Daily Archives: November 29, 2020

No goal has riveted eyeballs quite like the Hand of God" one scoredor stolenby Argentine football legend Diego Maradona, whose life was claimed by a heart attack on Wednesday. He was 60, loved for his mastery of the game, admired for his art as much as artifice, and a rare player who could send up a great groan across the globe each time he took a fall, his fandom mostly intact through a run of latter-day addictions (and all that befell him thereafter). The goal for Argentina that appears to have granted him immortality was against England in a 1986 FIFA World Cup quarter- final, a match fraught with the fallout of their 1982 Falklands War, which saw the former fail to wrest control of islands off its coast long held under British colonial rule. On the field that day, Argentina won 2-1, thanks to a ball fisted into the net by a leaping Maradona. Mistaken as a header by the Tunisian referee, the goal was awarded, though our impish master of sleight would later admit divine intervention. It was scored, he said, a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God". It was absurd, of course, but an absurdity that had popular endorsement all the same. For, it was his second goal, struck four minutes later with a delightfully-dribbled run all the way from the Argentine half to the English goalpost that wowed us enough to call it the Goal of the Century" and hail his greatness. That strike alone was seen to be worth two on the scoreboard. Surely, it deserved as much, did it not?

What seems bizarre to some could be just another shrug-and-move-on matter for others. Think of the endless loop of Argentinas sovereign debt, its defaults, and its tango with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). As it happens, the country is back trying to defer its dues to the lender, some $44 billion of it this time, having won an IMF package to avert a default just two years ago. It routinely imports more than it exports, watches its peso fall, sees local prices of imported goods soar, runs short of dollars, has tight-money and fiscal-austerity plans imposed, then reopens public coffers to quell unrest and ends up staring at its next crisis. Arguably, what its economy needs is export competitiveness, a ground-up exercise, rather than periodic fixes of macro policy.

Speaking of absurdity, perhaps the worlds most apparent one nowadays is the price inversion seen in financial markets, where investors have been piling into negative-yield bonds. In effect, borrowers are getting paid to borrow money. As debt issuers, Europe and China have both been beneficiaries of this. A closer look, however, reveals an explanation. For one, it is a direct outcome of the super-cheap lending done by major central banks to stimulate covid-crunched commercial activity. Once official interest rates are pushed to negligible levels, they could drop below zero in real terms anyway (if inflation is higher). For another, market rates on debt can go into the minus zone if theres a rush for overpriced bonds, and there currently exists robust demand for negative-yield paper that is not irrational. Such securities are usually secure, backed as they are by governments, and thus serve as safe havens in uncertain times. They also act as a deflation hedge. Moreover, if downward pressures on rates persist, they can even be sold off for more money. All said, if the usual rules of play can bend so easily in the credit arena, why not in a football stadium?

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Maradonas divine goal and worthy absurdities - Mint

By Bill Reid, For The Bulletin| The Bulletin

Each pine is like a great green feather stuck in the ground. Myriad white pine boughs extend themselves horizontally, one above and behind another, each bearing its burden of silvery sunlight… from Henry David Thoreaus journal, Nov. 30, 1851

Todays column is the third in a series about finding beauty in nature. My intention is to share the splendor of the natural world I encounter each month as we pass together through the four seasons of The Last Green Valley National Heritage Corridor. I hope they help you consider what beauty in nature means to you, and I invite you to share your thoughts with me.

Is beauty only in the sight of the beholder? Or can beauty also be something that you smell a pleasant scent that tingles the olfactory gland and draws in a fond memory? The smell of evergreen and cut conifer with sticky pitch oozing from a pine branch or a spruce stump was planted deep in my scent database as a child.

I remember one frosty December day going with my dad and two brothers to a local Christmas tree farm to cut a fresh tree for the approaching holiday. Dad selected the tree, and my oldest brother, with bow saw in hand lay on his stomach under the tree and sliced through the trunk with several quick pulls of the saw. I squatted next to him and the sharp and minty evergreen smell from the blowing sawdust floated over me.

