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Benedict Promises Obedience to Successor
VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI promised his "unconditional reverence and obedience" to his successor on Thursday in a poignant and powerful farewell speech to cardinals delivered hours before he becomes the first pontiff in 600 years to resign.
In an unexpected address inside the Vatican's frescoed Clementine Hall, the pope appeared to be trying to defuse concerns about his future role and the possible conflicts arising from the peculiar situation of having both a reigning pope and a retired one.
Benedict also gave a final set of instructions to the "princes" of the church who will elect his successor, urging them to be united as they huddle to choose the 266th leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics.
"May the College of Cardinals work like an orchestra, where diversity - an expression of the universal church - always works toward a higher and harmonious agreement," he said.
It was seen as a clear reference to the deep internal divisions that have come to the fore in recent months following the leaks of sensitive Vatican documents that exposed power struggles and allegations of corruption inside the Vatican.
The moment inside the Apostolic Palace was as unique as Benedict's decision to quit, with the 85-year-old pope, wearing his crimson velvet cape and using a cane, bidding farewell to his closest advisers and the cardinals themselves bowing to kiss his fisherman's ring for the last time.
Some seemed to choke up at that moment, and a few lingered on to chat with the pope for as long as they could. But the scene seemed otherwise almost normal, with cardinals chatting on the sidelines waiting their turn to say goodbye.
It was Benedict's last formal audience inside the Vatican and came hours before he was due to depart Vatican City and fly by helicopter to the papal residence at Castel Gandolfo where at 8 p.m. his resignation becomes official.
Benedict said he would pray for the cardinals in coming days as they discuss the issues facing the church, the qualities needed in a new pope, and prepare to enter into the secret conclave to elect him.
"Among you is also the future pope, whom I today promise my unconditional reverence and obedience," Benedict told the cardinals.
Benedict's decision to live at the Vatican in retirement, be called "emeritus pope" and "Your Holiness" and wear the white cassock associated with the papacy has deepened concerns about the shadow he might cast over the next papacy.
But Benedict has tried to address those worries over the past two weeks, saying that once retired he would be "hidden from the world" and living a life of prayer.
In his final speech in St. Peter's Square on Wednesday, he said he wasn't returning to private life exactly, but rather to a new form of service to the church through prayer.
And on Thursday he went even further with his own public pledge of obedience to the new pontiff.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the pope's pledge was in keeping with this effort to "explain how he intends to live this unprecedented situation of an emeritus pope."
"He has no intention of interfering in the position or the decisions or the activity of his successor," Lombardi said. "But as every member of the church, he says fully that he recognizes the authority of the supreme pastor of the church who will be elected to succeed him."
The issue of papal obedience is important for Benedict. In his last legal document, he made new provisions for cardinals to make a formal, public pledge of obedience to the new pope at his installation Mass, in addition to the private one they traditionally make inside the Sistine Chapel immediately after he is elected.
Shortly before 5 p.m. Thursday, Benedict will leave the palace for the last time as pontiff, head to the helipad at the top of the hill in the Vatican gardens and fly to the papal retreat at Castel Gandolfo south of Rome.
There, at 8 p.m. sharp, Benedict will become the first pontiff in 600 years to resign. The Swiss Guards standing at attention will go into the palazzo and shut the doors behind them and go off duty, their service protecting the head of the Catholic Church over - for now.
Lombardi said the guards would change into civilian clothes and return to the Vatican barracks Thursday night. They will continue to guard the entrances of Vatican City and the pope's palace, "even if he's not there," said Cpl. Urs Breitenmoser, a Swiss Guard spokesman.
And on Monday, the cardinals are expected to begin meeting to set the date for the conclave.
Benedict's decision has been met for the most part with praise and understanding. Cardinals, Vatican officials and ordinary Catholics have rallied around him in acknowledgment of his frail state and the church's need for a strong leader.
But Sydney Cardinal George Pell has caused a stir by openly saying the resignation has been "slightly destabilizing" for the church.
In an interview with Australian Broadcasting Corp., Pell noted that Benedict himself had acknowledged the shift in tradition; Benedict said Wednesday that he appreciated his decision was not only serious but "a novelty" for the church.
Pell also said the church was in sore need of a strong manager - comments echoed by several cardinals who have noted the 30-year reign of two popes who paid scant attention to the internal governance of the church.
The Vatican tried to downplay Pell's comments, saying it wouldn't respond to individual cardinals and urging the media not to take advantage of churchmen who, he said, aren't necessarily media savvy.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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RABAT, Morocco —U.S. Senator Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD), Chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (U.S. Helsinki Commission) and a bipartisan Congressional delegation today commended the strong U.S.-Morocco partnership after meeting with Youssef Amrani, Secretary General of the Moroccan Foreign Ministry, and Mohammed Tricha, Director of Internal Affairs at the Ministry of Interior. (Photos available here. and video here.)
"Morocco's consistent actions to hold suspected terrorists to account, increase trade opportunities, and play an active role in multilateral organizations, like the Organization for Security and Cooperation Europe, make it a leader among North African nations," Chairman Cardin said. "Our visit here demonstrates the importance of our bilateral relationship and the valuable voice Morocco brings to discussions of international security."
"In three days of bilateral meetings with government officials, Moroccan citizens and college students, we have seen why the Kingdom of Morocco is such a valued partner to the United States," said Commissioner Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS). "The local students we met who put in extra hours to expand their education or learn English show hope for a country with excessive illiteracy rates and genuine concerns that the economic crisis will lead unemployed youth to fall prey to terrorist recruiters."
"Morocco's recent conviction of an accomplice to the Madrid train bombings further shows the strength of the partnership between our two countries and the faith all countries should have in Rabat to help combat terrorism, particularly Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb," said Congressman Eni Faleomavaega (D-AS).
The delegation, hosted by U.S. Ambassador to Morocco Sam Kaplan, also met with the Ambassador of the King Serge Berdugo, toured U.S. outreach efforts in urban and rural areas, met with Peace Corps volunteers, health care personnel, and elected leaders of parliament and city council.
"With more women than ever now serving as city councilors and mayors across the country, Morocco's recent advances for women's rights show a beneficial path other countries of the Islamic world should consider following," Congresswoman Laura Richardson (D-CA) said. "Strength at elections, followed by further improvements in the fields of education, health care, and economics demonstrate that when women are fully engaged all share in Morocco's promising future."
The delegation led by Sen. Cardin is also joined by Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL). They will visit a naval base and hold bilateral meetings in Spain en route to the Winter Meeting of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in Vienna Feb. 18-19.

subset: commoncrawl


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Trash in landfills is accumulating at astonishing rates. Much of this garbage is junk and scrap that will never decompose. However, a great deal of the refuse that is currently sitting in landfills is litter that could have been recycled. Perhaps more of this trash would have been recycled if more people had owned trash compactors for recycling.
What is a Trash Compactor?
Many people have never owned or even used a trash compactor before. So, they have no idea how beneficial these units can be for assisting with household trash.
A trash compactor is a household appliance that fits underneath a counter or that can be a freestanding unit. It has a motor inside that operates a press. The press lowers onto any trash that is in the compactor at the press of a button, and compacts it into a fraction of the size it was previously. Compactors use special bags that typically cost about $1 per bag; however, the bags are changed much less frequently.
Advantages of Using Trash Compactors with Recycling
It is generally recommended that trash auger style compactors repairs are not used with glass. In addition, since compactor bags are not emptied as frequently, it is typically suggested that people not put food items into compactors. So, how can using a trash compactor help a person recycle?
On average, trash compactors turn six bags of regular trash into one 30-pound bag. Some areas of the country do not have consumers separate out their recyclable items into different categories. Also, some areas charge by the bin for recycling. Therefore, the slower the bin fills up, the better. By using a trash compactor for the recyclables, the bin will fill up much more slowly.
When consumers own trash compactors for recycling, they are much more likely to keep their trash separate from their recyclables. This means that more waste is able to be recycled, instead of more waste heading to the landfills.
