Academic literature on the topic 'Wednesday Feast'

On Wednesday evening, 17 October 1850, at the height of ʿId al-adha, the Muslim Feast of Sacrifice, riots broke out in Aleppo in northern Syria, starting with Muslim riots in the Christian quarters of Judayda and Saliba. For two days, Muslim rioters looted homes and churches in these and other Christian quarters in the city, killing and wounding a number of the inhabitants. Only on Friday did the riots cease, but the insurgents then presented a list of demands to the authorities as a pre-condition for the restoration of order to the city. Their principal demands were that the authorities‧ intention to impose military conscription on Muslims be revoked, that the ringing of church bells and the carrying of crosses in public religious processions be banned; and that the owning of Muslim slaves by Christians be prohibited. The Ottoman governor, Mustafa Zarif Pasha, at first consented to the demands of the rioters, and even took certain steps to restore calm to the ruffled atmosphere, such as declaring that the firda head tax, one of the inflammatory factors that had contributed to the riots, would be transformed into a property tax.

From the 2nd century AD the coincidence of Passover and Easter was recognized as a problem for the Christian church by the church authorities, and in the 4th century, after Christianity became the Roman state religion, Roman authorities took steps to prevent Passover and Easter coinciding. This effort was complicated by the growing separation between the churches in Rome and Constantinople. Though from the 2nd century the majority of Jews lived in the diaspora, at least up to the 10th century the calendar was governed by a rabbinical court in Eretz Israel (the Land of Israel). Here we discuss the changes in the Jewish calendar in the 5-8th centuries AD, the middle (c. 636 AD) of which period witnessed an abrupt transition from Byzantine rule over Eretz Israel to Arab rule. In this period no serious changes were made in the basic mathematics of the Jewish calendar; the only changes had a political context. Here we discuss a single but singular feature of the Jewish calendar, the 'Deĥiyot' [postponements] of Rosh Hashana. Our major claim is that Deĥiyah D [postponement from Wednesday to Thursday] and Deĥiyah U [postponement from Friday to Saturday] entered the calendar c. 532 AD as an ingenious Jewish response to Emperor Justinian's ban against the Passover feast (Nisan 14) falling on a Saturday, instituted to mend a famous calendar rift between the Roman and Alexandrian churches. Next we claim that Deĥiyah A [postponement from Sunday to Monday] became part of the calendar no earlier than when the 2nd day of the festivals Rosh Hashana [New Year] and Sukkot [Tabernacles] acquired the status of sacred day and we raise the lower historical boundary of Deĥiyah A's introduction in the calendar up to the time of the first Gaonim [heads of talmudic academies in the Arab caliphate] (c. 658 AD). We also suggest the reasons for the timing of three other deĥiyot.

The paper presents a structural reading of the events accompanying the Yezidi feasts of the New Year (Serê Salê) and the Red Wednesday (Çarşemiya-sor), which can be collated with the outlines of the cosmogonic order reconstructed on the basis of the content of the Yezidi hymns. The New Year festival, especially the moment of transition from Tuesday night to Wednesday, can be seen as a representation of the initial cosmogonic stages–the transition from the dark of indefiniteness into the first steps of the new world associated with the appearance of the luminous Pearl, which takes colours and breaks apart. This paper describes the interaction between the descriptions of the Pearl in the hymns and the festival rituals associated with eggs (colouring, breaking, mixing them with clay and flowers).In addition to the relevant literature, the author refers to his own field research conducted during the Çarşemiya-sor in Lalish in 2014 and in Ba’adra and Sheikhan where he lived in April 2015.

Among the manuscript fragments in the Archivio comunale of Sutri (Province of Viterbo), Italy, are four consecutive folios of an Old-Roman antiphoner of the later eleventh century. The two bifolios are now identified as fragments 141 (Frammenti teologici 40) and 141bis (Frammenti teologici 41). These fragments, which preserve music for the feasts of Sexagesima, Quinquagesima and Ash Wednesday, are remnants of what appears to be the oldest witness of Old-Roman music for the office. When added to the two surviving antiphoners (London, British Library, Add. MS 29988, of the twelfth century, and Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS San Pietro B 79, of the end of the twelfth century) and two recently discovered fragments (in Frosinone and Bologna), the Sutri fragments bring to five the number of Old-Roman antiphoners of which at least some evidence survives. It begins to appear that manuscripts of this music were once not so rare. The Sutri fragments show some unusual liturgical characteristics that provide new information on the Roman liturgy; I will discuss these aspects shortly.

