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iowa state football

Here is the Iowa State Football entrance from the Kent State game.

christmas in connecticut

Journalist Elizabeth Lane is one of the country’s most famous food writer. In her columns, she describes herself as a hard working farm woman, taking care of her children and being an excellent cook. But this is all lies. In reality she is an umarried New Yorker who can’t even boil an egg. The recipes come from her good friend Felix. The owner of the magazine she works for has decided that a heroic sailor will spend his christmas on *her* farm. Miss Lane knows that her career is over if the truth comes out, but what can she do?

rab ne bana di jodi review

Movie Review: Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi; Star Cast: SRK, Anushka sharma, Vinay Pathak, Kajol, Rani, Preity Zinta, Priyanka and Others; Director: Aditya Chopra; Rating: ***

Destiny plays a cruel joke on an extremely enthusiastic young girl Taani (Anushka) as she loses her fiancé and his family in a road accident on the eve of her marriage. Her father, a retired professor, on his death bed requests her to marry his old favorite student, Surinder Shahani (SRK). Taani obeys his last wish and thus begins the start of this extraordinary love story between an otherwise ordinary jodi.

The shy, somewhat geeky Surinder has already fallen for Taani since the first time he has seen her but alls his hopes crash when Taani tells him the day they arrive at his house that she won’t be able to give him any love as that’s one feeling she has lost forever with the sudden turn of events in her life. The rest of the film is about how Suri transforms himself into a very hep flirtatious dude Raj to win her love using a dancing school as a platform for his antics. He is well aided with his childhood buddy Bobby (Pathak) who brings on the physical transformation in him. But what happens is Taani who is unaware of Raj being Suri himself ends up falling in love with Raj. Suri is now again in a fix but then he finally decides to take a bold step

Rab Ne has been definitely amongst the most awaited films of 2008 and there have been great expectations riding on it especially because it is Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge maker Aditya Chopra’s comeback film after a long gap of 8 years. The script has its moments and master craftsman Adi keeps you engaged initially with some really beautifully handled moments between SRK and Anushka. But as SRK’s character’s transformation comes in the grip slowly loosens and you start feeling restless with the pace slumping down considerably. What follows is a criss-cross between some really well penned and executed scenes and some really drab moments with badly placed songs acting as speed breakers. But Adi’s terrific dialogues deserve a special applause for touching the right chords.

Shah Rukh Khan is simply superb as first the shy Suri and then the flamboyant, full of energy, Raj. Newcomer Anushka gets a really well etched character to perform and it despite being her first film, she comes across an absolute natural. Vinay Pathak is fun and provides good comic relief.

Music of the film is good but the problem is apart from a very well tuned and picturised Haule Haule number, the rest songs appear wrongly placed. The picturisation of the number featuring Kajol, Preity Zinta, Bipasha Basu, Lara Dutta and Rani is mind blowing but again it coming at a wrong juncture doesn’t really make it work.

All in all, the film has the capacity to do very well in the North and the overseas but elsewhere the film won’t be anywhere near Adi’s earlier two works in terms of business.

bryan zech

Current

• Senior Consultant at BlueThread Technologies

Past

• Programmer Analyst II at Fiserv
• Web/SQL Server Developer at Bartech Group
• Consultant — Web Developer/Database Developer at Latitude Consulting Group

• Web Application Developer/SQL Server Admin. & Developer at Energy Conversion Devices
• Window Applications Developer at New World Systems

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Education

• Walsh College of Accountancy and Business Administration
• Walsh College of Accountancy and Business Administration
• Macomb CC

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Connections

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Industry

Information Technology and Services

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Bryan Zech’s Summary

Bryan Zech’s Specialties:

MCTS SharePoint Server 2007 - Configuration
Microsoft Certified Application Developer — C#

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Bryan Zech’s Experience

• Senior Consultant

  BlueThread Technologies

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Software industry)

  2008 — Present (less than a year)

• Programmer Analyst II

  Fiserv

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

  August 2007 — December 2007 (5 months)

  Develop windows applications on .NET Framework 2.0 and Smart Client Software Factory.

• Web/SQL Server Developer

  Bartech Group

  (Privately Held; 1001-5000 employees; Staffing and Recruiting industry)

  September 2006 — August 2007 (1 year)

  Contract position working for General Physics.
  Develop web applications using both ASP.NET 2.0 and SQL Server 2000.

• Consultant — Web Developer/Database Developer

  Latitude Consulting Group

  (Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

  January 2006 — September 2006 (9 months)

• Web Application Developer/SQL Server Admin. & Developer

  Energy Conversion Devices

  (Public Company; 201-500 employees; ENER; Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing industry)

  2005 — 2006 (1 year)

• Window Applications Developer

  New World Systems

  (Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Computer Software industry)

  2001 — 2005 (4 years)

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Bryan Zech’s Education

• Walsh College of Accountancy and Business Administration

  MBA, Finance, 2007 — 2009 (expected)

• Walsh College of Accountancy and Business Administration

  Bachelors, Computer Information Systems, 2001 — 2002

• Macomb CC

  Associate, Computer Science — Programming, 1997 — 2001

fooly cooly

FLCL (フリクリ, Furi Kuri?, also Fooly Cooly) is an original video animation series written by Yōji Enokido, directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki and produced by the FLCL Production Committee, which included Gainax, Production I.G, and Starchild Records.

Furi Kuri follows Naota Nandaba, a twelve-year-old boy living in the fictional Japanese suburb of Mabase, and his interactions with Haruko Haruhara, who arrives in the quiet suburb, drawn by the industrial town houses and the Medical Mechanica building.

The English adaptation of the series is licensed by Synch-Point and Geneon Entertainment, which released the DVDs and soundtrack respectively.

Plot

Naota’s life is confined to going to school and living with his father and grandfather. The usually boring life in Mabase is rudely interrupted by the arrival of Haruhara Haruko, who bursts on the scene by running Naota over with her Vespa scooter and hitting him on the head with a guitar. Later, Naota is shocked to find Haruko working in his house as a live-in maid.

Haruko’s search for the alien being Atomsk puts her at odds with Medical Mechanica. At the same time, Naota is being watched by Commander Amarao. The Commander believes Haruko is in love with Atomsk and Medical Meccanica is out to conquer the galaxy. The fortuitous circumstances get Naota involved in a three-way battle between Haruko, Amarao and Medical Meccanica.

Characters

Naota Nandaba is the protagonist of the series, obsessed with appearing mature and attempts to act nonchalant. He idolizes his older brother Tasuku, who represents for Naota what it means to be an “adult”. Tasuku lives in the United States and plays professional baseball — he is never shown in the anime, except for in a flashback (however only his silhouette is shown) and a picture in which Tasuku is holding his “American girlfriend”.

Haruko Haruhara is Mabase’s newest resident, an extraterrestrial investigator for the Galactic Space Police Brotherhood. She becomes the Nandaba household maid while working to find Atomsk, the most powerful space pirate in the galaxy. She uses her guitar to create an N.O. portal in Naota’s head and once on Amarao in the episode Brittle Bullet, through which comes several Medical Meccanica robots.

Canti is a Medical Meccanica robot. He was manufactured by Medical Meccanica and was used by MM to capture Atomsk. It is later revealed that Atomsk can manifest through Canti, with Naota being the catalyst.

Mamimi Samejima is a high school truant. She is lonely and depressed, adopting several pets and naming them all “Takkun” as a replacement for Naota’s brother, and develops arsonistic tendencies. She thinks of Naota as a replacement for Tasuku, befriending him, but later grows disinterested when Naota begins to show independence.

Eri Ninamori is the daughter of the mayor of Mabase and the president of Naota’s sixth grade class. Ninamori is a complex character- like Naota she is obsessed with acting grown-up but she often loses her composure in anger or excitement. Ninamori is so concerned with her public image that she hides her frustrations over her parents’ divorce and the fact that she wears glasses.

Production

FLCL is directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki and produced by the FLCL Production Committee, which included Gainax, Production I.G, and Starchild Records.

Six pieces of theme music are used for the episodes; five opening themes and one closing theme. All the theme songs are by the Japanese rock band The Pillows, whose music is featured in the series. The battle theme is “Little Busters”. The opening themes are: “One Life”, used in episode one, “Instant Music” in episode two and three, “Happy Bivouac” for episode four, “Runners High”, utilized in episode five, and “Carnival” in episode six. The closing theme is “Ride on Shooting Star”, used for all of the episodes. Geneon Entertainment has released three original soundtracks encompassing the aforementioned songs, with the soundtracks titled Addict, released on January 20, 2004, King of Pirates, released on September 7, 2004, and FLCL No. 3, released on June 7, 2005.

