A clergyman's Daughter - George Orwell

1. "Any time after the bar was open, the large, rosy-
gilled faces of the town's elite were to be seen gazing like chubby
goldfish from an aquarium pane"

2. "When is the wretched thing due to happen?'
'It's September the sixteenth, Father.'
'That's nearly a month hence. For Heaven's sake let me forget it
a little longer! I suppose we must have this ridiculous business
once a year to tickle the vanity of every amateur gardener in the
parish. But don't let's think of it more than is absolutely
necessary"

3. "'Please, Miss,' went on Ellen plaintively, 'Mr Porter's in the
kitchen, and he says, please could the Rector come round and
baptize Mrs Porter's baby? Because they don't think as it's going
to live the day out, and it ain't been baptized yet, Miss.'

Dorothy stood up. 'Sit down,' said the Rector promptly, with his
mouth full.

'What do they think is the matter with the baby?' said Dorothy.

'Well, Miss, it's turning quite black. And it's had diarrhoea
something cruel.'

The Rector emptied his mouth with an effort. 'Must I have these
disgusting details while I am eating my breakfast?' he exclaimed.
He turned on Ellen: 'Send Porter about his business and tell him
I'll be round at his house at twelve o'clock. I really cannot
think why it is that the lower classes always seem to choose
mealtimes to come pestering one,' he added"


4. 'I most certainly can blame him! It is simply abominable how these
people take it upon themselves to behave nowadays--abominable! But
there you are, you see. That is the kind of thing that we are
exposed to in this delightful century. That is democracy--
PROGRESS, as they are pleased to call it. Don't order from the
fellow again. Tell him at once that you are taking your account
elsewhere. That's the only way to treat these people.'

5. It is a curious fact
that the lure of a 'good investment' seems to haunt clergymen more
persistently than any other class of man. Perhaps it is the modern
equivalent of the demons in female shape who used to haunt the
anchorites of the Dark Ages."

6. "Mr Blifil-Gordon's largesse of smiles
was unceasing, but carefully graded."

7. 'Trying to get us to vote for them! Good God!' murmured Mr
Warburton, as he eyed the triumphal cortege. He raised the large,
silver-headed cane that he always carried, and pointed, rather
expressively, first at one figure in the procession and then at
another. 'Look at it! Just look at it! Look at those fawning
hags, and that half-witted oaf grinning at us like a monkey that
sees a bag of nuts. Did you ever see such a disgusting spectacle?'"

"'Good!' said Mr Warburton, immediately raising his voice. 'And to
think that low-born hound actually has the impertinence to think
that he's pleasing us with the sight of his false teeth! And that
suit he's wearing is an offence in itself. Is there a Socialist
candidate? If so, I shall certainly vote for him.'"


8. 'Oh, but how could you be such a brute?'

'Oh, THAT? Easily, my child, easily. You will understand that
when you get to my age.'

9. Just for poor working folks like us, that have
been sober and godly and kept our Communions regular." That's the
best way, ain't it, Miss Dorothy--poor in this life and rich in the
next? Not like some of them rich folks as all their motorcars and
their beautiful houses won't save from the worm that dieth not and
the fire that's not quenched.

10. 'Now don't go and turn round,' said Mr Warburton mildly. 'You
don't seem to realize how tactful it was on my part to approach you
from behind your back. If you turn round you'll see that I'm old
enough to be your father, and hideously bald into the bargain. But
if you'll only keep still and not look at me you can imagine I'm
Ivor Novello

Society unmoored from the objective facts

What is true VS what feels true

Race - The power of an illusion :)

"Two randomly selected individuals from different populations can be closer to each other than either individual is to a random co-ethnic
For one or a few markers, in trials where an individual is compared to a randomly selected co-ethnic or a randomly selected individual from another population, in a minority of cases, the individual will be closer to the person selected from a different ethnic group, but the proportion of such cases will decrease with the use of more markers. However, if the entire genetic information is considered, then an individual will be closer to a random co-ethnic than a random individual from another ethnicity."

-http://wiki.majorityrights.com/race

Dan Pink - Intrinsic VS extrinsic

SAVE SAFFRON MONKS

http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?28762&101

This may look aimless and petty but signing this petition can(hopefully WILL) help people(you) move closer to SAVING the humanity. Stop being selfish and sign the petition.

