By Melchior Kirchhoffer

This book by Melchior Kirchhoffer seems to be an honest dealing with the life of the sometimes volatile Reformer. William Farel was a man greatly used of God in his own right, but his greatest contribution to the Reformation within the Providence of God, was to convince John Calvin to go to Geneva and head the work of reformation in that city. Through this meeting with Calvin, Farel brought the greatest of the Reformers out of relative isolation and into far greater public usefulness.

Kirchhoffer follows Farel from his early days in the Roman communion, to his days as a faithful servant of God used tremendously in the work of reformation in and about Switzerland.

This is a very easy book to read and gives a very good account of Farel’s life and work. It does not gloss over the weaknesses of the Reformer, clearly detailing what they were and the impact they had upon his ministry. Neither does it gloss over the contribution that Farel made to the progress of the Reformation.

To follow my progress in getting this work online and to read the book itself, visit:

The Life of William Farel

Jeg er enig med de vise mænd i deres forudsigelser om, at ledigheden topper med omkring 170.000 ledige i 2011.

Claus Hjort ligger op til en finanslov for 2010 med ca. 100 mia  kr.  i underskud! Det er aldrig før sket i Dansmarks historie.

Derfor er jeg grundlæggende uenig med de vise mænd i, at hovedmidlet for recovery er, at pumpe yderligere 10 mia kr. ud til offentlige investeringer i infrastruktur og bygninger, end man allerede HAR gjort.

Et bedre virkemiddel ville være, at arbejde på, at få flere nye virksomheder i drift (som skovfogeden der planter nyt efter høst) ved fx dramatisk at styrke Vækstfonden, der skal investere i eksportorienteret virksomhedsudvikling. Resultatet ville give et stort fald i ledigheden med beskæftigelse i virksomheder der kan eksportere os ud af krisen.

Alt for mange forskningsresultater ligger i skuffer og skabe både på DTU og vore universiteter til ingen nytte, fordi samarbejdet mellem det udførende erhvervsliv og forskerne er uvirksomt. Her ligger eksportmuligheder for driftige erhvervsfolk for milliarder, der kunne gavne både ledighed, udvikling og skatteministeren. Her kan høvles meget underskud af hos finansministeren.

Men hvorfor tænker “de vise mænd” kun på at gøre den offentlige sektor endnu større?

Midlet må da være, at gøre vores eksportsektor så stor som mulig. Det er jo indtjeningen her landet lever af.

Flere bilproducenter starter produktionen af  meget store litium-ion-batterier.

Litium er et grundstof, der ikke findes i større mængder i naturen.

Så det helt store spørgsmål er nok i virkeligheden, om der overhovedet er litium nok til at opbygge en bilpark af  hybrid- og elbiler?

Alle supermarkeder laver store kampagner med tre for x kr, og 750 gram for y kr. Samtidig pakker de alle grøntsager og frugt i store pakker som ofte går til i forrådnelse når man får det hjem. Hvorfor tænker de sådan, når Danmarks statistik kan oplyse, at der i Danmark nu er ca. 1 mio husstande med kun 1 beboer?

Altså 1 mio singler i Danmark. Der må være et gigantisk marked her.

Lad os derfor få mindre portioner af frisk kød og frugt og grønt. Måske skulle vi alle handle hos de lokale slagtermestre og lokale grønthandlere, hvor man selv kan bestemme hvor meget og hvor lidt man vil have. Så køber man kun det man har behov for. Det ville samtidig støtte de lokale småhandlende i nærbutikken.

Det vil samtidig medvirke til en stærk sænkning af CO2 udslippet, altså også et klimavenligt adfærdsskift.

Ifølge Cryos er mellem 10 og 15 procent af alle par i verden ufrivilligt barnløse. Det tal gælder også i Danmark. Definitionen på at være barnløs lyder, at man har forsøgt at blive gravid i mere end et år uden held. I hvert tredje tilfælde skyldes ufrivillig barnløshed, at mandens sædkvalitet er for ringe. Hos en anden tredjedel skal årsagen findes hos kvinden. I de sidste tilfælde skyldes det begge parter, eller man kan ikke udpege grunden.
Hvert år leverer Cryos donorsæd til 1500 graviditeter over hele verden. Som lovgivningen er nu, må læger i Danmark ikke inseminerer efter de udvidede profiler, men kun efter højde, drøjde, hår- og øjenfarve. Den form for inseminering må derfor udføres af eksempelvis jordmødre. Andre lande har deres specifikke love om kunstig befrugtning.
Personligt syntes jeg ved dybere eftertanke, at inseminering efter udvidede profiler er et etisk skråplan, der kan få et insemineret barn til, senere at søge efter en far der ikke er der. Det kan give barnet store eksistentielle problemer.

Fais gaffe…

Et surtout , évite d’en faire de nouvelles ( gaffes ) !!!

La taxe carbone pour complaire aux Verts, la “cagnotte” contre l’absentéisme scolaire, l’assistanat des “jeunes”,  le grand emprunt dont nul ne sait encore à quoi il servira si ce n’est à creuser encore plus la dette de la France, l’ ouver­ture qui ne fera pas gagner une seule voix à gauche, la “pipolisation” de la vie politique, la nomination incongrue d’un Frédéric Mitterrand qui ne rapportera à la majorité actuelle que quelques voix incertaines venant des milieux homosexuels ravis de voir l’un des leurs promu à de telles fonctions, mais lui fera perdre celles de la “Droite morale”, le procès Clearstream dont l’issue est aussi incertaine que les bénéfices que peut espérer le Président lui-même, la stupide candidature de Jean Sarkozy à la Présidence de l’EPAD, etc…. tout cela commence à nous énerver sérieusement.

La majorité silencieuse de l’électorat qui a voté Sarkozy pourrait bien se manifester, en silence, en s’abstenant aux prochaines élections régionales, ce qui serait le signal d’une déroute qui pourrait en annoncer d’autres…..

Sarkozy serait-il, à son tour, atteint par le syndrome dans lequel tous les Présidents de Droite finissent par sombrer ???  Elus à Droite, ils consacrent la deuxième moitié de leur mandat à courir désespérément derrière l’électorat de Gauche pour tenter de le séduire afin de gagner quelques points de popularité.

Giscard y a sombré corps et biens. Chirac n’a cessé de “cocufier” la Droite, à telle enseigne qu’il est devenu une sorte d’icône sympathique pour la Gauche qui après l’avoir traité de tous les noms d’oiseaux ( fasciste, expert en ”coups de mentons”, raciste ne supportant pas les odeurs de couscouss, etc…) ne manque pas une occasion de lui manifester ses regrets et sa sympathie !!!

Alors Sarkozy, méfiance à l’égard de ces clins d’oeil trop appuyés à Gauche….. ôte tes lunettes ouvre tes yeux, et tes grandes oreilles pour écouter la voix de ceux qui t’ont élu pour réformer ce pays endormi par le chant des sirènes du déclin, et non pas pour faire des risettes à ceux qui ne parviennent pas à choisir entre la haine et le mépris de ce que tu représente à leurs yeux.