Some people may argue that trash compactors are not ecofriendly because they compact trash so tightly that it cannot decompose. This may be true for regular refuse; however, using a trash compactor only for recyclable materials is a great way to help the environment. The recyclable items can be recycled in their compacted form, and the consumer uses less plastic bags.
Choosing the Best Trash Compactor
There are several models and brands of trash compactors from which a person can choose for home use for recycling. Most can be built into cabinets, or they fit easily into cabinets that already exist in the kitchen. Or, a person could select a model that will fit in with her décor. There are stainless-steel, black, and white freestanding units that have handy butcher block tops.
Different models of trash compactors come with varying amounts of force. This is the amount of pressure that the plate applies in order to compact the trash. Larger households will want to choose the maximum amount of force – 3000 pounds – in order to get the maximum amount of recyclables in each bag.


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Business and environmental sustainability are not natural bedfellows. Business is about making money. Sustainability is about protecting the planet. Business is measured in months and quarters. Sustainability often requires significant short term costs to secure a sometimes uncertain long-term benefit. To some activists, all executives are exploitative, selfish one percenters. To some executives, all activists are irresponsible, unyielding extremists.
And yet engaging with the issue isn't optional – all businesses must have a strategy to deal with sustainability and, like any strategy, this involves making choices.
This Strategy and Sustainability course based on Rosenberg's recently published book by Palgrave (http://www.palgrave.com/la/book/9781137501738) that encourages learners to filter out the noise and make those choices in a hard-nosed and clear-eyed way. Prof. Rosenberg's nuanced and fact-based point of view recognizes the complexity of the issues at hand and the strategic choices businesses must make. He blends the work of some of the leading academic thinkers in the field with practical examples from a variety of business sectors and geographies and offers a framework with which senior management might engage with the topic, not (just) to save the planet but to fulfill their short, medium and long-term responsibilities to shareholders and other stakeholders.
This course promises to be both engaging and thought-provoking, aimed at anyone who wishes to gain a deeper understanding of a subject that is no longer perceived as a choice but a necessity for future managers and business leaders alike.
Price: Enroll For Free!
Language: English
Subtitles: English
TUN Helps Students!
Copyright, 2024 – TUN, Inc


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The 50 greatest album covers of all time
What makes an album cover great? These days, the whole concept of album artwork - arguably even the album itself - is a moot point. Today's teenagers have iPods full of music but many have never bought a compact disc, while vinyl is increasingly the preserve of bearded collectors as even club DJs move towards digital mixing solutions.
That said, we've yet to see a major artist release an album without some sort of artwork to accompany it, and while we can laugh long and hard at the worst offenders, it's time to celebrate the finest album artwork ever to grace record shops, CD collections, t-shirts and bedroom walls across the globe.
Click onwards to see the 50 greatest album covers of all time, as voted for by you...
Dire Straits - Brothers In Arms
The cover to Brothers In Arms is possibly the most iconic shot of a National Style O Resonator guitar ever.
The desirable series was discontinued in 1941 so its appearance on the cover of Dire Straits' album is a pretty tantalising example of guitar porn. Even fans unfamiliar with the make and model of the guitar can lust after its curved and glistening body. Is that doing it for you?
Frank Zappa And The Mothers Of Invention - Weasels Ripped My Flesh
One of the many great things about Frank Zappa is his reliable weirdness. He's a mine of the strange and hilarious and the Weasels Ripped My Flesh cover is just one such gem. Zappa briefed artist Neon Park to create something based on a men's adventure magazine bearing the cover line "Weasels Ripped My Flesh".
Park created his bum-clenchingly painful cover by parodying a Schtick electric razor advert. Despite objections from the label, the printer and the printer's assistant, the cover came out unchanged.
Miles Davis - Bitches Brew
The gatefold cover to Bitches Brew is as much a visual journey as much Davis' album is a musical one. The trippy design is by surrealist painter Mati Klarwein, who also designed the cover for Davis' Live Evil album and collaborated with many other musicians.
Bonus trivia: The whereabouts of the original painting are unknown.
Bob Dylan - The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
The cover to the Freewheelin' Bob Dylan underlines Dylan's desire to be candid and spontaneous. It's a self-conscious departure from the meticulously constructed album covers of his contemporaries and shows him in his natural habitat.
The photograph was taken by CBS photographer Don Hunstein and shows Dylan walking with his girlfriend and muse Suze Rotolo near to the apartment they shared in New York - what could be more spontaneous, honest and compelling?
Grace Jones - Slave To The Rhythm
Sometimes you can judge an album by its cover - we'd like to think that the cover to Slave to the Rhythm tells you everything you need to know about Grace Jones before you start listening.
Powerful, warped and scary - yes scary.
Patti Smith - Horses
With attitude in abundance, this steely portrait shows why Patti Smith is known the Godmother of punk.
The shot was taken by her friend, the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, with whom she lived in the smallest room in New York's Chelsea hotel before they both made it.
David Bowie - Diamond Dogs
The illustration for the cover to Diamond Dogs shows David Bowie as a bizarre half-man half-dog creature.
The illustration by Belgian artist Guy Peellaert and caused a stir initially as on the reverse of the album, Bowie's (admittedly part canine) genitalia were on full display. The original was promptly removed from sale and replaced with a less confusing airbrushed version.
Blur - Parklife
Parklife is an album about class tourism. Blur might have been the posh boys of Britpop, but their breakthrough album was a study on working class life in London.
The dynamic and powerful image of the greyhounds on the cover, designed by long-term Blur collaborator Chris Thomson, reflects both their fascination with geezer culture and (accidentally?) a band at the breakthrough of their career.
The Strokes - Is This It
The greatest thing about this album cover is that it looks like something that even Spinal Tap would reject. The bare flesh, the leather glove, the visual representation of the band's name, every rock cliché is being squeezed for all its worth and the result is - perhaps surprisingly - a very stylish, sexy design that heralded the arrival of one of the most exciting albums of the decade.
Bonus trivia: The bare flesh was abandoned for the American version of Is This It, in favour of a close-up particle collision. Boring!
Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III
Building on a tried and tested hip-hop tradition, Lil Wayne follows in the footsteps of Biggie Smalls and Nas by using one of his baby pictures on his album cover.
Typical of his 'is-this-too-much' attitude, however, Weezy goes a step further than his predecessors and has a few of his very grown-up tattoosPhotoshopped onto his younger self. The result? A two-year-old with prison tats. Genius.
Elvis Presley - Elvis Presley
Released in 1956, Elvis Presley was The King's debut studio album and year zero for a whole generation of rock 'n' rollers. The shot on the cover was taken at the Fort Homer Hesterly Armory in Tampa, Florida.
While this presents Elvis as the original '50s rock 'n' roll star, the cover is now equally recognisable as the inspiration for the cover of The Clash's 1979 album London Calling, which provided an update on what it meant to be rock 'n' roll.
Lou Reed - Transformer
Transformer was Lou Reed's second solo studio album and cemented his position as an icon. Just as the music on Transformer remains some his best known, the cover provides a defining image of Reed for posterity.
With blackened eyes and an almost featureless face, Reed looks every inch the glamorous tortured artist. The photograph was taken by Mick Rock, who was also responsible for creating album covers for The Stooges, Queen and The Ramones.
Bonus trivia: Ernie Thormalen, pictured on the back of the cover art, caused a controversy because he appears to have stuffed a cucumber down his trousers.
The Beatles - Rubber Soul
At the dawn of the age of psychedelia, the cover for Rubber Soul by The Beatles shows how powerful a light touch can be.
The slightly distorted cover image is trippy without being totally cosmic - reflecting the gradual shift towards studio experimentation that can be heard in the music contained within. The portrait was taken by photographer Bob Freeman and the stretched version was born when the card that Freeman was projecting potential cover shots onto slipped, creating an effect that was an immediate hit with the band.
