American manufacturer of glass & ceramics

Not to be confused with Owens Corning

Corning Incorporated is an American multinational technology company that specializes in specialty glass, ceramics, and related materials and technologies including advanced optics, primarily for industrial and scientific applications. The company was named Corning Glass Works until 1989.[3] Corning divested its consumer product lines (including CorningWare and Visions Pyroceram-based cookware, Corelle Vitrelle tableware, and Pyrex glass bakeware) in 1998 by selling the Corning Consumer Products Company subsidiary (now known as Corelle Brands) to Borden, but still holds an interest of about 8 percent.

As of 2014 , Corning had five major business sectors: display technologies, environmental technologies, life sciences, optical communications, and specialty materials. Corning is involved in two joint ventures: Dow Corning and Pittsburgh Corning. Quest Diagnostics and Covance were spun off from Corning in 1996.[4] Corning is one of the main suppliers to Apple Inc. since working with Steve Jobs in 2007 to develop the iPhone;[5] Corning develops and manufactures Gorilla Glass, which is used by a large number of smartphone makers. It is one of the world’s biggest glassmakers.[6] Corning won the National Medal of Technology and Innovation four times for its product and process innovations.[7][8][9][10]

History [ edit ]

Corning Glass Works was founded in 1851 by Amory Houghton, in Somerville, Massachusetts, originally as the Bay State Glass Co. It later moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, and operated as the Brooklyn Flint Glass Works. The company moved again to its ultimate home and namesake, the city of Corning, New York, in 1868 under leadership of the founder's son, Amory Houghton, Jr.

Over 147 years later, Corning continues to maintain its world headquarters at Corning, N.Y. The firm also established one of the first industrial research labs there in 1908. It continues to expand the nearby research and development facility, as well as operations associated with catalytic converters and diesel engine filter product lines. Corning has a long history of community development and has assured community leaders that it intends to remain headquartered in its small upstate New York hometown.[11]

The California Institute of Technology's 200-inch (5.1 m) telescope mirror at Palomar Observatory was cast by Corning during 1934–1936 out of low expansion borosilicate glass.[12] In 1932, George Ellery Hale approached Corning with the challenge of fabricating the required optic for his Palomar project. A previous effort to fabricate the optic from fused quartz had failed. Corning's first attempt was a failure, the cast blank having voids. Using lessons learned, Corning was successful in the casting of the second blank. After a year of cooling, during which it was almost lost to a flood, in 1935 the blank was completed. The first blank now resides in Corning's Museum of Glass.

In 1935, Corning formed a partnership with bottle maker Owens-Illinois, which formed the company known today as Owens Corning. Owens Corning was spun off as a separate company in 1938.

1917 advertisement for the Corning Conaphore headlamp lens shown above.

The company had a history of science-based innovations following World War II and the strategy by management was research and "disruptive" and "on demand" product innovation.[13]

In 1962 Corning developed Chemcor, a new toughened automobile windshield designed to be thinner and lighter than existing windshields, which reduced danger of personal injury by shattering into small granules when smashed.[14] This toughened glass had a chemically hardened outer layer, and its manufacture incorporated an ion exchange and a "fusion process" in special furnaces that Corning built in its Blacksburg, Virginia facility.[13][15] Corning developed it as an alternative to laminated windshields with the intention of becoming an automotive industry supplier.[13] After being installed as side glass in a limited run of 1968 Plymouth Barracudas and Dodge Darts, Chemcor windshields debuted on the 1970 model year Javelins and AMXs built by American Motors Corporation (AMC).[15] As there were no mandatory safety standards for motor vehicle windshields, the larger automakers had no financial incentive to change from the cheaper existing products.[13][15] Corning terminated its windshield project in 1971, after it turned out to be one of the company's "biggest and most expensive failures."[15] However, like many Corning innovations, the unique process to manufacture this automotive glass was resurrected and is today the basis of their very profitable LCD glass business.

In the fall of 1970, the company announced that researchers Robert D. Maurer, Donald Keck, Peter C. Schultz, and Frank Zimar had demonstrated an optical fiber with a low optical attenuation of 17 dB per kilometer by doping silica glass with titanium.[16] A few years later they produced a fiber with only 4 dB/km, using germanium oxide as the core dopant. Such low attenuations made fiber optics practical for telecommunications and networking. Corning became the world's leading manufacturer of optical fiber.

In 1977, considerable attention was given to Corning's Z Glass project. Z Glass was a product used in television picture tubes. Due to a number of factors, the exact nature of which are subject to dispute, this project was considered a steep loss in profit and productivity. The following year the project made a partial recovery. This incident has been cited as a case study by the Harvard School of Business.[17]

Company profits soared in the late 1990s during the dot-com boom, and Corning expanded its fiber operations significantly with several new plants. The company also entered the photonics market, investing heavily with the intent of becoming the leading provider of complete fiber-optic systems. Failure to succeed in photonics and the collapse in 2000 of the dot-com market had a major impact on the company, and Corning stock plummeted to $1 per share. However, as of 2007 the company had posted five straight years of improving financial performance.

Current technologies [ edit ]

The turning point for Corning came when Apple approached it to develop a robust display screen for its upcoming iPhone. Later, other companies also adopted its Gorilla glass screen. In 2011 Corning announced the expansion of existing facilities and the construction of a Gen 10 facility co-located with the Sharp Corporation manufacturing complex in Sakai, Osaka, Japan.[18] The LCD glass substrate is produced without heavy metals. Corning is a leading manufacturer of the glass used in liquid crystal displays[citation needed].

The company continues to produce optical fiber and cable for the communications industry at its Wilmington and Concord plants in North Carolina. It is also a major manufacturer of ceramic emission control devices for catalytic converters in cars and light trucks that use gasoline engines. The company is also investing in the production of ceramic emission control products for diesel engines as a result of tighter emission standards for those engines both in the U.S. and abroad.

In 2007 Corning introduced an optic fiber, ClearCurve, which uses nanostructure technology to facilitate the small radius bending found in FTTX installations.

Gorilla Glass, an outgrowth of the 1960s Chemcor project, is a high-strength alkali-aluminosilicate thin sheet glass used as a protective cover glass offering scratch resistance and durability in many touchscreens.[19] According to the book Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, Gorilla Glass was used in the first iPhone released in 2007.[20]

On October 25, 2011 Corning unveiled Lotus Glass, an environmentally friendly and high-performance glass developed for OLED and LCD displays.[21][22]

Corning invests about 10% of revenue in research and development, and has allocated US$300 million towards further expansion of its Sullivan Park research facility near headquarters in Corning, New York.[23]

Corning Incorporated manufactures a high-purity fused silica employed in microlithography systems, a low expansion glass utilized in the construction of reflective mirror blanks, windows for U.S. space shuttles, and Steuben art glass. The number of Corning facilities employing the traditional tanks of molten glass has declined over the years, but it maintains the capacity to supply bulk or finished glass of many types.

Corning is engaged in research and development on green lasers, mercury abatement, microreactors, photovoltaics, and silicon on glass. Through its Life Sciences division, the company offers products to support life science research, including stem-cell culture products.[24]

Other activities [ edit ]

Corning employs roughly 34,000 people worldwide and had sales of $10.217 billion in 2014.[25] The company has been listed for many years among Fortune magazine's 500 largest companies, and was ranked #297 in 2015.

Although the company has long been publicly owned, James R. Houghton, great-great-grandson of the founder, served as chairman of the board of directors from 2001 to 2007. Over the years Houghton family ownership has declined to about 2%. Wendell P. Weeks has been with the company since 1983 and as of March 2013 was chairman, chief executive officer, and president.[26]

Over its 160-year history Corning invented a process for rapid and inexpensive production of light bulbs, including developing the glass for Thomas Edison's light bulb. Corning was the glass supplier for lightbulbs for General Electric after Edison General Electric merged with Thomson-Houston Electric Company in 1892.[27] It was an early major manufacturer of glass panels and funnels for television tubes, invented and produced Vycor (high temperature glass with high thermal shock resistance). Corning invented and produced Pyrex, CorningWare Pyroceram glass-ceramic cookware, and Corelle durable glass dinnerware. Corning manufactured the windows for US manned space vehicles, and supplied the glass blank for the primary mirror in the Hubble Space Telescope.

In July 2008 Corning announced the sale of Steuben Glass Works to Steuben Glass LLC, an affiliate of the private equity firm Schottenstein Stores Corporation. Steuben Glass had been unprofitable for more than a decade, losing 30 million dollars over the previous five years.[28]

In February 2011, Corning acquired MobileAccess Networks, an Israeli company that develops Distributed antenna systems, which are often used by universities, stadiums and airports to ensure seamless wireless coverage throughout a facility. MobileAccess Networks became part of Corning’s telecommunications business unit.[29] In July 2017, Corning acquired SpiderCloud Wireless.[30]

Board of directors [ edit ]

As of 2016 :[31]

Donald W. Blair: retired executive vice president and chief financial officer, NIKE, Inc.

Stephanie A. Burns: retired chairman and chief executive officer, Dow Corning Corporation

John A. Canning, Jr.: chairman, Madison Dearborn Partners, LLC

Richard T. Clark: retired chairman, president and chief executive officer, Merck & Co., Inc.

Robert F. Cummings, Jr.: retired vice chairman of investment banking, JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Deborah A. Henretta: retired group president of global e-business, Procter & Gamble Company

Daniel P. Huttenlocher: dean and vice provost, Cornell Tech

Kurt M. Landgraf: retired president and chief executive officer, Educational Testing Service

Kevin Martin: vice president, mobile and global access policy, Facebook, Inc.

