reduce or eliminate fixturing requirements and cost.
One Cognex customer I work with (a food cannery) uses a Cognex In-Sight® 5600 vision system with PatMax to inspect the product codes against the bright can background at a speed of 1000 products per minute. PatMax inspects the product code, but more importantly the tool recognizes the pattern of the code, regardless of its location. Rather than reading individual characters, the application is configured to simply look for an image that matches the three-digit product code. A new product code can be configured simply by putting a can with the new code in position to be viewed by the vision system and positioning a rectangular box around the product code. From that point, the vision system will detect that product code even if it is in a different position or at a different angle as long as it is in the field of view. This approach is much simpler, more robust and more economical than the machine vision technology used on this application in the past.
Read more about this customer's experience.
PatMax is optionally available on all general-purpose In-Sight vision systems


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The fact that CEO Steve Ballmer will depart Microsoft within 12 months is news, but that he would depart in the short to medium term is not news.
Ballmer has often maintained that he would retire from Microsoft as employee No. 30 and CEO when his children went on to the next stage in their education. Ballmer was never going to be around for another decade.
But it is curious that the man in charge would decide to retire just weeks after announcing a huge senior leadership team reorganization designed to take the company's transformation into a so-called "devices and services" enterprise forward. That's why the news struck me suddenly as I was sitting at my desk, coffee in hand, ready to begin what I thought was going to be a peaceful Friday morning.
Much will be written about Ballmer's tenure. In fact, a lot already has been written. But as this news becomes official, and I reflect over the years that Ballmer and Bill Gates worked closely together and, then, over the years where Ballmer himself was in charge and Gates retired to focus on his nonprofit work, I come away with one conclusion: The leadership of Steve Ballmer was full of unrealized potential.
Feature: 7 Classic Steve Ballmer VideosMore: 10 Scenes From Ballmer's Microsoft
This analysis comes from two angles: The financial component of Microsoft's performance - which is absolutely important, given that the company exists to serve shareholders, generate a return for those owners and in general profitably serve their interests - and the visionary and innovative component of Microsoft's performance-also important because Microsoft essentially birthed the personal computing revolution. This company has, or at least had, the power to lead industries, affect change and generally drive actions around the planet as far as technology evolution goes.
Microsoft's Financial Performance: It's Hard Not to Be Impressed
Financially, Microsoft's performance has been excellent. Under Ballmer, Microsoft has started and grown more than 16 individual businesses that generate more than $1 billion of annual revenue. Its server and tools business has grown in double-digit percentages year-over-year for more than a decade now. Its portfolio of patents has it collecting money from every single Android phone sold, even without being involved in the manufacture of sale of those devices.
Microsoft Office, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, is the de facto corporate standard. As much as Google would like to try to get large companies to move to Google Apps for Business en masse, it simply isn't going to happen - and Microsoft will continue collecting handsomely for the privilege of running Office on millions of corporate desktops and laptops.
The company is solidly profitable, owns more than $100 billion of net assets and possesses more than $70 billion in free cash. Put under a lens that excludes anything but financial performance, this company is rocking, and as CEO, Ballmer deserves much of the credit for this admirable set of results.
Related: For Microsoft's Last CES Keynote, Ballmer Hawks Windows 8, Kinect
Ballmer was executive vice president of sales and support before taking on the CEO reigns from Gates, so it makes sense that he is a numbers guy and would place a priority on delivering good-looking financial results to shareholders. It would be difficult to argue that he did not deliver on this important responsibility.
Microsoft Strategic Execution and Innovation: Neither Strategic Nor Innovative
From an innovation and strategic execution standpoint, however, the results are decidedly more negative. Take just a few examples:
- With the exception of much of Microsoft's server and tools business, which continues to churn out world-class software and services, the company has seen itself eclipsed in just about every major area in which it does business.
- During Ballmer's reign, we saw Microsoft fall behind in the mobile revolution. It languished with a Windows CE-based phone platform that no one cared about, took until 2010 to release an update to that platform and then scrapped the whole thing to re-release a Windows NT-based phone platform in 2012. The results are poor at this point in time, in terms of adoption, critical apps in the marketplace and sales. And far as tablets go, despite pioneering the Tablet PC in 2001, it let Apple dominate the tablet space and saw Google bring a tablet form factor to Android as well.
