"The Rocky Horror Glee Show" is the fifth episode of the second season of the American television series Glee, and the twenty-seventh episode overall. It was written by series creator Ryan Murphy, from a story by Murphy and Tim Wollaston, directed by Adam Shankman, and premiered on Fox on October 26, 2010. The episode features the glee club paying tribute to the 1973 musical The Rocky Horror Show, with elements of its 1975 film adaptation The Rocky Horror Picture Show, by staging it as a school musical. While cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) attempts to sabotage the production, glee club director Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) dwells on his feelings for guidance counselor Emma Pillsbury (Jayma Mays), and club members Finn (Cory Monteith) and Sam (Chord Overstreet) deal with body image issues. Barry Bostwick and Meat Loaf, who star in the original film, appear in cameo roles in this episode.

Elements of Rocky Horror were sanitized for the episode, including the costumes and lyrics. Creator Richard O'Brien expressed disappointment in the dilution of the musical's themes, and a spokesperson for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation criticized the episode for its use of the term "tranny". Watched by 11.76 million US viewers, "The Rocky Horror Glee Show" was the fifth consecutive episode of Glee to become the top-rated program on the night of broadcast in the 18–49 demographic. It received a mixed response from critics, was alternatively deemed the series' best ever themed-episode by Rolling Stone Erica Futterman, and was described as the worst hour in the show's history by Emily VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club.

The episode featured cover versions of seven Rocky Horror songs, which were released on an extended play album. Glee: The Music, The Rocky Horror Glee Show reached number six on the Billboard 200. It marked the lowest debut and sales for the Glee cast in the US, but the highest position ever reached for a Rocky Horror album. The songs attracted mixed commentary, particularly the performance of "Time Warp", which was given a grade of "A+" by Entertainment Weekly Tim Stack, but derided by Matt Zoller Seitz of Slant Magazine as "very possibly the weakest, most uninspired rendition" he had ever heard.

Plot
The episode opens with the red lips of glee club member Santana Lopez (Naya Rivera) against a black background as she sings "Science Fiction/Double Feature". In the school auditorium, the glee club members rehearse The Rocky Horror Show, performing "Over at the Frankenstein Place". They are interrupted by Dr. Carl Howell (John Stamos), who accuses club director Will Schuester of trying to steal his girlfriend, school guidance counselor Emma Pillsbury. The episode continues in flashback format, with Will recalling the events leading up to Carl's accusation.

Will learns that Emma and Carl attended a midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which helped to lessen some of her obsessive–compulsive behaviors. As Emma is a fan, Will decides to direct the glee club in a production of the musical, casting co-captains Finn Hudson and Rachel Berry (Lea Michele) in the lead roles of Brad and Janet, Mike Chang (Harry Shum, Jr.) as Dr. Frank N. Furter, and Sam Evans (Chord Overstreet) as Rocky. While Sam is proud of his physique and secure in his own body-image, Finn feels self-conscious at the prospect of appearing in his underwear, as the role necessitates.

Cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester is approached by news station managers Tim Stanwick (Barry Bostwick) and Barry Jeffries (Meat Loaf) about producing an undercover exposé of the play, and convinces Will to involve her in the production. When Mike's parents refuse to let him play Frank N. Furter, a transvestite, Sue manipulates Carl into saving the musical. He auditions with the song "Hot Patootie", but feels that it would be more appropriate for him to play Eddie. The role of Frank, traditionally played by a male, is instead claimed by Mercedes Jones (Amber Riley).

Will grows increasingly jealous of Carl as he joins the production. When Sam becomes hesitant to wear his skimpy costume, Will decides that he will play Rocky instead, and asks Emma to rehearse the suggestive "Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me" with him. Will is later called into Principal Figgins' (Iqbal Theba) office, where he learns that Finn has been suspended for walking through the hallway in his underwear, attempting to become comfortable with his costume. He convinces Figgins to reduce Finn's punishment, and the episode returns to the opening scene as Carl confronts Will over his private rehearsal with Emma. Alerted to Sue's planned exposé, Will concedes that his motivations in putting on the production were questionable. He tells Emma that he will cease interfering with her relationship. Though he cancels the play, he has the glee club perform it for themselves, and the episode ends with a group rendition of "Time Warp".

Production

When casting Glee, series creator Ryan Murphy required that auditioning actors without theatrical experience demonstrate their ability to sing and dance as well as act. Mays, who was cast as guidance counselor Emma Pillsbury, auditioned with the song "Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. In April 2009, Murphy told the Los Angeles Times that he would like to have Mays perform the song on Glee. In October 2009, cast member Chris Colfer deemed "Time Warp" the song he would most like to perform on the show, and suggested a Rocky Horror-themed Halloween episode. Colfer re-iterated his desire to perform "Time Warp" at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International, which prompted Murphy to reveal that a Glee episode devoted to Rocky Horror was planned for the show's second season. At the 2010 Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour, Murphy stated he would be directing the episode, and also revealed that Adam Shankman would guest-direct one of the first ten episodes of the season. Shankman later revealed via the social networking website Twitter that he would in fact be directing the Rocky Horror episode, and commented, "Rocky Horror, while really risqué, is perfect for Glee because they all, in theory, feel like misfits."

