text:
My word for 2017 is grace. May it shine upon me and may I remember to grant it to others. We can all use a little grace in this coming yesr.
December Reflections Day 30: Thank you for …
The December Reflections group was an amazing experience and a great gaggle of people. I am so grateful to everyone for sharing parts of their life, accepting the invitation of others to come in and sit for a spell, and to Susannah Conway for putting together this activity and challenge. And thank you for taking the time to read my words and view my photographs.
December Reflections Day 28: Quiet Moment
Only the cadence of the ocean and my journal. A poem for the day.
December Reflections Day 27: My Smile
What makes me smile two days after Christmas? A new hat that fits over my frizzy hair and keeps me warm while on the beach collecting shells, sea glass, and making photos. ❤
December Reflections Day 26: Nourish
Feed the soul. For some, restfulness and quietude come easy. For others, like me, we have to work at it, purposefully. I try to keep a big-ass Zulu basket of crafts, mittens, books, and dried snacks in my car for those moments I need to make a quick getaway. Find me on the beach, basket full of warm pretty things.
December Reflections Day 25: Today is …
Fresh rosemary plucked from my daughter's hand as she was fussing over a pan of balsamic, garlic, and honey chicken. She volunteered to cook Christmas dinner as her gift to me. She was worried she couldn't afford to buy gifts. Her academic course load was heavy this semester, I suggested she drop her campus job and focus on classes. She didn't need to worry. I told her I'd only accept her gift of a meal if she was doing it… Keep Reading
December Reflections Day 24: Traditions
Mulling spice from the organic cooperative market. One of our new traditions is making hot mulled apple cider for the holidays — Thanksgiving and Christmas. I pick her up from school, we grab two gallons of fresh apple cider from our favorite orchard, stop by the market for bulk spices, and head home to start the holiday festivities. It's only been two years since we started this tradition, but I can't imagine a time when we didn't do it, as… Keep Reading
December Reflections Day 23: Sparkle
I prefer substance and story to shine, elegant cool tones to warm and bright (I rarely like gold). But this time of year I want the sparkle, layer upon layer of things that catch and bend light. Let me walk into any room of my house and find things that make my eyes dance and chase their shimmer.
December Reflections Day 22: This Year Was …
2016 is the year it all came crashing down: our belief in the systems that govern us, and the people who govern the facade of those systems. But like the tree in this photo, sometimes there's a surprising beauty in fallen things.
December Reflections Day 18: Reflection
In 2013, the U.S. Congress shutdown, the Affordable Care Act launched, and I was laid off from IBM in the same month. Three job offers from three organizations all on hold pending the passage of a congressional budget. I had a lot of time on my hands and spent every morning, for weeks, sitting at a small table in the back of my boyfriend's restaurant eating hash browns and fruit, drinking coffee, and responding to requests from recruiters for updated… Keep Reading


text:
- Proceedings
- Open Access
Approximating the edit distance for genomes with duplicate genes under DCJ, insertion and deletion
- Mingfu Shao1Email author and
- Yu Lin1Email author
© Shao and Lin; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2012
- Published: 19 December 2012
Computing the edit distance between two genomes under certain operations is a basic problem in the study of genome evolution. The double-cut-and-join (DCJ) model has formed the basis for most algorithmic research on rearrangements over the last few years. The edit distance under the DCJ model can be easily computed for genomes without duplicate genes. In this paper, we study the edit distance for genomes with duplicate genes under a model that includes DCJ operations, insertions and deletions. We prove that computing the edit distance is equivalent to finding the optimal cycle decomposition of the corresponding adjacency graph, and give an approximation algorithm with an approximation ratio of 1.5 + ∈.
- Approximation Algorithm
- Approximation Ratio
- Edit Distance
- Adjacency Graph
- Optimal Series
The combinatorics and algorithmics of genomic rearrangements have been the subject of much research since the problem was formulated in the 1990s [1]. The advent of whole-genome sequencing has provided us with masses of data on which to study genomic rearrangements and has motivated further work. Genomic rearrangements include inversions, transpositions, block exchanges, circularizations, and linearizations, all of which act on a single chromosome, and translocations, fusions, and fissions, which act on two chromosomes. These operations are all implemented in terms of the single double-cut-and-join (DCJ) operation [2, 3], which has formed the basis for much algorithmic research on rearrangements over the last few years [4–7]. A DCJ operation makes two cuts in the genome, either in the same chromosome or in two different chromosomes, producing four cut ends, then rejoins the four cut ends.
A basic problem in genome rearrangements is to compute the edit distance, i.e., the minimum number of operations needed to transform one genome into another. For unichromosomal genomes, Hannenhalli and Pevzner gave the first polynomial-time algorithm to compute the edit distance under signed inversions [8], which was later improved to linear time [9]. For multichromosomal genomes, the edit distance under the Hannenhalli-Pevzner model (signed inversions and translocations) has been studied through a series of papers [8, 10–12], culminating in a fairly complex linear-time algorithm [4]; under DCJ operations, the edit distance can be computed in linear time in a simple and elegant way [2].
All of the above algorithms for computing edit distances assume equal gene content and no duplicate genes. El-Mabrouk [13] first extended the results of Hannenhalli and Pevzner to compute the edit distance for inversions and deletions. Chen et al. [14] studied the problem of computing the inversion distance for genomes with equal gene content in the presence of duplicate genes--a problem that comes up in determining orthologies, where greedy heuristics were used. Yancopoulos et al. [7] proposed some rules on how to incorporate insertions and deletions into the DCJ model, but no specific algorithms are given. Braga et al. [15] presented a linear-time algorithm to compute the edit distance for DCJ operations, insertions and deletions, but still without duplications. Sébastien Angibaud et al. [16, 17] studied several model-free measures between genomes with duplicate genes; they first established a one-to-one correspondence between genes of both genomes, and then computed the measure between two genomes without duplicate genes.
In this paper, we focus on the problem of computing the edit distance between two genomes in the presence of duplications. We define the edit distance at the adjacency set level on a unit-cost model including DCJ operations, insertions and deletions (duplications are a special case of insertions). We reduce the problem of computing such an edit distance to finding the maximum number of certain cycles in the adjacency graph, Finally we give a (1.5 + ∈)-approximation algorithm.
Edit distance
We represent the genomes using the notations introduced by Bergeron et al. [2]. Denote each gene g with its two extremities, the head as g h and the tail as g t . Two consecutive genes a and b can be connected by one adjacency, which is represented by a pair of extremities; thus adjacencies come in four types: a t b t , a h b t , a t b h , and a h b h (there is no order for these two extremities, i.e., a h b t = b t a h ). If gene g lies at one end of a linear chromosome, then this end can be represented by a single extremity, g t or g h , called a telomere. The adjacencies and telomeres of a genome form a multiset, called the adjacency set.
- 1.
DCJ (double-cut-and-join) [2], which acts on one or two elements (adjacencies or telomeres) in one of the following ways: {pq, rs} → {pr, qs} or {ps, qr}(see Figure 1(a)); {pq, r} → {pr, q} or {p, qr}(see Figure 1(b)); {p, q} → {pq}or {pq} → {p, q}(see Figure 1(c)).
- 2.
Insertion, which inserts a single gene (a pair of extremities) g h g t in one of the following ways: {pq} → {pg t , g h q} or {pg h , g t q} (see the upper arrow in Figure 1(d)); {p} → {pg t , g h } or {pg h , g t } (see the upper arrow in Figure 1(e)); ∅ → {g t g h } (see the upper arrow in Figure 1(f)); ∅ → {g t , g h } (see the upper arrow in Figure 1(g)).
- 3.
Deletion, which deletes a single gene g h g t in one of the following ways: {pg t , g h q} → {pq} (see the lower arrow in Figure 1(d)); {pg t , g h } → {p} (see the lower arrow in Figure 1(e)); {g t g h } → ∅ (see the lower arrow in Figure 1(f)); {g t , g h } → ∅ (see the lower arrow in Figure 1(g)).
The edit distance between two adjacency sets S1 and S2, denoted as d(S1, S2), is the minimum number of operations (including DCJ operations, insertions and deletions) that transform S1 into S2. Here we use a unit-cost model, in which all operations have the same cost.
Theorem 1. Given two adjacency sets S1 and S2, there exists an optimal series of operations with exactly |T1| deletions, exactly |T2| insertions and some DCJ operations that transforms S1 into S2.
Since O k does not affect, we have q k = q k -1. Besides, we have p k = d. Thus we have . Other types of operations can be expressed similarly.
Recall that O j is a deletion, i.e., {ag h , bg t } → {ab}. If g h and g t are the same as and, then we have , and we can skip and in our constructed series. If g h and g t are different from and, then we have . We can set to be {ag h , bg t } → {ab, g h g t }, and set to be {p j -1q j -1, g h g t } → {p j -1g h , q j -1g t }. We can verify , and our constructed series contradicts the optimality of .