Deborah D. Rieman: executive chairman, MetaMarkets Group

Hansel E. Tookes II: retired chairman and chief executive officer, Raytheon Aircraft Company

Wendell P. Weeks: chairman, chief executive officer, and president, Corning Incorporated

Mark S. Wrighton: chancellor and professor of chemistry, Washington University in St. Louis

See also [ edit ]

References [ edit ]

Further reading [ edit ]

Media related to Corning Inc. at Wikimedia Commons


Why cook and clean when you can have a sexy maid come in and do it for you. While the concept isn't new, a Dallas company now offers a sexy, discreet and professional housekeeping service that can include nude and topless maids.

I'm sure all the guys reading this are rejoicing internally.

Texas Maidens is the name of the place that boasts employing the most desirable women in Texas as their sexy maids.

Before you go thinking you'll score with one of these 'sexy maidens', their website states these ladies are not escorts and do not provide illegal services. Regardless, I'm sure there are a lot of guys out there that wouldn't mind watching the game while a topless gal roams the house tidying things up. The prices aren't too bad either, ranging from $100-160 per hour.

Better yet, these gals also clean offices. So, next time the boss starts complaining that your current cleaning service isn't doing a good job, just offer up Texas Maidens as an alternative.

Water cooler talk will never be the same, that's for damn sure.

Speaking of housekeeping, this is one of the greatest movie scenes ever.


With a headline like “Hillary Clinton uses obscenity on TV describing reaction to Trump’s inaugural speech,” you could be excused for thinking she went on an expletive laden rant. But Fox News’ headline is exactly what’s wrong with the right wing outrage machine.

Appearing on the British late night talk show, The Graham Norton Show, Clinton and the out gay host, started chatting about the Trump inauguration and her attempt to get out of attending. (Because, seriously, would you want to go? You didn’t even run against him and the ceremony probably turned your stomach.)

Clinton recounts that she and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, thought they might have found a way out, but it depended on what the other former presidents would do.

“We thought, okay maybe others aren’t going, so we called the Bushes, and the elder Bushes were in the hospital, which I think was legitimate,” she said as the audience laughed. “So then we called the younger Bushes and they said ‘yeah we’re going’.”

When the Carters told them they would also attend, the Clintons knew they were stuck. But when she talked about Trump’s inauguration speech, she told a quick anecdote that has the right wing in an uproar.

“I was sitting next to George W. Bush and Bill was on my other side and we were listening to this really dark, divisive speech that I describe as a ‘cry from the white nationalist gut. I was so disappointed. Really so, so sad that it wasn’t an outreach; it was a narrowing and a hammering of what he had said before,” she told Norton.

“It was reported that George W. Bush, as it ends, said, ‘That was some weird shit’,” she said as the audience roared.

And it was,” Norton replied.

Despite the headline, the actual Fox News article devotes about half of one sentence and the quote from Bush to justify the hand wringing. The rest of the piece is about her thoughts on Trump’s tweets and her attempt to avoid the inauguration.

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Former Trooper Scott Kunstmann was accused of perjury and falsifying arrest reports.

Prosecutors have offered the former Florida Highway Patrol trooper accused of perjury and falsifying reports a no-jail plea deal.

Former trooper Scott Kunstmann was suspended, investigated and later fired and charged with falsifying documents and perjury — both felonies — after a Herald-Tribune investigation revealed that what transpired on his DUI stops did not match what he wrote in his official reports.

Prosecutors offered Kunstmann a plea deal consisting of two years of probation and two years of counseling, according to Dr. Robert G. Culbertson, a retired criminology and sociology professor from Fort Myers who Kunstmann arrested for DUI in November 2011, while the 72-year-old retiree was southbound on I-75.

Culbertson is livid that the former trooper will likely not be going to jail.

"I think it's horrible a state trooper can go out and arrest someone, put them in jail, tell a pack of lies and then walk away," Culbertson said Friday. "This guy should never have been on the road."

Neither Kunstmann nor his attorney Nevin Weiner returned calls seeking comment for this story.

Culbertson said he learned of the possible deal Thursday evening, after the prosecutor assigned to the case, Assistant State Attorney Shanna Hourihan, told him a deal had been offered.

Hourihan said the former trooper's lack of criminal history played a role in the decision.

"I cannot tell you the specifics of the actual plea offer, as this is a pending case, but we believe an appropriate plea was offered based on the defendant's lack of criminal history, the facts of the case and substantive mitigation by the defense," Hourihan said.

Kunstmann's conduct first drew scrutiny last year, when Culbertson noticed that what he read in the trooper's arrest report and heard when the trooper testified under oath in a deposition did not match his recollections of events.

It also did not match the events recorded on the trooper's own dash-mounted video camera.

Culbertson retained Sarasota attorney Andrea Mogensen, who has said the trooper was not truthful in either his arrest report or during a deposition she conducted.

The State Attorney's Office threw out Culbertson's case last year, just as jury selection was set to begin.

Kunstmann, 47, had been a trooper since 2007.


EDMONTON - Love them or hate them, more traffic circles are coming to city streets.

Traffic planners have concept designs finalized for a “turbo roundabout,” a new design first used in The Netherlands that forces drivers in the outside lane to exit at the first or second opportunity rather than endlessly circling, changing lanes and causing fender-benders.

“A lot of our traffic circles are set up so you could go around four or five times,” said Rob Gibbard, director of transportation planning. The turbo roundabout still needs community consultation and funding, but traffic engineers are hoping to try it out at 118th Avenue and 101st Street.

In Europe, engineers use concrete curbs to keep traffic in the right lane and out the right exit, Edmonton hopes textured surfaces will accomplish the same thing without impeding snow removal.

Edmonton was the traffic circle capital of Canada in the 1950s, then moved away from the design and even removed several near the University of Alberta.

People complain other drivers don’t understand the rules. But they prevent high-speed, T-bone collisions and are safer than a signalled intersection.

At the city’s annual traffic safety conference next week, expect roundabouts to be a topic of conversation. The conference focuses on a new approach called Safe Systems, which aims to re-engineer the road system to prevent major injuries and fatalities.

“We know a crash will happen despite all of our best efforts,” said Australian Bruce Corben, a consultant making a presentation to the conference Wednesday. “Humans do make intentional and unintentional mistakes. How do we design an intersection so that any crash has a very low chance of a severe outcome?”

In 2012, Corben was hired to analyze eight poorly performing intersections in Edmonton, Sherwood Park and St. Albert. All have common safety flaws that created the possibility of a T-bone crash when a person turns left or runs a red, which is the most dangerous way for a vehicle to get hit.

“We believe the use of roundabout is the single most effective tool. But it’s a culture change, getting used to these new tools,” he said.

In Victoria, Australia, he oversaw the change of more than 100 intersections to roundabouts and studied the effects, he said. “We find a 80- to 90-per-cent reduction in the most severe injury crashes.”

In Edmonton, Gibbard’s department approved concept plans for at least two traffic circles on 92nd Avenue between 215th Street and 231st Street. A two-lane roundabout is planned for 112th Street and 167th Avenue, and a single-lane roundabout for 112th Street and 176th Avenue. Other new areas will also be considered. Gibbard said the province now has a policy to consider a roundabout whenever they are thinking of installing signals at a rural intersection.

“At the right traffic volumes, they work very well,” he said. Edmonton is reconsidering where to place crosswalks around the circles, in some cases moving them further from the entrance/exit to increase visibility.

estolte@edmontonjournal.com

twitter.com/estolte


Editor's note: Brenna Ehrlich and Andrea Bartz are the sarcastic brains behind humor blog and book Stuff Hipsters Hate. When they're not trolling Brooklyn for new material, Ehrlich works as a news editor at Mashable.com and Bartz holds the same position at Psychology Today.

(CNN) -- As anyone passing through a U.S. airport discovered last week, privacy is a precious thing.

And while we can't expect it from grope-happy TSA officers, everyone should be able to demand a certain level from family and friends. So let's start with this week's most obvious shining bauble of a takeaway point: Don't snoop.

A few decades ago, snooping had pretty clear-cut definitions: jimmying open the lock on Sally's diary and reading about her awkward fumblings with Billy, listening behind a closed door with a tumbler pressed against the wood, or slicing open a neighbor's mail. (We soon learned this last one is illegal, meaning that 10-year-olds still freeze in abject fear whenever they realize they've accidentally ripped open their sister's card and brace themselves for policemen to swing in through the windows, handcuffs at the ready.)

Nowadays, accidental espionage is the norm. You grab your girlfriend's phone to check the time -- and bam, there's a text from her ex-boyfriend. You crack open your daughter's laptop to show her a Flickr album -- kapow, there's her friends-only Blogspot in fully accessible glory. You surf to Gmail the day after your friend used your computer, and hello, friend's inbox.

And if you do suspect bad behavior, e-investigation is almost too easy. Like it or not, from time to time your eye will fall on something that's not meant for you, and when that happens you're a big fat privacy invader.

In fact, a recent British survey found that 14 percent of wives spy on their hubbies' e-mails, 13 percent read his texts and 10 percent check his Web-surfing history. (The same survey found that about half as many men keep up the same spousal spying). An Australian survey found that 73 percent of those who check their partners' texts found out things they later wished they hadn't.

So hang on, snoopy. You can minimize the damage both to your own conscience and to your relationship by following our three rules of digital snooping. (They're completely made up, but this is a netiquette column so we get to do that -- deal with it.)

1. Don't click on anything.

The second you make a move to read the rest of the text or scroll to see more of the illicit e-mail, you've gone from the snooping equivalent of manslaughter to murder. No matter how intensely your curiosity was piqued, no matter how tantalizing the first few words are -- it's a dark road and a slippery slope and all sorts of metaphorical directions you'd best avoid.

Make like an uncomfortable traveler watching a fat man entering the full-body scan and avert your eyes.

2. Figure out why you want to snoop.

Everyone's favorite cat-killer (curiosity, that is) is a powerful force, but for most of us it's not potent enough to compromise our personal moral codes. So if you're just dying to check a certain relation's browsing history or e-mails or texts, there are likely some real-life red flags that are bugging you.

