Audio: "A Maestro’s Secret for a High-Performing Team"

Brett Mitchell is the featured guest on the current episode of The Leadership Podcast, a weekly program featuring in-depth interviews with leaders from around the world. Listen here:

More from the podcast's official website:

Brett Mitchell is the Music Director of the Colorado Symphony. He discusses leadership and teamwork, and how the best orchestras don’t just play with each other… they play for each other. He considers trust to be the first step to leadership and shares his philosophy and methods. He talks about the discipline of music, and how music theory can inform innovation, leadership and teamwork.

Key Takeaways

[2:51] As a young music director, Brett works consciously at leadership.

[4:29] Brett’s last position was with the Cleveland Orchestra, one of America’s Big Five orchestras. He started there in awe of the training and skill of the elite musicians. Brett learned that the better the orchestra, the more they want to be led. The musicians make music with each other and the conductor helps guide them, but does not dictate to them. The conductor is the arbiter of taste.

[10:06] Leonard Bernstein did a video with the Vienna Philharmonic, conducting them with his facial expressions alone in supreme trust and joy. Brett attributes his own career to the path Leonard Bernstein blazed for American orchestral conductors.

[16:20] A Conductor leads an orchestra; the Music Director is responsible for the artistic side; the Executive Director is responsible for the business side; the Maestro is a teacher. Brett studies the score, learns everybody’s part, listens to the orchestra, teaches the orchestra what the composer is saying through the score, and guides them through the execution of the score.

[26:38] John Williams’ film scores gave Brett the inspiration to study composition. Brett discusses how he and the staff at Public Radio Station WCLV happened to create the award-winning documentary on John Williams’ Star Wars movie scores, The Score Awakens.

[34:33] Brett is also an active guest conductor. Trust comes from being reliable, getting right to work, showing you are prepared, and being authentic. The goal is not a flawless performance, but a performance as close as humanly possible to being flawless with passion. Beethoven said a wrong note is nothing, but to play without passion is inexcusable.

[43:00] Brett talks about dealing with mistakes during a performance. The conductor needs to find the mistakes that will not fix themselves, and correct and direct for them.


Wednesday, April 3, 2013

The coterie, and how it fits in the world

Now that I've worked out the rough themes and concepts for my upcoming Vampire Chronicle/Setting, I need to spend some time thinking about the players. Who are the PC’s going to be, why are they together, and what are they going to be doing?

Most of these have been more or less conveniently answered with the ideas I came up with in the last post. The players are young, marginalized vampires who are trying to find their own place in the world. The Chronicle is about their hopes, dreams, struggles, victories, and defeats. The second question of “why are they a coterie?” is a bit trickier to answer. I don't know what characters they are going to create, so the exact details as to why this group of vampires routinely gets involved in wacky and dangerous situations together can't really be answered at this point. What I can say is that, to a certain extent, they are all they have. They might have individual allies or mentors or patrons, or even group allies and the like, but when the chips are down and everything is falling apart, they really only have each other to rely on.

Right now, I'm going with the assumption that they have all been pushed out to one of the worst areas of the city (or even the suburbs!), and have banded together to make the best of a shitty deal. I’m also assuming that this will get more detail once we create characters, and it’s quite possible that this will change completely.

The final questions—what are they going to be doing—actually requires the most thought. Mainly because I'm faced with two potentially contradictory desires and needs for this game. On one hand, I want to run the game as something of a “sandbox” style game, but on the other I know that at least one of my players, if not more, is uncomfortable with taking initiative and coming up with independent goals for their character.
So, let me think a bit about what I mean by “sandbox.” It’s a bit of a loaded term in gaming circles, and if you look online you will see pretty much endless debates about what it really means and if a game really is or is not a proper sandbox. I want to use it in its most generic meaning—here is a setting, here are some toys, have fun! But in this case I actually mean something a tad different.

I’ve been thinking lately about some of my all-time favorite games, the ones I still talk about years later and bore other people with. While some of them match the sandbox description above, not all of them did. In fact, quite a few of them were either quite modular or actual modules/pre-published adventures. And I realized that what I loved about these games was not the “here’s an area, go crazy” element, but instead the ability for the players to make meaningful decisions as early in the game as possible.

They key to that is of course the word “meaningful.”  Presenting a player with a hallway, at the end of which is two doors and asking them which they open isn't “meaningful.” It’s a decision, true, but with no context and no information it’s the same as flipping a coin. Actually, it could be worse, because it’s quite likely that no matter what door the player chooses, the same even will happen. Or, one could be a supply closet and the other the “correct” door. It’s choice, but a meaningless one.

Adding context and clues to the environment helps. If from behind door A emanates the sound of crude voices laughing and joking, while Door B is busted up and barely hanging on its hinges—well, now the players are in a slightly better position to make a decision. I still wouldn't call it meaningful, because the player doesn’t really know what he is trying to accomplish. If the player has a goal in this hallway, then we're getting closer. The goal, of course, could be anything. It could be to escape, or to find treasure, or rescue someone, or capture someone, or even do a “sweep and clear” and take out all the baddies.  Now the player can make a more meaningful decision, based on the environment and what they are hoping to accomplish.

Obviously, the best is when the player understands the rules enough to be able to make an intelligent guess regarding their chances to pull something off—could they kill the baddies laughing behind Door A, or are they potentially too big of a threat for him to handle? Even better is when the goals are driven by the player; such that they are there to rescue their friend or find the treasure they've been searching for. Even better than that, however, is when the game has built up to that moment, with their friend being kidnapped by the baddies in retaliation of something the player did.

So, I want to allow the players to make meaningful decisions about the game as soon as possible, and base most of the action and stories on these decisions, their consequences, and the natural responses of other characters in the setting.

But, as I said, I'm fairly confident that at least initially I won’t be able to rely on the players having a really strong personal goal. I might, of course. One of them might come up with an idea of “what if my Sire was murdered, and I’m trying to find their killer?” or something like that. But since I can’t assume that, I'll need to place various NPC’s in the setting who can function as, for lack of a better term, “quest givers.” Characters and places that can provide strong hooks for the players to go and do something, and give them some idea of what they are “expected” to accomplish.

This isn’t that unusual from most games, of course. I don’t want to force the players to become the A-team taking on a “case of the week”--though, if the game does go that way, it could be oddly satisfying. Instead, I'll be using these “quest givers” to start the game off, and use them when the action lags or the players aren’t sure what to do next. I'll worry about them when I get to Section 3 in my outline, but for now it’s something I need to consider and keep in the back of my mind.

Of course, this shouldn’t be too tricky to work with, since my overall concept gives me a pretty decent generic plot structure. As I mentioned in the last post, “something comes along that changes or threatens to change something in the world. This could be a mortal, an outsider, or the PC’s. The Elders and their minions react with fear and outrage, and use their power to attempt to re-establish the status quo. The players will either be on the side of change (particularly if they are the ones initiating it) or find themselves stuck somewhere in the middle, often having to find some way to resolve this conflict.”

That’s not a bad setup, and it does remind me of your basic procedural TV show.

Which brings me to last point I want to make—now that I have the themes and concepts worked out for the game, I need to come up with the “elevator pitch.” I don’t often think in these terms, as I tend to be a tad more verbose than is strictly called for when it comes to gaming. But I was hanging out with some friends last night, and they reminded me of how key the concept is in getting the players excited and on board for a game. So, here is my “elevator pitch” for the game:
You play vampires, in the modern world. Vampires have been around since the dawn of civilization, hiding among humans since, well, they eat us and if push came to shove, there’s a lot more of us than there are of them. The eldest vampires have been alive for centuries, and they have their fingers in EVERYTHING—governments, police, finance, media, gangs, organized crime, freemasons.  You name it, and some vampire has corrupted it to their own ends. The world is a lot like ours, but even darker, more corrupt, more violent and even more hopeless.

The older vampires, though, can’t stand the younger ones, seeing them as threats to their power and a risk to their control.  For everything a younger vampires gets—money, blood, whatever—they see it as something taken from them. So, they insist that the younger vampires get in line, and follow their orders. Some just sit around ‘waiting their turn’ while others are used as pawns and foot soldiers in the Elders endless conflicts.

Some refuse to play this game though, and try to strike out on their own, do their own thing. That’s the players. You've been pushed into your “place” by the elders, pushed around by their boot-licking minions, pushed out of the best hunting areas, and pushed into the crappy barrens until you can’t be pushed any more.

