Born just after the turn of the twentieth century, Vasily Vainonen is one of the most notable choreographers in Russian Ballet history. Throughout his dancing career, Vainonen created dances for some of the most remarkable ballets the world has ever seen. In fact, his style and innovations in dance were so profound his ballets are still performed today, more than a century after he was born.
It is said that when Vainonen was a dancer he was continually given roles that were “grotesque,” and these experiences might be why his dancing has been described as having an ability to take an ordinary life and transform it into a beautiful ballet. Here are a few works that Vasily Vainonen himself choreographed that have impacted the ballet world.
1. The Nutcracker
Even though Marius Petipa is the choreographer who first put together this holiday classic by Tchaikovsky, the version Vasily Vainonen created in 1934 is his utmost revered creation. He choreographed a dance that has been in the repertoire of the Mariinsky Ballet – the St. Petersburg company where Vainonen began his professional career – when it was known as the Kirov Ballet. Other dancers have borrowed his style when recreating their own version of the Nutcracker.
Some say he was the first creator to insinuate that the journey Clara takes is a dream and the first to replace all the child roles and fill them with adults. The latter gave the story a romantic twist. Besides Petipa and Vainonen, other choreographers that have choreographed this beloved ballet are Alexander Gorsky, who produced his version long before Vainonen. He is also credited with using adults opposed to children before Vainonen.
George Balanchine, another great name in dance, premiered his version in 1954 at the New York City Ballet. It was this production that would ignite the ritual in the United States to present this ballet at Christmas time. Yet, the very first performance of The Nutcracker in the United States was performed by the San Francisco Ballet in 1944 on December 24th.
Here is a list of 10 ballet companies that frequently perform The Nutcracker.
2. The Golden Age
Written by composer Dmitri Shostakovich is a ballet that premiered in 1930 at the Kirov, now Mariinsky Theatre. It is written in three acts: Vasily Vainonen choreographed the first act for the premiere, the second was staged by Leonid Jacobson, and the third by V. Chesnakov. Rumors go that it performed less than twenty times due to a censorship issue; the utilization of dance stylings out of Europe were too “modern” for the time.
The plot mocks the civil and social conversion in Europe during the previous decade. A football team from the Soviet Union are competing away from home. After they come across characters that have unsavory names. The Russian group is subjected to cheating and unnecessary trouble from the authorities. When they are released from their cell, they fight against capitalism. The ideologies are synonymous with the Soviet philosophies of the time.
There have been several productions of this ballet since Vainonen first choreographed the first act. A new libretto was created in 1982 for a revival of The Golden Age by choreographers Yury Grigorovich and Isaak Glikman. They also added new music. It premiered at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow in November of that same year.
The most recent revival had another new libretto written by Russian playwright Konstantin Uchitel, with a contemporary setting. It opened on June 28, 2006, at the very theater where Vainonen first choreographed the ballet, at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg.
3. Flames of Paris
Vasily Vainonen choreographed the entirety of this ballet, composed by Boris Asafyev. With a plot based on the French Revolution Nicolai Volkov and Vladimir Dmitriev based the libretto on a story by Felix Gras, a French novelist. It is based in Marseilles and surrounds a provincial family who is collecting logs for a fire when the Count come by and he attempts to get close the wife.
When her husband tries to stop him the Count’s assistant thrashes him and then the husband is taken away. This dramatic story about injustice premiered on November 7, 1932, at the Kirov Theatre in Leningrad. Dancers who filled the roles included Natalia Dudinskaya, Vakhtang Chabukiani, Olga Jordan, and Nina Anisimova.
Flames in Paris moved on to the Bolshoi Theatre in 1933, this time the Bolshoi Ballet would perform. The roles featured Aleksey Yermolayev, Anastasia Ambramova, and Marina Semenova. Vainonen’s original choreography is available on DVD from a 2008 performance at the Bolshoi. Ivan Vasiliev and Natalia Osipova starred in this Alexei Ratmansky production.
The triumphant protest on Paris that began with the invasion of Tuileries Palace. This type of technique, to create ballets with subject matters that inspired revolution, was common during Soviet times. The idea was to express revolutionary themes.
When designing the dance, Vainonen utilized different styles along with classical ballet. Folk dances, solos, and pantomime were all applied.
A comedy, Marius Petipa was the first choreographer to create this ballet. Yet Vainonen recreated his own version in 1945. Composed by Riccardo Drigo, this ballet premiered at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg in February of 1900. Vainonen wouldn’t put his mark on it until forty-five years later.
It is said that he was fond of utilizing folk styles of dance mixed in with ballet and pantomime. Marius Petipa also wrote the libretto. The first production, full cast and all, had a second premiere in the same year at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre on February 26th.
This ballet was published by Zimmerman, a German publisher of music. Some of the music written for Harlequinade has become a standard in some repertoires at various ballets in Russia. There have been many productions after the Vainonen piece in 1945. When the ballet turned 65, the New York Ballet, under the choreography of George Balanchine, held a production of Harlequinade on February 4, 1965, at the New York State Theater.
Take a look at the upcoming performances 2019 for American Ballet Theater’s Harlequinade.
Our last ballet on the Vasily Vainonen list today is another that he redesigned with his own style for a performance in 1957 at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. It was originally choreographed by Nina Aleksandrovna Anisimova, wife of the librettist, Konstantin Derzhavin. The music was composed by Aram Khachaturian, who was a top musician in the Soviet Union.
The first performance of this ballet premiered at the Kirov Ballet on December 9, 1942. The composer used some inspiration from one of his earlier works titled Happiness in 1939. This work is important for the time because this was a grim period yet the company was still able to create ballets.
It is set in Armenia with our title character and her family who work very hard. Giko, Gayane’s husband, who drinks too much and doesn’t do any work. Gayane gets angry with her husband and they get into a fight. One part of the third suite from Gayane was included in the popular movie 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick.
Watch Vasily Vainonen’s world-known choreography of The Nutcracker performed by the Mariinsky Theater Ballet Company.


Jiaozi (JOW-zah) a Chinese dumpling, is a traditional Chinese food—one of the most widely loved foods in northern China. It typically consists of a ground meat and/or vegetable filling wrapped into a thinly rolled piece of dough, which is then sealed by pressing the edges together or by crimping. Now Jiaozi is widely spread to Japan, Eastern and Western Asia. This is because of many reasons. Here is a list of them.
The Chinese New Year – Spring Festival
The custom of making jiaozi a special dish during the Spring Festival, or the Chinese Lunar New Year, started in the Ming Dynasty, some 500 to 600 years ago. The reason is simple. In ancient China, yuan bao was used as currency before the use of jiao zi paper money. The appearance of jiaozi looks like the V-shape gold and silver ingots known as yuan bao. As the Spring Festival marks the start of a new year and eating the dumplings during the Spring Festival is a metaphor for eating money, people hope that it will bring prosperity and good luck for the forthcoming year. Although time has changed, the tradition has remained, today, jiaozi is considered more as a sign of blessing than of fortune.
History of Jiaozi
In ancient times, Jiaozi’s shape looks like a horn, was called ‘Jiao” (literally “horn”). It was also called “bianshi” (literally “flat food”) due to its flat shape. The term jiao zi has multiple meanings, one of the meanings means “midnight or the end and the beginning of time.” This is why the jiaozi are made the midnight of the last day of the passing lunar year and Chinese people eat it right between eleven pm and one am. Another meaning of the term comes from the literal translation to “sleep together and have sons” which is a long lost good wish for a family. Not only does the shape of the jiao zi resemble the golden ingots, it also represents a crescent moon and symbolizes the hope for a year of plenty. Occasionally people will add specific fillings to select dumplings in order to symbolize certain wishes. Those who receive sweets will have a sweeter life, peanuts symbolize long life, and dates and chestnuts represent the imminent arrival of a son. Because the word “dates” is homonymic with the word “early” in Chinese, so are chestnuts, the syllable “zi” is homonymic with children. The tremendous amount of food prepared at this time was meant to symbolize abundance of wealth in the household.
Rich Chinese families in ancient times would add gold, silver, and other precious stones in their dumplings. To get one of these dumplings was considered good luck. Later this transitioned to adding coins in the dumplings. Copper coins, for example, meant that one would never lack money. In contemporary times, only a few coins were washed and add to the batch of dumplings, the person who discovers the coin would enjoy good luck and make a lot of money in the coming year.
Delicacy & One For All
Chinese dumpling is a delicious food. You can make a variety of Chinese dumplings using different fillings based on your taste and how various ingredients mixed together by you.
Usually when you have Chinese dumpling for dinner, you will not have to cook anything else except for some big occasions. The dumpling itself is good enough for dinner. This is one of the advantages of Chinese dumpling over other foods, though it may take longer to make them.
How to make Jiaozi
Like most Chinese people, I started making jiaozi when I was a little kid in my family. In the beginning, it is more like a game than prepare food. My mom would give me some pre-made dumpling skinsso I do not make a mass with the dough and flour. Just stuff the filling on top of the dumplingskins, fold and close it together, well, it may not look as pretty as my mom’s jiaozi, but it is done and that is what all counts, easy! Most Chinese like me know how to make jiaozi but not many are good at making the skins, which is the hardest part of making dumplings.
Making the Dough & Dumpling Skins:
– 2 1/2 C unsifted flour
– 1/2 tsp. salt
– 1 C boiling water
– 1 Tbsp. lard, cut up into little pieces
Mix the flour and salt. Add the boiling water and stir with chopsticks. Add the lard. Knead all and let rest on a plastic counter under a bowl for 20 minutes.
To make dumpling skins: Break off a piece of the dough the size of 1 teaspoon. Keep the rest of the dough under the bowl. Roll the dough into a ball and then roll out into a 3-inch circle. You may need extra flour for this. Or, use a tortilla press that has been very lightly oiled with peanut oil on a paper towel. This gets you going and the rest of the rolling is easy. To store skins until use, dust each skin lightly with flour and stack on top of one another.
If you are pressed for time, you may want to purchase a package of pre-made dumpling skins (the round ones) from any local Chinese supermarket. Don’t buy the square ones–those are for won-tons!
Making the Filling:
– 1 cup finely chopped Napa cabbage
– 1 lb. lean ground pork
– 2 Tbsp. light soy sauce
– 2 Tbsp. dry sherry
– 1 tsp. freshly grated ginger
– 1/2 tsp. ground white pepper
– 1 Tbsp. sesame oil
– Pinch of sugar
– 1 Tbsp. chopped green onion
– 1 egg white
– 1 Tbsp. cornstarch
– 1 tsp. salt
– 4 Tbsp. medium chopped bamboo shoots or water chestnuts (optional)
– 2 cloves garlic, crushed
Sprinkle salt on chopped cabbage and let sit in a colander for 30 min. Squeeze dry (either by hand or in a potato ricer) and place into bowl. Add all of the remaining ingredients and mix well. Also add a splash of chili paste, to taste.
– Place dumpling skin in the palm of your hand. Dip a finger in cold water and wet the edges of the dumpling skin.
– Spoon a lump of filling (approx. 1 Tbsp.) into the middle of the skin.
– Fold dumpling in half. Pinch top of semi-circle together.
– Push in on both sides of dumpling, so that the dumpling should look like the letter “I” from the top.
– Bend one half of each “top” of the “I” and press against middle edge of dumpling. Seal all edges of dumpling.
– Your dumpling should look like a half-moon with a big bulge in the middle!
– To cook, drop into a big pot of boiling water under they float to the surface. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.
Savory Chinese Money by Arthur Wang, Eimi Watanabe, Alex Lee, Arlene Kim, Hsiang June Chou http://www.anthro.uci.edu/html/Programs/Anthro_Money/JiaoZi.htm>
Chinese Dumpling <http://chineseculture.about.com/library/weekly/aa020298.htm>


