After observing the syzygy last night, Joseph de Ca'th Lon, Claire Fontaine and The Grandma have decided to have a good breakfast in Àger and visit the medieval city and the CollegiateCastleof Sant Pere.
Then, they have taken their cameras, zooms and binoculars and have headed towards the Mont-rebei Gorge, a spectacularly wonderful and unique natural space located between Pallars Jussà, LaNoguera and BaixaRibagorça, this in the part known as the Franja, the territories of Catalan language and culture that are part of Aragon. The journey was spectacular and the three friends have enjoyed another of their great hobbies: ornithology.
In the middle of the Vall d'Àger, high on a hill stands the ancient canonry of Sant Pere, one of the most important sites of the Catalan Romanesque. Surrounded by a wall and situated in a strategic point that dominates the entirety of the valley, its stones bear evidence to a part of the history of the Christian conquest.
The origin of the site is found in the castle erected by the Arabs. The vall d'Àger, like the majority of the territories in Lleida, was under Islamic control at the beginning of the 8th century. It wasn't until the end of the 11th century that the Christians, commanded by Arnau Mir de Tost, occupied the fortification.
Arnau Mir and his wife Arsenda converted the castle into their political centre and residence and ordered the construction of the church of Sant Pere, soon housing a community of canonries.
The building that formed the ancient canonry exemplifies diverse styles, transformations and constructions: the major church, with an older part that shaped the crypt, the Romanesque cloister that in the 14th century was substituted for a Gothic cloister under the orders of Pere I, Count of Urgell, and Gothic dependencies, renovated in some cases to match new styles, like the Renaissance refectory.
After a time of splendor, largely due to the privilege of Episcopal exemption, the Sant Pere de Àger went into decline in the 15th century due to the depopulation of the Vall d'Àger and the war against Joan II. The 16th century marked the secularisation of the abbey which was later converted into a collegiate church. The canonry didn’t resist the passage of time and was crumbling from the devastation of wars, sieges and pillaging, the Segadors, the war of Sucession and the Peninsular War, among others.
Sant Pere is a fortified site with Romanesque and Neogothic touches, erected in the 11th century by Arnau Mir de Tost, leader of the county of Urgell. With this operation the leader wanted to obtain political and religious power at the same time, creating canonical site that would directly depend on the Holy See.
The foundations rest on the remains of a Roman castle, subsequently seized and also reconverted by the Arabs. The site was built during the 11th century: the castle-palace and the collegiate church, which was managed by a canonical order.
In the church we can still see the section with the three naves headed by three apses, although this basilical layout was incorporated in later works. The bell tower dates back to the 12th century, and took the defensive style of the site due to strategic recommendations, for the site bordered the Arab part of Catalunya. The building works of the church's cloister, initiated by Count Pere Urgell, took place between the 14th and the 15th centuries.
Important relics of the rich interior decoration are still preserved, such as ornaments and Romanesque mural paintings, in the Museu Diocesà de Lleida, in the Catalonia National Art Museum and in the United States.
It must be added that the sculptures are also noteworthy, and they follow the same style lines as those in the Barcelona Cathedral.
The Mont-rebei Gorge is a place that is part of the Noguera Ribagorçana-Mont Rebei Partial Natural Reserve. It is located on the border between Aragon and Catalunya. To the west, is the Baixa Ribagorça (Franja) and to the east the Pallars Jussà and the Noguera (Catalunya). It is formed in the narrowest part where the Noguera Ribagorçana river crosses the Montsec mountain range.
On the south-eastern side, it belongs to the municipality of Àger, in LaNoguera; on the north-eastern side, to Sant Esteve de la Sarga, in Pallars Jussà. On the western side, it belongs to the municipality of Viacamp i Lliterà, in BaixaRibagorça.
It is a place of undoubted ecological value for the wild fauna that it houses, among which birds of prey should be highlighted, and for the beauty of its rugged landscape. It is very attractive for climbers and speleologists, as there are excellent walls and a cave such as La Colomera. The maintenance of the reserve is in charge of the Fundació Catalunya-La Pedrera.
It can be reached by road from the Montanyana and Sant Esteve de la Sarga bridges to the north, and from Àger to the south. There is an unguarded public car park located on the plain formed by the eastern bank, just north of the gorge. There is an information hut and in the summer educational talks are held there.
On the Aragonese side, the right bank of the river, north of the gorge, is dominated by the tower of Girbeta Castle and two Romanesque churches: Nostra Senyora del Congost and Nostra Senyora del Congost Vella, the latter in ruins.
On the Catalan side, the passage through the gorge is made entirely by a path dug into the rock, and in some places by tunnel. It should be remembered that this path is located at high altitude and does not have a railing, so it is not recommended for children or those who suffer from vertigo. To the south, the path gains altitude and runs along the slopes of the mountain until you can see the reservoir.
The Mont-rebei Gorge is, without a doubt, one of the most unique natural spaces in the Pre-Pyrenees, both from a landscape point of view, as it is the only large gorge free of infrastructure, and for its great biodiversity.