The game begins when you decide to push back.

The duty of youth is to challenge corruption.
Kurt Cobain

George Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Alexis Carrel, Reflections on Life.

Session "0" for Scarlet Vampire

The tools are all in place. Now it is time to begin the game. Base Game: Vampire: The Masquerade (1st Edition)  Not familiar with Vampire...


/Culture & Heritage
Culture & Heritage 2017-10-03T18:23:41+00:00

Culture & Heritage

Mark Twain, one of the famous American author and humorist portrayed Indian culture nicely through his words, “In religion, India is the only millionaire.. the one land that all men desire to see and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for all the shows of all the rest of the globe combined.”

Indians and the heritage of India are completely immersed in cultural diversities. India with its vibrant states has cultural diversities in terms of traditions, rituals, beliefs, values, attitude, behavior, food, clothes and lifestyle. Each state of India differs from the other providing you so much to learn about. India is known for treasuring rich cultural heritage that no other country has.

An India tour will take you through the vibrant culture, varied lifestyle and religion, exquisite architecture, different music, valued customs and tradition of the Indian states. Therefore, it draws tourists from all across the world throughout the year.

Recommended Tours

Related Tours


Payments and Deposits

The confirmation of your booking is subject to a payment of a 20% deposit of the total booking amount. This payment is essential to confirm your stay and it will be charged to your credit card after we receive your booking. The remaining 80% will then need to be settled at the Jardim do Vau Reception Desk upon your arrival.

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GuestCentric - Hotel website & booking technology


Garcia, Moraima A.

Welcome, I am Ms. Garcia and I am the Pre-Kinder teacher at Zavala Elementary. I graduated from U.T.E.P. with a Bachelor's Degree in Interdisciplinary Studies and a minor in Bilingual Elementary Education. I have been a teacher for ten years.
If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact me. My conference time is from 11:30-12:15 p.m.
I look forward to working with you and your child.


API Questions

Are COS bucket names case sensitive?

Bucket names are required to be DNS addressable, and thus not case sensitive.

What is the maximum number of characters that can be used in an Object name?

Offering Questions

Do we offer a free tier option for IBM Cloud Object Storage?

Yes, use promo code COSFREE to obtain 25 GB of storage and a bunch of operations per month.

Is there a 100-bucket limit to an account? What happens if we need more?

Yes, 100 is the current bucket limit. Generally, prefixes are a better way to group together objects in a bucket, unless the data needs to be in a different region or storage class. For example, to group patient records, you would use one prefix per patient. If this is not a workable solution, contact customer support.

If I want to store my data using IBM COS Vault or Cold Vault, do I need to create another account?

No, storage classes (and regions as well) are defined at the bucket level. Simply create a new bucket that is set to the desired storage class.

When I create a bucket using the API, how do I set the storage class?

The storage class (eg us-flex) is assigned to the LocationConstraint configuration variable for that bucket. This is because of a key difference between the was AWS S3 and IBM COS handle storage classes. IBM COS sets storage classes at the bucket level, while AWS S3 assigns a storage class to an individual object.

Can the storage class of a bucket be changed? For example, if you have production data in ‘standard’, can we easily switch it to ‘vault’ for billing purposes if we are not using it frequently?

Today changing of storage class requires manually moving or copying the data from one bucket to another bucket with the desired storage class.

Performance Questions

Does data consistency in COS come with a performance impact?

Consistency with any distributed system comes with a cost, but the efficiency of the IBM COS dispersed storage system is higher, and overhead is lower compared to systems with multiple synchronous copies.

Aren’t there performance implications if my application needs to manipulate large objects?

For performance optimization, objects can be uploaded and downloaded in multiple parts, in parallel.

Encryption Questions

Does IBM COS provide encryption at rest and in motion?

Yes. Data at rest is encrypted with automatic provider side Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 256-bit encryption and Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA)-256 hash. Data in motion is secured by using built-in carrier grade Transport Layer Security/Secure Sockets Layer (TLS/SSL) or SNMPv3 with AES encryption.

What is the typical encryption overhead if a customer wants to encrypt their data?

Server side encryption is always on for customer data. Compared to the hashing required in S3 authentication and the erasure coding, encryption is not a big part of the processing cost of COS.

Does IBM COS encrypt all data?

Yes, IBM COS encrypts all data.

Does IBM COS have FIPS 140-2 compliance for the encryption algorithms?

The algorithms are FIPS 140-2 ready but testing / certification is still pending.

Will client-key encryption be supported?

Yes, client-key encryption will be supported in 2017.

General questions

How many objects can fit in a single bucket?

There is no practical limit to the number of objects in a single bucket.

Can I nest buckets inside one another?

No, buckets can not be nested. If a greater level of organization is required within a bucket, the use of prefixes is supported: {endpoint}/{bucket-name}/{object-prefix}/{object-name}. Note that the object’s key remains the combination {object-prefix}/{object-name}.

What is the difference between ‘Class A’ and ‘Class B’ requests?

‘Class A’ requests are operations that involve modification or listing. This includes creating buckets, uploading or copying objects, creating or changing configurations, listing buckets, and listing the contents of buckets.’Class B’ requests are those related to retrieving objects or their associated metadata/configurations from the system. There is no charge for deleting buckets or objects from the system.

What is the best way to structure your data using Object storage such that you can ‘look’ at it and find what you are looking for? Without a directory structure, having 1000s of files at one level seems hard to view.

You can use metadata associated with each object to find the objects you are looking for. The biggest advantage of object storage is the metadata associated with each object. Each object can have up to 4 MB of metadata in IBM COS. When offloaded to a database, metadata provides excellent search capabilities. A large number of (key, value) pairs can be stored in 4 MB. You can also use Prefix searching to find what you are looking for. For example, if you use buckets to separate each customer data, you can use prefixes within buckets for organization. For example: /bucket1/folder/object where ‘folder/’ is the prefix.

Can you confirm that IBM COS is ‘immediately consistent’, as opposed to ‘eventually consistent’?

COS is ‘immediately consistent’ for data and ‘eventually consistent’ for usage accounting.

Can IBM COS partition the data automatically for me like HDFS, so I can read the partitions in parallel, e.g. with Spark?

IBM COS supports a ranged GET on the object, so an application can do a distributed striped read type operation. Doing the striping would be on the application to manage.


1. Consider where the report is published.

Most of the research you are reading should come from peer-reviewed scientific journals.  Of course, there is useful information that can be found in other locations, but I would try to focus most of my reading on reports published by peer-reviewed journals.

2. Why am I reading this report?

Ask yourself, what is my purpose for reading this report?  It is important to read articles that are relevant to your research interests.  There are many articles that may be published in your general area of interest.  However, you will find that many of these articles do not pertain to your specific interest.  Again, ask yourself why am I reading this?  Can I gain knowledge that will assist me in further in understanding my research interests?

3. Read abstracts.

The abstract provides a basic overview of the paper.  The abstract is usually less than 200 words and provides basic information from the paper’s major sections — introduction, methods, results and discussion.  At this point you will probably have a good idea of whether you want to read the entire paper.

4. Read headings and briefly overview other sections.

If you have read the abstract and it has piqued your interest, then go ahead and briefly look at the various headings.  The point is to perform a moderate overview of the entire paper.

5. Focus on relevant sections.

Once you have looked over the paper, you should have a general idea of the specific areas that are relevant. Sometimes the entire paper is relevant.  As you focus on the areas that interest you, take notes, highlight and notice references that may lead to further reading.  It is important that you highlight these references as you read the paper.  You probably won’t remember the references by the time you have completed reading. If you are not able to highlight write the references on a piece of paper.

6. Look at references.

Look at the highlighted references.  When looking at the references repeat the same process as mentioned above.

If this seems to you like an arduous task you are right.   A thorough examination of the research is painstaking.  However, in order to gain a comprehensive understanding, and knowledge in your area of interest, laborious activity is essential.


Related to MALLET: mallet finger
MALLETMulti Agent-Logic Language for Encoding Teamwork
References in classic literature ?
In passing along the valley, I was often attracted by the noise of the mallet, which, when employed in the manufacture of the cloth produces at every stroke of its hard, heavy wood, a clear, ringing, and musical sound, capable of being heard at a great distance.
They had axes among them, yet they generally made use of a stone mallet wrought into the shape of a bottle, and wedges of elk horn, in splitting their wood.
Here," remarked the old gentleman, taking up a croquet mallet from the table near him, "is one of the qualifications for success in modern society.
Meanwhile the noise of saw and mallet went on briskly, mingled with the clattering of boards on the stone pavement of the road, and sometimes with the workmen's voices as they called to one another.


