#or does one piece operate on historical literature rules

[shuyume]

one piece doesn't have power creep it has incredibly depressing origin story creep

#THIS SHIT HAS ME BAWLING EVERY ARC WHY #kid does stupid thing and mentor figure sacrifices an arm to save him #to kid gets in an extremely unfortunate accident and mentor figure eats his own leg so kid can have all the rations #to outcast igor kid has terminally ill mentor figure and attempts to give him a cure all only for it to be a lethal poison #LIKE WHAT THE HELL #does this even need a spoiler tag #or does one piece operate on historical literature rules

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Wednesday, 19 May 2021

You have a happy holiday break! I'm sorry I didn't anticipate at the third stanza; and picked for went picking; was hanged; and didn't take it you're referring to the YouTube video from the professor send out are considered to meet downtown at a coffee shop on Sunday or Monday would work for the Croppies 6 p. If you have questions about these things might be to ask you, provided that each of the better ways to do it through GOLD. Got it! Choose either of the things that interest you can better achieve an even better, and how the poem's rhythm and tension than they probably would have liked generally lost points for discussion to motivate me to print and scan and email your grade I'd just like to be sure you know when I need the class and led them through some very good work here. I'm glad to be leveraged carefully. This page copyright 2013 by Mooney. You have some very perceptive. If you have questions, OK?

Really good delivery; you may have noticed that the semi-competent mouth-breathing campus technical administrators decided to use silence effectively in your paper depends on where you found it there and did this without being so long to get an add code I've actually never had this problem, as well. Here's a breakdown on your main payoff—then restructure your paper are yours and which are quite strong. Remember that one thing that leaves me feeling unsatisfied about your nervousness can help you to each section and from me later that day, and I'll schedule a room, but you'll be master here? I suspect that you were on track throughout your time. My mapping from percentages to letter grades/to papers, so you need me to hold two people who decide they want to deal with and critique?

I assure you that I have is to say that I do not have started reading Godot yet if they're cuing off of his lecture pace rather than the assignment write-up midterm is tomorrow at 10 p. But I think that the exceptions are more relaxed and have some very, very good job this week has basically evaporated I'll put you at C. Doing this effectively if the maximum possible discussion credit if you go back to you, you'll want to recite and discuss this particular grad-school-length paper.

Here is what you want to put these two texts and what it means and how you can let me know if you want to dig into the final itself midterm, recitation, and you've also demonstrated that you're working with: what are your criteria for determining what the larger context of your argument, but the usage in literature in English X-rays, which is more that the best person to ask the College of Letters & Science, at. At the same time, to be their advocate so that the writer has a pork kidney for breakfast, writes odes on hawthorns, having specific points in the future. You picked a longer-than-required selection and delivered it in then. I taught them during my office hours and am happy to talk about this, I think, would be to resolve the primary course text s with which the soldiers crowned Jesus in the storyline.

In a lot going on. Hi! You might also get you a five-digit code, which is what you intend to respond to a specific claim in your section is optional next week the writing process, but forget which one. You may have required a bit more practice but your writing is generally taken to mean by passionate, insightful, moving delivery and wait for an O'Casey recitation. Thank you. Section participation. That is to blame to It seems _______________ is to pick them up today, but I think that you have any questions, OK? An excellent job an impassioned and fluid, impassioned delivery of Lucky's discourse here, and then looking at their level of familiarity with the exception of many poems that we did not read it this way.

He said in the formula below, I would say the smartest way to think about Fluther's point of criticism made by the rules is generally a better one that he read would be helpful in the term very unlikely even a perfect job, but there are also some editing problems here—it's just that I set the bar for anyone to assume that I think this could be read, and you display an excellent opportunity to do this as the student writes in her discussion of the essay. Again, well-structured manner; integrated historical scholarship with excellent close readings by a piece of writing a first-decade artworks because Ulysses has and did a very close to convenient and painless as possible; if you do not grade you have to schedule a time in a genuinely serious and unavoidable emergency family death, serious injury, natural disaster, etc. More importantly, though, and b it avoids analysis in an earlier discussion, but I don't know that I have you down for McCabe. Make sure you carefully evaluate whose viewpoint we're getting Bloom's thoughts about it anyway, but if you can't make it, because I'm leaving town for the quarter, in another pattern.

Looks like everything's working now. You picked a difficult and complicated thing to do with the poem by Patrick Kavanagh Patrick Kavanagh Patrick Kavanagh, Innocence Wherever you are perfectly capable of being paid to serve as fully and clearly as it turns out that you are perfectly capable of learning to use the standard deviation was 11. Pullet p. I really enjoyed having you in lecture 22 Oct: The Lovers 1928; probably others that don't change the way that is not fantastic, but I'm also happy to give you a five-digit student ID codes, for instance. Of course, let me know and I'll see you on the exam! I just sent you about the text, and you demonstrate a very good job of tracing some important thematic elements. So, the condition that I hope you have sophisticated and deserve to represent them even better quality, and is often incompatible with trying to say about what you're getting out of his travel on the section website. Another way to meet. Standing in front of the entire thing; perusing the index might pay off. If you haven't yet made a huge number of questions and frame them. That's fine and I'll have to be as successful as you revise that draft. One of the Catholic doctrines on temptation, which is a move that would be different if tie operated differently. If we're getting Gertie's thoughts are usually businesslike, or the student really wants to have to pander to my office this afternoon and have too many emails shortly before each paper is well-structured manner; integrated historical scholarship with excellent close readings by the time limit you've sketched an outline with more specificity before a presentation. I also said this in terms of which I think that the paper just barely pulls you over the Thanksgiving holiday. She twentythree. For one thing that may not be able to give you a copy of The Butcher Boy; you adapted to the aspects of the text in question before lecture is over tomorrow, you're welcome to refine your ideas, not blonde, hair. Go above and beyond the length requirements. So you can point people to talk about what it means to have a thesis yet or didn't when you know that you're perfectly capable of being responses to suffering. You've got a really strong essay in a timely fashion in order to pass. There are any changes made I will still expect you to prioritize and get you feedback as quickly as possible when you were trying to satisfy an essential element from the in-depth examination—I've marked some places. Grading Rubric for Analytical Papers I expect that you should nominate them! You relate the various strands you're tracing to each other. Here's a breakdown on your recitation tomorrow. You added the before night in section this quarter! 4% of your material you emphasize I think that what your overall logico-narrative that is, or in the play, it would help you to place at the beginning of section, but in your writing stage. Covers general guidelines for participating in course texts, and recall problems.

I felt like you were absent we talked earlier today, but think explicitly about what specifically has changed by the email servers that the professor's miss three sections and you had a B his grade based on the time of the Gabler course edition. /Excellent delivery, and quite engaging, and yes the grade definitions—GauchoSpace does not meet basic standards for a ten-digit student ID codes, for instance his sculpture is perhaps one of three groups and the Stars to Downton Abbey for a job and knee surgery. What do you analyze your points because it assumes that alternate options have been an easy task, you/must/email me and make sure that you haven't found it on just a tiny hair under B. If, after all, this is.

Just let me know when you don't feel comfortable talking to me in an even more specifically in your future work. It will need to buy yourself some breathing room. If you're interested in this particular question, which is probably most easily found on the day before Thanksgiving. That's been reflected in the Ulysses lectures which, given Ulysses, 7. Good luck on the most part though it might have been, both because it assumes that alternate options have been more students who often come in late and/or have a good sense of the two revolutions, separated by 127 years? Your Grade Is Calculated in Excruciating Detail. Making a wise topic to topic is acceptable what it meant to be as successful as you finish preparing would be a hard skill to learn and I hope that they only discussed a single person. Thank you for doing a large number of points. I'm still trying to say, a professor in our society means that a potentially productive ways to approach the question of how they did that than leave it.

What I suspect that much of this, and that not doing so by 10 p. I can just post what you've sent; just start writing. I'll see you in section during Thanksgiving week instead of scaling back what you're doing it is, in relation to do this and anyone asks you specific questions that are not allowed to pass beyond merely reciting twelve lines, but you are also possibilities for other ways to put this would result in an analysis of things well here: you need to have you as quickly as spaces show up on posting links to the poem and connect it to one or more people see some aspect of Plough into relief. You did a good selection, gave what was overall a very graceful job of walking a rather difficult, and everything looks really good question, but to aim to do. Let me know what you really mop up on time. I'm happy to do this as written, would be helpful. Other unforeseeable, catastrophic events that they will have an excellent holiday weekend this quarter, and I'll see you then. I cannot fully explain to anyone else, because it mirrors the hyper-aware emotional state that Bloom ponders Roentgen rays in the outside world.

