Split (1)

train

The full dataset viewer is not available (click to read why). Only showing a preview of the rows.

The dataset generation failed

Error code:   DatasetGenerationError
Exception:    ArrowInvalid
Message:      JSON parse error: Missing a closing quotation mark in string. in row 71
Traceback:    Traceback (most recent call last):
                File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/packaged_modules/json/json.py", line 153, in _generate_tables
                  df = pd.read_json(f, dtype_backend="pyarrow")
                File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 815, in read_json
                  return json_reader.read()
                File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1025, in read
                  obj = self._get_object_parser(self.data)
                File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1051, in _get_object_parser
                  obj = FrameParser(json, **kwargs).parse()
                File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1187, in parse
                  self._parse()
                File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1403, in _parse
                  ujson_loads(json, precise_float=self.precise_float), dtype=None
              ValueError: Trailing data
              
              During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:
              
              Traceback (most recent call last):
                File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1997, in _prepare_split_single
                  for _, table in generator:
                File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/packaged_modules/json/json.py", line 156, in _generate_tables
                  raise e
                File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/packaged_modules/json/json.py", line 130, in _generate_tables
                  pa_table = paj.read_json(
                File "pyarrow/_json.pyx", line 308, in pyarrow._json.read_json
                File "pyarrow/error.pxi", line 154, in pyarrow.lib.pyarrow_internal_check_status
                File "pyarrow/error.pxi", line 91, in pyarrow.lib.check_status
              pyarrow.lib.ArrowInvalid: JSON parse error: Missing a closing quotation mark in string. in row 71
              
              The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:
              
              Traceback (most recent call last):
                File "/src/services/worker/src/worker/job_runners/config/parquet_and_info.py", line 1529, in compute_config_parquet_and_info_response
                  parquet_operations = convert_to_parquet(builder)
                File "/src/services/worker/src/worker/job_runners/config/parquet_and_info.py", line 1154, in convert_to_parquet
                  builder.download_and_prepare(
                File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1029, in download_and_prepare
                  self._download_and_prepare(
                File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1124, in _download_and_prepare
                  self._prepare_split(split_generator, **prepare_split_kwargs)
                File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1884, in _prepare_split
                  for job_id, done, content in self._prepare_split_single(
                File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 2040, in _prepare_split_single
                  raise DatasetGenerationError("An error occurred while generating the dataset") from e
              datasets.exceptions.DatasetGenerationError: An error occurred while generating the dataset

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pred_label string	pred_label_prob float64	wiki_prob float64	text string	source string
__label__wiki	0.777131	0.777131	You are viewing THE BEATLES IN 1971, JOHN LENNON DISCUSSED THE SPLIT OF THE BAND By Beatles Magazine Posted on Wednesday, January 8, 2020 In JOHN LENNON, THE BEATLES 0 JOHN LENNON, THE BEATLES 4 John Lennon was not impressed with the Rolling Stones and thought they should split up in an incredible interview from 1971. In April 1970 it was announced the Beatles were splitting up. John had actually told the band he was leaving in September 1969, but was persuaded to keep it quiet to help the release of their album, Abbey Road. In 1971, John discussed the split of the band. At the same time, he also gave a very blunt opinion of fellow Brit superstars The Rolling Stones. Lennon was interviewed by journalist David Wigg. He said: “For me personally when you listen to the Stones music, nothing’s even happened. It’s the same old stuff goes on and on and on.”I’ve never heard anything different from them. “So I think it would be good if they broke up and made some individual music because it’s the same old hash, rehash of the same old stuff over and over again.” It’s worth pointing out that in the past few years prior to Lennon’s comments, The Rolling Stones had released some of the most iconic tracks of all time. Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Honky Tonk Woman, Brown Sugar, Sympathy For The Devil and Wild Horse were all singles between 1968v and 1971. Yet Lennon added: “Nothing personal Mick, you know I love you and Keith. I think it would do them good to split up.” Mick Jagger and Keith Richards should probably note that Lennon’s comments were doubtlessly coloured by his fervent belief at the time that the band structure and image of the Beatles had killed their creativity. He said: “In the Beatles, by the time the Beatles were at their peak we were cutting each other down to size. “We were limiting our capacity to write and perform by fitting it into some kind of format and that’s why it caused trouble.” That’s why Lennon was so insistent the band should never reform. He argued they were all much happier pursuing solo projects which, he believed, also had greater creative worth. He added: “There’s no reason why we should ever play together. Listen to the music. Would George have ever flourished like that if we’d carried on with the group? No chance. There was no room. “It’s far better music because we’re not suppressed.” in the 1971 interview, Lennon said of the ‘inevitability’ of his split from the Beatles: “I told everyone years ago, ‘I’m not going to be singing She Loves You when I’m thirty.’ “I was thirty last year and it was then when I broke the band up, or I decided to leave. I don’t know when they decided it, or whatever… That’s when it happened. I knew I wouldn’t be doing the same thing. “It just doesn’t work like that. It’s like a rugby team. Sometimes you just have to get married and leave the boys on a Saturday night. That’s just how it is.” LISTEN TO THE FULL JOHN LENNON INTERVIEW HERE VW SENDS OFF THE BEETLE WITH THE LAST MILE” SHORT FILM TRIBUTE (LET IT BE) By Beatles Magazine Posted on Monday, January 6, 2020 In THE BEATLES 0 THE BEATLES 12 The animated short is set to ‘Let it Be’ by The Beatles and features a few celebrity cameos 2019 was the final year of production for the VW Beetle. As a final send-off, VW put together an animated short film commemorating the nameplate’s contributions to pop culture over the past eight decades. This 90-second tribute, dubbed “The Last Mile,” It features cameos from Ren McCormack, Kevin Bacon, Andy Warhol, and Andy Cohen, and is set to a cover of The Beatles’ “Let it Be” performed by the Pro Musica Youth Chorus of Oak Park, Illinois. “The Beetle is easily one of the most recognizable cars in the history of automobiles,” said VW marketing VP Saad Chehab. “Honoring it properly required a medium with just as much versatility and universal appeal as the car itself.” “While we chose the classic Beetle as the star of the animation, additional campaign components in Times Square honor the latter two generations of cars and their place and presence in American culture,” Chebab said. “We are proud of our past but our eye is on the future – hence our choice of New Year’s Eve to hint at our upcoming long-range EV and the 2020 Atlas Cross Sport.” VIDEO … H E R E . GET BACK : THE BEATLES … COMING THIS FALL By Beatles Magazine Posted on Saturday, January 4, 2020 In THE BEATLES 0 THE BEATLES 5 Get Back: The Beatles Hardcover – October 15, 2020 The Beatles Get Back , the authorized story of the making of the “Let it Be” album, with exclusive photographs, transcripts of the recording sessions and more, was announced for release on 15 October 2020. Publisher: Callaway Arts & Entertainment (October 15, 2020) PRE – ORDER : USA … H E R E . UK …. H E R E . FRANCE … H E R E . GERMANY … HERE. CANADA …. H E R E. SPAIN … H E R E . EXTRACTS FROM THE BEATLES TAPES FROM THE DAVID WIGG INTERVIEWS By Beatles Magazine Posted on Saturday, January 4, 2020 In THE BEATLES 0 THE BEATLES 11 A series of separate interview are published here for the first time. They were conducted by David Wigg, a veteran Fleet Street and BBC journalist. Wigg’s interviews, offer a fascinating insight into their emotions as the band came to a discordant end. Wigg’s interviews took place between 1969, just after the release of the album Abbey Road, and 1973, by which time the band had no chance of re-forming. They were intended for broadcast on BBC Radio 1; yet George and Ringo, perhaps aware of how revelatory they were, fought through their lawyers to prevent publication. It was not until 1976 that the audio album of the interviews was finally released. John Lennon told Wigg The Beatles had been ‘disintegrating slowly’ since pivotal manager Brian Epstein had died two years earlier in 1967, leaving a vacuum in the running of their business affairs. ‘It was a slow death,’ he told Wigg. ‘It was evident in Let It Be [recorded in early 1969] . . . it was evident in The White Album [in 1968, when the group were working as individuals]. ‘When people decide to get divorced, quite often they decide amicably. But then when they can’t speak to each other without a lawyer, then there’s no communication. And it’s really lawyers that make divorces nasty.’ Lennon was speaking from experience: he had been bogged down in a difficult divorce from wife Cynthia. She found out the marriage was over when she returned to her home in Surrey to find him with Yoko Ono — who was wearing Cynthia’s dressing gown. The Beatles’ own ‘divorce’ would become equally unpleasant, even though the group, especially McCartney, did their best to paper over the cracks in their interviews. Wigg told me: ‘John and Paul were like brothers. They had an extraordinary bond. It was like a family.’ Bitter tensions had emerged over wives and girlfriends. Lennon tried to insist that Linda and Yoko weren’t to blame for the break-up. ‘How can two women split up four strong men?’ he asked Wigg. ‘It’s really lawyers that make divorces nasty. You know if there was a nice ceremony like getting married, for divorce, it would be much better.’ Meanwhile in his interview, George Harrison said the Hare Krishna movement had encouraged him to abandon drugs and alcohol. ‘As soon as I smoked pot, I gave up drinking alcohol because I realised the only reason I was drinking was to get high. ‘So I got high much easier with pot without any sickness after it. But the thing is, now, that to really have a pure state of consciousness and perception, you must have a perfectly clear mind.’ Paul McCartney didn’t trust Allen Klein and wanted Linda’s father, Lee Eastman, who ran a prestigious New York law firm, to take over. But McCartney was outvoted by the other Beatles: and soon the die was cast for the split. Paul was vindicated in the Seventies: the other three ended up suing Klein, who later served time in the U.S. for tax evasion. In his interview with Wigg, shortly after the release of Abbey Road, McCartney was clearly concerned about Klein. But he sidestepped Wigg’s questions about the American, insisting that he and the other Beatles remained in control. ‘I don’t like doing the business bit that much. But you can’t avoid it. ‘We were once a band, just a band. But then, because we were successful . . . money comes in . . . income tax has to be paid. So you can’t really help just turning into a businessman.’ McCartney also hinted that he was becoming disenchanted with The Beatles’ extraordinary fame, and the hangers-on. ‘There’s always someone who’s got an uncle or someone who wants a few bob. ‘But he suddenly becomes an uncle you’re not talking to or you’re not really friends with. You come home after a hard day’s work and you want to switch off. But sometimes there are still people outside the house, and I say, “Well, can you leave us alone because we’ve just had a baby?”’ In the later interviews, Paul is the most guarded. While their personal differences had become overwhelming, business disputes were at the heart of The Beatles’ break-up — ever since McCartney had left the group in high dudgeon in the spring of 1970. Harrison for many years he had only a token presence as a songwriter, squeezed out — he felt unfairly — by Lennon and McCartney, meaning he didn’t get a large enough share of the royalties. He was also incandescent that Harold Wilson’s Labour government was swallowing up so much of The Beatles’ earnings. (In his interview, Paul had also pointed out that although the Queen had presented The Beatles with their MBEs in 1965, ‘apparently Harold Wilson really gives you it . . . he decides who gets them’.) Harrison suggested to Wigg that he was getting tired of being a Beatle, not least because the government was taking so much of his income. His much-vaunted spiritual leanings — he introduced The Beatles to transcendental meditation, persuading them to travel to an ashram [monastery] in India in 1968 to meet the Maharishi — could give way, it seemed, to earthlier matters. He cavilled to Wigg that Britain ‘cuts its own throat’, adding: ‘The British government’s policy seems to be: grab as much as you can now because maybe it’s only gonna last another six months. It’s like, illegal to earn money . . . to keep the money you earn. So, you know, why bother working?’ John sounded equally angry about The Beatles’ apparent penury. Wigg interviewed him twice — once in 1969 shortly after his wedding to Yoko, and later in 1971, by which time the band’s split was final. ‘We earned millions,’ Lennon told Wigg, ‘but I must tell you that we got very little of it. ‘We’ve all got houses — we’ve managed to pay for them finally now, after all these years and that really only happened since Klein came in, the so-called “wolf”. ‘And there’s millions earned but we never got it. There’s lots of big companies in London . . . you just have to check them out and their connection with The Beatles and you’ll see where the money has gone. And in America, too, everybody connected with us is a millionaire, except The Beatles. George and Ringo are practically penniless.’ So, in July 1970, Starr talked to Wigg fondly about the group, realising they would never return to the studio together. ‘We’re all still good pals and we’re all good players . . . we’ve always really been friends. I mean, we’ve had our little niggles. There’s that famous old saying: you’ll always hurt the one you love.’ Starr’s mood became reflective. ‘It’s just that, we’re men now, you know. We’re a bit older than those lads that started out. It doesn’t matter, you know, what people say. ‘You can’t live all your life by what they want. We can’t go on for ever as four clean little mop-tops, playing She Loves You.’ The Beatles never did play She Loves You — or any of their other songs — together again. Lennon disappeared with Yoko to New York, McCartney and Linda set about raising their family in the countryside, first in Scotland and subsequently in East Sussex, where McCartney still has a farm and recording studio. Harrison settled in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, with wife Olivia. He died of lung cancer in 2001. Starr went to Los Angeles. Throughout the 1970s, all four Beatles continued with solo projects, with varying degrees of success. To date, as a group, they have sold 600 million albums worldwide. McCartney alone is worth almost £1billion; Ringo has a net worth of about £300million. At the time of the Wigg interviews, it’s clear none of The Beatles had any real sense of their likely longevity and influence. Of the four, Lennon had perhaps the most insight and perception. Yet sometimes that insight deserted him. Asked by Wigg about his own mortality, he said he was convinced he’d live to an old age, only because he was with Yoko. ‘I’m not afraid of dying. I am prepared for death, because I don’t believe in it,’ he said. ‘I think it’s just getting out of one car and into another.’ By Beatles Magazine Posted on Wednesday, January 1, 2020 In THE BEATLES 0 THE BEATLES 2 HAPPY NEW YEAR 2020 ! Here’s hoping that the New Year is in every way complete: With HAPPINESS, SUCCESS, GOOD HEALTH and all that makes LIFE SWEET…. #THEBEATLES ! Thanks goes to all the followers, readers, Beatle people and friends. #HAPPYNEWYEAR from, BEATLES MAGAZINE🇬🇧 #JOHNLENNON #PAULMCCARTNEY #GEORGEHARRISON #RINGOSTARR JENNIFER JUNIPER: A JOURNEY BEYOND THE MUSE, NEW BOOK BY JENNIFER BOYD By Beatles Magazine Posted on Tuesday, December 31, 2019 In THE BEATLES 0 THE BEATLES 5 Jenny Boyd’s extraordinary life is the stuff of movies and novels, a story of incredible people and places experienced at a pivotal time in the 20th century. As an up-and-coming young model, Jenny found herself at the heart of Carnaby Street in London, immersed in the fashion and pop culture of the Swinging 60s. With boyfriend Mick Fleetwood, sister Pattie, George Harrison and the rest of the Beatles, she lived the London scene. But as a natural Flower Child, Jenny soon became part of the counter-culture in San Francisco during the Flower Power era, witnessing the Summer of Love; she was the inspiration for Donovan’s famous song, Jennifer Juniper, and her photograph was featured inside the box set of his eponymous album A Gift from a Flower to a Garden. After working in The Beatles shop, Apple, the first of its kind, Jenny attended Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram in India to study meditation with her sister and the Beatles, witnessing their creativity and the genesis of songs that would later appear on the White Album. Despite being attuned to the spiritual bloom and innocence of the 60s, Jenny also experienced first-hand the turmoil and decadence of the 70s and 80s. Her two marriages to Mick Fleetwood, founder member of Fleetwood Mac, brought her to the forefront of the world of rock and roll – and its fame, money, drugs and heartache. Struggling in the darkness to find and develop her own voice and identity, Jenny went to college, achieving a Masters in Counseling Psychology and a PhD in Humanities – her dissertation on musicians and creativity became the critically-acclaimed book Musicians in Tune. Jenny has spent her life in the company of some of the greatest musical and cultural influencers of the last 50 years – and the journey she takes to finding her own sense of self and creative ability makes Jennifer Juniper a truly captivating and inspiring story. Publisher: Urbane Publications This title will be released on March 26, 2020. PRE-ORDER: UK … H E R E .	cc/2020-05/en_head_0042.json.gz/line5
__label__cc	0.715175	0.284825	CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY Dr. Mohammad Amin Ahmadi, was born in 1964 in Urozgan Province. He has PHD in Philosophy from Tehran University, and outstanding university in the region, and has reputable work experience in Law in Afghan government and Philosophy for several years. He has twenty years of experience in teaching and research in his background starting from Tehran University until research in Islamic Culture and Sciences in Afghanistan. He has the credit to write tens of articles for academic and credible national and international magazine and well-recognized books including “Man’s Expectation and Religion”, “New Theology”, Realm of Beings in Analytical Philosophy (modern views on miracle). In Addition, He was a committee member to review constitution of Afghanistan, and a member of Leadership for Independence Commission to Oversee the Implementation of Constitution. He has been the Chancellor of Avicenna University since its establishment along with 12other professors who initially founded the University. Dr. Mohammad Amin Ahmadi was a key member of Kateb University, the first private university of Afghanistan, before establishing Avicenna University	cc/2020-05/en_head_0042.json.gz/line6
__label__cc	0.687813	0.312187	It’s a standard (i.e. clichéd) question that most interviewers ask: “Where do you see yourself five years from now?” And most job candidates will respond with a perfect yet equally clichéd answer, like: “In a position, here, with more responsibility, because I enjoy learning and love challenges.” Ask a useless question and you’ll get a useless answer, but inquiring about a person’s aspirations has merit. In fact, research we conducted at PsychTests using our Ambition Test indicates that the degree to which an employee is ambitious has a significant impact on his or her performance Here’s what we discovered when we compared below average, average, and top performers: Top performers are much more driven (score of 70 on a scale from 0 to 100; 63 for average performers, 56 for below average). They are more likely to have several professional aspirations (score of 76 vs. 65 vs. 61). They are more likely to have several personal aspirations (score of 67 vs. 63 vs. 58). They have a stronger sense of self-efficacy (score of 71 vs. 62 vs. 52). 70% of top performers make it a point to learn new skills, aside from those they learn in school and during job training (compared to 66% for average performers and 53% for below average performers). 88% consistently look for ways to improve their performance or complete tasks more efficiently (compared to 71% and 61%). 73% strive to achieve top honors at work, like Employee of the Month (compared to 46% and 31%). 89% set high work standards for themselves (compared to 73% and 64%). 58% have a long-term career plan (compared to 47% and 46%). 87% are “very motivated” to improve themselves and become a better person (compared to 77% and 58%). 