If, pre-snooping, you can't shake the feeling that your beau is still in contact with that ex in Phoenix despite his impassioned assertions that she's out of the picture, or your motherly spider sense is tingling with suspicion that little Suzie is addicted to her classmate's Adderall, your best bet isn't to grab a magnifying glass (or hit ctrl-F) and go all Encyclopedia Brown, it's to man up and ask him or her about it. (Without any mention of his or your digital habits, of course).

Here's the cool part: If you're a trusting person (read: not maniacally exploring his or her smartphone in the dead of night), that doesn't mean you're gullible. In fact, a study from the University of Toronto suggests you'll actually be better at judging whether he's telling the truth when you ask him point blank what's up.

3. Know when to call yourself out.

What's making you feel all squirmy? Are you bothered by the fact that you saw something that wasn't meant for you, or by the content of what you saw? If it's the former, hats off to you for having a superhuman guilt reflex; there's no reason to tell your friend you saw that embarrassing follow-up e-mail from her gynecologist, so get over it, even if 'fessing up would make you feel better.

(Exception: If she never, ever remembers to, say, log out of Facebook when she's done perusing at your place, the dingbat could probably benefit from a lesson in Protecting Your Personal Info 101.)

But what if your accidental indiscretion really is weighing on you? You truly didn't mean to glimpse a text from her ex, and now it's bugging you, or he doesn't know that you know that that flirtatious co-worker of his is sending him Facebook messages. So you walk around with narrowed eyes, thinking, "Gah, you're keeping a secret from me. Why don't you just tell me?!"

Well, here's the missing piece, folks, the oft-overlooked sucker-punch from reality: You're keeping a secret now, too -- the fact that you read a private missive.

So take a deep breath, and reveal exactly what you were doing (grabbing her phone to find Tommy's number, as requested), exactly what you saw (Was that a MySpace shot of a dude with his shirt off?!), and exactly how it's making you feel (ashamed that you accidentally snooped; suspicious of this beefcake; inadequate about your own pecs; slightly turned on).

Then you'll be back on the road to Trusting Relationship Town, population: you and your circle of not-hating-you friends.

Or at least, you'll be on the road to passcodes and phone locks all around. Judging by those gloved, blue-shirted airport employees now pawing through your toiletries, it might be the last bastion of privacy you get.


Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Prime Ministerial candidate Beata Szydlo: ''We wouldn't have won, had it not been for the Polish people''

Poland's opposition Law and Justice party - conservative and Eurosceptic - has won parliamentary elections.

Preliminary results gave the party 37.6% of the vote, but it was not immediately clear if that would be enough for it to govern alone.

Its leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski claimed victory, and the outgoing Prime Minister, Ewa Kopacz of the centrist Civic Platform, admitted defeat.

Law and Justice (PiS) has strong support in poorer, rural areas.

Civic Platform, the pro-market party that governed for the last eight years, got 24.1% of the vote.

Three other parties also won enough votes to get seats in parliament: a new right-wing party led by rock star Pawel Kukiz with 8.8%; a new pro-business party, Modern Poland, with 7.6%; and the agrarian Polish People's Party with 5.1%.

The election authority is expected to announce how many seats the parties get in parliament on Tuesday.

Exit polls suggested Law and Justice would have a small majority - making it the first time a single party has won enough seats to govern alone since democracy was restored in 1989.

Image copyright EPA Image caption Some observers said Mr Kaczynski (left) could take the job of prime minister from Beata Szydlo (right) in months to come after the euphoria of victory has died down

"We will exert law but there will be no taking of revenge. There will be no squaring of personal accounts," said Mr Kaczynski.

"There will be no kicking of those who have fallen through their own fault and very rightly so."

Analysis: Adam Easton, BBC News, Warsaw

It was a historic election. It will be the first time since 1989 that there will be no left-wing party in parliament.

Law and Justice won big because they offered simple, concrete policies for the many in Poland that feel untouched by the country's impressive economic growth. It offered higher child care benefits and tax breaks for the less well-off.

After eight years in office many Poles had grown weary of the governing centrist Civic Platform's unfulfilled promises, scandals and what was perceived by some to be an aloof attitude.

Law and Justice also stuck with its winning formula of presenting a more moderate face than its rather combative leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

That moderate face belongs to Beata Szydlo, a 52-year-old miner's daughter and avid reader, who will become the country's next prime minister.

Poland returns to conservative roots

Poland elections: Conservative swing grips media

Polish miner's daughter set for top job

Beata Szydlo said she was grateful for the support of the Polish people.

"We have won because we have been consistent in facing all the challenges ahead of us and we followed in the footsteps of the late President Lech Kaczynski," she said.

"We wouldn't have won had it not been for the Polish people who told us about their expectations and needs, and who in the end voted for us."

Europe's refugee crisis also proved to be a key topic of debate before the election. While the government has agreed to take in 7,000 migrants, opposition parties have spoken out against the move.

Mr Kaczynski, 66, was not running as prime minister and instead nominated Ms Szydlo, a relative unknown, as the party's choice for the post.

However, some observers said Mr Kaczynski - the twin brother of Poland's late president Lech - could take on the top job himself in the months to come.

Last week, Mr Kaczynski was criticised for suggesting migrants could bring diseases and parasites to Poland.

PiS is close to the country's powerful Roman Catholic Church and has promised increased benefits and tax breaks.

It supports a ban on abortions and in-vitro fertilisation and believes a strong Nato is necessary to offset the perceived threat from Russia.

Civic Platform for its part sought closer ties with the EU.

Despite overseeing eight years of impressive economic growth it was beaten into second place and will become the main opposition party.


The I.W.W. - Its History, Structure, and Method

Vincent ST. JOHN (1876 - 1929)

“We must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, ‘Abolition of the wage system’”

The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies," is an international labor union that was founded in 1905. The philosophy and tactics of the IWW are described as "revolutionary industrial unionism," with ties to both socialist and anarchist labor movements. The IWW promotes the concept of "One Big Union," and contends that all workers should be united as a social class to supplant capitalism and wage labor with industrial democracy.

Vincent St. John (1876 – 1929) was an American labor leader and prominent Wobbly, among the most influential radical labor leaders of the 20th century. - Summary by Wikipedia

Genre(s): Essays & Short Works

Language: English


They say breast is best when it comes to nurturing a baby.

That message doesn’t translate well when it comes to baked goods.

An unnamed mother has stirred up outrage on Facebook after she made brownies with breast milk for a school bake sale.

A post on the Sanctimommy Facebook page revealed the mother’s dilemma when she ran out of cow’s milk as an ingredient for her baking and decided to use her own breast milk as a substitution.

“I didn’t have time to run to the store and didn’t think it was a big deal (some of those kids could use the nutrition let’s be honest),” the mother wrote. “And it wasn’t even that much.”

The mysterious mommy stated another parent found out about the secret ingredient and was “blowing it way out of proportion.” The woman foolishly turned to the Internet for suggestions.

Let’s just say the reaction to the post – which has garnered 921 shares and more than 1,000 comments on Facebook – has been mixed and emotional.

“Honestly this is actually a damn near criminal offense,” one outraged commenter stated. “Breast milk, like blood or semen, can carry diseases, which is why legit donation services screen the milk before passing it along to moms and their babies.”

“Secretly feeding children that aren’t yours baked goods with your bodily fluids in them is gross, shady and borderline psychotic,” another angry commenter wrote.

While most of the comments were hateful, some people were confused over the situation.

“But…milk isn’t even one of the ingredients for brownies…human or cow,” wrote a confused commenter.

Others found humour in the situation.

“But was it homogenize?” joked one person.

“‘Susan. These brownies are DELISH! What’s in them? …me,’” another humourously chimed.

While breast milk is good for babies, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that HIV and other serious infectious diseases can be transmitted through the liquid.


THE definition of ‘sexy news’ has been taken to a whole new level after a Swedish TV station accidentally broadcast porn in the background of a news show.

THE definition of ‘sexy news’ has been taken to a whole new level after a Swedish TV station accidentally broadcast porn in the background of a news show.

Station TV4 was broadcasting a discussion segment on Russia’s involvement in the Syrian crisis when viewers noticed the erotic material on a screen behind the host.

Viewer Daniel Ek told Swedish paper The Local: “At first I realised I was looking at a naked woman and it quickly became clear she was having sex. It didn't take long before I realised it was a porn film.

"The image wasn't exactly in focus, but it wasn't hard to figure out what was going on”, he continued.

He offered his own theories as to how the mix up happened: “I had two theories. One is that someone was pissed off after getting fired and put the porno up as act of revenge. My other thought was that someone had simply screwed up.”

The channel stated the incident was caused by a mix up in the feed – as the station’s parent company also operate adult channels.

News editor Andreas Haglind said: “It's not like we were directly broadcasting porn. Put simply, it's crap that it happened. We're going to do everything we can so that it doesn't happen again.”


The English Channel in 6h 57min 20sec! Eric Defert and Pierre Yves Durand broke Yvan Bourgnon and Karine Baillet record. Eric Defert: “We had 25 knots of wind, reaching in 3 to 4 meters sea. We left at 8:26 am and arrived at 3:23pm! When we left for Plymouth wednesday, the forecast announced 15 knots, then in the next 48 hours, the prevision were for 20 + knots from the east. Since we were already in England, we decided to give a try. Our driver, in the ferry back to France, recorded wind up to 35 knots. It made for a strong sea. I think the record can be taken… Anybody?”

Sunday morning Eric Defert was in Brest for the inauguration of the “Port of Records”. Eric was able to see in own plate made in bronze of his hands after his previous successful Atlantic Crossing on a Class 40, single handed. – Laurent Apollon.


