Anti-White Buzzwords And Codewords

Thursday, 22 October 2015

Thoughts on the European New Right: Part I

by John Law
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV

Tom Sunic, Against Democracy and Equality

The European New Right (ENR), born in 1968 in France, is the only school of thought that offers a comprehensive philosophical alternative to both the Left and the mainstream Right; not a political alternative or a cohesive popular movement, but a body of thought, an interpretative framework with distinctive concepts, major texts and authors pointing to a solid intellectual alternative to the establishment. In our current age of social media, fast reactions, and accessible commentaries about what is wrong with diversity and racial integration, we tend to underestimate the cultivation of slow but substantive scholarly alternatives to the establishment.

The ENR has produced sufficient books, articles, meetings, journals, to be integrated into an academic environment as a full program of thinking and research. Creating an alternative intellectual movement backed by a solid academic foundation can hardly be underestimated. Cultural Marxists were once outside our universities, but they understood the value of developing a counter culture based on solid intellectual pursuits, and however much we may disrespect the current exponents as unoriginal imitators and conformists, the initiators did produce dynamic new interpretations of every field of human endeavour and politics, and then, gradually, book by book, conference by conference, journal by journal, discipline by discipline, PhD by PhD, they took over the entire academic world, to the point that they are now seen as the only legitimate producers of knowledge.

Yet, indispensable as the ENR remains intellectually, the ENR has a very definite and apparent flaw; it is a dated school, saturated with an outlook that grew in reaction to a historical reality that is no longer relevant; and by this I mean that it grew in the context of the Cold War, as a reaction to both the internationalist ideologies of American liberalism and Soviet communism, in defence of European cultural autonomy. The issue of our times, the most important threat ever faced by European peoples, is the existence of a hostile elite in the West promoting mass immigration and race mixing combined with the relentless determination of Africans, Asians, and Mestizos to colonize European lands. The ideas of the ENR were formulated in the absence of this existential threat.

Since the collapsed of Soviet communism in the early 1990s, the ENR has diverted all its animosity against American cultural imperialism, which it has erroneously identified with Western civilization as such. The ENR believes, to this day, that the main enemy of humanity is American/Western civilization. The most salient cultural traits of the West, rationalism, individualism, and universalism, have been identified by its proponents as the "real enemy". This is a major mistake. It betrays a lack of appreciation of what is intrinsically unique to the West, and why the West is currently facing ethnic disintegration. For this reason, I would borrow only certain ideas from the ENR while carefully avoiding its general outlook.

Without its rationalism and liberalism, there is no West and the only thing left to admire is the traditionalism of other cultures alongside the pre-rational and pre-Christian pagan traditionalism of Europeans, a paganism the ENR has inadequately disconnected from the rest of Western history and which is best categorized as an idealized projection onto the past of New Age motifs by post-WWII affluent Europeans.

Critical as the ENR is of leftist ideas, it has assimilated leftist multiculturalism as an antidote to Western universalism combined with leftist notions of the equal right of all peoples, calling for a pluriversum of independent cultural collectivities, without realizing that this call is universalistic in its own wish to want all peoples to co-exist in state of harmony, a very liberal wish beset by a naive understanding of the inherent flaws of humans and the inherent Faustian impulses of Europeans. The ENR belief that all peoples should have a collective right to national-ethnic self determination can work as a regulative moral principle in favour of white nationalism. But there is no way around the thinking offered by Nietzsche, Schmitt, Pareto, and Spengler (which Sunic says, as we will see later, influenced the ENR greatly) about the inescapable nature of humans to seek more than others, which is now inscribed into the logic of global capitalist accumulation. Calling for a stable equilibrium is to be caught up, yet again, in universal utopian dreams about the unity of mankind in their differences. The West must strive for new ventures otherwise it will be surpassed by other civilizations. China believes in self-determination as it plunders the resources of others in a frenzy to ensure mass consumerism for its 1.4 billion inhabitants.

The ENR is correct in holding the West responsible for the illusion that it can create an egalitarian world. But this illusion is a product of a civilization that promises utopia because it is driven by a personality that is intolerant of a society that is not one of perpetual motion and ceaseless conflict. "Western civilization," Robert Nisbet observed, "has been the single most war-ridden, war-dominated, and militaristic civilization in all human history." World War I and II were massive civil wars for the augmentation of power and the joy of struggle. European men needed tranquility and common ground after these two brutal wars. They were right to concentrate on economic innovations and coexistence.

The ENR rejects the idea of progress but the pursuit of progress is inherent to Europeans even though historical cycles are part of this movement. The prosperity brought by the success of Promethean innovations has created softer temperaments incapable of seeing the darker side of humans and the imminent threat that non-white colonization poses for Europeans. Confused by cultural Marxist ideas alien to the West, young European minds have turned against their own heritage, accepting a message of white guilt propagated by a hostile elite in charge of the media and education.

In this context, in a situation now in which multiple Western cities and towns have been colonized by non-Europeans, the call by the ENR for "biocultural diversity", for "harmony of man, city and cosmos", for "submission of Promethean power", for "repudiation of hubris", is a call to extinguish the very spirit that created the West and that can get us out of this situation. We need struggle, computer programming warriors, identitarian groups, hate and hubris, to get out us out of the invading hordes of Africans and the mounting Pakistani raping gangs.

Tom Sunic
Tom Sunic

The following is an engagement with the ENR by way of Tomislav Sunic's Against Democracy and Equality: The European New Right, originally published in 1990 but still the best sympathetic presentation of the ENR in English. A second edition of this book was released in 2004, and a third edition by Artktos in 2011. The central figure in Sunic's book is Alain de Benoist, seen as the foremost theoretician of this school. This third edition, the one I am using, contains an opening essay by de Benoist, The New Right: Forty Years Later, which praises Sunic's book without offering any objections. This book by Sunic is based on his doctoral dissertation at the University of Santa Barbara. The third edition also contains an "Editor's Foreword" by John Morgan, a "Preface to the Third Edition" by Sunic, an "Introduction and Acknowledgements to the Second Edition" by Sunic, a "Preface to the Second Edition" by David Stennett, a "Preface to the First Edition" by Paul Gottfried, and lastly, as an Appendix, de Benoist's and Charles Champetier's Manifesto for a European Renaissance, an essay originally published in French in 1999.

This assessment will consist of commentaries to passages cited from this book. I will identify the above authors alongside each passage, though in the case of Sunic I will be commenting on passages from him as if they were expressions of the ENR generally. Sunic does an excellent job in bringing to light ENR ideas, which was his objective, with only minimal expressions of his thoughts. His book is essentially an appreciation for the ENR, and de Benoist in particular.

John Morgan

It [ENR] opened up a whole new world for me, a world in which the ideas of the 'true Right,' as Julius Evola called it, were still being passionately defended and discussed at a high intellectual and cultural level. I was simultaneously overjoyed that such a thing existed, and disappointed since I knew that there was nothing like it in America. More than a decade later, while the situation is more hopeful, there is still no 'American New Right,' thought at least some efforts are being made in that direction, notably through Greg Johnson's Counter-Currents, as well as Sunic's own endeavours with The Occidental Observer and with his friend Kevin MacDonald (p. 7).

John Law (Pinker and Race Realists)

Students today inhabit an academic world where conservative ideas are dismissed without barely any required attention to the classic writings of Edmund Burke, Joseph de Maistre, or Oswald Spengler. You can be sure that none of them, and none of the academics teaching, are aware of the ENR, and few have heard of Carl Schmitt, Pareto or Spengler, not to bring up the fact that most academics are specialists utterly ignorant of the intellectual history of the West. Feminists are the worst educated shallow heads you will ever meet. Students do read Nietzsche, but only through the filters of post-modernists and liberals. They learn about the antecedents of Marx, about Hegel in particular, but in the lectures Hegel-the-defender-of-Prussia never stands a chance compared to Hegel the proponent of "negative dialectics" as developed later by Marcuse and Adorno.

One could say the academic left has successfully integrated many Western thinkers except fascists within a "Liberal Arts" education that is taught as if it were the background leading up to current critical race theorists, feminists, and deconstructionists.

The only alternative one hears about in academic is the school of sociobiology, though by the 1990s even this seemingly threatening school was assimilated within mainstream psychology and evolutionary theory, notwithstanding the hyperventilated opposition of feminists. Debates between the "nature" and "nurture" sides soon became no more threatening than debates between structuralist, analytical, and Hegelian Marxists, or between functionalist, conflict, and symbolic sociologists.

Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature
Steven Pinker's book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined (2011) is testimony to this integration, a book that endorses the universal values of the Enlightenment, for nurturing the "better angels of our nature", through "tolerance", "science", and "civic equality" — in opposition to all forms of European ethno-nationalism. Pinker tells us there is a good side to our human nature, which has finally been allowed to blossom in current liberal societies, a side that welcomes mass immigration and diversity. This argument is fundamentally the same as that forwarded a few decades ago by Pinker's ethnic compatriot, Norman Geras, in Marx and Human Nature: Refutation of a Legend (1983). This book claims that historical materialism did not entail a denial of human biology as much as an affirmation of the way socialist relations (rather than Enlightenment values) would bring out the best side of human nature, against the bad side celebrated by conservatives.