Adjacency graph decomposition
Given two adjacency sets S1 and S2 from two genomes, their corresponding adjacency graph is defined as a bipartite multigraph, A = {S1 ∪ T2, S2 ∪ T1, E},in which u ∈ S1 ∪ T2 and v ∈ S2 ∪ T1 are linked by one edge if u and v share one extremity, by two edges if they share two extremities. Note that S1 ∪ T2 and S2 ∪ T1 have the same set of extremities; we use n to denote half of the number of extremities. In the case of genomes with the same gene content and without duplicate genes, T1 = T2 = ∅, and each vertex in the adjacency graph has degree 2, which means that the adjacency graph consists of vertex-disjoint cycles and paths. We define the length of a cycle or a path to be the number of edges it contains. Based on Theorem 1, T1 = T2 = ∅ implies there exists an optimal solution without insertion and deletion, thus d(S1, S2) is just the minimum number of DCJ operations needed to transform S1 into S2. When S1 has been transformed into S2, the corresponding adjacency graph only consists of cycles of length 2 and paths of length 1. Since each DCJ operation can increase the number of cycles at most by 1, or increase the number of odd-length paths at most by 2, and we can always find out this kind of operation when S1 and S2 are different, we have d(S1, S2)= n - c -o/2, where c is the number of cycles and o is the number of odd-length paths in the adjacency graph [2].
Lemma 1. Given two adjacency sets S1 and S2, and a decomposition D of the adjacency graph A = {S1 ∪ T2, S2 ∪ T1, E} with c helpful cycles and o odd-length paths, we can perform n - c - o/2 operations to transform S1 into S2, among which there are |T1| deletions, |T2| insertions and n - c - o/2 - |T1|-|T2| DCJ operations.
Proof. We prove this lemma in a constructive way. We will perform operations under the guidance of the graph decomposition. The goal is to transform the adjacency graph into a collection of cycles of length 2 and paths of length 1 without ghost adjacencies, indicating that S1 has been transformed into S2. In the following, we will prove that an unhelpful cycle of length ℓ costs ℓ/2 operations, a path of even length ℓ costs ℓ/2 operations, a helpful cycle of length ℓ costs ℓ/2 -1 operations, and a path of odd length ℓ costs (ℓ - 1)/2 operations. In other words, a helpful cycle requires one less operation than an unhelpful cycle or an even-length path of the same length.
For a unhelpful cycle of length ℓ with ℓ/2 adjacencies in T1, we can perform ℓ/2 deletions to remove the adjacencies in S1. For a unhelpful cycle of length ℓ with ℓ/2 adjacencies in T2, we can first insert a gene as initial operand, then perform ℓ/2 - 1 insertions to create ℓ/2 cycles of length 2--see Figure 5(b)(d).
For a path with odd length ℓ, we need (ℓ - 1)/2 operations, and for a path with even length ℓ, we need ℓ/2 operations--see Figure 5(c)(e).
In sum, there are |T1| deletions, |T2| insertions and n - c - o/2 - |T1| - |T2| DCJ operations.
Lemma 1 states that any decomposition of the adjacency graph gives an upper bound on the edit distance. The following lemma shows that an optimal decomposition also provides a lower bound.
Lemma 2. , where is the space of all decompositions of A = {S1 ∪ T2, S2 ∪ T1, E}, c D and oD is the number of helpful cycles and odd-length paths in D, respectively.
Proof. Let , where and are the space of the decomposition before and after performing operation P, and P ∈ {DCJ, INS, DEL}. By Theorem 1, there exists an optimal series of operations with exactly |T1| deletions and |T2| insertions. Summing over all Δ P for these operations in this optimal solution yields , where (n - |T1|) is the sum of the number of helpful cycles and half of the number of odd-length paths in the optimal decomposition of the adjacency graph when S1 has been transformed into S2. Define δ DCJ = 1, δ INS = 1 and δ DEL = 0. In the following, we will prove Δ P ≤ δ P , P ∈ {DCJ, INS, DEL}, which implies that . The combination of these two formulas proves this lemma.
We prove Δ P ≤ δ P by contradiction. Let A' and A" be the adjacency graphs before and after performing the operation P. Let σ(A') and σ(A") be the optimal decomposition of A' and A", respectively. Suppose Δ P >δ P , namely, (c σ ( A" )+ o σ ( A" )/2) - (c σ ( A′ ;)+ o σ ( A' )) >δ P . Note that P is reversible; we denote the reversed operation as , and simultaneously transforms σ(A") into a decomposition of A', denoted γ(A'). Since σ(A') is optimal, we have c σ ( A' )+ o σ ( A' )/2 ≥ c γ ( A' )+ o γ ( A' )/2. Thus, to get the contradiction, we only need to prove (c σ ( A" )+ o σ ( A" )/2) - (c γ ( A' )+ o γ ( A' )/2) ≤ δ P . Recall that γ(A') is obtained from σ(A") by performing operation , and both σ(A") and γ(A') are decompositions, which includes only vertex-disjoint cycles and paths.
If P is a DCJ operation, then is still a DCJ operation. A DCJ operation may merge two cycles into one cycle, split one cycle into two cycles, merge two paths into one path, split one path into two paths, merge one path and one cycle into one path, split one path into one cycle and one path, rearrange two odd(even)-length paths into two even(odd) paths or make no change in the number of cycles and odd-length paths. Among those possible operations, the following four cases can reduce the number of helpful cycles or odd-length paths: (i) merge two helpful cycles into one helpful cycle; (ii) merge two odd-length paths into one even-length path; (iii) rearrange two odd-length paths into two even-length paths; (iv) merge one helpful cycle and one odd-length path into one odd-length path. For any of these four cases, we have (c σ ( A" )+ o σ ( A" )/2) - (c γ ( A' )+ o γ ( A' )/2) = 1. For other possible DCJ operations, we have (c σ ( A" )+ o σ ( A" )/2) - (c γ ( A' )+ o γ ( A' )/2) ≤ 0.
If P is an insertion, then is a deletion. Similarly, among all possible deletions, the following five cases can reduce the number of helpful cycles or odd-length paths: (i) merge two helpful cycles into one helpful cycle; (ii) merge two odd-length paths into one even-length path; (iii) rearrange two odd-length paths into two even-length paths; (iv) merge one helpful cycle and one odd-length path into one odd-length path; (v) change a helpful cycle into an unhelpful one. For any of these five cases, we have (c σ ( A" )+ o σ ( A" )/2) - (c γ ( A' )+ o γ ( A' )/2) = 1. For other possible deletions, we have (c σ ( A" )+ o σ ( A" )/2) - (c γ ( A' )+ o γ ( A' )/2) ≤ 0.
If P is a deletion, then is an insertion. A insertion may split one cycle into two cycles, split one path into two paths, or split one path into one cycle and one path. All these possible insertions will not reduce the number of helpful cycles or odd-length paths. Thus, any deletion will not increase the number of helpful cycles or the number of odd-length paths, and we have c σ ( A" )+ o σ ( A" )/2 ≤ c γ ( A' )+ o γ ( A' )/2. □
Combining Lemma 1 and Lemma 2, we have the following theorem.
Theorem 2. , where is the space of all decompositions of A= {S1 ∪ T2, S2 ∪ T1, E}, c D and o D are the numbers of helpful cycles and odd-length paths in D, respectively.
Approximation algorithm
We design an approximation algorithm by using techniques employed on the problem of BREAKPOINT GRAPH DECOMPOSITION[5, 6, 18–20]. The basic idea is to find the maximum number of vertex-disjoint helpful cycles of length 4 in the adjacency graph. This problem can be reduced to the problem of K-SET PACKING problem with k = 4, for which the best-to-date algorithm has an approximation ratio of 2 + ∈ [21, 22].
To make use of such algorithm, we must remove telomeres and keep only cycles in the adjacency graph. This can be done by introducing null extremities τ and null adjacencies ττ, which are different from other extremities and adjacencies (the same definition is introduced in [7]). Given two adjacency sets S1 and S2 with 2k1 and 2k2 telomeres respectively, we replace each telomere x by the adjacency xτ. If we additionally have k1 <k2, we must add (k2 - k1) null adjacencies ττ to S1 in order to balance the degrees. The corresponding adjacency graph is constructed in the same way as the case without null extremities: two adjacencies are linked by one edge if they share one extremity, by two edges if they share two extremities. Now we prove that this "telomere-removal" operation does not change d(S1, S2).
Theorem 3. Let S1 and S2 be two adjacency sets and denote by and the adjacency sets obtained from S1 and S2 by removing telomeres. Then we can write .
In summary, based on Theorems 2 and 3, we have stated the equivalence of the problem of computing the edit distance and that of finding a valid decomposition with a maximum number of helpful cycles in an adjacency graph without telomeres. The latter problem is NP-hard by a reduction from the NP-hard problem--BREAKPOINT GRAPH DECOMPOSITION[23], since any instance of the BREAKPOINT GRAPH DECOMPOSITION is indeed an adjacency graph without ghost adjacencies. Thus, the problem of computing the edit distance is also NP-hard.
Now we give the approximation algorithm and prove that its approximation ratio is 1.5 + ∈.
Approximation Algorithm
Input: Two adjacency sets S1 and S2 from two genomes
Output: A series of operations to transform S1 into S2.
Step 1 Add null adjacencies to S1 and S2 to obtain and without telomeres. Build the adjacency graph .
Step 2 Collect all helpful cycles of length 4 in A' as . Find a subset of in which no two cycles share one adjacency using the (2 + ε)-approximation algorithm for the K-SET PACKING problem with k = 4.
Step 3 Remove the adjacencies covered by cycles in . Arbitrarily decompose the remaining part of A' into cycles, denoting this set as .