The big 2-part Dark Matter season finale is coming up this Friday (I know … already) and to celebrate we had the opportunity to be a part of a conference call interview with several of the cast along with lead mystery wrangler, Joe Mallozzi. Joining Joe were Melissa O’Neil (Two), Jodelle Ferland (Five), Alex Mallari, Jr. (Four) and Roger Cross (Six) who answered every question we threw at them. It was a lot of fun and laughter accompanied most of the conversation. Everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves and with the exception of a few phone line issues, it went off without a hitch.

Before you read any further, be warned that HERE THERE BE SPOILERS! There aren’t any large, hairy, wookiee-sized spoilers inside, but there are a few, fuzzy tribble-sized ones tossed about. I know some people would rather avoid such teases and hints, so please avert your eyes and read no further if you are one of them. For the rest of you nerds, keep on readin’ on, but before you do, remember that the Dark Matter finale is a two-parter beginning at 9/8c this Friday. That’s one hour earlier than usual. Don’t miss it!

Hi, Space Cadets!

Cross: No hugs, Tom. No hugs, no hugs. (This is from me frequently teasing Roger about hugs on Twitter. The fact that I’m still alive is proof he’s a very tolerant man.)

With Five proving herself to be a very capable member of the crew, can you each talk about your character’s changing opinions of her?

Cross: I still think Six kind of feels like he has to protect her, but he starts slowly realizing, “Wait a second, she’s smart.” There’s a comment, and it’s pretty subtle, too, that Joe wrote in there where they’re coming off the ship and she goes, “Oh, I would’ve just reprogrammed it.” And all of a sudden the bells go off and he’s like, “I didn’t know you knew how to program.” She throw him things and all of a sudden you’re like, well, maybe she’s not as helpless as she appears.

Who, other than Melissa, is the best singer? And who thinks they’re the best singer that might not necessarily be?

Ferland: Melissa’s the best singer.

Mallari: Roger’s a nice second.

Cross: Alex, you’re right there, brother! For some reason, from day one … I think it’s a very odd group of us, but we all seem to know the same songs. And we might have some sing-alongs that kinda might drive our first ADs crazy going, “They’re laughing and having too much fun! Like, stop!” And we’re like, “What? We’re just singing!”

O’Neil: Alex, Roger and I all really love 90s soul and R&B. We should do a 90s music video!

Cross: That would be fun. We should do that.

Mallari: On the Raza.

Cross: We’re still trying to get Jodelle to sing, but she keeps refusing. I don’t know why.

Ferland: One day, I’m just going to belt out into song and you will all be shocked.

Melissa, here’s a question for you. Dark Matter is your first television series experience. What was the most interesting or surprising thing you learned from this?

O’Neil: I didn’t expect to come out with so many new friends. My entire summer has just kind of been filled with crew members and AD people and my stunt double. It’s cool. I’ve created this new posse in Toronto and besides learning a whole ton and learning a different way to tell a story, I’ve made so many new friends. Like, life-long ones, you know?

How are each of you most like and most un-like your characters?

Mallari: I’m not like Four at all. [laughs] Yeah, he’s too serious for my liking.

Cross: You’re not serious.

Mallari: That’s what I’m saying, I’m not like Four at all. I mean, the only thing I have in common with Four is I can kick ass.

Ferland: I think I’m most like Five because of her quirkiness and her weirdness. I just kind of consider myself a really weird person and I’m proud of my awkwardness and strangeness. I think I’m like Five in that way, she’s pretty different and I relate to her because of that. I don’t know how I feel about her sense of style. I tend to wear one or two colors at once instead of all of them, but I love dressing like that on set and it’s a lot of fun because that’s not normally how I’d go outside. I love being able to play Five and be completely different than how I normally am, except for the quirkiness, as I said. So, yeah, other than the colors and all of the pink, we’re pretty similar.

O’Neil: I don’t know, I don’t think I find as much comfort in my own skin as Two, but I don’t know. I can be pretty forthcoming with my thoughts.

You’re not a custom-built biosynthetic organism, are you?

O’Neil: I’m not a biosynthetic organism. I don’t think. But maybe there’s going to be a dun, dun, dunnn(!) moment in my life, I have no idea. But no, not to my knowledge.

What piece of technology from the show would you want to have in real life?

Mallari: Transfer Transit.

O’Neil: That would be so great!

Cross: That would be awesome.

Ferland: It freaks me out a little, I have to admit, but I would try it. It would be cool, yeah.

Mallari: Oh, and FTL!

Ferland: If we’re just talking technology here, I just want the fish.

Do you each have a favorite part of the ship’s physical sets?

O’Neil: I like the corridors.

Cross: The corridors are cool

O’Neil: I love the hallways, they’re so great. They just look so industrial and grimy. I feel like in those areas, that’s where you can see that we’ve got a “beater” for a ship. It’s not like we’re flying around in some Cadillac. It’s utilitarian and I feel like the corridors really show that off the best.

Ferland: I really love the bridge as well just because there’s lots to look at. There’s so many buttons and it’s fun to hang out in.

Cross: We’ve got a pretty cool screen in the commissary, too. It’s the screens that never line up and drive Jodelle crazy.

Jodelle, we were surprised to see that you didn’t say you liked the air ducts. With all that crawling, you need some knee pads for those.

Ferland: You know, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. When I saw that I was going to be crawling through all those vents I thought, “that will be fun” and then I actually got in there and I was like, “I might’ve been a little bit wrong.” I can’t say that if I had a little bit of free time that I wouldn’t go find some vents to crawl through, but it’s definitely worth it when I watch afterwards because I go, “Wow. That looked really cool, I’m glad that I did it.” But, yeah, it’s never as much fun as you think it’s going to be, but I still enjoyed doing it.

Jodelle, I know you’re a big fan of Doctor Who. There’s a great “technobabble” line uttered by the third Doctor when he says, “reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.” It became a kind of catchphrase in its day. Back in episode 10 when you were wiring up the android to open the vault door you said, “If I don’t adjust the inverter to minimize harmonic distortion we’ll get pulsating torque and the whole thing will fry.” Am I the only one who made this association? Because when I heard it I thought, “She’s got her Doctor Who moment here!”

Ferland: You know what? I didn’t even think of that, but I’m so glad you mentioned it because that makes me really happy. I love my Doctor Who references even if it was by accident!

Cross: And Joe will tell you it wasn’t an accident.

Ferland: You never know with Joe. There are some things that seem like references to something and I’m never sure if he did it on purpose.

Joe, what gave you the idea to try Periscope after the Dark Matter broadcasts?

Mallozzi: Syfy UK asked if I would be interested and I was like “sure” and we did it for one of the Syfy UK broadcasts and it was delightfully awkward, but fun. And then I decided I would follow through. I’ve been live tweeting almost every week and hopefully I’ll have time to do an east and west coast Periscope and possibly one for the UK viewers as well.

Do any of you have any other upcoming projects that fans can look for while we wait for a second season of Dark Matter?

Cross: The final season of Continuum is coming out, as most of you probably know, September 11. I have a movie, Lockdown, that’s going to be out soon. I’m doing some episodes of Bones and I’m doing a bunch of other stuff. You’ll see me all over the place.

O’Neil: I’ve just finished my last two days of shooting on a show called Rogue on DirecTV. I play this hacker girl. That’ll be out, I think, over the holiday season. And a new CBC show called This Life, which stars Torri Higginson, our Commander Truffault. I just finished doing a video game, but I can’t talk too much about that yet.

Jodelle: I’ve had a pretty chill summer, actually, since Dark Matter finished. I have a couple of things I’ll be working on with friends, but nothing I can give a lot of information on at the moment.

Are you or any of the writing staff fans of Big Brother? The finale reminded me, in parts, of the general distress and alliances that show up so much in that show.

Mallozzi: Well, I’m going to show my age, but I don’t watch Big Brother. When I was a kid I read a lot of Agatha Christie and the finale is essentially Ten Little Indians where basically you’ve got a group of people and they start dropping one by one. There’s a dying realization that if there’s no outside force here, then it’s one of them, and as the mystery deepens distrust grows and you see alliances shift. Really, that’s where my inspiration comes, but Big Brother is a good reference, too.

Can you all talk about working with Wil Wheaton?

Cross: Poor Wil. Airplanes killed us that day. Remember that, Joe?

Mallozzi: We were actually shooting by an airport and the poor guy has to deliver this incredibly long monologue. He’d get into it and then 30 seconds in a plane would buzz the area and we’d have to cut and start over again. He ended up delivering an entire monologue in pieces, but he was super professional and super focused and just a very nice guy to work with.

Ferland: I knew we were going to have Wil Wheaton on the show, but I never got to meet him! I was so sad. What happened is that I … nobody told me. I was at the computer at home after work and I saw something on his Instagram of Facebook and it was a small piece of the Dark Matter logo and he was saying it was a hint of what he was working on. And I looked at it for a while and I thought that looks really familiar, then I was like, “Wait a minute!” Then I texted Joe right away and I was like, “Wil Wheaton’s on our show! Why didn’t you tell me?” I was very excited about it and hopefully I’ll get to meet him some day.

What was everybody’s biggest surprise when you all read the finale script?

Ferland: Every episode had something that shocked the team. Every time we got a script we just wanted the next one.

Cross: These last few episodes, especially, we were just like, “Ahhh….”

Ferland: Yeah, and we were bothering Joe non-stop asking, “Please, please give us the next episode. Tell us what happens. You can’t do this to us!” but we got nothing out of him.

Cross: Except for that grin. That Mallozzi grin.

O’Neil: I was watching the finale on my iPad and yelling at the screen. So we better find out, we really better get a second season. I want to know how it ends.

For the rest of our extensive coverage of Dark Matter, CLICK HERE.

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The Dark Matter 2-part finale airs Friday, August 28 at 9/8 central on Syfy

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An exclusive Mitchell FOX 2 Detroit Poll of Michigan finds that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton hold large leads over their nearest GOP and Democratic opponents, respectively.