Tu es loin d’être arrivé au bout de tes peines. Alors, “tais-toi et rame” !!!Tiens bon et surtout ne t’arrêtes pas de ramer : tu n’es pas encore arrivé à destination !!!! 

Pilates with Anne has been certifying Pilates instructors since 2006 through Pilates Academy International.  All apprentices are carefully selected for their knowledge of anatomy, ability to teach and attentiveness to proper form and safety.  The apprentice program allows the client to work with a trained Pilates instructor for a reduced rate. The rates for working with an apprentice instructor are less than regular studio rates.

Apprentice Rates
Reformer Privates
$50 single Private Reformer
$225 ($45/session) 5-pack Private Reformer

Reformer Semi-privates (per person)
$30 single Semi-private
$125 ($25/session) 5-pack Semi-private Reformer

Apprentice Semi-Private Schedule
Mondays: 7:30-8:30am
Tuesdays: 6:00-7:00pm
Thursdays:6:30-7:30pm
Fridays: 7:30-8:30am
Sundays: 10:00-11:00am
4:30-5:30pm

Private sessions available by appointment

I en tid med tiltagende speciallægemangel og stigende ventetider for at komme til speciallæge er der grund til at overveje, om ydernummersystemet skal bevares i speciallægepraksis. Hvis man i stedet genindfører den logiske regel fra før 1977, at enhver, der havde erhvervet en speciallægeanerkendelse, også var berettiget til at drive en speciallægepraksis – med læge honorarerne betalt af Sygesikringen som nu – ville det medføre, at flere, speciallægetimer blev tilgængelige for patienterne. Der findes nemlig en - skjult – speciallægereserve i form af frivilligt overarbejde. Dette gælder specielt blandt vagtbærende overlæger, der som kompensation for vagtarbejde får tildelt afspadseringsdage.

Mange speciallæger bruger disse afspadseringsdage til at rejse til Norge eller Sverige for at passe vikariater der. Denne arbejdskraft kunne bedre og rimeligere bruges i Danmark.

Dagspressen er hver dag fyldt med planer om, at staten skal give yderligere mia. af kroner ekstra til sundhedsvæsenet for at reducere ventetiderne. Det har dog været uklart, hvordan de nødvendige speciallægetimer skulle skaffes. Afskaffelse af ydernummersystemet kunne medvirke til at løse dette problem.

Konklussion: Ydernummersystemet er en af de sidste resyet af en stalinistisk inspireret planøkonomi. Liberalisering på dette område indebærende afskaffelse af ydernumrene er en tiltrængt reform. Det vil bl.a. give flere speciallægetimer til glæde for patienterne og til en rimelig pris.

Hvis man ikke kender sit eget lands nyere historie, så kan man heller ikke forstå sin egen samtid. Derfor er historieløsheden farlig for vores demokrati.

Når der gøres et skel mellem frihed og retfærdighed, bliver ingen af dem sikre.

Private leverandører er typisk o til 25-30 pct. mere effektive end det offentlige.

Forskningschef Henning Christoffersen, Cepos har for nylig offentliggjort en undersøgelse af besparelsespotentialet i kommunerne. Den viser at, kommunerne samlet set kan spare 25 mia. kr., hvis alle indrettede sig, som man har gjort i landets billigste kommune.  En kommune som Ballerup (den dyreste) kunne ifølge undersøgelsen spare 11.000 kr. per borger om året, hvis den prioriterede ressourcerne som den billigste kommune. Listen over alle landets kommuner kan ses på www.kommunepotentiale.dk

Det er tankevækkende, at borgerne i de billige kommuner var ligeså tilfredse med ydelserne som borgerne i de dyre kommuner.

I en anden undersøgelse har Cepos vist, at kommunerne kunne spare 15 mia. kr. ved øget udlicitering, fordi private leverandører typisk er op til 25-30 pct. mere effektive og dermed billigere end det offentlige. Dette forår indrømmede Kommunernes Landsforening, at kommunenerne siden begyndelsen af 1980 har forsømt har forsømt at vedligeholde deres bygninger.  Konsekvensen heraf er 30 pct. dyrere vedligeholdsudgifter ved at starte vedligehold nu – altså groft sagt svarende til kommunernes nuværende tilgang. Den manglende vedligeholdelse skyldes ikke mangel på ressourcer. Den danske folkeskole er blandt de 3-4 dyreste i verden, og derfor kunne der selvfølgelig findes de nødvendige ressourcer til vedligeholdelse. Kommunernes påstand om det modsatte er simpelthen absurd.

Sandheden er for det første, at politikkerne underprioriterer vedligeholdelse, fordi der på kort sigt er flere stemmer i at bruge pengene på anden vis. En kommunalpolitikers tidshorisont er maksimalt 4 år – længere er der ikke til næste valg.

For det andet mangler kommunerne viden om, hvordan man bedst driver og vedligeholder bygninger. I en undersøgelse fra Dansk Byggeri havde 84 pct. af de adspurgte kommuner gjort de enkelte  institutionsledere ansvarlige for den indvendige vedligeholdelse vedligeholdelse af deres bygningerne. Få af deres ledere har en faglig forudsætning for at påtage sig dette ansvar, og derfor bliver opgaven ofte grebet forkert an. Resultatet bliver dyrere og dårligere, end hvis professionelle havde haft ansvaret.

Desværre er det svært at trænge igennem med budskabet om, at kommunerne faktisk har penge nok og i stedet må lære at prioritere samt at bruge pengene mere effektivt. Den politiske logik på Christiansborg, i Kommunernes Landsforening og ude op de enkelte rådhuse skal enhver ny kommunal opgave finasieres ved at lade kommunerne bruge flere af skatteydernes penge. Hvis en opgave bliver dyrere end forventet, stille kommunerne så sikkert som amen i kirken og beder om flere penge fra statskassen. At pengen måske kunne findes ved at spare et andet sted i systemet, overvejes end ikke.

Ifølge beregninger fra Cepos vil en vækst i det offentlige forbrug som i perioden 2002-2008 allerede i 2015 kræve skattestigninger på 22 mia. kr.,  hertil skal ligges at oppositionen udtaler, at den offentlige sektor er blevet “udsultet” de senere år. Og det på trods af, at det offentlige forbrug i 2009 forventes at nå det højeste niveau i mere end 25 år – målt som andel af BNP.

Forskningsbaserede analyser viser, at kommunerne har et meget stort råderum til en mere fornuftig prioritering indenfor deres eksisterende budgetter. Analyser viser også, at kommunerne kan give borgerne mere velfærd for de samme penge ved at blive bedre til at samarbejde med private virksomheder og ved at lære af de bedste kommuner.

Hvis vi ikke får lavet om på den logik, kommer det til at gå ud over skatteyderne. Og det kommer til at gå ud over det danske samfund, som vil opleve lavere vækst og velstand, når skatten bliver sat op.

I debatten om de kommunale udgifter, og i mange andre situationer, burde mange flere danskeres stemme kunne høres i samfundsdebatten, hvor man uafhængigt af særinteresser argumentere for mådehold i de offentlige udgifter, lavere skatter og større personlig frihed. 