Nevertheless, the average score would be to think about your evaluative criteria, which at least represents itself as a result of a small observation: I will count that as part of the poem's sense of the woman herself cannot effectively protect herself from the closing of the handout linked above was prepared for a text, and campus will be there on time will result in a room tomorrow in SH 1415. How to Get An A paper, and so it is likely to be expressed in your hand.

You might think productively about, and dropped that in as soon as I pop back to you until you've sat down and start writing in order to be directly to the people who makes regular substantial contributions in a solid job here, although the multiple starts ate up time that you'll have a low A on an English minor, etc. Thanks for your argument, but it's often helpful to look for cues that this is unfortunate because they haven't impacted your grade, you two after another group for several reasons, too is it that's interesting about the text of the poems you choose and owned it. Passages for close reading of Ulysses that we didn't read: the twelfth line.

Eavan Boland, or if you arrange a time to reschedule. All in all, from very short IDs, and some of the text, and producing some of my previous students have jobs and sports and family emergencies and about his paper in my opinion, to come to that but it's more or less a third of a text, but is perhaps not, too.

You were clearly a bit too quickly, and to engage in your delivery was a productive discussion. I'm sorry to take this into account when grading your paper to be over. Again, I do not use GauchoSpace to calculate grades, preferring to leave your luggage in my margin notes in some of your future writing assignments. Well done on this you connected it effectively to comments and passages from The Butcher Boy; Stephen Dedalus's rather morbid and misogynist fixation on the surface.

#Irish literature #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Python #Markov chains

[ashleysfrenchlitblog]

Five Interesting Nonfiction French Books

1)  In The Metro by Marc Auge

 “Tourists climb the Eiffel Tower to see Paris. Parisians know that to really see the city you must descend into the metro. In this revelatory book, Marc Auge takes readers below Paris in a work that is both an ethnography of the city and a personal narrative. Guiding us through history, memory, and physical space, Auge juxtaposes the romance of the metro with the reality of multiethnic urban France. His work is part autobiography, with impressions from a lifetime riding the trains; part meditation on self and memory reflected in the people and places underneath Paris; part analysis of a place where the third world and the first world meet, where remnants of cultures move and press together; and part a reflection on anthropology in an era of globalization and urban development.Although he is a pillar of French thought, In the Metro is Auge's first major critical and creative work translated into English. It shows him to be firmly rooted in a tradition of literary ethnography that reaches back to Claude Levi-Strauss and Michel de Certeau, but also engaged in current theoretical debates in literary and cultural studies. In Auge's idiosyncratic and innovative approach, the act of observing the quotidian is elevated to an art. The writer and his history become part of the field he observes, and anthropology interacts with a site -- urban life -- usually reserved for sociology and cultural studies. Throughout, Auge reveals a passion for his milieu, seeing the metro as a place rich with history and literature -- an eclectic egalitarian society. “ (goodreads.com)

2)Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel, Nazi Agent by Hal Vaughan  

“Coco Chanel, high priestess of couture, created the look of the chic modern woman: her simple and elegant designs freed women from their corsets and inspired them to crop their hair. By the 1920s, Chanel employed more than two thousand people in her workrooms, and had amassed a personal fortune. But at the start of the Second World War, Chanel closed down her couture house and went to live quietly at the Ritz, moving to Switzerland after the war. For more than half a century, Chanel's life from 1941 to 1954 has been shrouded in rumour. Neither Chanel nor her biographers have told the full story, until now.

In this explosive narrative Hal Vaughan pieces together Chanel's hidden years, from the Nazi occupation of Paris to the aftermath of the Liberation. He uncovers the truth of Chanel's anti-Semitism and long-whispered collaboration with Hitler's officials. In particular, Chanel's long relationship with 'Spatz', Baron von Dincklage, previously described as a tennis-playing playboy and German diplomat, and finally exposed here as a Nazi master spy and agent who ran an intelligence ring in the Mediterranean and reported directly to Joseph Goebbels.

Sleeping with the Enemy tells in detail how Chanel became a German intelligence operative, Abwehr agent F-7124; how she was enlisted in spy missions, and why she evaded arrest in France after the war. It reveals the role played by Winston Churchill in her escape from retribution; and how, after a nine-year exile in Switzerland with Dincklage, and despite French investigations into her espionage activities, Coco was able to return to Paris and triumphantly reinvent herself - and rebuild the House of Chanel.

As Hal Vaughan shows, far from being a heroine of France, Chanel was in fact one of its most surprising traitors.”(goodreads.com)

3)A Paris Year: My Day-to-Day Adventures in the Most Romantic City in the World by Janice Macleod

“Part memoir and part visual journey through the streets of modern-day Paris, France, A Paris Year chronicles, day by day, one woman's French sojourn in the world's most beautiful city. Beginning on her first day in Paris, Janice MacLeod, the author of the best-selling book, Paris Letters, began a journal recording in illustrations and words, nearly every sight, smell, taste, and thought she experienced in the City of Light. The end result is more than a diary: it's a detailed and colorful love letter to one of the most romantic and historically rich cities on earth. Combining personal observations and anecdotes with stories and facts about famous figures in Parisian history, this visual tale of discovery, through the eyes of an artist, is sure to delight, inspire, and charm.” (goodreads.com) 

4) The Bonjour Effect: The Secret Codes of French Conversation Revealed by Julie Barlow

“Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow spent a decade traveling back and forth to Paris as well as living there. Yet one important lesson never seemed to sink in: how to communicate comfortably with the French, even when you speak their language. In The Bonjour Effect Jean-Benoît and Julie chronicle the lessons they learned after they returned to France to live, for a year, with their twin daughters. They offer up all the lessons they learned and explain, in a book as fizzy as a bottle of the finest French champagne, the most important aspect of all: the French don't communicate, they converse. To understand and speak French well, one must understand that French conversation runs on a set of rules that go to the heart of French culture. Why do the French like talking about "the decline of France"? Why does broaching a subject like money end all discussion? Why do the French become so aroused debating the merits and qualities of their own language? Through encounters with school principals, city hall civil servants, gas company employees, old friends and business acquaintances, Julie and Jean-Benoît explain why, culturally and historically, conversation with the French is not about communicating or being nice. It's about being interesting. After reading The Bonjour Effect, even readers with a modicum of French language ability will be able to hold their own the next time they step into a bistro on the Left Bank.” (goodreads.com)

5) Versailles: A Biography of a Palace by Tony Spawforth 

“The behind-the-scenes story of the world’s most famous palace, painting a picture of the way its residents truly lived and examining the palace’s legacy, from French history through today.The story of Versailles is one of historical drama, under the last three kings of France’s old regime, mixed with the high camp and glamour of the European courts, all in an iconic home for the French arts. The palace itself has been radically altered since 1789, and the court was long ago swept away. Versailles sets out to rediscover what is now a vanished world: a great center of power, seat of royal government, and, for thousands, a home both grand and squalid, bound by social codes almost incomprehensible to us today.Using eyewitness testimony as well as the latest historical research, Spawforth offers the first full account of Versailles in English in over thirty years. Blowing away the myths of Versailles, he analyses afresh the politics behind the Sun King’s construction of the palace and shows how Versailles worked as the seat of a royal court. He probes the conventional picture of a “perpetual house party” of courtiers and gives full weight to the darker side: not just the mounting discomfort of the aging buildings but also the intrigue and status anxiety of its aristocrats. The book brings out clearly the fateful consequences for the French monarchy of its relocation to Versailles and also examines the changing place of Versailles in France’s national identity since 1789. Many books have told the stories of the royals and artists living in Versailles, but this is the first to turn its focus on the palace itself---from architecture and politics to scandal and restoration.” (goodreads.com)

[bruceeves]

Work # 960: SIX WORKS SEVEN ANECDOTES

 1

When accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958, Harold Pinter said that “there are no real distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily true or false; it can be both true and false.” What I propose here is to engage with six works I created over the past three years, a series of works that are mash-ups of gay history, art history, and my history refracted through the mashed-up lens of image abutting image and text atop image. The resulting elements of ambiguity engage memory – not exclusively, but not insubstantially either – and neatly echo the lack of reliability between real/unreal true/false posited by Pinter. “Memory” as Mary Warnock would postulate “operates under perpetual tension: the only way to cope with life is to learn what to forget; the only way to feel one has an identity is to remember.”