After the tree had been set up in the house it was my job each day to crawl under the sweeping bows to fill the tree-stand reservoir with water. In the warmth of the house the smell of evergreen was sharp and invigorating and a beautiful symbol of the holiday season.

An outdoor ramble in December is when we notice again the conifers. The green and colorful fall foliage of the deciduous trees is gone with the winds of autumn, their brown remnants scattered on the forest floor. Now, it is the white pine and hemlock taking center stage in their green coats to stand out against the naked skeletons of oak, maple, hickory, birch and ash. They share the stage with a supporting cast of spruces, red and white cedar, red pine and pitch pine though it is the lead actors of pine and hemlock that dominate our winter scene.

The white pine stands tall, erect and solid with long branches held out straight from its trunk or slightly elevated to the sun. Usually the tallest tree in the forest, it dominates hill tops and water edges. The branches are long and grow in annual tiers resembling successive platforms of a tower. This characteristic is one reason why bald eagles build their massive nests within the top sections of a pine. It is also a feature that makes for climbing a pine relatively easy.

When I was a boy, I used to walk from tree to tree high above the forest floor, clinging to pitchy pine branches, feet on a bough like a tightrope walker. Andrew Vietze, White Pine: American History and the Tree That Made a Nation.

I too was once a climber of pine trees, though not daring enough to walk branches from tree to tree. Hidden within dark green foliage I would cling to its sturdy trunk as it swayed in a gentle breeze. Remnants of a pine climbing episode would remain with me for a day or two in the dark spots of pitch stuck to my hands and clothing.

If beauty can be found in both the sight and scent of pine trees, then so too is it revealed by the murmur of wind through its boughs. As a child high up in the canopy, the wind could be frightening. But I am no longer a climber of trees, and the sound is but a magical whisper of secrets revealed when least expected.

Joining the white pine among our most common evergreens is the majestic eastern hemlock. Its shape is similar to firs and spruces with a teepee shape perfect for shedding snow. Its topmost branches love the sun but this shade tolerant tree takes its time to get there.

But though the Hemlocks top may rejoice in the boldest sun and brave any storm, the tree unfailingly has its roots down in deep, cool, perpetually moist earth. And no more light and heat than a glancing sunbeam ever penetrates through the somber shade of its boughs to the forest floor. Beside shade, the Hemlock loves rocks; it likes to straddle them with its ruddy roots, to crack them with is growing, to rub its knees against a great boulder. Donald Culross Peattie from A Natural History of North American Trees.

On hot summer days a hemlock forest will be much cooler that the surrounding area. The earth beneath the trees is thick and deep with discarded needles, and the heavy, low sweeping branches shade the forest floor in cool air. In winter those same branches prevent the snow piling too deep and deer will take advantage of this and bed down for the night under the hemlocks or to gather there in numbers to wait out a storm.

On winter forest rambles I like to search beneath the hemlocks for a shallow depression in the snow where the deer had rested. Ill look for tufts of hair clinging to the branches, another clue to their evening sojourn among the hemlocks.

December is here, and though the hills are mostly bare, it is the conifers that bring us the green we long for. Our tradition of bringing evergreen into the house around the winter solstice goes back to European pagans who decorated their homes with fir branches. Through the long winter the shades of green provide color during cold wintertime and symbolize eternal life and immortality.

I hope youll join me in finding beauty in each month even during the winter months ahead. We live in a beautiful place called The Last Green Valley our very own homegrown National Park. Together let us care for it, enjoy it, and pass it on.

Bill Reid is the chief ranger of The Last Green Valley National Heritage Corridor and has lived in the region for more than 35 years. He can be reached at bill@tlgv.org

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Exploring the Last Green Valley: Beauty found in December evergreens - Norwich Bulletin

While its name may be a bit ungainly, Amazing Cultivation Simulator is a management game about achieving spiritual balance. Taking its cues from Dwarf Fortress and Rimworld, Amazing Cultivation Simulator is already a hit in its native China, and now its available on Steam with a full western localization.