Dal 10 ottobre in poi – Castellammare di Stabia – Napoli
C.so A. De Gasperi 177/B

Il Corso di Formazione organizzato dall’ A.S.C.D. Sportlandia e Pilates Santa Fe  è l’unico al mondo in grado di combinare il curriculum di Romana Kryzanowska, Bruce King, Carola Trier, Eve Gentry con l’influenza di Mary Bowen, Kathy Grant e Ron Fletcher condotto da Raymond Kurshals, Alessandra Dallera e Silvio Vincenzo Iozzino.
Finalità: I campi di applicazione variano dal puro mantenimento del benessere fisico al campo specifico della riabilitazione ortopedica. L’estrema versatilità della tecnica la rende unica nel suo genere, con innumerevoli e qualificanti sbocchi professionali presso strutture sportive o come personal trainer.
Iter formativo comprende i seguenti percorsi: Matwork ReformerMatwork + ReformerStudio (completo) Calendario Formazione 2009 Secondo Semestre Data                       Corso                   Ore      10-11 Ottobre 2009 Principi Fondamentali + pre-mat 8+8 17-18 Ottobre 2009        Matwork                  8+8 24-25 Ottobre 2009        Matwork                  8+8 30 Ottobre 2009           Reformer                 8 01 Novembre 2009          Reformer                 8 07-08 Novembre 2009       Reformer                 8+8 14-15 Novembre 2009       Reformer                 8+8 21-22 Novembre 2009     Studio (percorsocompleto)  8+8 28-29 Novembre 2009     Studio (percorsocompleto)  8+8 05-06 Dicembre  2009    Studio (percorsocompleto)  8+8 12-13 Dicembre  2009    Studio (percorsocompleto)  8+8 Calendario Formazione 2010Primo Semestre Data                      Corso                      Ore       09-10 Gennaio 2010 Principi Fondamentali + Pre -mat 8+8  16-17 Gennaio 2010 Matwork  8+8  23-24 Gennaio 2010 Matwork  8+8  30-31 Gennaio 2010 Reformer  8+8  05-06 Febbraio 2010 Reformer  8+8  13-14 Febbraio 2010 Reformer  8+8  20-21 Febbraio 2010 Studio (percorso completo)8+8  27-28 Febbraio 2010 Studio (percorso completo)8+8  06-07 Marzo 2010 Studio (percorso completo)  8+8  13-14 Marzo 2010 Studio (percorso completo)  8+8 Full ImmersionData                   Corso                     Ore          07 al 17 Giugno 2010 Studio (percorso completo)  80 Tirocinio Certificazione MatworkPratica personale     45 orePratica con clienti   40 oreOsservazione          10 oreAssistenza            15 oreTotale Ore             110 Tirocinio Certificazione Reformer  Pratica personale     50 orePratica con clienti   45 oreOsservazione          15 oreAssistenza            20 oreTotale Ore            130 Tirocinio Certificazione Matwork + ReformerPratica personale     90 orePratica con clienti   80 oreOsservazione          25 oreAssistenza            35 oreTotale Ore            230 Tirocinio Certificazione Percorso CompletoPratica personale     120 orePratica con clienti   130 oreOsservazione           50 oreAssistenza             50 oreTotale Ore            350 Previo il superamento dell’esame verrà rilasciata Certificazione Internazionale Pilates MatworkCertificazione Internazionale Pilates ReformerCertificazione Internazionale Pilates Matwork-ReformerCertificazione Internazionale Pilates Completo

organizzatore: A.S.C. SPORTLANDIA
referente: A.S.C. SPORTLANDIA

telefono: 0818718076
sito: http://www.sportlandia.it
email_evento: sportlandia@sportlandia.it

or "change must be qualified"

This is a suggestion by an online friend.

Since texting and twitter came, I noticed that I can’t write long passages anymore. My sentences are usually contracted and casual. I guess I need to start writing on real paper as soon as possible.

Setelah berlarut-larut merencanakan pembangunan industri sel surya dalam negeri, pemerintah pun mulai menargetkan produksi awal 50 megawatt per tahun. Badan usaha milik negara, PT LEN Persero, ditunjuk sebagai industri pelaksana produksi material sumber energi terbarukan ini.

“ Cetak biru untuk kebijakan implementasi sel surya produksi dalam negeri, khususnya di perkotaan, sudah disiapkan dan akan dipaparkan kepada Presiden pada awal Oktober 2009, “ kata Direktur Pusat Teknologi Konservasi dan Konservasi Energi pada Badan Pengkajian dan Penerapan Teknologi (BPPT) Arya Rezavidi, Jumat (18/9) di Jakarta.

Menurut Arya, cetak biru tersebut berisi ketentuan penggunaan sel surya sebagai sumber energi listrik penerang jalan umum. Selain itu, ketentuan pembatasan penggunaan listrik PLN bagi gedung ataupun perumahan tertentu, agar selebihnya memanfaatkan sel surya.

Untuk memenuhi bauran energi paa 2025, pemerintah menargetkan pemanfaatan sel surya 800 megawatt. Kapasitas sel surya terpasang saat ini baru sekitar 10 megawatt sehingga peluang industri sel surya dalam negeri sebetulnya besar.

Menurut Arya, program pemanfaatan sel surya oleh pemerintah saat ini masih terpusat pada upaya menyuplai listrik di desa-desa yang memang terisolaso dan tak ada jaringan listrik. Investasi pengadaan sel surya impor pun masih cukup besar.

Dicontohkan, tahun 2008 dianggarkan pengadaan sel surya untuk daerah-daerah terpencil pada pos anggaran Kementerian Negara Percepatan Pembangunan Daerah Tertinggal besarnya Rp 180 miliar. Adapun di Departemen Energi dan Sumber Daya Mineral jumlahnya mencapai Rp 400 miliar.

Tren ke depan

Arya menungungkapkan, pemerintah harus mengoptimalkan produksi sel surya dalam negeri karena penggunaan sel surya tak terhindarkan, ini sesuai dengan tren ke depan. Pemenuhan energi terbarukan antara lain dengan mengombinasikan sel surya dengan teknologi fuel cell (sel bahan bakar hidrogen).

“ Prinsip kedua sumber energi terbarukan tersebut bisa saling melengkapi, “ kata Arya.

Sel surya dalam kapasitas besar bersifat statis, dapat menunjang produksi hidrogen melalui proses elektrolisis. Hidrogen yang dihasilkan kemudian diproses menjadi bahan bakar yang dapat didistribusikan, seperti bahan bakar kendaraan konvensional sekarang.

Menurut pakar sel bahan bakar BPPT, Eniya Listiyani Dewi, produksi teknologi untuk sel bahan bakar dalam negeri sudah dapat dikembangkan. Saat ini sudah dihasilkan prototipe untuk kapasitas produksi listrik 700 watt,

“ Untuk kapasitas 1 kilowatt baru-baru ini telah diuji coba, tetapi terdapat kebocoran pada membran sebagai jantung sel bahan bakar ini, “ kata Eniya.

Menurut Eniya, ketertarikan investor atau industri dalam negeri untuk mengembangkan aplikasi sel bahan bakar saat ini memang ada. Namun, hal itu belum didukung infrastruktur sumber hidrogen.