Several interesting faunal species live there. Among the birds, there are many large birds of prey typical of the cliffs: the bearded vulture (Gypaetus barbatus), the sable (Neophron percnopterus), the griffon vulture (Gyps fulvus), the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos), the peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus), as well as the yellow-billed jackdaw (Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax) and red-billed jackdaw (Pyrrhocorax graculus) and the rockhopper (Tichodroma muraria). Among the mammals, there is the common otter (Lutra lutra), the wildcat (Felis silvestris), the marten (Martes martes), the roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), the mole (Talpa europaea) and numerous species of bats.
Joseph de Ca'th Lon arrived in Barcelona yesterday to spend four days with TheGrandma.
This afternoon, they have taken their telescopes and an Avant to Lleida where Claire Fontaine was waiting for them to organize their visit to Àger, where tonight they hope that the sky will be with them, there will not be many clouds and they can contemplate the syzygy or planetaryalignment of six planets and the Moon, a spectacle that does not happen every day and that is always something fascinating to see and experience. Once they have arrived in Lleida, they have driven along the C12 to this beautiful town that hosts one of the best Astronomical Parks in the country.
Àger is a municipality of 637 population in the comarca of La Noguera in Catalunya. It is situated in the north-west of the comarca, and the territory of the municipality stretches between the Noguera Ribagorçana and Noguera Pallaresa rivers. The Terradets reservoir on the Noguera Pallaresa is situated within the municipality. The village is linked to Balaguer and Tremp by the L-904 road.
In astronomy, a syzygy (from Ancient Greek συζυγία (suzugía) union, yoking, expressing the sense of σύν (syn- together) and ζυγ- (zug- a yoke) is a roughly straight-line configuration of three or more celestial bodies in a gravitational system.
The word is often used in reference to the Sun, Earth, and either the Moon or a planet, where the latter is in conjunction or opposition. Solar and lunar eclipses occur at times of syzygy, as do transits and occultations.
A syzygy sometimes results in an occultation, transit, or an eclipse.
-An occultation occurs when an apparently larger body passes in front of an apparently smaller one, obscuring it from view.
-A transit occurs when a smaller body passes in front of a larger one.
-In the combined case where the smaller body regularly transits the larger, an occultation is also termed a secondary eclipse. It is commonly used to refer to cases where a planet travels behind its host star as viewed from Earth.
-An eclipse occurs when a body totally or partially disappears from view, either by an occultation, as with a solar eclipse, or by passing into the shadow of another body, as with a lunar eclipse.
The term is also used to describe situations when all the planets are on the same side of the Sun although they are not necessarily in a straight line, such as on March 10, 1982.
Apparent planetary alignment involving Mercury, Venus, Mars, andJupiter; the Moon is also shown, as the brightest object.
Because the orbits of all the planets in the Solar System (as well as the Moon) are inclined by only a few degrees, they always appear very near the ecliptic in our sky. Therefore, although an apparent planetary alignment known as a planetary parade may appear as a line (actually, a great arc), the planets are not necessarily aligned in space.
Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.
Today, The Grandma has started reading The Navajo People and Uranium Mining a very interesting book about one of the darkest and hardest stories that the Navajo Nation is still suffering, the uraniummining.
The Grandma is a great admirer of Native American cultures, especially the Navajo,since she became interested in studying their language over twenty years ago.
Naabeehó Bináhásdzo(The Navajo Nation) is a Native Americanreservation of Navajo people in the United States. It occupies portions of northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southeastern Utah. The seat of government is located in Window Rock, Arizona.
At roughly 71,000 km2, the Navajo Nation is the largest Indian reservation in the United States, exceeding the size of ten U.S. states. It is one of the few reservations whose lands overlap the nation's traditional homelands.
In 2010, the reservation was home to 173,667 out of 332,129 Navajo tribal members; the remaining 158,462 tribal members lived outside the reservation, in urban areas (26%), border towns (10%), and elsewhere in the U.S. (17%).
In 2020, the number of tribal members increased to 399,494, surpassing the Cherokee Nation as the largest tribal group by enrollment.
The United States gained ownership of what is today Navajoland in 1848 after the end of the Mexican-American War. The reservation was first established in 1868 within New Mexico Territory, initially spanning roughly 13,000 km2; it subsequently straddled what became the Arizona-New Mexico border in 1912, when the states were admitted to the union. Unlike many reservations in the U.S., it has since expanded several times since its formation, reaching its current boundaries in 1934 and retained sovereignty.
The official language of the Navajo Nation is Navajo Diné Bizaad.
The Navajo People and Uranium Mining (2006) is a non-fiction book edited by Doug Brugge, Timothy Benally, and Esther Yazzie-Lewis; ituses oral histories to tell the stories of Navajo Nation families and miners in the uranium mining industry. The foreword is written by Stewart L. Udall, former U.S. Secretary of the Interior.