First observation this week.....plums starting to ripen.

The race for who gets to them first begins!

Birds versus me.....

Except this season.....I am doing something different

Picking them right now and letting them ripen at room temperature (not in the fridge)  away from marauding birds. Last years plum jam recipe.

Keep tip pruning Basil or better still make Pesto.

Observation 2: Why does parsley always seed in rock hard gravelly paths?

Keep picking outer leaves of lettuce for all those healthy salads one should be eating.

Harvesting lots of Garlic now....it's a great mosquito repellant, if you eat enough of it. Probably repel everyone in your household and neighbourhood too.

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Remember the Phalaenopsis I got for my birthday on the 1st of December... still flowering beautifully. Why? I feed it at half strength every fortnight with Strike Back for Orchids by Neutrog.

 This flower makes me happy every time I look at it.....

Observation 3: Salvia is the easiest plant to grow....Bronze fennel is bigger than Pierre...Vietnamese mint needs to be contained in a pot. Which mine is thank god!

Lastly why am I being so observant? Because my New Years resolution is the practice of being....

The only time I am mindful is when I photograph things, that is when I am totally consumed in that moment, I slow down, I concentrate, nothing intrudes my thought process. I think that is why I feel so happy and relaxed when I photograph. But....there is a big but...... I can't permanently walk around with a camera in my hand 24/7.  So.... this year I need to practice and practice and practice.

What's your New Years Resolution?


Ask Question, Ask an Expert

Ask HR Management Expert

problem 1:

a) Consider reasons why an employee might decide to terminate their employment contract.

b) Outline the different stages in a formal disciplinary procedure.

problem 2: Describe what you consider to be the key features which contribute to efficient management of people at work.

problem 3:

a) describe the main points which are covered in the seven-point plan throughout the selection procedure of new staff in the hospitality industry.

b) Construct an application form which clearly points out the main information which an applicant will be expected to supply when applying for a job.

problem 4: Describe fully what you consider to be four significant steps in recruitment and comprise some necessary features in each of your choices.

problem 5:

a) describe the most significant principles for fringe benefits to be effectual.

b) describe the external factors which persuade the nature of fringe benefits.

problem 6:

a) Customer care is necessary in the hospitality industry. Describe fully the eight main components which must be offered when serving.

b) List the steps which might be followed to minimize the dissatisfaction of queuing for a meal.

problem 7: describe five different theorists who have contributed to management thinking in the workplace.

problem 8: Describe the most vital steps in management development, giving reasons for your answer.

HR Management, Management Studies

  • Category:- HR Management
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NYPD Patrol Guide

The NYPD's Patrol Guide contains the rules that NYC police officers must follow in carrying out their official duties. When the CCRB investigates a complaint of police misconduct, it focuses on the details of the encounter and determines whether or not the officer's actions were improper based on the Patrol Guide, New York State law and the United States Constitution.

Operation Orders and Interim Orders


Fast Workout

The World's fastest workout! No time to work out? Try this 4 minute interval workout video aka the world's fastest workout. Personal trainer and body transfo.

15 mintue fat burner

15 Minute Fat Burner Start with a five minute light jog workout first. Make sure you stretch!

burn 500 calories in 45 minutes with this treadmill interval plan

You'll Feel Pretty Accomplished After Finishing This 60-Minute Treadmill Workout

Bizarre Bodily Side Effects of Exercise: Do These Happen to You? I always wondered why my face would feel itchy when I run.

killer kardio workout

Great cardio circuit with or without the treadmill running portion! You could also put these in between other body weight exercises to keep your heart rate up during HIIT (not that you necessarily need more cardio for that!


Josua Markus

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Pharmacologically active stem of the oriental herbal adaptogen, Siberian ginseng, was employed for the ecofriendly synthesis of Siberian ginseng silver nanoparticles (Sg-AgNPs) and Siberian ginseng gold nanoparticles (Sg-AuNPs). First, for metabolic characterization of the sample, liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry analysis (indicated the(More)
A straightforward synthesis of gold nanoparticles (AuNps) is achieved by novel probiotic Lactobacillus kimchicus DCY51T isolated from Korean kimchi via an intracellular membrane-bound mechanism. The bioreduction of HAuCl4 into AuNps was verified by ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometry at ∼540nm. AuNps were spherical with varying sizes of 5-30nm. AuNps(More)
Green synthesis of gold (CB-AuNps) and silver (CB-AgNps) nanoparticles using Cibotium barometz root extract was highlighted. CB-AuNps were synthesized almost instantly and CB-AgNps were formed after 25 min in a heated aqueous extract. The formation of CB-AuNps and CB-AgNps was detected at 548 and 412 nm; they were spherical with crystallite sizes of 6 nm(More)
The current study highlights the rapid biosynthesis of gold nanoparticles (Gu-AuNps) and silver chloride nanoparticles (Gu-AgClNps) by aqueous root extract of Glycyrrhiza uralensis, a medicinal plant. G. uralensis has been reported for anticancer and hepatoprotective effects. The reduction of chloroauric acid and silver nitrate by the Glycyrrhiza root(More)
A facile synthesis and biological applications of silver (DH-AgNps) and gold nanoparticles (DH-AuNps) mediated by the aqueous extract of Angelicae Pubescentis Radix (Du Huo) are explored. Du Huo is a medicinal root belonging to Angelica pubescens Maxim which possesses anti-inflammatory, analgesic, and antioxidant properties. The absorption spectra of(More)
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These machines are fabricated out of graphite/epoxy composites, using hand lay-up molding techniques, with fillet brazed and cold-shaped chromium-molybdenum seamless steel tubing. Various rubber/vinyl/nylon/acrylic assemblies and alloy bicycle components are involved as well. All the sculptures are constructed deliberately using many similar parts and materials, and, much like classical music composition, they are exercises in variations on a theme. Each work is designed to traverse a different medium, and incorporate a unique approach for locomotion. In 1995 I received an NEA Fellowship in Sculpture, in recognition for this kinetic sculptural series.

Dada Rode a Bicycle/MoMA Was a Peddler*

*Dada refers to the title of a European art movement during World War I, with its wry interest in the machine aesthetic. The bicycle was an image used (read: Rode) by many of this group... especially the artist Marcel Duchamp. MoMA refers to the Museum of Modern Art, in New York City. The museum has long been a standard bearer in Modern Art. MoMA's rise to power however, can be traced back to the fledgling New York Armory Show of 1913. A then minor European artist was catapulted (read: Peddled) into international stardom there with a small, sensationalized painting. The painting was Nude Descending a Staircase. The artist was Marcel Duchamp.


yann novak – stillness

‘Stillness’ combines reworking of ‘Stillness.Subtropical’ and ‘Stillness.Oceanic’ into a large scale diptych spread over 5 projectors with an 4ch sound element per side. This produces an immersive experience that changes so slowly the effect is imperceptible to the audience and creates a nearly static state.

The sound elements were created using recordings of shortwave radio signal tuned to static in each location. Because radio waves are effected by both water vapor in the troposphere and ionization in the upper atmosphere from the sun, each recording, though similar, contains a unique signature from the atmosphere the waves traveled through. Similarly the video elements are made up of numerous photographs taken over a span of months in the case of ‘Stillness.Subtropical’ and years in ‘Stillness.Oceanic’, always pointed at the horizon. These photographs capture a more literal portrait of these climates. All these elements are then digitally altered to create an ambiguous abstraction, leaving enough of the source to guide the experience and define the location, but abstract enough to create an immersive environment perfect for contemplation and personal reflection.

footage: tyler hubby | still image: robert crouch | editing: yann novak

more info: yann novak


FractionCalculator .pro

0.69 in fraction form

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Radio Telescope on Track

This post was originally published by Australia’s Science Channel on 29th July 2016 but was removed when the website was updated.

David Gozzard is a PhD student who has found himself on an interesting journey to remote Australia. In this blog, he shares some of the fun work he’s been up to!

When I started my PhD in experimental physics, I knew there would be a lot of travelling involved, mostly to conferences, meetings and workshops both in Australia and overseas. What I did not realize was how often I would find myself travelling to remote areas of Australia and South Africa to conduct field work. I’m not complaining. The field work is both challenging and rewarding, it gets me out of the lab, and it means I get to visit some of the world’s premier scientific facilities.