94% believe that they can achieve whatever they set their mind to (compared to 75% and 70%). Only 21% of top performers have turned down an opportunity because they didn’t believe they could live up to the challenge it offered (compared to 31% and 49%). Only 13% would be content with a “Satisfactory” job performance rating (compared to 20% and 29%). While it may seem that these top performers can walk on water, one particularly enlightening statistic from our study reveals that these ambitious go-getters are not immune to self-doubt. In fact, 35% of top performers indicated that they get discouraged when faced with obstacles to their goals. What differentiates them from average and below average performance is their persistence and refusal to allow these obstacles to turn into permanent roadblocks. Determining whether you have a future Mount Everest climber on your hands or an underachiever is a matter of asking the right questions – and avoiding standard interview questions that most job candidates can answer with an Oscar-worthy performance. Add these to your interview questions repertoire: “Describe a goal you achieved that no one else believed you could. Why didn't they believe in you, and what made you want to keep trying?” “What does failure mean to you? How would you define success?” “In the past two years, how have you upgraded your work skills and abilities? Tell me about any classes, extra reading, or training you have taken part in.” “Would you prefer to work with a group of people who are less accomplished than you, or a group of people who are just as, if not more successful than you?” “What is the most disappointing feedback you received in a performance review? What changes did you make as a result?” “What type of initiative have you taken in previous jobs? Have you ever approached a manager with a new idea or task that you wanted to work on?” You can take the Ambition Test here: http://testyourself.psychtests.com/testid/3294 If you’re interested in using Employee Attitude and Personality Test (EAPT) or other tests for HR purposes, request a free trial for ARCH Profile here. Want to learn more about using psychological tests for hiring, leadership development, career development or talent retention? Download our free eBook loaded with down-to-earth information about psychological testing for HR purposes. Ready for a test drive of ARCH Profile, the delivery system for PsychTests’ assessments? All you need to do is ask!	cc/2020-05/en_head_0042.json.gz/line8
__label__cc	0.700393	0.299607	SCORE Joins Highlands Town Hall Debate 2010 Posted on December 8, 2011 by Bill Frist COOKEVILLE — The Highlands, Nashville’s WTVF NewsChannel5, Tennessee Tech University, and the League of Women Voters of Tennessee today announced that the State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) is joining as a sponsor in the Highlands Town Hall Debate 2010, a general-election gubernatorial debate scheduled for September 14 at TTU in Cookeville. SCORE, a not-for-profit, non-partisan group led by former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, encourages sound education policy decisions at the state and local levels. Earlier this year, in January, the group co-sponsored a NewsChannel5 gubernatorial debate that included all major candidates in the Democratic and Republican primary fields. “SCORE has a track record of promoting a non-partisan focus on important issues in this election,” Sandy Boonstra, news director of NewsChannel5, said. “We’re pleased to work with them once again.” Frist, a surgeon who represented Tennessee in the U.S. Senate for 12 years, said SCORE supports a renewed focus on key issues, including education and health care. “Ensuring a better education for Tennessee students is critical as we work to improve health outcomes and promote a better quality of life for all Tennesseans,” he said. “SCORE is proud to support an open dialogue on the important issues in this election.” As the first televised general-election gubernatorial debate held outside of Nashville, Memphis, or Knoxville, the Highlands Town Hall Debate 2010 will give focus to hometown issues facing rural and suburban areas — with an emphasis on economic development, education, and health care. The Highlands is a public/private economic development initiative between Overton, Putnam, and White Counties managed by the Cookeville-Putnam County Chamber of Commerce. Using guidelines established by its partners, the debate will offer a unique perspective on voter attitudes by soliciting video questions in advance via YouTube and allowing Tennesseans to vote on which questions they want asked of the candidates. Written questions may also be submitted via the debate’s web site. The debate will include a section for live audience questions and a section for candidate-to-candidate questions. On the Web: www.HighlandsDebate2010.com. Posted in Education \| Tagged Bill Frist, debate, Dialogue, Education Reform, Frist, Highlands Town Hall Debate 2010, Learning, Race to the Top, Schools, SCORE, Senator Bill Frist, State Collaborative on Reforming Education \| Leave a comment \|	cc/2020-05/en_head_0042.json.gz/line13
__label__cc	0.528219	0.471781	Music & Entertainment Blog Top 10 \| Essential Listens \| Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - Elton John Posted by Matteo Middlemiss In our new series of blogs we are looking at a collection of albums that need to be listened to all the way through at least once in your life. The list is in no way exhaustive (how could it be?) but takes a look at some classic albums, and some lesser listened to greats, that represent an era, a genre or an artist. There are few better examples of this than Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John. Considered by many to be John’s best, the album spans genres and styles to create one of the most creatively interesting albums of the 70s! An important moment in his discography, as well as the history of pop and rock music, see why we think Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is an essential listen. Topics: Flame Tree Music, Flame Tree Pro, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Elton John, Rocketman Top 10 Blues Guitarists \| Eric Clapton The most famous living guitarist in the world, Eric Clapton’s (b. 1945) career has passed through an extraordinary series of highs and lows during his five decades as a guitar hero. He has also experimented with numerous stylistic changes but has always returned to his first love, the blues. Topics: Flame Tree Music, Blues Guitar, Flame Tree Pro Top 10 Blues Guitarists \| Stevie Ray Vaughan Posted by Gillian Whitaker No best blues guitarist lineup would be complete without a mention of Stevie Ray Vaughan (1954–90). Exploding on to a generally lethargic blues scene in 1983 with his Texas Flood album, Stevie Ray Vaughan administered a high-voltage charge that revitalized the blues with his stunning playing and imagination. Topics: Flame Tree Music, Great Guitarists, Blues Guitar, Flame Tree Pro Top 10 Blues Guitarists \| Freddie King Last of the 'Three Kings,' but not least, this week we have the short-lived hard-party musical career of Freddie King (1934–76), the father of many classic soul-stinging riffs and one of the first blues musicians in history to play in a mixed race group. Top 10 Blues Guitarists \| Albert King In this week's Top 10 Blues Guitarists blog we feature the unconventional guitarist Albert King (1923–92), whose style can’t be traced back to any former musicians, but whose tones, solos and deep vocals left their mark on the likes of such legends as Eric Clapton (b. 1945), Jimi Hendrix (1942–70) and Stevie Ray Vaughan (1954–90). Top 10 Blues Guitarists \| John Lee Hooker Blues is nothing without different flavours, and some of the most renown blues guitarists could boast incredible skills shaping genre and form. This week we take it one step further with John Lee Hooker, one of the most versatile and long-lasting bluesmen of the twentieth century. Top 10 Blues Guitarists \| Muddy Waters This week we take blues back to the Chicago classics with the legendary electric guitarist, and the face of 1950s blues itself, Muddy Waters. Top 10 Blues Guitarists \| Robert Johnson Throughout history, many legendary musicians have become part of the '27 Club,' due to their mysterious deaths at the age of 27. This week, we're featuring one of these icons, Robert Johnson (1911–38), whose life is just as puzzling as his death. Top 10 Blues Guitarists \| T-Bone Walker This week, we turn to the man who popularized the electric blues, making sure blues music could truly be heard – T-Bone Walker. Top 10 Blues Guitarists \| B.B. King Starting this week, we’re moving on from guitars to the musicians who make them sing, and what better way to start than with the melodious songs of blues? Starting off our Top 10 Blues Guitarists is B.B. King. 50s music (4) 60s music (15) Alanis Morresette (1) Blues Guitar (10) Classic Guitars (14) Flame Tree Music (24) Flame Tree Pop (4) Flame Tree Pro (18) Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1) Great Guitarists (2) How to Play Guitar (5) How to Play Piano (2) Indie Music (1) Jagged Little Pill (1) miseducation (1) Paco de Lucia (1) Pop Music (24) rap music (1) Rock and Roll History (7) Rock Guitar (4) Rock Icons (22) Scotty Moore (1) Top 10 Jazz Albums (10) Download a digital book, this special edition on The Origins of Rock: The Fifties. We have some amazing books on classic rock bands, including the brand new books on David Bowie, Pink Floyd and Rock, A Life Story:	cc/2020-05/en_head_0042.json.gz/line16
__label__wiki	0.690136	0.690136	Does Chris Brown Really Deserve a Break? Yesterday, Chris Brown was charged with two felony counts related to the alleged assault against his girlfriend, Rihanna—but he's innocent until proven guilty. We've ousted celebrities for lesser offenses than beating their girlfriends, so why can't we walk away from him? Maybe for the same reasons Rihanna can't bear to. Updated Jul. 14, 2017 11:12AM ET / Published Mar. 03, 2009 1:07AM ET Ramsey Card, Retna Pictures / Retna Ltd. You probably heard that singer Chris Brown, after turning himself in for beating his girlfriend, Rihanna, enrolled in anger-management classes in an effort to, as Rolling Stone reported, “repair his image.” Swell. Where can I sign up? Because as images go, Brown’s seems to be doing remarkably, enragingly, well. True, he was promptly dropped from now-creepy ad campaigns for Got Milk?, Wrigley’s Gum, and the upcoming film, Bone Deep. And it’s not hard to find folks who have forever redacted “Forever” from their iPods. But otherwise, the whitewash seems to be flowing like Cristal at Clive Davis’ bash—and not just from the bonehead sector of the blogosphere (though yeah, there is that). Some are latching onto their reconciliation with hope for a happy ending, despite the fact that, statistically, their reconciling will most likely lead to her getting beaten again. Singer Ne-Yo told MTV that Brown is still his “homeboy at the end of the day.” Kanye West reportedly asked a crowd to “Give Chris a break.” The New York Daily News asked, “Could Rihanna use [anger management] too?” CNN’s Kiran Chetry wondered if Rihanna—yes, Rihanna—might, moving forward, suffer the “stigma” of abuse. The Chicago Tribune reported that many area teens figured Rihanna must have done something to provoke Brown’s alleged assault. “People said, 'I would have punched her around too,'" noted one sophomore. "And these were girls!" Yes, Brown is technically innocent until proven guilty. And America believes in redemption and rehabilitation, often to its credit. But America also has a long and proud tradition of turning on celebrities quicker than you can say “Perez Hilton.” We put our stars through the wringer when they hurl cellphones at housekeepers or throw tantrums on movie sets, and in the end, rightly or wrongly, we tend to forgive them. But why is Brown, at least right now, seen as anything but Asshole of the Month? What makes it so easy for people to leap to his defense—at her expense? Part of it is that, against all common sense, we long for the fairytale ending, especially when it comes to two wunderkinds like Rihanna and Brown. Last week, the two were reportedly reunited at chez Diddy, or at least held some sort of summit toward working it out. Some are latching onto this with hope for a happy ending, despite the fact that, statistically, their reconciling will most likely lead to her getting beaten again, or possibly worse. There are also those who put it on her, saying there’s no hope for a girl who’d be fool enough to take Brown back. Why, indeed, do women take batterers back? People: This is part of the cycle of abuse. Women make the excuses and believe the lies and absorb the blows because they don’t want to believe they were so wrong, so grievously wrong, about Mr. Right. And I think that that, at least in part, is what’s going on in our relationship with Chris Brown, as well. I mean, we loved him, you know? Such a nice guy. Before this happened, Brown was frequently billed by the media as the “good” one, the guy you’d want to take home to mom. He was like mint gum. He appeared on Sesame Street with Elmo, for God’s sake. He also, probably not coincidentally, had terrible violence in his own family. We understand. We don’t want to believe, a bazillion albums later, that we were wrong about him this whole time. We don’t want to believe we fell in love with a shithead. And so, like Rihanna, we want to give him just one more chance, defend him, blame her, make excuses, take him back. Makes sense to me. It’s human, and it’s American. During the election of 2004, many of us did exactly the same thing. There’s some twisted faux-feminism at work here, too: the distorted idea that, now that we’re all go-girl and kick-ass and almost-president, women somehow can’t be victims anymore. And then there’s our hack-tastic media culture, in which “balanced” reporting means giving some sort of space to the “other side,” no matter how preposterous its claims, and then failing to call them out, because that would be “unfair,” or at least, it would alienate those who empathize with Brown. We clearly have yet to forever trash certain grave misconceptions about partner violence and violence against women. “These two are this sweet, successful couple that people swooned over. News like this is so shocking that it’s hard for people to make sense of it. So they blame the victim,” says Dr. Jill A. Murray, author of several books about teen violence, whom I reached while she was on a break from a daylong dating-abuse education program at a San Diego school. “They think, ‘There must be something we didn’t know.’ And that something must be Rihanna.” Lynn Harris is an award-winning journalist, author of the comic novel Death by Chick Lit , and co-creator of BreakupGirl.net.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0042.json.gz/line18
__label__wiki	0.570529	0.570529	Search BUFVC Search for New Search (BUFVC Search) View all previous searches Full access to all collections is a privilege of BUFVC membership. If you are already a BUFVC member, please log in. Otherwise you may join now. Date range Year: 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 to 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 « Reset date Results display: Sort By: Relevance Date (oldest first) Date (newest first) Title Display: 10 50 100 results per page Advanced search \| Help on searching 1-10 of 151 results \| Page 1 of 16 ‹ Prev12345Next › Sort results by Relevance Date (oldest first) Date (newest first) Title Gaumont Graphic NoS ID 1 film clip NfO synopsis: Rome - election and demonstration of Fascism. News on Screen Cinema news Online Moving image Mussolini: The History of Italian Fascism (2013) Folco Quilici Sale, DVD (Region 2 PAL, 480 minutes), £19.99 Documentary looking into the Italian politician and leader of the National Fascist Party Benito Mussolini and the rise of Fascism in Italy. The DVD features little-seen footage from the Italian... DVD Find Other To order Merchant of Venice, The (1996 Video) Marti Maraden Video recording of Marti Maraden’s 1996 production of The Merchant of Venice for the Stratford (Ontario) Shakespeare Festival. Douglas Rain is Shylock. Shakespeare Shakespeare productions To order Anti-Nazi League formed (1977) Labour MP Neil Kinnock on the formation of the Anti-Nazi League to oppose the National Front. LBC IRN Radio Online Audio Film and the Historian Exploring the Work of the InterUniversity History Film Consortium (IUHFC) The InterUniversity History Film Consortium (IUHFC) pioneered the study and use of film in history. Founded in 1968 by John... Other Record only Fascism (1980) Sale, DVD (Region 2 PAL, 50 minutes), £60.00 Describes the intellectual, political and economic origins of fascism and the courses of fascism in power in Europe between 1918 and 1945. It concentrates particularly on Italy and Germany in the context of... DVD Find Other Online The Doom of Fascism. Mussolini Leaves the Shipwreck Gaumont British News Story no 1 film clip, 1 commentary sheet News on Screen Cinema news Digitised Documents Online Moving image Open Mind (1994 Television) Christine Palmer Languages; Politics & government Off-air recording licence, Television broadcast. col. 25 min. OPEN MIND is a monthly non-course-related Open University magazine programme. This programme focuses on language and discusses the power of vocabulary, the necessity of learning another language if working... Free Thaelmann (1935 Film) Film (16mm) Shots of the German communist leader and also of Georgi Dimitrov. World reaction to Thaelmann’s arrest, etc. Mussolini and Italian Fascism (1991 Video) Sale, Videocassette. VHS. col. 30 min., 1996 sale: £19.99 (+VAT inc. p&p) Covers Mussolini’s origins and rise to power, the nature of Fascism; Mussolini as supreme opportunist; illusions and delusions; the new imperialism; nemesis. Presented by Professor J A Davis with Danis... News on Screen: 33 Find DVD: 41 Shakespeare: 5 TVTiP: 8(locked) This Week: 2(locked) LBC/IRN: 59(locked) BUFVC CMS: 13 Radio: 59 Cinema news: 33 Shakespeare productions: 5 Other: 54 Online: 82(warning) To Order: 48 Record only: 21 Moving Image: 28 Audio: 59 Anti-Nazi League Anti-communism Dimitrov Italian Fascism Related searches have been automatically generated using the OpenCalais semantic analysis service.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0042.json.gz/line29
__label__wiki	0.982579	0.982579	Dubai - Emirates Airline's appetite for aircraft purchases will not cease, the airline's president Tim Clark told AFP Monday a day after the Dubai-based carrier ordered 200 planes from Boeing and Airbus. The Middle East's largest airline keeps expanding to meet the ambitions of Dubai which aspires to cement its status as a major travel hub, he said. "I don't think Emirates is going to stop with this order," he said, referring to purchases announced at Dubai Airshow on Sunday. These included a commitment to buy 150 Boeing 777X long-range airliners and a firm order for 50 Airbus A380 superjumbos. The order from Boeing is valued at $55.6 billion, excluding engines, while the purchase from its European rival Airbus amounts to $20 billion at list price. "The intention of the government of Dubai is to build the new airfield here on this site" at Al-Maktoum International Airport which opened for passenger operations last month. Dubai has in the past announced ambitions to turn Al-Maktoum into the world's largest aviation hub once completed, with five runways and a capacity to handle 160 million passengers annually. "They're hoping to get that in the state of readiness for 2020-2022, and the scale of that will allow us to grow our fleet further," said Clark. "When we have more firm time lines on that, we will be revisiting our fleet plans and routes structures." But he said the fast-expanding carrier would continue to operate at one of Dubai's airports, not both. Dubai International is already one of the world's busiest hubs for international travel, handling nearly 58 million passengers last year. Clark said the carrier's commitment to buy 150 Boeing aircraft would be finalised before the end of 2013. "The contract will be finalised by the end of December, so six weeks away... What we did was sign a commitment letter which will lead to a contract very shortly," he said. Emirates was in discussions for four to five years with Boeing over the new Triple Seven airliner scheduled to enter service around 2020. "In the last months we've got it where we wanted it to be," said Clark. "Basically the terms are agreed with Boeing." Business at the biennial Dubai Airshow got off to a bright start. Sunday's opening day saw orders from the big three Gulf carriers - Emirates, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways - for Boeing and Airbus planes hitting $141.5 billion, excluding the price of engines. Clark said that the bulk of the Emirates order is aimed at replacing aircraft retiring by the end of the decade, when the 777X begins to enter service. "Although it looks a large number on paper, the reality is that the capacity that is being phased out... the new aircraft are coming in to replace it," he said. "We keep our aircraft for 12 years," he added. Asked if there was enough room in the market for all three main Gulf carriers to expand, Clark sounded upbeat. "Every time the three companies ordered more aircraft, everybody asked is there enough to go round," he said. "We seem to be managing to fill the airplanes," he said, despite the carriers expanding passenger capacity enormously over the years. "We are optimistic that there will be enough room," Clark said. "We see growth in Europe already and many markets that didn't actually get affected by the (global financial) crisis at all," he said. Emirates is the largest single operator of Boeing 777s and Airbus A380 double-deckers, flying to 137 destinations. Clark said Emirates continues to make "incursions" into new markets despite some governments hesitating to grant wider traffic rights. - Sapa-AFP Tags: Emirates, You might also want to read this Emirates boosts baggage from Harare Emirates boosts baggage allowance from Harare Emirates connects Zimbabwe to A380 network Emirates takes customer service to a higher level in Zimbabwe Emirates offers special fares to Zimbabwean travellers Emirates boosts Zimbabwe traders' business Emirates voted the Best International Airline by Zimbabwe Travel Agents Emirates spread its wings across the Atlantic Emirates appoints new commercial operations chief Emirates SkyCargo wins Cargo Airline of the year 2013 Award	cc/2020-05/en_head_0042.json.gz/line30
__label__wiki	0.655704	0.655704	Beyond Belief Fact Or Fiction BeyondBeliefFactOrFiction Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction? (usually shortened to simply Beyond Belief) was an anthology TV show that ran for four seasons on FOX from the years 1997-2002. Each episode featured five short stories that involved unbelievable coincidences or the paranormal, and viewers were challenged to judge which were Inspired By real events and which were entirely fictional. The show was hosted by James Brolin for the first season and by Star Trek: The Next Generation alumnus Jonathan Frakes thereafter. Although some of the stories, even factual ones, were extremely far-fetched and the acting was incredibly cheesy at times, it remains a cult favorite and a great source of nostalgia for anyone who watched it during its original run. Horror Series Nonfiction Series Dropped link to AmericanDragonJakeLong: Not a Feature - ITEM Dropped link to CSI: Not a Feature - ITEM Dropped link to ChristopherTitus: Not a Feature - IGNORE Dropped link to DonLaFontaine: Not a Feature - IGNORE Dropped link to JewelStaite: Not a Feature - IGNORE Dropped link to Phantasm: Not a Feature - ITEM Dropped link to TheBreakfastClub: Not a Feature - ITEM JonathanFrakes _Fact_or_Fiction Beyond Belief Fact Or Fiction / int_1565712c Dan Browned Dan Browned: One episode presents the "Bride-to-be steals wedding gown from corpse, dies from toxic embalming fluid soaking into her skin" story, an urban legend dating back over half a century, as fact. There was another one about a woman's mother disappearing from a hospital room. According to Snopes, its centuries-old, but again Beyond Belief presented it as "fact." Beyond Belief Fact Or Fiction / int_2951bf73 Broken Aesop Broken Aesop: So the moral of "Couch Potato" is to...love your TV as if it were a real person? Beyond Belief Fact Or Fiction / int_29878201 Getting Crap Past the Radar Getting Crap Past the Radar: In "For the Record", a man tells his girlfriend, "You're definitely a girl, I can vouch for that." Beyond Belief Fact Or Fiction / int_2bb3fd09 The Other Darrin: The show was originally hosted by James Brolin before Jonathan Frakes took over. Beyond Belief Fact Or Fiction / int_2d78557b Mugging the Monster Mugging the Monster: There was one story called "The Gathering" where a guy tries to rob a bunch of little old ladies playing cards... who turn out to be a coven of evil witches. Beyond Belief Fact Or Fiction / int_3420be99 KickTheDog Kick the Dog: Anyone who exhibits any meanness will surely get what's coming to them. In contrast, sympathetic protagonists usually receive a happy ending. Beyond Belief Fact Or Fiction / int_35b77b8d Beethoven Was an Alien Spy Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Napoleon Bonaparte sat in The Hooded Chair before he lost at Waterloo. Beyond Belief Fact Or Fiction / int_3e8958fc Urban Legends: A number of stories are based on popular urban legends, such as "killer in the