Veganism
Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products in diet, an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. A follower of the diet or the philosophy is known as a vegan. Distinctions may be made between several categories of veganism. Dietary vegans refrain from consuming animal products, not only meat but eggs, dairy products and other animal-derived substances; the term ethical vegan is applied to those who not only follow a vegan diet but extend the philosophy into other areas of their lives, oppose the use of animals for any purpose. Another term is environmental veganism, which refers to the avoidance of animal products on the premise that the industrial farming of animals is environmentally damaging and unsustainable. Vegan diets are regarded as appropriate for all stages of life including during infancy and pregnancy by the American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Dietitians of Canada, the British Dietetic Association; the German Society for Nutrition does not recommend vegan diets for children or adolescents, or during pregnancy and breastfeeding.
Vegan diets tend to be higher in dietary fiber, folic acid, vitamin C, vitamin E, phytochemicals. Unbalanced vegan diets may lead to nutritional deficiencies that nullify any beneficial effects and may cause serious health issues; some of these deficiencies can only be prevented through the choice of fortified foods or the regular intake of dietary supplements. Vitamin B12 supplementation is important because its deficiency causes blood disorders and irreversible neurological damage. Donald Watson coined the term vegan in 1944. At first he used it to mean "non-dairy vegetarian", but from 1951 the Society defined it as "the doctrine that man should live without exploiting animals". Interest in veganism increased in the 2010s in the latter half. More vegan stores opened and vegan options became available in supermarkets and restaurants in many countries; the term "vegetarian" has been in use since around 1839 to refer to what was described as a vegetable regimen or diet. Modern dictionaries based on scientific linguistic principles explain its origin as an irregular compound of vegetable and the suffix -arian.
The earliest-known written use is attributed to actress and abolitionist Fanny Kemble, in her Journal of a Residence on a Georgian plantation in 1838–1839. The practice can be traced to Indus Valley Civilization in 3300–1300 BCE in the Indian subcontinent in northern and western India and in Pakistan. Early vegetarians included Indian philosophers such as Mahavira and Acharya Kundakunda, the Tamil poet Valluvar, the Indian emperors Chandragupta Maurya and Ashoka; the Greek sage Pythagoras may have advocated an early form of strict vegetarianism, but his life is so obscure that it is disputed whether he advocated any form of vegetarianism at all. He certainly prohibited his followers from eating beans and from wearing woolen garments. Eudoxus of Cnidus, a student of Archytas and Plato, writes that "Pythagoras was distinguished by such purity and so avoided killing and killers that he not only abstained from animal foods, but kept his distance from cooks and hunters". One of the earliest known vegans was the Arab poet al-Maʿarri.
Their arguments were based on health, the transmigration of souls, animal welfare, the view—espoused by Porphyry in De Abstinentia ab Esu Animalium —that if humans deserve justice so do animals. Vegetarianism established itself as a significant movement in 19th-century England and the United States. A minority of vegetarians avoided animal food entirely. In 1813, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley published A Vindication of Natural Diet, advocating "abstinence from animal food and spirituous liquors", in 1815, William Lambe, a London physician, claimed that his "water and vegetable diet" could cure anything from tuberculosis to acne. Lambe called animal food a "habitual irritation", argued that "milk eating and flesh-eating are but branches of a common system and they must stand or fall together". Sylvester Graham's meatless Graham diet—mostly fruit, vegetables and bread made at home with stoneground flour—became popular as a health remedy in the 1830s in the United States. Several vegan communities were established around this time.