The collective memory better than the individual memory holds the form (actions, words, formulas, scripts) than the matter (why it’s done). That is also true about aizgavieņs and масленица (Shrovetide), the archaic seasonal-rite feasts celebrated in Latgale. Nevertheless in the survey made by Rēzekne University College within the framework of ESF project “Linguo-Cultural and Socio-Economic Aspects of Territorial Identity in the Development of the Region of Latgale” (tilra.ru.lv) 1308 respondents (out of 1959, including 102 questionnaires in Russian) acknowledged Shrovetide as one of Latgalian identity features. In the list of 466 items (well-known people, places, traditions, realias, fi xed phrases, words etc) it holds 67th place. The aim of the work is to describe in comparative aspect the Latgalian and the Old- Believers’ traditions of the time before fasting, stressing syncretism of pagan, Christian (denominationally different) and ideological elements, using linguo-cultural approach. For the work published and unpublished materials of Latgalian folklore as well as the materials of Daugavpils University expedition about Old Believers and for comparing some materials of ethnographic studies in Pskov district (Мехнецов 2002; Прауст 2009) have been used. For all the Indo-European peoples, as they are agricultural people, the rhythm of life and work depends on the solar cycle; for an archaic human being it is the only system of reference frame. Acts of nature determine the quality of life all the year – the harvest should supply food till the next season. Preparing for the new agricultural season (the end of winter) is archaic New Year in modern understanding (Пропп 1995: 33), for archaic people to whom calendar doesn’t exist. Both at Shrovetide and at New Year’s Eve people read fortune about future spouse and the popular beliefs are very similar. Both Latgalians and Old Believers have popular beliefs connected with land tending at New Year eve fortunetelling, for example: at New Year’s Eve they went to crossroads to sow fl ax and later waited that at dream the future husband would come to tend land for flax. Other position: Масленица is the amount of summer solstice and other spring rituals (Клейн 2004: 312). For Slavic people the fertility of land is closely connected with prosperity and mercifulness of its inhabitants. Ritual food and wine is put for the shades, they are asked to come to fire, and they are asked for forgiveness, the graves are visited. For Catholics this time is not the time of commemorating the dead, so Latgalians encourage the growth of the most important for their culture plant – flax – with ritual actions. Most popular beliefs put down in Latgale are related to riding down a hill in a sledge as far as possible or with a horse travel far from home – so the flax grow as long as those ridings. In Latgale not only traditional sledges, but also ladonkys and skretels are used for riding. Ladonkys is a sleigh cut from ice with a hole for a rope and a groove for sitting, where a blanket is put. Seretels is a stake put in low wet place (to freeze in winter) in autumn to which at Shrovetide a pole is attached so the sleigh could be tied to it and spins round. The parade of disguised develop the topic of fertility in a social context. For Shrovetide a superfluity is typical both in entertainment and in food, but the timeline is strictly kept up. Latgalians prepare mainly meet dishes. They eat nine or twelve times and each time they eat meet. Slavic people celebrate Shrovetide for a week, they taste fat dishes, but they don’t eat meet at that time. The symbol of the Shrovetide menu is a pancake, which is the most ancient flour dish and the dish of Cult of the dead, it symbolizes prosperity and satiety. The Shrovetide menu of Latgalians is also unimaginable without it. Catholic fasting starts exactly at midnight of Ash Wednesday when merry-making and easy- time stops. Old-Believers fasting starts on Monday. Archaic ceremony is getting forms of mass events, since even in the conditions of Soviet ideology beginning since 50s of the 20th century, масленица has been celebrated as a farewell to winter with well-known for children Grandfather Frost (Дед Мороз) and The Snow Maiden(Снегурочка), with singing songs, playing games, horse races and horse- riding. Since 90s of 20th century all national groups living in Latgale have been integrated in the celebration of Shrovetide. In 1995 the public disguise event Daugavpils International Masque Festival has been launched where not only local national groups, but also guests from abroad demonstrate their national traditions. The celebration of Shrovetide has got the forms of mass cultural events emphasising its connection to certain place or specific aim of the initiators, for example: the songfest “Aizgavēnī cīmā braucam” (“In Shrovetide we vent on a visit”) of quires and folk companies in Vabole, the meeting of amateur theatres “Aizgavēņa grīztovōs“ (“In the gin-pole of Shrovetide”) in Līvāni (2011), the meeting of performance companies of Rēzekne Schools “Griešanās Aizgavēnī“ (“Rotation in Shrovetide”), “Aizgavieni” (“Shrovetide”) in Baltinava Secondary School; at the same time the restriction of social tradition as well as professional accomplishment can be traced.