And that’s where I am now. After a four-hour flight from Perth to Sydney, a short hop from Sydney to Tamworth, and a two-hour drive from Tamworth to Narrabri (lugging two heavy cases full of scientific equipment), I find myself at the Paul Wild Observatory, home of CSIRO’s Australia Telescope Compact Array, the largest radio interferometer telescope in the southern hemisphere.

Antennas 1 – 5 of the Australia Telescope Compact Array.

Built in the 1980s, the Compact Array is a radio telescope comprising six 270-tonne
dish-antennas, five of which can be driven to various positions along a 3 km track in order to change their view of the sky. Although it’s not as famous as The Dish at Parkes, the Compact Array holds the distinction of being the most scientifically productive radio telescope in the southern hemisphere. In radio engineering, the plural of “antenna” is “antennas”. Biologists, calm down.

Me, driving antenna 3 during an array reconfiguration (see video below).

This is my 3rd trip to the Compact Array. I’m here to test equipment developed for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope. Radio telescope arrays like the Compact Array and the SKA need high-precision reference signals from atomic clocks to be transmitted to each antennas in order for the array to function properly. Over long transmission distances, the precision of these signals can become degraded and when that happens, the array fails.

On something the size of the Compact Array (6 km from one end to the other), this is not a problem; but for the SKA, which will have antennas located up to 150 km away from the centre of the site, signal degradation is a big problem. The equipment I have brought with me is designed to compensate for the degradation of the reference signal by measuring how the reference signal has been perturbed and modifying the transmission to compensate.

My signal stabilization test equipment setup at ATCA.

My supervisor and I have been developing this stabilization system over the past two years at The University of Western Australia, and we have tested its performance extensively in the laboratory. Now the time has come to plug it into a working radio telescope to confirm that it works in the real world!

Because this is a synthesis imaging telescope, every few weeks the antenna dishes are moved to different positions along a track to change how they image the sky. I was lucky enough to be allowed to take part in one of these array reconfigurations. Each of the six antennas weighs 270 tonnes and has a top speed of 4 km/h. Reconfiguration can take 1 – 2 hours depending on the extent of that day’s changes. Antenna 2 shown in the video was driven nearly 2 km in this reconfiguration job.

The Compact Array is the best facility to perform these tests because it was constructed with an almost unique receiver system that allows us to run the array using both its conventional reference distribution system and our stabilized reference system at the same time. Our system runs over an extra 77 km of fibre-optic cable to a communications hut and back. The telescope data from the conventional reference system can be compared directly with ours to see if the stabilization system is working as designed.

Me, sitting in the ATCA control room.

Working with the CSIRO team is an absolute pleasure. Everyone is very professional, they all know the systems they are responsible for insideout, and they are very helpful. The experiments that I have performed at the Compact Array would not have been possible without the efforts they made to accommodate my test schedule and the modifications I needed on some of the antennas.

This photo is the group of us who contributed to the work on this trip. The people in the photo are left-to-right: David Gozzard, Mike Hill, Sascha Schediwy, Peter Mirtschin, Jamie Stevens and Jock McFee (not pictured – Brett Lennon).

They also took a keen interest in the experiment itself. Many of the staff at the Compact Array reminisce about how it used to be, only a few years ago, when the site was buzzing with astronomers from Australia and around the world. Now, astronomers can operate the telescope remotely from Sydney or, in some cases, from the other side of the world. As a result, the onsite staff have seen their ranks halve as less support is needed. The engineers and other support staff miss being able to quiz astronomers about what they are using the telescope for, and what they are discovering.

Apart from the Compact Array itself, the observatory is home to a lot of Australian science history. The array occupies a site formerly used by the Culgoora radioheliograph (pictured below), which CSIRO used from the mid-60s through to the mid-80s
to perform groundbreaking studies of radio emissions from the Sun and solar outbursts.

One dish of the Culgoora radioheliograph.

Most of the 96 dish-antennas from the radioheliograph still surround the site in a 3 km wide circle. Within that circle are also the Sydney University Stellar Interferometer, until recently used to make measurements of the size of distant stars; the CSIRO Applied Physics Solar Telescope, which studied the visible light from the Sun in conjunction with the radioheliograph; the Birmingham Solar Oscillations Network Telescope, used to study churning gas inside the Sun; and an IPS Radio and Space Services telescope, which monitors solar outbursts to forecast how they will affect space craft and radio communications.

As I write this, my time at the Compact Array is coming to an end. My experiments have worked, the stabilization system has performed well, and I am preparing to report the results to the SKA Office. And the results are looking good. The system reduces signal fluctuations to one part in ten trillion, over a 1-second period. If your wristwatch
was that stable, after 300,000 years it would be off by less than one second. This is more than 10 times better than the stability required by the SKA.

Now I just have to pack up my equipment and get ready for the journey home.

Further reading

Great Australians — Anthony Michell

Innovator and Inventor

That's the guy.

Early life and education

Bearing the load

Under pressure, do do do didi do do...

Going with the flow

Does that count as giving credit?

Cross-flow turbine — image blatantly stolen from Wikipedia

Other innovations

Might be pushing it a bit there...

Michell’s crankless engine — image stolen from somewhere else

Later life

What the Detection of Gravitational Waves Means

Unless you live under a rock, the announcement in February of this year of the detection of Gravitational Waves by LIGO cannot have escaped your attention. Scientists around the world celebrated the achievement, and public curiosity about what all the scientists were yelling about was high enough that the world’s media ran the story for several days. Physicists and science communicators, whether they had anything to do with the discovery or not, were called upon to explain to the public what all the fuss was about.

If two Black Holes crash in deep space, and there is no detector to hear them, do they still make a Gravitational Wave?

The enormous release of energy from the collision of two Black Holes, detected for the first time

For a public that had never heard of Gravitational Waves before the announcement of their discovery, a key question that needed answering was, “So what does it mean?” Many scientists and science communicators did an outstanding job of answering this question, but their responses often left out an important element, that is, they did not answer the implied question, “what does it mean for me?”

Following the announcement earlier this week of a second Gravitational Wave detection (and another detection candidate), I want to take the opportunity to outline some of the ways in which the discovery of Gravitational Waves directly affects the average member of the public, but in the interest of providing a complete answer, I will first recap the importance of the discovery from a scientific perspective.

1) Amazing Achievement

First of all, the detection of Gravitational Waves is significant because it is direct confirmation of a prediction made 100 years ago by Albert Einstein. Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity is the best model physicists have for describing the action of gravity and the behaviour of the solar system, the galaxy, and the universe. Scientists constantly try to invent new experiments to push our understanding of the universe to the breaking point. It is by knowing the point at which our understanding of the universe fails that we are able to make the greatest progress. General Relativity has survived every test it has been subjected to for 100 years. Even the fact that GPS functions properly is a demonstration that Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity is correct.

In 1916, Einstein used General Relativity to predict that bodies orbiting each other, such as the Sun and Earth or two black holes, warp spacetime such that energy from the two bodies is carried away as ripples in the very fabric of the cosmos. These are Gravitational Waves, and their detection is not only another success for Einstein and General Relativity, but for the power of human ingenuity.

Insert fat joke here.

Gravitational Waves are ripples in spacetime caused by massive bodies in orbit

The LIGO detectors are the most sensitive instruments ever created and represent the culmination of 50 years of work by thousands of scientists. Although the first of the detected Gravitational Wave events represents an explosion 50 times more powerful than the power output of all the stars in the universe combined, the energy of the event has spread out and weakened during the 1.4 billion light-year trip to Earth, and so the LIGO detection represents the smallest amount of energy ever successfully detected. The very fact that humanity has the ability to detect Gravitational Waves is something we, as a species, can be proud of.

Couldn't think of funny alt-text.

The Advanced LIGO detectors in Livingston and Hanford

2) A New Spectrum, a New Science

The two confirmed and one candidate Gravitational Wave detections represent the beginning of a new era in studying the universe, a new way of doing astronomy, Gravitational Wave Astronomy.

All of astronomy, and everything we have discovered about our universe through astronomy, has been done using light. Whether we use radio telescopes, optical telescopes, or gamma-ray telescopes, all of these devices detect energy from the electro-magnetic spectrum, they all detect some form of light. Gravitational Waves are not a type of light. They exist in a completely different spectrum.

