WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR ME LATELY

I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round,
I really love to watch them roll,
No longer riding on the merry-go-round,
I just had to let it go,

People asking questions lost in confusion,
Well I tell them there’s no problem,
Only solutions,
Well they shake their heads and they look at me as if I’ve lost my mind,
I tell them there’s no hurry…
I’m just sitting here doing time,

I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round,
I really love to watch them roll,
No longer riding on the merry-go-round,
I just had to let it go. ( John Lennon, Watching the Wheels )

martinklasch.blogspot 1963

martinklasch.blogspot 1963

By A.D. 1000 at the latest, and perhaps feebly, for two hundred years earlier, the west began to apply water power to industrial processes other than the milling of grain. this was followed in the late twelfth century by the harnessing of wind power. From simple beginnings, but with remarkable consistency of style, the west rapidly expanded its skills in the development of power machinery, labor saving devices ad automation. Not in craftsmanship , but in basic technological capacity, the Latin West of the late Middle Ages far outstripped the elaborate, sophisticated, and aesthetically magnificent cultures of Byzantium and Islam.

”However, the first practical windmills were built in Sistan, Afghanistan, from the 7th century, by the Rashidun caliph Umar (634-644). These were vertical axle windmills, which had long vertical driveshafts with rectangle shaped blades. Made of six to twelve sails covered in reed matting or cloth material, these windmills were used to grind corn and draw up water, and were used in the gristmilling and sugarcane industries. By the 14th century Dutch windmills were in use to drain areas of the Rhine River delta.”

By the end of the fifteenth century the technological superiority of Europe was such that its small, mutually hostile nations could spill out over all the rest of the world, conquering, looting and colonizing. The symbol of this technological superiority is the fact that Portugal , one of the weakest states of the Occident, was able to become, and to remain for a century, mistress of the East Indies. And we must remember that the technology of Vasco de Gama and Albuquerque was based largely on pure empiricism, drawing remarkable little support or inspiration from science. …

French waterwheel timepiece Antique. M.S. Rau. $80K

French waterwheel timepiece Antique. M.S. Rau. $80K

While many of the world’s mythologies provide stories of creation, Greco-Roman mythology was singularly incoherent in this respect. Like Aristotle, the intellectuals of the ancient West denied that the visible world had had a beginning. Indeed, the idea of a beginning was impossible in the framework of their cyclical notion of time. In sharp contrast, Christianity inherited from Judaism not only a concept of time as non-repetitive and linear but also a striking story of creation. By gradual stages a loving and all-powerful God had created light and darkness, the heavenly bodies, the earth and all its plants, animals, birds and fishes. Finally, God had created Adam as an afterthought. Eve, to keep man from being lonely. Man named all the animals, thus establishing his dominance over them. God had planned all of this explicitly for man’s benefit and rule: no item in the physical creation had any purpose save to serve man’s purposes. And although man’s body is made of clay, he is not simply part of nature: he is made in God’s image.

”The Water-wheel Park is another highlight along the Yellow River in the city. The unique-shaped Water Wheel has a long history and the first reference to it appeared in the Ming Dynasty. It is an ancient device that uses flowing or falling water to create power by means of a set of paddles mounted around a wheel. The force of the water moved the paddles, and the consequent rotation of the wheel is transmitted to machinery via the shaft of the wheel.”

Especially in its Western form. Christianity is the most anthropocentric religion the world has seen. As early as the second century both tertullian and Saint Irenaeus of Lyons were insisting that when God shaped Adam he was foreshadowing the image of the incarnate Christ, the second Adam. Man shares, in great measure, God’s transcendence of nature. Christianity, in absolute contrast to ancient paganism and Asia’s religions, except perhaps Zoroastrianism, not only established a duality of man and nature but also insisted that it is God’s will that man exploit nature for his own ends.

Japanese irrigation system

Japanese irrigation system

At the level of the common people this worked out in an interesting way. In antiquity every tree, every spring, every stream, every hill, had its own ”genuis loci”, its guardian spirit. These spirits were accessible to men, but were very unlike men.In their own materialistic way, one God was simply not enough; they were required in bunches to help with all humankind’s trials and tribulations.To get the job done was seen as being too much for one great big one. The idea of ”one” was sometimes intelligently referred to by Pagan sages as referring to a quality rather than an arithmetic value.    Before one cut a tree, mined a mountain, or dammed a brook, it was important to placate the spirit in charge of that particular situation and to keep it placated. By destroying pagan animism, Christianity made

possible to exploit nature in a mood of indifference to the feelings of natural objects.