Richard Toye’s book “Churchill’s Empire” is reviewed in this Sunday’s Book Review.
Your history explores a dark side of Winston Churchill — his racism and avid imperialism — that will come as a surprise to many readers. How do you feel personally about Churchill?
Churchill’s dark side will certainly come as a surprise to those who know about him mainly through his image in the Western media — people living in Africa or India might start off with a much more negative impression. Actually, part of the point of my book was that during some sections of his career (notably when he was in his first ministerial post, at the Colonial Office) some right-wing imperialists saw Churchill as a dangerous radical who was too sympathetic to liberal ideas and thus posed a danger to the Empire from the left! I argue that he consciously chose to move to the right in the 1930s with his campaign against greater self-government for India.
How I feel about him personally depends very much upon which part of his career I am thinking about at the time. I have little sympathy for many of his views, and I don’t think that many of the defenses put up for his racism hold water. On the other hand, he was often capable of remarkable good sense, even on some imperial issues like Ireland, and it is hard not to develop affection for him. Read more…


My Child Won’t Shut Off the Video Game!
Video game time is not a right; it’s a privilege and one we want to give to our children often. Effective parenting means teaching your child that all good things (including fun things) are enjoyed in moderation. Time activities such as these and get agreements with your child up front as to how long the game time playing will be. Set a visual timer to manage it. If the timer goes off and the child continues to play the game, put your hand gently on his back and guide him away from the screen and to where he needs to go.
This is likely to work if you’ve taken the measures to set up the previous agreement. What causes the biggest problem for us is what we say and the energy attached to it when we don’t get the cooperation we need and expect. A parent may say in frustration, “I TOLD you we have to go to the grocery store now let’s go!” All that talking creates the largest part of the problem. When you demonstrate that you are not talking and not reacting, and you move forward calmly, you actually create a non-oppositional environment in the room. Don’t fight with the child. Move forward peacefully and calmly.
I know that doing this is going to take some practice for many parents. Another parent asked the question, “What if the child refuses to move away from the game and you can’t physically move them?” Of course, just guiding the child isn’t going to work in this situation so you’re going to have to come up with a different game plan. You must first ask yourself, “What would motivate my child to dig in their heels so deeply and resist? What’s going on with him that he is willing to fight with me over an issue?” The first step is to let the child be angry. Do not try to stuff his emotions by attempting to control how he feels. It could be an indication that you’ve not been setting up very clear boundaries at home and being consistent with them.
Now, let’s talk about all the things that I consider to be entertainment electronics, not academic or educational electronics. I’m talking about television, video games, the Internet, or movies. These things have little or no value and should be supervised and limited. I encourage parents to consider limiting their child’s access to entertainment electronics to no more than one hour per day. If you set that up in advance and you announce, “Times up” when that hour has expired, then the child will not be surprised because you created that limitation in advance. If the child is getting angry, then the parent has not done their job to set things up calmly ahead of time.
Get FREE parenting help on line at http://www.onlineparentcoaching.com.
This is an excerpt from Bill Corbett’s new eBook, “10 Little-Known Facts About Kids That Will Change How You Parent Forever!” Download the book today for just $4.99 by going to http://store.payloadz.com/go?id=1044394. Bill Corbett is the author of the award-winning parenting book series, LOVE, LIMITS, & LESSONS: A PARENT'S GUIDE TO RAISING COOPERATIVE KIDS (in English and in Spanish) and the executive producer and host of the public access television show CREATING COOPERATIVE KIDS. As a member of the American Psychological Association and the North American Society for Adlerian Psychology, Bill provides parent coaching and keynote presentations to parent and professional audiences across the country (http://www.OnlineParentCoaching.com). He sits on the board of the Network Against Domestic Abuse, the Resource Advisory Committee for Attachment Parenting International, and the management team of the Springfield Parent Academy. Get more parenting help at http://www.CooperativeKids.com.


One day Joanne noticed small dark spots on nearly all the leaves. Close inspection revealed that millions of tiny bugs had invaded her arboreal friend. She immediately called the homeowners’ association to report the problem and asked that the tree be treated.
Joanne was horrified when, a few days later, she came home to find the tree being chopped down. In fact, by the time she arrived, it was nearly gone, felled to the ground.
She regretted reporting the problem. “I should have sprayed it, tried some things myself, taken some other approach,” she repeated to herself and to all who would listen.
Day after day, Joanne mourned her missing tree. Where there had been beauty and vibrant life, there was now a barrenness in front of her home – no singing birds, no swaying branches, no soothing shade, no musical rustling of leaves – just a circle of stones, like a grave marker, around where the tree had stood.
Many months later, a shoot appeared from within that circle of empty red earth. Joanne thought it was some sort of weed. “At least something green is growing there,” she thought. Then another shoot appeared, and another. Soon, it looked like a shrub. But in a year’s time, it was again a tree… the same tree.
For, although all that stood above the ground had been removed, the roots continued to live below ground.
Like the “Tree of Heaven” in Betty Smith’s novel, A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN, for both Joanne and I, the return of her resilient tree symbolizes the strength and hope that lives in all of us.
Joanne likes to remember this event whenever something seems hopeless.
“For there is hope for a tree,
When it is cut down, that it will sprout again,
And its shoots will not fail,” she recites from Job 14:7.
There is hope for what may appear dead in our lives. Something new can spring forth from abandoned dreams, stuck relationships, depleted finances… challenge in any branch of our lives.


The Lottery is a form of gambling that involves the drawing of numbers to win a prize. Some governments outlaw or discourage the Lottery, while others endorse and regulate it. Many people enjoy playing the Lottery, and many are addicted to it. However, you should know that the Lottery is a hidden tax.
Lottery began at ten o’clock in the morning
When the lottery was first held in a small village, it was at ten o’clock in the early morning. The villagers would gather for a two-hour lottery so they could get back home in time to eat lunch at noon. In some villages, the lottery was conducted over two days.
It is a form of hidden tax
Many people wonder if the lottery is a form of hidden tax. In reality, lottery participation is voluntary, and the proceeds are used for general public services. While many people consider lottery participation to be immoral, it does help the government generate much-needed tax revenue. In addition, lottery proceeds help fund important government programs and services.
It is a form of gambling
Lottery is a type of gambling that requires players to buy a ticket and place a wager. It is a form of gambling that has become very popular in the United States. It has many uses in society today, ranging from commercial promotions to selecting jurors or determining military conscription. But there are many concerns when it comes to lotteries. One of these concerns is that they are not entirely safe. Despite the fact that most lotteries are computerized, there is always some risk associated with winning.
It is a form of entertainment
People play lotteries for a variety of reasons. Some enjoy the thrill of winning the prize, while others just play for fun. Regardless of your reasons, playing the lottery can be a fun and relaxing experience.
It is a source of revenue
Lottery revenues have been collected for many years and are used to fund many state and local government programs. Currently, forty-five states and the District of Columbia operate state lotteries. Only Alabama, Hawaii, Nevada, and Utah do not. New Hampshire was the first state to authorize a state lottery, and by the 1990s, most of the states had adopted the program. Mississippi became the latest state to authorize a lottery in 2018. Governments across the country are collecting between 20 and 30% of lottery revenues, and they usually use this money for specific programs and services.
It is a growing threat
Several studies have suggested that the Lottery is a growing threat to the world economy. While lottery jackpots can be billions of dollars, they are a tax on lower-income people, who funnel large amounts of their paychecks into buying tickets. But ending the lottery is not an option. Gambling is a rapidly growing industry worldwide, and eliminating lotteries may not solve the problem in a realistic way. In fact, if you want to discourage gambling, there are other ways to reduce its negative impact.
It is legal
In India, lottery is legal in 13 states and is also popular in Nagaland and Sikkim. However, the sale of lotto tickets has been banned in other states, including Tamil Nadu and Haryana. The lottery regulation act of 1998 allows state governments to make their own rules regarding the sale of lotto tickets. As such, online lotteries are legal in some states, while they are banned in others.


Racism and the Politics of Culture
How top-down misleading definitions of culture and multiculturalism contribute to racism in T&T...
Looking at Lessing's movement for political reforms in the US how might such ideas translate to electoral reforms in T&T
Privilege, Empathy And Politics
According to anthropologist Barbara King, one alternative to the 2014 Merriam-Webster Dictionary word of the year “culture” is “privilege.” For the political anthropologist, Prof King’s selection is a good one because of the way systematic bias for some groups over others burst into mainstream conversation in 2014
Cultures of Dependency
fundamental social change is hard to achieve because cultures of dependency are deeply entrenched in the local political culture.
The Return of the Colonial
What logic connects Ferguson, Gaza and east Port of Spain?
Bobol: Then and Now
What might we say or add about the emergence of "bobol" (corruption) in the Caribbean?
Ending the Drugs Wars
Why we need to end the War on Drugs...
What whistle blowing tells us about power...
The more things change
_Power in the past and power in the present look a lot alike
What does it take to be a politician and what do they actually do?
Gifts and Bribes
In a recent Op-Ed in the Washington Post, an anthropologist asked, “What is the difference between a gift and a bribe?”
Making the invisible visible
Transparency in Papua New Guinea and transparency at home have a lot in common
Time to face the facts
Corruption as an economic crime and what are some counter measures
The ritual of no confidence
__Understanding the recent vote of no confidence in T&T parliament as a form of "degradation ritual".
Be an active citizen
_How to become more political active as a citizen.
The tactics of dispossession
Propaganda and myths of the powerful
What does the recent census tell us about Trinidad and Tobago
_An Anthropology of the Hunger Strike.
Friend or enemy?
The binary of modern political contests
Jesus or St Francis of Assisi?
_The political sociology of what types of people become politicians and why?