The Navajo People and Uranium Mining has 12 chapters. Seven chapters contain stories of the Navajo told through interviews of the miners or their families. The remaining chapters describe the health effects related to uraniummining, and how these medical issues adversely affected the lives of the miners and their families.
The relationship between uranium mining and the Navajo people began in 1944 in northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, andsoutheastern Utah.
In the 1950s, the Navajo Nation was situated directly in the uranium mining belt that experienced a boom in production, and many residents found work in the mines. Prior to 1962, the risks of lung cancer due to uranium mining were unknown to the workers, and the lack of a word for radiation in the Navajo language left the miners unaware of the associated health hazards.
The Navajo Nation was affected by the United States' largest radioactive accident during the Church Rock uranium mill spill in 1979 when a tailings pond upstream from Navajo County breached its dam and sent radioactive waste down the Puerco River, injuring people and killing livestock.
The cultural significance of water for the Navajo people and the environmental damage to both the land and livestock inhibits the ability of the Navajo people to practice their culture.
On the Navajo Nation, approximately 15% of people do not have access to running water. Navajo Nation residents are often forced to resort to unregulated water sources that are susceptible to bacteria, fecal matter, and uranium. Extensive uranium mining in the region during the mid-20th century is a contemporary concern because of contamination of these commonly used sources, in addition to the lingering health effects of exposure from mining.
Water on the Navajo Nation currently has an average of 90 micrograms per litre of uranium, with some areas reaching upwards of 700 micrograms per litre. In contrast, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers 30 micrograms per litre the safe amount of uranium to have in water sources. Health impacts of uranium consumption include kidney damage and failure, as kidneys are unable to filter uranium out of the bloodstream. There is an average rate of End Stage Renal Disease of 0.63% in the Navajo Nation, a rate significantly higher than the national average of 0.19%.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been cleaning up uraniummines on the Navajo Nation since as part of settlements through the Superfund since 1994. The Abandoned Mine Land program and Contaminated Structures Program have facilitated the cleanup of mines and demolition of structures built with radioactive materials. Criticisms of unfair, inefficient treatment have been made repeatedly of EPA by Navajos and journalists.
In October 2021, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights agreed to hear a case filed by the Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining, which accused the United States government of violating the human rights of Navajo Nation members. Environmental journalist Cody Nelson explains further that: the US government and its Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) have violated their human rights by licensing uranium mines in their communities (Nelson, Ignored for 70 Years': Human Rights Group to Investigate Uranium Contamination on Navajo Nation). Nelson also describes that There is moral value in having an international human rights body lay bare the abuses of the nuclear industry and the US government's complicity in those abuses.
In 1944, uranium mining under the U.S military's Manhattan Project began on Navajo Nation lands and on Lakota Nation lands.
On August 1, 1946, the responsibility for atomic science and technology was transferred from the military to the United States Atomic Energy Commission. Authors Dr. Doug Brugge and Dr. Rob Goble from the National Library of Medicine explain that After its initial dependence on foreign sources, the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) announced in 1948 that it would guarantee a price for and purchase all uranium ore mined in the United States. This initiated a mining 'boom' on the Colorado Plateau in New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, and Arizona that replaced a more limited mining industry centered first on radium and then vanadium, which are found in the same easy-to-mine, soft sandstone ore. The US government remained, by law, the sole purchaser of uranium in the United States until 1971, but private companies operated the mines (Brugge and Goble, The History of Uranium Mining and the Navajo People). Widespread uranium mining began on Navajo and Lakota lands in a nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War.
Large uranium deposits were mined on and near the Navajo Reservation in the Southwest, and these were developed through the 20th century. Absent much environmental regulation prior to the founding of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 and passage of related laws, the mining endangered thousands of Navajo workers, as well as producing contamination that has persisted in adversely affecting air and water quality, and contaminating Navajo lands.
Private companies hired thousands of Navajo men to work the uraniummines. Disregarding the known health risks of exposure to uranium, the private companies and the United States Atomic Energy Commission failed to inform the Navajo workers about the dangers and to regulate the mining to minimize contamination. As more data was collected, they were slow to take appropriate action for the workers.
In 1951, the U.S. Public Health Service began a human testing experiment on Navajo miners, without their informed consent, during the federal government's study of the long term health effects from radiation poisoning. Navajo pathologist Phillida A. Charley states that The Navajo miners were never told about the health or environmental effects of mining uranium and that Some miners took rocks from the mines to build their homes or chimneys (Charley, Walking in Beauty A Navajo scientist confronts the legacy of uranium mining). The Navajo miners continued to work, unaware of the experiment, nor the significant health impacts.
In 1932, the USPHS began an earlier human testing experiment on African men in their Tuskegee syphilis experiment. The experiment on Navajo mine workers and their families documented high rates of cancers (including Xerodermapigmentosum) and other diseases which manifested from uranium mining and milling contamination. For decades, industry and the government failed to regulate or improve conditions, or inform workers of the dangers. As high rates of illness began to occur, workers were often unsuccessful in court cases seeking compensation, and the states at first did not officially recognize radon illness. In 1990, the US Congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, to address cases of uranium poisoning and provide needed compensation, but Navajo Nation applicants provide evidence RECA requirements prevent access to necessary compensation. Congressional modifications to RECA application requirements were made in 2000, and were introduced in 2017 and in 2018.