Bonus trivia: Rubber Soul was the first Beatles album not to feature the band's name on the cover. Although this wasn't a pop first, it was certainly uncommon in 1965.
The Eagles - Hotel California
One of many album covers that has inadvertently created a landmark, Hotel California has turned the Beverly Hills Hotel on Sunset Boulevard into a Mecca for Eagles fans over the years.
The image, taken by David Alexander, shows the hotel at dusk and fits the album perfectly, conveying what Don Henley expresses as: "Faded loss of innocence and decadence."
Bonus trivia: The 'real' Hotel California where The Eagles used to hang out is supposed to be somewhere in Mexico.
The Beatles - With The Beatles
The portrait of The Beatles on the cover of With The Beatles is stylish and moody, imbuing the band with a weight of intellectualism that belies their tender years.
What's also special about the cover is it captures the fresh-faced Beatles in late 1963, their eyes burning with ambition just weeks before Beatlemania would capture the imagination of the world.
Bonus trivia: The Australian release featured a caricature of The Beatles as EMI Australia didn't receive the cover art in time.
The Wailers - Catch A Fire
The first major label release for The Wailers was designed to make an impact. The sleeve was conceived by graphic artists Rob Dyer and Bob Weiner to look and behave like a Zippo lighter, opening at a side hinge to reveal the record - or the 'fire'.
However, this proved quite expensive to produce so after 20,000 copies it was replaced with something almost as clever - a picture of Bob Marley smoking a fat joint.
Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
MBDTF is the album that sees Kanye West most convincingly graduate from rapper to artist. Despite the standard talk of money, women and success, it's riddled with neurosis and self doubt and delivered with humbling honesty.
At the fault line between Kanye's artistic aspirations and man-on-the-edge lunacy is the front cover. The artistic credentials are all here as the portrait (we're talking about the original Phoenix one) is by acclaimed painter George Condo.
However the madness is here too. The portrait shows Kanye West holding a beer and 'getting jiggy' with a paraplegic Phoenix (magical bird/woman thing). The portrait challenges hip-hop conventions while using them; it represents a very dark fantasy and is a succinct expression of Kanye's vision for the album.
The Ramones - Ramones
Blazing onto the scene with their debut album, The Ramones reveal everything you need to know in one picture.
Looking every inch the gang of delinquents, the cover image of the group is a blueprint for Ramones fans who want to know what garage punk is about. It's all here: how to style your hair, what constitutes an acceptable jacket, whether or not you should do your maths homework…
The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
Because it's consistently recognised as one of the most - if the not the most - important pop music records ever, it's easy to dismiss the telltale signs of madness in Pet Sounds.
The name itself is a little off-kilter, and even weirder when you know it was Brian Wilson's attempt to pay homage to Phil Spector by using his initials - thanks Brian…
Then there's the cover image. The Beach Boys - American heart-throbs and cultural icons - awkwardly feeding assorted goats in what looks more like a snap from the family album than the cover to Brian Wilson's greatest work. Sometimes though, as the music proves, genius and insanity occupy the same space. Pet Sounds is easily the most memorable Beach Boys album cover.
The Beatles - Revolver
If Rubber Soul's woozy distorted cover portrait looks like the result of a few cheeky joints then Revolver is the start of a full-blown acid trip, foreshadowing the technicolor psychedelia of Sgt Pepper a year later.
Part line-drawing, part collage, the illustration on the cover is the work of German artist and record producer Klaus Voorman. Voorman has leant his talents to a mélange of acts over the decades including Wet Wet Wet, The Bee Gees and Jimi Hendrix.
Bonus trivia: Revolver was originally titled Abracadabra until the Beatles discovered another band had used that title. Phew.
David Bowie - Aladdin Sane
Hot on the heels of Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane was Bowie's first album as a fully-fledged rock star.
The stripped-back portrait on the cover - by fashion photographer Brian Duffy - is a confident expression of Bowie's new persona and one of the most identifiable images we have of pop's greatest chameleon.
The Rolling Stones - Let It Bleed
In the late '60s even The Stones - usually relied on to provide throbbing sex appeal - went a bit surreal.
This album cover was the work of off-centre graphic designer Robert Brownjohn and shows the record being played while cakes and pizzas queue on the record spike. This makes more sense when you know that the original title for the album was Automatic Changer.
Bonus trivia: The cakes on the album cover were made by the then-unknown cookery writer Delia Smith.
Led Zeppelin - Houses Of The Holy
The eerie image of inhuman children climbing an alien landscape was inspired by the Arthur C Clark novel Childhood's End. It has all of the key ingredients for a classic heavy rock album cover - mysticism, fantasy, darkness and what must have been mind-bending visual effects for the '70s audience.
It was shot on Giants Causeway in Ireland over four days and masterminded by Aubrey Powell of '70s psychedelic go-to crew Hipgnosis.
Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
The recently reinvented Fleetwood Mac were the biggest band in the world when they released Rumours. However, all was not well as inter-band relationships disintegrated during recording.
Rumours is a tangled web of neuroses as it is, but the cover, which features Mick Fleetwood and Stevie Nicks (who were not yet lovers) engaging in something resembling old-fashioned courtship, seems designed to stretch relationships to breaking point (of course the world feels different when you're in the grip of a crippling coke habit).
Whether the cover was designed to stick it to Lindsay Buckingham or portents of Mick and Stevie's affair is unclear but the fact remains this is an enchanting, elegant and gracefully seductive album cover that deserves to be remembered.
The Beatles - Abbey Road
The first UK Beatles album cover to feature neither the band name nor the album title, the oft-pastiched Abbey Road has become an iconic image representing an era as much as it does an album or a band.
The most brilliant thing about the cover though is that it fuelled the paranoid rumours that Paul McCartney was in fact dead. In all there are 12 'clues' on Abbey Road's cover that conspiracy theorists believe 'prove' that Paul died in a car accident in 1966 and was being played by an actor; a Faul, if you will.
It was the end of the '60s and we can only assume that prolonged substance abuse had addled the minds of some of the most obsessive Beatles fans. For more on this (belly-shaking) conspiracy theory, go here.
Talking Heads - Remain In Light
A lingering, creepy image, each of the band members' faces has been blocked out in red to impose anonymity.
The original intention had been to superimpose producer Brian Eno's face on each band member after he (possibly somewhat arrogantly) stated that he wanted to be on the cover of the album. He ultimately dropped this idea leaving the band with red faces.
Sly And The Family Stone - There's A Riot Going On
Having finally achieved mass success, Sly and the Family Stone took the bold decision to produce an album cover without their name on it. Or indeed the title of the album. Or any identifying factors whatsoever. And it worked!
This brave reworking of the American flag is packed with symbolism and was Sly's attempt to design a more universally appropriate flag for his nation.
Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation
Everything about Daydream Nation shows Sonic Youth at the peak of maturity and artistic candour, taking art-rock to the masses and paving the way for a major label record deal.
The cover is the Gerhard Richter painting, Kerze (Candle), and is one of several references to high art on an album which features lyrics borrowing from Warhol, Harry Crews and Dennis Johnson.
Beastie Boys - Licensed To Ill
Beastie Boys' debut album cover is packed with the juvenile pith and vinegar that characterised their music in 1986. The Boeing 737 is tagged with the Def Jam logo and bears the legend 3MTA3, which spells Eat Me when viewed in a mirror - a mere six years after The Shining brought us 'Redrum'.
The real punchline however is on the back cover, where the image is continued, revealing the plane has actually smashed into a mountain - this 'pull-back and reveal' visual joke demonstrates how hard the Beastie Boys party (hard enough to crash a jet) and gives an indication that they're not entirely serious.
Bonus trivia: Licensed to Ill was illustrated by Steve Bryam, co-founder of Screwgum Records. Nowadays his work looks more like this.
