text stringlengths 3 277k | source stringlengths 31 193 |
|---|---|
Victoraş Constantin Iacob (born 14 October 1980 in Râmnicu Vâlcea, Vâlcea County, Romania) is a former Romanian professional footballer who played as striker.
Club career
Rocar București
Iacob started to play professional football at AS Rocar București and played his first match in Liga I on 4 December 1999 against FC Argeş Piteşti, but his team lost 3–1.
He helped his side reach the 2000–01 Romanian Cup final. Iacob played two seasons for AS Rocar București and scored 4 times in 30 games. In 2001, AS Rocar București were relegated to the second League and the owner of the team, Gigi Nețoiu moved along with part of the players, including Iacob to Universitatea Craiova.
Universitatea Craiova
He played 15 games for Universitatea Craiova and scored three times. While he was playing for Universitatea, Iacob suffered an injury which kept him away from the field for a long period of time.
Progresul București
In 2002, Iacob was transferred to Progresul București also known as FC Național where he played in 27 games and scored 4 times.
Oțelul Galați
During the 2003–04 season, Iacob played half of the season for Oțelul Galați and the other half at Rapid București. Iacob did not manage to meet the expectations of Rapid officials and returned to Oțelul Galați.
The 2004–05 season was the best of his career. In 28 games he scored 13 goals and was noticed by Mihai Stoica, the general manager of Steaua București, who signed him on a free transfer.
FC FCSB
His first season for FCSB was a good one and they won the championship. He played in 22 games and scored five times.
His first season in the UEFA Cup in 2004–05 led to an extended cup run for FCSB. They qualified from a group which included Standard Liège, Beşiktaş, Sampdoria and Athletic Bilbao and beat Valencia, a former UEFA Cup winner in the next knock out stage. However they were eliminated in the quarter finals by Villarreal.
The following season the club qualified for the UEFA Champions League but were beat in the qualifying rounds by Rosenborg. They then played in the UEFA Cup group stages where they defeated teams like RC Lens, Heerenveen S.C., Real Betis in the group stages and one of their traditional Romanian rivals, Rapid București, in the quarter finals. FCSB played the semifinal but were beaten by Middlesbrough F.C. after two dramatic games.
In the 2006–07 season FCSB qualified for UEFA Champions League group stage, where they played Real Madrid, Olympique Lyonnais and Dynamo Kiev. However, Iacob suffered another injury in 2007 and did not manage to play any game in the Champions League.
He played 20 games in the European Cups with Steaua and scored 9 times.
At the start of 2008, he was transferred to 1. FC Kaiserslautern, in the 2nd Bundesliga, for €500,000. He was injured in his early days at his new team and did not manage to help them avoid relegation, despite playing a couple of matches. He also spent a few months at CS Otopeni.
Iraklis Thessaloniki
In the summer of 2009, Iacob moved to Iraklis Thessaloniki on a free transfer. He played 24 matches and scored 11 goals in his first season in Greece. Iacob became a fan-favourite. He had a poor disciplinary record however and was nine times and sent off five times. With the beginning of the 2009–10 season he was unable to offer his services (home against Olympiakos, Iraklis won 2–1) at his team due to his red card which he had received on the last match of the previous season. Iraklis' fans acknowledged his contribution giving him the player of the year award, in winter 2010 for the 2009–10 season.
In May 2011, he left the club, Iraklis have been blighted by financial problems which ultimately resulted in relegation from the top tier.
Aris FC
On 30 August 2011, Iacob signed a contract with Thessaloniki rivals, Aris FC.
Honours
Club
FCSB
Liga I: (1) 2005–06
Supercupa României: (1) 2005–06
UEFA Cup semifinalist: (1) 2005–06
References
External links
1980 births
Living people
Sportspeople from Râmnicu Vâlcea
Romanian men's footballers
Romania men's under-21 international footballers
Men's association football forwards
AFC Rocar București players
FC Progresul București players
FC U Craiova 1948 players
ASC Oțelul Galați players
FC Rapid București players
FC Steaua București players
1. FC Kaiserslautern players
CS Otopeni players
Iraklis F.C. (Thessaloniki) players
Aris Thessaloniki F.C. players
CS Concordia Chiajna players
Niki Volos F.C. players
Romanian expatriate men's footballers
Expatriate men's footballers in Germany
Expatriate men's footballers in Greece
Romanian expatriate sportspeople in Germany
Romanian expatriate sportspeople in Greece
Liga I players
Super League Greece players
2. Bundesliga players | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victora%C8%99%20Iacob |
The Wall of Sound is a music production formula created by Phil Spector in the 1960s.
Wall of Sound may also refer to:
Music
Wall of Sound (Grateful Dead), a 1974 concert sound system
Wall of Sound (record label), a British label
Wall of Sound (website), a 1990s music website
Wall of Sound (album), by Marty Friedman, 2017
Wall of Sound (Seattle), a record shop in Seattle, Washington
The Wall of Sound, an album by Geva Alon, 2007
Wall of Sound, an album by Naturally 7, 2009
"Wall of Sound", a song by American Hi-Fi from American Hi-Fi, 2001
Other uses
"Wall of Sound" (Lois & Clark), a television episode
See also
Wall of Soundz, a 2010 album by Brian McFadden
Noise in music | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall%20of%20Sound%20%28disambiguation%29 |
René Rachou was a Brazilian physician and researcher on malaria who was the director of the Institute of Malariology of the Oswaldo Cruz Institute in Rio de Janeiro. He also worked with the Pan-American Health Organization. The Institute was moved to Belo Horizonte in 1955, and, after his death, in 1965, it was renamed Centro de Pesquisas René Rachou in his honor.
References
External links
History of the René Rachou Research Center. Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, in Portuguese.
1965 deaths
People from Taubaté
Brazilian tropical physicians
Malariologists
20th-century Brazilian physicians
20th-century Brazilian scientists | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9%20Rachou |
Christopher J. Lillicrap (born 14 February 1949 in Plymouth, Devon) is a British television presenter, writer and composer. He is best known for being a children's TV presenter in the 1970s and '80s, and has numerous writing credits, including Rainbow, Fab Lab and Fimbles. He presented We'll Tell You a Story, and Flicks between 1983 and 1988. Lillicrap is also the creator of the educational television show, El Nombre. His stage work includes pantomime, writing for the Proper Pantomime Company, in whose productions he starred as the dame.
He has co-written numerous pantomimes and children's shows for the theatre with his actress wife Jeanette Ranger. Their musical Monty Moonbeam's Magnificent Mission won the TMA/Martini Award for Best Show for Young People.
Lillicrap no longer performs in pantomime following his wife's stroke. Lillicrap lived for many years in Farnborough, Hampshire before moving to the Greek island of Symi, where he wrote his first novel, Midas, under the pseudonym Dominic Ranger, published by Matador in 2013.
References
External links
Biography by Noel Gay Organisation
English television presenters
Living people
1949 births
BBC television presenters | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher%20Lillicrap |
Lise Hilboldt (born January 7, 1954) is an American actress. She had a leading role in the film Sweet Liberty (1986), co-starring with writer-director Alan Alda and Michael Caine, and she was featured in Noon Wine (1985).
Career
She appeared in S.O.S. Titanic (1979), Ike (1979), the UK TV series A Married Man (1983), The Hunger (1983), George Washington II: The Forging of a Nation (1986), The Karen Carpenter Story (1989), and Nancy Astor (1982). She has a small role in the film Superman (1978). She co-starred with Ken Howard in the feature adaptation of Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson.
Hilboldt guest-starred opposite Martin Shaw in an episode of The Professionals titled "A Hiding to Nothing". She played the part of a terrorist who gets close to Doyle. She had a co-starring role as a nightclub singer in the 1983 episode "The King in Yellow" of the series Philip Marlowe, Private Eye\
Personal life
Hilboldt was married to publicist and former journalist Allan Mayer. In the 1990s, they worked together at Buzz Magazine, where Mayer was the founding editor and publisher and Hilboldt wrote a column. In 1997, she married Richard Stolley, the founding editor of People magazine. The marriage ended in divorce. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Filmography
Film
Television
References
External links
1954 births
Actresses from Wisconsin
American film actresses
American television actresses
Living people
People from Racine, Wisconsin
21st-century American women | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lise%20Hilboldt |
Fruitdale station is a light rail station in the Fruitdale neighborhood of San Jose, California, operated by Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA). The station has a center platform situated between two trackways. Fruitdale station is served by the Green Line of the VTA Light Rail system.
Location
Fruitdale station is located near the intersection of Fruitdale Avenue and Southwest Expressway in San Jose, California. The station is located near the San José City College, Santa Clara Valley Medical Center and the Sherman Oaks Community Center.
History
Fruitdale station was built as part of the Vasona Light Rail extension project. This project extended VTA light rail service from the intersection of Woz Way and West San Carlos St in San Jose in a southwesterly direction to the Winchester station in western Campbell.
The official opening date for this station was October 1, 2005.
The construction of this station and the rest of the Vasona Light Rail extension was part of the 1996 Measure B Transportation Improvement Program. Santa Clara County voters approved the Measure B project in 1996, along with a one half-percent sales tax increase. The Vasona Light Rail extension was funded mostly by the resulting sales tax revenues with additional money coming from federal and state funding, grants, VTA bond revenues, and municipal contributions.
San Jose artist Diana Pumpelly Bates has created metal screens for the shelters that provide visual interest for passengers at the stations as well as for motorists and pedestrians passing by the stations. The designs reflect the rising and setting sun.
Service
Station layout
Connecting transit
VTA Bus: 25, Express 103
References
Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority light rail stations
Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority bus stations
Railway stations in San Jose, California
Railway stations in the United States opened in 2005
2005 establishments in California | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruitdale%20station |
James Bertram is an American musician who has played with many indie rock bands from the Pacific Northwest.
Career overview
In 1992, Bertram joined the indie rock band Lync, in which he played bass and sang. The band went on to release singles on Magic Pail, Candy Ass, Landspeed and K Records, and one full-length album on K Records, These Are Not Fall Colors, before disbanding in 1994. In 1997, Troubleman Unlimited and K Records collected the band's singles and unreleased tracks and released them on one compact disc, Remembering The Fireballs (Part 8).
In early 1995, Bertram formed the band Red Stars Theory with Tonie Palmasani, Jeremiah Green and Jason Talley. Red Stars Theory never officially disbanded, but have not released a record since 2000's Touch and Go release Life in a Bubble Can Be Beautiful. Suicide Squeeze Records released a compilation CD combining the band's out-of-print Rx Remedy 7-inch and Deluxe Records 10-inch. In 2000 Suicide Squeeze released the "Naima" 7-inch, a minimalistic cover of a song from John Coltrane's Giant Steps album. The b-side of "Naima" is "North to Next (exit)", a remix by Scientific American featuring prominent samples from the first two tracks of Life in a Bubble. In 2006 the band contributed the track "Evergreen and Ivorbean" to Suicide Squeeze's 10th-anniversary compilation, the CD/LP Slaying Since 1996.
For a brief period after Built to Spill's There's Nothing Wrong With Love was released in 1994, Bertram and Dave Schneider joined Doug Martsch as the touring version of Built to Spill. This lineup is captured on the live track "Some" on the album The Normal Years.
In the late 1990s Bertram had a short lived solo project called Pennsy's Electric Workhorse Songs. This project released two 7" records: a self-titled four-song EP on All City Records in 1997, and a 7" single for the song "Fransse" in 1999, which was released by Suicide Squeeze Records.
In 1998 James was asked by the two members of 764-HERO, John Atkins and Polly Johnson, to play bass for a session on a radio station. The session went so well that Bertram was made a member of the band. He recorded two albums with the band, 1998's Get Here and Stay and 2000's Weekends of Sound. Bertram left 764-HERO shortly after a tour opening up for Modest Mouse in 2001. He was replaced by Robin Perringer.
Bertram currently runs Luckyhorse Industries, a tour merchandiser and small record label, in Seattle, Washington, with his partner Amanda Graham.
Other recorded appearances
Bass on One Foot in the Grave by Beck
Piano on "Lie for a Lie," from the album Ultimate Alternative Wavers by Built to Spill
External links
The 764-HERO page from Up Records
Luckyhorse Industries
Red Stars Theory Page at Touch and Go Records
Musicians from Seattle
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James%20Bertram%20%28musician%29 |
Bascom station is a light rail station operated by Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA). The station has a single center platform between two tracks. Bascom station is served by the Green Line of the VTA Light Rail system.
Location
Bascom station is located along the Southwest Expressway near the intersection of Bascom Avenue, after which the station was named. The Los Gatos Creek Trail trailhead is located about a block away from the station.
History
Bascom station was built as part of the Vasona Light Rail extension project. This project extended VTA light rail service from the intersection of Woz Way and West San Carlos St in San Jose in a southwesterly direction to the Winchester station in western Campbell.
The official opening date for this station was October 1, 2005.
The construction of this station and the rest of the Vasona Light Rail extension was part of the 1996 Measure B Transportation Improvement Program. Santa Clara County voters approved the Measure B project in 1996 along with a one half percent sales tax increase. The Vasona Light Rail extension was funded mostly by the resulting sales tax revenues with additional money coming from federal and state funding, grants, VTA bond revenues, and municipal contributions.
Screens
San Jose artist Diana Pumpelly Bates has created metal screens for the shelters that provide visual interest for passengers at the stations as well as for motorists and pedestrians passing by the stations. The patterns are a reminder of woven baskets created by the valley's early inhabitants.
Service
Station layout
References
Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority light rail stations
Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority bus stations
Railway stations in San Jose, California
Railway stations in the United States opened in 2005
2005 establishments in California | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bascom%20station |
Stadionul Gheorghe Hagi (formerly known as the Stadionul Farul) was a multi-purpose stadiumm in Constanța, which, since its construction in 1954, was the home of the football club Farul Constanța. The stadium was closed in 2022 and demolished in 2023, to build a new one on the same site.
Hisotry
The stadium had also functions as an athletics arena, with track and field athletics facilities. In 1970, Stadionul Farul was the first stadium in Romania to host a floodlit football match. The stadium has played host to the Romania national football team, in the World Cup 2006 Qualification, UEFA Euro 2008 qualifying and 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification.
Romania national football team
The following national team matches were held in the stadium:
See also
List of football stadiums in Romania
References
Football venues in Romania
Sport in Constanța
Buildings and structures in Constanța
Multi-purpose stadiums in Romania
FCV Farul Constanța
1954 establishments in Romania
Sports venues completed in 1954
Sports venues demolished in 2023 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadionul%20Farul |
Rogen (Swedish and Norwegian) or (Southern Sami) is a lake on the border of Sweden and Norway. The lake is mostly located in Härjedalen Municipality in Jämtland county in Sweden with a small portion crossing the Norwegian border in the municipalities of Røros (in Trøndelag county) and Engerdal (in Innlandet county). The lake is the source of Sweden's longest river, Klarälven.
On the Swedish side of the border, Rogen Nature Reserve is centred around the lake. In Norway, Rogen lies inside Femundsmarka National Park in Røros and Engerdal. The lakes Nedre Roasten and Femunden lie just to the west of Rogen.
See also
Terminal moraine
List of glacial moraines
References
Røros
Engerdal
Härjedalen
Norway–Sweden border
International lakes of Europe
Lakes of Innlandet
Lakes of Trøndelag
Lakes of Jämtland County | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogen%20%28lake%29 |
Jack Frost 2: The Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman (also known as simply Jack Frost 2) is a 2000 American direct-to-video comedy slasher film written and directed by Michael Cooney.
Jack Frost 2: The Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman has attracted a cult following over the years for its B movie effects and comical death scenes.
Plot
Sam Tiler has been struggling to recover from his encounter with Jack Frost last Christmas. To get away from the stress, Sam's wife, Anne, suggests a tropical vacation to attend the wedding of his deputy, Joe, and his fiancé, Marla. Sam reluctantly agrees.
Meanwhile, the FBI uses antifreeze to dissolve Jack and test the remains for genetic material. A accident causes Jack to wake up, causing him to reform and break free. Jack, now sharing a psychic link with Sam, because of Sam's blood mixing with Jack in the antifreeze, follows Sam.
The vacationers arrive to a greeting by the eccentric Colonel Hickering and his assistants Captain Fun and Bobby. Jack washes ashore and kills three women. The next morning, the Colonel discovers the bodies and tries to cover up the whole mess, as he does not want this to ruin his resort. However, the island's security head, Agent Manners who had survived Jack's maiming of him, suspects that Jack has returned.
Jack continues his rampage, killing a beach model and her cameraman. Sam begins to suspect that something is amiss when he runs into Manners, who agrees to an alliance in order to stop Jack Frost. Sam, Captain Fun (who is actually Manners' undercover assistant), and Manners stage a trap to capture Jack. This fails as the snowman they capture was really the Colonel in costume.
After slaying another beach model, Jack decides to freeze the place, causing it to snow. The party guests begin to play around and have a snowball fight when Jack enters the fray, killing at least another dozen. Sam, Anne, Marla, Manners, and Joe lock themselves up in a room, using antifreeze to keep Jack at bay.
Sam and Manners decide to find help, and end up finding a room where the Colonel, Captain Fun, and Bobby have barricaded themselves. They find more antifreeze and lure Jack into a pool of coolant. However, Jack has become much more resilient to the antifreeze due to his time in the lab. Jack spits out a snowball and flees, followed by Manners, into the woods.
Sam, Anne, and the others observe the snowball and it "hatches" and becomes a baby snowman, who kills Captain Fun. Meanwhile, Manners has followed Jack to a shed, where he finds dozens of snowball children that kill devour him.
The survivors attempt to trap as many of the snowmen as they can until the supply ships arrive. Eventually, Anne realizes that they can be killed by bananas, due to Sam being allergic to bananas. As a result, Jack would share the same vulnerabilities.
Jack watches a baby snowman die and becomes angry. He kills Bobby and the Colonel. Marla and Joe flee and lock themselves in the freezer with Captain Fun's body, while Anne is attacked by Jack. Sam shoots Jack with a banana attached to an arrow, causing him to explode. Anne and Sam embrace each other and leave the island.
During the credits, the two sailors on the supply boat are crushed by a giant carrot, implying that Jack is still alive. After the credits roll, we're shown that Joe and Marla were accidentally left in the freezer.
Cast
Christopher Allport as Sam Tiler
Scott MacDonald as Jack Frost (voice)
Eileen Seeley as Anne Tiler
Chip Heller as Joe
Marsha Clark as Marla
Ray Cooney as Colonel Hickering
David Allen Brooks as Agent Manners
Sean Patrick Murphy as Captain Fun
Tricia Pettitt as First Mate of Fun
Tai Bennet as Bobby
Jennifer Lyons as Rose
Shonda Farr as Ashlea
Granger Green as Paisley
Ian Abercrombie as Doctor Morton
Melanie Good as Sarah
Paul H. Kim as Greg
Stephanie Chao as Cindy
Doug Jones as Dave
Stefan C. Marchand as Charlie
Brian Gross as Dean
Reception
Like its predecessor, Jack Frost 2: The Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman was panned by critics. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has 4 reviews, all negative.
Accolades
Proposed sequel
In December 2016, writer and director Michael Cooney revealed there were plans for a third film in the series, which would have featured a giant Jack Frost known as "Jackzilla". The film would have picked up a decade following the ending of the second film, with a giant Jack Frost letting loose on a city causing destruction and mayhem. Cooney expressed interest in making the third installment, due to the advancement in special effects, and would be happy if someone would be willing to help him make it as it holds a special place in his heart.
References
External links
Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman at the Disobiki.
2000s Christmas horror films
2000 comedy horror films
2000s slasher films
2000 films
2000 direct-to-video films
American Christmas horror films
American comedy horror films
American monster movies
American slasher films
Giant monster films
Slasher comedy films
2000s English-language films
2000s American films
Resurrection in film
Films about vacationing
Films about the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Films about snowmen | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack%20Frost%202%3A%20Revenge%20of%20the%20Mutant%20Killer%20Snowman |
Wall of Sound is a British independent record label based in London, England, and was founded by Mark Jones in 1994. They were considered to be "at the center of the revolution" of the Big Beat movement in the mid to late 90s, releasing much of the UK's Big Beat material at the height of the scene alongside Brighton's Skint Records. The label is most known for introducing internationally renowned Big Beat acts such as Propellerheads, The Wiseguys and Les Rythmes Digitales.
History
The label's first release was the acclaimed compilation album Give 'Em Enough Dope Volume One, which featured many acts such as Mekon, Kruder & Dorfmeister, and The Wiseguys before they became more notable. The compilation is also considered to be foundational to the Big Beat movement of the mid to late 90s.
The label gained international recognition and residencies were set up in cities around the globe including a yearly summer residency at Ibiza's "Manumission" (an annual club party).
Human League released their first album Credo for Wall of Sound in 2011. In September they released the album on vinyl.
Notable artists
Aeroplane
Grace Jones
The Human League
Reverend and The Makers
Röyksopp
Scala & Kolacny Brothers
Notable past projects
Agent Provocateur
Akasha
The American Analog Set
Amp Fiddler
Artery Jon Carter
The Bees
Blak Twang
Ceasefire
Cosmo Jarvis
The Creators
Diefenbach
DJ Pierre
Dylan Donkin
Elektrons
Etienne De Crecy
Eugene
Felix Da Housecat
Iain Archer
I Am Kloot
Infadels
DJ Touche
Jon Carter
Junior Cartier
Kids On Bridges
Lisbon Kid
Little Barrie
Les Rythmes Digitales (aka Stuart Price)
Medicine
Mekon
Michael Andrews
Mongrel
Mogwai
Mpho Skeef
Ocelot
Penguin Prison
Propellerheads
Reverend and The Makers
Rootless
Shawn Lee
Shy Child
Tepr
The Shortwave Set
Themroc
Ugly Duckling
The Wiseguys
Tiga
The Visitor Jon Pleased Wimmin
Zoot Woman
See also
Give 'Em Enough Dope Volume One (1994)
List of record labels
List of independent UK record labels
References
External links
BBC Collective's review of the label
Wall Of Sound page on Discogs
Electronic music record labels
British independent record labels
Ambient music record labels
Indie rock record labels
Hip hop record labels | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall%20of%20Sound%20%28record%20label%29 |
Hamilton station is an elevated light rail station located over East Hamilton Avenue, after which the station is named, near its intersection with Creekside Way and California State Route 17, in Campbell, California. The station is owned by Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) and is served by the Green Line of the VTA light rail system. The station has a single track used by trains traveling in both directions.
History
Hamilton station was built as part of the Vasona Light Rail extension project. This project extended VTA light rail service from the intersection of Woz Way and West San Carlos St in San Jose in a southwesterly direction to the Winchester station in western Campbell.
The official opening date for this station was October 1, 2005.
The construction of this station and the rest of the Vasona Light Rail extension was part of the 1996 Measure B Transportation Improvement Program. Santa Clara County voters approved the Measure B project in 1996 along with a half-percent sales tax increase. The Vasona Light Rail extension was funded mostly by the resulting sales tax revenues with additional money coming from federal and state funding, grants, VTA bond revenues, and municipal contributions.
Platforms and tracks
Hamilton station has a dramatic glass elevator enclosure and a distinctive pedestrian bridge that provides access to the platform and improves the station's aesthetics.
There is no public art currently on display at this station.
References
External links
Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority light rail stations
Railway stations in the United States opened in 2005
2005 establishments in California | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton%20station%20%28VTA%29 |
Lena is a village in Østre Toten Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway, about to the southwest of the village of Kapp and lake Mjøsa. The village has a population (2021) of 1,245 and a population density of . The urban area of Lena also includes part of the village of Kraby, just to the east.
Lena is a commercial center for the municipality and is surrounded by mostly farmland. In central Lena, there are several shops and three schools (upper secondary, lower secondary, and primary schools). Toten folk high school is also located in Lean. The distance from Lena to Oslo is roughly (as the crow flies) and by road. The town of Gjøvik is away and Norway's largest airport, Oslo Airport, Gardermoen (OSL), is by road. The villages of Lensbygda and Skreia lie to the southeast, Kolbu is to the southwest, Sletta and Nordlia are to the northwest, and Kapp is to the northeast.
Name
The village name comes from the local river, Lenaelva, which flows from Totenåsen (a hilly, forested area north of Hurdal and Hadeland). The river travels through the villages of Lena and Skreia to lake Mjøsa. In 1902, when the railway station was built, the station was named Lena (after the river), and since then the village area that grew up around the station became known as Lena. Lena Station was located along the Skreia Line from 1902 until its closure in 1987.
References
Østre Toten
Villages in Innlandet | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lena%2C%20Norway |
Skreia is a village in Østre Toten Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. The village is located on the western shore of the large lake Mjøsa, about southeast of the village of Lena and about to the south of the village of Kapp. In the summers, there is a ferry from Skreia across the lake to the town of Hamar.
The village has a population (2021) of 922 and a population density of .
Skreia was the terminus of Skreiabanen railway line. The now-abandoned railway line once ran between Reinsvoll and Skreia. The single track rail was a branch line from the main Gjøvik Line and it closed in 1987.
Skreia is located along County Road 33 which runs between Bjørgo in Nord-Aurdal and Minnesund in Eidsvoll. The Ostre Toten Cultural Center (Østre Toten kulturhus) is located in Skreia. The principal local industry is food production and the processing of potatoes and vegetables.
Notable residents
Alv Gjestvang, speed skater
Inger Lise Rypdal, singer
Maj Britt Andersen, singer
Media gallery
References
Østre Toten
Villages in Innlandet | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skreia |
The hypodiastole (Greek: , , ), also known as a diastole, was an interpunct developed in late Ancient and Byzantine Greek texts before the separation of words by spaces was common. In the then used, a group of letters might have separate meanings as a single word or as a pair of words. The papyrological hyphen () showed a group of letters should be read together as a single word, and the hypodiastole showed that they should be taken separately. Compare "" ("whatever") to "" ("...that...").
The hypodiastole was similar in appearance to the comma and was eventually entirely conflated with it. In Modern Greek, () refers to the comma in its role as a decimal point, and words such as are written with standard commas. A separate Unicode point, ISO/IEC 10646 standard (U+2E12) (⸒), exists for the hypodiastole but is intended only to reproduce its historical occurrence in Greek texts.
References
See also
Interpunct
Obelos
Coronis
Paragraphos
Palaeography
Punctuation
Ancient Greek punctuation | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypodiastole |
Kapp is a village in Østre Toten Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. The village is located along the shore of the large lake Mjøsa, about across the lake from the town of Hamar. The town of Gjøvik lies about to the northwest of Kapp. Kapp has summer ferry connections to Gjøvik, Tingnes, and Hamar.
The village has a population (2021) of 2,123 and a population density of . This makes it the largest urban settlement in all of Østre Toten.
Kapp has varied small industries, including aluminum production for boats and equipment for the oil industry at Kapp Aluminium. The old Kapp milk factory buildings have been turned into a museum. Just south of the village is the Peder Balke Center which hosts art exhibitions and other events.
Name
The area was historically called Smørvika, but the area was named Kapp when the milk factories were built on the site towards the end of the 19th century. Kapp is probably used here for "headland" or "promontory".
References
Østre Toten
Villages in Innlandet | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapp%2C%20Norway |
Lensbygda is a village in Østre Toten Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. The village is located about to the east of the village of Kolbu, about south of the villages of Lena and Kraby, and about to the west of the village of Skreia.
The village has a population (2021) of 478 and a population density of .
References
External links
Lensbygda Sports Club
Østre Toten
Villages in Innlandet | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lensbygda |
Nordlia is a village in Østre Toten Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. The village is located on the shore of the lake Mjøsa, about to the southeast of the town of Gjøvik, about to the northwest of the village of Kapp, and about north of the village of Lena. Nordlien Church is located in the village.
The village has a population (2021) of 671 and a population density of .
References
Østre Toten
Villages in Innlandet | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordlia |
Sletta is a village in Østre Toten Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. The village is located about to the northwest of the village of Lena and about to the west of the village of Kapp.
The village has a population (2021) of 296 and a population density of .
References
Østre Toten
Villages in Innlandet | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sletta%2C%20Norway |
Fossbergom is the administrative centre of Lom Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. The village is located on the south shore of the river Otta, at the north end of the Bøverdal valley. The village has a population (2021) of 830 and a population density of . Fossbergom is the main population centre for the municipality and a large portion of the residents work in the tourism, commerce, and the service sectors.
Geography
Bøverdalen, a valley in the western part of Lom, stretches from Fossbergom to the Sogn area in Western Norway. Fossbergom is situated where the river Bøvra falls over Prestfossen waterfall into the river Otta.
Transportation
Fossbergom is located on a main transportation junction with roads leading to Stryn (Rv.15 Strynefjellsvegen road), Sogn (Rv. 55 Sognefjellsvegen road), and Eastern Norway. During the summer months, this is an important road junction connecting Eastern and Western Norway. The Sognefjellsvegen road is closed from October/November until about the end of April/beginning of May. Fossbergom is also accessible by taking the train from Trondheim or Oslo to Otta, and then traveling the remaining by bus.
Attractions
The Fossheim Hotel () first opened in 1897. It is a two-story log building with an attic, kitchen, two living rooms, and seven bedrooms. The site was run both as a farm and as a hotel until World War I, after which cars became the more common means of transportation. In the 1950s and 1960s, several renovations were carried out in order to satisfy demands made by new groups of tourists. Today, the main building has 26 double rooms and 3 single rooms and a connecting restaurant. The new annex building was also built to satisfy foreign visitors.
The Fossheim Stone Center geological museum () has one of the larger collections of minerals and precious stones in the country.
The thirteenth-century Lom Stave Church (), which is one of the biggest stave churches in Norway, is located here. The church was built in the 12th century and restored in the 17th century.
References
External links
Fossheim Hotel
Lom, Norway
Villages in Innlandet | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossbergom |
The agile frog (Rana dalmatina) is a European frog in the genus Rana of the true frog family, Ranidae.
Description
This species is fat and has long limbs and a pointy snout. Adult males are rarely larger than 6.5 cm, while females can grow up to 8 cm. Its dorsal surface is light brown, reddish-brown, or light greyish-brown with very little contrast. Triangle-shaped spots reach from the temple to the eardrum, which are dark brown. The underside of the agile frog is white without any spots. During mating season, the males often become dark brown.
The hind legs are unusually long, which allow this species to jump further than other similar frogs - they have been known to jump up to two metres in distance. The pupils are horizontal. The colour of the upper third of the iris (above the pupil) is lighter and gold in coloration. The tympanum is about the size of the diameter of the eye. The gland stripes on the frog's back are not very developed and partially interrupted.
Distribution
The agile frog can be found in France, the Channel Islands, parts of Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, on the Balkans, Greece, and by the Black Sea. The species once lived in the Great Britain, during middle Saxon times, with archaeological remains recovered in East Anglia. Celtic Reptile & Amphibian have discussed reintroducing the species. It has undergone a reintroduction on Jersey, by Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, as it was very close to extirpation on the island.
Reproduction
The call is a fairly quiet "rog ... rog ... rog", and can last for up to 12 seconds, and almost sounds like a clucking chicken. They often also call under water, so the calls can only be heard from a very short distance by observers. Spawning only lasts a few days, and during this period, the males sometimes gather in large calling groups on the water surface to attract females. In Central Europe, spawning usually occurs in the first 20 days of March, but can also be delayed, depending on the weather. The spawn clumps consist of 450 to 1800 eggs, and are usually attached to tree branches, roots, or plant stems at depths of . Therefore, they rarely sink to the bottom. Unlike the moor frog (Rana arvalis) and common frog (Rana temporaria), the agile frog does not lay its spawn all in one clump. The diameter of a single egg, not counting the gelatinous shell, is .
Habitat
The agile frog prefers light deciduous mixed forests with plentiful water. The open land around a forest is often also populated, as long as it is connected to the forest by shrubs. In dry, warm forests, this species often also lives far away from the water. Of the three Middle European Rana species, this frog likes warmth and dryness the most.
References
External links
Rana (genus)
Amphibians of Europe
Amphibians described in 1839 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile%20frog |
Eina is a village in Vestre Toten Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. The village is located along the Gjøvikbanen railway line, between the villages of Jaren and Raufoss. The village of Eina is located south of the municipal centre of Raufoss, on the north shore of the lake Einavatnet. The river Hunnselva runs north through the village from the lake Einavatnet to the large lake Mjøsa.
The village has a population (2021) of 704 and a population density of . About 1,500 people inhabit the rural area surrounding the lake, outside of the village of Eina.
History
The area has been populated since before the early 11th century, but did not see significant growth until the Norwegian industrialization. This was due to the Gjøvikbanen railway line being built, which brought passengers and freight to and through the village. In 1902, the local railroad station opened and it was named Eina, after the nearby lake Einavatnet. In 1908, the village of Eina and its surroundings became a municipality of its own when Vestre Toten split into three municipalities: Eina, Kolbu and Vestre Toten. The village of Eina was the administrative centre of the municipality of Eina. In 1964, Eina municipality was merged with Vestre Toten.
Valdresbanen
Eina was also connected to Valdresbanen railway line until it closed. The Valdresbanen was built in 1906, and was originally a privately owned line, until the government assumed control in 1937. It covered the distance from Eina to Fagernes, which is located in Nord-Aurdal. The long track was closed in 1988.
References
Vestre Toten
Villages in Innlandet | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eina |
The 2004/05 season was one of the best seasons of Divizia A in the 21st century. Steaua București became champions of Romania and Dinamo București won the Romanian Cup and the Romanian Super Cup. Rapid won third place in Divizia A.
Divizia A
European Cups
UEFA Champions League
Dinamo București
This section will cover Dinamo's games from July 28, 2004 until the start of August 25, 2004.
UEFA Cup
Steaua București
This section will cover Steaua's games from August 12, 2004 until March 20, 2005.
Oţelul Galaţi
This section will cover Oţelul's games from July 15, 2004 until August 26, 2004.
Dinamo București
This section will cover Dinamo's games from September 16, 2004 until September 30, 2004.
UEFA Intertoto Cup
Gloria Bistriţa
This section will cover Gloria's games from June 20, 2004 until June 27, 2004.
Romania national team
This section will cover Romania's games from Football World Cup 2006 (qualification UEFA).
Seasons in Romanian football
Romanian Football | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004%E2%80%9305%20in%20Romanian%20football |
Since the early 1970s, a legend of Rainbow Warriors has inspired some environmentalists and hippies with a belief that their movement is the fulfillment of a Native American prophecy. Usually the "prophecy" is claimed to be Hopi or Cree. However, this "prophecy" is not Native American at all, but rather from a 1962 Evangelical Christian religious tract, titled Warriors of the Rainbow by William Willoya and Vinson Brown from Naturegraph Publishers. Brown is also the founder and owner of Naturegraph Publishers. Discussing the legend, scholar Michael Niman said, "If anything, it was an attack on Native culture. It was an attempt to evangelize within the Native American community."
Origins
The modern story has been misrepresented as ancient prophecy. While this falsification may have been done consciously by the creators of the story, those who pass the story on may sincerely believe the story is authentic. This phenomenon is an example of what scholar Michael I. Niman calls "fakelore." The legend is frequently circulated by members of the counterculture group, the Rainbow Family.
While there are variations on the theme, especially as it has become popularized in Internet memes, the common thread in all versions of the story is that a time of crisis will come to the Earth, that people of many races will come together to save the planet, and it is always erroneously credited as being a Native American or First Nations prophecy. Niman adds, "It is said there will be a time when the trees are dying, blah, blah, blah. There will be a tribe of people who come and save the Earth and they will be called the Rainbows." Some modern versions of the fictitious story specifically state that this new "tribe" will inherit the ways of the Native Americans, or that Native ways will die out to be replaced by the new ways of the "Rainbow" people. In The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls, Morton and Thomas write:
The legend said [the Native Americans] would also be joined by many of their light-skinned brothers and sisters, who would in fact be the reincarnate souls of the Indians who were killed or enslaved by the first light-skinned settlers. It was said that the dead souls of these first people would return in bodies of all different colours: red, white, yellow and black. Together and unified, like the colours of the rainbow, these people would teach all of the peoples of the world how to have love and reverence for Mother Earth, of whose very stuff we human beings are also made.
Warriors of the Rainbow relates these fictitious "Indian" prophecies to the Second Coming of Christ and has been described as purveying "a covert anti-Semitism throughout, while evangelizing against traditional Native American spirituality."
The book The Greenpeace Story, states that Greenpeace co-founder Bob Hunter was given a copy of Warriors of the Rainbow by a wandering dulcimer maker in 1969 and he passed it around on the first expedition of the Don't Make a Wave Committee, the precursor of Greenpeace. The legend inspired the name of the Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior, used in environmental protection protests.
Native American Response
In 2015, a group of Native American academics and writers issued a statement against the Rainbow Family members who are "appropriating and practicing faux Native ceremonies and beliefs. These actions, although Rainbows may not realize, dehumanize us as an indigenous Nation because they imply our culture and humanity, like our land, is anyone's for the taking." The signatories specifically named this misappropriation as "cultural exploitation."
[A] group that cites a fictitious "Native American prophecy" as informing their self-identification as "warriors of the rainbow" and willfully appropriates Native cultural practices, is not only adventurist and dangerous, but offensive to many of us who advance and continue to defend the spiritual, the cultural, the sacred, and, most importantly, the political vitality and vision of the Oceti Sakowin.
Popular culture
The track "Rainbowarriors" from the CocoRosie album The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn was partly based on the Legend of the Rainbow Warriors. The song has been criticized for "race-baiting" and "naïve and insensitive appropriation of Native American mythology."
See also
Cultural appropriation
Invented tradition
Plastic shaman
Pretendian
References
Literature
Willoya, William, and Vinson Brown. Warriors of the Rainbow: Strange and Prophetic Indian Dreams. Healdsburg, California: Naturegraph, 1962.
Dahl, Arthur. "Brown, Vinson." In Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature, edited by Bron Taylor, 227. London & New York: Continuum International, 2005.
Deloria, Philip J. Playing Indian. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.
Niman, Michael I. People of the Rainbow: A Nomadic Utopia. Nashville: University of Tennessee Press, 1997.
External links
Dead Indians: Too Heavy to Lift by Thomas King
1962 introductions
Anti-indigenous racism in the United States
Antisemitism in the United States
Christianity and antisemitism
Evangelicalism in the United States
Environmentalism in the United States
Fakelore
Native American-related controversies
Native Americans in popular culture
New Age
Prophecy in Christianity | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend%20of%20the%20Rainbow%20Warriors |
Fertőrákos () is a village in the county of Győr-Moson-Sopron in Hungary. In 2001 it had a population of 2,182.
It is located at , about from Sopron, near Lake Fertő (German: Neusiedler See) and the Austrian border. In summer, a border checkpoint for pedestrians and cyclists connects it to the Austrian municipality of Mörbisch am See (). The Fertorakos mithraeum is visible near the border. Fertőrákos also features a small port with a border checkpoint, and a sand beach swimming area, access to which prior to 1989 was restricted to the communist elite.
The village was first mentioned in 1199 under the name Racus. In 1457 it was first mentioned in German language as Krewspach, later Kroisbach. Today, it forms part of the Austrian-Hungarian national park and joint World Heritage Site of Lake Fertő.
The Wagner - Liszt Fesztivál is an annual event held at the Fertőrákos cave theater and in Sopron.
Following the occupation of Hungary in 1944, the new extremist pro-nazi regime established a 'transit/labour camp' in a quarry in Fertőrákos, to which Hungarian Jewish and political prisoners were sent, and many thousands died here, with others transported onward to Nazi concentration camps in German-occupied Poland and Germany. The site of the transit camp can be visited, and has a memorial plaque.
Controversy
There have been petitions to rename the village due to the name literally meaning "(you should) get infected by cancer".
External links
Official website
Populated places in Győr-Moson-Sopron County | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fert%C5%91r%C3%A1kos |
Grua is a village in the municipality of Lunner municipality, Viken, Norway. Its population (2005) is 1,477. Mining is historically important, and Norway's oldest registered iron mine (from 1538) is located here.
Villages in Oppland
Villages in Viken (county) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grua |
Hov is the administrative centre of Søndre Land Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. The village is located in the traditional region of Land, along the east shore of the large Randsfjorden where the Norwegian county roads 34 and 247 meet. Hov lies about to the southwest of the town of Gjøvik.
The village has a population (2021) of 2,054 and a population density of .
Hov was located along the Valdresbanen railway line. The railway connected the Gjøvikbanen railway line at Eina with the town of Fagernes in the district of Valdres. The railroad had passenger traffic from 1902 to 1988 when it was closed down.
Hov Church (Hov kirke) is a cruciform style church dating from 1781 that is located in Hov.
Notable residents
Finn Thrana (1958–2006), lawyer
Ola Skjølaas (1941-2006), politician
Håvard Narum (born 1944), journalist
References
Søndre Land
Villages in Innlandet | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hov%2C%20Norway |
Dokka is the administrative centre of Nordre Land Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. The village is located at the confluence of the rivers Dokka and Etna, about north of the lake Randsfjorden, the fourth largest lake in Norway. The village has a population (2021) of 2,924 and a population density of .
The Østsinni Church is located on the north edge of the village.
The Norwegian County Road 33 runs from Odnes in the southeast through Dokka, past Nordsinni and westwards to Etnedal and Bjørgo. Norwegian County Road 245 runs to the south from Dokka, along the west side of the Randsfjorden to Bjoneroa. Norwegian County Road 250 heads north from Dokka towards Aust-Torpa. In 2002, Dokka celebrated its 100th anniversary.
Name
The village is named after the local river Dokka, a tributary of the river Etna. The name of the river Dokka is derived from the Old Norse word which means "hollow" or "depression".
Fun fact: The word dokka (どっか) is a slang term meaning "somewhere" in Japanese. By saying Dokka-toiu-dokka-ni-iku you are essentially saying "I'm going somewhere called Dokka."
Notable residents
Rune Brattsveen (born 1984), a Norwegian biathlete
Kjetil Bjørklund (born 1967), a Norwegian politician for the Socialist Left Party
Joachim Sørum (born 1979), a Norwegian footballer
Trine Marie Lillehaug (born 2001), a local musician
See also
Dokka Station, a former railway station in Dokka
References
Nordre Land
Villages in Innlandet | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dokka |
Yelta is a locality in Victoria, Australia. It was for a short time in the 1870s and 1880s the Victorian administrative centre of what is now Sunraysia and the Millewa. This role was then taken over by Mildura. At the , Yelta and the surrounding area had a population of 281.
It is notable for containing the terminus of the Melbourne-Mildura railway line.
History
Yelta Aboriginal Mission (1855–1868) was established by the Church of England on the banks of the Murray River Local aboriginal people called a small billabong near the site of the mission, Yelta.
Military history
During World War II, Yelta was the location of RAAF No.29 Inland Aircraft Fuel Depot (IAFD), completed in 1942 and closed on 14 June 1944. Usually consisting of 4 tanks, 31 fuel depots were built across Australia for the storage and supply of aircraft fuel for the RAAF and the US Army Air Forces at a total cost of £900,000 ($1,800,000).
References
Towns in Victoria (state)
Populated places on the Murray River
Mallee (Victoria) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yelta%2C%20Victoria |
Winchester Transit Center (also known as Winchester Station) is a light rail station and park-and-ride lot operated by Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) in Campbell, California. Winchester is the southern terminus of the Green Line of the VTA Light Rail system.
History
Winchester station was built as part of the Vasona Light Rail extension project. This project extended VTA light rail service from the intersection of Woz Way and West San Carlos St in San Jose in a southwesterly direction, terminating at this station.
The station began service on October 1, 2005, after a delay of some months after a dispute with the Federal Railroad Administration.
The construction of this station and the rest of the Vasona Light Rail extension was part of the 1996 Measure B Transportation Improvement Program. Santa Clara County voters approved the Measure B project in 1996 along with a half-percent sales tax increase. The Vasona Light Rail extension was funded mostly by the resulting sales tax revenues with additional money coming from federal and state funding, grants, VTA bond revenues, and municipal contributions.
The construction of the Winchester station ended the 74 years that Campbell was without light rail service. "The San Jose Railroads and the Peninsular Railway Company of San Jose" petitioned to stop street car trolley service after the death of Henry C. Blackwood in 1931 and the costs that the railroad would endure with the new state highway being built.
Platforms and tracks
Nearby points of interest
John D. Morgan Park
Connecting transit
VTA Bus: 27, 37, 60, Express 101
References
External links
Winchester Station at VTA
Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority light rail stations
Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority bus stations
Railway stations in the United States opened in 2005
2005 establishments in California | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester%20Transit%20Center |
George Ralston Wyllie MBE (31 December 1921 – 15 May 2012) was a Scottish artist. Wyllie produced a number of notable public works, such as the Straw Locomotive and the Paper Boat.
Life
Wyllie was born in Shettleston, in the east end of Glasgow, and grew up in Craigton, in the south-west of the city. He was educated at Bellahouston Academy and Allan Glen's School. He later resided in Gourock. He worked as a customs officer before taking up art. He described himself as a "scul?tor".
Wyllie's Straw Locomotive consisted of a full size steam locomotive, constructed from straw, and suspended from the Finnieston Crane, by the River Clyde in Glasgow. The sculpture was built at the former locomotive works at Springburn, and suspended from the crane for several months during 1987, before being taken back to the Springburn site and ceremonially burnt. The 80-foot Paper Boat was exhibited at The Tramway in Glasgow and at other sites including a placement on the Hudson River in New York, for which visit it carried quotations from Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments.
Wyllie's Slap and Tickle Machine is in the collection of the People's Palace, Glasgow, and wind-up stainless steel palm trees and a sculptural bandstand featured in the café of the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow.
George Wyllie was commissioned in the 1970s to build some French influenced sculptures including General Charles de Gaulle, one of the Eiffel Tower and smaller mustachioed & beret wearing French visages (used as coat hooks) that were dotted around the city's first wine bar, "La Bonne Auberge", in its original site (the basement of the now defunct Beacons Hotel at 7 Park Terrace).
The following year Wyllie contributed a golden eagle made from old car bumpers which adorned the wall of Harvey's Diner, (it took six men to lift and secure it) and two stainless steel palm trees in Harvey's Cocktail Bar at 8 Park Terrace. A gramophone with a rather large fiberglass megaphone was also sited in the bar at Harvey's but is now on display (alongside the Tour d' Eiffel) in La Bonne Auberge located within the Holiday Inn, in Glasgow's theatreland.
One of Wyllie's most famous creations, Charlie Parker & His Band, could be seen within Charlie Parker's Bar in Royal Exchange Square in the 1970s and 1980s, the set was up for sale and was meant to have been on display in a jazz museum.
Wyllie's work can also be seen in the Clyde Clock (depicting a clock on running legs), outside Buchanan bus station and in the Monument to Maternity (depicting a huge nappy pin), on the site of the former Rottenrow Maternity Hospital. Collections: Glasgow Corporation Museum of Transport, Cheshire County Council, Glasgow Cathedral, St. John's Kirk, Perth, St. Mary's Hospital, Lanark, Mitchell Limited, Greenock, and public and private collections at home, USA and Sweden.
Wyllie stood as a list candidate (Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party) for the West of Scotland region in the 2007 Scottish Parliamentary Election.
Wyllie was a president of the Society of Scottish Artists and provides an award for an imaginative work at their annual exhibition.