In Massachusetts, Amos Bronson Alcott, father of the novelist Louisa May Alcott, opened the Temple School in 1834 and Fruitlands in 1844, in England, James Pierrepont Greaves founded the Concordium, a vegan community at Alcott House on Ham Common, in 1838. In 1843, members of Alcott House created the British and Foreign Society for the Promotion of Humanity and Abstinence from Animal Food, led by Sophia Chichester, a wealthy benefactor of Alcott House. Alcott House helped to establish the UK Vegetarian Society, which held its first meeting in 1847 in Ramsgate, Kent; the Medical Times and Gazette in London reported in 1884: There are two kinds of Vegetarians—one an extreme form, the members of which eat no animal food whatever. The Vegetarian Society... belongs to the latter more moderate division. An article in the Society's magazine, the Vegetarian Messenger, in 1851 discussed alternatives to shoe leat
Judaism
Judaism is the religion of the Jewish people. It is an ancient, Abrahamic religion with the Torah as its foundational text, it encompasses the religion and culture of the Jewish people. Judaism is considered by religious Jews to be the expression of the covenant that God established with the Children of Israel. Judaism encompasses a wide body of texts, theological positions, forms of organization; the Torah is part of the larger text known as the Tanakh or the Hebrew Bible, supplemental oral tradition represented by texts such as the Midrash and the Talmud. With between 14.5 and 17.4 million adherents worldwide, Judaism is the tenth largest religion in the world. Within Judaism there are a variety of movements, most of which emerged from Rabbinic Judaism, which holds that God revealed his laws and commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai in the form of both the Written and Oral Torah; this assertion was challenged by various groups such as the Sadducees and Hellenistic Judaism during the Second Temple period.
Modern branches of Judaism such as Humanistic Judaism may be nontheistic. Today, the largest Jewish religious movements are Orthodox Judaism, Conservative Judaism, Reform Judaism. Major sources of difference between these groups are their approaches to Jewish law, the authority of the Rabbinic tradition, the significance of the State of Israel. Orthodox Judaism maintains that the Torah and Jewish law are divine in origin and unalterable, that they should be followed. Conservative and Reform Judaism are more liberal, with Conservative Judaism promoting a more traditionalist interpretation of Judaism's requirements than Reform Judaism. A typical Reform position is that Jewish law should be viewed as a set of general guidelines rather than as a set of restrictions and obligations whose observance is required of all Jews. Special courts enforced Jewish law. Authority on theological and legal matters is not vested in any one person or organization, but in the sacred texts and the rabbis and scholars who interpret them.
The history of Judaism spans more than 3,000 years. Judaism has its roots as an organized religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age. Judaism is considered one of the oldest monotheistic religions; the Hebrews and Israelites were referred to as "Jews" in books of the Tanakh such as the Book of Esther, with the term Jews replacing the title "Children of Israel". Judaism's texts and values influenced Abrahamic religions, including Christianity and the Baha'i Faith. Many aspects of Judaism have directly or indirectly influenced secular Western ethics and civil law. Hebraism was just as important a factor in the ancient era development of Western civilization as Hellenism, Judaism, as the background of Christianity, has shaped Western ideals and morality since Early Christianity. Jews are an ethnoreligious group including those born Jewish, in addition to converts to Judaism. In 2015, the world Jewish population was estimated at about 14.3 million, or 0.2% of the total world population. About 43% of all Jews reside in Israel and another 43% reside in the United States and Canada, with most of the remainder living in Europe, other minority groups spread throughout Latin America, Asia and Australia.
Unlike other ancient Near Eastern gods, the Hebrew God is portrayed as solitary. Judaism thus begins with ethical monotheism: the belief that God is one and is concerned with the actions of mankind. According to the Tanakh, God promised Abraham to make of his offspring a great nation. Many generations he commanded the nation of Israel to love and worship only one God, he commanded the Jewish people to love one another. These commandments are but two of a large corpus of commandments and laws that constitute this covenant, the substance of Judaism. Thus, although there is an esoteric tradition in Judaism, Rabbinic scholar Max Kadushin has characterized normative Judaism as "normal mysticism", because it involves everyday personal experiences of God through ways or modes that are common to all Jews; this is played out through the observance of the Halakha and given verbal expression in the Birkat Ha-Mizvot, the short blessings that are spoken every time a positive commandment is to be fulfilled.