“ Kalau pemerintah ingin mengembangkan infrastruktur industri hidrogen, sebaiknya mendekati lokasi-lokasi industri gas yang ada, “ kata Eniya.

Industri gas juga mengandalkan distribusi hidrogen melalui pipa. Selain itu, industri tersebut bisa terintegrasi dengan industri lain yang butuh hidrogen, seperti industi pupuk kimia.

“ Beberapa investor yang menghubungi saya sudah bersedia mewujudkan kota hidrogen. Namun, pemerintah masih perlu mempersiapkan infrastruktur sumber hidrogennya, “ kata Eniya Listiyani Dewi.

Kota hidrogen merupakan istilah untuk suatu kawasan yang tertata infrastrukturnya dengan mengoptimalkan hidrogen sebagai sumber energi utama yang ramah lingkungan.

Pihak BPPT bekerja sama dengan Universitas Gajah Mada saat ini mengembangkan riset mesin pengubah atau reformer gas menjadi hidrogen. Alat ini dapat digunakan untuk memproduksi gas hidrogen dari sumber energi gas lain, seperti elpiji atau biogas.

“ Reformer ini menjadi salah astu teknologi utama untuk menghasilkan hidrogen. Sekarang tinggal menunggu uji coba, “ kata Eniya.

Sumber  :

Target Industri Sel Surya 50 MW – Kompas, 19.09.2009

Inför Folkpartiets landsmöte i november har min gode vän Martin Andreasson skrivit en motion vars budskap jag starkt sympatiserar med:

Det är principiellt olämpligt att skolväsendets styrdokument fastslår att skolans värdegrund ska förknippas med en viss religion. … Formuleringarna om kristen tradition och västerländsk humanism bör strykas ur skolans läroplan.

Jag är emellertid inte lika förtjust som Martin i det som därefter kvarstår:

Det är tillräckligt att skolans värdegrund redovisas med utgångspunkt i demokratin och de mänskliga rättigheterna som universella principer.

Problemet här är att det inte finns några “mänskliga rättigheter”; frågan är om skolan bör lära ut en (kanske användbar) fiktion. Räcker det kanske med demokrati som angiven värdegrund, så får lärare och elever sedan diskutera om hur demokratin ska förstås och kanske förbättras? Eller varför inte ställa sig frågan om skolan behöver en specificerad värdegrund överhuvudtaget?

Se även “Det finns inga mänskliga rättigheter”, “Rawls och värdegrunden”, “Mänskliga rättigheter existerar inte”, “Raz om mänskliga rättigheter” och “Välfärd istället för mänskliga rättigheter”.

Monday 6:40 pm beginner reformer class
Wednesday beginner 5:30 pm mat class
Thursday beginner mat/reformer 6:30 pm

Drop me a line and let me know what class time works for you at getfitmatpilates@gmail.com

I många utvecklingsländer har jordbrukssektorn avreglerats på senare år. I mer utvecklade länder kvarstår regleringarna på detta område i hög grad, vilket nog har fått många frihandelsförespråkare att sucka uppgivet. Det är bl.a. därför av intresse att analysera hur de reformer som har kommit till stånd kan förklaras. En ny studie, “The Political Economy of Agricultural Market Reforms in Developing Countries”, publicerad i The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, finner följande:

Our results suggest that the sudden and strong decline in the international price of agricultural commodities played a crucial role in destabilizing the financial equilibrium of marketing boards. In addition, changes in the rural representation in the political arena and government ideology also played significant roles in breaking up the status quo.

Det visar sig alltså att existerande intressegrupper inte alltid förmår blockera förändringar av förd politik, t.ex. vid exogena prischocker och när politikerna själva är övertygade om reformers positiva effekter. Det senare var sannolikt också avgörande när Storbritannien på 1800-talet genomförde en stor frihandelsreform.

För en utmärkt introduktion till grunden för reformer i mer utvecklade länder, se den nya boken Reform.

Today’s book is Victorian Pubs, by Mark Girouard.  Softcover published 1984 by Yale University Press; first published in 1975.  Cover photo shows The Warrington Hotel, Washington Crescent, Maida Vale.

From the publisher:

In Victorian London the reckless abundance of pubs brought comfort, glitter and variety to the drab lives of the poor and a flush of righteous anger to the solemn faces of the Temperance reformers.  The agitators made important gains but never achieved the total prohibition they sought.

Yet it was not a simple matter of drunkenness versus sobriety.  In their heyday in the 1890s London pubs were rich in architectural beauty and in the colourful, often bizarre, characters who served and drank in them.  The Temperance platform was based on a misunderstanding of social and economic changes that had taken place to metamorphose the intimate tavern of the first decades of the century into the various forms it took later on, a development that owed much to the influence of the gin palace.  If the men who created pubs at this time were often unscrupulous and flashy, the needs for which they found it profitable to cater were very real, and their contribution to the quality of London life was enormous.

This book celebrates the rise and laments the fall of the Victorian pub by looking at buildings, builders, landlords and users with the eye of a social and architectural historian.  The main emphasis is on London but there is also a final chapter covering in less detail the rest of England and Ireland. – from back cover.

Sumptuously illustrated with photos, plans, designs, drawings, and advertisements, Victorian Pubs vividly showcases the ornate woodwork, brightly glowing gas lamps, rich stained glass, pool tables, musical acts, and convivial atmosphere that made the pubs so inviting.

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Also currently in stock at BrainiacBooks.com:

Behind Bars: The Straight-Up Tales of a Big-City Bartender

* * *

If you are interested in more particulars about the Book of the Day or any of our other featured books, search our store at BrainiacBooks.com for the title.  If the book is still in our stock, you’ll be taken to the page for that title.

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By popular demand, I am reposting this story about Mayor Sarah Palin eliminating building permits before her personal home AND the Wasilla Sports Complex were constructed in Wasilla, Alaska.  The post originally appeared on the Sarah Palin Truth Squad back in October 14, 2008.

The original title was The Book of Sarah (Palin): Contractors Awarded Wasilla Sports Complex Contract Built New Palin Family Home.”

Although this is old news, it’s good to remember the personal ethics of Sarah Palin as she moves forward into her latest career.

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Sarah Palin winking to the cameras.

Wayne Barrett, investigative journalist and senior editor for the Village Voice, published a brilliantly illuminating exposé on Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and the building of her new Wasilla family home by the same contractors awarded the contract to build the new, multi-million dollar Wasilla sports complex. Also, throughout Sarah Palin’s political career, she has worked closely with lobbyists, promoting the interests of big business and oil corporations. Barrett was interviewed by MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann on Countdown as to the possible conflicts of interest these connections might have posed for Gov. Palin.

Along with the winks and folksy “doggone” moments early in her debate with Joe Biden last week, Sarah Palin repeated her familiar claim to the title of “maverick,” declaring that “as a governor and as a mayor,” she’s had a “track record of reform” and has now “joined a team of mavericks.”

Despite the free fall that her polling numbers went into after her disastrous interviews with Katie Couric, that branding as a “reformer” has been resilient. Introduced skillfully before tens of millions during an intense surge of interest six weeks ago, it’s been hammered home with repeated soundbites.