 2

In 2007, after a months-long bout of self-doubt and self-recrimination, I decided to rent a booth in the Folsom Fair North, a self-described leather/fetish fair with a small artist section (mostly of the fifth-rate Tom of Finland variety) to decide once and for all whether or not to throw in the towel. More than anything else I was interested in feedback, and given the nature of the event equipped my booth with works exuding an s/m-ish aura. I had only one work on display that was unambiguously graphic – “Work # 740: Noontime Fun” (2006). This work is located at the intersection of sex and violence. It’s genesis began with the discovery of az text detailing the treatment of five men at the hands of a drunken mob as they were being led to the pillory to begin their punishment for “crimes against nature” in London, 1810. Published in Paul Hallam’s Book of Sodom and weighing in at a mere 1000 words, it is perhaps the most violently graphic piece of writing I’d encountered in some time. What set this text apart from the usual mundane homophobic screed was that the viewpoint of the anonymous eyewitness was uncommonly ambiguous and exhibited a level of sympathy for the men being tortured, and projected a grudging admiration for their courage. Authored during a reactionary lull in the relatively progressive pre-Victorian period, could it be that this brief account is perhaps the first known gay liberation text? Created for the 2006 Pride-themed “unstoppable” exhibition and addressing the theme through the layering of an historical text on top of a contemporary larger-than-life photograph of a bare-back butt-fuck, this work’s intent to shock was illustrated by the reaction of one viewer’s shift in focus from image to text in which he stated that on first seeing the work his ‘pants felt too tight, but then he started reading . . .’ but more pointedly, the work raises the disturbing and unanswerable question of just whom, exactly, is unstoppable – Us? Or Them?

Aside from earning about 20 cents profit at the Folsom Fair North, the one thing I learned from my afternoon spent in Allan Gardens in downtown Toronto is that when it comes to spending money on anything other than their outfits, Leathermen are cheap, cheap, cheap . . . they would stomp into the booth, eyeball the place and occasionally ask if a particular work comes in another colour, and stomp out again. With success and validation like that there was no question about sticking – purely out of spite. I realized it would be stupid to give up now (much to the annoyance of some . . . they know who they are).

 3

I am not a gay artist – I am, frankly, beyond that. Where it was once a radical proposition to claim membership in the Homintern (a waggish rewrite from the 1930s of Lenin’s Comintern – Communist International), variously attributed to Jocelyn Brooke, W.H. Auden, and Harold Norse, as a means of describing a supposed conspiracy theory which claimed they a large number of gay men in elite positions controlled the arts, scholarship, and the theatre worlds. In truth, with the exception of a handful of posthumous big-ticket names, membership in this clan has gone from being a ghettoized liability (in spite of the early ‘70s opportunistic rock-star-pile-on) to enrollment in that small coterie of minority voices patronizingly acknowledged within an artworld dominated by straight white women at all levels of authority . . .

Regardless of the fact that that closet-case Susan Sontag referred to “the two pioneering forces of modern sensibility [being] Jewish moral seriousness and homosexual aestheticism and irony”, the problem of where I fit in persists – I’m far too queer for the mainstream art world and exhibit far too many dark moods and sharp edges for the gay world. A walk down Church Street in Toronto (or any other gay Main Street anywhere in the world) is like entering a theme park – it’s a trip down memory lane into a visualized world-that-never-was operating by a set of rules already long past the best buy date. It’s all so groomed; so well-designed; so heat and tidy and frozen in amber; so . . . non-threateningly middle-class.

I acknowledge that it may be a case of romanticism run amok on my part, but we were once less domesticated, more dangerous. As Victor Bockris pointed out, “there were instances reported in universities [in America during the early ‘60s] when healthy young men fainted, like Victorian ladies, at the physical approach of a homosexual. In fact, as Andy Warhol soon proved [albeit briefly] at the beginning of the 1960s the homosexual was considered the single most threatening, subversive character in the culture . . . [in fact] the uncomprehending attitudes common among straight [American} males toward gays in the early ‘60s put homosexuals on the level of communists and drug addicts.” I remember hearing stories after the gay liberation movement wentmainstream in the mid- to late-70s of single straight men becoming fretful (the poor delicate things ) of lunching alone with another man because of, shall we say, appearances.

Thus was our power to terrify.

What’s curious about the current wave of tolerance is that it extends only as far as accepting homosexuality in the abstract; but the binary divisions spring to life when those beleaguered sensitive heteros are forced to confront what we actually “do”. Universally everyone from Walter Pater to Walter Pidgeon have been reassuringly labeled as “asexual”, almost neutered drones; barely men at all. It would have been unthinkable to acknowledge that a revered art historian or beloved Hollywood straight man could possibly be, in the caustic words of Karl Ove Knausgaard from “My Struggle: Volume Four” “one of them?!”

His struggle, indeed.

While we’ve been allowed a certain degree of normality to envelope our lives (regardless of how tenuous and paper-thin it may be), I wonder about the things we’ve sacrificed in achieving this state of grace. Only a lunatic would want to return to life in the closet without the basic legal protections we currently enjoy, but in terms of our general quality of life we’ve been lulled into the smug delusion that the efforts of some have produced success after unalterable success. In Luc Sante’s words, “utopias last five minutes, to the extent that they happen at all. There will never be a time when the wish for security does not lead to unconditional surrender.” We have allowed, welcomed even, the wholesale corporate sponsorship of our existence, the benevolence does not lead to more freedom and creativity, it leads to less. The propositions that engender so much goodwill are dictated by the boardroom, and the boardroom is not interested in a wide-ranging creativity which affords dissent, but in predictable outcomes that translate into self-serving profit. On this point, Sante again states that “the official appropriation of history, however ostensibly benevolent in intent and graced with accredited consultants, will always be chary of the actual mess and stink of the past, and as a consequence they always gravitate toward the condition of the theme-park . . . History is a ways in the guns sights of planners and developers, and of reactionaries, who in the absence of a convenient past are content to invent one, winding their fantasies around some convenient nugget suitably distant and fogged by legend.”

The underworld (that place where real creativity flourished) has morphed into a lifestyle. This modus Vivendi is a classic case of cultural gentrification. Given the choice between a demimonde of outsiders and baby bankers in their freshly-ironed weekend leather, I tend to look left rather than right when crossing that street.

 4

I fully recognize how controversial it is to express opinions different from the herd, but the curious tolerance I spoke of earlier blazes brightly with the seemingly instantaneous invention and alarmingly rapid acceptance of “trans” people. It’s obvious to me there is an overarching insistence that binary relationships remain paramount. Mainstream culture is very accommodating of a multiplicity of differences while at the same time insuring that those differences never deviate too far from reflecting the mainstream. The ‘metrosexual’ poses no threat because the construct operates within heterosexual supremacy; and what is a ‘lumbersexual’ except the 21st century hetero-appropriation of the clone that dominated our sexual imaginations forty years ago? With typically flat-footed dimness these annoying men concentrate on the lumber and completely ignore the sexual. As a social construction, the trans-identity is a homophobic one. It operates from a position of fear – it’s safer to be an fake-hetero than a genuine fag. I’m not anti-trans; I’m pro-sissy. The easy acceptance of gender reassignment is chillingly close to the Iranian mullahs who have no trouble with same sex relations provided that one of them becomes a woman. Even something as dreary as The Greatest Race Canada trumpeted having (an admittedly short-tenured) “trans”-contestant – clearly trendiness trumps truth in the marketing departments of the nation when not long ago ‘he’ would have merely been a bull-dyke, a category of person belligerently unfriendly to the aims of the corporate world.

My late-friend Marsha P. Johnson, co-founder of S.T.A.R. (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries) was very much a he. Were he among the living (murdered under mysterious circumstances with the N.Y.P.D. as prime suspects) I’m sure he would have had a few choice words to share; I can hear Marsha’s voice . . . “I ain’t no trans! I’m a drag queen, honey . . .” Now that’s my kind of guy.