- Ballmer famously attempted to buy a failing search engine that's still flailing about (Yahoo) - and only by a stroke of luck was that acquisition undone. In response, Ballmer set out to develop Microsoft's own search engine, Bing, which is a distant competitor to the other major search providers.
- Microsoft has seen the precipitous decline in PC hardware sales, and Ballmer has failed to reenergize the marketplace with any product that would arrest this decline. He's also failed to release consumer oriented software and services that excite the mainstream.
- As if declining PC sales weren't enough, Ballmer made a gutsy call to directly compete with its OEM partners, who over the past two decades contributed significantly to Microsoft's wealth and dominance. As a result, OEM relations are tenuous, and the Windows RT operating system, one of Microsoft's tablet plays, hangs in the balance.
- Microsoft still has a couple divisions that seem to be perpetually losing money.
Analyst: Ballmer Forced Out After $900M Surface RT DebacleMore: Can Microsoft Survive If Windows 8 Fails?
For my money, the deciding factor is the resurgence of Apple. Microsoft and Apple fought a fierce battle during the 1980s and early 1990s. By the mid-1990s, Apple was left for dead and nearly bankrupt. You may recall Michael Dell's famous words that Apple ought to just sell off its assets and return the money to shareholders because it was virtually worthless.
At Microsoft's pinnacle of power, Apple was essentially dead. But it came back.
Perhaps distracted by Thomas Penfield-Jackson and the antitrust trial, or perhaps hobbled by Bill Gates handing the reigns to Steve Ballmer in the year 2000, or perhaps for some other reason, Microsoft let Apple recapture its magic, begin the mobile revolution and make its way from "worthless" to the most valuable company on the planet Earth in 2012.
If Ballmer were aware of his competitors and able to articulate and execute a strategic vision, Apple would not have made such a dramatic comeback. It's that simple.
Candidates to Replace Ballmer Few, Far Between
This news begs the question: Who's on deck? The answer is much less clear. Despite the recent reorganization of the company's executive team, there's no clear cut successor. Microsoft is a diverse company operating in a number of sectors, so any chief executive needs the ability to clearly see and make decisions in a cross-discipline approach. He or she needs experience both in technology as well as business.
Related: Ballmer's Retirement Announcement LetterCommentary: How Microsoft's Delayed Reorganization Fixed Redmond's Loyalty Gap
Of the current crop of Microsoft executives, only Tony Bates and Satya Nadella have the chops and experience that Microsoft needs in a visionary leader. Both have experience running organizations, are sufficiently technical to craft a strategic plan and continue the "devices and services" transition, and have the gravitas to be the chief executive.
Of the two, my vote goes to Nadella, who helms the only part of Microsoft that is both consistently profitable and growing world class offerings that meet with customer approval: The Cloud and Enterprise Group. (Of course, there's the distinct possibility the board will choose an outside candidate. At that point, all bets are off.)
Ballmer Was No Visionary, But He Didn't Mess Up, Either
I don't think anyone seriously believes Steve Ballmer was a bad CEO-bad as in Robert Nardelli at Home Depot or Darl McBride at SCO.
Commentary: 7 Ways to Get Your CEO FiredMore: 7 Habits of Highly Effective Tech CEOs
But Steve Ballmer wasn't a great CEO. Sure, the financial performance was great from a business standpoint, but shareholders weren't really rewarded with stock price appreciation - and much of that stagnation may well be linked to the lack of innovation, strategic response and execution that has beleaguered the software giant since 2000.
Ballmer was a mediocre CEO who managed not to mess up the money too much but lacked the vision and technical acuity to really respond to the changes in the technological landscape. The challenge to Microsoft now is to find someone who can get both of those facets down quickly.
Jonathan Hassell runs 82 Ventures, a consulting firm based out of Charlotte. He's also an editor with Apress Media LLC. Reach him via email and on Twitter. Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter @CIOonline, Facebook, Google + and LinkedIn.
Read more about ceo in CIO's CEO Drilldown.
This story, "Steve Ballmer's Departure From Microsoft Isn't News, But Timing Is" was originally published by CIO.


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Kevlin Henney gave an interesting keynote at the GOTO conference in Aarhus this year. It was entitled "Cool code".
He argued that engineers should explicitly spend time reading code. Not reading as a means to find something in the code. Reading as a means to find the art of the code. And he went on to exemplify what he meant by showing pieces of code that were cool in various ways. Some were cool because of historical reasons. Some were cool because they were concise. And some were simply cool. You can see some of them in the slides he used.