But the label doesn’t hold up under close scrutiny. From the controversy that catapulted her to the governorship, to her ties to the indicted patriarch of Alaska’s GOP, to the multilayered nexus of lobbyists and Big Oil interests around her, and, finally, to the Wasilla sports complex that capped her mayoral career, the myth of Sarah Palin, reformer, withers under inspection.

Wasilla, Alaska Sports Complex

PALIN’S CLAIM to fame as an Alaska reformer-that she risked her career to expose the chairman of the state GOP-is revisionist. In fact, Palin supported the methane-drilling project that helped sink GOP boss Randy Ruedrich before she later decided she was against it-a mirror of her flip-flop on the infamous Bridge to Nowhere. And her reversal had more to do with seizing a political opportunity than following her conscience.

In 2003, Ruedrich, an oil executive known for his ability to raise industry contributions for the party, was appointed to the powerful Alaska Oil & Gas Conservation Commission (OGCC) by Governor Frank Murkowski at the same time as Palin, who had finished her second term as Wasilla mayor the year before. Murkowski had given Palin the plum position to compensate for overlooking her when he appointed his own daughter Lisa to the U.S. Senate seat he vacated when he was elected governor in 2002.

Palin’s near-win in the Republican primary for lieutenant governor earlier that year-losing to the first Alaskan of native ancestry ever elected to state office-had made her a statewide star. She had filmed commercials and stumped for Frank Murkowski that fall, so he owed her. But she rejected other top posts that he offered until she got the one she wanted-a position that allowed her to live at home and commute to Anchorage, rather than relocate to Juneau. She certainly also saw the commission appointment as a stepping-stone, and as late as October 2003, she told reporters that she was considering a race against Lisa Murkowski in the upcoming 2004 special senate election.

When Murkowski made Palin the $122,400 chairwoman of the OGCC, one of her jobs was to oversee commission ethics, meaning she was charged with reporting any possible ethics violations by staff or commission members to the governor’s office. By her own account, she first did that in September 2003, reaching out to a top Murkowski staffer about Ruedrich. But what she complained about then, according to a source familiar with these conversations, was Ruedrich’s party business on state time. She said nothing about his blatant championing of a methane-drilling project by a company called Evergreen Resources-even though she’d witnessed it herself at a standing-room-only community meeting in August. Palin and Ruedrich went to the meeting because the commission had oversight powers over the drilling, and homeowners in the Wasilla area where she was once mayor were up in arms over the effects they feared it would have on their property and drinking water.

Chris Whittington-Evans, chair of the citizens’ group that helped organize the meeting, says that Ruedrich presented a slideshow very similar to one the company itself had presented at any earlier session. Palin remained quiet through most of the meeting, though Evans recalls that she was questioned about a possible conflict of interest she might have. Palin was then chairing the campaign committee of a pro-Evergreen candidate for Borough Mayor of Mat-Su, the county that includes Wasilla. The candidate, Charlie Fannon, her former police chief, had taken $2,500 in donations from three Evergreen executives and a consultant, though community outrage eventually forced him to return some of the money. Ruedrich had given Fannon $500.

The same three executives had also just given $1,747 to Palin’s 2002 campaign for lieutenant governor. In fact, with the low campaign-finance limits in Alaska, Evergreen was the second-largest giver to both Palin and Fannon. While still mayor, Palin had backed an Evergreen-designed bill that allowed the state to override local objections to the drilling and permitted an ordinance-introduced by her closest ally on the city council authorizing methane extraction-to become law. But the focus of the question at the community meeting was Fannon. Palin had asked Fannon to run and had filmed an ad for him. He was the only candidate she’d ever contributed to-and her father contributed as well. Evans says he found it odd when she insisted that there was no conflict between backing “a big promoter of methane-drilling” and sitting in judgment on the project.

That’s what Tim Anderson, the Borough Mayor who beat Fannon and opposed the drilling, says now as well: “You could say that it was a conflict of interest” for Palin to be on the commission and supporting Fannon. Anderson was also at the August meeting and says that Palin sat up front with Ruedrich and Evergreen. “They were trying to convince the people that drilling underneath their homes wasn’t a big problem.” Fannon’s narrow loss to Anderson, wrote the local newspaper The Frontiersman, confirmed the political potency of the methane issue. In early November, Evans sent Palin an e-mail detailing the case against Ruedrich and demanding that he be fired from the commission. Palin finally acted, forwarding the Evans e-mail to the state’s attorney general. Two days later, Ruedrich resigned.

A few days after Ruedrich’s resignation, Palin searched his commission e-mail and found damaging evidence of his ties to Evergreen and his party abuse of the commission. For reasons she has never explained, she took a month to send those e-mails to the attorney general. In that intervening time, she talked twice to the attorney general’s office, and her own subsequent notes indicated that she expressed “concerns” about whether a continuing investigation was needed, since Ruedrich had already stepped down.

By the time she finally forwarded the e-mails, which were very damaging to Evergreen as well, the company had dumped its top Wasilla-based executive and had begun to withdraw from its Alaska adventure. A couple of weeks later, she surprised everyone and resigned herself, attributing it later to the dilatory response she was getting from state officials. In fact, when she quit, she had given the officials less time to act after getting the e-mails than she’d taken to send them.

Michelle Church, who was the director of the same citizens’ group that Evans chaired, believes that Palin was “definitely supportive of the drilling” and “opportunistic” when she switched and went after Evergreen and Ruedrich. “It really strengthened her support in the community,” recalls Church, who was elected to the Mat-Su assembly as a result of the methane controversy. “She turned on them because it was to her political advantage to do so.” The target was the governorship.

When she resigned from the commission in January 2004, Palin was simply trying to decide which Murkowski she would challenge-Lisa for U.S. Senate, or Frank for the governorship. Lisa Murkowski had a couple million in the bank, while the governor’s campaign kitty was strangely barren. Frank Murkowski’s nepotism, proposed sales tax, and elimination of a longevity bonus for seniors-all of which happened before Palin took Ruedrich on-had depressed his approval ratings so badly that many thought he wouldn’t seek re-election.

Palin wrote an op-ed in the Anchorage Daily News in April 2004, reliving her days as basketball point guard “Sarah Barracuda” and lauding the good competition of public life. But a week later, she announced that she would not run against Lisa Murkowski, attributing it to her son Track, who she said opposed it. Then she set her sights on the governorship. When Murkowski, the oldest governor in America at 73, finally did decide in May 2006 to run again, Palin had already been an announced candidate for seven months, perfectly positioned as his reform nemesis. He spent a third of what he did in 2002 and lost badly.

SARAH PALIN’S MAVERICK image flies in the face of her longtime ties to the Republican patriarch of Alaska politics, Senator Ted Stevens, who is on trial in Washington for taking $250,000 in gifts from VECO, an oil-services company that was once Palin’s biggest donor. Palin remained nominally neutral in the recent GOP primary, shunning two Republicans who tried to give the already-indicted Stevens a serious challenge.