The Gravitational Wave spectrum gives astronomers a completely new way of studying the universe because the properties of Gravitational Waves are very different to those of electro-magnetic waves. Unlike light, Gravitational Waves are not absorbed by matter. They pass unhindered through the Earth, interstellar gas clouds, and entire galaxies. Unlike light, they cannot be blocked by stuff getting in the way. Gravitational Waves allow us to see past the bright glare of galaxies, and through vast interstellar dust clouds to corners of the universe our other telescopes will never be able to see.

We can also use Gravitational Waves to study things that don’t emit light. As far as our current theoretical understanding tells us, the collision of two black holes, like the Gravitational Waves events seen so far, should not emit any light. These events, and events like them, can only be studied using the Gravitational Wave spectrum.

Since the end of its first, and now famous, observing run, LIGO has been undergoing upgrades that will roughly double the sensitivity of the detector. With this boost in sensitivity, and based on the three events detected so far, Gravitational Wave physicists expect LIGO to detect around one event per week when it is switched back on later this year. With that amount of data, Gravitational Wave Astronomy will become a field in its own right, and one that will revolutionize our understanding of the universe by studying regions of the cosmos previously invisible to us.

Gravitational Waves open up a new spectrum with which to study the universe

3) What it means for me

The detection is an amazing technological achievement and Gravitational Wave detectors are some of the most advanced pieces of equipment in the world. To be able to build their detector, scientists and engineers have had to invent new technologies along the way, and these new technologies have a huge range of spin-offs and applications that will impact on our every-day lives.

To build the LIGO detectors, super-reflective mirror coatings and polishing techniques had to be developed, vibration isolators that guard against everything from minor earthquakes to people coughing had to be built, hyper-precise lasers and sensitive read-out systems had to be invented, and all of this had to operate in hard vacuum, even special super-hard glues had to be formulated. To actually detect the signal, advanced analysis software had to be written. This is only a taste of the work involved. The complete list of innovations by Gravitational Wave scientists would take dozens of pages to list like this, and I don’t even know most of them!

With this type and variety of advanced technology in the works, it is almost inevitable that other applications would be found for the scientists’ innovations. Just one example from the University of Western Australia, where I am studying for my PhD, is the Rio Tinto Gravity Gradiometer. This new technology, which will detect ore bodies from an aeroplane by measuring tiny changes in the Earth’s gravitational field, spun-off from Gravitational Wave research at UWA.

This thing sits in the lab across the hall from me.

The VK1 airborne Gravity Gradiometer will detect ore bodies below the ground, and spun-out from Gravitational Wave research

Over the coming decades, technology originally developed for Gravitational Wave detectors will be worth billions of dollars, create many thousands of jobs, and will enrich our every-day lives for generations to come.

If you’d like to learn more, you can go here to watch PhD comics explain Gravitational Waves.

Great Australians — Ruby Payne-Scott

Southern Star

Early life and education

Decommissioned radar antenna at Dover Heights, run by CSIR Radiophysics.

Built to defend against the land of the rising Sun.

Dover heights sea-cliff interferometer — used to study the Sun

Workplace activist and career cut short

Later life

Who comes up with these Google doodles?

Google celebrated Ruby’s 100th birthday.

Space for Innovation

Australia needs a space program.

As 2015 drew to a close, Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull unveiled the government’s Innovation Statement with a plan to invest $1.1 billion to drive an Australian “ideas boom”. Before this announcement, the government had already commenced its Review of the Space Activities Act 1998 stating that Australia is in a transition ‘to an advanced economy that cultivates and commercialises innovative technologies’ and that ‘there is significant potential for space technologies to play a role in facilitating this transition…’ It is high time Australia invested in a space program.

Australia is the only OECD country that does not have a space agency or coordinated space program. China and India both established space agencies in the mid-20th century which have contributed immensely to the countries’ technological capabilities and economic growth. Even Ethiopia has recognized the huge advantages afforded by a dedicated space program, establishing a space agency in August 2015.

Why does Australia need a space program?

In the 21st century a space program will be a key instrument for sustainable development. For the average person, the impact that space technologies have on their lives is not immediately obvious, often being hidden away behind some product, service, or app, but all of us benefit immensely every day from what space programs have brought us. We would all notice very quickly if we lost our GPS and satellite communication infrastructure, but space technology goes much further. Satellites are used for environmental monitoring, weather prediction, soil monitoring, water and agricultural management, as well as to search for ore bodies, track bushfires, and in disaster planning. This short list barely makes a dent in the complete list of important space technologies, and doesn’t even touch on the spin-offs, the technologies developed by space agencies that have found other uses and applications.

A space program will cultivate scientific thinking and technological innovation, and provide the training to engineers, scientists and students that Australia needs if we want to maximize the progress from our “ideas boom”.

A national space program will ensure that innovative ideas are exploited to their fullest by stabilizing funding to projects under its aegis. A space agency is also necessary if we are going to cooperate with other countries in the exploration and exploitation of space, since an agency with technical expertise that represents the Australian government will be in a position to negotiate with NASA, the ESA and other countries’ space agencies. An Australian space agency will even reduce the time and cost required to purchase flights on other countries’ launch vehicles.

I liked the picture of a satellite.

Out of sight, out of mind: vital technologies are operating overhead all the time.

They’re expensive. Couldn’t the money be better spent on something other than rockets?

When figures like NASA’s $19.3 billion 2016 budget are bandied around, and even a small space mission costs tens of millions of dollars, it often seems that space programs are too expensive to be worthwhile and that there are other problems we should be using this money to solve. However, put in context with other spending, a space program doesn’t appear to be so expensive.

NASA’s $19.3 billion represents only 0.5% of the US government’s spending, while the US military takes more than 15% of the total. The economic return to the USA gained from NASA’s products, patents, services, and spin-offs means that NASA more than pays its way. Australia is in a not-too-dissimilar position, with around A$30 billion being spent on defence. If we were to copy the US, we would direct around $1 billion to a space program. Australia has the money for a space program, it is only a matter of public choice and political will to divert the necessary funds. And that’s not even taking into account that space programs generate revenue for the government. History has shown that space programs are a very good investment. An Australian space program would begin to pay for itself after only a few years.

NASA’s $19.3 billion sounds like a lot less money when you take into consideration the huge range of projects NASA is responsible for. A reasonable summary of NASA’s active and on-going projects would fill a small book. They include climate and crop monitoring, satellite tracking, observational astrophysics, space-vehicle development, aeronautics, launch contracting, running a space-station and driving a nuclear-powered laser-equipped science-car on Mars. Australia is unlikely to match this commitment (at least in the short-term).

Individual space missions, even pioneering interplanetary missions, can be quite cheap when compared to other things we are willing to spend huge amounts of money on. India became the first country to successfully reach Mars orbit on its first go with the Mangalyaan Mars orbiter, which cost only US$73 million. Major blockbuster movies rarely cost less than $100 million these days. James Bond Spectre cost $245 million, the CGI movie Tangled cost $260 million, while Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides cost an eye-watering $378.5 million.

Also, we do not have to spend big money on huge projects such as shuttles and space stations like Russia, China, and the US. The UK and Canadian space agencies provide a very good model for a similar Australian organization. We don’t need to have a launch vehicle, we just need to start contributing to international space project collaborations.

A space program is not a luxury. It is a key to a sustainable future and developing scientific thinking.

We should totally build one of these any way.

As cool as it would be to have one of these, this is probably not what an Australian space program will look like.

What have we got to offer?

I have come across the belief that Australia has little it can offer the international space science community (and therefore should leave space up to other countries) disturbingly often, and nothing could be further from the truth. Australia has had a small but outstanding role in space since the 1960s, and in a field as diverse as space research, there is always something we can offer both in international collaborations and from Australia-only projects.

Universities and research organizations across the country already have some involvement in space research. We are world leaders in the development of scramjet technology, we are internationally renowned in radio astronomy and computer sciences, we are participating in space missions such as eLISA and the GRACE follow-on, we have important deep-space tracking facilities, and we have the most productive geodetic observatory in the world.

A space program also affords Australia the opportunity to focus efforts on problems that are unique to Australia. This article in The Conversation from 2013 addresses the reasons why Australia urgently needs a space program to solve our own problems and to stop piggybacking on other countries’ space projects.

Western Australian Space Centre

The Western Australian Space Centre: the site of the world’s most productive laser ranging station.

What should we do?

We need to establish a space agency with its own slice of government funding. This is necessary to produce the funding stability I discussed previously and exploit space research to the full.

