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The Statue of Liberty’s Under Construction
Remarkable Photographs

The New York Public Library has recently unveiled some extraordinary pictures of the Statue of Liberty under construction. Take a trip back in time and see extraordinary behind the scenes images of the creation of this superlative structure.


A giant is formed. The sheer scale of the statue under construction can be seen here, in contrast to the workmen posing woodenly for that fairly new invention, the camera.. The more formal name for the statue is Liberty Enlightening the World and it is constructed with sheets of pure copper, even though the picture makes it look something like marble.. It is something of a miracle that we now have the finished product standing proudly on Liberty Island. Had it not been for the contributions of ordinary French and Americans then she would never have arisen in the first instance..

Such is the immensity of the statue one can only wonder whether or not the workmen pictured above had any idea which part of the statue they were working on at any one time. The photographer Albert Fernique, who captured these pictures around 1883, must have been in a certain awe at the immensity of the statue and his images capture its sheer scale and size beautifully. The French had decided to give the United States of America something for their centennial independence celebrations that the Americans and the world would never forget. The process of building was painstaking, slow and fraught with financial difficulties. The copper ?shell’ was only what the public would see. What lies beneath – both in terms of its structure and the story behind its *****ion – is almost as startling

At the time France was in political turmoil and, although at the time under their third republic, many people looked back at the time of Napoleon and the monarchy before that with fondness and wanted its return. The desire for a backwards step to authoritarianism was worrying. French politicians – as wily then as now – saw Lady Liberty as a way, albeit phenomenally huge, to focus the public’s imagination on republicanism as the best way forward. The USA and its centennial of independence from the yolk of England was the perfect focus.


The plaster surface of the left arm and its hand take shape, the skeleton underneath revealed. As there is a deal of work under the carapace, so the French politicians had ulterior motives. Using the USA – which many saw as the ideal of government and populist aspirational politics – the French used the statue as a Trojan Horse in reverse, as it were. Its true purpose, in the eyes of the political gift givers, was to make republicanism the center of political ideology in the minds of the people. How greatly it succeeded can never fully be quantified but the French cannot be faulted for thinking big. It must be said here that the ordinary French, through their substantial buying of lottery tickets (and other fundraising efforts) had a much purer purpose at heart than their politicians.


It must surely have been amazing for the workers to turn up each morning to the sight of a colossal head looking down upon them. The inspiration for the face seems to be the Roman god of the sun, Apollo or his Greek equivalent, Helios. More down to earth sources of inspiration center on the women in the life of the sculptor, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi. It may well have been Isabella Eugenie Boyer, a good looking and well-known figure in Paris at the time. More worrying, some believe the face of the statue actually belongs to Bartholdi’s mother. Bartholdi never revealed the true model of the face, but if this is the case Freud would have had a field day.


Bertholdi made a small scale model first, which is still displayed in the Jardin du Luxembourg in the city of the statue’s original construction, Paris. Before the statue was shipped to America, though, it had to be seen to be tested. If it had not been for money, it may never have landed in the states – particularly in the form we all know. On a visit to Egypt, Bartholdi’s vision of liberty expanded to its present proportions. Had his original idea received financial support, then whatever gift the French gave the Americans for the 1876 centennial could not possibly have been the statue.


Little by little, the statue arises. Bertholdi saw the Suez Canal under construction in the eighteen sixties and was inspired to build a giant figure at its entrance. He drew up plans which bore a remarkable similarity to what now stands on Liberty Island but his ideas were rejected by the Egyptian ruling body of the time because of the financial problems the country was facing at the time. Had the statue been built in Egypt as a lighthouse, the idea would never have been taken up for America. The Statue of Liberty as we know it was in fact used as a lighthouse, from its unveiling in 1886 right until 1902 – the very first in the world to use electricity.

Almost there! There were huge structural issues that had to be addressed in the design and construction of a sculpture of such enormity. Enter a certain Gustave Eiffel, who would later go on to build that eponymous tower which still dominates the skyline of Paris. It was his job (which he delegated to Maurice Koechlin, his favored structural engineer) to ensure that Liberty’s copper sheath could move while still remaining vertical. Koechlin created a huge pylon of wrought iron and the famous skeletal frame to ensure that the statue would not fall down in high winds.

Money was always a problem. The plan had been to get the statue to the US by the fourth of July, 1876. Only the right arm and torch were finished by then. However, as the Americans had taken responsibility for the construction of the pedestal, these pieces of the statue were displayed to the American pubic at the Centennial Exposition (in Philadelphia) . Money raised by allowing people to climb this part of the statue (see here) started the funding efforts for the base of the statue. The French did their bit too, showing the head in their own exposition in 1878.


1886 must have been one of those years that people remembered for the rest of their lives. A statue of gigantic proportions, symbolizing the ideas and aspirations of America, was unveiled by President Grover Cleveland at Liberty Island (renamed from Bedloe’s Island or Love Island). In an ironic twist, President Cleveland had vetoed the New York legislature from contributing fifty thousand dollars to help with the building of the statue’s pedestal. Letting bygones be bygones, President Cleveland was more than happy to officiate at the ceremony. This had not been the only problem to face the statue in the years before its final unveiling, of course. From the model stage, above, to its triumphant moment of revelation, the process was fraught with difficulty – mostly of a financial nature. However, thanks to the efforts of both the American and French people we now have a permanent reminder of what we should hold dear – liberty still symbolically steps forth from her shackles to protect, shelter and enlighten.

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A group of office staff have discovered they work better together when they are NAKED.

Workers at design and marketing company onebestway in Newcastle upon Tyne stripped off at the encouragement of their boss, who thought the move would boost business.