We should not be surprised by the presence of a concept of human nature among leftists who claim that humans are social constructs, or the ease with which Pinker reformulated his "politically incorrect" ideas about human nature in a pro-diversity direction, since every politics supposes a concept of human nature and one can always argue that human nature is flexible enough to allow for the accentuation of varying types of behaviour. Georges Sorel was more profound that Pinker when he observed that humans are by nature inclined to be barbaric under conditions of scarcity and decadent under conditions of affluence, and that only immense effort and discipline can bring out the best in humans. "Our nature," Sorel wrote, "is invincibly borne toward what the philosophers of history consider as bad, whether it be barbarism or whether it be decadence." The "better angels" Pinker has in mind are decadent whites who accept their own demise while looking out for personal entertainment in a civil atmosphere.

What about those writers who have written about racial differences, Rushton, Charles Murray, Arthur Jensen, Richard Lynn, and others? These writers have been marginalized out of the universities. But don't they constitute a body of thought that stands as an alternative to the establishment? They constitute a particular school on a crucially important issue, race, which hits at the core of egalitarianism; however, they do not, in my estimation, constitute an outlook that can offer an alternative vision to the establishment; they have destroyed, in theory, a major pillar of the establishment, but they don't offer an overall vision that can galvanize the masses against the establishment and inspire a cultural revival that is European rather than about IQ scores and pro-Asian in its celebration of IQ scores in abstraction from any sense of people-hood.

Therefore, I agree with John Morgan. Encountering the ENR in Counter-Currents was very exciting to me, for, as critical as I have now become, this school taught me that narrow arguments about human nature, about racial hierarchies, participation in mainstream politics, are bound to be co-opted and marginalized, unless we develop an alternative culture, a network of counter-cultural spaces, media, conferences, organizations, blogs, webzines, hundreds of books, programs of education — against the entire establishment. IQ scholars, and sociobiologists generally, operate under the supposition that research about IQ differences will eventually win the acceptance of the academic establishment purely through rational persuasion and the truth of the evidence. The ENR has a more profound understanding of the way politics is also driven by vested interests, institutional arrangements, symbols, myths, feelings, and morals.

We cannot underestimate the incredible power our hostile elites have over Western intellectual life. However pathological they may seem to us, the left has produced thousands of highly researched books, hundreds of refereed journals, academic associations, think tanks, entire departments and programs across thousands of universities, hundreds of yearly PhDs, almost all the publishing houses, not to mention control of popular culture. We have so little. A few blogs, a succession of quick articles, slogans, thousands of "unique visitors" will never be enough to bring a new intellectual culture. The ENR has to be given a lot of credit for starting this intellectual change.

Alain de Benoist, "The New Right: Forty Years Later" (2009)

The ENR makes a great effort to identify its real enemy. The main enemy is, on the economic level, capitalism and the market society; on the philosophical level, individualism; on the political front, universalism; on the social front, the bourgeoisie; and on the geopolitical front, America (p. 28).

John Law (Schmitt, the Liberal West)

The word "enemy" recurs often in ENR writings, borrowed from Carl Schmitt. For the ENR, the enemy is Western civilization, the creator of capitalism, individualism, and universalism, all of which culminate in the aggressive American geopolitical imposition of its culture upon the world. A short hand for identifying the enemy is "liberal universalism". It may seem odd that the ENR sees liberal universalism as the enemy in light of Schmitt's observation that liberal societies are different from all other cultures in denying the friend-enemy distinction. The ideology that denies this distinction is, apparently, the real enemy of all the other cultures that do not deny it. How is this so?

Liberal societies believe that enemies are a thing of the past. Liberalism offers a solution to the bellicosity of the friend-enemy distinction by teaching its citizens that differences can be resolved or handled through a politics of consensus and pursuit of individual interests susceptible to compromises; a politics in which humans agree that they are all members of the same species with an overriding common interest in their prosperity through free markets and peaceful coexistence, no longer trapped by intolerant attitudes against those who come from different cultures and religions, for there are no "strangers" or outsiders, since cultural beliefs are private affairs enjoyable by all individuals. Everyone wants peace and comfort if given a proper liberal setting in which to actualize these human aspirations. Schmitt designates this effort to abolish the friend-enemy distinction as an effort to abolish politics. Politics is fundamentally about the friend-enemy distinction, and in his view this distinction is inherent to human nature and can never be abolished. Instead of abolishing this distinction, liberals have in fact categorized anyone who disagrees with their liberalism into an enemy that must be ostracised, excluded, suppressed.

Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political

Liberals were deluding themselves, or so Schmitt argued, in believing they could abolish politics or reduce politics to disagreements about the pursuit of economic interests; humans are inherently flawed. Born in original sin, humans cannot avoid conflict, power struggles. Whereas in traditional cultures an enemy was simply an external power that threatened one's sovereignty, in liberal cultures an enemy is anyone who opposes the peace-loving liberal states, or the values of liberalism. Liberal states have actually come to designate their illiberal opponents as being outside their norms of "humanity" and thus as opponents of "humanity" and thus as rightfully in need of eradication and banishment. Whereas wars in the past were between sovereign states, each of which understood that the pursuit of state interests and power was a normal aspect of human nature, and therefore wars were fought for limited objectives dealing with standard political matters about increasing or defending one's sovereignty, with the onset of liberal states, wars took on an ideological dimension between "good liberals" and "evil fascists".

The ENR has thus designated liberalism as the enemy, the very ideology that claims to have abolished the enemy-friend distinction. Liberal universalism is the enemy of all the particular cultures of the world wishing to maintain their cultural sovereignty against American liberal imperialism.

There are a number of problems with this identification of the enemy, which I will outline below and will have the opportunity to elaborate upon as I comment on new passages later on.

Key problem is this: if our main enemy is capitalism, individualism, universalism, and American geopolitics, and if these traits are equated with Western civilization, as the ENR equates them, with the Christian West, and thus deeply embedded in Western culture, then it follows that our enemy is US, the West, and that our friends is THEM, the traditional-non-Western cultures of the world wishing to retain their non-liberal customs against Western culture. This is clearly an endorsement of Marxist Multiculturalism.

Now, the ENR does draw a distinction between America and Europe, identifying the former with the West, while viewing Europe as a constellation of particular cultures struggling against the universalism of what Sunic calls Homo Americanus. There is an ambivalence here in that sometimes Europe at large is classified as Christian, universal, and liberal, and sometimes the blame is directed essentially at America. But if we were to separate Europe from the West, keep it relatively apart, as a federation of nations wishing to retain their historic identities, how can we attribute to liberalism the destructive universal imperative the ENR attributes to it (and Christianity) considering that European nations are liberal and that the French nation, as the ENR knows, endorsed the Declaration of the Rights of Man?

The ENR takes for granted a crucial distinction: the inherently traditionalist nature of non-Western cultures (until they were modernized by the West) versus the inherently liberal nature of the West. The ENR's equation of liberalism with everything this school dislikes is flawed. Liberal modes of being can be traced back to the willingness of warriors in prehistoric Indo-European societies to fight to the death for pure prestige as aristocratic individuals committed to the principle of "first among equals" (primus inter pares). Only Indo-Europeans created a form of rule where leaders were accorded respect as the first men of the group but everyone within the aristocratic elite expected equal respect as a men of virtue capable of performing great deeds The idea of progress implicit in Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus was liberal in portraying a god that instead of expecting blind obedience brought man fire, the arts of domesticating animals, building with bricks, digging up minerals, making ships, writing, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, in order to push men out of savagery into civilization, while insisting on justice by rational standards. A similar liberal confidence in the capacity of man is present in Antigone by Sophocles in a famous chorus:
Numberless are the world's wonders, but none
More wonderful than man...
O clear intelligence, force beyond all measure!
The aristocratic defiance exhibited by Socrates in his dialogical questioning of conventional norms, religious piety, and his relentless effort to offer explanations for the way things are and the best form of government was liberal. The travels of Herodotus over the non-Greek world "for the sake of learning, for the sake of inquiry" were liberal, and so was his sympathetic account of the customs of other people and his realization that there were multiple ways of living in the world. The Hellenistic revolution in science, the greatest age of natural discoveries before the seventeenth century, was liberal in the many individuals who offered novel explanations and methods of discovery of natural phenomena; the science of mechanics by Archimedes, the science of physiology by Erasistratus and Galen, the heliocentric hypothesis of Aristarchus, the measurement of the circumference of the Earth by Eratosthenes. The Roman development of a unique class of jurists that rationalized and systematized their laws, making a science of jurisprudence, governed by equity and based on the premise that men were capable of being responsible for their actions and able to enter on their own volition into contractual relations with reciprocal rights and duties, was liberal. The seven liberal arts studied in the universities invented by medieval Catholics drew from a Greek and Roman tradition which considered it essential for a free person to be educated in the artes liberales. The Bill of Rights of 1689 were liberal in their establishment of the supremacy of the law and of parliament over the monarch and the announcement that all Englishmen had basic rights.

The ENR defence of European paganism against the history of Europe is a dead end, and does not teach us how this paganism is different, uniquely European and how it may have already been pointing in an "individualist" direction through its validation of individuality in the performance of heroic deeds, rather than just another variant of your typical superstitious despotic religions of the Orient. The modern liberal way of life is found in European states having a set of institutions that guarantee individual rights but at the same time integrate individuals into the whole nation as an ethno-political collective within which individuals rights are validated and sustained.

We will see in later comments that the ENR rejects liberal equality but is unable to reject the principle of equal rights, but instead of defending this principle it presumes that traditional cultures have a concept of freedom and individualism of which the European version is just one variation. The ENR wants to have it both ways, reject liberal equality but accept liberal rights by redefining this term in traditional terms but without admitting that all traditional cultures suppress individuals under a collective, whereas only Western cultures generated the idea of a collective based on reason-grounding individuals. The traditionalism that the ENR idealizes stands against this liberal collective. The enemy of the West are those social groups that have exploited this liberal disposition to advance their own non-Western ethnic ends in ways that are destroying the ethnic European collective that is integral to this disposition.