The essence of the talk was captured nicely in a quote from Stephen King:
If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write.
Stephen King
I very much welcome any argument that raises the awareness for the activity of digesting existing code. There is beauty to be found in software systems, but we have to know how to look for it and how to recognize it when we see it. It is this skill that will make us want to create beauty in our systems.
While reading cool code is important, we should pay equal attention to the very act of consuming the code. Digesting large code bases through analysis can be equally enlightening from at least two points of view: to program an analysis, you have to think about what is it that you are looking for. And you have to be quite specific about it. This exercise exposes the hidden structure of the code, and in turn, it trains your reading skill.
Reading cool code is important. But, we should read it coolly.
"[…] there was a person who wrote a CAD system in AWK."
CAD, as in Computer-aided design ?


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The Dreaded FOMO
Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members! Download the app.
Good fortune smiled upon me in the summer of 2007. Extra slots opened up at the Mountain Masochist Trail Run 50 mile. A friend wanted me to join him at his first ultramarathon, the Stone Cat 50 mile. Montrail needed another runner for its JFK 50 team. How could I say no when each event excited me? I didn't.
This article appeared in our January 2011 issue.
In the span of 15 days, I ran all of those events and ran them well. Each 50-miler was faster than the previous with me clocking a 50-mile PR at JFK, the finale of this racing spree. Three weeks later I was racing the Hellgate 100K (why not?)' if you could call walking the flats an hour into an event "racing." Every muscle, tendon and bone was in fine working order, but my body was crushed. For weeks afterward, I would collapse on any available soft, flat surface (couch, bed, car seat, trailside), barely able to move. I had succumbed to a horrible case of Fear of Missing Out (FOMO).
FOMO and overtraining are virulent in the trail-running community. It's understandable. We find our enjoyment exploring the outdoors. The next great thing might be around the next bend or on a run with a buddy. We look up to idols who run unfathomable mileage and aim to follow in their footsteps. Ah, but too much trail-running fun can come at a big cost.
Take, for instance, high-mileage-king Anton Krupicka. In previous years he'd ramp up to 225-mile weeks. Why? "Mostly, for the sheer joy of it," explains Krupicka. He now admits, "In the past, I've let my life get out of balance with too much time and energy spent on just running for running's sake." All that running led to frequent injuries.
This year, a moderate reduction in Krupicka's weekly mileage has led to more consistent, injury-free training and excellent race results. Krupicka sagely notes that while positive benefits of his slightly reduced training are a "no-brainer to any outsider … the physical, emotional and mental experiences of actually implementing restraint is always more difficult."
Even if you can't say, "No'" to the next run invitation or give in to your urge to run long twice this weekend, you can recognize the warning signs of overreaching and overtraining and set a proper course for recovery.
Overreaching versus Overtraining
To be sure, you stress your body to improve your running. More accurately, it is stress and your recovery from it that makes you stronger. To reach your fullest potential you may need to push yourself to the verge of overreaching, which is simply doing too much in the short term. An extended period of stress-recovery imbalance or an extreme imbalance may lead to overtraining. The primary differentiator between overreaching and overtraining is the amount of time it takes to recover. Otherwise, the signs of and recourse for the two states are similar.
The first signs are persistent fatigue and, perhaps, heavy legs despite a few recovery days. You may feel like sleeping more than normal, but, at the same time, have difficulty falling or staying asleep. Some athletes also experience weight loss, drop off in athletic performance and uncommon thirst.
Your training may take a more consistent hit. For instance, it's a red flag if "you're ramping up training effort, but your results are worse," notes Dr. Jeffrey Rocco, an orthopedic surgeon with an interest in sports medicine.
Symptoms can also be psychological. If you experience increased anxiety or depression, consider changing your routine. Likewise, do the same if you experience inappropriate fears or anxiety about your running performance. According to Dr. Rocco, another classic sign is having a hard time getting out the door for a run when it's normally easy.
There are two classic physiological signs that you can use to confirm if you are overreaching or overtraining. First, check to see if your heart rate is elevated before getting out of bed in the morning. A heart rate that is elevated by at least 10 percent for three or more consecutive mornings suggests that you are at least overreaching. Second, if you wear a heart-rate monitor, a higher heart rate for a given pace is another sign that you've pushed too hard.
In the end, the best diagnosis is having a coach or experienced runner look at your training and lifestyle.