Her chief of staff, Mike Tibbles, left his state post to become Stevens’s campaign manager, and she did a press conference with Stevens shortly before the vote. (Tibbles’s wife is still a top appointee in Palin’s administration.) A Stevens campaign consultant, Art Hackney, says: “She has campaigned with him, and they are enjoying a good relationship.” Asked on a visit to New York recently if she was supporting Stevens’s re-election, Palin replied that his trial had just started. “We’ll see where that goes,” said Palin, who forced the resignation of Ruedrich and another top Murkowski aide on ethics charges that never came close to reaching the level of an indictable offense.

Vic Vickers, a wealthy banker who ran against Stevens in the GOP primary and spent $700,000 of his own money, tells the Voice that Palin and Stevens “are very close” and that the two organizations “merged to defeat my candidacy.” While Palin has called for the resignation of Stevens’s son Ben as national committeeman, Vickers said that “vicious attacks” against him were “coming out of her office” during the primary. “They just torched me in the end,” the anti-Bush and anti-war Republican said.

Dave Cuddy, a more conventional Republican and former legislator who also challenged Stevens in the primary, said he reached out to Palin: “We did call, and we played telephone tag. I think she was uncomfortable. She didn’t support me because she thought that I was not going to win.”Palin’s ties to Stevens go back nearly a decade, when she retained Stevens’s former chief of staff, Steve Silver, as the Washington lobbyist for Wasilla. He opened doors for her on lobbying trips to Washington for earmarks.

Silver’s firm was so tied to Stevens that it also included the senator’s former counsel and, according to registration forms, his son. It also lobbied for Ketchikan Gateway Borough, the beneficiary of Stevens’s pork-barrel favorite, the since-killed Bridge to Nowhere, as well as for the Alaska Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority, sponsor of the second Nowhere Bridge that’s still alive and runs near Palin’s house. Ironically, the firm was also so tight with Frank Murkowski that it was Murkowski’s since-convicted top aide, Jim Clark, who once headed its lobbying unit and brought Silver aboard.

But one Stevens law firm wasn’t enough for Palin. She hired the firm that included Stevens’s brother-in-law, Bill Bittner, as counsel to the city, ultimately steering hundreds of thousands in payments to it, much of it associated with a costly lawsuit sparked by a Palin development decision. Bittner, who has engineered real-estate investments for Stevens, also rented an apartment to the state for Murkowski’s use whenever he visited Anchorage. A year after Palin stepped down as mayor, she was one of three incorporators of a nonprofit called the Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service Committee that he helped establish to support Republican women.

It’s unclear why Bill Allen, the VECO president who has pled guilty to bribery charges and is expected to testify against Stevens, became such a large Palin donor in 2002. His contributions and bribes were usually connected to his business interests, and he had none in Wasilla. News accounts in Alaska indicate that in 2001, Palin drove from Wasilla to Allen’s home in faraway Cook Inlet. Allen, other VECO executives, and their wives then gave Palin’s campaign committee $5,000, contributing $500 apiece over a two-day period in late December.No one else in Palin’s underfinanced bid for lieutenant governor came close to VECO.

Virtually the same group of executives repeated the pattern in 2003-giving $1,600 to Charlie Fannon’s campaign committee, chaired by Palin. No one seemed to mind that the Alaska Public Offices Commission had collected the largest fine in its history ($28,000) from VECO who were paying employees to make illegal campaign contributions. In the current VECO scandals, which have already led to the convictions of several state legislators, it’s clear that VECO continued the practice of reimbursing the campaign donations of its executives. Palin’s lieutenant governor, Sean Parnell, who recently did a Fox News Sunday appearance on her behalf, collected $16,000 in VECO contributions as a state legislator.

JOHN McCAIN AND Palin share at least one common bond beyond their self-proclaimed independence: They’re both very comfortable with lobbyists. Sean Parnell-who is running Alaska’s government while Palin travels and is so trusted that he was one of only three Alaskans named to the national campaign’s truth squad for Palin-was a lobbyist in the Anchorage office of the legendary Washington firm, Patton Boggs, before he was elected with Palin.

Ironically, one of the charges in the eventual ethics complaint against Ruedrich was that he’d sent numerous e-mails to Evergreen’s lobbyist, Kyle Parker, a Patton Boggs partner. Ruedrich admitted that he had even leaked a confidential commission memo on the methane controversy to Parker. Ruedrich was reporting at the time to Kevin Jardell, an assistant commissioner of administration who oversaw the commission. Jardell had lived for months in Ruedrich’s home while he worked with Parker representing the state GOP in a reapportionment case, hired by Patton Boggs, which was the party’s outside counsel.

This intertwining of interests was exposed when all the details of the Ruedrich scandal hit the headlines in 2004. Parnell was then Murkowski’s deputy director of Oil & Gas. Undeterred by Patton’s reputation, Parnell left his state job in 2005 to join the firm, where he soon had his own oil clients. Before joining the Murkowski administration, he had been the in-house lobbyist for ConocoPhillips.

Parnell’s bio makes him an odd choice to lead a truth squad-having moved from the state senate to an oil company, then back to a state oil job, and finally, becoming an outside lobbyist for oil interests while running for lieutenant governor. Even closer to Palin than Parnell is the Alaskan lobbyist whose firm topped the charts in earnings: Wendy Chamberlain.

Palin lists Chamberlain on her personal-disclosure forms because Chamberlain took Palin’s daughter Willow and her own daughter on a 2007 summer trip to a basketball camp in Mexico. Palin insisted on the form that she had reimbursed Chamberlain-the legislature had passed a bill that barred executives from taking gifts from lobbyists. A Washington Post story last week revealed that Chamberlain’s clients have deluged Palin with gifts, including three, worth $2,650, from the chief executive of a mining company (Parnell used to represent the same firm, Calista).

Todd Palin took two trips from other Chamberlain clients, though the lobbyist claims she had no idea her clients were so generous with her friend.In fact, Chamberlain tried to minimize her relationship with Palin in a Voice interview (“I know her about the same as any other lobbyist”), though news clips describe Palin and Chamberlain together working the sidewalks for Frank Murkowski in the 2002 campaign. Chamberlain was then married to Eldon Mulder, a state legislator who now runs his own lobbying firm. “We first met Governor Palin many years ago,” Mulder says, “when our daughters were in basketball camp together. About six to eight years ago.”

Chamberlain acknowledged that back then, one of her firm’s clients was VECO. Mulder collected $9,000 in VECO contributions from 1999 to 2001, and, according to press reports, he used his position as chair of the House Finance committee to push for a tax-break bill introduced at VECO’s request by another legislator eventually convicted of taking payoffs from VECO.

Mulder was accused by a third House member-also a Republican-of threatening to cut off state funds if he got in the way of the VECO bill. Chamberlain became a lobbyist two years after her husband was first elected to the House in 1992 and ran into problems three times with the ethics committee-mostly for using state offices and funds for her lobbying business. Once, she was sanctioned for “poor judgment” when her husband weakened a cruise-ship-pollution bill in the interests of a Chamberlain client. Mulder and Chamberlain’s lobbying partner, former House Speaker Joe Hayes, contributed $1,500 to Palin in 2006.

