Gandhi's Swadeshi - The Economics of Permanence Satish Kumar Of the editor: The teachings of Mahatma Gandhi were powerful enough to play a major role in the nonviolent revolution that overthrew British colonialism in India. They are clearly still of utmost relevance today. Central to Gandhi's philosophy was the principle of 'swadeshi', which, in effect, means local self-sufficiency. Satish Kumar elaborates on this important concept. Kumar is a Gandhian scholar and also a thinker and activist in the tradition of E.F. Mahatma Gandhi was a champion of 'swadeshi', or home economy. For Gandhi, the spirit and the soul of India rested in the village communities. Principals of Swadeshi Gandhi's vision of a free India was not a nation-state but a confederation of self-governing, self-reliant, self-employed people living in village communities, deriving their right livelihood from the products of their homesteads. Swadeshi avoids economic dependence on external market forces that could make the village community vulnerable.
Anne McCaffrey Anne Inez McCaffrey (1 April 1926 – 21 November 2011)[1][2] was an American-born Irish writer, best known for the Dragonriders of Pern science fiction series. Early in McCaffrey's 46-year career as a writer, she became the first woman to win a Hugo Award for fiction and the first to win a Nebula Award. Her 1978 novel The White Dragon became one of the first science-fiction books to appear on the New York Times Best Seller list. In 2005 the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America named McCaffrey its 22nd Grand Master, an annual award to living writers of fantasy and science fiction.[3][4] She was inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame on 17 June 2006.[5][6][7] Life and career[edit] In 1950 she married Horace Wright Johnson (died 2009),[13] who shared her interests in music, opera and ballet. Except for a short time in Düsseldorf, the family lived for most of a decade in Wilmington, Delaware. Writer[edit] McCaffrey had had two short stories published during the 1950s.
Hendrik Christian Andersen Hendrik Christian Andersen (April 15, 1872, in Bergen – December 19, 1940, in Rome) was a Norwegian-American sculptor, painter and urban planner. Background[edit] Andersen was born in Bergen, Norway, of parents Anders Andersen from Lærdal and Helene Monsine Monsen from Bergen. He immigrated as an infant with his family to Newport, Rhode Island the following year. As a young man in Newport, Andersen began his work as a sculptor and learned to mingle among the city’s wealthy elite, including serving as an art instructor for Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney.[1] In 1893, Andersen traveled to Europe to study art and eventually settled in Rome. The World City[edit] Stone sculpture by Hendrik Andersen. Andersen’s sculpture, paintings and writings demonstrate a fondness for large monumental classically inspired pieces, which, he believed, stirred in the viewer a desire for self-improvement. Evident in the treatise is Andersen’s philosophy that art could change humanity and produce perfection.
Ada Lovelace Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852), born Augusta Ada Byron and now commonly known as Ada Lovelace, was an English mathematician and writer chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. Her notes on the engine include what is recognised as the first algorithm intended to be carried out by a machine. Because of this, she is often described as the world's first computer programmer.[1][2][3] Ada described her approach as "poetical science" and herself as an "Analyst (& Metaphysician)". Biography[edit] Childhood[edit] Ada Lovelace was born Augusta Ada Byron on 10 December 1815, the child of the poet George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, and Anne Isabella "Annabella" Milbanke, Baroness Byron. Ada, aged four On 16 January 1816, Annabella, at George's behest, left for her parents' home at Kirkby Mallory taking one-month-old Ada with her. Ada, aged seventeen, 1832 Adult years[edit] Work[edit]
Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (/kænt/;[1] German: [ɪˈmaːnu̯eːl kant]; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher who is widely considered to be a central figure of modern philosophy. He argued that fundamental concepts structure human experience, and that reason is the source of morality. His thought continues to have a major influence in contemporary thought, especially the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics.[2] Kant's major work, the Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 1781),[3] aimed to explain the relationship between reason and human experience. Kant argued that our experiences are structured by necessary features of our minds. Kant aimed to resolve disputes between empirical and rationalist approaches. Biography[edit] Immanuel Kant was born in 1724 in Königsberg, Prussia (since 1946 the city of Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia). Young Kant was a solid, albeit unspectacular, student. Young scholar[edit] [edit]
Swadeshi Economics Swadeshi and the economic development of India Stu Crawford Mohandas Gandhi presented a very useful and well thought out model for economic development in India. Gandhi's model of economic development was based on Swadeshi(2). Swadeshi dictates that it is each person's duty to find neighbors who can supply our wants. An understanding of economics shows us that buying things from distant people can be harmful. The following quote from Gandhi emphasizes the non-violence aspect of Swadeshi(3). I would urge that Swadeshi is the only doctrine consistent with the law of humility and love. The motive will determine the quality of the act. Or I may recognize that God has given me hands and feet only to work with for my sustenance and for that of those who may be dependent upon me. The Swadeshi model of economic development serves India at the exclusion of every other country, but does so in such a way as to not harm any other country in the process. References cited Anialski, M., A. Vitousek, P.