Rest and Recovery
If you find yourself overreaching or overtraining, Dr. William Henderson, a physician and exercise physiologist, suggests, "Since overreaching and overtraining are a mismatch of stress and recovery, you must fix the balance by both decreasing stress and increasing recovery."
To recover, initially assume that you are overreaching. However, don't completely stop training. Instead, reduce your training volume by 30 to 40 percent. Dr. Henderson notes, "You can keep the intensity in your training. It's all about reducing volume."
If two weeks' recovery doesn't have you feeling better, then more rest is likely warranted. You are overtrained. Continue to modify your training as you did during the first two weeks of rest. Full recovery from overtraining can take months or even years in extreme cases.
Also, examine other aspects of your life. Diet and sleep are crucial for recovery; many of us, however, often skimp here. Aim for at least eight hours of sleep. To meet your caloric and nutritional needs, eat enough fat and protein, emphasize whole over processed foods and hydrate well during and after workouts.
Don't stop there, though. Work life, a troubled relationship and other life-related stressors can hold back your training. No matter how difficult, address big issues, too.
The Finish Line
Most serious endurance athletes have experienced one of the fatigue states described here. But the conditions are "as common or more common in amateur athletes as in professional athletes," says Dr. Henderson. "They don't have the ability to focus on stress or especially on recovery that professional athletes do."
The good news is that 90 percent of runners who think they are overtraining are only overreaching. Therefore, most of the time a burnt-out runner can be back training at full volume in half a month if he or she reduces stressors and increases recovery during that time. Sometimes that will mean saying, "No."


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Apocalype movies are a venerable enough genre (and reliable enough as box office cash spigots) to support a few lightweight, funny-sad-romantic entries every once in a while. Given the right touch, this approach can be just the antidote to the idea-free, effects-laden blockbusters and art house pity parties that dominate the form; it's conceivable and even reassuring that the end of things might be muted rather than top volume.
It's too bad, then, that Lorene Scafaria, screenwriter of the chipper, inexplicably lauded Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and first-time director of this Steve Carell summer-vehicle misfire, lacks that touch. By turns bizarrely affectless and then prattlingly manic, much like its dual protagonists, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World unfolds during the wind-down of civilization as we know it. A massive asteroid is three weeks away from impact with Earth (a TV-news voiceover at the start of the film describes the failure of an Armageddon-like space mission to obliterate the thing), and the world—or at least Southern California subbing for suburban New Jersey—copes, or doesn't, with imminent demise.
Insurance salesman Dodge Petersen (Carell at his most downcast) continues to slog to the office and gym; Elsa (Tonita Castro), his housekeeper, keeps showing up to clean; his married friends (Rob Corddry and Connie Britton) throw dinner parties that have all the end-of-the-world abandon of an aborted swingers confab circa 1982; and so on. The odd high-rise jumper and traffic snarl aside, things go on pretty much as normal. Dodge, whose wife has had the good sense to run off into the night, meets perky neighbor Penny (a seriously unwound Keira Knightley) just as riots break out, and the pair flees—along with a charming terrier unloaded on Dodge by a stranger—to track down his first love and a possible charter flight to the U.K., so Penny can spend doomsday with the folks.
The reckonings and realizations fly once Seeking a Friend hits the road, and for all the absurdity of its characters achieving clear-eyed, perfectly articulated peace with their past demons in this stretch of the movie (I'm guessing pants-shitting panic would be more the norm), it's a relief after the excruciatingly unfunny first act. Scafaria, who also wrote the film, floats the notion that sticking to routine in the presence of overwhelming chaos is a way of giving life meaning. That's fair, but she conveys this with so little irony or insight that Dodge's workmates, domestic servant, and the gaggle of randy, dedicated T.G.I. Friday's–esque waitstaff he and Penny encounter on their journey come off more as morons than heroes. (Never mind the weird class contempt that's attached to these characters.) This is banal, flinch-inducing stuff, so by the time Martin Sheen turns up down the highway as Dodge's long-lost dad, it's a breath of fresh air in spite of his speechifying.
This is unfortunate, because as Scafaria captures one-on-one intimacy with frankness and finesse, she manages to draw something real and touching from Knightley, who otherwise can't stop mugging, and even the largely unearned poignancy of the movie's climactic scene packs a punch. (On the other hand, Scafaria seems indifferent to visual innovation.) What's missing from the story is the one element any apocalypse narrative suffocates without: a sense of urgency. By putting so much effort into straddling the lines between darkness and whimsy and profundity and absurdity, Seeking a Friend achieves the colorless tedium of a safe, dozy dream of catastrophe instead of anything like the real deal.