Indifference (+dehumanization) from the Burmese government has caused people to suffer from starvation, trauma and all sorts of emotional tragedies that one does not deserve to go through.

If this little petition can help the Burmese receive justice, why should you ignore it, for your carelessness? for your nihilistic view of life?

The point is, when you see a little child starving right next to you, and if you have food in your hands, you give "your" food to the child. THAT is the rule of humanity.

Save yourself by saving others.

- Donna.M

The Red Tent - A birth song from the Shechem’s valley

“Fear not, the time is coming
Fear not, your hones are strong
Fear not, help is nearby
Fear not, Gula is near
Fear not, the baby is at the door
Fear not, he will live to bring you honor
Fear not, the hands of the midwife are clever
Fear not, the earth is beneath you
Fear not, we have water and salt
Fear not, little mother
Fear not, mother of us all”

Watch out - If you are American,

US CODE TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 45 > § 956. Conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim, or injure persons or damage property in a foreign country.

(a) (Omiteed)

(b) Whoever, within the jurisdiction of the United States, conspires with one or more persons, regardless of where such other person or persons are located, to damage or destroy specific property situated within a foreign country and belonging to a foreign government or to any political subdivision thereof with which the United States is at peace, or any railroad, canal, bridge, airport, airfield, or other public utility, public conveyance, or public structure, or any religious, educational, or cultural property so situated, shall, if any of the conspirators commits an act within the jurisdiction of the United States to effect any object of the conspiracy, be imprisoned not more than 25 years

Renaissance music (1400-1600)

The increasing reliance on the interval of the third as a consonance is one of the most pronounced features of early Renaissance European art music (in the Middle Ages, thirds had been considered dissonances: see interval). Polyphony, in use since the 12th century, became increasingly elaborate with highly independent voices throughout the 14th century: the beginning of the 15th century showed simplification, with the voices often striving for smoothness. This was possible because of a greatly increased vocal range in music – in the Middle Ages, the narrow range made necessary frequent crossing of parts, thus requiring a greater contrast between them. -Wikipedia


Pierre de La Rue


Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

A people's tragedy - 1912 Russia, Against the nobles

"New militant assertiveness and impatience with the nobles was reflected in village songs, such as this one from 1912:
At night I strut around, And rich men don't get in my way. Just let some rich guy try, And I'll screw his head on upside-down."


Poets Blok and Belyi portrayed Russia after 1905 as an active and unstable volcano.

Ramadan is coming

Ramadan (Arabic: رمضان‎) (also written Ramazan, Ramzan, Ramadhan, Ramdan, Ramadaan) is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. It is the Islamic month of fasting, in which participating Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, sexual conduct, smoking, and indulging in anything that is in excess or ill-natured; from dawn until sunset [1] Fasting is meant to teach the Muslim patience, modesty and spirituality. Ramaḍān is a time to fast for the sake of Allah, and to offer more prayer than usual. Muslims also believed through good actions, they get rewarded seventy times as much as they normally can achieve. During Ramaḍān, Muslims ask forgiveness for past sins, pray for guidance and help in refraining from everyday evils, and try to purify themselves through self-restraint and good deeds. As compared to solar calendar, the dates of Ramadan vary, moving forward about ten days each year. Ramadhan was the month in which the first verses of the Qur'an were revealed[Qur'an 2:185] to the Prophet Muhammad. - Wikipedia

To find out more
:http://www.euronews.net/2009/08/21/ramadan-dawns-as-muslims-prepare-to-fast/

Wet day

I wanted to exert a nice poem as a description of these two pictures, but I can't think of any interesting poets, maybe Sylvia Plath but her poetry is distraught. If I come across an appropriate poem for these pictures, I will bring it about to make this post complete.


EDIT:

Romance - Edgar Allan Poe

Romance, who loves to nod and sing,
With drowsy head and folded wing,
Among the green leaves as they shake
Far down within some shadowy lake,
To me a painted paroquet
Hath been- a most familiar bird-
Taught me my alphabet to say-
To lisp my very earliest word
While in the wild wood I did lie,
A child- with a most knowing eye.

Of late, eternal Condor years
So shake the very Heaven on high
With tumult as they thunder by,
I have no time for idle cares
Through gazing on the unquiet sky.
And when an hour with calmer wings
Its down upon my spirit flings-
That little time with lyre and rhyme
To while away- forbidden things!
My heart would feel to be a crime
Unless it trembled with the strings.