backseat" and "the vanishing hitchhiker". The show shares several stories with Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, another compendium of urban legends. Beyond Belief Fact Or Fiction / int_404cf8cb Very Loosely Based on a True Story Very Loosely Based on a True Story: The show's premise. When a story is revealed to be "true", we are seldom told anything more than something like "according to our research, yes, a similar event did happen," so frankly, any of the stories could be true given how liberal of a definition of "similar" they used. The host would sometimes provide some vague information as to the location or time period in which the event supposedly occurred, such as "in the New York area in the 1950s," but they often they didn't even bother with that, usually just stating something along the lines of "according to our research, yes, it happened" while providing no further information. The show would often cite author Robert Tralins as a reference for many of the FACT stories. One of the better segments, Titan, subverts this trope. The story was about a guy who wrote a book detailing the events of a ship called the Titan crashing and sinking due to an iceberg fourteen years before the actual Titanic sank. The actual book, which is available through Amazon, more or less is eerily similar to the events of Titanic. Beyond Belief Fact Or Fiction / int_4189a662 Pet the Dog Pet the Dog: "Mysterious Strangers" which has Frank and Jesse James helping out an old woman pay her mortgage. Also may double as a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming. Beyond Belief Fact Or Fiction / int_4da05b5d Shout Out: In one episode, a character is reading aloud from a Goosebumps book. Beyond Belief Fact Or Fiction / int_56bbc9f0 This entry is trivia, which is cool and all, but not a trope. On a work, it goes on the Trivia tab. Hey, It's That Guy! Hey, It's That Guy!: David Kaye (who played Megatron twice and Optimus Prime twice) plays a husband in one story. Also Sara Paxton and Kirsten Prout made appearances before becoming young stars as children in two different stories. Dante Basco plays a ghost student in one episode. Lauren Lee Smith is in one segment (and another featured a guy who may or may not have been Gerald McCulloch). After Season 3, Don LaFontaine was replaced with Protoform X, who also appeared in the segment "The Cigar Box" as the ghost. Maggie O'Hara and Meghan Black also star in segments of their own. There was also one with Tony Dow. Seriously. Self-proclaimed "big minor celebrity" Rachel Reenstra appeared in one episode. Paul Gleason from The Breakfast Club and Die Hard had a role in one story called "Creepy Comics". Christopher Titus (who had his own show on FOX for a time) played the heir to a struggling ranch. Angus Scrimm(the Tall Man from Phantasm) played a misanthropic drunken gravedigger in "The Gravedigger's Nemesis". Jewel Staite acted for two as both of a pair of identical twins with Twin Telepathy. Blessed with Suck: There was one story about a guy who could kill people by painting their portrait. He tried to make it at least somewhat useful by only painting portraits of patrons who were either in great suffering or very near death. Until he learned his last subject was a perfectly healthy young woman who was depressed after her boyfriend left her, which he did not know. He then paints his own portrait and kills himself. Beyond Belief Fact Or Fiction / int_75a5914f Every Episode Ending Every Episode Ending: Jonathan Frakes always delivered a pun at the end of every story, which always related to the story's theme or content. Beyond Belief Fact Or Fiction / int_79f565f4 KeepCirculatingTheTapes Keep Circulating the Tapes: The first season was released on DVD in August of 2007, but no other seasons have been released. The show does air on the Chiller Channel in the US but very sporadically. Beyond Belief Fact Or Fiction / int_8b98727e Downer Ending Downer Ending: A good many, such as "The Wrestler", "Blind Man's Dog", "Bon Voyage", etc. Beyond Belief Fact Or Fiction / int_97c18497 This entry is trivia, which is cool and all, but not a trope. On a work, it goes on the Trivia tab. Hey, It's That Voice! Maggie O'Hara and Meghan Black also star in segments of their own. There was also one with Tony Dow. Seriously. Beyond Belief Fact Or Fiction / int_a5e79210 UnCancelled Un-Cancelled: Kind of; the show seemed to be canceled after the third season aired in 2000, only to be brought back out of nowhere in 2002. Beyond Belief Fact Or Fiction / int_b0790a86 Early Installment Weirdness Early Installment Weirdness: A couple of the stories during the first season were simply narrated by the host like a campfire tale instead of being filmed for us to see ourselves. Perhaps this was due a lack of budget. Beyond Belief Fact Or Fiction / int_bf04c146 Crazy-Prepared Crazy-Prepared: A security guard teaches himself to use telekinesis just in case of a robbery during "The Perfect Record", and it works. Beyond Belief Fact Or Fiction / int_c0081c65 Gainax Ending Gainax Ending: "Town Of Remembrance", "Room 245", and "Anatole" spring to mind. Beyond Belief Fact Or Fiction / int_c8cad99e Things that Go Bump in the Night: In the "Kid in the Closet" episode, the bullying sibling of a child who is terrified of a monster in his closet lets himself get locked in the closet in order to show his friends what a baby his brother was being, and when they open it up, he was gone, leaving just a pile of clothes behind. It turned out to be a Fact. According to Word Of God from the man who collected the true stories though, in Real Life it turned out the child had escaped through a hidden panel and was found living in his friend's attic two weeks later. Beyond Belief Fact Or Fiction / int_ca13fada Twin Telepathy Twin Telepathy: A set of identical twins (both played by Jewel Staite) were able to sense the other's pain, and one was able to use this sense to save the other's life when she was in a serious car accident. Beyond Belief Fact Or Fiction / int_feb05ade Can't Get Away with Nuthin' Can't Get Away with Nuthin': The prisoner in "The Escape". Beyond Belief Fact Or Fiction / int_ff1b8f14 Does This Remind You of Anything? One of the better segments, Titan, subverts this trope. The story was about a guy who wrote a book detailing the events of a ship called the Titan crashing and sinking due to an iceberg fourteen years before the actual Titanic sank. The actual book, which is available through Amazon, more or less is eerily similar to the events of Titanic. Beyond Belief Fact Or Fiction / int_name (none found)	cc/2020-05/en_head_0042.json.gz/line33
__label__wiki	0.693766	0.693766	Young Scientists, Ancient Discoveries Across the nation, elementary, middle and high school students are experiencing the thrill of discovering shark teeth fossils that are tens of millions of years old—and of receiving credit for their work in scientific journals. The students' experience is courtesy of SharkFinder, a citizen science project led by University of Maryland Entomology Instructor Bretton Kent and sponsored by Paleo Quest, a nonprofit that advances the science of paleontology. One such student scientist is seven-year-old David, of Bethesda, Md., a young fossil lover who discovered SharkFinder during the 2014 USA Science & Engineering Festival in Washington, D.C. After watching David investigate sample kits at the event, Kent personally invited the boy to work in his lab. On Thursdays during his summer break, David's mother drove him to College Park to sort fossils in Kent's laboratory. There, David says he searched for rock samples with "especially hard surfaces, serrated edges or curiously shaped holes," all of which could suggest evidence of an ancient sea creature. During his first two weeks in the lab, he found possible fossils of worm tunnels, ray plates and shark teeth. "It's not every day that you can find a shark tooth!" exclaims David, who credits SharkFinder with giving him new opportunities to fossil hunt. Fossil samples are collected by Paleo Quest staff from sites in Virginia and Maryland, including the Calvert Formation, part of Calvert Cliffs State Park in southern Maryland. Calvert Cliffs is famous for fossils from the early Miocene period, between 20 and 10 million years ago. Staff send the sediment samples, along with tweezers and magnifying glasses, to students across the country. The students, with the aid of fossil photographs, identify potential fossils and mail them to Kent's laboratory. In Kent's lab, undergraduate students sort through the samples, many of which are too worn or damaged to confirm as fossils. Because the shark teeth are so tiny—often no more than one or two millimeters—Kent's students use a state-of-the-art dissecting microscope to visually determine the species of origin for intact specimens. Identified fossils are curated and displayed at the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons, Md. Since SharkFinder efforts began two years ago, student participants have found more than 25,000 fossilized teeth. Kent's group is currently preparing nine research papers on recent findings, all of which will credit the K-12 students who contributed fossils or photographs. A lack of information on shark species' fossils in Maryland led Kent to launch the program. Though he knew the Calvert Cliffs area potentially contained tens of thousands of fossil samples, he did not have enough time or manpower to excavate and identify them himself. An experienced citizen science organizer—SharkFinder is his third such project—Kent believed this project was a prime opportunity to involve the public in science, engage students in research and gather new paleontological data. Kent decided to collaborate with Paleo Quest, an organization dedicated to advancing the state of education, exploration and contributions in paleontology and geology. "After I teamed with Paleo Quest, our biggest challenge was figuring out how to organize and transport the sheer volume of material from Calvert Cliffs to classrooms across the country and then back to the lab," explains Kent, noting that tens of thousands of schools across the nation now participate in the program. He is eager to add even more schools to that list. The group's goals include developing new tools to train current teachers and students in identifying the species of origin of fossils. "We hope to show students how science is done by giving them the chance to participate in the real thing," adds Kent. Although the majority of the young shark finders are not applying to college or jobs yet, Kent anticipates the program will inspire students to pursue paleontology research careers. David, though, needs no further convincing. "I hope that SharkFinder will be the start of my career in fossil hunting," he says. Writer: Irene Ying	cc/2020-05/en_head_0042.json.gz/line35
__label__wiki	0.646581	0.646581	Greek/American Drummer Jim Christopulos talks about Buddy Guy, B.B. King, Van der Graaf Generator, and Junior Wells Posted by Michael Limnios Blues Network on May 16, 2019 at 11:00am "It’s just so pure. If you alter it too much, it’s not blues anymore." Jim Christopulos: Feel The Blues Beat Jim Christopulos is a Greek American drummer from the Windy City, who has followed the blues "dream" with his band, Howard and the White Boys. The members of Howard & the White Boys first met at Northern Illinois University in Dekalb in 1988 and began jamming together just for fun, but their fast-growing popularity soon convinced them they could make a career of it. After only a few months, they got their first big break by opening for B.B. King. The band soon made the move to Chicago and began performing with the biggest names in blues: Koko Taylor, Albert King, Junior Wells, Lonnie Brooks, Luther Allison, Bo Diddley, and Chuck Berry. Between 1994 and 1997, the group made two highly acclaimed recordings, Strung Out On The Blues and Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner?, for Los Angeles based Mighty Tiger Records. They began traveling extensively across the United States and their growing popularity captured the attention of Philadelphia based Evidence Records. The Big $core was the first of two successful discs released by Evidence, and the band wasted no time in promoting it via the first of many trips to European countries such as Belgium, France, Italy, Holland, Switzerland, Norway, Germany, Luxembourg, and England. Riding the ever-growing wave of popularity both at home and abroad, the group then released a well-received live CD for Evidence entitled Live At Chord On Blues in 2000. In 2004, long time band members Howard McCullum, Rocco Calipari, and Jim Christopulos were joined by 26-year-old guitarist Pete Galanis. Jim Christopulos is the co-author (with Phil Smart) of the book "Van der Graaf Generator - The Book" (2005) which is obviously dedicated to the legendary British progressive rock group VdGG. A history of the band Van der Graaf Generator 1967 to 1978. The inside story of the band is revealed for the first time. The book includes up-to-date commentary from all surviving past and present members, input from over sixty others (including celebrity admirers, associates, former employees, friends, and family members), and is illustrated with over 300 photographs and images (many previously unpublished). Van der Graaf Generator - The Book delves into the intense but humorous, bizarre and often difficult inner-workings of an uncompromising rock group. Interview by Michael Limnios Jim, when was your first desire to become involved in the blues, what was the first gig you ever went to & what were the first songs you learned? I was always aware of blues music. I saw B.B. King twice while I was in high school. He came to the Genesee Theater in Waukegan, IL (where I grew up) and I caught both shows. He was amazing. Several years before that, though, I loved the blues music that was on some of the old rock albums I had. Bands like Steppenwolf and the James Gang were taking stuff they heard from the blues masters and merging it with their own style. Some of the really early Steppenwolf stuff actually works very well as convincing blues music. Then in high school, Steve Asma (the original Howard & The White Boys guitarist) and I started playing together in a garage band, and Steve was really into Lightning Hopkins and stuff like that. So we naturally played a lot of blues music in the garage while in our teens. Which is the most interesting period in your life and why? As with anyone, there are so many interesting periods. For me, the mid 00’s (from about 2005 to 2007) would be a standout. Professionally, Howard & The White Boys put out a strong CD called Made In Chicago and the lineup on that CD is probably the most enjoyable for me in that everyone gets along great and the playing is really good, especially live. We toured all around and even played in Lithuania, a country we had never been to, for several thousand fans. Around this time, I also co-wrote a book (published in ‘05) on my favorite rock group, Van der Graaf Generator. It was the culmination of two and a half years work where I interviewed several celebrities from the worlds of music, film, and writing. I actually had film directors Anthony Minghella and Jonathan Demme call me at home to talk to me about Van der Graaf Generator. I also interviewed people like John Frusciante (Red Hot Chili Peppers), George Martin (Beatles producer), Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, Arthur Brown, and several others. And of course I became very good friends with the members of Van der Graaf, which was nice. They reformed right around the time the book came out and I traveled to the UK to see them three times in ‘05, as well as Belgium and Holland in ‘07. On a personal level, I got married to my long-time girlfriend in ‘07 and had a wonderful two-week honeymoon in Greece. Between traveling to Europe with Howard & The White Boys, or promoting the Van der Graaf book, or on my honeymoon, my passport was overflowing with stamps! A very busy and rewarding three years. Then my son was born in ‘08 and my daughter in '14, and those are whole other wonderful chapters... "For myself, I thought (and still think) that they were the greatest band in the world and a completely unique one at that. And like many unique or (somewhat) extreme bands, they illicit extreme reactions – lots of people either love or hate them... not a bad thing." (Photo: Jim and Phil Smart backstage with Van der Graaf Generator in Milwaukee, WI, USA. 2009) Was there something specific you experienced that made you first begin thinking Van der Graaf Generator? I’d loved “prog” music for some time before I discovered VdGG. My older brother had ELP, Yes, and Genesis albums thoughout the early – late 70s so I grew up loving that stuff even though I was too young for most of the 70s to see it live, except on TV. I saw my first concert at age 13, Genesis in Chicago, 1978. I saw it with two other school pals, one of whom’s mom drove us into the city (about an hour-long drive from the suburb of Waukegan, where we all lived). Genesis weren’t quite a household name yet, but they were definitely getting pretty big by that time. I bought the program for that concert and the inside text was excerpts from Armando Gallo’s recently released Genesis book “The Evolution of a Rock Band.” Sitting in my seat before the concert started, I read most of the program and there were a few references to this band called “Van der Graaf Generator.” Never heard of them, but what a bizarre and unwieldy name... Van der What??? A few years later Armando’s book was re-released as “I Know What I Like”; I bought it and there was much more about VdGG in that. I found out that Genesis and VdGG were sort of sister acts at Charisma (their record label), went on tour together, had the same management, producer, album artist, etc. So, on spec, I went out and bought a VdGG album at the local Waukegan “hip” record store, called Strawberry Fields. This was back in the day when you went to the “Import” section of the record store and the JEM import sticker was tacked onto all the cool albums imported from Europe. It seemed so exotic back then, like these were “special” albums for the elite, hip record buyer (ha ha!). I decided that I wanted to explore more prog. I had several albums by King Crimson, Yes, and Genesis in my collection so it seemed natural to look into VdGG. The record store only had the debut VdGG record, Aerosol Grey Machine, in stock. I immediately loved the retro 60s cover. I brought it home, spun it, and was immediately bowled over by the song “Afterwards” and the Hammill voice. Never heard anything like it, at all. Not soon after, they became my favorite band. Eventually I stopped listening to a lot of prog bands I once liked (including Genesis), however I listened to VdGG more and more. I don’t mean to sound snobbish, but (for myself) the bar set by VdGG is so high on so many levels that it just made some of the music I used to love sound less interesting and maybe a little dated. To bring it all full circle, a 50 year anniversary deluxe box set of Aerosol Grey Machine was just released and I got a ‘special thanks’ mention in the booklet for some help I did on the project. It just blows my mind that AGM was my first VdGG album, setting me off on a very interesting VdGG-related course, and then decades later I’m part of the re-release project. Very knocked out by that. What were the reasons that you started Van der Graaf Generator’s book? what touched (emotionally) you? My co-author, Phil Smart, runs a very good VdGG website and has done so for several years. Around the late 90s / early 00s we became cyber-friends through that as I’d send him some photos and old magazine clippings I had in my collection for use on his website. Around 2002, the Chicago blues band I’ve been in for years (Howard and the White Boys) did a European tour that took us to Swindon, England. Former VdGG members David Jackson and Judge Smith showed up to that Swindon gig, and so did Phil Smart. Shortly thereafter, I interviewed Judge Smith for Phil’s website. It was a fascinating interview on the origins of VdGG, and it just seemed crazy to me that there wasn’t a book about this extremely interesting band. I thought that it would be fun to write it myself, and Phil simultaneously had the same idea, so we decided to collaborate. We knew that a book had been tried several times before by other fans and that they were unsuccessful, but we were undeterred. We approached the various band members. Eventually, we won them over – they were a bit apprehensive at first – and over the next two years or so, we were able to interview them several times and strike up friendships. For myself, I thought (and still think) that they were the greatest band in the world and a completely unique one at that. And like many unique or (somewhat) extreme bands, they illicit extreme reactions – lots of people either love or hate them... not a bad thing. They’ve influenced so many musicians, but none of them sound like VdGG – it’s more the attitude and approach to making music that’s made an impact, which is more important than mimicry. There were a lot of different angles to the story, and one of them (for me) was that I didn’t think VdGG should be lumped in with the whole prog bag. “Prog” thankfully has a much less negative connotation in recent years, but at the time it was still a pejorative. In the 90s, a lot of historians and magazines such as Mojo were re-evaluating certain 70s-era acts and bigging up their influence on rock music at large even though the acts themselves were a bit cultish or “underground.” Artists like Nick Drake, Can, Captain Beefheart... I felt that VdGG and Hammill slotted in more comfortably among these sorts of artists, the left-field mavericks of the age rather than the prog bands they’re often lumped in with. I found it frustrating that (especially throughout the 90s) very few journalists were really writing about Van der Graaf as such. So, an early angle for The Book was to interview certain well-known fans and include them all so that I could paint an accurate picture of just how influential and important this band was. We ended up interviewing and / or quoting several famous musicians as well as authors, film directors and the like, that were major VdGG fans. That was a lot of fun, I had Academy Award-winning film directors Anthony Minghella and Jonathan Demme – both VdGG nuts – calling me at home, and also people like John Frusciante from the Red Hot Chili Peppers ringing me up. Graham Coxon from Blur wrote me a three-page essay on his fave VdGG tunes. I had personal correspondences with Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Arthur Brown, Marc Almond, and loads of other famous fans. Then, right when the book was about to be released in 2005, it was announced that VdGG had reformed and were about to play a series of concerts all throughout Europe. The timing for our book could not have been better. The reunion was a smashing success and the band has not tarnished their legacy with ensuing cd releases and tours. Since their reunion, they have become sort of “critics’ darlings” and their stock has gone up immensely. They have been written about quite a bit – they’re actually more revered now than they were in their 70s heyday – and it’s good to see them receive the respect and recognition they’ve always warranted. I’m not saying The Book, nor Phil’s and my efforts, had anything to do with that. Rather, I think their reunion sort of jump-started the critical re-evaluation and subsequent bigging up, and I think that because of the reunion people just revisited the music or were exposed to it for the first time. Whatever the reason, it’s nice to see that the band and Peter himself are so highly regarded and have been recognized as the important artists they are. Why do you think that the Van der Graaf Generator music continues to generate such a