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In addition to the hundreds of talented makers at this weekend's Maker Faire, Make: television will be live, featuring…
The Make: television Stage
Meet the makers who appear on the first season, as well as presentations and discussions from MAKE authors and bloggers. All day, Saturday and Sunday, in Expo Hall.
Projects built during the first season
We'll have our Burrito Blaster with plenty of shootables, the VCR Cat Feeder topped off with cat food and a Cigar Box Guitar and Amp ready for rocking.
Bring your USB Drives
Jared Boone of ShareBrained Technology and designer James Provost have made an awesome Make: television Media Vending Machine. Bring a USB drive that's between 512mb and 12GB and load up with HD or media player-friendly versions. The back is completely open so you can how it's made, and Jared will be on hand. Here it is in the testing phase.
Connect with Geek Squad
We're proud to host Geek Squad at this year's Maker Faire. They'll have Geek Squad Agents on hand to answer any of your tech questions as well as a live Twitter stream rolling throughout the weekend.
Tell us what you make!
We're building the momentum for a second season and we want to hear from makers of all sorts. Last year, we found a huge amount of unique makers at Maker Faire and we're hoping to do the same thing this year. Don't be shy, we love show and tell!
4 thoughts on "Make: television at Maker Faire"
Jared's the mastermind behind this, I just supplied some graphics. Can't wait to try it out – buttony goodness!
We're building the momentum for a second viettelseason and we want to hear from
makers of all sorts. Last year, we found a huge amount of unique makers
at Maker Faire and we're hoping to do the same thing this year. free softwareDon't
be shy, we love show and tell!
Comments are closed.


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NEW YORK (AP) — When two U.S. aid workers infected with Ebola arrive in Atlanta from Africa, they will be whisked into one of the most sophisticated hospital isolation units in the country.
The specialized unit at Emory University Hospital was opened a dozen years ago to care for federal health workers exposed to some of the world's most dangerous germs.
Now it's being pressed into service for the two seriously ill Americans who worked at a hospital in Liberia, one of the three West Africa countries hit by the largest Ebola outbreak in history.
One of the aid workers is due to arrive Saturday, and the second a few days later, according to officials at the hospital. They are traveling in a private jet outfitted with a special, portable tent designed for patients with highly infectious diseases.
It will be the first time anyone infected with Ebola is brought into the country. U.S. officials are confident they can be treated without putting the public in any danger.
The Emory hospital unit is located just down a hill from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is one of about four such units around the country for testing and treating people infected with dangerous, infectious germs.
The unit has its own laboratory equipment so samples don't have to be sent to the main hospital lab. Located on the ground floor, it's carefully separated from other patient areas, said Dr. Eileen Farnon, a Temple University doctor who formerly worked at the CDC and led teams investigating past Ebola outbreaks in Africa.
The two Americans — Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol — worked for U.S. aid groups Samaritan's Purse and SIM at a Liberian hospital that treated Ebola patients. Late last week, the North Carolina-based Samaritan's Purse said Brantly, 33, had been diagnosed with Ebola. Then, Writebol's infection was disclosed.
The government is working to ensure that any Ebola-related evacuations "are carried out safely, thereby protecting the patient and the American public," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a statement released Friday.
A Department of Defense spokesman said Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Georgia, will be used for the transfer. Samaritan's Purse is paying for the trip.
Ebola is considered one of the world's deadliest diseases. The current outbreak in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone has sickened more than 1,300 people and killed more than 700 this year.
The virus is spread through direct contact with blood, urine, saliva and other bodily fluids from an infected person. It is not spread through the air so it is not as infectious as a germ like the flu.
The Americans will travel on a Gulfstream jet fitted with a collapsible, clear tent built to transfer CDC employees exposed to contagious diseases. The CDC said the private jet can only accommodate one patient at a time.
An Emory emergency medical team in Liberia has evaluated the two aid workers, and deemed both stable enough for the trip to Atlanta, said Emory's Dr. Bruce Ribner. Hospital spokesman Vincent Dollard said the first patient was scheduled to arrive Saturday.