Since 1988, the Navajo Nation's Abandoned Mine Lands program reclaims mines and cleans mining sites, but significant problems from the legacy of uranium mining and milling persist today on the Navajo Nation and in the states of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. More than a thousand abandoned mines have not been contained and cleaned up, and these present environmental and health risks in Navajo communities. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that there are 4000 mines with documented uranium production, and another 15,000 locations with uranium occurrences in 14 western states. Most are located in the Four Corners area and Wyoming.
The Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act (1978) is a United States environmental law that amended the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 and authorized the Environmental Protection Agency to establish health and environmental standards for the stabilization, restoration, and disposal of uranium mill waste. Cleanup has continued to be difficult, and EPA administers several Superfund sites located on the Navajo Nation.
On April 29, 2005, Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. signed the DinéNatural Resources Protection Act of 2005 that outlaws uranium mining and processing on Navajo Nation lands.
Pressure for uranium mining increased in the postwar years, when the United States developed resources to compete with the Soviet Union in the Cold War.
In 1948, the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) announced it would be the sole purchaser of any uranium mined in the United States, to cut off dependence on imported uranium. The AEC would not mine the uranium; it contracted with private mining companies for the product. The subsequent mining boom led to the creation of thousands of mines; 92% of all western mines were located on the Colorado Plateau because of regional resources.
The Navajo Nation encompasses portions of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, and their reservation was a key area for uranium mining. More than 1000 mines were established by leases in the reservation. From 1944 to 1986, an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 Navajo people worked in the uranium mines on their land. Other work was scarce on and near the reservation, and many Navajo men traveled miles to work in the mines, sometimes taking their families with them. Between 1944 and 1989, 3.9 million tons of uranium ore were mined from the mountains and plains.
In 1951, the US Public Health Service began a massive human medical experiment on approximately 4000 Navajo uranium miners, without their informed consent. Neither the miners nor their families were warned of the risks from nuclear radiation and contamination as USPHS continued their experiment. In 1955, USPHS took active control of Native American medical health services from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the experiments on nuclear radiation continued.
In 1962 it published the first report to show a statistical correlation between cancer and uranium mining. The federal government finally regulated the standard amount of radon in mines, setting the level at .3 working level (WL) on January 1, 1969, but Navajo people attending mining schools before working in the mines were still not informed of the health risks from uranium poisoning in 1971. Reports continued to be published from USPHS's non-consensual medical experiments at least until 1998. The Environmental Protection Agency was established on December 2, 1970. But, environmental regulation could not repair the damage already suffered.
Navajo miners contracted a variety of cancers including lung cancer at much higher rates than the rest of the U.S. population, and they have suffered higher rates of other lung diseases caused by breathing in radon.
Private companies resisted regulation through lobbying Congress and state legislatures. In 1990, the United States Congress finally passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), granting reparations for those affected by the radiation. The act was amended in 2000 to address criticisms and problems with the original legislation.
The tribal council and Navajo delegates remained in control of mining decisions before the adverse health effects of mining were identified. No one fully understood the effect of radon exposure for miners, as there was insufficient data before the expansion of mining.
Beginning in the 1960s, uranium miners were beginning to become ill with cancer at increasing rates. The state of Utah did not recognize radiation exposure at the time as a category of illness, making workers compensation unattainable for many of the sick Navajo (Dawson and Madsen 2007). Private industry's treatment of the Navajo workers was poor, according to recent standards: companies failed to educate workers on precautionary measures, did not install sufficient engineering controls, such as adequate ventilation; and did not provide sufficient safety equipment to protect workers to the known dangers related to the mines.
The Navajo were never told of the radiation effects, and did not have a word for it in their language. Many Navajo did not speak English and trusted the uranium companies to have their interests in mind. Navajo workers and residents have felt betrayed as the results of the studies became known, as well as the long delays by companies and the US government to try to prevent the damage, and to pay compensation. Lung cancer became so prevalent among the Navajo people that working in uranium mines was banned on Navajo lands in 2005.
Following the Gold King Mine Spill in 2015, farmers lost 75% of their crops due to the lack of clean water. The EPA provided the Navajo with water, but it was contaminated with oil, poisoning the land and killing the livestock.
Duane Yazzie, a Navajo Tribe member, spoke about the spiritual and cultural importance that agriculture plays in the Navajo culture and how both the oil and uranium contamination infringed upon their ability to practice their culture.