The ordinary, everyday things and occurrences we have, constitute occasions for the experience of God. Such things as one's daily sustenance, the day itself, are felt as manifestations of God's loving-kindness, calling for the Berakhot. Kedushah, nothing else than the imitation of God, is concerned with daily conduct, with being gracious and merciful, with keeping oneself from defilement by idolatry and the shedding of blood; the Birkat Ha-Mitzwot evokes the consciousness of holiness at a rabbinic rite, but the objects employed in the majority of these rites are non-holy and of general character, while the several holy objects are non-theurgic. And not only do ordinary things and occurrences bring with them the experience of God. Everything that happens to a man evokes that exp
Years of Living Dangerously
Years of Living Dangerously is an American documentary television series focusing on global warming. The first season was broadcast in the US in 2014 on Showtime, it won an Emmy Award as Outstanding Nonfiction Series. The second season aired on the National Geographic Channel in 2016. Executive producers included James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger, series creators Joel Bach and David Gelber. Joseph Romm and Heidi Cullen were the chief science advisors; the weekly episodes featured celebrity hosts with a history of environmental activism and well-known journalists with a background in environmental reportage. These "correspondents" traveled the world and throughout the U. S. to interview experts and ordinary people affected by, seeking solutions to, the effects of global warming. They acted as reporters and proxies for the audience, asking questions to find out people's opinions and to discover the scientific evidence; the final episode of season one featured an interview of President Barack Obama.
Episodes explored the effects of rising sea levels, historic droughts and flooding, water scarcity, ocean acidification and the increasing extinction rate of species, but focused on "solutions that individuals, communities and governments can use to address worldwide climate change", including cheaper solar and wind energy, advancing battery technology and electric cars. Hosts included Cameron, Harrison Ford, Ian Somerhalder, America Ferrera, David Letterman, Gisele Bündchen, Jack Black, Matt Damon, Jessica Alba, Sigourney Weaver, various other actors and journalists. Schwarzenegger reflected on how the series tries to make the issue of climate change resonate with the public: "I think the environmental movement only can be successful if we are simple and clear and make it a human story. We will tell human stories in this project; the scientists would never get the kind of attention that someone in show business gets." Cameron elaborated: "We didn’t use our celebrities as talking head experts, because they’re not climate experts.
They were concerned, curious citizens who were out to find answers. They were functioning as journalists." Newsweek said that the celebrity hosts "lend sparks to an issue that sends most viewers for the exits". Episode 1, "Dry Season": Don Cheadle reports on the severe droughts in the Southwest United States, following scientist and devout Christian, Katharine Hayhoe, as she speaks to religious audiences about the connection between extreme weather and climate change; the UK organization Global Witness stated that although Ford's segment exposed the dangers of deforestation, executive producer Arnold Schwarzenegger owned an 5% stake in Dimensional Fund Advisors, a firm that it said finances many of the world's largest logging companies. Episode 2, "End of the Woods": Schwarzenegger accompanies the "hot shots", elite firefighters in Western US forests, as they risk their lives fighting the fire season made longer and more destructive by global warming, as fire regions expand from the southwest US further north into Canada.
He learns that more destruction is caused by the proliferation of bark beetles, as longer summers enable them to reproduce up to twice each year and kill trees with their toxic secretions. Meanwhile, Ford continues his quest to stop Indonesian deforestation and the carbon emissions and displacement of animals and people that it causes, confronting officials including Indonesia's forestry minister, Zulkifli Hasan, its president, whom he persuades, with the help of the TV cameras, to take "real action", he gets sustainability commitments from officers of Unilever, a major user of palm oil. We see how Greenpeace and other environmental groups are making a real and positive difference. Episode 3, "The Surge": Chris Hayes reports on how Superstorm Sandy affected towns and families. M. Sanjayan interviews scientists around the world about global warming and reviews the data that they are collecting about the effects of climate change around the world, for example at Christmas Island, where El Niños begin.