Design
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FLCL’s odd style, hyperactive pace, convoluted, esoteric plot, and tendency to break the fourth wall sets it apart from other contemporary anime. It can be categorized as a work of comedy, drama, science fiction, romance, philosophy, and a parody of contemporary culture in general. It has an abstractly designed storyline about growing up and losing the childish viewpoint of life that all people once had, and seeing the true reality of the world.

Style

Although most of the series is done in a standard “anime” style, the animation frequently veers off into other realms, including bullet time, black and white, stills, two elaborate sequences drawn as semi-animated manga and a couple of shots in episode five that recreate the look of South Park, or mosaic.

Cultural references

Haruko flying on her Guitar in a bunny outfit and wearing earrings is a reference to the promotional video of Daicon IV (an anime convention that took place in Osaka in the 80’s). Haruko announces, “Daicon Five!” as she rides in, in a satirical reference to the show. This animation, along with the promo video for Daicon III, were some of Gainax’s very first works.

The series also references such pop culture icons as Anna Nicole Smith, John Woo and South Park, not to mention Neon Genesis Evangelion (Gainax’s most famous production), Pepsi, Lupin III, Initial D, Gundam, Tank Girl, Doraemon, and Ashita No Joe. As well as showing reference to popular Japanese anime shows such as in Haruko’s eyeless smiles (a subtle nod to the way the titular character of the anime Crayon Shin-chan smiles), the English-dubbed FLCL also shows references to The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, Filter, Slash, Naked Lunch, Paul McCartney, Van Halen, Richard Cheese, Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, Hitler, the USSR, Hamtaro, and Tom & Jerry.

Language

There are some places where dialogue of the English translation is different from the Japanese version, an attempt to make the dialogue easier to understand in the English translation. (Example: Haruko uses the term “mouth to mouth” repeatedly throughout the series, though the “Th” sound does not exist in Japanese, making it sound like “mouse to mouse”. This is used in a pun in “Full Swing,” when she crawls out of the Kamon puppet’s mouth wearing a mouse suit.).

Further comments in the booklets discuss the severe loss in translation of the plays made in Japanese via homonyms, synonyms, and so on. One example of trying to preserve this in English is the “empty”, “MTV” and various homonyms in English during the Kamon/Haruko manga sequence.

Meaning of “Furi Kuri”

A common mistake by English-speaking fans is to say that the meaning of “Furi Kuri” in Japanese is “Breast Fondling.” This mistake arises from the fact that “kuri kuri” is occasionally used by manga artists as a sound effect for breast fondling. In the anime itself, they make references to “kuri kuri” during the first manga scene, when Shigekuni describes kneading bread by making hand gestures that unmistakably resemble groping motions. Due to incredibly fast pacing of the scene, many fans mistake his statement as referring to “furi kuri” instead of “kuri kuri.” Much Japanese onomatopoeia follows a pattern of being four kana long and having a sound repeated. “Furi furi” is also used as a sound effect in a later episode when Haruko is petting Naota’s cat ears. FLCL’s direct Japanese to English translation is: A Pretend Chestnut. Kuri or chestnut can also mean to twist. It would seem the best translation might be pretend twisted (distort, pervert) or pretend disarrangement (disturb the operation or functions [as in twisting]; also to make insane).

Regarding the Japanese that is left in and often misunderstood, the above case is further clarified by referring to the translation notes for episode one from the 25 page book with DVD one released by Synch-Point:

9. Chi-chi o kuri-kuri - Chi-chi means “breasts” or “boobs” in Japanese. Kuri-kuri is a twisting noise. Chi-chi also means “father.”

12. Kuri - A homonym for a twisting noise and “chestnut”. Kamon says “Like twisting…” Haruko hears, “like chestnuts”.

Another theory is from Episode One, when Haruko diagnosed Naota with FLlctonic KLlpple Waver Syndrome, which the first two letters from the first two words would be the Japanese term Furi Kuri, which the first four letters of the first word to English would be Furi Curi.

 Adaptations
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FLCL has been released as a two-volume manga by artist Hajime Ueda, and a three-volume novel serialization by screenwriter Yoji Enokido.

Manga

The manga interprets the series with all of the key elements intact, but loses some details and changes the dialogue (One being that Canti is Atomsk). It is a much darker and more graphic take on the story, highlighting the sex and violence (Naota intentionally kills his father with the baseball bat in a rather grisly scene because he thought Haruko and his father were sleeping together; Shinguki and an unnamed war buddy later suicide-bomb the Medical Mechanica building).

The manga has also been mildly controversial for its unique art style, especially the uses of ink to roughly outline objects and shade areas. Volume 1 is more like the first two episodes while Volume 2 is more like episodes 3 through 6. One major change to a character is Ninamori, as her robot becomes an ally and is not destroyed. Its design is also different, being a large octopus like robot attached to her head that enables her to fly. The ending is also quite different from the anime; unlike the anime where Naota goes on to bigger and better things, the manga ending leaves much more uncertainty as to Naota’s fate after Haruko leaves Earth.

The English language edition of the manga was released by TOKYOPOP in two volumes (ISBN 1-59182-396-X and ISBN 1-59182-397-8)

Novels

The first of the three novels was released in America on March 11, 2008. All were released in Japan starting in 2000, and in 2008 in the United States.

 Distribution

Six DVD compilations, each containing one episode, have been released in Japan by Gainax.In addition, a DVD collection box, containing all six DVD compilations, was released in Japan on August 13, 2005. Three DVD compilations were released by Synch-Point in North America. A DVD collection box, containing all the DVD compilations of the English episodes, was released on January 23, 2007, but have since gone out of print with plans for a re-release of the series at a future date, to be determined.

Reception

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The American reception for the series, although not widespread, has been enthusiastic following its release on Adult Swim in the summer of 2003. Anime.com also gave the series an enthusiastic review in October of that year, although there was also a minor reference to it in the September “issue”. In 2003, it also went on to win third place for Best Animation Film at the Fantasia Festival.

FLCL has garnered both positive and negative reception among reviewers, sometimes diverging to extremes in both directions. Adult Swim occasionally refers to FLCL as “The greatest show we have ever aired”. Christopher McDonald of Anime News Network called it “downright hilarious” and “visually superb” with great music, citing the packaging of 2 episodes per DVD as the only weakness of Synch-Point’s original release.

It was also a success from a corporate standpoint. A Time Warner press release from August 12, 2003 lauds the success of Cartoon Network, and mentions FLCL:

Animé [sic] series FLCL (Monday-Thursday, 12 a.m.) premiered with impressive numbers. [...] The Monday, Aug. 4 telecast of FLCL ranked #42 among all shows on ad-supported cable among adults 18-34.

On February 24, 2007, FLCL was nominated for “Best Cast”, and won “Best Comedy Series” and “Best Short Series” at the first American Anime Awards show.

In the November 2007 issue of Anime Insider, FLCL was ranked 4th in their list of the best English-licensed anime of all time.

The directors of Avatar: The Last Airbender, an American animated television series, claim inspiration from FLCL.Avatar director Giancarlo Volpe says the staff “were all ordered to buy FLCL and watch every single episode of it.”

existential

Existentialism is a philosophical movement which posits that individuals create the meaning and essence of their lives, as opposed to it being created for them by deities or authorities or defined for them by philosophical or theological doctrines. It emerged as a movement in twentieth-century literature and philosophy, foreshadowed most notably by nineteenth-century philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, though it had forerunners in earlier centuries. Fyodor Dostoevsky and Franz Kafka also described existential themes in their literary works.

It took explicit form as a philosophical current in Continental philosophy, first in the work of Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers in the 1930s in Germany, and then in the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Simone de Beauvoir in the 1940s and 1950s in France. Their work focused on such themes as “dread, boredom, alienation, the absurd, freedom, commitment, and nothingness” as fundamental to human existence.Walter Kaufmann described existentialism as “The refusal to belong to any school of thought, the repudiation of the adequacy of any body of beliefs whatever, and especially of systems, and a marked dissatisfaction with traditional philosophy as superficial, academic, and remote from life”.

Although there are some common tendencies amongst “existentialist” thinkers, there are major differences and disagreements among them (most notably the divide between atheistic existentialists like Sartre and theistic existentialists like Tillich); not all of them accept the validity of the term.