In a head to head matchup, Trump holds a 47 - 43 percent lead over Clinton with 10 percent undecided.

The latest Mitchell poll data has Trump holding a 3-1 lead over his two closest opponents in the Michigan Republican Presidential Primary.

Trump has 51 percent compared to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz who is in second place at just 15 percent and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio who is in third with 12 percent. They are followed by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Michigan native Dr. Ben Carson, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie all at five percent.

Three percent are voting for someone else and 5 percent are undecided.

The automated survey of 493 likely March 2016 Michigan Republican Presidential Primary voters was conducted by Mitchell Research & Communications January 25, 2016 and has a Margin of Error of + or - 4.41 percent at the 95 percent level of confidence.

On the Democratic side former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is at 61 percent with a big lead over Sen. Bernie Sanders (34 percent) and Martin O'Malley (four percent) in a trial ballot test.

The data comes from the latest Mitchell-FOX 2 Detroit IVR (Interactive Voice Response) survey of 344 March 2016 Michigan Democratic Presidential Primary voters conducted by Mitchell Research and Communications January 25, 2016.

The poll has a margin of error of + or - 5.28 percent at the 95 percent level of confidence.


Got a cool 2.4 million dollars sitting around and a love for 80’s movies? The home made famous by a crashing Ferarri and Cameron’s refusal to give into his father any more is currently on the market.

THE BEN ROSE HOME-site of the famous movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”, cantilevered over the ravine, these two steel and glass buildings, which can never be duplicated, have incredible vistas of the surrounding woods. This is a unique property designed by A. James Speyer and David Haid, both notable architects of the 20th Century. Estate Sale Sold “As Is” No disclosures! This is an amazing architectural treasure.

As is? Does that include all of the movie memorabelia reportedly still in the home? It’s a 4 bedroom, 4 bath home with roughly 5300 square feet of living space. If I can get 2,400 to each contribute $1000 . . . well, I’ll be leaving the country. But wow, that would be a cool home to own.

[tags]movies, beuller[/tags]


Bank of America and Citigroup incorrectly accounted for billions of dollars in debt over the past three years, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.

The report highlights a form of corporate borrowing increasingly under scrutiny since the financial crisis began. The loans, known as "repos," or short-term repurchase agreements, allow banks to increase the amount of risk they can take in securities trading.

Both BofA and Citigroup disclosed in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission that they have over the last three years accidentally classified some repos as sales when they should have been classified as borrowings, the newspaper reported. The amounts involved were small for the banks, though they totaled billions.

It is illegal under federal securities rules to intentionally conceal debt and mislead investors. Bank of America and Citigroup claim the accounting flaws were purely accidental and represent minute portions of their overall operations.

Bank of America, in addressing errors that reached up to $10.7 billion per quarter, noted that the flaws ”represented substantially less than 1 percent of our total assets," the Wall Street Journal reports.


Image caption One of the freshwater arowanas that has been rehomed at a Cheshire aquarium

Four large fish used in a drug smuggling operation have been re-homed at a Cheshire aquarium.

The freshwater arowanas were used in an attempt to smuggle 17kg of cocaine, with a street value of £1.6m, from Colombia to the UK in 2011.

The drugs were hidden in sealed bags containing more than 16,000 tropical fish, most of which died in transit.

The fish, along with eight pacus and a large catfish, were transported to Blue Planet Aquarium, near Ellesmere Port.

Of the 16,000 fish found, only 34 fish survived. Some were looked after at London Zoo and some were transferred to Bristol Zoo.

Aquarium curator David Wolfenden said: "Clearly the smugglers did not care at all about the fishes' welfare and the fact that nearly all of them perished during the smuggling operation is extremely sad.

"It's something of a miracle that any managed to survive the ordeal and we're glad they can now live out their time here with us in a large, purpose-built display."

The largest of the pacus is a metre long and weighs almost 40kg.

The aquarium hopes to use the fish to promote the Big Fish Campaign - an initiative to try and raise awareness of the problems caused by the sale of fast-growing exotic fish species.


The Court cannot take judicial notice that a shotgun having a barrel less than 18 inches long has today any reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, and therefore cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees to the citizen the right to keep and bear such a weapon.

1. Not unconstitutional as an invasion of the reserved powers of the States. Citing Sonzinsky v. United States, 300 U.S. 506 , and Narcotic Act cases. P. 177.

The National Firearms Act, as applied to one indicted for transporting in interstate commerce a 12-gauge shotgun with a barrel less than 18 inches long without having registered it and without having in his possession a stamp-affixed written order for it, as required by the Act, held:

Opinion

MCREYNOLDS, J., Opinion of the Court

MR. JUSTICE McREYNOLDS delivered the opinion of the Court.

An indictment in the District Court, Western District Arkansas, charged that Jack Miller and Frank Layton

did unlawfully, knowingly, willfully, and feloniously transport in interstate commerce from the town of Claremore in the State of Oklahoma to the town of Siloam Springs in the State of Arkansas a certain firearm, to-wit, a double barrel 12-gauge Stevens shotgun having a barrel less than 18 inches in length, bearing identification number 76230, said defendants, at the time of so transporting said firearm in interstate commerce as aforesaid, not having registered said firearm as required by Section 1132d of Title 26, United States Code (Act of June 26, 1934, c. 737, Sec. 4 [§ 5], 48 Stat. 1237), and not having in their possession a stamp-affixed written order for said firearm as provided by Section 1132c, Title 2, United States Code (June 26, 1934, c. 737, Sec. 4, 48 Stat. 1237) and the regulations issued under authority of the said Act of Congress known as the "National Firearms Act," approved June 26, 1934, contrary to the form of the statute in such case made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the United States. [n1] [p176]

A duly interposed demurrer alleged: the National Firearms Act is not a revenue measure, but an attempt to usurp police power reserved to the States, and is therefore unconstitutional. Also, it offends the inhibition of the Second Amendment to the Constitution -- "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." [p177]

The District Court held that section eleven of the Act violates the Second Amendment. It accordingly sustained the demurrer and quashed the indictment.

The cause is here by direct appeal.

Considering Sonzinsky v. United States (1937), 300 U.S. 506, 513, and what was ruled in sundry causes arising [p178] under the Harrison Narcotic Act [n2] -- United States v. Jin Fuey Moy (1916), 241 U.S. 394, United States v. Doremus (1919), 249 U.S. 86, 94; Linder v. United States (1925), 268 U.S. 5; Alston v. United States (1927), 274 U.S. 289; Nigro v. United States (1928), 276 U.S. 332 -- the objection that the Act usurps police power reserved to the States is plainly untenable.

In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a "shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length" at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment, or that its use could contribute to the common defense. Aymette v. State, 2 Humphreys (Tenn.) 154, 158.

The Constitution, as originally adopted, granted to the Congress power --

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.

With obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of such forces, the declaration and guarantee of the Second Amendment were made. It must be interpreted and applied with that end in view.

The Militia which the States were expected to maintain and train is set in contrast with Troops which they [p179] were forbidden to keep without the consent of Congress. The sentiment of the time strongly disfavored standing armies; the common view was that adequate defense of country and laws could be secured through the Militia -- civilians primarily, soldiers on occasion.

The signification attributed to the term Militia appears from the debates in the Convention, the history and legislation of Colonies and States, and the writings of approved commentators. These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. "A body of citizens enrolled for military discipline." And further, that ordinarily, when called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.

Blackstone's Commentaries, Vol. 2, Ch. 13, p. 409 points out "that king Alfred first settled a national militia in this kingdom," and traces the subsequent development and use of such forces.

Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, Book V, Ch. 1, contains an extended account of the Militia. It is there said: "Men of republican principles have been jealous of a standing army as dangerous to liberty."

In a militia, the character of the labourer, artificer, or tradesman, predominates over that of the soldier: in a standing army, that of the soldier predominates over every other character, and in this distinction seems to consist the essential difference between those two different species of military force.

"The American Colonies In The 17th Century," Osgood, Vol. 1, ch. XIII, affirms in reference to the early system of defense in New England --

In all the colonies, as in England, the militia system was based on the principle of the assize of arms. This implied the general obligation of all adult male inhabitants to possess arms, and, with certain exceptions, to [p180] cooperate in the work of defence.

The possession of arms also implied the possession of ammunition, and the authorities paid quite as much attention to the latter as to the former.

A year later [1632] it was ordered that any single man who had not furnished himself with arms might be put out to service, and this became a permanent part of the legislation of the colony [Massachusetts].

Also,

Clauses intended to insure the possession of arms and ammunition by all who were subject to military service appear in all the important enactments concerning military affairs. Fines were the penalty for delinquency, whether of towns or individuals. According to the usage of the times, the infantry of Massachusetts consisted of pikemen and musketeers. The law, as enacted in 1649 and thereafter, provided that each of the former should be armed with a pike, corselet, head-piece, sword, and knapsack. The musketeer should carry a "good fixed musket," not under bastard musket bore, not less than three feet, nine inches, nor more than four feet three inches in length, a priming wire, scourer, and mould, a sword, rest, bandoleers, one pound of powder, twenty bullets, and two fathoms of match. The law also required that two-thirds of each company should be musketeers.

The General Court of Massachusetts, January Session 1784, provided for the organization and government of the Militia. It directed that the Train Band should "contain all able bodied men, from sixteen to forty years of age, and the Alarm List, all other men under sixty years of age, . . ." Also,

That every noncommissioned officer and private soldier of the said militia not under the controul of parents, masters or guardians, and being of sufficient ability therefor in the judgment of the Selectmen of the town in which he shall dwell, shall equip himself, and be constantly provided with a good fire arm,

etc.