As in other colony management games, your job in Amazing Cultivation Simulator is to direct your people to build up your settlement, which in this case is a cultivation sect in the mythical Tiancang era. Youll recruit novices and guide their training, building schools for their physical, mental, and spiritual development. Ultimately, your goal is to achieve immortality.

Unfortunately, to get there youll have to rebuild the Taiyi Sect from the ground up, since the last master got a bit too far out over his skis. There are ancient dangers around the world, which youll have to explore in order to gather the remnants back together. Its all inspired by the Chinese literary tradition of xianxia, which draws from Buddhist and Taoist philosophy.

Heres the trailer:

As you expand, youll run into NPC factions who youll want to befriend or protect yourself against, and youll need to maintain the balance between good and evil in the world while you scour it for relics and artifacts.If this sounds like your idea of a good time, you can find Amazing Cultivation Simulator on Steam right now.

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Amazing Cultivation Simulator blends Taoist philosophy with Dwarf Fortress - PCGamesN

Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest

is my beloved among the young men.

I delight to sit in his shade,

and his fruit is sweet to my taste.

(Song of Songs 2:3)

The Hebrew word thappuakh means apple or apple tree and refers to a species of tree now known as Malus domestica or common apple tree.

This name was translated into Greek as melon, and into Latin as malum. It is a fruit tree that was mentioned in the Old Testament and grew abundantly in Ashkelon, the country of the Philistines. There were several places that bore this name in the Hebrew Bible, such as Tapa (Joshua 12:17; 15;34; 17:8) and Bet-tapa (Joshua 15:53), which probably indicates that there were plantations of apple trees in many different parts of the Biblical lands.

Besides, in the book of Joel it appears as one of the fruit trees that were grown next to the vine, the fig-tree and the palm-tree (Joel 1:12). It was a plant that not only produced sweet, healthy fruit, but also provided very welcome protection from the burning rays of the sun (Song of Songs 2:3). Under its shade you could sleep peacefully (Song of Songs 8:5), and its aroma could reanimate you if you fainted (Song of Songs 2:5).

The Egyptians also grew these trees as far back as the era of Rameses II (13th century BC). Likewise, the Greeks associated their fruit with Aphrodite, the goddess of love, beauty and sexuality. The lover would throw an apple to his beloved to symbolically express his love for her and, if she caught it, it meant that she accepted him. [1]

Another popular myth, related with the Biblical story of the Fall and sin of Adam and Eve, is the belief that the forbidden fruit was an apple.

Scripture refers, in fact, to the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden (Genesis 3:3), but it says nothing about apples. So why have so many painters and illustrators since ancient times represented Eve as biting an apple and then passing it to Adam? Why have artists and writers, from Albert Drer in 1504 to John Milton, in his 17th century narrative poem Paradise Lost insisted so strongly on the apple of discord?

The answer lies in the curious play on the Latin words, dating from the 4th century AD, associated with the Vulgate translation.

In fact, in the year 374, Pope Damasus I asked his secretary, the historian Jerome of Stridon, to translate the Bible into spoken Latin, from the earliest Hebrew versions available. This translation took 15 years to complete, and came to be known as the Vulgate. Later, in 1546, it was approved by the Council of Trent, and went on to become the official version of the Catholic Church.

The reference to the apple originated in the similarity in Latin between two Latin words. Jerome ingeniously conflated the Latin adjective malus, meaning bad, and the noun malum, which means apple to show how Eve, in biting the malum (the apple) fell prey to malus (evil).

resco de la Capilla Sixtina (Vaticano) pintado por Miguel ngel a principios del siglo XVI, en el que se representa la tentacin de Adn y Eva

However, the Hebrew text does not specify which fruit it was but uses the general term peri, which could refer to any kind of fruit. Some Jewish commentators suggest that it might have been a fig. This, in fact, is the fruit that Michelangelo painted in the famous scene of the temptation and expulsion from Eden depicted in the Sistine Chapel.