New Order - Power, Corruption & Lies
Carefully designed to twin the classically romantic with stark modernity, the cover for Power, Corruption & Lies was designed by regular New Order collaborator Peter Saville. The image is A Basket of Roses by French artist Henri Fantin-Latour. The UK release (the proper release) had no text on the cover. Instead a bold grid of colours could be decoded by referring to the key on the back of the album to spell out the band name and album title.
The colour code was invented by Saville for New Order and appears on singles Blue Monday and Confusion.
Spiritualized - Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space
Spiritualized frontman Jason Pierce worked with iconic designer and ex-Factory Records man Mark Farrow to create this clever cover. Designed to look like packaging for prescription medication, the artwork was even complete with dosage advice - one tablet, 70 mins.
A special edition of the album came in a cardboard box containing each track on its own three-inch CD inside a large blister pack. Totally unnecessary, slightly awkward and 100 percent desirable.
Pixies - Surfer Rosa And Come On Pilgrim
A friend of a friend of the Pixies poses topless dressed as a Flamenco dancer against a wall displaying a torn poster and a crucifix. The cover to Surfer Rosa is at once erotic and religiously charged.
According to Simon Larbalestier, who contributed pictures to all of the Pixies albums, the concept was Black Francis's because he wrote the songs in his father's "topless Spanish bar". He concludes: "I hope people find it tasteful." Well we do Simon. Is it wrong that we find it sexy too?
Battles - Mirrored
This equipment setup is a shot taken by New York photographer and director Timothy Saccenti on set for the video to Battles' first single Atlas - which Saccenti also directed.
The video uses mirrors to create infinities of instruments, reflecting Battles' own penchant for repetition and their ability to build something fleeting and complex from the most robust starting point.
Aphex Twin - Richard D James Album
Continuing the fascination with his own face, Aphex Twin's fourth album cover is a close up portrait of himself in typically demonic spirits.
His face is also painted on the cover of I Care Because You Do and grossly distorted versions are superimposed onto other people's bodies in the video for Windowlicker. He even embeds his face as a steganogram towards the end of Windowlicker.
Captain Beefheart - Trout Mask Replica
In case you saw the album title in print and wondered what he meant, good ol' Beefheart shows you what a Trout Mask Replica is on the front cover.
It's undoubtedly weird and the image will stick in your subconscious forever.
Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run
This rock classic shows Bruce Springsteen holding his guitar and leaning on saxophonist Clarence Clemons (we think you'll find The Boss can lean where he likes).
It was one of 900 images taken by photographer Eric Meola in a three-hour session, and apparently it was the obvious choice for the cover. Meola explains: "Other things happened, but when we saw the contact sheets, that one just sort of popped. Instantly, we knew that was the shot."
Bonus trivia: The shoot nearly didn't happen as The Boss continually missed his appointments with Meola.
The Sex Pistols - Nevermind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols
This seminal album cemented the musical blueprint for punk but the cover also worked as a template for punk design. It was designed by Jamie Reid, a college friend of Malcom McLaren and regular art director for the Sex Pistols.
The design may look simple - even thoughtless - but Reid asserts it has roots in bigger ideas than pop music. "It wasn't the pop phenomenon that interested me," says Reid. "I saw punk as part of an art movement that's gone over the last hundred years, with roots in Russian agitprop, surrealism, dada and situationism."
The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground & Nico
Andy Warhol proves there's no point being a pop artist if you can't make your mark on pop music. Incredibly - and uniquely - this image now has a cultural dual ownership, being synonymous with both the Velvet Underground and Warhol himself.
Warhol can always be relied upon for a bit of humour. Peeling back the banana skin on the original cover revealed a flesh-colored 'banana' underneath. This is a trick that was reimagined for The Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers.
Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti
Led Zeppelin spent weeks walking around New York with album designer Peter Corriston trying to find the perfect tenement building for their album cover. They eventually found it at 96 and 98 St. Mark's Place.
Sleeve designer Mike Doud then set to work executing the concept of an outer sleeve featuring cut-out windows that would expose a collection of inner sleeves, creating different scenarios in each apartment.
Bonus trivia: The tenement on the cover to Physical Graffiti is the same building that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were filmed in front of for the Rolling Stones promo for Waiting for a Friend.
The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers
The first Stones album of the '70s and the first to appear on their label Rolling Stones Records, the cover to Sticky Fingers had to grab attention - and what better way to do that than with a massive wang?
It was conceived by Andy Warhol and shot by Billy Name. The original cover had an askew zipper which could be zipped to reveal the legend "THIS PHOTOGRAPH MAY NOT BE-ETC."
Bonus trivia: Contrary to popular myth, this is not Mick Jagger's crotch. The most likely candidate is artist Corey Tippin, although those in the know remain tight-lipped (or are now dead).
Pink Floyd - Animals
This cover was designed by Pink Floyd's Roger Waters and produced by regular Floyd cohorts Hipgnosis. Waters commissioned an enormous inflatable pig, which was positioned between the chimneys of Battersea power station for the album cover.
However, despite three days of photography, none of the images were considered good enough so ultimately Hipgnosis reconstructed the image for the cover.
King Crimson - In The Court Of The Crimson King
The Schizoid Man on the cover to In The Court of the Crimson King perfectly reflects the shock and awe of the music that the band creates. Troubling and unsettling but compelling and identifiable, the cover undoubtedly boosted sales of this prog breakthrough album.
Bonus trivia: This was the only painting ever produced by computer programmer Barry Godber, who was specially commissioned by King Crimson lyricist Peter Sinfield.
Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
This is a spectacularly confident cover design. Not only is there no text (on a debut album) but there's no clue as to what the wiggly lines represent. Is it a cluster of sine waves? Is it the sea? Or perhaps a mountain range? No, it's actually 100 successive pulses from the first pulsar ever discovered, PSR B1919+21 of course!
The cover was designed by Peter Saville, Factory Records' in-house design guru and its dark enigmatic nature perfectly positioned Joy Division for an audience of sulky, self-involved teens.
The Beatles - The Beatles (aka The White Album)
The White Album is the original anti-cover. Indeed it's only known as The White Album due to an absence of anything on the cover other than the band's name in embossed lettering and - on the original vinyl version - a stamped serial number.
The contrast to the kaleidoscope of colour on 1967's Sgt Pepper couldn't be more marked. Stark, original, confident, and much-imitated in the years since.
Iron Maiden - The Number Of The Beast
Like most of Iron Maiden's artwork, the cover for The Number of the Beast was designed by Derek Riggs and features Eddie, their 'mascot' (for want of a more satanic word).
It was originally presented to the band as the artwork for the single Purgatory but it was rejected on the grounds that it was too good to be used for a single.
Bonus trivia: The 1982 edition of the album cover features a blue sky, but this was a printer's error. It went unrectified until the 1998 remastered version, when the sky was restored to an unholy black.
Rage Against The Machine - Rage Against The Machine
The cover to Rage Against The Machine's debut shows a photo of Thích Quảng Đức, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, burning himself to death in Saigon in 1963. This act of protest resulted in the Americans withdrawing their support for the Vietnamese government. Although he was just one man, Thích Quảng Đức's extreme act changed the political landscape of the time.
This story and this image fit Rage Against The Machine's politicised musical aesthetic and their leftist stance in 1992. Extreme, difficult, attention-grabbing and bent on reform, Rage Against The Machine might never have gone the whole hog and actually burned themselves to death, but they would get pretty damn close within the realm of music. They would also teach a generation what to scream in the face of authority - "FUCK YOU, I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME."
The Clash - London Calling
Summing up what it's like to be in a rock 'n' roll band in one shot is tricky, but this image does a remarkably good job.
Paul Simonon, lost in the moment at a 1979 gig at the Palladium in New York, is smashing his Fender Precision Bass on the stage - and he doesn't care. It's rebellious, angsty and most importantly utterly free of pretension. What more do you need?
Bonus trivia: The guitar being smashed by Paul Simonon was exhibited on display at the Cleveland Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as of May 2000.