One Chamberlain client, the Pebble Partnership, has fared so well with Palin that the governor spoke out against a state initiative that would have erected environmental obstacles to its proposed mining project. A state watchdog group whose members she appoints is now looking at whether Palin’s highly unusual public opposition to a ballot issue-with her saying, “Let me take my governor’s hat off” for a moment of “personal privilege”-violated state laws. Chamberlain pushed so hard against the initiative that other clients, like the Alaska Association of Realtors, decided to oppose it at an executive meeting she attended. Chamberlain’s husband also lobbied for Pebble, and three other lobbyists recently tied to the partnership, one of whom is dating Palin’s legislative director, donated $4,150 to her.

In her 2006 race, Palin received $24,000 in contributions from lobbyists, most of them tied to the oil industry.

EVEN PALIN’S most plausible claim-that she’s taken on Big Oil-is at best a half-truth. She did hike their taxes and push through a natural-gas pipeline deal that, at least for now, has cut them out. But delegates weren’t chanting “Drill, baby, drill” during her convention speech without reason. Shortly after she became governor, she was elected chair of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC), a pro-industry coalition of 30 producer states. She soon tapped Michael Smith, who was assistant secretary of fossil energy at Bush’s Energy Department, as its new executive director. Smith left the Abraham Group, the lobbying and consulting firm of former Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, to join IOGCC. Harper’s Magazine said of Smith: “While in government, he pushed to promote oil drilling wherever a drop might be found”-and that was before Bush and McCain began pushing offshore drilling.

Smith isn’t the only Palin connection to the most pro-oil administration in American history. One of her 2002 campaign treasurers, Hans Neidig, was named special assistant for Alaska in the Bush interior department. Neidig was selected by Drue Pearce, a former Alaska state senator now in charge of overseeing the federal role in the giant pipeline project. Pearce, a gushing Palin champion in recent news stories, joined in Palin’s 2006 victory party.

Palin also selected Larry Hartig as state environmental-conservation commissioner, though Hartig’s law firm, Hartig Rhodes, lists a dozen Alaska oil and drilling companies as clients, as well as a few mining companies. One well-known Hartig client, Halliburton Energy Services, has surprisingly extensive investments in the state-and even services the company that acquired Evergreen’s Alaska interests. Another, Anadarko Petroleum, is owned by the 30th-largest corporate polluter in the country. Even Randy Ruedrich’s onetime employer is a Hartig client, and the man Murkowski selected to replace Palin when she quit the Oil & Gas Commission in ostensible protest was a Hartig partner.

As commissioner, Hartig rushed to the aid last year of Shell when it ran into trouble getting offshore drilling permits from Bush’s EPA. The onetime Evergreen lobbyist Kyle Parker actually e-mailed Hartig a draft letter for him to forward to an EPA appeals board, and Hartig obliged-altering the language but requesting an “expedited review” so “drilling can proceed this season.” Palin has put Hartig in charge of the climate-change subcabinet she bragged about during the debate as well, suggesting that Carl Pope of the Sierra Club might not be far off when he declared: “No one is closer to the oil industry than Governor Palin.”

Marathon Oil, a Wendy Chamberlain client and sponsor of Palin’s inaugural, has already benefited from one unnoticed Palin decision-her support of an extension of a license that allows it and ConocoPhillips to continue exporting natural gas to Japan and other Asian countries. Palin championed this license though several gas users in Alaska objected that it would worsen the problem of declining gas reserves, and one, a major fertilizer-maker, shut its plant when the extension was granted, forcing 130 workers out of jobs. As frequently as Palin’s lack of foreign-policy experience has been noted in the media, she has never cited her meeting with Japan’s consul over gas issues, perhaps because it might appear inconsistent with her claim that Alaska is a bulwark of production for the U.S. itself.

Even Palin’s ballyhooed pipeline is more a pipedream than it is the blow to Big Oil that Palin pretends it is. (Murkowski was about to award the deal to the oil giants when she beat him.) Two days after Palin’s deal with TransCanada was approved, the company’s chief executive, Hal Kvisle, repeated what he’d been saying all along: “Nothing goes ahead until Exxon is happy with it.” While he was forced to pull back a bit from that moment of candor, his statement that “the five key players”-including TransCanada, the state, and three main producers-have to still “get together” and “craft something” is indisputably true.

All Palin has done is outsource the negotiations with the producers to TransCanada, who can conduct them very privately. She also offered the company a half-billion-dollar state bonus if it can get a deal going, though Palin’s natural-resources commissioner, Tom Irwin, quit the Murkowski administration in part because it gave the producers financial incentives that he said were unnecessary. The only way Palin’s pipeline becomes real (she claimed, absurdly, during the debate that the state was already “building” it) is if the producers, who have announced their own project now, are brought back into it-something, like Troopergate and her possible Pebble Mine violation, that won’t be resolved until post-election.

THE $12.5 MILLION sports complex and hockey rink that is the lasting monument to Palin’s two terms as Wasilla mayor is also a monument to the kind of insider politics that dismays Americans of both parties. Six months before Palin stepped down as mayor in October 2002, the city awarded nearly a half-million-dollar contract to design the biggest project in Wasilla history to Kumin Associates.

Blase Burkhart was the Kumin architect on the job-the son of Roy Burkhart, who is frequently described as a “mentor” of Palin and was head of the local Republican Party (his wife, June, who also advised Palin, is the national committeewoman). Asked if the contract was a favor, Roy Burkhart, who contributed to her campaign in the same time frame that his son got the contract, said: “I really don’t know.”

Palin then named Blase Burkhart to a seven-member builder-selection committee that picked Howdie Inc., a mostly residential contractor owned at the time by Howard Nugent. Formally awarded the contract a couple of weeks after Palin left office, Nugent has donated $4,000 to Palin campaigns. Two competitors protested the process that led to Nugent’s contract. Burkhart and Nugent had done at least one project together before the complex-and have done several since.

A list of subcontractors on the job, obtained by the Voice, includes many with Palin ties. One was Spenard Builders Supply, the state’s leading supplier of wood, floor, roof, and other “pre-engineered components.” In addition to being a sponsor of Todd Palin’s snow-machine team that has earned tens of thousands for the Palin family, Spenard hired Sarah Palin to do a statewide television commercial in 2004.

When the Palins began building a new family home off Lake Lucille in 2002-at the same time that Palin was running for lieutenant governor and in her final months as mayor-Spenard supplied the materials, according to Antoine Bricks, who works in its Wasilla office. Spenard actually filed a notice “of its right to assert a lien” on the deed for the Palin property after contracting for labor and materials for the site. Spenard’s name has popped up in the trial of Senator Stevens-it worked on the house that is at the center of the VECO scandal as well.

Todd Palin told Fox News that he built the two-story, 3,450-square-foot, four-bedroom, four-bath, wood house himself, with the help of contractors he described as “buddies.” As mayor, Sarah Palin blocked an effort to require the filing of building permits in the wide-open city, and there is no public record of who the “buddies” were. The house was built very near the complex, on a site whose city purchase led to years of unsuccessful litigation and, now, $1.3 million in additional costs, with a law firm that’s also donated to Palin collecting costly fees from the city.