Major concepts

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Existence precedes essence

A central proposition of existentialism is that existence precedes essence. This amounts to the assertion that the outer manifestation (existence) of an entity is more determinative than its inner being (essence). Asserting that “existence precedes essence” is a rebellion against the Platonic Ideas, the Forms, which in Plato’s philosophy are the true reality behind appearances of things in the world.

When it is said that man defines himself, it is often perceived as stating that man can “wish” to be something - anything, a bird, for instance - and then be it. According to Sartre’s own account, however, this would rather be a kind of bad faith. What is meant by the statement is that man is (1) defined only insofar as he acts and (2) that he is responsible for his actions. To clarify, it can be said that a man who acts cruelly towards other people is, by that act, defined as a cruel man and in that same instance, he (as opposed to his genes, for instance) is defined as being responsible for being this cruel man. Of course, the more positive therapeutic aspect of this is also implied: You can choose to act in a different way, and to be a good person instead of a cruel person. Here it is also clear that since man can choose to be either cruel or good, he is, in fact, neither of these things essentially.

To claim, then, that existence precedes essence is to assert that there is no such predetermined essence to be found in man. Instead, what one finds if one searches, is the concrete lived life of each individual. As Sartre puts it in his Existentialism is a Humanism: “man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards.” Existentialism tends to focus on the question of human existence and the conditions of this existence. What is meant by existence is the concrete life of each individual, and his concrete ways of being in the world. Even though this concrete individual existence must be the primary source of information in the study of man, certain conditions are commonly held to be “endemic” to human existence. These conditions are usually in some way related to the inherent meaninglessness or absurdity of the earth and its apparent contrast with our pre-reflexive lived lives which normally present themselves to us as meaningful.

A central theme is that since the world “in-itself” is absurd, that is, “not fair,” then a meaningful life can at any point suddenly lose all its meaning. The reasons why this happens are many, ranging from a tragedy that “tears a person’s world apart,” to the results of an honest inquiry into one’s own existence. Such an encounter can make a person mentally unstable, and avoiding such instability by making people aware of their condition and ready to handle it is one of the central themes of existentialism. Albert Camus, for instance, claimed that “there is only one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.” Aside from these “psychological” issues, it is also claimed that these encounters with the absurd are where we are most in touch with our condition as humans. Such an encounter cannot be without philosophical significance, and existentialist philosophers derive many metaphysical theories from these encounters. These are often related to the self, consciousness and freedom as well as the nature of meaning.

Dread

Dread, sometimes called angst, anxiety or even anguish is a term that is common to many existentialist thinkers. Although its concrete properties may vary slightly, it is generally held to be the experience of our freedom and responsibility. The archetypal example is the example of the experience one has when standing on a cliff where one not only fears falling off it, but also dreads the possibility of throwing oneself off. In this experience that “nothing is holding me back,” one senses the lack of anything that predetermines you to either throw yourself off or to stand still, and one experiences one’s own freedom.

It is also claimed, most famously by Sartre, that dread is the fear of nothing (no thing). This relates both to the inherent insecurity about the consequences of one’s actions (related to the absurdity of the world), and to the fact that, in experiencing one’s freedom, one also realises that one will be fully responsible for these consequences; there is no thing in you (your genes, for instance) that acts and that you can “blame” if something goes wrong. Of course, most of us only have short and shallow encounters with this kind of dread, as not every choice is perceived as having dreadful possible consequences (and, it can be claimed, our lives would be unbearable if every choice facilitated dread), but that doesn’t change the fact that freedom remains a condition of every action. Søren Kierkegaard, in his The Concept of Dread, maintains that dread, when experienced by the young child in facing the possibility of responsibility for his actions, is one of the main forces in the child’s individuation. As such, the very condition of freedom can be said to be a part of any individual’s self.

Bad faith

Bad faith is seen as any denial of free will by lying to oneself about one’s self and freedom. This can take many forms, from convincing oneself that some form of determinism is true, to a sort of “mimicry” where one acts as “one should.” How “one” should act is often determined by an image one has of how one such as oneself (say, a bank manager) acts. This image usually corresponds to some sort of social norm. This does not mean that all acting in accordance with social norms is bad faith: The main point is the attitude one takes to one’s own freedom, and the extent to which one acts in accordance with this freedom. A sign of bad faith can be something like the denial of responsibility for something one has done on the grounds that one just did “as one does” or that one’s genes determined one to do as one did. Exactly how one lies to oneself is hard to get a hold of. Sartre denies the subconscious the power to do this, and he claims that the person who is lying to him/herself has to be aware that he/she is lying - that he/she isn’t determined, or this “thing” he/she makes him/herself out to be.

Freedom

The existentialist concept of freedom is often misunderstood as a sort of liberum arbitrium where almost anything is possible and where values are inconsequential to choice and action. This interpretation of the concept is often related to the insistence on the absurdity of the world and that there are no relevant or absolutely “good” or “bad” values. However, that there are no values to be found in the world in-itself doesn’t mean that there are no values: Each of us usually already has his values before a consideration of their validity is carried through, and it is, after all, upon these values we act. In Kierkegaard’s Judge Vilhelm’s account in Either/Or, making “choices” without allowing one’s values to confer differing values to the alternatives, is, in fact, choosing not to make a choice - to “flip a coin,” as it were, and to leave everything to chance. This is considered to be a refusal to live in the consequence of one’s freedom, meaning it quickly becomes a sort of bad faith. As such, existentialist freedom isn’t situated in some kind of abstract space where everything is possible: Since man is free, and since he already exists in this world, it is implied that his freedom is only in this world, and that it, too, is restricted by it.

What isn’t implied in this account of existential freedom, however, is that one’s values are immutable; a consideration of one’s values may cause one to reconsider and change them (though this rarely happens). A consequence of this fact is that one is not only responsible for one’s actions, but also for the values one holds. This entails that a reference to “common values” doesn’t “excuse” the individual’s actions, because, even though these are the values of the society he is part of, they are also his own in the sense that he could choose them to be different at any time. Thus, the focus on freedom in existentialism is related to the limits of the responsibility one bears as a result of one’s freedom: The relationship between freedom and responsibility is one of interdependency, and a clarification of freedom also clarifies what one is responsible for.

The Other and The Look

The Other (when written with a capitalised “o”) is a concept more properly belonging to phenomenology and its account of intersubjectivity. However, the concept has seen widespread use in existentialist writings, and the conclusions drawn from it differ slightly from the phenomenological accounts. The experience of the Other is the experience of another free subject who inhabits the same world as you do. In its most basic form, it is this experience of the Other that constitutes intersubjectivity and objectivity. To clarify, when one experiences someone else, and that this Other person experiences the world (the same world that you experience), only from “over there,” the world itself is constituted as objective in that it is something that is “there” as identical for both of the subjects; you experience the other person as experiencing the same as you. This experience of the Other’s look is what is termed the Look (sometimes The Gaze).

While this experience, in its basic phenomenological sense, constitutes the world as objective, and yourself as objectively existing subjectivity (you experience yourself as seen in the Other’s Look in precisely the same way that you experience the Other as seen by you, as subjectivity), in existentialism, it also acts as a kind of limitation of your freedom. This is because the Look tends to objectify what it sees. As such, when one experiences oneself in the Look, one doesn’t experience oneself as nothing (no thing), but as something. Sartre’s own example of a man peeping at someone through a keyhole can help clarify this: At first, this man is entirely caught up in the situation he is in; he is in a pre-reflexive state where his entire consciousness is directed at what goes on in the room. Suddenly, he hears a creaking floorboard behind him, and he becomes aware of himself as seen by the Other. He is thus filled with shame for he perceives himself as he would perceive someone else doing what he was doing, as a Peeping Tom.

Another characteristic feature of the Look is that no Other really needs to have been there: It is quite possible that the creaking floorboard was nothing but the movement of an old house; the Look isn’t some kind of mystical telepathic experience of the actual way the other sees you (there may also have been someone there, but he could have not noticed that you were there, or he could be another Peeping Tom who just wants to join you).

Reason

Emphasizing action, freedom, and decision as fundamental, existentialists oppose themselves to rationalism and positivism. That is, they argue against definitions of human beings as primarily rational. Rather, existentialists look at where people find meaning. Existentialism asserts that people actually make decisions based on what has meaning to them rather than what is rational. The rejection of reason as the source of meaning is a common theme of existentialist thought, as is the focus on the feelings of anxiety and dread that we feel in the face of our own radical freedom and our awareness of death. Kierkegaard saw rationality as a mechanism humans use to counter their existential anxiety, their fear of being in the world: “If I can believe that I am rational and everyone else is rational then I have nothing to fear and no reason to feel anxious about being free.”

