World Heritage Encyclopedia

07/16/2023

Read, learn, strive for excellence and avoid toxicness.

12/12/2022

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=532477098919998&id=100064731366580&mibextid=qC1gEa

07/04/2021

The birth of a nation:

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of AmericaThe Declaration of Independence was a statement adopted by the Con...

05/01/2021

15 years later, still just as funny!

Helpdesk support back in the day of the middle agewith English subtitles. Original taken from the show "Øystein og jeg" on Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK)in 200...

05/30/2019

Bookworm paradise! OMG that’s a lot of books.

03/29/2019

Blood of the Workers: Mother Jones

By Thad Higa

In the heat of a series of American coal strikes in the late 19th and early 20th century, one Irish-American woman rose to prominence, gaining the title of the most dangerous woman in America, as well as the equal parts intimate and indomitable moniker of Mother Jones.
One of these coal mines in West Virginia saw the so-called miner’s union led by non-coal working officials who were appointed by the owners of the mine in a thinly-veiled lie meant to appease the strike. Mother Jones spoke of the situation with an oratory fire now rarely heard:

I want to say, my friends, I have only one journey to go through this life; you have only one journey to go through this life; let us all do the best we can for humanity, for mankind, while we are here. That is my mission, to do what I can to raise mankind to break his chains. The miners are close to me. The steel workers are. I go among them all. One time when I took up the Mexican question … I went up to carry the matter to Congress. [Congressman] Dalzell said to me, "Mother Jones, where do you live?" I said, "In the United States, sir." "What part of the United States?" said he. I said, "Wherever the workers are fighting the robbers, there am I." (“Speech to Striking Coal Miners”)

Her speech was met with loud cheers and affirmations. It was also used against her in a court case charging her for inciting violence. She was later cleared of the charges.

Born Mary Harris in 1937 in Cork City, Ireland, she emigrated with her family to Toronto, Canada in 1850. She grew up to become a teacher and a dressmaker, married, and raised a family of four children. After moving to Memphis, Tennessee, tragedy arrived in the form of the yellow fever epidemic of 1867, and her husband and children died. Jones thereafter moved to Chicago where, over the next two decades, she grew more and more incensed by the poor working conditions and lack of rights of the working class.

I saw the women working in the sweatshop and the store,
In the office and the factory, and at home they scrubbed the floor

I saw the worn-out miners scrubbing coal dust from their backs;

I heard their children crying, "Got no coal to heat these shacks." (p. 8 The Little Red Song Book by Industrial Workers of the World)

The latter years of Mother Jones’ life saw her working tirelessly for the rights of all the working class. She organized countless protests and marches, including the March of the Mill Children in 1903, where her and a few dozen children—some of whom were crippled from the machinery of the mills they worked in—walked from Philadelphia to President Theodore Roosevelt’s on Long Island, staging rallies every place they stopped along the way. Jones helped lead the strike of West Virginia coal miners of 1921, which led to the largest, armed-labor uprising since the Civil War, known as the Battle of Blair Mountain. She advised against the armed revolt, fearing a loss and a subsequent backlash against their cause, but remained with the workers nonetheless. She was also one of the co-founders of the international labor union, Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).

In 1902, they called her “the most dangerous woman in America.” But it was true only to those who held monopoly on power and money. For the rest of the world’s working class, she was one of the fiercest allies.

For more material on Mother Jones and the cause she fought for, check out the Autobiography of Mother Jones, The Morality of the Strike by Donald Alexander Mclean, and One Big Union of All the Workers by the IWW.

03/27/2019

An Unsung Heroine Becomes the Queen of Disco

By Logan Williams

At the height of the United States’ counterculture, an era that coincided with the end of the Vietnam War, a wave of social inclusion and respect drew many young people. In the late 1960s and the early 1970s, the musical genre of disco emerged from the urban nightlife scene and spread throughout New York City and beyond.

Like all trends, disco fell from popular favor. Seldom do pure disco tunes reign atop Billboard charts. However, its impact on other musical genres and subcultures is clear. Disco was a statement of empowerment. Ballads celebrating love and inclusion brought together communities separated by law or social stigma (according to the 1960s LGBT rights). African-Americans, Latino-Americans, and LGBT people frequented venues such as the famed NYC club Studio 54) where disc jockeys played disco mixes and showcased popular performers. The short lived genre launched some musicians who began their careers at the height of the disco craze and went on to sustain illustrious careers. Donna Summer, “the queen of disco,” epitomizes this.