Officially the Republic of Poland (Polish: Rzeczpospolita Polska), Poland (Polska) is located in Central Europe and is bordered by Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east, and the Baltic Sea and the Russian exclave Kaliningrad Oblast to the north. In the 20th century, the country regained its independence in 1918 after 123 years of the Partitions of Poland between Russia, Prussia and Austria; from 1945 to 1989, it became allied to the Soviet Union as the People’s Republic of Poland.
Puppetry in Poland
Puppet theatre has existed in Poland for at least five centuries. The first documentary evidence dates from the 15th century and mentions a performer from Vilnius named Waśko, who travelled alongside certain merchants with his puppet shows (lothki, łątki). He may well have been one of those artists of the popular theatre (skomorokh) in the Slav countries who not only exhibited their figures but also were already giving performances. Their presence could not have been easily ignored, since in the works of certain prominent Polish writers of the 16th century, notably Mikołaj Rej and Jan Kochanowski, the puppet and the puppet theatre figured in poetic analogies and metaphors – especially the recurring image of the puppet which evokes laughter whenever the player or jongleur wishes it.
Comic business and badinage evolved in the 16th century theatre through the influence of foreign puppeteers (see Itinerant Troupes, Travelling Puppeteers). In 1506 an Italian, the “Magister de Omnibus Sanctis” (Master of All Saints) presented his Tabernacula cum personis (literally, cabinet with figures) to Prince Sigismund in Cracow (Kraków). At the end of the century, some Dutch and German puppet players (Henrik Janson, Andreas Rothe, Friedrich Hune) gave performances of a “mechanical theatre” in Gdansk (Gdańsk). At first they were mystery plays, but of profane content, influenced by the example of English actors and puppeteers. The troupes playing in Poland, particularly in the first half of the 17th century, enjoyed the support of the Court of Sigismund III Vasa, then of Ladislas IV. The first mention of commedia dell’arte Italian actors who also included puppet players appear in the middle of the 17th century (notably in 1666 at the court of Jan Kazimierz in Warsaw Warszawa). Johann Peter Hilverding (father of the famous puppeteer Johann Baptist Hilverding), active in Silesia in the second half of the 17th century, made a speciality of Pulcinella shows; see Hilverding (family). His choice was imitated by Daniel Ernest Carcerius, among others. It was these foreign puppeteers who led the field throughout Europe in the 17th century: the repertoire included mechanical theatres and marionettes performing mystery plays, myth and opera.
Apart from a few instances, such as a łątek comedy given in Gdansk in 1672, little is known of the Polish puppeteers of the period. Like their foreign colleagues, above all the Germans and Italians, they were a part of the international comings and goings of the showmen, travelling as far as Moscow (like the Jakubowski family in the first half of the 18th century) or Spain (like Felix Kinsky in the 1740s). It would appear that, in the second half of the 17th century, the art of the Polish puppet theatre was invested in the companies which specialized in the szopka or performances of the Christian “Nativity” (see also Nativity Scenes).
The 18th Century
In the mid-18th century some puppet companies specializing in opera and lyric pieces appeared in the residences of the Polish aristocracy: the most famous was established in Biała Podlaska and in Słuck between 1753 and the 1760s by Prince Hieronim Radziwiłł, under the direction of one Helman. In contrast to the humble wandering troupes, their shows included many artistically sculpted and finely costumed puppets, clever lighting and a fine collection of stage machinery which allowed changes of setting in full view with many special effects. Prince Michał Radziwiłł also boasted a theatre for puppets in his Nieśwież residence, as did the military commander (hetman) Jan Klemens Branicki in Bialystok (Białystok).
In the second half of the 18th century puppet shows multiplied in Poland, probably due to the support offered them by Stanislas (Stanisław) August Poniatowski, the last king of Poland, sympathetic to the arts in general including puppetry to which he gave generous donations. He attended the ever growing number of puppet performances, some given in large public spaces. The German-speaking Gerhard Bressler was, at the end of the 18th century, the most celebrated puppeteer in Poland, often performing in great cities which became the model for such shows until the late 19th century. His programmes consisted of a principal piece with a central comic character (Pimperle in his case) who played in various guises and roles, giving rise to all sorts of ingenious effects and interactions with other characters; next some transformations, followed by a comedy in one act which concluded with a firework display, or a short musical piece executed by the family of the puppeteer-producer.
A painting by Jan Piotr Norblin, The Polish Puppets (end of the 18th century), constitutes the first known iconographic document of the Polish puppet theatre; the manipulators are holding by their controls figures of the marotte type, their hands resting on the booth‘s playboard (the narrow frontal stage) in front of a two-dimensional representation of Warsaw’s old town. A puppeteer known to be active among the players of the time was Barani Kożuszek who, apparently inspired by the patriotic circles of Warsaw (Poland was at that time under the rule of three occupying powers: Russia, Prussia and Austria), staged with the aid of a miniature guillotine the beheading of certain “enemies of the people”.
The 19th Century
During the first half of the 19th century the toy theatres (also called paper theatres; consisting of series of printed scenery and figures) made their appearance alongside the companies which were spread across Poland. From the end of the 18th century the public favoured the mechanical theatres which presented either immobile figures or figures moved mechanically against a flat or specially made painted background, in which the movement was by means of cogs or wheels (theatrum mundi). Among the practitioners of this art, Polish as well as foreign, were Antoni Wolski and Christian Tschuggmall; but the most famous was Jordaki Kuparenko, who followed a career in mechanics up to his death in 1844. The popularity of these shows was owed to their intricate technology, but their attraction faded when the secrets and the limitations of the workings of these automata were discovered. One might believe that the period resulted in the eclipse of the puppet by the automaton, but this belief must be moderated by the fact that many puppet showmen were simply adding mechanical items to increase the attraction of their puppets.
Among the itinerant foreign companies there were distinguished Polish companies such as that of Józef Bogacki who, after service in the army, gained the right in 1812 to be the director of a puppet theatre in Cracow. As usual, this “right” was hedged by many official restrictions: no music, the obligation to finish the show before the service of Vespers, sometimes the imposition of a tax to be paid to the classical theatres for whom the “lowlife” puppets were a serious competition. This proved to be the case when the success of the marionettes of the brothers Dennebeq (French) threatened the interests of the Polish National Theatre.
At the end of 1843 a permanent puppet company was established in Warsaw, where they gave daily performances of shows including Hans wesoły partacz (Jolly Good-for-nothing Hans), Miłość na próbie (Love on Trial), but it was open for no more than a month. Theatre with puppets started to lose its attraction from the beginning of the 19th century. It received new life when it left the big cities with their grand halls and sought a public in the suburbs and outskirts where the shows were played in specially constructed theatres or barraques. This state of affairs was largely due to the puppeteers themselves, to their conservative tastes and their loyalty to the old techniques and the traditional repertoire.
Among the more active entrepreneurs of this time were Fryderyk Siegmann and a certain Żulicki, but at the end of the century it was the foreign marionettists, using mainly string puppets, who dominated the Polish scene. From the 1870s showmen using glove puppets in the manner of the Viennese Kasperltheater began to appear on the streets.
Beginning of the 20th Century
A renewal began to be felt at the beginning of the 20th century, when intellectual circles realized the educational potential of the puppet theatre for a young public. Writers, journalists and educationists joined the ranks of those who militated in its favour. An early theatre for children, founded in Warsaw by Władysław Rybka, combined puppets with other attractions: optical illusions, magic tricks and tableaux vivants. The first theatre for children entirely dedicated to puppets was the work of Maria Weryho-Radziwiłłowicz in 1900-1904. Her example was followed in 1903 by Stefania Boima-Wachowska in Cracow, also by Adam Setkowicz and Józef Rączkowski in 1911 in Cracow and by the Krasnoludek (Lutin) theatre in 1916 in Warsaw. Their common model was the theatre of “Papa Schmid” (see Josef Leonhard Schmid) in Munich, but it was another model, Paul Brann‘s avant-garde Marionettentheater Münchner Künstler (Marionette Theatre of Munich Artists), which provided the inspiration for the company founded by Marian Dienstl-Dąbrowa in 1910.
Just as these groups had nothing in common with the itinerant showmen, the szopka performances hardly resembled the traditional Christmas shows. A “satirical” szopka (also known as a literary, artistic or political szopka), born in the Zielony Balonik (The Green Balloon, a Cracow cabaret) became a genuinely Polish genre that enjoyed an unprecedented vogue between the two world wars. It evolved into two distinct satiric styles, one which revived the model of the Christmas szopka, and one which abandoned all tradition, becoming nearer to the puppet performances inaugurated in 1909 by the Momus cabaret in Warsaw.
Poland regained its independence in 1918, when the puppet theatre regained its strength. The 1920s witnessed the arrival of great artists who, no longer worried by the risk of failure, gave themselves completely to the puppet theatre. Stefan Polonyj-Poloński toured the productions of his company Miniatury to Cracow, Katowice and Poznan (Poznań) from 1927 to 1939. In 1928 the puppeteers of the Warsaw Baj theatre harnessed their enthusiasm to an educational programme under the direction of Jan Wesołowski. A major contribution was made by the Italian puppeteer Vittorio Podrecca (see Teatro dei Piccoli) who toured the principal cities of Poland in 1928, 1930 and 1936. On the instigation of Jan Izydor Sztaudynger, the puppeteers started to organize themselves as a group, and in 1938 the Wielkopolska Rodzina Marionetkarzy (The Community of Puppeteers of the Region Great Poland), composed of the professionals from the Poznan and Pomeranian regions, was founded in Poznan. The same year the association was given a permanent theatre, the Błękitny Pajac (Blue Clown) and, through Jan Sztaudynger, a periodical: Bal u lal (Ball at the Puppets). Also to Sztaudynger can be credited the creation of a movement towards the professionalization of the puppeteers, and to the Baj theatre under Jan Wesołowski the promotion of puppetry for educationists as for children, together with a surge in the current of amateurs. One such puppet theatre was established in 1937 in the Polish community of Opole (Upper Silesia, now in southern Poland) by Alojzy Smolka – the Opolski Teatr Lalki i Aktora im. Alojzego Smolki (Alojzy Smolka Puppet and Actor Theatre). These efforts, blocked by the war years, nonetheless bore fruit after it was over.
World War II once more erased Poland from the map of Europe. Occupied in almost equal parts by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, it was forced to form its own clandestine political, military and cultural structures. A semblance of activity was maintained in the Soviet zone by the puppet theatres of Władysław Jarema and Zofia Jaremowa in Grodno and by the children’s theatre of Młodego Widza (Youth Theatre), active until 1941 in Vilnius. Some coordinated activity was undertaken in the German-occupied zone. The Germans would give sporadic permission for the opening of a company, notably the Figlarny Kubuś (Playful Little Jacob) for children in 1940, and the Hulajnoga (Scooter) which played revues for adults in 1943, both in Warsaw, and in Cracow the puppet theatre of Marian Mikuta in 1944. But the vast majority of the shows were underground. Puppet theatre proved capable of evoking the Polish past (through the szopka shows), of inciting small acts of sabotage, and of substitution for the human theatre. In private apartments dozens of puppet shows were shown over the years; even in prisons and concentration camps where the Poles were incarcerated (Dachau, Ravensbrück, Auschwitz and Buchenwald), shows were organized. All over Europe, in prison camps for officers (Oflags) or soldiers (Stalags), performances were given: some by groups of the officers of Oflag VIIA in Murnau and Oflag IIC in Woldenberg, from 1941 up to their liberation in 1945. Wherever there were Polish soldiers in combat, from the Middle East to Great Britain, puppet programmes were to be found.
The Soviet Era
After the war Poland remained a Soviet satellite for nearly fifty years and the Soviets imposed their methods and principles on the culture of the country. The re-emergence of the puppet theatre was at first the work of the pre-war and wartime artists: the Jarema couple, Henryk Ryl, Janina Kilian-Stanisławska, Irena Pikiel, Joanna Piekarska, Tadeusz Czapliński, Jerzy Zitzman, Marta Janic all of whom created private, semi-professional groups, partly subsidized. Władysław and Zofia Jarema took a leading part in the movement, founding the Groteska theatre in Cracow in 1945, as did Henryk Ryl, founding the Arlekin theatre of Lodz (Łódź) in 1948. Janina Kilian-Stanisławska (see Lalka) founded the Teatr Lalek Niebieskie Migdały (literally: Blue Almonds Puppet Theatre; figuratively: Castles in the Sky Puppet Theatre) in Samarkand in 1945, relocating to Warsaw in 1948, and Irena Sowicka created the Guliwer company, also in Warsaw, in 1946. The first productions – Cyrk Tarabumba (Tarabumba Circus) by the Jaremas, Kolorowe piosenki (Many-coloured Songs) by Henryk Ryl, and Guliwer w krainie Liliputów (Gulliver in Lilliput) – defined the subjects and the artistic practice of the puppet theatre for many years. With the support of a vast pool of amateurs this kernel of artists began to build the profession of puppeteer, taking its place in such professional bodies as the Society of Polish Theatre and Cinema Artists, organizing training in the department of puppetry of the Ludwik Solski State Higher Theatre School in Cracow, founded in 1954, revising the criteria for a professional qualification, and initiating the publication of the revue Teatr Lalek.