"If there's any modern therapy that can be done," such as better monitoring of fluids, electrolytes and vital signs, workers will be able to do it better in this safe environment, said Dr. Philip Brachman, an Emory University public health specialist who for many years headed the CDC's disease detectives program.
"That's all we can do for such a patient. We can make them feel comfortable" and let the body try to beat back the virus, he said.
There's no specific treatment for Ebola so doctors try to ease the symptoms, which include fever, headache, vomiting and diarrhea. Some cases suffer severe bleeding.
Emory's Ribner, one of the doctors who will be seeing the Ebola patients, stressed that safety precautions will be taken by staff.
"I have no concerns about even my personal health or the health of the other health care workers who will be working in that area," Ribner said.
Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee, National Security Writer Robert Burns in Washington and video journalist Johnny Clark and writer Ray Henry in Atlanta contributed to this report.


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Typhoon Rescue
From: flickr_com_photos_wili_361388393.jpg
Boracay Island situated in the Central Philippines is an intriguing place and is popular with tourists worldwide
Typhoon over the Philippines
This is a story of a kiteboarder rescue, that is a kiteboarder saving the life of another. As has been the case in other instances in the past, the kiteboarder was one of the few with the mobility to be able to aid the swimmer in heavy seas. Typhoon May Yi also known as Man-Yi was passing through the eastern Philippines bringing strong winds and heavy seas.
From: flickr_com_photos_endrina_537019666.sized.jpg
The rescue occurred on White Beach. During the typhoon season the prevailing winds shift making conditions offshore at the Bulabog Beach, the normal riding on the other side of Boracay Island. So the guys with Isla Kiteboarding School temporarily move to the Victory Dive Shop on White Beach. Tropical cyclones are fairly common in the Philippines during typhoon season between May and November.
From: flickr_com_photos_wili.jpg
White Beach under more favorable weather
The next day after the rescue when lighter conditions had returned to Boracay Island
Winds were 25 kts. gusting up to 40 kts. with 2 to 3 m waves. The typhoon was situated well to the east and hadn't yet achieved full strength. More violent squall winds were apparently absent in the area. The guys with Isla Kiteboarding School had been riding through the day. They were taking a break in the Victory Diver's shop when a local ran in screaming "my friend is drowning!" Everyone sprinted for the door, divers and kiters alike. The man could be seen about 50 to 80 m offshore, beyond the shore break. He may have been carried there by a rip current. The divers hit the surf and try very hard to make it to the man but were unsuccessful given the heavy seas.
One of the Isla beachboys, Narie Milaflores, was already offshore on a 7m F-one Impact kite. The guys got his attention and had him go out and help the swimmer. Narie ably rode out and came up to the guy and asked him to hold on to Narie so that he could tow him into shore. Instead the victim grabbed Narie's control bar and hanked a violent kite loop catapulting Narie almost into the beach. This shook Narie up pretty well as he landed his kite for a breather. A 7 m kite can be pretty fast, going through an involuntary kite loop in 25 to 40 kts. in heavy seas is no picnic.
Dilbert aka Toto
Toto, an instructor for Isla Kiteboarding and F one team rider asked for Naire's kite and board to try to make it out to the guy and bring him in. The wind was straight onshore and with the heavy waves getting out was tricky to say the least. Toto had to run upwind, jump over the shorebreak taking about 3 minutes and then run back to the victim. Toto stopped about 2 m away and clearly told the guy to grab on to his harness and NOT the control bar. Toto moved in where upon the man climbed up him like a tree grabbing on to Toto's neck. This is a common behavior for people in the process of drowning so be warned! Toto told the guy to shift his grip to his harness which very fortunately, he did. They guys on the beach brought the oxygen tank down from the dive shop and the coast guard arrived by car, too heavy to go out by boat, sigh. So, everyone waited while Toto worked shoreward with his charge. He wasn't getting very far with his board so he ditched it and did some majorly powered up figure 8's to drag the two of them through the surf and on to the beach. The "almost" drowning victim had a rest, said thanks and vanished. Toto and the Isla guys went back into the surf for some more kiting about ten minutes later and ripped it up for the balance of the day.
Toto boosts one
Toto (Dilbert) has been kiteboarding since 2004 and is 23 years old. He started in 2005 as an Isla kiting beach boy and subsequently became an instructor for the school. He became an F One team rider in 2006 and was 3th in the Boracay Intenational Funboard Cup 2006 and 4th in 2007.
Toto has been throwing f-16s, handle passes and very good in the waves.