On Wednesday 21 April the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts introduced a piece of legislation into the Australian Senate to regulate the way Australians use the Internet. This legislation is presented within Australia's existing system of content regulation, a scheme that the Minister describes is not censorship, but merely regulation (Alston 55). Underlying Senator Alston's rhetoric about the protection of children from snuff film makers, paedophiles, drug pushers and other criminals, this long anticipated bill is aimed at reducing the amount of pornographic materials available via computer networks, a censorship regime in an age when regulation and classification are the words we prefer to use when society draws the line under material we want to see, but dare not allow ourselves access to. Regardless of any noble aspirations expressed by free-speech organisations such as Electronic Frontiers Australia relating to the defence of personal liberty and freedom of expression, this legislation is about porn. Under the Bill, Australia would proscribe our citizens from accessing: explicit depictions of sexual acts between consenting adults; mild non-violent fetishes; depictions of sexual violence, coercion or non-consent of any kind; depictions of child sexual abuse, bestiality, sexual acts accompanied by offensive fetishes, or exploitative incest fantasies; unduly detailed and/or relished acts of extreme violence or cruelty; explicit or unjustifiable depictions of sexual violence against non-consenting persons; and detailed instruction or encouragement in matters of crime or violence or the abuse of proscribed drugs. (OFLC) The Australian public, as a whole, favour the availability of sexually explicit materials in some form, with OFLC data indicating a relatively high degree of public support for X rated videos, the "high end" of the porn market (Paterson et al.). In Australia strict regulation of X rated materials in conventional media has resulted in a larger illegal market for these materials than the legalised sex industries of the ACT and Northern Territory (while 1.2 million X rated videos are legally sold out of the territories, 2 million are sold illegally in other jurisdictions, according to Patten). In Australia, censorship of media content has traditionally been based on the principles of the protection of society from moral harm and individual degradation, with specific emphasis on the protection of innocents from material they are not old enough for, or mentally capable of dealing with (Joint Select Committee on Video Material). Even when governments distanced themselves from direct personal censorship (such as Don Chipp's approach to the censorship of films and books in the late 1960s and early 1970s) and shifted the rationale behind censorship from prohibition to classification, the publicly stated aims of these decisions have been the support of existing community standards, rather than the imposition of strict legalistic moral values upon an unwilling society. In the debates surrounding censorship, and especially the level of censorship applied (rather than censorship as a whole), the question "what is the community we are talking about here?" has been a recurring theme. The standards that are applied to the regulation of media content, both online and off, are often the focus of community debate (a pluralistic community that obviously lacks "standards" by definition of the word). In essence the problem of maintaining a single set of moral and ethical values for the treatment of media content is a true political dilemma: a problem that lacks any form of solution acceptable to all participants. Since the introduction of the Internet as a "mass" medium (or more appropriately, a "popular" one), government indecision about how best to treat this new technology has precluded any form or content regulation other than the ad hoc use of existing non-technologically specific law to deal with areas of criminal or legally sanctionable intent (such as the use of copyright law, or the powers under the Crimes Act relating to the improper use of telecommunications services). However, indecision in political life is often associated with political weakness, and in the face of pressure to act decisively (motivated again by "community concern"), the Federal government has decided to extend the role of the Australian Broadcasting Authority to regulate and impose a censorship regime on Australian access of morally harmful materials. It is important to note the government's intention to censor access, rather than content of the Internet. While material hosted in Australia (ignoring, of course, the "cyberspace" definitions of non-territorial existence of information stored in networks) will be censored (removed from Australia computers), the government, lacking extraterritorial powers to compel the owners of machines located offshore, intends to introduce of some form of refused access list to materials located in other nations. What is interesting to consider in this context is the way that slight shifts of definitional paradigm alter the way this legislation can be considered. If information flows (upon which late capitalism is becoming more dependent) were to be located within the context of international law governing the flow of waterways, does the decision to prevent travel of morally dubious material through Australia's informational waterways impinge upon the riparian rights of other nations (the doctrine of fair usage without impeding flow; Godana 50)? Similarly, if we take Smith's extended definition of community within electronic transactional spaces (the maintenance of members' commitment to the group, monitoring and sanctioning behaviour and the production and distribution of resources), then the current Bill proposes the regulation of the activities of one community by another (granted, a larger community that incorporates the former). Seen in this context, this legislation is the direct intervention in an established social order by a larger and less homogeneous group. It may be trite to quote the Prime Minister's view of community in this context, where he states ...It is free individuals, strong communities and the rule of law which are the best defence against the intrusive power of the state and against those who think they know what is best for everyone else. (Howard 21) possibly because the paradigm in which this new legislation is situated does not classify those Australians online (who number up to 3 million) as a community in their own right. In a way the Internet users of Australia have never identified themselves as a community, nor been asked to act in a communitarian manner. While discussions about the value of community models when applied to the Internet are still divided, there are those who argue that their use of networked services can be seen in this light (Worthington). What this new legislation does, however, is preclude the establishment of public