Dorwin and Joanne Smith, the principals of complex subcontractor DJ Excavation & Development, have donated $7,100 to Palin and her allied candidate Charlie Fannon (Joanne is a Palin appointee on the state Board of Nursing). Sheldon Ewing, who owns another complex subcontractor, Weld Air, has donated $1,300, and PN&D, an engineering firm on the complex, has contributed $699.

Ewing was one of the few sports-complex contractors, aside from Spenard, willing to address the question of whether he worked on the house as well, but he had little to say: “I doubt that it occurred, but if it did indirectly, how would I know anyhow?” The odd timing of Palin’s house construction-it was completed two months before she left City Hall and while she and Todd Palin were campaigning statewide for the first time-raises questions, especially considering its synergy with the complex.

Salon’s David Talbot recently visited the complex, which, he said, resembled “a huge airplane hangar” so far away from the city’s center that kids can’t bike or walk there. It’s adorned by a plaque commemorating Palin. Even as a governor, she is still such a champion of the complex-which loses money every year-that she just steered state funding for a new kitchen to it.

The Book of Sarah (Palin)

GOP presidential & vice presidential candidates: Alaska Governor Sarah Palin & Arizona Senator John McCain

Fragt man im Ausland nach dem bedeutendsten Deutschen, den man so kennt, bekommt man weder Goethe noch Kant oder Schuhmacher zu hören, sondern Humboldt. Dabei ist meist Alexander von Humboldt gemeint, da er mit seinen Weltreisen sehr viel greifbarere Abenteuer durchlief, als sein Bruder Wilhelm. Obwohl dieser als Theoretiker nicht minder vorkämpferisch gewesen war. Kein anderes Geschwisterpaar der Geschichte bereicherte die Menschheit mit einem ähnlich produktiven Forscherdrang wie diese beiden. Mit ihrem Namen schmücken sich Bibliotheken, Kliniken und Straßen überall auf der Welt.

Wilhelm von Humboldt

Der Bildungsreformer
Wilhelm von Humboldt beschäftigte sich vor allem mit Staatstheorien und der humanistischen Reformierung des Schul- und Hochschulwesens; aber auch mit vergleichenden Betrachtungen von Sprachen. Als Philosoph und Staatsmann gründete er 1809 die später nach ihm benannte Universität in Berlin. Der Diplomat Humboldt vertrat 1814/15 die Interessen Preußens auf dem Wiener Kongress. Aber mit seinen modernen Ansätzen rieb er sich an den konservativen Kräften in Preußen. Der Sprachforscher verfasste einflussreiche Schriften zum Bau natürlicher Sprachen.

Man sieht in ihm den Vorgänger der kognitiven Sprachauffassung, welche später Ethnolinguisten wie Benjamin Lee Whorf zum “Linguistischen Relativitätsprinzip” ausbauen sollten. Dieses geht davon aus, dass die Sprache unser Denken fundamental beeinflusst. Schon Humboldt erkannte: “Der Mensch ist nur Mensch durch Sprache; um aber Sprache zu erfinden, müsste er schon Mensch seyn.”

Alexander von Humboldt

Der exaltierte Paradiesvogel
Schon vor 200 Jahren war Alexander von Humboldt ein bekennender Weltbürger. Als größter Naturforscher der Goethe-Zeit und der letzte Universalgelehrte seiner Zunft, begründete er durch seine Arbeit die Geophysik. Goethe sagte über ihn: “Was für ein Mann! Er hat an Kenntnissen und lebendigem Wissen nicht seinesgleichen!”

Seine Erkundung Lateinamerikas machte ihn berühmt: 1799 brach er in die Neue Welt auf. Mit ihm an Bord sein Gefährte, der Botaniker Aimé Bonpland. Sie bereisten das Gebiet der heutigen Staaten Ecuador, Kolumbien, Venezuela, Peru, Kuba und Mexiko. Überall waren sie die ersten Europäer, die nicht plündern, sondern forschen wollten. Für die Menschen dort ist er noch heute ein Held, da er ihnen die Augen für ihre eigene kulturelle Vergangenheit öffnete.

“Ich habe ihn immer bewundert; jetzt bete ich ihn an. Denn er allein gibt einen Begriff von den Empfindungen, die das erste Betreten der Tropen in der Seele erregt.”, konstatierte einmal Charles Darwin. Die Tropen waren für Humboldt ein Sinnesrausch. In den Kordilleren Ecuadors bestieg er, in Halbschuhen und Gehrock, den Vulkan “Chimborazo” – der mit 6310 Metern damals als der höchste Berg der Welt galt. Außerdem maß Alexander die Temperaturen des später nach ihm benannten Humboldtstroms. Nach fünf Jahren führte ihn seine Reise schließlich, über Cuba, in die USA nach Philadelphia. Als überzeugter Demokrat, der sich gegen jeglichen Rassismus aussprach, traf er dort Thomas Jefferson und war mit ihm in der Verachtung des Sklavenhandels einer Meinung. Später sagte Jefferson: “Ich sehe in ihm den bedeutendsten Wissenschaftler, den ich je getroffen habe.”

Mit sechzig Jahren nahm er sich vor, die ganze Welt zu beschreiben. Im Winter 1827 hielt er öffentliche Vorlesungen, aus denen dann sein Fundamentalwerk “Kosmos.” hervorging. Als die ersten Bände des Buches erschienen, schlug man sich förmlich darum, wie heute um die Bücher von Harry Potter. Humboldt war der Erste, der aus Wissenschaft ein hinreißendes Ereignis machte. Während die Bibel heutzutage im Supermarkt verramscht wird, ist Humboldts Gegenentwurf kaum bekannt. Soviel zur deutschen Wissensgesellschaft. Ganz Berlin kam damals und hörte ihm zu – vom Kutscher bis zum preußischen König. Als Alexander nach seinen Expeditionen das Geld ausging, musste er am Hofe des Königs regelmäßig gastieren und wie ein Vogel im goldenen Käfig von seinen Abenteuern erzählen. In dieser geistigen Verödung dachte er oft an die Tropen zurück.

Eingang Humboldt-Universität Berlin

In seinem Buch forderte er die Gleichheit von Natur und Geist, erkannte jedoch auch, dass dieses Ziel nie vollkommen erreicht werden kann. Denn es gibt immer noch etwas zu erforschen. Hier treffen sich die kosmopolitischen Ansätze der Brüder, mit Wilhelms Idee von Wissenschaft als etwas “noch nicht Gefundenes und nie ganz zu Findendes”.
Marcel Nakoinz

Quelle: Alexander von Humboldt: Kosmos. Entwurf einer physischen Weltbeschreibung. Eichborn Frankfurt/Main, 2006.

Ausgabe 02, Januar 2008

A CNN anchor today tore down Rick Scott, the founder of an organization that’s been funding anti-health care reform protests and the former CEO of a hospital company that paid $1.7 billion to settle charges of overcharging Medicare and Medicaid.

Source:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/2009/08/cnn-anchor-rips-into-health-care-ceo-whos-funding-anti-reform-effort.php