devoted following? I still think there is no other band like them and fans respond to that, especially younger fans who’ve only discovered them in recent years. For myself, there are things by other bands from the 70s I like, yet some of those bands are of their time even though I like them. They just sound “70s.” But when you play a VdGG song like “Arrow” from 1975, it’s something outside of time. For starters, it’s pretty brutal – in both performance and production – in an era when lush production was the norm. It’s dry, whereas so much music from that time is wet, drenched in reverb, etc. “Arrow” and other VdGG cuts don’t sound dated because they weren’t even fashionable then! VdGG never did the expected, and it was organic – they weren’t trying to be left-field, it’s just who they were. They didn’t even follow the normal “prog” tropes, there were no flashy synth solos, no searing guitar virtuosity. Their “flash” instrument was sax and, later, violin. And both of those players were not your typical sax / violin musos, they played as if they dropped in from another planet. And then you had the versatile, one of a kind, and at times extreme, Hammill voice. ‘Nuff sed. There was no attempt to tap into trends that might make them more successful, they just did what they did and it was spot on. As such, it makes sense that the world wouldn’t quite have caught up and they’d be relegated to cult status. Even on earlier albums, when they were much more lushly and brilliantly produced by John Anthony, they put out stuff like Pawn Hearts from 1971, where the production helped to bring out the demented anarchy of the material. Brilliant! But that attitude, that approach to making music, is what has been inspirational to others. They’ve influenced a wide array of artists from punks to torch singers, from goths to heavy metal bands, from progsters to pop bands... many of whom probably couldn’t stand each others’ music but can relate to the idea of being exploratory, honest, and original – doing music for all the right reasons. I think that’s what a lot of fans take away from VdGG and Peter. And it doesn’t hurt that they’re namechecked quite often in the press by other artists. Even recently I’ve seen people like Geddy Lee, Bruce Dickinson, Jello Biafra, the Flaming Lips, and others sing the praises of VdGG. That gets music fans thinking, “Hmmm... I should check this band out.” Photos: Jim presenting David Jackson (VdGG sax man) with his copy of The Book before VdGG's concert in Gateshead, England, 2005 / Jim Cristopulos and Arthur Brown, posing with the VdGG book Would you mind telling me your most vivid memory from Howard & the White Boys? There are just too many. Briefly... the first time we opened for B.B. King in ‘88, mostly because it was so unexpected and a last minute thing (I was actually standing in line for the concert, and someone grabbed me and told me that we were opening for B.B. as I was ushered into the theater); beating out 400 other bands in a national ‘best band’ contest and winning the whole thing at the House of Blues in Los Angeles on the Sunset Strip; appearing on stage with people like Buddy Guy, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, and countless others; playing in Lithuania – the concert itself was great as we went over really well in front of thousands... but we were stuck in this little shack for three days on the camp ground where the concert was... just the four of us and it rained non-stop for three days. If you wanted to go to the bathroom you had to walk about 200 yards through three feet of mud to a horrid outhouse. These are just the few that come to mind; there are others that are equal or better that I’ve just not thought about at the moment (the band has existed for almost 25 years, so there’s lots of memories!) Which was the best moment of your career and which was the worst? There are many ‘best-of’ moments. One of them is when we were invited by Buddy Guy to open for him on a couple of his major midwest tours. We did a few of those tours with him, and we always earned standing ovations playing to audiences of anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 fans a night. A wonderful experience. The worst? Nothing to really complain about... How would you describe your contact to people when you are on stage? In general, I go into a zone of sorts and keep my head down. Even if I’m not in the ‘head down’ position, I make very little eye contact with the audience. I focus on the music. Still, it’s great to have a crowd that’s really into it, i.e. clapping after solos or giving heartfelt applause after a song. In those situations, the band feeds off the energy from the audience and you find yourself giving as good as you’re getting. Which of historical blues personalities would you like to meet? We’ve met so many already. But, there is so much myth surrounding a guy like Robert Johnson that it would be interesting to be able to slide up to the bar next to him and chat for a while. I do remember one night when I was drinking with Junior Wells in Chicago (we opened for him at Legends). It was great, we ended up singing tunes from one of his old 60’s albums: “I’m so tired this mornin’... I could just lay down and diiiieeee...” "I am Greek, and fell in love with Greece when I went over in ‘07 for my honeymoon. We were in Athens and we also went to the Cyclades islands. I hope I can come back with the band some day!" Some music styles can be fads but the blues is always with us. Why do think that is? It’s just so pure. If you alter it too much, it’s not blues anymore. There aren’t many other musical styles like that. Rock music can go in directons that sound really fashionable and then terribly dated – just think of the 80’s big drum sound which sounds horrible today, or the fashionable 70’s synths used by a lot of prog bands, which sounded cutting-edge then but just sound hokey now. Real blues music is organic and can’t be tampered with like that so there’s no chance of it sounding outdated. Plus, there’s just so much honesty inherent in the form, from the lyrics to the actual music. Which artists have you worked with & which of the people you have worked with do you consider the good friends? Well, I consider Rocco, Howard, and Pete very good friends. We’ve played with so many people: Junior Wells, Buddy Guy, The Blues Brothers, Elvin Bishop, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Lonnie Brooks, John Mayer, and on and on... Since my son was born four years ago, I don’t hang out so much at clubs. If I’m not playing, I’m not out at some night spot. So, I’m pretty out of the loop with that kind of thing. A few years ago, I’d hang at Kingston Mines or Buddy Guys Legends after a gig and hang out with other musicians. Not so much these days. As far as people in the music industry who I consider legitimate friends, I’d have to say the members of Van der Graaf Generator (although I don’t see them much at all, as we live on different continents!). Writing the book on them was a very intense, but extremely fun (and funny!) experience, and we got to know each other fairly well over the years. I’ve been to some of their houses, on their boats, etc. Even though I live in Chicago, and they’re spread out over the UK, we still keep in touch quite a bit through email and phone calls. When Peter Hammill played a solo gig in Chicago a while back, we went out for dinner the night before his gig and had a blast. I also became friends with a couple of the guys who were in Steppenwolf back in the 60’s. I’ve actually been golfing with the late great Goldy Mcjohn, the organist on “Born To Be Wild” and “Magic Carpet Ride”! "Real blues music is organic and can’t be tampered with like that so there’s no chance of it sounding outdated. Plus, there’s just so much honesty inherent in the form, from the lyrics to the actual music." (HWB w/ Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, mid - late 90s / Photo by Stacey Ruderman) Are there any memories from Junior Wells, Bo Diddley, and Chuck Berry which you’d like to share with us? We (Howard and the White Boys) played with Junior Wells a few times, and with Buddy Guy a million times. I think it was during a birthday party being thrown for Buddy Guy at Legends some time in the late 90s that we backed both of them up. Of course, they were a legendary duo when they played together. Buddy really favored us for a number of years and would hire us as his band for parties or award shows when he needed a backup band he felt comfortable playing with. So one year at Buddy’s party, Junior Wells stopped by and we jammed with him and Buddy. During a break, I hung out with Junior at the bar, just me and him. We had a few drinks and I remember telling him how much I loved one of his old tunes that we (Howard and the White Boys) did, and I sang it: “I’m so tired this morning, I could just lay down and diiiiiiiiiee.” He was like, “No, it’s like this...” and then he’d sing it – of course, it sounded great when he did it, and then we’d crack out laughing. It must have looked strange because we just drank, the two of us, and talked the whole break at the bar, singing old tunes and cracking up, probably both with a little too much to drink to be honest. I’d hung out with him a bit at other places like the House of Blues, or at a short-lived blues club in my hometown of Waukegan where he invited me backstage, but that night at Legends is a particularly great memory. As for Howard and the White Boys playing with Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry as their backup band in front of 10 – 15 thousand fans in Long Beach, CA, at a big outdoor concert... well that was a real trip. It was billed as the first time the two legendary architects of rock and roll did a gig together, but I’ve seen older pix of them on stage with each other. Maybe it was the first Bo/Chuck gig specifically, rather than a guest spot by one or something. For the concert, we did a set with each individually and then the third section was the two of them together. For prep, a few weeks before, we reached out to Chuck Berry’s management and asked about tunes we should learn. “Just learn them all,” came the reply (lol... yeah, not like he had a fifty year history with a million tunes under his belt or anything... in truth, though, he does about five tunes with a hundred variations of each so we just had to brush up on a few styles). Bo was great to work with. I’d played with him 3 or 4 times in Chicago by this point at places like Buddy Guys Legends and Biddy Mulligans. I knew what to expect with him. About an hour before we went on stage in Long Beach, he requested a talk with the drummer. I remember walking into his trailer and him recognizing me, as he exclaimed, “Hey!!!” That was cool. He didn’t realize we were flown out to be his backing band. He told me, “You already know the shit...” That meant slow blues, four on the floor funk grooves, etc. and absolutely NO “Bo Diddley” groove on the toms (which is the first thing a drummer thinks of when he thinks of Bo Diddley... but BD never wanted that the times I played with him). The gig itself was a big success. I remember Chuck announcing that we were about to do Johnnie B Goode, and then looking over at our guitarist Rocco, and nodding his head. Rocco was like, “Me?” and Chuck gave him an affirmative nod. Johnnie B Goode was one of the first guitar licks that Rocco (and millions of other budding guitarists) learned, so to be allowed to play that intro by the man who made it famous, while sharing the stage with that man in front of 15k was a pretty cool thing. My other memory of that gig is of Chuck looking at his watch while were in the middle of a groove, toward the end of the gig. He calmly walked to the side of the stage, put his guitar down, walked down the scaffolding stairs, and into his car which he had waiting on the side of the stage. He started it up and drove slowly off the concert grounds, out of the field and out of view... all while we were still playing. To this day, that is one of the more surreal moments in my musical experience, playing with Chuck and then him leaving like that while we were still in the middle of a song! "It’s just so pure. If you alter it too much, it’s not blues anymore. There aren’t many other musical styles like that. Rock music can go in directons that sound really fashionable and then terribly dated – just think of the 80’s big drum sound which sounds horrible today, or the fashionable 70’s synths used by a lot of prog bands, which sounded cutting-edge then but just sound hokey now. (Photo: Howard and the White Boys with the late great bluesman, Bo Diddley) What do you miss most nowadays from the music of past? What are your hopes and fears for the future of? I couldn’t compare the music from the past to today’s music because I’m so unfamiliar with the newer stuff out there. At my age, with a full time job, a family, a mortgage, etc... “free time” is a rare commodity. So I’m not exploring new bands as I once did. Maybe once the kids are grown and out of the house... As far as the experience of music, I think kids today miss out on the situation I (and millions of others) had in my younger years of bringing home an album I bought at the record store and the anticipation as I lowered the needle onto the vinyl. It was an investment. As a kid, I literally would pocket the money my mom and dad gave me for lunches at school, starve at school for a week without telling them, and go to the record store on weekends to buy an album with money I was supposed to be spending on lunch. Later, albums were bought with money I made from jobs I held. But this meant that even if I didn’t like an album at first, I would play it many times because it was such an investment (of time, money, effort) and I wanted to give it a chance to resonate with me. Some of my favorite albums or songs to this day are things I didn’t get at all when I first heard them, but I stuck with it. Today, however, in this throw-away digital age, if I listen to an album or tune on YouTube or listen to it via Spotify or what have you, and I don’t like it right away, I simply move onto the next thing. I’ve probably missed out on some great stuff by not giving it a chance but that’s the world we live in. It’s easy to hear any band from any era at the press of a few buttons on your computer or iphone so it’s no big deal to turn it off after a few bars if you don’t immediately like it. There is good and bad with that situation. I also miss gazing at the wonderful album cover art on a gatefold sleeve while listening to the music. Younger kids would have no idea what that was all about, through no fault of their own. It was much more an “experience” back then. What are some of the most important lessons you have learned from your experience in music paths? I appreciate the different geographic areas and the people living in them that I was exposed to, having travelled through many parts of the U.S. several times, as well as many countries in Europe (a few, like Belgium, France, Holland, and a couple others, several times). People are alike all over, yet different in many ways. The people we met in Germany (fans, promoters, etc) were different to the people we met in Belgium, who were different than people we met in Italy, etc. But not terribly different. Like anything, there are good and bad experiences with fans, fellow musicians, promoters, etc. But, I’m not really sure if there’s anything I learned from all that. I feel like there should be but I’m not sure what it was! One thing I did appreciate when we were a full-time, moderately successful contemporary blues band. I knew that I had a truly great job getting to do what I loved (music) and being paid for it. We were on top of it enough to appreciate that, especially when we were at our most successful as far as cd sales and drawing crowds, etc. Let’s take a trip with a time machine, so where and why would you really want to go for a whole day? Jim & Phil Smart backstage with VdGG, 2007 / Photo by Ed Clarke To keep it musical, specifically rock music, I would love to go back in time for a few gigs. First, October 18, 1976. Van der Graaf Generator’s one and only U.S. show at New York City’s Beacon Theater. They drew a shockingly large crowd (a couple thousand) for an underground cult band from England whose stuff was mainly sold through import shops. I’ve had the cassette for decades, probably my favorite boot, and have since met fans who were actually there. Hammill was just insane and demented at that concert, and the band was on fire. I know that the famous ‘hipster’ movie director/actor Vincent Gallo was there and has said how momentous it was. Jordan Rudess, the keyboardist from Dream Theater, was there and has said it was one of his favorite concerts. He recalled that Hammill was pretending to be dead on stage! Then I’d like to go a bit further back to March 1969 when Steppenwolf played the Fillmore East. I would have really dug seeing the opening band, which was Brian Auger, Julie Driscoll & The Trinity (just because they were so great, and Jools was one of a kind, as was Auger), but moreso because that’s where the Steppenwolf bassist Nick St. Nicholas appeared on stage naked, in nothing but a sequined jockstrap. He also wore bunny rabbit ears, it being Easter and Nick being high on Lord knows what. The rest of the band didn’t know he was going to do that and it caused something of a stir. I’d also like to see the same band in ‘71 when Larry Byrom was their guitarist and George Biondo was their new-ish bassist, on tour doing material from their then-new ‘7’ album. That’s probably one of my fave rock albums of all time and I know they killed it live around that time. They were one of the biggest bands in the country still in ‘71, and they were touring with what is (to me) their greatest album. I’d also like to go back to the early/mid 70s and see the Sensational Alex Harvey Band. Great musicians, fantastic music, and one the most charismatic, interesting front men of all time. Laura Nyro in ‘69 / ‘70, she was brilliant. I’d love to have seen Captain Beefheart in the late 60s / early 70s. Johnny Lydon with the Sex Pistols, or with PIL circa late 70s / early 80s. Magma any time in the 70s. I have seen VdGG and Magma in the 00s and they are amongst the greatest concerts I’ve seen, so I’m glad that they are still at least performing and in no way sullying their golden reputations. Are there any memories from Buddy Guy you meet which you’d like to share with us? There were a few times when I sat at the bar with him just chilling out, and he’s a very smart, clued-in guy. I used to love when we’d open for him in some huge auditorium or club, and hear him during his set say “How about a hand for the opening act, Howard & The White Boys?” The crowd would erupt, and it was great. He always mentioned us to the crowd when we played before him and we appreciated it! It was also great to have him come over to the studio to play and sing on a track for our third CD, “The Big $core.” He was very professional in that situation and delivered the goods. Then he stuck around and hung out with us for a while, which was a lot of fun. "In general, I go into a zone of sorts and keep my head down. Even if I’m not in the ‘head down’ position, I make very little eye contact with the audience. I focus on the music. Still, it’s great to have a crowd that’s really into it, i.e. clapping after solos or giving heartfelt applause after a song. In those situations, the band feeds off the energy from the audience and you find yourself giving as good as you’re getting." Are there any memories from local blues bars, which you’d like to share with us? I always enjoyed playing at Buddy Guys Legends. Also, some days we’re played Rosa’s a lot, and it’s a great club with a real good vibe. Do you have any amusing tales to tell from BB King’s opening act? We played with him twice, both times for big crowds. The first was for around 1,500 to 2,000 people at the Egyptian Theater in Dekalb, IL. The second was many years later at some new sports arena in Dekalb, for around 4,000 fans. Both gigs were fantastic experiences for us and we went down great. The first gig is the one that’s just bonkers from a story-telling point of view. We were students at NIU in Dekalb, and I was just waiting in line like everyone else to get into the Egyptian Theater. At that point, there was no plan to have us open for BB. Someone came out from the theater, grabbed my arm, and started pulling me past everyone in line and into the theater, while saying, “Bucka, you’ve got to get in there. You’re opening for BB King tonight!” This person was working security, but he was also a friend of mine, and so I thought he was just getting me in so I wouldn’t have to wait in line (which, in retrospect, wouldn’t have been too cool, especially to those who had to wait in line!). So I thanked him and just walked to my balcony seat, where the other members of HWB would be sitting. At this point, I still had no clue we were opening the concert. So, when I got to my seat, I saw that our row of 6 or 7 seats was empty except for our guitar player’s wife. I said to her, “Where are the guys?” And she looked at me in shock and said, “Bucka! You’d better get backstage, you’re opening for BB King in five minutes!” So then I knew it was for real, and I raced downstairs, down the aisles of the main floor, straight to the backstage door. I was let in, and there were the other three members of HWB, who were obviously relieved that I’d made it. What had happened was that someone contacted Howard telling him that BB was late getting into town, and could HWB open the show. Howard found the other two guys, but I was out and about and there was no way to get hold of me. Luckily, I made it backstage. To this day, the experience of being in line for a concert, and then unexpectedly finding myself up on stage performing in front of 2,000 roaring fans five minutes later, is one of the more surreal experiences of my life. "I was always aware of blues music. I saw B.B. King twice while I was in high school. He came to the Genesee Theater in Waukegan, IL (where I grew up) and I caught both shows. He was amazing. Several years before that, though, I loved the blues music that was on some of the old rock albums I had." (Photo: Howard and the White Boys & BB King at the NIU Convocation Center, 2003) From whom have you have learned the most secrets about blues music? Because I was a rock drummer before I was a blues drummer, I gained a lot from just watching other, more seasoned drummers in the bands we opened for when we were just starting out. We opened for so many blues musicians. You name it, we played with them before we became headliners ourselves: Son Seals, Magic Slim, The Kinsey Report, Li’l Ed, Lonnie Brooks, Junior Wells, Buddy Guy, Koko Taylor... I didn’t even know the names of the drummers in many of these bands, but I’d watch them and could see that they were playing blues in a way that I wasn’t, and with a feel that I didn’t quite have yet. Do you think that only real blues is something gloomy, played by old grey-haired men with harps and battered guitars in some smokey, dark and little shabby clubs? No, that’s a perception that some people may have, but they haven’t seen or listened to many blues artists. There’s actual joy in the music, even when it’s expressing tough times. If you could change one thing in the musical world and it would become a reality, what would that be? That ‘Howard and the White Boys’ sold millions of cd’s and I never had to work another day in my life. Next... You have played with many bluesmen, which are mentioned to be a legend. It must be hard, but would you try to give top 3, which gigs have been the biggest experiences for you? And why? Photo: Jim, Chuck Berry & Bo Diddley, 2001 We were flown out to Long Beach, California, and asked to be the backing band for Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. Each one