Wyllie was awarded the MBE in the New Years Honours List 2005.
Selected works
The Paper Boat
Straw Locomotive
The World is Small
The Happy Compass
Clyde Clock
Slap and Tickle Machine
Monument to Maternity
New Broom
Life Cycle
Berlin Bird
Publications and films
The Cosmic Voyage
A Day Down a Goldmine
The Whys?man - In Pursuit of the Question Mark - by Murray Grigor & George Wyllie: San Francisco Film Festival
Some Serious, Some Not, Some Not Even That (Collected Poems & Illustrations 1979-2010), Media Matters, 2012.
References
External links
1921 births
2012 deaths
Scottish sculptors
Scottish male sculptors
People associated with Inverclyde
Members of the Order of the British Empire
Royal Navy personnel of World War II
People educated at Allan Glen's School
Artists from Glasgow
20th-century British sculptors
Presidents of the Society of Scottish Artists
People from Shettleston | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George%20Wyllie |
The Conair Firecat is a fire-fighting aircraft developed in Canada in the 1970s by modifying military surplus Grumman S-2 Trackers. The modifications were developed by the maintenance arm of the Conair Group, which became a separate company called Cascade Aerospace.
Development
The Firecats are retrofitted Grumman S-2 Trackers. Conair bought a large number of Trackers formerly operated by the Canadian Navy and a small number of ex-United States Navy aircraft as well. The Trackers are modified for aerial firefighting as Firecats by raising the cabin floor by 20 cm (8 in) and fitting a 3,296-litre (870 U.S. gal) retardant tank where the torpedo bay is normally located. All superfluous military equipment is removed and the empty weight is almost 1,500 kg lower than a Tracker's. The first aircraft was modified in 1978. Some examples have been re-engined with turboprop engines and are known as Turbo Firecats, these feature a larger tank and extra underwing fuel tanks; the Maximum Take Off Weight (MTOW) is increased by 680 kg (1,500 lb) to 12,480 kg (27,500 lb), while the lighter turbine engines also reduce the empty weight. The first Turbo Firecat was produced in 1988.
Operational history
Conair commenced Firecat operations in 1978. Firecats and Turbo Firecats were previously in service with Conair and the Government of Saskatchewan in Canada and were also used by the Government of Ontario. The Sécurité Civile organisation in France took delivery of 14 Firecats over a period of five years commencing in May 1982. It has had its examples further converted and is now standardized on the Turbo Firecat. A total of 35 Firecat and Turbo Firecat conversions have been performed; four Firecats and three Turbo Firecats have crashed in France. In 2020 Turbo Firecats were retired for Sécurité Civile in France.
Similar conversions are performed by another company Marsh Aviation in the United States. These are known as Marsh Turbo Trackers and feature Garrett AiResearch TPE-331 turboprop engines.
Variants
Firecat Original version, fitted with Wright R-1820 radial piston engines as fitted to standard Grumman Trackers
Turbo Firecat Version fitted with two Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-67AF turboprop engines
Aircraft on display
Canadian Museum of Flight, Langley, British Columbia
Canadian Bushplane Heritage Centre, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario
Reynolds-Alberta Museum, Wetaskiwin, Alberta
Specifications (Turbo Firecat)
See also
References
Manufacturer's website
External links
Tracker, Firecat and Turbo Firecat History and Photos (in French)
1970s Canadian special-purpose aircraft
Firecat
Grumman aircraft
Aerial firefighting aircraft
Twin piston-engined tractor aircraft
High-wing aircraft
Twin-turboprop tractor aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1978
Aircraft first flown in 1988 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conair%20Firecat |
VIP Radio was a radio station which broadcast to Western Europe by Satellitevia Sky TV and Worldwide via the internet.Launched 2006. The format was Gold.
Format
Its music format was 'Soulful Optimism' featuring Motown, Soul music, Disco, Philadelphia soul and related genres from 1964 onwards.
The station was the creation of Northern Soul guru Kev Roberts.
History
VIP commenced broadcasting on 14 February 2006 on Sky Channel 0129.
Its roster of highly experienced announcers included Dick Heatherton, John Hook, Bobby Jay, Kev Roberts, Bob Shannon and Andy Wint.
VIP opened in early 2011.
Defunct radio stations in the United Kingdom
Radio stations established in 2006 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vip%20radio |
Miss Britain III is a racing power boat designed and built by Hubert Scott-Paine.
In 1932, Scott-Paine asked Rolls-Royce for a 'R' engine which had powered the winning entrant in the 1931 Schneider Trophy. He planned to challenge Garfield 'Gar' Wood's Miss America X for the Harmsworth Trophy. No engine was then available so there the matter rested.
In February 1933, with the success of his Power-Napier engine to which he had exclusive rights, Scott-Paine issued his challenge for the Harmsworth Trophy. Within less than ten weeks, he had designed and built Miss Britain III in conditions of great secrecy at his Hythe workshops. The result was revolutionary, with stringers of metal-reinforced wood and aluminium cladding, a single Napier Lion VIID engine, and a length of only . The attention to detail is evident in the thousands of duralumin countersunk screws with the slots all in line with the water or air flow. George Selman designed a new propeller after the existing designs proved unsatisfactory. Testing was carried out in great secrecy on Southampton Water in the early dawn.
The team sailed for America in August 1933 and the contest was held on the St. Clair River at Algonac, Michigan on 4 September. The contest was very closely fought, but Wood managed to win by a small margin, and Scott-Paine returned to Britain to a hero's welcome.
Following a fire on board which was quickly put out and the boat repaired, a record breaking attempt was made on 16 November 1933 on Southampton Water by Scott-Paine and Gordon Thomas.
Miss Britain III was taken to Venice in 1934 where Scott-Paine won both the Prince of Piedmont's Cup and the Count Volpi Trophy.
In 1951 Scott-Paine presented Miss Britain III to the National Maritime Museum where it remains on view.
References
External links
Racing motorboats
Vehicles powered by Napier Lion engines | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss%20Britain%20III |
The Athletic Ground, latterly known as the McCain Stadium, was a football stadium located on Seamer Road in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, England. It was the home of Scarborough F.C., a defunct football club who last played in the English Conference North before they were dissolved on 20 June 2007 with debts of £2.5 million.
The venue was first opened in 1898, when Scarborough F.C. moved from playing at Scarborough Cricket Club. In 1988, under a sponsorship deal, the club sold the naming rights of the Athletic Ground to McCain Foods and, until its closure in 2007, the stadium was known as the McCain Stadium. Due to the sponsor, the ground was nicknamed the "Theatre of Chips".
The ground was the venue for twenty-four Scarborough fixtures, that had in excess of 6,000 spectators. The biggest attendance was in January 1938, vs Luton Town in the FA Cup, the crowd recorded was 11,162.
The stadium hosted games between Scarborough FC and illustrious names such as Arsenal, Chelsea (twice), Portsmouth, Southampton (twice), Bolton Wanderers, Fulham,
Middlesbrough, Coventry City, Crystal Palace, Brighton and Hove Albion & Bradford City in cup ties, whilst also entertaining local rivals York City and Hull City more often in league fixtures. Scarborough's first game in the Football League vs Wolverhampton Wanderers, attended by a crowd of 7,314 on 15 August 1987, was marred by crowd trouble.
Scarborough played Red Star Belgrade in a friendly at the stadium in July 1990, which Red Star won 4–2. Red Star subsequently won the European Cup the following season.
The arena had dual usage in the 1991–92, when the Scarborough Pirates (Rugby League) played at the ground, only four games had crowds in excess of 1,000. Baseball was another sport played at the ground for a single season in 1936, the 'Scarborough Seagulls' attracted crowds of up to 1,500 people. The stadium also hosted a floodlit cricket match in September 1980, when a Brian Close XI defeated Scarborough by 26 runs, in front of a 2,000 crowd.
The ground was used briefly for Greyhound racing on Tuesday nights, during the summer months of July & August, in the early 1960's. The course length being 250-285 yards. The first meeting attracted a crowd of 3,500.
Scarborough RUFC played its home games at the stadium, during the club's inaugural season of 1926–27. 1000+ attendances at matches persuaded the club to move away from the ground after just one season to the Old Showground, and ultimately Silver Royd, Scalby. The Rugby club still played the occasional 'Hospital Shield' match at the Athletic Ground and also their 1951 Silver Jubilee game, which attracted a crowd of 1,800.
Demolition of the stadium began in September 2011 and was completed in November 2011. The gates at the entrance to the ground are to be preserved and incorporated into a new sports village complex to serve as a lasting reminder of the former Athletic Ground/McCain Stadium.
A Lidl supermarket was built on the site and opened 16 February 2017.
Layout
The ground had four main stands:
Main Stand
The Main Stand ran along one side of the pitch. It was an old grandstand-style stand and was all seater.
The Shed (Also known as "The Cow Shed")
The Shed ran along the other side of the pitch and was covered terracing. This was the most popular part of the ground and was usually where the singing supporters stood.
The East Stand
The East Stand was behind one of the goals and was an all seater stand in which the seats were red and the letters SFC were spelled out in white seats. This was the newest part of the ground along with The West Stand.
The West Stand
The West Stand was identical to The East Stand but was behind the other goal. It was where the away fans were located.
Corners
In three of the four corners of the ground there was uncovered terracing although the north-west corner had become overrun with grass and weeds so was not normally used. The other corner of the ground was two-step terracing in front of the social club.
Shops and Food
In the north-east corner of the ground there was a social club, known as the McCain Lounge, and a club shop which was located in a hut. There was also a programme shop, food outlet and coffee hut.
2006 plans
In March 2006 the plan was for a new stadium to be completed well before the start of the 2007–08 season. The stadium was to be located in Eastfield, Scarborough. The planned capacity was around 4,000 and the amount of land that the club would own was of which some would have been used for the stadium, with room for expansion, and the rest used to lease to offices etc. that would cover the club's operating losses. The McCain Stadium was to be sold to property developers (Persimmon Homes) for around £4.1 million and this would have been enough to pay off all of the club's debts and fund the new stadium.
Demise of Scarborough FC
A covenant existed on the McCain Stadium that restricted its use only to sporting activities. Scarborough F.C. failed to convince the Scarborough Borough Council that its proposals to sell the McCain Stadium to a housing developer would raise enough money to both to pay off the debts and build a new ground.
On Tuesday 12 June, Scarborough F.C. were given an eight-day 'stay of execution' following a 'change of heart' by their local Borough Council. But, on 20 June, they were wound up in the High Court, ending its 128-year run as a club with debts of £2.5 million.
However, the winding up of Scarborough F.C. paved the way for the supporters' trust to form a new club as Scarborough Athletic F.C. and secure a place in the Northern Counties East League, Division One with effect from 2007 to 2008.
Subsequent events
On 26 September 2007, Scarborough Borough Council announced its intention to purchase the ground from the liquidators. The liquidators, Begbies Traynor, applied to have the covenant lifted. This was contested by the council. As a result, the stadium remained empty and derelict, and was subject to vandalism.
The stadium was damaged by a fire on 17 October 2008, that started in the changing rooms. A director of Scarborough Athletic criticised administrators Begbies Traynor for the lack of security. He said that the club would be interested in moving back to the stadium but that the vandalism was making that option more difficult and expensive. In December 2008 the Council finally purchased the ground from the liquidators.
On 15 December 2009, the council announced that it had decided to invest money in a new facility rather than regenerate the stadium.
On 13 March 2010 Scarborough Council stated it was about to discuss demolition work at the stadium. Further discussions took place in April 2011 and on 13 April 2011 the Council voted to demolish the stadium. It was also revealed that Featherstone Rovers RLFC had agreed to purchase the East and West stands and undertake the demolition works that the council required for nil cost.
On 19 September 2011 bulldozers finally moved in to begin the demolition of the ground completing in late November 2011.
On 13 August 2015 Scarborough Borough Council granted planning permission for a Lidl supermarket to be built on the by now flattened site. It opened its doors on 16 February 2017.
References
External links
YouTube footage of the abandoned stadium
Defunct football venues in England
Sport in Scarborough, North Yorkshire
Defunct rugby league venues in England
Sports venues completed in 1898
Sports venues demolished in 2011
English Football League venues
Buildings and structures in Scarborough, North Yorkshire
Demolished sports venues in the United Kingdom
Scarborough F.C.
Defunct sports venues in North Yorkshire | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletic%20Ground%20%28Scarborough%29 |
General council may refer to:
Education
General council (Scottish university), an advisory body to each of the ancient universities of Scotland
General Council of the University of St Andrews, the corporate body of all graduates and senior academics of the University of St Andrews
Medicine
General Dental Council, a United Kingdom organisation which regulates all dental professionals in the country
General Medical Council, the regulator of the medical profession in the United Kingdom
General Optical Council, an organisation in the United Kingdom that regulates opticians and optometrists
Politics and government
Crow Tribal General Council, a tribal assembly comprising all enrolled members of the Crow Nation
General Council of Bucharest, the legislative body of the Municipality of Bucharest
General councils of France, the legislative bodies of the departments of France, which since March 2015 are officially called Departmental Councils (French: Conseils départementaux, sing. Conseil départemental)
General Council of the Judicial Power of Spain, the autonomous institution which governs all the judicial instances of Spain
General Council of Mayotte, a legislature
General Council of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, a dependency legislature
General Council of Scotland, late 14th century - early 16th century, a sister institution to the Scots Parliament
General Council (Andorra), the unicameral parliament of Andorra
Grand and General Council, the parliament of San Marino
Trade
General Council (TUC), a decision body of the Trades Union Congress which meets every two months
General Council (WTO), the highest decision-making body after the Ministerial Conference in the World Trade Organization
Religion
General council (Christianity), a meeting of the bishops of a whole church convened to discuss and settle matters of church doctrine
General Council of the Assemblies of God, the formal name of a Pentecostal denomination.
General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in North America, in existence from 1867 to 1918
Other
General Social Care Council, a public body which has responsibility for registering and regulating social workers and social care workers
See also
General Teaching Council (disambiguation)
General counsel | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General%20council |
Vertical handover or vertical handoff refers to a network node changing the type of connectivity it uses to access a supporting infrastructure, usually to support node mobility. For example, a suitably equipped laptop might be able to use both high-speed wireless LAN and cellular technology for Internet access. Wireless LAN connections generally provide higher speeds, while cellular technologies generally provide more ubiquitous coverage. Thus the laptop user might want to use a wireless LAN connection whenever one is available and to revert to a cellular connection when the wireless LAN is unavailable. Vertical handovers refer to the automatic transition from one technology to another in order to maintain communication. This is different from a horizontal handover between different wireless access points that use the same technology.
Vertical handoffs between WLAN and UMTS (WCDMA) have attracted a great deal of attention in all the research areas of the 4G wireless network, due to the benefit of utilizing the higher bandwidth and lower cost of WLAN as well as better mobility support and larger coverage of UMTS. Vertical handovers among a range of wired and wireless access technologies including WiMAX can be achieved using Media independent handover which is standardized as IEEE 802.21.
Related issues
Dual mode card
To support vertical handover, a mobile terminal needs to have a dual mode card, for example one that can work under both WLAN and UMTS frequency bands and modulation schemes.
Interworking architecture
For the vertical handover between UMTS and WLAN, there are two main interworking architecture: tight coupling and loose coupling.
The tight coupling scheme, which 3GPP adopted, introduces two more elements: WAG (Wireless Access Gateway) and PDG (Packet Data Gateway). So the data transfers from WLAN AP to a Corresponding Node on the internet must go through the Core Network of UMTS.
Loose coupling is more used when the WLAN is not operated by cellular operator but any private user. So the data transmitted through WLAN will not go through Cellular Networks.
Handover metrics
In traditional handovers, such as a handover between cellular networks, the handover decision is based mainly on RSS (Received Signal Strength) in the border region of two cells, and may also be based on call drop rate, etc. for resource management reasons.
In vertical handover, the situation is more complex. Two different kinds of wireless networks normally have incomparable signal strength metrics, for example, WLAN compared to UMTS. In, WLAN and UMTS networks both cover an area at the same time.
The handover metrics in this situation should include RSS, user preference, network conditions, application types, cost etc.
Handover decision algorithm
Based on the handover metrics mentioned above, the decision about how and when to switch the interface to which network will be made.
Many papers have given reasonable flow charts based on the better service and lower cost, etc. while some others, using fuzzy logic, neuron network or MADM methods to solve the problem.
Mobility management
When a mobile station transfers a user's session from one network to another, the IP address will change. In order to allow the Corresponding Node that the MS is communicating with to find it correctly and allow the session to continue, Mobility Management is used.
The Mobility Management problem can be solved in different layers, such as the Application Layer, Transport Layer, IP Layer, etc. The most common method is to use SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) and Mobile IP.
Handoff procedure
The handover procedure specifies the control signalling used to perform the handover and is invoked by the handover decision algorithm.
See also
Load balancing (computing)
Media-independent handover
Multihoming
Access Network Discovery and Selection Function
Related standards
3GPP TS 23.234 “3GPP system to WLAN interworking; System description
3GPP TS 23.228 IP Multimedia Subsystem
3GPP TS 23.237 IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) Service Continuity; Stage 2
802.21 Media independent handover
IEEE 802.21
Mobile IP
Wireless networking
Mobile telecommunications standards | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical%20handover |
The Al-Hilal Stadium (), nicknamed The Blue Jewel () is a multi-use stadium located in Omdurman, Khartoum State, Sudan. It is mostly used for football matches and is also used for athletics. It is the home of Al-Hilal Club and has a capacity of 35,000.
History
At the opening celebration on Friday, 26 January 1968, Al-Hilal played against the visiting Ghana national football team. The match ended in a 1–1 draw.
References
External links
Stadium's profile on Al-Hilal Official Website
Sports venues in Sudan
Football venues in Sudan
Sports venues completed in 1965
Omdurman
Al-Hilal Club (Omdurman) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Hilal%20Stadium |
The Glenorchy District Football Club is an Australian rules football club currently playing in the Tasmanian State League and the Southern Football League in Tasmania, Australia.
History
The club is nicknamed the Magpies after its black and white playing strip, and was originally known as New Town Football Club (wearing a green and white strip) when it started out as a member of the Tasmanian Football League in 1919.
New Town changed its name to Glenorchy in 1957 after absorbing the already established club Glenorchy Rovers and relocated its headquarters to KGV Oval at Glenorchy in Hobart's northern suburbs in the same year, playing its first match at the venue on 4 May 1957 against Hobart. It remains there to this day. After the death of the Tasmanian Football League in December 2000, the club was temporarily without a league to play in.
After some political maneuvering within football circles, Glenorchy were admitted to the Southern Football League, but at a high price from a traditional standpoint, with the club being forced, as a condition of entry to the League, to give up its black-and-white playing strip as well as its Magpies emblem, as it clashed with former Southern Amateur club Claremont Magpies, who were already a member of the SFL.
Glenorchy announced in early 2001 that they would adopt a new green, black & white playing uniform, and be known as the "Glenorchy Storm". This was not popular with fans, many of whom drifted away from the club, and its membership and support base decreased rapidly.
There was to be considerable rejoicing amongst its fans in 2004, after persistent pressure from the club, and the fact that Claremont were now playing in the SFL Regional League, which resulted in Glenorchy being granted the return of its black-and-white strip, and the Magpie emblem.
Statistics
Club record attendance
24,968: 1979 TFL Grand Final vs Clarence Roos at North Hobart Oval.
Club record attendance (Home & Away)
8,480 + approx. 2000 non-paying juniors: 2011 TSL Round 1 vs Clarence Roos at KGV Oval
Club record score
TFL 34.21 (225) vs Hobart 18.14 (122) at KGV Oval Round 22, 1983.
Senior coaches
Glenorchy District Football Club Team of the Century: 1919–2000
Backline: Roland Curley, Roy Witzerman, Allan Leitch.
Half-back line: Trevor Sprigg, Barry Strange, Robbie Dykes.
Centre line: Michael Styles (Capt), Neil Conlan, Ben Atkin.
Half-forward line: John Klug, Max Griffiths, David Pearce.
Forward line: Danny Ling, Peter Hudson, Gary Linton.
Ruck: Jack Rough, Rex Garwood, Ron Marney.
Interchange: John Chick, Matthew Mansfield, Kevin Morgan, Denis Lester, Kevin Baker, Adrian Fletcher, Max McMahon.
VFL/AFL Players
Notable players that went on the play in the VFL/AFL who started at Glenorchy:
Ben Brown
Jimmy Webster
Ryan Harwood
Brodie Moles
Aaron Cornelius
Aaron Joseph
Simon Wiggins
Peter Street
Brodie Holland
Justin Wood
Ben Beams
Daryn Cresswell
John Klug
Adrian Fletcher
Andy Lovell
Matthew Mansfield
Shane Fell
Rodney Eade
Wayne Fox
Darryl Sutton
Graham Fox
Players who came to Glenorchy post-career:
Peter Hudson
Jason Akermanis
Shayne Stevenson
Darren Kappler
Robert Groenewegen
Shane Loveless
Bill Picken
Max McMahon
Ian Bremner
Honours
Club
Tasmanian Football League
Premiers (19): 1935, 1948, 1949, 1951, 1953, 1955, 1956, 1958, 1965, 1975, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1999 (TSFL), 2016 (TSLW)
Runners up (20): 1923, 1926, 1946, 1950, 1954, 1957, 1961, 1966, 1967, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1982, 1984, 1987, 1988, 2009, 2015
Southern Football League
Premiers (2): 2007, 2008
Runners up (2): 2001, 2006
Tasmanian State Premiership (5): 1948, 1953, 1956, 1965, 1975
Individual
William Leitch Medallists
(Best and fairest player – TFL and SFL premier senior football)
1951 – Rex Garwood
1967 – Neville Johnston
1975 – Trevor Sprigg
1978 – Peter Hudson
1979 – Peter Hudson
1980 – Gary Linton
1988 – Adrian Fletcher
1999 – Ben Atkin
2005 – David Newitt
2006 – Jesse Crouch
2008 – Shane Piuselli
George Watt Medallists
(Best and fairest player – TFL reserves football)
1963 – Dal Johnson
1968 – W. Hayes
1973 – P. Lynsky (tied)
1981 – Wayne Olding
1987 – Mark Horner (three-way tie)
1988 – Steven Hay
2006 – Clinton French
V. A. Geard Medallists
(Best and fairest player – TFL thirds football)
1950 – J.Chick
1956 – D. Cranfield
1974 – L. Berwick
1981 – N. Jeffrey
D. R. Plaister Medallists
(Best and fairest – TFL fourths football)
1978 – Jamie Woolley
1991 – Craig Grace
Lefroy Medallists
(Best and fairest – Tasmanian state team)
1965 – M. McMahon (tied)
1979 – Darryl Sutton
1986 – David Pearce
2009 – Shane Piuselli (tied)
2019 – Aiden Grace
Horrie Gorringe Medallists
(Best on field in the Premier League Grand Final)
2007 – Brad Curran
2008 – Damian McIver
Tassie Medalists
2012 – Jaye Bowden
2015 – Jaye Bowden
2016 – Jaye Bowden
References
External links
AFL Tasmania
Southern Football League Official Website
Glenorchy Magpies Official Website
Australian rules football clubs in Tasmania
Australian rules football clubs established in 1919
1919 establishments in Australia
Tasmanian Football League clubs
Sport in Hobart
Glenorchy, Tasmania | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenorchy%20Football%20Club |
Skyfire is an annual March fireworks show held over Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra, Australia since 1989. The event is funded by local radio station hit 104.7, and the display is synchronised to a soundtrack of music broadcast on the station.
History of the event
The first Skyfire was held on 18 March 1989, as FM 104.7's contribution to the Canberra Festival that year.
Around 60,000 people attended the second Skyfire on 11 March 1990, which was put on at a cost of around A$100,000.
On 10 March 1991, Skyfire III saw more than 2.5 tonnes of fireworks launched into the sky for Canberra's viewing pleasure.
In 1992, Skyfire was held on 8 March. It featured 3 tonnes of pyrotechnics and lasted for 35 minutes.
Skyfire V, on 7 March 1993, featured 436 separate shots, coordinated to music by artists including Madonna, Midnight Oil and Prince. The show used more than five tonnes of fireworks, launched from 10 pontoons floating in the middle of the lake.
In 1994, Skyfire was held on 13 March and featured 6 tonnes of aerial and water fireworks worth almost A$250,000.
Skyfire X, on 8 March 1998, attracted an estimated 120,000 visitors.
Skyfire XI, held on 7 March 1999, had grown to attract an estimated 180,000 visitors.
The 2006 Skyfire was held on 4 March, and called "Skyfire 18" because it was the eighteenth year of the fireworks. The day has become a large event with other activities including a display by the Roulettes aerobatic squadron and a performance by Lee Harding. There were around 35,000 individual fireworks used, with approximately 6,000 shooting comets and almost 3,000 shells.
More than 170,000 visitors turned out to see Skyfire 19 in 2007.
Skyfire 21 was held on 21 March 2009, with fireworks commencing at 8.33pm and lasting for 21 minutes. The firing zone was down the center basin of Lake Burley Griffin up to Anzac Parade and Parliament House down to Regatta Point. Fortunato Foti and a band of pyrotechnicians from Foti International Fireworks provided the show which was "at least 30 per cent bigger than the previous years," with "over 3,000 aerial fireworks, 15 to 20,000 shooting comets". One barge shot off a few more fireworks for 5–10 minutes after the show completed.
On 19 March 2011 around 80,000 people attended Skyfire. That year over 30 youths were taken into custody by police for underage drinking at the event. The following year, 130 police were employed to patrol Skyfire, and youth reception stations were set up at the event.
The 2012 event featured more than 2,500 aerial fireworks.
Skyfire 25 in 2013 featured displays by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), the Federation Guard and the Snowy Hydro Rescue Helicopter.
Skyfire in 2014 utilised around 3,000 individual cues and approximately eight kilometres of cabling.
Skyfire 2018 featured 40,000 pyrotechnic effects, 2,500 shells and 25,000 shooting comets. The firework display will start at 8:30pm with events at Regatta Point starting at 6:00pm including music, Federation Guard displays and a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) fast jet handling display.
Skyfire was cancelled in 2020, for the first time, due to the coronavirus pandemic in Australia. In November 2020, the 2021 show was also cancelled due to the pandemic.
On 26 October 2023 at 8am local time, as part of a huge announcement, it was announced that Skyfire will return on 16 March 2024, after a 5-year hiatus. Hit104.7 and Mix 106.3 Canberra will both co-host the event.
Attendance and pyrotechnics by year
Sponsors
Skyfire is a hit104.7 Canberra event, with sponsorship over the years also offered by Casino Canberra, ActewAGL, and Canberra Airport.
References
External links
photos of Skyfire 2004
Events in Canberra
Festivals in Australian Capital Territory
Recurring events established in 1989
Festivals established in 1989
Fireworks events in Oceania | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyfire%20%28Canberra%29 |
The Ghost Pirates is a horror novel by English writer William Hope Hodgson, first published in 1909.
In it, Hodgson never describes in detail the ghosts – if this is indeed what they are, since their true nature is left ambiguous – he merely reports on their gradual commandeering of the ship.
Story
The novel is presented as the transcribed testimony of Jessop, who we ultimately discover is the only survivor of the final voyage of the Mortzestus, having been rescued from drowning by the crew of the passing Sangier. It begins with Jessop's recounting how he came to be aboard the ill-fated Mortzestus and the rumors surrounding the vessel. Jessop then begins to recount the unusual events that rapidly increase in both frequency and severity. In the telling of his tale, Jessop offers only sparse interpretation of the events, spending most of the time relating the story in an almost journalistic fashion, presenting a relatively unvarnished description of the events and conversations as they occurred. He describes his confusion and uncertainty about what he believes he has seen, at times fearing for his own sanity. He eventually hears other members of the crew speak of strange events, most of which the rest of the crew pass off as either bad luck or the result of the witness being either tired or "dotty". Jessop only offers brief personal interpretation; he states that while he cannot discount the idea that the beings plaguing the ship may be ghosts, he presents his theory that they may be beings from another dimension that, while sharing the same physical space as theirs, are normally completely separated to the extent that neither dimension is aware of the existence of the other. He offers only vague, superficial suggestions as to the cause of his theorized dimensional breach.
Style
The seafaring jargon, coupled with the phonetically rendered dialects of some of the crew, make the text at times somewhat opaque, while at the same time lending it an air of authenticity and believability. Through the use of compactly written prose and simple, almost offhand foreshadowing, Hodgson gradually increases the suspense and sense of dread. Added to this is the fact that the beings invading the ship are neither described in any detail nor explained as to their origin or motive. The combination of these literary devices allows Hodgson to amplify the feeling of impending doom until the moment of the novel's unavoidable climax, when the "sea-devils", as Lovecraft describes them, pull the Mortzestus beneath the waves.
Reception
The economic style of writing has led horror writer Robert Weinberg to describe The Ghost Pirates as "one of the finest examples of the tightly written novel ever published."
H.P. Lovecraft commented "The Ghost Pirates . . . is a powerful account of a doomed and haunted ship on its last voyage, and of the terrible sea-devils (of quasi-human aspect, and perhaps the spirits of bygone buccaneers) that besiege it and finally drag it down to an unknown fate. With its command of maritime knowledge, and its clever selection of hints and incidents suggestive of latent horrors in nature, this book at times reaches enviable peaks of power."
Notes
External links
1909 British novels
British horror novels
Novels by William Hope Hodgson
Novels about pirates
Stanley Paul books | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%20Ghost%20Pirates |
Folk-pop is a musical style that may be 1) contemporary folk songs with large, sweeping pop arrangements, or 2) pop songs with intimate, acoustic-based folk arrangements. Recording production values created a unblemished style that appealed to a mass audience, and thus led to commercial success as measured by high record sales, particularly as illustrated by hit records reaching the Top 40 on AM radio in the United States. Folk-pop developed during the 1960s folk music and folk rock boom. Key example of folk-pop artists include The Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul and Mary with contracts with major record labels (Capitol Records and Warner Brothers Records, respectively). The commercially successful artists stood in contrast to more politically charged and uncompromising folk music performers such as Joan Baez, Barbara Dane, Odetta, Phil Ochs, Nina Simone and The Weavers, or in more recent decades Tracy Chapman or Ani DiFranco.
Folk-pop is found in many regions internationally.
References
Contemporary folk music
pop
Pop music genres | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk-pop |
Network Twentyone, is a training and support organization for distributors working with the Amway business. It was founded in 1990 by Jim and Nancy Dornan, distributors with Amway, originally to support their Amway network in the United States and Australia. Network Twentyone provides complete "turnkey business support solutions" for Amway Independent Business Owners from meetings and function production including education, recognition and motivation to web applications and multi-media products designed to aid you in building a profitable Amway business. These materials are often referred to as Business Support Material (or "BSM"). BSM are promoted to a captive market represented by fellow IBOs ("Independent Business Owners") as well as potential IBOs, creating an opportunity for an additional and independent source of income to that derived from bonus payments arising from the sales generated within the network. The income of those who have reached significant levels can be substantially more through the sales efforts of BSM, to several or perhaps many IBOs Network TwentyOne operates in more than 40 countries and is considered one of the largest adult education organizations in the world.
History
Jim & Nancy Dornan began an Amway business in 1971. After their son Eric was born with severe birth defects they rapidly built one of the largest Amway businesses in North America. In the late 1980s and early 90s Amway began to expand and the Dornans decided there was an opportunity to develop a support system to work with Amway internationally.,. In 1990 they founded Network 21 with a goal to build a business system "that ignores borders and languages". Initially based in the US and Australia, Network 21 expanded rapidly in Eastern Europe, China, Indonesia, Turkey, Philippines and later India.
In 1997, Network 21's "training material" was depicted in the Polish film Welcome to Life. The director and producer were later acquitted on the charge of disseminating false information.". The film, banned for 12 years, was one of the highly anticipated movies of 2009's Warsaw Film Festival and was described in the press by one of the promoters as a "scary movie about brainwashing" that depicts hard-sell "pep rallies" and distributors stating meetings were operated similar to the Communist Party and methods of recruitment that confusingly resembled those of a sect. A best-seller on the local video black market., the film was later banned and its producers fined for using Network 21's copyrighted material. As of 2009 the film was still banned due to an ongoing case brought by "private individuals" ridiculed in the film.
In May 2007, the UK Government's Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) petitioned to ban Network Twentyone and Amway after a year-long investigation alleging practices revolving around distributors being more focused on selling their motivational books, tapes and seminars to salespeople than peddling Amway merchandise. The complaint also focused on recruitment tactics that inflate income estimates for new salespeople. The petitions were dismissed after certain "defects of the old business model" were changed such as Amway allowing "misrepresentations" of its business by independent sellers in years past and failing to act decisively against the misrepresentations.
Business Operations
Network 21 publishes and distributes books and audio/visual training based programs and coordinates seminars for clients in 35 countries. Members refer to themselves as "network builders" and are taught personal development and methods to expand their business network, including goal setting, prospecting, and "how to invite". Network 21 reportedly has a greater "product focus" than some other Amway training organisations. Apart from Jim & Nancy Dornan, leadership includes Robert Angkasa, Paul & Linda Agus, and S.R. Kristiawan (Indonesia), Hans & Eva Nusshold (Europe), and Mitch & Deidre Sala (Australia).
Network of Caring
Network of Caring was founded in 1994 as the philanthropic arm of Network TwentyOne, originally to help AIDS orphans in Uganda. Through enlisting the help of other Amway IBOs associated with the organisation, more than a million dollars a year is sent to that country. In partnership with World Vision, Network of Caring and affiliated IBOs have donated millions to the feeding, housing, and education of children throughout the world. World Vision has recognized Network of Caring and Network TwentyOne's members as their largest corporate network of child sponsors. Together with Free Wheelchair Mission, Network of Caring has provided wheelchairs to the disabled in South Africa and Ukraine
See also
Amway
Quixtar
Multi-level marketing
References
Amway
Adult education in the United States | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network%20TwentyOne |
The Millewa is a region of north western Victoria in Australia.
History
The County of Millewa was proclaimed in the area in the nineteenth century. In the 1960s the then dryland farming areas of Nangiloc and Colignan were irrigated. Subsequently, they became less seen as being in the Millewa, and more being part of Sunraysia. In the late 1990s, irrigation came to northern Millewa towns like Cullulleraine. These still remain firmly "Millewa" however.
Geography
It covers the triangular area north of the Sunset Country and south of the diagonal Murray River that grows wheat and other dryland crops. The part of this triangle that is irrigated is known as Sunraysia.
The major centres of the region are Werrimull, Meringur, Cullulleraine and Hattah. Sometimes Nangiloc and Colignan are included in the region.
Culture and sport
The main binding force of the region is the Millewa Football League, which still has clubs named for many towns in the region. However, many of their players now come from Sunraysia.
There is also a cricket team that plays in the Red Cliffs Cricket Association, and a newsletter.
Notable people
Notable people from or who have lived in Millewa include:
Jacinta Duncan, science educator and molecular biologist
External links
Millewa Community Plan 2016-2020 from Mildura Rural City Council
References
Regions of Victoria (state) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millewa |
John William Mills Willett, MBE (24 June 1917 – 20 August 2002) was a British translator and a scholar who is remembered for translating the work of Bertolt Brecht into English.
Early life
Willett was born in Hampstead and was educated at Winchester and Christ Church, Oxford. He went on to the Manchester College of Art and Dance, and then to Vienna, where he studied music (Willett played the cello) and stage design.
Willett began his career as a theatre designer. However, this career was cut short by World War II. He served in Intelligence and the Eighth Army, in North Africa and Italy. Beginning his war in July 1940 as a second lieutenant in the British Army, he ended it just over five years later as a lieutenant colonel. In August 1942 he was transferred to the Intelligence Corps, in April 1944 he was mentioned in dispatches and in June 1945 he was made an Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).
After being demobilised, Willett worked first for the Manchester Guardian from 1948 to 1951, and then in 1960 he became the deputy to Arthur Crook, the editor of The Times Literary Supplement. Willett remained there until 1967. That year Methuen published his Art in a City, the result of his study into art in Liverpool, commissioned by the city's Bluecoat Society of Arts. A pioneering sociological study of art in a single city, it was republished in 2007 by the Bluecoat and Liverpool University Press, with a new introduction by the Bluecoat's artistic director Bryan Biggs that set Willett's prescient study in the context of Liverpool's cultural renaissance on the eve of its year as 2008 European Capital of Culture. From 1970 to 1973, he taught at the California Institute of the Arts as a Bertolt Brecht scholar.
Later life
Willett became a freelance writer, an editor and translator, a theatre director and a visiting professor and lecturer. He was respected in academic circles for his patient work and careful research in translation, especially in German culture and politics.
Willett's father is William Willett, a builder who promoted British Summer Time. He has a son John, who is a architect. From his daughter Alison, he is the great-grandfather of Chris Martin, the lead singer of Coldplay.
Brecht
Willett's love of Brecht began in the 1930s. Willett first studied Brecht's theatre design work. After the war, Willett became friends with Brecht himself, although it is said that the friendship got off to a bad start due to a disagreement about the Hitler-Stalin pact, but got back on track after they discovered that they were both interested in Tacitus.
Willett worked on English translations for many of Brecht's plays, including:
Life of Galileo
The Good Person of Setzuan
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
Mother Courage and Her Children
Bibliography
Willett, John. 1967. The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht: A Study from Eight Aspects. 3rd rev. ed. London: Methuen, 1977. .
---. 1967. Art in a City. London: Methuen.
---. 1978. The New Sobriety 1917-1933: Art and Politics in the Weimar Period. London: Thames & Hudson. .
---. 1984. The Weimar Years: A Culture Cut Short. London: Thames and Hudson.
---. 1998. Brecht in Context: Comparative Approaches. Rev. ed. London: Methuen. .
---. 2007. Art in a City. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press and The Bluecoat.
References
External links
British Army Officers 1939−1945
Obituary: John Willett | The Guardian
1917 births
2002 deaths
German–English translators
20th-century British translators
Literary translators
British Army personnel of World War II
Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford
British Army officers
Intelligence Corps officers
People educated at Winchester College
Military personnel from London
Members of the Order of the British Empire
Alumni of the University of Manchester | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John%20Willett |
Waldrach is a municipality in the Trier-Saarburg district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, near Trier.
References
External links
Municipalities in Rhineland-Palatinate
Trier-Saarburg | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldrach |
Tyruss Gerald Himes (November 22, 1968 – December 5, 2016), better known by his stage names Big Syke and Mussolini, was an American rapper best known for his work with the American hip-hop groups Thug Life and Outlawz. His stage name "Big Syke" is a revision of his childhood nickname "Little Psycho". He died at his home in Hawthorne, California on December 5, 2016.
Career
Syke was born and raised in Inglewood, California. He was a member of the Imperial Village Crips in Inglewood, California. In 1990, Big Syke and fellow rappers Domino and Mental Illness started a hip-hop group named Evil Mind Gangstas. In 1992 he met rapper Tupac "2Pac" Shakur and joined 2Pac's rap group Thug Life. In 1995 he joined 2Pac's second rap group The Outlaw Immortalz as Mussolini and recorded songs for 2Pac's 1996 album All Eyez on Me, including "Picture Me Rollin'", "When We Ride", "All Eyez on Me", and "Check Out Time".
Death
Big Syke died at his home in Hawthorne, California on December 5, 2016, at the age of 48 from natural causes.
Discography
Studio albums
Be Yo' Self (October 15, 1996, Parole / RideOnUm Records)
Big Syke Daddy (September 25, 2001, D3 Entertainment / RideOnUm Records)
Street Commando (May 21, 2002, Riviera / RideOnUm Records)
Big Syke (October 22, 2002, Rap-a-Lot / RideOnUm Records)
Collaboration albums
With Evil Mind Gangsta's - All Hell Breakin' Loose (1992, Organize Records)
With Thug Life - Thug Life Vol. 1 (September 26, 1994, Out Da Gutta / Interscope)
Compilation albums
Thug Law: Thug Life Outlawz Chapter 1 (October 23, 2001, D3 Entertainment / RideOnUm Records)
Thug Law: Thug Life Outlawz Chapter 2 (September 2, 2003, RideOnUm Records)
Mixtapes
Thug Life: Demo Tape (with Thug Life) (1994, Intercope)
Big Syke: Volume 1 (July 27, 2007, Ghost Label)
Big Syke: Reincarnated Volume 1 (2007, Self-released)
Guest appearances
References
External links
Big Syke on Vimeo
Interview with Anton Batey
1968 births
2016 deaths
African-American male rappers
American male rappers
Burials at Inglewood Park Cemetery
Crips
Gangsta rappers
G-funk artists
Musicians from Inglewood, California
Outlawz members
Rappers from Los Angeles
West Coast hip hop musicians
20th-century African-American people
21st-century African-American people | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big%20Syke |
Golden Ring Hotel () is a hotel in Moscow. The hotel is located just opposite the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Building and the Arbat Street, on Smolenskaya Ulitsa.
History
The hotel was built in 1970 as the Belgrade-I Hotel and used to serve foreign tourists (mostly from the Eastern bloc countries) who visited Russia with Intourist groups.
References
External links
Official website
Hotels built in the Soviet Union
Hotels in Moscow
Hotels established in 1970
Hotel buildings completed in 1970
1970 establishments in Russia | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden%20Ring%20Hotel |
Baba Samit was a Shia Sufi tariqa that gained widespread following in medieval Azerbaijan and Turkey. It is believed to be a branch of Bektashi (Bektaşiyye) tariqat. Baba Samit, according to a legend was the son of Haji Bektash Veli, the founder of the movement. Also according to the tomb inscriptions, he descends from Imam Ali Reza. History of Baba Samit movement in Azerbaijan is quite poorly researched.
It is known that Bektashi movement was widespread in Azerbaijan by the 16th century. After Safavi takeover of Azerbaijan, this Shia order was promoted by the authorities. Significant number of Sufi tekkes were operational during XVI-19th centuries.
The tomb of Baba Samid near Sabirabad, Azerbaijan is still revered by population, however as a result of Soviet-era neglect, both research of Sufi tariqats and knowledge of their traditions are weak to non-existent.
The Baba Samid Mausoleum is a tomb located on the outskirts of the highway in the Shikhlar village of Sabirabad District. Professor of History Institute of Azerbaijan, doctor of historical sciences Meshadykhanim Nematova investigated the history of the tomb and repeatedly published his thoughts on it.In the 9 lines of the 1st and 3rd lines of the Arabic-Persian language of the Baba Samid tomb, surah XIX, 31-32 ayat written from Quran.
The lines 4-5 are devoted to İmam Ali's definition, and in the remaining 4 lines, the Safavid shah (king) of the Tomb of Tahmasp I was commissioned by Abdulla Khan Ustajli, the Shirvan governor in 993, during the Hijri year (XI-1585 ) is written as "were built for the leader of sayyids of the source of happiness (on here sayyid is "great"), the head of Baba Samid bin Bektash bin Sultan Ali ibn Hazrati Musa Arriza",As it is seen from the book, Baba Samid is the son of Haji Bektash. They also connect him with Imam Riza (765-818). Granting Haci Bektas as Imam Rza's son (the son of a sect) indicates that the society he leads is busy with Shiism.
Some of the sons of Aghasi Khan, one of Shirvan's first khan, and one of his wife buried here.
Sources
sabirabad-ih.gov.az.
Shia Sufi orders
Early Modern history of Azerbaijan
History of religion in Azerbaijan
Mausoleums in Azerbaijan | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba%20Samit |
The Philippines is a typhoon-prone country, with approximately 20 typhoons entering its area of responsibility each year. Locally known generally as , typhoons regularly form in the Philippine Sea and less regularly, in the South China Sea, with the months of June to September being the most active, August being the month with the most activity. Each year, at least ten typhoons are expected to hit the island nation, with five expected to be destructive and powerful. In 2013, Time declared the country as the "most exposed country in the world to tropical storms".
Typhoons typically make an east-to-west route in the country, heading north or west due to Coriolis effect. As a result, landfalls occur in the regions of the country that faces the Pacific Ocean, especially Eastern Visayas, Bicol Region, and northern Luzon, whereas Mindanao is largely free of typhoons. Climate change is likely to worsen the situation, with extreme weather events including typhoons posing various risks and threats to the Philippines.
The 1881 Haiphong typhoon is believed to be the deadliest typhoon to have affected the country in history, killing an estimated 20,000 people in its path. However, in modern meteorological records, the record goes to Typhoon Yolanda, internationally known as Haiyan, which became the strongest typhoon to landfall in the entire meteorological history at that time, killing no less than 6,000 people as it crossed the Visayas in November 2013. The wettest known tropical cyclone to impact the archipelago was the July 14–18, 1911 cyclone which dropped over of rainfall within a 3-day, 15-hour period in the northern city of Baguio. Tropical cyclones usually account for at least 30 percent of the annual rainfall in the northern Philippines while being responsible for less than 10 percent of the annual rainfall in the southern islands. According to the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) in 2016, the number of destructive typhoons the country experienced annually have increased, but notes that it is too early to call it a trend.
PAGASA is the state weather agency of the Philippines. Yearly, the agency gives a local name to the typhoons that enter its area of responsibility in addition to the international name given by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), the designated Regional Specialized Meteorological Center (RSMC) by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The state agency also regularly issues weather bulletins and advisories to the public especially during typhoons. It uses a five-point warning scale that are issued to the entirety or parts of the provinces and localities affected by a typhoon.
The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) is the country's top agency for preparation and response to calamities and natural disasters, including typhoons. Additionally, each province and local government units has their own Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (DRRMO). Each provincial and local government is required to set aside 5% of its annual budget for disaster risk reduction, preparations, and response.
The frequency of typhoons in the Philippines have made typhoons a significant part of everyday ancient and modern Filipino culture.
Etymology
(sometimes spelled or ) is the word for 'typhoon' or 'storm' in most Philippine languages, including Tagalog, Visayan, Ilocano, Bicolano, Hanunó'o, Aklanon, Pangasinan and Kapampangan. It is derived from Proto-Austronesian *, meaning 'typhoon'. Cognates in other Austronesian languages include Sama baliw ('wind'), Amis or ('typhoon'); Saisiyat ('typhoon'), Babuza ('storm'), Puyuma , Bintulu ('wind'), Kelabit ('storm wind'), and Chamorro ('typhoon').
Storm naming conventions
The Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Honolulu started monitoring and naming storms in the Western Pacific region in 1945, originally using female names in English alphabetical order. That list was revised in 1979 by introducing male names to be used in alternation with the female names. The Philippine Weather Bureau started naming storms within their area of responsibility in 1963, using female Filipino names ending in the former native alphabetical order. The Bureau continued to monitor typhoons until the agency's abolition in 1972, after which its duties were transferred to the newly established PAGASA. This often resulted in a Western Pacific cyclone carrying two names: an international name and a local name used within the Philippines. This two-name scheme is still followed today.
In 2000, cyclone monitoring duties in the Western Pacific were transferred from the JTWC to the Japan Meteorological Agency, the RSMC of the World Meteorological Organization. The international naming scheme of the typhoons was replaced with a sequential list of names contributed by 14 nations in the region, including the Philippines. The new scheme largely uses terms for local features of the contributing nation, such as animals, plants, foods and adjectives in the native language. The rotation of names is based on the alphabetical order of the contributing nations. The Philippines, however, would maintain its own naming scheme for its local forecasts. In 2001, PAGASA revised its naming scheme to contain longer annual lists with a more mixed set of names.