The establishment of the State Theatres
At the turn of the 1940s and 50s, Poland was forced to adopt the model of a State Theatre dedicated to young people, just as Sergei Obraztsov had founded in Moscow in the 1930s. The Polish theatres were nationalized in 1950 – Groteska in Cracow, Arlekin and Pinokio in Lodz, Guliwer and Lalka in Warsaw, Banialuka in Bielsko-Biala (Bielsko-Biała), Baj Pomorski in Torun (Toruń) and Miniatura in Gdansk – and installed in their own buildings with their own workshops and teams of artists, technicians and administrators, comprising dozens of people. The numbers of these permanent site theatres, about a dozen in the 1950s, had swollen to 27 by the end of the 70s. The supervision of the State on the one hand promoted the profession of puppetry but on the other hand limited the independence of both artists and companies. The appointment of directors and artists had to be approved by the Ministry of Culture or its representatives, and the reports and accounts which the companies had to submit were complicated enough to discourage any artist.
However a certain financial freedom, although limited by a strict budget, allowed the theatres to focus their efforts on artistic matters. From the middle of the 1950s Polish puppetry assumed its own original style, once again indebted to the efforts of Groteska, Arlekin and of Lalka which gained an international reputation in the first international festival in Bucharest, Romania, in 1958: Lalka was awarded the gold medal for Guignol w tarapatach (Guignol in Trouble) directed by Jan Wilkowski; silver medals were won by Groteska’s staging of Wieczór Gałczyńskiego (Gałczynski Soirée) and the scenography of Arlekin’s Kolorowe piosenki (Many-coloured Songs). These successes before an international public proved especially beneficial to two young artists: Jan Wilkowski and Adam Kilian. The two collaborated on a work now regarded as a supreme example of the Polish style: O Zwyrtale muzykancie, czyli jak się góral dostał do nieba (Zwyrtała the Musician, Or How the Tatra Highlander Got to Heaven, 1958). Polish puppetry adopted a style which favoured the interpretation of literary works by means of a pure scenography imagined by great designers – notably Kazimierz Mikulski, Jerzy Skarżyński, Ali Bunsch, Adam Kilian, Zenobiusz Strzelecki, Leokadia Serafinowicz, Wacław Kondek – who perceived in this theatre a space where they could freely realize their artistic conceptions. This was well demonstrated during the 8th Congress of UNIMA, which took place simultaneously with an international festival of puppet theatres in Warsaw in 1962.
A new generation
In the 1960s the companies were taken in hand by other artists, actors turned directors, such as Leokadia Serafinowicz, Krzysztof Niesiołowski, Stanisław Ochmański, Monika Snarska, Zygmunt Smandzik, Jerzy Kolecki, Leszek Śmigielski, all formed by the post-war artists before them. They inherited a certain style, bringing with them a knowledge of acting and manipulating techniques, as well as the ambition to make a mark with their own artistic conceptions. This was the time when the Miniatura of Gdansk and Marcinek of Poznan (see Teatr Animacji w Poznaniu, Theatre of Animation of Poznan) united to become one of the foremost puppet theatre companies of Poland. Jan Dorman, director of Teatr Dzieci Zagłębia (the Children’s Theatre of the Zagłębie region) in Bedzin (Będzin), established and continued to confirm their role as chief experimenters and enfant terrible of the puppet world. Major towns welcomed puppet festivals (Opole, Bielsko-Biala with its Banialuka theatre), which could be regional or specialized (the festival of Torun featured companies from northern Poland; the festival of eastern Poland was held by turns in Lublin, Rzeszow Rzeszów, Bialystok, and Kielce; the festival of solo work in Warsaw).
The theatres initiated a policy of cooperation and exchange with those of other countries, taking part in meetings and international festivals, so integrating Poland into the worldwide family of puppetry. The efforts made by Henryk Zdzisław Jurkowski, then director of the puppet theatre department in the Ministry of Culture and an active promoter of the international structures of UNIMA, were a determining factor in this development.
A new generation – Andrzej Dziedziul, Krzysztof Rau, Wiesław Hejno, Wojciech Wieczorkiewicz, Włodzimierz Dobromilski, Zofia Miklińska – entering the profession in the same way as their predecessors, led the Polish puppet theatre until the turn of the 1960s and 70s, while the Small Stage of the Wrocławski Teatr Lalek (WTL, Wroclaw Puppet Theatre), dedicated to adult work, and the Studium Aktorskie Teatrów Lalkowych (SATL, Actors’ Studio for Puppet Theatres), also of Wroclaw, both joined the companies of the first rank.
The puppet theatre of Wroclaw and that of Bialystok (Białostocki Teatr Lalek [lier]Bialystok Puppet Theatre[/lier]) were regarded as among the leading puppet theatres of the 1970s and 80s, especially after the creation of university-level courses in the middle of the 1970s and the obvious rivalry between the Wydział Lalkarski we Wrocławiu (Faculty of Puppet Theatre in Wroclaw) and the Akademia Teatralna w Białymstoku (Theatre Academy of Bialystok). The generation of directors trained in the Soviet Union and in Czechoslovakia – Wojciech Kobrzyński, Tomasz Jaworski, Konrad Szachnowski, Irena Dragan, Włodzimierz Fełenczak – were also distinguished in the 1970s.
The 1980s brought upheaval, above all for the performer-puppeteers. The old masters – notably Juliusz Wolski, Tadeusz Wojan, Zdzisław Owsik, Teresa Sawicka, Krystyna Cysewska, Krystyna Matuszewska, Jan Plewako, Anna Proszkowska, Tomasz Brzeziński – were replaced by the young graduates from the puppet schools where they had been thoroughly trained. From a more formal point of view, the stage screens, omnipresent until then, gave way to a combination of expressive techniques where the actor-manipulator was in front, in full view. Some new and very capable artists joined the puppet theatres as scenographers, such as Jadwiga Mydlarska-Kowal, Rajmund Strzelecki and Mikołaj Malesza.
The new generation of company leaders (who had replaced the earlier generation of scenographers and directors) were artists who had graduated from the schools, and very often the actors, too, notably Małgorzata Kamińska, Grzegorz Kwieciński, Bogdan Nauka, Zbigniew Niecikowski, Zdzisław Rej, Czesław Sieńko, Wojciech Szelachowski, Maciej K. Tondera, Waldemar Wolański, Aleksander Antończak, Piotr Tomaszuk. Their playful or ironic use of the conventions, their recourse to a wide range of expressive means nevertheless included an ability to engage with the literary puppet theatre inherited from their predecessors.
The Contemporary Era
Came the upheavals of the 1990s. The Soviet system, from the end of the 1970s only a façade as far as the puppet theatre was concerned, survived in the official sector of the arts. Some private theatres established in the 80s continued: Teatr Wierzbak in Poznan, the Theatre of Fire and Paper of Grzegorz Kwieciński. In this category were Wierszalin, Theatre ¾ Zusno directed by Krzysztof Rau, and Tadeusz Wierzbicki’s Company of the Little i (later, Laboratory of Appearances), each bringing a new and original style of performance (the relationship of puppet and actor, bare hand manipulation, experiments with shadows and electrostatic fields). Later there appeared the following companies: Walny-Teatr, Unia Teatr Niemożliwy (Impossible Theatre Union), Teatr K3, Kompania Doomsday (divided into Teatr Malabar Hotel and Grupa Coincidentia), which continue to thrive. For various reasons, however, in particular the lack of receiving venues, independent companies tended to have a short life. Thus, at the beginning of the 21st century, the activities of the Polish puppet theatres were concentrated around the official theatres (municipal or regional).
The Polish centre of UNIMA, POLUNIMA, was founded in 1961 by Henryk Ryl. In 2005, it was headed by Henryk Jurkowski and, in 2015, by Waldemar Wolański. Separately there has been, since 1950, a puppetry section of the Association of Polish Theatre Artists (ZASP).
In addition to the Department of Puppetry of the Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum of Lodz – Muzeum Archeologiczne i Etnograficzne w Łodzi, Dział Widowisk Lalkowych (Łódź Museum of Puppetry) – there is also the Seweryn Udziela Museum of Ethnography in Cracow. This owns twenty-three szopka of which one is the oldest known to exist, made by Michał Ezenekier in the second half of the 19th century. There are also about 650 szopka figures which are dated up to the end of the 19th century.
The National Museum of Ethnography in Warsaw, created in 1888, has a regional, European and international collection of artefacts, including nine szopka and their puppets dating from the early 20th century up to the 1980s.
(See also Tadeusz Kantor.)
- Jurkowski, Henryk. A History of European Puppetry. Vol. 1: From its Origins to the End of the 19th century. Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1996.
- Jurkowski, Henryk. A History of European Puppetry. Vol. 2: The Twentieth Century. Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1996-1998.
- Jurkowski, Henryk. “La formation des marionnettistes en Pologne” [Training Puppeteers in Poland]. Puck. No. 7. Charleville-Mézières: Éditions de l’Institut international de la marionnette, 1994.
- Jurkowski, Henryk. Métamorphoses. La marionnette au XXe siècle [Metamorphoses the Puppet in the 20th Century]. Charleville-Mézières: Éditions de l’Institut international de la marionnette, 2000. 2nd ed. revised and expanded. “La main qui parle” [The Hand that Speaks] series. Montpellier: L’Entretemps/Éditions de l’Institut international de la marionnette, 2008.
- Jurkowski, Henryk. Moje pokolenie. Twórcy polskiego teatru lalek drugiej połowy XX wieku [My Generation. Puppet Theatre Artists of the Second Half of 20th Century]. Łódź: POLUNIMA, 2006.
- Jurkowski, Henryk. “Teatr lalek w dawnej Polsce. Próba zarysu historycznego” [Puppet Theatre in Old Poland. An Historical Sketch]. O dawnym dramacie i teatrze. Studia do syntezy, Studia Staropolskie [On the Early Drama and Theatre.
- Studies in Synthesis, Early Polish Studies]. Vol. 31. Ed. W. Roszkowska. Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1971.
- Killian, Adam. “L’art populaire dans le théâtre de marionnettes” [Folk Art in the Puppet Theatre]. Pologne, théâtre et société. Exhibition catalogue. Neuchâtel: Musée d’Ethnographie, 1972.
- “Lalkarze. Materiały do biografii” [Puppeteers, Biographical Sources]. Collection directed by M. Waszkiel, 34 vols. Łódź: POLUNIMA and Pracownia Dokumentacji Teatru Lalek, 1993-2004; Białystok: BTL, 2009.
- Nessel-Łukasik, Beata. Oblicza samotności. Bruno Schulz, Franz Kafka i Samuel Beckett w polskim teatrze lalek [Faces of Loneliness. Bruno Schulz, Franz Kafka and Samuel Beckett in the Polish Puppet Theatre]. Kwidzyń: Scena Lalkowa im. Jana Wilkowskiego, 2012.
- Polakowski, Andrzej, and Marek Waszkiel, eds. Łódzkie sceny lalkowe [The Puppet Theatres of Łódź]. Łódź: POLUNIMA, 1992.
- Ryl, Henryk. Dziewanna i lalki [Dziewanna and Puppets]. Łódź: Wydawnictwo Łódzkie, 1967.
- Słownik biograficzny teatru polskiego [Biographical Dictionary of Polish Theatre]. Vol. 1 (1765-1965), Vol. 2 (1900-1980). Warszawa: PWN, 1973-1994.
- Sych, Honorata. Tajemnice teatru lalek [Secrets of Puppet Theatre]. Łódź: Muzeum Archeologiczne i Etnograficzne, 2010.
- Sztaudynger, Jan Izydor. Marionetki [Marionettes]. Lwów-Warszawa: Książnica Atlas, 1938.
- Sztaudynger, Jan Izydor, Henryk Jurkowski, and Henryk Ryl. Od szopki do teatru lalek [From the Szopka to the Puppet Theatre]. Łódź: Wydawnictwo Łódzkie, 1961.
- Waszkiel, Marek. Dzieje teatru lalek w Polsce (do 1945) [The History of Puppet Theatre in Poland (up to 1945)]. Warszawa: IS PAN, 1990.
- Waszkiel, Marek. Dzieje teatru lalek w Polsce, 1944-2000 [The History of Puppet Theatre in Poland, 1944-2000]. Warszawa: Akademia Teatralna im. Aleksandra Zelwerowicza, 2012.
- Waszkiel, Marek. “Szopka oder die keine Sabotage. Das polnische Puppen-Theater im zweiten Weltkrieg” [The Szopka, or the Little Sabotage. The Polish Puppet Theatre During World War II]. Frontpuppentheater, Puppenspieler im Kriegsgeschehen [Puppet Theatres at the Front, Puppeteers in Wartime]. Ed. D. Kolland. Berlin: Elefanten Press, 1997.
- Wiśniewska, Jolanta Ewa. W poszukiwaniu “złotego klucza”. Polska twórczość dramatyczna dla teatru lalek (1945-1970) [Searching for a “Golden Key”. Polish Dramas for Puppet Theatre (1945-1970)]. Łódź: POLUNIMA, 1999.
- 100 przedstawień teatru lalek. Antologia recenzji 1945-1996 [100 Performances of Puppet Theatre. Anthology of critics, 1945-1996]. Eds. L. Kozień and M. Waszkiel. Łódź: POLUNIMA, 1998.
- Bal u lal [Ball at the Puppets]. The first magazine devoted to Polish puppetry, founded and directed by Jan Sztaudynger, published monthly between 1938 and 1939 in Poznań. Of the seven publications, three were special issues on the themes of childhood, of puppet theatre in schools, and puppetry in the army. World War II put an end to the publication. (In Polish)
- Le théâtre en Pologne. Revue mensuelle du Centre Polonais de l’Institut International du Théâtre et de l’Agence des Auteurs / The Theatre in Poland. The Monthly Magazine of the Polish Centre of the International Theatre Institute and the Authors’ Agency, Warszawa. No. 5, 1962; No. 5, 1967; Nos. 1-2, 1969; No. 7, 1973; No. 12, 1974; No. 2, 1975; Nos. 8 and 21, 1979; Nos. 1-2, 1984. (In French and English)
- Pamiętnik Teatralny [Theatrical Diary]. Nos. 1-2. Warszawa: ISPAN, 1987. (On the Polish Puppet Theatre Before 1945; in Polish.)
- Teatr Lalek [Puppet Theatre]. Polish journal founded in 1950, and which appeared from 1950 to 1953 as an organ of the General Management of Puppet Theatres (CDTL), the State institution created to ensure the policy of the nationalization of theatres. It appeared again from 1957 to 1967 (under the direction of Henryl Ryl), from 1968 to 1970 (under the direction of Jerzy Koenig, then Henryk Jurkowski), and finally, since 1982, as the quarterly of the Polish UNIMA centre, POLUNIMA. Teatr Lalek has been bilingual (English and Polish) since 1995. Until 2000 the journal was led by Joanna Rogacka, since 2001 by Lucyna Kozień. See especially Nos. 1-4, 1969 (on Polish puppet theatre from 1944 to 1969) and No. 1, 1994 (on scenography, with a dictionary of designers).