Like Kierkegaard, Sartre saw problems with rationality, calling it a form of “bad faith”, an attempt by the self to impose structure on a world of phenomena — “the other” — that is fundamentally irrational and random. According to Sartre, rationality and other forms of bad faith hinder us from finding meaning in freedom. To try to suppress our feelings of anxiety and dread, we confine ourselves within everyday experience, Sartre asserts, thereby relinquishing our freedom and acquiescing to being possessed in one form or another by “the look” of “the other” (i.e. possessed by another person - or at least our idea of that other person). In a similar vein, Camus believed that society and religion falsely teach humans that “the other” has order and structure.For Camus, when an individual’s “consciousness”, longing for order, collides with “the other’s” lack of order, a third element is born: “absurdity”.

The Absurd

The notion of the Absurd contains the idea that there is no meaning to be found in the world beyond what meaning we give to it. This meaninglessness also encompasses the amorality or “unfairness” of the world. This contrasts with “karmic” ways of thinking in which “bad things don’t happen to good people”; to the world, metaphorically speaking, there is no such thing as a good person or a bad thing; what happens happens, and it may just as well happen to a good person as to a bad person. This contrasts our daily experience where most things appear to us as meaningful, and where good people do indeed, on occasion, receive some sort of “reward” for their goodness. Most existentialist thinkers, however, will maintain that this is not a necessary feature of the world, and that it definitely isn’t a property of the world in-itself. Because of the world’s absurdity, at any point in time, anything can happen to anyone, and a tragic event could plummet someone into direct confrontation with the Absurd. The notion of the absurd has been prominent in literature throughout history. Franz Kafka, Fyodor Dostoevsky and many of the literary works of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus contain descriptions of people who encounter the absurdity of the world. Albert Camus studied the issue of “the absurd” in his essay The Myth of Sisyphus.

Types

Atheistic

Atheistic existentialism is the form of existentialism most commonly encountered in today’s society. What sets it apart from theistic existentialism is that it rejects the notion of a god and his transcendent will that should in some way dictate how we should live. It rejects the notion that there is any “created” meaning to life and the world, and that a leap of faith is required of man in order for him to live an authentic life. In this kind of existentialism, belief in god is often considered a form of Bad Faith.

Theistic

Theistic existentialism is, for the most part, Christian in its outlook, but there have been existentialists of other theological persuasions, like Islam (see Transcendent theosophy) and Judaism. The main thing that sets them apart from atheistic existentialists is that they posit the existence of God, and that He is the source of our being. It is generally held that God has designed the world in such a way that we must define our own lives, and each individual is held accountable for his or her own self-definition.

Nihilism
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Though nihilism isn’t existentialism, and existentialism isn’t nihilism, these two philosophies are often confused. While a sort of nihilistic existentialism does indeed exist, it isn’t as radical as pure nihilism. Another reason why these philosophies are often confused is that Friedrich Nietzsche is a central philosopher in both. What sets existential nihilists apart from pure nihilists is the fact that, while nihilists don’t believe in any meaning at all, existential nihilists only believe this in relation to any sort of meaning to life (though this position is implied in “regular” nihilism, and existential nihilists may also subscribe to the full nihilistic view, existential nihilism is a separate view). While other existentialists will allow for meaning in people’s lives (that meaning they themselves inject into it), existential nihilists will deny that this meaning is anything but self-deception. Existential nihilists could thus seem to be more pessimistic than the other existentialists, but even here, conclusions vary. Some will claim that the best thing to do is to commit suicide while others will claim that the lack of objective meaning to life means you should just do as you wish - a hedonism of sorts. There also are those who hold that nihilism is both a necessary burden of the authentic thinker and a source of dread, pushing them to hold in suspension his or her tendency to accept the reality of values while maintaining the unfulfilled desire for their discovery.

Historical background

Generally

Existential themes have been hinted at throughout history. Examples include the Buddha’s teachings, the Bible in the Book of Ecclesiastes and Book of Job, Saint Augustine in his Confessions, Averroes’ school of philosophy, Saint Thomas Aquinas’ writings, and Mulla Sadra’s transcendent theosophy. Individualist political theories, such as those advanced by John Locke, advocated individual autonomy and self-determination rather than state rule over the individual. This kind of political philosophy, although not existential per se, provided a welcoming climate for existentialism. In 1670, Blaise Pascal’s unfinished notes were published under the title of Pensées (”Thoughts”). He described many fundamental themes common to what would be known as existentialism two and three centuries later. Pascal argued that without a God, life would be meaningless and miserable. People would only be able to create obstacles and overcome them in an attempt to escape boredom. These token-victories would ultimately become meaningless, since people would eventually die. This was good enough reason not to choose to become an atheist, according to Pascal.

Existentialism, in its currently recognizable 20th century form, was inspired by Søren Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky and the German philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche, Edmund Husserl, and Martin Heidegger. It became popular in the mid-20th century through the works of the French writer-philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, whose versions of it were set out in a popular form in Sartre’s 1946 Existentialism is a Humanism and Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity. Gabriel Marcel pursued theological versions of existentialism, most notably Christian existentialism. Other theological existentialists include Paul Tillich, Rudolf Bultmann, Miguel de Unamuno, Thomas Hora and Martin Buber. Moreover, one-time Marxist Nikolai Berdyaev developed a philosophy of Christian existentialism in his native Russia, and later in France, in the decades preceding World War II. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Arthur Schopenhauer are also important influences on the development of existentialism (although not precursors), because the philosophies of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were written in response or opposition to Hegel and Schopenhauer, respectively.

Kierkegaard and Nietzsche

The first philosophers considered fundamental to the existentialist movement were Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, though neither used the term “existentialism” and it is unclear whether they would have supported the existentialism of the 20th century. Their focus was on human experience, rather than the objective truths of math and science that are too detached or observational to truly get at human experience. Like Pascal, they were interested in people’s quiet struggle with the apparent meaninglessness of life and the use of diversion to escape from boredom. But Pascal did not consider the role of making free choices, particularly regarding fundamental values and beliefs: such choices change the nature and identity of the chooser, in the view of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.Kierkegaard’s knight of faith and Nietzsche’s Übermensch are examples of those who define the nature of their own existence. Great individuals invent their own values and create the very terms under which they excel. Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were also precursors to other intellectual movements, including postmodernism, nihilism, and various strands of psychology.

Heidegger and the German existentialists

One of the first German existentialists was Karl Jaspers, who recognized the importance of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche and attempted to build an “Existenz” philosophy around the two. Heidegger, who was influenced by Jaspers and the phenomenologist Edmund Husserl, wrote his most influential work Being and Time which postulates Dasein (dah-zine), translated as, all at once, “being here”, “being there”, and “being-in-the-world”—a being that is constituted by its temporality, illuminates and interprets the meaning of being in time. Dasein is sometimes considered the human subject, but Heidegger denied the Cartesian dualism of subject-object/mind-body. [paragraph needs citations and clarifications] Although existentialists view Heidegger to be an important philosopher in the movement, he vehemently denied being an existentialist in the Sartrean sense, in his “Letter on Humanism”.

Sartre, Camus, and the French existentialists

Jean-Paul Sartre is perhaps the most well-known existentialist and is one of the few to have accepted being called an “existentialist”. Sartre developed his version of existentialist philosophy under the influence of Husserl and German philosopher Martin Heidegger. Being and Nothingness is perhaps his most important work about existentialism. Sartre was also talented in his ability to espouse his ideas in different media, including philosophical essays, lectures, novels, plays, and the theater. No Exit and Nausea are two of his celebrated works. In the 1960s, he attempted to reconcile existentialism and Marxism in his work Critique of Dialectical Reason. A major theme throughout his writings was freedom and responsibility.

Albert Camus was a friend of Sartre, until their falling-out, and wrote several works with existential themes including The Rebel, The Stranger, The Myth of Sisyphus, and Summer in Algiers. Camus, like many others, rejected the existentialist label, and considered his works to be concerned with people facing the absurd. In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus uses the analogy of the Greek myth to demonstrate the futility of existence. In the myth, Sisyphus is condemned for eternity to roll a rock up a hill, but when he reaches the summit, the rock will roll to the bottom again. Camus believes that this existence is pointless but that Sisyphus ultimately finds meaning and purpose in his task, simply by continually applying himself to it.