5

I’m a member of the pre-AIDS generation. After the death of my spouse in 2004 (from something refreshingly more banal than what you’re thinking) I was forced to confront an awakening – a second coming-out as it were – to a world that I barely recognized. And what I witnessed was horrifying. Aside from all the current right-wing trans nonsense, that we’ve done a pretty piss-poor job of making us like ourselves perhaps explains my perplexity with sero-conversion clubs, obviously self-destructive chem-sex, and the willful blindness of some to embrace political conservatism as if pining for the good-old-days when everybody hated us.

During the intermission of a Broadway performance of Bent, (a play by Martin Sherman set in wartime Germany and starring Ian McKellan and Richard Gere) after Act One had ended with the gunning down of one character by Nazi storm-troopers before the other two were hauled away to a concentration camp, I overheard the following synopsis giver to a second-acter  – “it starts with this story about these two fags . . .” On another occasion, overheard in  the darkened theatre the realization that Breaking the Code, (a moving play about the tribulations and torture faced by Alan    Turing and starring Derek Jacobi) was “about a FAG!”

There’s nothing more enervating than seeing elements of the art world cavalierly tossing around ‘fag’ as a gesture of progressive urbanity. As if there wasn’t enough internalized negativity already, and I’m not saying there was a conspiracy, but it’s curious that the origins of queer theory – promulgated by a straight woman – ran parallel with the rise of the AIDS epidemic. It occurs to (granted, with the feeblest of anecdotal evidence) that as the gay community claws its way out of the underground into the territory of the ordinary, there’s a rumbling of disquiet under the surface. I’d read with some curiosity a few years ago about a planned meeting the UK to celebrate Polari – an underground, often hilarious semi-comprehensible argot invented between the wars by London street queens as a means of self-protection. The organizers expected maybe a handful of old-timers reminiscing and swapping stories, but instead faced a mob scene of young men eagerly wanting to learn the language.

Quentin Crisp, who knew a thing or two about police harassment, lived around the corner from me in a bed/sit on East 3rd Street in lower Manhattan, coincidentally down the street from the Hell’s Angels clubhouse. The bikers, somewhat surprisingly, watched out for him. I knew Quentin slightly – he wrote a monthly column for the magazine I was art directing – and I offered to pick up his manuscripts to save an elderly man the trials of navigating the subway. I had only ever seen him angry once – his carefully constructed persona as the stately queen crumbled when I had the impertinence to ask him about Polari . . . “I don’t remember any of THAT!!! ”

The Polari event indicates that beneath all of our recent legal victories lies a sense of dread that they will very likely disappear from nothing more than bureaucratic whim; or as J.G. Ballard commented “I suppose one of the things I took from my wartime experiences was that reality was a stage set . . . they could be dismantled overnight”.

Gay liberation is a universal movement an only and idiot would believe we live in a world full of rainbow and marriage vows. According to Matt Beard from All Out, the American Alliance Defending Freedom has been pushing anti-LGBT discrimination in that country’s courts for years.  But ADF’s work goes beyond the U.S. With an annual budget of over $43 million and an army of more than 3,000 lawyers to promote hate-filled agendas backed by a network of over 200 partner groups to help spread their lies, the ADF has infiltrated countries throughout Africa, Central America, and South-East Asia to encourage the criminalizing and persecution of LGBT people. Anyone other than the gullible, the provincial, or the foolish is well aware that our security has always rested on shifting sands.

6

I lived in Brooklyn, New York for many years with my long-term partner (and future husband, now deceased) and the majority of our neighbours in that pre-hipsterized borough were Dominicans and Puerto Ricans. The men on the blocked ranked machismo based on the number children sired, the size of one’s car, and the size of one’s dog – but not necessarily in that order. As far as I know we were the only fucking maricóns living on that block; but because of both the age and size difference between us there was enough of an obvious binary division that no (overt) hostility was felt. The only problem came from a boy living in a housing project a block away. He had sussed us out and took to running up and down the street in front of our house yelling “faggot, faggot, faggot, faggot, faggot, faggot, faggot, faggot, faggot, faggot, faggot, faggot, faggot, faggot, faggot, faggot, faggot, faggot, faggot, faggot, faggot, faggot” with his much younger gang. After an intervention by the parish priest it came to light that our bête noire was the most avid cocksucker in downtown Brooklyn.

The traditional view that there’s nothing quite as threatening or as disturbingly thrilling as a good old-fashioned limp-wristed fairy has seen its day. I remember an incident before one of the last pride days I attended (when they used to be fun) when en route to the parade I boarded a streetcar that was completely empty except for me, the driver, a straight guy, and a cluster of Black church-ladies wearing a collection of the most architecturally-preposterous hats. As we travelled east the muscle started to pile on (I’m convinced the vehicle started to list to one side) – the church ladies began fanning themselves “Mmmm, mmm, mm, Lordy Lordy it’s suddenly HOT in here” and the straight guy shrank further and further into himself . . . what’s far more threatening for insecure would-be macho men is to see not their opposite but their-homo-doppelganger.

7

Accepting “Salò: 120 Nights of Sodom” as its personal saviour, “Work # 864: The Nature of God” (2013) looked to Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1975 adaptation enumerating of abuses of power, corruption, sadism, sexual perversity, and fascism as the first work in a series that explored the outer limits of masculine behaviour – a behaviour that is traditionally still expected of the boy before he can be considered fully a man. With titles like “Trailer Trash Terrorism”, “Behave Work Obey”, “Yes I Will Yes”, “Cell Block Bitch”, and “Shhh . . . (How to Conduct a Successful Interrogation – Lessons 1-20)” this is not a series of works intended for the faint of heart. What was done with this series was the antithesis of aestheticizing gleaming muscleboys or exploring the romanticism inherent in male bonding. “Work # 864: The Nature of God” allows that the rigour of discipline often morphs into the disciplinarian running amok. Notwithstanding the fact that this work has been described as ‘the water-boarding piece’ (which is an interpretation that I don’t dismiss), it is a multi-image cum-soaked force-feeding enacting either the predetermined choreography of some arcane sexual ritual or the resolution of cold-blooded revenge – that’s up for you to decide.  

I had a fondness for punks, back in the day, they were really just Leathermen upside down – the latter for the most part pretended to beat each other up for fun, the former pretended to beat up the State for profit. The scenario presented in “Work # 918: Ash [and] Tray” (2014), from the same series as “The Nature of God” and dredged up from deep within my subconscious, was enacted several times over the course of one sultry evening at the Crash ‘n Burn toward the end of its line in the summer of 1977. By that point the crowd had become distressingly uptown at the now fondly mythologized punk rock club that brooded in the basement of its overlord the Centre for Experimental Art and Communication (CEAC). Technically acting as the eyes and ears for the head office upstairs, the perpetrator of heinous acts, illustrated here, was me (drunk) and the instigator (drunker) was one Paul Bartlett (now deceased), a poor little rich boy with impossible-to-resolve Daddy-issues and (stupidly) the perpetrator’s soon to be boyfriend. That the events of that sultry evening proved to be one of Mr. P.B.’s more rational moments was soon to become apparent. I don’t remember when the affair completely fell apart but I don’t think it lasted past Boxing Day. That memory is a weapon and a crutch led Jean Genet to claim that every man guards in himself his own particular wound; they say time heals, but to echo Francis Bacon, I really wonder about that.

“Work # 900: (Endeavouring . . . )“ (2014) is masculine behaviour of a different sort – a mash-up of “Hercules Beating the Centaur Nessus” by Giambologna and a slightly abridged line lifted from “The Pickwick Papers“ by Charles Dickens. While it appears to be a meeting of an apple and an orange, the two parts making the whole have a lot in common. Giambologna (1529-1608) was a Flemish sculptor (born Jean Boulogne) based in Italy and celebrated for a Mannerist style of intellectual sophistication and conscious artificiality favouring compositional tension and instability over balance and clarity. It seemed logical to partner a Mannerist sculpture from 1599 with a comic novel from 1836. As in many other Dickens novels the main literary value is the often exaggerated personality traits of his characters. The abridged quote is from a scene when the perennial spinster Rachael Wardle is driven into a state of near-feverish excitement over her botched elopement. The two fragments – sculpture and text – taken together assume a different form of feverish instability by implying a post-modern conflicted relationship willfully engineered by Nancy-boy Nessus to force hunky he-man Herc into delivering the most satisfactorily masochistic pounding. “Work # 900: (Endeavouring . . . )“ could never be construed as a self-portrait. The only thing masochistic about me is my continual insistence on maintaining an art practice; and as far as what goes on, as they say, behind closed doors, I’m far too snotty and opinionated to be anyone’s slave.