Currently, the JMA and PAGASA each assign names to typhoons that form within or enter the Philippine Area of Responsibility. The JMA naming scheme for international use contains 140 names described above. The list is not restricted by year; the first name to be used in a typhoon season is the name after the last-named cyclone of the preceding season. The PAGASA naming scheme for Philippine use contains four lists, each containing twenty-five names arranged in alphabetical order. Every typhoon season begins with the first name in the assigned list, and the rolls of names are each reused every four years. An auxiliary list of ten names is used when the main list in a year had been exhausted. Not all Western Pacific cyclones are given names by both weather agencies, as JMA does not name tropical depressions, and PAGASA does not name cyclones outside the Philippine Area of Responsibility.
In the case of both weather agencies, names are retired after a typhoon that carried it caused severe or costly damage and loss of life. Retirement is decided by the agencies' committees, although in PAGASA's case, names are routinely retired when the cyclone caused at least 300 deaths or ₱1 billion in damage in the Philippines. Retired names are replaced with another name for the next rotation, for JMA by the nation that submitted the retired name, and for PAGASA with a name sharing the same first letter as the retired name.
Variability in activity
On an annual time scale, activity reaches a minimum in May, before increasing steadily to June, and spiking from July to September, with August being the most active month for tropical cyclones in the Philippines. Activity reduces significantly in October. The most active season, since 1945, for tropical cyclone strikes on the island archipelago was 1993 when nineteen tropical cyclones moved through the country (though there were 36 storms that were named by PAGASA). There was only one tropical cyclone which moved through the Philippines in 1958. The most frequently impacted areas of the Philippines by tropical cyclones are northern Luzon and eastern Visayas. A ten-year average of satellite determined precipitation showed that at least 30 percent of the annual rainfall in the northern Philippines could be traced to tropical cyclones, while the southern islands receive less than 10 percent of their annual rainfall from tropical cyclones.
Warnings
PAGASA releases typhoon warnings to the public. Until recently, the warning scale it uses was a four-point scale, with Signal #4 being the highest possible warning issued to a locality. However, a fifth warning signal was introduced in the 2010s for powerful typhoons since Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) in 2013. In 2022, PAGASA revised its own definition for a "super typhoon" and its warning signals. An area having a storm signal may be under:
Signal #1 – Tropical cyclone winds of to are expected within the next 36 hours. If a tropical cyclone forms very close to the area, then a shorter lead time is seen on the warning bulletin.
Signal #2 – Tropical cyclone winds of to are expected within the next 24 hours.
Signal #3 – Tropical cyclone winds of to are expected within the next 18 hours.
Signal #4 – Tropical cyclone winds of to are expected within 12 hours.
Signal #5 – Tropical cyclone winds of or greater are expected within 12 hours.
These warning signals are usually raised when a locality is about to be hit by a typhoon. As it gains strength and/or gets nearer to an area having a storm signal, the warning may be upgraded to a higher one for that particular area. Conversely, as a tropical cyclone weakens and/or gets farther to an area, it may be downgraded to a lower signal or may be lifted altogether.
Classes in the localities that are under by a warning signal are cancelled or suspended depending on how high the signal is: preschool for Signal #1, elementary and below for Signal #2, high school (including senior high school) and below for Signal #3, and all educational levels (including colleges and universities) for Signal #4 and above. These applies for both public and private schools in the affected locality, although local governments can declare suspensions and cancellations of classes at their own discretion regardless of the warning signal.
List of Philippine typhoons
Pre–1963
The JTWC was already naming tropical cyclones in the Northwest Pacific basin since 1945, before the Philippines did so. Only a few notable storms persisted before 1963. A tropical cyclone assumably impacted Northern Luzon in July 1911, in which a record-breaking precipitation level was seen in Baguio, with of rainfall being dumped by the storm. In November 1912, a typhoon swept through the central Philippines and "practically destroyed" Tacloban. In Tacloban and Capiz on the island of Panay, the death toll was 15,000, half the population of those cities at the time. In 1881, a typhoon also impacted Northern Luzon, but around 20,000 people have died from the typhoon, making it the deadliest Philippine typhoon in recorded history.
1963–1999
In 1963, the PAGASA began naming tropical cyclones that enter their area of responsibility using female names ending with "ng". During the period 1963 to 1999, the Philippines experienced several typhoons that affected or made landfall. Moreover, this period saw the most active typhoon season in the Philippines ― with 31 typhoons being named by PAGASA ― in 1993.
This period saw several notable and deadly typhoons that passed anywhere in the country. Typhoon Patsy (Yoling) of 1970 became one of the deadliest typhoons to strike Metro Manila. Typhoon Nina (Sisang) in 1987 became one of the strongest typhoons to hit the Bicol Region. Typhoon Yunya (Diding) in June 1991 struck Luzon at the time of the colossal eruption of Mount Pinatubo. Later in the same year, Tropical Storm Thelma (Uring) became one of the most deadliest storms to hit the country, killing just over 5,000 people.
2000–present
In the beginning of this period, significant changes were seen in the naming of tropical cyclones in the Northwest Pacific ― the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), as the Regional Specialized Meteorological Center (RSMC) of the basin, took over the naming of tropical cyclones by 2000, and the PAGASA revised its naming scheme to contain longer annual lists with a more mixed set of names by 2001. Adjustments in the Philippine cyclone names also occurred in 2005 and in 2021.
The strongest typhoon to make landfall in the country during this time period was Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) in November 2013 and Typhoon Goni (Rolly) in late-October 2020, which both made landfall with 1-minute sustained winds of 315 km/h (195 mph). Typhoon Haiyan, as of this date, is also the most deadly Philippine typhoon during this period, which killed 6,300 people. Other notable Philippine storms during this period include Typhoon Ketsana (Ondoy) in September 2009 which became the most devastating tropical cyclone to hit Manila, and Typhoon Bopha (Pablo) in December 2012, which became the strongest typhoon on record to hit Mindanao.
Deadliest cyclones
Wettest recorded tropical cyclones
Most destructive
See also
Pacific typhoon season
Pacific typhoon season
List of Pacific typhoon seasons (1939 onwards)
List of retired Philippine typhoon names
For other storms impacting the Philippines in deadly seasons, see:
Effects of the 2009 Pacific typhoon season in the Philippines
Effects of the 2013 Pacific typhoon season in the Philippines
Notes
References
External links
Philippine Tropical Cyclone Update
Typhoon2000
Monthly typhoon tracks: 1951–2010
Typhoon Haiyan coverage by CBS News
CRS International relief organization quickly mobilizes to help Philippine Typhoon victims
Philippines | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoons%20in%20the%20Philippines |
Alai may refer to:
Alai
Alai (Cilicia), town of ancient Cilicia
Alai (film), a 2003 Indian Tamil film starring Silambarasan
Alai, Iran, a village in Hormozgan Province, Iran
Alai (Enderverse), a character from Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series
Alai (name), list of people with the name
Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale ("International Literary and Artistic Association"), an international organization devoted to promotion of authors’ rights
See also
Alay (disambiguation) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alai |
Conrad of Gelnhausen ( 1320 – 1390) was a German theologian and canon lawyer, and one of the founders of the conciliar movement of the late fourteenth century.
Details of his life are sketchy. He was baccalaureus at the University of Paris in 1344. For the two decades after then he can be tracked by prebends he is known to have had, in various places in Germany. He turned towards the law later in his career.
His influence was through writings from around 1380, after the Western Schism of 1378, the Epistola brevis and the Epistola concordiae. These appealed for the calling of an autonomous General Council to settle matters. This idea was taken up by others, such as Henry of Langenstein.
References
R. N. Swanson, Universities, Academics, and the Great Schism, 1979, 59–68,
Hans-Jürgen Becker, Konrad von Gelnhausen. Die kirchenpolitischen Schriften (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2018).
External links
1320s births
1390 deaths
14th-century Roman Catholic theologians
14th-century German clergy
Canon law jurists
Year of birth uncertain
German male writers
14th-century jurists | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad%20of%20Gelnhausen |
Gwilym Simcock (born 24 February 1981) is a Welsh pianist and composer working in both jazz and classical music. He was chosen as one of the 1000 Most Influential People in London by the Evening Standard. He was featured on the front cover of the August 2007 issue of the UK's Jazzwise magazine.
Early life
Simcock was born in Bangor, Gwynedd. At the age of eleven he attained the highest marks in the country for his Associated Board on both piano and French horn. He studied classical piano, French horn, and composition at Chetham's School, Manchester, where he was introduced to jazz by pianist and teacher Les Chisnall and bassist and teacher Steve Berry. He studied jazz piano at The Royal Academy of Music, London with John Taylor, Nikki Iles, Nick Weldon, and Geoff Keezer. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Music and won the "Principal's Prize" for outstanding achievement. At the Royal Academy of Music he studied with Milton Mermikides.
Career
In 2006, he was the first jazz musician to be selected for the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists scheme, and this was extended to 2008. It involved broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 as solo performances, and his trio appearance at the Wigmore Hall during the London Jazz Festival 2006 (broadcast 7 July 2007).
In 2008, he was commissioned to perform at The Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in London. He composed a Piano Concerto "Progressions" which he performed with his trio and the BBC Concert Orchestra on 9 August 2008, broadcast live on the television channel BBC Two.
On 5 October 2008, he was featured in an evening at the King's Place Opening Festival in which he performed four concerts leading four different groups including a duo with John Taylor.
His trio, which has performed at festivals and venues worldwide such as the North Sea Jazz Festival 2007, features James Maddren (drums) and Yuri Goloubev (bass), while his debut album featured Stan Sulzmann, John Parricelli, Phil Donkin, Martin France, and Ben Bryant.
He was chosen by Chick Corea for a solo concert performance and live recording at Klavier Festival Ruhr 2007. This concert was broadcast on WDR radio and 20,000 copies were given away as a cover mount CD in Germany's leading music magazine Fonoforum.
He was a member of Tim Garland's Lighthouse Trio, but he left in 2013 and was replaced by John Turville. He was a member of Malcolm Creese's Acoustic Triangle, Stan Sulzmann's Neon, and Bill Bruford's Earthworks. He has also played with Dave Holland, Lee Konitz, Bob Mintzer, Bobby McFerrin, Kenny Wheeler, Iain Ballamy, Julian Argüelles, Pete King, Don Weller, Steve Waterman, and Torsten de Winkel / New York Jazz Guerrilla. He is a founding member of The Impossible Gentlemen.
He also plays French horn and has played with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra (NYJO), the BBC Big Band, and with Kenny Wheeler on his 2003/2005 tour.
He has toured with jazz guitarist Pat Metheny in a quartet with Linda Oh and Antonio Sanchez.
In 2011 his album Good Days At Schloss Elmau was one of the twelve nominees for the Mercury Music Prize, losing to PJ Harvey's Let England Shake.
Commissions/collaborations
A commission to compose and perform a piano concerto with the BBC Concert Orchestra at the Proms 2008 at the Royal Albert Hall in London (Progressions)
A commission for a new work for the Aronowitz Ensemble at the City of London Festival, July 2008
A commission and recording for a piano concerto with big band with the NDR Big Band in Germany (Hamburg Suite)
A Big Band project at Cheltenham Jazz Festival 2007, broadcast on BBC Radio on 1 June 2007 (The Lichfield Suite)
A 2007 commission and tour with The Scottish Ensemble (Chamber Orchestra), broadcast on 1 July 2007 on BBC Radio Scotland and again on BBC Radio 3 on 12 October
Guest soloist on Mark Antony Turnage's commission with London Sinfonietta for the re-opening of the Southbank Centre at Queen Elizabeth Hall, June 2007
A commission for the Britten Sinfonia, premiered at the London Jazz Festival 2007 (Jackie's Dance)
New Horn Sonata performed at the Wigmore Hall with French horn player Chris Parkes
Performed the première of Tim Garland's piano concerto with the Northern Sinfonia, May 2005
A commission and major Arts Council-funded tour of cathedrals with Acoustic Triangle and Sacconi Strings, 2008
Performing with his trio at the BBC Young Musician of the Year Jazz Award 2014 and 2016 with the finalists of the competition
Awards and nominations
Winner of Perrier Award 2001: Young Jazz Ensemble
Winner of BBC Jazz Award 2005: Rising Star
Winner of British Jazz Award 2005: Rising Star
Nominated for Parliamentary Jazz Awards 2007: Jazz Musician of the Year
Nominated for BBC Jazz Award 2008: Best Instrumentalist
Nominated for BBC Jazz Award 2008: Best Album
BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist 2006–2008
Nominated for Radio 3 Listeners' Awards 2008
Nominated for Barclaycard Mercury Music Prize 2011
Discography
As leader
Perception (Basho, 2007)
Blues Vignette (Basho, 2009)
Good Days At Schloss Elmau (ACT 2011)
Instrumation (ACT, 2014)
Reverie at Schloss Elmau with Yuri Goloubev (ACT, 2014)
Birdsong with Kizzy Crawford (Basho, 2018)
Near and Now (ACT, 2019)
As sideman
Catalyst, Acoustic Triangle (Audio B, 2003)
Close to You, Kathleen Willison (Basho, 2004)
Resonance, Acoustic Triangle (Audio B, 2005)
If the Sea Replied, Tim Garland (Sirocco Music, 2005)
Take Me Home, Kaz Simmons (33 Jazz, 2005)
Heart Luggage, Klaus Gesing (ATS, 2006)
Sax of Gold, Sax Assault (Astute Music, 2007)
Traces, Dan Stern (Kvetch, 2007)
Due North, Tim Garland (Jazzaction, 2007)
Reverence, Spike Wells (Audio-B, 2007)
Video Anthology Vol. 1: 2000's, Bill Bruford's Earthworks (Summerfold, 2007)
SGS Group Inc. Presents, Simcock/Goloubev/Sirkis (Music Center, 2008)
Give It One, London Horn Sound (Cala, 2008)
Smoke and Mirrors, Tom Richards Orchestra (Candid, 2008)
3 Dimensions, Acoustic Triangle (Audio B, 2008)
Finally Beginning, John Warren (Fuzzy Moon, 2008)
Bimbache Jazz & Raíces, La Condición Humana (nyjg / ESC, 2008)
Howeird, Sam Crockatt Quartet (Loop, 2009)
Metafore Semplici, Yuri Goloubev (Universal, 2009)
Libra, Tim Garland (Global Mix, 2009)
Following On, John Warren (Fuzzy Moon, 2009)
The Impossible Gentlemen (Basho, 2011)
Internationally Recognised Aliens (Basho, 2013)
Let's Get Deluxe (Basho, 2016)
From This Place, Pat Metheny (Nonesuch, 2020)
References
Other sources
http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/musik/0,1518,537613,00.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20080222093747/http://www.br-online.de/bayern4/sendungen/jazz/
http://www.birminghampost.net/life-leisure-birmingham-guide/birmingham-culture/classical-music-birmingham/2007/11/29/britten-sinfonia-uncovers-hidden-treasure-65233-20180607/
External links
Profile on Basho Records website
Gwilym Simcock biography from BBC Wales
Profile at BBC Wales North West
1981 births
Living people
Welsh jazz pianists
Welsh classical pianists
Male classical pianists
Third stream pianists
Welsh jazz composers
Welsh classical composers
21st-century classical composers
Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music
People educated at Chetham's School of Music
People from Bangor, Gwynedd
Welsh male classical composers
BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists
British male pianists
21st-century classical pianists
Male jazz composers
21st-century British male musicians
Earthworks (band) members
ACT Music artists
21st-century jazz composers
Basho Records artists | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwilym%20Simcock |
Abada may refer to:
Abada (surname), a French surname
Abada (rhinoceros), a rhinoceros kept by Philip II of Spain
Abada (unicorn), a type of unicorn reported to live in the lands of the African Congo
Äbädä, a forest spirit in Tatar mythology
Abadá, an item of clothing
ABADÁ-Capoeira, a non-profit organization whose purpose is to spread and support Brazilian culture through the practice of Capoeira
Tell Abada, an archaeological site in Iraq
See also
Aba (disambiguation)
Abadan (disambiguation)
Abaddon (disambiguation)
Abaya, type of clothing | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abada |
Nena Daconte () is a Spanish pop band created and led by singer and composer Mai Meneses in Barcelona circa 2005. The band takes its name inspired by a character from the short story "The Trail Of Your Blood On The Snow", by Gabriel García Márquez.
Early years
Fanlo left the formation and Mai Meneses continues as the lead singer and songwriter of Nena Daconte. Before the creation of Nena Daconte, Mai Meneses participated in the second edition of a Spanish TV singing contest called Operacion Triunfo.
Discography
He Perdido los Zapatos (2006)
Nena Daconte's first album was titled He perdido los zapatos (I´ve Lost My Shoes) and it was edited and produced by Daconte Music, the band's own record label, in 2005. Shortly after, Nena Daconte signed with music label Universal Music Spain, and the album was released and sold to the public on 27 March 2006. The music and lyrics of the record were composed by Mai Meneses, based on early drafts written by her during previous years.
Idiota (Idiot) was their first single. Later editions of the album included a new version of Idiota produced by Carlos Jean and mastered in New York City. Idiota reached number 25 of the Spanish billboard charts.
The second single was En que estrella estará (In What Star Will It Be). The song was selected to be the official theme for the Vuelta Ciclista a España (Spanish Cycling Tour) of 2006. For this promoting event, Nena Daconte filmed a videoclip along with Spanish Hollywood actor Antonio Banderas. En que estrella estará reached the number 1 position on the Spanish billboard charts for 5 weeks.
Nena Daconte's debut album went Gold in Spain. Later on that same year, Nena Daconte was nominated for an MTV Europe Music Awards.
In 2006, Nena Daconte was awarded the Premio Ondas (Spanish music Award) for Best Spanish Breakout Artist.
In 2007, Nena Daconte released a luxury edition of He perdido los zapatos. The luxury edition featurws new bonus tracks, including acoustic versions of the songs Engáñame a mi también (Fool Me Too) and Pierdo el tiempo (Wasting My Time), as well as a cover of Bob Dylan´s song The Mighty Quinn, which featured in the Spanish TV spot of Codorniu. Aside from these new songs, the luxury edition also included a DVD with updated artwork, pictures and interviews.
The He perdido los zapatos tour featured more than 100 concerts throughout Spain. The band also played live in Berlin (Pop-Konn Festival) and Paris.
Retales de Carnaval (2008)
Their second album, titled "Retales De Carnaval", was released in Spain on 30 September 2008, two years after the debut record. As with the first record, this second album was entirely composed by Mai Meneses.
The first single to air on the radio was "Tenia tanto que darte"" (I Had a Lot To Give You), and it premiered in August 2008. On November of that same year, "Tenia tanto que darte" reached the number 1 position on the Spanish billboard chart (40 Principales), clinching it for two consecutive weeks. For the video of the single, Nena Daconte worked along with producer Marc Lozano of Nanouk Films.
"Tenia tanto que darte" was certified 2× Platinum twice in 2008, for digital downloads and ringtones. Likewise, record sales made the album become Platinum in September 2009. The song's music video has over 5 million views on YouTube.
"El Aleph" (The Aleph) was Nena Daconte's second single for this album. The title of the song was based on the book written by Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges in 1949.
The videoclip for "El Aleph" aired on 26 February 2009. It was directed by Juan Antonio Bayona (director of The Impossible and winner of the 2008 Premio Goya for El orfanato) and filmed at Barcelona's Meridiana district. This song reached the number 5 position in the Spanish billboard chart (40 principales).
The third single was "Ay! Amor" (Oh! Love) which came out almost simultaneously along with Nena Daconte's collaboration with Argentinian composer Coti in the song "Perdóname".
The Retales de carnaval tour featured more than 150 live shows throughout Spain, including performances at the Teatro Español in Madrid and the Palacio de la Musica Catalana in Barcelona.
Una Mosca en el Cristal (2010)
In 2010, Nena Daconte released its third album titled Una mosca en el cristal, produced by Alejo Stivel. The single No te invite a dormir (I Didn't Invite You Over) reached number 17 on the Spanish billboard charts (40 Principales).
In February 2011, Perdida (Lost) was released as the second single. On that same year, Nena Daconte started an acoustic tour throughout Spain under the name Nena Daconte Club.
Likewise, in late 2011, Nena Daconte participated on a tribute album for Antonio Vega, giving voice to the song Tesoros along with composer LA (native singer from Mallorca).
In 2012, Nena Daconte took a role in the single Pero si tu no estás, which was the main theme and soundtrack of "La Fuga", a Spanish TV series.
Solo muerdo por ti (2013)
On 30 April 2013, Nena Daconte released in Spain their fourth studio álbum titled “Solo muerdo por ti”. It was recorded in Madrid at estudios Sonobox and produced by Manuel Colmenero and Jabibu Carretero (Vetusta Morla, Eladio y los seres queridos).
The álbum contains 13 new songs (plus two more tracks in their digital edition), all composed by Mai Meneses. The album takes its title from the nursery rhyme that she composed for her son (track number 13). On the same day of its debut, Solo muerdo por ti became number 1 in sales in iTunes Spain.
According to Mai Meneses “I feel that this album is more mature and I have meditated each phrase for almost two years… there is nothing left to chance, everything is measured: every lyric, step, there is lots of work.”
As per the critics, the album is “clear and direct”. As for its sound, it is as genuine as the origins of Nena Daconte.
The first single is title “Dispare” and it aired for the first time on 5 March 2013. The music video was recorded at the abandoned factory of Pegaso, at the outskirts of Madrid and produced by Zoo and SevenSenses.
Suerte ... (2019)
After living for some years in Dallas, Texas with her family, seeking rest and inspiration, she resumed her musical production.
In March 2019, the band´s fifth studio album, titled “Suerte”, was released, produced by well-known Spanish pop producer, Paco Salazar, in Madrid, Spain. The album has 7 songs.
Awards and nominations
Singles
Other projects
Notes
References
External links
Official Site
Musical groups established in 2006
Spanish musical groups | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nena%20Daconte |
Jayantha Dhanapala (; 30 December 1938 – 27 May 2023) was a Sri Lankan diplomat who served as member of the Board of Sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and was a governing board member of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Dhanapala was also a distinguished member of Constitutional Council of Sri Lanka and he was the Senior Special Advisor on Foreign Relations to President Maithripala Sirisena, and was Sri Lanka's official candidate for the post of Secretary-General of the United Nations, before withdrawing from the race on 29 September 2006. From 2007 he was the president of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.
Early years in Sri Lanka
Dhanapala was born in Sri Lanka on 30 December 1938. His family hails from the town of Matale. Dhanapala was educated at Trinity College in Kandy. He gained a reputation as an all-rounder as a schoolboy and was awarded the Ryde Gold Medal in 1956. At the age of 17 Jayantha Dhanapala won a contest with an essay titled "The World We Want". On winning this contest he went to a meeting of youth in a New York Herald Tribune Forum which was later to be renamed as World Youth Forum. When he travelled to the US he met Senator John F. Kennedy and President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Diplomatic career
He entered the Sri Lankan diplomatic service and served in London, Beijing, Washington, D.C., New Delhi and Geneva. Dhanapala was appointed Ambassador in Geneva (1984–87)— he was also accredited to the UN and was appointed Sri Lanka's Ambassador to the United States of America based in Washington D.C. from 1995 to 1997.
Dhanapala was widely acclaimed for his presidency of the 1995 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference, a landmark event in disarmament history, because of his crafting of a package of decisions balancing the twin objectives of nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament and the concerns of the nuclear weapon states and the non-nuclear weapon states which was adopted without a vote. The New York Times observed that Jayantha Dhanapala 'was a diplomat mostly unknown outside the arms-control world until he was elected to preside over this conference.'
Under-Secretary-General at the UN
Dhanapala was hand-picked by UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan to take on the challenging job of Under Secretary General to re-establish the Department of Disarmament after the UN reforms of 1997 (1998–2003). During his tenure, he piloted the UN's role in arresting the proliferation of small arms and light weapons, anti-personnel landmines, conventional weapons, and weapons of mass destruction while reinforcing existing norms and norm-building in other areas such as missiles. He also broke new ground both in-house in taking managerial initiatives in gender mainstreaming and in work-life issues, as well as in the disarmament field by innovating the exchange of weapons for a development programme in Albania and other areas, and also in the cross-sectoral linking of disarmament with development, the environment and peace education programmes.
Dhanapala was appointed Secretary-General of the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP) in Sri Lanka from 2004–2005. He was also Senior Special Advisor to both Presidents Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapakse during the period 2005–2007 and Senior Special Advisor on Foreign Relations to President Maithripala Sirisena, 12 January 2015.
Candidate for the post of UN Secretary-General
Sri Lanka's civil war hobbled Dhanapala's candidacy for United Nations Secretary-General. The opposition parties in Sri Lanka joined hands with the government on the day that his candidacy was announced.Jayapala was one among the seven aspirants for this position in 2006, but he lost out in the early popularity polls among the seven candidates, for multiple reasons. A vital one was that Sri Lanka's populous neighbor India also had a viable candidate in the ring.
Death
Dhanapala died in Kandy on 27 May 2023, at the age of 84.
Honours and awards
Dhanapala was named "the Sri Lankan of the year" by the business magazine LMD in 2006.
Doctor of Letters honoris causa by the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka (2000)
Doctor of Humane Letters Honoris causa by the Monterey Institute of International Studies, U.S. (2001)
Doctor of Science in the Social Sciences by the University of Southampton, UK (2003)
Doctor of Letters (Honoris causa) by the Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka (2003)
Doctorate (Doctor Honoris Causa) from the Dubna International University of Nature, Society and Man in Russia (2009)
Sean MacBride Prize – From the International Peace Bureau – Awarded in November, (2007)
Bibliography
Multilateral Diplomacy and the NPT: An Insiders’ Account
Jayantha Dhanapala with R. Rydell, Geneva: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, 2005
Regional Approaches to Disarmament, Security and Stability
Jayantha Dhanapala (ed.), Geneva: UNIDIR, 1993, published for UNIDIR by Dartmouth (Aldershot)
The United Nations, Disarmament and Security: Evolution and Prospects Jayantha Dhanapala (ed.), Geneva: UNIDIR, 1991
China and the Third World Jayantha Dhanapala, New Delhi: Vikas, 1985
References
Dhanapala quits Cargills Board to take up Senior Presidential Advisor role January 14, 2015
Dhanapala quits Cargills Board to take up Senior Presidential Advisor role January 14, 2015
Honorary Professor, Biography Professor Jayantha Dhanapala
External links
Jayantha Dhanapala Blog
Speeches
Challenging 'the Very Existence of WMD'
Gender Perspectives on Disarmament
Sri Lanka Peace Process: Problems and Prospects
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty – EIF Conference Speeches
1938 births
2023 deaths
Sinhalese people
Sri Lankan civil servants
Sri Lankan diplomats
Alumni of the University of Ceylon (Peradeniya)
Permanent Representatives of Sri Lanka to the United Nations
Ambassadors of Sri Lanka to the United States
Ambassadors of Sri Lanka to Switzerland
Under-Secretaries-General of the United Nations
Alumni of Trinity College, Kandy
People from Colombo | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayantha%20Dhanapala |
, also known as ROCKETMAN, is a Japanese comedian and musician. He belongs to Watanabe Entertainment. On television he generally takes minor roles and is characterized by his childlike temperament and boyish looks. He is also a member of the owarai group, No Plan.
Fukawa graduated from the Department of Economics at Keio University. He is cousin to manga artist Tetsuo Hara.
References
External links
Ryō Fukawa's official page
Japanese male comedians
1974 births
Living people
Musicians from Yokohama
Keio University alumni
Nippon Columbia artists
Watanabe Entertainment | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryo%20Fukawa |
The Philippine Area of Responsibility (PAR) is an area in the Northwestern Pacific where PAGASA, the Philippines' national meteorological agency, monitors weather occurrences. Significant weather disturbances, specifically tropical cyclones that enter or develop in the PAR, are given Philippine-specific names.
Boundary
The area is bounded by six points namely (clockwise):
This area encompasses almost all of the land territory of the Philippines, except for the southernmost portions of the province of Tawi-Tawi, and some of the country's claimed islands in the Spratlys. The area also includes the main island of Palau, most of Taiwan, as well as portions of the Malaysian state of Sabah, the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa and a small patch of land in Brunei.
Function
The establishing decree of PAGASA mandates the weather agency to monitor weather occurrences occurring within the PAR.
Tropical cyclones are only assigned local names by PAGASA when they enter or develop within the PAR. These names are provided in parallel with internationally recognized names designated by the Japan Meteorological Agency (in its role as the Regional Specialized Meteorological Centre for the Northwest Pacific Ocean basin). The rationale for providing local names is that it is felt that Filipinos will respond more to familiar names and that it helps to underscore that these named weather disturbances pose a direct threat to the country. Furthermore, PAGASA provide names earlier when a low pressure area becomes a tropical depression, in contrast to international names that are only issued when a tropical cyclone reaches tropical storm strength (65 km/h and higher), due to the fact that tropical depressions can still cause flooding and other damage.
When a named weather disturbance within the PAR has made or is expected to make a landfall in the Philippines, PAGASA is mandated to issue Tropical Cyclone Bulletins every three or six hours. If the weather disturbance is not affecting land, the weather agency has to issue Tropical Cyclone Bulletins every 12 hours.
Other areas forecasting domains
Aside from the PAR, PAGASA forecasters have two other areas of responsibilities for tropical cyclone monitoring: the Tropical Cyclone Advisory Domain (TCAD) and the Tropical Cyclone Information Domain (TCID). Together with the PAR, these three areas of the Northwest Pacific Basin are collectively called domains. Since most tropical cyclones come from the broad expanse of ocean east of the country, the eastern boundaries of the PAR, TCAD and TCID are farther from the archipelago than the western boundaries.
The TCAD, considered to be the "middle domain," is located between the PAR and the TCID. TCAD tropical cyclones are too far to have any direct effect to the country but are close enough for monitoring by the PAGASA and prompts the agency to issue a Tropical Cyclone Advisory (a less serious form of tropical cyclone bulletin than the Tropical Cyclone Bulletin). The TCAD includes the area bounded by the imaginary lines connecting the coordinates: , , , . Note that though the TCAD completely encloses the PAR, it does not include the area within the PAR.
On the other hand, the TCID is the largest and the outermost domain of PAGASA. TCID tropical cyclones are of least concern for PAGASA but are still necessary enough for monitoring and public awareness. The TCID is the area enclosed by the imaginary lines connecting the coordinates: , , , . Similarly, the TCID excludes the area enclosed by the PAR and the TCAD.
References
Tropical cyclone meteorology | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine%20Area%20of%20Responsibility |
Onslaught are a British thrash metal band from Bristol, England, active from 1982 to 1991 and again since 2005. The band initially drew influences from US and British hardcore punk bands such as Discharge and the Exploited, as well as the new wave of British heavy metal, and eventually adopted a straightforward thrash metal sound. They have been recognised as pioneers of the British thrash metal scene, and have been referred to as one of the country's so-called "big four", along with Sabbat, Xentrix and Acid Reign. To date, Onslaught have released seven studio albums, one compilation, four singles and two live recordings: a live album and a live DVD.
History
Origins and Power from Hell (1982–1985)
Onslaught were formed in 1982 in Bristol, England, by guitarist Nige Rockett and drummer Steve Grice. The two musicians were working to forge an ultra-aggressive, speed metal sound that was becoming more popular in the days of early Slayer and Metallica. In 1985, the duo were joined by bass player Jase Stallard and vocalist Paul Mahoney. The quartet quickly worked up enough material for a record and later that year, the debut album, Power from Hell, was recorded and released on the British independent record label, Cor.
The band started to write more heavy metal–oriented songs, rather than their original punk sound. This was mainly influenced by the early releases of thrash metal bands, albeit with a darker sound. The band signed to Children of the Revolution Records, and released their album, Power from Hell, in 1985 as a result. As with other metal bands of the time, the lyrics were often Satanic, and the cover showed a demon emerging from a pentagram.
The Force, In Search of Sanity and breakup (1985–1991)
Jase Stallard (who had joined Onslaught in 1984) retained his place in the band, but took over bass duties from a hired bassist, who in turn assumed the role of rhythm guitarist, giving the band a second guitarist. During the first months of 1986, the new line-up was ready to record their second album, The Force, in a recording studio in London. The album was released early that year through the label Under One Flag, and Onslaught toured for about two-and-a-half years in support of it, playing with bands such as Motörhead, Exciter, Girlschool, Kreator, Nuclear Assault, Agent Steel, the Crumbsuckers, Angel Dust, Exumer, Messiah, Sabbat and a then-still unknown Anthrax. The album was much more successful than Power from Hell, and is considered a classic by many critics and fanzines. Chris Dahlkvist left the band later in 1986 and was replaced by James Hinder.
In 1987, Jase Stallard's guitar playing came into question, so Rockett dismissed him and replaced him with Rob Trotman. Using this line-up, they set out to write material for a third studio album. Having drawn the attention of London Records, the label signed the band. In mid-1988, the band began to start recording their third album, In Search of Sanity. Upon hearing the album, the record label felt that a more versatile vocalist was needed, to do the music more justice. Although the band felt that Sy Keeler's vocals on the demo recording had the right sound, the production had a more polished sound – hence the need for a more polished vocalist. Steve Grimmett, formerly of the NWOBHM band Grim Reaper, was drafted in to replace the departing Sy Keeler. Owing to this development, the release of the album was delayed until mid-1989. Following the success of The Force, and with an accomplished new singer, there was much pre-release publicity. In Search of Sanity had a much different sound than Onslaught's previous releases; while it is technically a thrash metal album, it saw them shift towards a progressive/power metal sound, and included the band's longest track to date "Welcome to Dying". Many hardcore thrash metal fans were disappointed with these changes, and this partially contributed to the band's demise. Despite the mixed critical reaction, In Search of Sanity is Onslaught's only album to enter the UK Albums Chart, peaking at No. 46, while the cover version of AC/DC's "Let There Be Rock" was the band's only single to appear in the UK Singles chart, peaking at No. 50. Onslaught toured for over a year in support of In Search of Sanity, playing alongside Annihilator, Xentrix, Slammer, the Crumbsuckers, Horse (not to be confused with the metalcore band from California), Drunken State, Sabbat and Dead On.
In early 1990, Steve Grimmett decided to leave the band due to personal reasons, and was replaced by Tony O'Hora. The band then set out to write and then record a fourth album. London Records decided not to renew their contract with Onslaught, leaving the band without a record deal. Roadrunner offered them £50,000 but Rockett declined to sign for an indie label, and they decided to disband in early 1991. Tony O'Hora later sung for Praying Mantis and later became the lead singer of the Sweet.
Reunion and more albums (2005–2018)
In 2005, the band was reformed by Steve Grice and was joined by Sy Keeler, Nige Rockett, and James Hinder. They were joined by the Welsh guitarist, Alan Jordan. Writing for the band's fourth album, Killing Peace, began in 2005, and the album was released in early 2007. Bassist James Hinder left the band in 2006, before the release of Killing Peace, and was replaced by Jeff Williams. This line-up recorded a live DVD in Club Stodola, Warsaw, Poland, which was released in 2007 by Metal Mind Productions under the title Live Polish Assault.
In 2008, Jordan left the band and was replaced by guitarist Andy Rosser-Davies. In November of that year, the band recorded their live performance at the Damnation Festival in Leeds resulting in a live album (Dual Disc CD / DVD), Live Damnation; mixed by Andy Sneap, it was released in August 2009 by Candlelight Records. In June 2010, the band signed to the German metal label AFM Records to record their fifth studio album, Sounds of Violence, released in January 2011. On 25 March 2011, Steve Grice decided to leave the band on the eve of a major European tour. Michael Hourihan (Extreme Noise Terror, Desecration) replaced him for the tour and in November 2011 became a full member of the band. Onslaught recorded their sixth studio album, VI, from April to May and released it on 20 September 2013.
Former Anthrax singer Neil Turbin joined the band for their Thrash Invasion tour of US and Canada, Brazil and Chile, North and South America in 2014 as Sy Keeler was unable to take part due to family problems. He left the tour for the last week of shows after performing at The Music Hall, Anaheim, California, on 24 November 2014, only two days before the tour ended.
The band played the 10th edition of Hellfest in June 2015.
On 14 September 2015, Onslaught announced that they had recruited Iain GT Davies as a full-time replacement for Andy Rosser Davies. However, the band stated that Andy Rosser Davies was going to contribute to the songwriting of their next album.
On 27 March 2018, guitarist Iain GT Davies and drummer Mic Hourihan parted ways with Onslaught, to focus on other bands and projects. Rockett said that their replacements had already been chosen, but had not yet been revealed. He then said that the band would perform a new song from their then-upcoming seventh album at Bloodstock Open Air. On 16 July 2018, it was announced that guitarist Wayne Dorman and Drummer James Perry had joined the band.
Generation Antichrist, split with Sy Keeler and next album (2018–present)
On 18 November 2018, Onslaught posted a teaser video on Facebook, confirming that they were recording their seventh studio album at Grindstone Studios. The band released the video for their first song in six years "A Perfect Day to Die" in March 2019, which is "a nod to [their] sadly departed friends from Motörhead who were a major influence for Onslaught over the years."
On 29 April 2020, Onslaught announced that vocalist Sy Keeler had once again parted ways with the band, citing his reason as, "Due to the nature of the modern-day music industry, some things simply aren't sustainable year after year and Sy has now taken a different full-time career path." A few days later, it was announced that Keeler was replaced by Dave Garnett, who had previously performed in Onslaught by filling in for him the House of Metal festival in Umeå, Sweden that past February.
On 12 May 2020, Onslaught announced that their seventh studio album, titled Generation Antichrist, would be released on 7 August.
In March 2021, about seven months after the release of Generation Antichrist, Rockett announced that Onslaught had begun working on their eighth studio album, which was in pre-production and planned for release in 2022. Guitarist Wayne Dorman confirmed in a post on Facebook in December 2021 that he had begun writing new material for the band's new album. In October 2023, Onslaught announced they were tracking their new album at Tellus Studios in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Members
Current members
Nige Rockett – lead guitar , rhythm guitar
Jeff Williams – bass guitar
James Perry – drums
Wayne Dorman – lead guitar
Dave Garnett – lead vocals
Former members
Steven Grice – drums
Jase Pope – lead vocals
Roge Davies – lead vocals
Paul Mahoney – lead vocals , bass guitar
Sy Keeler – lead vocals
Steve Grimmett – lead vocals
Tony O'Hora – lead vocals
Paul Hill – bass guitar
Paul Davis – bass guitar
Jase Stallard – bass guitar , rhythm guitar
James Hinder – bass guitar
Rob Trotman – rhythm guitar
Alan Jordan – rhythm guitar
Andy Rosser-Davies – rhythm guitar
Mike Hourihan – drums
Iain GT Davies – rhythm guitar
Fill-in members
Neil Turbin – lead vocals
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Power from Hell (1985)
The Force (1986)
In Search of Sanity (1989) – UK No. 46
Killing Peace (2007)
Sounds of Violence (2011)
VI (2013)
Generation Antichrist (2020)
Compilation albums
Shadow of Death (2008, compilation of early demos)
Singles
"Let There Be Rock" (AC/DC cover, 1987, originally released on Music for Nations)
"Let There Be Rock" (AC/DC cover, 1989, re-recorded and released on London Records) – UK No. 50
"Welcome to Dying" (1989, London Records)
"Shellshock" (1989, London Records)
"Bomber" (Motörhead cover)/"The Sound of Violence" (17 December 2010) – "Bomber" features Phil Campbell from Motörhead on guitar and Tom Angelripper from Sodom on vocals. "The Sound of Violence" is taken from the AFM album Sounds of Violence.
"A Perfect Day to Die" (8 March 2019)
"Religiousuicide" (29 May 2020)
Live albums
Live Damnation (2009)
Onslaught LIVE at SLAUGHTERHOUSE Recorded at London O2 ACADEMY Islington (2014)
DVDs
Live Polish Assault 2007 (2007)
Onslaught LIVE at SLAUGHTERHOUSE Filmed at O2 ACADEMY Bristol (Bristol) SAT 19th July And the O2 ACADEMY Islington (London) 20th July (2014)
References
External links
English thrash metal musical groups
Musical groups from Bristol
London Records artists
Musical groups established in 1982
1982 establishments in England
Candlelight Records artists | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onslaught%20%28band%29 |
Grigory Yakovlevich Levenfish (; – 9 February 1961) was a Soviet chess player who scored his peak competitive results in the 1920s and 1930s. He was twice Soviet champion, in 1934 (jointly with Ilya Rabinovich) and 1937. In 1937 he drew a match against future world champion Mikhail Botvinnik. In 1950 Levenfish was among the first recipients of the title of Grandmaster, awarded by FIDE that year for the first time.
Early life and education
Levenfish was born in Piotrków, Poland, then part of the Russian Empire, to Jacob Levenfish and Golda Levenfish (née Finkelstein). He spent most of his formative years in St. Petersburg, where he attended Saint Petersburg State Institute of Technology and studied chemical engineering.
Early chess achievements
His earliest recognition as a prominent chess player came when he won the St. Petersburg championship of 1909, and played in the strong Carlsbad tournament of 1911, where he scored 11½ points from 25 games. At age 22, this was to be his first and last tournament outside Russia or the Soviet Union. His play at the time was compared to that of Mikhail Chigorin. In the next decade, he won the Leningrad Championships of 1922, 1924, and 1925 (jointly).
Soviet Championship
At a national level, he finished on the podium at the Soviet Championship on four occasions; third in 1920, second in 1923, co-champion at Leningrad in 1934 (tied with Ilya Rabinovich at 12/19), and outright champion at Tbilisi in 1937 with a score of 12½/19 points.
In the Moscow International tournament of 1935, he scored 10½/19 points to tie for 6th–7th places, as Mikhail Botvinnik and Salo Flohr won. In a Soviet-only tournament at Leningrad 1936, he was third with 8½/14. Participation in the Leningrad–Moscow training tournament of 1939 resulted in a shared 3rd–6th-place finish, with a score of 10/17, behind winner Flohr and Samuel Reshevsky.
In match play, he drew with Botvinnik in 1937 over 13 games, and beat Vladimir Alatortsev in 1940.
Lack of support and recognition
Despite his successes, Levenfish was virtually ignored by the Soviet chess authorities, who gave their full blessing to the young rising star and committed communist Botvinnik. He was the only strong Soviet master of his generation who was denied a stipend. This meant that he could only afford a poorly heated room in a run-down block of flats. Furthermore, the government refused him permission to travel abroad and compete in tournaments such as AVRO 1938 (even though he was the reigning Soviet Champion). This further weakened his standing and most likely affected his morale, as well as his development as a chess player. Other players born before the revolution, such as Alexander Alekhine, Efim Bogoljubov, and Akiba Rubinstein were all allowed to travel and even ended up living abroad. Deprived of the same opportunities, Levenfish played only within the confines of Soviet Russia and supplemented his income with a job as an engineer in the glass industry. This eventually resulted in a slow retirement from active play.
Levenfish was awarded the title of International Grandmaster by FIDE, the world chess federation, in 1950, the year the title was introduced officially.
Legacy
Genna Sosonko, in his book Russian Silhouettes, echoes the thoughts of some grandmasters who knew him, and they speak of a man of integrity and independence, who never complained about his difficult living conditions. Boris Spassky encountered him in a Moscow subway, just days before his death. Levenfish, who had a wretched look, was clutching a handkerchief to his mouth and declared that he had just had six teeth extracted. Vasily Smyslov recounts the time that Levenfish visited him, towards the end of his life, armed with a huge pile of papers. It turned out to be a manuscript detailing his lifetime work on rook endgames. He asked Smyslov to check for errors, and some minor corrections later, the book was published (1957) bearing both names, under the title Teoriya ladeynykh okonchaniy ("The theory of rook endings"), later published in English in 1971 under the title Rook Endings. Smyslov freely admits that all of the hard work was carried out by his co-author.
In his time, Levenfish also wrote books for beginners and edited a collaborative effort on chess openings, titled Sovremenny debyut ("Modern openings"). His posthumously published autobiography, Izbrannye partii i vospominaniya (1967), contained 79 annotated games.
Regarding his playing abilities, Sosonko points to his deep understanding of the game and a keen eye for brilliantly imaginative moves. He was also an opening theorist; the Levenfish Attack, a variation of the Sicilian Defence, is named after him.
Playing style
Levenfish defeated virtually all of the top Russian and Soviet players from the 1910s to the early 1950s, and beat world champions Alexander Alekhine and Emanuel Lasker as well. However, he was bested by young superstars Paul Keres and David Bronstein. Levenfish was strong on the Black side of the French Defence and the Slav Defence, and generally preferred classical openings such as Ruy Lopez and Queen's Gambit, although he did from time to time toy with the hypermodern Grünfeld Defence and Nimzo-Indian Defence.
Books
Izbrannye partii i vospominaniya, by Grigory Levenfish, 1967. In Russian. Translated into English by Douglas Griffin and published by Quality Chess under the title Soviet Outcast in 2019. .
Rook Endings, by Grigory Levenfish and Vasily Smyslov. Translated by Philip J. Booth, 1971, Batsford. .
Sovremenny debyut, edited by Grigory Levenfish, 1940. In Russian.
See also
List of Jewish chess players
References
Bibliography
External links
1889 births
1961 deaths
Sportspeople from Piotrków Trybunalski
People from Piotrków Governorate
Russian people of Polish-Jewish descent
Chess grandmasters
Chess theoreticians
Jewish chess players
Chess players from the Russian Empire
Soviet chess players
Soviet chess writers
Soviet male writers
20th-century Russian male writers
Saint Petersburg State University alumni
Jews from the Russian Empire
19th-century Polish Jews
Soviet people of Polish-Jewish descent | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigory%20Levenfish |
The Paulinerkirche in the historic city center of Göttingen was completed as a minster in 1304. Today it serves as a convention and exposition centre for the Göttingen State and University Library.
History
In 1294 the Dominican Order was permitted to settle in Göttingen and started to build a monastery in the western part of the city center. The minster was constructed in the style of a gothic hall church typical for the order. Upon completion of the minster the Paulinerkirche became the most ancient gothic hall church in the historic center of Göttingen.
It was dedicated in 1331 to the apostles Peter and Paul. This is the origin of the name of the church. Since 1341 it has been the repository of important relics of saint Thomas Aquinas. These drew great numbers of pilgrims to Thomasmass every year and provided the church with a good reputation even in distant places.
Twelve years after Martin Luther's publication of the 95 Theses, Reformation took hold in Göttingen in 1529. This resulted in hardships for the black friars in the subsequent years. The city magistrate in the beginning did not have full administrative control over the parish churches. These were under the authority of duke Eric I of Brunswick-Lüneburg, prince of Calenberg-Göttingen. He stayed faithful to the old beliefs and did not want to permit Lutheran sermons in his churches. The city magistrate therefore decided the mendicant order's masses would be delivered in the two churches. The largest one of these was the Paulinerkirche, so most of these masses were delivered primarily here. The first regular mass was given by reverend Friedrich Hüventhal against the wishes of the monks on October 24, 1529. Also, in this place the first children in Göttingen were baptized to the Lutheran faith.