Critic Martin Esslin in his book Theatre of the Absurd pointed out how many contemporary playwrights such as Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet, and Arthur Adamov wove into their plays the existential belief that we are absurd beings loose in a universe empty of real meaning. Esslin noted that many of these playwrights demonstrated the philosophy better than did the plays by Sartre and Camus. Though most of such playwrights, subsequently labeled “Absurdist” (based on Esslin’s book), denied affiliations with existentialism and were often staunchly anti-philosophical (for example Ionesco often claimed he identified more with ‘Pataphysics or with Surrealism than with existentialism), the playwrights are often linked to existentialism based on Esslin’s observation.

Simone de Beauvoir, an important existentialist who spent much of her life alongside Sartre, wrote about feminist and existential ethics in her works, including The Second Sex and The Ethics of Ambiguity. Although often overlooked due to her relationship with Sartre, de Beauvoir integrated existentialism with other forms of thinking such as feminism, unheard of at the time, resulting in alienation from fellow writers such as Camus. Frantz Fanon, a Martiniquan-born critic of colonialism, has been considered an important existentialist.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty, an often overlooked existentialist, was for a time a companion of Sartre. His understanding of Husserl’s phenomenology was far greater than that of Merleau-Ponty’s fellow existentialists. It has been said that his work, Humanism and Terror, greatly influenced Sartre. However, in later years they were to disagree irreparably, dividing many existentialists such as de Beauvoir, who sided with Sartre. Michel Foucault would also be considered an existentialist through his use of history to reveal the constant alterations of created meaning, thus proving history’s failure to produce a cohesive version of reality.

Dostoevsky, Kafka, and the literary existentialists

Many writers who are not usually considered philosophers have also had a major influence on existentialism. Among them, Czech author Franz Kafka and Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky are most prominent. Kafka created often surreal and alienated characters who struggle with hopelessness and absurdity, notably in his most famous novella, The Metamorphosis, or in his master novel, The Trial. Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground details the story of a man who is unable to fit into society and unhappy with the identities he creates for himself. [paragraph needs citations and clarification.] Many of Dostoevsky’s novels, such as Crime and Punishment, covered issues pertinent to existential philosophy while offering story lines divergent from secular existentialism: for example in Crime and Punishment one sees the protagonist, Raskolnikov, experience existential crises and move toward a worldview similar to Christian Existentialism, which Dostoevsky had come to advocate.

In the 20th century, existentialism experienced a resurgence in popular art forms. In fiction, Hermann Hesse’s 1928 novel Steppenwolf, based on an idea in Kierkegaard’s Either/Or (1843),[specify] sold well in the West. Jack Kerouac and the Beat poets adopted existentialist themes. “Arthouse” films began quoting and alluding to existentialist thought and thinkers. Existentialist novelists were generally seen as a mid-1950s phenomenon that continued until the mid- to late 1970s. Most of the major writers were either French or from French African colonies. Small circles of other Europeans were seen as literary precursors by the existentialists, but literary history increasingly has questioned the accuracy of this perception.

Criticism

Herbert Marcuse criticised Existentialism, especially Being and Nothingness (1943), by Jean-Paul Sartre, for projecting anxiety and meaninglessness (features of modern society) onto the nature of existence itself: “Insofar as Existentialism is a philosophical doctrine, it remains an idealistic doctrine: it hypostatizes specific historical conditions of human existence into ontological and metaphysical characteristics. Existentialism thus becomes part of the very ideology which it attacks, and its radicalism is illusory”. In 1946, Sartre already had replied to Marxist criticism of Existentialism in the lecture Existentialism is a humanism.In Jargon of Authenticity, Theodor Adorno criticised Heidegger’s philosophy, especially his use of language, as a mystifying ideology of advanced, industrial society, and its power structure.[citation needed]

In Letters on Humanism, Heidegger criticized Sartre’s existentialism:

Existentialism says existence precedes essence. In this statement he is taking existentia and essentia according to their metaphysical meaning, which, from Plato’s time on, has said that essentia precedes existentia. Sartre reverses this statement. But the reversal of a metaphysical statement remains a metaphysical statement. With it, he stays with metaphysics, in oblivion of the truth of Being.

In From Descartes to Wittgenstein, Roger Scruton says that Heidegger’s concept of inauthenticity and Sartre’s concept of bad faith were self-inconsistent; both deny any universal moral creed, yet speak of these concepts as if everyone were bound to abide them. In chapter 18, he says: “In what sense Sartre is able to ‘recommend’ the authenticity, which consists in the purely self-made morality, is unclear. He does recommend it, but, by his own argument, his recommendation can have no objective force.”

Logical positivists, such as Carnap and Ayer, say Existentialists frequently are confused about the verb “to be” in their analyses of “being”.They argue that the verb is transitive, and pre-fixed to a predicate (e.g., an apple is red): without a predicate, the word is meaningless. Another confusion, in existentialist metaphysical literature, is that existentialists try to understand the meaning of the word “nothing” (the negation of existence) by presuming it must refer to something. Borrowing Kant’s argument against the ontological argument for the existence of God, logical positivists argue that existence is not a property.[citation needed]

Influence outside philosophy

Cultural movement and influence

The term existentialism was first adopted as a self-reference in the 1940s and 1950s by Jean-Paul Sartre, and the widespread use of literature as a means of disseminating their ideas by Sartre and his associates (notably novelist Albert Camus) meant existentialism “was as much a literary phenomenon as a philosophical one.” Among existentialist writers were Parisians Jean Genet, André Gide, André Malraux, and playwright Samuel Beckett, the Norwegian Knut Hamsun, and the Romanian friends Eugene Ionesco and Emil Cioran. Prominent artists such as the Abstract Expressionists Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorky, and Willem de Kooning have been understood in existentialist terms, as have filmmakers such as Jean-Luc Godard and Ingmar Bergman.Individual films such as the 1952 western High Noon and Fight Club (1999) have also been cited as existentialist.Also, existential theological influence is apparent in the Angel’s Egg.

Literature

Since 1970, much cultural activity in art, cinema, and literature contains postmodernist and existential elements. Books such as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) (now republished as Blade Runner) by Philip K. Dick, Toilet: The Novel by Michael Szymczyk and Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk all distort the line between reality and appearance while simultaneously espousing strong existential themes. Ideas from such thinkers as Dostoevsky, Foucault, Kafka, Nietzsche, Herbert Marcuse, Gilles Deleuze, and Eduard von Hartmann permeate the works of artists such as Chuck Palahniuk, Michael Szymczyk, David Lynch, Crispin Glover, and Charles Bukowski, and one often finds in their works a delicate balance between distastefulness and beauty.

Film

Existential themes have been evident throughout 20th century cinema. Many films portray characters going through the “existential dilemma” or existential problems. Just as there is much controversy about the definition of existentialism, there is a fine line between existential and non-existential films. One might ask how certain movies can be considered existential, while others are not, and the judgment is purely subjective. However, for the sake of discussion, it is beneficial to provide a clear definition of existential movies. The most accurate definition says that existential movies are those which have strong plots that deal with subjects such as dread, boredom, nothingness, anxiety, alienation and the absurd. Furthermore, the definition states that movies which deal with the themes of existential literature seriously are also considered as being existential.

A number of 1940s and 1950s-era films explored existential themes, including the US film noir genre, which explored the ambiguous moral dilemmas of people drawn into the gangster underworld. Film noirs tend to revolve around heroes who are more flawed and morally questionable than the norm, often fall guys of one sort or another. The characteristic heroes of noir are described by many critics as “alienated” and “filled with existential bitterness.”  Film noir is often described as essentially pessimistic. The noir stories that are regarded as most characteristic tell of people trapped in unwanted situations (which, in general, they did not cause but are responsible for exacerbating), striving against random, uncaring fate, and frequently doomed. The movies are seen as depicting a world that is inherently corrupt. Classic film noir has been associated by many critics with the American social landscape of the era—in particular, with a sense of heightened anxiety and alienation that is said to have followed World War II.

Existentialist themes were also present in other genres. The French director Jean Genet’s 1950 fantasy-erotic film Un chant d’amour shows two inmates in solitary cells whose only contact is through a hole in their cell wall, who are spied on by the prison warden. Reviewer James Travers calls the film a “…visual poem evoking homosexual desire and existentialist suffering” which “… conveys the bleakness of a existence in a godless universe with painful believability”; he calls it “… probably the most effective fusion of existentialist philosophy and cinema.”