The Beatles - Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Adorned in the typically British high camp of day-glo marching band costumes, The Beatles play a teasing game of guess who, posing in front of a collage of more than 70 celebrities. They are also accompanied by affectations from their homes, giving fans an information overload.
The cover was art directed by Robert Fraser, a London art dealer, trend setter and swinger (in the '60s sense). He dissuaded the Beatles from using a psychedelic artwork by contemporary cosmic collective, The Fool, and suggested they get involved with pop artist Peter Blake instead. Without disrespecting (or pitying) The Fool, this was a much better idea.
Nirvana - Nevermind
One of the most enduring album covers of all time and one that, these days, we Google search with a vague sense of caution. However, the powerful image of a baby swimming after a dollar bill on a fishing hook is a wonderfully wry metaphor.
Few would have predicted that a band of provincial outsiders with strong punk sensibilities would release a major label debut that would redefine the landscape of mainstream American rock music and topple Michael Jackson from the summit of the Billboard album chart.
The swimming baby is now in his 20s. His name is Spencer Elden and his parents were paid just $200 for the photograph. There are perks though. He told MTV about his chat up line: "You want to see my penis… again?" Smooth Spencer, very smooth.
Bonus trivia: For reasons unknown Spencer decided to recreate the Nevermind cover as an adult (but wearing pants this time). Check it out here.
Pink Floyd - The Dark Side Of The Moon
Bold, iconic and symbolic, the cover to Pink Floyd's eighth studio album fulfilled every aspect of Richard Wright's brief to be: "smarter, neater - more classy" than previous Pink Floyd covers.
Designed by longterm Floyd associates and masters of spaced out imagery, Hipgnosis and George Hardie, the dispersing prism references the lyrical content of the album and Pink Floyd's extravagant light shows.
The prism image was the centrepoint of some fairly lavish packaging, which included two posters and stickers of the pyramids - take that Radiohead!
A worthy winner? Let us know what you think...
Bonus trivia: The prism of light on The Dark Side Of The Moon misses out indigo from the spectrum.
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Special Feature
"I guarantee you, no matter how long you live, you can always learn something new about fighting." - Yves Edwards
All it takes is a few seconds on the phone with Yves Edwards and you realize that he's not like the other prizefighters. He says it comes from being a native of the Bahamas, but I tend to think that in another life he was a saxophonist in a jazz band – all cool, all the time, nothing ever bringing him down.
But that may just be the secret to his longevity in the fight game. Three weeks after his Friday fight with Jeremy Stephens, the 36-year-old will celebrate his 15th year as a professional fighter. That's an amazing feat wherever you fight, but to still be doing it in the UFC, that's rare air to be occupying; you know, Randy Couture / Dan Henderson territory.
"Even putting my name in a paragraph with those guys is an honor," said Edwards. "I don't think I deserve to be in the same statement with those guys, but at the same time, I think I've been lucky. I've got good genes and it probably comes from my laid-back, easy going attitude from being from the Bahamas. Nothing really bothers me. Maybe once a year I'll get something that's annoying, but not a lot, and because of that there's no stress, no strain, no mental baggage that I'm carrying around that's dragging me around and making me feel old. I still feel young inside and hopefully I can keep it going as long as possible because this is the most fun thing in the world, and I don't want to give it up."
Edwards is being modest. For newer fans, let's just say that Edwards was possibly the best lightweight in the world when there wasn't a lightweight division in the UFC. Today, his latest stint in the Octagon may have him sitting on a 3-2 record, but it's a deceiving one, especially if you look at his most recent bout against TUF13 winner Tony Ferguson last December. Expected by many to be the gatekeeper for the young gun, Edwards instead gave him a three round war. When it was over, Ferguson got the decision, but Edwards won the crowd. It wasn't much consolation though.
"I definitely felt that I did a lot better than 30-27," referring to two of the judges' scores that night. "I watched the fight again and I can see the argument both ways (for the winner), and I completely understand that 30-27 doesn't mean somebody gets dominated. But I know that I won the second round. I don't care what country or planet you're from, I won that second round. And the third, I know it was close and I felt like I won and I can see the argument the other way, but I'm not one of these guys to harp on things that are out of my control. So from that fight I take the good and I go back and watch the tape and look for the bad and I try to fix those holes. It's kind of like being a quarterback in the NFL. You gotta have a short-term memory when it comes to that kind of stuff. You try to fix it and then you make it better, but you can't let it consume you, and the best way to get over a loss is to go out there and get a W, and that's the game plan now."
The defeat was Edwards' 18th as a pro, against 41 wins and one draw. Back when he was coming up the ranks, a couple losses here and there didn't hurt a fighter's reputation that much simply because they were likely fighting killers night in and night out. But with so much competition for spots on the UFC roster and not enough room for everybody, a loss or two can be the difference between fighting in the Octagon and fighting on the local circuit. Edwards isn't about to be one of those guys saying 'Back when I was a kid' though. He has grown with the game and he accepts life in it for what it is and adjusts accordingly.
"You never want to take a loss, because of how a loss can affect your career, but at the same time, it's one of those things that definitely come with the territory," he said. "I can't focus on that kind of thing though. I have to go out there and fight my fight and I can't let anything distract me. The good thing about me is it's really hard for me to win a boring fight. That's the slightly bigger part of the equation – this is a sport and probably the purest form of entertainment in sport. You've got the NFL and you've got MMA and those are probably the best two sports to watch, at least in my opinion. And I think my style is exciting and entertaining to watch. At the very least, you won't be bored or you won't want to be turning away and reading a book at the same time. You're gonna pay attention to the fight. So as far as that goes, I don't think about the losses during the fight. But is it tough to swallow a loss? Yeah. That's a really tough pill to swallow and you don't like looking at the loss column on your record and see it racking up. But at the same time, this is MMA and this is the UFC. 98% of the UFC and Strikeforce rosters are killers, so there's nobody being protected and there's no way around it: some guys will lose. But for me, I just gotta go out there and fight hard and not pay attention to those things and let the chips fall after the battle's been won or lost."
And if you look at the matchmaking done by Joe Silva, there isn't any drop off on the level of fighter Edwards is getting, despite the loss to Ferguson. Originally slated to face Donald Cerrone in May before getting injured, Edwards now gets Stephens.
"It's one of the things I asked for," he said. "I remember when I got back to the UFC, I was so excited because now I had the opportunity to fight some of the best guys in the world. The UFC roster, especially at lightweight, top to bottom everybody's a killer. So there's not gonna be an easy one. Every single one, you gotta go out there and be ready for. You gotta prepare properly and be ready for it. Yes, it's awesome that Joe Silva wanted to put me in there with Cerrone, a guy that I've got a lot of respect for and who I think is amazing when it comes to fighting in the cage, and as a part of that weight class, it's gonna be really, really hard to get someone that I can't get excited for."
As for Stephens, the Thug-Jitsu master from Austin, Texas is eager to throw down with the "Lil' Heathen" this Friday.
"He's a young guy, but he's committed and dedicated to the sport," said Edwards. "He's constantly improving and I think the biggest thing I've taken from watching tape on him and studying him, even when he gets frustrated or tired, is that he takes that power with him into the late rounds. His power is always dangerous, so that's something you have to respect and be cautious about."
It's funny, but when he's talking about fighting, that's the only time you'll hear the normally laid-back Edwards raise his voice. Maybe that's the secret. After 15 years, he still loves the game. And if you ask him, he hasn't even scratched the surface on what he can learn.
"I remember when I was a kid," he said. "I saw the first Highlander movie and ever since then, especially when I started fighting, I've always wished that I was one of those guys, because I guarantee you, no matter how long you live, you can always learn something new about fighting."
Power Slap


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Good morning, I'm Steve Inskeep.
A woman in Spokane, Washington stepped out of the shower and into a moment of terror. Her 14-month-old boy was bouncing on the bed. He bounced out a half-open second-story window. She dove after the boy, smashed through the window, grabbed his foot as he was tumbling down the porch roof and lowered the kid safely to his grandma, who was smoking on the porch.