Ouroboros

Today while I was reading Anita Diamante's the red tent, I came across a fascinating ancient symbol called Ouroboros.

(Wikipedia)
The Ouroboros (Greek Οὐροβόρος or οὐρηβόρος, from οὐροβόρος ὄφις "tail-devouring snake", also spelled Uroboros in English pronounced /ʊˈɹɒbɔɹɔs/ or /ˌjʊəɹoʊˈbɒɹəs/), is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon swallowing its own tail and forming a circle.

The Ouroboros often represents self-reflexivity or cyclicality, especially in the sense of something constantly re-creating itself, the eternal return, and other things perceived as cycles that begin anew as soon as they end (See Phoenix). It can also represent the idea of primordial unity related to something existing in or persisting from the beginning with such force or qualities it cannot be extinguished. The ouroboros has been important in religious and mythological symbolism, but has also been frequently used in alchemical illustrations, where it symbolizes the circular nature of the alchemist's opus. It is also often associated with Gnosticism, and Hermeticism.

The Red Tent - Anita Diamante (very beautiful)

"No one recalled my skill as a midwife, or the songs I sang, or the bread I baked for my insatiable brothers. Nothing remained except a few mangled details about those weeks in Shechem.
There was far more to tell. Had I been asked to speak of it, I would have begun with the story of the generation that raised me, which is the only place to begin. If you want to understand any woman you must first ask about her mother and then listen carefully. Stories about food show a strong connection. Wistful silences demonstrate unfinished business. The more a daughter knows the details of her mother’s life—without flinching or whining—the stronger the daughter."


"but then Zilpah had little use for men, whom she described as hairy, crude, and half human. Women needed men to make babies and to move heavy objects, but otherwise she didn’t understand their purpose, much less appreciate their charms. She loved her sons passionately until they grew beards, but after that could barely bring herself to look at them."

"He fell out of his mother’s womb like ripe fruit, another boy, also dark but much smaller than the first.
But his mother did not see him. A river of blood followed in his wake, and the light in Zilpah’s eyes went out. Time and again Inna and Rachel packed her womb with wool and herbs to staunch the bleeding. They wet her lips with water and strong, honeyed brews. They sang healing hymns and burned incense to keep her spirit from flying out of the tent."

"Poor Bilhah. After Dan, all her babies—a boy and two girls— died before weaning. But she never let her sorrow poison her heart, and she loved the rest of us instead."

"She told no one when her moon blood failed to come. The many false starts and early losses haunted her, and she guarded her secret closely. She went to the red tent at the new moon and changed the straw as though she had soiled it. She was so slender that the slight thickening of her waist went unnoticed by everyone but Bilhah, who kept her own counsel.
At the fourth month, Rachel went to Inna, who told her that the signs looked good for this boy, and Rachel began to hope. She showed her swelling belly to her sisters, who danced in a circle around her. She put Jacob’s hand on the hillock of her womb. The father of ten sons wept."

"I AM NOT CERTAIN whether my earliest memories are truly mine, because when I bring them to mind, I feel my mothers’ breath on every word. But I do remember the taste of the water from our well, bright and cold against my milk teeth."

"“How is it that a daughter of Leah could have such unlucky fingers?” she said one day, looking at the tangle I had made of my work.
I hated her for those words. For the first time in my life, I hated my mother. My face grew hot as tears came to my eyes, and I threw a whole day’s spinning into the dirt. It was a terrible act of waste and disrespect, and I think neither of us could believe that I had done it. In an instant, the sharp slap of her palm against my cheek cracked the air. I was far more shocked than hurt. Although my mother cuffed my brothers from time to time, it was the first time she had ever struck me.
I stood there for a long moment watching her face twist in pain over what she had done. Without a word I turned and ran to find Bilhah’s lap, where I wept and moaned about the terrible wrong that had been done to me. I told my aunt everything that lay heavy upon my heart. I wept over my useless fingers, which would never get the wool to twist evenly or the spindle to drop and turn smoothly. I was afraid that I had shamed my mother by being so awkward. "

"hen I caught her watching one of her boys walking toward another mother’s tent at nightfall, I would pull at her hand. Then she would lift me up so that our eyes could meet, and kiss me on one cheek and then on the other, and then on the tip of my nose. This always made me laugh, which would in turn always bring a warm smile to my mother’s face. One of my great secrets was knowing I had the power to make her smile."