The Review of the Space Activities Act needs to provide appropriate recommendations so that future legislation minimizes red tape and makes it easy for Australian agencies and research organizations to conduct research within Australia, and to collaborate with other nations.

We need to start training our students for the space sector. A huge number of brilliant STEM students are being attracted to space science at the undergraduate level, but there are too few programs and training opportunities for all but a few of them to continue down this path. Increased support for space research at all levels of education will be needed to develop and exploit Australia’s intellectual resources and drive innovation.

We need to get the public excited about space through science communication, media attention, and school programs.

The public excitement will only grow as Australia’s space program progresses. By collaborating with NASA, the ESA and other space agencies and contributing to international projects, Australia will be eligible to select its own astronauts. While Australian-born Americans have flown in space, no one has gone to space with an Australian flag on their shoulder. The media attention surrounding Canada’s Chris Hadfield and the UK’s Tim Peake show just how much public excitement is generated by space flight, and with proper science communication efforts, this excitement will feed back into greater support for space science and the benefits it has to offer.

Has anyone got a suggestion for a good name for our space agency?

This is here just because I like this picture.

WRESAT: Australia’s first satellite.


Lariat Assessment Program

ec-lap-logoThe Lariat Program is a short-term residential treatment program that serves children and adolescents ages 8 to 17 with IQs that fall between 40 and 90.  They many be facing a combination of behavioral, social and learning difficulties.  The short-term program takes place over a period of two weeks to three months.

Primary Goal

To interrupt psychiatric and behavioral decline for children and adolescents who unsuccessfully cycle through acute, residential or outpatient treatment.

Secondary Goal

To discharge the child or adolescent with an information packet that provides a clear description of the neurological, psychological and behavioral challenges the child or adolescent faces.  The packet will also provide care recommendations, concrete tactile therapeutic strategies and guidelines for improved day-to-day functioning.

The Lariat Assessment Program is for individuals who have been diagnosed with one or more of the following:

▪  Anxiety ▪  Autism ▪  Brain Injuries
▪  Developmental Delays ▪  Depression / Mood Disorders ▪  Diabetes
▪  Psychiatric / Pervasive Developmental Disorders ▪  Psychiatric / Substance Abuse ▪  Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
▪  Genetic Disorders ▪  Learning Disorders ▪  Seizure Disorder

A comprehensive team works to create individualized, multi-faceted strategies and recommendations for optimal discharge.  The team includes board certified child and adolescent psychiatrists, a neuropsychologist, clinical therapist, occupational therapist, speech and language pathologist, recreational therapist, vocational rehab counselors, case managers, special education teachers and nurses.  The teams are full-time employees at Texas NeuroRehab Center, and this allows for consistent monitoring in a variety of environments such as the treatment units and classrooms.

Each evaluation pinpoints individual characteristics, abilities and areas of improvement.  These evaluations are used to create a discharge packet with evaluations from each discipline and a comprehensive treatment plan with specific recommendations.


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Spectacular dream estate - Esporlas - Son Comes

plot: 880000m²
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Magnificent property with a panoramic view for high demands

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Porto Cristo
plot: 38000m²
constr. surface: 1038m²
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Historic country house set in an old vineyard

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Mansion - on the plot of 154.000m2

This marvellous mansion property in quiet location with several outbuildings would be perfect as a commercial object or for a representative private use. Farther information on request. On a plot of 154.000 m2...

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Stately Manor - near village

An historic country house combining a beautiful interior ambience with a warm atmosphere, located in a first class area with a beautiful view. The house has beautiful antique details, a beautiful landscaped garden...

Cas Concos
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Finca with stabling for horses - with independent bungalow

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Splendid country estate with fantastic views

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Santa Margalida
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Luxurious new house on the outskirts of Porto Petro

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Country residence in unique quality and location - with ruin

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New country house with swimming pool in Algaida

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Generous country house in central location

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Dreamlike nature stone house in Son Oliver for high demands

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S´ Aranjassa
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Country house with views - house in refurbishing

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Country house near the sea - Es Trenc

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Ses Covetes
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Bro Steve Winter

    The name of this festival, itself, show its heathen origin.

"Easter" is derived from Eastre, or Eostre, the anglo-Saxon Goddess of spring and dawn.  There also is some historical connection existing between the words "Easter" and "East," where the sun rises.  The festival of Eostre was celebrated on the day of the Vernal Equinox (spring).  Traditions associated with the festival of the Teutonic fertiligy Goddess survive in the Easter rabbit and colored eggs.

    Spring is the season of new life and revival, when, from ancient times, the pagan peoples of Eruope and Asia held their spring festivals, re-enacting ancient regeneration myths and performing magical and religious ceremonies to make the crops grow and proper.

    From "The American Book of Days," by George William Douglas we read: "As the festival of Eostre was a celebration of the renewal of life in the spring it was easy to make it a celebtation of the resurrection from the dead of Jesus.  There is no doubt that the Church (of Rome) in its early days adopted the old pagan customs and gave a "Christian" meaning to them.

     From "Easter: its Story and Meaning," by Alan W. Watts is found: "The story of Easter is not simply a Christian story.  Not only is the very  name "Easter" the name of an ancient and non-Christian deity; the season itself has also, from time immemorial, been the occasion of rites and observances having to do wity the mystery of death and resurrection among peoples differing widely in race and religion."

     From "Easter and its customs," by Christina Hole is found: "Vernal Mysteries (spring heathen rites) like those of Tammuz, and Osiris and Adonis flourished in the Mediterranean world and farther north and east there were others.  Some of their rites and symbols were carried forward into Easter customs.  Mah of them have survived into our own day, unchanged yet subtly altered in their new surroundings to bear a "Christian" significance."

     The rites connected with the death and resurrection of the gods Tammuz, Osiris, and Adonis are the Forerunners of the "Christian" Easter; they are the first East services.

      Let us look in the Word of God in Ezekiel 8:13-16

(13) He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do.  (14) Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was oward the north; and behold, there sat women WEEPING FOR TAMMUZ (15) Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man?  Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these (16) And he brought me into the inner court of the Lord's house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the alter, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the EAST; and they WORSHIPPED THE SUN toward the EAST.

     Here the people of God, Israel, had back-slid into idolatry.

Tammuz was a Babylonian god.  Like Christ Mass and New Year's, Easter, too, began in Babylon.  Let us look into the Mythologies of the death and resurrection gods, such as Tammuz from "Easter: its Story and Meaning."

"Wife and beloved of Tammuz was the gooddess Inanna, or Ishtar, in whose person is represented she whom we now call Mother Nature of Mother Earth -- she who, when refreshed with the

spring rains, with the water ffrom heaven, brings forth the

fruits of life.  We are told that when Tammuz died, Inanna was

so stricken with grief that she followed him to the underworld,

to the realm of Eresh-Kigal, Queen of the Dead, a "land from

which there is no returning, a house of darkness, where dust

lies on door and bolt."  In her absence the earth was deprived

of its fertility; crops would not grow; animals would not mate;

life was in danger of coming to an end.

"O my child!" at his vanishing aways she lifts up a lament;

"My Damu!" at his vanishing away she lifts up a lament;

"My enchanter and priest!" at his vanishing away she

lifts up a lament,

at the shining cedar, rooted in a spacious place,

This ancient text is called "The Lament of the Flutes for Tammuz." He had gone away to the underworld, and this was why there was winter.

"The Lament of the Flutes for Tammuz" describes the grief which moved Ea, god of water and wisdom, to send a heavenly messenger to the underworld to rescur the goddess whose absence was removing life from the earth.  Assenting reluctantly to his supreme will, Eresh-Kigal allowed the messenger to sprinkle Inanna and Tammuz with water of life--a potion which gave them power to return into the light of the sun for six months of the year.  But for the other six months, Tammuz must again return to the land of death, whither Inanna would again pursue him, and once more with her lamentations move Ea to give the water of

life so that year after year the miracle of resurretion and spring would recur."

     In the course of centuries, the story and the yearly rites

connected with the death and resurrection of Tammuz moved westward to Phoenicia and Syria on the extreme east of the Mediterranean.  Here the name of Tammuz was changed to Adon or Adonai, and the name of Inanna to Astarte.  In Greece the two names are Adonis and Aphrodite.