communities in order to meet the desires of government for some limits to be placed on Internet content. The Bill does allow for the development of "restricted access systems" that would allow pluralistic communities to develop and engage in a limited amount of self-regulation. These systems include privately accessible Intranets, or sites that restrict access through passwords or some other form of age verification technique. Thus, ignoring the minimum standards that will be required for these communities to qualify for some measure of self-regulatory freedom, what is unspoken here is that specific subsections of the Internet population may exist, provided they keep well away from the public gaze. A ghetto without physical walls. Under the Bill, a co-regulatory approach is endorsed by the government, favouring the establishment of industry codes of practice by ISPs and (or) the establishment of a single code of practice by the content hosting industry (content developers are relegated to yet undetermined complementary state legislation). However, this section of the Bill, in mandating a range of minimum requirements for these codes of practice, and denying plurality to the content providers, places an administrative imperative above any communitarian spirit. That is, that the Internet should have no more than one community, it should be an entity bound by a single guiding set of principles and be therefore easier to administer by Australian censors. This administrative imperative re-encapsulates the dilemma faced by governments dealing with the Internet: that at heart, the broadcast and print press paradigms of existing censorship regimes face massive administrative problems when presented with a communications technology that allows for wholesale publication of materials by individuals. Whereas the limited numbers of broadcasters and publishers have allowed the development of Australia's system of classification of materials (on a sliding scale from G to RC classifications or the equivalent print press version), the new legislation introduced into the Senate uses the classification scheme simply as a censorship mechanism: Internet content is either "ok" or "not ok". From a public administration perspective, this allows government to drastically reduce the amount of work required by regulators and eases the burden of compliance costs by ISPs, by directing clear and unambiguous statements about the acceptability of existing materials placed online. However, as we have seen in other areas of social policy (such as the rationalisation of Social Security services or Health), administrative expedience is often antipathetic to small communities that have special needs, or cultural sensitivities outside of mainstream society. While it is not appropriate to argue that public administration creates negative social impacts through expedience, what can be presented is that, where expedience is a core aim of legislation, poor administration may result. For many Australian purveyors of pornography, my comments will be entirely unhelpful as they endeavour to find effective ways to spoof offshore hosts or bone up (no pun intended) on tunnelling techniques. Given the easy way in which material can be reconstituted and relocated on the Internet, it seems likely that some form of regulatory avoidance will occur by users determined not to have their content removed or blocked. For those regulators given the unenviable task of censoring Internet access it may be worthwhile quoting from Sexing the Cherry, in which Jeanette Winterson describes the town: whose inhabitants are so cunning that to escape the insistence of creditors they knock down their houses in a single night and rebuild them elsewhere. So the number of buildings in the city is always constant but they are never in the same place from one day to the next. (43) Thus, while Winterson saw this game as a "most fulfilling pastime", it is likely to present real administrative headaches to ABA regulators when attempting to enforce the Bill's anti-avoidance clauses. The Australian government, in adapting existing regulatory paradigms to the Internet, has overlooked the informal communities who live, work and play within the virtual world of cyberspace. In attempting to meet a perceived social need for regulation with political and administrative expedience, it has ignored the potentially cohesive role of government in developing self-regulating communities who need little government intervention to produce socially beneficial outcomes. In proscribing activity externally to the realm in which these communities reside, what we may see is a new type of community, one whose desire for a feast of flesh leads them to evade the activities of regulators who operate in the "meat" world. What this may show us is that in a virtual environment, the regulators' net is no match for a world wide web. References Alston, Richard. "Regulation is Not Censorship." The Australian 13 April 1999: 55. Paterson, K., et. al. Classification Issues: Film, Video and Television. Sydney: The Office of Film and Literature Classification, 1993. Patten, F. Personal interview. 9 Feb. 1999. Godana, B.A. Africa's Shared Water Resources: Legal and Institutional Aspects of the Nile, Niger and Senegal River Systems. London: Frances Pinter, 1985. Howard, John. The Australia I Believe In: The Values, Directions and Policy Priorities of a Coalition Government Outlined in 1995. Canberra: Liberal Party, 1995. Joint Select Committee On Video Material. Report of the Joint Select Committee On Video Material. Canberra: APGS, 1988. Office of Film and Literature Classification. Cinema & Video Ratings Guide. 1999. 1 May 1999 <http://www.oflc.gov.au/classinfo.php>. Smith, Marc A. "Voices from the WELL: The Logic of the Virtual Commons." 1998. 2 Mar. 1999 <http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/csoc/papers/voices/Voices.htm>. Winterson, Jeanette. Sexing the Cherry. New York: Vintage Books. 1991. Worthington, T. Testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Information Technologies. Unpublished, 1999. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Peter Chen. "Community without Flesh: First Thoughts on the New Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Bill 1999." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.3 (1999). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9905/bill.php>. Chicago style: Peter Chen, "Community without Flesh: First Thoughts on the New Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Bill 1999," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2, no. 3 (1999), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9905/bill.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Author. (1999) Community without flesh: first thoughts on the new broadcasting services amendment (online services) bill 1999. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2(3). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9905/bill.php> ([your date of access]).