Stanley Kubrick’s 1957 anti-war film Paths of Glory “illustrates, and even illuminates…existentialism” by examining the “necessary absurdity of the human condition” and the “horror of war” . The film tells the story of a fictional WWI French army regiment which is ordered to attack an impregnable German stronghold; when the attack fails, three soldiers are chosen at random, court-martialed by a “kangaroo court”, and executed by firing squad. The film examines existential ethics, such as the issue of whether objectivity is possible and the “problem of authenticity”.

Some contemporary films dealing with existential issues include Fight Club, Waking Life, and Ordinary People. Likewise, films throughout the 20th century such as Taxi Driver, High Noon, Easy Rider, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, A Clockwork Orange, Apocalypse Now, The Seventh Seal, Ikiru, I Heart Huckabees and Blade Runner also have existential qualities.Notable directors known for their existentialist films include Ingmar Bergman, Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Michelangelo Antonioni, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Woody Allen.

Theatre

Jean-Paul Sartre wrote No Exit in 1944, an existentialist play originally published in French as Huis Clos (meaning In Camera or “behind closed doors”) which is the source of the popular quote, “Hell is other people.” (In French, “l’enfer, c’est les autres”). The play begins with a Valet leading a man into a room that the audience soon realizes is in hell. Eventually he is joined by two women. After their entry, the Valet leaves and the door is shut and locked. All three expect to be tortured, but no torturer arrives. Instead, they realize they are there to torture each other, which they do effectively, by probing each other’s sins, desires, and unpleasant memories.

Existentialist themes have also influenced the Theatre of the Absurd, notably in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, in which two men divert themselves while they wait expectantly for someone named Godot who never arrives. They claim Godot to be an acquaintance but in fact hardly know him, admitting they would not recognize him if they saw him. To occupy themselves they eat, sleep, talk, argue, sing, play games, exercise, swap hats, and contemplate suicide—anything “to hold the terrible silence at bay”.[24] The play “exploits several archetypal forms and situations, all of which lend themselves to both comedy and pathos.”The play also illustrates an attitude toward man’s experience on earth: the poignancy, oppression, camaraderie, hope, corruption, and bewilderment of human experience that can only be reconciled in mind and art of the absurdist. The play examines questions such as death, the meaning of human existence and the place of God in human existence.

Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead is an absurdist, existentialist tragicomedy first staged at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1966.The play expands upon the exploits of two minor characters from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Comparisons have also been drawn to Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot, for the presence of two central characters who almost appear to be two halves of a single character. Many plot features are similar as well: the characters pass time by playing Questions, impersonating other characters, and interrupting each other or remaining silent for long periods of time. The two characters are portrayed as two clowns or fools in a world that is beyond their understanding. They stumble through philosophical arguments while not realizing the implications, and muse on the irrationality and randomness of the world.

Jean Anouilh’s Antigone also presents arguments founded on existentialist ideas.It is a tragedy inspired by Greek mythology and the play of the same name (Antigone, by Sophocles) from the fifth century B.C. In English, it is often distinguished from its antecedent by being pronounced in its original French form, approximately “Ante-GŌN.” The play was first performed in Paris on 6 February 1944, during the Nazi occupation of France. Produced under Nazi censorship, the play is purposefully ambiguous with regards to the rejection of authority (represented by Antigone) and the acceptance of it (represented by Creon). The parallels to the French Resistance and the Nazi occupation have been drawn. Antigone rejects life as desperately meaningless but without affirmatively choosing a noble death. The crux of the play is the lengthy dialogue concerning the nature of power, fate, and choice, during which Antigone says that she is “… disgusted with [the]…promise of a humdrum happiness”; she states that she would rather die than live a mediocre existence.

Theology

Christ’s teachings had an indirect style, in which his point is often left unsaid for the purpose of letting the single individual confront the truth on their own.[28] This is evident in his parables, which are a response to a question he is asked. After he tells the parable, he returns the question to the individual. An existential reading of the Bible demands that the reader recognize that he is an existing subject studying the words God communicates to him personally. This is in contrast to looking at a collection of “truths” which are outside and unrelated to the reader.Such a reader is not obligated to follow the commandments as if an external agent is forcing them upon him, but as though they are inside him and guiding him from inside. This is the task Kierkegaard takes up when he asks: “Who has the more difficult task: the teacher who lectures on earnest things a meteor’s distance from everyday life-or the learner who should put it to use?”Existentially speaking, the Bible doesn’t become an authority in a person’s life until they authorize the Bible to be their personal authority. Existentialism has had a significant influence on theology, notably on postmodern Christianity and on theologians and religious thinkers such as Nikolai Berdyaev, Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, and John Macquarrie. It has also surfaced in theologically-themed media, such as the Angel’s Egg.

Existential psychoanalysis and psychotherapy

One of the major offshoots of existentialism as a philosophy is existential psychology and psychoanalysis, which first crystallized in the work of Ludwig Binswanger, a clinician who was influenced by both Freud and Heidegger, and Sartre, who was not a clinician but wrote theoretical material about existential psychoanalysis. A later figure was Viktor Frankl, who had studied with Freud and Jung as a young man[citation needed]. His logotherapy can be regarded as a form of existential therapy. An early contributor to existential psychology in the United States was Rollo May, who was influenced by Kierkegaard. One of the most prolific writers on techniques and theory of existential psychology in the USA is Irvin D. Yalom. The person who has contributed most to the development of a European version of existential psychotherapy is the British-based Emmy van Deurzen.

With complete freedom to decide, and complete responsibility for the outcome of decisions, comes anxiety (angst). Anxiety’s importance in existentialism makes it a popular topic in psychotherapy. Therapists often use existential philosophy to explain the patient’s anxiety. Psychotherapists using an existential approach believe that a patient can harness his anxiety and use it constructively. Instead of suppressing anxiety, patients are advised to use it as grounds for change. By embracing anxiety as inevitable, a person can use it to achieve his or her full potential in life. Humanistic psychology also had major impetus from existential psychology and shares many of the fundamental tenets. Terror management theory is a developing area of study within the academic study of psychology. It looks at what researchers claim to be the implicit emotional reactions of people that occur when they are confronted with the knowledge they will eventually die.

transitive verb

In syntax, a transitive verb is a verb that requires both a subject and one or more objects. Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs:

* Harry sees Adam. (Adam is the direct object of “sees”)
* You lifted the bag. (bag is the direct object of “lifted”)
* I punished you. (you is the direct object of “punished”)
* I give you the book. (book is the direct object of “give” and “you” is the non-prepositional indirect object of “give”)

Those transitive verbs that are able to take both a direct object and an indirect object are called ditransitive; an example is the verb give above. Verbs that require a single object are called monotransitive. There are a few verbs that may be called “tritransitive”.

Verbs that don’t require an object are called intransitive, for example the verb to sleep. Since one cannot “sleep” something, the verb acts intransitively. Verbs that can be used in a transitive or intransitive way are called ambitransitive; an example is the verb eat, since the sentences I am eating (with an intransitive form) and I am eating an apple (with a transitive form that has an apple as the object) are both grammatically correct.

There are languages which distinguish verbs based on their transitivity, which suggests that this is a salient linguistic feature. For example, in Japanese:

授業が始まる。

Jugyō ga hajimaru.

The class starts.

先生が授業を始める。

Sensei ga jugyō o hajimeru.

However, the definition of transitive verbs as those which have one object is not universal and is not used in grammars of many languages. For example, it is generally accepted in Polish grammar that transitive verbs are those which:

* accept a direct object (in accusative in the positive form, and in genitive in the negative form), OR
* undergo passive transformation.