Other authors, besides apples and figs, refer to pomegranates, grapes, apricots, etc. Despite this, apples gained in popularity at the expense of the other options, especially after Albert Drers engraving, and thus other artists followed suit, so that Eves apple became widespread and became the myth that is now taken for granted.

From a botanical point of view, the origin of the apple tree is uncertain, though it is believed that other wild species like the Malus sylvestris, Malus orientalis and Malus sieversii became intermingled with the Malus domestica species cultivated by humans. This would locate the origin of the tree in Caucasia and Turkestan (central Asia). From there it would have spread to Palestine, Egypt, Greece, from where the Romans might have introduced the fruit to Europe. Now more than a thousand varieties of apples are grown throughout the world, the results of countless hybridations with wild apple species.

The apple is one of the healthiest fruits that exist as its nutrients are a source of numerous benefits for human beings. In particular, it is rich in pectin, a type of soluble fibre which forms part of the cell wall of plants. When this substance combines with sugar or different acids, it forms a jelly-like substance that is used to make jam. This soluble fibre helps to reduce the level of cholesterol in the blood, which makes apples a good means of keeping cholesterol under control.

Another interesting substance in this fruit is quercitin, a natural colouring which has antioxidant properties, that is to say, it neutralises the free radicals which oxidise the organism and contribute to the appearance of numerous diseases, such as a range of cancerous tumours. In this way, apples help to keep the intestines, and therefore the whole body, in a healthy condition.

In Greek Mythology, the Hesperides were nymphs who lived in a garden, known as the Hesperides Garden, where a very special apple tree grew. It was a tree that produced golden apples, which imparted immortality to whoever ate them (note the similarities with the Biblical story). The task of the Hesperides consisted in protecting this apple tree from any mortal who tried to steal the apples in order to become immortal. To this end, they were able to count on the help of a hundred-headed dragon called Ladon.

Hugh Macmillan (1833 1903), a minister of the Free Church of Scotland wrote the following, with reference to such dreams of immortality:

All these dreams have turned out to be vain and empty of meaning. They arise from earthly longings, rather than a divine promise: they are the fruit of egotism, not of holy aspiration. In a fallen world full of the sorrow caused by sin, no man can achieve fulfilment. Every fruit in the affairs of humankind is marked by suffering and only won through pain. Earthly happiness is a flower that always grows out of a cruel thorn, masked by human manipulation. The poetic myth that places the golden apples in the Hesperides, a garden guarded by dragons, is an allegory of our human reality: if we do not put to death the dragons of egotism and sloth we shall never achieve golden success in life. And even if we could achieve the objects of our desire without work or effort, we would not be able to enjoy them, because if we wish them to do us any real good, they must be the result of our self-denial and hard-work. This is the great lesson that we learn from way in which the Lord performed his miracles. They teach us that both in temporal and in spiritual matters, we cannot glibly throw ourselves into the arms of divine providence and grace if this means that we neglect our own responsibility and the work that it is our part to perform. [2]

[1]Edmonds, J. M., trans.; rev. John M. Cooper. "Epigrams".Plato: Complete Works.Ed. John M. Cooper. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997, p. 1744.

[2]Spurgeon, The Treasury of David

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The myth of the apple - Evangelical Focus

By Matias Grez, CNN

(CNN) -- Dawn had barely broken and already the queue of people waiting to pay their respects to Diego Maradona, who was lying in honor at the presidential palace in Buenos Aires, was estimated to be more than a mile long.

Some media outlets put the number of fans that would eventually gather there at around one million.

Across the Argentine capital, the city of his beloved Boca Juniors, many more paid their own special homage throughout the night, the innumerable murals of Maradona painted around the city each acting as a shrine.

Fans laid out the shirts of Argentina, Boca and Argentinos Juniors -- Maradona's first club -- across the pavements, lit candles and brought flowers. As they congregated, there was a mixture of celebration for what was and grief that his enigmatic story had ended.