Episode 4, "Ice & Brimstone": Ian Somerhalder follows Anna Jane Joyner, the daughter of prominent Evangelical preacher, Rick Joyner, as she works to persuade congregations and preachers in North Carolina to join the Evangelical fight against global warming and the Beyond Coal campaign to shut down a coal-fired power plant. They meet with Inglis, gulf coast workers and former skeptical scientist Richard A. Muller, all of whom provide Rick with information about impacts of climate change. Anna asked her father for his support in an open letter in the Huffington Post, writing: "We are the first generation that knows how serious the stakes are, as well as the last to be able to do something about it in time. Lesley Stahl visits Greenland to investigate the effects of global warming in the Arctic on global sea levels and the rush to develop oil and gas reserves there. Greenland's ice is melting five times faster than it was 20 years ago, but businesses hope to gain trillions of dollars by exploiting the arctic.
Scientist Heidi Cullen explains that "if we don’t leave 30 percent of our oil and gas reserves untapp
Ukraine
Ukraine, sometimes called the Ukraine, is a country in Eastern Europe. Excluding Crimea, Ukraine has a population of about 42.5 million, making it the 32nd most populous country in the world. Its capital and largest city is Kiev. Ukrainian is the official language and its alphabet is Cyrillic; the dominant religions in the country are Greek Catholicism. Ukraine is in a territorial dispute with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014. Including Crimea, Ukraine has an area of 603,628 km2, making it the largest country within Europe and the 46th largest country in the world; the territory of modern Ukraine has been inhabited since 32,000 BC. During the Middle Ages, the area was a key centre of East Slavic culture, with the powerful state of Kievan Rus' forming the basis of Ukrainian identity. Following its fragmentation in the 13th century, the territory was contested and divided by a variety of powers, including Lithuania, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Russia. A Cossack republic emerged and prospered during the 17th and 18th centuries, but its territory was split between Poland and the Russian Empire, merged into the Russian-dominated Soviet Union in the late 1940s as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
In 1991 Ukraine gained its independence from the Soviet Union in the aftermath of its dissolution at the end of the Cold War. Before its independence, Ukraine was referred to in English as "The Ukraine", but most sources have since moved to drop "the" from the name of Ukraine in all uses. Following its independence, Ukraine declared itself a neutral state. In 2013, after the government of President Viktor Yanukovych had decided to suspend the Ukraine-European Union Association Agreement and seek closer economic ties with Russia, a several-months-long wave of demonstrations and protests known as the Euromaidan began, which escalated into the 2014 Ukrainian revolution that led to the overthrow of Yanukovych and the establishment of a new government; these events formed the background for the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, the War in Donbass in April 2014. On 1 January 2016, Ukraine applied the economic component of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area with the European Union.
Ukraine is ranks 88th on the Human Development Index. As of 2018, Ukraine has the second lowest GDP per capita in Europe. At US$40, it has the lowest median wealth per adult in the world, it suffers from a high poverty rate and severe corruption. However, because of its extensive fertile farmlands, Ukraine is one of the world's largest grain exporters. Ukraine maintains the second-largest military in Europe after that of Russia; the country is home to a multi-ethnic population, 77.8 percent of whom are Ukrainians, followed by a large Russian minority, as well as Georgians, Belarusians, Crimean Tatars, Jews and Hungarians. Ukraine is a unitary republic under a semi-presidential system with separate powers: legislative and judicial branches; the country is a member of the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the OSCE, the GUAM organization, one of the founding states of the Commonwealth of Independent States. There are different hypotheses as to the etymology of the name Ukraine. According to the older widespread hypothesis, it means "borderland", while some more recent linguistic studies claim a different meaning: "homeland" or "region, country"."The Ukraine" used to be the usual form in English, but since the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine, "the Ukraine" has become less common in the English-speaking world, style-guides recommend not using the definite article.