Step 4 Remove the null adjacencies of cycles in to obtain a decomposition of A. Transform S1 into S2 according to Lemma 1 guided by these cycles and paths.
The running time of the above algorithm is dominated by the time complexity of the (2 + ε)-approximation algorithm for the K-SET PACKING problem with k = 4, which is and [21, 22].
Theorem 4. The approximation ratio of the above algorithm is 1.5 + ε.
We studied the edit distance problem for two genomes under a unit-cost model including DCJ operations, insertions (including duplications) and deletions. We proved that this problem is equivalent to finding maximum number of helpful cycles in the adjacency graph and gave a (1.5 + ∈)-approximation algorithm. We made two main assumptions in this work: single-gene insertions and deletions; and unit cost for DCJ operations, insertions and deletions. Both are clearly unrealistic. For example, large segmental duplications are common in many mammalian genomes [24], paracentric rearrangements are more common than pericentric ones, at least in two Drosophila species [25], and short inversions are more common than long ones, in some prokaryotes and in the aforementioned Drosophila [26]. These constraints should be incorporated into our distance computation. Any additional constraint naturally creates complications, but we expect that at least a few natural constraints can be handled within the framework described here.
We thank Bernard Moret for helpful discussions.
This article has been published as part of BMC Bioinformatics Volume 13 Supplement 19, 2012: Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Research in Computational Molecular Biology (RECOMB) Satellite Workshop on Comparative Genomics. The full contents of the supplement are available online at http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmcbioinformatics/supplements/13/S19
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I'm scared to even write a review on this book. What if i don't do it justice? What if what i write here doesn't make you want to read it. I'm scared of this because i think EVERYONE should read this book!!
Back to You was soooo well written that I'm still in awe. I haven't been able to pick up another book since i finished it yesterday, which is weird cause i always start a book right after another. I always have another book ready to go but I couldn't do it after "Back to You". I had to stay with the characters for just a little while just so i could sketch them into memory.
The story was beautiful. I laughed, I "awed", I had motherly moments (I don't have kids but damn, it pulled on those heart strings) and then i was serious and then i cheered. It was just soooo fun to read about Michael and Lauren. You read about their story at present but then you also get to see their relationship from where they first meet in highschool. The way that Priscella blended the two just worked perfectly. I was so happy that i loved both the past and present, equally. You got to see both of them grow and mature and become who they are supposed to.
And Michael. Just wow!! Ya, he has had it rough and ya he does some questionable things but i loved him for that. He just turned out to be such an amazing character!! Someone you could count on even behind the hard exterior facade he exuded. Oh there's soooo much more to him that you can't even believe and ... and.. .and... I just loved him!!!
Lauren was a great character too!! She and Michael have such a perfect relationship that it makes my heart swell. She accepts Michael for who he is, knows exactly what to do for him and when, and is a constant reminder that he is not alone. Shes such a sweetheart and really tries to find out what will make her happy. Even though we all know Michael makes her happy!! :)
If you havent read this book now, please do me this big favor and go read it! I swear you will not be disappointed. This book will be in my top favorite for years to come. I just cant believe it took me this long to finally read it, so dont be like me.. GO READ IT NOW!!! Hahaha :)
This picture says it all for this book!!!!!


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July 25, 2011
God Help Us
There is a German Facebook group "I am conservative and I denounce the terror assault in Norway" ("Ich bin konservativ und verurteile den Terroranschlag in Norwegen"). Why does a "conservative" need to distance himself from such a monstrous crime? Are conservatives known for planting bombs in government buildings? Of butchering the children of their political opponents? What will they do next? Distance themselves from breathing because that mass murdering scum breathes -- sad to say -- as well? Those who excuse themselves accuse themselves.
Which leads us to the term "terrorist", which is as falsely as liberally (ha ha) applied here. That man is a mass murderer. Terror is something to establish fear and soften opposition to achieve a political goal within a defined framework. The IRA comes to mind, as does the Basque ETA or -- dare I say it -- Islam, and while multiculturalists and Gutmenschen stumble over their own legs in the attempt to euphemise the countless heinous deeds committed by Muslims in the spirit of Islam as as "isolated cases", conservatives jump the gun in anticipating obedience to declare that they have nothing to do with this mass murderer. Who would have thought so.
There is another aspect, maybe the most irritating one. 800 young people plus attendants, coaches and other carers -- there must have been a three-figure number of able-bodied men in their late teens or twenties on that island. The murderer had to load and re-load that gun again and again during those hellish 90 minutes. However, as far as we know, no attempt was made to overpower him. Different from the people of Hero Flight 93, the young people would even have had a decent chance to survive. Is that the outcome of more than 40 years of misandry, of denouncing and criminalising the best qualities of the male sex? Have they heard once to often the debased creed that "violence has never taken anybody anywhere"? God help us!
12 comments:
- Alligator said...
Nora, in many states we have what we call "conceal and carry laws". Individuals who take the training and get a permit can carry a concealed firearm. The hue and cry from the Left is that it will be the wild, wild West with gunfights in the street. Well, that hasn't happened. The gangs like the Bloods, Crips, Hell's Angels, Sons of Satan, MS 13 and other drug cartels were already disregarding the law and having gun battles and drive by shootings in the streets when it suited them.
With conceal and carry, violent crime rates drop because criminals don't know if their 'victim' is armed or not. There are places in the USA where Breivik would have been taken out in less than 30 seconds after he started shooting. Then there are other places in the country where he could have produced the same disastrous results and it would have taken the police nearly as long to respond. You can probably guess the political atmosphere of each of these respective areas.
- 26 July, 2011 04:02
- The_Editrix said...
'gator, I read somewhere that the freedom to carry arms is an indication of the freedom/liberty (I never know the difference) of a society in general. Of course there will be no Wildwest shooting sprees. Just think what YOU, a law-abiding, fair and just citizen would do. Well, the vast majority of people are law-abiding, fair and just. Isn't it precious to see what concept of mankind the Left have?
Every single school shooting of which I can think, here or at your end, would have ended with a much lower death-toll or may not have happened at all. Why do you think, El Al flights are not hijacked anymore?
- 26 July, 2011 10:11
- Universal Realist said...
I does seem when an insane murder who happens to espouse extreme conservative or Christian beliefs then the media and every liberal wants to paint all conservatives and Christians as the same. And God forbid if someone has conservative/Christian beliefs and owns guns. Yet if a liberal does something crazy then it's explained simple as he's insane and does not represent Liberal.
In Arizona back in January of this year a young man by the named Jared Loughner walked in to a political rally and killed six people U.S. District Court Judge and wounded 14 others including a U.S. Representative. At first liberals and the liberal media claimed the shooter was a sane cold calculated right wing extremist because he attacked a Democrat Congresswoman and used a gun and had a shaved head. They blamed conservatives for creating this monster but it turned out to be a young man who politically was neither left or right but to me he seemed more left leaning than right who and who had a history of drug use and mental issues. And now the liberal media just calls him insane because they couldn't prove he was a follower of conservative views. So according to liberals a murder who has conservative or Christian views will be a monster and represents all conservatives but if the murder has liberal views then he/she is just insane person who need help and the system failed them.
I not comfortable to comment on what the victims of the Norwegian shooting should have or shouldn't have done. We never know what we would do until we are in such a situation. But the Arizona shooter was stopped by four or five citizens when he stop to reload he dropped a loaded magazine and a woman grabbed it away from him then someone hit him with a folding chair in the back of the head then a 74 year old retired Army Colonel who was already wounded by the shooter tackled him and two others jump on him and help to subdue him. These people had no time to think or organize they just reacted. But in all fairness basic human instinct is first to run from danger. Oh by the way Arizona is Right to Carry States and no one used a gun to stop Loughner. Even though at it's known at least one of the individuals was carrying a gun and was ready to pull it from it's holster and shoot Loughner but chose not to and helped physically subdue him. So not all citizens who may own a gun feel the need to carry a gun and if they do it doesn't mean they will use it.
- 26 July, 2011 17:43
- The_Editrix said...
Not all belief-systems lead LOGICALLY to mass murder. Marx' "Kapital" did not LOGICALLY lead to the GULAG. Hitler's "Mein Kampf" did LOGICALLY lead to the death camps. The Koran leads LOGICALLY to bloodshed, murder, genocide, misery.
So Breivik had ideas that are commonly perceived as "conservative". Did that lead to what he did? You must be joking. I hope he didn't like icecream, because then I won't eat it anymore as it leads to mass murder.
- 26 July, 2011 22:24
- Universal Realist said...
Editrix said, "I hope he didn't like icecream, because then I won't eat it anymore as it leads to mass murder."
Well a far left Liberal Atheist would answer it this way. It's fine to like ice cream but if you only like vanilla ice cream then you're a racist. If you're a racist then you're a conservative. If you're a conservative then you're a Christian. If you're a Christian then you believe in God. If you believe in God then you believe in something that doesn't exists. If you're believe in something that doesn't exist then you're crazy and dangerous.
Why is it Liberal only see the Christianity has dangerous becuase it believes in a God? Why do Liberals and Atheist only criticize Christianity? Liberal show tolerance to other beliefs such as Islam, Earth based beliefs, Paganism, Satanism, Voodoo, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc… (I think Judaism is kind of on the fence). It seems the only Christianity they will tolerate is the ones only accepts homosexuality, women ministers and pacifism (unless Liberal views are threaten).