The mom then crashed into a bush. She's scraped up. The baby is fine.
It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


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Special Feature
CAUTION: SPOILERS INCLUDED – With four eliminations already on The Ultimate Fighter: Team Liddell vs Team Ortiz, the talk in the house now turns to the Wild Card bout and who will get a second shot at earning a spot in the competition.
By Thomas Gerbasi
CAUTION: SPOILERS INCLUDED – With four eliminations already on The Ultimate Fighter: Team Liddell vs Team Ortiz, the talk in the house now turns to the Wild Card bout and who will get a second shot at earning a spot in the competition.
Clayton McKinney's shoulder injury (which required surgery) looks like it will scrap him from a return, and Charles Blanchard is on the shelf as well after his loss last week to Jamie Yager. Then there's Rich Attonito, whose broken hand is going to keep him from moving forward, even though he defeated Kyacey Uscola on episode four.
So right now, it looks like the favorites for the Wild Card are Uscola, who was DQed in his bout with Attonito, and Hammortree, who lost a controversial decision to Brad Tavares.
After Yager's victory, Team Ortiz takes control, and for this week's fight, coach Tito Ortiz chooses Kris McCray to take on Team Liddell's Josh Bryant.
"I'm very confident that we're gonna win every one of the next matches, so I've got to make sure that we get the right picks, and to me, Kris vs Bryant is a fairly good pick right now," said Ortiz.
After the weigh-ins for the McCray vs Bryant bout, Ortiz apologizes to McKinney for questioning his heart when the fighter was dealing with his shoulder issues.
"I normally don't do that," said Ortiz, "but he deserved it."
In this week's fight, McCray comes out fast and lands well with punches and kicks. A minute in, he scores the takedown and takes Bryant's back. Bryant escapes and looks for his own takedown but comes up short. The two continue to battle along the fence, with McCray holding the edge once again. Two more takedowns follow for McCray, but Bryant gets up immediately and scores with a takedown of his own with under two minutes left. He proceeds to get his foe's back, yet McCray escapes and reverses position. The two stand and lock up against the fence, and remain there to the bell.
Bryant goes on the offensive to start round two, as McCray looks winded. McCray fires back, but his punches lack steam and are falling short of the mark. 90 seconds in, a hard knee to the midsection lands for McCray, but Bryant responds with a takedown and then works for his opponent's arm. Midway through the round, the two stand briefly until Bryant slams his foe to the mat. There is no let up by either man, and McCray gets a takedown of his own after they scramble to their feet, and he finishes the round with ground strikes.
After two rounds, the bout is deadlocked, so it's off to a third sudden victory round.
The two fighters immediately lock up, looking for any kind of advantage. It's a stalemate though, with neither able to break into the lead. With 1:20 left, referee Herb Dean breaks the fighters, and they begin to trade. Bryant scores with some shots and then the gets on top when they hit the canvas. With 30 seconds left, Bryant gets McCray's back and tries for a rear naked choke, and though he doesn't get it, it's enough to secure the unanimous decision victory.
After Bryant's win, Team Liddell's lead increases to 4-1 in the competition. Here's how the teams look:
Team Ortiz
Nick Ring
Kyacey Uscola – Eliminated on episode four by Rich Attonito
Kris McCray – Eliminated on episode five by Josh Bryant
Jamie Yager 1-0
James Hammortree – Eliminated on episode three by Brad Tavares
Clayton McKinney – Eliminated on episode two by Kyle Noke
Chris Camozzi – Eliminated from competition due to injury
Seth Baczynski – brought back on episode three after injury to Camozzi
Team Liddell
Kyle Noke 1-0
Rich Attonito 1-0
Charles Blanchard – Eliminated on episode four by Jamie Yager
Josh Bryant 1-0
Brad Tavares 1-0
Court McGee
Joseph Henle
For weekly recaps of The Ultimate Fighter, as well as fighter profiles, stay tuned to UFC.com.
Power Slap


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In autumn 2011, a major survey explored a 20 year period in Soviet art and architecture at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.
Karl Marx famously stated in the preface to his 1859 A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy: "It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness." The idea that the social constructs and edifices of society necessarily determine the success and development of that society is intrinsic to the formation of the Soviet state after the 1917 Revolution. The economic foundations of the new socialist state were centred on the communal relationship of existence between each individual, hence the individual was literally expected to subsume themselves into the collective society – whether through communal living arrangements (kommunalka) or working environments. The establishment and development of new building types and an avant-garde language of architecture between the years 1915-1935 will be examined in an upcoming exhibition, Building the Revolution: Soviet Art and Architecture 1915-1935, to be staged at the Royal Academy of Arts, London.
The exhibition focuses on buildings designed and constructed within that revolutionary period: buildings that have, for the most part, fallen into various states of disrepair and disuse. Richard Pare (b. 1948), a contemporary photographer, has been photographing, documenting, and slowly building a visual archive of these structures over the past 20 years. Nicolai Ouroussoff once called Pare a "white Russian Knight" for his images which have brought to the public's knowledge the run-down, somewhat shabby, urban remains that belie the extraordinary innovative skills of the architects who designed them. The exhibition (curated by Mary-Anne Stevens and Dr. Maria Tsantsanoglou) was in many ways a response to Pare's images, as much as it was a decision to "place this architecture, for the first time, within the context of the innovative art created from 1914/15 which informed its formal language" as well as architecturally contextualise the buildings as they exist now in the urban environment. The juxtaposition of Pare's images against images of the buildings as they looked at the time of their construction and their original designs, will visually articulate the disregard that many buildings are afforded as time passes. This exhibition follows on from MoMA's 2007 exhibition Lost Vanguard: Soviet Modernist Architecture, 1922-32, which also looked at the architecture of the period as photographed by Pare, though the Royal Academy's exhibition will be much more extensive and include drawings, periodicals, architectural renderings and models.
Pare straddles a difficult line as he is an artist, yet many of his photographs have in the past been exhibited as architectural renderings / documents, rather than as works of art. The process of documenting and archiving these designs and buildings within the art historical lineage of architecture is incredibly important, and thus it is perhaps not pertinent to begin a discussion on the qualities that some art historians and critics would use to determine art object versus document with regard to his work. The focus and intent of his images is that of capturing in time the structures as they stand, and in doing so there is a romantic aspect to every image that is undeniable – each building spelling out the hopes and desires of the architects who designed them. Unfortunately, these elements of design were ultimately quenched by Stalin who regarded the avant-garde and experimental as antithetical to the formal Stalinist Empire Style that he expounded.
The post-Revolutionary development of a new visual language and mode of aesthetic production was an amalgamation of several "isms": Russian Futurism; Suprematism, and Constructivism. The dynamics of space, particularly as dictated by the geometry of the line, became of particular interest for many of the artists and architects of the period, as did the idea that need, rather than the aesthetics of beauty, was to dictate the new artistic foundations of the Soviet socialist state. These two strains of thought are elaborated upon at some length by Naum Gabo (1890-1977) and Antoine Pevsner (1886-1962) in their The Realistic Manifesto of 1920, in which they state: "We do not measure our works with the yardstick of beauty, we do not weigh them with pounds of tenderness and sentiments. The plumb-line in our hand, eyes as precise as a ruler, in a spirit as taut as a compass … we construct our work as the universe constructs its own, as the engineer constructs his bridges, as the mathematician his formula of orbits." For Gabo and Pevsner the growth of a new civilisation and culture had to be tied into constructivist tendencies and rooted in necessity for it to survive and be successful.