"Everyone knew that the darker animals did not produce wool that spun white, or skins that tanned evenly. What Laban did not know was that the “poorer” beasts were hardier and healthier than the animals that yielded the fancy wool and the pretty skins. The brindled ewes dropped twins more often than not, and most of their offspring were females, which meant more cheese. The hair of his mottled goats was especially oily, which made for a stronger rope. But these were Jacob’s secrets, which he had learned during his years with the herds. This was knowledge that Laban’s laziness had cost him.
Laban said, “So be it,” and the men drank wine to seal the agreement. Jacob would go with his wives and his sons, and with the brindled and spotted flocks, which numbered no more than sixty goats and sixty sheep. There would have been more livestock, but Jacob traded for two of the bondsmen and their women. In exchange for a donkey and an ancient ox, Jacob agreed to leave two of his dogs, including the best of the herders."


"Bilhah said, “Ruti will die now.” Her words hung in the air, unchallenged and true. “One day, Laban will hit her too hard or she will simply waste away from sorrow.”
Zilpah sighed into the silence and Leah wiped her eyes. Rachel stared at her hands. My mother pulled me onto her lap, a place that I had outgrown. But I sat there and let her baby me, and enjoyed her thoughtless caresses."

"The sweet cakes went untouched except by babies who wandered in and out, seeking their mothers’ breasts and laps."

"And then I understood another reason why we had left Haran—to get my brothers bride-prices without Laban’s sticky fingers getting in the way. When I asked my mother about this, she said, “Well, of course,” but I was impressed with my own worldliness and insight."

The principles of science in method - Karl Pearson

1. The observation and recording of facts
2. The grouping of these facts with proper correlation and with proper distinction
from other facts
3. The effort to devise some summarizing or, if possible, explanatory statement
which will enable one to grasp conveniently their significance

(ART)Romanticism Music (1820s - 1900)

"Romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subject nor exact truth, but in the way of feeling." - Charles Baudelaire

1.The inaugural moment of modernity
2.The beginning of a tradition of resistance to the Enlightenment
(a counter-enlightenment)


*In 1810 E.T.A. Hoffmann called Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven the three "Romantic Composers." However, technically, Mozart and Haydn are considered Classical composers, and by most standards, Beethoven represents the start of the musical Romantic period.


(I honestly don't like this)

*The traditional modern discussion of the music of Romanticism includes elements, such as the growing use of folk music, which are also directly related to the broader current of Romantic nationalism in the arts.
(Romantic nationalism)



In the contemporary music culture, the romantic musician followed a public career, depending on sensitive middle-class audiences rather than on a courtly patron, as had been the case with earlier musicians and composers. Public persona characterized a new generation of virtuosi who made their way as soloists, epitomized in the concert tours of Paganini and Liszt.




Early nineteenth century developments in instrumental technology—iron frames for pianos, wound metal strings for string instruments—enabled louder dynamics, more varied tone colours, and the potential for sensational virtuosity. Such developments swelled the length of pieces, introduced programmatic titles, and created new genres such as the free-standing concert overture or tone poem, the piano fantasia, nocturne and rhapsody, and the virtuosic concerto, which became central to musical romanticism.

It is the period of 1815 to 1848 which must be regarded as the true age of Romanticism in music - the age of the last compositions of
1.Beethoven (d. 1827)
2.Schubert (d. 1828)
3.Schumann (d. 1856)
4.Chopin (d.1849)
5.Berlioz
6.Richard Wagner
7.Paganini (d. 1840)
8.young Liszt
9.Thalberg.
10.Mendelssohn (d. 1847)

The Mask of Sanity - Finnegan's wake

"Renowned critics and some professors in our best universities reverently acclaim as the superlative expression of genius James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, a 628-page collection of erudite gibberish indistinguishable to most people from the familiar word salad produced by hebephrenic patients on the back wards of any state hopsital.