Why is it Liberals will respect Islam even though it itself does not accept homosexuality or for the most part women rights as well as having laws that accept forms of punishment that range from torture, to mutilation and extreme acts of violent executions? Why is it a crazy Islam extremist that find things in the Koran to justify killing innocent people, it's viewed by Liberals as our own fault, but if a crazy white person who finds things in the Bible to justify killing innocent people, Liberals will say it's Christianity's fault?
I know there are crazy violent-prone Christians and even extreme crazy Christian groups out there but I believe they are a minority and a small one at that.
Sorry if I went off topic.
- 27 July, 2011 17:12
- Anne said...
The perp will benefit from slack laws in Norway, I hear he cannot get more than 21 years. This is terrible. Are there no crimes in Norway that call for life in prison?
People say, we are not after revenge, but really, this guy is really dangerous and needs to put away for good.
- 28 July, 2011 02:22
- Universal Realist said...
Here something I find interesting,
Debunking 6 Myths About Anders Breivik
- 28 July, 2011 14:20
- The_Editrix said...
Thanks, Chris! Here, the official stage of knowledge is that he is a "Christian fundamentalist", which is a godsend for the mainstream who can now claim that as much as Christianity isn't to be blamed for Breivik's deed, Islam can't be blamed for Muslim terrorism.
The nutcases have taken over the loony bin.
Anne, it's the same in Germany and I'd wager in all Western European countries. And while the prisons in Germany are no holiday camps, the Norwegian prisons seem to be. I quote from the Polish newspaper GAZETA WYBORCZA translating the German translation:
"Anders Breivik will be living in a comfortable prison cell without bars the next couple of years. He will be able to go riding and to play volleyball, will have days on the beach and enjoy a sauna. That is what Norwegian prisons look like."
- 28 July, 2011 15:55
- Anne said...
What is the "National Democratic Party" in Germany? NYT reports calls to ban it.
Are these neo-Nazi's?
- 29 July, 2011 03:55
- The_Editrix said...
Anne yes, they are Neo Nazis.
I fail to understand why they have been allowed to exist in the first place, but as they they are NOT illegal they ought to enjoy the same liberties the other political parties do. But the NPD will never be banned because they are needed to give the leftist mainstream an opportunity to "fight against the Right".
Also, half of the staff of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution would be redundant without the NPD.
If you go to the bottom of the page you'll see a search facility. Put in "NPD". I have written numerous times about it.
- 29 July, 2011 19:18
- Alligator said...
Chris, that was an excellent article about those 6 Myths about Breviek. Thanks for the link. Your analysis of how leftists reach their "conclusions" about people is spot on. I know a person who openly admits to "leaning towards Marxist-Leninist thought" and he follows this thinking process exactly. When he is around, I will occasionally turn on a conservative talk show like Limbaugh or Beck just get things stirred up and have a little fun :)
I have been absolutely astonished though to find certain people supporting or condoning what Breviek did. It is surreal that these individuals can damn Islamic terrorism (and rightfully so) turn around and use the same kind of twisted, sick logic to justify what Breviek did and call him a hero.
The trouble is, when you have an evil incident on this scale, you have governments that use these incidents to expand their power, saying it must "step in" to prevent this from happening again. Really government cannot prevent a lunatic from doing something. It can only react. In the end, the mass of the citizens suffer more loss of personal liberty because of one nut job.
- 30 July, 2011 19:31
- Anne said...
Thanks for the info. I am glad to hear there are not many of them. Der Spiegel had a article about neo-Nazi's but they gave no figures at all about how many there might be.
There are nutcases in every country.
- 01 August, 2011 03:22


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The arrogance with which Lehrer comes to assure us that Dornan's phrase "disloyal betraying little Jew" is not indicative of anti-Semitism is mind-boggling. What can the word "Jew" mean in context of "disloyal betraying"?
Lehrer fails to understand that Dornan's support of American aid to Israel in Congress is motivated by U.S. interests and does not preclude Dornan's anti-Semitic sentiments, as illustrated by his spontaneous remark.
I urge that Dornan and Lehrer both resign their posts.
La Jolla


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How to decorate a bedroom might be the most frequently asked question by teenagers which easy to being bored with the looks of their bedroom. If you are one of them who ever asked the same question, here some tips for you to decorate your bedroom. These tips are the simple tips that allow you to decorate your bedroom by yourself and do not need too much time. So, you can decorate your bedroom easily. Here we go!
Repaint The Wall in One Side for Simple Way
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Technology has developed so rapidly within the last few years that everything is just a click away. In speaking so, Smart phones, the hottest new trend among this generation has become a very essential and indispensable part in our lives. A Smartphone with an Android Operating SystemRead more →
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As the end of the semester grows closer, you may find yourself daydreaming of summer vacation, nights out with friends and day trips to the beach. Maybe you have a new, exciting job to look forward to, or perhaps you are returning home to spend time with your family. Whatever your summer plans, it is an exciting time of year. Yet, the only thing standing between you and break… are finals. Having strong motivation and focus is key to finish the spring semester strong! But, how are you expected to take tests, stayed motivated and write papers when it is festival season in New Orleans and there are crawfish boils at the fly?! Keep reading for some tip and tricks to help you perform at your best during the last the few weeks of spring semester 2017!
1. What's your perfect storm?
Understand your stressors! If you know that cramming for a big exam makes you extremely nervous, utilize time effectively! Studying for shorter amounts of time over a longer period could help improve your studying and focus.
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Create the ultimate study space! If you feel distracted in you room, study in the library! If you feel that you cannot get work done in a group, book a private study room! Wit or without music, creating a comfortable environment will give you optimum results.
3. Workshops!!!
The UCC is offering a few free workshops to aid the Loyno community in dealing with the stress of finals, test anxiety, motivation, and focus! Drop by Marquette 112 on the following days to get some good advice, take a break and recharge during finals!
Thursday, April 20th 12:30-1:30
~Improving Focus and Motivation!
Tuesday, April 25th 12:30-1:30
Thursday, April 27th 12:30-1:30
~Test Anxiety Drop-Ins!


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Confucianism and Its Rivals, by Herbert A. Giles, [1915], at sacred-texts.com
p. 165
During the closing years of Wang Chung's life great events were happening in China, of which he would surely have taken some notice if he had perceived their far-reaching character. Rumours of "a divine teacher in the west" had long since penetrated to China, and had been snapped up by the Taoists in a paltry forgery (Lieh Tzŭ, ch. iv), assigned to an imaginary philosopher of the seventh century B.C., whose alleged work can hardly be much older than the first century B.C. Now, a writer (Shên Kua) of the eleventh century, in a collection of miscellaneous jottings, quotes a number of historical passages to support the view that Buddhism was known in China two centuries before the Christian era; among others, the following, which was written at the close of the sixth century A.D.: "These Buddhist books had long been circulated far and wide, but disappeared with the advent of the Chin dynasty"under which occurred the Burning of the Books (220 B.C.). With regard to the Chin dynasty, it is further on record that "in the year 216 B.C., during the reign of the so-called First Emperor, a
p. 166
[paragraph continues] Buddhist priest, named Shih-li-fang, and others, arrived at the capital, bringing with them, for the first time, sûtras written in Sanskrit." That is the historical account; a Buddhist work states that the company consisted of eighteen priests, and adds the following details: "The officials reported their arrival to the Emperor, who, on account of their strange behaviour, put them into prison. Shih-li-fang and his companions recited the Mahâpragnâ paramitâ sûtra (supposed to have been written by Shâkyamuni Buddha himself); whereupon a bright alight shone out and a beautiful nebula began to circle round and fill the prison. In a few moments, this revealed a golden angel, sixteen feet in height, who, majestically wielding a huge club, smashed open the prison and let the priests out (thus vividly recalling the twelfth chapter of Acts). The Emperor was terrified; and repenting his action, bestowed upon them valuable presents and sent them away." The next historical notice comes under the year 121 B.C., when we read that "for the first time an image of Buddha was secured." This is further said to have been "taken by a victorious Chinese general from a Hun chieftain, who was in the habit of worshipping it." A later history says that, "when the Emperor received the image, he had it placed in the palace among some other images, all of which averaged about ten feet in height. He did not sacrifice to it, but merely burnt incense and worshipped it with prayer. This," adds the writer, "is how Buddhism gradually began to find its way into China."
p. 167
The above historical entries are generally ignored, though they have just as much claim to be recognized as the more romantic story which dates from A.D. 65. In that year we read, "The Emperor sent a mission to India, and obtained the Buddhist Sûtra of Forty-two Sections." The legend attached to this brief note attributes the origin of the mission to a dream in which the Emperor had a vision of a golden man with a bright halo round his head. This man, so the Emperor was told, was a Divine Being who lived in the west; and the mission was dispatched accordingly. Two years later, in A.D. 67, the mission returned, and with it came two Buddhist priests, Kâshiapmâdanga and Gobharana. They brought "The Sûtra of Forty-two Sections," which deals with the principles of primitive Buddhism as taught by Shâkyamuni, and which they at once set to work to translate; but before very long Kâshiapmâdanga died, leaving his colleague to carry on the task of further translation alone. Gobharana remained in China until his death at over sixty years of age; the religion, however, which he came to propagate failed to appeal closely to the Chinese imagination until several centuries had passed away. During these centuries, quite a number of other priests came to China and aided in the work of translating the Buddhist Scriptures, but it was not until A.D. 335 that the Chinese people were allowed to take Buddhist orders. This permission was due to the influence of a remarkable Indian priest, named Buddhachinga, who reached the capital in A.D. 310. He claimed
p. 168
supernatural powers, and pretended to foretell the future from the tinkling of bells. He could take out his viscera from a hole in his side, and wash them. He also caused a flower to bloom from an empty pot, which looks as if he combined with religion some well-known tricks of the Indian juggler.