played their own set, and then the two joined together for a final set. It was a real honor to be the drummer for them in front of 15,000 fans! Another time, we were playing at Legends for Buddy Guy’s birthday party. We were asked by Buddy to be the band for the night. At one point, Junior Wells got up and I have a picture somewhere of Buddy, me on drums, and Junior – just the three of us – on stage. It’s obviously a picture I treasure. Are you Greek? Do you have a message for the Greek fans? I am Greek, and fell in love with Greece when I went over in ‘07 for my honeymoon. We were in Athens and we also went to the Cyclades islands (Santorini, Folegandros, Milos). I hope I can come back with the band some day! “Bucka” cool nickname. How did you come up with it? My uncle, Mike Christopulos (who was a famous sports writer for the Milwaukee Sentinel and covered the Green Bay Packers during their Lombardi/Starr era in the 60’s) gave that name to me when I was a baby. It was a joke of some sort, but at this late date there is confusion as to what the joke actually was! Alive or dead, who is the one person that you’d like to meet face to face if they were alive, and talk to over jam? One of my favorite drummers, if not my favorite (who I’ve listened to since I was six years old in 1971), is Jerry Edmonton from Steppenwolf. He passed away in ‘92 and I never met him, although I got to know most of the other guys from that band. I would love to have met him and picked his brain about drumming. He was exceptional and is under-rated today. In an era of wild rock drummers, he was one of the few 60’s drummers who actually grooved and held a tight rein over the group’s music with his very disciplined, yet ballsy and creative, approach. As far as someone who is alive, I very much admire Christian Vander, the drummer/ mastermind behind the French group Magma... he seems like he might be a bit scary, though! [editor's note: since this portion of the interview was made, Jim has met CV and says he was actually very nice!] Photo: Jim with Christian Vander of Magma circa 2016 Previous Photos Credits: Ed Clarke, Dennis Tuttle, Gary Eckhart, Normunds Kalnins, Stacey Ruderman	cc/2020-05/en_head_0042.json.gz/line36
__label__wiki	0.542278	0.542278	Unspeakable Things – The BOLO Books Review by Kristopher \| Jan 7, 2020 \| Review \| 0 comments There is a long tradition of crime fiction being inspired by true life crimes. This runs the gamut from direct fictionalizations of actual cases to plots that simply harken back to various aspects of the cases that proved the launching point for the writing. Jess Lourey’s Unspeakable Crimes places itself on the latter part of this spectrum – but there is no denying that the inspiration and allusions exist. The Jacob Wetterling abduction from Paynesville, Minnesota in the late 1980s was one of the first such cases to gain wide-spread attention and since Jess Lourey grew up in that town around that time, it only makes sense that she would work out her emotions regarding it through a novel. Unspeakable Crimes is the result. Not surprisingly given her history, Jess Lourey approaches this story from the viewpoint of a young girl coming of age during a series of abductions in her town. Cassie McDowell is a tween growing up in a small town. She embodies that state of isolation felt by all kids as they struggle to find their place in the world, but for Cassie this is further complicated by her sometimes-odd family, her treatment by fellow classmates, and eventually her interest in this spate of disappearances that plague her community. Fans of youth sleuths like vintage Nancy Drew and the more recent Flavia de Luce novels by Alan Bradley will immediately connect with Cassie. Despite her difficult situation, this is a young girl who is determined to grow into an accomplished adult – and hellbent on making a difference along the way. She takes what she learns from watching those around her, from the media she consumes, and just from typical common sense to investigate on her own. The novel is written in retrospect, as though Cassie is looking back at these seminal moments in her life. By doing this, it allows Jess Lourey to cap certain chapters with a bit of a cliffhanger hint, a sentence or two that acts as an allusion to future events designed to tease the reader into not only reading another chapter, but also to begin to make their assumptions about what is happening around Cassie and her environs. This act of making the reader complicit in the knowledge of some unknowable information is one of the most successful aspects of this gripping novel and represents a storyteller completely in control of her narrative. There is a lot going on in Unspeakable Things. However, Jess Lourey’s style is to allow these revelations to unspool slowly, in an authentic way, just as if things had become clearer to Cassie as she matures before the reader’s eyes. Readers expecting a thriller feel, with action and excitement along the way should look elsewhere. This is not to say that the novel is boring or tedious, just that the milestones tend to skew more mundane and relatable than one might expect from a novel focused on serial abduction in a small town. Speaking of small towns, all the prejudices and suspicious one expects of such communities play a factor in how this novel heads towards its resolution. The shorter chapters and the precociousness of Cassie help to keep Unspeakable Things moving forward for readers. Jess Lourey’s legion of fans is sure to grow with this new novel that is a bit darker than her previous work, but also seems so much more personal to the author herself. All will be waiting to see where Jess Lourey journeys next. BUY LINKS: Unspeakable Things by Jess Lourey	cc/2020-05/en_head_0042.json.gz/line37
__label__wiki	0.650216	0.650216	In Defense of (Seymour’s) Marxism: Exposing the ‘Theoretical Framework’ of ICL’s Neo-Pabloist Turn / International Bolshevik Tendency (IBT) (2018-01-20) — Version: 2018-01-22. — Visited: 2020-01-18 — URL: http://bolshevik.org/statements/ibt_20180120_seymours_marxism.html In Defense of (Seymour’s) Marxism Exposing the ‘Theoretical Framework’ of ICL’s Neo-Pabloist Turn The abrupt abandonment of the longstanding approach to the national question by the Seventh International Conference of the International Communist League (ICL – formerly the international Spartacist tendency [iSt]) has major (many as yet unelaborated) programmatic implications. It is difficult to overstate the political importance for the ICL of the dramatic turn represented by the main conference document, “The Struggle Against the Chauvinist Hydra” which repudiates the iSt/ICL’s previous refusal to capitulate to “Third World” nationalism – a stance that distinguished the group from its pseudo-revolutionary competitors for decades. The former policy is now simply dismissed as “chauvinism.” A substantial section of the document entitled “Theoretical Framework for Chauvinism” is devoted to giving this dramatic line change some coherence by raising a series of criticisms of the Marxist foundation of the iSt’s revolutionary policy. But a serious examination of this critique reveals it to be nothing more than a politically bankrupt attempt to rationalize a revisionist shift. The “Hydra” document begins by renouncing two key articles on the national question that appeared in Workers Vanguard (WV) in the 1970s for presenting the “theoretical justification for our chauvinist program on the national question.” “The National Question in the Marxist Movement 1848-1914” (1976), a reprint of a talk by the iSt’s leading intellectual, Joseph Seymour, provided a synthetic overview of the development of the Marxist position on the national question, further developed in a companion piece entitled “Lenin vs. Luxemburg on the National Question” (1977). Seymour introduced his talk as “a contribution to understanding the theoretical underpinning of our current positions” on interpenetrated peoples and other aspects of the national question in the Middle East, which he described as being among “the most obvious and sharpest difference when we first encounter [left-centrist] tendencies that appear to be close to us.” Seymour distinguished between the conjunctural character of the Marxist position on a particular national question at a given moment, and the unchanging core of the revolutionary program for women’s liberation: “I think that one can draw a contrast with the Marxist position on the woman question. The position in favor of abolition of the family and for the equality of women is a fundamental element of a communist society, and therefore is not subordinate to changing political conjunctures. “The Marxist position on the national question has a much more conjunctural character historically, and is much more determined by changing empirical circumstances. Thus, it is not only legitimate, but very often obligatory, to change a specific position on a specific national question in a very short period of time. Today we are opposed to the independence of Quebec, while of course recognizing the right of self-determination. But it is certainly possible that in a couple of years, if the national polarization in Canada hardens and the working people of Quebec decisively opt for separatism, we may reverse that policy and come out for independence. Such determinations have a conjunctural and a strategic character.” This eminently sensible proposition is now characterized by the ICL as supporting “the jackboot of Anglophone oppression”: “In fact, the WV Nos. 123 and 125 article is a polemic against the liberation of Quebec from the jackboot of Anglophone oppression, a perspective also found in our approach to other national questions (witness the equal sign drawn in the article between the oppressed and oppressor peoples in Lebanon). The theoretical framework developed by these two articles is very far from the experience of the Russian Revolution, which demonstrated in life that the national question can be a motor force for revolutionary struggle.” —“The Struggle Against the Chauvinist Hydra,” Spartacist No. 65, Summer 2017 (emphasis in original) Neo-Pabloism in Beirut & Entebbe “The Struggle Against the Chauvinist Hydra,” while focusing on Quebec, states that an “anti-Leninist” framework was also evident in “our approach to other national questions,” in particular the intercommunal conflict that raged in Lebanon in the mid-1970s. The ICL’s recent proclamation that its refusal to take sides in the Lebanese civil war amounted to equating “the oppressed and oppressor peoples” is highly significant, but completely undeveloped. What is clear is that the ICL’s position has been retrospectively aligned with that taken by Ernest Mandel’s United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USec) and most other ostensibly Trotskyist and Maoist formations at the time. In January 1977, at the height of the Lebanese bloodletting, the Stalinophobic League for the Revolutionary Party (LRP) intervened at a Spartacist League (SL) forum held at Columbia University in New York City: “LRP speakers charged that the SL had reneged on the revolutionary obligation to give military tactical support in the anti-imperialist struggle in Angola and in the Palestinian fight in Lebanon when they were under attack by the U.S.-backed right wing and the Syrian army. The SL replied that Lebanon was a ‘tribal puzzle’ whose pieces apparently, have no relation to world imperialism.” —Socialist Voice, No. 3, Spring 1977 After 40 years, the ICL has now apparently come to agree with the substance of the LRP’s criticisms, at least on Lebanon. But for all the self-flagellation about decades of capitulation to the many-headed “hydra” of imperial chauvinism, the Spartacists have thus far been circumspect about spelling out many of the programmatic implications. The LRP circa 1977 certainly had no difficulty generalizing its critique of the SL’s “chauvinist” approach to the national question in neo-colonial countries: “The uniqueness of the Spartacist League, what many leftists mistakenly regard as ‘sectarianism,’ is that it does not capitulate to the nationalism of the oppressed nations – because it directly reflects the attitudes of the privileged sections of the American working class.” The Stalinophilic Communist Cadre [CTC] groupuscule, which also intervened at the January 1977 forum, put forward a parallel critique of the SL’s “anti-Leninist” policies, which, on some points at least, is uncannily similar to the 2017 “Hydra” document: “Communist Cadre has repeatedly asserted that the SL in its attitude towards the struggles of the oppressed and the colonial peoples and nations takes an essentially anti-Leninist line. While Leninists and Trotskyists have always insisted upon the necessity of unconditional military defense of the struggles of the oppressed against their oppressors, the SL has sought to evade this communist necessity in favor of a comfortable neutrality.” —“What the Spartacist League Really Stands For” The CTC considered the SL’s dual defeatist position in Lebanon to be a refusal to side with “the struggles of the oppressed against their oppressors”: “During the civil war in Lebanon, where the Lebanese left and Palestinian Resistance fought a life and death struggle with the reactionary alliance of Phalangists, National Liberals, and Moslem Brotherhood, the SL took a position of open neutrality. The SL invented the reactionary, anti-Marxist formula of ‘intercommunal warfare’ in order to call for defeatism on both sides in that ‘sordid civil war’, as the SL termed it. And while calling for defeatism on all sides, the SL also came out for the right of all communities to self-defense – including those politically and militarily organized by and under the leadership of the Phalange, which even the SL characterizes as ‘Nazi-like.” The LRP and CTC correctly identified the SL’s approach to the Lebanese conflict as deriving from its attitude toward conflicts involving “interpenetrated peoples” (i.e., two or more peoples interspersed in a common territory) in places like Cyprus, Palestine/Israel and the North of Ireland: “This stance [on Lebanon’s civil conflict] is paralleled for Northern Ireland, where the SL advocates the formation of a trade union militia drawn from Catholics and Protestants in order to defend both communities – Irish and Protestant settler – against ‘sectarian violence.’ While this sounds very reasonable and evenhanded, it translates into these terms in political practice: the SL advocates the defense of right-wing Orange settler militants and strongholds against the terror of the Provisional IRA (which the SL characterizes as ‘right-wing nationalist’) and other Irish liberationist organizations. In Israel the SL champions the right of the Hebrew-speaking people, i.e., Zionist settlers, to self-determination.…” The CTC was also critical of the SL’s neutrality when Israeli special forces intervened in Uganda a few months earlier to free hostages being held by Palestinian guerrillas (see “The Lessons of Entebbe,” Workers Vanguard, 16 July 1976): “Not only will the SL not defend the PFLP [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine] militants against the Israeli commandos, the SL refuses to condemn the Israelis for invading Uganda, which despite Idi Amin is after all an oppressed nation. The SL says the left must not be drawn into the ‘hypocritical chorus’ that denounced Israel for its aggression against Uganda and for violating Uganda’s sovereignty and territory. The SL explains to us, you see, that ‘Unlike the right of nations to self-determination, “national sovereignty” is not a bourgeois democratic demand that Marxists support. Moreover, Uganda’s “national sovereignty” was subordinated by Idi Amin’s complicity with the hijackers’.” We consider the SL’s position to have been essentially correct and in accord with the position on Lebanon held at the time. But what does the ICL think? Does it now see their 1976 stance as another manifestation of the “hydra” of imperial arrogance and chauvinism? Of particular interest about the raid on the Entebbe airport is that, when news of the event broke, Joseph Seymour’s impulse was to side with the Ugandans against the Israeli commandos. Robertson disagreed and a tape recording of a discussion between the two of them was circulated to the various branches of the iSt to be played for the membership. The Spartacist tendency, whatever its other failings, has always taken a serious attitude toward preserving the archival record of its own history, so it is likely that recorded conversation is still available somewhere. Perhaps the new ICL leaders might wish to listen to it in light of their new turn. We presume that at some point the ICL leadership will itemize the “other national questions” it plans to revise its position on – although, in order not to dent the prestige of James Robertson, their founder/leader, we do not expect the 1983 social-patriotic capitulation over the bombing of Marine barracks in Lebanon to be on the list.[1] We regard the SL’s position on “interpenetrated peoples” to be among its most important original contributions to the Leninist-Trotskyist tradition. Robertson, who played a central role in developing this approach, as he did on virtually every important programmatic issue (including Quebec), deserves much of the credit for it. The iSt’s theoretical framework on the national question allowed it to develop a revolutionary position on a range of important conflicts, unlike its pseudo-Marxist competitors at the time. The USec, LRP, CTC and all the others who disagreed with the Spartacists’ refusal to take sides in the Lebanese civil war were similarly outraged by the position of dual defeatism in the Arab/Israeli conflicts of 1948, 1967 and 1973 and the analysis of Israel/Palestine as another instance of interpenetrated peoples. Given the ICL’s recent embrace of what we might designate neo-Pabloism on the national question, might this also be up for revision? Do Marxists Have a Positive National Program? The ICL is outraged that in “The National Question in the Marxist Movement 1848-1914,” Seymour advanced “the preposterous thesis that ‘there is no Marxist program for the national question as such’.” He asserted that “The Marxist position has always had a predominantly strategic character, aimed at creating the conditions for a successful proletarian revolution” and concluded that, in any given instance, the attitude of revolutionaries tends to be “determined by changing empirical circumstances.” This is in line with Lenin’s approach to the national question, which always prioritized reducing national tensions in order to bring the class question to the fore. Lenin counterposed the “negative” approach of Marxists – focused on removing barriers to proletarian unity – with the positive programs of bourgeois nationalists in a text in which he specifically focused on “programme vacillations of Marxists and would-be Marxists”: “Let the bourgeoisie deceive the people with various ‘positive’ national programmes. The class-conscious worker will answer the bourgeoisie – there is only one solution to the national problem (insofar as it can, in general, be solved in the capitalist world, the world of profit, squabbling and exploitation), and that solution is consistent democracy.” —“Critical Remarks on the National Question,” October-December 1913 Lenin clearly spelled out what he meant by “consistent democracy”: “The national programme of working-class democracy is: absolutely no privileges for any one nation or any one language; the solution of the problem of the political self-determination of nations, that is, their separation as states by completely free, democratic methods.…” Seymour’s assertion that “there is no Marxist program for the national question as such” could perhaps have been better formulated as “no positive Marxist program.” Lenin’s program on the national question was a negative one that combined opposition to privileges or advantages for any nation with an insistence on strict equality for all: “it is the Marxist’s bounden duty to stand for the most resolute and consistent democratism on all aspects of the national question. This task is largely a negative one. But this is the limit the proletariat can go to in supporting nationalism, for beyond that begins the ‘positive’ activity of the bourgeoisie striving to fortify nationalism.” . . . “Combat all national oppression? Yes, of course! Fight for any kind of national development, for ‘national culture’ in general? – Of course not.” —Ibid (emphasis in original) Robertsonian Dabblings in Kitsch ‘Braveheart’ Mythology Nationalists with “positive” national programs inevitably promote their own nation at the expense of others. During a 1999 debate with the ICL’s Canadian group, we pointed to a bizarre article in the March 1996 issue of Spartacist Canada saluting Scottish nationalism.[2] We attributed this to an unhealthy desire to curry favor with Robertson, who fancies himself a descendant of Robert the Bruce, a 14th century Scottish king. The Internationalist Group (founded by Spartacist cadres who exited the ICL in 1996) aptly characterized the ICL flirtation with Scots nationalism as dabbling in “the kitsch ‘Braveheart’ mythology shared by both left and right nationalists.” Robertson’s Scots nationalism has to be taken with a pinch of salt, but it has produced some peculiar positions over the years, several of which were reprised in the Autumn 2006 issue of Workers Hammer, published by the Spartacist League/Britain: “the Scottish proletariat [has] historically openly identified with the Soviet Union and Communism. During the 1980s Cold War we appealed to such sentiments by raising evocative slogans such as ‘Turn Holy Loch into a Soviet U-boat pen!’ and ‘For a Scottish workers republic as part of the USSR!’” Perhaps the ICL’s refusal to take sides in the 2014 referendum on independence from Britain is another matter that will be up for reconsideration in light of the current turn to celebrating nationalism as “a motor force for revolutionary struggle.”[3]. It seems odd that Scotland is mentioned only in passing in the “Hydra” document – perhaps because it poses some as yet unresolved programmatic difficulties. Blurring Oppressed & Oppressors? In criticizing Seymour’s survey article from 1976, the “Hydra” text allows that he is right that “there are no ‘reactionary’ and ‘progressive’ peoples” but asserts, without any evidence, that he “wields this to blur the difference between oppressed and oppressor nations.” The conference resolution complains that the 1977 “Lenin vs. Luxemburg” article is critical of the “widespread support for petty-bourgeois nationalism within the left” and rejects the view held by many “would-be Marxists” that the Palestine Liberation Organization, Angolan MPLA, Irish Republican Army and Basque ETA were “among the vanguard of the revolutionary forces of our day.” This is construed as “a position of indifference to the fight for national liberation,” and “a cover for denigrating the just aspirations” of the various oppressed nationalities involved. As proof, the ICL scribblers can only offer the following brainless critique: “These articles never expressed any solidarity with national liberation struggles, much less with the right of oppressed nations to break free from their national oppression. This constituted a total rejection of internationalism.” A couple of articles sketching the complex history of how attitudes to the national question developed over seven decades in the Marxist movement cannot possibly contain (and certainly do not require) a repetition of positions clearly stated in other WV articles on numerous occasions. The assertion that a failure to reiterate them one more time in a panoramic historical survey “constituted a total rejection of internationalism” is as cynical as it is idiotic. Advocacy of Independence vs Realization The ICL also alleges that Seymour’s 1976 article falsely counterposed Marx to Lenin on the national question: “The article in WV Nos. 123 and 125 introduced a false dichotomy between the simple ‘advocacy of independence’ (Lenin) and its ‘realization in fact’ (Marx): ‘For Lenin, the question of whether independence would be realized or not was not a fundamental question, it was secondary.’ This false counterposition served as a cover for our outright opposition to independence for Quebec, thus fundamentally denying the right of self-determination.” [emphasis in original] Any reasonable person reading Seymour’s article can see that there is no “false counterposition,” nor was he “fundamentally denying the right to self-determination.” Quite the opposite. Seymour carefully (and clearly) distinguished between Marx’s advocacy of immediate Irish independence and Lenin’s recognition of the universal right of all nations to self-determination: “I should point out that Marx’s position on the Irish question anticipated, but was not identical with, the orthodox Leninist position. Marx expected that an independent Ireland would draw the Irish out of England – that the economic development of Ireland would lead to the repatriation of the Irish working class from England. He looked for the physical separation of the English and Irish working classes as a precondition to political unity. It was not simply the advocacy of independence that was important, but its realization in fact. As we shall see, it is with Lenin that the advocacy of the right of self-determination becomes key.” Seymour correctly pointed out that Lenin considered the question of whether or not to advocate independence in any particular instance to be less important than winning the workers of the oppressor nation to champion the right of the oppressed people to decide the issue for themselves: “Lenin maintained that Luxemburg’s abstract propaganda in favor of internationalism was not adequate to convince the Poles and the Ukrainians that the Great Russian socialists were not chauvinist. The workers movement in the oppressor nation must demonstrate in practice and in immediate programmatic form that it supports the right to independence of the oppressed nation. For Lenin, the question of whether independence would be realized or not was not a fundamental question, it was secondary. Before the 1917 revolution, the Bolsheviks did not take a position for or against independence for Poland, the Ukraine or Finland. The core of Lenin’s position comes through in ‘The Right of Nations to Self-Determination’ (1914): “Whether the Ukraine, for example, is destined to form an independent state is a matter that will be determined by a thousand unpredictable factors. Without attempting idle ‘guesses’, we firmly uphold something that is beyond doubt: the right of the Ukraine to form such a state. We respect this right; we do not uphold the privileges of Great Russians with regard to Ukrainians; we educate the masses in the spirit of recognition of that right, in the spirit of rejecting state privileges for any nation.” [emphasis in original] Lenin did not assert that Marxists should generally advocate the immediate independence of all oppressed nations within multinational states. In fact, the ICL’s position of unconditional advocacy of Quebec independence stands in stark contrast with Lenin’s attitude toward the independence of Ukraine, which he saw as a question that depended on “a thousand unpredictable factors.” This is the approach taken by the Spartacist tendency in the 1970s and 80s, and the one we uphold today. The Quebecois have an unalienable and unconditional right to their own state, but whether revolutionaries advocate they exercise this right at any particular moment depends on the concrete situation – most importantly the degree of national antagonism within the working class. Seymour cites Lenin’s comparison with the right to divorce: “the recognition of the right to divorce does not preclude agitation against divorce in a particular case”. In “The Right of Nations to Self-Determination,” Lenin explained: “The demand for a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ reply to the question of secession in the case of every nation may seem a very ‘practical’ one. In reality it is absurd; it is metaphysical in theory, while in practice it leads to subordinating the proletariat to the bourgeoisie’s policy. The bourgeoisie always places its national demands in the forefront, and does so in categorical fashion. With the proletariat, however, these demands are subordinated to the interests of the class struggle. Theoretically, you cannot say in advance whether the bourgeois-democratic revolution will end in a given nation seceding from another nation, or in its equality with the latter; in either case, the important thing for the proletariat is to ensure the development of its class. For the bourgeoisie it is important to hamper this development by pushing the aims of its ‘own’ nation before those of the proletariat. That is why the proletariat confines itself, so to speak, to the negative demand for recognition of the right to self-determination, without giving guarantees to any nation, and without undertaking to give anything at the expense of another nation.” (emphasis in original) Seymour’s summary of Lenin’s position (which is as valid today as it was a century ago) is both accurate and balanced: “Lenin’s program was not designed to be popular with Russia’s minorities at any given time. It was designed to foster the fighting unity of the working class within the Russian state. If the working masses of the various nations are so hostile to one another that it makes unified class struggle virtually impossible, then separation into independent states is called for. Where national minorities choose to co-exist within the same state framework, the task of Leninists is to break down all the barriers separating the working masses of the different nationalities. While championing the equality of languages and related democratic rights, we work for the gradual, organic assimilation of the various nationalities making up the working class.” Leninism vs Nationalism on the Assimilation of Nations The “Hydra” document, advertised as a return to Leninism, objects to Seymour’s projections regarding the “gradual, organic assimilation” of nations – but he took them directly from Lenin. Having rejected the objective of voluntary assimilation in favor of “defensive measures” aimed at preserving national distinctions, it is entirely logical that the ICL also reject Lenin’s opposition to legislation mandating the use of one language over another by supporting Quebec’s language laws. The ICL considers that such regulations “constitute defensive measures essential to the very existence of the oppressed nation” in Quebec and Catalonia. The ICL brazenly asserts that the “struggle against assimilation” is “the framework in which we must apply the Leninist program for the equality of languages.” But this is a nationalist framework, not a Leninist one – Lenin was adamantly opposed to all state enforcement of any sort of language preference. In “The Right of Nations to Self-Determination,” he wrote: “Insofar as the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nation fights the oppressor, we are always, in every case, and more strongly than anyone else, in favour, for we are the staunchest and the most consistent enemies of oppression. But insofar as the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nation stands for its own bourgeois nationalism, we stand against. We fight against the privileges and violence of the oppressor nation, and do not in any way condone strivings for privileges on the part of the oppressed nation.” Far from a move to “re-establish a Leninist framework on the national question,” the ICL’s opposition to voluntary assimilation represents a break with a core element of Lenin’s program. Perhaps the ICL leadership thinks their ranks are not aware of Lenin’s position. Perhaps dumping Seymour’s articles is only the first step, and an open repudiation of Lenin will be next. In any case, Lenin’s attitude is entirely unambiguous; in the third section of “Critical Remarks on the National Question” (which he entitled “The Nationalist Bogey of ‘Assimilation’”), he wrote: “Whoever does not recognise and champion the equality of nations and languages, and does not fight against all national oppression or inequality, is not a Marxist; he is not even a democrat. That is beyond doubt. But it is also beyond doubt that the pseudo-Marxist who heaps abuse upon a Marxist of another nation for being an ‘assimilator’ is simply a nationalist philistine.” . . . “No one unobsessed by nationalist prejudices can fail to perceive that this process of assimilation of nations by capitalism means the greatest historical progress, the break down of hidebound national conservatism in the various backwoods, especially in backward countries like Russia.” The ICL’s “struggle against assimilation” embraces bourgeois nationalism and rejects Leninism – it is as simple as that. National Rights & Proletarian Rule The final element in the “theoretical framework” of the ICL’s break with Leninism on the national question raises the relationship of national rights and proletarian rule. The “Hydra” document asserts: “The article on ‘Lenin vs. Luxemburg on the National Question’ implies that the right of self-determination does not apply after proletarian revolution: ‘The right of nations to self-determination, as any other bourgeois-democratic right, can only be superseded when proletarian class rule and its democracy supersede bourgeois democracy.’” This is a crude attempt to create a straw man – there is no implied repudiation of the right to self-determination in the sentence quoted by the Hydra authors. Its meaning is pretty clear, and any possible ambiguity is eliminated in another, more concrete, formulation of the same idea that appears a few paragraphs earlier: “Lenin’s Bolsheviks did not permit the principle of national self-determination, or any other bourgeois-democratic right, to prevent defense of the October Revolution against counterrevolution.” The Hydra article’s bogus claim that the 1977 WV article suggests that there is no right to national self-determination under proletarian rule is followed by the indignant assertion that: “This was not Lenin’s position but that of his adversaries like Bukharin and Pyatakov who advocated ‘proletarian self-determination.’” Nor is it the position put forward in the WV article, which clearly explains the logic of Lenin’s opposition to Bukharin and Pyatakov (who were aligned with Luxemburg on the issue). Lenin of course recognized the right of national self-determination under workers’ rule – as opposed to “proletarian self-determination” – but, as the 1977 WV article explained, he considered this right to be subordinate to the defense of the revolution against the class enemy. He spelled out this principle with perfect clarity in early 1916, long before a Russian workers’ state existed: “In contrast to the petty-bourgeois democrats, Marx regarded all democratic demands without exception not as an absolute, but as a historical expression of the struggle of the masses of the people, led by the bourgeoisie, against feudalism. There is not a single democratic demand which could not serve, and has not served, under certain conditions, as an instrument of the bourgeoisie for deceiving the workers. To single out one of the demands of political democracy, namely, the self determination of nations, and to oppose it to all the rest, is fundamentally wrong in theory. In practice, the proletariat will be able to retain its independence only if it subordinates its struggle for all the democratic demands, not excluding the demand for a republic, to its revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie.” —“The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination” (emphasis added) Bourgeois nationalists, Mensheviks and social democrats of all stripes strenuously object to the idea that “proletarian class rule and its democracy supersede bourgeois democracy.” Do the Hydra authors aspire to join their ranks? During the early years of the Russian Revolution the Bolsheviks asserted that, from the point of view of the working class, there is a hierarchy of rights (including the right of nations to self-determination) in which the preservation of proletarian rule “superceded” other considerations. This was clearly explained in the now repudiated 1977 WV article: “Lenin’s acceptance of self-determination for Finland, Poland, the Baltic nations and the Ukraine was a powerful lever for the Bolsheviks during the civil war which followed the October Revolution in 1917. However, after achieving independent state power, the bourgeois nationalists like Pilsudski and Mannerheim mobilized the petty bourgeois masses against the pro-Bolshevik working class, which wanted unity with Soviet Russia. A certain conflict arose between national self-determination and the defense of proletarian revolution.… “The history of the Ukraine during 1917-20 clearly illuminates this conflict. In October, local Bolsheviks, in alliance with the nationalist-dominated Ukrainian Central Rada, overthrew the pro-Kerensky provisional government in Kiev, the capital. However, the Ukrainian nationalist parties had their social base among the peasantry and naturally opposed the rule of soviets, which represented centrally the urban working classes. In late November the Central Rada suppressed the Kiev soviet and arrested its Bolshevik leaders. Further, it prohibited the Red Army from crossing Ukrainian territory to smash the counterrevolutionary mobilization of the Don Cossacks. “Lenin’s Bolsheviks did not permit the principle of national self-determination, or any other bourgeois-democratic right, to prevent defense of the October Revolution against counterrevolution. This was well illustrated in a December 1917 Soviet ultimatum to the Rada which simultaneously recognized the independence of the latter’s Ukrainian People’s Republic, refused to recognize the Rada as its government and gave it 48 hours to agree to stop aiding the Whites and repressing the soviets. When the Rada continued its provocations, Lenin’s government declared war.” Trotsky addressed the issue of conflicts between democratic rights and workers’ interests in his April 1940 “Balance Sheet of the Finnish Events”: “Just as during strikes directed against big capitalists, the workers often bankrupt in passing highly respectable petty-bourgeois concerns, so in a military struggle against imperialism, or in seeking military guarantees against imperialism, the workers’ state even completely healthy and revolutionary – may find itself compelled to violate the independence of this or that small state. Tears over the ruthlessness of the class struggle on either the domestic or the international arena may properly be shed by democratic Philistines but not by proletarian revolutionists. “The Soviet Republic in 1921 forcefully sovietized Georgia which constituted an open gateway for imperialist assault in the Caucasus. From the standpoint of the principles of national self-determination, a good deal might have been said in objection to such sovietization. From the standpoint of extending the arena of the socialist revolution, military intervention in a peasant country was more than a dubious act. From the standpoint of the self-defense of the workers’ state surrounded by enemies, forceful sovietization was justified: The safeguarding of the socialist revolution comes before formal democratic principles.” In repudiating Seymour’s 1976 article, and the companion piece published a year later, the ICL spits on a vital element of its own revolutionary heritage. The fact that it does so in order to avoid alienating a handful of young militants who have apparently not entirely broken from Quebecois nationalism is a testament to the political degeneracy of the current leadership of the Spartacist tendency and the enormous political distance that separates it from its revolutionary past. The ICL today is capable neither of seriously grappling with the difficult concrete situation the workers’ movement confronts, nor of addressing the political imperatives that flow from it. The ICL’s journey from Trotskyism to neo-Pabloism is qualitatively complete. The valuable contributions it made in the past, including the articles on the national question it now repudiates, are part of the legacy of the living tradition of authentic Trotskyism. 1 In the early 1980s, with Lebanon’s intercommunal conflict still raging, the U.S. and France established a military presence in Beirut under the auspices of the United Nations. When the imperialists sought to tip the balance in favor of the Maronite Christians, their Muslim opponents retaliated by attacking the barracks of the foreign legions, killing 241 U.S. Marines and 58 French soldiers with truck bombs in October 1983. We took the view that the blows struck by “Islamic Jihad” (which drove out the imperialist crusaders in short order) were defensible acts – the SL, denouncing our position as “bloodthirsty,” instead called for saving the surviving U.S. Marines. In a 7 February 1984 letter to the SL, we branded this cowardly flinch “a conscious and deliberate adaptation to the American ruling class.” This letter was one of a series of polemics on the issue which we reprinted in “ Marxism vs. Social Patriotism” (Trotskyist Bulletin No. 2). 2 “Comrade Oliver Stephens, in the March 1996 issue of Spartacist Canada, made a contribution that was considered valuable enough to be reprinted without comment or criticism. He talked about the national question and his article ends … with a rather peculiar quote. I think to understand it you have to appreciate that while Oliver does not have a Scottish background, Comrade Robertson [founder/leader of the Spartacist tendency] does. Oliver’s quote is this: ‘“So the concept of a nation, as we know it in the latter 20th century, is historically a recent development. This of course has not prevented various nationalists from inventing a glorious ‘history’ for their own particular nation. Most of this is nonsense, but the Scots may be an exception to the rule. In 1320 the Scottish lords petitioned the Pope – in writing, quite a novelty at the time! – for succor against the predations of the English king. In their ‘Declaration of Arbroath’ they noted that: “‘…we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today.… In their kingdom there have reigned one hundred and thirteen kings of their own royal stock, the line unbroken by a single foreigner.’” “Now, some of you may not know that the house of Robertson was indeed one of the royal houses of Scotland. I personally think that has something to do with the fact that was considered to be significant and important and included in the document.” —Trotskyist Bulletin No. 7 3 See “Spartacist Confusionists & the Scottish Referendum.”	cc/2020-05/en_head_0042.json.gz/line38
__label__wiki	0.981232	0.981232	EMMA THOMPSON (Poly) is one of the world's most respected talents for her versatility in acting as well as screenwriting. She is the sole artist thus far to have received an Academy Award for both acting and screenwriting. Last Christmas is currently in release worldwide. Thompson is co-screenwriter, producer and a member of the cast that stars Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding under the direction of Paul Feig. She also co-starred this year to critical acclaim with Mindy Kaling in Late Night, from a screenplay by Kaling, directed by Nisha Ganatra. For her performance, Thompson was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture-Musical or Comedy. On television, Thompson is part of a brilliant ensemble cast in the BBC One/HBO six-part series by Russell T. Davies, Years & Years. For her performance, she has been nominated as Best Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie Made for Television by the Critics' Choice Association. Thompson made her feature film debut in 1988, starring opposite Jeff Goldblum in the comedy The Tall Guy. In 1992, she caused a sensation with her portrayal of Margaret Schlegel in the Merchant-Ivory adaptation of E.M. Forster's Howards End. Sweeping the Best Actress category wherever she was considered, the performance netted her a British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award, Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award, New York Film Critics Circle Award, Golden Globe Award and Academy Award. She earned two Oscar nominations the following year for her work in The Remains of the Day and In the Name of the Father. In 1995, Thompson's adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, directed by Ang Lee, won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay as well as the Golden Globe for Best Screenplay and Best Screenplay awards from the Writers Guild of America and the Writers Guild of Great Britain, among others. For her performance in the film she was honored with a Best Actress award from BAFTA and nominated for a Golden Globe and an Academy Award. Her performance in Richard Curtis' Love Actually earned Thompson Best Actress in a Supporting Role at the 2004 Evening Standard Film Awards, London Film Critics Circle Awards and Empire Film Awards, along with a BAFTA nomination. In 2013, Thompson's moving portrayal of author 'P.L. Travers' in Saving Mr. Banks earned her both the National Board of Review and Empire Best Actress Awards, along with Golden Globe, Broadcast Film Critics, SAG and BAFTA nominations. Thompson wrote the screenplay and portrayed the title character of the magical nanny in Nanny McPhee (2005), her film based on Christianna Brand's Nurse Matilda stories, directed by Kirk Jones. She reprised the title role in Nanny McPhee Returns (2010), for which she again wrote the screenplay and acted as an executive producer. She is currently developing a stage musical on the character. In 2004, Thompson brought to the screen JK Rowling's character of Sybil Trelawney in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) for director Alfonso Cuaron, and reprised the role in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) for director David Yates. Her other film credits include Men In Black International; The Children Act, directed by Richard Eyre, based on the best-selling novel by Ian McEwan, and co-starring Stanley Tucci and Fionn Whitehead; Noah Baumbach's Meyerowitz Stories; Disney's live action international hit Beauty and the Beast; Last Chance Harvey (Golden Globe nomination as Best Actress); Love Punch; Pixar's Academy Award-winning animated film, Brave; Henry V; Dead Again; Peter's Friends; Much Ado About Nothing; Junior; Carrington; The Winter Guest; Imagining Argentina; Primary Colors; Stranger Than Fiction; and Men In Black 3. For director Mike Nichols, she starred in the HBO telefilms Wit (2001, in a Golden Globe-nominated performance) and Angels in America (2002, Screen Actors Guild Award and EMMY Award nominations). For her performance in the BBC Two television production of Christopher Reid's narrative poem, Song of Lunch, opposite Alan Rickman, Thompson was nominated for a 2012 Emmy Award (in the U.S. it aired on "Masterpiece" on PBS). Also in 2012, she portrayed Elizabeth II in the Sprout/SKY ARTS production Walking the Dogs. In March of 2014, to the delight of both critics and audiences, she portrayed Mrs. Lovett in the New York Philharmonic's staged production of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, opposite bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, in the title role. The production marked Thompson's New York Philharmonic debut, New York stage debut, and first time performing the role. She and Terfel reprised their roles this Spring, in a sold-out, limited run at the London Coliseum with the English National Opera, for the ENO's first ever season of musical theater. In September 2014, Penguin Press published "The Spectacular Tale of Peter Rabbit," the third in the series written by Thompson. To celebrate the 110th anniversary of Peter Rabbit, Thompson was commissioned to write the 24th tale in the existing collection of Peter Rabbit stories. It marked the first time that Frederick Warne & Co, the publisher, had published an additional title to the series, which Beatrix Potter wrote between 1902 and 1930. The book, titled The Further Tale of Peter Rabbit, was published in September 2012 to great critical acclaim and in October 2013, Penguin published The Christmas Tale of Peter Rabbit. Thompson was born in London to Eric Thompson, a theater director and writer, and Phyllida Law, an actress. She studied English at Cambridge University and was invited to join the university's long-standing Footlights comedy troupe, which elected her vice president. Hugh Laurie was President. While still a student, she co-directed Cambridge's first all-women revue Women's Hour, made her television debut on BBC-TV's Friday Night, Saturday Morning as well as her radio debut on BBC Radio's Injury Time. She continued to pursue an active stage career concurrent with her TV and radio work, appearing in A Sense of Nonsense touring England in 1982; the self-penned Short Vehicle at the Edinburgh Festival in 1983; Me and My Girl first at Leicester and then London's West End in 1985; and Look Back in Anger at the Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue in 1989. Throughout the 1980s Thompson frequently appeared on British TV, including widely acclaimed recurring roles on the Granada TV series Alfresco, BBC's Election Night Special and The Crystal Cube (the latter written by fellow Cambridge alums Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie), and a hilarious one-off role as upper-class twit Miss Money Sterling on The Young Ones. In 1985, Channel 4 offered Thompson her own TV special Up for Grabs and in 1988 she wrote and starred in her own BBC series called Thompson. She worked as a stand-up comic when the opportunity arose, and earned £60 in cash on her 25th birthday in a stand-up double bill with Ben Elton at the Croydon Warehouse. She says it's the best money she's ever earned. Thompson is president of the Helen Bamber Foundation, a U.K.