Both conditions are fulfilled in many instances of transitive verbs, ex. Maria widzi Jana (Mary sees John; Jana is the accusative form of Jan) - Jan jest widziany przez Marię (John is seen by Mary). However, there are exceptions, and verbs with one or even two objects may also be intransitive.

indus river

The Indus River {Sanskrit: सिन्धु Sindhu; Urdu: سندھ Sindh; Sindhi: سندھو Sindhu; Punjabi (Shahmukhi: سندھ, Gurmukhi: ਸਿੰਧੂ) Sindh; Avestan: Hinduحندو ; Pashto: Abasin ّآباسن “Father of Rivers”; Persian: Nilou “Indigo Waters”; Tibetan: Sengge Chu “Lion River”; Chinese: 印度河 Yìndù Hé; Greek: Ινδός Indos} is the longest river in Pakistan and the third largest river, in terms of annual flow in the region. It is often considered the life-line of Pakistan by the people of that country. The Europeans used the name “India” for the entire subcontinent based on “Indo”, the Greek the appellation of this river. Originating in the Tibetan plateau in the vicinity of Lake Mansarovar, the river runs a course through Ladakh district of Jammu and Kashmir and Northern Areas, flowing through the North in a southerly direction along the entire length of the country, to merge into the Arabian Sea near Pakistan’s port city Karachi. The total length of the river is 3,180 kilometres (1,976 miles). The river has a total drainage area exceeding 1,165,000 square kilometres (450,000 square miles). The river’s estimated annual flow stands at around 207 cubic kilometres. Beginning at the heights of the world with glaciers, the river feeds the ecosystem of temperate forests, plains and arid countryside. Together with the rivers Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej, Jhelum, Beas and the extinct Sarasvati River, the Indus forms the Sapta Sindhu (”Seven Rivers”) delta in the Sindh province of Pakistan.

The Indus provides the key water resources for the economy of Pakistan - especially the breadbasket of Punjab province, which accounts for most of the nation’s agricultural production, and Sindh. The word “Punjab” is a combination of the Persian words ‘panj’ (پنج) Five, and ‘āb’ (آب) Water, giving the literal meaning of the Land of the Five Rivers. The five rivers after which Punjab is named are the Beas, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej. The river also supports many heavy industries and provides the main supply of potable water in Pakistan.

The ultimate source of the Indus is in Tibet; it begins at the confluence of the Sengge and Gar rivers that drain the Nganglong Kangri and Gangdise Shan mountain ranges. The Indus then flows northwest through Ladakh and Baltistan into Gilgit, just south of the Karakoram range. The Shyok River, Shigar and Gilgit streams carry glacial waters into the main river. It gradually bends to the south, coming out of the hills between Peshawar and Rawalpindi. The Indus passes gigantic gorges 4,500-5,200 metres (15,000-17,000 feet) high near the Nanga Parbat massif. It flows swiftly across Hazara, and is dammed at the Tarbela Reservoir. The Kabul River joins it near Attock. The remainder of its route to the sea is in plains of the Punjab and Sindh, and the river becomes slow-flowing and highly braided. It is joined by Panjnad River at Mithankot. Beyond this confluence, the river, at one time, was named Satnad River (sat = seven, nadi = river), as the river was now carrying the waters of Kabul River, Indus River and the five Punjab rivers. Passing by Jamshoro, it ends in a large delta to the east of Thatta.

The Indus is one of the few rivers in the world that exhibit a tidal bore. The Indus system is largely fed by the snows and glaciers of the Himalayas, Karakoram and the Hindu Kush ranges of Tibet, Jammu and Kashmir and the Northern Areas of Pakistan. The flow of the river is also determined by the seasons - it diminishes greatly in the winter, while flooding its banks in the monsoon months from July to September. There is also evidence of a steady shift in the course of the river since prehistoric times - it deviated westwards from flowing into the Rann of Kutch.

History

Paleolithic sites have been discovered in Pothohar near Pakistan’ s capital Islamabad, with the stone tools of the Soan Culture. In ancient Gandhara , near Islamabad, evidence of cave dwellers dated 15,000 years ago has been discovered at Mardan.

The major cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, such as Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, date back to around 3300 BC, and represent some of the largest human habitations of the ancient world. The Indus Valley Civilization extended from Balochistan to Gujarat, with an upward reach from east of Jhelum River to Ropar on the upper Sutlej. The coastal settlements extended from Sutkagan Dor at the Iranian border to Lothal in Gujarat. There is an Indus site on the Oxus river at Shortughai in northern Afghanistan (Kenoyer 1998:96), and the Indus site Alamgirpur at the Hindon River is located only 28 km from Delhi (S.P. Gupta 1995:183). To date, over 1,052 cities and settlements have been found, mainly in the general region of the Ghaggar-Hakra River and its tributaries. Among the settlements were the major urban centers of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, as well as Lothal, Dholavira, Ganeriwala, and Rakhigarhi. Only 90-96 of the over-800 known Indus Valley sites have been discovered on the Indus and its tributaries. The Sutlej, now a tributary of the Indus, in Harappan times flowed into the Ghaggar-Hakra River, in the watershed of which were more Harappan sites than along the Indus (S.P. Gupta 1995: 183).

Most scholars believe that settlements of Gandhara grave culture of the early Indo-Aryans flourished in Gandhara from 1700 BC to 600 BC, when Mohenjo-daro and Harappa had already been abandoned.

The name Indus is a Latinization of Hindu, in turn the Iranian variant of Sindhu, the name of the Indus in the Rigveda. The Sanskrit Sindhu generically means “river, stream, ocean”, probably from a root sidh “to keep off”; Sindhu is attested 176 times in the Rigveda, 95 times in the plural, more often used in the generic meaning. Already in the Rigveda, notably in the later hymns, the meaning of the word is narrowed to refer to the Indus river in particular, for example in the list of rivers of the Nadistuti sukta. This resulted in the anomaly of a river with masculine gender: all other Rigvedic rivers are female, not just grammatically, being imagined as goddesses and compared to cows and mares yielding milk and butter.

The Indus has formed a natural boundary between the Indian Subcontinent hinterland and its frontier with the Iranian Plateau, a region which includes Pakistan’s Balochistan, North West Frontier Province as well as Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Iran. It has been crossed by the armies of Alexander the Great - His Macedonian forces retreated along the southern course of the river at the end of the Asian campaign after conquering what is now Pakistan and joining it to the Hellenic Empire. The Indus plains have also been under the domination of the Persian empire and the Kushan empire. The Muslim armies of Muhammad bin Qasim, Mahmud of Ghazni, Mohammed Ghori, Tamerlane and Babur also crossed the river to strike into the inner regions of Punjab , Rajasthan and Gujarat.

The word “India” is a reference to the Indus River. In ancient times, “India” referred to the region of modern-day Pakistan along the Indus river which traded extensively with the ancient world. It was only after the arrival of the British in the 16th century that name began to be applied to the entire region. Incidentally, Pakistan’s founding father, Mohammed Ali Jinnah was quite surprised to learn that upon the departure of Britain from the region, that its new neighbour to the east was going to retain the name India as the country’s official name.[citation needed].

Geography

Tributaries

* Astor River
* Beas River
* Chenab River
* Gar River
* Ghizar River
* Gilgit River
* Gumal River

* Hunza River
* Jhelum River
* Tanubal River
* Kabul River
* Kunar River
* Ravi River
* Shigar River
* Shingo River

* Shyok River
* Suru River
* Sutlej River
* Swaan River
* Zhob River
* Balram River

Geology

The Indus River feeds the Indus submarine fan located in the Arabian Sea, which is the second largest sediment body on the Earth at around 5 million cubic kilometres of material eroded from the mountains. Studies of the sediment in the modern river indicate that the Karakoram Mountains in northern Pakistan are the single most important source of material, with the Himalayas providing the next largest contribution, mostly via the large rivers of the Punjab (i.e., the Jhelum, Ravi, Chenab, Beas and the Sutlej). Analysis of sediments from the Arabian Sea by marine geologists Peter Clift and Jerzy Blusztajn has demonstrated that prior to five million years ago the Indus was not connected to these Punjab rivers which instead flowed east into the Ganges and were captured after that time. Earlier work, also by Peter Clift, showed that sand and silt from western Tibet was reaching the Arabian Sea by 45 million years ago, implying the existence of an ancient Indus River by that time. The delta of this proto-Indus river has subsequently been found in the Katawaz Basin, on the Afghan-Pakistan border. Most recently the Indus was paralleled by the ancient Saraswati River, which the Rigveda suggests flowed from the Himalayas between the Sutlej and the Yamuna Rivers, close to modern day Chandigarh.

Wildlife

Accounts of the Indus valley from the times of Alexander’s campaign indicate a healthy forest cover in the region, which has now considerably receded. The Mughal Emperor Babar writes of encountering rhinoceroses along its bank in his memoirs (the Babarnama). Extensive deforestation and human interference in the ecology of the Shivalik Hills has led to a marked deterioration in vegetation and growing conditions. The Indus valley regions are arid with poor vegetation. Agriculture is sustained largely due to irrigation works.