     The myth underwent some changes in passing from Sumeria to Syria.      A Greek myth tells of Demeter, like Inanna, the goddess of the earth, and her daughter, Kore (Persephone).  The girl was abducted by Pluto, the ruler of the underworld, and her absence brought about a famine on eath through the failure of the crops.  Pluto was therefore moved to restored Kore to her mother, but because she had eaten a pomergranate in the underworld she was bound to return to Pluto for as many months of each year as there were seeds of the pomegranate caught in her mouth.  In joy at her annual return, the earth (Demeter) brings forth her fruits and flowers.

      Adonis (Greek god) was the child of Myrrha, the myrtle tree.  (It seems that almost all the gods of death and resurrection are associated with a tree.)  When the infant Adonis was born, Aphrodite was so charmed with his beauty that she adopted him and concealed him in a chest, which she gave for safekeeping to Persephone--the counterpart of Eresh-Kigal,

the Babylonian Queen of the Dead.  In the underworld Persephone opened the chest, and was herself so enchanged with the babe that she decided to keep him.  This led to a dispute between Aphrodite and Persephone, between love and death, in which Zeus (taking the place of the Babylonian Ea) had to intervene. Zeus decreed that for four months of the year Adonis should belong to Aphrodite, for four to Persephone, and for the remaining four he should do as he wished--Adonis chose to spend them with Aphrodite.

     When he had grown to young manhood, Adonis roused the envy of ARtemis, the forest goddess of the hunt, or according to another account, or Ares, the god of war.  Thus, while he was out hunting, Artemis slew Adonis with an arrow--the arrows of ARtemis being the cause to which sudden death was generally ascribed--or in the version, he was gored by Ares in the form of a wild boar.  He died, and where the earth had received his blood, Aphrodite sprinkled the ground with nectar, so that the blood turned into anemones and other flowers of the field.  But the grief of Aphrodite was so piteous that the gods of the underworld

allowed Adonis to return to her every spring for six months of the year.

     In Asia Minor the Phrygians believed that their omnipotent diety went to sleep at the time of the wonter solstice and they performed ceremonies with music and dancing at the spring equinox to awaken him.

     Of the same essential pattern is the great Egyptian myth of Osiris. The common elements in all these stories are so apparent that one may think of them as a single drama performed again and again by different actors.

     It would be tedious to describe in detail all that has been handed down to us about the various rites of Tammuz, Adonis, Kire, and many others.  Their rites had many basic elements in common.  Their universal theme--the drama of death and resurrection--makes them the forerunners of the "Christian" Easter, and thus the first easter services.  Many of the customs and ceremonies of the "Christian" Easter resemble these former rites,s for instance, the present day "Sun Rise SErvices."

Easter descended from pagan sun worship.  Catholic Doctrine simply paralleled the pagan death and resurrection myths of the gods with the story of Christ's crucifixion and Ascension.  Christ now rises from the dead with the ascending sun at the time of the Vernal Equinox when plant life and all forms of vegetation appear again on the arth, and is celebrated with the same customs as that of the Heathen rites namely, rabbits, chickens, and colored eggs!

     The Easter egg takes us back to some of the oldest known

civilizations on earth where the symbol of an egg played an important part in mythical accounts of the creation of the world.  According to this tale heaven and earth swere formed from the two halves of a mysterious World-Egg.  The Easter egg is associated with this World-Egg, the original germ from which all life proceeds, and whose shell is the firmament.  So there is a heathen connection between the egg and the ideas or feelings of birth, new life, and creation.

      Easter eggs do have a very long ancestry.  In their modern

chocolate or cardboard form they date only from the later years of the last century, but giving reall eggs, colored or gilded at Easter and also at the pre-Christian spring celebrations are infinitely older.

Long before the Christian era, eggs were regarded as symbols of

continuing life and resurrection.  The ancient Persians and Greeks exhanged them at their spring festivals when all things in nature revived after the winter.  To the early pagans converted to "Christianity" under Emperor Constantine's rule, eggs seemed tht obvious symbols of the Lord's resurrection and were therefore considered "holy" and appropriate gifts at Easter time.  Pope Pual V appointed a prayer in which the eggs were "bllessed."  The eggs could then be eaten in thankfulness to God on account of the resurrection of the Lord.  The custom of coloring eggs at Easter continued from paganism with only a change of dedication.  These eggs are often red.  Scarlet eggs were given in the sping by pagan peoples centuries before the birth of Christ.  It is probably the favorite color because, like the egg itself,

it is an emblem of life.

     The hare is the true Easter beast, not the rabbit.  He was sacred to the Spring-Goddess, Eostre.  Hares were sacrificed to her.  The hare was anemblem of fertility, renewal, and return of spring to the heathen. The egg, in modern American folklore, is the production of the rabbit or the heare.  The story is that this hare was once a bird whom Eostre changed into a four-footed creature.

     Eating hot-cross buns is one of the Good Friday customs that has taken root in America.  They are pagan in origin, for the Anglo-Saxon savages consumed cakes as part of the jollity that attended the welcoming of spring.  Early missionaries from Rome despared of breaking them of the habit, and got around the difficulty by blessing the cakes, drawing a cross upon them.  but the cross was a pagan symbol long before the crucifixion.  Bread and cakes were sometimes marked with it in pre-Christian times.  Two small loaves each with a cross on them were discovered under the ruins of Herculaneum, a city overwhelmed by volcanic ash in A.D. 79.  It is probable that the crosses here had a pagan meaning like those which appeared on cakes associated with the

worship of Diana.

      There are other pagan customs associated with Easter, but we have discussed the most common ones.

     Information for writing this chapter was obtained from:  "Easter:  its Story and meaning," by Alan W. Watts; "The American Book of Days," by George William Dougolas;  "Easter and its cutoms,": by Christina Hole;  "The Book of Religious Holidays and Celebrations," by Marguerite Ickis;  "Funk & Wagnall's New Encyclopedia."

Chapter III from HEATHEN HOLIDAYS by Sister Denise Snodgrass.

Bro Steve Winter http://www.heathenholidays.com ;

1 0 +1


Published Apr 3 2013, by

Chunyu (bell)

The metalworking technologies that were developed during the Shang (c. 1600–1050 b.c.) and Zhou (c. 1050–221 b.c.) dynasties revolutionized the art of bronze casting. A host of new techniques soon enabled the corpus of vessels and implements to expand and include a range of new designs. While the designs of many of these archaic vessels lent themselves to emulation in clay over subsequent centuries, certain implements, often those originating in more isolated regions, could, because of their function, be fashioned only from bronze.

The chunyu—an oblong percussion instrument—is one such specialized work. This distinctive bell was first developed during the Spring and Autumn period (770–476 b.c.) as a means of sending warning signals during military campaigns. Later it was used, along with other instruments, during ritual gatherings. Beginning in the Warring States period, the chunyu was widely used until the early Han dynasty (206 b.c.–a.d. 220).

The tall form of the hollow body flares outward from the base and is topped by a flat plate with a flanged rim and is surmounted by a small knob. The knob is used to hang the instrument from a horizontal bar as the drum must be suspended to attain its maximum resonance, a feature that is amplified by the smooth, entirely undecorated sides. The principal decorative element on this chunyu is the stylized knob, which has been cast as a crouching tiger with large eyes, square jaw, and extended tail. This figure is decorated with linear scrollwork and surrounded by four pictograms. The muted green patina on the smooth exterior surface of the chunyu would originally have shone a brilliant, deep metallic yellow. The sum of these characteristics, and especially the tiger knob, suggests that this work could have been made by the Ba people in Sichuan province. This remote tribal group in southwestern China had both mastered the requisite metalsmithing technologies and celebrated the belief that they were the descendants of a mythical white tiger.


women garrison issue society’s

The American Anti-Slavery Society played a significant role in furthering the cause of abolition during the decades leading up to the Civil War. The society was founded in 1833 in Philadelphia by the white abolitionists Theodore Dwight Weld, Arthur Tappan, and Arthur’s brother Lewis. Its most prominent member was William Lloyd Garrison, who served until 1840 as the society’s first president. Noteworthy members included Frederick Douglass and William Wells Brown, two former slaves who, as “agents” for the society, spoke eloquently about the brutality of slavery. Other well-known members included James Gillespie Birney, Maria Weston Chapman, Lydia Child, Samuel Eli Cornish, James Forten, Henry Highland Garnet, Wendell Phillips, Robert Purvis, and Charles Lenox Remond.

The organization grew rapidly throughout the North, with 400 chapters by 1835; 1,350 by 1838; and 2,000 by 1840. Individual membership estimates vary but generally fall in the range of 150,000 to 250,000. The American Anti-Slavery Society was noteworthy because it was the first such organization with a national reach to call for the immediate (rather than gradual) abolition of slavery.