The ailing company had seen six redundancies since the start of the credit crunch when business psychologist David Taylor was brought in to boost team spirit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the buff: The workers at onebestway took a week to steel their nerves for Naked Friday

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not ashamed: Sam Jackson said she felt ‘totally comfortable’

The event, dubbed Naked Friday, was deemed a huge success and is even credited with turning around the firm’s fortunes.

By Daily Mail Reporter

Source : http://www.coldplaying.com/forum/showthread.php?s=e53dd9e23c5fb3e64011ba53f18151ed&p=3185833#post3185833

 

 

 

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The public discourse on climate change has tended to frame the issue as a tradeoff between development and greening; as a choice between generating wealth and creating a less carbon-intensive environment.

With United Nations talks in Copenhagen aimed at negotiating a global deal to replace the Kyoto protocol round the corner, it is the governments and political leaders of the world’s nations that have taken centre stage in the discussion.

But one crucial actor missing from much of the climate change conversation is business. If society is to make any fundamental changes in the model of growth, then business must not only be on board but must be a driver of innovation.

So, what does business have to say about the fight against global warming? How is the debate being framed by the wealth generators of society? Can climate change in fact be a money spinner?

Increasingly a number of businesses, both from traditional as well as newer, green-tech sectors, are answering that query in the affirmative. And unlike in the political sphere, the private sector’s response reveals a surprising unanimity between operators in the developed and developing world.

A recent report by Dalberg, an international consulting firm, titled ‘Champions of the Low Carbon Economy — Why CEOs are ready for a global climate agreement,’ undertook a survey of 40 global companies to conclude that business was eager for the opportunities an ambitious deal at Copenhagen would engender.

Three Indian groups were included: the Tatas, the SUN group and Praj Industries .

The common conclusion of the interviewed CEOs was that fighting climate change could be profitable, but a global deal would be necessary to secure the regulatory certainty required by business to truly commit to a new model of growth.

Pramod Chaudhari, Executive Chairman of Praj Industries, for example, envisioned a “2-3 times worldwide growth (for Praj) in the subsequent four- to five-year period, once a strong agreement and roadmap is in place.”

“The energy revolution is one of the greatest economic opportunities of our time,” added SUN Group’s Uday Khemka. “It will make the tech sector’s growth seem like a minor economic boom.”

Khemka warned however that “the failure to establish certainty and a price on carbon could result in a categorical disaster, because this could fundamentally undermine the confidence in clean energy investing and move the sector back a generation.”

Even companies without a specific focus on the environment underscored the need for a strong climate agreement, often in terms of protecting their customer base. Peter Foyo, who heads the wireless carrier Nextel Mexico, for example, claimed his business interest lay in the fact that, “My customer tomorrow needs to be a healthy person in a healthy world.”

The profits of fighting climate change are, moreover, not only a thing of the future. Many companies have already experienced how greening can be good for business. S M Trehan, Managing Director of the Indian power sector heavyweight Crompton Greaves , told Business Standard the company’s foreign subsidiaries survived the financial crisis by converting their manufacturing units to making transformers for wind turbines rather than the thermal power equipment they traditionally focused on.

“Climate change is the business opportunity of the twenty-first century,” said Trehan. “We need to focus on renewables and also energy efficiency. The opportunities lie in working out how to lower the losses during electricity transmission.” Crompton Greaves is part of the Avantha Group whose other main focus is on thermal power plants.

“If we envision the India of 2040, then 80 per cent of that country is yet to be built,” pointed out Richie Ahuja, the Indian representative of the Environmental Defence Fund. “This begs the question – do we follow the old growth paradigm or do we shift and develop a new growth paradigm that not only creates jobs but in the long run places us at a competitive advantage in the global economy?” Ahuja alluded to the fact that China has already seized the business opportunity inherent in low-carbon technologies.

From being the poster-child for environmental degradation, China has managed to turn its image around in a few short years, primarily because there is money to be made from it.

The country already produces some 50 percent of the world’s solar water heaters and nearly a third of the global solar photovoltaic units. The world’s largest SPV manufacturer, Suntech, is Chinese.

Suntech’s CEO Zhengrong Shi, also interviewed in the Dalberg Report, holds 11 patents and grew his business from a startup to its current size of $2 billion, in just eight years.

The Suntech story has encouraged a slew of companies to join the solar power sector, including Sunvim, a Zhejiang-based textile maker better known for one of the country’s popular towel brands.

According to a China Daily report, entire towns in Zhejiang province, the heart of the country’s light manufacturing region, are turning from textile production, in which China has long been a world-beater, to polysilicon manufacturing, a key component of the SPV industry.

The report quoted Shen Fuxin, the General Secretary of the Zhejiang Solar Energy Industry Association as saying that the average profits made by companies in the sector were reaching 20-30 percent.

China is also set to become the world’s leading manufacturer of wind turbines, with production capacity already at 13 GW, way ahead of the 10 GW by 2010 target set by the government. Chinese firms are aggresively competing in other global, low carbon markets as well, including energy efficient home appliances, and rechargeable batteries.

According to the UK-headquartered Climate Group investment in renewable energy in China — almost $12 billion in 2007 — is almost level with world leader Germany  as a percentage of GDP.

Pan Jiahua, Deputy Director of the Research Center for Sustainable Development at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences told the Business Standard that green businesses in China were benefiting from a government that had realised that fighting climate change and economic development could go hand in hand rather than being seen in terms of a trade off.

“At the moment our power is coal based. But this is very dirty and we suffer from terrible pollution. Clean technologies will have a huge, positive health impact. What’s more they create jobs,” explained Pan.

“Looking at China,” EDF’s Ahuja concluded, “the question arises: Is this not the story we want to replicate in India based on the local context?”

Crompton’s Trehan answers with optimism. “It’s just a matter of time. India already has the fifth largest installed base for wind energy. As a business we are bullish on climate change.”

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