By an Act passed April 4, 1786, the New York Legislature directed:

That every able-bodied Male Person, being [p181] a Citizen of this State, or of any of the United States, and residing in this State, (except such Persons as are hereinafter excepted) and who are of the Age of Sixteen, and under the Age of Forty-five Years, shall, by the Captain or commanding Officer of the Beat in which such Citizens shall reside, within four Months after the passing of this Act, be enrolled in the Company of such Beat. . . . That every Citizen so enrolled and notified shall, within three Months thereafter, provide himself, at his own Expense, with a good Musket or Firelock, a sufficient Bayonet and Belt, a Pouch with a Box therein to contain not less than Twenty-four Cartridges suited to the Bore of his Musket or Firelock, each Cartridge containing a proper Quantity of Powder and Ball, two spare Flints, a Blanket and Knapsack; . . .

The General Assembly of Virginia, October, 1785, (12 Hening's Statutes) declared,

The defense and safety of the commonwealth depend upon having its citizens properly armed and taught the knowledge of military duty.

It further provided for organization and control of the Militia, and directed that "All free male persons between the ages of eighteen and fifty years," with certain exceptions, "shall be inrolled or formed into companies." "There shall be a private muster of every company once in two months."

Also that

Every officer and soldier shall appear at his respective muster-field on the day appointed, by eleven o'clock in the forenoon, armed, equipped, and accoutred, as follows: . . . every non-commissioned officer and private with a good, clean musket carrying an ounce ball, and three feet eight inches long in the barrel, with a good bayonet and iron ramrod well fitted thereto, a cartridge box properly made, to contain and secure twenty cartridges fitted to his musket, a good knapsack and canteen, and moreover, each non-commissioned officer and private shall have at every muster one pound of good [p182] powder, and four pounds of lead, including twenty blind cartridges, and each serjeant shall have a pair of moulds fit to cast balls for their respective companies, to be purchased by the commanding officer out of the monies arising on delinquencies. Provided, That the militia of the counties westward of the Blue Ridge, and the counties below adjoining thereto, shall not be obliged to be armed with muskets, but may have good rifles with proper accoutrements, in lieu thereof. And every of the said officers, non-commissioned officers, and privates, shall constantly keep the aforesaid arms, accoutrements, and ammunition ready to be produced whenever called for by his commanding officer. If any private shall make it appear to the satisfaction of the court hereafter to be appointed for trying delinquencies under this act that he is so poor that he cannot purchase the arms herein required, such court shall cause them to be purchased out of the money arising from delinquents.

Most if not all of the States have adopted provisions touching the right to keep and bear arms. Differences in the language employed in these have naturally led to somewhat variant conclusions concerning the scope of the right guaranteed. But none of them seems to afford any material support for the challenged ruling of the court below.

In the margin, some of the more important opinions and comments by writers are cited. [n3]

We are unable to accept the conclusion of the court below, and the challenged judgment must be reversed. The cause will be remanded for further proceedings.

MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS took no part in the consideration or decision of this cause.

That for the purposes of this Act --

(a) The term "firearm" means a shotgun or rifle having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length, or any other weapon, except a pistol or revolver, from which a shot is discharged by an explosive if such weapon is capable of being concealed on the person, or a machine gun, and includes a muffler or silencer for any firearm whether or not such firearm is included within the foregoing definition [The Act of April 10, 1936, c. 169, 49 Stat. 1192 added the words], but does not include any rifle which is within the foregoing provisions solely by reason of the length of its barrel if the caliber of such rifle is .22 or smaller and if its barrel is sixteen inches or more in length.

Sec. 3. (a) There shall be levied, collected, and paid upon firearms transferred in the continental United States a tax at the rate of $200 for each firearm, such tax to be paid by the transferor, and to be represented by appropriate stamps to be provided by the Commissioner, with the approval of the Secretary, and the stamps herein provided shall be affixed to the order for such firearm, hereinafter provided for. The tax imposed by this section shall be in addition to any import duty imposed on such firearm.

Sec. 4. (a) It shall be unlawful for any person to transfer a firearm except in pursuance of a written order from the person seeking to obtain such article, on an application form issued in blank in duplicate for that purpose by the Commissioner. Such order shall identify the applicant by such means of identification as may be prescribed by regulations under this Act: Provided, That, if the applicant is an individual, such identification shall include fingerprints and a photograph thereof.

(c) Every person so transferring a firearm shall set forth in each copy of such order the manufacturer's number or other mark identifying such firearm, and shall forward a copy of such order to the Commissioner. The original thereof, with stamps affixed, shall be returned to the applicant.

(d) No person shall transfer a firearm which has previously been transferred on or after the effective date of this Act, unless such person, in addition to complying with subsection (c), transfers therewith the stamp-affixed order provided for in this section for each such prior transfer, in compliance with such regulations as may be prescribed under this Act for proof of payment of all taxes on such firearms.

Sec. 5. (a) Within sixty days after the effective date of this Act every person possessing a firearm shall register, with the collector of the district in which he resides, the number or other mark identifying such firearm, together with his name, address, place where such firearm is usually kept, and place of business or employment, and, if such person is other than a natural person, the name and home address of an executive officer thereof: Provided, That no person shall be required to register under this section with respect to any firearm acquired after the effective date of, and in conformity with the provisions of, this Act.

Sec. 6. It shall be unlawful for any person to receive or possess any firearm which has at any time been transferred in violation of section 3 or 4 of this Act.

Sec. 11. It shall be unlawful for any person who is required to register as provided in section 5 hereof and who shall not have so registered, or any other person who has not in his possession a stamp-affixed order as provided in section 4 hereof, to ship, carry, or deliver any firearm in interstate commerce.

Sec. 12. The Commissioner, with the approval of the Secretary, shall prescribe such rules and regulations as may be necessary for carrying the provisions of this Act into effect.

Sec. 14. Any person who violates or fails to comply with any of the requirements of this Act shall, upon conviction, be fined not more than $2,000 or be imprisoned for not more than five years, or both, in the discretion of the court.

Sec. 16. If any provision of this Act, or the application thereof to any person or circumstance, is held invalid, the remainder of the Act, and the application of such provision to other persons or circumstances, shall not be affected thereby.

Sec. 18. This Act may be cited as the "National Firearms Act."


And for this sparsely populated land, the recent fighting seems a step beyond the army’s desert skirmishes with the Tuaregs in the 1960s, the early 1990s and again in 2006. This time, the rebels are not being quickly stamped out or fleeing to the rocky mountains of this vast, inhospitable region. To the contrary, officials now say they are facing perhaps the most serious threat ever from the Tuaregs.

Emboldened by their new weaponry, they have formed a made-to-order liberation movement, the M.N.L.A., or Mouvement National Pour la Libération de l’Azawad — Azawad being the name they give to northern Mali.

“Our goal is to liberate our lands from Malian occupation,” said Moussa Ag Acharatoumane, one of the rebel spokesmen in exile in France.

The rebels — perhaps as many as 1,000, commanded by a former colonel in Libya’s army — brought with them enough of an arsenal to create a kind of standoff with the Malian Army.

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“Heavy weapons,” said Mali’s foreign minister, Soumeylou Boubèye Maïga, referring to the new arms. “Antitank weapons. Antiaircraft weapons.”

Malian military officials agree. “Robust, powerful machine guns,” said Lt. Col. Diarran Kone of the Defense Ministry. “Mortars,” he added, describing the weaponry as “significant enough to allow them to achieve their objectives.”

About a half-dozen towns in the north have been attacked, including Niafounké. Both government and rebel forces have suffered casualties, and nearly 10,000 civilians have fled the fighting, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

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The situation appears to have worsened for the Mali government over the past few days. The rebels have retaken the town of Ménaka, a military spokesman, Idrissa Traoré, acknowledged Friday, adding that a number of soldiers and civilians — he refused to say how many — had been killed by the rebels in the town of Aguelhok. In Bamako, the capital, families of soldiers have demonstrated against what they say is the government’s poor handling of the rebel offensive, blocking roads and burning tires. The defense minister has been replaced, and reprisals have been reported against Tuareg citizens living in the south.

Officials in Bamako make no secret of their shock at what one Western diplomat called the “robustness” of the rebel incursion.

“All of a sudden we found ourselves face to face with a thousand men, heavily armed,” said Mr. Maïga, the foreign minister. “The stability of the entire region could be under threat.”

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The Malians, who viewed Colonel Qaddafi as a generous benefactor — he helped build an administrative complex here, among other things — now find themselves gnashing their teeth over this less beneficent aspect of his legacy. Still, officials here insist that the situation in the north is under control, while acknowledging that the threat is not over.

Analysts who study the region agree that the latest Tuareg resurgence is something new, and that Colonel Qaddafi is largely responsible, posthumously.

“This is a fairly significant military force,” said Pierre Boilley, a Tuareg expert at the University of Paris. “The game has changed. They can directly attack the Malian Army. I think the army will have trouble.”

The new Tuareg campaign “shows a pretty serious military and logistical capability,” said Yvan Guichaoua, a Sahara expert at the University of East Anglia, in Britain. The Tuareg spokesmen are cagey about disclosing the precise dimensions of their arsenal, hinting only that they owe Colonel Qaddafi a good deal. “The Libyan crisis shook up the order of things,” Mr. Acharatoumane said. “A lot of our brothers have come back with weapons.”

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In some ways, the aggressive new Tuareg campaign represents the kind of support the rebels had long sought from Colonel Qaddafi, who for years alternately aided and betrayed the desert warriors, according to a recent study by Mr. Boilley. After the great regional droughts of the 1970s and 1980s, young Tuaregs migrated north to the colonel’s military training camps, to later fight for him in places like Chad, while at the same time destabilizing the governments in Niger and Mali.

Libya, with its World Revolutionary Center, where the warlords Charles Taylor of Liberia and Foday Sankoh of Sierra Leone were schooled in Colonel Qaddafi’s doctrines, became the regional matrix of instability.