Shortly afterwards the monastery was dissolved, and the building was then used as a paedagogium for educational purposes. This later lead to the establishment of Göttingen University in this building in 1737. A short time before this, the foundation of the university library of Göttingen took place. Masses for the students and academics continued in the church until 1803.
The rapidly growing library resulted in a shortage of available space, so the masses had to move to another place and the library took over all parts of the building. In 1812, under the rule of Jérôme Bonaparte, king of Westphalia, the lower windows were taken down and an additional floor was integrated. The upper part of the church was converted to a library hall.
The church suffered heavy damage in an Allied air raid on November 24, 1944. After World War II the church was rebuilt and the library hall was opened as a lecture hall. Later it was used for the central catalogue of Lower Saxony.
Today, since the 1993 opening of the Central Library of the Göttingen State and University Library on campus, the lecture and exhibition hall covers the entire length of the former church. The monumental hall building, with a length of 52 meters, meets all requirements for modern use, yet retains its ancient character. In spite of several renovations of the church building, it is still almost completely unadorned, inside as well as outside. In the lecture and exhibition hall there are long rows of bookshelves holding some of the books which formed the base for the library in the 18th century.
The Paulinerkirche today is part of a building complex of the Göttingen State and University Library at the site of the former monastery precinct. The stock of books printed after 1900 has been stored since 1992 in the Central Library on campus. However, in the Gründerzeit style building adjacent to the Paulinerkirche remain the manuscript as well as rare and old prints reading rooms, the map collection, the Heyne Hall as well as several storage rooms. The Kollegienhaus (college house) is located between this building and the Paulinerkirche which was constructed as a baroque building between 1734 and 1737 from material of the old monastery. In this building on Papendiek street is the one of the two main entrances to the library as well as to the lecture and exhibition hall in the Paulinerkirche on the first floor. In front of the building is a bronze statue of important Göttingen professor Georg Christoph Lichtenberg.
Literature
Wulf Schadendorf, Göttinger Kirchen, Göttingen, 1953
Elmar Mittler (Hrsg.), 700 Jahre Pauliner Kirche - vom Kloster zur Bibliothek, Göttingen, Wallstein, 1994,
External links
Pauliner Church, Göttingen State and University Library
Peter and Paul's Church
Gottingen Peter and Paul's Church
Gottingen Peter and Paul's
Gottingen Peter and Paul's
Gottingen Peter and Paul's | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS.%20Peter%20and%20Paul%27s%20Church%2C%20G%C3%B6ttingen |
Romsey is a town in the local government area of the Shire of Macedon Ranges in the state of Victoria, Australia. The town is north of Melbourne. At the , Romsey had a population of 4,412.
History
The original location for the settlement known as Five Mile Creek was approximately north of the present township. The restored Royal Mail Hotel still stands on this site although it is now a private residence.
The Post Office opened on 16 January 1858, in the Royal Mail Hotel (then the Drovers and Carriers Arms), but was named Lancefield until 19 January 1860 and Five Mile Creek until March 1860. The Post Office was moved closer to the centre of the present township in 1864.
The area was serviced by three local newspapers.
The former Romsey station was a significant stopping point on the now dismantled Clarkefield-Lancefield railway between 1881 and 1956.
The Romsey Court of Petty Sessions closed on 1 January 1967, with the former courthouse subsequently sold to the Country Fire Authority.
Today
Romsey has a skate park, one petrol station [Caltex], banks, one IGA supermarket, a fresh produce store, a chemist, several medical centres, a dentist, a (closed) pub and a primary school. The local Lions Park is built around Five Mile Creek, a small creek running through the town. After extensive renovations were carried out in the historic Shire of Romsey Council Chambers building and the old Romsey Post Office building, a public library operates in the former Council Chambers building, which opened in 2008, whilst the old post office building operates as part of the Romsey Service Centre for the local government.
There is an all abilities park space.
Four Christian churches serve Romsey: the Anglican Parish of Lancefield and Romsey; St Mary's Catholic Parish of Romsey and Lancefield; Encourage Church (A member of Australian Christian Churches); and the Romsey Uniting Church. The four churches gather together in an annual ecumenical service in winter. During the Christmas season all of the trees down the main street are also decorated like Christmas trees.
Local sporting groups are based within Romsey Park. They include Romsey Football Club competing in the Riddell District Football League and Romsey Cricket Club competing on the Gisborne District Cricket Association.
Romsey Golf Club, http://romseygolfclub.net has a 12 green, 18 hole course also situated within Romsey Park. The Golf Club and the Romsey Bowls Club share clubrooms on the western side of the Park.
See also
Shire of Romsey
References
Books on the district
Towns in Victoria (state)
Shire of Macedon Ranges | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romsey%2C%20Victoria |
Kindred (1979) is a novel by American writer Octavia E. Butler that incorporates time travel and is modeled on slave narratives. Widely popular, it has frequently been chosen as a text by community-wide reading programs and book organizations, and for high school and college courses.
The book is the first-person account of a young African-American writer, Dana, who is repeatedly transported in time between her Los Angeles, California home in 1976 with her white husband and an early 19th-century Maryland plantation just outside Easton. There she meets some of her ancestors: a proud, free Black woman and a white planter who forces her into slavery and concubinage. As Dana stays for longer periods in the past, she becomes intimately entangled with the plantation community. Dana makes hard choices to survive slavery and to ensure her return to her own time.
Kindred explores the dynamics and dilemmas of antebellum slavery from the sensibility of a late 20th-century Black woman, who is aware of its legacy in contemporary American society. Through the two interracial couples who form the emotional core of the story, the novel also explores the intersection of power, gender, and race issues, and speculates on the prospects of future egalitarianism.
While most of Butler's work is classified as science fiction, Kindred crosses genre boundaries and is also classified as African-American literature. Butler has categorized the work as "a kind of grim fantasy.".
Plot
Kindred scholars have noted that the novel's chapter headings suggest something "elemental, apocalyptic, archetypal about the events in the narrative", thus giving the impression that the main characters are participating in matters greater than their personal lives.
Prologue
Dana, a young black woman, wakes up in the hospital with her arm amputated. Police deputies question her about the circumstances and ask her whether her husband Kevin, a white man, beats her. Dana tells them that she lost her arm because of an accident and that Kevin is not to blame. When Kevin visits her, they acknowledge being afraid to tell the truth because no one would believe them.
The River
Their lives were altered on June 9, 1976, the day of Dana's twenty-sixth birthday, in the year the United States was celebrating its bicentennial. The day before, Dana and Kevin had moved into a house a few miles away from their old apartment in Los Angeles. While unpacking, Dana suddenly became dizzy.
When she comes to her senses, she is at the edge of a wood, near a river where a small, red-haired boy is drowning. Dana wades in after him, drags him to shore, and tries to revive him. The boy's mother begins screaming and hitting Dana, accusing her of killing her son, whom she identifies as Rufus. The boy recovers and a white man arrives and points a gun at Dana, terrifying her. She becomes dizzy again and regains consciousness at her new house with Kevin beside her. Kevin, shocked at her disappearance and reappearance, tries to understand if the episode was real or a hallucination.
The Fire
Dana washes off the filth from the river but dizziness marks another transition. This time, she comes to in a bedroom where a red-haired boy has set his bedroom drapes aflame. He is Rufus, now a few years older. Dana quickly puts out the fire. Rufus confesses he set fire to the drapes to get back at his father for beating him after he stole a dollar. As they talk, Rufus casually uses the N-word to refer to Dana, which upsets her, but she comes to realize that she has been transported in time as well as space, specifically to Maryland, circa 1815.
Rufus advises her to seek refuge at the home of Alice Greenwood and her mother, free blacks who live at the edge of the plantation. Dana realizes that both Rufus and Alice are her ancestors, as they will have a child from whom she will descend. At the Greenwoods', Dana witnesses a group of young white men smash down the door, drag out Alice's enslaved father, and whip him brutally for being there without papers. One of the men punches Alice's mother when she refuses his advances. The men leave, Dana comes out of hiding, and helps Alice's mother. She is confronted by one of the white men, who attempts to rape her. Fearing for her life, Dana luckily returns to 1976.
Though hours have passed for her, Kevin assures her that she has been gone only for a few minutes. The next day, Kevin and Dana prepare for the possibility that she may travel back in time again by packing a survival bag for her and by doing some research on Black history in books in their home library.
The Fall
In a flashback, Dana recounts how she met Kevin while doing minimum-wage temporary jobs at an auto-parts warehouse. Kevin becomes interested in Dana when he learns she is a writer and they become friends, although coworkers are judgmental because he is white. The two find they have much in common; both are orphans, both love to write, and both their families disapproved of their aspiration to become writers. They become lovers.
Again in 1976, Kevin is preparing to go to the library to find out how to forge "free papers" for Dana. She feels dizzy and Kevin holds her, traveling with her to the past. They find Rufus writhing in pain from a broken leg. Next to him is a black boy named Nigel, whom they send to the main house for help.
Rufus reacts with violent disbelief when he finds out that Kevin and Dana are married: whites and blacks are not allowed to marry in his time, although he knows many white men have enslaved black mistresses. Dana and Kevin explain to Rufus that they are from the future and prove it by showing the dates stamped on the coins Kevin carries in his pockets. Rufus promises to keep their identities a secret, and Dana tells Kevin to pretend that he is her owner. When Tom Weylin, Rufus's father, arrives with his slave Luke to retrieve Rufus, Kevin introduces himself. Weylin grudgingly invites him to dinner.
At the Weylin plantation, Rufus's mother Margaret fusses about her son's well-being and, jealous of the attention Rufus shows Dana, sends the young woman to the cookhouse. There, Dana meets two house slaves: Sarah, the cook; and Carrie, her mute daughter. Unsure as to what their next act should be, Kevin accepts Weylin's offer to become Rufus's tutor. Kevin and Dana stay on the plantation for several weeks. They observe the relentless cruelty and torture that Weylin, Margaret, and the spoiled Rufus use against the slaves. They are sadistic and evil, they feel entitled to treat the slaves as property. Weylin catches Dana reading and whips her mercilessly. The dizziness overcomes her before Kevin can reach her and she travels back to 1976 alone.
The Fight
In a flashback, Dana remembers how she and Kevin were married. Both of their families opposed the marriage due to ethnic bias. While Kevin's reactionary sister is prejudiced against African Americans, Dana's uncle abhors the idea of a white man eventually inheriting his property. Only Dana's aunt favors the union, as it would mean that her niece's children would have lighter skin. Kevin and Dana marry without any family present.
After eight days of being home recuperating without Kevin, Dana time travels to find Rufus getting beaten up by Isaac Jackson, the enslaved husband of Alice Greenwood. Dana learns that Rufus had attempted to rape Alice, who was once his childhood friend. Dana convinces Isaac not to kill Rufus, and Alice and Isaac run away while Dana gets Rufus home. She learns that it has been five years since her last visit and that Kevin has left Maryland. Dana nurses Rufus back to health in return for his help delivering letters to Kevin. Five days later, Alice and Isaac are caught.
Isaac is mutilated and sold to traders heading to Mississippi. Alice is beaten, savaged by dogs, and enslaved as penalty for helping Isaac escape. Rufus, who claims to love Alice, buys her, and orders Dana to nurse her back to health. Dana does so with much care. When Alice finally recovers, she curses Dana for not letting her die, and is wracked with grief for her lost husband.
Rufus orders Dana to convince Alice to have sex with him now that she has recovered. Dana speaks with Alice, outlining her three options: she can refuse and be whipped and raped; she can acquiesce; or she can try again to run away. Injured and terrified by her previous punishment, Alice gives in to Rufus's desire and becomes his concubine. While in his bedroom, Alice learns that Rufus did not send Dana's letters to Kevin, and tells Dana. Furious that Rufus lied to her, Dana runs away to find Kevin, but is betrayed by a jealous slave, Liza. Rufus and Weylin capture her and Weylin whips her brutally.
When Weylin learns that Rufus failed to keep his promise to Dana to send her letters, he writes to Kevin and tells him that Dana is on the plantation. Kevin comes to retrieve Dana, but Rufus stops them on the road and threatens to shoot them. He tells Dana that she can't leave him again. The dizziness overcomes Dana and she travels back to 1976, this time with Kevin.
The Storm
Dana's and Kevin's happy reunion is short-lived, as Kevin has a hard time adjusting to the present after living in the past for five years. He shares a few details of his life in the past with Dana: he witnessed terrible atrocities against slaves, traveled farther up north, worked as a teacher, helped slaves escape, and grew a beard to disguise himself from a lynch mob. Disconcerted about his trouble in re-entering his former world, he grows angry and cold. Deciding to let him work his feelings out, Dana packs a bag in case she time travels again.
Soon enough she finds herself outside the Weylin plantation house in a rainstorm, with a very drunk Rufus lying face down in a puddle. She tries to drag him back to the house, then gets Nigel to help her carry him. At the house, an aged Weylin appoints Dana to nurse Rufus back to health under threat of her life. Suspecting Rufus has malaria and knowing she cannot help much, Dana feeds Rufus the aspirin she has packed to lower his fever. Rufus survives, but remains weak for weeks. Dana learns that Rufus and Alice have had three mixed-race "children of the plantation" and that only one, a boy named Joe, has survived. Alice is pregnant again. Rufus had forced Alice to let the doctor bleed the other two when they had fallen ill, a customary treatment of the time, but it killed them.
Weylin has a heart attack and Dana is unable to save his life. But, Rufus believes she let Weylin die and sends her to work in the corn fields as punishment. By the time he repents his decision, she has collapsed from exhaustion and is being whipped by the overseer. Rufus appoints Dana as the caretaker of his ailing mother, Margaret. Now the master of the plantation, Rufus sells off some slaves, including Tess, Weylin's former concubine. Dana expresses her anger about that sale, and Rufus explains that his father left debts he must pay. He convinces Dana to use her writing skill to stave off his other creditors.
Time passes and Alice gives birth to a girl, Hagar, a direct ancestor of Dana. Alice confides that she plans to run away with her children as soon as possible, as she fears that she is forgetting to hate Rufus. Dana convinces Rufus to let her teach his son Joe and some of the slave children how to read. However, when a slave named Sam asks Dana if his younger siblings can join in on the lessons, Rufus sells him off as punishment for flirting with her. When Dana tries to interfere, Rufus hits her. Faced with her own powerlessness over Rufus, she retrieves the knife she has brought from home and slits her wrists in an effort to time travel.
The Rope
Dana awakens in Los Angeles, at home, with her wrists bandaged and Kevin by her side. She tells him of her eight months in the plantation, of Hagar's birth, and of the need to keep Rufus alive, as the slaves would be separated and sold if he died. When Kevin asks if Rufus has raped Dana, she responds that he has not, that such an attempt would cause her to kill him, despite the possible consequences.
Fifteen days later, on the 4th of July, Dana returns to the plantation. There she finds that Alice has hanged herself. Alice tried to run away after Dana disappeared, and as punishment Rufus whipped her and told her that he had sold her children. But he had sent to them to stay with his aunt in Baltimore. Racked with guilt about Alice's death, Rufus nearly commits suicide himself.
After Alice's funeral, Dana uses that guilt to convince Rufus to free his children by Alice. From that moment on, Rufus keeps Dana at his side almost constantly, having her share meals and teach his children. One day, he finally admits that he wants Dana to replace Alice in his life. He says that unlike Alice, who, despite growing used to Rufus, never stopped plotting to escape him, Dana will see that he is a fair master and eventually stop hating him. Dana, horrified at the thought of forgiving Rufus in this way, flees to the attic to find her knife. Rufus follows her there, and when he attempts to rape her, Dana stabs him twice with her knife. Nigel arrives to see Rufus's death throes, at which point Dana becomes terribly sick and time travels home for the last time. She finds herself in excruciating pain, as her arm has been joined to a wall in the spot where Rufus was holding it.
Epilogue
Dana and Kevin travel to Baltimore to investigate the fate of the Weylin plantation after Rufus's death in archival records, but they find very little: a newspaper notice reporting Rufus's death as a result of his house catching fire, and a Slave Sale announcement listing all the Weylin slaves except Nigel, Carrie, Joe, and Hagar. Dana speculates that Nigel covered up the murder by starting the fire, and feels responsible for the sale of the slaves. To that, Kevin responds that she cannot do anything about the past, and now that Rufus is finally dead, they can return to their peaceful life together.
Characters
Edana (Dana) Franklin: A 26-year-old African-American woman writer, she is the protagonist and the narrator of the story. She is married to a white writer named Kevin. She repeatedly travels in time to a slave plantation in antebellum Maryland, where she first encounters a white ancestor as the boy Rufus. There Dana has to make hard compromises to survive and to ensure her life in her own time.
Kevin Franklin: Dana's husband is a white writer twelve years older than she. Kevin loves her deeply and became estranged from his family to marry her. When he travels with Dana to the past, he witnesses the brutality of slavery and becomes an abolitionist, also helping slaves escape to freedom.
Rufus Weylin: The red-haired son of white planter Tom Weylin and his wife; the father owns a Maryland plantation and numerous slaves. As Dana returns, she sees the adult Rufus replace his father as master. Rufus rapes Alice, a free black woman, and their mixed-race daughter Hagar later becomes one of Dana's maternal ancestors.
Tom Weylin: The owner of an antebellum Maryland plantation, he is a hard master and father, insisting on obedience from family and slaves. He whips Dana on multiple occasions, and authorizes the selling of his slaves' children. He is likened to Kevin in looks.
Alice Greenwood (later, Alice Jackson): She was born free and is a proud Black woman. Later she is enslaved as punishment for having helped her enslaved husband Isaac try to escape. Rufus buys Alice and forces her to become his concubine. Two of their children survive: Joe and Hagar. She hangs herself after Rufus tells her he has sold her children.
Sarah: The cook of the Weylin household is its domestic manager; she tries to protect the house slaves while making them work hard. Tom Weylin sold all of Sarah's children except her mute daughter Carrie.
Margaret Weylin: The plantation owner's wife indulges their son Rufus. Both she and her husband are abusive to the house slaves. She leaves after her infant twins die and returns with an opium addiction.
Hagar Weylin: Rufus and Alice's youngest daughter. Hagar is a direct ancestor of Dana through her maternal line.
Luke: A slave at the Weylin plantation who works as Weylin's overseer. Weylin sells him for not being sufficiently obedient.
Nigel: The son of Luke and an enslaved woman at the Weylin plantation. He and Rufus were playmates as children. Dana secretly teaches him as a child to read and write. When older, he tries to flee, but is captured. Held at the plantation, he forms a family with Sarah's daughter, Carrie.
Carrie: Sarah's daughter is mute, but she helps Dana find the strength for the hard compromises she must make to survive. She becomes Nigel's wife.
Liza: An enslaved woman jealous of Dana for what she thinks is special treatment, she snitches on Dana when she runs away. This results in Dana being caught and whipped.
Tess: An enslaved woman whom Tom Weylin uses sexually.
Jake Edwards: One of the white overseers on the Weylin plantation, he also abuses Tess sexually.
Main themes
Realistic depiction of slavery and slave communities
Kindred explores how a modern black woman would deal with a slave society, where most black people were considered property; it was a world where "all of society was arrayed against you".
During an interview, Butler said that, while she read slave narratives for background, she believed that if she wanted people to read her book, she would have to present a less violent version of slavery than found in these accounts.
Scholars of Kindred consider the novel an accurate, fictional account of many slave lives. Concluding that "there probably is no more vivid depiction of life on an Eastern Shore plantation than that found in Kindred", Sandra Y. Govan traces how Butler's book follows the classic patterns of the slave narrative genre: loss of innocence, harsh punishment, strategies of resistance, life in the slave quarters, struggle for education, experience of sexual abuse, realization of white religious hypocrisy, and attempts to escape, with ultimate success.
Robert Crossley notes that Butler's intense first-person narration deliberately echoes many slave narratives, thereby giving the story "a degree of authenticity and seriousness". Lisa Yaszek sees Dana's visceral first-hand account as a deliberate criticism of earlier depictions of slavery, such as the book and film Gone with the Wind, produced largely by whites, and even the television miniseries Roots, based on a book by African-American writer Alex Haley.
In Kindred, Butler portrays individual slaves as distinctive persons, giving each his or her own story. Robert Crossley says that Butler treats the blackness of her characters as "a matter of course", to resist the tendency of white writers to incorporate African Americans into their narratives just to illustrate a problem or to divorce themselves from charges of racism. Thus, in Kindred the slave community is depicted as a "rich human society": the proud yet victimized freewoman Alice; Sam the field slave, who hopes Dana will teach his brother to read and write; Liza, who frustrates Dana's escape; the bright and resourceful Nigel, Rufus's childhood friend who learns to read from a stolen primer; and, most importantly, Sarah the cook, who Butler develops as a deeply angry yet caring woman subdued only by the threat of losing her last child, the mute Carrie.
Master-slave power dynamics
Scholars have argued that Kindred complicates a common representations of chattel slavery as an oppressive system dominated by the master and economic goals. Pamela Bedore notes that while Rufus seems to hold all the power in relationship to Alice, she never wholly surrenders to him. Alice's suicide can be read as her "final upsetting of their power balance", and escaping him through death. By placing Kindred in comparison to other Butler novels such as Dawn, Bedore explores the bond between Dana and Rufus as re-envisioning slavery as a "symbiotic" interaction between slave and master: since neither character can exist without the other, they are continually forced to collaborate in order to survive. The master does not simply control the slave but depends on her. From the side of the slave, Lisa Yaszek notices conflicting emotions: in addition to fear and contempt, affection may be felt for the familiar whites and their occasional kindnesses. A slave who collaborates with the master to survive is not reduced to a "traitor to her race" or to a "victim of fate."
Kindred portrays the exploitation of black female sexuality as a main site of the historic struggle between master and slave. Diana Paulin describes Rufus's attempts to control Alice's sexuality as a means to recapture power he lost when she chose Isaac as her sexual partner. Compelled to submit sexually to Rufus, Alice divorces her desire to preserve a sense of self. Similarly, Dana reconstructs her sexuality while time traveling to survive. While in the present, Dana chooses her husband and enjoys sex with him. In the past, her status as a black female forced her to submit to the master as sexual property. Rufus as an adult attempts to control Dana's sexuality, and attempts rape to use her to replace Alice. Dana's killing Rufus is the way she rejects the role of female slave, distinguishing herself from those who did not have the power to say "no."
Critique of American history
Scholarship on Kindred often touches on its critique of the official history of the formation of the United States as an erasure of the raw facts of slavery. Lisa Yaszek places Kindred as emanating from two decades of heated discussion over what constituted American history, with a series of scholars pursuing the study of African-American historical sources to create "more inclusive models of memory." Missy Dehn Kubitschek argues that Butler set the story during the bicentennial of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence of the United States to suggest that the nation should review its history in order to resolve its current racial strife. Robert Crossley believes that Butler dates Dana's final trip to her Los Angeles home on the Bicentennial to connect the personal with the social and the political. The power of this national holiday to erase the grim reality of slavery is negated by Dana's living understanding of American history, which makes all her previous knowledge of slavery through mass media and books inadequate. Yaszek further notes that Dana throws away all her history books about African-American history on one of the trips back to her California home, as she finds them to be inaccurate in portraying slavery. Instead, Dana reads books about the Holocaust and finds these books to be closer to her ordeals as a slave.
In several interviews, Butler has mentioned that she wrote Kindred to counteract stereotypical conceptions of the submissiveness of slaves. While studying at Pasadena City College, Butler heard a young man from the Black Power Movement express his contempt for older generations of African Americans for what he considered their shameful submission to white power. Butler realized the young man did not have enough context to understand the necessity to accept abuse just to keep oneself and one's family alive and well. Thus, Butler resolved to create a modern African-American character, who would go back in time to see how well he (Butler's protagonist was originally male) could withstand the abuses his ancestors had suffered.
As Ashraf A. Rushdy explains, Dana's memories of her enslavement become a record of the "unwritten history" of African Americans, a "recovery of a coherent story explaining Dana's various losses." By living these memories, Dana makes connections between slavery and contemporary late 20th century social situations, including the exploitation of blue-collar workers, police violence, rape, domestic abuse, and racial segregation.
Trauma and its connection to historical memory (or historical amnesia)
Kindred reveals the repressed trauma that slavery caused in the United States' collective historical memory. In an interview in 1985, Butler suggested that this trauma comes partly from attempts to forget America's dark past: "I think most people don’t know or don’t realize that at least 10 million blacks were killed just on the way to this country, just during the middle passage....They don’t really want to hear it partly because it makes whites feel guilty." In a later interview with Randall Kenan, Butler explained how debilitating this trauma has been, as she symbolized by having her protagonist lose her left arm.
She said:
"I couldn't really let [Dana] come all the way back. I couldn't let her return to what she was, I couldn't let her come back whole and [losing her arm], I think, really symbolizes her not coming back whole. Antebellum slavery didn’t leave people quite whole."
Many academics have extended Dana's loss as a metaphor for the "lasting damage of slavery on the African American psyche" to include other meanings. For example, Pamela Bedore interprets it as the loss of Dana's naïveté regarding the supposed progress of racial relations in the present. For Ashraf Rushdy, Dana's missing arm is the price she must pay for her attempt to change history. Robert Crossley quotes Ruth Salvaggio as inferring that the amputation of Dana's left arm is a distinct "birthmark" that represents a part of a "disfigured heritage." Scholars have also noted the importance of Kevin having his forehead scarred during his travel to the past. Diana R. Paulin argues that it symbolizes Kevin's changing understanding of racial realities, which constitute "a painful and intellectual experience".
Race as social construct
The construction of the concept of "race" and its connections to slavery are central themes in Butler's novel. Mark Bould and Sherryl Vint place Kindred as a key science fiction literary text of the 1960s and 1970s black consciousness period, noting that Butler uses the time travel trope to underscore the perpetuation of past racial discrimination into the present and, perhaps, the future of America. The lesson of Dana's trips to the past, then, is that "we cannot escape or repress our racist history but instead must confront it and thereby reduce its power to pull us back, unthinkingly, to earlier modes of consciousness and interaction."
The novel's focus on how the system of slavery shapes its central characters dramatizes society's power to construct raced identities. The reader witnesses the development of Rufus from a relatively decent boy allied to Dana to a "complete racist" who attempts to rape her as an adult. Similarly, Dana and Kevin's prolonged stay in the past reframes their modern attitudes. Butler's depiction of her principal character as an independent, self-possessed, educated African-American woman defies slavery's racist and sexist objectification of black people and women.
Kindred also challenges the fixity of "race" through the interracial relationships that form its emotional core. Dana's kinship to Rufus disproves America's erroneous concepts of racial purity. It also represents the "inseparability" of whites and blacks in America. The negative reactions of characters in the past and the present to Dana and Kevin's interracial relationship highlight the continuing hostility of both white and black communities to interracial mixing. At the same time, the relationship of Dana and Kevin extends the concept of "community" from people related by ethnicity to people related by shared experience. In these new communities, whites and black people may acknowledge their common racist past and learn to live together.
The depiction of Dana's white husband, Kevin, also serves to examine the concept of racial and gender privilege. In the present, Kevin seems unconscious of the benefits he derives from his skin color, as well as of the way his actions serve to disenfranchise Dana. Once he goes to the past, however, he must not just resist accepting slavery as the normal state of affairs, but dissociate himself from the unrestricted power white males enjoy as their privilege. His prolonged stay in the past transforms him from a naive white man oblivious about racial issues into an anti-slave activist fighting racial oppression.
The meaning of the novel's title: blood relations and interracial marriage
Kindred’s title has several meanings: at its most literal, it refers to the genealogical link between its modern-day protagonist, the slave-holding Weylins, and both the free and bonded Greenwoods; at its most universal, it points to the kinship of all Americans regardless of ethnic background.
Since Butler’s novel challenges readers to come to terms with slavery and its legacy, one significant meaning of the term "kindred" is the United States’ history of miscegenation and its denial by official discourses. The literal kinship of black people and whites must be acknowledged if America is to move into a better future.
On the other hand, as Ashraf H. A. Rushdy contends, Dana's journey to the past serves to redefine her concept of kinship from blood ties to that of "spiritual kinship" with those she chooses as her family: the Weylin slaves and her white husband, Kevin. This sense of the term "kindred" as a community of choice is clear from Butler's first use of the word to indicate Dana and Kevin's similar interests and shared beliefs. Dana and Kevin's relationship, in particular, may signal the way for black and white America to reconcile: they must face the country's racist past together so they can learn to co-exist as kindred.
As Farah Peterson discusses in "Alone with Kindred", the novel stands out as one of the only works of 20th-century American literature to center an interracial couple as protagonists and explore interracial marriage as one of its main themes.
Strong female protagonist
In her article "Feminisms", Jane Donawerth describes Kindred as a product of more than two decades of recovery of women's history and literature that began in the 1970s. The republication of a significant number of slave narratives, as well as the work of Angela Davis, who highlighted the heroic resistance of the black female slave, introduced science fiction writers such as Octavia Butler and Suzy McKee Charnas to a literary form that redefined the heroism of the protagonist as endurance, survival, and escape. As Lisa Yaszek notes further, many of these African-American woman's neo-slave narratives, including Kindred, discard the lone male hero in favor of a female hero immersed in family and community. Robert Crossley sees Butler's novel as an extension of the slave women's memoirs exemplified by texts such as Harriet Ann Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, especially in its portrayal of the compromises the heroine must make, the endurance she must have, and her ultimate resistance to victimization.
Originally, Butler intended for the protagonist of Kindred to be a man, but as she explained in her interview, she could not do so because a man would immediately be "perceived as dangerous": "[s]o many things that he did would have been likely to get him killed. He wouldn't even have time to learn the rules...of submission." She realized that sexism could aid a female protagonist, "who might be equally dangerous" but "would not be perceived so."
Most scholars see Dana as an example of a strong female protagonist. Angelyn Mitchell describes Dana as a black woman "strengthened by her racial pride, her personal responsibility, her free will, and her self-determination." Identifying Dana as one of Butler's many strong female black heroes, Grace McEntee explains how Dana attempts to transform Rufus into a caring individual despite her struggles with a white patriarchy. These struggles, Missy Dehn Kubitschek explains, are clearly represented by Dana's resistance to white male control of a crucial aspect of her identity—her writing—both in the past and in the present. Sherryl Vint argues that, by refusing to have Dana be reduced to a raped body, Butler would seem to be aligning her protagonist with "the sentimental heroines who would rather die than submit to rape" and thus "allows Dana to avoid a crucial aspect of the reality of female enslavement." However, by risking death by killing Rufus, Dana becomes a permanent surviving record of the mutilation of her black ancestors, both through her one-armed body and by becoming "the body who writes Kindred." In contrast to these views, Beverly Friend believes Dana represents the helplessness of modern woman and that Kindred demonstrates that women have been and continue to be victims in a world run by men.
Female quest for emancipation
Some scholars consider Kindred as part of Butler's larger project to empower black women. Robert Crossley sees Butler' science fiction narratives as generating a "black feminist aesthetic" that speaks not only to the sociopolitical "truths" of the African-American experience, but specifically to the female experience, as Butler focuses on "women who lack power and suffer abuse but are committed to claiming power over their own lives and to exercising that power harshly when necessary." Given that Butler makes Dana go from liberty to bondage and back to liberty beginning on the day of her birthday, Angelyn Mitchell views Kindred as a revision of the "female emancipatory narrative" exemplified by Harriet A. Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, with Butler's story engaging in themes such as female sexuality, individualism, community, motherhood, and, most importantly, freedom in order to illustrate the types of female agency that are capable of resisting enslavement.
Similarly, Missy Dehn Kubistchek reads Butler's novel as "African-American woman’s quest for understanding history and self" which ends with Dana extending the concept of "kindred" to include both her black and white heritage, as well as her white husband, while "insisting on her right to self definition."
Genre
Publishers and academics have had a hard time categorizing Kindred. In an interview with Randall Kenan, Butler stated that she considered Kindred "literally" as "fantasy". According to Pamela Bedore, Butler's novel is difficult to classify because it includes both elements of the slave narrative and science fiction. Frances Smith Foster insists Kindred does not have one genre and is in fact a blend of "realistic science fiction, grim fantasy, neo-slave narrative, and initiation novel." Sherryl Vint describes the narrative as a fusion of the fantastical and the real, resulting in a book that is "partly historical novel, partly slave narrative, and partly the story of how a twentieth century black woman comes to terms with slavery as her own and her nation's past."
Critics who emphasize Kindred’s exploration of the grim realities of antebellum slavery tend to classify it mainly as a neo-slave narrative. Jane Donawerth traces Butler's novel to the recovery of slave narratives during the 1960s, a form then adapted by female science fiction writers to their own fantastical worlds. Robert Crossley identifies Kindred as "a distinctive contribution to the genre of neo-slave narrative" and places it along Margaret Walker’s Jubilee, David Bradley's The Chaneysville Incident, Sherley Anne Williams’s Dessa Rose, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, and Charles R. Johnson's Middle Passage. Sandra Y. Govan calls the novel "a significant departure" from the science fiction narrative not only because it is connected to "anthropology and history via the historical novel", but also because it links "directly to the black American slave experiences via the neo-slave narrative." Noting that Dana begins the story as a free black woman who becomes enslaved, Marc Steinberg labels Kindred an "inverse slave narrative."
Still, other scholars insist that Butler's background in science fiction is key to our understanding of what type of narrative Kindred is. Dana's time traveling, in particular, has caused critics to place Kindred along science fiction narratives that question "the nature of historical reality," such as Kurt Vonnegut's "time-slip" novel Slaughterhouse Five and Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, or that warn against "negotiat[ing] the past through a single frame of reference," as in William Gibson's "The Gernsback Continuum." In her article "A Grim Fantasy", Lisa Yaszek argues that Butler adapts two tropes of science fiction—time-travel and the encounter with the alien Other—to "re-present African-American women’s histories." Raffaella Baccolini further identifies Dana's time traveling as a modification of the "grandfather paradox" and notices Butler's use of another typical science fiction element: the narrative's lack of correlation between time passing in the past and time passing in the present.
Style
Kindred ‘s plot is non linear; rather, it begins in the middle of its end and contains several flashbacks that connect events in the present and past. In an interview, Butler acknowledged that she split the ending into a "Prologue" and an "Epilogue" so as to "involve the reader and make him or her ask a lot of questions" that could not be answered until the end of the story. Missy Dehn Kubitschek sees this framing of Dana's adventures as Butler's way to highlight the significance of slavery to what Americans consider their contemporary identity. Because "Prologue" occurs after Dana travels in time and "Epilogue" concludes with a message on the necessity to confront the past, we experience the story as Dana's understanding of what we have yet to understand ourselves, while the "Epilogue" speaks about the importance of this understanding. Roslyn Nicole Smith proposes that Butler's framing of the story places Dana literally and figuratively in media res so as to take her out of that in media res; that is, to indicate Dana's movement from "a historically fragmented Black woman, who defines herself solely on her contemporary experiences" to "a historically integrated identity" who has knowledge of and a connection to her history.
Kindred ’s story is further fragmented by Dana’s report of her time traveling, which uses flashbacks to connect the present to the past. Robert Crossley sees this "foreshortening" of the past and present as a "lesson in historical realities." Because the story is told from the first-person point of view of Dana, readers feel they are witnessing firsthand the cruelty and hardships that many slaves faced every day in the South and so identify with Dana's gut-wrenching reactions to the past. This autobiographical voice, along with Dana's harrowing recollection of the brutality of slavery and her narrow escape from it, is one of the key elements that have made critics classify Kindred as a neo-slave narrative.
Another strategy Butler uses to add dramatic interest to Kindreds story is the deliberate delay of the description of Dana and Kevin’s ethnicities. Butler has stated in an interview she did not want to give their "race" away yet since it would have less of an impact and the reader would not react the way that she wanted them to. Dana's ethnicity becomes revealed in chapter two, "The Fire", while Kevin's ethnicity becomes clear to the reader in chapter three, "The Fall," which also includes the history of Dana's and Kevin's interracial relationship.
Butler also uses Alice as Dana's doppelgänger to compare how their decisions are a reflection of their environment. According to Missy Dehn Kubitschek, each woman seems to see a reflection of herself in the other; each is the vision of what could be (could have been) the possible fate of the other given different circumstances. According to Bedore, Butler's use of repetition blurs the lines between the past and present relationships. As time goes on, Alice and Rufus's relationship begins to seem more like a miserable married couple while Dana and Kevin become somewhat distant.
Background
Butler wrote Kindred specifically to respond to a young man involved in black consciousness raising. He felt ashamed of what he considered the subservience of older generations of African Americans, saying they were traitors and he wanted to kill them. Butler disagreed with this view. She believed that a historical context had to be given so that the lives of the older generations of African Americans could be understood as the silent, courageous resistance that it was, a means of survival. She decided to create a contemporary character and send her (originally it was a him) back to slavery, to explore how difficult a modern person would find it to survive in such harsh conditions. As Butler said in a 2004 interview with Allison Keyes, she "set out to make people feel history."
Butler's field research in Maryland also influenced her writing of Kindred. She traveled to the Eastern Shore to Talbot County where she wandered a bit. She also conducted research at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore and the Maryland Historical Society. She toured Mount Vernon, the plantation home of America's first president, George Washington. At the time, guides referred to the slaves as "servants" and avoided referring to the estate as a former slave plantation. Butler also spent time reading slave narratives, including the autobiography of Frederick Douglass, who escaped and became an abolitionist leader. She read many grim accounts, but decided she needed to moderate events in her book in order to attract enough readers.
Reception
Kindred is Butler's bestseller, with Beacon Press advertising it as "the classic novel that has sold more than 450,000 copies."
Among Butler's peers, the novel has been well received. Speculative writer Harlan Ellison has praised Kindred as "that rare magical artifact… the novel one returns to again and again", while writer Walter Mosley described the novel as "everything the literature of science fiction can be".
Book reviewers were enthusiastic. Los Angeles Herald-Examiner writer Sam Frank described the novel as "[a] shattering work of art with much to say about love, hate, slavery, and racial dilemmas, then and now." Reviewer Sherley Anne Williams from Ms. defined the novel as "a startling and engrossing commentary on the complex actuality and continuing heritage of American slavery. Seattle Post-Intelligencer writer John Marshall said that Kindred is "the perfect introduction to Butler’s work and perspectives for those not usually enamored of science fiction." The Austin Chronicle writer Barbara Strickland declared Kindred to be "as much a novel of psychological horror as it is a novel of science fiction."
High school and college courses have frequently chosen Kindred as a text to be read. Linell Smith of The Baltimore Sun describes it as "a celebrated mainstay of college courses in women's studies and black literature and culture." Speaking at the occasion of Beacon Press' reissue of Kindred for its 25th Anniversary, African-American literature professor Roland L. Williams said that the novel has remained popular over the years because of its crossover appeal, which "continues to find a variety of audiences--fantasy, literary and historical" and because "it is an exceedingly well-written and compelling story… that asks you to look back in time and at the present simultaneously."
Communities and organizations also choose this novel for common reading events. In 2003, Rochester, New York selected Kindred as the novel to be read during the third annual "If All of Rochester Read the Same Book." Approximately 40,000 to 50,000 people participated by reading Kindred and joining panel discussions, lectures, film viewings, visual arts exhibitions, poetry readings, and other events from February 2003 until March 2003. The town discussed the book in local groups, and from March 4–7 met Octavia Butler during her appearances at colleges, community centers, libraries, and bookstores. In the spring of 2012, Kindred was chosen as one of thirty books to be given away as part of World Book Night, a worldwide event conducted to encourage love for books and reading by giving away hundreds of thousand of free paperbacks in one night.
Adaptations
Seeing Ear Theatre. "Kindred: An Online Dramatic Presentation." 2001. (This audio play adaptation stars Alfre Woodard as "Dana" and was produced by Brian Smith and Jacqueline Cuscuna for Seeing Ear Theatre. It also features award-winning actresses Lynn Whitfield and Ruby Dee.)
Duffy, Damian (Adapter) and John Jennings (Illustrator). Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation. Abrams ComicArts. January 10, 2017. (10) (13)
Television
In March 2021, it was announced that FX had given the production a pilot order for a television adaptation of the novel. In January 2022, it was announced that FX had given the production a series order for a first season consisting of 8 episodes, starring Mallori Johnson as Dana, Micah Stock as Kevin, Ryan Kwanten as Tom Weylin, Gayle Rankin as Margaret Weylin, Austin Smith as Luke, Sophina Brown as Sarah, and David Alexander Kaplan as Rufus Weylin. It is produced by FX Productions, with Branden Jacobs-Jenkins as showrunner. The series premiered all 8 episodes on December 13, 2022, on Hulu. The episodes of season one cover the first three chapters of the novel, The River, The Fire, and The Fall, though some major changes from the novel have been made for the series, including setting the current day in 2016 rather than 1976, having Dana and Kevin not married but in a new relationship, and adding Dana's mother Olivia as a new character who also travels through time. In January of 2023, it was reported that the series had been canceled after one season.
References
Further reading
Reviews
Russ, Joanna. "Books". The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (February 1980): 94–101.
Snyder, John C. "Kindred by Octavia E. Butler", SciFiDimensions. June 2004.
Scholarship
Beaulieu, Elizabeth Ann. So Many Relatives': Twentieth-Century Women Meet Their Pasts." Black Women Writers and the American Neo-Slave Narrative: Femininity Unfettered. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1999. 109–136.
Bast, Florian. No.': The Narrative Theorizing of Embodied Agency in Octavia Butler's Kindred." Extrapolation: A Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy 53.2 (2012): 151–81.
Dubey, Madhu. "Speculative Fictions of Slavery." American Literature 82.4 (2010): 779–805.
Hua, Linh U. "Reproducing Time, Reproducing History: Love And Black Feminist Sentimentality in Octavia Butler's Kindred. African American Review 44.3 (2011): 391–407.
Jesser, Nancy. "Blood, Genes and Gender in Octavia Butler's Kindred and Dawn." Extrapolation 43.1 (2002): 36+.
Knabe, Susan and Wendy Gay Pearson. "'Gambling Against History': Queer Kinship and Cruel Optimism in Octavia Butler's Kindred". In Rebecca J. Holden and Nisi Shawl (eds), Strange Matings: Science Fiction, Feminism, African American Voices, and Octavia E. Butler. Seattle, WA: Aqueduct Press, 2013. 51–78.
LaCroix, David. "To Touch Solid Evidence: The Implicity of Past and Present in Octavia E. Butler's Kindred", The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association 40.1 (Spring 2007): 109–119.
Levecq, Christine. "Power and Repetition: Philosophies of (Literary) History in Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred", Contemporary Literature 41.3 (Fall 2000): 525–553.
Long, Lisa. "A Relative Pain: The Rape of History in Octavia Butler's Kindred and Phyllis Alesia Perry's Stigmata", College English 64.4 (March 2002): 459–483.
McKible, Adam. These Are the Facts of the Darky's History': Thinking History and Reading Names in Four African American Texts", African American Review 28.2 (Summer 1994): 223–235.
Parham, Marisa. "Saying 'Yes': Textual Traumas in Octavia Butler's Kindred". Middle Eastern & North African Writers 32.4 (Winter 2009): 1315–1331.
Reed, Brian K. "Behold the Woman: The Imaginary Wife in Octavia Butler’s Kindred". CLA Journal Al (September 2003): 66–74.
Spaulding, A. Timothy. "The Conflation of Time in Ishmael Reed’s Flight to Canada and Octavia Butler’s Kindred." Re-forming the Past: History, the Fantastic, and the Postmodern Slave Narrative. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2005. 25–60.
Tettenborn, Eva. "Teaching Imagined Testimony: Kindred, Unchained Memories, and The African Burial Ground in Manhattan", Transformations 16.2 (Fall 2005): 87–103.
Thompson, Carlyle van. "Moving Past the Present: Racialized Sexual Violence and Miscegenous Consumption in Octavia Butler's Kindred", Eating the Black Body: Miscegenation as Sexual Consumption in African American Literature and Culture. New York: Peter Lang, 2006. 107–144.
Turner, Stephanie S. What Actually Is': The Insistence of Genre in Octavia Butler's Kindred", FEMSPEC 4.2 (2004): 259–280.
Wagers, Kelley. "Seeing 'From the Far Side of the Hill': Narrative, History, and Understanding in Kindred and The Chaneysville Incident", MELUS 34.1 (Spring 2009): 23–45.
Wood, Sarah. "Exorcizing the Past: The Slave Narrative as Historical Fantasy", Feminist 85 (2007): 83–96.
Flagel, Nadine. It's Almost Like Being There': Speculative Fiction, Slave Narrative, and the Crisis of Representation in Octavia Butler's Kindred". Canadian Review of American Studies 42.2 (2012): 216–45.
Robertson, Benjamin. Some Matching Strangeness': Biology, Politics, and The Embrace of History in Octavia Butler's Kindred." Science Fiction Studies 37.3 (2010): 362–381.
Poetry
VanMeenen, Karen, ed. Residue of Time: Poets Respond to Kindred. Rochester, NY: Writers & Books, 2003. [Part of Writers & Books' annual community-wide reading program "If All of Rochester Read the Same Book".]
External links
Kindred, audiobook at the Internet Archive.
Kindred Reader's Guide: An Interview With Octavia Butler; part of Writers & Books "If All of Rochester Read the Same Book2 event – adopted Kindred as Rochester, New York's book of the year for 2003.
1979 American novels
1979 fantasy novels
1979 science fiction novels
American novels adapted into television shows
Doubleday (publisher) books
Easton, Maryland
Feminist science fiction novels
Fiction set in 1815
Fiction set in 1976
Literature by African-American women
Novels about American slavery
Novels about time travel
Novels by Octavia Butler
Novels set in Maryland
Novels set in the 1810s
Novels set in the 1970s
Nonlinear narrative novels | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindred%20%28novel%29 |
Retail Slut was a clothing store in Los Angeles, California that specialized in punk, goth, and underground fashions. Founded in 1983 by Helen O'Neill, the store heavily supported the underground scenes such as the S&M, drag and rave communities and participated in "Hands Around the World." Retail Slut was located on Melrose Avenue and changed locations along the avenue four times throughout its history. It closed on March 31, 2005.
Retail Slut was briefly featured in the film Hollywood Vampyr, starring Trevor Goddard, Nora Zimmett, Jeff Marchelletta, Mark Irvingsen and Muse Watson, as well as in The Lollipop Generation by G.B. Jones, with owner Helen O'Neill appearing on-screen as herself. O'Neill was an original member of the band Afro Sisters, which was fronted by performance artist Vaginal Davis. TV appearances include MTV and Playboy TV. Hardrock guitarist Slash stole his first signature top hat at Retail Slut during Guns N' Roses' take-off year. Billy Idol, Cyndi Lauper, Axl Rose and Nina Hagen were regular patrons. Magnus Walker (Serious Clothing) accidentally got his start when employee Taime Downe from Faster PussyCat wanted to buy the pants off him. Andy Warhol included a photo of the Dead Barbie Doll art piece that hung above the first location's dressing room in his America book. Michael Jackson purchased the bondage belt and bracelet that appears on his BAD album cover.
In 2021 Lethal Amounts Gallery presented a Retail Slut pop-up event.