Monday, August 29, 2011
ScienceDaily (Aug. 28, 2011) — In the zeal to eliminate dangerous bacteria, it is possible that we are also permanently killing off beneficial bacteria as well, posits Martin Blaser, MD, Frederick H. King Professor of Medicine, professor of Microbiology and chair of the Department of Medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center.
By the time a child in the US or other developed countries reaches the age of 18, s/he has already had on average 10-20 doses of antibiotics. These are in addition to the antibiotics that may be given to women while they are pregnant, and which may affect the normal bacteria that mothers transmit to their children.
The discovery and use of antibiotics has helped to increase life expectancy. However they are non-discriminatory and destroy even friendly bacteria, not just harmful ones. Scientists have found that some of the beneficial bacteria may never recover and that these extinctions may lead to increased susceptibility to infections and disease. As a result, antibiotic use could be contributing to the increases in obesity, allergies and asthma, inflammatory bowel disease, and type 1 diabetes that are occurring throughout the developed world.
Dr. Blaser urges physicians to curtail the use of these drugs immediately, and recommends that narrow spectrum, and more targeted drugs be used in their place. To be successful, this shift will require a significant effort to develop new antibacterials and new diagnostic tests that will permit the use of targeted agents.


"The Impact of the National Culture on the Interactive and Collaborative Approaches to Knowledge Management: An Exploratory Study," by Pavel Bogolyubov, Prof. Mark Easterby-Smith, and Dr. Valerie Stead.
- We take national culture for granted. Within NASA, when we talk about culture, it may refer to two things: 1) the NASA organizational culture, which can either refer to 1a) the aspects of organizational culture that were identified as contributing to the organization's most visible failures (Challenger and Columbia accidents); or 1b) the strong innovation and "can do" attitude; 2) the various organizational cultures (center-specific culture, scientist vs. engineering cultures) that exist within the organization. In the context of international partnerships, paying attention to cultural differences across nations would make a lot of sense. I have a feeling that cultural differences tend to be seen as obstacles to be overcome. One problem with this approach is that communication is perceived as the solution, yet -- beyond the potential for translation challenges -- communication is highly culturally sensitive. So, when NASA engineers think they're making extra efforts to communicate because they're working with a foreign partner, the foreign partner may perceive that extra effort as an attempt to impose NASA views and practices rather than true collaboration. In short, the NASA engineers can't help it. What they consider best practices in terms of communications will be culturally determined and not necessarily the best approach in the context of an international partnership.