Charles Addams Charles Samuel "Chas" Addams[2] (January 7, 1912 – September 29, 1988) was an American cartoonist known for his darkly humorous and macabre characters. Some of the recurring characters, who became known as The Addams Family, have been the basis for spin-offs in several other media. Biography[edit] Life[edit] Charles Samuel Addams was born in Westfield, New Jersey, the son of Grace M. and Charles Huy Addams, a piano-company executive who had studied to be an architect.[3] He was known as "something of a rascal around the neighborhood" as childhood friends recalled.[4] Addams was distantly related to U.S. presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams, despite the different spellings of their last names, and was a first cousin twice removed to noted social reformer Jane Addams.[4][5] A house on Elm Street, and another on Dudley Avenue that police once caught him breaking into, are said to be the inspiration for the Addams Family mansion in his cartoons. Addams was "sociable and debonair."
Golden Age of Freethought The golden age of freethought describes the socio-political movement promoting freethought that developed in the mid 19th-century United States. The period roughly from 1875 to 1914 is referred to as "the high-water mark of freethought as an influential movement in American society".[1] It began around 1856 and lasted at least through the end of the century; author Susan Jacoby places the end of the Golden Age at the start of World War I. Freethought is a philosophical position that holds that ideas and opinions should be based on science and reason, and not restricted by authority, tradition, or religion.[2] The Golden Age was encouraged by the lectures of the extremely popular agnostic orator Robert G. Ingersoll, the popularization of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species, the push for woman’s suffrage, and other political, scientific, and social trends that clashed with religious orthodoxy and caused people to question their traditional ideas about the world.[3] Charles Knowlton, D.
David Norris (politician) Norris is a former university lecturer and a member of the Oireachtas, serving in Seanad Éireann since 1987.[6] He was the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in Ireland.[7] Founder of the Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform, he is also a prominent member of the Church of Ireland. He was a candidate for President of Ireland in the October 2011 election. He topped numerous opinion polls and was favourite among members of the Irish public for the position but withdrew from the race months before the election,[8][9][10] before returning to the race in September 2011.[11][12] David Norris was born in Leopoldville in the Belgian Congo, now known as Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where his father (John Norris) worked as chief engineer for Lever Brothers.[13] John Norris served in the British Armed Forces during World War I and World War II; he died while Norris was still a child. "It destroyed my sense of reality," he adds, now.
Thomas Paine Paine lived in France for most of the 1790s, becoming deeply involved in the French Revolution. He wrote the Rights of Man (1791), in part a defence of the French Revolution against its critics. His attacks on British writer Edmund Burke led to a trial and conviction in absentia in 1792 for the crime of seditious libel. In 1792, despite not being able to speak French, he was elected to the French National Convention. In December 1793, he was arrested and imprisoned in Paris, then released in 1794. Early life[edit] Paine was born on January 29, 1736[Note 1] (NS February 9, 1737) the son of Joseph Pain, or Paine, a Quaker, and Frances (née Cocke), an Anglican, in Thetford, an important market town and coach stage-post, in rural Norfolk, England.[6] Born Thomas Pain, despite claims that he changed his family name upon his emigration to America in 1774,[7] he was using Paine in 1769, whilst still in Lewes, Sussex.[8] Thomas Paine's house in Lewes He barely survived the transatlantic voyage.