References
External links
Gothic fashion
Punk fashion
Clothing retailers of the United States
Retail companies established in 1983
Companies based in Los Angeles
Retail companies disestablished in 2005 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retail%20Slut |
The Battle of Doberdò took place in August 1916, fought by the Kingdom of Italy and Austria-Hungary. The Austro-Hungarian army was primarily made up of regiments filled with Hungarians and Slovenians. The battle was a part of the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo, and occurred in a strategic area: the most western edge of the Karst Plateau. The Italians had already conquered the lowland area surrounding Monfalcone and Ronchi, and attempted to push over the Karst Plateau to seize control of the major road that linked the city of Trieste, with its important port, to Gorizia. After fierce combat, and sustaining heavy casualties, the Italian forces secured victory, forcing the Austro-Hungarian forces to retreat, and capturing Gorizia.
Battle
Before the battle, the Austro-Hungarians shifted forces from the Izonzo front to other parts of the war. The lack of Austro-Hungarian soldiers at the region resulted in Italian general Luigi Cadorna deciding to attack the river. The fighting started when on 6 August, the Italian forces, led by general Luigi Capello, began an assault on the Austro-Hungarian positions which guarded the main transport road that lead from the coastal town of Duino to Gorizia. The core focus of this effort was to seize the transport roads, which would secure their southern approach to Gorizia. Capello drafted a plan to divide his forces in half, with one attacking the Austro-Hungarian positions head-on, and the other flanking them to attack the rear of the Austro-Hungarian forces. On the morning of 6 August, the Austro-Hungarian artillery began to shell Italian infantry as they grew closer. In accordance with the plan, four divisions of Italian forces began a frontal assault against the Austro-Hungarian trenches, which resulted in huge casualties to soldiers and officers from heavy machine-gun fire. With the aid of reinforcements, however, the Italian forces managed to force their way through the Austro-Hungarian lines, eventually seizing the village of Doberdò itself. By this time, the Austro-Hungarian forces needed reinforcements desperately in order to prevent further Italian advances. The other portion of the Italian forces commenced their assault from the rear at this time, causing brutal hand-to-hand fighting to occur, with heavy losses on both sides. The now-surrounded Austro-Hungarian army was forced into retreat, ceding control of the severely damaged down to Italy.
Results
Both armies took heavy losses, with roughly 20,000 men killed or missing. Although they had secured their objective, the losses for the Italians were significant, with roughly 5,000 men dead, as a result of frontal assaults on superior enemy defenses and the Austro-Hungarians' use of chemical weapons. Italian military leaders remained eager to destroy Austro-Hungarian presence in the area, desiring to push to Ljubljana, while their Austro-Hungarian counterparts desired to preserve their men, as they had to fight against both Italy and Russia, giving them two fronts to defend. This desire to preserve their men gave the Austro-Hungarians fewer soldiers with which to defend their borders with Italy and Russia. The battle was strategically significant for Italy, in spite of the numerous losses on both sides. The Italian army gained territory around a front that stretched 20 kilometers.
References
Further reading
Doberdo
Doberdo
Doberdo
1916 in Italy
August 1916 events
World War I crimes by Austria-Hungary
Military operations of World War I involving chemical weapons
Battles involving Slovenia | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle%20of%20Doberd%C3%B2 |
Reginald Sutherland Bundy (26 May 1946 – 15 April 2003) was a British dancer, actor and television presenter best known for his drag persona H.I.H. (Her Imperial Highness) Regina Fong.
Bundy first developed Regina Fong in 1985, and quickly achieved a regular spot at the Black Cap gay pub in Camden Town, London and also the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. The Fong character was a Russian princess who had escaped to Britain following the Russian Revolution, a conceit which formed the basis of Bundy's show The Last of the Romanoffs, which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival and later ran at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London.
Regina's stage act entailed audience participation, and used a variety of songs, jingles, and sound effects. She was one of the regular hosts of London's Lesbian and Gay Pride Festival.
Bundy appeared in the Edinburgh and London productions of playwright Neil Bartlett's A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep and Night After Night, and also appeared in the BBC Radio Four adaptation of Night After Night.
Regina Fong also appeared in the London production of Angels, Punks and Raging Queens in 1995.
Bundy died from cancer on 15 April 2003, aged 56. The funeral was held at Golders Green Crematorium, London.
See also
List of drag queens
External links
Regina Fong information at The Black Cap website
Notes
1941 births
2003 deaths
English drag queens
Entertainers from London
English LGBT dancers
20th-century English LGBT people | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reg%20Bundy |
Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section is a 1957 jazz album by saxophonist Art Pepper with pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Philly Joe Jones, who were the acclaimed rhythm section for Miles Davis at that time. The album is considered a milestone in Pepper's career.
Recording
According to Pepper, the album was recorded under enormous pressure, as he first learned of the recording session the morning he was due in the studio, and he had never met the other musicians, all of whom he greatly admired. He was playing on an instrument in a bad state of repair, and was suffering from a drug problem. Purportedly, Pepper had not played the saxophone for some time, either for two weeks (according to the liner notes), or six months (according to Pepper's autobiography Straight Life). However, the discography in Straight Life indicates that Pepper had recorded many sessions in the previous weeks, including one five days earlier.
Reception
Michael G. Nastos of AllMusic called the recording "a classic east meets west, cool plus hot but never lukewarm combination that provides many bright moments for the quartet during this exceptional date from that great year in music, 1957."
Brian Morton and Richard Cook, writing for The Penguin Jazz Guide (10th ed.), described Meets the Rhythm Section as "a poetic, burning date, with all four men playing above themselves…. Between them, they'd delivered a masterpiece." In previous Penguin Guide editions, the album was included in the "Core Collection," and received a four-star rating (of a possible four stars).
Becky Byrkit, writing for AllMusic, deemed the album "a diamond of recorded jazz history."
The New York Times critic Ben Ratliff described Meets the Rhythm Section as "an honest record; if you believe the story of its making, you'd have to conclude that Pepper, unprepared and unarmored, was forced to pull the music out of himself, since tepid run-throughs and stock licks weren't going to work in such exalted company."
Track listing
"You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To" (Cole Porter) – 5:25
"Red Pepper Blues" (Art Pepper, Red Garland) – 3:37
"Imagination" (Jimmy Van Heusen, Johnny Burke) – 5:52
"Waltz Me Blues" (Art Pepper, Paul Chambers) – 2:56
"Straight Life" (Art Pepper) – 3:59
"Jazz Me Blues" (Tom Delaney) – 4:47
"Tin Tin Deo" (Gil Fuller, Chano Pozo) – 7:42
"Star Eyes" (Gene de Paul, Don Raye) – 5:12
"Birks' Works" (Dizzy Gillespie) – 4:17
"The Man I Love" (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin) – 6:36 [added to the remastered recording in 2002]
(Recorded on January 19, 1957 at Contemporary's Studios, Los Angeles.)
Personnel
Art Pepper - alto saxophone
Red Garland - piano
Paul Chambers - bass
Philly Joe Jones - drums
References
1957 albums
Art Pepper albums
Contemporary Records albums
Original Jazz Classics albums | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art%20Pepper%20Meets%20the%20Rhythm%20Section |
The Go Text Protocol (GTP) is a protocol used by several Go engines and Go servers for playing the board game Go on the computer. GTP version 1 has been implemented in GNU Go 3.0.0 but the protocol lacks a proper specification. The currently used version is GTP 2 which exists as a draft specification and has not been finalized.
See also
Computer Go
Go software
Internet Go servers
External links
GTP implementation in Ruby
Go (game) software | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go%20Text%20Protocol |
Abbecourt may refer to:
Abbecourt, Oise, a commune in the department of Oise, France
Abbécourt, a commune in the department of Aisne, France | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbecourt |
Abdala or Abdalá is both a given name and a surname. It is a Spanish variation of the common Arabic name Abdullah. Notable people with the name include:
Surname
Alberto Abdala (1920–1986) Uruguayan politician, painter and Vice President of Uruguay
Carlos Abdala (1930–1976), Uruguayan politician and diplomat
Edgardo Abdala (born 1978), Chilean-born Palestinian footballer
Edílson Abdala Júnior (born 1987), Brazilian footballer
Marcelo Abdala (born 1966), Uruguayan trade union leader
Nadia Abdalá (born 1988), Mexican tennis player
Pablo Abdala (born 1966), Uruguayan politician and lawyer
Pablo Abdala (footballer) (born 1972), Argentine-born Palestinian footballer
Washington Abdala (born 1959), Uruguayan lawyer, politician and comedian
Yaquelin Abdala (born 1968), Cuban mixed-media artist
Given name
Abdalá Bucaram (born 1952), Ecuadorian politician and lawyer
Abdalá Bucaram Jr. (born 1982), Ecuadorian footballer
Abdala Faye (born 1971), Senegalese artist
Literature
, a 1869 poem by José Martí
Other
Abdala, a Cuban COVID-19 vaccine | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdala |
was a Japanese industrialist and shipbuilder. He was the founder of Kawasaki Heavy Industries.
Biography
Born in Kagoshima to a kimono merchant, Kawasaki Shōzō became a tradesman at the age of 17 in Nagasaki, the only place in Japan then open to the West. He started a shipping business in Osaka at 27, which failed when his cargo ship sank during a storm. In 1869, he joined a company handling sugar from the Ryukyu Islands, established by a Kagoshima samurai, and in 1893, researched Ryukyu sugar and sea routes to the Ryukyus at the request of the Ministry of Finance. In 1894, he was appointed executive vice president of Japan Mail Steam-Powered Shipping Company, and succeeded in opening a sea route to the Ryukyu and transporting sugar to mainland Japan.
Having experienced many sea accidents in his life, Kawasaki deepened his trust in Western ships because they were more spacious, stable and faster than typical Japanese ships. At the same time, he became very interested in the modern shipbuilding industry. In April 1876, supported by Matsukata Masayoshi, the Vice Minister of Finance, who was from the same province as Kawasaki, he established Kawasaki Tsukiji Shipyard on borrowed land from the government alongside the Sumida-gawa River, Tsukiji Minami-Iizaka-chō (currently Tsukiji 7-chome, Chūō, Tokyo, a major step forward as a shipbuilder.
Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. traces its origins to 1878, when Kawasaki Shōzō (川崎 正蔵) established Kawasaki Tsukiji Shipyard in Tokyo, Japan. Eighteen years later, in 1896, it was incorporated as Kawasaki Dockyard Co., Ltd.
References
1837 births
1912 deaths
Japanese shipbuilders
Members of the House of Peers (Japan)
Kazoku
Japanese art collectors
Kawasaki Heavy Industries
People from Kagoshima
Japanese businesspeople | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kawasaki%20Sh%C5%8Dz%C5%8D |
Elwira Seroczyńska, née Potapowicz (1 May 1931 – 24 December 2004) was a Polish speed skater.
Seroczyńska was born as Elwira Potapowicz in Wilno, Poland (now Vilnius, Lithuania). A graduate of the State Administrative and Economic School in Elbląg (1951), she and became Polish Allround Champion for the first time in 1952. She would eventually become Polish Allround Champion a total of five times, last in 1963. Apart from her allround titles she won 17 distance titles (some also count the out of competition 1953 1000m race as a title) and established 16 official Polish distance records and one combination record. Curiously several combinations skated at Polish championships were never recognised as being a Polish record due to the combination of distances skated. During her skating career she was member of Stal Elbląg (1950–1953), FSO-Stal Warszawa (1954–1957) and Sarmata Warszawa (1957–1964). At the 1960 Winter Olympics, she won a silver medal on the 1,500 m. At the 1962 World Championships in Imatra, she won a Gold Medal on the 500m. After her skating career she studied at the Warsaw Academy of Physical Education (1972), where she received a master's degree and became trainer of the Polish skating team. She died in London, United Kingdom at the age of 73.
Results
Personal records
References
Notes
Bibliography
Eng, Trond and Koolhaas, Marnix. National All Time & Encyclopedia, Men/Ladies as at 1.7.1986. Issue No.5 "Eastern Europe". Degernes, Norway: WSSSA-Skøytenytt, 1986.
Żemantowski, Jacek. Lyżwiarski Jubileusz: 80 lat Polski Związek Lyżwiarstwa Szybkiego. Warszawa, Poland: PZLS, 2001.
Zieleśkiewicz, Władysław. Encyklopedia sportów zimowych. Warszawa, Poland: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 2001. .
External links
1931 births
2004 deaths
Polish female speed skaters
Speed skaters at the 1960 Winter Olympics
Speed skaters at the 1964 Winter Olympics
Olympic speed skaters for Poland
Olympic silver medalists for Poland
Sportspeople from Vilnius
People from Wilno Voivodeship (1926–1939)
Olympic medalists in speed skating
Medalists at the 1960 Winter Olympics
20th-century Polish women | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elwira%20Seroczy%C5%84ska |
Avatar (marketed as James Cameron's Avatar) is a 2009 epic science fiction film directed, written, co-produced, and co-edited by James Cameron and starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, and Sigourney Weaver. It is the first installment in the Avatar film series. It is set in the mid-22nd century, when humans are colonizing Pandora, a lush habitable moon of a gas giant in the Alpha Centauri star system, in order to mine the valuable mineral unobtanium. The expansion of the mining colony threatens the continued existence of a local tribe of Na'vi, a humanoid species indigenous to Pandora. The title of the film refers to a genetically engineered Na'vi body operated from the brain of a remotely located human that is used to interact with the natives of Pandora.
Development of Avatar began in 1994, when James Cameron wrote an 80-page treatment for the film. Filming was supposed to take place after the completion of Cameron's 1997 film Titanic, for a planned release in 1999; however, according to Cameron, the necessary technology was not yet available to achieve his vision of the film. Work on the language of the Na'vi began in 2005, and Cameron began developing the screenplay and fictional universe in early 2006. Avatar was officially budgeted at $237 million, due to the groundbreaking array of new visual effects Cameron achieved in cooperation with Weta Digital in Wellington. Other estimates put the cost at between $280 million and $310 million for production and at $150 million for promotion. The film made extensive use of new motion capture filming techniques and was released for traditional viewing, 3D viewing (using the RealD 3D, Dolby 3D, XpanD 3D, and IMAX 3D formats), and "4D" experiences in selected South Korean theaters.
Avatar premiered on December 10, 2009, in London and was released in the United States on December 18, 2009, to positive reviews. Critics highly praised its groundbreaking visual effects, though the story was considered to be predictable. During its theatrical run, the film broke several box office records, including becoming the highest-grossing film of all time. In July 2019, this position was overtaken by Avengers: Endgame, but with subsequent re-releases, beginning with China in March 2021, it returned to becoming the highest-grossing film since then. Adjusted for inflation, Avatar is the second-highest-grossing movie of all time, only behind Gone with the Wind, with a total of a little more than $3.5 billion. It also became the first film to gross more than and the best-selling video title of 2010 in the United States. Avatar was nominated for nine awards at the 82nd Academy Awards, winning three, and received numerous other accolades. The success of the film also led to electronics manufacturers releasing 3D televisions and caused 3D films to increase in popularity. Its success led to the Avatar franchise, which includes the sequels Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), Avatar 3 (2025), Avatar 4 (2029), and Avatar 5 (2031).
Plot
In 2154, the natural resources of the Earth have been depleted and is suffering ecocide. The Resources Development Administration (RDA) mines the valuable mineral unobtanium on Pandora, a moon in the Alpha Centauri star system. Pandora, whose atmosphere is inhospitable to humans, is inhabited by the Na'vi, , blue-skinned, sapient humanoids that live in harmony with nature. To explore Pandora, genetically matched human scientists use Na'vi-human hybrids called "avatars". Paraplegic Marine Jake Sully is sent to Pandora to replace his deceased identical twin, who had signed up to be an operator. Avatar Program head Dr. Grace Augustine considers Sully inadequate but accepts him as a bodyguard.
While escorting the avatars of Grace and Dr. Norm Spellman, Jake's avatar is attacked by Pandoran wildlife, and he flees into the forest, where he is rescued by female Na'vi Neytiri. Suspicious of Jake, she takes him to her clan. Neytiri's mother, Mo'at, the clan's spiritual leader, orders her daughter to initiate Jake into their society. Colonel Miles Quaritch, head of RDA's security force, promises Jake that the company will restore the use of his legs if he provides information about the Na'vi and their gathering place, the giant Hometree, under which is a rich deposit of unobtanium. Learning of this, Grace transfers herself, Jake, and Norm to an outpost. Jake and Neytiri fall in love as Jake is initiated into the tribe. He and Neytiri choose each other as mates. When Jake attempts to disable a bulldozer threatening a sacred Na'vi site, Administrator Parker Selfridge orders Hometree destroyed. Despite Grace's argument that destroying Hometree could damage Pandora's biological neural network, Selfridge gives Jake and Grace one hour to convince the Na'vi to evacuate.
Jake confesses that he was a spy and the Na'vi take him and Grace captive. Quaritch's soldiers destroy Hometree, killing many, including Neytiri's father, the clan chief. Mo'at frees Jake and Grace, but they are detached from their avatars and imprisoned by Quaritch's forces. Pilot Trudy Chacón, disgusted by Quaritch's brutality, airlifts Jake, Grace, and Norm to Grace's outpost. Grace is shot during the escape. Jake regains the Na'vi's trust by connecting his mind to that of Toruk, a dragon-like creature feared and revered by the Na'vi. At the sacred Tree of Souls, Jake pleads with Mo'at to heal Grace. The clan attempts to transfer Grace into her avatar with the aid of the Tree of Souls, but she dies. Supported by new chief Tsu'tey, Jake unites the clan, telling them to gather all the clans to battle the RDA. Quaritch organizes a strike against the Tree of Souls to demoralize the Na'vi. Jake prays to the Na'vi deity Eywa via a neural connection with the Tree of Souls. Tsu'tey and Trudy are among the battle's heavy casualties.
The Na'vi are rescued when Pandoran wildlife unexpectedly join the attack and overwhelm the humans, which Neytiri interprets as Eywa answering Jake's prayer. Quaritch, wearing an AMP suit, escapes his crashed aircraft and breaks open the avatar link unit containing Jake's human body, exposing it to Pandora's poisonous atmosphere. As Quaritch prepares to slit Jake's avatar's throat, he is killed by Neytiri, who saves Jake from suffocation, seeing his human form for the first time. With the exceptions of Jake, Norm, and a select few others, all humans are expelled from Pandora. Jake is permanently transferred into his avatar with the aid of the Tree of Souls.
Cast
Sam Worthington as Corporal Jake Sully, a disabled former Marine who becomes part of the Avatar Program after his twin brother is killed. His military background helps the Na'vi warriors relate to him. Cameron cast the Australian actor after a worldwide search for promising young actors, preferring relative unknowns to keep the budget down. Worthington, who was living in his car at the time, auditioned twice early in development, and he has signed on for possible sequels. Cameron felt that because Worthington had not done a major film, he would give the character "a quality that is really real". Cameron said he "has that quality of being a guy you'd want to have a beer with, and he ultimately becomes a leader who transforms the world". Cameron offered the role to Matt Damon, with a 10% stake in the film's profits, but Damon turned the film down because of his commitment to the Bourne film series.
Worthington also briefly appears as Jake's deceased identical twin, Tommy.
Zoe Saldaña as Neytiri te Tskaha Mo'at'ite, the daughter of the leaders of the Omaticaya (the Na'vi clan central to the story). She is attracted to Jake because of his bravery, though frustrated with him for what she sees as his naiveté and stupidity. She serves as Jake's love interest. The character, like all the Na'vi, was created using performance capture, and its visual aspect is entirely computer generated. Saldaña signed on for potential sequels.
Stephen Lang as Colonel Miles Quaritch, the head of the mining operation's security detail. Fiercely consistent in his disregard for any life not recognized as human, he has a profound disregard for Pandora's inhabitants that is evident in both his actions and his language. Lang had unsuccessfully auditioned for a role in Cameron's Aliens (1986), but the director remembered Lang and sought him for Avatar. Michael Biehn, who had worked with Cameron in Aliens, The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, was briefly considered for the role. He read the script and watched some of the 3-D footage with Cameron but was ultimately not cast.
Michelle Rodriguez as Trudy Chacón, a combat pilot assigned to support the Avatar Program who is sympathetic to the Na'vi. Cameron had wanted to work with Rodriguez since seeing her in Girlfight.
Giovanni Ribisi as Parker Selfridge, the corporate administrator for the RDA mining operation. While he is at first willing to destroy the Na'vi civilization to preserve the company's bottom line, he is reluctant to authorize the attacks on the Na'vi and taint his image, doing so only after Quaritch persuades him that it is necessary and that the attacks will be humane. When the attacks are broadcast to the base, Selfridge displays discomfort at the violence.
Joel David Moore as Dr. Norm Spellman, a xenoanthropologist who studies plant and animal life as part of the Avatar Program. He arrives on Pandora at the same time as Jake and operates an avatar. Although he is expected to lead the diplomatic contact with the Na'vi, it turns out that Jake has the personality better suited to win the natives' respect.
Moore also portrays Spellman's Na'vi avatar.
CCH Pounder as Mo'at, the Omaticaya's spiritual leader, Neytiri's mother, and consort to clan leader Eytukan.
Wes Studi as Eytukan te Tskaha Kamun'itan, the Omaticaya's clan leader, Neytiri's father, and Mo'at's mate.
Laz Alonso as Tsu'tey te Rongola Atey'itan, the finest warrior of the Omaticaya. He is heir to the chieftainship of the tribe. At the beginning of the film's story, he is betrothed to Neytiri.
Sigourney Weaver as Dr. Grace Augustine, an exobiologist and head of the Avatar Program. She is also Sully's mentor and an advocate of peaceful relations with the Na'vi, having set up a school to teach them English.
Weaver also portrays Grace's Na'vi avatar.
Dileep Rao as Dr. Max Patel, a scientist who works in the Avatar Program and comes to support Jake's rebellion against the RDA
Matt Gerald as Corporal Lyle Wainfleet, a human mercenary who works for the RDA as Quaritch's right hand man.
Additionally, Alicia Vela-Bailey appears, uncredited, as Ikeyni, the leader of the Tayrangi clan, Saeyla, one of the young hunters who accompany Jake during his Iknimaya and a harassed blonde woman in a bar that Jake defends. Vela-Bailey served as the stunt double for Zoe Saldana and would later portray Zdinarsk in Avatar: The Way of Water. Terry Notary, who performed stunts as well, plays the Banshees via motion capture.
Production
Origins
In 1994, director James Cameron wrote an 80-page treatment for Avatar, drawing inspiration from "every single science fiction book" he had read in his childhood as well as from adventure novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs and H. Rider Haggard. Parts of the movie also came to him in a dream when he was 19 years old. He dreamed about a bioluminescent forest with fiber-optic trees, fan lizards, a river with bioluminescent particles and a purple moss that would lit up when someone stepped on it. When he woke up he made a drawing of the scene and later used it in the movie. In , Cameron announced that after completing Titanic, he would film Avatar, which would make use of synthetic, or computer-generated, actors. The project would cost $100 million and involve at least six actors in leading roles "who appear to be real but do not exist in the physical world". Visual effects house Digital Domain, with whom Cameron has a partnership, joined the project, which was supposed to begin production in mid-1997 for a 1999 release. However, Cameron felt that the technology had not caught up with the story and vision that he intended to tell. He decided to concentrate on making documentaries and refining the technology for the next few years. It was revealed in a Bloomberg BusinessWeek cover story that 20th Century Fox had fronted $10 million to Cameron to film a proof-of-concept clip for Avatar, which he showed to Fox executives in .
In February 2006, Cameron revealed that his film Project 880 was "a retooled version of Avatar", a film that he had tried to make years earlier, citing the technological advances in the creation of the computer-generated characters Gollum, King Kong, and Davy Jones. Cameron had chosen Avatar over his project Battle Angel after completing a five-day camera test in the previous year.
Development
From January to April 2006, Cameron worked on the script and developed a culture for the film's aliens, the Na'vi. Their language was created by Paul Frommer, a linguist at USC. The Na'vi language has a lexicon of about 1000 words, with some 30 added by Cameron. The tongue's phonemes include ejective consonants (such as the "kx" in "skxawng") that are found in Amharic, and the initial "ng" that Cameron may have taken from Te Reo Māori. Actress Sigourney Weaver and the film's set designers met with Jodie S. Holt, professor of plant physiology at University of California, Riverside, to learn about the methods used by botanists to study and sample plants, and to discuss ways to explain the communication between Pandora's organisms depicted in the film.
From 2005 to 2007, Cameron worked with a handful of designers, including famed fantasy illustrator Wayne Barlowe and renowned concept artist Jordu Schell, to shape the design of the Na'vi with paintings and physical sculptures when Cameron felt that 3-D brush renderings were not capturing his vision, often working together in the kitchen of Cameron's Malibu home. In , Cameron announced that he would film Avatar for a mid-2008 release and planned to begin principal photography with an established cast by . The following August, the visual effects studio Weta Digital signed on to help Cameron produce Avatar. Stan Winston, who had collaborated with Cameron in the past, joined Avatar to help with the film's designs. Production design for the film took several years. The film had two different production designers, and two separate art departments, one of which focused on the flora and fauna of Pandora, and another that created human machines and human factors. In , Cameron was announced to be using his own Reality Camera System to film in 3-D. The system would use two high-definition cameras in a single camera body to create depth perception.
While these preparations were underway, Fox kept wavering in its commitment to Avatar because of its painful experience with cost overruns and delays on Cameron's previous picture, Titanic. During the production of Titanic, Cameron rewrote the script to streamline the plot by combining several characters' roles and offered to cut his fee if the film were a commercial disappointment. Cameron installed a traffic light with the amber signal lit outside of co-producer Jon Landau's office to represent the film's uncertain future. In mid-2006, Fox told Cameron "in no uncertain terms that they were passing on this film," so he began shopping it around to other studios and approached Walt Disney Studios, showing his proof of concept to then chairman Dick Cook. However, when Disney attempted to take over, Fox exercised its right of first refusal. In , Fox finally agreed to commit to making Avatar after Ingenious Media agreed to back the film, which reduced Fox's financial exposure to less than half of the film's official $237 million budget. After Fox accepted Avatar, one skeptical Fox executive shook his head and told Cameron and Landau, "I don't know if we're crazier for letting you do this, or if you're crazier for thinking you can do this ..."
In December 2006, Cameron described Avatar as "a futuristic tale set on a planet 200 years hence ... an old-fashioned jungle adventure with an environmental conscience [that] aspires to a mythic level of storytelling". The press release described the film as "an emotional journey of redemption and revolution" and said the story is of "a wounded former Marine, thrust unwillingly into an effort to settle and exploit an exotic planet rich in biodiversity, who eventually crosses over to lead the indigenous race in a battle for survival". The story would be of an entire world complete with an ecosystem of phantasmagorical plants and creatures, and native people with a rich culture and language.
Estimates put the cost of the film at about $280–310 million to produce and an estimated $150 million for marketing, noting that about $30 million in tax credits would lessen the financial impact on the studio and its financiers. A studio spokesperson said that the budget was "$237 million, with $150 million for promotion, end of story."<ref name="Patten (2009)">{{Cite web |last=Patten |first=Dominic |date=December 3, 2009 |title=Avatar' True Cost – and Consequences |url=https://www.thewrap.com/avatars-true-cost-and-consequences-11206/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150702133635/https://www.thewrap.com/avatars-true-cost-and-consequences-11206/ |archive-date=July 2, 2015 |access-date=April 27, 2022 |website=TheWrap}}</ref>
Filming
Principal photography for Avatar began in in Los Angeles and Wellington. Cameron described the film as a hybrid with a full live-action shoot in combination with computer-generated characters and live environments. "Ideally at the end of the day the audience has no idea which they're looking at," Cameron said. The director indicated that he had already worked four months on nonprincipal scenes for the film. The live action was shot with a modified version of the proprietary digital 3-D Fusion Camera System, developed by Cameron and Vince Pace. In , Fox had announced that 3-D filming for Avatar would be done at 24 frames per second despite Cameron's strong opinion that a 3-D film requires higher frame rate to make strobing less noticeable. According to Cameron, the film is composed of 60% computer-generated elements and 40% live action, as well as traditional miniatures.
Motion-capture photography lasted 31 days at the Hughes Aircraft stage in Playa Vista in Los Angeles. Live action photography began in at Stone Street Studios in Wellington and was scheduled to last 31 days. More than a thousand people worked on the production. In preparation of the filming sequences, all of the actors underwent professional training specific to their characters such as archery, horseback riding, firearm use, and hand-to-hand combat. They received language and dialect training in the Na'vi language created for the film. Before shooting the film, Cameron also sent the cast to the Hawaiian tropical rainforests to get a feel for a rainforest setting before shooting on the soundstage.
During filming, Cameron made use of his virtual camera system, a new way of directing motion-capture filmmaking. The system shows the actors' virtual counterparts in their digital surroundings in real time, allowing the director to adjust and direct scenes just as if shooting live action. According to Cameron, "It's like a big, powerful game engine. If I want to fly through space, or change my perspective, I can. I can turn the whole scene into a living miniature and go through it on a 50 to 1 scale." Using conventional techniques, the complete virtual world cannot be seen until the motion-capture of the actors is complete. Cameron said this process does not diminish the value or importance of acting. On the contrary, because there is no need for repeated camera and lighting setups, costume fittings and make-up touch-ups, scenes do not need to be interrupted repeatedly. Cameron described the system as a "form of pure creation where if you want to move a tree or a mountain or the sky or change the time of day, you have complete control over the elements".
Cameron gave fellow directors Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson a chance to test the new technology. Spielberg said, "I like to think of it as digital makeup, not augmented animation ... Motion capture brings the director back to a kind of intimacy that actors and directors only know when they're working in live theater." Spielberg and George Lucas were also able to visit the set to watch Cameron direct with the equipment.
To film the shots where CGI interacts with live action, a unique camera referred to as a "simulcam" was used, a merger of the 3-D fusion camera and the virtual camera systems. While filming live action in real time with the simulcam, the CGI images captured with the virtual camera or designed from scratch, are superimposed over the live action images as in augmented reality and shown on a small monitor, making it possible for the director to instruct the actors how to relate to the virtual material in the scene.
Due to Cameron's personal convictions about climate change, he allowed only plant-based (vegan) food to be served on set.
Visual effects
A number of innovative visual effects techniques were used during production. According to Cameron, work on the film had been delayed since the 1990s to allow the techniques to reach the necessary degree of advancement to adequately portray his vision of the film. The director planned to make use of photorealistic computer-generated characters, created using new motion capture animation technologies he had been developing in the 14 months leading up to .
Innovations include a new system for lighting massive areas like Pandora's jungle, a motion-capture stage or "volume" six times larger than any previously used, and an improved method of capturing facial expressions, enabling full performance capture. To achieve the face capturing, actors wore individually made skull caps fitted with a tiny camera positioned in front of the actors' faces; the information collected about their facial expressions and eyes is then transmitted to computers. According to Cameron, the method allows the filmmakers to transfer 100% of the actors' physical performances to their digital counterparts.
Besides the performance capture data which were transferred directly to the computers, numerous reference cameras gave the digital artists multiple angles of each performance. A technically challenging scene was near the end of the film when the computer-generated Neytiri held the live action Jake in human form, and attention was given to the details of the shadows and reflected light between them.
The lead visual effects company was Weta Digital in Wellington, at one point employing 900 people to work on the film. Because of the huge amount of data which needed to be stored, cataloged and available for everybody involved, even on the other side of the world, a new cloud computing and Digital Asset Management (DAM) system named Gaia was created by Microsoft especially for Avatar, which allowed the crews to keep track of and coordinate all stages in the digital processing. To render Avatar, Weta used a server farm making use of 4,000 Hewlett-Packard servers with 35,000 processor cores with 104 terabytes of RAM and three petabytes of network area storage running Ubuntu Linux, Grid Engine cluster manager, and 2 of the animation software and managers, Pixar's RenderMan and Pixar's Alfred queue management system. The render farm occupies the 193rd to 197th spots in the TOP500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers. A new texturing and paint software system, called Mari, was developed by The Foundry in cooperation with Weta. Creating the Na'vi characters and the virtual world of Pandora required over a petabyte of digital storage, and each minute of the final footage for Avatar occupies 17.28 gigabytes of storage. It would often take the computer several hours to render a single frame of the film. To help finish preparing the special effects sequences on time, a number of other companies were brought on board, including Industrial Light & Magic, which worked alongside Weta Digital to create the battle sequences. ILM was responsible for the visual effects for many of the film's specialized vehicles and devised a new way to make CGI explosions. Joe Letteri was the film's visual effects general supervisor.
Music and soundtrack
Composer James Horner scored the film, his third collaboration with Cameron after Aliens and Titanic. Horner recorded parts of the score with a small chorus singing in the alien language Na'vi in .
He also worked with Wanda Bryant, an ethnomusicologist, to create a music culture for the alien race.
The first scoring sessions were planned to take place in early 2009. During production, Horner promised Cameron that he would not work on any other project except for Avatar and reportedly worked on the score from four in the morning until ten at night throughout the process. He stated in an interview, "Avatar has been the most difficult film I have worked on and the biggest job I have undertaken." Horner composed the score as two different scores merged into one. He first created a score that reflected the Na'vi way of sound and then combined it with a separate "traditional" score to drive the film.
British singer Leona Lewis was chosen to sing the theme song for the film, called "I See You". An accompanying music video, directed by Jake Nava, premiered , 2009, on MySpace.
Themes and inspirations Avatar is primarily an action-adventure journey of self-discovery, in the context of imperialism, and deep ecology.
Cameron said his inspiration was "every single science fiction book I read as a kid" and that he wanted to update the style of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter series. He acknowledged that Avatar shares themes with the films At Play in the Fields of the Lord, The Emerald Forest, and Princess Mononoke, which feature clashes between cultures and civilizations, and with Dances with Wolves, where a battered soldier finds himself drawn to the culture he was initially fighting against. He also cited Hayao Miyazaki's anime films such as Princess Mononoke as an influence on the ecosystem of Pandora.
In 2012, Cameron filed a 45-page legal declaration that intended to "describe in great detail the
genesis of the ideas, themes, storylines, and images that came to be Avatar." In addition to historical events (such as European colonization of the Americas), his life experiences and several of his unproduced projects, Cameron drew connections between Avatar and his previous films. He cited his script and concept art for Xenogenesis, partially produced as a short film, as being the basis for many of the ideas and visual designs in Avatar. He stated that Avatar "concepts of a world mind, intelligence within nature, the idea of projecting force or consciousness using an avatar, colonization of alien planets, greedy corporate interests backed up by military force, the story of a seemingly weaker group prevailing over a technologically superior force, and the good scientist were all established and recurrent themes" from his earlier films including Aliens, The Abyss, Rambo: First Blood Part II, The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. He specifically mentioned the "water tentacle" in The Abyss as an example of an "avatar" that "takes on the appearance of...an alien life form...in order to bridge the cultural gap and build trust."
Cameron also cited a number of works by other creators as "reference points and sources of inspiration" for Avatar. These include two of his "favorite" films, 2001: A Space Odyssey, where mankind experiences an evolution after meeting alien life, and Lawrence of Arabia, where "an outsider...encounters and immerses into a foreign culture and then ultimately joins that group to fight other outsiders." Cameron said he became familiar with the concept of a human operating a "synthetic avatar" inside another world from George Henry Smith's short story "In the Imagicon" and Arthur C. Clarke's novel The City and the Stars. He said he learned of the term "avatar" by reading the cyberpunk novels Neuromancer by William Gibson and Islands in the Net by Bruce Sterling. The idea of a "world mind" originated in the novel Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. Cameron mentioned several other films about people interacting with "indigenous cultures" as inspiring him, including Dances with Wolves, The Man Who Would Be King, The Mission, The Emerald Forest, Medicine Man, The Jungle Book and FernGully. He also cited as inspiration the John Carter and Tarzan stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs and other adventure stories by Rudyard Kipling and H. Rider Haggard.
In a 2007 interview with Time magazine, Cameron was asked about the meaning of the term Avatar, to which he replied, "It's an incarnation of one of the Hindu gods taking a flesh form. In this film what that means is that the human technology in the future is capable of injecting a human's intelligence into a remotely located body, a biological body." Cameron also cited the Japanese cyberpunk manga and anime Ghost in the Shell, in terms of how humans can remotely control, and transfer their personalities into, alien bodies.
The look of the Na'vi – the humanoids indigenous to Pandora – was inspired by a dream that Cameron's mother had, long before he started work on Avatar. In her dream, she saw a blue-skinned woman 12 feet () tall, which he thought was "kind of a cool image". Also he said, "I just like blue. It's a good color ... plus, there's a connection to the Hindu deities, which I like conceptually." He included similar creatures in his first screenplay (written in 1976 or 1977), which featured a planet with a native population of "gorgeous" tall blue aliens. The Na'vi were based on them.
For the love story between characters Jake and Neytiri, Cameron applied a star-crossed love theme, which he said was in the tradition of Romeo and Juliet. He acknowledged its similarity to the pairing of Jack and Rose from his film Titanic. An interviewer stated, "Both couples come from radically different cultures that are contemptuous of their relationship and are forced to choose sides between the competing communities." Cameron described Neytiri as his "Pocahontas", saying that his plotline followed the historical story of a "white outsider [who] falls in love with the chief's daughter, who becomes his guide to the tribe and to their special bond with nature." Cameron felt that whether or not the Jake and Neytiri love story would be perceived as believable partially hinged on the physical attractiveness of Neytiri's alien appearance, which was developed by considering her appeal to the all-male crew of artists. Although Cameron felt Jake and Neytiri do not fall in love right away, their portrayers (Worthington and Saldana) felt the characters did. Cameron said the two actors "had a great chemistry" during filming.
For the film's floating "Hallelujah Mountains", the designers drew inspiration from "many different types of mountains, but mainly the karst limestone formations in China." According to production designer Dylan Cole, the fictional floating rocks were inspired by Huangshan (also known as Yellow Mountain), Guilin, Zhangjiajie, among others around the world. Cameron had noted the influence of the Chinese peaks on the design of the floating mountains.
To create the interiors of the human mining colony on Pandora, production designers visited the Noble Clyde Boudreaux oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico during . They photographed, measured and filmed every aspect of the platform, which was later replicated on-screen with photorealistic CGI during post-production.
Cameron said that he wanted to make "something that has this spoonful of sugar of all the action and the adventure and all that" but also have a conscience "that maybe in the enjoying of it makes you think a little bit about the way you interact with nature and your fellow man". He added that "the Na'vi represent something that is our higher selves, or our aspirational selves, what we would like to think we are" and that even though there are good humans within the film, the humans "represent what we know to be the parts of ourselves that are trashing our world and maybe condemning ourselves to a grim future".
Cameron acknowledges that Avatar implicitly criticizes the United States' role in the Iraq War and the impersonal nature of mechanized warfare in general. In reference to the use of the term shock and awe in the film, Cameron said, "We know what it feels like to launch the missiles. We don't know what it feels like for them to land on our home soil, not in America." He said in later interviews, "... I think it's very patriotic to question a system that needs to be corralled ..." and, "The film is definitely not anti-American."
A scene in the film portrays the violent destruction of the towering Na'vi Hometree, which collapses in flames after a missile attack, coating the landscape with ash and floating embers. Asked about the scene's resemblance to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, Cameron said he had been "surprised at how much it did look like ".
Marketing
Promotions
The first photo of the film was released on , 2009, and Empire released exclusive images from the film in its October issue. Cameron, producer Jon Landau, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, and Sigourney Weaver appeared at a panel, moderated by Tom Rothman, at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con on . Twenty-five minutes of footage was screened in Dolby 3D.
Weaver and Cameron appeared at additional panels to promote the film, speaking on the 23rd and 24th respectively. James Cameron announced at the Comic-Con Avatar Panel that will be 'Avatar Day'. On this day, the trailer was released in all theatrical formats. The official game trailer and toy line of the film were also unveiled on this day.
The 129-second trailer was released online on , 2009.
The new 210-second trailer was premiered in theaters on , 2009, then soon after premiered online on Yahoo! on , 2009, to positive reviews.
An extended version in IMAX 3D received overwhelmingly positive reviews. The Hollywood Reporter said that audience expectations were colored by "the [same] establishment skepticism that preceded Titanic" and suggested the showing reflected the desire for original storytelling. The teaser has been among the most viewed trailers in the history of film marketing, reaching the first place of all trailers viewed on Apple.com with 4 million views.
On October 30, to celebrate the opening of the first 3-D cinema in Vietnam, Fox allowed Megastar Cinema to screen exclusive 16 minutes of Avatar to a number of press. The three-and-a-half-minute trailer of the film premiered live on , 2009, during a Dallas Cowboys football game at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on the Diamond Vision screen, one of the world's largest video displays, and to TV audiences viewing the game on Fox. It is said to be the largest live motion picture trailer viewing in history.
The Coca-Cola Company collaborated with Fox to launch a worldwide marketing campaign to promote the film. The highlight of the campaign was the website AVTR.com. Specially marked bottles and cans of Coca-Cola Zero, when held in front of a webcam, enabled users to interact with the website's 3-D features using augmented reality (AR) technology. The film was heavily promoted in an episode of the Fox series Bones in the episode "The Gamer In The Grease" (Season 5, Episode 9). Avatar star Joel David Moore has a recurring role on the program, and is seen in the episode anxiously awaiting the release of the film. A week prior to the American release, Zoe Saldana promoted the film on Adult Swim when she was interviewed by an animated Space Ghost. McDonald's had a promotion mentioned in television commercials in Europe called "Avatarize yourself", which encouraged people to go to the website set up by Oddcast, and use a photograph of themselves to change into a Na'vi.
Books Avatar: A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora, a 224-page book in the form of a field guide to the film's fictional setting of the planet of Pandora, was released by Harper Entertainment on , 2009.
It is presented as a compilation of data collected by the humans about Pandora and the life on it, written by Maria Wilhelm and Dirk Mathison. HarperFestival also released Wilhelm's 48-page James Cameron's Avatar: The Reusable Scrapbook for children. The Art of Avatar was released on , 2009, by Abrams Books. The book features detailed production artwork from the film, including production sketches, illustrations by Lisa Fitzpatrick, and film stills. Producer Jon Landau wrote the foreword, Cameron wrote the epilogue, and director Peter Jackson wrote the preface. In , Abrams Books also released The Making of Avatar, a 272-page book that detailed the film's production process and contains over 500 color photographs and illustrations.
In a 2009 interview, Cameron said that he planned to write a novel version of Avatar after the film was released. In , producer Jon Landau stated that Cameron plans a prequel novel for Avatar that will "lead up to telling the story of the movie, but it would go into much more depth about all the stories that we didn't have time to deal with", saying that "Jim wants to write a novel that is a big, epic story that fills in a lot of things". In August 2013 it was announced that Cameron hired Steven Gould to pen four standalone novels to expand the Avatar universe.
Video game
Cameron chose Ubisoft Montreal to create an Avatar game for the film in 2007. The filmmakers and game developers collaborated heavily, and Cameron decided to include some of Ubisoft's vehicle and creature designs in the film. Avatar: The Game was released on , 2009, for most home video game consoles (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, Nintendo DS, iPhone) and Microsoft Windows, and for PlayStation Portable. A second game, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, was under development as of 2021.
Action figures and postage stamps
Mattel Toys announced in December 2009 that it would be introducing a line of Avatar action figures.
Each action figure will be made with a 3-D web tag, called an i-TAG, that consumers can scan using a web cam, revealing unique on-screen content that is exclusive to each specific action figure. A series of toys representing six different characters from the film were also distributed globally in McDonald's Happy Meals.
In December 2009, France Post released a special limited edition stamp based on Avatar, coinciding with the film's worldwide release.
Releases
Theatrical
Initial screeningAvatar premiered in London on , 2009, and was released theatrically worldwide from to 18. The film was originally set for release on , 2009, during filming but was pushed back to allow more post-production time (the last shots were delivered in November) and give more time for theaters worldwide to install 3D projectors. Cameron stated that the film's aspect ratio would be 1.78:1 for 3D screenings and that a 2.39:1 image would be extracted for 2D screenings. However, a 3D 2.39:1 extract was approved for use with constant-image-height screens (i.e., screens that increase in width to display 2.39:1 films). During a 3D preview showing in Germany on , the movie's DRM "protection" system malfunctioned, and some copies delivered weren't watched at all in the theaters. The problems were fixed in time for the public premiere.Avatar was released in a total of 3,457 theaters in the US, of which 2,032 theaters showed it in 3D. In total, 90% of all advance ticket sales for Avatar were for 3D screenings.
Internationally, Avatar opened on a total of 14,604 screens in 106 territories, of which 3,671 were showing the film in 3D (producing 56% of the first weekend gross). The film was simultaneously presented in IMAX 3D format, opening in 178 theaters in the United States on . The international IMAX release included 58 theaters beginning on , and 25 more theaters were to be added in the coming weeks. The IMAX release was the company's widest to date, a total of 261 theaters worldwide. The previous IMAX record opening was Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which opened in 161 IMAX theaters in the US, and about 70 international. 20th Century Fox Korea adapted and later released Avatar in 4D version, which included "moving seats, smells of explosives, sprinkling water, laser lights and wind".
Post-original release
In July 2010, Cameron confirmed that there would be an extended theatrical rerelease of the film on , 2010, exclusively in 3D theaters and IMAX 3D. Avatar: Special Edition includes an additional nine minutes of footage, all of which is CG, including an extension of the sex scene and various other scenes that were cut from the original theatrical film. This extended re-release resulted in the film's run time approaching the then-current IMAX platter maximum of 170 minutes, thereby leaving less time for the end credits. Cameron stated that the nine minutes of added scenes cost more than a minute to produce and finish. During its 12-week re-release, Avatar: Special Edition grossed an additional $10.74 million in North America and $22.46 million overseas for a worldwide total of $33.2 million. The film was later re-released in China in March 2021, allowing it to surpass Avengers: Endgame to become the highest-grossing film of all time.Avatar was rereleased in theaters on September 23, 2022, by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures for a limited two-week engagement, with the film being remastered in 4K high-dynamic range, with select scenes at a high frame rate of 48 fps. The reissue was prior to the December 2022 premiere of its sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water. Prior to this, Cameron previously teased a re-release of the film back in 2017 when promoting the Dolby Cinema re-release of Titanic, stating that there were plans in the works to remaster the film with Dolby Vision and re-release it in Dolby Cinema.
Home media
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released the film on DVD and Blu-ray in the US on , 2010, and in the UK on . The US release was not on a Tuesday as is the norm, but was done to coincide with Earth Day. The first DVD and Blu-ray release does not contain any supplemental features other than the theatrical film and the disc menu in favor of and to make space for optimal picture and sound. The release also preserves the film's 1.78:1 (16:9) format over the 2.39:1 (21:9) scope version as Cameron felt that was the best format to watch the film. The Blu-ray disc contains DRM (BD+ 5) which some Blu-ray players might not support without a firmware update.Avatar set a first-day launch record in the U.S. for Blu-ray sales at 1.5 million units sold, breaking the record previously held by The Dark Knight (600,000 units sold). First-day DVD and Blu-ray sales combined were over four million units sold. In its first four days of release, sales of Avatar on Blu-ray reached 2.7 million in the United States and Canada – overtaking The Dark Knight to become the best ever selling Blu-ray release in the region. The release later broke the Blu-ray sales record in the UK the following week. In its first three weeks of release, the film sold a total of DVD and Blu-ray discs combined, a new record for sales in that period. As of , 2012, DVD sales (not including Blu-ray) totaled over units sold with in revenue. Avatar retained its record as the top-selling Blu-ray in the US market until January 2015, when it was surpassed by Disney's Frozen.