-based human rights organization, formed in April 2005 to help rebuild the lives of and inspire a new self-esteem in survivors of gross human rights violations. On behalf of the foundation, Thompson co-curated "Journey," an interactive art installation, which used seven transport containers to illustrate the brutal and harrowing experiences of women sold into the sex trade. Thompson and "Journey" traveled to London, Vienna, Madrid, New York and the Netherlands for exhibitions and interviews. Four years ago, Thompson joined Greenpeace on their Save the Arctic campaign and she continues as an active supporter of Greenpeace. She is a supporter of the U.K.-based Food Foundation and Child Hunger. She is also an Ambassador for the international development agency ActionAid and has spoken out publicly about her support for the work the nongovernmental organization is doing, in particular, in addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic that continues to sweep across Africa. She has been affiliated with the organization since 2000 and thus far has visited ActionAid projects in Uganda, Ethiopia, Mozambique, South Africa, Liberia and Myanmar. She is a Patron of the Refugee Council and a patron of Edinburgh College's Performing Arts Studio of Scotland. In June 2018, she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Home \| Theaters \| Video \| TV Your Comments and Suggestions are Always Welcome. Contact CinemaReview.com � 2020 Universal Pictures Inc.�, All Rights Reserved. Find: Movie Title Cast/Crew All Movies At Theaters On Video Details Summary Titles Only HELP!	cc/2020-05/en_head_0042.json.gz/line43
__label__wiki	0.676338	0.676338	This Day in History: Jul 4, 1862: Lewis Carroll tells a story that was published on the same day in 1865 as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland On 4 July 1862, that Dodgson invented the outline of the story that eventually became his first and largest commercial success. Having told the story and been begged by Alice Liddell to write it down, Dodgson eventually (after much delay) presented her with a handwritten, illustrated manuscript entitled Alice's Adventures Under Ground in November 1864. After the possible alternative titles Alice Among the Fairies and Alice's Golden Hour were rejected, the work was finally published as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 1865 under the Lewis Carroll pen-name, which Dodgson had first used some nine years earlier.[26] Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by the pen name Lewis Carroll , was an English writer, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the Snark" and "Jabberwocky", all examples of the genre of literary nonsense. He is noted for his facility at word play, logic, and fantasy, and there are societies in many parts of the world (including the United Kingdom, Japan, the United States, and New Zealand[3]) dedicated to the enjoyment and promotion of his works and the investigation of his life. Dodgson's family was predominantly northern English, with Irish connections. Conservative and High Church Anglican, most of Dodgson's ancestors were army officers or Church of England clergy. His great-grandfather, also named Charles Dodgson, had risen through the ranks of the church to become the Bishop of Elphin.[4] His grandfather, another Charles, had been an army captain, killed in action in Ireland in 1803 when his two sons were hardly more than babies.[5] His mother's name was Frances Jane Lutwidge.[6] The elder of these sons – yet another Charles Dodgson – was Carroll's father. He reverted to the other family tradition and took holy orders. He went to Westminster School, and then to Christ Church, Oxford. He was mathematically gifted and won a double first degree, which could have been the prelude to a brilliant academic career. Instead he married his first cousin in 1827 and became a country parson.[7] Dodgson was born in the little parsonage of Daresbury in Cheshire near the towns of Warrington and Runcorn,[8] the eldest boy but already the third child of the four-and-a-half-year-old marriage. Eight more children were to follow. When Charles was 11, his father was given the living of Croft-on-Tees in North Yorkshire, and the whole family moved to the spacious rectory. This remained their home for the next twenty-five years. Young Charles' father was an active and highly conservative cleric of the Church of England who later became the Archdeacon of Richmond[9] and involved himself, sometimes influentially, in the intense religious disputes that were dividing the church. He was High Church, inclining to Anglo-Catholicism, an admirer of John Henry Newman and the Tractarian movement, and did his best to instill such views in his children. Young Charles was to develop an ambiguous relationship with his father's values and with the Church of England as a whole.[10] During his early youth, Dodgson was educated at home. His "reading lists" preserved in the family archives testify to a precocious intellect: at the age of seven the child was reading The Pilgrim's Progress. He also suffered from a stammer – a condition shared by most of his siblings[11] – that often influenced his social life throughout his years. At age twelve he was sent to Richmond Grammar School (now part of Richmond School) at nearby Richmond. In 1846, young Dodgson moved on to Rugby School, where he was evidently less happy, for as he wrote some years after leaving the place: I cannot say ... that any earthly considerations would induce me to go through my three years again ... I can honestly say that if I could have been ... secure from annoyance at night, the hardships of the daily life would have been comparative trifles to bear.[12] Scholastically, though, he excelled with apparent ease. "I have not had a more promising boy at his age since I came to Rugby", observed R. B. Mayor, then Mathematics master.[13] He left Rugby at the end of 1849 and matriculated at Oxford in May 1850 as a member of his father's old college, Christ Church.[14] After waiting for rooms in college to become available, he went into residence in January 1851.[15] He had been at Oxford only two days when he received a summons home. His mother had died of "inflammation of the brain" – perhaps meningitis or a stroke – at the age of forty-seven.[15] His early academic career veered between high promise and irresistible distraction. He did not always work hard, but was exceptionally gifted and achievement came easily to him. In 1852 he obtained first-class honours in Mathematics Moderations, and was shortly thereafter nominated to a Studentship by his father's old friend, Canon Edward Pusey.[16][17] In 1854 he obtained first-class honours in the Final Honours School of Mathematics, graduating Bachelor of Arts.[18] He remained at Christ Church studying and teaching, but the next year he failed an important scholarship through his self-confessed inability to apply himself to study.[19][20] Even so, his talent as a mathematician won him the Christ Church Mathematical Lectureship in 1855,[21] which he continued to hold for the next twenty-six years.[22] Despite early unhappiness, Dodgson was to remain at Christ Church, in various capacities, until his death.[23] Character and appearance Health challenges The young adult Charles Dodgson was about six feet tall, slender, and had curling brown hair and blue or grey eyes (depending on the account). He was described in later life as somewhat asymmetrical, and as carrying himself rather stiffly and awkwardly, though this may be on account of a knee injury sustained in middle age. As a very young child, he suffered a fever that left him deaf in one ear. At the age of 17, he suffered a severe attack of whooping cough, which was probably responsible for his chronically weak chest in later life. Another defect he carried into adulthood was what he referred to as his "hesitation", a stammer he acquired in early childhood and which plagued him throughout his life.[24] The stammer has always been a potent part of the conceptions of Dodgson; it is part of the belief that he stammered only in adult company and was free and fluent with children, but there is no evidence to support this idea.[25] Many children of his acquaintance remembered the stammer while many adults failed to notice it. Dodgson himself seems to have been far more acutely aware of it than most people he met; it is said he caricatured himself as the Dodo in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, referring to his difficulty in pronouncing his last name, but this is one of the many "facts" often-repeated, for which no first-hand evidence remains. He did indeed refer to himself as the dodo, but that this reference was to his stammer is simply speculation.[23] Although Dodgson's stammer troubled him, it was never so debilitating that it prevented him from applying his other personal qualities to do well in society. At a time when people commonly devised their own amusements and when singing and recitation were required social skills, the young Dodgson was well equipped to be an engaging entertainer. He reportedly could sing tolerably well and was not afraid to do so before an audience. He was adept at mimicry and storytelling, and was reputedly quite good at charades.[24] In the interim between his early published writing and the success of the Alice books, Dodgson began to move in the pre-Raphaelite social circle. He first met John Ruskin in 1857 and became friendly with him. He developed a close relationship with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his family, and also knew William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, and Arthur Hughes, among other artists. He also knew the fairy-tale author George MacDonald well – it was the enthusiastic reception of Alice by the young MacDonald children that convinced him to submit the work for publication.[24][26] Politics, religion and philosophy In broad terms, Dodgson has traditionally been regarded as politically, religiously, and personally conservative. Martin Gardner labels Dodgson as a Tory who was "awed by lords and inclined to be snobbish towards inferiors."[27] The Reverend W. Tuckwell, in his Reminiscences of Oxford (1900), regarded him as "austere, shy, precise, absorbed in mathematical reverie, watchfully tenacious of his dignity, stiffly conservative in political, theological, social theory, his life mapped out in squares like Alice's landscape."[28] However, Dodgson also expressed interest in philosophies and religions that seem at odds with this assessment. For example, he was a founding member of the Society for Psychical Research.[29][30] It has been argued by the proponents of the 'Carroll Myth' that these factors require a reconsideration of Gardner's diagnosis, and that perhaps, Dodgson's true outlook was more complex than previously believed (see 'the Carroll Myth' below).[citation needed] Dodgson wrote some studies of various philosophical arguments. In 1895, he developed a philosophical regressus-argument on deductive reasoning in his article "What the Tortoise Said to Achilles", which appeared in one of the early volumes of the philosophical journal Mind. The article was reprinted in the same journal a hundred years later, in 1995, with a subsequent article by Simon Blackburn titled Practical Tortoise Raising.[31] From a young age, Dodgson wrote poetry and short stories, both contributing heavily to the family magazine Mischmasch and later sending them to various magazines, enjoying moderate success. Between 1854 and 1856, his work appeared in the national publications, The Comic Times and The Train, as well as smaller magazines like the Whitby Gazette and the Oxford Critic. Most of this output was humorous, sometimes satirical, but his standards and ambitions were exacting. "I do not think I have yet written anything worthy of real publication (in which I do not include the Whitby Gazette or the Oxonian Advertiser), but I do not despair of doing so some day," he wrote in July 1855.[24] Sometime after 1850, he did write puppet plays for his siblings' entertainment, of which one has survived, La Guida di Bragia.[32] In 1856 he published his first piece of work under the name that would make him famous. A romantic poem called "Solitude" appeared in The Train under the authorship of "Lewis Carroll". This pseudonym was a play on his real name; Lewis was the anglicised form of Ludovicus, which was the Latin for Lutwidge, and Carroll an Irish surname similar to the Latin name Carolus, from which comes the name Charles.[7] The transition went as follows: "Charles Lutwidge" translated into Latin as "Carolus Ludovicus". This was then translated back into English as "Carroll Lewis" and then reversed to make "Lewis Carroll".[citation needed] Alice books In the same year, 1856, a new dean, Henry Liddell, arrived at Christ Church, bringing with him his young family, all of whom would figure largely in Dodgson's life and, over the following years, greatly influence his writing career. Dodgson became close friends with Liddell's wife, Lorina, and their children, particularly the three sisters: Lorina, Edith and Alice Liddell. He was for many years widely assumed to have derived his own "Alice" from Alice Liddell. This was given some apparent substance by the fact the acrostic poem at the end of Through the Looking Glass spells out her name and also that there are many superficial references to her hidden in the text of both books. It has been noted that Dodgson himself repeatedly denied in later life that his "little heroine" was based on any real child,[33][34] and frequently dedicated his works to girls of his acquaintance, adding their names in acrostic poems at the beginning of the text. Gertrude Chataway's name appears in this form at the beginning of The Hunting of the Snark and it is not suggested that this means any of the characters in the narrative are based on her.[34] Though information is scarce (Dodgson's diaries for the years 1858–1862 are missing), it does seem clear that his friendship with the Liddell family was an important part of his life in the late 1850s and he grew into the habit of taking the children (first the boy, Harry, and later the three girls) on rowing trips accompanied by an adult friend.[35] to nearby Nuneham Courtenay or Godstow.[36] It was on one such expedition, on 4 July 1862, that Dodgson invented the outline of the story that eventually became his first and largest commercial success. Having told the story and been begged by Alice Liddell to write it down, Dodgson eventually (after much delay) presented her with a handwritten, illustrated manuscript entitled Alice's Adventures Under Ground in November 1864.[36] Before this, the family of friend and mentor George MacDonald read Dodgson's incomplete manuscript, and the enthusiasm of the MacDonald children encouraged Dodgson to seek publication. In 1863, he had taken the unfinished manuscript to Macmillan the publisher, who liked it immediately. After the possible alternative titles Alice Among the Fairies and Alice's Golden Hour were rejected, the work was finally published as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 1865 under the Lewis Carroll pen-name, which Dodgson had first used some nine years earlier.[26] The illustrations this time were by Sir John Tenniel; Dodgson evidently thought that a published book would need the skills of a professional artist. The overwhelming commercial success of the first Alice book changed Dodgson's life in many ways. The fame of his alter ego "Lewis Carroll" soon spread around the world. He was inundated with fan mail and with sometimes unwanted attention. Indeed, according to one popular story, Queen Victoria herself enjoyed Alice In Wonderland so much that she suggested he dedicate his next book to her, and was accordingly presented with his next work, a scholarly mathematical volume entitled An Elementary Treatise on Determinants.[37][38] Dodgson himself vehemently denied this story, commenting "...It is utterly false in every particular: nothing even resembling it has occurred";[38][39] and it is unlikely for other reasons: as T.B. Strong comments in a Times article, "It would have been clean contrary to all his practice to identify [the] author of Alice with the author of his mathematical works".[40][41] He also began earning quite substantial sums of money but continued with his seemingly disliked post at Christ Church.[26] Late in 1871, a sequel – Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There – was published. (The title page of the first edition erroneously gives "1872" as the date of publication.[42]) Its somewhat darker mood possibly reflects the changes in Dodgson's life. His father had recently died (1868), plunging him into a depression that lasted some years.[26] In 1876, Dodgson produced his last great work, The Hunting of the Snark, a fantastical "nonsense" poem, exploring the adventures of a bizarre crew of tradesmen, and one beaver, who set off to find the eponymous creature. The painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti reputedly became convinced the poem was about him.[26] In 1856, Dodgson took up the new art form of photography, first under the influence of his uncle Skeffington Lutwidge, and later his Oxford friend Reginald Southey.[43] He soon excelled at the art and became a well-known gentleman-photographer, and he seems even to have toyed with the idea of making a living out of it in his very early years.[26] A recent study by Roger Taylor and Edward Wakeling[44] exhaustively lists every surviving print, and Taylor calculates that just over fifty percent of his surviving work depicts young girls, though this may be a highly distorted figure as approximately 60% of his original photographic portfolio is now missing, so any firm conclusions are difficult.[citation needed] Dodgson also made many studies of men, women, male children and landscapes; his subjects also include skeletons, dolls, dogs, statues and paintings, and trees. His pictures of children were taken with a parent in attendance and many of the pictures were taken in the Liddell garden, because natural sunlight was required for good exposures.[35] He also found photography to be a useful entrée into higher social circles. During the most productive part of his career, he made portraits of notable sitters such as John Everett Millais, Ellen Terry, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Julia Margaret Cameron, Michael Faraday and Alfred, Lord Tennyson.[26] Dodgson abruptly ceased photography in 1880. Over 24 years, he had completely mastered the medium, set up his own studio on the roof of Tom Quad, and created around 3,000 images. Fewer than 1,000 have survived time and deliberate destruction. He reported that he stopped taking photographs because keeping his studio working was difficult (he used the wet collodion process) and commercial photographers (who started using the dry-plate process in the 1870s) took pictures more quickly. [45] With the advent of Modernism, tastes changed, and his photography was forgotten from around 1920 until the 1960s.[citation needed] To promote letter writing, Dodgson invented The Wonderland Postage-Stamp Case in 1889. This was a cloth-backed folder with twelve slots, two marked for inserting the then most commonly used penny stamp, and one each for the other current denominations to one shilling. The folder was then put into a slip case decorated with a picture of Alice on the front and the Cheshire Cat on the back. All could be conveniently carried in a pocket or purse. When issued it also included a copy of Carroll's pamphletted lecture, Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter-Writing.[46][47] Another invention is a writing tablet called the nyctograph for use at night that allowed for note-taking in the dark; thus eliminating the trouble of getting out of bed and striking a light when one wakes with an idea. The device consisted of a gridded card with sixteen squares and system of symbols representing an alphabet of Dodgson's design, using letter shapes similar to the Graffiti writing system on a Palm device. A abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz A B bcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyza B C cdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzab C D defghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabc D E efghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcd E F fghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcde F G ghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdef G H hijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefg H I ijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefgh I J jklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghi J K klmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghij K L lmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk L M mnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijkl M N nopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklm N O opqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmn O P pqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmno P Q qrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnop Q R rstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopq R S stuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqr S T tuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrs T U uvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrst U V vwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstu V W wxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuv W X xyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvw X Y yzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwx Y Z zabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxy Z https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alphabet_Cipher Among the games he devised outside of logic there are a number of word games, including an early version of what today is known as Scrabble. He also appears to have invented, or at least certainly popularised, the "doublet" (see word ladder), a form of brain-teaser that is still popular today: the game of changing one word into another by altering one letter at a time, each successive change always resulting in a genuine word. For instance, CAT is transformed into DOG by the following steps: CAT, COT, DOT, DOG.