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV

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Damage worth £2,000 was caused when a vandal decided to key cars and vans parked on a stretch of a Redcar road.

Residents of Coatham Road awoke on Sunday morning to find the damaged caused to their cars.

Police have said at least five cars and vans were damaged - all the vehicles parked on a 100-metre stretch of the road.

A police spokeswoman added that more cars could have been damaged but their owners have not reported it, and urged those owners to come forward.

Anyone with any information about the incident, which happen overnight on Saturday or in the early hours of Sunday morning, should contact PC Matthew Speak on 01642 302626 or call Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.


Meditations in Sculpture and Neon at Pt. 2 Gallery's Latest Show "Mirrors"

Sep 15, 2018 - Oct 05, 2018Pt. 2 Gallery, Oakland, CA

Pt. 2 Gallery's latest show is titled Mirrors, and it's an exhibition that pairs the sculptures of Tyler Cross and Kyle Lypka, with neon glasswork by Meryl Pataky. The two bodies of work contemplate different topics, Cross and Lypka exploring continuous growth within their relationship, while Pataky’s body of work traverses the timeless human compulsion to create.

When viewed together, the show reflects two types of existential change and purpose. Cross and Lypka use their sculpture practice to compound conversations and reach consensus, while Pataky focuses her gaze on the historical use of craft to achieve a deeper understanding of herself, as she becomes part of that narrative. In the words of Kyle Lypka, “To me, Mirrors is the right word to describe what it’s like making work with another person. You end up learning more about the type of person/artist you are, or could be, when someone else is constantly bouncing your ideas back at you.” For Meryl, the mirror is her medium.

In the collaborative sense, the exhibit explores this beyond just Cross and Lypka’s collaboration, bringing in Pataky’s neon pieces and reflecting each artists’ craft into the space. Through their practice, each artist gains a better understanding of the self, their relationships with others and, of course, their mediums.


What is an Astronomical Unit?

When it comes to dealing with the cosmos, we humans like to couch things in familiar terms. When examining exoplanets, we classify them based on their similarities to the planets in our own Solar System – i.e. terrestrial, gas giant, Earth-size, Jupiter-sized, Neptune-sized, etc. And when measuring astronomical distances, we do much the same.

For instance, one of the most commonly used means of measuring distances across space is known as an Astronomical Unit (AU). Based on the distance between the Earth and the Sun, this unit allows astronomers to characterize the vast distances between the Solar planets and the Sun, and between extra-solar planets and their stars.

According to the current astronomical convention, a single Astronomical Unit is equivalent to 149,597,870.7 kilometers (or 92,955,807 miles). However, this is the average distance between the Earth and the Sun, as that distance is subject to variation during Earth’s orbital period. In other words, the distance between the Earth and the Sun varies in the course of a single year.

Earth’s orbit around the Sun, showing its average distance (or 1 AU). Credit: Huritisho/Wikipedia Commons

During the course of a year, the Earth goes from distance of 147,095,000 km (91,401,000 mi) from the Sun at perihelion (its closest point) to 152,100,000 km (94,500,000 mi) at aphelion (its farthest point) – or from a distance of 0.983 AUs to 1.016 AUs.

History of Development:

The earliest recorded example of astronomers estimating the distance between the Earth and the Sun dates back to Classical Antiquity. In the 3rd century BCE work, On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and Moon – which is attributed to Greek mathematician Aristarchus of Samos – the distance was estimated to be between 18 and 20 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon.

However, his contemporary Archimedes, in his 3rd century BCE work Sandreckoner, also claimed that Aristarchus of Samos placed the distance of 10,000 times the Earth’s radius. Depending on the values for either set of estimates, Aristarchus was off by a factor of about 2 (in the case of Earth’s radius) to 20 (the distance between the Earth and the Moon).

The oldest Chinese mathematical text – the 1st century BCE treatise known as Zhoubi Suanjing – also contains an estimate of the distance between the Earth and Sun. According to the anonymous treatise, the distance could be calculated by conducting geometric measurements of the length of noontime shadows created by objects spaced at specific distances. However, the calculations were based on the idea that the Earth was flat.

Illustration of the Ptolemaic geocentric conception of the Universe, by Bartolomeu Velho (?-1568), from his work Cosmographia, made in France, 1568. Credit: Bibilotèque nationale de France, Paris

Famed 2nd century CE mathematician and astronomer Ptolemy relied on trigonometric calculations to come up with a distance estimate that was equivalent to 1210 times the radius of the Earth. Using records of lunar eclipses, he estimated the Moon’s apparent diameter, as well as the apparent diameter of the shadow cone of Earth traversed by the Moon during a lunar eclipse.

Using the Moon’s parallax, he also calculated the apparent sizes of the Sun and the Moon and concluded that the diameter of the Sun was equal to the diameter of the Moon when the latter was at it’s greatest distance from Earth. From this, Ptolemy arrived at a ratio of solar to lunar distance of approximately 19 to 1, the same figure derived by Aristarchus.

For the next thousand years, Ptolemy’s estimates of the Earth-Sun distance (much like most of his astronomical teachings) would remain canon among Medieval European and Islamic astronomers. It was not until the 17th century that astronomers began to reconsider and revise his calculations.

This was made possible thanks to the invention of the telescope, as well as Kepler’s Three Laws of Planetary Motion, which helped astronomers calculate the relative distances between the planets and the Sun with greater accuracy. By measuring the distance between Earth and the other Solar planets, astronomers were able to conduct parallax measurements to obtain more accurate values.

By the 19th century, determinations of about the speed of light and the constant of the aberration of light resulted in the first direct measurement of the Earth-Sun distance in kilometers.  By 1903, the term “astronomical unit” came to be used for the first time. And throughout the 20th century, measurements became increasingly precise and sophisticated, thanks in part to accurate observations of the effects of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.

Modern Usage:

By the 1960s, the development of direct radar measurements, telemetry, and the exploration of the Solar System with space probes led to precise measurements of the positions of the inner planets and other objects. In 1976, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) adopted a new definition during their 16th General Assembly. As part of their System of Astronomical Constants, the new definition stated:

“The astronomical unit of length is that length (A) for which the Gaussian gravitational constant (k) takes the value 0.01720209895 when the units of measurement are the astronomical units of length, mass and time. The dimensions of k² are those of the constant of gravitation (G), i.e., L³M-1T2. The term “unit distance” is also used for the length A.”

In response to the development of hyper-precise measurements, the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM) decided to modify the the International System of Units (SI) in 1983. Consistent with this, they redefined the meter to be measured in terms of the speed of light in vacuum.

However, by 2012, the IAU determined that the equalization of relativity made the measurement of AUs too complex, and redefined the astronomical unit in terms of meters. In accordance with this, a single AU is equal to 149597870.7 km exactly (92.955807 million miles), 499 light-seconds, 4.8481368×10-6 of a parsec, or 15.812507×10-6 of a light-year.

Today, the AU is used commonly to measure distances and create numerical models for the Solar System. It is also used when measuring extra-solar systems, calculating the extent of protoplanetary clouds or the distance between extra-solar planets and their parent star. When measuring interstellar distances, AUs are too small to offer convenient measurements. As such, other units – such as the parsec and the light year – are relied upon.

The Universe is a huge place, and measuring even our small corner of it producing some staggering results. But as always, we prefer to express them in ways that are as relatable and familiar.

We’ve written many interesting articles about distances in the Solar System here at Universe Today. Here’s How Far are the Planets from the Sun?, How Far is Mercury from the Sun?, How Far is Venus from the Sun?, How Far is Earth from the Sun?, How Far is Mars from the Sun?, How Far is Jupiter from the Sun?, How Far is Saturn from the Sun?, How Far is Uranus from the Sun?, How Far is Neptune from the Sun?, How Far is Pluto from the Sun?

If you’d like more information about the Earth’s orbit, check out NASA’s Solar System Exploration page.

We’ve also recorded an episode of Astronomy Cast dedicated to the measurement of distances in astronomy. Listen here, Episode 10: Measuring Distance in the Universe.

1 AU in KM

1 AU in KM = 149,598,000 kilometers

An astronomical unit is a method that astronomers use to measure large distances in the Solar System. 1 astronomical unit, or 1 au, is the average distance from the Sun to the Earth.

The Earth’s orbit around the Sun is actually elliptical. It varies from 147 million km to 152 million km. So the measurement of an astronomical unit is just the Earth’s average distance from the Sun. That’s where the more precise measurement of 1 AU to KM (149,598,000 km) comes from.

Here are some other distances in the Solar System:
Mercury: 0.39 AU
Venus: 0.72 AU
Mars: 1.5 AU
Jupiter: 5.2 AU
Saturn: 9.6 AU
Uranus: 19.2 AU
Neptune: 30.1 AU
Pluto: 39.5 AU
Eris: 67.7 AU
Oort Cloud: 50,000 AU
Alpha Centauri: 275,000 AU

We have written many articles about large distances in space. Here’s an article that explains how far space is, and here’s an article about the distance to stars.

You can also check out this cool calculator that lets you convert astronomical units into any other distance.

We have also recorded an episode of Astronomy Cast detailing how astronomers measure distance in the Universe. Check out Episode 10: Measuring Distance in the Universe.