Buddhism was now beginning to take a firm hold; and under the year 381, we read of a special temple built for priests within the Imperial palace. A further great impetus to the spread of this religion was given by the arrival, about the year 385, of Kumârajîva, a native of India who at the age of seven had been dedicated by his mother to Buddhism. His daily task was said to have been the repetition of one thousand hymns of thirty-two words to each. He devoted himself to that form of Buddhism which is known as the Mahâyâna or Greater Vehicle, as opposed to the Hînayâna or Lesser Vehicle, both of them means of transporting the faithful into Nirvâna, and the latter being the older of the two. Speaking through a parable, Buddha is said to have adumbrated the wider success of the Greater Vehicle. A certain man's house took fire, whereupon he brought a goat-carriage to carry away his children. By and by, he fetched a spacious waggon. All the same, the Lesser Vehicle represents the primitive and more esoteric form of Buddhism; while the Greater Vehicle exhibits Buddha in the light of a personal Saviour, to whom intercessory prayers may be successfully offered.
Kumârajîva had taught crowds of pupils, and had
p. 169
preached with such success that his fame reached China, whither he was ultimately induced to proceed. There he laboured for many years as a translator, dying in 417. At death, his body was cremated; all but his tongue, which remained unhurt in the midst of the fire. The work by which he is best known, and that because of its more popular albeit abstruse character, is the translation of what is called "The Diamond Sûtra." This sûtra is especially interesting in connexion with China, as it belongs to the Mahâyâna school, which now prevails there and in Japan; also, because attempts have been made to show that the tenets of the Mahâyâna school are not purely Buddhistic, but were largely borrowed from Christianity as exhibited in the heresy of the Gnostics, with their alleged knowledge of spiritual mysteries. There are difficulties to be got over in this ascription; and it seems almost certain that the Mahâyâna school had already developed in western India before any knowledge of the Gospels could possibly have travelled so far. Nâgârjuna, its reputed founder, is generally assigned to the second century A.D.; and it does not appear to have been earlier than the middle of that century that the Christians at Antioch began to gather together the records of their Founder, nor indeed until the end of the second century that the Gospels became publicly known through the writings of Irenæus and Tertullian.
The Diamond Sûtra teaches us that all objects, all phenomena, are illusory, and have no real existence. It was delivered by the Lord Buddha to a company
p. 170
of twelve hundred and fifty disciples, all of whom had attained to eminent degrees of spiritual wisdom. Buddha himself had just returned from the daily quest for food, which is obtained, without solicitation, from the charitable. Having taken off his mendicant's robe, and laid aside his alms-bowl, he bathed his feet, arranged the seats, and sat down. "Then"the following passages are translations from the Chinese text"the venerable Subhûti, who was among the company, rose from his place; and baring his right shoulder he knelt upon his right knee, and with joined palms reverently addressed Buddha, as follows: 'O rare world-honoured One, O Tathâgata, thou who dost protect and instruct those who are Bôdhisattvas! O world-honoured One! If a good man, or a good woman, should show signs of unexcelled perfect intelligence, upon what should such a one rely, and how should such a one subdue the heart?' Buddha replied, 'Good indeed! Good indeed! As you say, I protect and instruct those who are Bôdhisattvas. Listen therefore attentively, and I will tell you.' Subhûti promptly answered that he would be glad to hear, and Buddha thereupon told the Bôdhisattvas and Mahâsattvas, as follows: 'All living creatures whatsoever, whether born from the egg, or from the womb, or from damp (as wood-lice), or by metamorphosis, whether having form or not, whether possessed of intelligence or not, whether not possessed of intelligence or not not-possessed of intelligenceall such I command to enter into the absolutely non-material state of Nirvâna, and so by
p. 171
extinction (of all sense-values, etc.) to obtain salvation. Thus, all living creatures will be freed from measurement, from number, and from space-limit, though in reality there are no living creatures by such extinction to obtain salvation. Why so? Subhûti, if a Bôdhisattva recognizes such objective existences as self, others, living creatures, or such a concept as old agehe is not a Bôdhisattva.'" In another passage, Buddha recurs to this theme. "A good disciple," he says, "must accustom himself to think in terms of negation as regards the existence of all living beings, whereafter it will follow that for him there will be no living beings to think about."
Section 17 of the Diamond Sûtra deals with the subject of faith as compared with works, and seems to show that faith in Buddha through the Buddhist Scriptures can also make a man "wise unto salvation" (2 Tim. iii. 15). It runs as follows: "O Subhûti," said Buddha, "if a good man, or a good woman, were to give up in the morning as many of his or her lives (in re-births) as there are sands in the river Ganges, and to do the same at noonday, and again in the evening, and to continue to do this every day for an innumerable number of kalpas, each of an innumerable number of years; and if, on the other hand, there should be one who, having heard this sûtra, should yield up his heart to implicit beliefthen the happiness of this last would exceed the happiness of that other. And much more would this be so if he were to write out this sûtra, hold fast to it himself, and recite and explain it to others. O Subhûti, let
p. 172
me state its importance. This sûtra has a merit which cannot be conceived of by thought, and cannot be estimated by weight or measurement." Towards the end of the sûtra, Buddha delivered a gâthâ, or stanza, referring to himself as sharing in the illusory character of all objective existences:
While Kumârajîva was spreading the faith in China, and dictating commentaries on the sacred books of Buddhism to some eight hundred priests, the famous traveller, Fa Hsien, was engaged upon his adventurous journey. On reaching manhood, he had been ordained, and subsequently proceeded to the capital to make a thorough study of the Buddhist religion. Finding that there was a lack of material for this purpose, and full of zeal and faith, he set out in A.D. 399, in company with several others, on an overland pilgrimage to India, his chief object being to obtain a complete copy of the Buddhist Canon in the original tongue. Alone of the party he reached the goal, and spent some time in India, travelling about to various important Buddhist centres and generally fulfilling the purposes of his mission. In A.D. 414 he was back in China, having returned by sea, via Ceylon and the Straits of Malacca, and having landed at the modern Kiaochow in Shantung. He brought with him a large number of books and sacred relics, all of which he nearly lost in the Bay of Bengal.
p. 173
[paragraph continues] There was a violent gale, and the ship sprang a leak. As he tells us in his own account of the journey, "he took his pitcher and ewer, with whatever else he could spare, and threw them into the sea; but he was afraid that the merchants on board would throw over his books and images, and accordingly he fixed his whole thoughts upon Kuan-shih-yin, or Kuan Yin, the Hearer of the Prayers of the World, and prayed to the sainted priests of his own country, saying, 'Oh that by your awful power you would turn back the flow of the leak and grant us to reach some resting-place!'"
Buddhism was now fairly launched, and was gaining a permanent footing in the country. We already read of Imperial devotees, and of the malign influence of priests and nuns in the palace; we also read, but need not believe, that by the year 405, nine people out of every ten had embraced the faith. Miracles of all kinds became everyday events; for instance, there was one enthusiastic priest who, in order the more effectively to impress the public, collected a number of large stones and preached to them so eloquently that they nodded as it were their heads in approval.
We have now to consider what was happening all this time to the philosophy of Lao Tzŭ, already degraded from its original speculative purity by the greed of its professional adherents, who posed as wizards and extracted money from a confiding public. The introduction of Buddhism was soon found to affect the receipts of Taoist charlatans to such an
p. 174
extent that something had to be done to check the ebbing tide of prosperity. A mere wizard, with a magic sword and a bundle of charms against devils and diseases, even though the people believed he could fly or render himself invisible at pleasure, had no chance with a Buddhist priest, his temple, his ritual, and his promise of a salvation, understood by the Chinese in the sense of an immortality of happiness after death. Therefore, in order to compete for public favour upon more equal terms, the Taoists transformed what had once been a philosophic cult into an actual religion, by the simple process of borrowing. We have already noticed an attempt to show that the Mahâyâna, or Greater Vehicle, was derived through the Gnostics from Christianity; it is a much easier matter to prove that Taoism, as a religion, is little more than Buddhism under another name. The Taoists took over, almost en bloc, the ceremonial of the Buddhists, much of which bears an extraordinary resemblance to the ceremonial of the Roman Catholic Church, though it can hardly, in view of the relative dates, be said to have been borrowed therefrom; any borrowing must have been the other way round.
One of the earliest formulas adopted by devout Buddhists, practically amounting to a creed, was the following statement of faith: "I put my trust in the Lord Buddha; I put my trust in his Law; I put my trust in his Church." The Mahâyâna school based upon that creed the doctrine of a TrinityBuddha, his Law, and his Church, popularly known
p. 175
as the Three Preciosities; and this trio has been further explained as a Trinity in Unity (see Lecture VIII), the transcendency of which is not in the least appreciated or understood by the people at large, who regard the three representative images to be found in Buddhist temples as three separate deities, to be conciliated by prayer and offerings.