The work of Konstantin Melnikov (1890-1974) is perhaps exemplary of this emphasis on geometry and the line. Melnikov, who designed worker's clubs, garages, houses, and perhaps most famously the Russian Pavilion at the 1925 International Exhibition in Paris, was both innovative and playful in his work (two qualities which would eventually force the Soviet government to ban him from practising). His design for the Rusakov Worker's Club (1929) demanded an architectural typology, which was triumphant, stimulating, and above all functional. The artistic vocabulary of the Soviet authorities demanded that art and architecture produced embodied these three adjectives, with architecture the visualisation of them into concrete form. Melnikov's design for the worker's club incorporated several rooms of varying size, which could be used together as a large auditorium, or as separate spaces. The building was constructed using concrete, brick and glass – perhaps not a conscious choice of material, but rather one dictated by a lack of materials (a factor which ultimately lent itself to the bare minimalist buildings of the period). There is a masculine energy inherent in Melnikov's designs that can be seen in the work of the Vesnin Brothers as well: their buildings occupy space in a way that is incredibly definite without being overtly aggressive. The Vesnin Brothers Palace of Culture for the Shaumian Works (1929) is a statement in white of strong vertical lines with softly curved corners – a mastery of form and minimalism that is seen again in their design for the Likhachev Palace of Culture (1930). The Likhachev Palace was constructed as a public building, with a theatre, auditorium, library, and winter gardens, all of which were connected to allow the free movement of visitors within the space. This emphasis on collective movement was integral to many of the designs of the period.
Vladimir Tatlin (1885-1953) was fundamentally in opposition to Gabo and Pevsner, as the brothers propagated functionality as related to needs, whereas Tatlin was more intrigued by the adaptability of his designs than the actual functionality of them. Those buildings and structures not realised can be as important in terms of design and influence as those that were physically completed (in much the same way that haute couture filters down through the fashion world and back onto the high street, so too do the elaborate architectural drawings of famous architects and visual artists influence the practical spaces of living). Tatlin's Monument to the Third International (1919) has never been physically realised according to the specifications of Tatlin's design – a design which called for a 400-metre high tower to rotate on its own axis. The tower, consisting of four superimposed geometric volumes (a cube, a hemisphere, a pyramid and a cylinder), was meant to embody the dynamic architectonics of space that Tatlin had been fascinated with in his earlier spatial experiments: the cube was to turn one revolution a year; the pyramid once a month; and the cylinder once daily.
Smaller, less-ambitious models, such as that at the State Tretyakov Museum, Moscow, have been constructed to afford an aesthetic glimpse into the tower's form and the various components that comprise its construction, and this exhibition will do the same. Jeremy Dixon Architects, a British based architectural firm, have been commissioned to construct a 10 metre version of Tatlin's design. The firm previously built one, in 1971, as part of the Art and Revolution exhibition at the Hayward (albeit a smaller version at four metres) and thus it is fitting that they will once again have the opportunity to build a model of the monument. The tower's design was a celebration of technology and progress as well as being a meditation on the idea of monuments as propaganda that exist in a constant state of flux – that is, being dependent on the society and environment that surrounds them. The traditional form of the public monument was meant to inspire and be a symbol of pride, patriotism, and morality, but this changed drastically during the 20th century, as artists and politicians alike realised the full propagandistic potential of the monument. The monument as figural statue was in demise and instead a new form of monument entered the pantheon – that of the architectural edifice, one that alluded to but did not outright declare its meaning.
The changing Soviet state required new buildings, as well as the transformation of pre-existing ones, and a programme of construction was thus implemented. Factories, government offices, power stations and dams, workers' housing and communal housing became popular, especially new residential flats which physically altered the living spaces of tenants who were forced to interact with one another in a way that had perhaps not been seen to such an extent before. This is exemplified by the Narkomfin Building, a block of flats in Moscow designed by Moises Ginsburg and Ignaty Milinis (1928-32) for the workers at the Commissariat of Finance. The building is now, like so many buildings from the period, in a state of disrepair, but at its apogee it was a streamlined concrete building consisting of a series of flats, each classified according to its varying degree of "collectivised" status (i.e. how communal each living space was). The building offered communal kitchens, a crèche, and a laundry, so that save for the actual personal "living" areas, most were forced to share the functionally optimised facilities. Narkomfin still stands today, but is in such a state of dis-repair that only about 80% of it is habitable – if that.
The construction of workers' housing is not in itself revolutionary or novel but rather, as Tsantsanoglou points out, it was "the imposition of social change through the introduction of communal housing" which was innovative. The Narkomfin building's influence can be seen to this day, perhaps most famously in Le Corbusier's Unite d'Habitation. Post-war Marseille was similar to the post-revolution Soviet state – densely inhabited and over-crowded – and Corbusier's design was closely inspired by Ginsburg and Milinis', using communal spaces to counteract the inadequacy of smaller living spaces, in order to house as many individuals in as reduced a space as possible. The influence of Russian architects upon the "western" world has been only touched upon briefly in art historical texts, and this exhibition, in particular an essay by Jean-Louis Cohen in the exhibition catalogue, will expound upon this.
The new socialist society required a novel programme of art and architecture to support its ideas of social change and revolution. The historical buildings of the past were no longer sufficient or adequate and served only to remind the individuals of their past, preventing them from looking forward to the future and aspiring to a new collective society. Thus the ingenuity of design that appeared during this period is important to document and remember, as it was created and used as an agent for social change. Whether the artists and architects of the period were successful remains to be seen, as they were never given a chance to see the outcome of the utopian future they envisaged through their buildings, as Stalin stepped in and ended this fertile period of architectural design. Unfortunately in the current post-Soviet capitalist society, many developers have neither knowledge for understanding of what these buildings represent and many of them have been destroyed already: in a way they stand as the ruins of an ancient society; one which is sadly not that ancient.
Building the Revolution: Soviet Art and Architecture 1915-1935 opened 29 October and continued until 22 January 2012. www.royalacademy.org.uk
Niamh Coghlan


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When creating sites for the current market, UX designers and business decision makers face the daunting task of figuring out how to deliver the wow-factor website across desktops, tablets, and smartphones. Sometimes this even includes having to cater for native apps within the same project plan. With mobile web browsing now at 10% of Internet traffic compared to 4% in 2011 and smartphone penetration rising globally, countries like the U.K. are experiencing a 51% penetration rate. The majority of these users access the Internet everyday on their phones (rarely leaving home without their iOS or Android device) compared to only 30% in 2011. Not designing for mobile is an inexcusable and cardinal web design sin. Furthermore, it's not only about smartphones—29% of American adults now own a tablet and their wants and needs are different from those of desktop users.
With the Web becoming increasingly ubiquitous and more devices, screen dimensions, and contexts to design for, what is the best way forward for mobile web design? As the founder and CEO at Cyber-Duck, a digital agency that specializes in the strategy, design, and development of both desktop and mobile design, I am often asked this question. Let's explore two strategies for UX designers that we often recommend: responsive web design (RWD) and adaptive web design (AWD, or mobile websites). Though adopted widely by agencies across the globe, RWD is not the panacea when designing websites that need to work across all of these mediums. Conversely, going with 'pure' AWD is rarely ideal by itself. Often, the best solution is a combination of both approaches.
On the left, we see an example of AWD from Honda UK where there is a separate mobile website with a link to the desktop website. On the right, an example of RWD from Lamborghini where the desktop, tablet, and smartphone use the same 'responsive' code base.
Responsive Web Design (RWD)
Many digital agencies are proposing RWD to their clients touting the following advantages:
- The content stays the same. There is no need to change or "adapt" it for different versions of the website. This also means that your CMS (Content Management System) stays the same and you don't have to duplicate content entry for different screen types.
- It can be easily achieved automatically. Using CSS (cascading style sheets), media queries, and HTML5, we are able to determine the width of the browser or device and ensure existing content is either stacked or adjusted to fit the space available automatically.
- Cost. RWD is cheaper than AWD (which requires dedicated mobile websites) and takes less time to implement.
This approach can have significant limitations, however, as it is only the layout that changes and not the content or graphical elements. This can mean:
- Generic not optimized experience. The user does not get a fully optimized experience for the device they are using.
- No accounting for users' behavioral differences with different mediums. The evidence indicates that users behave very differently when using smartphones and desktops, so ideally a mobile website should be adapted to these behavioural changes.