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The center’s mission was to “train volunteers in revolutionary warfare from all over the world,” according to a 1999 book by Stephen Ellis of the African Studies Center, in Leiden, the Netherlands, in keeping with Colonel Qaddafi’s belligerent anti-Western posture. The Libyan training camps under the center’s auspices “became the Harvard and Yale of a whole generation of African revolutionaries,” Mr. Ellis wrote.

Mr. Taylor, who is awaiting a verdict after a trial on war crimes charges, recruited his first troops there, leading to years of chaos in Liberia, while Mr. Sankoh’s murderous brigades also had a Libyan genesis, in part.

Colonel Qaddafi backed independence movements all over Africa, including a coup attempt in Sudan in 1976, and he supported pariah governments the West shied away from, like the military junta in Gambia in 1994.

His most significant African venture was in Chad during the 1980s, when he backed a rebel group against the government, with an eye toward capturing a mineral-rich border area. His surrogates were defeated by Chad’s government in 1987, but Libyan troops did not leave the disputed border strip until 1994.

And yet, Mr. Boilley writes, the Tuareg distrusted Colonel Qaddafi, whose rhetorical gestures on their behalf were rarely matched by material support.

Now, unwittingly, the picture is different. Outside a villa in Bamako recently, a dozen or more pro-government Tuaregs glumly contemplated the new order of things back home.

“When they came into Ménaka, they were yelling, ‘Allahu akbar.’ What does that mean? We don’t do that sort of thing when we fight,” said Bajan Ag Hamatou, a lawmaker from Ménaka. His brother, Aroudeïny Ag Hamatou, the mayor of a small town outside Ménaka, said, “A lot of buildings were destroyed.”

Bajan Ag Hamatou angrily blamed the West for having created a mess in his backyard.

“The Westerners didn’t want Qaddafi, and they got rid of him, and they created problems for all of us,” he said. “When you chased Qaddafi out in that barbaric fashion, you created 10 more Qaddafis. The whole Saharo-Sahelian region has become unlivable.”


by Marilyn Price-Mitchell, PhD

Ability to meet and overcome challenges in ways that maintain or promote well-being.

One of the first things you might associate with teenagers is their risk-taking behavior. And most of the time, those associations are negative. Right?

That’s because we are deluged with stories of troubled youth whose risk-taking actions got out of hand —sometimes with tragic results. But what if there was a flip-side to youth risk-taking? A side that would make us encourage teenagers to stretch their comfort zones?

In a recent article, What Happy People Do Differently, positive psychologists, Robert Biswas-Diener and Todd Kashdan, claim that truly happy people understand “happiness is not just about doing things that you like. It also requires growth and adventuring beyond the boundaries of your comfort zone.”

“Curiosity,” they say, “is largely about exploration…the most direct route to becoming stronger and wiser.” A study led by Kashdan and psychologist Michael Steger found that “curious people invest in activities that cause them discomfort as a springboard to higher psychological peaks.”

Teens Find Identity through Discomfort

In Tomorrow’s Change Makers: Reclaiming the Power of Citizenship for a New Generation, young people, like adults, said they found happiness when they experienced risk-taking. At the peak of their discomfort, students made comments, including:

“I crossed barriers in my mind.”

“I felt scared.”

“I felt liberated.”

“What a powerful experience.”

“I was way out of my comfort zone.”

What risk-taking experiences caused them to make these comments? Were they high on drugs or alcohol?

Quite the opposite. These students were describing the positive experience of pushing their psychological boundaries as they participated in a variety of community service activities.

Some had come face-to-face with people living in situations very different from their own. Others were doing physical labor that stretched them to new levels of endurance. Several feared failure as they set their sights on unimaginable goals to benefit others.

These students came from highly diverse backgrounds. But what they shared in common was a sense of accomplishment and self-esteem that came from learning to solve problems, working with others, and pushing their comfort zones.

The bottom line? The students in this study discovered their identities through the process of risk-taking. Simultaneously, they found a path to happiness.

The Teen Brain Craves Risk-Taking

Much of the research on happiness has been conducted with adults. But what we’ve learned about the teen brain sheds light on their happiness too.

Before adolescence, children learn how to fit into society. With parents and teachers as guides, they absorb the norms and unspoken rules of how to behave at home and school. They are like little sponges, soaking up megabytes of information!

As children enter their teen years, they begin to merge what they know about society with their psychological selves. They search for their own identities, separate from their parents.

Changes to the limbic system of the brain cause teens to seek risk, challenge, and emotional stimulation. While some parents fear this phase of a child’s life, it’s really quite natural. And it’s a time to be embraced as a positive transition to adulthood.

Of course, we mostly associate teen risk-taking with drinking, drugs, smoking, and sexual experimentation. But risk-taking is equally associated with positive activities, like mountain climbing, community service, politics, faith groups, and other experiences that can push young people out of their comfort zones and reward them handsomely.

Like the teens that were part of my research study, risk-taking can seed happiness, life purpose, and well-being. When young people learn to overcome challenges and meet risk head on, they learn to be resilient. They learn that exploration beyond their comfort zones often leads to unexpected rewards and psychological peaks. They develop courage, curiosity, self-confidence, and persistence.

Can we reshape the idea that teen risk-taking is always negative? What positive experiences have you or your teen enjoyed that pushed psychological comfort zones and increased happiness?

Photo Credit: Basketman23

Published: July 12, 2013

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Tags: character strengths


Paul Manafort, back when he was still Trump’s campaign chairman.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The resignation of Paul Manafort Friday morning, just six months after he signed on to Trump’s campaign and two days after the ascension of Breitbart executive Steve Bannon, proves the very thing about Donald Trump we were loath to admit.

At a time when Trump is sinking in the polls and seems unable to right the ship, it’s easier than ever, if you are not a Trump supporter, to indulge in a measure of relief. He’s probably not going to be president. But at the same time, the lack of a Trump pivot, his astounding ability to continue to “be himself” even at the cost of his base, means another, complementary truth must be acknowledged: Donald Trump is an incomparable figure, more untamable than even some of the worst people in the world.

These two realizations go hand in hand. Had Manafort, a dark mage of political image-making, been successful in reshaping the Trump campaign, we would have declared Trump a clown who got lucky in the primaries and smartly bent a knee to the party apparatus. But it seems the correct view now is that an unstoppably destructive force has, in the span of a year, laid waste not only to the brightest lights of the Republican Party, but to the party’s own best attempt to give him the very thing he’s ostensibly running for.

It’s impressive!

When Manafort first “volunteered” for the campaign, it was seen as an act of salvation, a professional hand coming on to replace the ramshackle operation run by a dinghy-full of people, one of them being the promptly ousted and now gleefully gloating Corey Lewandowski. Franklin Foer was one of the earliest to sound the alarm bells about Manafort’s evil genius here in Slate, with a frightening portrait of a man who had been a longtime GOP operative, who had crafted the 1984 “Morning in America” convention, and gone on to a lucrative career rehabilitating tyrants and taking money from Russian oligarchs.

This was the guy, it seemed, to really be afraid of. This was the guy who was going to take the wildly veering Trump canoe and rebuild it into a wave-chopping tanker of a presidency-winning machine. This, and the growing reports of connections between Manafort and pro-Russian interests, played into the illusion that Trump was a mindless Manchurian candidate of some kind, beholden if not directly to Putin, then to Manafort and his needs, or, opportunistically, to a white nationalist movement. In trying to imagine a convergence of networked interests, we underestimated Trump’s singularity.

How wrong we were. Paul Manafort was able to stage-manage Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole, Mobutu, Angolan guerrilla fighters, Lebanese arms dealers, and Viktor Yanukovych. But he wasn’t able to reform Donald J. Trump.

Through some alchemy of pathological striving, bitterness, narcissism, canniness, force of will, and starter funds, we have ended up with a presidential nominee who, we finally have to accept, is the furthest thing from a joke. Trump is a towering figure in American cultural—and now political—history. Paul Manafort is but a footnote.

You’ve won, Donald. Even if you don’t become president, you’ve won. There is nobody like you. There never has been. And with any luck—though luck rarely holds—there never will be.

Read more Slate coverage of the 2016 campaign.


Journalists follow the presentation of Huawei's smartphone, the Mate S, ahead of the IFA Electronics show in Berlin, Germany, in this file picture taken September 2, 2015.

Journalists follow the presentation of Huawei's smartphone, the Mate S, ahead of the IFA Electronics show in Berlin, Germany, in this file picture taken September 2, 2015. Reuters/Hannibal Hanschke

The new Huawei P10 picks up where its predecessor left off the year before. It’s an improvement over the Huawei P9 in nearly every facet, including camera, design and display protection. But when it comes to battery performance, how far off are the two P series siblings?

Huawei P9 - Battery specs and features

The Huawei P9 is powered by a robust and non-removable 3,000 mAh battery. The P9 has rapid charging support and is able to provide about 40 percent of power in just 30 minutes of plug time using 9V/2A charger. Unfortunately, the handset comes with a regular 5V/2A charging unit, so those who want fast charging will have to purchase the 9V charger separately.

During GSMArena’s battery test, the Huawei P9 scored a pretty good rating. The phone battery can endure a few hours north of three days if the user does an hour each of phone calls, web browsing and video playback per day. The P9 has three power modes: Performance, Standard and Ultra Power Saving.

The Performance mode goes all out and does not enforce any kind of limit whatsoever on the hardware while the Standard mode supplements an additional couple of hours of use. The Ultra Power Saving keeps the handset going for a significant amount of time. There’s also the ROG power saving option that takes down the native screen resolution to 720p to provide more battery life and extend playing time.

Huawei P10 - Battery specs and features

Meanwhile, the Huawei P10 houses a 3,200 mAh battery, sealed just like its predecessor. The bundled charger is strapping, tough enough to churn out 5V/4.5A, 4.5V/5A and 5V/2A. P10 owners have to use the handset’s charger and USB cable together in order to fully take advantage of the numbers, though, as the charging speeds considerably drop off when another cable is used.