Buddhism has covered China with monasteries, nunneries, and shrines of varying size and importance. The priests and nuns take vows of celibacy, and of abstinence from flesh and wine; they shave their heads; they fast, even on a vegetable diet; they sit daily in meditation. Among other striking features of Buddhism as seen in China, such as have suggested a common source with Christian worship, if not actual borrowing by one religion from the other, may be mentioned the liturgies chanted by the priests, vestments, midnight masses, prayers for the dead, altars decorated with flowers and candles, bowls of water as the emblem of purity set forth in the life and teachings of the Buddha; and the use of incense, practised, however, before Buddhism was heard of. On the other hand, there is the ever-recurring statue of Kuan Yin, to whom we have seen that Fa Hsien prayed in his distress; originally an incarnation of Buddha, and represented down to the early part of the twelfth century as a man, but now as a woman holding a baby, the two bearing a remarkable resemblance to our own pictures of the Virgin and Child, of which the Chinese figures are thought by some to be a late copy.
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The copying we have now to consider is that of Taoism in regard to the instrumental parts of the Buddhist religion. In a word, the Taoists may be said to have copied almost all the above characteristics of Buddhism. They built temples and monasteries, and even provided a Trinity, consisting of Lao Tzŭ, Pan Ku, and God, but stopping short of any suggestion of Unity. Pan Ku was the first being brought into existence by cosmogonical evolution. He is said to have sprung into life fully endowed with perfect knowledge, and his function was to set the economy of the universe in order. He is often depicted as wielding a huge adze, and engaged in fashioning the world. With his death the details of creation began. His breath became the wind; his voice, the thunder; his left eye, the sun; his right eye, the moon; his blood formed rivers; his hair grew into trees and plants; his flesh became the soil; his sweat descended as rain; and the parasites which infested his body were the origin of the human race. Such was the second person of the Taoist Trinity. The name of the third is made up of Yü huang = Jade Ruler, and Shang Ti, which is already familiar to us as an alternative for Tien = God. By the images of their Trinity, a Taoist temple is readily distinguished from a Buddhist temple; there are, of course, various other characteristics of the two places of worship, but they are not so obvious to the uninitiated. A Taoist priest does not shave the whole head; and formerly he was allowed to marry, but since the tenth century celibacy has been strictly enforced.
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With the annexation by the Taoists of all the more attractive and also minatory features of Buddhism, such as a heaven for the good and a hell for the wicked, there began a long struggle for supremacy which lasted through many centuries before the two faithsTaoism having become a religioncould agree to work side by side, as they do now, without interfering one with the other. Sometimes Taoism flourished, under the influence of Court favour; at other times, Buddhism would be all the rage, with Emperor and Empress as its most earnest devotees. One of the great poets of the fifth century wrote an elaborate eulogy of Buddhism, perhaps the first of its kind. A statesman and scholar of the same period objected to Taoism as opposed to the ordinary instincts of humanity; but he hated Buddhism still more, chiefly because of its foreign origin. In A.D. 446 he discovered a secret store of arms in a Buddhist temple, in consequence of which many of the priests were put to death, their books and images destroyed, and for a time the practice of this religion was prohibited. The catastrophe would have been greater but for the action of the heir-apparent, a devout Buddhist, who gave the priests warning of their danger. The statesman himself was converted to Taoism by a priest who pretended to have received a revelation from Lao Tzŭ; the priest was appointed to be the Pope of the Taoist church, and a magnificent temple was built for his reception.
The institution of the Taoist Papacyto use a convenient termis claimed for the first century A.D.
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[paragraph continues] There was at that date a precocious child, named Chang Tao-ling, who is said to have mastered the philosophy of Lao Tzŭ by the time he was seven years old. Declining to take office, he retired to the mountains and devoted himself to the study of alchemy. On one occasion, he went to the province of Ssŭchuan to drive out troublesome demons, which he would better have accomplished, according to Lao Tzŭ, by staying at home and doing nothing. An individual of the same surname, who traces his descent from this Chang Tao-ling, still holds the title of Pope; and it has certainly been so held for many centuries, even if it does not go so far back as is claimed. The functions of the modern Pope are chiefly confined to blessing and selling charms and amulets, to be used against, disease and similar machinations of evil spirits. It has never, however, been this aspect of Taoism which has influenced statesmen and inspired poets. Taoism has always, since its early degradation, existed under two forms. There is the Taoism of superstition, with its grafts from Buddhism, for the masses; and there is the Taoism of speculation and paradox for the cultured, though sometimes the cultured are even more under the influence of superstition than are the masses.
In the year A.D. 471 the Emperor under the Northern Wei dynastyChina was then dividedresigned his throne and devoted himself to Taoism. In the same year the Emperor of the Liu Sung dynasty spent vast sums in building a Buddhist monastery, and boasted that he was laying up merit
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for himself in the next world. A minister is said to have remonstrated, showing that the people had sold wives and children in order to meet the charges laid on them, and asking where merit could lie; upon which, the Emperor repented and caused the monastery to be pulled down. In the year 484 an Imperial prince of the Southern Chi dynasty became an ardent supporter of Buddhism, and surrounded himself with priests in great numbers. A learned official endeavoured to persuade him that the whole scheme of Buddhism was a sham. He argued that Buddha having died, his spirit could no longer be in existence, spirit being to the body what sharpness is to a knife; when the knife goes, its sharpness goes with it. Another official told his wife, who was a firm believer, that he was going to write an essay proving that there was no such being as Buddha. "If there is no such being as Buddha," rejoined the lady, tartly, "why write an essay about him?"
We left Confucianism at the close of the first century, battered but not bruised by the attacks of Wang Chung. Taoism was then still more or less a philosophic cult; Buddhism had as yet made no advance. The birthplace of Confucius had become a goal for the Confucian pilgrim; a shrine had been built there, and even Emperors found their way thither, to do honour to the great Teacher. One of the latter had visited the spot so early as A.D. 72, and after worshipping Confucius, coupled with his seventy-two disciples, gave orders that the heir-apparent and all the Court should devote themselves
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to a study of the Confucian Canon. Under the reign of the Emperor Ming Ti, A.D. 227-239, there is an echo of Confucianism, from its religious side, in an edict which was published after an eclipse of the sun in A.D. 233, in order to restore public confidence. "We have heard," says the Emperor, "that if a sovereign is remiss in government, God terrifies him by calamities and portents. These are divine reprimands sent to recall him to a sense of duty. Thus, eclipses of the sun and moon are manifest warnings that the rod of empire is not wielded aright. Ever since We ascended the throne, Our inability to continue the glorious traditions of Our departed ancestors and carry on the great work of civilization has now culminated in a warning message from on high. It therefore behoves Us to issue commands for personal reformation, in order to avert impending calamity. The relationship, however, between God and man is that of father and son; and a father, about to chastise his son, would not be deterred were the latter to present him with a dish of meat. We do not therefore consider it a part of Our duty to act in accordance with certain memorials advising that the Grand Astrologer be instructed to offer up sacrifices on this occasion. Do ye governors of districts, and other high officers of State, seek rather to rectify your own hearts; and if anyone can devise means to make up for Our shortcomings, let him submit his proposals to the throne."
The enlightened Emperor who penned these lines was ruler of one of the Three Kingdoms, founded by
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his grandfather, Tsao Tsao, the famous general, who, like many other founders of houses in China, never mounted the throne. The grandson was a handsome man, and when he stood up his beard touched the ground; but he is interesting to us for a very different reason. Under his reign, women were for the first time admitted to official life, and several actually rose to important posts. The experiment was tried again in the eighth century, but was soon given up. His father, who was the first actual sovereign of the dynasty, was an ardent Taoist. He used to preach to his Court on the doctrines of Lao Tzŭ, and always became very angry with any official who either stretched himself, yawned, or expectorated. At the same time, he was careful to see that the Confucian shrine, which showed signs of decay, was put into proper repair. Throughout the long history of China it is noticeable that Confucianism, though faced by more attractive rivals, never quite loses its hold. Many Emperors indulged freely in heterodox teachings, so far as their more private life was concerned; but except in one notable instance, to which we shall come by and by, they seem to have felt that Confucius had a backing of the nation's intellect and scholarship which it would not do to ignore.
In A.D. 505 the first Confucian temple, as we now understand the term, was built and dedicated. Images of Confucius were then introduced into the temple, some say for the first time; others hold that in A.D. 178 a likeness of Confucius had been placed in his shrine, as a substitute for the wooden tablet
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in use up to that date. Although it is correct to distinguish between the earlier shrine and the more elaborate temple which we are now about to consider, there is no doubt that the shrine played an important part in keeping alive the Confucian tradition. So far back as A.D. 267, an Emperor decreed that the sacrifice of a pig, a sheep, and an ox should be offered to Confucius at each of the four seasons. Rules were also drawn up about A.D. 430 for regulating the ceremonies to be performed. Gradually, the people came to look upon Confucius as a god to be propitiated for the sake of worldly advantages; and in A.D. 472 it became necessary to issue an edict forbidding women to frequent the shrine for the purpose of praying for children.