The work was scheduled to be exhibited as part of a self-described “queer” festival hosted by the local arts organization Artscape. However, the 21st century gatekeepers of the venue found this union of 16th century image with 19th century words simply beyond the pale, having breeched the organization’s (previously unknown) family-friendly guidelines . . . . It was after much arguing that this work was finally allowed to sully their walls. According to its website “Artscape is a not-for-profit urban development organization that makes space for creativity and transforms communities. Out work involves clustering creative people together in real estate projects that serve the needs of the arts and cultural community and advance multiple public policy objectives, private development deals, community and neighbourhood aspirations and philanthropic missions.”

How noble.

This couldn’t be more disingenuous when in fact it operates as the monopolistic purveyor of postage-stamped sized “live/workspaces” and studios priced at levels geared to the 1% throughout Toronto’s less affluent neighbourhoods, and by exploiting art as a means of gentrification, Artscape’s policies differ little from what Christian Viveros-Fauné described as a state of “suffocation from predetermination allowing for criticality to be sidelined in favour of easily digestible tropes, knock-offs of our greatest hits, and art that looks like art shoehorned into a prefabricated vision of what a culture should look like based on over-designed good taste.” Where all this family-friendly art crap came from is completely beyond me, but the art world has come a long way from the time when Clement Greenberg could write with a straight face that while the avant-garde remained attached to the ruling class by “an umbilical cord of gold” artists and others were ready to yank the chain.

8

The fact that it even needs to be stated plainly that “according to the rules of my tribe, being 62 puts me 12 years past my best before date” strategically planted atop a photo of a hot torso in “Work # 904: Twelve Years a Ghost” (2014) should be indictment enough in exposing ageism as the last acceptable prejudice. I guess I must have touched a nerve when the piece was exhibited (by a curator old enough to known better) far enough away and high on a wall in the furthest back corner of the gallery . . . Fine, I’m a sixty-three year old, half lame, three-quarters deaf, widowed gay man with a cardiac condition, full dentures, horrible eyesight and rapidly developing cataracts; I acknowledge those facts. But that doesn’t make me, as is said in Yiddish, ein alter kocker – and old shitter!

There’s nothing metaphorical in the least about the title of “Work # 943: Spider Web Sex Machine” (2015), it’s exactly what it says – two panels, one over the other; the top, a photograph of a spider’s web glinting in the sunlight and the bottom a no-nonsense advertising styled photograph of a sex machine. Discovering its existence of such a thing left me with the same sense of unease in not being entirely sure how this baroque contraption accommodates a human body as when I inspected close-up one of the pieces of fucking furniture custom-built for the future Edward VII. One assumes that Mr. Spider has gone out for beer and poppers because the web is as empty and inviting as the sex machine is peculiar and menacing.

On March 28, 2016 I received the following email with the subject heading “Question about Work # 943“ from a fellow with residences in both Montreal and Berlin: “Hey There, You show a sex maschine [sic] in the Artworkt Nr 943 [sic] called Spider web sex machine' out of 2015. Do you know where to buy that machine from? [sic] maybe you can give me a website or a hint in what direction to go for more information about the machine.  Cant [sic] find any hint nowhere [sic] on the internet so far. Thanx a lot for your help. Greetz [sic] J___ B______ “. Two things came immediately to mind when I read this: 1) this is the first time I’ve ever been sent correspondence from a genuine pervert (cool!); and 2) both the deutchen grammaticus and the fractured syntax made my pants feel too tight. Of course I emailed him at once (!) with a couple of suggestions and that perhaps, if all else failed, he would be interested in purchasing the one-of-a-kind “Work # 943: Spider Web Sex Machine” (2015), which is a work of art . . .

He never wrote back. Oh well. I tried.

On an annual school trip to the Royal Ontario Museum before I had pubic hair, I recall lingering behind my other classmates when we got to the Greek and Roman galleries because of one sculpture in particular, a life-sized fragment of a man’s nether region with orange-sized testicles and globular glutes – feeling sweat and convinced I was the focus of knowing glances. I don’t think anyone noticed, but in my mind’s eye “Work # 956: David Was Horny” (2016) is how I imagined I looked staring up at David’s gigantic balls for the first time.

It made me wonder whether or not male desire has really changed all that much from 1500 to the present . . .                                                               April, 2016

 Bruce Eves is an artist living in Toronto. In past lives he was the assistant programming director of the Centre for Experimental Art and Communication (CEAC), art director of the New York Native and Christopher Street magazine, and the co-founder and chief archivist of the International Gay History Archive (now part of the Rare Books and Manuscript division of the New York Public Library).

#2016

[bibleinspectors-blog]

Inspecting Claims of Biblical Canon and Historicity

The following is a response to an article posted on CCC Discover by Timothy W. Massaro, with the relevant sections quoted here for easier reference.

As Bible Inspectors, it's our job to investigate the text of the Bible as well as all claims made about the book itself. The article we will look at today is a bite-sized, easily shareable, six-point list that is formatted for simple sharing across Facebook or Twitter (which should be evident by the bold “Share this post with your friends” at the bottom of the page). Worse than that, it provides precisely zero citations or even further reading recommendations for what is ostensibly a history lesson.

Let's take each point and provide citation that both builds on the meaning intended by the original author and also refutes many of their assumptions. These conclusions are built upon the consensus of historical and biblical scholars and form a foundation of reasonable skepticism as to the accuracy of the Bible and its claims.

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[Please note that citations leading to Wikipedia are used to simplify the citation process. All references on Wikipedia provide proper academic citations at the bottom of each page. I am not a historian (though neither is Mr. Massaro), but I stand by the cited references. I am open to corrections on any statement of fact I have made in this rebuttal.]

1. The New Testament Canon was not decided by any church council.

The church councils did not decide what was canonical. While regional church councils made declarations about the canon, these councils affirmed the books they believed had functioned as foundational documents for the Christian faith. The councils merely declared the way things had been since the time of the apostles. Thus, these councils did not create, authorize, or determine the canon. They simply were part of the process of recognizing a canon that already existed.

Saying that the New Testament Canon “was not decided by any church council” doesn’t tell the whole story. First of all, it’s important to understand that the word “canon” used in this context (being authoritative or accurate) literally originated with the formation of Christian biblical canon. It comes from a Greek word that means “rule” or “measuring stick” and was never used to describe a set of authoritative scriptures until the first seven ecumenical councils. The discrete concept of canonicity was quite literally decided by church councils since the term didn’t even exist before their intervention.

Now, of course there were large congregations that already accepted the majority of modern New Testament books as authoritative before the Proto-orthodox church ratified them, they just didn’t refer to them as “canonical” (since the term didn’t exist yet). But there were also dozens of sub-groups and competing Christian theological communities that accepted different books as authoritative. Congregations were in disagreement as to which books should be allowed to be read in worship. Many Proto-orthodox groups like the Marcionists, Gnosticists, and Montanists even disagreed on fundamental aspects such as the nature of God and the Trinity, and these disagreements reared into importance as early as 100 A.D. These were all groups that identified primarily as Christian, but they simply disagreed on what “Christianity” fundamentally entailed. Church councils were specifically held to reduce confusion amongst these fracturing Christian communities.

There was never one single accepted doctrine that followed straight from “the time of the apostles”.

They simply were part of the process of recognizing a canon that already existed.

The operative word here is “a”. Not the canon that exclusively existed, but a canon amongst many. The church councils between 325 A.D. and 787 A.D. (an exceedingly long period of time to be described as a “simple process”) were instrumental in recognizing a single canon that they endorsed in an attempt to unify the fracturing early Christian theologies. At the time of the early church councils, the largest Christian group was the Proto-orthodox church which would later come to be known as the Orthodox Church. These councils may have consolidated some authority concerning the biblical canon, but they were unsuccessful in maintaining a single unified church. During a several hundred year period the church broke into many pieces all claiming to be the true continuation of the Orthodox Church, including the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Assyrian Church, the Anglican Communion, and several others.

This process is repeated over and over throughout history. Even today the label of Christianity describes literally thousands of unique denominations with their own scriptural canons and interpretations. There is no one universally accepted “Bible” and there never has been. The largest and most powerful sub-groups simply declare ownership of the “one true doctrine”. Even if most of those denominations agree on the primary canon, what good is it if they cannot come to a consensus on what that canon actually teaches?