The P10 is able to provide about 55 percent of battery life in just 30 minutes of plug time using the bundled charging accessories. Although the new P series smartphone has a slightly more powerful cell than its older brother, it provides roughly the same performance as the P9.

Huawei P9 vs Huawei P10 – Battery performance test

When TechRadar pitted the P9 and the P10 against each other in a series of rigorous battery performance tests that involved an hour and a half each of web browsing, gaming, YouTube playback and native video playback, the P10 came out on top. After 90 minutes of web browsing, the P9 had 57 percent remaining battery life while the P10 had 67 percent. Following the YouTube playback test, the older handset’s battery level further stumbled to only 17 percent while the new phone hung on with 38 percent.

Both handsets didn’t even get to complete the gaming portion. The Huawei P9 finished with a total performance time of three hours and 20 minutes while the Huawei P10 lasted four hours and 10 minutes.

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Insect collection worth $100m providing answers to science, technology, agriculture

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Entomologists at an insect collection in country New South Wales have a party trick they like to play.

Visitors are given a pair of 3D glasses and asked to first close one eye and then the other while looking at a tray of small beetles, pinned to the cardboard of a specimen tray.

As if by magic, the beetles change from plain brown to vibrant, sparkling gold and green and then back again, as the viewer wearing the glasses closes each eye in turn.

The explanation, given by Dr Ainsley Seago, technical manager of the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries (DPI) insect collection, is that the beetles are using a tricky system called "a circulatory polarised multi-layer reflector".

"There are number of optical and photonic mechanisms that beetles have evolved that are years ahead of anything humans have created," Dr Seago explained excitedly.

The self-described "bug nerd" is part of the intriguing story of the collection, housed at the Orange Agricultural Institute in central west NSW.

Collection dates to 1890s

The NSW DPI collection, which totals an estimated 650,000 specimens from all over the world, was recently valued at $100 million.

Specimens have been obtained through a range of means: from donations by private collectors to the confiscations of illegal insect importations at Australia's ports and airports.

There are whole drawers full of ticks taken from humans, dogs, cats, rabbits, rats and just about anything else unfortunate enough to have encountered one of the potentially paralysing parasites.

The collection's creepy crawlies are stored in 270 green metal cabinets, housed in a climate-controlled, fire-door-protected room with an overpowering smell of the preservative naphthalene.

The collection is large but also significant because it is one of the oldest in Australia, having been started by the-then Department of Agriculture in the 1890s.

Peter Gillespie, collections curator at the NSW DPI, said then, as now, the key aim of the collection was to help farmers deal with pests and parasites in their crops and livestock.

"Agriculture was the backbone of the country ... but a lot of people didn't know what was here [and] we'd deliberately or inadvertently brought in a number of things that impacted on agricultural production," he said.

Earliest specimens

The earliest specimens in the collection were gathered from all over the state by keen bug collectors on horseback or using Cobb and Co coaches.

One of the most prolific collectors was Walter Wilson Froggatt who travelled to some quite inaccessible places, such as west of Brewarrina in outback NSW.

His legacy lives on in the spidery handwriting on the labels attached to the specimens he collected while the state's chief entomologist for about 40 years from the 1890s.

Mr Gillespie said as well as setting the foundations for the collection, Froggatt was also an early ecological warrior and was one of the only dissenting voices against the introduction of cane toads into Queensland.

Bugs with history and hidden stories

Mr Gillespie said the insects in the collection act as a window to the past; for instance, some come from locations once vegetated but which are now all "steel and concrete".

"All collections are ultimately a biodiversity inventory; they point to a particular species being there at a place in time and collected by someone or other," Mr Gillespie said.

Dr Seago said what fascinated her were the stories behind individual specimens.

"I love pulling out a beetle specimen that was collected say, in North Africa in World War II, and I can kind of guess at the story behind that," Dr Seago said.

"I think who was this hapless soldier out fighting Nazis in the middle of the desert who saw a beetle and thought 'I've got to have that and take it home' and now it's in our collection."

Significance of collection today

Insects may not always grab the public's attention, or the research dollar, until it comes to the more aesthetically pleasing specimens, such as the iridescent butterflies.

But that does not deter bug fanciers such as Mr Gillespie and Dr Seago who said even the more common-looking insects were making a big difference economically and scientifically for Australia.

Mr Gillespie said the collection was a biosecurity and agricultural aid because it could be used to identify an insect and determine whether it was found in a particular area.

"We facilitate trade decisions; [for instance if] Australia wants to sell a crop to somewhere in south-east Asia, they want to buy it so long as it's free of diseases X or Y or pest Z," Mr Gillespie said.

Dr Seago agreed that not everyone might be as fascinated by bugs as she was, but many saw the value in collecting and studying them.

"While people might not look at this little brown beetle and say 'wow, that's exciting', they will say 'what's this thing eating my truffles or my lucerne'," she said.

"We have a whole group of growers and industry groups who are very interested in our findings."

Work is currently underway at the NSW DPI to increase the amount of information available to the public via a digital database.

Topics: invertebrates---insects-and-arachnids, agricultural-crops, community-and-society, regional, science-and-technology, animal-science, library-museum-and-gallery, pests, orange-2800


Jung's split with Freud in 1913 was costly. He was on his own again, an experience that reminded him of his lonely childhood. He suffered a breakdown that lasted through the years of the first world war. It was a traumatic experience. But it was not simply a collapse. It turned out to be a highly inventive period, one of discovery. He would later say that all his future work originated with this "creative illness".

He experienced a succession of episodes during which he vividly encountered the rich and disturbing fantasies of his unconscious. He made a record of what he saw when he descended into this underworld, a record published in 2009 as The Red Book. It is like an illuminated manuscript, a cross between Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

Its publication sparked massive interest in Jungian circles, rather like what happens in Christian circles when a new first-century codex is discovered. It is of undoubted interest to scholars, in the same way that the notebooks of Leonardo are to art historians. And it is an astonishing work to browse, for its intricacy and imagination. But it is also highly personal, which is presumably why Jung decided against its publication in his own lifetime. So, to turn it into a sacred text, as some appear inclined to do, would be a folly of the kind Jung argued against in the work that followed his recovery from the breakdown.

In particular he wrote two pieces, known as the Two Essays, that provide a succinct introduction to his mature work. (He can otherwise be a rambling, elusive writer.) On the Psychology of the Unconscious completes his separation from Freud. He shows how tracing the origins of a personal crisis back to a childhood trauma, as Freud was inclined to do, might well miss the significance of the crisis for the adult patient now.

In The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious, he describes a process whereby a person can pay attention to how their unconscious life manifests itself in their conscious life. It will be a highly personal and tortuous experience. "There is no birth of consciousness without pain," he wrote. But with it, the individual can become more whole.

By way of illustration, Jung considers the example of a man whose public image is one of honour and service but who, in the privacy of his home, is prone to moods – so much so that he scares his wife and children. He is leading a double life as public benefactor and domestic tyrant. Jung argues that such a man has identified with his public image and neglected his unconscious life – though it won't be ignored and so comes out, with possibly explosive force, in his relations with his family. The way forward is to pay attention to this inner personality, literally by holding a conversation with himself. He should overcome any embarrassment in doing so and allow each part of himself to talk to the other so that both "partners" can be fully heard.

A non-judgmental attitude is critical. If one side judges the other, then the other side actually gains power because it feels wronged, and so justified in its complaints. This is where therapy can help. "The course of therapy is thus rather like a running conversation with the unconscious", Jung writes. And when properly heard, the tensions between the inner and outer personality should subside. The result will be a more honest saint who is a lot easier to live with. Moreover, he will find that he has more energy for life because he will be less at war with himself and those around him.

The Red Book, then, can be interpreted as Jung's conversation with his unconscious. The devotee of Jung who reads it as if it were a conversation with their own unconscious diverges from the particular path towards individuation that they themselves must forge.

Needless to say, a discussion with the unconscious is not straightforward. If conscious life is not wholly rational, driven as much by emotions and intuitions, then the patterns and instincts of the unconscious are even more buried and obscure. Worse, Jung argues that the modern world has developed a positive fear of the unconscious because it escapes the precise determination, analysis and control promised by modern science. The natural language of the unconscious is not exact like mathematics; it is flexible like mythology.

It is at this point that the links between Jungian psychology and religion emerge particularly clearly, because if symbolism and mythology are the natural languages of the unconscious, they are the natural languages of spiritual traditions too.

Jung found continual inspiration for his psychology in spiritual writings. The Talmud says that "The dream is its own interpretation." Jung agreed. Heraclitus, influenced by Eastern philosophies, wrote, "Out of discord comes the fairest harmony". Jung adopted this principle of enantiodromia as his own.

Further, Jung understood spiritual traditions to be a kind of psychotherapy avant la lettre. (Or to put it the other way round, he thought that psychotherapy emerged in the 19th century precisely because religious systems had begun to fail.) Human beings cannot stand meaninglessness in life, he argued. The decisive question we pursue is whether we are "related to the infinite or not?" Religious traditions provide frameworks within which this question can be approached, not primarily in an empirical or rational sense, but rather in an experiential and practical one.

For the Christian, the symbol of Christ represents complete humanity. The Buddha holds the same hope for the Buddhist. "The Christ-symbol is of the greatest importance for psychology in so far as it is perhaps the most highly developed and differentiated symbol of the self, apart from the figure of the Buddha," Jung averred.

Further still, he argued that Christ and the Buddha had both experienced their own confrontations with the unconscious, respectively in the stories of the temptations of Jesus and the Mara episode in the Buddha's legend. They are experiences that individuals shouldn't seek to imitate, but might expect and follow.