About A.D. 555 it was enacted that a Confucian temple should be built in every prefectural city in the empire. Various changes were made from time to time in the internal arrangements of the building. Some of the ancient sages who were admitted to share in the honours accorded to their Master, appeared in the shape of wooden figures; the portraits of others were painted on the walls. In the year 960 the wooden figures were abolished, and clay images were substituted. These were in turn replaced, in the year 1530, by simple wooden tablets. At another period, the numbers of the musicians and dancers were altered; and so on. It will here be convenient, perhaps, to bring the story of the Confucian temple, with all its important bearings upon national life and religion, down to the present day.
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In the early shrines, the only image was that of Confucius; but when the order was given for the general erection of Confucian temples, that of Yen Hui was added. He was emphatically the disciple whom Confucius loved. He would listen with what appeared to be stolid indifference to his Master's teachings, and then he would go away and strive to put into practice the principles he had learned. He is still affectionately remembered by his countrymen, although Ssŭ-ma Chien, the historian, attributes his splendid reputation chiefly to his close connexion with Confucius, quaintly likening him to a fly which travels far and fast by clinging to the tail of a courser. By degrees, batches of disciples and other worthies were admitted to the honours of the temple, until the number of tablets was considerably enlarged. The first Manchu Emperors, who were throughout among the warmest supporters of Confucianism, made it their business to see that a temple was established in every prefecture, district city, and market town all over the empire. The tablets were rearranged, and a revised ceremonial was introduced. At the present day, we find the tablet of Confucius in a hall at the north end of the temple, facing south. It had always been placed on the east side down to the eighth century, the south-facing position being that of an Emperor on his throne; but from that date Confucius was recognized as the peer of Emperors. To the right and left of his tablet are the tablets of the Four Associates, of whom Yen Hui is the first and Mencius is the fourth. The second and third
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are, respectively, Tsêng Tsan, the author of the "Classic of Filial Piety" and reputed author of the "Great Learning," one of the Four Books, and Tzŭ Ssŭ, the grandson of Confucius, author of the "Doctrine of the Mean," which, with the Confucian Analects and the works of Mencius, completes the tale of the Four Books, the first division of the Confucian Canon. Then come the tablets of the Twelve Sages, which number might have for us a suggestive ring, particularly when taken in conjunction with the Four Associates. Unfortunately for those who love to draw hasty parallels, of the Four Associates only three could possibly be regarded as Evangelists in the sense of spreading the Gospel by their writings; and of the Twelve Sages only eleven had actually been intimate disciples, the twelfth being the philosopher Chu Fu Tzŭ, of the twelfth century A.D.
Besides the above, space has to be allotted to the tablets of the ancestors of Confucius for five generations; also for the tablets of seventy-nine of the most prominent worthies of past ages, including all other known disciples of Confucius beyond those already mentioned. Then comes a contingent of sixty to seventy tablets, representing great Confucian scholars of all dynasties, every one of whom, as a condition of admission, must have contributed largely to the elucidation and support of Confucian doctrine. Altogether, there are about one hundred and seventy tablets, inscribed with the name of each individual and his rank in the temple. Admission to the national Walhalla, the honour of which has always
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been much coveted by the families of deceased Confucianists, does not always confer that permanent place with posterity which it might be supposed would be the case. The Chinese, always noted for an especially practical turn of mind, have reserved to themselves the right to revise the decisions of their ancestors in regard to the merit of all those whose tablets stand in the temple. They feel that a popular impulse, justifiable at the moment, a personal intrigue, or Court favour, may sometimes have succeeded in giving a man more than was his due; it then remains to secure the removal of such a tablet, and to substitute that of a worthier representative. A tablet, however, which has once been removed is under no disability; it may be restored at a later date. This perhaps is the least satisfactory feature of all, aggravating rather than otherwise the instability of the institution. For instance, a Confucianist, named Fan Ning, was ranked in A.D. 647 among the Associates, but under the next reign he was reduced to the position of Scholar. In 1530 his tablet was removed from the temple; in 1724 it was replaced. Still, there are many instances in which the prerogative has been justly used; and it seems desirable that before very long some such system should be tentatively applied to the monuments in Westminster Abbey and other injudiciously crowded shrines.
The worship in the Confucian temple is celebrated twice a year, in spring and in autumn. In the provinces, the official who performs the ceremony is the chief civil authority. He is accompanied by the
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general body of civil and military officers, by a band of musicians, and by thirty-six dancers. On the morning of the worship, the tables and altars are covered with offerings which have been prepared the day before. In front of the tablet of Confucius is an altar on which stand an incense-burner and two large lighted candles. A table before this altar is spread with bowls of grain, cups of wine, etc.; and on the east and west sides are tables furnished with vessels containing various articles of food. In the middle of the hall a roll of white silk is laid out, and before it are the three victims, an ox, with a sheep on one side and a pig on the other. Similar offerings, but fewer in number and in all cases without the ox, are set out in front of the other tablets. The official who is to preside as chief worshipper is supposed to have fasted and purified himself by ablution during the three preceding days. He arrives at the temple before daylight, and assumes his Court dress. Under the guidance of the master of the ceremonies, he takes up a position at the head of his civilian colleagues on the east side of the hall, the military officials being stationed on the west side. The service begins with music and a hymn, after which the chief worshipper ascends to the tablet of Confucius, where he kneels, strikes the ground with his head, and offers incense on the altar. He then resumes his place, but only to ascend and descend twice more with the same ceremonial. During the intervals there is music, and dancers perform slow-time and dignified evolutions. The spirit of Confucius
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is supposed to arrive and take part in the ceremony so soon as the music begins. The first hymn is called "Receiving the Spirit," and is sung very slowly and reverently, as befitting such a tremendous occasion.
[paragraph continues] The lin is a fabulous animal which appeared to the mother of Confucius before the latter's birth. She tied a skein of silk round its horn; and when, just before the death of Confucius, the animal appeared again, the skein was still attached to the horn. This was the "fulfilment" mentioned in the hymn.
By the second century B.C. the old music, of which Confucius speaks, was gone, and had been replaced by a system brought from the Greek kingdom of Bactria about the year 126 B.C. The music of the Confucian age, scores and instruments alike, perished at the Burning of the Books, and we read that in the first part of the second century B.C. the hereditary Grand Music-Master was altogether ignorant of his art. The extraordinary similarities between the Chinese and Pythagorean systems of music place it beyond a doubt that one must have been derived from the other. The early Jesuit fathers declared that the ancient Greeks borrowed their music from the Chinese; but we know that the music in question
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did not exist in China until two centuries after its appearance in Greece.
As to the dances, the movements of which are very like those of the minuet, they seem to be of purely native origin. In the commentary to the History of the Later Han dynasty, which covered the first two centuries of the Christian era, we are told that "the origin of these dances is not known, but that they were formerly used in the worship of God." The dance is essentially a step-dance, and not mere posturing as some have thought; it may be compared with the Greek ὄρχησις, which was not only rhythmical but also pantomimic in character, though there is no suggestion that these dances came with the music from Greece. The ancient official dance of China was performed altogether without accessories. A short poem of perhaps sixteen words having been chosen, two performers, dressed in the now old-fashioned robe of the graduate and accompanied by music, would proceed to illustrate these words, expressing each individual word by a figure (as in a quadrille) of eight separate movements. Thus, the number of figures to a dance would depend upon the number of words in the poem. The dances are usually performed, at the present day, by eight pairs of dancers, each of whom holds in his left hand a flute, and in his right hand a triple pheasant's feather. This arrangement was supposed to be in accordance with a verse in the Odes; but, unfortunately, it is now certain that the word which has been understood to mean "pheasant's feather" really means "flute."
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[paragraph continues] Thus, instead of having a flute in one hand and in the other a feather, the latter of which would effectually prevent the dancer from playing upon the former, we find that the dancer was really provided with a flute for each hand; in other words, a double flute like that of the Greeks, which was played with both hands, the treble half being held in the left hand, the bass in the right.
Such is the Confucian temple, the worship in which has been conducted upon much the same lines for the past fourteen hundred years. An inner meaning is attributed to the various accessories at which we have merely glanced. The roll of white silk is an emblem of purity; the ox, of stability; the pig, of determinationa symbolism gathered somehow from its bristles; the sheep represents food and clothing; and the incense suggests virtue, fragrance being always associated with good deeds and a good reputation. The composition of the sacrificean ox between a sheep and a pigis noteworthy, if nothing more, for its identity with the suovetaurilia of the Romans, a sacrifice offered at lustrations.
We left Buddhism and Taoism, both flourishing, in the fifth and sixth centuries, and now, before picking up again the chronological thread, it will be convenient to introduce brief notices of several foreign religions, the majority of which enjoyed but a meteor-like existence, leaving only one to survive to the present day. The first of these was the religion of Zoroaster, whose idea of the resurrection glorified man's body as his eternal companion. It is known
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as Mazdaism, and was imported from Persia into China towards the close of the sixth or beginning of the seventh century. As a term for God, the early Mazdæans adopted a character, pronounced Hsien, already in use in China with that same signification. They were permitted to build temples, and these are mentioned in Chinese records as having been erected at the capital during the seventh century. The Chinese, however, do not seem to have been much attracted by fire-worship; and, moreover, it was not long before there were two other rivals in the field.