Interestingly, the word orthodox, when understood in context of its Greek origins, comes from “orthos” which means “straight or right”, and “doxa” which means “opinion”. Words like Orthodox and Canon hold a powerful weight in our modern language, but ultimately the church councils of the time simply declared themselves the holders of the “right opinion” (orthodoxy) concerning the “rule” (canon) of scripture. They defined themselves into authority.

2. Early Christians believed that canonical books were self-authenticating.

Another authenticating factor was the internal qualities of each book. These books established themselves within the church through their internal qualities and uniqueness as depicting Christ and his saving work. The New Testament canon we possess is not due to the collusions of church leaders or the political authority of Constantine, but to the unique voice and tone possessed by these writings.

It’s actually quite difficult to criticize this particular point because it is so maddeningly vague. What does it mean for a work of scripture to be “self-authenticating”? How do we quantify “internal quality and uniqueness”? How do we measure scripture as having “unique voice and tone”? We are given no examples and no definitions to work from. The meaning of self-authentication is pontificated throughout Christian biblical study, but since the author of this article provides literally zero citations we will work from his simple description as best we can.

Let’s work from the understanding that self-authentication is the appearance of internal consistency and a lack of self-contradiction. Unfortunately, this assumption stems from a failure in understanding the principles of the historical-critical method. The books of the Bible do not exist in a vacuum and we cannot rely on internal structure and content alone to confirm their reliability or accuracy in portraying historical events or revelations. Self-authentication is a term used to put a positive spin on the fallacies of survivorship bias and confirmation bias.

Many scriptures that were deemed “non-canonical” by the ruling churches have not survived because they were no longer transcribed, copied, or printed. This is the survivorship bias. We place special significance on the modern biblical canon in part because it survived by winning popular support in an important historical period. Missing and incomplete scriptures cannot be properly evaluated for their “internal quality and uniqueness”. In fact, a large percentage of the New Testament Gospels are believed to have originated from another long lost source referred to as “Q”.

Self-authentication may also be the result of confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is the process of only seeking out evidence or answers that confirm your existing conclusions. This is not necessarily a conscious or nefarious process, but it is antithetical to the historical-critical method. The books of the Bible have the appearance of internal consistency precisely because those were the criteria that church leaders looked for when choosing which scriptures to include in the canon, especially when those consistencies supported their thoughts concerning theological issues like the Trinity.

Confirmation bias can also be used to criticize whether the books of the Bible are actually internally consistent. Christians are more inclined to confirm their biased belief that the Bible is infallible by selectively referencing consistent verses while ignoring many that seem to be contradictory.

Finally, if self-authentication is a reliable way to conclude which scriptures are canonical, then wouldn’t that imply that reading scripture should generally lead everyone to similar conclusions? If so then why are there still disagreements as to authorship, historical accuracy, theological interpretation, and which books deserve inclusion in the Bible?

3. The New Testament books are the principle Christian writings we have.

The New Testament books are the earliest writings we possess regarding Jesus. The New Testament was completed in the first century. This means the writings include testimonies from eyewitnesses and were written within fifty years of the events, which cannot be said of any of the apocryphal literature often discussed in the news. This is particularly evident when it comes to the four gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are the only gospel accounts that originate in the first century.

This point is quite welcome in a list entitled “things we need to know about the formation of the Bible”. Yes, the New Testament books are some of the earliest Christian writings we know of. It seems reasonable that this is precisely why they have been revered and included in biblical canon since the earliest days of the Proto-orthodox church. The implication in this point however, is that this is somehow relevant to their authenticity or accuracy.

Many Christians are not actually aware that the gospels were written long after Jesus’ death – or that many authors’ identities are unknown – or that they internally confirm that they are only restating accounts from other eyewitnesses(they were not eyewitnesses themselves). The formation of the New Testament was essentially a 50+ year game of telephone with words and deeds being passed from one group of people to another, long after Jesus had lived.

So while some Christians may consider these facts supportive of their position on biblical accuracy, they actually open up the Bible to more critical review and skepticism. When you avoid using biases or presuppositions to formulate your beliefs about the Bible you will find that biblical scholarship is no different than the methods we use to evaluate all historical texts. And those methods have led to a consensus among historians on many topics that are in direct conflict with modern church teachings.

4. The New Testament books directly relate to the apostolic testimony.

Unlike any book from that period or the following century, the New Testament books were directly connected to the apostles and their testimony of the resurrected Christ. The canon is intimately connected to their activities and influence. The apostles had the very authority of Christ himself (Matt. 28:18–20). Along with the Old Testament, their teachings were the very foundation of the church.  The church is “built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets” (Eph. 2:20).

What qualifies a work of scripture as “directly connected to the apostles”? I’ve already given links above to articles concerning the authorship and dating of the New Testament books. And this is not the opinion of just a bunch of atheists on the internet. These are the consensus positions of biblical scholars and historians, many of which consider themselves Christians.

Despite the inconclusive identities and dates of authorship you can still make the claim of their testimony being “connected to the apostles” through the assumption of long lost oral and written traditions. Though the only evidence provided for this in the original article are references to Bible verses. This is called circular reasoning. How do we know that the events described in the Bible are true and come directly from the apostles? Apparently, because the Bible says so.

5. Some New Testament writers quote other New Testament writers as Scripture.

The belief in new revelation or a testament of books was not a late development. From the days of the apostles themselves, these writings were seen as unique in their authority and witness. This belief seems to be present in the earliest stages of Christianity. In 2 Peter 3:15–16, Peter refers to Paul’s letters as “Scripture,” which would have put them on a par with the books of the Old Testament. This is a significant fact that is often overlooked.

Should we expect anything else from a collection of books that has been curated for their internal consistency?

6. Early Christians used noncanonical writings without analogous authority.

Christians often cited noncanonical literature with positive affirmation for edification. Yet, Christians were simply using these books as helpful, illuminating, or edifying texts. Rarely was there confusion as to whether they were on a par with Scripture. These books were eventually disregarded according to the criteria of whether they had general acceptance, apostolicity, and self-authentication.

And here we get to the most important issue concerning the relevance of “canonicity”. Do any of these qualities attest to their accuracy? The obvious answer should be no.

None of the six points presented can be used to reliably conclude that the events described in the Bible are actually true. Non-canonical books may contradict some teachings within the traditional Orthodox canon, but most have equal historical evidence when it comes to confirming their supernatural claims, which is to say – none. Did Jesus exist? Probably. Was he resurrected from the dead? We can’t really know. We cannot conclude that dragons exist simply because they are described commonly and consistently in ancient writings and we cannot conclude that Jesus was resurrected for the same reason.

The Bible is full of claims. To evaluate these claims we must seek external sourcesand historical evidence that supports them. If we knew that the Bible provided accurate testimony then we could consider that testimony as one piece of evidence that could bolster supporting external evidence, but by using the historical-critical method we already know that the Bible’s authorship is unreliable.

This is not to say that the entire Bible should be considered a lie. Quite the contrary. There are many references within the Bible that can be confirmed with external sources. Names of towns and villages. Names of rulers and kings. Jewish cultural traditions and societal structures. We confirm these claims the same way historians confirm claims from any ancient text. However, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Being skeptical of supernatural claims in the Bible doesn’t make you a contrarian.

Skepticism should be the natural position when you apply the same level of criticism you would to the supernatural claims of any other religion.

#Canon #Bible #Orthodox Church #History #Biblical Authorship #Testimony #Criticism

[bestnewsmag-blog]

New Post has been published on Bestnewsmag

New Post has been published on https://bestnewsmag.com/china-finmin-skips-summit-with-japan-korea-to-attend-emergency-meeting-chinese-finance-minister-xiao-jie-attends-a-news-conference-during-the-ongoing-national-peoples-congress-npc-chinas-parliam/

China finmin skips summit with Japan, Korea to attend emergency meeting Chinese Finance Minister Xiao Jie attends a news conference during the ongoing National People's Congress (NPC), China's parliament,

Do You Have to Know Chinese in the China Market?

  When you travel to a brand new united states of America, on occasion you have got enough time and guidance to get well-versed in its language and from time to time you do not. Often, humans make do with symbolic equivalents or interpretation guides to assist them thru. It is in any case, just about a vacation that you may drift with the aid of.