In the case of environmental hazards such as the Gold King mine spill, the EPA offers The Standard Form 95 where claims of economic damages, unemployment, loss of income, or damage to property can be filed as a result of an environmental incident. The Standard Form 95 is also a form of environmental racism according to Jade Begay, director of policy and advocacy for the Indigenous-led organization NDN Collective. They explain that The President of the Navajo Nation, Russell Begaye, has announced that he intends to take legal action against the EPA, which has taken full responsibility for this spill. Mr. Begaye has also warned Diné people NOT to use or sign Form 95 for Damage, Injury or Death as a result of Gold King Mine Release (Begay, Tó Éí Ííńá (Water Is Life): The Impact of the Gold Mine Spill on the Navajo Nation). Ethel Branch, the Navajo Nation attorney general also said this form contained backhanded, offensive language that would diminish one's ability to get full financial compensation and restrict their ability to file additional, future claims.
Arizona, our beautiful state, was built on mining. Copper is huge here, and now uranium. And then we have the federal government coming in, writing all these rules and regulations and telling us that we can't do this and we can't do that. We need concise, clear answers.
The Grandma is not a person of habits, but on Thursdays, when she is not outside of Barcelona, she usually does one of her favourite activities: having breakfast with her friends.
As soon as she leaves her home, she crosses the street that separates Sants from Les Corts and, in five minutes, she is in front of the Camp Nou where, after looking at it for a while and discussing with the grandparents in the neighbourhood the current state of the works, she has breakfast with her friends, including Claire Fontaine. Some of them work in a public administration department and others in one of the best clubs in the world.
Breakfasts always serve to catch up on national health issues and dark sports stories of those that are only told to you off the record and that later, after a more or less short time, end up appearing in the national press, because one of the important things that all these friends point out is that sooner or later you always end up knowing the truth.
After breakfast, if weather permits, The Grandma heads to the gardens of LaMaternitat, where she spends the rest of the morning reading a good book. Today she has chosen Le Dernier Jour d'un Condamné by Victor Hugo, the author who was born on a day like today in 1802.
The weather has changed from grey clouds to bright sunshine and a cool breeze that has made reading enjoyable. It has also been a good opportunity to read in French, a wonderful language.
Victor-Marie Hugo, vicomte Hugo (26 February 1802-22 May 1885) was a French Romantic author, poet, essayist, playwright, journalist, humanrights activist and politician.
His most famous works are the novels The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831) and Les Misérables (1862). In France, Hugo is renowned for his poetry collections, such as Les Contemplations and La Légende des siècles. Hugo was at the forefront of the Romantic literary movement with his play Cromwell and drama Hernani. His works have inspired music, both during his lifetime and after his death, including the opera Rigoletto and the musicals Les Misérables and Notre-Dame de Paris. He produced more than 4,000 drawings in his lifetime, and campaigned for social causes such as the abolition of capital punishment and slavery.
Although he was a committed royalist when young, Hugo's views changed as the decades passed, and he became a passionate supporter of republicanism, serving in politics as both deputy and senator. His work touched upon most of the political and social issues and the artistic trends of his time. His opposition to absolutism, and his literary stature, established him as a national hero. Hugo died on 22 May 1885, aged 83.
He was given a state funeral in the Panthéon of Paris, which was attended by over two million people, the largest in French history.
Hugo
was at the forefront of the romantic literary movement. Many of his works have inspired music, both
during his lifetime and after his death, including the musicals Notre-Dame de Paris and Les Misérables.
He produced more than 4,000 drawings in his lifetime, and campaigned
for social causes such as the abolition of capital punishment.
Though a committed royalist when he was young, Hugo's
views changed as the decades passed, and he became a passionate
supporter of republicanism; his work touches upon most of the political
and social issues and the artistic trends of his time.
Victor-Marie
Hugo was born on 26 February 1802 (7 Ventôse, year X of the Republic)
in Besançon in Eastern France and died on 22 May 1885.
Le Dernier Jour d'un Condamnéis a novella by Victor Hugo first published in 1829. It recounts the thoughts of a man condemned to die. Victor Hugo wrote this novel to express his feelings that the death penalty should be abolished.
Victor Hugo witnessed the spectacle of the guillotine several times and was outraged that society coolly gives itself permission to do what it condemns the accused for having done. It was the day after crossing the Place de l'Hotel de Ville where an executioner was greasing the guillotine in anticipation of a scheduled execution that Hugo began writing The Last Day of a Condemned Man. He finished very quickly. The book was published in February 1829 by Charles Gosselin without the author's name. Three years later, on 15 March 1832, Hugo completed his story with a long preface and his signature.
Hugo's text was translated twice into English in 1840. The first translation was published by George William MacArthur Reynolds, author of penny blood novel The Mysteries of London (1844-48), as The Last Day of a Condemned. The second translation in 1840 was completed by Sir P. H. Fleetwood, titled The Last Days of a Condemned. Fleetwood also added his own preface to the book, outlining why it was important that British anti-capital punishment campaigners ought to read it, whereas Reynolds did not add any substantive new material but reprinted Hugo's preface and provided a few footnotes which he signed as Trans.