The Christian schism of Manichæus, which had once been a form of faith dear to St Augustine, enjoyed perhaps a better chance than Mazdaism. Its dualistic theology, in which Satan is represented as co-eternal with God, bore at least sufficient resemblance to the dual system of the positive and negative principles to arrest the attention of the Chinese; and this resemblance seems to have been exploited by the Manichæan missionaries, who preached in China during the seventh century, and during the eighth century had temples at several important centres of population, but were finally suppressed in 843. Our interest in Manichæism has been greatly stimulated in recent days by the discovery of a Manichæan treatise in Chinese, unfortunately of uncertain date. This document was brought by Professor Pelliot from the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas at Tun-huang, in the province of Kansuh, where it had been bricked up for many centuries. From it we gain some interesting information. Not only is it like in form
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to a Buddhist sûtra, but it is tinged here and there with traces of Buddhist thought, reminding us how the Buddhists themselves, when they first sought to convert Japan, were careful to begin by canonizing various Shinto or native gods, in order to impart an air of familiarity to the new religion. Taoist influence may also be traced. The opening words, but apparently not very many of them, are lost; we start, however, with a complete question put by a personage who has been identified with Addas, mentioned in the Acta Archelai as the apostle of Manichæism in the East, and answered by Manichæus himself. "Is the original nature of the carnal body," asks Addas, "single or double?" By "double" the questioner seems to refer to the subdivision of the soul into light and dark, the dualism which I have just said was part of the Manichæan system. To this, Manichæus, here called the Envoy of Light, began his reply in the very words of Buddha in the Diamond Sûtra, the Chinese characters being the same in both cases, "Good indeed! Good indeed! In order to benefit the innumerable crowds of living beings, you have addressed to me this query, profound and mysterious. You thus show yourself a good friend to all those living beings of the world who have blindly gone astray, and I will now explain the matter to you in detail, so that the net of doubt in which you are ensnared may be broken for ever without recall. Know, then, that before this world was created, two Envoys of Light, namely, the Holy Ghost and the Good Mother of Life, entered into
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the dark abyss of the sunless land, from which they returned victorious, clad in the cuirass of knowledge of the five divisions of bright bodies (the five elements), which they skilfully used to help themselves to get out of the five abysses. The five classes of demons clung to the five elements, as flies cling to honey, like birds caught by bird-lime, or like fishes which have swallowed the hook. Therefore, the Holy Ghost, the Envoy of Light, took the five classes of demons and the five elements, and combining the powers of these in due relation one to the other, made the ten heavens and eight earths of the universe. Thus, the universe is, for the five elements, a druggery where they may be cured, and for the demons, a prison where they may be kept under restraint."
Manichæus goes on to show that the five elements became, as it were, the prison in which the demons were confinedgood and evil in a state of almost chemical union, wherein the traces of each component part are obliterated. The governors of the prison are the five sons of the Holy Ghost, who are expressed by such abstractions as cogitation, intelligence, reflection, thought, arid apprehension. Satan then comes upon the scene; and "when he saw these things, he once more conceived in his poisonous heart a wicked scheme. He ordered two demons, a male and a female, to take upon themselves the likenesses of the Holy Ghost and of the Good Mother, and then to create by magic the body of a man, in imitation of the material universe. Thus, the carnal
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body, tainted with the poison of evil passions, although on a tiny scale, yet reproduced in itself every single feature of heaven and earth. . . . Just as when a goldsmith copies the form of an elephant, drawing it inside a finger-ring, and neither adding to it nor taking away from it, so was man made in the exact likeness of the universe." Further, in revenge for the treatment of the demons by the Holy Ghost, Satan conceived another wicked and poisonous plan. He shut up the five bright natures in the carnal body, of which he fashioned a small universe, and so put an end to their independence of action. He also planted five trees of death, in order to disturb as much as possible the original human nature. "Thus, the tree of dark cogitation springs up within the barrier of the bones; its fruit is resentment. The tree of dark intelligence springs up within the barrier of the muscles; its fruit is anger. The tree of dark reflection springs up within the barrier of the veins; its fruit is licentiousness. The tree of dark thought springs up within the barrier of the flesh; its fruit is rage. The tree of dark apprehension springs up within the barrier of the skin; its fruit is folly."
Again, we read that "the Holy Ghost had constructed two bright ships to transport good men over the sea of life and death, back to their original home (with God), so that their brilliantly lighted natures should find peace and happiness at last. When Satan saw this, his mind was at once filled with anger and jealousy; and he proceeded to make
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two forms, one male and the other female, after the fashion of the two great bright ships which are the sun and moon, in order to introduce disturbance and confusion into the bright nature of man." The two forms thus constructed by Satan became, as it were, two dark ships, in contrast with the bright ships of the Holy Ghost, and carried their freight of bright human nature into hell, where all sorts of torments were suffered, and from which it was difficult to obtain deliverance. Then, when there comes into the world some Envoy of Light, such as one of the predecessors of Manichæus, who desires to instruct and reform mankind, in order to deliver them from suffering, he begins, we are told, "by causing the sound of the beautiful Word to pass through the portal of the ear; after which he enters into the abodes of false religions, 1 and, relying upon the virtue of spiritual invocation, chains up the crowd of venomous serpents and evil beasts, and no more allows them independence and freedom. Further, armed with the axe of wisdom, he cuts down the poisonous trees, tearing up their very roots, together with all kinds of foul vegetation."
Enough has been said, perhaps, to give an idea of the shape in which Manichæan Christianity was presented to the Chinese people, often confused by them with Mazdaism, the fire-worshipping religion of Zoroaster. As has been already stated, we do not possess the opening words of this treatise, and cannot therefore say if they coincide with the conventional
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words with which a Buddhist sûtra begins; but we may fairly infer that such was the case, partly from the remarkable imitation of Buddhist phraseology throughout, and also from the closing sentence, the Chinese text of which, mutatis mutandis, might well be interchanged with that of the Diamond Sûtra:
Diamond Sûtra
When Buddha had delivered this sûtra, all the monks and nuns, lay-brothers and lay-sisters, together with all the dêvas and demons in the universe, having heard Buddha's words, rejoiced with one accord, and accepting them with faith, proceeded to put them into practice.
Manichæan Treatise
Then, all the members of the great assembly, having heard this sûtra, accepted it with faith and rejoicing, and proceeded to put it into practice.
194:1 Kindly suggested by Prof. A. A. Bevan.


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Our Policies
Class Schedule
Dance Inertia, once known as Del Buono School of Dance, is a fun and encouraging place for people of all ages and abilities. We strive to not only teach technique, but to also instill confidence and a love for dance. The studio is our second home, where we get to explore our passion with like-minded people.
We do two performances every year. The first is in December just before Christmas, where classes will perform mostly to holiday themed music. The second performance is at the end of the school year, where our students will once again hit the stage. These performances take place at the Mary Irwin Theatre in the Rotary Center for the Arts.
Though our main philosophy on dance, and our teachers are remaining the same, there are a few things to look forward to with the new ownership.
We are introducing a competition team which will compete in local competitions.
You will be able to log in to your account to view the classes you've registered for as well as your current balance.
If you provide us with an email address, we will be keeping you up to date via email with important information.
Dance Inertia is excited to begin it's inaugural year with you.
Meet The Team
Sarah Gnaedinger
Owner/Operator and Teacher Sarah has been dancing for over 25 years. She began dancing at the age of 3 at the Cameron School of Dance on the South Shore of Montreal. Which is where she did her ballet exams through the BATD, and earned her teachers certificate. She moved to the Okanagan in 2005 and began teaching at the Del Buono School of Dance. In her many years of dancing, she has been trained in many styles of dance, such as Ballet, Jazz, Contemporary, Lyrical, and tap. She loves to teach and to see all of her students thrive. There's nothing better than seeing a student have that "AHA" moment.
Anica Manders
Teacher Anica has been trained in many styles of dance including Ballet, Jazz, Celtic, Lyrical and Contemporary over the last fifteen years. Seven years ago Anica became a teacher and has taught in all of the above mentioned styles to students ranging from preschool to adult. Above all else she loves to see her students feel confident and have fun both in the classroom and on stage.
Abby Wight
Teacher Abby grew up in Kelowna, and has been dancing since she was three years old. She started her dance training at Pacific Interior School of Dance and later moved to Del Buono School of Dance, where she has been dancing for the past thirteen years. Abby has a wide range of dance experience with many different styles of dance such as Jazz, Ballet, Lyrical, Contemporary, Celtic, Tap and Hip-Hop. Abby has been a dance teacher for 4 years, teaching various styles and ages. She has a very bubbly personality and makes everyone feel welcome at the studio. Overall, Abby's goal is to make dance fun, and enjoyable for everyone and to pass her passion for dance on to others.
Christine Semeniuk
Junior Teacher Christine has been dancing for 13 years, 9 of which have been here at Dance Inertia (formerly Del Buono School of Dance). She's been doing Celtic and Ballet for as long as she can remember, and has more recently been exploring Contemporary, Jazz, Lyrical and Hip-Hop. Dancing is one of her passions; she loves all styles of dance and being able to combine teaching with dance is an absolute dream. Now with one year of teaching under her belt, she can't wait to get back into the studio. She looks forward to great things in the future both for her own dancing and for her students!