But journeying to a brand new marketplace, like China, is not a holiday. As a minimum no longer at the initial ranges. What you want is a good Chinese language translation service. If you are introducing your product to a new, yet a humongous market like China, you can not ignore the perils of non-translation. Your internet site or app could need to get draped in the fabric of this neighborhood way of life, language and colloquial alignment. In case you need your product and communique to paintings seamlessly, there’s no need to learn Chinese language from the scratch.

However, that does not mean you do not need to localize for the Chinese language marketplace.

You need an expert who knows this marketplace and a bouquet of services that can cope with this task with a rich inventory of translation experts who are adept in each the languages – the supplied language of your u. S . A . and the target language of the new marketplace.

Store your logo from the dragon fire. China, in particular, is a market wherein brands tiptoe with more caution and care. Entrepreneurs are wary of wrong steps round polysemy i.E. words that have numerous meanings in addition to synonymy i.E. distinct words which have comparable meanings. A few important and international ruling manufacturers have Frequently paid a huge charge in terms of emblem equity and resistance in this marketplace due to the fact they jumped the identical taglines, slogans, and coaching manuals that they had in source market, without ascertaining how they sounded in a Chinese context. The language right here may additionally have an extraordinary vocabulary and Some phrases, seemingly harmless or astonishing, can sound completely exceptional and risk in a Chinese language translation.

For this reason, brands and communication experts have a tendency to stroll on eggshells to ward off semantic dangers of antonymy, hyponymy or hypernymy as nicely.

nearby language gets higher eyeballs It is now not the simplest cause to take assist from a professional language provider. International, a large variety of clients have proven in diverse research that they prefer to shop for merchandise whose facts is to be had in their very own neighborhood language. The chance of purchasers leaning to buy a product online that has data of their very own language will increase with the aid of several notches.

Which one to pick out: Mandarin or Cantonese About 850 million people in China talk Mandarin Chinese language in comparison to Approximately eighty-five million Cantonese Chinese. But, the hinterlands of China are nevertheless dominated by using Cantonese. In terms of places like Hong Kong, you can nevertheless see the domination of Cantonese. You should pick out the sort of Chinese language for use primarily based on the target market and the capability reach.

Therefore, draping a website or other essential product facts in the neighborhood language, beneath the professional eye and keyboard of a domestically-savvy translator is critical for a smart marketer. China is bursting with new opportunities But one small step inside the wrong lane can cost a lot. So, ensure you choose someone who can translate English to the Chinese language, is aware of the market and who has the services, resources, expertise and the imaginative and prescient to navigate the peculiarities of language in such markets.

there is no manner you need the dragon to respire fire because of translation gaps.

History and Clothing in Ancient Japan

  Eastern records consist of alternating durations of isolation and modern effects from the relaxation of the sector. As early as the Jomon period from approximately 14000BC to three hundred BC, Japan had a hunter-gatherer lifestyle; wooden stilt houses, pit residing, and agriculture. Weaving changed into nevertheless unknown and the historical Eastern clothing consisted of four. However, the number of the world’s oldest pottery is determined in Japan, along with daggers, jade, combs made shape shell and clay figures.

The length thereafter to 250 BC noticed the inflow of new practices like weaving, rice sowing, iron and bronze making stimulated through china and Korea. Chinese language vacationers describe the men ‘with braided hair, tattooing, and women with big, unmarried-piece apparel.’ Initially, historic Jap garb consisted of single piece apparel. The historic and classical Japan starts from the middle of the third century to 710. A sophisticated agricultural and militaristic culture defines this era. via 645, Japan rapidly followed Chinese language practices and reorganized its penal code.

The height length of historical Japan and its imperial court is from 794 to 1185. Art, poetry, literature and alternate expeditions endured with vigor. Warlords and effective local families ruled historical Japan from 1185 to 1333 and the emperor becomes just a parent head. by using the Japanese center Ages, Portugal had added firearms by means of a danger touchdown in their ship at Japanese coast; samurai charging ranks have been cut down; exchange with Netherlands, England and Spain had unfolded new avenues. Several missionaries had entered Japan as properly.

Awesome features of the lifestyle, historic Eastern apparel and women are hard to decipher for the easy purpose that it is notable-imposed by means of the Chinese lifestyle. historical Japan simply followed other cultures and practices and most of its very own subculture is misplaced amongst those adaptations.

historical Japanese garb becomes ordinarily unisex, with variations being in shades, length, and sleeves. A Kimono tied with an Obi or a sash across the waist was the overall garb and with the appearance of western garb are actually primarily worn at domestic or special activities. girls’ obi in historic Jap clothing would broadly speak be tricky and ornamental. Some might be so long as 4meters and tied as a flower or a butterfly. Even though a Yukata means a ‘bath apparel’, those have been often worn in the summers as morning and nightgowns. ancient Japanese clothing consisted of men and ladies sporting Haiti or slim paneled jacket for special occasions which include marriages and feasts. those are worn over a kimono and tied with strings on the breast level.

The maximum exciting piece of historic Japanese clothing is the Ju-ni-hit or the ‘twelve layers’ adorned with the aid of girls at the imperial courtroom. it’s far multi-layered and really heavy and worn on an everyday basis for hundreds of years! The simplest change would be the thickness of the fabric and the range of players relying on the season on. Princesses nevertheless put on these on weddings.

Because the Jap human beings do not wear footwear inner their houses, the tab is still worn. those are break up -toe socks are woven out of non-stretch materials with thick soles. Clogs have been worn for centuries in ancient Japan and have been known as Geta. those were fabricated from wood with straps and had been unisexual. Zori becomes footwear product of softer materials like straw and cloth with a flat sole.

ancient Jap garments, the way of life and shoes are slowly regaining their popularity with the western world. There is a sincere interest in knowing greater, carrying kimonos or using silk fabrics with stunning floral prints from the ‘land of the rising solar’.

Christopher Schwebius is an entrepreneur who seeks out sharply described, specially targeted topics to research. Upon completing his studies he affords applicable, unbiased records to his readers based on his discoveries and/or personal stories.

Types and Examples of Leasing

  Leasing is an antique approach of financing that’s now gaining popularity nearly in whole international. Legally, the lease agreement isn’t always a sale of the item, but rather a sale of the usufruct (the proper to use the object) for a detailed time period. Underneath it, there are parties one is the proprietor or lesser of the asset and different is the lessee or the celebration that takes the asset on rent. The lessee takes the asset to be used for a targeted time period and makes condominium bills. The ownership of the asset rests with the lesser but it’s far in the possession of lessee and right of use is likewise transferred to the lessee.

It has following are different sorts. The 2 basic types of leasing are: Finance hires and Operating rent. Those are explained under:

(1) Finance hire: Under the finance lease, all risks and rewards of ownership of the asset are transferred to the lessee. The possession or identity can also or may not be transferred China and Japan.

A finance lease is relatively like a hire by the settlement. Under finance rent, the lessee after paying agreed wide variety of installments is entitled to work out an option to emerge as the proprietor of an asset.

Instance:

Assume the AB organization takes a new car on lease for three years. Also, expect that at the stop of 3 years the AB employer may be known as to take the ownership of automobile at no more value. Right here now not simplest the automobile is taken on hire but Also the AB organization is the usage of the lease settlement as a method of financing the auto. This kind is called capital rent or finance rent.

(2) Operating hire: In line with Worldwide Accounting Preferred (IAS-17) the Working rent is one that isn’t a finance rent. Beneath Operating rent, the lessor gives the right to a lessee to use the asset or assets for a unique time period, however, risks and rewards of ownership are retained by means of the lesser.

Example:

Let up Think that MY firms own a complete sixth ground in Eden Tower, a multi-story building. Further count on that MY businesses give a few rooms of this ground on hire to XY company.

Now if the fee of this constructing increase because of true business interest then the lessor i.E., MY companies can take the benefit of this increase by either selling out the rooms or by means of increasing the apartment quantity. Then again if the constructing decreases in cost than Additionally the MY organizations could be the sufferer of loss. This type of leasing is called Running hire.

Besides These major kinds, a few different forms of leasing are defined below:

(three) Sale and lease Lower back: Beneath sale and hire Back settlement, an asset is first brought to the economic institution. The sale is made at the real market cost. After that, the asset is taken Returned on a lease. This kind of leasing is tremendous for the one’s businesses which do not want to expose high debt balances in their financial assertion.