The decade preceding the formation of the American Anti-Slavery Society was one of widespread unrest over the issue of slavery. In 1820, after rancorous debate, the U.S. Congress passed the Missouri Compromise to regulate slavery in the expanding nation’s western territories. The debate between antislavery and proslavery factions in Congress and elsewhere intensified the parallel debate over the issue of federalism and the relative powers of the federal and state governments. This debate eventually led to the formation of the Democratic Party, which supported slavery, and the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln, which opposed it.

Slavery was squarely on the national agenda: The Virginia legislature conducted intense debates on the issue in 1829 and 1831; David Walker published his famous “Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World” in 1829; and the state of South Carolina, in an act that presaged its leading role in secession and the Civil War, resisted federal efforts to collect tariffs in the state in 1831. The tension between the federal and state governments led to Southern fears that it was only a matter of time before the federal government would intervene in the issue of slavery.

Also in 1831, Garrison launched The Liberator , a newspaper that called for racial equality and demanded immediate abolition. That same year, Nat Turner launched a slave rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia. Turner’s rebellion left sixty white people dead before it was put down by the state militia, adding to a climate of fear throughout the South and a tightening of laws pertaining to slave behavior. In the North, however, these events contributed to a growing abolitionist sentiment, much of it led by the Quakers and other religious groups.

At its founding meeting, the American Anti-Slavery Society issued a “Declaration of Sentiments,” written by Garrison. In addition to arguing that plantation owners were not entitled to compensation for the freeing of slaves, the declaration argued that slavery was a violation of natural law, the U.S. Constitution, and—reflecting the sentiments of the religious revival of the 1830s called the Second Great Awakening—the will of God. The declaration read, in part:

We further believe and affirm—that all persons of color, who possess the qualifications which are demanded of others, ought to be admitted forthwith to the enjoyment of the same privileges, and the exercise of the same prerogatives, as others; and that the paths of preferment, of wealth and of intelligence, should be opened as widely to them as to persons of a white complexion. (Quoted in Ruchames 1963, p. 78)

The goal of the American Anti-Slavery Society was to reach the public through speeches and public lectures, petitions, and mass publications. Frederick Douglass and William Wells Brown frequently lectured in the name of the society, often in the face of mob violence. Garrison recruited Maria Weston Chapman to write for The Liberator and The National Anti-Slavery Standard ( NASS ), both official publications of the society, and Lydia Marie Child edited NASS for two years. Garrison, however, was the society’s guiding hand, and in that capacity he urged Northerners to refuse to vote as a means of expressing their disapproval of slavery. He and the society bombarded Congress with petitions, prompting Congress to institute a gag rule under which it refused to accept any petitions having to do with slavery.

Women were initially barred from membership in the society. This ban even included such women as Maria Weston Chapman and Lydia Marie Child, who supported the society with their labor. Most male members, many of them churchmen, regarded female involvement in the rough-and-tumble of the debate as unseemly. They raised their eyebrows in sharp disapproval when the sisters Angelina and Sarah Grimké were among the first to lecture publicly on behalf of the society. Nevertheless, numerous prominent women supported the society’s goals and worked in its behalf, including Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, and Amelia Bloomer, but they found themselves the targets of condescension from male members.

The Congregationalist Church, in a pastoral letter of 1837, condemned women for speaking out against slavery, characterizing female involvement in such public matters as “unnatural.” Although many men agreed with this position, they believed that the goal of ending slavery took precedence over issues involving women’s rights. In their view, too many churches supported slavery, or at least acquiesced in it, and were therefore corrupt. These men were often said to have “come out” of their church membership, and they became known as “come-outers.”

In response to the society’s gender bias, women took their own route. Lucretia Mott organized the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society (PFASS) in 1833, and similar organizations were formed in other cities. In the years that followed, the society and its members gained\ valuable experience in fund-raising and organization, and this experience would serve women well in the later battle for the right to vote. Meanwhile, antislavery sewing circles allowed women to use their skills in the domestic arts to make craft items, which they sold at fairs and bazaars to raise funds to support their efforts. There is little exaggeration in saying that sexism in some quarters of the antislavery movement galvanized women to fight for equal rights. The Grimkés, for instance, shifted their focus from the slavery issue to that of women’s rights and became important pioneers in the nineteenth-century women’s suffrage movement.

The American Anti-Slavery Society split in 1839. At issue was the belief by some members that Garrison’s ideas were too radical. To Garrison, the U.S. Constitution (a “document from hell”) was illegal because it allowed the existence of slavery. Thus, he believed that the very foundations of the nation were illegitimate, and he called for the North to secede from the Union and form its own nation. Garrison’s opponents within the society argued that the Constitution, and therefore the U.S. government, was legitimate, for it allowed people the right to redress their grievances and end forms of oppression such as slavery. For this faction, the society’s principal goal was to elect antislavery candidates to public office, where they would be able to enact laws outlawing slavery.

Meanwhile, the gender issue led to sharp disagreements. Garrison, along with Wells, Phillips, and Douglass, strongly supported equal rights for women. The controversy came to a head when Child, Mott, Chapman, and Abby Kelly were elected to the society’s executive committee. In response, Lewis Tappan remarked, “to put a woman on the committee with men is contrary to the usages of civilized society.” Accordingly, in 1840, Tappan and several other prominent members of the society broke away to form a rival organization, the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. Concentrating entirely on slavery, the rival organization refused to lend support to women’s rights. In the decade that followed, the new organization formed the Liberty Party (1840–1848), which evolved into the Free-Soil Party (1848–1854), and then into the Republican Party. The split weakened the American Anti-Slavery Society, however, as it shifted its focus from national to state and local efforts.

The American Anti-Slavery Society was formally dissolved in 1870. The society is not to be confused with a modern organization by the same name that fights slavery and racial oppression throughout the world, nor with the British Anti-Slavery Society, formed in 1823.

American Colonization Society and the Founding of Liberia - BLACK COLONIZATION: FROM TALK TO ACTION, COLONIZATION SOCIETIES: NATIONAL, STATE, AND LOCAL [next] [back] America's Dream. 1995

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30 March 2015
Media Release - #2015021, 2015

Time to ‘re:think’ our tax system

Today marks the start of a conversation about how we bring a tax system built before the 1950s into the new century.

The tax discussion paper, released today, begins a dialogue on how we create a tax system that supports higher economic growth and living standards, improves our international competiveness and adjusts to a changing economy and new opportunities.

The recent 2015 Intergenerational Report illustrates that we need to take continued steps to boost productivity and encourage higher workforce participation to drive future economic growth.

While the report projects income growth will slow, it also shows that Australia can continue to prosper by making the best of our circumstances and opportunities.

Tax reform is a critical part of the Government’s policy to create jobs, growth and opportunity.

The problem we face is that our current tax system, which was designed before the 1950s, is ill-suited to the 2050s.

As a result of changes driven by globalisation and the rise of the digital economy, Australia’s heavy reliance on income taxes may be unsustainable. This over-reliance is projected to increase further, largely as a result of wages growth leading to individuals paying higher average rates of tax (bracket creep).

Around 300,000 Australians are expected to move into the second highest tax bracket over the next two years.

In just 10 years, nearly half of all taxpayers will be in the top two tax brackets - an increase from around 27 per cent today to 43 per cent in 10 years’ time.

In Australia about 70 per cent of Commonwealth tax revenue is collected from personal and company income taxes.

A dozen companies pay around one third of Australia’s company tax.

The rise of the digital economy and globalisation presents significant challenges for the effectiveness of the tax system.

Capital is more mobile and we need a competitive corporate tax regime to encourage investment. Multinational corporations operate across many jurisdictions and that means it can be difficult to determine where tax should be paid.

The Intergenerational Report highlights the need for a tax system that can support a growing and ageing population while there is a decline in the number of traditional working age Australians to fund services.

Australia can’t risk falling behind. Many of Australia’s international competitors are changing their tax systems to make them more competitive.

The Government must build a tax system that delivers taxes that are lower, simpler and fairer.

The community’s responses will inform the Government’s tax options Green Paper, due to be released in the second half of 2015. The Government will seek further feedback on those options before putting forward policy proposals for consideration by the Australian people in 2016.

Submissions and suggestions on the discussion paper can be made at the interactive website bettertax.gov.au until 1 June 2015.