Let us illustrate briefly with the initial page from this remarkable volume

:Riverrun, past Eve and Adarn's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a
commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.
Sir Tristram, violer d'amores, fr'over the short sea, had passencore rearrived from
North Armorica on this side the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his
penisolate war: nor had topsawyer's rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themselse to Laurens County's gorgios while they went doublin their mumper all the time: nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to tauftauf thuartpeatrick: not yet, though venissoon after, had a kidscad buttened a bland old isaac: not yet, though all's fair in vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe. Rot a peck of pa's malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight and rory end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface.
The fall bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhoun
awnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnukl) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed
and later on life down through all christian minstrelsy. The great fall of the offwall entailed at such short notice the pftjschute of Finnegan, erse solid man, that the humptyhillhead of humself prumptly sends an unquiring one well to the west in quest of his tumptytumtoes: and their upturnpikepointandplace is at the knock out in the park where oranges have been laid to rust upon the green since devlinsfirst loved livvy.

The adventurous reader will, I promise, find any of the other 627 pages equally
illuminating. It is not for me to say dogmatically that Finnegan's Wake is a volume
devoid of meaning. Nor could I with certainty make such a pronouncement about the
chaotic verbal productions of the patient on the back ward of an old time state hospital."

(ART)Auguste Renoir

A little bit of smooth French Impressionnisme for my rigid blog.

The New Yorker - Frazier on Siberia

Absolutely loved this.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/multimedia/2009/08/03/090803_audioslideshow_sketchesofsiberia?xrail

Laugh, Kookaburra - David Sedaris

1. "but we wouldn’t have seen anything were it not for a woman named Pat, who was born in Melbourne and has lived there for most of her life. We’d met her a few years earlier, in Paris, where she’d come to spend a mid-July vacation. Over drinks in our living room, her face dewed with sweat, she taught us the term “shout,” as in “I’m shouting lunch.” This means that you’re treating, and that you don’t want any lip about it. “You can also say, ‘It’s my shout,’ or, ‘I’ll shout the next round,’ ” she told us."

2. " I crept back upstairs to join Amy for another twenty rounds. “Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree, merry merry king of the bush is he—”
It didn’t take long for our father to rally. “Did I not tell you to go to your room?”
What would strike me afterward was the innocence of it. If I had children and they stayed up late, singing a song about a bird, I believe I would find it charming. “I knew I had those two for a reason,” I think I’d say to myself. I might go so far as to secretly record them, and submit the tape in a My Kids Are Cuter Than Yours competition. My dad, by contrast, clearly didn’t see it that way, which was strange to me. It’s not like we were ruining his TV reception. He couldn’t even hear us from that distance, so what did he have to complain about? “All right, sonny, I’m giving you ten seconds. One. Two . . .”
I guess what he resented was being dismissed. Had our mother told us to shut up, we’d probably have done it. He, on the other hand, sitting around in his underpants—it just didn’t seem that important. "

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/24/090824fa_fact_sedaris?currentPage=all

Virgin Soil

"Bored!" Ostrodumov repeated reproachfully. "What self- indulgence! One would think we had no work to
do. Heaven knows how we shall get through with it, and he complains of being bored!"

A taste of Chukotko-Koriak dance

A people's tragedy - Bloody Sunday (Кровавое воскресенье)

"SIRE
We, the workers and inhabitants of St Petersburg, of various estates, our wives, our children, and our aged, helpless parents, come to THEE, O SIRE to seek justice and protection. We are impoverished; we are oppressed, overburdened with excessive toil, contemptuously treated . . . We are suffocating in despotism and lawlessness. O SIRE we have no strength left, and our endurance is at an end. We have reached that frightful moment when death is better than the prolongation of our unbearable sufferings . . ."


On 3—8 January 1905, when 120,000 workers went on strike in St Petersburg and began to speak about going to the Tsar in order to 'seek truth and justice', Gapon took up their cause. Encouraged by the Liberation Movement, he drew up a list of demands to be presented to the Tsar in a mass demonstration scheduled for the following Sunday. On 7 January the government ordered Gapon to call off the march and posted notices in the city centre warning of 'resolute measures' against any gatherings on the streets. Aware of the imminent tragedy, Gorky led a delegation of intellectuals to the offices of Witte and Mirsky in a vain effort to get them to negotiate with the demonstrators. But the government, which continued to entertain the illusion that it could control Gapon, was confident that force would not be required. Nicholas thought so little of the danger that he even left the capital for his palace at Tsarskoe Selo and another quiet weekend of country walks and games of dominoes. But by then the workers were far too determined to be put off by simple prohibitions.