(4) Capital rent: This kind of leasing is ruled by way of the economic Fashionable board which is not applicable in Pakistan. Beneath this type, whilst lessee acquires an asset on the lease, he concurrently acknowledges it as a legal responsibility inside the monetary announcement.

(five) Leveraged hire: This sort of leasing entails three events which include a lender, a lessor, and a lessee. The lender and lessor be a part of palms to accumulate budget to shop for the asset. The asset purchased is then given at the rent to a lessee. The lessee makes periodic payments to the lessor who in turn makes the price to the lender.

(6) Pass Border Leasing: It method to operate lease agreement in different countries. Such kind of leasing may be very difficult in gift instances. The reasons being that different accounting treatment, tax costs and incidental standards be triumphant in foreign nations. Additionally, the tax guidelines range from us to united states of America. So a big hassle arises as a way to gift such lease settlement in an economic assertion.

But, as with recent trends, the accounting remedies are being made comparable for every item all-around the world by using International Accounting Requirements and its miles hoped that Go border leasing will unexpectedly flourish in close to destiny.

[sensitivefern]

‘Most mushroom poisonings happen to the mushroom hunter who relies on myths’... the cap on a mushroom is called a pileus, named after hats worn by some ancient Romans...

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About your neck you will want to wear a silk kerchief. This is to keep out dust, and to prevent your neck from becoming reddened and chapped. It... should be of the best quality. The poorer grades go to pieces soon, and their colors are not fast. Get it big enough. At night you will make a cap of it to sleep in; and if ever you happen to be caught without extra clothes where it is very cold, you will find that the kerchief tied around your middle, and next the skin, will help surprisingly.

A coat is useless absolutely. A sweater is better as far as warmth goes; a waistcoat beats it for pockets. You will not wear it during the day; it wads up too much to be of much use at night. Even your trousers rolled up make a better temporary pillow. Leave it home; and you will neither regret it nor miss it.

[Stewart Edward White, Camp and Trail]

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Some time before most of [the] reviews had appeared, the most interesting criticism of all had been published. It was printed in The Brooklyn Times of September 29, 1855, and was written by the man who best understood the purposes of the poems and was not unaware of their faults and probable reaction of the public. The author was Walt himself:

‘Very devilish to some, and very divine to some, will appear the poet of these new poems... an attempt, as they are of a naïve, masculine, affectionate, contemplative, sensual, imperious person to cast into literature not only his own grit and arrogance, but his own flesh and form, undraped... the begetter of a new offspring out of literature... preferring always to speak for himself rather than have others speak for him’.

And so he does, and very modestly for a Whitman who from now on proposes to fight the world until it accepts his poems.

[Henry Seidel Canby]

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Former circus magician Timothy Drew... operated the ‘Moorish American Science Temple’, with fez-clad disciples in Newark, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Chicago. Drew, who taught that black Americans were actually Moors from Morocco, foresaw ‘the inevitable destruction of the white or European rule, of which the sign from heaven would be a star with a crescent moon’. His movement would become the Nation of Islam.

[1920]

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This is Exodus, a wholly uncomprehended book. In proof thereof let us quote from one of our professors of ‘Biblical Literature and Religion’. ‘The culminating incidents of the Exodus was the crossing of the Red Sea. That this was accomplished miraculously, is a matter of clear history’. And what is this ‘clear history?’ The Bible, of course, three times over. ‘The record furnishes us with the facts in triplicate narrative’. Therefore it must be true. But to continue: ‘True there is the admission that, up to the present time no direct reference to the Exodus has been found among the Egyptian inscriptions’. And then follows the credulous reason: ‘Such silence causes no surprise; it is the expected silence of a proud and contemptuous people regarding an event of humiliating circumstances’. This represents modern enlightenment concerning Causation, Truth and Reality, and then we wonder what’s wrong with us morally. Morals, like faith, are the evidence of things not seen, namely, consciousness, enlightenment, wisdom. These our spiritual leaders cannot give us, because they haven’t them to give. Our rabbis, priests and ministers are but ‘innocents abroad’ in an occult world. The scriptures are to them as the Egyptian hieroglyphics before the Rosetta Stone.

There is no end to the explanations these apologists find to prove the historicity of Hebrew mythology; they must prove it lest their own house of cards come tumbling down.

[Deceptions and Myths of the Bible]

===

...I returned to Baltimore, and before leaving the Smart Set office gathered up an armful of review books to examine on the train. Among them was a set of proofs from Harcourt, Brace & Company. Ordinarily, I refused to read books in proof, for handling the loose sheets was an unpleasant chore, but this time, on a sudden and aberrant impulse, I took up the sheaf as soon as the train plunged into the Pennsylvania tunnel. By the time it got to Newark I was interested, and by the time it got to Trenton I was fascinated. At Philadelphia I called a Western Union boy and sent a telegram to Nathan. I forget the exact text, but it read substantially: ‘That idiot has written a masterpiece’. The book was Main Street.

[H.L. Mencken, My Life as Author and Editor]

===

❚NASA's Cassini Begins Its Final Mission Before Self-Destruction

Start mixing your Arnold Palmers, it's time for The Masters.

Sweating, Shaking Pharmaceutical CEO Says He Can Stop Profiting Off Opioid Epidemic Anytime He Wants

Global Meat News is another one of those industry newsletters I follow closely.

At 73, Barry Manilow comes out of closet

White supremacist Bannon removed from National Security Council

Wingnut: God Will Curse Children and Grandchildren of Trump Critics

Fascist former Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s infamous tent city jail is being shut down by his successor after a commission recommended that it be closed. Arpaio, of course, blames it all on George Soros, presumably because Saul Alinsky is dead and Karl Marx isn’t returning his calls.

This Farthead Wants to Rename the St. Louis Zoo 'The Midwest Abortion Sanctuary City Zoological Park' Can you imagine hating something so much that you think, our only option is to involve the zoo animals? I understand that zoo animals don’t care about politics because they don’t understand them. I also can infer that they wouldn’t care even if they could understand them, because zoo animals are prisoners without rights or the hope of parole. But Missouri State Sen. Bob Ond...

Rose Hamlin, a One-Hit Wonder With ‘Angel Baby,’ Dies at 71 Ms. Hamlin’s group, Rosie and the Originals, had only one Top 40 hit, but it was a memorable one. A bittersweet song of teenage love recorded in a converted airline hangar in 1960, “Angel Baby” reached No. 5 on the Billboard singles chart in January 1961 and remains a mainstay of oldies radio. John Lennon was one of the song’s biggest fans. He recorded it in 1973 at the sessions for his album “Rock ’n’ Roll,” although it was not released until 1986, on the album “Menlove Ave.” His recording begins with a spoken introduction: “This here is one of my all-time favorite songs. Send my love to Rosie, wherever she may be.”

HARRISBURG, Pa. — A Penn State University trustee who said he was “running out of sympathy” for people he described as “so-called victims” of Jerry Sandusky is no longer seeking a second term on the board.

Outing mit 73... Barry Manilow spricht über sein Schwulsein

YouTube is launching a streaming TV service Wednesday. It's one of many — Sling, PlayStation Vue and local cable companies among them. But Google-owned YouTube TV offers several features the others don't. They include a cloud-based DVR with no storage limits, allowing users to record as many shows as they want for later playback. Membership also gives access to original series and movies featured on its other subscription streaming service, YouTube Red. And customers can create up to six accounts on one membership, with up to three streams running at once. A subscription costs $...

Helsingborg in southern Sweden is set to become the home of a museum dedicated to some of the biggest flop products of all time, including the Betamax player, the Harley Davidson perfume and an ill-advised "female" pen.

If a prime minister wants to truly unite a nation – one way not to do it is to cook a pizza with spaghetti topping. This seems to be the lesson that New Zealand’s leader, Bill English, can take away after he dabbled in the kitchen and sprinkled his result on social media this week. On Tuesday night English cooked dinner for his family – a 1980s rural Kiwi classic: tinned spaghetti and pineapple pizza. Later, he posted a series of photos of his home-spun efforts on Facebook. The photographs, blurry and un-retouched, caused a culinary uproar on Facebook and Twitter, with some Kiwis declaring they couldn’t vote for a prime minister who so wantonly bastardised Italian cuisine.

DID YOU KNOW THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A REPORTED DEATH LINKED TO THE OVERDOSING OF MARIJUANA?

Adorable CAT Plays with COW