After Loss of Lunar Orbiter, India Looks to Mars Mission

India Moon Mission

After giving up on re-establishing contact with the Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Chairman G. Madhavan Nair announced the space agency hopes to launch its first mission to Mars sometime between 2013 and 2015. Nair said the termination of Chandrayaan-1, although sad, is not a setback and India will move ahead with its plans for the Chandrayaan-2 mission to land an unmanned rover on the moon’s surface to prospect for chemicals, and in four to six years launch a robotic mission to Mars.

“We have given a call for proposal to different scientific communities,” Nair told reporters. “Depending on the type of experiments they propose, we will be able to plan the mission. The mission is at conceptual stage and will be taken up after Chandrayaan-2.”

On the decision to quickly pull the plug on Chandrayaan-1, Nair said, “There was no possibility of retrieving it. (But) it was a great success. We could collect a large volume of data, including more than 70,000 images of the moon. In that sense, 95 percent of the objective was completed.”

Contact with Chandrayaan-1 may have been lost because its antenna rotated out of direct contact with Earth, ISRO officials said. Earlier this year, the spacecraft lost both its primary and back-up star sensors, which use the positions of stars to orient the spacecraft.

The loss of Chandrayaan-1 comes less than a week after the spacecraft’s orbit was adjusted to team up with NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter for a Bi-static radar experiment. During the maneuver, Chandrayaan-1 fired its radar beam into Erlanger Crater on the moon’s north pole. Both spacecraft listened for echoes that might indicate the presence of water ice – a precious resource for future lunar explorers. The results of that experiment have not yet been released.

Chandrayaan-1 craft was designed to orbit the moon for two years, but lasted 315 days. It will take about 1,000 days until it crashes to the lunar surface and is being tracked by the U.S. and Russia, ISRO said.

The Chandrayaan I had 11 payloads, including a terrain-mapping camera designed to create a three-dimensional atlas of the moon. It is also carrying mapping instruments for the European Space Agency, radiation-measuring equipment for the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and two devices for NASA, including the radar instrument to assess mineral composition and look for ice deposits. India launched its first rocket in 1963 and first satellite in 1975. The country’s satellite program is one of the largest communication systems in the world.

Sources: New Scientist, Xinhuanet


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Present-day society is locked into four positive feedback loops which need to be broken: economic growth which feeds on itself, population growth which feeds on itself, technological change which feeds on itself, and a pattern of income inequality which seems to be self sustaining and which tends to spur growth in the other three areas. Ecological humanism must create an economy in which economic and population growth is halted, technology is controlled, and gross inequalities of income are done away with. —Victor Furkiss,

An Example of the Catastrophic View:
A Global Warming Scenario

South End Press, 1995; ISBN 0-89608-513-9

In 1992, Dr. Jeremy Leggett, a British scientist and scientific director of Greenpeace International's Atmosphere and Energy Campaign, outlined what may be called a "nightmare global warming scenario." This scenario was based on a projection of known, but as yet unquantified, biological feedback mechanisms identified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (300 atmospheric scientists from forty countries).

This scenario is a plausible extrapolation from what is known: it reflects both the magnitude of the possible risks courted by industrial humanity, and the inadequacy of the global managerial perspective when circumstances go beyond what is viewed as industrially acceptable. However, even if this scenario is completely accurate, industrial managers can always point to enough uncertainty at each step to justify inaction.

Global warming is the result of the release into the atmosphere of "greenhouse gases," i.e., gases that are relatively transparent to the passage of energetic short-wave solar radiation (sunlight) and, at the same time, reflect back much of the longer wave infrared (or heat) radiation generated when sunlight strikes the earth. The most significant greenhouse gas is CO:, which has been released into the atmosphere in huge quantities as a by-product of burning fossil fuels in automobiles, power plants, and industrial processes such as steel production, and by wood burned for fuel and forests burned for land-clearing. In 1950, 1.62 billion metric tons per year of carbon (gigatons carbon or GTC) were released from burning fossil fuels; by 1991, this figure had increased to 5.854 billion tons per year.

To get some sense of the significance of this number, we need to know that the preindustrial atmosphere contained an estimated 580 billion tons of carbon. Thus, we are now adding about 1 percent of the preindustrial carbon total to the atmosphere yearly. Current atmospheric carbon levels are 750 GTC, a 29 percent increase from preindustrial levels. In only thirty-two years since 1959, when continuous record keeping of atmospheric carbon dioxide began, concentrations have increased 12 percent from 316 parts per million (.0316 percent) to 355 parts per million (.0355 percent). Other greenhouse gases include methane (CH4), a product of natural decay and fermentation released in large quantities from concentrated livestock production, and the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that are also responsible for the destruction of the ozone layer.

The precise global dynamics and possible effects, both long-and short-term, of huge increases in greenhouse gases are unclear. There is a natural cycle that keeps CO2 concentrations relatively balanced. Huge amounts of CO2 are dissolved in the oceans, 39,000 GTC with about 90 GTC exchanged each year between atmosphere and ocean. (CO2 in water forms carbonic acid-this is why steam heating condensate pipes often corrode unless the boiler water is deaerated.) Huge amounts of carbon are also locked up in submarine methane hydrates, ice-like solids made up of water crystals and trapped methane gas, on the Arctic continental shelf.

Carbon is also found in the bodies of all living things, from giant redwoods to microscopic creatures (an estimated 750 GTC in land plants and 1,500 GTC in soils; annually 100 GTC is exchanged between the atmosphere and land plants.) The normal carbon-based system includes the use of CO2 by plants, which release oxygen as a by-product that is then used for animal respiration (which, in turn, yields CO2 as its by-product). The carbon taken up in the bodies of living creatures is also released in the form of methane as they die and decay.

Atmospheric scientists argue that climate stability can likely be sustained if levels of human CO2 production are somewhat below the emission levels seen in the 1950s. At present rates, by the middle of the 21st century, most climate scientists predict substantial increases in global temperature.

How significant these increases will be, and the nature of their impact, is the question. Jeremy Leggett warns that such global warming may disturb major sinks for carbon in Arctic tundra and, through a complex series of interactions, result in runaway warming that would continue even if human CO2 and all other greenhouse gas emissions dropped to zero.

Leggett's "putative" logical chain of events includes:

Warming oceans are more thermally stable. This stability reduces the circulation of nutrients and decreases the biomass of the photoplankton, thus further damaging the ability to absorb CO2.

Ultraviolet radiation from the damaged ozone layer, particularly severe in polar regions, further damages the photoplankton. The net ecosystem balance between respiration (CO2 emitted) and photosynthesis (CO2 used) now tilts toward respiration, and more CO2 is released into the atmosphere.

Leggett concludes, "In emergency session the UN brings in sweeping measures for world-wide greenhouse gas emission reductions. But it is too late. A runaway greenhouse effect has been generated."

This chain of events is a dark possibility. It is not a prediction. It does make clear that industrial civilization has put into question not just the prospects for human society, but planetary processes hitherto the domain of natural rhythms and geological time. Industrialism is betting that its resolute commitment to continuous growth can somehow be managed to avoid catastrophic consequences.

The world has 4,000 GTC in proven fossil fuel reserves; we cannot decide their future use, the production of further CFCs, and the mass burning and clear-cutting of forests on the basis of maximizing industrial production and consumption, profits and power. Industrial civilization entertains a hideous risk if it continues each year to pour 5.8 billion tons or more of carbon into the atmosphere. Whether industrialism's technocratic eschatologies are reassuringly exponential, cautiously logistic, or righteously catastrophic, social behavior, as well as the reality behind imperfect mathematical models, will determine the nature of alternative futures. [p.p. 109-112]

LONDON, Feb 21, 1996 (Reuter) - Global warming, acid rain and the hole in the ozone layer are joining forces in a deadly combination for fish and other life in lakes and streams, Canadian scientists reported on Wednesday.

The key, they said, was the amount of carbon dissolved in the water. Carbon absorbs ultraviolet radiation from the sun, and protects aquatic plants and animals from the dangerous solar rays being let through by the widening holes in the ozone layer.

But the researchers said global warming and acid rain were reducing carbon levels in lakes, thus wiping out what little protection the fish and the plants they depend on had.

Acid rain is caused when clouds pick up pollutants such as sulphur dioxide from factories and coal-burning power plants. The chemicals react and raise the acidity of the rain.

David Schindler, a biologist at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, and colleagues took measurements at several lakes in northwest Ontario over 20 years.

During this time, Schindler's group wrote in the science journal Nature, overall temperatures rose by 1.6 degrees C (1.9 degrees F), rainfall fell by 25 percent and "once-permanent streams became intermittent."

Carbon levels in the lakes fell by 15 to 20 percent, allowing radiation to penetrate 22 to 63 percent deeper.

In the lake with the highest acid levels, ultraviolet radiation penetration increased from a third of a metre (one foot) to more than 2.8 metres (nine feet).

"An 80 percent decline in carbon, as in acidified lakes, would cause the depth of increase by over 400 percent," they added.

Radiation is as dangerous to fish and seaweed as it is to people and their crops. For example, trout get sunburn, are more prone to fungal infections and in general die sooner when exposed to slightly higher radiation levels.

Extra radiation could become one more stress that pushed a species over the edge into extinction, they said.

"Overall, we estimate that about 140,000 of the nearly 700,000 lakes in eastern Canada may have (carbon) concentrations low enough for UV-B penetration to be of concern," they said.