2,4-D and the dioxin pollution it creates are too dangerous to allow, period, but in the hands of bad actors like Monsanto and Dow Chemical the dangers increase exponentially. What's the Environmental Protection Agency doing? Helping coverup the chemical companies' crimes!
In February, Monsanto agreed to pay up to $93 million in a class-action lawsuit brought by the residents of Nitro, West Virginia, for dioxin exposure from accidents and pollution at an herbicide plant that operated in their town from 1929 to 2004.
That may seem like justice, but it is actually the result of Monsanto's extraordinary efforts to hide the truth, evade criminal prosecution and avoid legal responsibility.
A brief criminal fraud investigation conducted (and quickly aborted) by the EPA revealed that Monsanto used a disaster at their Nitro, WV, plant to manufacture "evidence" that dioxin exposure produced a skin condition called chloracne, but was not responsible for neurological health effects or cancers such as Non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
These conclusions were repeatedly utilized by EPA and the Veterans Administration to deny help to citizens exposed to dioxin, if these persons did not exhibit chloracne.
The EPA knew the truth about Monsanto's dioxin crimes, but it decided to hide it. Why? It would have affected us all. EPA's brief criminal investigation of Monsanto included evidence that Monsanto knowingly contaminated Lysol with dioxin, even as the product was being marketed for cleaning babies' toys.
Here are the details of this jaw-dropping and heart-breaking case of corporate criminality and EPA collusion.
According to Natural News:
In the town of Nitro, West Virginia, Monsanto operated a chemical plant from 1929 to 1995, making an herbicide that had dioxin as a by-product. The name dioxin refers to a group of highly toxic chemicals that have been linked to heart and liver disease, human reproductive disorders, and developmental problems. Dioxin persists in the environment and accumulates in the body, even in small amounts. In 2001, the U.S. government listed dioxin as a "known human carcinogen".
In 1949, at the Nitro plant, a pressure valve blew on a container of this herbicide, producing a plume of vapor and white smoke that drifted out over the town. Residue coated the interior of buildings and those inside them with a fine black powder. Within days, workers experienced skin eruptions, and many were diagnosed with chloracne, a long lasting and disfiguring condition. Others felt intense pains in their chest, legs and trunk. A medical report from the time said the explosion "caused a systemic intoxication in the workers involving most major organ systems." Doctors detected a strong odor coming from the patients they described as men "excreting a foreign chemical through their skins".
Monsanto downplayed the incident, saying that the contaminant was "fairly slow acting" and only an irritant to the skin.
Meanwhile, the Nitro plant continued to produce herbicides, In the 1960's it manufactured Agent Orange, the powerful herbicide used by the U.S. military to defoliate jungles during the Vietnam War, and which became the focus of lawsuits by veterans contending they had been harmed by exposure to the chemical. Agent Orange also created dioxin as a by-product.
At the Nitro plant, dioxin waste went into landfills, storm drains, streams, sewers, into bags with the herbicide, and then the waste was burned out into the air. Dioxin from the plant can still be found in nearby streams, rivers, and fish.
According to Source Watch, in 1990, Cate Jenkins, a PhD chemist at EPA, became convinced that Monsanto had deliberately manipulated studies of worker victims of the Nitro disaster showing that dioxin was a human carcinogen.
Dr. Jenkins wrote a memorandum entitled "Newly Revealed Fraud by Monsanto in an Epidemiological Study Used by EPA to Assess Human Health Effects from Dioxins." Read the memo at PureFood.org.
According to her memo:
Dr. Raymond Suskind at the University of Cincinnati was hired by Monsanto to study the workers at Monsanto's Nitro, West Virginia plant. Dr. Suskind stated in published studies in question that chloracne, a skin condition was the prime indicator of high human dioxin exposures, and no other health effects would be observed in the absence of this condition. Unpublished studies by Suskind, however, indicate the fallacy of this statement. No workers except those having chloracne were ever examined by Suskind or included in his study. In other words, if no workers without chloracne were ever examined for other health effects, there is no basis for asserting that chloracne was "the hallmark of dioxin intoxication."
These conclusions have been repeatedly utilized by EPA, the Veterans Administration, etc., to deny any causation by dioxin of health effects of exposed citizens, if these persons did not exhibit chloracne.
The results of Dr. Suskind's studies also were diluted by the fact that the exposed group contained not only individuals having chloracne (a genuine, but not the only effect of dioxin exposure), but also all workers having any type of skin condition such as chemical rash. The workers could have had no or negligible dioxin exposures, but they were included in the study as part of the heavily exposed group. This fact was revealed only by the careful reading of the published Suskind study.
Further, Dr. Suskind utilized statistics on the skin conditions of workers compiled by a Monsanto clerical worker, without any independent verification.
Dr. Suskind also covered-up the documented neurological damage from dioxin exposures. At Workers Compensation hearings, Suskind denied that the workers experienced any neurological health effects. In the Kemner, et al. v. Monsanto proceedings, however, it was revealed that Suskind had in his possession at the time examinations of the workers by Monsanto's physician, Dr. Nestman, documenting neurological health effects.
In his later published study, Dr. Suskind denied the continuing documented neurological health effects suffered by the workers, falsely stating that symptoms "had cleared."
All of the Monsanto dioxin studies also suffer another fatal flaw. The purported "dioxin unexposed" control group was selected from other workers at the same Monsanto plant. An earlier court settlement revealed not only that these supposedly unexposed workers were exposed to dioxins, but also to other carcinogens. One of these carcinogens, para-amino biphenyl, was known by Monsanto to be a human carcinogen and it was also known that workers were heavily exposed.
Another Monsanto study involved independent medical examinations of surviving employees by Monsanto physicians. Several hundred former Monsanto employees were too ill to travel to participate in the study. Monsanto refused to use the attending physicians reports of the illness as part of their study, saying that it would introduce inconsistencies. Thus, any critically ill dioxin-exposed workers with cancers such as Non-Hodgkins lymphoma (associated with dioxin exposures), were conveniently excluded from the Monsanto study.
There are numerous other flaws in the Monsanto health studies. Each of these misrepresentations and falsifications always served to negate any conclusions of adverse health effects from dioxins.
Within days of learning that the Office of Enforcement had initiated a criminal investigation of Monsanto based on Jenkins' allegations, her job duties were withdrawn without warning. She was not given any assignments from August 30, 1990 until she was reassigned on April 8, 1992 to a job which was primarily administrative or clerical.
According to a 1994 report on "EPA's Phony Investigation of Monsanto," by William Sanjour, Policy Analyst, US Environmental Protection Agency, published in Rachel's Hazardous Waste News:
Dr. Jenkins filed a complaint with the Department of Labor claiming that she was being harassed for carrying out perfectly legal activities. The Labor Department investigated and found in Jenkins favor. The EPA appealed three times all the way up to the Secretary of Labor but each time the Department came down in favor of Jenkins finding that "None of the rationales [explaining her transfer] given by EPA ... appear valid".
In August of 1992, EPA quietly closed the criminal investigation without ever determining or even attempting to determine if the Monsanto studies were valid or invalid, let alone fraudulent. ... There was no public announcement that the investigation was closed. Dr. Jenkins didn't learn about it until fifteen months later. Yet Monsanto knew within a few days of EPA's closing the case.
Why did Monsanto and the EPA go to such great lengths to hide the truth? It would have affected us all. EPA's brief criminal investigation of Monsanto included evidence that Monsanto knowingly contaminated Lysol with dioxin, even as the product was being marketed for cleaning babies' toys.
Dr. Jenkin's memo also contained evidence that Lysol, a product made from Monsanto's Santophen, was contaminated with dioxin with Monsanto's knowledge. The manufacturer of Lysol was not told about the dioxin by Monsanto for fear of losing his business. Other companies using Santophen, who specifically asked about the presence of dioxin, were lied to by Monsanto.
This is just one example of why we can't trust the EPA to stop Monsanto and Dow Chemical from poisoning us with dioxin.


WSJ Historically Speaking: When Justice Drowns in the Law
In “The Federalist Papers,” No. 62, James Madison warned his readers against drawing up laws that were unnecessarily dense or complicated: “It will be of little avail to the people…if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.”
Congress largely heeded Madison’s advice until World War II, when the average bill was still only 21/2 pages long. But today, 1,000-page spending bills routinely pass through Congress. President Bush’s 2007 budget bill counted 1,482 pages, while the 2010 Affordable Care Act ended up at almost 1,000 pages.
According to Philip Howard, the author of “The Rule of Nobody: Saving America from Dead Laws and Broken Government,” the chief problem with laws that rival “War and Peace” in length is that the rule of law suffers. Instead of being the facilitator for civil society, he warns, the law can become an instrument of paralysis.
The Roman jurist and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero put his finger on the problem 2,000 years ago when he argued that justice wasn’t something immutable or separate from human reason. In Cicero’s opinion, the first casualty of an authoritarian state is the standard of moral behavior—and with it any working notion of rights and responsibilities. But overly comprehensive laws weren’t the only danger; so was having too many. “The more laws,” Cicero said, “the less justice.”
British criminal law in the 18th century neatly illustrated Cicero’s point. With few punishments at hand other than the hangman’s noose, Parliament could make just about anything a capital offense. By the end of the 18th century, it had created 220 separate capital offenses. Among them: destroying trees in a royal park, stealing from (laundry) bleaching grounds and “being in the company of gypsies for one month.” So the judicial system often ended up trying to circumvent the very code it was meant to uphold. Of the 35,000 death sentences handed down between 1770 and 1830, only 7,000 prisoners were actually executed, according to a 2000 paper in the journal Punishment and Society.
The Victorians were the first people in modern times to understand that a viable state commands the allegiance of its citizens, not merely their obedience. The Victorians’ zeal for legal reform reached new heights when Lord Palmerston became prime minister in the late 1850s.
According to a story told by Viscount Goschen, who served under Palmerston as a junior minister, the prime minister’s draft for the queen’s speech at the 1864 state opening of Parliament included only one line on the government’s domestic agenda: “Various measures of public utility will be submitted to your consideration.” Goschen recalled that he tried to encourage the prime minister to be a little more forthcoming. Palmerston replied, “Well, you know, we have been adding a great many laws to the Statute Book every year, and we can’t go on passing law after law. I think we have almost done enough. A little law reform, a little bankruptcy legislation, and”—he cheerfully rubbed his hands—”I think that will do.” Three years later, Parliament repealed more than 1,300 statutes.
In 1982, the U.S. Justice Department attempted to count the total number of criminal laws. Two years and 3,000 offenses later, the effort was abandoned as hopeless. To this day, nobody knows how many federal laws are on the books. Albert Einstein once declared, “Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.” He was referring to Prohibition. But if Congress could bring back alcohol to a desperate nation, surely it can restore a little common sense.