As the column approached the Narva Gates it was suddenly charged by a squadron of cavalry. Some of the marchers scattered but others continued to advance towards the lines of infantry, whose rifles were pointing directly at them. Two warning salvoes were fired into the air, and then at close range a third volley was aimed at the unarmed crowd. People screamed and fell to the ground but the soldiers, now panicking themselves, continued to fire steadily into the mass of people. Forty people were killed and hundreds wounded as they tried to flee. Gapon was knocked down in the rush. But he got up and, staring in

disbelief at the carnage around him, was heard to say over and over again: 'There is no God any longer. There is no Tsar.'

There were similar massacres in other parts of the city. At the Troitsky Bridge, near the Peter and Paul Fortress, the marchers were mown down by gunfire and sabred by the Cossack cavalry. Gorky, who was in the crowd, recalls the death of one worker:
The dragoon circled round him and, shrieking like a woman, waved his sabre in the air . . . Swooping down from his dancing horse ... he slashed him across the face, cutting him open from the eyes to the chin. I remember the strangely enlarged eyes of the worker and . . . the murderer's face, blushed from the cold and excitement, his teeth clenched in a grin and the hairs of his moustache standing up on his elevated lip. Brandishing his tarnished shaft of steel he let out another shriek and, with a wheeze, spat at the dead man through his teeth.

- A people's tragedy

A people's tragedy - Nicholas and zemstovs

Mirsky presented the Tsar with a carefully worded digest of the zemstvo assembly's resolutions, in the hope of winning him over to a programme of moderate reforms. The most controversial recommendation was the one for elected zemstvo representatives to sit on the State Council. But it also declared, in terms that must have offended the Supreme Autocrat, that the 'old patrimonial order' with its 'notions of personal rule' had been dead since the 1860s. Russia was no longer 'the personal property and fiefdom of its ruler', but an 'an impersonal state with its own body politic', its own 'public interest' and 'public opinion', which made it 'separate from the person of the ruler'. It was no doubt this challenge to his cherished ideals of patrimonialism that convinced the Tsar, under pressure from the Empress and his court advisers, to reject the most progressive parts of Mirsky's draft decree. 'I will never agree to the representative form of government', Nicholas proclaimed, 'because I consider it harmful to the people whom God thas entrusted to me.' The decree, which was finally passed on 12 December, promised to strengthen the rule of law, to ease restrictions on the press and to expand the rights of the zemstvos. But it said nothing on the all-important subject of a parliamentary body, on which concessions were essential if a revolution was to be averted. Hearing of its contents, Mirsky at once fell into despair. 'Everything has failed,' he said despondently to one of his colleagues. 'Let us build jails.

A people's tragedy - Au Toh Kra Sy

If there is a single, repetitive theme in the history of Russia during the last twenty years of the old regime, it is that of the need for reform and the failure of successive governments to achieve it in the face of the Tsar's opposition. Not that sweeping reforms would have been necessary: most of the liberals would have been satisfied by such moderate changes as the convocation of a consultative assembly, the expansion of local self-government and greater civil rights, which need not have undermined the monarchy. But Nicholas was opposed to the idea of any limitation upon his autocratic prerogatives.

A people's tragedy - Semi Asians VS Asians

General Kuropatkin, the Minister of War, believed that Nicholas wanted to extend his Empire across the whole of Asia, conquering not only Manchuria and Korea but also Tibet, Afghanistan and Persia. Most of his ministers encouraged such ambitions. It was a way of flattering the Tsar — who after all had very few talents. Nicholas's cousin, the Kaiser Wilhelm, also played along with his imperial fantasies, since he wished to divert Russia from the Balkans. On one occasion he had cabled the Tsar from his yacht: 'The Admiral of the Atlantic greets the Admiral of the Pacific.'

When the war(Russo-Japanese war) began, in January 1904, with the Japanese attack on the Russian fleet at Port Arthur in Manchuria, the Tsar and his advisers took victory for granted. Kuropatkin claimed he would need only two Russian soldiers for every three Japanese, so superior were they to the Asians. Government posters portrayed the Japanese as puny little monkeys, slit-eyed and yellow-skinned, running in panic from the giant white fist of a robust Russian soldier. Another displayed a swarm of spider-like 'Japs', faces twisted in fear, struggling to escape from underneath a huge Cossack hat. The caption read 'Catch them by the hatful!' This patriotic mood, with its racist overtones, swept through liberal society.