References in periodicals archive ?
This study also benefits from French sociologist Bourdieu's 1974 ideology of cultural reproduction which refers to the various ways the cultures of the haves are maintained or reproduced by the education system (Gwirayi 2010).
Historians and anthropologists at the university and others refer to his work in essays that describe his career, his contribution to Namibian history, the relationship between historical analysis and social anthropology and memory and cultural reproduction, photography and anthropology, South African migrant workers on the Rand mines during war and genocide, slavery and commerce, the Basel Mission's involvement with the Kannada language in South India, Mary Elizabeth Barber, German natural history collectors of human skulls and skeletons in southern Africa, South African jazz, and other topics.
Treating film remakes as products of a society's survival mechanism that both preserves and reconditions its own cultural meta-narrative, Zanger goes beyond apparent differences between originals and remakes to reveal a common typology along the vertical historical axis of cultural reproduction.
Today, it is refreshing to find examples of piracy studies that shift the focus from the bad subject to new textual or paratextual subjects, new political sensibilities, and different standpoints taken with respect to cultural reproduction.
Throughout the course of the study, a theoretical framework of Pierre Bourdieu's Multi-capitals (extracted from Bourdieu's Cultural Reproduction Theory) was employed to theoretically cement the research.
In what follows here, I first further explain austerity education as both a continuation and intensification of longstanding neoliberal restructuring of public schooling by situating it in terms of the insights of social and cultural reproduction theory that highlights how schools reproduce the social relations for the reproduction of capital.
Education scholars, social workers, and practicing and retired teachers, all with experience in small communities, explore the role of grandparents in the education and cultural reproduction of families that have spread from their geographical origins, taking two maritime provinces of Canada as a test case.
However, it seems that insufficient attention is paid to cultural reproduction in language-learning and use, which I term here cultural tool normalization (CTN).
His concept of "queer diasporism," for example, which he acknowledges is indebted to Shandler's idea of Queer Yiddishkeit, and which he defines as "a cultural form generated by diaspora-dwelling Jews who accept, and sometimes revel in, the rootless quality of Jewish experience by privileging transgressive identities and non-natural forms of individual and cultural reproduction across the board" (42), a "vision of identity that rejects origin, nationhood, cultural reproduction in favor of a vision that embraces cultural syncretism, wandering, exile without any sense of the moral imperative of returning to origins" (90), is as important a provocation to responsible criticism of identity as we've seen.
Basil Bernstein (1977, 1990/2009, 1996/2000) theorizes how education works as the medium of cultural reproduction by analyzing the nature of pedagogic discourse (see also Apple, 2002; Au, 2008).
Nevertheless, Snyder can indubitably count his translation of Andreini's play as a fitting cultural reproduction for the English-speaking world.
3) by drawing upon a review of his own educational research on social and cultural reproduction.

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Google Right to Be Forgotten Does Not Completely Remove Information Online

The recent ruling against Google dubbed the “right to be forgotten” ruling does not mean that information will be completely removed online. The information is always going to be around. It will just take longer to find it. It begs the question whether there was any point in the ruling or not.

When the European Court of Justice ruled in favor of Spanish lawyer, Mario Costeja, who was annoyed to find information about his debts from 10 years previous was still online. With just one search of his name, the lawyer could find all the negative information that he had hoped would have disappeared by now. The European ruling made it clear that people could request for information to be taken out of the search results.

So far, people in Europe have taken up on this offering, and not all for good reasons. A pedophile and a doctor with a range of negative reviews online have both requested the information is removed from search results. The search giant does not need to approve the request if it is in the internet’s best interests to keep the information up there.

However, asking Google to remove the information due to the right to be forgotten ruling does not completely remove the information from the internet. The newspaper articles, court convictions and negative reviews will still be visible online. It is just harder to find it, but that will not make it impossible. This is something those for and against this ruling need to remember.

Under US law, this type of ruling would act against the First Amendment. In Europe, some have argued that it acts against the freedom of information. However, the European Court states that it is also trying to protect individuals’ right to privacy. There is a common clash between the two of these, and finding a balance can be relatively difficult. The fact that the information will still be visible online, and just harder to find, does not completely remove the freedom of information.

It is like going back 25 years, before the idea of the internet and search engines was such a possibility. Information has always been available, and many will still remember scenes in movies and TV shows where people would go to the library to flick through old newspaper archives. Finding the information could take hours, if not days, back then. Even without Google and other search engines, it will still be easier for people to find the information they need. A quick search on various media outlets and social media platforms will often bring up the results that users would like.

There are arguments that this makes it harder for students, historians and other professionals who use the internet for research. Again, it is just like taking a step back in time to before the internet was even invented. Students and historians then would read through hundreds of books and newspapers before finding the information they needed. The information is just being taken out of Google’s and other search engines’ results, and is not being removed from online completely.

Opinion by Alexandria Ingham

The New York Times


Let’s Talk about LA Women and Outdoor Leggings

Los Angeles women are a very busy lot. They are busy raising their families. They are busy running different types of businesses. They are also busy with their professional work. It would be impossible for them to do any of that without good health. The women can keep themselves in perfect health by exercising more. Outdoor activities can also help them to stay in shape. Outdoor leggings would support all these and more.

Why should women in Los Angeles wear the leggings?

Let’s Face It, They Are Comfortable!

First, the leggings are comfortable. Their use is not restricted to outdoor activities though. The leggings can also help women who wish to laze around in the house to do just that comfortably. They also serve women who feel like using them instead of pajamas. The super comfortable nature of the leggings is incomparable with anything else. No workout outfit comes anywhere near the leggings in terms of comfort and functionality.

They Travel Well…

These type of leggings are also excellent for traveling. The comfort they bring enables the wearer to sit in them on the bus, car or plane for long hours without suffering or complaining in any way. Their lightweight nature also helps significantly. Added to that is their compactness. They do not feel loose or all over the place either. For these reasons, buy them and be ready to wear them when going on a trip.

Exercising and Running

The flexible nature of the leggings makes them ideal for exercises. As you probably know by now, the modern lifestyle has put more people at risk of developing some horrible diseases. Lifestyle diseases seem to be on the increase everywhere you look. Consequently, women ought to do whatever it takes to protect their health. In Los Angeles, one way of doing this is by wearing leggings and participating in exercises and various sporting activities.

They look stunning on women with curvy frames. They bring out the woman’s curves quite well. They enhance women’s beauty and strong points too. Most women, especially those in Los Angeles, want to look their best most of the time. The leggings offer the chance of achieving this goal every day. Any woman who desires to display her curves using the leggings will be doing nothing wrong!

Do you struggle to hold everything in? If you do, then this type of leggings would serve you perfectly. They are elastic but strong enough to hold everything inside without making you too uncomfortable. This can prove quite helpful when you are hiking or running too when you need to keep everything in place. Hiking and running are two of the best ways of working out and staying fit.

Therefore, invest in a few outdoor leggings and join the list of Los Angeles women who are doing everything to keep their bodies fit and shapely. The leggings are comfortable. They are neither too tight nor loose. They keep everything in place. They keep you looking elegant and cool too. They complement every item of clothing you have in your wardrobe. The leggings eliminate the need or urge for wearing belts too.

4 Things Los Angeles Women need to do When Their Basement Gets Flooded

A flooded basement is not only dangerous to you and your family, but it’s also a frustrating and costly affair for any woman living in Los Angeles. However, in general, basements are susceptible to flooding than any other part of the house at whatever time.

This is based on the fact that heavy rainfall, failed sump pumps, an overwhelmed plumbing fixture or a frozen pipe are dangers that can arise on any given day. In the event you end up with a flooded basement, there are a few basic but critical steps that you need to take to remedy the situation. Here are four tips to help you out when dealing with a flooded basement in Los Angeles.

• Shut Down Electricity

Flooded basements are the most electrically hazardous place to be in. Almost every basement has an electrical outlet and fixture that can electrify water during a flooding. Electrical charges also don’t require a lot of water to occur. When your basement is flooded, the first point of action is to shut down the electricity connection. If, however, for some reason you are unable to, call your utility company or electrician and have them help you in shutting down the electricity connection.

• Protective Clothing

The thing about most basements in Los Angeles is that they are used as a storage area. That means that it’s possible to have emptied chemical tins stored away. On the same breadth, storm and sewer drains could cause dirty water to get into your basement. These factors coupled with plumbing set up as well as the location of your home means that the flooded water in your basement may be contaminated and may have adverse effects on your skin if it gets exposed. As such, you will need to put on protective clothing as you clean the area or turn off the electricity.

• Remove the Water

Once you’ve gained access to your flooded basement in your Los Angeles home, you will now need to remove the water as fast as you can. Ensure your sump pump is working as is supposed to be and start removing the water. At the same time, if your floor drain is in the basement area, ensure that it’s unclogged so that water can flow freely in the event flooding occurs as it is one of the main reasons why drainages get clogged up. However, if the floodwater is too much for you to handle, you can call in a professional like New Orleans Plumber to come and help with draining the water. However, you should call one with insurance to be on the safe side.

• Dehumidify the Basement

After 24 hours of any flooding incident, molds start growing. As such, the faster you can start removing the water and drying up the basement, the faster you can prevent any molds from growing in your home. While a drying procedure can be easily accomplished by a professional faster, you can also use a home fan to blow different objects in your basement until they dry.

How LA Women Can Become Arborists

If you love nature, then you’ll love the uniqueness of arboriculture as a course in college. You will have a lot of literature to go through and a lot of research to do, but at the end of it all, you will love the course. It is a course for women as much as it is for men.

There is so much one can achieve by reading books that add to the skill. Even as you enjoy the best of Shakespeare or Jeffry Archer, get a book or two or arboriculture and get studying.

Arborists Save the Environment

The importance of trees in the environment and the future of this world cannot be stressed enough. Every day, the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere increases and so does the risks of living in a polluted environment. That can also be reversed if there are lots of trees planted to absorb the carbon and release oxygen.