- Loading time issues. Websites with lots of HTML code and multimedia take far longer to load on a mobile device with a 3G connection and a smaller CPU than on a desktop with broadband. As the content doesn't change between environments, with responsive websites, mobile users are kept waiting.
Adaptive Web Design (AWD, or dedicated mobile websites)
The commonly adopted alternative to RWD is AWD. Experts such as Jakob Nielsen have argued that AWD offers a preferable solution. The advantages are:
- Speed. The HTML and CSS can be minimal and stripped down (providing you code it that way) so the loading and processing time compared to RWD will be minimal. On one website that Cyber-Duck coded it removed the CMS and most of the tracking code to really boost mobile speed!
- Sensory design. When producing an AWD website, your designers are forced to focus on creating something for people's senses within a mobile context by incorporating mobile-friendly gestures. Generally speaking, you may decide to minimize content, change the hierarchy of information, and transform widgets and input methods. Of course, you can also radically change interfaces to avoid the 'fat finger syndrome' so users will enjoy a more targeted UI.
- Native app portability. If you go with AWD, it can be easier to transpose the code over to create a native app that you can submit to apps stores (providing you use PhoneGap, Titanium, or another wrapper). This will save your team time learning Objective-C or Java for Android.
But AWD also has the following limitations:
- The content nightmare. When developing AWD you will naturally optimize the layout, the amount/type of content, interfaces, and potentially the hierarchy. While this is done in the interest of user experience, it can make the maintenance of the system problematic. Imagine trying to customize one CMS to cater for two or three different versions of a website! The developers would have to create extra functionality, with the marketing team doubling their time inputting content.
- Too many versions. While a 'standard' AWD solution can create optimized solutions for a desktop, tablet, and smartphone, what about smaller tablets? With the new Google Nexus 7 tablet boasting a diminutive 7" display, Apple launching a new mini iPad soon, and additional retina displays having higher screen resolutions, it is important that UX designers plan their AWD strategies carefully.
- Native app 'transformation'. If you try and kill two birds with one stone and adapt your AWD website code into a native app you might compromise the performance of the native app. Many people argue that designers should focus on using standard Apple/Android UI official guidelines (see the Android UI overview) and developers should focus on native programming languages (Facebook recently dropped their HTML5 native app, moving to Objective-C).
Combining RWD with AWD
The best solution is often achieved by combining RWD with AWD, so that you enjoy the cost and time efficiencies of RWD while offering the better user mobile experience that AWD offers in prioritized content areas.
Using RWD as the basis, you can include some elements of AWD, changing some assets, content, or interfaces depending on whether the site is visited from a smartphone, tablet, or desktop—thus making a responsive website appear 'adaptive'. Similarly, if you go with the AWD approach you can embrace RWD's responsiveness so the content and interfaces degrade gracefully on different size screens (RWD) until the 'break point' where a different version is applied (AWD). In this example, the tablet version would look similar on a 10" iPad to on a 7" Galaxy tab but when it reached a mobile size 5" it would morph into the smartphone version.
This route poses two challenges: The interaction design/information architecture needs to be designed for both the desktop and mobile at the same time while considering the resizing, spacial distribution, and animation (if required) of elements on desktops, tablets, and mobile screens. Once this juncture has been crossed, the developers need to rely on all available technologies (media queries, browser sniffing, feature detection, and network speed analysis) to detect the multitude of resolutions and device capabilities while tailoring the end user experience to each particular device. This approach is bleeding edge and quite experimental. At Cyber-Duck we are currently applying it to our own website as our AWD solution is too fragmented.
You will no doubt be under cost and timeline pressures while working to deliver a great new website that functions well on desktops, smartphones, and tablets. With 78% of Americans reporting that they use their mobile devices to go online you need to be strategic when approaching a new project or a redesign. You will have a number of mobile design options and on some projects it's a simple decision.
For instance, a corporate website that needs to display the same information in the same hierarchy, on both mobiles and desktops, can take a mobile-first RWD approach. (If you go down the RWD route I would urge you to test loading times as well over half of mobile visitors will abandon a website if it takes more than 5 seconds to load.) Often the AWD path is very sensible in response to speed, sensory, and contextual considerations. If you are planning an event website and need to make the map and schedule the first call to actions on the smartphone while the desktop/tablet will focus on glorifying and selling the event, an AWD approach would be warranted.
By combining RWD and AWD, however, you can often obtain the same user experience objectives far more cost effectively and efficiently than by using AWD or RWD alone.
Abstract ink image courtesy Shutterstock


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LEWISTON, Maine -- The folks at the Farmers' Almanac can be forgiven for feeling smug: The 198-year-old publication correctly predicted the past nasty winter while federal forecasters in the U.S. blew it.
Memories of the polar vortex and relentless snowstorms won't soon be forgotten. And the editors of the publication are predicting more of the same for the coming season.
"Shivery and shovelry are back. We're calling for some frigid conditions, bitter conditions," said managing editor Sandi Duncan.
The latest edition, which officially goes on sale this week, forecasts colder-than-normal and wetter-than-usual weather for three-quarters of the U.S., east of the Rocky Mountains. Drought-stricken California, along with the Pacific Northwest, will see normal precipitation and cool temperatures this winter, the almanac said.
The publication, not to be confused with the New Hampshire-based Old Farmer's Almanac, uses a secret formula based on sunspots, planetary positions and lunar cycles for its long-range weather forecasts.
Modern science doesn't put much stock in the formula.
But even modern meteorologists can stumble on long-term forecasts. The national Climate Prediction Center forecast a strong likelihood of above-normal temperatures from last November through January.
"Not one of our better forecasts," Mike Halpert, the Climate Prediction Center's acting director, said at the time. There's still no good explanation as to why the polar vortex moved so deep into the U.S., he said.
Of the Farmers' Almanac, he said, "Good for them if they got it right last year, and I'll leave it at that."
The almanac's editor, Peter Geiger, can also gloat over his Super Bowl forecast. The almanac forecast a snowstorm Feb. 1-3 in New Jersey. It was 49 degrees at the start of the Super Bowl on Feb. 2, but a snowstorm created havoc the following morning.
The almanac wasn't spot on everywhere: The Pacific Northwest was wetter than expected, and California and the Southwest were drier than projected.
The almanac also contains gardening tips, trivia, jokes and natural remedies, like catnip as a pain reliever or elderberry syrup as an immune booster, in this year's edition.
But it's the weather prognostications that tend to grab headlines.
The editors encourage readers to be prepared - and to make the best of it. "When it snows you have two choices: Shovel or make snow angels," Duncan quipped.


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MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. – Some Central Michigan University students are getting schooled in the undead this semester, thanks to a religion course that's exploring apocalyptic themes in biblical texts, literature and pop culture.
Philosophy and religion faculty member Kelly Murphy says she always wanted to teach a course on apocalyptic literature, and she is a fan of AMC's TV show "The Walking Dead." The result is Murphy's class, which is called "From Revelation to 'The Walking Dead.'"
"Thinking about the end and imagining life in a different way is something that humans have always done," Murphy said in a university release.
Murphy's class will discuss biblical texts, review popular novels and watch clips from movies such as "Shaun of the Dead" and "28 Days Later." Students also will discuss hypothetical ethical and theological problems that people could encounter in a post-apocalyptic world.
"The prevalence of apocalyptic stories in various media gives us a window into what people are worrying about, what they hope for and how they imagine they would react in the face of a cataclysmic event," Murphy said. "In the same way, we can read the Book of Revelation ... and learn what ancient Jewish and Christian groups were concerned about."
Kevin White, a senior from the Detroit suburb of St. Clair Shores majoring in political science and religion, said it is important to incorporate popular culture into classroom settings because it helps to give students a way to connect with subjects of study.
"Studying ancient biblical texts isn't most people's cup of tea," he said. "But, when you add zombies, it instantly becomes everyone's cup of tea."