The only shots the squadron fired hit some English fishing trawlers in the North Sea, which the commander had mistaken for Japanese torpedo boats. The case went to international arbitration (the Dogger Bank Inquiry) and Russia was forced to pay damages of £65,000. Even the country's leading entrepreneurs, who had in the past relied on the state for protection, now joined in the chorus of criticism as they suffered the economic dislocations of the war. A. I. Guchkov (1862—1936), a wealthy Moscow industrialist who fought for the Boers against the British and ran a field hospital in Manchuria, was particularly critical of the monarchy for its failure to equip the military with the tools of modern warfare. The future leader of the Octobrist Party was echoed by much of the press, which blamed the bureaucratic system for Russia's military decline. The gossip in the salons was cruel. On the news that the Tsar had sent the troops icons to boost their morale, General Dragomirov quipped: 'The Japanese are beating us with machine-guns, but never mind: we'll beat them with icons.' The autocracy had shown itself incapable of defending the national interest and joining the opposition now came to be seen, in the words of one official, as something 'noble and patriotic'.

A people's tragedy - Mensheviks

Menshevism remained a loose movement — high on morals, low on discipline. There was no real Menshevik leader, in the sense that the Bolsheviks

had one, and indeed it was a part of Menshevik ideology to deny the need for one.

the Mensheviks were genuinely more democratic, both in their policies and in their composition, than the Bolsheviks. They tended to attract a broader range of people — more non-Russians, especially Jews and Georgians, more diverse types of workers, petty merchants and members of the intelligentsia — whereas the followers of the Bolsheviks tended to come from a narrower range (the vast majority were Great Russian workers and uprooted peasants).

The Mensheviks were democrats by instinct, and their actions as revolutionaries were always held back by the moral scruples which this entailed.

A people's tragedy - Masses and unfortunate Mensheviks

Lenin was proposing a centralized and conspiratorial party of professional revolutionaries in the tradition of the People's Will. He had a profound mistrust of the revolutionary potential of the masses, who he believed, without the leadership of an elite party vanguard, would inevitably become diverted by the bread-and-butter issues of Economism.


'Socialist consciousness', he had written in What Is To Be Done?, 'cannot exist among the workers. This can be introduced only from without.' This mistrust of democracy was to form the basis of Lenin's centralist approach to the trade unions, the Soviets and all the other mass-based organizations after 1917. The masses should in his view be no more than instruments of the party. This was pointed out by Lenin's critics, who warned that such a centralized party would lead to dictatorship.

Socialism, in their view, was unattainable without democracy, which necessitated a broad-based party arising directly from the culture and the consciousness of the working class. Martov's view on Article One was at first upheld by 28 votes to 23. But two factions which supported it — the 5 Bundist delegates (who had been denied their demand for autonomy within the party) followed by the 2 Economists (who had been defeated by the Iskra-ites) — then walked out of the Congress, leaving Lenin with a slender majority. It was on this basis that his faction was christened the 'Bolsheviks' ('Majoritarians') and their opponents the 'Mensheviks' ('Minoritarians'). With hindsight it is clear that the Mensheviks were very foolish to allow the adoption of these names. It saddled them with the permanent image of a minority party, which was to be an important disadvantage in their rivalry with the Bolsheviks.

A people's tragedy - Who is Ulianova?