Green companies are planting more trees, and if we cannot take care of the trees planted, then they will die, and we will be back to the same problems. As we embrace having trees in our compounds emphasis, need to be put on taking care of them. This entails curing tree diseases, and that’s where arborist comes in.

There is Need for More Arborists

How many arborists do you know? Probably none or very few. Arborist are on demand. This is because the number of trees planted has increased, and so has tree diseases. Today, the importance of trees to the environment and the need to keep them healthy has been realized by lots of people, and this will continue in the years to come. As states and local governments advocate for more tree planting, the need for arborists has increased.

If interested in studying arboriculture one can enroll to the nearest institution offering the course. Not only do you study how to treat tree diseases but also get to know more about identifying the illness you’re seeking to cure so that to keep them healthy.

Arboriculture is Fun, and it Pays

If you are an LA woman in arboriculture, you will enjoy it. It is the same as being a physician only in this case your treating trees. You will learn how to care for trees like the living things they are and how to treasure the environment.

As earlier mentioned, there are only a couple of arborists in the world today, and as such, the competition is not much seeing that the number of trees has increased significantly. If you take into arboriculture, you can start your own practice and be an independent practitioner.

Start Today

You can contact Long Island Arborists to assist you to identify and cure tree diseases. For students needing professional guidance, you can seek an on the job training from them which will help you gain more insight in the field. It will take you a few years to study tree diseases, but at the end, you will enjoy it.

When Should Los Angeles Women Hire an Arborist?

Hiring an arborist has its advantages. Most Los Angeles women prefer handling their gardening chores by themselves. This is especially true when the gardens are small and contain only a few roses. However, larger gardens that are full of huge trees need professional attention, which often comes in the form of experts in tree removal and maintenance. It is no wonder then that many firms providing tree removal Austin exist to help women – and men alike – with some of these jobs.

It is costly to hire a tree removal and maintenance pro every time the trees need some attention. You can handle some chores by yourself without any external or professional input.

Professional Input

That said, a professional tree removal expert offers the kind of input you can never get elsewhere. Arborists are scientists of some sort. They possess the training needed to take care of trees properly and professionally. Their goal is to keep all trees looking healthy and stunningly attractive. They are capable of performing wide-ranging tasks. A few of the tasks the arborist will perform on behalf of clients include:
a) Planting trees
b) Taking care of trees
c) Maintaining trees as well as all the other woody plants

They play crucial roles in how trees grow. They are great at evaluating the condition each tree is in and using that information to recommend a few measures worth implementing to care for the trees. They provide services that all trees need and depend on for growth and survival. More critical, you need to know when to hire these highly trained and well-experienced professionals.

It is good to hire them when the trees need pruning. They know how to evaluate the tree and determine the kind of pruning it needs. They have all the equipment needed for pruning trees professionally. They prune trees and leave them not only healthy but also looking attractive. They do all these work safely without interfering with anything within the property. They use the pruning tools safely too.

Tree Removal

Hiring these professionals to provide tree removal services is also highly recommended. They understand that tree removal is never the first option. Many times, the arborists recommend tree removal as a last resort. They recommend it only after trying other measures or solutions. Tree removal can be a hazardous activity. It can cause injuries or destruction of property. Fortunately, these professionals know how to do the job safely.

Emergency Care

Their services are also highly sought after when trees need emergency care. Such care is necessary after storms, which are one of the trees’ biggest enemies. Storms cause trees to lean or fall. Storms can also uproot trees. Storms can also damage branches, limbs, or the entire tree. In most cases, damaged trees need complete removal or trimming. These two solutions carry some element of risk; hence, the need for hiring professionals to do the work.

Tree Planting/Replanting

Lastly, consider hiring these professionals when planting or replanting trees. Yes, you can do a lot of the tree planting. Do you know the best tree for your garden or the local area? Do you know the right way of planting that tree? Chances are that you do not know any of these. Do not worry or panic though. Instead, hire technicians from Austin Tree today to take care of your trees and nurture them to good health and excellent appearance.

Improve Your Child’s Writing and Literature Knowledge Through Online Classes

Literature is sweet to those who appreciate it. Some people cannot get enough of Shakespeare, Sidney Sheldon or any other good read. Literature is rich – it portrays a way of life, gives life to characters, entertains and gives life to souls that appreciate the beauty in it. However, when it comes to learning literature and developing writing skills, children might experience difficulties that make some interventions necessary.

You can expand your child’s writing and literature knowledge through online tutoring. Here, you get to raise their grades while giving them a chance to explore their talents and passion. Even if you’re not seeking to improve their grades, studying more writing skills and literature lets them appreciate creativity, and in the process, their grades will improve.

Studying Online Gives Flexibility

Courses offered at a specific physical location mean you either have to take your child there whenever lessons are scheduled or call the tutor to your home. When you opt for classes offered online, you get flexibility. The child can learn from any location such that you don’t worry much about his/her physical safety. You, however, need to do due diligence to ensure s/he is safe online. A few hours of online classes can significantly improve performance.

The good thing about enrolling your kids for online tutoring is that you can stop the program anytime you feel like there are no results. You do not have to sit with your children every day to show them homework as the extra studying hours will give them the knowledge to tackle their homework.

Why Study Writing Online?

Kids who learn how to write when they are still young learn how to organize their ideas and also think deeply about different issues. Writing demands creativity from learners, which, in the long run, enhances their brain activity and improves their creativity in all other fields.

When your kid gets interested in writing, they will be inquisitive, which makes them read more and have the desire to know more about things and people. Plus, it might be their passion, and they might end up pursuing it as a career.

Specialized Tutoring

The other thing with tutoring centers, online or offline, is that they offer specialized tutoring ensuring that your kid is taught according to their level and the content is tailored to meet their needs. Tutors teach one kid at a time, meaning that any special needs are taken care of. If your child has trouble comprehending a certain concept, the online tutor will concentrate on that concept. This is unlike in conventional schools where one teacher teaches 20 or more children. By tailoring the content and teaching method to meet the needs of one kid, tutors are able to achieve more. This customized tutoring is seen in Skies the Limit Tutoring Center where tutoring begins with an assessment to identify the needs of your child.

Enroll Today

You can always evaluate the progress of your children a few weeks after starting the tutoring program. If the program is good as it markets itself, then you will see the results without any form of evaluation. You can enroll your child to study writing and literature alone, but you should let the tutors help him/her in other areas that they might be weak. This gives you value for money while ensuring that your kid develops all-round skills.

How Los Angeles Women Can Act, be Financially Savvy and Avoid Facing the Red

Financially savvy people seem to have it all together. They avoid being in the red. They do whatever they can to ensure their financial health is above reproach. Such people have learned how to avoid bad habits that can cripple them financially. These individuals have learned how they can be more constructive in their financial lives. They know what it takes to be financially healthy by doing the right thing. So, what can Los Angeles women learn from them?

Use Consumer Credit Well

First, they learn not to use or exhaust their consumer credit indiscriminately. Consumer credit can do a lot of good when used tactically. For example, it can help in taking advantage of bargains. It also helps people who look for assets that appreciate investing in. What is more, it aids in managing logistics. In the US, each household had a median level consume debt of roughly $3,000 in 2012 against a credit card debt of around $856.9 million.

Consumer credit can be a great tool when used well. However, consumer credit can destroy you financially.
Stop Indulging All Your Wants, All the Time Next, people who do not want to face the red should not indulge their wants all the time. They give in to the message posted through advertisements on various media. They buy whatever they feel like buying. The promise contained in the ads – sublimely or otherwise – that buying specific items will lead to happier, healthier, better, more fulfilling and simpler lives appears so convincing to them. In the end, they spend more money on things that only make them broke.

Avoid Problematic Car Leases

Car leases are a bit problematic too. Financially, there is no reward for leasing a car. Do not believe the monthly lease rates that appear too low and affordable. Those low rates are only meant to hoodwink you. There is always a catch with the low lease rates. The catch has to do with the higher long-term cost of leasing the car. You pay more for a car that you will eventually return. Leasing a car is not something worth doing if you want to be financially healthy.

Stop Allowing Advertisements to Rule Your Life

As previously stated, advertisements should never rule your life. Los Angeles women are in one of the most beautiful cities in not only the United States but also the world. Every day, they face a barrage of advertisements that seek to convince them to purchase specific items or services. Advertisements are good, but they should never control your life. Often, advertisements end up creating more confusion.

Making a decision not to rely solely on advertisements involves:

a) Understanding and avoiding market traps
b) Recognizing the real value of what you need
c) Keeping more of the money you earned through hard work in your pocket
Advertisers want you to spend more. They care naught that you remain with nothing.

Approach Technology Cautiously

Lastly, technology is good. The world is now receptive to multiple programs and software that make life easier, simpler, and better. Technology also improves quality of life in some instances. However, do not be a person who readily accepts, adopts, and begins using all new technologies you come across. Rushing to the local store to buy the latest gadget or device might appear cool but hurt your finances irreparably.
Check Face the Red to learn more steps to take to avoid being caught up in the web of debt.

How XERO Crows Nest Can Help Your Commercial LA Women’s Club Financially

Women have emerged among the best business owners in the recent years. Today, women own more than 10 million businesses in the United States. Away from the businesses, they also run several projects, such as the LA Women’s Club. Some run such projects for fun while others do it commercially. Regardless of the reason for running such projects, it is inconceivable for these women to excel without accounting tools such as XERO Crows Nest. How can such accounting tools help women in Los Angeles excel in business?