The watchmaker analogy or watchmaker argument is a teleological argument, which by way of an analogy, states that design of creation (like a watch) implies a designer.
The analogy has played a prominent role in natural theology and the “argument from design,” where it was used to support arguments for the existence of God and for the intelligent design of the universe.
The most famous statement of the teleological argument using the watchmaker analogy was given by William Paley in his 1802 book Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity.
The 1859 publication of Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection put forward an explanation for complexity and adaptation, which reflects scientific consensus on
the origins of biological diversity, and provides a counter-argument to the watchmaker analogy: for example, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins referred to the
analogy in his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker giving his explanation of evolution.


Jack and the Beanstalk (Grades 1-4)
Retold by: Sue Cramer
Illustrated by: Liliane Grenier
After selling their only cow for a few beans, Jack climbs an enormous beanstalk, meets a fairy, encounters a giant, and saves the whole town on his quest to help his mother pay for food. How can a young boy take on so much responsibility and become such a hero? Based on the classic story.
For 2 - 5 Readers
Advantage (Multi-Level) Format includes Playbooks Reading Levels - Stages 1-4


After only reading the first chapter of Juliet’s Nurse, I am already drawn into the fictional world that historical novelist Lois Leveen has created revolving around Romeo and Juliet’s “minor” character, the nurse. It is easy to see why Leveen has opted to create this beautifully, complex woman, who has a more intimate relationship with Juliet than Juliet has with her own mother. Consider the intimacy that comes when a woman gives her milk to keep alive a hungry infant, after her own daughter dies, unable to drink the nourishment her mother’s body naturally yearns to feed her.
Leveen, also a historian and former college professor, imagines the 14 years leading up to and beyond Shakespeare’s story of the star-crossed lovers. The story takes place in 14th century Verona, Italy (as did Shakespeare’s play). Her plot line comes from a seed Shakespeare planted more than 400 years ago in the first scene where Juliet and the Nurse appear together. The Nurse tells Juliet and Lady Capulet that her daughter Susan, 14 years before had died on Lammas Eve, a harvest celebration, the very night that Juliet was born. In the same scene, Shakespeare shows the intimacy the nurse has with Juliet when the nurse reveals that Juliet was the fairest babe she had ever nursed.
Leveen brings this tender love to her story. At once the infant Juliet belongs to the nurse and yet does not. The nurse arrives shortly after Juliet’s birth. Women (who have gathered around the young mother Lady Capulet) feast on capon, sweetmeats, sponge cake, marzipans and fine salts. The nurse, the book’s narrator, exhausted after losing her own daughter relishes the chance to have a baby to hold and love: “I care nothing for the lavish confinement gifts, nor for any of the room’s fine furnishings, except the heavy silver tub in which I wash Juliet, and the iron brazier over which I warm the swaddling bands to wrap her. To tend, to touch so little a living delight. I lean close to smell the delicate baby scent of her, and know it is my milk on her breath, my kiss on her downy hair.”
The nurse’s character is only referred to as Nurse in Shakespeare’s play, but Leveen names her Angelica because it is possible that this is the name Shakespeare gave her. Lord Capulet seems to address her as so in the play, but the line could have also been directed at Lady Capulet, so no one really knows for sure.
Leveen contends that the Nurse really isn’t a minor character in spite of not being given a name. She has the “largest number of lines after Romeo and Juliet… she was “bawdy, tragic, high, low, and puts herself in the middle of everything and she deserved to tell her own story,” says Leveen.
The book has been released by Simon & Schuster and is available on the web including Amazon.com and in several bookstores. Leveen also has a curriculum guide for high school and college classrooms and often Skypes with classrooms about her book. Here’s a link to her instructor lessons guide. Also of interest is TSS’s interview The Blotted Line.


Students will turn in their Inventory and Wardrobe Planning Steps. Students will complete a Cluster for their wardrobe. You need to take the next step –wardrobe planning — to build that fantasic wardrobe that will showcase that amazing style of yours. While I think that style development is tons of fun, I think that developing a wardrobe plan is even more exciting. There are so many benefits to living with a ten-item wardrobe. Lessons from Madame Chic: 20 Stylish Secrets I Learned While Living in Paris.
Thank you for all the great tips and the planning tool! It has been so great to purge all the things I have been hanging onto and not wearing. I’m starting to plan my spring wardrobe around the things I have put away. It has even helped by thinking about buying gifts for family through the year ready for Christmas to help live happier in December without using the credit card! Thanks for such a great blog and suggestions x. There’s a section to take notes on lessons I learn and other Reply. Currently, I am in two minds about lesson planning. Part of me enjoys the creativity of coming up with ideas that will (hopefully) engage and inspire the learners, while the other part finds it ver. Lesson plan. Lion, witch, wardrobe – unit of work.
Students practice making appropriate adjustments in language use for various situations, using the metaphor of a wardrobe. This lesson is great for the first day of school or as an introduction to a unit that focuses on writing for a specific audience. Wardrobes and chests of drawers provided opportunity to store and organize clothing. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Lesson Plans and Activities to help you teach C. S. Lewis’s work. eNotes Lesson Plans are written, tested, and approved by teachers.
Free Wardrobe Planner
ENotes Lesson Plans are written, tested, and approved by teachers. Lesson Plans. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe eNotes Lesson Plan. Lesson Plans. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – book, teaching resources, story, cards, mat, sequencing, primary resources, play, Early Years (EYFS), KS1 & KS2. EYFS Adult Input Plans Lesson Plan and Enhancement Ideas Continuous Provision Plans Planning Templates Discovery Sacks Mud Kitchen Plans Finger Gym Plans Messy Play Plans Busy Bag Plans Interactive Poster Plans Prop Box Plans Assessment EYFS Tracking Sheets. Simplifying technology for music teachers: lesson plans, workshops and online courses. Katie Wardrobe runs engaging, practical workshops for classroom music teachers, studio music teachers and pre-service teachers.


- To be attentive and work on quick decision making.
- To work on focus.
- To raise comfortability of a group.
A big enough space for the entire class to stand in a circle comfortably.
- Players stand in a circle.
- One player, Player A, claps his hands, ending in a pointing position toward the direction of another player. Simultaneously Player A will say the nonsense word “Zip!”
- Player B repeats this action, clapping and pointing at another player, Player C, while saying “Zap!”
- Player C repeats this action, pointing at yet again another player while saying the word “Zop!”
- Players do not need to follow any order can clap and point at any other player they choose, but they should follow the patter of “zip, zap, zop.”
- After the group has gotten sufficiently good at this, you can have them remove the clapping or the saying of the words “zip, zap & zop.”
- Focus is passed from one person to another by just saying the words or by just clapping, not both.
- When they’re really good at that, you can remove any clapping and words all-together. Focus is passed by making direct eye-contact.
- In some regions, the nonsense word “zop” is often replaced with “zub.”
- At any point, the players can break from the circle and move freely about the room. They must still maintain the passing of focus from one person to the next.
- Players can match and copy the manner in which they receive focus. Basically, you imitate the way “zip, zap or zop” was said to you as you pass it on to someone else.
- This can also be played as an elimination game where everyone who says a word out of order (ie. saying “Zop” instead of “Zip”) or takes too long is eliminated from the game till there is only one left.
Image courtesy of kai4107 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net


By: Cody Moezzi and Madelyn Lucas Let’s briefly imagine that you’re on an engineering team whose space orbit is 100 km closer to crashing into earth’s atmosphere, endangering lives, and costing NASA 125 million dollars. Except, we aren’t pretending here. This is the true story of a 1999 space orbit failure. As a biochemistry major, … More UNIT CONVERSIONS
Why Do We Feel Fatigued After the Thanksgiving Feast? Source: PopSci There’s an old wives’ tale roaming around that I always hear during Thanksgiving: eating turkey makes us feel sleepy because it contains Tryptophan. This is largely a false statement, and as Dr. Helmenstine points out, we would feel the lethargy after the Thanksgiving feast even … More Does Eating Turkey Really Make Us Sleepy?
1. Don’t fall behind. This is definitely easier said than done, but it is very important. If you are always trying to catch up, you will not be able to learn the new, current material and it will be harder to do well in the class. To keep up with the course load, it is … More 5 Tips for Succeeding in General Chemistry
You just consumed a Frontier burrito that was the size of your head and you are wondering what your body is going to do with all that greasy goodness. Well, to put a complicated process into simple terms, cellular respiration occurs. What is cellular respiration? Cellular respiration is a series of metabolic processes that take … More How Your Body is Digesting That Frontier Burrito
Rate laws can be confusing for students, but they don’t need to be. Let’s try to walk through some problems that will hopefully clarify what these problems are and how to approach them. Rate laws appear in the following form: Rate laws can only be determined via experimentation, never from the chemical equation alone. Take … More Chemical Kinetics: Determining Rate Laws