The leader of the Bolshevik Revolution came to politics quite late. At the age of sixteen he was still religious and showed no interest in politics at all. Classics and literature were his main studies at the gymnasium in Simbirsk. There, by one of those curious historical ironies, Lenin's headmaster was Fedor Kerensky, the father of his arch-rival in 1917. During Lenin's final year at the gymnasium (1887) Kerensky wrote a report on the future Bolshevik describing him as a model student, never giving 'cause for dissatisfaction, by word or by deed, to the school authorities'. This he put down to the 'moral' nature of his upbringing. 'Religion and discipline', wrote the headmaster, 'were the basis of this upbringing, the fruits of which are apparent in Ul'ianov's behaviour.' So far there was nothing to suggest that Lenin was set to become a revolutionary; on the contrary, all the indications were that he would follow in his father's footsteps and make a distinguished career in the tsarist bureaucracy.
Ilya Ul'ianov, Lenin's father, was a typical gentleman-liberal of the type that his son would come to despise. There is no basis to the myth, advanced by Nadezhda Krupskaya in 1938, that he exerted a revolutionary influence on his children. Anna Ul'ianova, Lenin's sister, recalls that he was a religious man, that he greatly admired Alexander II's reforms of the 1860s, and that he saw it as his job to protect the young from radicalism. He was the Inspector of Schools for Simbirsk Province, an important office which entitled him to be addressed as 'Your Excellency'. This noble background was a source of embarrassment to Lenin's Soviet hagiographers. They chose to dwell instead on the humble origins of his paternal grandfather, Nikolai Ul'ianov, the son of a serf who had worked as a tailor in the lower Volga town of Astrakhan. But here too there was a problem: Nikolai was partly Kalmyk western Mongolic people, and his wife Anna wholly so (Lenin's face had obvious Mongol features), and this was inconvenient to a Stalinist regime peddling its own brand of Great Russian chauvinism. Lenin's ancestry on his mother's side was even more embarrassing. Maria Alexandrovna, Lenin's mother, was the daughter of Alexander Blank, a baptized Jew who rose to become a wealthy doctor and landowner in Kazan. He was the son of Moishe Blank, a Jewish merchant from Volhynia who had married a Swedish woman by the name of Anna Ostedt.


Lenin was of Russian, Mongol(Kalmyk), Jewish, Swedish and German origins.

War Dance by Sherman Alexie

"My father, an alcoholic, diabetic Indian with terminally damaged kidneys, had just endured an incredibly expensive surgery for what? So that he could ride his motorized wheelchair to the bar and win bets by showing off his disfigured foot?"

"With the blanket in hand, I walked back to my father. It was a thin blanket, laundered and sterilized a hundred times. In fact, it was too thin. It wasn’t really a blanket. It was more like a large beach towel. Hell, it wasn’t even good enough for that. It was more like the world’s biggest coffee filter"

"This guy was talking out of his ass. I liked him immediately."

"When the movie was over, I called my wife, nine hours ahead in Italy.
“I should come home,” she said.
“No, I’m O.K.,” I said. “Come on, you’re in Rome. What are you seeing today?”
“The Vatican.”
“You can’t leave now. You have to go and steal something. It will be revenge for every Indian. Or maybe you can plant an eagle feather and claim that you just discovered Italy.”


"We buried my father in the tiny Catholic cemetery on our reservation. Since I am named after him, I had to stare at a tombstone with my name on it."

"I wanted to throw my phone into a wall, but I said goodbye instead and glared at the tumorless people and their pretty tumorless heads."

"It was a scary and yet strangely positive description. No one ever wants to read the word “malignant” unless you’re reading a Charles Dickens novel about an evil landlord, but “benign” and “majority” are two words that go well together. "

"This random shopping made me feel better for a few minutes, but then I stopped and walked to the toy aisle. My boys needed gifts, Lego cars or something, for a lift, a shot of capitalist joy"


http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2009/08/10/090810fi_fiction_alexie

Populism

"Populism was less a doctrine than a set of sentiments and attitudes. At its root was the intelligentsia's adoration of the simple folk, and a belief in their wisdom and goodness. The cult was expressed as much in literature as it was in politics and social theories. Although the term was only really used from the 1870s onwards, the three basic principles of Populism — the primacy of liberty and democracy, the idealization of the peasantry and the belief that Russia's path to socialism was autochthonous and separate from that of the West — were common to a long tradition of Russian thought beginning in the 1840s with the radical Slavophiles and Herzen and culminating half a century later with the formation of the Social Revolutionary Party."

- A people's tragedy

The Revolutionary Catechism

The revolutionary catechism written by Nechaev (or in collaboration with Bakunin)

Its twenty-six articles, setting out the principles of the professional revolutionary, might have served as the Bolshevik oath.

The key themes - Ruthless discipline and dedication
The essential message - only the Tzarist methods can defeat the Tzarist regime.

It's first article read,

"The revolutionary is a dedicated man. He has no personal feelings, no private affairs, no emotions, no attachments, no property, and no name. Everything in him is subordinated towards a single exclusive attachment, a single thought and a single passion — the revolution.
Rejecting all morality, the revolutionary must be ready 'to destroy everyone who stands in his way'. He must harden himself to all suffering: All the soft and tender feelings of the family, friendship and love, even all gratitude and honour, must be stifled, and in their place there must be the cold and single-minded passion for the work of the revolution."