Uli Stecker, owner of Isla Kiteboarding School on Boracay Island in the Philippines and the man who passed along this information and several of the photos to me.
Going on kite safari with Isla Kiteboarding
From: flickr_com_photo_zoom_gne_id_68852129.jpg
So long from Toto, Uli, Narie and the riders on Boracay Island. Have fun on the water guys, keep aware and help out when you can as you have done so well already, and ...
Way To Go!!!
FKA, Inc.
transcribed by:
Rick Iossi
Last edited by ricki; 08-21-2007 at 08:31 AM.
To put some of the fairer weather riding conditions in perspective here is a video clip shot from the level of the kite. Looks like a nice place to kite.
FKA, Inc.
transcribed by:
Rick Iossi
Last edited by ricki; 08-21-2007 at 05:32 AM.
You can't keep a good man, kiter down. Just heard from Uli, looks like Toto has been at it again. Yesterday, September 21, 2007, Toto was shredding off shore on an F One 7.5 m Bandit kite in 25 kts. with 1.5 m waves. The beach is fairly steep currently promoting some undertow hazards to swimmers.
Toto was about 30 m from the beach when he heard the swimmer screaming for all he was worth panicking big time as he was drowning. Toto calmly responded, towed the guy into shore and promptly headed back out again. He mentioned the rescue in passing to Uli later on in the day. Way to go Toto, AGAIN!
FKA, Inc.
transcribed by:
Rick Iossi
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Sample Menus and Recipes
Sample Meal and Snack Patterns
Follow a Meal and Snack Schedule
Regularly scheduled meal and snack times help your preschooler learn structure for eating. Your child is more likely to eat healthy meals and try new foods if snacks are not offered too close to mealtime. Tips for setting a mealtime schedule:
- Plan for 3 meals and 1 or 2 snacks each day. Preschoolers often do not eat enough at a meal to stay full until the next mealtime.
- Make sure that the foods offered at each meal and snack contribute toward your child's needs.
- Set reasonable limits for the start and end of a meal. When you can see that your child is no longer interested in the meal, excuse him or her from the table.
- Do not let your child have "extras" such as candy or cookies to make up for the meal not eaten.
- Although schedules are helpful, it is also important to listen to your child. For example, if your child says he or she is hungry, offer a small, healthy snack. It's important to allow children to recognize when they are hungry or full.
More information on meals and snacks:
- Ideas for healthy snacks
- Customized Daily Food Plan for your preschooler, showing what and how much your child needs from each food group.


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Mental service dog describes your pet dog that's especially qualified to help handlers with psychological disabilities. It can be of good use to persons experiencing schizophrenia or post-traumatic stress disorder.
Typically, person and dog have now been good friends. Pets have served blind people and recently they have been found to be beneficial to the deaf people and individuals with mental disabilities.
Pets that are trained to help people with mental problems will generally work and lay on the laps of these handlers and give you the requisite soothing pressure. Your dog is experienced to do responsibilities meant at mitigating the handlers' disability emotional support animal letter. They provide environmental evaluation such as for instance paranoia or hallucinations. They indicate interruptive, similar or injurious behaviors. In some cases, the dog might conduct other duties such as telling the handler to get medicine, guide them from situations deemed to be tense, get things or prepare dizzy handlers.
The dogs might be of any size and from any breed. The pets accomplish greater when they are qualified by professional teachers in effort with the handler. Instead, your dog may need to move via a service pet programs. Currently, there are many secretary pet companies that have acknowledged the requirement for dogs in aiding psychiatric impairment victims. The companies prepare and help psychological support pet handlers.
In the U.S. the psychological support pet describes a mental support company pet that's permitted to accompany the handler in places that are available to the public whether or not the premises' policy let pets to enter such premises or not. Nevertheless, canine is likely to behave correctly and should not restrict the standard procedures that get place in the premise. Behaviors such as for instance shouting, defecating, biting, preventing persons or normal danger to the general public may possibly not be condoned.
People who have psychiatric service dogs might experience an array of issues that other support dog's handlers might not experience. Generally, people experiencing mental conditions may not seem to have a problem and might not be willing to disclose their situation due to the problem related to the condition. The handlers are often unwilling to explain their problem or the responsibilities the dog is trained to perform. The fact canine may be of any size or breed, might confuse the general public further. It might produce visitors to inappropriately impugn the status of your dog and force the handler to divulge details of the condition.