In the young and industrializing United States, the effects of Republican Motherhood and what Jeanne Boydston termed the “pastoralization of housework” led to a new ideology among the emerging idle middle class. Broadly, this class saw itself as prosperous and virtuous; it saw the working classes, and working women in particular, as promiscuous at best and wicked at worst. Rebecca Harding Davis, herself a member of the middle class, used fiction to attempt to combat this stereotype and create empathy between the classes by introducing a working woman named Deborah in Life in the Iron-Mills. However, while Davis’ portrayal of Deborah was a short-term success, it ultimately failed because it reinforced the existing gender system.
Deborah is presented as the victimized working woman instead of the depraved and promiscuous slut. Both stereotypes are middle class creations, but Davis chose one over the other to criticize class inequalities and prejudice toward immigrants. Accordingly, Deborah is described as a new immigrant worn beyond her years, a hunchback and loyal and caring to a fault. Davis knew that in order for a middle class woman to empathize with her character, said character had to be the exact opposite of what the reader expected. Deborah is thus shown in a positive light — while the other women who work at the mills go off to party and drink, Deborah goes home to tend to her family, returning to the mills to deliver dinner to her brother. This similarity allowed middle class readers to view Deborah as human, creating a sense of empathy for those who are oppressed only by a capitalist system and not through any cause of nature.
Most Western ideological systems exist only by binary oppositions and the nineteenth-century gender system was no exception. In order to prove domestic bliss as a wife and mother was the ideal, the system needed something to define itself against. Under this ideology, women were, as Boydston wrote, “ill-equipped to venture into the world of nineteenth-century business”; if wives and mothers who kept to their houses were the ideal, then women who worked outside of the home were somehow abnormal. They were even considered not to be women because they displayed traits more commonly reserved for men, the “breadwinners” who dwelt in the duplicitous and cunning outside world. Women who sought employment outside the home were symbolic threats to this concept of manhood and male authority.
Reality however, as Davis knew, was very different; through Deborah, she presents a woman who had theoretical possibility to be any woman. Despite this, however, Deborah lives up to this idealized standard; she is the “victimized heroine” injected with a shot of harsh reality, a way for her to pacify her middle class readers while still managing to convey her message about class inequality. Davis exacerbates this implicit claim by redeeming Deborah in the end, showing her audience that all the working woman lacks to be live up to the middle class standard of womanhood is material goods. By humanizing Deborah, and by extension working women in general, she sets up the middle class standard as the norm.
Was this Davis’ intention? Possibly. Davis may have redeemed Deborah as form of polite and discreet mockery. It seems more likely, though, that Deborah’s redemption is another aspect added to create empathy — and in this Davis succeeded.
However, Davis was a middle class woman representing a working class woman; her representation was slightly off kilter from the ways in which working class women presented themselves. Fanny Fern was much more straightforward, her style blunt and succinct. She is angry, not philosophical. Nor does she merely want to invoke pity. Instead, Fern wanted to force the “rose colored glasses of ideology” from the faces of the middle class. These women, she argued, are laborers and they are still women.
Fern refused to draw a line between womanhood and labor. Instead, she and others posited that the “romance of labor” was a fiction and the girls of Lowell Mills, who received so much attention, were not so much laborers in hard industry but country girls of New England. Middle class society did not wish to see reality and so created a fiction that worked within their ideology. It was easier to see working women as women who could not or would not keep to their homes, instead of women working to support themselves or their families.
To give Davis her due, she did strip away the fiction to show the true horror and horrendous necessity of factory life. Unfortunately, she maintained the romance of labor via her ending. Any working woman would have known that intervention by a kindly Quaker was unlikely; within the realm of possibility, but highly improbable. Davis’ happy ending is not realistic, but it did appeal to her readers. Deborah’s constant and selfless suffering is rewarded with an elevation, via material goods, to the middle class through the intervention of a well-meaning middle class woman. It may have been a cry to the public to act, to alleviate the conditions of people working in the mills, but it ultimately reinforced middle class hegemony.


The term "town hall" ("dorpsaal" in Afrikaans) is the most common one, often applied without regard to whether the building serves or served a town or a city.
In the past and today in South African local government, a city hall, town hall, or municipal building all referred to the chief administrative building of a city, town or other municipality. Today civic centre is also quite common. They all usually house the city or town council, its associated departments, and their employees and functions as the base of the mayor of a city or town.
Described by the Oxford English Dictionary as a "large hall used for the transaction of the public business of a town, the holding of a court of justice, assemblies, entertainments, etc.; the great hall of the town-house or municipal building; now very commonly applied to the whole building"
In South Africa its use to refer to a venue usually implies a civic hall used for events such as shows, banquets, receptions, dances, theatrical and musical productions in South African towns. A concept taken over from British usage during the colonial period. See the name of the particular town for specific halls (e.g. Barkly West Town Hall).
As symbols of local government, city and town halls have distinctive architecture, and the buildings may have great historical significance. Notable are the city halls built under the British rule in the late 19th century, many of them designed by prominent architects.
Use as venue
By convention, until the mid 19th-century, a single large open chamber (or 'hall') formed an integral part of the building housing the council. The hall may be used for council meetings and other significant events. This large chamber, the 'town hall', (and its later variant city hall or even municipal hall) has become synonymous with the whole building, and with the administrative body housed in it. The terms 'council chambers', 'municipal building' or variants may be used locally in preference to 'town hall' if no such large hall is present within the building.
The local government may endeavour to use the town hall building to promote and enhance the quality of life of the community. In many cases, town halls serve not only as buildings for government functions, but also have facilities for various civic and cultural activities. These may include art shows, stage performances, exhibits and festivals. Modern town halls or civic centres are often designed with a great variety and flexibility of purpose in mind.
In South Africa the freference is also to a civic hall used for events such as shows, banquets, receptions, dances, theatrical and musical productions in South African cities. Tghe concept taken over from British usage during the colonial period. See the name of the particular city for specific halls (e.g. ). See also Town Hall
Municipal hall and community hall
This is a special category of hall, referring to community halls built by urban municipalities, often in the black townships surrounding the town or city, in order to provide facilties for munuicipal activities (payments, clinics, meetings) and as venues for social and artistic events. Under the Apartheid government these were particularly importnat since they made it possible to separate black and white (European and Non-European) audiences from using the same facilities, in accordance with the apartheid regulations. Many Black theatre or Community theatre events took place in these halls, but of course this meant the authorities could exert control access to the venues and thus also the content of the work being presented.
The state provided so-called “community halls” in many of the “Native townships” which could be and were used for performances of variety, dance, plays and the like. The problem in later years was that they remained the only formal performance spaces in the townships, and were controlled by the township administration – hence could be used as a censorsip mechanism. ****
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This is a bacterial rot, and there's not much one can do about it. Gardeners do not use bacterial sprays.
The infection often comes from the seed tuber. The underground part of the stem turns black and starts to rot. This spreads up the stem, the plant turns yellow and then collapses.
The infection can occur on any variety but is more common in earlies. Cold conditions seem to encourage the infection.
The only treatment for the gardener is to remove and destroy infected stems as cleanly and rapidly as possible. Also don't plant blemished seed. It may be infected already.
Nigel Deacon / Diversity website
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Black holes are incredibly dense regions of space that exert such a massive gravitational force, even light cannot escape from them.
That’s a lot of science in one sentence.
So, let’s break the science of black holes down.
Small and dense
A black hole is a large amount of matter that is squashed to a tiny region of space.
Imagine fitting every piece of Lego in the world (that's 400 billion bricks) into one brick.
But a black hole doesn't look like a Lego brick or a star, or any other astronomical object out there.
We actually don't have a clue what a black hole looks like because it doesn't have a surface like a star does.
What it does have is tremendous mass.
Let's go back to our Lego example. If we squashed every Lego brick in the world into one brick, that's going to be one immensely dense Lego brick. It'll fall through the desk and have a huge gravitational field because the more mass an object has, the greater its gravitational pull.
The gravitational field of a black hole is so large that even light cannot escape its gravitational pull.
The boundary of this region where nothing useful can escape the black hole's grasp* is called the event horizon. In other words, if light crosses the event horizon, it won't be seen again.
It also means you can't photograph or even see a black hole.
If we can't see black holes, how do we know they're there?
Black holes are detected by observing how the material surrounding them behaves.
For instance, black holes exert a powerful gravitational pull on nearby stars. If you look more closely at the stars' movements, you can calculate the mass of its invisible partner - and this could be a black hole if the inferred mass is large enough.
You can also investigate the gas and dust surrounding a black hole. This is funnelled by gravity into a disk and, as this material swirls around the black hole, it is moving so fast that it heats up and emits X-rays. We can detect these X-rays from Earth.
Another hint of a black hole is that light from the stars behind a black hole will be bent by its gravitational pull. You can measure the deflection of this light to derive the existence of a black hole - this bending is a process called gravitational lensing.
Black holes can also collide and create gravitational waves. Gravitational waves were detected last year and helped to prove one of Einstein's most fundamental theories - the General Theory of Relativity.
Yet, our understanding of black holes and their potential to help us understand our universe is still far from understood.
To quote theoretical physicist John Wheeler: “[The black hole] teaches us that space can be crumpled like a piece of paper into an infinitesimal dot, that time can be extinguished like a blown-out flame, and that the laws of physics that we regard as ‘sacred,’ as immutable, are anything but.”
Extra reading and watching
NASA's explanation on black holes is a great first port of call, Wired gives more details on how black holes form and this article from Space gives you more information on the different types of black hole in our universe.
And you can't go wrong with this brilliant Black Hole overview from New Scientist or this video explaining black holes:
* 30 years ago, Stephen Hawking suggested that black holes should release heat. He, more recently, argued that information could, technically, escape from a black hole.
What is Sunday Science?
Hello. I’m the freelance writer who gets tech. I have two degrees in Physics and, during my studies, I became increasingly frustrated with the complicated language used to describe some outstanding scientific principles. Language should aid our understanding — in science, it often feels like a barrier.
So, I want to simplify these science sayings and this blog series “Sunday Science” gives a quick, no-nonsense definition of the complex-sounding scientific terms you often hear, but may not completely understand.
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Settling solids upstream of a CSO has led to an undesirable odor issue in warm temperatures and elevated environmental pollutant loading during the first flush period of wet weather events. Several strategies exist to ameliorate the solids discharged during the first flush period of an overflow event; with one strategy being the use of a dry weather channel. A dry weather channel (DWC) is a collection system design feature that can be used to limit and reduce solids deposition within the collection system by maintaining higher forward flow velocities during low flow while reducing the settleable surface area within the collection system for solids accumulation. This work employed a first order solids transport model from Willems (2010) to represent the settling and wash-off rates within the collection system in conjunction with the “P8 urban catchment model” from Walker (1990) to model the influent mass rate from overland flow. The model was subsequently refined to incorporate the concept of uniform settling on the wetted surfaces within the collection system. Modeling results at the CSO outflow point, when comparing the existing system to the proposed, suggest that a DWC could reduce the solids discharged from the CSO by approximately 25% annually.