[26] Other items include a rule for finding the day of the week for any date; a means for justifying right margins on a typewriter; a steering device for a velociam (a type of tricycle); new systems of parliamentary representation;[48] more nearly fair elimination rules for tennis tournaments; a new sort of postal money order; rules for reckoning postage; rules for a win in betting; rules for dividing a number by various divisors; a cardboard scale for the college common room he worked in later in life, which, held next to a glass, ensured the right amount of liqueur for the price paid; a double-sided adhesive strip for things like the fastening of envelopes or mounting things in books; a device for helping a bedridden invalid to read from a book placed sideways; and at least two ciphers for cryptography.[26] Mathematical work Within the academic discipline of mathematics, Dodgson worked primarily in the fields of geometry, matrix algebra, mathematical logic and recreational mathematics, producing nearly a dozen books under his real name. Dodgson also developed new ideas in the study of elections (e.g., Dodgson's method) and committees; some of this work was not published until well after his death. He worked as a mathematics tutor at Oxford, an occupation that gave him some financial security. His mathematical work attracted renewed interest in the late 20th century. Robbins' and Rumsey's investigation[49] of Dodgson Condensation, a method of evaluating determinants, led them to the Alternating Sign Matrix conjecture, now a theorem. Over the remaining twenty years of his life, throughout his growing wealth and fame, his existence remained little changed. He continued to teach at Christ Church until 1881, and remained in residence there until his death. His last novel, the two-volume Sylvie and Bruno, was published in 1889 and 1893 respectively. It achieved nowhere near the success of the Alice books. Its intricacy was apparently not appreciated by contemporary readers. The reviews and its sales, only 13,000 copies, were disappointing.[50][51] The only occasion on which (as far as is known) he travelled abroad was a trip to Russia in 1867 as an ecclesiastical together with the Reverend Henry Liddon. He recounts the travel in his "Russian Journal", which was first commercially published in 1935.[52] On his way to Russia and back he also saw different cities in Belgium, Germany, the partitioned Poland, and France. He died on 14 January 1898 at his sisters' home, "The Chestnuts" in Guildford, of pneumonia following influenza. He was two weeks away from turning 66 years old. He is buried in Guildford at the Mount Cemetery.[26] Controversies and mysteries Suggestions of paedophilia Stuart Dodgson Collingwood (Dodgson's nephew and biographer) wrote: And now as to the secondary causes which attracted him to children. First, I think children appealed to him because he was pre-eminently a teacher, and he saw in their unspoiled minds the best material for him to work upon. In later years one of his favourite recreations was to lecture at schools on logic; he used to give personal attention to each of his pupils, and one can well imagine with what eager anticipation the children would have looked forward to the visits of a schoolmaster who knew how to make even the dullest subjects interesting and amusing.[53] Despite comments like this, Dodgson's friendships with young girls and psychological readings of his work – especially his photographs of nude or semi-nude girls[54] – have all led to speculation that he was a paedophile. This possibility has underpinned numerous modern interpretations of his life and work, particularly Dennis Potter's play Alice and his screenplay for the motion picture, Dreamchild, Robert Wilson's Alice, and a number of recent biographies, including Michael Bakewell's Lewis Carroll: A Biography (1996), Donald Thomas's Lewis Carroll: A Portrait with Background (1995), and Morton N. Cohen's Lewis Carroll: A Biography (1995). All of these works more or less unequivocally assume that Dodgson was a paedophile, albeit a repressed and celibate one. Cohen claims Dodgson's "sexual energies sought unconventional outlets", and further writes: We cannot know to what extent sexual urges lay behind Charles's preference for drawing and photographing children in the nude. He contended the preference was entirely aesthetic. But given his emotional attachment to children as well as his aesthetic appreciation of their forms, his assertion that his interest was strictly artistic is naïve. He probably felt more than he dared acknowledge, even to himself. Cohen notes that Dodgson "apparently convinced many of his friends that his attachment to the nude female child form was free of any eroticism", but adds that "later generations look beneath the surface" (p. 229). Cohen and other biographers argue that Dodgson may have wanted to marry the 11-year-old Alice Liddell, and that this was the cause of the unexplained "break" with the family in June 1863.[55] There has never been significant evidence to support the idea, however, and the 1996 discovery of the "cut pages in diary document" (see above) seems to make it highly probable that the 1863 "break" had nothing to do with Alice, but was perhaps connected with rumours involving her older sister Lorina (born 11 May 1849, so she would have been 14 at the time), her governess, or her mother who was also nicknamed "Ina". Some writers, e.g., Derek Hudson and Roger Lancelyn Green, stop short of identifying Dodgson as a paedophile, but concur that he had a passion for small female children and next to no interest in the adult world. The basis for scholars' speculation regarding Dodgson's interest in female children has been challenged in the last ten years by several writers and scholars. "Carroll Myth" Since 1999 a group of scholars, notably Karoline Leach, Hugues Lebailly and Sherry L. Ackerman, John Tufail, Douglas Nickel and others, argue that what Leach terms the "Carroll Myth" has wildly distorted biographical perception of his life and his work. Those such as Carolyn Sigler and Cristopher Hollingsworth have joined the ranks of those calling for a major reassessment.[citation needed] Leach's book, In the Shadow of the Dreamchild, claims that: In general terms Dodgson's life has been simplified and 'infantilised' by a combination of inaccurate biography and the longstanding unavailability of key evidence, which allowed legends to proliferate unchecked. By the time the evidence did become available the 'mythic' image of the man had become so embedded in scholastic and popular thinking it remained unquestioned, despite the fact the evidence failed to support it. If the evidence were examined dispassionately it shows many of the most famous legends about the man (e.g. his 'paedophilia', and his exclusive adoration of small girls) are untrue, or at least grossly simplified.[56] In more detail, Lebailly has endeavoured to set Dodgson's child-photography within the "Victorian Child Cult", which perceived child-nudity as essentially an expression of innocence. Lebailly claims that studies of child nudes were mainstream and fashionable in Dodgson's time and that most photographers, including Oscar Gustave Rejlander and Julia Margaret Cameron, made them as a matter of course. Lebailly continues that child nudes even appeared on Victorian Christmas cards, implying a very different social and aesthetic assessment of such material. Lebailly concludes that it has been an error of Dodgson's biographers to view his child-photography with 20th- or 21st-century eyes, and to have presented it as some form of personal idiosyncrasy, when it was in fact a response to a prevalent aesthetic and philosophical movement of the time. Leach's reappraisal of Dodgson focused in particular on his controversial sexuality. She argues that the allegations of paedophilia rose initially from a misunderstanding of Victorian morals, as well as the mistaken idea, fostered by Dodgson's various biographers, that he had no interest in adult women. She termed the traditional image of Dodgson "the Carroll Myth".[57] She drew attention to the large amounts of evidence in his diaries and letters that he was also keenly interested in adult women, married and single, and enjoyed several scandalous (by the social standards of his time) relationships with them. She also pointed to the fact that many of those he described as "child-friends" were girls in their late teens and even twenties.[58] She argues that suggestions of paedophilia evolved only many years after his death, when his well-meaning family had suppressed all evidence of his relationships with women in an effort to preserve his reputation, thus giving a false impression of a man interested only in little girls. Similarly, Leach traces the claim that many of Carroll's female friendships ended when the girls reached the age of fourteen to a 1932 biography by Langford Reed.[59] Dodgson had been groomed for the ordained ministry in the Anglican Church from a very early age and was expected, as a condition of his residency at Christ Church, to take holy orders within four years of obtaining his master's degree. He delayed the process for some time but eventually took deacon's orders on 22 December 1861. But when the time came a year later to progress to priestly orders, Dodgson appealed to the dean for permission not to proceed. This was against college rules and initially Dean Liddell told him he would have to consult the college ruling body, which would almost undoubtedly have resulted in his being expelled. For unknown reasons, Dean Liddell changed his mind overnight and permitted Dodgson to remain at the college in defiance of the rules.[60] Uniquely amongst senior students of his time Dodgson never became a priest. There is currently no conclusive evidence about why Dodgson rejected the priesthood. Some have suggested his stammer made him reluctant to take the step, because he was afraid of having to preach.[61] Wilson[62] quotes letters by Dodgson describing difficulty in reading lessons and prayers rather than preaching in his own words. But Dodgson did indeed preach in later life, even though not in priest's orders, so it seems unlikely his impediment was a major factor affecting his choice.[citation needed] Wilson also points out that the then Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, who ordained Dodgson, had strong views against clergy going to the theatre, one of Dodgson's great interests. Others have suggested that he was having serious doubts about Anglicanism.[citation needed] He was interested in minority forms of Christianity (he was an admirer of F.D. Maurice) and "alternative" religions (theosophy).[63] Dodgson became deeply troubled by an unexplained sense of sin and guilt at this time (the early 1860s) and frequently expressed the view in his diaries that he was a "vile and worthless" sinner, unworthy of the priesthood,[64] and this sense of sin and unworthiness may well have affected his decision to abandon being ordained to the priesthood. Missing diaries At least four complete volumes[65] and around seven pages[66] of text are missing from Dodgson's 13 diaries. The loss of the volumes remains unexplained; the pages have been deliberately removed by an unknown hand. Most scholars assume the diary material was removed by family members in the interests of preserving the family name, but this has not been proven.[67] Except for one page, the period of his diaries from which material is missing is between 1853 and 1863 (when Dodgson was 21–31 years old).[68][69] This was a period when Dodgson began suffering great mental and spiritual anguish and confessing to an overwhelming sense of his own sin. This was also the period of time when he composed his extensive love poetry, leading to speculation that the poems may have been autobiographical.[70][71] Many theories have been put forward to explain the missing material. A popular explanation for one particular missing page (27 June 1863) is that it might have been torn out to conceal a proposal of marriage on that day by Dodgson to the 11-year-old Alice Liddell; there has never been any evidence to suggest this was so, and a paper[72] discovered by Karoline Leach in the Dodgson family archive in 1996 offers some evidence to the contrary. This paper, known as the "cut pages in diary document", was compiled by various members of Carroll's family after his death. Part of it may have been written at the time the pages were destroyed, though this is unclear. The document offers a brief summary of two diary pages that are now missing, including the one for 27 June 1863. The summary for this page states that Mrs. Liddell told Dodgson there was gossip circulating about him and the Liddell family's governess, as well as about his relationship with "Ina", presumably Alice's older sister, Lorina Liddell. The "break" with the Liddell family that occurred soon after was presumably in response to this gossip.[73][74] An alternative interpretation has been made regarding Carroll's rumoured involvement with "Ina": Lorina was also the name of Alice Liddell's mother. What is deemed most crucial and surprising is that the document seems to imply Dodgson's break with the family was not connected with Alice at all. But until a primary source is discovered, the events of 27 June 1863 remain inconclusive. Migraine and epilepsy In his diary for 1880, Dodgson recorded experiencing his first episode of migraine with aura, describing very accurately the process of 'moving fortifications' that are a manifestation of the aura stage of the syndrome.[75] Unfortunately there is no clear evidence to show whether this was his first experience of migraine per se, or if he may have previously suffered the far more common form of migraine without aura, although the latter seems most likely, given the fact that migraine most commonly develops in the teens or early adulthood.[76] Another form of migraine aura, Alice in Wonderland syndrome, has been named after Dodgson's little heroine, because its manifestation can resemble the sudden size-changes in the book. Also known as micropsia and macropsia, it is a brain condition affecting the way objects are perceived by the mind. For example, an afflicted person may look at a larger object, like a basketball, and perceive it as if it were the size of a golf ball. Some authors have suggested that Dodgson may have suffered from this type of aura, and used it as an inspiration in his work, but there is no evidence that he did.[76] Dodgson also suffered two attacks in which he lost consciousness. He was diagnosed by three different doctors; a Dr. Morshead, Dr. Brooks, and Dr. Stedman, believed the attack and a consequent attack to be an "epileptiform" seizure (initially thought to be fainting, but Brooks changed his mind). Some have concluded from this he was a lifetime sufferer of this condition, but there is no evidence of this in his diaries beyond the diagnosis of the two attacks already mentioned.[77] Some authors, in particular Sadi Ranson, have suggested Carroll may have suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy in which consciousness is not always completely lost, but altered, and in which the symptoms mimic many of the same experiences as Alice in Wonderland. Carroll had at least one incidence in which he suffered full loss of consciousness and awoke with a bloody nose, which he recorded in his diary and noted that the episode left him not feeling himself for "quite sometime afterward". This attack was diagnosed as possibly "epileptiform" and Carroll himself later wrote of his "seizures" in the same diary. Most of the standard diagnostic tests of today were not available in the nineteenth century. Recently, Dr Yvonne Hart, consultant neurologist at the Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, considered Dodgson's symptoms. Her conclusion, quoted in Jenny Woolf's The Mystery of Lewis Carroll, is that Dodgson very likely had migraine, and may have had epilepsy, but she emphasises that she would have considerable doubt about making a diagnosis of epilepsy without further information.[78] 1. ^ "Dodgson, Charles Lutwidge". American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Houghton Mifflin. 2001. 2. ^ "Dodgson, Charles Lutwidge". Random House Dictionary. Random House, Inc. 2011. 3. ^ http://lewiscarrollsociety.org.uk/pages/eventspeopleplaces/societies.html 4. ^ Clark (1979) p.10 5. ^ Collingwood, Stuart (1898). The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll. London: T. Fisher Unwin. pp. 6–7. 6. ^ Collingwood, Stuart (1898). The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll. London: T. Fisher Unwin. p. 8. 7. ^ a b Cohen, Morton (26 November 1996). Lewis Carroll: A Biography. Vintage Books. pp. 30–35. ISBN 978-0-679-74562-4. 8. ^ "Google map of Daresbury, UK". Retrieved 22 October 2011. 9. ^ "Charles Lutwidge Dodgson". The MacTutor History of Mathematics archive. Retrieved 8 March 2011. 10. ^ Cohen, Morton (26 November 1996). Lewis Carroll: A Biography. Vintage Books. pp. 200–202. ISBN 978-0-679-74562-4. 11. ^ Cohen (1995) p.4 12. ^ Collingwood, Stuart (1898). The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll. London: T. Fisher Unwin. pp. 30–31. 13. ^ Collingwood, Stuart (1898). The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll. London: T. Fisher Unwin. p. 29. 14. ^ Clark (1979) 63-64 15. ^ a b Clark (1979) 64-65 16. ^ Collingwood (1898) p.52 17. ^ Clark (1979) 74 19. ^ Cohen (1995) p.51 21. ^ Raymond Flood; Adrian Rice; Robin Wilson (2011). Mathematics in Victorian Britain. Oxford University Press. p. 41. ISBN 0-19-960139-9. OCLC 721931689. 22. ^ Cohen (1995) pp.414-416 23. ^ a b Leach, Karoline In the Shadow of the Dreamchild Ch. 2. 24. ^ a b c d Leach, Karoline In the Shadow of the Dreamchild Ch. 2 25. ^ Leach, p. 91 26. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Cohen, Morton N. (26 November 1996). Lewis Carroll: A Biography. Vintage Books. pp. 100–4. ISBN 978-0-679-74562-4.[page needed] 27. ^ Gardner, Martin (2000). Introduction to The annotated Alice: Alice's adventures in Wonderland & Through the looking glass. W. W. Norton & Company. p. xv. ISBN 0-517-02962-6. 28. ^ Gardner, Martin (2009). Introduction to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. Oxford University Press. p. xvi. ISBN 0-517-02962-6. 29. ^ Leach, In the Shadow of the Dreamchild p. 147 30. ^ Jan Susina (2010). The place of Lewis Carroll in children's literature. Children's literature and culture 66. Taylor & Francis. p. 122. ISBN 0-415-93629-2. 31. ^ Carroll, Lewis, "What the Tortoise Said to Achilles", Mind n.s. 4 (1895), 278–280; rpt. in Mind 104 (1995), 691–693. Simon Blackburn, "Practical Tortoise Raising", Mind 104 (1995), 695 ff.[1] 32. ^ Peter L. Heath (2007), "Introduction", La Guida Di Bragia, a Balld Opera for the Marionette Theatre, Lewis Carroll Society of North America, pp. vii–xvi, ISBN 0-930326-15-6 33. ^ Cohen, Morton N. (ed), The Letters of Lewis Carroll, London: Macmillan, 1979. 34. ^ a b Leach, Karoline In the Shadow of the Dreamchild Ch. 5 "The Unreal Alice" 35. ^ a b Simon Winchester (2011). The Alice Behind Wonderland. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-539619-5. OCLC 641525313. 36. ^ a b Leach, Karoline In the Shadow of the Dream Child Ch. 4 37. ^ Wilson (2008) 38. ^ a b "Lewis Carroll – Logician, Nonsense Writer, Mathematician and Photographer". The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. BBC. 26 August 2005. Retrieved 12 February 2009. 39. ^ Dodgson, Charles (1896). Symbolic Logic. 40. ^ T. B. Strong (27 January 1932). "Mr. Dodgson: Lewis Carroll at Oxford". [The Times]. 41. ^ "Fit for a Queen". Snopes. 42. ^ Cohen, Morton (24 June 2009). Introduction to "Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass". Random House. ISBN 978-0-553-21345-4. 43. ^ Clark (1979) p.93 44. ^ Taylor, Roger; Wakeling, Edward (25 February 2002). Lewis Carroll, Photographer. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-07443-6. 45. ^ Wakeling, Edward (1998), "Lewis Carroll's Photography", An Exhibition From the Jon A. Lindseth Collection of C. L. Dodgson and Lewis Carroll, New York, NY: The Grolier Club, pp. 55–67, ISBN 0-910672-23-7 46. ^ Flodden W. Heron, "Lewis Carroll, Inventor of Postage Stamp Case" in Stamps, vol. 26, no. 12, 25 March 1939 47. ^ "The Lewis Carroll Society Website – Carroll Related Stamps". The Lewis Carroll Society. 28 April 2005. Retrieved 10 March 2011. 48. ^ Black, Duncan; McLean, Iain; McMillan, Alistair; Monroe, Burt L.; Dodgson, Charles Lutwidge (1996). A Mathematical Approach to Proportional Representation. ISBN 978-0-7923-9620-8. 49. ^ David P Robbins and Howard Rumsey Jr., "Determinants and alternating sign matrices", Advances in Mathematics, 62, Issue 2 (1986), 169–184. 50. ^ Angelica Shirley Carpenter (2002). Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking Glass. Lerner. p. 98.ISBN 978-0822500735. 51. ^ Thomas Christensen (1991). "Dodgson's Dodges". rightreading.com. 52. ^ Chronology of Works of Lewis Carroll[dead link] 53. ^ Stuart Dodgson Collingwood (1898). [/books?id=15-aAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll] Check \|url= scheme (help). London: T. Fisher Unwin. 54. ^ Cohen, Morton N. (26 November 1996). Lewis Carroll: A Biography. Vintage Books. pp. 166–167, 254–255. ISBN 978-0-679-74562-4. 55. ^ Cohen, Morton N. (26 November 1996). Lewis Carroll: A Biography. Vintage Books. pp. 100–4. ISBN 978-0-679-74562-4. 56. ^ http://carrollmyth.com/faq.html 57. ^ "The Carroll Myth". Retrieved 12 February 2009. 58. ^ Leach, pp. 16–17 60. ^ Dodgson's MS diaries, volume 8, 22–24 October 1862 61. ^ Cohen, Morton N. (26 November 1996). Lewis Carroll: A Biography. Vintage Books. p. 263. ISBN 978-0-679-74562-4. 62. ^ Wilson (2008) pp.103-104 63. ^ Leach, In the Shadow of the Dreamchild (new edition), 2009, p. 134 64. ^ Dodgson's MS diaries, volume 8, see prayers scattered throughout the text 69. ^ Wakeling, Edward (April 2003). "The Real Lewis Carroll / A Talk given to the Lewis Carroll Society". 1855 ... 1856 ... 1857 ... 1858 ... 1862 ... 1863. Retrieved 14 September 2009. 70. ^ Leach p. 54 71. ^ "The Dodgson Family and Their Legacy". Retrieved 5 January 2011. 72. ^ Dodgson Family Collection, Cat. No. F/17/1. "Cut Pages in Diary[dead link]". (For an account of its discovery see The Times Literary Supplement, 3 May 1996.) 73. ^ Leach, Karoline In the Shadow of the Dreamchild pp. 170–2. 74. ^ "Text available on-line". Looking for Lewis Carroll. Retrieved 4 May 2007.[dead link] 75. ^ Wakeling, Edward [2] (Ed.) "The Diaries of Lewis Carroll", vol 9 p. 52 76. ^ a b "Migraine and Lewis Carroll"; FW Maudie, in The Migraine Periodical,<issue 17> 77. ^ "The Diaries of Lewis Carroll", vol 9 78. ^ Woolf, Jenny (4 February 2010). The Mystery of Lewis Carroll. St. Martin's Press. pp. 298–9. ISBN 978-0-312-61298-6. 79. ^ "‘A most curious thing’ / Lewis Carroll Library". Taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Carroll [04.07.2013] This Day in History: Jul 31, 1667: Treaty of Breda... This Day in History: Jul 31,1803: John Ericsson, S... This Day in History: Jul 30, 762: Baghdad is found... This Day in History: Jul 30, 1898: Henry Moore bo... This Day in History: Jul 29, 1981: Prince Charles ... 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