Help Reduce Overhead Costs

First, it is worth reiterating that women run their businesses to make money. They do that by meeting a need. A life of continuously making money cannot be possible when there is no way of determining whether a business is making profits or losses. Fortunately, the accounting tool they use helps them to know their overhead costs. This is important because overhead costs can drive a business to the verge of collapse without proper monitoring.

Overhead costs women entrepreneurs need to be familiar with include:
a) Administrative expenses such as office supplies
b) Marketing and advertising costs
c) Facilities and equipment costs
d) Vehicle-related expenses
e) Insurance
f) Tax-related expenses

Managing Cash Flow Professionally

Finding a good and highly effective way of managing cash flow is crucial to the success of any business. Accounting software can do just that. With the right software, you will have no problem staying on top of your cash flow. A business that does not manage its cash flow can never be financially fit. This is because, without proper cash flow management, a company can easily find itself struggling from month to month, to finance its operations.

Focusing on the Numbers

A good accounting program requires paying close attention to the numbers. It helps you stay ahead of the situation. Well-run businesses monitor the kind of money they bring in as often as they find necessary. This could be each day, week or month. The women running these businesses, therefore, are capable of determining how much they should be making per month or per week to be profitable. There is no shortcut other than to know how the business is performing each week and month.

Keeping Abreast of All Financial Ratios

The business’ financial ratios also need some close attention. Profitability of the business depends on the ability to track specific business ratios. With a good program, you can do this effectively. Good programs help you to track the correct ratios. For example, it will highlight the current ratio, which is critical for tracking how healthy the business is. A ratio of 2:1 is normal with a healthy business. It means that the business has $2 worth of assets, but owes $1 in liabilities.

Therefore, do not delay investing in a good accounting program. Even as you spend time immersed in Shakespeare’s work, remember to empower yourself and other women to succeed in business investments. Share it with your friends at the LA Women’s Shakespeare Club. With proper tools, you can learn to excel in your business as Shakespeare did in his. Teach them the benefits such a program will bring to their businesses. The biggest benefit is that the accounting program will help stabilize their businesses financially, increase profits and spur its growth.

Los Angeles Immigrant House Cleaners Facing New Challenges

Los Angeles is largely an immigrant city.  Like many US cities, it is generally divided into classes, a “tale of two cities” if you wish.  Being the second largest city in the United States, and Located near the Mexican border, it’s no surprise that it attracts lots of latin immigrants.  They take one lots of service jobs, like manual labor in contractor work and house cleaning, laundry service and child care work.

Especially  with the current Trump administration cracking down on undocumented immigrants, there is more uncertainty nowadays surrounding the legal well-being and financial/employment future of this population then ever before.  It comes with especially egregious irony that these poor men and women not only have to work on the lowest rungs of society, facing bigotry and discrimination along the way, but now have to face institutional and legal challenges to their mere existence in the USA.

While this may come as somewhat of a surprise to readers, “illegal” employment of undocumented workers really doesn’t shock citizens of larger cities.  Like this Reuter’s article showing a revelation in a gubernatorial race really didn’t have an impact on voters.  Coming from NYC originally, I am well aware of the masses of workers standing outside of home depot, hoping for daily work as contractors on staten island, as well as the hoards of “cleaning ladies” in NYC, since everyone lives and overpays rent for apartments.

Los Angeles is even worse, of course, since it’s a border city with one of the largest populations of immigrants (undocumented and otherwise), as well as plenty of demand for housework and manual labor.  Furthermore, many of them report that they are treated very poorly by their “bosses”.  Considering the city speaks spanish about 75% of the time (some searching for son buenas las lavadoras digitales to find the best washing machine for their households), why should anyone be surprised that there are undocumented immigrants around?

What do you think about these issues?  Do you think these immigrants should be granted more protections or rights?

Image courtesy of PRI.

Importance of great reviews

Membership to clubs provides a great platform to learn more and understand products and services, and find great deals and so are reviews. Reviews are an important tool for individuals and businesses. Research shows that 88 percent of consumers have unshakeable trust on reviews. In fact, they rely on the reviews to determine whether there is value in buying a product from a specific firm. They can help attract customers to buy products and services from hair products, insurance, and debt management services to sparking interest in books and plays. It can also help people learn more about the products and services available.

The typical scenario when one is looking for a product or service is that people would contact the company or person selling the product for more information. Others do plenty of research before making a decision. Lately, though, a significant number of clients are relying on reviews when they need to learn as many features of a product as possible. Whether it is buying an insurance policy, a car, a house, or finding a school, people need as much information as they can get before making decisions.

The above are just a few examples of things or products you cannot buy unless you read as many reviews as possible. Reviews are crucial for various reasons.

You Get Accurate and Objective Feedback

Trustworthy review sites represent the views of fellow customers who have bought and used a similar product to the one you are interested in. Firms that produce whatever you wish to buy do not write the reviews. Therefore, they are often accurate and objectively written. Don’t ignore the phrase you commonly see, “read full review here “. They provide relevant information that can save one from regrets or worse. The information is often objective and presented in language that is easy to understand.

You Receive Other People is Opinion

One written review is not enough to base your decision on. You need to read as many reviews as possible about a specific product or service. Check the reviews for a running theme. If the running theme is one of an excellent product or customer service, you will not throw away your money on something substandard. If the running theme were nothing other than unresolved complaints, you would better think twice. Reading a lot of reviews can be very helpful so that you can base your decisions on opinions from different quarters especially with a lot of fake reviews being available on the internet.

Spotting Fake Reviews

You can learn to spot fake reviews. A few characteristics of fake reviews include:
a) Marketing language/speak
b) Multiple reviews that read or sound exactly the same
c) Polyamorous reviews
d) Monogamous reviews
e) Hyperventilated negative reviews
f) Discount codes or directions on where to find the product
g) 1-3 reviews only which are all overwhelmingly positive

Always check the reviews to confirm if they have been updated. Another reason for checking is to find out if the management responded to issues clients raised in previous reviews. A golden rule here is to stop believing everything you read on reviews. It is a good idea to be skeptical. If you find the reviews too good to be true, contact experts and ask for their opinion

What Lessons Can We Learn from Shakespeare about Bingo?

William Shakespeare is perhaps the worldís greatest playwright of all time. His works have been published and distributed all over the world. His books are used to teach students English, literature, and history in many countries. What you may not realize is that his works also offer many lessons on bingo. Today, everything you know about bingo is probably what you have read on the Internet on sites such as https://www.boomtownbingo.com.
So, what can you learn about bingo from Shakespeare?
You Hold Your Destiny in Your Hands
In one of Shakespeareís books, Julius Caesar, he says, ìstars do not hold our destinies, but we do.î The saying is also true where bingo is concerned. Nobody can prevent you from winning a bingo game or tournament. The ability to succeed is in your hands. Your destiny while playing the game is in your hands too. There is a lot of wisdom in the words Julius Caesar spoke in this book. You can apply that wisdom in every area of your life too.
Be Strategic
In the book, Romeo and Juliet, Romeo offered timely advice. He said itís better to go wisely and slowly because those who rush eventually stumble and fall. You can say the same thing to anybody playing bingo. Itís good to be strategic when playing this game in the company of other bingo enthusiasts. Rushing without thinking things through could jeopardize your chances of winning the game and some money too.
Take Action
In the book, King John, Lewis said you need strong reasons to take strong actions. Once again, this encourages bingo players to take time and think any move through first. Purposeful rationalization and solid reasoning often get you far in this game. Lack of reasoning, on the other hand, will mess up your chances. This piece of advice is great for those playing bingo professionally.
Exercise Patience
Patience is a virtue in your personal or professional life. Shakespeare talks about the importance of patience in his book titled, The Tragedy of Othello. Today, it seems as though everybody is in a hurry. Impatience is prevalent today than at any other time in human history. Playing bingo impatiently is a recipe for disaster. Patience to check your moves before using your cards will determine whether you leave the table/room happy or not.
ìThings won are done,î was the resounding cry Cressida made in the play Troilus and Cressida. Again, you can apply that in bingo and just about any other aspect of your life. It is indeed true that you can only win bingo by doing certain things. You need to make decisions. You need to be timely with every move you make. Practice winning and you will soon be leaving the bingo sites and venues the winner.
These few examples teach you a few things you can apply to areas of your life including playing Bingo. Visit sites that will help you discover the best bingo deals, fun, news, and competitions. When youíre not engrossed in Bingo, immerse yourself in the lessons and stories of love, tragedy, and comedy as written by the great bard.

Writing Can Be Hard on the Back – But Can a Chiropractor Help?

Writing has all types of frustrations and downsides.  Besides the obvious creative difficulties, writers’ block, criticism (both external and internal), and the mounting odds against commercial success, it also has some physical downsides.  Sitting at the computer all day, or hunched over a notepad, can have some dramatic effects on your posture and overall comfort.  After years of dealing with these issues, we here at Lawsc.net have some up with a series of things you can do to help avoid the pain associated with “writers hunch”, both with treatment and preventative measures.

Chiropractors, Fact or Fiction?

Many who follow scientific news may have seen several years ago when science writers Simon Singh underwent a long libel lawsuit leveled by a Chiropractor association in the UK.  It brought up the issue of whether the chiropractic practice were somehow not “real” doctors.  For whatever reason there is this continuing myth surround the profession, but I can tell you from personal experience that this stuff works!  I’ve been going to an oceanside chiropractor for the past 2 years and I’ve always felt so much better after our sessions.