"The Ukraine" now implies disregard for the country's sovereignty, according to U. S. ambassador William Taylor. The Ukrainian position is that the usage of "'The Ukraine' is incorrect both grammatically and politically." Neanderthal settlement in Ukraine is seen in the Molodova archaeological sites which include a mammoth bone dwelling. The territory is considered to be the location for the human domestication of the horse. Modern human settlement in Ukraine and its vicinity dates back to 32,000 BC, with evidence of the Gravettian culture in the Crimean Mountains. By 4,500 BC, the Neolithic Cucuteni–Trypillia culture flourished in wide areas of modern Ukraine including Trypillia and the entire Dnieper-Dniester region. During the Iron Age, the land was inhabited by Cimmerians and Sarmatians. Between 700 BC and 200 BC it was Scythia. Beginning in the sixth century BC, colonies of Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome and the Byzantine Empire, such as Tyras and Chersonesus, were founded on the northeastern shore of the Black Sea.
These colonies thrived well into the 6th century AD. The Goths stayed in the area but came under the sway of the Huns from the 370s AD. In the 7th century AD, the territory of eastern Ukraine was the centre of Old Great Bulgaria. At the end of the century, the majority of Bulgar tribes migrated in different directions, the Khazars took over much of the land. In the 5th and 6th centuries, the Antes were located in the territory of; the Antes were the ancestors of Ukrainians: White Croats, Polans, Dulebes and Tiverians. Migrations from Ukraine throughout the Balkans established many Southern Slavic nations. Northern migrations, reaching to the Ilmen l
Royal Library of the Netherlands
The Royal Library of the Netherlands is based in The Hague and was founded in 1798. The mission of the Royal Library of the Netherlands, as presented on the library's web site, is to provide "access to the knowledge and culture of the past and the present by providing high-quality services for research and cultural experience"; the initiative to found a national library was proposed by representative Albert Jan Verbeek on August 17 1798. The collection would be based on the confiscated book collection of William V; the library was founded as the Nationale Bibliotheek on November 8 of the same year, after a committee of representatives had advised the creation of a national library on the same day. The National Library was only open to members of the Representative Body. King Louis Bonaparte gave the national library its name of the Royal Library in 1806. Napoleon Bonaparte transferred the Royal Library to The Hague as property, while allowing the Imperial Library in Paris to expropriate publications from the Royal Library.
In 1815 King William I of the Netherlands confirmed the name of'Royal Library' by royal resolution. It has been known as the National Library of the Netherlands since 1982, when it opened new quarters; the institution became independent of the state in 1996, although it is financed by the Department of Education and Science. In 2004, the National Library of the Netherlands contained 3,300,000 items, equivalent to 67 kilometers of bookshelves. Most items in the collection are books. There are pieces of "grey literature", where the author, publisher, or date may not be apparent but the document has cultural or intellectual significance; the collection contains the entire literature of the Netherlands, from medieval manuscripts to modern scientific publications. For a publication to be accepted, it must be from a registered Dutch publisher; the collection is accessible for members. Any person aged 16 years or older can become a member. One day passes are available. Requests for material take 30 minutes.
The KB hosts several open access websites, including the "Memory of the Netherlands". List of libraries in the Netherlands European Library Nederlandse Centrale Catalogus Books in the Netherlands Media related to Koninklijke Bibliotheek at Wikimedia Commons Official website
Julia Child
Julia Carolyn Child was an American chef and television personality. She is recognized for bringing French cuisine to the American public with her debut cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, her subsequent television programs, the most notable of, The French Chef, which premiered in 1963. Julia Child was born Julia Carolyn McWilliams in 1912, in Pasadena, the daughter of John McWilliams, Jr. a Princeton University graduate and prominent land manager, his wife, the former Julia Carolyn Weston, a paper-company heiress whose father, Byron Curtis Weston, served as lieutenant governor of Massachusetts. Child was the eldest of three, followed by a brother, John McWilliams III, sister, Dorothy Cousins. In high school, Child was sent to the Katherine Branson School in Ross, at the time a boarding school. At six feet, two inches tall, Child played tennis and basketball as a youth and continued to play sports while attending Smith College, from which she graduated in 1934 with a major in History.