Though The Last Day of a Condemned Man is lesser known than some of Hugo's other works, the novel had the distinction of being praised as absolutely the most real and truthful of everything that Hugo wrote by Fyodor Dostoevsky, who referenced it in both his letters and his novel, The Idiot.
Notably, Dostoyevsky had suffered the psychological insight of himself being condemned to death and suffered a mock execution after reprieved. Furthermore, Dostoevsky pays tribute to the novel in the format of The Meek One, citing Hugo's novel as a means of justifying the fantastic idea of writing down a person's thoughts at a moment of distress.
Today is the 153rd birthday of Enrico Caruso, one of the best operatic tenors and one of the most universal Neapolitans. The Grandma spent two fantastic years living and studying in Napoli, an incredibly beautiful city that holds a huge place in her heart and that she visits very often.
Campania is a wonderful land, with unforgettable people who make you enjoy and value what is truly important in life: life itself.
It's not just Napoli, it's Pompeii, Ercolano, Procida, Paestum, Ischia, Capri, Mount Vesuvius, Baia, Campi Flegrei... it's opera, the weight of history, Neapolitan resilience, cuisine, football, tarantellas, San Gennaro, the Neapolitan language... and this Mediterranean Sea that united us politically centuries ago and that continues to unite us culturally nowadays.
Therefore, listening to Enrico Caruso is like closing your eyes and transporting yourself to that fighting and humane Napoli, where the motto is Vive e lassa campà (Live and let live), that is, life is short (tempus fugit), enjoy it (carpe diem) and don't bother others or judge their lives.
In 1986, Lucio Dalla wrote Caruso, a tribute to Enrico Caruso, a song and lyrics that express Neapolitan culture in all its extension.
Caruso is a song written by Italian singer-songwriter Lucio Dalla in 1986. It is dedicated to Enrico Caruso, the Neapolitan tenor. Following Lucio Dalla's death, the song entered the Italian Singles Chart, peaking at number two for two consecutive weeks. The single was also certified platinum by the Federation of the Italian Music Industry.
The song simply tells about the pain and longings of a man who is about to die while he is looking into the eyes of a girl who was very dear to him. The lyrics contain various subtle references to people and places in Caruso's life.
Lucio Dalla told the origin and the meaning of the song in an interview to one of the main Italian newspapers, the Corriere della Sera. He stopped by the coastal town of Surriento and stayed in the Excelsior Vittoria Hotel, coincidentally in the very same room where many years earlier the tenor Enrico Caruso spent some time shortly before dying. Dalla was inspired to write the song after the owners told him about the last days of Caruso and in particular the latter's passion for one of his young female students.
Caruso was an acclaimed Italian operatic singer who was one of the greatest and most sought-after singers during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Unfortunately he lived a very difficult and rather unhappy life, having had many challenges and problems with Italian opera houses, but gained more fame and success in the United States.
Caruso was born to a poor family in Napoli. He was often involved with women, and had several love affairs with prominent married women in the performing arts, which often ended badly. His longest and most passionate love affair was with the married Ada Giachetti, with whom he had two sons. It ended when she left him for their chauffeur. A few years before he died, he met and wed a woman 20 years his junior, Dorothy Park Benjamin, whom Lucio Dalla describes in this song Caruso.With her he had a daughter named Gloria.
Guardò negli occhi la ragazza Quegli occhi verdi come il mare Poi all'improvviso uscì una lacrima E lui credette di affogare
Sorrento is referred to as Surriento, which is the name in the Neapolitan language. It refers to Caruso's frequent visits to the seaside town and its Excelsior Vittoria Hotel.
Te voglio bene assaai Ma tanto, tanto bene, sai È una catena ormai Che scioglie il sangue dint'ê vene, sai Te voglio bene assai Ma tanto, tanto bene, sai È una catena ormai Che scioglie il sangue dint'ê vene, sai
Here the "chain" is a translation, but what is meant is a chain reaction -such love melts the blood and so forth. The music and words of the above refrain, written in a mixture of standard Italian and Neapolitan, are based on a Neapolitansong, titled Dicitencello vuje, published in 1930 by Rodolfo Falvo (music) and Enzo Fusco (text) written according to the best tradition of Neapolitanromances with a style reminiscent of opera.
Lucio Dalla's official video of the song was filmed in the Caruso Suite at the Excelsior Vittoria Hotel where Caruso spent most of the final weeks of his life, though Caruso died at the Vesuvio Hotel in Napoli.
In 2015, on the occasion of the third anniversary of Dalla's passing, GoldenGate Edizioni published the biographical novel by Raffaele Lauro, Caruso The Song-Lucio Dalla and Sorrento", which through unpublished testimonies reconstructs the almost fifty-year-long bond (from 1964 to 2012) of the great artist with Surriento (Surriento is the true corner of my soul), and the authentic inspiration for his masterpiece, Caruso. The documentary film by the same author, Lucio Dalla and Sorrento-Places of the Soul, was presented in the national première in 2015 at the Social World Film Festival 2015 in Vico Equense.