Summer, whose 1974 hit “Love to Love You Baby” was one of the first disco hits to be released in an extended form, was born in 1948, during a time of intense racial and gender discrimination. At just ten years old, Summer’s debut performance was as a fill-in in at a church recital for a vocalist who failed to show up. As a young adult, Summer was increasingly intrigued by the counterculture movement. Just weeks before her high school graduation, she left Boston to pursue a career in music. Though her band was never offered a record deal, Summer auditioned for Hair!, a countercultural rock-musical, which eventually brought her to Germany. Her celebrity abroad brought fewer racial and gender encumbrances, and she thrived with the help of German producers before her return to the United States.

Disco, a genre that shares a certain sentimentality with hip-hop music (hip-hop began around the same time and place, and similarly gave voices to marginalized Americans), reflected a shift in culture and thought. Bolt Pearson’s article, “Don’t Let the World Rot” discusses multiple genres and expressions of music and thought, as counterculture responses. As Summer’s travels and experiences demonstrate, disco was an internationally recognized and respected genre. In Aquarius and Beyond: Thinking Through the Counterculture, Robert Garbult recounts the magic, and sense of freedom, that he experienced at local disco festival hosted in his hometown in Wales.

03/25/2019

Design by Culture

By Regina Molaro

Architecture, floor plans, colors, and styles of our homes reflect our cultures, lifestyles, and personal preferences. The Japanese have a history of using screens to separate interiors and create private spaces, while the Danish are renowned for hygge, a feeling of coziness and comfort in their homes.

In A Theory of Pure Design, Denman Waldo Ross writes,

I refrain from any reference to Beauty as a principle Design. It is not a principle, but an experience. It is an experience which defies analysis and has no explanation. We distinguish it from all other experiences. It gives us pleasure, perhaps the highest pleasure that we have. (p. 4)
People worldwide are guided by different design philosophies. While some extend well beyond the cultures where they originated, others are more obscure.

The ancient Chinese concept of Feng Shui celebrates the art of placement. Translating to “wind-water,” Feng Shui utilizes energy to create harmony between people and their environments. It’s based on the belief that when energy flows freely, it creates a space that supports health and wealth, and ushers in happiness.

Historically, Feng Shui was used to orient buildings and spiritually significant structures such as tombs in an auspicious way. It focuses on creating open spaces and removing clutter.

In Kanyu (Feng-Shui): The Forgotten Perspective in the Understanding of Intangible Setting, Ding Yuan China writes,

Traditionally, Chinese selected sites for structures of all types, such as graves, palaces, houses, basing on an organic view of the cosmos, which binds individuals, families and society to the past, present and future via the medium – Kanyu (Feng-shui). Chinese used to piously protect their “Feng-shui,” but seldom talked about protecting physical or cultural settings (p. 1).

Japanese aesthetics also embrace the art of imperfection, a concept renowned as wabi-sabi. It’s about the acceptance of imperfection, impermanence, and incomplete beauty. Wabi-sabi is derived from the Buddhist teaching of the three marks of existence, which include impermanence, suffering, and emptiness or absence of self-nature.

Wabi-sabi’s history can be traced back to ancient tea ceremonies held in Japan. The utensils used were handmade, irregular, and imperfect. Characteristics of wabi-sabi include simplicity, asymmetry, roughness, and appreciation of the integrity of natural objects and processes. Wabi-sabi celebrates nature and incorporates wood and stone.

In The Principles of Design, Ernest Allen Batchelder writes, “In nature, beauty and structure are interwoven; the two are inseparable” (p. 142).

Rather than being discarded for any imperfections, wabi-sabi embraces the passage of time and use. Kintsugi or “golden repair” is the art of repairing cracked or broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum.

In The Naked House: Five Principles for a More Peaceful Home, Molly Player writes,

“The good news is that when it comes to our own homes, we are responsible for choosing and creating that mood. You can have a sunny, high-energy home, or a morose, lackluster home, or a chaotic, angry home ... but if you’re anything like me, the home you really want is one of peace. After all, how often is peace our dominant emotion?”

“One’s home should be an oasis, a respite, and a personal spa away from the maddening crowd,” concludes freelance event designer Christina Mantz.