Conde McGinley Michael Conde McGinley (October 13, 1890 – July 2, 1963) editor of a semi-monthly paper called Common Sense, received national attention for a brief period due to his campaign against the nomination of Anna M. Rosenberg, which led to an investigation by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Early life[edit] Born in Norman, Oklahoma, the eldest of three surviving children of Irish immigrant Connell B. McGinley (1852 – 1941) and his wife, Catherine. McGinley preferred to be known by his middle name Conde. Career[edit] Common Sense[edit] McGinley moved to New Jersey in 1929, opening a chain of restaurants along the shore. The paper's contributor, Col. Involvement with the House Un-American Activities Committee[edit] At the confirmation hearings for Anna Rosenberg, McGinley and others associated with him were prominently figured, including Benjamin H. Growth of the hate group in recent years is exemplified by the publishing endeavors of Conde J. Christian Education Association[edit] [edit]
Charles Bukowski Life and work[edit] Family and early years[edit] Charles Bukowski was born as Heinrich Karl Bukowski in Andernach, Germany, to Heinrich (Henry) Bukowski and Katharina (née Fett). His paternal grandfather Leonard had emigrated to America from Germany in the 1880s. In Cleveland, Leonard met Emilie Krause, who had emigrated from Danzig, Germany (today Gdańsk, northern Poland). Charles Bukowski's parents met in Andernach in western Germany following World War I. The family settled in South Central Los Angeles in 1930, the city where Charles Bukowski's father and grandfather had previously worked and lived.[8][10] In the '30s the poet's father was often unemployed. In his early teens, Bukowski had an epiphany when he was introduced to alcohol by his loyal friend William "Baldy" Mullinax, depicted as "Eli LaCrosse" in Ham on Rye, son of an alcoholic surgeon. Early writing[edit] In 1955 he was treated for a near-fatal bleeding ulcer. 1960s[edit] Black Sparrow years[edit] Charles Bukowski in 1990
Age of Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment (or simply the Enlightenment, or Age of Reason) is an era from the 1650s to the 1780s in which cultural and intellectual forces in Western Europe emphasized reason, analysis and individualism rather than traditional lines of authority. It was promoted by philosophes and local thinkers in urban coffeehouses, salons and masonic lodges. It challenged the authority of institutions that were deeply rooted in society, such as the Catholic Church; there was much talk of ways to reform society with toleration, science and skepticism. New ideas and beliefs spread around the continent and were fostered by an increase in literacy due to a departure from solely religious texts. Use of the term[edit] The term "Enlightenment" emerged in English in the later part of the 19th century,[2] with particular reference to French philosophy, as the equivalent of the French term 'Lumières' (used first by Dubos in 1733 and already well established by 1751). Time span[edit] Goals[edit]
Genesis P-Orridge Genesis P-Orridge (born Neil Andrew Megson; 22 February 1950), later known as Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, is an English singer-songwriter, musician, poet, writer and performance artist. In the latter capacity P-Orridge was the founder of the COUM Transmissions artistic collective, which operated from 1969 to 1975. As a musician, P-Orridge fronted the pioneering industrial band Throbbing Gristle between 1975 and 1981, and then the experimental band Psychic TV from 1981 to 1999. An occultist, P-Orridge is also a founding member of Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth. P-Orridge's early confrontational performance work in COUM Transmissions, during the late 1960s and early 1970s, along with Throbbing Gristle, which dealt with subjects such as sex work, pornography, serial killers, occultism and P-Orridge's own exploration of gender issues, generated controversy — later musical work with Psychic TV received wider exposure. Early life[edit] Childhood: 1950–1964[edit] Solihull School, designed by J.