Andrea Bocelli, Il Divo, HAUSER, Maynard Ferguson, Lara Fabian, Florent Pagny, Nana Mouskouri, Mireille Mathieu, Johnny Hallyday, Josh Groban, Milva, Fiorella Mannoia, Ornella Vanoni, André Hazes, Luca Minnelli, Neal Schon or Céline Dion have covered 'Caruso', but The Grandma stays with Luciano Pavarotti, although today we must pay tribute to Enrico Caruso, but also Lucio Dalla.
The fact that I could secure an opera engagement made me realize I had within me the making of an artist, if I would really labour for such an end. When I became thoroughly convinced of this,
The Grandma is a crazy passionate about Galician-Portuguese literature and music. In the south, the fados of Mísia and Dulce Pontes or the poems of Fernando Pessoa; in the north, Luar na Lubre, Uxía, Cristina Pato, Amancio Prada or Escuchando Elefantes. They sing about saudade, longing, migration and great writers like Rosalía de Castro and her Cantares Gallegos, whose day we celebrated yesterday.
Para sempre Rosalía
Adiós ríos, adiós fontes adiós, regatos pequenos; adiós, vista dos meus ollos, non sei cándo nos veremos.
Miña terra, miña terra, terra donde m'eu criei, hortiña que quero tanto, figueiriñas que prantei.
Prados, ríos, arboredas, pinares que move o vento, paxariños piadores, casiña d'o meu contento.
Muiño dos castañares, noites craras do luar, campaniñas timbradoiras da igrexiña do lugar.
Amoriñas das silveiras que eu lle daba ó meu amor, camiñiños antre o millo, ¡adiós para sempre adiós!
¡Adiós, gloria! ¡Adiós, contento! ¡Deixo a casa onde nacín, deixo a aldea que conoso, por un mundo que non vin!
Deixo amigos por extraños, deixo a veiga polo mar; deixo, en fin, canto ben quero… ¡quén puidera non deixar!
Adiós, adiós, que me vou, herbiñas do camposanto, donde meu pai se enterrou, herbiñas que biquei tanto, terriña que nos criou.
Xa se oien lonxe, moi lonxe, as campanas do pomar; para min, ¡ai!, coitadiño, nunca máis han de tocar.
¡Adiós tamén, queridiña… Adiós por sempre quizáis!… Dígoche este adiós chorando desde a beiriña do mar.
Non me olvides, queridiña, si morro de soidás… tantas légoas mar adentro… ¡Miña casiña!, ¡meu lar!
Goodbye, rivers, goodbye, springs, Goodbye, trickling streams; Goodbye, all I see before me: Who knows when we’ll meet again?
Oh my home, my homeland, Soil where I was raised, Little garden that I cherish, Fig trees I grew from seed.
Meadows, rivers, woodlands, Pine groves bent by wind, All the chirping little songbirds, Home I cherish without end.
Mill nestled between the chestnuts, Nights lit brightly by the moon, Tremor of the little bells, My parish chapel’s tune.
Blackberries from the wild vines I picked to give my love, Narrow trails between the corn-rows, Goodbye, forever goodbye!
Goodbye, glory! Goodbye, gladness! I leave the house where I was born, Leave my village so familiar For a world I’ve never seen.
I’m leaving friends for strangers, Leaving prairies for the sea, Leaving all that I love dearly… Oh, if I didn’t have to leave!…
Goodbye, goodbye, I’m going, All you grasses over the graves, Where my father lies deep buried, Grass I’ve often leaned to kiss, Sweet soil where we were raised.
Far off I hear them, far away, The bells over in Pomar, That ring for me, oh, heartache, They’ll ring for me no more!
Goodbye too, my beloved… Goodbye forever it may be!… I cry as I bid you farewell From the shoreline of the sea.
Don’t forget me, home beloved, Though I die of loneliness… So many leagues across the sea… My sweet abode! My hearth!
Só cancións de independencia e liberdade pronunciaron os meus beizos, aínda que ao meu redor, dende o berce, sentira o estrépito das cadeas que estaban destinadas a aprisionarme para sempre...
Only songs of independence and freedom have my lips uttered, even though all around me, from the cradle, I had felt the clanking of the chains that were meant to imprison me forever...
After enjoying an amazing SixNations match where France beat Italy in a very good way, Joseph de Ca'th Lon and The Grandma have taken advantage of Monday morning to make a quick visit to Lile, a city they know well, but where they will never tire of returning because they are both in love with Flanders,itshistory and its culture. They had just enough time to drive to Brussels and catch the planes back to Basel and Barcelona where they both have to continue with their lives.
Lilein Picard, Rijsel in Dutch, Lille in French, and Rysel in West Flemish is a city in the northern part of France, within French Flanders. Positioned along the Deûle river, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the Nord department, and the main city of the European Metropolis of Lille.
The city of Lile is the fourth most populated in France after Paris, Lyon, and Marseille. The city of Lille and 94 suburban French municipalities have formed since 2015 the European Metropolis of Lille.