The Blind Indus River Dolphin (Platanista gangetica minor) is a sub-species of Dolphins found only in the Indus River. It formerly also occurred in the tributaries of the Indus river. Palla fish (Hilsa) of the river is a delicacy for people living along the river. The population of fishes in the river is moderately high, with Sukkur, Thatta and Kotri being the major fishing centres - all in the lower Sindh course. But damming and irrigation has made fish farming an important economic activity. Located southeast of Karachi, the large delta has been recognised by conservationists as one of the world’s most important ecological regions. Here the river turns into many marshes, streams and creeks and meets the sea at shallow levels. Here marine fishes are found in abundance, including Pomfret and Prawns.

Economy

The Indus is the most important supplier of water resources to the Punjab and Sindh plains - it forms the backbone of agriculture and food production in Pakistan. The river is especially critical as rainfall is meagre in the lower Indus valley. Irrigation canals were first built by the people of the Indus valley civilization, and later by the engineers of the Kushan Empire and the Mughal Empire. Modern irrigation was introduced by the British East India Company in 1850 - the construction of modern canals accompanied with the restoration of old canals. The British supervised the construction of one of the most complex irrigation networks in the world. The Guddu Barrage is 1,350 metres (4,450 ft) long - irrigating Sukkur, Jacobabad, Larkana and Kalat. The Sukkur Barrage serves over 20,000 square kilometres (5,000,000 acres).

After the Partition of India, a water control treaty signed between India and Pakistan in 1960 guaranteed that Pakistan would receive water from the Indus River independent of upstream control by India.[1] The project, Indus Basin Project, consisted primarily of the construction of two main dams, the Mangla Dam built on the Jhelum River and the Tarbela Dam constructed on the Indus River, together with their subsidiary dams.[2] The Pakistan Water and Power Development Authority undertook the construction of the Chashma-Jhelum link canal - linking the waters of the Indus and Jhelum rivers - extending water supplies to the regions of Bahawalpur and Multan. Pakistan constructed the Tarbela Dam near Rawalpindi - standing 2743 metres (9,000 ft) long and 143 metres (470 ft) high, with an 80 kilometre (50 mile) long reservoir. The Kotri Barrage near Hyderabad is 915 metres (3,000 ft) long and provides additional supplies for Karachi. The Taunsa Barrage near Dera Ghazi Khan produces 100,000 kilowatts of electricity. The extensive linking of tributaries with the Indus has helped spread water resources to the valley of Peshawar, the Northwest Frontier Province. The extensive irrigation and dam projects provide the basis for Pakistan’s large production of crops such as cotton, sugarcane and wheat. The dams also generate electricity for heavy industries and urban centres.

People

The inhabitants of the regions through whom the Indus river passes and forms a major natural feature and resource are diverse in ethnicity, religion, national and linguistic backgrounds. On the northern course of the river in the state of Jammu and Kashmir in India live the Buddhist people of Ladakh, of Tibetan stock, with Kashmiris who practice Islam. As it descends into Northern Areas of Pakistan, the Indus river forms a distinctive boundary of ethnicity and cultures - upon the western banks the population is largely Pashtun, Baloch, and of other Iranian stock, with close cultural, economic and ethnic ties to Afghanistan and Iran. The eastern banks are largely populated by peoples of Indo-Aryan stock, such as the Punjabis, the Sindhis and the Seraikis. In northern Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province, ethnic Pashtun tribes live alongside Punjabi people. In the southern portion of the Punjab province, the Saraiki peoples speak a distinctive tongue and practise distinctive traditions. In the province of Sindh, peoples of Sindhi and Muhajir backgrounds form the local populations. Upon the western banks of the river live the Balochi and Pashtun peoples of Balochistan.

Modern issues

The Indus is a strategically vital resource for Pakistan’s economy and society. After the Partition of India in 1947, the use of the waters of the Indus and its five eastern tributaries became a major dispute between India and Pakistan. The irrigation canals of the Sutlej valley and the Bari Doab were split - with the canals lying primarily in Pakistan and the headwork dams in India - disrupting supply in some parts of Pakistan. The concern over India building large dams over various Punjab rivers that could undercut the supply flowing to Pakistan, as well as the possibility that India could divert rivers in the time of war, caused political consternation in Pakistan. Holding diplomatic talks brokered by the World Bank, India and Pakistan signed the Indus Waters Treaty in 1960. The treaty gave India control of the three easternmost rivers of the Punjab, the Sutlej, the Beas and the Ravi, while Pakistan gained control of the three western rivers, the Jhelum, the Chenab and the Indus. India retained the right to use of the western rivers for non irrigation projects. (See discussion regarding a recent dispute about a hydroelectric project on the Chenab (not Indus) known as the Baglihar Project).

Hindu pilgrimage to holy sites alongside the river has been a source of conflict between the two nations. Pakistan does generally allow Indian citizens to visit the country for religious purposes, However, owing to the volatile nature of bilateral relations, most pilgrimage and religious ceremonies are performed by Hindus in Jammu and Kashmir.

There are concerns that extensive deforestation, industrial pollution and global warming are affecting the vegetation and wildlife of the Indus delta, while affecting agricultural production as well. There are also concerns that the Indus river may be shifting its course westwards - although the progression spans centuries. On numerous occasions, sediment clogging owing to poor maintenance of canals has affected agricultural production and vegetation. In addition, extreme heat has caused water to evaporate, leaving salt deposits that render lands useless for cultivation.

Indus River

Autumn Escapes in Europe

10 reasons to fall for fall travel in the Old World

If you were planning to hike around the scenic shores of Lugano this fall, tramping through chestnut forests and lush vineyards while admiring its Alpine lake, you’d do well to bring an appetite. Each year, when locals in the picturesque Swiss city welcome the change in seasons, they do it with a rousing celebration of folk songs, traditional dances and heaps of the hearty cuisine for which the Ticino region is famous.

The days might be getting shorter, but the longer nights are an excuse to toast the fall harvest—something the Ticinese do at dinner tables laden with their region’s Chardonnays and Merlots.

And the Ticinese aren’t alone. All across Europe, the harvest marks one of the most festive times of year. For author James Fraioli, whose travels frequently take him to the Italian regions just south of Lugano, there’s no better time to appreciate la dolce vita.

Researching Italian cuisine for his latest cookbook, Festivals of Italy: Celebrated Recipes from 50 Food Fairs, Fraioli found the fall calendar crammed with harvest fetes. In towns across Tuscany, locals thronged to celebrate the arrival of the season’s truffles, chestnuts, wild mushrooms, wines and olive oils. The experience was typically vibrant, colorful—and, as Fraioli puts it, “intensely local.”

“A lot of these festivals are really small-scale,” he says. “You’re only going to find them by talking to the locals and discovering them. They’re tucked behind churches, and on cobblestone streets and [in places] that really don’t stand out in the public eye.”Lugano

For most American tourists, European vacations are synonymous with summer. But according to Greg Tepper, president of the Tampa-based travel group Exeter International, fall is when “the real residents of the cities return.” The cultural life, too, is “restored to the neighborhoods,” says Tepper, noting that while the temperature starts to drop in the fall, the cultural season is just beginning to heat up.

“Each September and October, theaters across Russia and Eastern Europe reopen after taking the summer off,” he says. In St. Petersburg, with its placid canals framed by grand Baroque palaces, top theaters and opera houses—dark for the dog days of summer—launch into their fall seasons with gusto.

Swan Lake takes to the main stage at the majestic Mariinsky Theater, and the cream of St. Petersburg society flocks to debuts and gala events, ushering in a glamorous fall calendar.

Of course, rubbing elbows with Russian oligarchs isn’t for everyone. You could also say olé in a big way by heading to Madrid, where the city’s 25th Fall Festival takes place from October 13 through September 16. There will be more than 166 performances of theater, music, dance and circus arts.

With scorching summers giving way to the mild fall weather, autumn is also a great time of year for outdoors enthusiasts to explore the continent. “If you want to hike, or bike, it’s certainly much more pleasurable in September and October [than in the summer],” says Doris White, a travel agent with the La Jolla-based Travel Dynamics. While she notes that fall weather can be unpredictable in the heights of the Alps or the Pyrenees, most of the continent is basking in autumn’s warm glow.

“The classic trip that most [of my clients] do would be Burgundy in the fall,” she says. “You can do wine harvesting, biking, hiking… You have the wonderful foods and festivals, and some amazing wines.” The annual vendange, when locals crush their freshly plucked grapes (sometimes underfoot), is a colorful rite of the season that’s typically open to tourists. And after you’ve gorged on gourmet food and wine, says White, you can work off those extra calories by biking between villages.

Source:msn