His death on Wednesday prompted an outpouring of sorrow, led by President Alberto Fernndez who quickly announced three days of national mourning.

The impact of Maradona's passing, however, will be felt for many years to come in Argentina.

READ: The tormented genius who became one of football's greatest players

"For many reasons, which would probably take anthropologists and sociologists years to unravel, in Argentina football has a significant cultural role as a unifying factor in the forging of our national identity," Argentine journalist Marcela Mora y Araujo tells CNN Sport.

"So the combination of the game that people like to identify with and the best player in the world also identifying with that national emblem has led to him becoming a very treasured Argentinian -- almost national monument.

"His coffin is lying in wake today, in exactly the same way and place, where Evita's was and Peron's [former Argentina president and first lady] after her and so, in a sense, he is continuing a tradition of time honored Argentines who are also quite divisive.

"It doesn't mean everybody feels the same way about them all or that they're not controversial figures, but they represent something very, very, very key to the core of being Argentinian."

READ: Naples mourns Diego Maradona as his former club bids to rename the stadium in his honor

Maradona was Argentina's "Golden Boy," unquestionably the greatest player of his generation and one of the greatest in the game's history.

While he was already an icon before Argentina's victorious 1986 World Cup campaign, his performances in Mexico -- in particular the quarterfinal against England, which was played four years after the bloody Falklands War -- ensured his immortality in Argentina.

"D10s" -- with the letters 'i' and 'o' replaced by his iconic No. 10 -- would go on to become one of his enduring nicknames. "God."

Maradona, as has been widely documented, was flawed, but perhaps people saw some of themselves in those imperfections.

Born in the poor Villa Fiorito area of Buenos Aires, he raised himself out of poverty but never forgot where he came from.

"He was quite unique in the ability to be quite so vulnerable, so weak, so damaged, if you like, and also so successful, so gifted, so brilliant," Mora y Araujo says. "So in a way, we are all a little bit like him and he represents all men and all humans.

"We all identify to some level with some of his contradictions, some of his vulnerabilities, some of his issues and he was just an extreme exponent, like a pendulum. He did everything better, bigger, more, and he fell lower, more dangerously and darker.

"I would suggest that's the universal aspect of his appeal. I think people all over the world identify and acknowledge and recognize that and feel somehow reassured by the incredible humanity of someone who is seemingly superhuman."

READ: Diego Maradona lying in honor at Argentina's presidential palace

On the field, however, Maradona was as close to perfect as the game is ever likely to find.

He played football in an era not meant for players of his abilities; pitches were mud baths or dry and dusty and defenders were given free rein to scythe him down as they pleased.

But still Maradona shone, and far brighter than any of his contemporaries.

In other parts of the world -- notably England -- Maradona's "Hand of God" goal continues to remain arguably his most defining moment.

In Argentina, however, that incident is just a side note in an extraordinary legacy.

For many, it was sad to watch Maradona's health deteriorate following the end of his playing career, as he sought to fill the void that the joy of playing football had left.

"Definitely the images of the young, able Maradona dribbling, kicking the ball up in the air, smiling, training to music will prevail and they will be played over and over on a loop," Mora y Araujo says.

"I think the images of the more deteriorated Maradona might well be the more recent, but I don't necessarily think they will be the more enduring.

"If you look at pictures of him over time, he, you know, balloons in and out, he looks ill and well, old and young at various points. It's not a linear transformation at all.

"Interestingly, the still images of him overtime do exactly the same thing. You just see somebody that ages and rejuvenates and gets fatter and thinner and fitter and iller over time, not in a linear way.

"So I suspect that is what we will be left with, is this incredibly transformative being that in every expression of themselves actually had the same effect, ultimately, which is to impact millions and millions of lives."

With his death, millions of Argentines have lost a link to a glorious past, one in which they and Maradona ruled the world of football.

The-CNN-Wire & 2020 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

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Diego Maradona did 'everything better and bigger, but fell more dangerously and darker' - WDJT