More broadly, Lile belongs to a vast conurbation formed with the Belgian cities of Mouscron, Kortrijk, Tournai and Menin, which gave birth in January 2008 to the Eurometropolis Lile-Kortrijk-Tournai, the first European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC), which has more than 2.1 million inhabitants.
Nicknamed in France the Capital of Flanders, Lile and its surroundings belong to the historical region of Romance Flanders, a former territory of the county of Flanders that is not part of the linguistic area of West Flanders. A garrison town (as evidenced by its Citadel), Lile has had an eventful history from the Middle Ages to the French Revolution. Very often besieged during its history, it belonged successively to the Kingdom of France, the Burgundian State, the Holy Roman Empire of Germany and the Spanish Netherlands before being definitively attached to the France of Louis XIV following the War of Spanish Succession along with the entire territory making up the historic province of French Flanders. Lilewas again under siege in 1792 during the Franco-Austrian War, and in 1914 and 1940. It was severely tested by the two world wars of the 20th century during which it was occupied and suffered destruction.
A merchant city since its origins and a manufacturing city since the 16th century, the Industrial Revolution made it a great industrial capital, mainly around the textile and mechanical industries. Their decline, from the 1960s onwards, led to a long period of crisis and it was not until the 1990s that the conversion to the tertiary sector and the rehabilitation of the disaster-stricken districts gave the city a different face. Today, the historic center, Old Lille, is characterized by its 17th-century red brick town houses, its paved pedestrian streets and its central Grand'Place. The belfry of the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) is one of the 23 belfries in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Somme regions that were classified as UNESCOWorldHeritage Sites in July 2005, in recognition of their architecture and importance to the rise of municipal power in Europe.
The construction of the brand-new Euralille business district in 1988 (now the third largest in France) and the arrival of the TGV and then the Eurostar in 1994 made the city easily accessible from major European cities. The development of its international airport, annual events such as the Braderie de Lille in early September (attracting three million visitors), the development of a student and university center (with more than 110,000 students in colleges and schools of the University of Lile and the Catholic University of Lile, the third largest in France behind Paris and Lyon), its ranking as a European Capital of Culture in 2004 and the events of Lile 2004 (European Capital of Culture) and Lile 3000 are the main symbols of this revival. The European metropolis of Lille was awarded the World Design Capital 2020.
Archeological digs seem to show the area as inhabited by as early as 2000 BC, most notably in the modern quartiers of Fives, Wazemmes and Vieux Lille. The original inhabitants of the region were the Gauls, such as the Menapians, the Morins, the Atrebates and the Nervians, who were followed by Germanic peoples: the Saxons, the Frisians and the Franks.
The legend of Lydéric and Phinaert puts the foundation of the city of Lile at 640. In the 8th century, the language of Old Low Franconian was spoken, as attested by toponymic research. Lile's Dutch name is Rijsel, which comes from ter ijsel (at the island) from Middle Dutch ijssel (small island, islet), calque of Old French l'Isle (the Island), itself from Latin Īnsula, from īnsula (island).
From 830 to around 910, the Vikings invaded Flanders. After the destruction caused by Normans' and the Magyars' invasion, the eastern part of the region was ruled by various local princes.
The first mention of the town dates from 1066: apud Insulam (Latin for at the island). It was then controlled by the County of Flanders, as were the regional cities (the Roman cities Boulogne, Arras, Cambrai as well as the Carolingian cities Valenciennes, Saint-Omer, Ghent and Bruges). The County of Flanders thus extended to the left bank of the Scheldt, one of the richest and most prosperous regions of Europe.
of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Walking through Lile is walking through Flanders, because political borders have nothing to do with cultural ones and we all know that. You know you are in the city of Louis Pasteur and Jean Baptiste Perrin, but also of Morgane Alvaro, the fictional character resident of Lile who takes advantage of her high intellectual capacity to help solve the most complex police cases.
HPI is one of the freshest and most innovative TV series of recent years that combines great scripts with a staging where under a comic appearance the social dramas and personal difficulties of a woman to bring her family forward are hidden.
HPI, acronym for French: Haut Potentiel Intellectuel, is a Franco-Belgiancrime-comedy television series.
Created by Stéphane Carrié, Alice Chegaray-Breugnot, and Nicolas Jean, it is broadcast in Belgium on La Une since 20 April 2021, in Switzerland on RTS Un since 27 April 2021, in France on TF1 since 29 April 2021, and in Canada on Addik since 1 June 2022. It streams in the United States as HIP: High Intellectual Potential on Hulu since 12 July 2024. The series is a coproduction between Itinéraire Productions, Septembre Productions, TF1, Pictanovo, Be-Films, and RTBF.
It stars Audrey Fleurot as Morgane Alvaro, an intellectually highly gifted housekeeper, who becomes a consultant for the DIPJ (a police division that investigates serious crime) in Lile, and helps solve several cases thanks to her sharp mind.
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