The Avatar three-disc Extended Collector's Edition on DVD and Blu-ray was released on , 2010. Three different versions of the film are present on the discs: the original theatrical cut (162 minutes), the special edition cut (170 minutes), and a collector's extended cut (178 minutes). The DVD set spreads the film across two discs, while the Blu-ray set presents it on a single disc. The collector's extended cut contains 8 more minutes of footage, thus making it 16 minutes longer than the original theatrical cut. Cameron mentioned, "you can sit down, and in a continuous screening of the film, watch it with the Earth opening". He stated the "Earth opening" is an additional minutes of scenes that were in the film for much of its production but were ultimately cut before the film's theatrical release. The release also includes an additional 45 minutes of deleted scenes and other extras.
Cameron initially stated that Avatar would be released in 3D around , but the studio issued a correction: "3-D is in the conceptual stage and Avatar will not be out on 3D Blu-ray in November." In , Fox stated that the 3D version would be released some time in 2011. It was later revealed that Fox had given Panasonic an exclusive license for the 3D Blu-ray version and only with the purchase of a Panasonic 3DTV. The length of Panasonic's exclusivity period is stated to last until . On , Cameron stated that the standalone 3D Blu-ray would be the final version of the film's home release and that it was "maybe one, two years out". On Christmas Eve 2010, Avatar had its 3D television world premiere on Sky.
On August 13, 2012, Cameron announced on Facebook that Avatar would be released globally on Blu-ray 3D. The Blu-ray 3D version was finally released on October 16, 2012.
Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released Avatar on Ultra HD Blu-ray on June 20, 2023.
Reception
Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 82% of 335 reviews are positive, and the average rating is 7.4 out of 10. The site's consensus reads, "It might be more impressive on a technical level than as a piece of storytelling, but Avatar reaffirms James Cameron's singular gift for imaginative, absorbing filmmaking." On Metacritic—which assigns a weighted mean score—the film has a score of 83 out of 100 based on 35 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale. Every demographic surveyed was reported to give this rating. These polls also indicated that the main draw of the film was its use of 3D.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called the film "extraordinary" and gave it four stars out of four. "Watching Avatar, I felt sort of the same as when I saw Star Wars in 1977," he said, adding that like Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the film "employs a new generation of special effects" and it "is not simply a sensational entertainment, although it is that. It's a technical breakthrough. It has a flat-out Green and anti-war message".
A. O. Scott of At The Movies also compared his viewing of the film to the first time he viewed Star Wars and he said "although the script is a little bit ... obvious," it was "part of what made it work". Todd McCarthy of Variety praised the film, saying "The King of the World sets his sights on creating another world entirely in Avatar, and it's very much a place worth visiting." Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter gave the film a positive review. "The screen is alive with more action and the soundtrack pops with more robust music than any dozen sci-fi shoot-'em-ups you care to mention," he stated. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone awarded Avatar a three-and-a-half out of four star rating and wrote in his print review "It extends the possibilities of what movies can do. Cameron's talent may just be as big as his dreams." Richard Corliss of Time magazine thought that the film was "the most vivid and convincing creation of a fantasy world ever seen in the history of moving pictures." Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times thought the film has "powerful" visual accomplishments but "flat dialogue" and "obvious characterization". James Berardinelli of ReelViews praised the film and its story, giving it four out of four stars; he wrote "In 3-D, it's immersive – but the traditional film elements – story, character, editing, theme, emotional resonance, etc. – are presented with sufficient expertise to make even the 2-D version an engrossing -hour experience."Avatars underlying social and political themes attracted attention. Armond White of the New York Press wrote that Cameron used "villainous American characters" to "misrepresent facets of militarism, capitalism, and imperialism".See also last paragraph of the above section Avatar Themes and inspirations. Russell D. Moore of The Christian Post concluded that "propaganda exists in the film" and stated "If you can get a theater full of people in Kentucky to stand and applaud the defeat of their country in war, then you've got some amazing special effects." Adam Cohen of The New York Times was more positive about the film, calling its anti-imperialist message "a 22nd-century version of the American colonists vs. the British, India vs. the Raj, or Latin America vs. United Fruit". Ross Douthat of The New York Times opined that the film is "Cameron's long apologia for pantheism [...] Hollywood's religion of choice for a generation now", while Saritha Prabhu of The Tennessean called the film a "misportrayal of pantheism and Eastern spirituality in general", and Maxim Osipov of The Hindustan Times, on the contrary, commended the film's message for its overall consistency with the teachings of Hinduism in the Bhagavad Gita. Annalee Newitz of io9 concluded that Avatar is another film that has the recurring "fantasy about race" whereby "some white guy" becomes the "most awesome" member of a non-white culture. Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune called Avatar "the season's ideological Rorschach blot", while Miranda Devine of The Sydney Morning Herald thought that "It [was] impossible to watch Avatar without being banged over the head with the director's ideological hammer." Nidesh Lawtoo believed that an essential, yet less visible social theme that contributed to Avatars success concerns contemporary fascinations with virtual avatars and "the transition from the world of reality to that of virtual reality".
Critics and audiences have cited similarities with other films, literature or media, describing the perceived connections in ways ranging from simple "borrowing" to outright plagiarism. Ty Burr of The Boston Globe called it "the same movie" as Dances with Wolves. Like Dances with Wolves, Avatar has been characterized as being a "white savior" movie, in which a "backwards" native people is impotent without the leadership of a member of the invading white culture. Parallels to the concept and use of an avatar are in Poul Anderson's 1957 novelette "Call Me Joe", in which a paralyzed man uses his mind from orbit to control an artificial body on Jupiter. Cinema audiences in Russia have noted that Avatar has elements in common with the 1960s Noon Universe novels by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, which are set in the 22nd century on a forested world called Pandora with a sentient indigenous species called the Nave. Various reviews have compared Avatar to the films FernGully: The Last Rainforest, Pocahontas and The Last Samurai. NPR's Morning Edition has compared the film to a montage of tropes, with one commentator stating that Avatar was made by "mixing a bunch of film scripts in a blender". Gary Westfahl wrote that "the science fiction story that most closely resembles Avatar has to be Ursula Le Guin's novella The Word for World Is Forest (1972), another epic about a benevolent race of alien beings who happily inhabit dense forests while living in harmony with nature until they are attacked and slaughtered by invading human soldiers who believe that the only good gook is a dead gook". The science fiction writer and editor Gardner Dozois said that along with the Anderson and Le Guin stories, the "mash-up" included Alan Dean Foster's 1975 novel, Midworld. Some sources saw similarities to the artwork of Roger Dean, which features fantastic images of dragons and floating rock formations. In 2013, Dean sued Cameron and Fox, claiming that Pandora was inspired by 14 of his images. Dean sought damages of $50m. Dean's case was dismissed in 2014, and The Hollywood Reporter noted that Cameron had won multiple Avatar idea theft cases.Avatar received compliments from filmmakers, with Steven Spielberg praising it as "the most evocative and amazing science-fiction movie since Star Wars" and others calling it "audacious and awe inspiring", "master class", and "brilliant". Noted art director-turned-filmmaker Roger Christian is also a noted fan of the film. On the other hand, Duncan Jones said: "It's not in my top three James Cameron films. ... [A]t what point in the film did you have any doubt what was going to happen next?". For French filmmaker Luc Besson, Avatar opened the doors for him to now create an adaptation of the graphic novel series Valérian and Laureline that technologically supports the scope of its source material, with Besson even throwing his original script in the trash and redoing it after seeing the film. TIME ranked Avatar number 3 in their list of "The 10 Greatest Movies of the Millennium (Thus Far)" also earning it a spot on the magazine's All-Time 100 list, and IGN listed Avatar as number 22 on their list of the top 25 Sci-Fi movies of all time.
Box office
General Avatar was released internationally on more than 14,000 screens. It grossed $3,537,000 from midnight screenings in the United States and Canada, with the initial 3D release limited to 2,200 screens. The film grossed $26,752,099 on its opening day, and $77,025,481 over its opening weekend, making it the second-largest December opening ever behind I Am Legend, the largest domestic opening weekend for a film not based on a franchise (topping The Incredibles), the highest opening weekend for a film entirely in 3D (breaking Ups record), the highest opening weekend for an environmentalist film (breaking The Day After Tomorrows record), and the 40th-largest opening weekend in North America, despite a blizzard that blanketed the East Coast of the United States and reportedly hurt its opening weekend results. The film also set an IMAX opening weekend record, with 178 theaters generating approximately $9.5 million, 12% of the film's $77 million (at the time) North American gross on less than 3% of the screens.
International markets generating opening weekend tallies of at least $10 million were for Russia ($19.7 million), France ($17.4 million), the UK ($13.8 million), Germany ($13.3 million), South Korea ($11.7 million), Australia ($11.5 million), and Spain ($11.0 million). Avatars worldwide gross was US$241.6 million after five days, the ninth largest opening-weekend gross of all time, and the largest for a non-franchise, non-sequel and original film. 58 international IMAX screens generated an estimated $4.1 million during the opening weekend.
Revenues in the film's second weekend decreased by only 1.8% in domestic markets, marking a rare occurrence, grossing $75,617,183, to remain in first place at the box office and recording what was then the biggest second weekend of all time. The film experienced another marginal decrease in revenue in its third weekend, dropping 9.4% to $68,490,688 domestically, remaining in first place at the box office, to set a third-weekend record.Avatar crossed the $1 billion mark on the 19th day of its international release, making it the first film to reach this mark in only 19 days. It became the fifth film grossing more than $1 billion worldwide, and the only film of 2009 to do so. In its fourth weekend, Avatar continued to lead the box office domestically, setting a new all-time fourth-weekend record of $50,306,217, and becoming the highest-grossing 2009 release in the United States, beating Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. In the film's fifth weekend, it set the Martin Luther King Day weekend record, grossing $54,401,446, and set a fifth-weekend record with a take of $42,785,612. It held the top spot to set the sixth and seventh weekend records grossing $34,944,081 and $31,280,029 respectively. It was the fastest film to gross $600 million domestically, on its 47th day in theaters.
On , it became the first film to gross over worldwide, and it became the first film to gross over in the U.S. and Canada, on , after 72 days of release. It remained at number one at the domestic box office for seven consecutive weeks – the most consecutive No. 1 weekends since Titanic spent 15 weekends at No.1 in 1997 and 1998 – and also spent 11 consecutive weekends at the top of the box office outside the United States and Canada, breaking the record of nine consecutive weekends set by Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. By the end of its first theatrical release Avatar had grossed $749,766,139 in the U.S. and Canada, and $ in other territories, for a worldwide total of $.
Including the revenue from a re-release of Avatar featuring extended footage, Avatar grossed $785,221,649 in the U.S. and Canada, and $2,137,696,265 in other countries for a worldwide total of $2,922,917,914. Avatar has set a number of box office records during its release: on , 2010, it surpassed Titanics worldwide gross to become the highest-grossing film of all time worldwide 41 days after its international release, just two days after taking the foreign box office record. On , 47 days after its domestic release, Avatar surpassed Titanic to become the highest-grossing film of all time in Canada and the United States. It became the highest-grossing film of all time in at least 30 other countries and is the first film to gross over $2 billion in foreign box office receipts.
IMAX ticket sales account for $243.3 million of its worldwide gross, more than double the previous record. By 2022, this figure rose to $268.6 million.
Box Office Mojo estimates that after adjusting for the rise in average ticket prices, Avatar would be the 14th-highest-grossing film of all time in North America. Box Office Mojo also observes that the higher ticket prices for 3D and IMAX screenings have had a significant impact on Avatars gross; it estimated, on , 2010, that Avatar had sold approximately tickets in North American theaters, more than any other film since 1999's Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. On a worldwide basis, when Avatars gross stood at $2 billion just 35 days into its run, The Daily Telegraph estimated its gross was surpassed by only Gone with the Wind ($3.0 billion), Titanic ($2.9 billion), and Star Wars ($2.2 billion) after adjusting for inflation to 2010 prices, with Avatar ultimately winding up with $2.92 billion after subsequent re-releases. Reuters even placed it ahead of Titanic after adjusting the global total for inflation. The 2015 edition of Guinness World Records lists Avatar only behind Gone with the Wind in terms of adjusted grosses worldwide.
Commercial analysis
Before its release, various film critics and fan communities predicted the film would be a significant disappointment at the box office, in line with predictions made for Cameron's previous blockbuster Titanic. This criticism ranged from Avatars film budget, to its concept and use of 3-D "blue cat people". Slate magazine's Daniel Engber complimented the 3D effects but criticized them for reminding him of certain CGI characters from the Star Wars prequel films and for having the "uncanny valley" effect. The New York Times noted that 20th Century Fox executives had decided to release Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel alongside Avatar, calling it a "secret weapon" to cover any unforeseeable losses at the box office.
Box office analysts, on the other hand, estimated that the film would be a box office success. "The holy grail of 3-D has finally arrived," said an analyst for Exhibitor Relations. "This is why all these 3-D venues were built: for Avatar. This is the one. The behemoth." The "cautionary estimate" was that Avatar would bring in around $60 million in its opening weekend. Others guessed higher. There were also analysts who believed that the film's three-dimensionality would help its box office performance, given that recent 3D films had been successful.
Cameron said he felt the pressure of the predictions, but that pressure is good for film-makers. "It makes us think about our audiences and what the audience wants," he stated. "We owe them a good time. We owe them a piece of good entertainment." Although he felt Avatar would appeal to everyone and that the film could not afford to have a target demographic, he especially wanted hard-core science-fiction fans to see it: "If I can just get 'em in the damn theater, the film will act on them in the way it's supposed to, in terms of taking them on an amazing journey and giving them this rich emotional experience." Cameron was aware of the sentiment that Avatar would need significant "repeat business" just to make up for its budget and achieve box office success, and believed Avatar could inspire the same "sharing" reaction as Titanic. He said that film worked because, "When people have an experience that's very powerful in the movie theatre, they want to go share it. They want to grab their friend and bring them, so that they can enjoy it. They want to be the person to bring them the news that this is something worth having in their life."
After the film's release and unusually strong box office performance over its first two weeks, it was debated as the one film capable of surpassing Titanics worldwide gross, and its continued strength perplexed box office analysts. Other films in recent years had been cited as contenders for surpassing Titanic, such as 2008's The Dark Knight, but Avatar was considered the first film with a genuine chance to do so, and its numbers being aided by higher ticket prices for 3D screenings did not fully explain its success to box office analysts. "Most films are considered to be healthy if they manage anything less than a 50% drop from their first weekend to their second. Dipping just 11% from the first to the third is unheard of," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office analysis for Hollywood.com. "This is just unprecedented. I had to do a double take. I thought it was a miscalculation." Analysts predicted second place for the film's worldwide gross, but most were uncertain about it surpassing Titanic because "Today's films flame out much faster than they did when Titanic was released." Brandon Gray, president of Box Office Mojo, believed in the film's chances of becoming the highest-grossing film of all time, though he also believed it was too early to surmise because it had only played during the holidays. He said, "While Avatar may beat Titanics record, it will be tough, and the film is unlikely to surpass Titanic in attendance. Ticket prices were about $3 cheaper in the late 1990s." Cameron said he did not think it was realistic to "try to topple Titanic off its perch" because it "just struck some kind of chord" and there had been other good films in recent years. He changed his prediction by mid-January. "It's gonna happen. It's just a matter of time," he said.
Although analysts have been unable to agree that Avatars success is attributable to one primary factor, several explanations have been advanced. First, January is historically "the dumping ground for the year's weakest films", and this also applied to 2010.
Cameron himself said he decided to open the film in December so that it would have less competition from then to January. Titanic capitalized on the same January predictability, and earned most of its gross in 1998. Additionally, Avatar established itself as a "must-see" event. Gray said, "At this point, people who are going to see Avatar are going to see Avatar and would even if the slate was strong." Marketing the film as a "novelty factor" also helped. Fox positioned the film as a cinematic event that should be seen in the theaters. "It's really hard to sell the idea that you can have the same experience at home," stated David Mumpower, an analyst at BoxOfficeProphets.com. The "Oscar buzz" surrounding the film and international viewings helped. "Two-thirds of Titanics haul was earned overseas, and Avatar [tracked] similarly ...Avatar opened in 106 markets globally and was No. 1 in all of them", and the markets "such as Russia, where Titanic saw modest receipts in 1997 and 1998, are white-hot today" with "more screens and moviegoers" than before.
According to Variety, films in 3D accumulated $1.3 billion in 2009, "a threefold increase over 2008 and more than 10% of the total 2009 box-office gross". The increased ticket price – an average of $2 to $3 per ticket in most markets – helped the film. Likewise, Entertainment Weekly attributed the film's success to 3D glasses but also to its "astronomic word-of-mouth". Not only do some theaters charge up to $18.50 for IMAX tickets, but "the buzz" created by the new technology was the possible cause for sold-out screenings. Gray said Avatar having no basis in previously established material makes its performance remarkable and even more impressive. "The movie might be derivative of many movies in its story and themes," he said, "but it had no direct antecedent like the other top-grossing films: Titanic (historical events), the Star Wars movies (an established film franchise), or The Lord of the Rings (literature). It was a tougher sell ..." The Hollywood Reporter estimated that after a combined production and promotion cost of between $387 million and $437 million, the film turned a net profit of $1.2 billion.
Accolades Avatar won the 82nd Academy Awards for Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, and Best Visual Effects, and was nominated for a total of nine, including Best Picture and Best Director. Avatar also won the 67th Golden Globe Awards for Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Director, and was nominated for two others. At the 36th Saturn Awards, Avatar won all ten awards it was nominated for: Best Science Fiction Film, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Director, Best Writing, Best Music, Best Production Design and Best Special Effects.
The New York Film Critics Online honored the film with its Best Picture award. The film also won the Critics' Choice Awards of the Broadcast Film Critics Association for Best Action Film and several technical categories, out of nine nominations. It won two of the St. Louis Film Critics awards: Best Visual Effects and Most Original, Innovative or Creative Film. The film also won the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award for Production Design and Special Visual Effects, and was nominated for six others, including Best Film and Director. The film has received numerous other major awards, nominations and honors.
Legacy
Despite the film's financial and critical success, some journalists have questioned Avatar's cultural impact. In 2014, Scott Mendelson of Forbes said the film had been "all but forgotten", citing the lack of merchandising, a fandom for the film, or any long-enduring media franchise, and further stated that he believed most general audiences could not remember any of the film's details, such as the names of its characters or actors in the cast. Mendelson argued Avatar's only achievement of note to be its popularization of 3D cinema. Despite this, he still felt it was a quality film, saying, "A great blockbuster movie can just be a great blockbuster movie without capturing the lunchbox market." He further reflected and reversed his stance in 2022 after the box office success of the re-release, saying, "The very things that made Avatar sometimes feel like a 'forgotten blockbuster' have inspired a skewed renewed nostalgia for its singular existence. It was just a movie, an original auteur-specific movie that prioritized top-shelf filmmaking and clockwork plotting over quotable dialogue and memes."
Some have questioned if there is an audience for the film's planned sequels, believing there to be a lack of interest in the face of the multiple delays of their release dates. Writing for The Escapist, Darren Mooney acknowledged that the film had not been broadly remembered in the pop cultural subconscious and had not found a fandom in the same sense as many other popular media, but argued that this was not a negative point, saying, "its defining legacy is the insistence that it lacks a legacy."
In 2022, in response to the trailer for Avatar's upcoming sequel and the film's re-release, journalists again questioned the cultural relevance of the film, particularly Patrick Ryan of USA Today, who said the film had "curiously left almost no pop-culture footprint". In contrast, Bilge Ebiri of Vulture called others' opinions that the film had left no cultural impact "narrow-minded" and said that the film still held up well. A detailed overview of the Avatar franchise was reported in The New York Times in December of that year.
Sequels Avatar success led to two sequels; this number was subsequently expanded to four. Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) grossed over $2.3 billion, becoming the highest-grossing film of 2022, and received a similarly positive critical and audience response. It will be followed by Avatar 3 (2025). Fourth and fifth Avatar films, titled Avatar 4 and Avatar 5, respectively, are scheduled to be released in 2029 and 2031.
Related media
Stage adaptation Toruk – The First Flight is an original stage production by the Montreal-based Cirque du Soleil which ran between December 2015 and June 2019. Inspired by Avatar, the story is set in Pandora's past, involving a prophecy concerning a threat to the Tree of Souls and a quest for totems from different tribes. Audience members could download an app in order to participate in show effects. On January 18, 2016, it was announced via the Toruk Facebook page that filming for a DVD release had been completed and was undergoing editing.
Theme park attraction
In 2011, Cameron, Lightstorm, and Fox entered an exclusive licensing agreement with the Walt Disney Company to feature Avatar-themed attractions at Walt Disney Parks and Resorts worldwide, including a themed land for Disney's Animal Kingdom in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. The area, known as Pandora – The World of Avatar, opened on May 27, 2017.
Novels
Following the release of Avatar, Cameron planned to write a novel based on the film, "telling the story of the movie, but [going] into much more depth about all the stories that we didn't have time to deal with." In 2013, this plan was superseded by the announcement of four novels set within the "Avatar expanded universe", to be written by Steven Gould. The books were due to be published by Penguin Random House, although since 2017, there has been no update on the planned book series.
See also
List of films featuring extraterrestrials
List of films featuring powered exoskeletons
Red Scorpion Run of the Arrow''
Notes
References
Further reading
A detailed analysis of the film's parallels with the teachings of the Vedas.
External links
Official shooting script
Avatar (franchise) films
2000s action adventure films
2000s American films
2000s English-language films
2009 science fiction action films
2009 3D films
2009 films
20th Century Fox films
American 3D films
American action adventure films
American epic films
American science fiction action films
American science fiction adventure films
American space adventure films
BAFTA winners (films)
Best Drama Picture Golden Globe winners
Dune Entertainment films
Environmental films
Films set in the 2140s
Films set in the 2150s
Fictional-language films
Films about cloning
Films about consciousness transfer
Films about extraterrestrial life
Films about paraplegics or quadriplegics
Films about rebellions
Films about technology
Films about telepresence
Films directed by James Cameron
Films produced by James Cameron
Films produced by Jon Landau
Films scored by James Horner
Films set in forests
Films set in the 22nd century
Films set on fictional moons
Films shot in Hawaii
Films shot in Los Angeles
Films shot in New Zealand
Films that won the Best Visual Effects Academy Award
Films using motion capture
Films whose art director won the Best Art Direction Academy Award
Films whose cinematographer won the Best Cinematography Academy Award
Films whose director won the Best Director Golden Globe
Films with screenplays by James Cameron
Golden Eagle Award (Russia) for Best Foreign Language Film winners
Holography in films
IMAX films
Lightstorm Entertainment films
Military science fiction films
Planetary romances
Rotoscoped films
Science fiction war films
Social science fiction films
Transhumanism in film
Works subject to a lawsuit | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar%20%282009%20film%29 |
Stitch Encounter is an interactive show located in Walt Disney Studios Park (under the name Stitch Live!), and in Tomorrowland at Tokyo Disneyland and Shanghai Disneyland Park. The first edition of the show at Hong Kong Disneyland was closed on May 2, 2016, to make room for Star Wars: Command Post, although it temporarily returned to Hong Kong in 2019 for a limited-time as a "Magic Access Members"-exclusive event.
Disney attractions similar to Stitch Encounter include Turtle Talk with Crush, located in Epcot at the Walt Disney World Resort, Disney California Adventure Park at the Disneyland Resort and in Tokyo DisneySea, as well as Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World. Neither of the American Disney resorts have ever seen the release of this attraction, with Stitch's Great Escape! in Magic Kingdom having been the sole major Lilo & Stitch-themed attraction in the United States.
The attraction is a prime example of both-real time animation and digital puppetry. Stitch Encounter consists of an unscripted, real-time conversation between park guests and the animated character Stitch from Disney's Lilo & Stitch franchise. The attraction, which opened in July 2006, was part of a three attraction expansion to Tomorrowland, Hong Kong. It is located adjacent to the entrance of Space Mountain. The attraction offers shows in different languages depending on the version—Cantonese, English and Mandarin in the original Hong Kongese version (Cantonese only for the 2019 event), French and English in the Parisian version, Japanese in the Tokyo version, and Mandarin in the Chinese version—to accommodate the variety of languages guests in the different parks speak. Show times are available at the entrance of the attraction and each show has a length of approximately 15 minutes.
On July 1, 2021, following Disneyland Paris' reopening, Walt Disney Studios Park announced that the attraction is set to become part of Studio D.
Attraction description
Guests are seated in a movie theater-like room, called the Space Traffic Control. Children are then encouraged to sit up front, on the floor, so that Stitch can see them during the show. At the start of the show, the host of the Space Traffic Control requests the computer to search for an available spacecraft captain to talk to; the computer connects to the spacecraft which Stitch is in. After that, guests (both children and adults) in the Space Traffic Control are randomly chosen by Stitch to interact with. Stitch can interact with guests in many ways such as chatting, singing them a song with his ukulele and even take their pictures. Stitch looks, moves and sounds much like he does in the films and Lilo & Stitch: The Series, complete with corresponding facial expressions, gestures, and vocals (which the hidden actor performing him delivers in a mimicry of that used by the character's creator and original voice actor, Chris Sanders). The conclusion of the show occurs when the audience aids Stitch in his escape from Captain Gantu (Kevin Michael Richardson).
See also
Hong Kong Disneyland attraction and entertainment history
Stitch's Great Escape!
Turtle Talk with Crush
Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor
References
External links
Walt Disney Studios Park - Stitch Live!
Tokyo Disneyland - Stitch Encounter
Shanghai Disneyland - Stitch Encounter
Amusement park attractions introduced in 2006
Amusement park attractions introduced in 2019
Amusement park attractions that closed in 2019
Lilo & Stitch in amusement parks
Hong Kong Disneyland
Walt Disney Studios Park
Tokyo Disneyland
Shanghai Disneyland
Tomorrowland (Disney Parks)
Production Courtyard (Walt Disney Studios Park)
2006 establishments in Hong Kong
2016 disestablishments in Hong Kong
2008 establishments in France
2015 establishments in Japan
2016 establishments in China | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stitch%20Encounter |
"Changes" is a song by American rapper 2Pac featuring Talent. It was recorded in 1992 before being remixed and released as a single from Shakur's Greatest Hits compilation on October 13, 1998. The song makes references to the war on drugs, the treatment of black people by the police, racism, the reconciliation between the black and white people in America, the perpetuation of poverty and its accompanying vicious-cycle value system in urban African American culture, and the difficulties of life in the ghetto.
"Changes" samples Bruce Hornsby and the Range's 1986 song "The Way It Is". The chorus was sung by Talent.
Production and recording
The song was originally recorded during his tenure at Interscope Records in 1992 and was produced by Big D The Impossible (Deon Evans). "Changes" was later remixed in 1998 by Poke from Trackmasters.
The song re-uses lines from "I Wonder If Heaven Got a Ghetto" which was recorded during the same year, and samples the 1986 hit "The Way It Is" by Bruce Hornsby and the Range. The chorus of "The Way It Is" was slightly reworded and sung by Talent and was used for this song. At times Tupac re-used lines from other unreleased songs because he planned to make an updated version at a later date. However, since his death many of the unreleased and unmastered songs have been officially released.
The remixed version released in 1998 has notably different percussion, and a few minor changes to the musical elements. The chorus on the original track features a notable difference in a vocal sample of the line, "It's like that and that's the way it is", from Run DMC's "It's Like That", which is also played twice during the intro. The second chorus adds the Ice Cube line, "Dope dealers, you're as bad as the police", from his song, "Us". The third chorus omits the Ice Cube sample and adds B-boy-style chant with an unknown person repeating, "Clap your hands and feel it, clap your hands and feel it!" until the song ends.
Samples
The song is an interpretation of the 1986 hit "The Way It Is" by Bruce Hornsby and the Range, and samples the drum loop from the 1984 song "Set It Off" by Strafe. "Changes" was further influenced by the 1972 hit "Changes" by Black Sabbath. Bay Area rapper E-40 had interpreted the song already on his track, "Things'll Never Change", for his album Tha Hall of Game. The Tupac "Changes" instrumental was used by Insane Clown Posse in "Mom Song", a Mother's Day song. Nas sampled the song for his song "Black President". Polo G interpolated "Changes" on his 2020 song "Wishing for a Hero".
Overview
The song was a number-one hit in Norway and the Netherlands and reached the top ten in the singles charts of several other countries, including number three in the United Kingdom, which gained Tupac a broader audience.
Released posthumously on his album Greatest Hits, the song talks about all of the different issues that were related to Tupac's era of influence—notably racism, police brutality, drugs and gang violence. The "Huey" that 2Pac mentions in the song ("two shots in the dark, now Huey's dead") is Huey P. Newton, founder of the Black Panther Party. The song refers to the possibility of a black president of the United States, claiming "we ain't ready". Further, the last verse of the song refers to Tupac's imagining himself being shot to death, mimicking the sound of the gun with the phrase "rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat".
The Chris Hafner-directed music video is a compilation of a number of previous music videos Tupac released in addition to home videos and never-before-seen pictures, similar to the format of The Notorious B.I.G.'s "Dead Wrong", also released in 1999.
Critical reception
Chuck Taylor of Billboard wrote, "This latest posthumous Tupac Shakur release is an unquestionable smash. Cleverly sampling Bruce Hornsby and the Range's No. 1 "The Way It Is" from 1986, the rapper masterfully talks to his disciples like a pastor delivering a motivating and positive sermon to his congregation. He tells of the trials and tribulations of life in the ghetto and is blunt about the need for change and an end to black-on-black violence, saying that 'misplaced hate makes disgrace to races.' This track is a must for any playlist and ironic in that its all-important message surfaces after the artist became a victim of what his song addresses." The track was selected by the Vatican as part of their 2009 MySpace music playlist.
"Changes" is widely regarded as one of Shakur's greatest songs. In 2017, Consequence ranked the song number two on their list of the 20 greatest Tupac Shakur songs, and in 2020, Far Out ranked the song number six on their list of the 10 greatest Tupac Shakur songs.
Accolades
"Changes" was nominated for Best Rap Solo Performance at the Grammy Awards of 2000 and remains the only posthumous song to be nominated in this category. It was also nominated at the MTV Video Music Award for Best Editing in a Video & Best Rap Video in 1999.
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Certifications
References
External links
Music video on MTV.com
1992 songs
1998 singles
Tupac Shakur songs
Interscope Records singles
Death Row Records singles
Songs released posthumously
Dutch Top 40 number-one singles
Number-one singles in Norway
UK Independent Singles Chart number-one singles
Songs written by Bruce Hornsby
Songs written by Tupac Shakur
Political rap songs
Protest songs
Songs about poverty
Songs about drugs
Songs against racism and xenophobia
Criticism of police brutality
Songs about police brutality
Songs about revenge | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changes%20%28Tupac%20Shakur%20song%29 |
Guéra or Guera may refer to:
Guéra Prefecture, a former first-level administrative division of Chad until 1999
Guéra Region, a first-level administrative division of Chad since 2002
Guéra Department, a second level administrative division of Guéra Region, Chad
Kperou Guera, a village in Parakou subdistrict, Borgou Department, Benin
La Guera, a town in Western Sahara, also known as Lagouira
R. M. Guéra (born 1959), a Serbian comic book author and illustrator | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gu%C3%A9ra |
The Influence of Sea Power upon History: 1660–1783 is a history of naval warfare published in 1890 by the American naval officer and historian Alfred Thayer Mahan. It details the role of sea power during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and discussed the various factors needed to support and achieve sea power, with emphasis on having the largest and most powerful fleet. Scholars considered it the single most influential book in naval strategy. Its policies were quickly adopted by most major navies, ultimately leading to the World War I naval arms race. It is also cited as one of the contributing factors of the United States becoming a great power.
Overview
Mahan formulated his concept of sea power while reading a history book in Lima, Peru, after having observed the final stages of the War of the Pacific, in which Chile decisively defeated an alliance of Peru and Bolivia after seizing naval superiority.
The book was published by Mahan while president of the US Naval War College, and was a culmination of his ideas regarding naval warfare.
Mahan began the book with an examination of what factors led to a supremacy of the seas, especially how Great Britain was able to rise to its near dominance. He identified such features as geography, population, and government, and expanded the definition of sea power as comprising a strong navy and commercial fleet. Mahan also promoted the belief that any army would succumb to a strong naval blockade.
The book then goes on to describe a series of European and American wars and how naval power was used in each.
Table of contents
Preface
Introductory
Chapter I: Discussion of the Elements of Sea Power.
Chapter II: State of Europe in 1660. Second Anglo-Dutch War, 1665–1667. Sea Battles of Lowestoft and of the Four Days.
Chapter III: War of England and France in Alliance Against the United Provinces, 1672–1674. Finally, of France Against Combined Europe, 1674–1678. Sea Battles of Solebay, the Texel, and Stromboli.
Chapter IV: English Revolution. War of the League of Augsburg, 1688–1697. Sea Battles of Beachy Head and La Hougue.
Chapter V: War of the Spanish Succession, 1702–1713. Sea Battle of Malaga.
Chapter VI: The Regency in France. Alberoni in Spain. Policies of Walpole and Fleuri. War of the Polish Succession. English Contraband Trade in Spanish America. Great Britain Declares War Against Spain, 1715–1739.
Chapter VII: War Between Great Britain and Spain, 1739. War of the Austrian Succession, 1740. France Joins Spain Against Great Britain, 1744. Sea Battles of Matthews, Anson, and Hawke. Peace of Aix-La-Chapelle, 1748.
Chapter VIII: Seven Years' War, 1756–1763. England's Overwhelming Power and Conquests on the Seas, in North America, Europe, and East and West Indies. Sea Battles: Byng off Minorca; Hawke and Conflans; Pocock and D'Ache in East Indies.
Chapter IX: Course of Events from the Peace of Paris to 1778. Maritime War Consequent upon the American Revolution. Battle off Ushant.
Chapter X: Maritime War in North America and West Indies, 1778–1781. Its Influence upon the Course of the American Revolution. Fleet Actions off Grenada, Dominica, and Chesapeake Bay.
Chapter XI: Maritime War in Europe, 1779–1782.
Chapter XII: Events in the East Indies, 1778–1781. Suffren Sails from Brest for India, 1781. His Brilliant Naval Campaign in the Indian Seas, 1782, 1783.
Chapter XIII: Events in the West Indies after the Surrender of Yorktown. Encounters of De Grasse with Hood. The Sea Battle of the Saints. 1781–1782.
Chapter XIV: Critical Discussion of the Maritime War of 1778.
Impact on naval thought
Timeliness contributed no small part to the widespread acceptance and resultant influence of Mahan's views. Although his history was relatively thin (he relied on secondary sources), the vigorous style and clear theory won widespread acceptance by navalists across the world. Seapower supported the new colonialism that Europe and Japan were imposing on Africa and Asia. Given the very rapid technological changes underway in propulsion (from coal to oil, from reciprocating engines to steam turbines), ordnance (with better fire directors, and new high explosives) and armor (hardened steel), the emergence of new craft such as destroyers and submarines, and the development of radio, Mahan's emphasis on the capital ship and the command of the sea came at an opportune moment.
Daniel Immerwahr in How to Hide an Empire: A Short History of the Greater United States outlines that Mahan's greatest concern is with trade and how to secure shipping routes throughout the complex process of ports, coaling stations, restocking supplies, and naval protection. "Mahan warned that war might close the seas to the United States. Its ships would then be 'like land birds, unable to fly far from their own shores'".
19th–20th century
British
Between 1890 and 1915, Mahan and British admiral Jacky Fisher faced the problem of how to dominate home waters and distant seas with naval forces not strong enough to do both. Mahan argued for a universal principle of concentration of powerful ships in home waters and minimized strength in distant seas, while Fisher reversed Mahan by utilizing technological change to propose submarines for defense of home waters and mobile battle cruisers for protection of distant imperial interests.
German
Mahan was initially introduced to the German navy by the strategist Ludwig Borckenhagen, in a series of influential papers. Subsequently, his name became a household word in the German navy, as Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered his officers to read Mahan, and Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz (1849–1930) used Mahan's reputation to build a powerful surface fleet.
French
The French at first adopted Mahan's theories. French naval doctrine in 1914 was dominated by Mahan's theory of sea power and therefore geared toward winning decisive battles and gaining mastery of the seas. But the course of World War I changed ideas about the place of the navy, as the refusal of the German fleet to engage in a decisive battle, the Dardanelles expedition of 1915, the development of submarine warfare, and the organization of convoys all showed the navy's new role in combined operations with the army.
The navy's part in securing victory was not fully understood by French public opinion in 1918, but a synthesis of old and new ideas arose from the lessons of the war, especially by admiral Raoul Castex (1878–1968), from 1927 to 1935, who synthesized in his five-volume Théories Stratégiques the classical and materialist schools of naval theory. He reversed Mahan's theory that command of the sea precedes maritime communications and foresaw the enlarged roles of aircraft and submarines in naval warfare. Castex enlarged strategic theory to include nonmilitary factors (policy, geography, coalitions, public opinion, and constraints) and internal factors (economy of force, offense and defense, communications, operational plans, morale, and command) to conceive a general strategy to attain final victory.
United States
Locating a sufficient supply of guano that enabled the radical incline of refertilizing American farmlands that would otherwise become desolate from nitrogen deficiency through successive farming year-on-year was a contextualising element to Mahan's work. With a Peruvian (and British) monopoly on guano across South American islands, this pushed the US into searching and securing alternative islands that fed into Mahan's goal of creating sea "highways" between land. To expedite this process, the US Congress had previously passed the Guano Islands Act 1856 to allow citizens to take unclaimed islands for the US and allow extraction of this resource. This is reflected in the historical and current insular territories of the United States.
American expansionism and imperialism was influenced through this book as Theodore Roosevelt wrote to Mahan: "during the last two days I have spent half my time, busy as I am, in reading your book ... I am greatly in error if it does not become a naval classic". There is noted influence on reading this book and Roosevelt's push to start expansionism with the Spanish-American War to secure resources and naval "highways" for ships across the Caribbean and Pacific – later influencing their ability to operate airstrips for World War I and World War II in places such as Guam.
21st century
Mahan's strategic theories continue to be influential into the 21st century, especially in the newly emerging naval powers India and China.
Although Mahan's influence on foreign powers has been widely recognized, only in recent decades have scholars called attention to his role as significant in the growth of American overseas possessions, the rise of the new American navy, and the adoption of the strategic principles upon which it operated.
See also
Alfred Thayer Mahan
History of the Royal Navy (after 1707), British navy
Naval warfare
US Navy
Notes
References
Further reading
Apt, Benjamin. (2004). "Mahan's Forebears: The Debate over Maritime Strategy, 1868–1883." Naval War College Review. 50(3): 86–111.
Shulman, Mark Russell. (1991). "The Influence of Mahan upon Sea Power". Reviews in American History. 19(4): 522–527.
Shulman, Mark Russell. (1995). Navalism and the Emergence of American Sea Powers, 1882–1893. (1st ed.) Annapolis: Naval Institute Press.
External links
Mahan and The Influence of Sea Power Upon History
Project Gutenberg e-text
Internet Archive scan of first edition held by UCLA
13th edition (1918) via HathiTrust
1890 non-fiction books
Books of naval history | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%20Influence%20of%20Sea%20Power%20upon%20History |
In computer science, separation logic is an extension of Hoare logic, a way of reasoning about programs.
It was developed by John C. Reynolds, Peter O'Hearn, Samin Ishtiaq and Hongseok Yang, drawing upon early work by Rod Burstall. The assertion language of separation logic is a special case of the logic of bunched implications (BI). A CACM review article by O'Hearn charts developments in the subject to early 2019.
Overview
Separation logic facilitates reasoning about:
programs that manipulate pointer data structures—including information hiding in the presence of pointers;
"transfer of ownership" (avoidance of semantic frame axioms); and
virtual separation (modular reasoning) between concurrent modules.
Separation logic supports the developing field of research described by Peter O'Hearn and others as local reasoning, whereby specifications and proofs of a program component mention only the portion of memory used by the component, and not the entire global state of the system. Applications include automated program verification (where an algorithm checks the validity of another algorithm) and automated parallelization of software.
Assertions: operators and semantics
Separation logic assertions describe "states" consisting of a store and a heap, roughly corresponding to the state of local (or stack-allocated) variables and dynamically-allocated objects in common programming languages such as C and Java. A store is a function mapping variables to values. A heap is a partial function mapping memory addresses to values. Two heaps and are disjoint (denoted ) if their domains do not overlap (i.e., for every memory address , at least one of and is undefined).
The logic allows to prove judgements of the form , where is a store, is a heap, and is an assertion over the given store and heap. Separation logic assertions (denoted as , , ) contain the standard boolean connectives and, in addition, , , , and , where and are expressions.
The constant asserts that the heap is empty, i.e., when is undefined for all addresses.
The binary operator takes an address and a value and asserts that the heap is defined at exactly one location, mapping the given address to the given value. I.e., when (where denotes the value of expression evaluated in store ) and is otherwise undefined.
The binary operator (pronounced star or separating conjunction) asserts that the heap can be split into two disjoint parts where its two arguments hold, respectively. I.e., when there exist such that and and and .
The binary operator (pronounced magic wand or separating implication) asserts that extending the heap with a disjoint part that satisfies its first argument results in a heap that satisfies its second argument. I.e,. when for every heap such that , also holds.
The operators and share some properties with the classical conjunction and implication operators. They can be combined using an inference rule similar to modus ponens
and they form an adjunction, i.e., if and only if for ; more precisely, the adjoint operators are and .
Reasoning about programs: triples and proof rules
In separation logic, Hoare triples have a slightly different meaning than in Hoare logic. The triple asserts that if the program executes from an initial state satisfying the precondition then the program will not go wrong (e.g., have undefined behaviour), and if it terminates, then the final state will satisfy the postcondition . In essence, during its execution, may access only memory locations whose existence is asserted in the precondition or that have been allocated by itself.
In addition to the standard rules from Hoare logic, separation logic supports the following very important rule:
This is known as the frame rule (named after the frame problem) and enables local reasoning. It says that a program that executes safely in a small state (satisfying ), can also execute in any bigger state (satisfying ) and that its execution will not affect the additional part of the state (and so will remain true in the postcondition). The side condition enforces this by specifying that none of the variables modified by occur free in , i.e. none of them are in the 'free variable' set of .
Sharing
Separation logic leads to simple proofs of pointer manipulation for data structures that exhibit regular sharing patterns which can be described simply using separating conjunctions; examples include singly and doubly linked lists and varieties of trees. Graphs and DAGs and other data structures with more general sharing
are more difficult for both formal and informal proof. Separation logic has, nonetheless, been applied successfully to reasoning about
programs with general sharing.
In their POPL'01 paper, O'Hearn and Ishtiaq explained how the magic wand connective could be used to reason in the presence of sharing, at least in principle.
For example, in the triple
we obtain the weakest precondition for a statement that mutates the heap at location , and this works for any postcondition, not only one that is laid out neatly using the separating conjunction. This idea was taken much further by Yang, who used to provide localized reasoning about mutations in the classic Schorr-Waite graph marking algorithm. Finally, one of the most recent works in this direction is that of Hobor and Villard, who
employ not only but also a connective
which has variously been called overlapping conjunction or sepish, and which can be used to describe overlapping data structures: holds of a heap when
and hold for subheaps and whose union is , but which possibly have a nonempty portion in common. Abstractly, can be seen to be a version of the fusion connective of relevance logic.
Concurrent separation logic
A Concurrent Separation Logic (CSL),
a version of separation logic for concurrent programs, was originally proposed by Peter O'Hearn,
using a proof rule
which allows independent reasoning about threads that access separate storage. O'Hearn's proof rules adapted an early approach of Tony Hoare to reasoning about concurrency,
replacing the use of scoping constraints to ensure separation by reasoning in separation logic. In addition to extending Hoare's approach to apply in the presence of heap-allocated pointers, O'Hearn showed how reasoning in concurrent separation logic could track dynamic ownership transfer of heap portions between processes; examples in the paper include a pointer-transferring buffer, and a memory manager.
Commenting on the early classical work on interference freedom by Susan Owicki and David Gries, O'Hearn says that explicit checking for non-interference isn't necessary because his system rules out interference in an implicit way, by the nature of the way proofs are constructed.
A model for concurrent separation logic was first provided by Stephen Brookes in a companion paper to O'Hearn's. The soundness of the logic had been a difficult problem, and in fact a counterexample of John Reynolds had shown the unsoundness of an earlier, unpublished version of the logic; the issue raised by Reynolds's example is described briefly in O'Hearn's paper, and more thoroughly in Brookes's.
At first it appeared that CSL was well suited to what Dijkstra had called loosely connected processes, but perhaps not to fine-grained concurrent algorithms with significant interference. However, gradually it was realized that the basic approach of CSL was considerably more powerful than first envisaged, if one employed non-standard models of the logical connectives and even the Hoare triples.
An abstract version of separation logic was proposed that works for Hoare triples
where the preconditions and postconditions are formulae interpreted over an arbitrary partial commutative monoid instead of a particular heap model.
Later, by suitable choice of commutative monoid, it was surprisingly found that the proof rules of abstract versions of concurrent separation logic could be used to reason about interfering concurrent processes, for example by encoding the rely-guarantee technique which had been originally proposed to reason about interference; in this work the elements of the model were considered not resources, but rather "views" of the program state, and a non-standard interpretation of Hoare triples accompanies the non-standard reading of pre and postconditions.
Finally, CSL-style principles have been used to compose reasoning about program histories instead of program states, in order to provide modular techniques for reasoning about fine-grained concurrent algorithms.
Versions of CSL have been included in many interactive and semi-automatic (or "in-between") verification tools as described in the next section. A particularly significant verification effort is that of the μC/OS-II kernel mentioned there. But, although steps have been made, as of yet CSL-style reasoning has been included in comparatively few
tools in the automatic program analysis category (and none mentioned in the next section).
O'Hearn and Brookes are co-recipients of the 2016 Gödel Prize for their invention of Concurrent Separation Logic.
Verification and program analysis tools
Tools for reasoning about programs fall on a spectrum from fully automatic program analysis tools, which do not require any user input, to interactive tools where the human
is intimately involved in the proof process. Many such tools have been developed; the following list includes a few representatives in each category.
Automatic Program Analyses. These tools typically look for restricted classes of bugs (e.g., memory safety errors) or attempt to prove their absence, but fall short of proving full correctness.
A current example is Facebook Infer, a static analysis tool for Java, C, and Objective-C based on separation logic and bi-abduction. As of 2015 hundreds of bugs per month were being found by Infer and fixed by developers before being shipped to Facebook's mobile apps
Other examples include SpaceInvader (one of the first SL analyzers), Predator (which has won several verification competitions), MemCAD (which mixes shape and numerical properties) and SLAyer (from Microsoft Research, focussed on data structures found in device drivers)
Interactive Proof. Proofs have been done using embeddings of Separation Logic into interactive theorem provers such as the Coq proof assistant and HOL (proof assistant). In comparison to the program analysis work, these tools require more in the way of human effort but prove deeper properties, up to functional correctness.
A proof of the FSCQ file system where the specification includes behaviour under crashes as well as normal operation. This work won the best paper award at the 2015 Symposium on Operating System Principles.