I can’t speak to the science behind it all, but they do seem to have a deep knowledge of the human anatomy and proper alignment.  If you are out of alignment you generally will suffer the consequences, whether it’s with your posture during writing work, your stance during running or jogging, or other workout regimens.  Even sitting with a wallet in your back pocket can have really big impacts on your spinal alignment.

Ergonomic Office Chairs

This tactic is more of a preventative measure, but also works to stop some pain from creeping into your daily life.  Getting a nice, high quality ergonomic office chair is the best way to avoid poor posture going forward.  It won’t necessary correct any alignment, but it will avoid falling into poor alignment, as well as being quite comfortable.

There’s lots of benefits of this besides posture, such as breathable fabrics so you don’t get hot/sweaty sitting for long hours, easy of motion when swiveling, as well as foot and headrest attachments.  These chairs can range in price to the very expensive, but there is a reason for that.  You know the saying, you get what you pay for, and that applies here.  That being said, you can probably opt for one that is priced somewhere in the middle range, and still get lots of benefits.

Shorter Hours

Last tip here is somewhat of a hard truth.  You should try to reduce the number of hours worked, and introduce some variety and other avenues of enjoyment into life.  There’s lots of studies that show working long hours actually reduces your productivity, so instead of focuses on putting in hours, focus on putting in quality.  You’ll be surprised how much you get done in a shorter time span.

Hope that this is helpful to all you aspiring Shakespeares out there.  Know that you don’t have to sacrifice your comfort to put in good, quality work.

Maintaining Your Beautiful Smile with Modern-Day Dentistry Options

Oral health has been a concern for long before Shakespeare wrote his classic works. As early as the medieval times, people took care of their teeth, though through crude means such as cleaning with charcoal, bloodletting in case of certain types of a toothache, and the use of amulets, charms, and herbs. Many of the oral health problems in existence now were experienced in those times such as tooth decay, bad breath as a result of tartar buildup, and herpes simplex which is thought to be referenced in Romeo and Juliet as blisters on the lips. Books were even published in the 15th century on tooth extraction, treatment of tooth decay and jaw fractures, and oral hygiene. There have been major advances in oral health procedures since then; doing away with the crude methods, taking away the terror, and making it easier to achieve a beautiful smile. Here are ways you could maintain or improve your facial appearance today with the help of Sunnyvale oral surgeons.

‘ Dental implants: whether you’ve lost your teeth as a result of poor oral hygiene or trauma, you don’t have to remain with toothless gaps or as was the case in the old times, have them replaced with animal teeth. Nowadays, highly educated oral surgeons can replace your teeth using dental implants. These are artificial teeth made of different materials; some of which resemble your natural ones. They are permanently attached to the jaw through titanium screw-like structures, bringing back your smile and the ability to bite ad chew comfortably. All this is done under anesthesia, meaning you won’t feel any pain during the procedure.

‘ Orthognathic Surgery: if you have skeletal or dental problems such as misaligned jaws and teeth, corrective oral surgery is able to realign your jaws and teeth so that you can be able to eat and talk properly. It also has aesthetic benefits including improving the appearance of your smile. Again, this process is painless due to the numbing effect of anesthesia. Sometimes, other orthodontic treatments are used. These include the use of braces and retainers to bring teeth back into their proper alignment. While traditional braces are very visible, newer types of treatment such as Invisalign offer similar benefits but are hardly noticeable.

‘ Root canal treatments: unlike in the old days when toothaches were treated through bleeding and crude methods of tooth extraction, there are painless methods of relieving toothache and saving the tooth. Root canal treatments clear infections that have reached the root of the tooth. This invasive, but painless procedure typically involves at least two appointments during which the roots are cleaned and sealed. The cavities are then filled with a permanent material some of which resemble the tooth. Crowns can be used to provide additional protection.

There are a lot of modern options to achieve and maintain a beautiful smile, relieve a toothache and restore full functionality of teeth. Some of these are cleft and cosmetic surgeries, dental bridges, teeth whitening products, and mouth guards. Despite these advancements, proper hygiene is still as important now as it was then thus regular brushing and proper flossing should be observed.

Why You Should Hire Cleaners for Your Home

House cleaning is not an enjoyable task for many. That aside, the sheer challenge of balancing home cleaning, motherhood, and work leaves many women with little or no extra time. Therefore, they can hardly engage in the little things that give them joy such as immersing themselves in their favorite Shakespeare works and engaging in other hobbies. If you find yourself with little time to spare, you can free some hours by letting someone such as a barefoot maid clean your house. Here’s why you should consider getting professional cleaning services.

  • Get free time: when you hire cleaning services, you are not only letting someone else handle the task you have difficulty tackling; you are also buying yourself some free time to handle other chores, relax, or indulge in a hobby.
  • Hire experts: you may not know how to get rid of the stubborn stains and unpleasant smells, but the cleaning service providers do. When you hire them, you can enjoy these benefits.
  • Get consistent cleaning: the maids you hire to clean your house can be relied on to clean your house as often and as regularly as you want. Therefore, you don’t have to compromise on the cleanliness of your house because other obligations took up all your time.
  • Before/After Contractor Work: Getting work done on your home can leave a mess.  Considering hiring a one-off cleaning service after work done by a construction company or other contractor.

Most cleaning companies will allow specifying some specific things you desire. You can provide your own products that will be used in cleaning, have them use your equipment like washing machines (if laundry service is included, see here for some options on washing machines). You can schedule the cleaning as is convenient for you and provide different levels of cleaning whether you want regular maintenance cleaning, deep cleaning, spring cleaning or thorough moving-out cleaning.

Also ask your construction company if they have a recommendation.  We recently used Tetra Construction and they provided info on a cleaning company they work with regularly.

Things to Find Out Before You Select a Tutor in Los Angeles

Shakespeare’s works didn’t just make a mark in theatres. It also found its way into the American classrooms. His plays, like Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and Hamlet feature in the English curriculum taught in American high schools. Though great, the works are profound and not easy for many people to understand, making the services of tutors necessary to help students understand and excel in tasks that involve Shakespeare’s work. It is, however, important to find a good tutor. You’ll find tips below on how to find the best tutor for your child from a large number of Local tutors in LA.

Education and Experience

The tutor you choose needs to possess the core knowledge necessary to help your child. You need to find out the level of education the tutor has and in what field. For the English classes involving Shakespeare’ work, what better person to help you than someone who has immersed himself/herself in Bard’s work after high school. It’s even better if you find one who has been teaching such lessons for a while. If you are considering someone who isn’t an experienced tutor, it is important that s/he should have recently gone through similar classes and excelled. In trying to determine just h qualified the tutor is, you should also find out the examination boards the tutor is familiar with.

You need to know where the tutor is willing to hold the tutoring sessions. This might not be an issue if you intend to use a virtual learning platform because then, distance is not an issue and the child can learn from the comfort of their home. However, if you think learning will take place better in a face to face session, you’ll need to agree on a meeting place.

Teaching Methods

You also need to determine the tutor’s teaching methods. Ask about how the long the session would need to be, how they will be made engaging, how they’ll be made fun, and who will be responsible for arranging the materials required for the lessons.  For instance, different subjects require different equipment, the same things needed for an english lesson will be different then graphic laptops needed for heavy computing needs.

You need to know if the tutor will provide the reading and writing materials or if you need to factor this in your costs. It is also important to find out how the tutor tracks the progress of the child. Does s/he give homework and if so, what amount. This is because a little work may be beneficial as long as it doesn’t overwhelm a child who already has homework from school. Further, find out how assessments are done.

Find out if there are any clients the tutor has worked with. If the tutor can provide testimonials, it can give you a better insight into what it will be like working with him/her. It is also the best way to find out if there are any issues to be concerned about. Though testimonials might be sufficient evidence of the tutor’s abilities, you should also check to make sure that the documentation presented is current.

Most importantly, you need to ensure maximum protection for your child. Therefore, you must check the tutor’s criminal record to make sure they are not wanted for any crime, and they are not listed as previous or wanted sex offenders.

Richard III: Plays as Propaganda

Works of art and literature being used to forward a specific agenda is nothing new. In fact, even the great bard took part in this practice. The best example of this is his play Richard III which centers on the evil title character, chronicling his rise and fall from power.

Set during the final years of the Wars of the Roses, it basically shows how King Richard III’s so-called wicked reign set England towards one of its darkest periods. However, by the end of the play, we see order, peace, and prosperity restored with King Henry VII’s reign.

The play was written when Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne. If you were not aware, Elizabeth I was a member of the House of Tudor. Her grandfather was Henry, Earl of Richmond who would later become King Henry VII. He would earn this title after deposing Richard III off the throne. His ascent to power would establish the Tudor dynasty.

The play shows what many historians refer to as the Tudor myth. The play forwards the legitimacy of the reigning noble house while also vilifying its rivals.

Macbeth’s Descent

Macbeth is a character that has inspired countless others in media and literature. He represents a protagonist’s journey from being the hero to the villain of his own story. Portraying a sense of tragedy and poetry, this descent into evil has been shown several times in popular culture, most recently in Breaking Bad’s Walter White. However, while these stories are good in their own right, it is vital that people understand that Shakespeare did it first.

At the start of the play, Macbeth is introduced as its warrior hero. His victories in battlefield would eventually win him great honor from the king. Essentially, Macbeth is a fully realized character with his own set of insecurities and weaknesses. This goes against the opinion many people have of him. As he murders King Duncan, he is filled with doubt and uncertainty.

As the play progresses, however, notable changes appear with Macbeth’s personality. The events in the play show how he would become the dominant partner in his marriage as he descends further into guilt and madness. However, like with all tragedies, he acquires an excess of pride and hubris which would lead to his eventual downfall.