”This water wheel, although used at a Welsh copper mine, is typical of those from the early days of slate quarrying. ”

It is often said that for animism the Church substituted the cult of saints. true; but the cult of saints is functionally quite different from animism. The saint is not ”in”, natural objects; he may have special shrines, but his citizenship is in heaven. Moreover, a saint is entirely a man; he can be approached in human terms. In addition to saints, Christianity of course also had angels and demons inherited from Judaism. But these were all as mobile as the saints themselves. the spirits ”in” natural objects, which formerly had protected nature from man, evaporated. Man’s effective monopoly of spirit in this world was confirmed, and the old inhibitions to the exploitation of nature crumbled.

”Several times over the years I have visited Salisbury Cathedral, eighty miles to the southwest of London and not far from the great megalithic monument at Stonehenge. It is one of the most graceful of medieval cathedrals. As an added attraction, it is home to the oldest mechanical clock in Britain, probably the oldest mechanical clock in the world with most of its original parts and in working order.”

However, Christianity is a complex faith, and its consequences differ in differing contexts. That is, in the medieval west, technology made spectacular advances but in the Greek east, a highly civilized realm of equal Christian devotion, there does not seem to have been produced any marked technological innovation after the late seventh century, when Greek fire was invented. The key to the contrast may perhaps be found in a difference in the tonality of piety and thought that students of comparative theology find between the Greek and latin churches. The Greeks believed that sin was intellectual blindness, and that salvation was found in illumination, orthodoxy; that is, clear thinking. The Latins, on the other hand, felt that sin was moral evil, and that salvation was to be found in right conduct. The implications of Christianity for the conquest of nature would emerge more easily in the Western atmosphere.

John Constable. Mill at Gillingham Dorset. 1826. www.gillinghammuseum.uk

John Constable. Mill at Gillingham Dorset. 1826. www.gillinghammuseum.uk

At a time when the clean production of electricity is a hot political topic, the Government plans to outlaw historic waterwheels, even if they work efficiently, unless they have the right paperwork. As a builder of waterwheels, I am puzzled by the Government’s unhealthy obsession with the minutiae of regulating fewer than 10 such small businesses. …There might be a case for it with solar power, a cornerstone of the Government’s proposed “feed-in tariff” system, which is dominated by a few multinational companies that build a small number of standardised components.

artinconnu.blogspot ''In his 39 years Eric Ravilious left behind some of the most evocative paintings of Britain ever produced, as well as some of the most enduring and effective images depicting the machinations of War. That he did so in a hazy, subdued palette of ochres, greys, blues, pinks and yellows, in watercolour and with pencils, is all the more remarkable''

artinconnu.blogspot ''In his 39 years Eric Ravilious left behind some of the most evocative paintings of Britain ever produced, as well as some of the most enduring and effective images depicting the machinations of War. That he did so in a hazy, subdued palette of ochres, greys, blues, pinks and yellows, in watercolour and with pencils, is all the more remarkable''

Small-scale water-power projects, on the other hand, require bespoke designs if historic mills, sometimes in beautiful rural locations, are to be preserved. So why does the Government insist a traditional waterwheel, often an imposing feature of an old mill, is replaced by a modern bit of industrial machinery to qualify for the new tariffs? The Treasury is not giving these projects grants, but is simply paying for the electricity produced. So if the project doesn’t work, the taxpayer does not have to pay. My family has put their name to what they make for 200 years, so why should faceless gnomes who have never had anything to do with water power tell us we need accreditation?”

Reuters:''At BP’s AGM on Thursday, ethical investors including the Co-Op and Calpers failed in their effort to convince BP to review its biggest planned investment in Canada’s oil sands.  Nonetheless, 9 percent of investors voted in favour of a review — a much bigger venting of shareholder angst about a single project than oil companies are used to hearing.  Was this a vote for the environment or a vote for ethical fund managers’ own businesses?  The oil sands business produces even more CO2 than traditional oil and the investor group, which also included environmental and faith groups, said they were concerned that if governments sought to fight climate change by hiking charges for emitting CO2, the Sunrise project may turn prove an economic catastrophe for BP''

Reuters:''At BP’s AGM on Thursday, ethical investors including the Co-Op and Calpers failed in their effort to convince BP to review its biggest planned investment in Canada’s oil sands. Nonetheless, 9 percent of investors voted in favour of a review — a much bigger venting of shareholder angst about a single project than oil companies are used to hearing. Was this a vote for the environment or a vote for ethical fund managers’ own businesses? The oil sands business produces even more CO2 than traditional oil and the investor group, which also included environmental and faith groups, said they were concerned that if governments sought to fight climate change by hiking charges for emitting CO2, the Sunrise project may turn prove an economic catastrophe for BP''

Time is money. And money has to circulate:

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