Child grew up with a cook. She did not learn how to cook from the family's cook. Child did not learn to cook until she met her would-be husband, who grew up in a family interested in food. Following her graduation from college, Child moved to New York City, where she worked as a copywriter for the advertising department of W. & J. Sloane. Child joined the Office of Strategic Services after finding that she was too tall to enlist in the Women's Army Corps or in the U. S. Navy's WAVES, she began her OSS career as a typist at its headquarters in Washington, but because of her education and experience soon was given a more responsible position as a top secret researcher working directly for the head of OSS, General William J. Donovan; as a research assistant in the Secret Intelligence division, she typed 10,000 names on white note cards to keep track of officers. For a year, she worked at the OSS Emergency Rescue Equipment Section in Washington, D. C. as a file clerk and as an assistant to developers of a shark repellent needed to ensure that sharks would not explode ordnance targeting German U-boats.
In 1944, she was posted to Kandy, where her responsibilities included "registering and channeling a great volume of classified communications" for the OSS's clandestine stations in Asia. She was posted to Kunming, where she received the Emblem of Meritorious Civilian Service as head of the Registry of the OSS Secretariat; when Child was asked to solve the problem of too many OSS underwater explosives being set off by curious sharks, "Child's solution was to experiment with cooking various concoctions as a shark repellent," which were sprinkled in the water near the explosives and repelled sharks. Still in use today, the experimental shark repellent "marked Child's first foray into the world of cooking..." For her service, Child received an award that cited her many virtues, including her "drive and inherent cheerfulness." As with other OSS records, her file was declassified in 2008. While in Kunming, she met Paul Cushing Child an OSS employee, the two were married September 1, 1946, in Lumberville, Pennsylvania moving to Washington, D.
C. A New Jersey native who had lived in Paris as an artist and poet, Paul was known for his sophisticated palate, introduced his wife to fine cuisine, he joined the United States Foreign Service, in 1948 the couple moved to Paris when the US State Department assigned Paul there as an exhibits officer with the United States Information Agency. The couple had no children. Child recalled her first meal in Rouen as a culinary revelation. In Paris, she attended the famous Cordon Bleu cooking school and studied with Max Bugnard and other master chefs, she joined the women's cooking club Le Cercle des Gourmettes, through which she met Simone Beck, writing a French cookbook for Americans with her friend Louisette Bertholle. Beck proposed that Child work with them to make the book appeal to Americans. In 1951, Child and Bertholle began to teach cooking to American women in Child's Paris kitchen, calling their informal school L'école des trois gourmandes. For the next decade, as the Childs moved around Europe and to Cambridge, the three researched and tested recipes.
Child translated the French into English, making the recipes detailed and practical. In 1963, the Childs built a home near the Provence town of Plascassier in the hills above Cannes on property belonging to co-author Simone Beck and her husband, Jean Fischbacher; the Childs named it "La Pitchoune", a Provençal word meaning "the little one" but over time the property was affectionately referred to as "La Peetch". The three would-be authors signed a contract with publisher Houghton Mifflin, which rejected the manuscript for seeming too much like an encyclopedia; when it was first published in 1961 by Alfred A. Knopf, the 726-page Mastering the Art of French Cooking was a best-seller and received critical acclaim that derived in part from the American interest in French culture in the early 1960s. Lauded for its helpful illustrations and precise attention to detail, for making fine cuisine accessible, the book is still in print and is considered a seminal culinary work. Following this success, Child wrote magazine articles and a regular column for The Boston Globe newsp
Spain... on the Road Again
Spain… on the road Again is a 2008 American food and travel series produced by PBS. The show features Iron Chef Mario Batali, actress Gwyneth Paltrow, New York Times food writer Mark Bittman, Spanish actress Claudia Bassols; each episode covers a different region of Spain as the foursome explore the country's culinary traditions and history. Before the series premiere on PBS, Paltrow and Batali promoted their tour and series on the September 17, 2008 episode of Oprah. In October 2008, HarperCollins published a hardcover companion book, Spain… A Culinary Road Trip, written by Batali and Julia Turshen; the 13-episode series was released as a 4-disc 16×9 NTSC DVD set in January 2009. Official website Spain on the Road Again in the UK Spain... on the Road Again on IMDb