Verification of a large fragment of the Rust type system and some of its standard libraries in the RustBelt project using the Iris framework for separation logic in The Coq proof assistant.
Verification of an OpenSSL implementation of a cryptographic authentication algorithm, utilizing verifiable C
Verification of key modules of a commercial OS kernel, the μC/OS-II kernel, the first commercial pre-emptive kernel to have been verified.
Other examples include the Ynot library for the Coq proof assistant; the Holfoot embedding of Smallfoot in HOL; Fine-grained Concurrent Separation Logic, and Bedrock (a Coq library for low-level programming).
In Between. Many tools require more user intervention than program analyses, in that they expect the user to input assertions such as pre/post specs for functions or loop invariants, but after this input is given they attempt to be fully or almost fully automatic; this mode of verification goes back to classic works in the 1970s such as J King's verifier, and the Stanford Pascal Verifier. This style of verifier has recently been called auto active verification, a term which intends to evoke the way of interacting with a verifier via an assert-check loop, analogous to the interaction between a programmer and a type-checker.
The very first Separation Logic verifier, Smallfoot, was in this in-between category. It required the user to input pre/post specs, loop invariants, and resource invariants for locks. It introduced a method of symbolic execution, as well as an automatic way to infer frame axioms. Smallfoot included Concurrent Separation Logic.
SmallfootRG is a verifier for a marriage of separation logic and the classic rely/guarantee method for concurrent programs.
Heap Hop implements a separation logic for message passing, following the ideas in Singularity (operating system).
VeriFast is an advanced current tool in the in-between category. It has demonstrated proofs ranging from object-oriented patterns to highly concurrent algorithms and to systems programs.
Viper is a state-of-the-art automated verification infrastructure for permission-based reasoning. It mainly consists of a programming language and two verification backends, one based on symbolic execution and another one on verification condition generation (VCG). Based on the Viper infrastructure, several frontends for various programming languages have emerged: Gobra for Go, Nagini for Python, Prusti for Rust, and VerCors for C, Java, OpenCL, and OpenMP. These frontends translate the frontend programming language into Viper to then use a Viper verification backend for proving the input program's correctness.
The Mezzo Programming Language and Asynchronous Liquid Separation Types include ideas related to CSL in the type system for a programming language. The idea to include separation in a type system has earlier examples in Alias Types and Syntactic Control of Interference.
The distinction between interactive and in-between verifiers is not a sharp one. For example,
Bedrock strives for a high degree of automation, in what it terms mostly-automatic verification, where
Verifast sometimes requires annotations that resemble the tactics (little programs) used in interactive verifiers.
References
2002 introductions
Program logic
Substructural logic
Logic in computer science | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation%20logic |
Mzwakhe Mbuli (born 1 August 1959) is a South African poet, Mbaqanga singer and former Deacon at Apostolic Faith Mission Church in Naledi Soweto, South Africa. Known as "The People's Poet, Tall Man, Mbulism, The Voice Of Reason", he is the father of Mzwakhe Mbuli Junior, also known as Robot_Boii.
Early life
He was born in Sophiatown, and shortly moved after his family was forced to move to Soweto when the government bulldozed his home town.
Career
His works include a book of poems, Before Dawn (1989), and albums Change Is Pain (1986), Unbroken Spirit (1989), Resistance Is Defence (1992), and Africa (1993). His poems are mainly in English but draw on his native Zulu as well as traditional praise poetry and rap. His best-known poem is "Change Is Pain," a protest piece about oppression and revolution, which was initially banned until growing pressure forced South Africa to allow more freedom of speech. His first performance group was called Khuvhangano.
Throughout the 1980s, Mbuli was repeatedly detained by the authorities and denied a passport to travel while playing a leading role in the cultural activities of the United Democratic Front. His international career began in 1990 in Berlin, Germany when he shared the stage with Youssou N'dour, Miriam Makeba and Thomas Mapfumo. An imposing figure, standing well over tall, he performed at the funeral of Chris Hani, the assassinated head of the South African Communist Party, and at the presidential inauguration Nelson Mandela in 1994. In 1996 Mbuli was invited to London to co-host, with British poet and activist Benjamin Zephaniah, the Two Nations Concert at the Albert Hall to honor President Nelson Mandela on his visit to London. Later in the year, he returned to the UK to join Peter Gabriel, Youssour N'dour and other prominent African artists to record the fundraising Aids Album.
In 1990, he was profiled in the documentary film Songololo: Voices of Change.
Mbuli was convicted in March 1999 of armed robbery and possession of a hand grenade-–crimes he has consistently denied committing; he and his supporters have always insisted he was framed by the government for speaking out against corruption. He was held at the Leeuwkop Maximum Security Prison, until his release in November 2003. His most recent release is Mbulism.
Discography
Studio albums
Change Is Pain (1986) Shifty (Rounder - USA)
Unbroken Spirit (1988) Shifty Records
Resistance Is Defence (1992) Stern's Earthworks
Afrika (1993) CCP/EMI South Africa
Izigi (1994) CCP/EMI, South Africa
KwaZulu-Natal (1996) CCP / EMI South Africa
Umzwakhe Ubongu Ujehovah (1997) CCP/EMI South Africa
Mbulism (2004) CCP/EMI South Africa
Singles
"Mandela" (with Zahara) (2013)
Notes
References
Afropop! An Illustrated Guide to Contemporary African Music'' by Sean Barlow & Banning Eyre. (Book Sales August 1995) ,
External links
Free Mzwakhe Mbuli
Mzwakhe Mbuli - plus sound clip
South African musicians
South African poets
Living people
1959 births | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mzwakhe%20Mbuli |
The Dimasa Kingdom (also Kachari kingdom) was a late medieval/early modern kingdom in Assam, Northeast India ruled by Dimasa kings. The Dimasa kingdom and others (Kamata, Chutiya) that developed in the wake of the Kamarupa kingdom were examples of new states that emerged from indigenous communities in medieval Assam as a result of socio-political transformations in these communities. The British finally annexed the kingdom: the plains in 1832 and the hills in 1834. This kingdom gave its name to undivided Cachar district of colonial Assam. And after independence the undivided Cachar district was split into three districts in Assam: Dima Hasao district (formerly North Cachar Hills), Cachar district, Hailakandi district. The Ahom Buranjis called this kingdom Timisa.
In the 18th century, a divine Hindu origin was constructed for the rulers of the Kachari kingdom and it was named Hidimba, and the kings as Hidimbesvar. The name Hiḍimbā continued to be used in the official records when the East India Company took over the administration of Cachar.
Origins
The origin of the Dimasa Kingdom is not clear. According to tradition, the Dimasa had their domain in Kamarupa and their king belonged to a lineage called Ha-tsung-tsa or Ha-cheng-sa, a name first mentioned in a coin from 1520. Some of them had to leave due to a political turmoil and while crossing the Brahmaputra some of them were swept away—therefore, they are called Dimasa ("Son-of-the-big-river"). The similarity in Dimasa traditions and religious beliefs with those of the Chutiya kingdom supports this tradition of initial unity and then divergence. Linguistic studies too point to a close association between the Dimasa language and the Moran language that was alive till the beginning of the 20th-century, suggesting that the Dimasa kingdom had an eastern Assam presence before the advent of the Ahoms. The eastern Assam origin of the Dimasas is further reinforced by the tradition of the tetulary goddess Kecaikhati whose primary shrine was around Sadiya; the tribal goddess common to many Kachari peoples: as the Rabhas, Morans, Tiwas, Koch, Chutias, etc.
According to legend Hachengsa (or Hasengcha) was an extraordinary boy brought up by a tiger and a tigress in a forest near Dimapur who replaced the existing king following divine oracles; which likely indicates the emergence of a strong military leader able to consolidate power. Subsequently, the Hasengcha Sengfang (clan) emerged and beginning with Khorapha (1520 in Dimapur), the Dimasa kings continued to draw lineage from Hachengcha in Maibong and Khaspur till the 19th century.
Given different traditions and legends, the only reliable sources of the early history of the Dimasa kingdom is that given in the Buranjis, even though they are primarily narrations of wars between the Ahom and the Dimasa polities.
Early history
The historical accounts of the Dimasas begin with mentions in Ahom chronicles: according to an account in a Buranji, the first Ahom king Sukaphaa (r. 1228–1268) encountered a Kachari group in the Tirap region (currently in Arunachal Pradesh), who informed him that they along with their chief had to leave a place called Mohung (salt springs) losing it to the Nagas and that they were settled near the Dikhou river. This supports a tradition that the eastern boundary of the Kachari domain extended up to Mohong or Namdang river (near Joypur, Assam) beyond the river Dichang, before the arrival of Ahoms. Given the settlement was large, Sukaphaa decided not to engage with them before settling with the Barahi and Moran polities. During the reign of Sukaphaa's successor Suteuphaa () the Ahoms negotiated with this group of the Dimasa, who had been in the region between Dikhou and Namdang for about three generations by then, and the Dimasa group moved to the west of the Dikhou river. These isolated early accounts of the Dimasas suggest that they controlled the region between the Dikhu river in the east and the Kolong river in the west and included the Dhansiri valley and the north Cachar hills from the late 13th century.
At Dimapur
The Ahom language Buranjis call the Dimasa kings khun timisa, and place them initially in Dimapur, where Timisa is a corruption of Dimasa. The Dimasa kingdom did not record their history, and much of the early information come from other sources. The Ahom Buranjis, for instance, record that in 1490 the Ahom king Suhenphaa (1488-93) created a forward post at Tangsu and when the Dimasas killed the commander and 120 men the Ahoms sued for peace by offering a princess to the Dimasa king along with other presents, but the name of the Dimasa king is not known. The Dimasas thus recovered the region east of the Dikhau river that it had lost in the late 13th century.
Ekasarana biographies of Sankardeva written after his death use the name Kachari for the Dimasa people and the kingdom and record that around 1516 the Baro-Bhuyans at Alipukhuri came into conflict with their Kachari neighbors which escalated into the Dimasa king preparing to attack them. This led Sankardeva and his group to abandon the region for good. One of the earliest mention of Kachari is found in the Bhagavat of Sankardev in the section composed during the later part of his life in the Koch kingdom where he uses it synonymously with Kirata. Another early mention of the name Kachari comes from Kacharir Niyam (Rules of the Kacharis), composed during the reign of Tamradhwaj Narayan (), when the Dimasa rulers were still ruling in Maibang.
A coin dated 1520 commemorating a decisive victory over enemies is one of the earliest direct evidence of the historical kingdom. Since no conflict with the Kacharis is mentioned in the Ahom Buranjis it is conjectured that the enemy could have been the nascent Koch kingdom of Biswa Singha. Though issued in a Sanksritised name of the king (Viravijay Narayan, identified with Khorapha) with the mention of a goddess Chandi, there is no mention of the King's lineage but a mention of Hachengsa, a Boro-Garo name indicated that an appropriate Kshatriya lineage had still not been created by 1520. The first Hindu coin from the Brahmaputra valley, it followed the same weights and measures of the coins from the Muslim Sultans of Bengal and Tripura and indicate influence from them.
This kingdom might have been part of ancient Sinitic networks such as the Ming dynasty (1368–1644).
Fall of Dimapur
Soon after absorbing the Chutia kingdom in 1523 Suhungmung, the Ahom king, decided to recover the territory the Ahoms had lost in 1490 to the Dimasa kingdom and sent his commander Kan-Seng in 1526 who advanced up to Marangi. In one of these attacks the Dimasa king Khorapha was killed, and Khunkhara, his brother, came to power. The two kingdoms made peace and decided to maintain the Dhansiri river as the boundary. This peace did not hold and fighting broke out between an advancing Ahom force against a Kachari force arrayed along the Dhansiri—the Kacharis were successful initially, but they suffered a massive loss at Marangi, and again an uneasy stalemate prevailed. In 1531 the Ahoms went on the offence and Khunkhara's brother Detcha lost his life attacking the newly erected Ahom fort at Marangi. Both the Ahom king and the commander then attacked the Nenguriya fort, and Khunkhara had to flee with his son. The Ahoms force under Kan-Seng then reached Dimapur following which Detchung, a son of the earlier king Khorapha, approached Suhungmung at Nenguriya and submitted his claim to the Dimasa throne. The Ahoms thereafter claimed the Dimasa king as thapita-sanchita (established and preserved), and the Dimasa kingdom provided support to the Ahom kingdom when it was under the attack of Turbak in 1532/1533, a Turko-Afghan commander from Bengal.
But when Detchung (also called Dersongpha) tried to throw off the yoke Suhungmung advanced against Detchung captured and killed him, and then advanced on and occupied Dimapur in 1536. The Dimasas rulers thereafter abandoned Dimapur.
Cultural affinities at Dimapur
The current ruins at Dimapur, the same city that Suhungmung occupied, include a 2 mile long brick wall on three sides, with the Dhansiri river on the fourth; and tanks—indicating a large city. The existing gateway too was in brick and display the Islamic architectural style of Bengal. The ruins include curious carved 12 feet tall pillars of sandstone with hemispherical tops and foliated carvings with representations of animals and birds but no humans that display no Hindu influence. Despite the Sanskrit markings of the 1520 silver coin issued by Viravijay Narayan (Khorapha), the city lacked any sign of Brahminical influence, from the observations in 1536 as recorded in the Buranjis, as well as the colonial observations of 1874.
At Maibang
The fall of Dimapur in 1536 was followed by a 22-year period of interregnum, and there is no mention of a king in the records. In either 1558 or 1559 a son of Detsung, Madanakumara, assumed the throne with the name Nirbhaya Narayana, and established his capital at Maibang in the North Cachar hills. Not all the Kachari people accompanied the rulers from Dimapur to Maibong—and those who remained in the plains developed independently in language and customs. In the hills around Maibong, the Dimasa rulers encountered already established Naga and Kuki peoples, who accepted the Dimasa rule.
Khorapha, the earlier king, claimed in the coin issued earlier in 1520 from Dimapur that he had defeated the enemies of Hachengsa without specifying his relationship to him but Nirbhaya Narayana and his successors in Maibong for the next hundred years or so claimed in their coins that they belonged to the family of Hachensa; thereby signalling a change in the mode of legitimacy from deed to birth. On the other hand Dimasa kings from Maibang are recorded as Lord of Heremba from the 16th century by those outside the Dimasa kingdom who practiced sedentary agriculture and who had already experienced Brahminism.
Koch invasion
After subjugating the Ahoms in 1564, the Koch commander Chilarai advanced on Marangi, subjugated Dimarua and finally advanced on the Dimasa kingdom, then possibly under Durlabh Narayan or his predecessor Nirbhay Narayan and made it into a feudatory of the Koch kingdom. This campaign realigned the relationships and rearranged the territorial controls among the political formations of the time. Dimarua, which was a feudatory of the Dimasa kingdom, was set up by Chilarai was a buffer against the Jaintia kingdom. The hold of the Ahom kingdom, which was already subjugated, over the Dimasa kingdom weakened. Further, Chilarai defeated and killed the Twipra king, and occupied the Cachar region from him and established Koch administration there at Brahmapur (Khaspur) under his brother Kamal Narayan—this region was to form the core of the Dimasa rule in the 18th century. The size of the annual tribute— seventy thousand rupees, one thousand gold mohurs and sixty elephants— testifies to the resourcefulness of the Kachari state.
A conflict with the Jaintia Kingdom over the region of Dimarua led to a battle, in which the Jaintias suffered defeat. After the death of Jaintia king Dhan Manik, Satrudaman the Dimasa king, installed Jasa Manik on the throne of Jaintia Kingdom, who manipulated events to bring the Dimasa Kacharis into conflict with the Ahoms once again in 1618. Satrudaman, the most Dimasa powerful king, ruled over Dimarua in Nagaon district, North Cachar, Dhansiri valley, plains of Cachar and parts of eastern Sylhet. After his conquest of Sylhet, he struck coins in his name.
By the reign of Birdarpan Narayan (reign around 1644), the Dimasa rule had withdrawn completely from the Dhansiri valley and it reverted to a jungle forming a barrier between the kingdom and the Ahom kingdom.
When a successor king, Tamradhwaj, declared independence, the Ahom king Rudra Singha deputed 2 of his generals to invade Maibong with over 71,000 troops, and destroyed its forts in 1706. Tamardhwaj fled to Jaintia Kingdom where he got treacherously imprisoned by the King of Jaintia Kingdom, after his imprisonment he sent messengers to the Assam king for help, in response Rudra Singha deputed his generals with over 43,000 troops to invade Jaintia kingdom. The Jaintia king was captured and taken to the court of Rudra Singha where the Jaintia king submitted and the territories of the Dimasa Kingdom and Jaintia kingdom got annexed to the Ahom kingdom.
State structure
Kacharis had three ruling clans (semfongs): Bodosa (an old historical clan), Thaosengsa (the clan to which the kings belonged), and Hasyungsa (to which the kings relatives belonged).
The king at Maibang was assisted in his state duties by a council of ministers (Patra and Bhandari), led by a chief called Barbhandari. These and other state offices were manned by people of the Dimasa group, who were not necessarily Hinduized. There were about 40 clans called Sengphong of the Dimasa people, each of which sent a representative to the royal assembly called Mel, a powerful institution that could elect a king. The representatives sat in the Mel mandap (Council Hall) according to the status of the Sengphong and which provided a counterfoil to royal powers.
Over time, the Sengphongs developed a hierarchical structure with five royal Sengphongs though most of the kings belonged to the Hacengha (Hasnusa) clan. Some of the clans provided specialized services to the state ministers, ambassadors, storekeepers, court writers, and other bureaucrats and ultimately developed into professional groups, e.g. Songyasa (king's cooks), Nablaisa (fishermen).
By the 17th century, the Dimasa Kachari rule extended into the plains of Cachar. The plains people did not participate in the courts of the Dimasa Kachari king directly. They were organized according to khels, and the king provided justice and collected revenue via an official called the Uzir. Though the plains people did not participate in the Dimasa Kachari royal court, the Dharmadhi guru and other Brahmins in the court cast a considerable influence, especially with the beginning of the 18th century.
At Khaspur
In the medieval era, after the fall of Kamarupa kingdom the region of Khaspur was originally a part of the Tripura Kingdom, which was taken over by Koch king Chilarai in the 16th century. The region was ruled by a tributary ruler, Kamalnarayana, the brother of king Chilarai. Around 18th century Bhima Singha, the last Koch ruler of Khaspur, didn't have any male heir. His daughter, Kanchani, married Laxmichandra, the Dimasa prince of Maibang kingdom. And once the last Koch king Bhima Singha died the Dimasas migrated to Khaspur, thus merging the two kingdoms into one as Kachari kingdom under the king Gopichandranarayan, as the control of the Khaspur kingdom went to the ruler of the Maibong kingdom as inheritance from the royal marriage and established their capital in Khaspur, near present-day Silchar. The independent rule of the Khaspur's Koch rulers ended in 1745 when it merged with the Kachari kingdom. Khaspur is a corrupted form of the word Kochpur. Gopichandranarayan (r.1745-1757), Harichandra (r.1757-1772) and Laxmichandra (r.1772-1773) were brothers and ruled the kingdom in succession. In 1790, a formal act of conversion took place and Gopichandranarayan and his brother Laxmichandranarayan were proclaimed to be Hindus of the Kshatriya caste.
During the reign of Krishnachandra (1790 - 1813), a number of Moamarias rebels took shelter in the Cachar state. The Ahoms blamed the Dimasa for providing refuge to the rebels and this led to a number of small skirmishes between the Ahoms and the Dimasas from 1803 to 1805.
The King of Manipur sought the help of Krishna Chandra Dwaja Narayan Hasnu Kachari against the Burmese Army. The King Krishna Chandra defeated Burmese in the war and in lieu was offered the Manipuri Princess Induprabha. As he was already married to Rani Chandraprabha, he asked the princess to be married to his younger brother Govinda Chandra Hasnu.
Sanskritization
The fictitious but widely believed legend that was constructed by the Hindu Brahmins at Khaspur goes as follows: During their exile, the Pandavas came to the Kachari Kingdom where Bhima fell in love with Hidimbi (sister of Hidimba). Bhima married princess Hidimbi according to the Gandharva system and a son was born to princess Hidimbi, named Ghatotkacha. He ruled the Kachari Kingdom for many decades. Thereafter, kings of his lineage ruled over the vast land of the "Dilao" river ( which translates to "long river" in English), now known as Brahmaputra River for centuries until 4th century AD.
British occupation
The Dimasa Kachari kingdom came under Burmese occupation in the late early 19th-century along with the Ahom kingdom. The last king, Govinda Chandra Hasnu, was restored by the British after the Yandabo Treaty in 1826, but he was unable to subjugate Senapati Tularam who ruled the hilly regions. Senapati Tularam Thaosen domain was Mahur River and the Naga Hills in the south, the Doyang River on the west, the Dhansiri River on the east and Jamuna and Doyang in the north. In 1830, Govinda Chandra Hasnu died. In 1832, Senapoti Tularam Thaosen was pensioned off and his region was annexed by the British to ultimately become the North Cachar district; and in 1833, Govinda Chandra's domain was also annexed to become the Cachar district.
After Raja Govinda Chandra
In The British annexed the Dimasa Kachari Kingdom under the doctrine of lapse. At the time of British annexation, the kingdom consisted of parts of Nagaon and Karbi Anglong; North Cachar (Dima Hasao), Cachar and the Jiri frontier of Manipur.
Rulers and Kings
Notes
References
Kingdoms of Assam | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimasa%20Kingdom |
Sir James Stansfeld, (; 5 March 182017 February 1898) was a British Radical and Liberal politician and social reformer who served as Under-Secretary of State for India (1866), Financial Secretary to the Treasury (1869–71) and President of the Poor Law Board (1871) before being appointed the first President of the Local Government Board (1871–74 and 1886).
Background
Stansfeld was born at Akeds Road, Halifax, the only son of James Stansfeld Sr (1792–1872) and his wife Emma Ralph (1793–1851), daughter of John Ralph (d.1795), minister of the Northgate-End Unitarian chapel, Halifax and his wife, Dorothy (1754–1824).
Stansfeld's father, James Sr, was the sixth son of David Stansfield (1755–1818) of Hope Hall, Halifax, and his wife Sarah Wolrich (1757–1824), daughter of Thomas Wolrich (1719–91) of Armley House, Leeds. He was a descendant of the Stansfeld family of Stansfield and Sowerby, Yorkshire, and a distant cousin of the politician William Crompton-Stansfield and the soldiers James Rawdon Stansfeld, Thomas Wolryche Stansfeld and John R. E. Stansfeld.
James Sr was originally a member of a firm of solicitors, Stansfeld & Craven, and subsequently served as a county court judge in the Halifax district; he was the last solicitor on the bench in a century. James Stansfeld Jr's sister, Mary (d.1885), married the Liberal MP George Dixon.
Education
Brought up as a nonconformist, Stansfeld was in 1837 sent to University College, London, and graduated BA in 1840 and LLB in 1844. He was admitted a student of the Middle Temple on 31 October 1840, and was called to the bar on 26 January 1849; he does not seem, however, to have practised as a barrister, and later in life derived his income mainly from a brewery at Fulham.
On 27 July 1844, Stansfeld married Caroline, second daughter of William Henry Ashurst, a radical and friend of Giuseppe Mazzini, to whom Stansfeld was introduced in 1847: they became close. Stansfeld also sympathised with the Chartist movement, even if Feargus O'Connor denounced him. He took an active part in propagating radical opinions in the north of England, frequently spoke at meetings of the Northern Reform Union, and was one of the promoters of the association for the repeal of "taxes on knowledge".
Political career
In 1859, Stansfeld was returned to Parliament as a Radical member for Halifax, which he continued to represent for over thirty-six years. He voted consistently on the Radical side, but his chief energies were devoted to promoting the cause of Italian unity. He was selected by Giuseppe Garibaldi as his adviser when the Italian patriot visited England in 1862. In 1863, he moved in the House of Commons a resolution of sympathy with the Poles.
Stansfeld became Civil Lord of the Admiralty in April 1863. In 1864, as the result of charges made against him by the French authorities, in connection with Greco's conspiracy against Napoleon III, Disraeli, in the House of Commons, accused him of "being in correspondence with the assassins of Europe." Stansfeld was vigorously defended by John Bright and William Edward Forster, and his explanation was accepted as quite satisfactory by Palmerston. Nevertheless, he only escaped a vote of censure by ten votes, and accordingly resigned office in April 1864.
In 1865, he was re-elected for Halifax, and became the seventh Under-Secretary of State for India in February 1866 (until July) under Lord Russell. He served in Gladstone's first administration (1868)–74) as a third Lord of the Treasury between December 1868 and November 1869, as Financial Secretary to the Treasury between 2 November 1869 and 17 March 1871, and as the twelfth and last President of the Poor Law Board (with a seat in the cabinet) from March to August 1871, before being appointed the first President of the Local Government Board, on 19 August 1871, a post he held until the Liberals lost power in February 1874. He was sworn of the Privy Council in February 1869.
The remainder of his life was mainly spent in endeavouring to secure the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, and in 1886 this objective was attained. He did not serve in Gladstone's second administration (1880–5), and declined the twice-repeated offer of the Deputy Speakership. He later returned to government in Gladstone's third administration on 3 April 1886, when he again became President of the Local Government Board. However, the government fell in July of the same year. Stansfeld did not serve in Gladstone's last administration (1892)–5) and refused a peerage. However, before Lord Rosebery left office in June 1895, Stansfeld was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in the 1895 Birthday Honours. He retired as MP for Halifax in the same month.
Personal life
Stansfeld married Caroline, second daughter of William Henry Ashurst, on 27 July 1844. Their son was the barrister-at-law Joseph James Stansfeld (b. 1852). After his wife's death, on 22 June 1887, Stansfeld married his second wife, Frances, widow of Henry Augustus Severn of Sydney.
Stansfeld died, aged 77, at his residence, Castle Hill, Rotherfield, Sussex, on 17 February 1898, and was buried at Rotherfield on 22 February 1898.
Ancestry
See also
William Crompton-Stansfield
Field House, Sowerby
Dunninald Castle
References
Attribution
External links
1820 births
1898 deaths
Stansfeld family
People from Halifax, West Yorkshire
Members of the Middle Temple
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath
Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
UK MPs 1859–1865
UK MPs 1865–1868
UK MPs 1868–1874
UK MPs 1874–1880
UK MPs 1880–1885
UK MPs 1885–1886
UK MPs 1886–1892
UK MPs 1892–1895
People from Rotherfield
Lords of the Admiralty | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James%20Stansfeld |
Alexander Adams Wilson (29 October 1908 – 16 March 1971) was a Scottish footballer who played as a goalkeeper, mainly for Greenock Morton and Arsenal.
Career
Wilson was born in Wishaw, Lanarkshire. After starting at Overtown Athletic as a junior player, he joined Greenock Morton in January 1928. He spent six seasons at the 'Ton, and was in the side that won promotion to Scottish Division One in 1928–29.
In May 1933 he was signed by Arsenal, initially as cover for Frank Moss. He made his debut against Aston Villa on 10 March 1934 after Moss picked up an injury; Arsenal won 3–2. Wilson remained a fringe player in his first two seasons for Arsenal, playing only fifteen times, including the last nine games of the 1934–35 season after Moss dislocated his shoulder – although Arsenal won the First Division, Wilson did not qualify for a medal.
Moss's injury did not heal and Wilson found himself as the Gunners' No. 1 throughout the 1935–36 season; he played 43 matches that season and kept goal in that season's FA Cup final against Sheffield United, which Arsenal won 1–0 thanks to a Ted Drake goal. However, Wilson's performances were not strong enough for manager George Allison's liking, and Arsenal signed not one but two goalkeepers that summer, George Swindin and Frank Boulton.
Wilson only played two matches in 1936–37, and ten in 1937–38 – in which Arsenal won the title again, but Wilson again missed out on a medal. He looked to have become the club's third-choice goalkeeper; nevertheless he stayed on, and after Boulton was sold in 1938 Wilson and Swindin shared the goalkeeper's jersey for 1938–39, with both men playing in 22 matches that season.
World War II then intervened, and competitive football was halted. Wilson returned to Scotland in 1939, joining St Mirren. In all he played 90 matches for Arsenal. He later had a brief spell at Brighton and Hove Albion, playing a single Third Division South match in 1947–48.
After retiring from playing, Wilson pursued a career as a trainer and physiotherapist, starting out at Brighton before going to work for Birmingham City, Sunderland and Blackpool, as well as Kent County Cricket Club. He emigrated to the United States in 1967 and worked as a physio for the Boston Beacons of the NASL. He died in March 1971, aged 62.
References
Sources
1908 births
1971 deaths
Scottish men's footballers
Men's association football goalkeepers
Association football coaches
Greenock Morton F.C. players
Arsenal F.C. players
St Mirren F.C. players
Footballers from Wishaw
Scottish Junior Football Association players
Scottish Football League players
English Football League players
Brighton & Hove Albion F.C. players
Brighton & Hove Albion F.C. non-playing staff
Birmingham City F.C. non-playing staff
Sunderland A.F.C. non-playing staff
Blackpool F.C. non-playing staff
Scottish emigrants to the United States | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex%20Wilson%20%28footballer%2C%20born%201908%29 |
See also
Florida
List of municipalities in Florida
List of former municipalities in Florida
List of counties in Florida
List of census-designated places in Florida
References
USGS Fips55 database | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20places%20in%20Florida%3A%20E |
f
See also
Florida
List of municipalities in Florida
List of former municipalities in Florida
List of counties in Florida
List of census-designated places in Florida
References
USGS Fips55 database | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20places%20in%20Florida%3A%20F |
Helena Pilejczyk (née Majcher; born 1 April 1931) is a Polish speed skater. Pilejczyk was the Olympic bronze medal winner in the 1,500 m in Squaw Valley (1960). Her first appearance at the Polish national Championships speed skating was in 1953, while the last time she could be seen skating internationally was during the masters games of 2002, where she competed in the category for female skaters 70 years and above.
She achieved 40 Polish skating records and won 37 Polish titles for distance, allround and relay race events.
Results
Personal records
References
Notes
Bibliography
Eng, Trond and Koolhaas, Marnix. National All Time & Encyclopedia, Men/Ladies as at 1.7.1986. Issue No.5 "Eastern Europe". Degernes, Norway: WSSSA-Skøytenytt, 1986.
Żemantowski, Jacek. Lyżwiarski Jubileusz: 80 lat Polski Związek Lyżwiarstwa Szybkiego. Warszawa, Poland: PZLS, 2001.
Zieleśkiewicz, Władysław. Encyklopedia sportów zimowych. Warszawa, Poland: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 2001. .
External links
Helena Pilejczyk at mosir.elblag.eu
1931 births
Living people
Polish female speed skaters
Olympic speed skaters for Poland
Olympic bronze medalists for Poland
Speed skaters at the 1960 Winter Olympics
Speed skaters at the 1964 Winter Olympics
Olympic medalists in speed skating
People from Żuromin County
Medalists at the 1960 Winter Olympics
Knights of the Order of Polonia Restituta
Sportspeople from Masovian Voivodeship | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helena%20Pilejczyk |
See also
Florida
List of municipalities in Florida
List of former municipalities in Florida
List of counties in Florida
List of census-designated places in Florida
References
USGS Fips55 database | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20places%20in%20Florida%3A%20G |
Chaffey, created in 1936, is a single-member electoral district for the South Australian House of Assembly. It covers the Riverland region of South Australia including the towns of Renmark, Berri, Barmera, Loxton and Waikerie. The seat is named after brothers George and William Chaffey who established the irrigation area along the Murray River from 1886.
Chaffey spent most of the Playmander era in the hands of independent William MacGillivray. The Liberal and Country League did not win it until 1956. Chaffey was won three times by Labor's Reg Curren as their most marginal electorate on a two-party-preferred basis – in 1962 on 50.1%, 1965 on 50.7% and 1970 on 50.2%. Curren's 1965 victory helped put Labor in government in 1965 after 33 years in opposition, while his loss to the LCL's Peter Arnold was one of two Labor losses that returned the LCL to government in 1968. Curren reclaimed it for Labor during his party's 1970 landslide victory after the end of the Playmander, only to lose it back to Arnold in 1973. At the 1975 election, Arnold picked up a massive 13.5 percent swing, and Labor has never come close to winning it since. Chaffey was one of several rural electorates where Labor suffered large swings in 1975; Labor suffered a swing of 15.5 percent in Mount Gambier and a 16.4 percent in Millicent.
Chaffey remained in the hands of the LCL and its successor, the Liberal Party, until 1997 when Karlene Maywald narrowly won it for the SA Nationals. Maywald picked up a large swing in 2002, boosting her two-candidate preferred vote to 64 percent. She held the electorate without serious difficulty until she was defeated in 2010 by Liberal Tim Whetstone, who still holds the seat.
Members for Chaffey
Election results
Notes
References
ECSA profile for Chaffey: 2018
ABC profile for Chaffey: 2018
Poll Bludger profile for Chaffey: 2018
Electoral districts of South Australia
Riverland
1938 establishments in Australia | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral%20district%20of%20Chaffey |
See also
Florida
List of municipalities in Florida
List of former municipalities in Florida
List of counties in Florida
List of census-designated places in Florida
References
USGS Fips55 database | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20places%20in%20Florida%3A%20H |
Sipho Mchunu (born 1951, Kranskop, South Africa) is best known for his work in the band Juluka from the 1970s to the 1980s.
Mchunu's compositions, vocals and guitar work brought Zulu folk styles such as maskanda and mbaqanga to a wider audience both in South Africa and internationally.
Along with his work with Juluka he has also released three solo maskanda albums.
Discography
Juluka
Studio albums
1979 Universal Men
1981 African Litany
1982 Ubuhle Bemvelo
1982 Scatterlings
1983 Work For All
1984 Stand Your Ground (Juluka album)
1984 Musa Ukungilandela
1984 The International Tracks
1997 Crocodile Love (released in South Africa as Ya Vuka Inkunzi)
Live albums
1986 Juluka Live: The Good Hope Concerts
1992 South Africa 9: Johnny Clegg & Sipho Mchunu (Duo Juluka) + Ladysmith Black Mambazo: Cologne Zulu Festival (recorded 1977 & 1981)
Collections
1991 The Best of Juluka
1996 Putumayo Presents A Johnny Clegg & Juluka Collection
Solo albums
1989 Yithi Esavimba
1990 Umhlaba uzobuya
2021 Selula
References
1951 births
Living people
Anti-apartheid activists
South African musicians
Juluka members
Maskanda musicians | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sipho%20Mchunu |
Sabri Kaliç (May 19, 1966 in Izmir, Turkey – September 23, 2012 in Izmir) is a Turkish film director, experimental filmmaker, writer and translator.
After receiving his BFA in film directing from the Dokuz Eylül University in Izmir, he moved to Istanbul in 1992. Having worked with Turkish film director Sinan Çetin as an assistant for a while, he made his TV film debut with Midnight Hitchhiker in 1995. He also translated screenplays from English, including that of Trainspotting.
Filmography
A Fassbinder Lie – 1987 (1/24 second {1 frame!}, 16 mm., b/w), supposedly the world's shortest film
PO"y"EM – 1987 (4 seconds, 16 mm., b/w)
Not The Longest Film You Will Ever See, But... – 1987 (1 second, 16 mm., b/w)
59" – 1987 (59 seconds, 16 mm., b/w)
Bolero – 1990 (17 min., VHS, color)
Das ist Eine Video-Kunst – 1991 (13 min., VHS, color)
Keine Kunst Bitte – 1991 (9 min., VHS, color)
Douche Opera – 1992 (5 min., VHS, color)
Midnight Hitchhiker – 1995 (87 min, BETACAM, color)
The Spider Web – 1998 (92 min., BETACAM, color)
Sabri Kaliç : CV- 2000 (27 min., BETACAM, color)
Midnight Stories – 2000 (85 min., BETACAM, color)
Non – 2002 (no color, no format)
Stories From Beyond – 2005 (62 min., BETACAM, color)
Stories From Beyond -II – 2005 (59 min., BETACAM, color)
Awards
1987 Ankara Film Festival Invitation
1992 Adana Student Films Festival Invitation
1992 A Concise History of Experimental Film – Turkish Ministry of Culture "Cinema Book of the Year" Award
1996 Moths Towards The Fire – Turkish Ministry of Culture "Script of the Year" Award
1996 Spaghetti With Yogurt – Orhon Murat Ariburnu "Best Film Story" Award
2005 Meta-Film Award – Experimental Film Award delivered by Meta-Film Underground, Holland
2010 The Monk and The Butterfly – Screenplay Writing Fund for the film story
References
1966 births
2012 deaths
People from İzmir
Turkish film directors
Turkish film producers
Turkish writers | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabri%20Kali%C3%A7 |
Pyotr Bochkaryov (; born November 3, 1967) is a retired Russian pole vaulter. He won the European Indoor Championships twice, setting an indoor personal best in 1994 with 5.90 metres. This remained the championship record until Renaud Lavillenie cleared 6.03 m in 2011. He placed 5th at the 1996 Summer Olympics with a jump of 5.86 m, his best outdoor result apart from a 5.90 m jump in a city square competition at Karlskrona.
Achievements
References
External links
Sports Reference
European Indoor Championships
1967 births
Living people
Russian male pole vaulters
Soviet male pole vaulters
Olympic athletes for Russia
Athletes (track and field) at the 1996 Summer Olympics
Universiade medalists in athletics (track and field)
Universiade bronze medalists for the Soviet Union
Medalists at the 1991 Summer Universiade | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyotr%20Bochkaryov |
Finland is Christian majority country, with Islam being a minority faith. The constitution of Finland ensures freedom of religion and Muslims are free to proselytize and build places of worship in the country.
The first Muslims were Tatars who immigrated mainly between 1870 and 1920. Since the late 20th century the number of Muslims in Finland has increased due to immigration. Nowadays, there are dozens of Islamic communities in Finland, but only a minority of Muslims have joined them. According to the Finland official census (2021), there are 20,876 people in Finland belonging to registered Muslim communities, representing 0.37% of the total population. However, majority of Muslims in Finland do not belong to any registered communities. It is estimated that there are between 120,000 and 130,000 Muslims in Finland (2.3%).
Baltic Tatars
The Baltic Tatars arrived in Finland as merchants and soldiers at the end of the 19th century. They were adherents of Sunni Islam and spoke one of the Turkic languages. They were later joined by other family members and formed the first Islamic congregation, the Finnish Islamic Association (), which was founded in 1925, after Finland declared its full independence (1917). The year 1922 was when a law on religious freedom was passed. In practice, this society only accepts people from Tatar origin, or Turkic origin in general, as members, excluding non-Turkic speaking Muslims. The Finnish Tatars's Islamic congregations have a total of about 1,000 members these days. By and large, Tatars remained the only Muslims in Finland until the start of the 1960s.
Modern immigration
By the early 1980s, several hundred Muslims predominantly from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) had immigrated as students, laborers and spouses. In 1987 they formed the association.
Due to the number of immigrants and refugees, the number of Muslims in Finland rose considerably in the early 1990s, predominantly they were from the aforementioned MENA countries as well as Somalia and the Balkans. Soon new immigrants established their own mosques and societies. In 1996 these groups came together to form a cooperative organ - the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Finland. It is estimated that approximately 1,000 Finns have converted to Islam. The vast majority of these are women who have married Muslim men.
By 2003, the number of Muslims had increased to 20 000 and there were about 30 mosques. The majority of Muslims were Sunni as well as some Shia refugees from Iraq.
Like most countries in Western Europe, Muslims tend to live in the larger cities of Finland like Helsinki, Tampere, Oulu and Turku.
Hundreds of Muslim asylum seekers and refugees from Iraq and Afghanistan convert to Christianity after having had their first asylum application rejected by the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri), in order to re-apply for asylum on the grounds of religious persecution.
In 2018, the Minister of Justice Antti Häkkänen ruled out the use of Islamic law in Finland.
Islamic societies
There are dozens of independent Islamic societies in Finland. The oldest one is Finnish Islamic Association which was established in 1925. It has about 700 members of whom all are Tatars. The society has mosques in Helsinki, Tampere and Lahti. The only building established only as mosque in Finland is Järvenpää Mosque.
The Islamic Society of Finland was established in 1987. Its members are mainly Arabs, but also Finnish converts. The society has a mosque and Koran school in Helsinki. The Helsinki Islamic Center is currently the biggest society with almost 2,000 members. Furthermore, there are a dozen other Islamic societies in Helsinki region, some of them are not officially registered.
Most of mosques are multilingual, but the most commonly used languages are usually English and Finnish. Religious services are held in Arabic.
Demographics
The population of Muslims in Finland from 2008 to 2018, according to the Statistics Finland:
Muslim majority ethnic groups by language
Numbers are based on the Statistics Finland (language, 2019).
Arabic language (30,467)
Somali language (20,997)
Kurdish language (14,327)
Persian language (12,090)
Albanian language (10,391)
Turkish language (7,739)
Bengali language (3,599)
Urdu language (2,983)
Bosnian language (2,322)
Punjabi language (1,028)
Chechen language (636)
Uzbek language (604)
Indonesian language (589)
Azerbaijani language (467)
Turkmen language (447)
Total: 102,696
Terrorism and radicalisation
The ICCT report from April 2016 showed that at least 70 individuals had left Finland to enter the conflict zone and the majority joined jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq. They started leaving in the 2012-13 time span and the male-female ratio was about 80-20%.
The first terrorist attack in Finland was the 2017 Turku attack where Abderrahman Bouanane, a failed asylum seeker from Morocco, stabbed two women to death and wounded eight other people in his stabbing attack.
Islamic militants constituted the majority of those under surveillance by the Finnish Security Intelligence Service (SUPO) in 2020 and Finland is portrayed as an enemy state in Islamic State propaganda. The militant Islamist networks in Finland are multiethnic and span across generations, where the third generation of a number of Muslim immigrant families are radicalised. This leads to Muslim children growing up in a radicalized environment. The Foreign fighters in the Syrian and Iraqi Civil Wars movement has amplified transnational contacts for the Islamist movements in Finland. A number of militants have arrived from the conflict zone in Syria and the Al-Hawl refugee camp and constitute both a short and long term security threat.
Gallery
See also
Turks in Finland
Finnish Islamic Party
History of Islam in the Arctic and Subarctic regions
Islam in Sweden
References
External links
Report on Islam: Finnish Islam arises slowly (in Finnish).
Finnish Islamic Congregation (in Finnish).
Some of the mosques in Finland (map) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam%20in%20Finland |
Varenne (foaled in Copparo, Italy, 19 May 1995) is a dark bay racing trotter by Waikiki Beach out of Ialmaz by Zebu.
Varenne is considered to be the best trotter of all time. No other trotter has won so many of the most important races in the world and set as many records as Varenne.
Overview
According to several veterinarians, Varenne would never race due to a leg malformation. His first owner bought him for $6000, but because of his perceived handicap (chip) sold him after the first race, considering him to have no future as a race horse.
Varenne won 62 races (53 GPs-major races) at 11 distances (from 0,99 mile to 1,708 miles), while finishing second six times and third twice from 73 career starts. He earned US$8,750,000 (€6,035,665), a harness-racing record. Varenne holds the record as the most widely traveled horse in the history of horse racing, winning in 7 countries and on two continents.
He is the sole European trotter to win the Breeders Crown (2001) in the US, where he set the world speed record ( 1 mile in 1.51.1 - average per kilometer 1.09.1). It was the first time he competed at the distance of 1 mile.
Another historical victory took place at the World Cup 2002 in Vincennes, where Varenne won even though the wheel of the sulky was broken, setting the world speed record of 2100 metres (unbeaten record 1.10.8 average per kilometer - track 1 kilometer).
In Finland on 14 July 2002, in "St. Michel Race" (Mikkeli), in front of 27,000 spectators, Varenne established the world speed record of 1.09.3 on 1000 metres tracks (includes 3 turns in comparison to American one-mile tracks with just two turns). This was his only race in Finland, the home country of his trainer, Jori Turja and keeper, Miss Iina Rastas. The owner of Varenne had earlier promised Turja that he could take Varenne to race in Finland once.
In May 2002 in the Elitlopp, Varenne won in a world record time of 1:53.1 in the elimination and then bested that mark by winning the final in 1:53 – the fastest mile so far (until St. Michel in Finland in July 2002) trotted around three turns (unbeaten record).
He is the first foreign horse to win the Horse of the Year award in the U.S and the only foreign horse to win the Horse of the Year award in France, as well as the only horse to win Horse of the Year in 3 different countries, all in the same year (2001).
Varenne has established numerous track records on various racetracks. He won the Prix d'Amérique twice (2001–2002), considered to be the most difficult race in harness racing (2700 meters / 1.708 miles - 18 starters).
His most prestigious victories include the Prix d'Amérique, Elitloppet, Gran Premio della Lotteria and Breeders Crown. He is the only horse to win the most important races in the same year (2001).
Varenne won prestigious races around the world, beating champions including Moni Maker (3 times), Magician (1 time), Général du Pommeau (4 times), Fan Idole (5 times), Victory Tilly (4 times), Viking Kronos (1 time), Fool's Goal (1 time), Dream Vacation (2 times), Plesac (1 time).
In 2010, Varenne was inducted into the Harness Racing Museum & Hall of Fame in New York, an honor typically restricted to American horses only.
In May 2011, Kanal 75, the Swedish company that broadcasts harness racing on TV4 Sport in Sweden, asked 38 international media to name the best horse of all time. Varenne came out on top.
Known in Italy as "Il Capitano" (the Captain), he was the only animal in history with a press office staff. Thousands of gadgets, T-shirts and hats were produced in his name. For a number of months, the Italian cities were covered with giant posters depicting Varenne, and millions of Italians followed his victories on live television. His vet called him an "intelligent horse with incredible patience.”
Varenne also raised money for disabled children. The proceeds of his 2002 victory at the “Premio Mario Locatelli” went entirely to charity for the Carlo Gnocchi Italian center. These proceeds helped complete the project on "Cascina Linterno" in Milan that provided a range of services for people with disabilities, including an equestrian facility for the rehabilitation of people with physical and mental disabilities, through horse therapy.
Early life
Varenne, the offspring of American stallion Waikiki Beach and Italian mare Ialmaz, was born at Zenzalino horse breeding centre in Copparo, Italy, on May 19, 1995. The foal was named after the street Rue de Varenne, where the Italian embassy in Paris is located. Breeder of Varenne - Jean-Pierre Dubois, a successful French horseman - brought him to Normandy, France. After the stay in France, Varenne returned to Italy.
Racing career
1998
As a three-year-old, Varenne began his racing career in Premio Primavalle in Bologna on April 4. His driver was his early trainer, Swedish Roger Grundin, but Varenne was disqualified. The second attempt was more successful. With Italian driver Giampaolo Minnucci, Varenne won Premio Mirtillo at Tor di Valle, Rome, on April 30. In October, he won the Italian trotting derby (Italian: Derby Italiano del Trotto), which was his most lucrative victory until Prix d'Amérique in early 2001. Varenne ended 1998 by finishing third in Gran Premio Orsi Mangelli. In his first year on the track, he won 8 of 12 races.
In 1998, Dubois sold his share in Varenne to Italian stockbroker Vincenzo "Enzo" Giordano for €50,000. Varenne also switched trainera to Finnish-born and Italy-based Jori Turja. Turja, as well as driver Minnucci, remained Varenne's partner for the remainder of the horse's career.
1999
In 1999, Varenne had a perfect record: 14 wins out of 14 starts. He won Gran Premio d'Europa, Gran Premio Tino Triossi and Gran Premio Continentale, all major races in his native Italy. In the fall of that year, the stallion for the first time raced outside his home country. In October, at the Daglfing track in Munich, Germany, Varenne won Preis der Besten against older and more experienced competitors. After the win in Gran Premio delle Nazioni at San Siro, Milan, Turja and company again turned their attention abroad. On December 26, Varenne wrapped up his four-year-old season by winning Prix Ariste Hémard at Vincennes, Paris.
2000
On January 30, 2000, Varenne made his first attempt to win Prix d'Amérique at Vincennes. He finished 3rd behind French horses General du Pommeau and Galopin du Ravary.
In May, on his first try, he won Gran Premio della Lotteria, the biggest international Italian race. Later that month, he failed to win perhaps the most prestigious one-mile harness race in Europe - Elitloppet at Solvalla in Stockholm, Sweden.
18 races in 2000 meant 13 wins, including the European 5-year-old Championship, Olympiatravet, Gran Premio Giubileo and Gran Premio Gaetano Turilli. During the year, Varenne won World Cup Trot, a competition stretching over a number of races. He repeated the feat two years later.
2001
In 2001, Varenne took all of the top three aged harness events in Europe, as well as the biggest one in North America.
It started with a victory in Prix d'Amérique on January 28. Varenne took the lead early in the race and maintained that position all the way. After a couple of smaller wins, he again took Gran Premio della Lotteria in Naples on May 6. Three weeks later, he defeated the reigning champion in Elitloppet, Victory Tilly, although he was parked for most of the race. Varenne suffered his only loss of the year to Jackhammer in Gran Premio U.N.I.R.E in Milan. After returning to his winning ways in Elite-Rennen at Gelsenkirchen, Germany, Varenne crossed the Atlantic for his first journey to North America.
The first stop was Meadowlands Racetrack, New Jersey, and the biggest aged harness event in North America: the $1 million Breeders Crown Open Trot on July 28. After Varenne's sweep of the three greatest European races (he was the first horse to accomplish this in 34 years) the expectations were enormous. The competition consisted of some of the best American trotters, e.g. Dream Vacation, Plesac, Fool's Goal, and Magician. Varenne advanced to the lead, but Minnucci let John Campbell and Dream Vacation overtake them. Varenne was then parked outside Dream Vacation, and in the stretch, he left the opponents far behind. The winning margin was 4 ½ lengths, and with the time of 1:51.1m (European way of timing: 1:09.1m km rate), Varenne beat Self Possessed's one-mile world record by two tenths of a second.
After the success, Varenne was intended to race at Meadowlands again, this time in the Nat Ray Trot. This was nit the case, and he did not make an appearance until September 22, when he won the Trot Mondial in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. In December, Varenne rounded off the year with two wins in Italy. Out of the 14 races Varenne and Minnucci participated in, they were victorious in 13.
2002
In 2001, Varenne was the first horse in 34 years to win the Prix d'Amérique, Gran Premio della Lotteria, and Elitloppet in the same year. In 2002, he became the first to win the triple two years in a row.
Varenne took the lead at an early stage in Prix d'Amérique in 2002 and grabbed the second biggest prize cheque of his career: €400,000. In Gran Premio Mario Locatelli at San Siro, Milan, for the first time since his debut, Varenne was driven by a driver other than Minnucci. Finnish Jorma Kontio was chosen and won. After wins in Gran Premio Mario Locatelli, Grand Criterium de Vitesse and Olympiatravet, Varenne and Minnucci beat the event record in Gran Premio della Lotteria with the time of 1:10.8 (km rate).
Elitloppet on May 26 meant another defended title and another event record (1:10.2 km rate). Thereafter, the people around Varenne focused their attention to the World Cup Trot. If one horse won all five legs of the world cup, a massive bonus (€1 million) would be paid. The first leg was Gran Premio U.N.I.R.E, the second leg was Hugo Åbergs Memorial at Jägersro in Malmö, Sweden, the third leg was Jubileumspokalen at Solvalla, Stockholm, and the fourth leg was Coupe du Monde de Trot at Vincennes, Paris. Varenne and Minnucci won all of these races. In between, Varenne won the St. Michel Race in Mikkeli, Finland. With the time 1:09.3 (km rate), he set a new world record on a 1000m track, a record that stood for 10 years. Combined with the world record set in the Breeders Crown the previous year, Varenne was the world record holder on a mile track as well as on a 1000m track.
Before Trot Mondial in Montreal, reports appeared, saying the up-coming race would be Varenne's last. The event took place on September 28, 2002. Varenne and Minnucci faced, among others, American Fool's Goal and French mare Fan Idole. Varenne had the lead but was passed by Fan Idole in the stretch and finished second. After the race, Varenne was disqualified for running inside the pylons. Before the race, it seemed, according to Varenne's groom Iina Rastas, that Fan Idole got taken with Varenne. When Fan Idole in 2004 was retired from racing, Varenne was chosen to be her first stud.
Despite rumours of a comeback, Trot Mondial was Varenne's last race. He ended his career by being disqualified, just as he had started it almost four and half years earlier, the only two races he finished outside the money. The 15 races and 14 wins in 2002 took Varennes' tally up to 62 career victories, 6 seconds, and 2 thirds from 73 starts. With US$5,919,961 (€6,035,665) earned, Varenne is the richest trotter ever.
Awards and recognition
Varenne was named the Horse of the Year in Italy 2000, 2001, and 2002 and received the same award in France in 2001, 2002, and in USA 2001. Harness Racing Museum & Hall of Fame in New York.
Career as a sire
From 2003, when Varenne started his breeding career, until 2008, he stood at Allevamento Il Grifone in his homeland Italy. His first foal, delivered by the mare Vendee on January 5, 2004, was a colt named Icaro del Ronco. During the four years at Allevamento Il Grifone, Varenne sired between 126 and 168 foals per year. Among the offspring born 2004-2005 are Swedish star mare Lie Detector (SEK 4 886 131) with several wins in classic races to her name. Italian mare Lana Del Rio has won a number of Group 1 races, e.g. Gran Premio Nazionale. Lord Capar (Sweden/Italy) and Southwind Serena (USA) are two other successful trotters sired by Varenne. In 2008, Varenne was moved to Menhammar Stuteri outside Stockholm, Sweden, where Varenne's stands for c. €750 (insemination) + €15,000 (live foal). Menhammar veterinarian Johan Hellander, claims that Varenne is "a marvellous stud stallion" that "does exactly what you ask him to" and that Varenne's service would be more expensive if he were not so fertile.
Pedigree
Varenne is inbred 3x3 to Speedy Crown, meaning that the stallion appears twice in the third generation of his pedigree. He is also inbred 4x4x4 to Star's Pride.
See also
List of historical horses
References
External links
Varenne's website
1995 racehorse births
Italian Standardbred racehorses
Racehorses trained in Italy
Racehorses bred in Italy
Harness racing in France
Harness racing in Italy
United States Harness Racing Hall of Fame inductees
Elitlopp winners | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varenne |
Boy Kill Boy were an English rock band based in Leytonstone, East London. The band produced two studio albums and six singles before splitting in 2008. Their highest charting single was "Suzie", which reached #17 in the UK singles chart in 2006.
History
Before forming Boy Kill Boy, Chris Peck, Pete Carr and Shaz Mahmood were in a band called Future of Junior and produced a few songs including a track called "Miss Scandinavia". In May 2005, Boy Kill Boy released their debut single "Suzie" for record label Fierce Panda. In the summer the band opened the Radio 1 stage on Sunday/Friday of the 2005 Reading and Leeds Festivals. Their second single followed later that year through Fallout Records, a subsidiary of Island Records. "Civil Sin" was featured as Zane Lowe's "Hottest Track In The World Today".
In 2005, Boy Kill Boy signed to Vertigo Records. In 2006, the single "Back Again" reached No. 26 in the UK Singles Chart, which earned them a slot on Top of the Pops, and the re-release of "Suzie" reached No. 17. Their debut album Civilian was released in the UK on 22 May 2006 and entered the UK Albums Chart at No. 16. The album was released in North America on 25 July 2006, where it reached No. 11 on Billboard's Top Heatseekers chart.
In May 2005, the band stepped in to replace Nine Black Alps on the NME New Music Tour 2005 after the band's frontman Sam Forrest caught the mumps. Boy Kill Boy had only been billed to play one support slot on the tour but ended up playing numerous extra slots supporting Maxïmo Park, The Cribs and The Rakes. They returned the following year as headliners for NME's New Bands Tour 2006, supported by The Automatic, ¡Forward, Russia!, and The Long Blondes. Boy Kill Boy's "Suzie", was US iTunes Single of The Week in March 2006, this was followed with a US tour supporting The Charlatans and Echo & the Bunnymen.
Boy Kill Boy opened the Radio 1 / NME stage at Reading and Leeds Festival in 2005, and returned in 2006 to play higher up the bill. In October 2006 the band played an extensive UK Headline tour. On 7 November 2006, they supported Feeder for one of their dates in aid of War Child at the Camden Roundhouse. This was also in conjunction with the "Shoot Me Down" single, released for the charity.
In 2006 the band performed a cover of Nelly Furtado's "Maneater" for BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge.
The Fierce Panda release of "Suzie" appeared on the soundtrack of the street football video game FIFA Street 2, released in winter 2006 by Electronic Arts. "Civil Sin" appeared on the soundtrack to the FIFA 07 football video game. Also, their single "Back Again" appears in the Test Drive Unlimited videogame.
Boy Kill Boy recorded their second album in Los Angeles with Oasis producer Dave Sardy, and returned with the limited edition single "No Conversation" on 5 November 2007. The album, entitled Stars and the Sea, was released on 31 March 2008. However, the album failed to repeat the success of their debut, and rumours of a split began surfacing. On 12 October 2008, Boy Kill Boy confirmed this via an announcement on their MySpace site.
Singer Chris Peck subsequently started a new project and, on 11 January 2011, posted a video clip on YouTube for a new song called "Riversong". Peter Carr went on to play keyboards in singer-songwriter Marina and the Diamond's backing band.
The band briefly reformed for two gigs at Oslo, Hackney, London, on 19 November 2016 and 25 November 2016.
Members
Chris Peck (lead vocals, guitar)
Kevin Chase (bass guitar, vocals)
Peter Carr (keyboards)
Shaz Mahmood (drums)
Discography
Studio albums
Singles
References
External links
Boy Kill Boy.com
Official Boy Kill Boy Myspace
Official Site @ Island Records (USA)
English indie rock groups
Musical groups from the London Borough of Waltham Forest
English pop music groups
Musical groups established in 2004
Sony Music Publishing artists
Island Records artists
Vertigo Records artists
Musical groups disestablished in 2008
Universal Music Group artists | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy%20Kill%20Boy |
The Empire Supporters Club, or ESC, is one of the oldest supporters clubs in Major League Soccer and the largest supporters club dedicated to the New York Red Bulls of Major League Soccer.
History
The club was founded in 1995 by members of the New York City Firm (NYCF), a supporters group for the short-lived A-League New York Centaurs, in anticipation of a Major League Soccer franchise starting play in the New York/New Jersey metro area. To reflect the initial franchise name, Empire Soccer Club, the supporters chose to name themselves the Empire Supporters Club. By the start of the inaugural year the team owners had elected to call the team the New York/New Jersey MetroStars.
Since its founding, the variety of backgrounds amongst club members has influenced the style of the group in the stands. The end result is a mix of South American Barra, European Ultra, British Supporter and American flavor with the members singing in both English and Spanish.
Prior to New York Red Bulls home matches in the past, the ESC tailgate took place in parking lot 16-A at Giants Stadium. Starting in the 2010 season, the official game day pub of the club is El Pastor Restaurant in Newark, NJ. During games, supporters stood in section 101 of Giants Stadium, directly above the player's entrance tunnel, and supported the club with songs and chants. Section 101 is also where the ESC now stands at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, NJ. 101 is the middle of 3 sections composing the supporters end known as the "South Ward."
In addition to its base membership, the ESC acts as an umbrella organization for a variety of smaller groups, including a revived NYCF, Sparta Metro Firm, MDS, Cobra Kai Metro Firm, La Banda Imperial, Hub City Hooligans, Metro Ultras. The Red Bulls' two other largest supporters groups, Garden State Supporters and the Viking Army, can trace their roots back to the ESC as well. It is not uncommon for members of the ESC to hold dual memberships with any of the other Red Bulls supporter clubs. Many of these same supporters have joined independent US men's national team supporters clubs like the North Jersey Brigade, Sam's Army and the American Outlaws.
For most away games and US men's national team games, the ESC organizes viewing parties, usually at the Football Factory in Legends in New York City. The club also handles away ticketing and transportation for many away matches (particularly matches against neighboring teams New England Revolution, D.C. United, New York City FC, and the Philadelphia Union franchise).
On April 15, 2023, the club - alongside fellow supporters groups Viking Army and Torcida 96 - voted for and staged a walkout at Red Bull Arena at the start of a match against Houston Dynamo. The groups protested the actions of New York forward Dante Vanzeir, who was suspended six games after uttering a racial slur during a game on April 8 against the San Jose Earthquakes, as well as manager Gerhard Struber, who insisted on keeping the player in the match after the incident. The club voted to protest from within the stadium for the next home game on May 6, after which they returned to usual operations following Struber's firing.
Songs
The ESC has performed hundreds of chants throughout the years. The ESC chants in both English and Spanish because of the large number of Spanish speakers in the group. Popular English songs include "We Love You", "As Long As I'm Breathing", "Everywhere We Go", "I Believe", and "No Cojones". Popular Spanish songs include "Soy del Metro" (also the supporters' Motto), "Baila Hinchada Baila", "Ole Ole Ola", "El Que no Salta" and "Metro, Mi Buen Amigo". Covers of songs such as The Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated" are also included, though personalized for the support. To maintain cohesion, most chants are started by designated supporters in the section, leading the club in song when needed.
With the building of the team's own stadium, Red Bull Arena, the supporters have become much closer to the general public, in both communication and proximity. Sitting mere feet from the goal, and surrounded on all sides by unaffiliated fans, the club is able to encourage, and often lead, the surrounding crowds in song. The atmosphere the club helps create is improved in the arena as sound carries much more under the roof as compared to Giants Stadium.
Philanthropy
With the team's new arena and a local restaurant acting as supporters' home, the Empire Supporters Club has begun reaching out to the community by hosting or participating in charity events.
From 2009 to 2011 the club played in the Downtown United Soccer Club's annual supporter's club charity soccer tournament in support of the City Soccer Initiative.
In August 2010 the club used its home venue at El Pastor in Newark to host a fundraiser for Joe Vide, an ex-player diagnosed with cancer.
February 2011, a month before the start of the 2011 MLS season, saw the ESC men's soccer team play in the inaugural South Ward Football Challenge, winning the Spanish Pavilion Cup. The tournament saw teams representing the ESC, Garden State Supporters, Viking Army supporters and NY Red Bull front office play for the cup and bring in both cash and equipment donations for Balls Without Borders and the U.S. Soccer Foundation. 2012 saw the return of the South Ward Football Challenge with the ESC team defending its title and helping, along with the other participating teams, to raise money for the Harrison Housing Authority.
See also
Raging Bull Nation
References
External links
ESC official website
New York Observer Article
Major League Soccer fan clubs
New York Red Bulls
Ultras groups
1995 establishments in New Jersey | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire%20Supporters%20Club |
Cynthia Holden Enloe (born July 16, 1938) is an American political theorist, feminist writer, and professor. She is best known for her work on gender and militarism and for her contributions to the field of feminist international relations. She has also influenced the field of feminist political geography, with feminist geopolitics in particular.
Biography
Cynthia Enloe was born in New York City and grew up in Manhasset, Long Island, a New York suburb. Her father was from Missouri and went to medical school in Germany from 1933 to 1936. Her mother went to Mills College and married Cynthia's father upon graduation.
After completing her undergraduate education at Connecticut College in 1960, she went on to earn an M.A. in 1963 and a Ph.D. in 1967 in political science at the University of California, Berkeley. While at Berkeley, Enloe was the first woman ever to be a Head TA for Aaron Wildavsky, then an up-and-coming star in the field of American Politics. For much of her professional life she taught at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. At Clark, Enloe served as Chair of the Department of Political Science and as Director of Women's Studies. She also served on the university's Committee on Personnel and its Planning and Budget Review Committee. Enloe was awarded Clark University's Outstanding Teacher Award on three separate occasions.
At the beginning of her career, Enloe mainly focused on studying ethnic and racial politics. She completed her dissertation in Malaysia on a Fulbright Scholarship from 1965-1966. There, she researched the country's ethnic politics. Ten years after receiving her PhD, Enloe had written six books on the subject of ethnical tensions and its role in politics, however she had yet to look at any of these subjects from a feminist angle; something she admits she is “embarrassed of.” It wasn't until she first began teaching at Clark University, in the middle of the U.S.-Vietnam war, that Enloe really began to develop her feminist thought. Enloe spoke with a colleague at Clark, the only man on the faculty who was a veteran, about his experiences during the Vietnam war. He mentioned that Vietnamese women were hired by American soldiers to do their laundry. She began to wonder how history would be different if the entire war had been told through the eyes of these Vietnamese women.
Ever since, Enloe's work has primarily focused upon how feminist and gendered politics have shaped the national and international conversations. Enloe focuses on the unfair treatment of women in globalized factory and the many ways in which women are exploited for their labor. She also critiques global as well as U.S. militarization, specifically the roles women play in combat. Enloe isn't afraid to address security from a feminist perspective. She argues that the U.S. military model trains men to be the protectors of women and then produces an environment in which women are the victims of physical violence. One of Enloe's many contributions to feminist writings has been her coining of the term “feminist curiosity.” It came about in 2003 when Enloe was giving a talk at Ochanomizu University, a historic women's university in Tokyo. She has said that she wanted to come up with a phrase that she felt could be understood in both English and Japanese as her lecture was being translated for those who attended. Enloe created this idea of “feminist curiosity” as a way of saying that feminism is about the questions you ask, not just the answers you give.
Having retired from Clark, Enloe is a research professor in the Department of International Development, Community, and Environment and is still a frequent and energetic lecturer. In addition to serving on the editorial board for scholarly journals such as Signs and the International Feminist Journal of Politics, Cynthia Enloe has written fifteen books, mostly published by the University of California Press. Much of Enloe's research centers on women's place in national and international politics. Her books cover a wide range of issues encompassing gender-based discrimination as well as racial, ethnic, and national identities. She is also a member of the academic network of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
Enloe states that she has been influenced by many other feminists who use an ethnographic approach, specifically, Seung-Kyung Kim's (1997) work on South Korean women factory workers during the pro-democracy campaign and Anne Allison's (1994) work on observing corporate businessmen's interactions with hostesses in a Tokyo drinking club. Enloe has also listed Diane Singerman, Purnima Mankekar, and Cathy Lutz as people who have inspired and influenced her work. When asked how Enloe defines feminism for herself, she stated that "Feminism is the pursuit of deep, deep justice for women in ways that change the behaviors of both women and men, and really change our notions of what justice looks like." She has been awarded Honorary Doctorates by prestigious universities such as Union College (2005), the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies (2009), Connecticut College (2010), the University of Lund, Sweden (2012) and Clark University (2014).
She currently lives in Boston with partner Joni Seager.
Publications
Bananas, Beaches and Bases
Bananas, Beaches, and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics (first published in 1990, with a revised edition published in 2014) presents sexism as a prevalent issue and gives readers a look at the history of such commonplace components of the modern world as the tourism industry. Enloe displays the links between women of different cultures during the 1800s. Enloe discusses colonialism in light of the typically held perceptions of the masculine West and the feminine East. Discussing women from varied cultures, Enloe investigates how Muslim women, among others, felt compelled to validate their cultural practices in the face of Orientalism. This book argues that lack of understanding of foreign cultures and fascination with the differences in clothing and lifestyles of indigenous and colonial populations contributed to their continued subjugation.
Bananas Beaches and Bases conveys the issues that feminist movements face because of nationalism and socially instilled masculinity after years of Western colonialism. International politics have worked against feminist movements because of the long lasting influences of colonialism. The antiquated ideas of colonialism have complicated the goals of the feminist cause. Colonialism encouraged Western countries to believe they were superior to non Western countries, ultimately leading to Western men believing they were superior to women. During Western colonialism women were treated as sexual symbols of exploration, postcards specifically. Westerner exploration and tourism went hand in hand with the exploitation of women.
Women who were invested in the ideas of nationalism were not valued as valid participants. Additionally, women wearing veils became a question of nationalism. European colonizers saw the veil in Muslim countries as a symbol of female seclusion. Then arose the question of whether Muslim women should demonstrate their commitment to the nationalist cause by wearing the veil or throwing it away.
Bananas Beaches and Bases reinforces the fact that masculinity has been used to create a patriarchal system, leading to male dominance over women. Militarization during wartime has reinforced masculinized social order. The war in Vietnam which re-masculinized America serves as an example of how gender and warfare became intertwined through specific gender roles during war.
In her writing, Enloe uses Afghanistan as an example of how national militarization was harmful towards women trying to establish a presence in nationalist movements. Afghani women living in rural communities were caught in war and were in danger of bombings or exile. The militarization in Afghanistan emphasized the importance of unity and “national survival”, this emphasis silenced women in the nationalist movements. National militarization benefited men and oppressed women who were seeking to change the patriarchal structure in place. The enforcement of world order through militarization consequently reinforced the influences of masculinity, further challenging feminist efforts to equalize society.
Enloe continues to illustrate the struggle that feminist movements face in international politics through the domestic service industry. Enloe states that “domestic work is international business with political implications.” During the Industrial Revolution, female domestic workers were in high demand because middle class women believed they needed to protect their own femininity from manual labor. From the time of the Industrial Revolution to modern day, female domestic workers have faced the challenges of being treated as subordinate to the middle class. Female domestic workers continue to have the responsibility of providing for family abroad while facing increasingly strict immigration laws and restrictions from the International Monetary Fund.
Bananas Beaches and Bases illustrates how feminist movements have been at a disadvantage because of colonial influences and patriarchal driven societal structures. These colonial influences have cause women to be viewed as sexual objects, disregarded as part of nationalist movements and looked down upon in the domestic service industry. Enloe brings to light the idea that in order for feminist movements to succeed we must support organizations seeking rights for women along with ridding the world of the obsolete colonialist thought in which men run the world. Through Bananas, Beaches and Bases the public is able to better understand the dynamics of sexual politics.
"No commentator has done more than Cynthia Enloe to explore the numerous roles that ordinary women play in the international system and global political economy -- as industrial and domestic workers; activists; diplomats and soldiers; wives of diplomats and soldiers; sex workers; and much else besides," wrote Adam Jones in his review of Maneuvers in the journal Contemporary Politics.
In Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women's Lives Enloe elaborates upon the theme of militarization and how governments utilize women's labor in the process of preparing for and fighting wars.
The Curious Feminist
In The Curious Feminist: Searching for Women in the New Age of Empire (2004) Enloe pays particular attention to the effect of globalization on women's labor and wage ratios. This book not only addresses women's roles in economic markets, world conflicts, and power politics, but also shows Enloe's particular interest in linking these themes to women's everyday lives. She addresses themes similar to those in Bananas, Beaches and Bases, but in this book she also discusses how she became interested in becoming a feminist. She asserts that curiosity as a feminist means that no woman's life should be beyond the scope of her interest. She also focuses on the influence of American culture on women of other nations and scrutinizes the masculine aspects of such well-established organizations as the United Nations and the American military. Among other things, she explains that, though she views violence as fundamentally masculine, she does not view only men as perpetrators of violence.
"Gender Is Not Enough: The Need for Feminist Consciousness"
In "Gender Is Not Enough: The Need for Feminist Consciousness" (2004), Enloe reviews previous conversations with colleagues and fellow feminists, regarding masculinity and international relations. It is mentioned that women are generally disengaged in the UN's wartime peace process of "DDR": disarmament, demobilization and reintegration. Enloe comments on a recent meeting she attended pertaining to 'gender and small arms trade', and how attempts to focus the UN gathering on masculinity had been largely unsuccessful. The matter of international relations and masculinity is addressed, and with that, the concern of masculinity of peacemaking efforts in relation to security. Conversation about the politics of masculinity is quickly dismissed by delegates, suggesting the fear of having their masculinity – and therefore reputation in the world of international relations – examined. As important as it is to address the dynamics of masculinity in politics and specifically in international relations, it is also crucial not to neglect the women and girls. When masculinity is given proper thought, it seems the topic of feminism becomes non-existent. The invisibility of women in military measures and the political disregard for the needs and ideas of women and girls are highlighted and given proper context. Enloe discusses the question of serious feminist analysis in international relations. Two potential fears arise from this question; first, thought of one's own relationship to masculinity is necessary when deciding what is deemed a "serious" issue; and second, the potential to be seen as feminine based on one's judgment of said "serious" issue and therefore the possibility of being valued as less credible. Enloe warns the issues of letting masculinity and men override all aspects of international relations. She speaks of her own difficulties with writing candidly about women and the military and her fears of not being recognized as a legitimate political scientist because of her particular views. The stigma behind feminist thought in international relations needs to be reviewed and resolved. Enloe makes very clear that there is still an immense need for the study of masculinity in international relations and political economy. In order to better develop the international relations discipline, it is imperative that 'gender' be given a broader scope. In order to do so, there must be a feminist consciousness throughout the international relations community, as well as at the local level. A feminist consciousness will instill the education and interest in women and girls through their experiences, actions and ideas. Enloe finishes by reminding that without a proper feminist consciousness; we cannot fully comprehend or accurately analyze masculinity.
Nimo's War, Emma's War: Making Feminist Sense of the Iraq War
Unlike Enloe's previous books, Nimo's War, Emma's War: Making Feminist Sense of the Iraq War (2010) looks at how war itself is a cataclysm that disrupts countless lives. In this particular book, Cynthia Enloe solely focuses on capturing the impact of war and revolution on women during the Iraq War. The book looks at eight ordinary women, half Iraqis and half American, and all these women reflect different ideas about feminism through looking into their lives in detail. Importantly, Enloe does not only focus on the female half of this gender-driven phenomenon, but she also looks at their male counterpart in order to further investigate and provide an insight between the consequences of war and the effects on gender roles.
"Maha's Story" talks about an Iraqi woman who, as well as many others, found themselves in a situation where their husband is either dead, divorced, detained, or missing, with children to care for, no social safety nets, meager finances, and no working papers. Maha finds herself caught in between an ethnic cleansing which Enloe terms, "the wielding of violence and intimidation for the sake of driving people of one ethnic or sectarian community out of a region...for the sake of securing that space for members of another ethnic or sectarian community."
"Kim's Story" reveals how gender and war affect each other on the other side of the world in the United States, whether or not one is actual place of war or away from it. Kim is a young American woman married to a National Guard soldier who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her story shows that their nation's state of war is dependent on wives playing certain roles. In the United States, "women who married active-duty, full-time American soldiers had been socialized to perform the demanding role of 'the military wife' ... each woman needed to be persuaded that she was most helpful and loyal to her own husband if she organized her labor and emotions in a way that enhanced the military as a whole." Yet when the men comes home, there are stories that are untold. The American media are reluctant to pursue stories of domestic violence against women whose husbands are involved with the military largely because it is too great of a business risk during wartime. The blame for this neglect and decision to treat male domestic violence as a nonissue is on the entire military's masculinized culture.
Selected other writings
The Big Push: Exposing and Challenging the Persistence of Patriarchy, Oakland, University of California Press, 2018.
Contributor, International Relations Theory for the Twenty-First Century, Martin Griffiths, ed., USA: Routledge, 2007
"Conversation with Cynthia Enloe," in Signs. Summer, 2003.
"The Surprised Feminist," in Signs. Vol. 25, No. 4 (Summer 2000) 1023-1026.
The Morning After: Sexual Politics at the End of the Cold War, Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1993 (published in Japanese, 1999); new ed. Berkeley & London, University of California Press, 2000 (published in Turkish, 2003).
Does Khaki Become You? The Militarization of Women's Lives, London, Pandora Press; San Francisco, Harper\Collins, 1988 (editions have been published in Finnish and Swedish).
Ethnic Conflict and Political Development, Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1973 (repr. University Press of America, 1986).
Coeditor (with Wendy Chapkis) Of Common Cloth: Women in the Global Textile Industry, Amsterdam: Transnational Institute; Washington: Institute for Policy Studies, 1983.
Contributor, Loaded Questions: Women in Militaries, Wendy Chapkis, ed., Amsterdam: Transnational Institute; Washington: Institute for Policy Studies, 1981.
Ethnic Soldiers: State Security in Divided Societies, London: Penguin Books, 1980; Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1980.
Police, Military, Ethnicity: Foundations of State Power, New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1980.
Coeditor (with Dewitt Ellinwood), Ethnicity and the Military in Asia, New Brunswick: Transition Books, 1980.
Coauthor (with Guy Pauker and Frank Golay), Diversity and Development in Southeast Asia: The Coming Decade, New York: McGraw-Hill and Council of Foreign Relations, 1977.
Coeditor (with Ursula Semin-Panzer), The Military, The Police and Domestic Order: British and Third World Experiences, London: Richardson Institute for Conflict and Peace Research, 1976.
The Comparative Politics of Pollution, New York: Longman's, 1975.
Multi-Ethnic Politics: The Case of Malaysia, Berkeley Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1970.
Editorial board of the Journal of Women, Politics & Policy.
Critiques of writings
Bananas, Beaches and Bases would be considered Enloe's best-known work. It links various feminist issues regarding international relations throughout prior periods in time and throughout different cultures and places them at the forefront of discussion. In The Journal of Politics Karen Beckwith writes: "Enloe poses an initially simple question which leads to complex if necessarily partial conclusions: What happens to our international understanding of politics if we make the experience of women's lives central to our analysis?" Beckwith later states, "Her analysis is clear, complex, amusing demystifying, accessible, and insightful." In The American Political Science Review Anne Sisson Runyan writes: “Bananas, Beaches, and Bases offers a refreshing, insightful, and critical departure from conventional, top-down treatments of international politics.” Runyan later states, “At a time when there is a need to explore the complex interplay of cultural, social, economic, and political forces in the face of the bankruptcy of modernist and masculinist ideologies, orders, and institutions as well as the enormity of global problems, this contemporary feminist reading of world politics makes eminent sense.” In The Journal of the History of Sexuality Manju Parikh writes, “Enloe's analysis is not only a timely contribution but also entertaining reading, which is a welcome addition to supplement the usual dry textbooks in the field.” Enloe also incorporates class and ethnicity into the shaping of women's behavior and our understanding of international relations as well. In Contemporary Sociology Kathryn Ward writes, "When seen from the everyday perspective of poor women of color, who are at the heart of our analyses, women's central roles in the world economic and political system become very clear, in contrast with past theories of the world economic and political system that have focused on the activities of white, elite men.” Ward later states, “Such analyses may disturb some who are invested in past theories or who are uncomfortable with activism. However, I would argue, as does Enloe, that some of our most insightful and compelling analyses and theories will come from decentering past theories and looking at experiences, ideas, and emerging theories by activist women of color from around the world."
In Does Khaki Become You? The Militarization of Women's Lives, Enloe addresses the impact of militarization on gender relations and the social status of women. In The Journal of Peace Research Veena Gill writes, "In the context of militarism, [Enloe] analyzes the different roles of women from a social and economic perspective as army wives, nurses, prostitutes, soldiers, workers in defense and allied industries, and from the point of view of feminism. The military institution is exposed as a powerful patriarchal institution which women are urged to resist in their overall efforts towards social justice and equal status."
In Maneuvers; the International Politics of Militarizing Women's Lives, Enloe expands on her themes from Does Khaki Become You. She emphasizes the different experiences of women located in varied ethnic, national, class, and occupational contexts and how they are tailored to the needs of militarism, therefore embedding themselves in policy. In The American Political Science Review Mary Fainsod Katzenstein writes, "Those already among Enloe's wide readership will know some of this text's central arguments, but Maneuvers offers a trove of new insights. A thesis even more powerfully developed here than in Enloe's earlier writings is the title of the book—how policymakers maneuver to make strategic choices." Katzenstein later states, "Maneuvers has more than a functionalist lesson; by emphasizing policy choices and variability across time and national context, Enloe shows that militaries are not governed by primeval identities."
Honors and recognition
Fulbright awards to Malaysia and Guyana
Guest professorships in Japan, Britain and Canada
“Outstanding Teacher”, Clark University (3 times)
Fellow of the Harvard Radcliffe Institute (2000–2001)
Honorary Doctorate, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (2009).
The Susan B. Northcutt Award, Women's Caucus for International Studies, International Studies Association, to recognize "a person who actively works toward recruiting and advancing women and other minorities in the profession, and whose spirit is inclusive, generous and conscientious." (2008)
The Susan Strange Award, International Studies Association, for "a person whose singular intellect, assertiveness, and insight most challenge conventional wisdom and organizational complacency in the international studies community during the previous year." (2007)
See also
Feminism in international relations
Betty Reardon
Elise M. Boulding
References
Further reading
Enloe, Cynthia. "When Berkeley was 'Berkeley': Learning That One’s Grad Studies Are Never Outside of History" H-DIPLO (11 March 2020) online
"Interview – Cynthia Enloe," E-INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, MAR 13 2013
"Theory Talk #48: Cynthia Enloe" Tuesday, May 22, 2012
"An Interview with Cynthia Enloe: The Gendered Dynamics of Foreign Policy", Praxis: The Fletcher Journal of Human Security, VOLUME XXIV – 2009,
Stephanie Van Hook, "Taking women's lives seriously — an interview with Cynthia Enloe" September 13, 2012. Wagingnonviolence.com,
Video: Interview with Cynthia Enloe at the Graduate Institute in Geneva in 2012
Kathy E. Ferguson, "Reading Militarism and Gender with Cynthia Enloe," Theory & Event, Volume 5, Issue 4, 2001,
Carol Cohn and Cynthia Enloe, "A Conversation with Cynthia Enloe: Feminists Look at Masculinity and the Men Who Wage War," Signs, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Summer 2003): 1187–1107
Cynthia Enloe's Report from The Syrian Peace Talks, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, January 30, 2014
Robin L. Riley, The Women's War (Review of Nimo's War, Emma's War: Making Feminist Sense of the Iraq War By Cynthia Enloe)
University of California Press, 2010 in Ms. Magazine, Spring 2010
Research Profile for Cynthia Enloe Clark University website (accessed March 27, 2007).
External links
Papers, 1977-1984. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
Interview at British International Studies Association
1938 births
Living people
American feminist writers
American political philosophers
Clark University faculty
Connecticut College alumni
University of California, Berkeley alumni
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American women writers
21st-century American women writers
Women political scientists
American women academics | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia%20Enloe |
Treorchy Comprehensive School is an English language, comprehensive school in the village of Treorchy, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales. The school is situated on the southern side of the valley, and is 500 metres in length from the main gate on Conway Road, Cwmparc, to the rear gate at Tylecoch Bridge, Treorchy.
Pupils who are identified as being proficient in Welsh will study RE, History, PE, PSHE and Geography through the medium of Welsh at KS3. At KS4, first language Welsh is offered at GCSE.
History
Formerly the site of the Tylecoch Colliery, Treorchy Comprehensive School began as the Upper Rhondda School and opened in 1965. In 1970 the school became a fully comprehensive school which could accommodate over 1,800 pupils taught by over 100 teachers. Subjects included English, Maths, General Science, French, Welsh, Geography, History, Physical Education, Art, Woodwork, Music and Religious Knowledge.
The aim of the school is to satisfy the social and academic needs of children in the Upper Rhondda. The curriculum offers opportunities to study subjects in which pupils have a particular interest and aptitude. Pupils are placed in broad ability bands based on assessments from Primary schools they have attended. The school now serves 22 Primary Schools, 8 of which are in the catchment area and 3 of which are first language Welsh schools.
Facilities
The school contains a number of facilities, including I.T. suites spread across the school, sporting facilities, three canteens providing hot and cold foods, a swimming pool and drama and music suites.
Courses
Treorchy Comprehensive follows the basic English S.A.T. and GCSE Curriculum. It offers French and Spanish as modern foreign languages, and Welsh and English as compulsory subjects for all pre-A level students.
Key Stage 3
The average Key Stage 3 pupil studies a maximum of 16 subjects taken from the National Curriculum, including English, Maths, Sciences, a modern foreign language, humanities, compulsory physical education, compulsory religious education, and compulsory Welsh. According to the last Estyn report, in 2006, the school achieves Key Stage 3 results just above the national average.
Courses
At Key Stage 4, students are offered to choose their own courses, which will be cut to 10 different courses, spread across a fortnightly timetable. The subjects from Key Stage 3 are offered at GCSE, GNVQ and BTEC levels. Compulsory P.E. and compulsory R.E. become 'short course' options, while students are offered the chance to study them as a 'full course' equal to a full GCSE. New courses are also offered at this level including Health and Social Studies, Leisure and Tourism, Media and Film Studies and Business and Communications Studies. The school has achieved an A*-G pass rate of over 90% since 2005.
A.S./A-2 A-Level Courses
A-level students are offered a range of courses to choose from. This range expands much more on the previous two key stages, and adds new subjects also. The student may choose a maximum of 5 or a minimum of 2 courses. The school is one of the few in the Rhondda that does not need pupils to travel to other schools to receive an A-level course. In 2007, the school began a compulsory Welsh Baccalaureate qualification for Sixth Form pupils. Other new courses on offer to pupils in the Sixth Form include Politics, Psychology, and Law and Electronics, as well as vocational subjects such as Hairdressing in the school's on site salon.
Extra-curricular activities
The school supports extra-curricular activity offers a wide variety of clubs and activities for pupils. These range from orchestra to rugby. The activities include:
The Arts
The school annually hosts performing arts events. As well as concerts in school, junior productions, the annual "Back To Broadway" performance and the Christmas concert, senior pupils perform a musical annually at the Parc & Dare Theatre. The performances are listed below:
2020 - Our House
2019 - The Wedding Singer
2018 - Anything Goes
2017 - Fiddler on the Roof
2016 - Les Misérables
2015 - Singin' in the Rain
2014 - West Side Story
2013 - Miss Saigon
2012 - Phantom Of The Opera
2011 - We Will Rock You
2010 - Guys & Dolls
2009 - Jekyll & Hyde
2008 - Les Misérables
2007 - My Fair Lady
2006 - Calamity Jane
2005 - Carousel
The following activities take place daily within the school:
Drama Club
School Junior & Senior Brass Band
School Junior & Senior Choir
School Junior & Senior Orchestra
Various School Shows in the Parc and Dare Theatre
Sports
Rugby
Football
Basketball
Netball
Cricket
Rounders
Athletics
Gymnastics
Circuit training
Badminton
Dance
Hockey
Swimming
Sixth Form Activities
Sign Language
Reading Support
Buddy Program
Sixth Form Council
School-wide
Student Council
Conservation Club
Combined Cadet Force (CCF)
Notable former pupils
Arts
Brad Evans - author and political philosopher
Callum Scott Howells – actor, singer, and television personality
Rachel Trezise – author
Ian Watkins – West End Performer, and former member of the pop band Steps
Wes Packer – Stand-up comedian.
Business
Amanda Blanc – chief executive officer of Aviva
Sport
Andrew Bishop – Former professional Rugby Union Player for Wales and Ospreys
David Bishop – Former professional Rugby Union Player for Ospreys, Sale Sharks, Edinburgh and Jersey.
Gemma Evans – Football player for Wales, Cardiff City Ladies and Yeovil Town
Ethan Lewis – Rugby Union Player for Cardiff Blues
Jayne Ludlow – Former professional Football Player for Wales and Arsenal now coach for Wales women.
Lou Reed – Former professional Rugby Union player for the Scarlets
Gary Powell – Former professional Rugby Union Player for the Cardiff Blues
Tomos Williams – Professional Rugby Union Player for Wales and Cardiff Blues
Classes
At KS3 (years 7 and 8 at the school) most pupils are divided into one of several mixed ability classes. There is also one class for pupils with complex additional learning needs. Each class is assigned a colour. Pupils stay in these classes for both years. Pupils regularly complete assessments in all subjects.
At the start of KS4 pupils are separated into one of two bands based on their maths, English and science abilities (determined throughout KS3). The band reflects whether a pupil will study for the Double Award Science GCSE (T band) or the three Triple Science GCSEs (P band). Pupils begin their KS4 studies in year 9 and complete them at the end of year 11.
Pupils begin their KS5 studies in year 12 and complete them at the end of year 13.
References
Secondary schools in Rhondda Cynon Taf
Educational institutions established in 1965
1965 establishments in Wales
Treorchy | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treorchy%20Comprehensive%20School |
Bouvard is the second southernmost suburb of Mandurah, Western Australia, and is south of the state capital, Perth. Its local government area is the City of Mandurah.
History
Bouvard is named after Cape Bouvard some to the west, which was named by Nicolas Baudin, who sighted the cape en route to Rottnest Island from what is now Bunbury in 1802-1803, either after Charles Bouvard (1572-1658), a French chemist, or Alexis Bouvard (1767-1843), an astronomer and director of Paris Observatory.
The Park Ridge estate was developed in the 1990s, and other estates have been built or proposed. Bouvard Coastcare, a volunteer group dedicated to maintaining the fragile coastal and dune environment, has won awards and grants for its work.
Geography
Bouvard consists of a narrow strip of land along both sides of the Old Coast Road, the main route between Mandurah and Bunbury and part of National Highway 1, between Yalgorup National Park and the Harvey Estuary. The western part consists of sparsely populated rural residential land with large lots separated by bushland buffers, while the eastern part follows more traditional coastal suburban development patterns along the estuary.
At the 2011 census, Bouvard had a population of 821 people living in 483 dwellings, just under 20 percent of whom were elderly, and nearly all of whom were from Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, the Netherlands or South Africa. The 2011 figure represented an increase of 29 people from the 2006 census.
There are walking trails and a couple of small roadside shops and a fuel station along the Old Coast Road. There are schools within easy reach of Bouvard, and the nearest shopping centre is at IGA Dawesville
Transport
Selected 594 services from Mandurah Station started servicing Bouvard in May 2011, and a Transperth school bus stops at the Bouvard Tavern. Private operator South West Coach Lines stops upon request at the Bouvard Tavern on its Perth to Bunbury service operating several times a day.
Politics
Bouvard is difficult to measure as it did not have a polling place at the election, but at the 2004 federal election, the nearest polling place at Dawesville recorded a 60.59% primary vote for the centre-right Liberal Party, while at the 2005 state election, the Liberals received 43.8% of the vote compared to 36.8% for the centre-left Australian Labor Party and 9.2% for the Nationals.
References
Suburbs of Mandurah | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouvard%2C%20Western%20Australia |
Freemasons are a DJ duo from Brighton, East Sussex, England. The act consists of the producers Russell Small (who is also one half of the house production duo Phats & Small) and James Wiltshire (who also works with Phats & Small under the alias 'Jimmy Gomez').
Biography
2005–2007: Early career
Their name is taken from the Brighton pub, Freemasons Tavern, which they frequently visit. The duo also record and remix under the similar-sounding "Freemaison" name, which is also the name of their record label that was founded in 2005. Freemasons have also produced tracks under the names of Alibi, Walken, Funk Fanatics and BN3 (which is part of their hometown of Hove's postal code).
In 2005, the duo transformed Jackie Moore's 1979 #1 Billboard Hot Dance Club Play track "This Time Baby", and Tina Turner's 1999 hit "When the Heartache Is Over", into an international nightclub hit as "Love on My Mind". A #11 hit in the UK, it was also released in the United States on their U.S. label, the New York based Ultra Records.
Freemasons were also the remixers on Faith Evans' 2005 #1 Hot Dance Club Play and #4 Hot Dance Airplay hit, "Mesmerized". Their follow-up song, "Watchin'" was released in the United States in 2006 with Amanda Wilson as the lead vocalist for the track. "Watchin'" peaked at #1 on the Hot Dance Club Play and within the Top 20 of the Hot Dance Airplay chart. The third original single from Freemasons, "Rain Down Love", reached the Top 20 of the Hot Dance Airplay chart. Their fourth single (released digitally), "Nothing but a Heartache" featuring vocals from Sylvia Mason-James, was released in June 2007. Freemasons also remixed Beyoncé's original song, "Déjà Vu" in 2006 (for which they were nominated for a Grammy Award). They followed this up with further remixes of "Ring the Alarm", "Beautiful Liar" (duet with Shakira), and "Green Light". They also co-produced "The One" on Kylie Minogue's album X with Richard Stannard and remixed the song for single release in May 2008.
2007–2009: Unmixed and Shakedown 2
On 29 October 2007, Freemasons released Unmixed, an album containing unmixed versions of most of their mixes to date. As a bonus, there is a data track containing samples and a cappella versions of "Unmixed". In 2007, Freemasons worked with Kelly Rowland, to produce the remix of her single "Work", for the non-American markets. That same year they were rumored to be producing an album for Donna Summer, but the project fell through due to scheduling commitments.
The follow-up to their own version of "Uninvited", "When You Touch Me", was released in the UK on 30 June 2008. The song featured Katherine Ellis. The music video premiered in May 2008. The song entered the UK Singles Chart in June 2008 and reached its peak of #23 on 6 July.
Beyoncé's sister, Solange Knowles used the duo's production skills to create her single "I Decided" for its release in 2008.
On 15 June 2009, Freemasons released the song "Heartbreak (Make Me a Dancer)", featuring Sophie Ellis-Bextor, in the UK. The single peaked at #13 in the UK, making it their fifth Top 20 hit on the UK Singles Chart, and was a smash hit on the club charts. It had success in the European charts. X Factor 2008 winner Alexandra Burke confirmed on her official website that Freemasons had produced tracks for her debut album.
2010–present: Shakedown 3
The duo released a remix EP Summer of Pride Mix digitally on 15 August 2010 which peaked at #23 on the UK Dance Singles Chart. The single (including an edited version) was released in the UK on 5 December 2010. "Believer" features R&B singer Wynter Gordon.
In April 2012, Russell discussed with fans after a gig in Bournemouth about talk of signing a new contract on Ministry of Sound's label, to release an album in early 2013. He is quoted as saying, "It's still early days, however they have said that they will want lots of collaborations. It's something to look forward to."
Wiltshire now produces music with F9-Audio F9-audio. Small continues to DJ around the world and produce music with production partner DNO P.
Discography
Freemasons albums
Freemasons singles
Notes
Pegasus singles
Pegasus promotional singles
Remixes
Production credits
2007 "The One" - Kylie Minogue (Freemasons, R. Stannard)
2008 "I Decided, Pt. 2" - Solange (Freemasons, The Neptunes)
2010 "Bittersweet" - Sophie Ellis-Bextor (Freemasons, Biffco)
References
External links
Russell Small Music
www.freemasonsmusic.com
English house music duos
Electronic dance music duos
Male musical duos
Remixers
Musical groups from Brighton and Hove
DJs from Brighton and Hove
DJ duos
Ultra Records artists | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemasons%20%28DJs%29 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.