Elements of Rocky Horror were sanitized for the episode, and Shankman believes that he was sought out in order to make the production more audience appropriate. Stamos was initially set to play Dr. Frank N. Furter, but the role was recast due to network resistance. Costumes used in the episode were inspired by the Rocky Horror musical and film, but were adapted for the Glee cast and cost over $30,000. The tight gold lamé underwear worn by Peter Hinwood in the 1975 film were replaced by board shorts for Overstreet. In dressing Riley as Frank, series costume designer Lou Eyrich found it challenging to select outfits which would be acceptable for a primetime series, yet would still appeal to all audiences. To appeal to younger viewers, Eyrich updated the costume worn by Colfer as Riff Raff, pairing a tailcoat with jeans and a J.Crew henley shirt. Michele's costuming as Janet was similar to her regular wardrobe as Rachel, with Eyrich commenting, "That's why she was the perfect Janet." Prior to broadcast, cast member Mark Salling claimed that he would play Rocky Horror talking lips. In the event, however, Salling did not appear in the episode. He was temporarily absent from the series, reportedly for creative reasons, and returned in November 2010. The lips were instead played by Rivera.

Original Rocky Horror cast members Barry Bostwick and Meat Loaf guest-starred in the episode. Bostwick deemed their roles "stunt casting", but suggested his character may return to the show in future and become involved with Sue. Susan Sarandon told People she was open to appearing in the episode depending on the role, and stated that she was flattered by the planned Glee tribute, but was not approached about appearing. An advance midnight screening of the episode was previewed on October 21, 2010 at the Angelika Film Center in New York City.

Reception

Ratings
In its original broadcast, "The Rocky Horror Glee Show" was watched by 11.76 million US viewers and attained a 4.9/13 Nielsen rating/share in the 18–49 demographic. For the fifth consecutive episode, Glee was the top-rated program of the night among adults aged 18–49. Both viewership and ratings rose from the previous episode, "Duets", which was watched by 11.36 million viewers and attained a 4.7/13 rating/share among adults aged 18–49. In the weekly program rankings, Glee was the fifth most-viewed show among adults 18–49, and the second scripted show behind only Modern Family. In overall viewers, it placed twentieth for the week.

In Canada, the episode was watched by 2.48 million viewers, ranking as the fourth most-watched program for the week of broadcast. Viewership was again up on "Duets", which attained 2.25 million viewers and ranked seventh. The episode's Australian broadcast drew 1.34 million viewers, making Glee the fifth most-watched show of the night and the most-watched with viewers aged under 50. It placed eleventh in the weekly program rankings. There also, "The Rocky Horror Glee Show" registered a rise on the previous episode, which was watched by 1.04 million viewers, placed ninth on the night and twenty-eighth for the week. In the UK, the episode was watched by 2.50 million viewers—2.121 million on E4, and 385,000 on E4+1—becoming the most-watched show on cable for the week. Viewership remained static from "Duets", which also attained an audience of 2.50 million.

Critical response

Rocky Horror creator Richard O'Brien was disappointed that the episode diluted the themes of the musical, and was puzzled that the word "transsexual" was censored. Matt Kane, entertainment media manager for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, criticized the use of the pejorative term "tranny" in its place, and found it "particularly alarming" given that the season one episode "Theatricality" presented a negative reaction to the use of a homophobic slur." Critics had a mixed reaction to the episode. Emily VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club graded it an "F" and said it was "the worst hour this show has ever produced". She felt that it was overly ambitious, and that in attempting to skirt humorously around the issue of transsexuals, the end result was "more offensive than if the show had simply ignored the whole thing to begin with." Matt Zoller Seitz of Slant Magazine called it a "travesty" and criticized "the arms-length treatment of the Frank N. Furter character", and Amy Reiter of the Los Angeles Times deemed the episode flawed through its sanitization, despite initially having found the two shows "a particularly promising match".

"The Rocky Horror Glee Show" received several favorable comparisons to previous themed episodes; Erica Futterman of Rolling Stone deemed it the best yet. Both Entertainment Weekly Tim Stack and Jarett Wieselman of the New York Post preferred it to the Britney Spears tribute episode "Britney/Brittany"; Wieselman hailed it as a "run-away success" that would satisfy Rocky Horror fans without being a "homage for homage's sake" like the Spears episode, and Stack felt that Rocky Horror was a "perfect fit" for Glee, due to thematic similarities between the two. While previous Glee tributes attracted criticism for their focus on musical numbers to the detriment of plot, Jenna Mullins of E! Online and CBS News Jessica Derschowitz appreciated that "The Rocky Horror Glee Show" was more story-driven.

Critics generally disliked the focus the episode placed on the adult characters, with many objecting to Will's characterisation. VanDerWerff wrote that his storyline with Emma "misplac[ed] what made either of the characters enjoyable in the first place", and IGN's Robert Canning—who otherwise enjoyed the episode, and rated it 8.5/10—observed that Will was presented as being selfish and a "terrible educator", in contrast to his former role as the moral centre of the show. Lisa de Moraes of The Washington Post initially found the focus on the adults a welcome change, but felt their storyline rapidly became convoluted. Anthony Benigno of the Daily News liked Will less as the episode progressed, and deemed it overall, "Creepy, vaguely uncomfortable, in slightly poor taste but well-intentioned, and ultimately, thoroughly entertaining to watch for reasons I can't quite put into words." CNN's Lisa Respers France actually enjoyed the episode for the additional depth it brought to Will and his feelings for Emma, as well as Finn and his body image issues. While Stack commended the male body image storyline, and found it refreshing for a program to examine the objectification of men, de Moraes derided it, and likened Finn and Sam's discussion about eating healthily and working out to an "after school special".

The episode's conclusion—in which Will declares that the original Rocky Horror fans and New Directions members are united by their outcast status—was widely criticized, with VanDerWerff deeming it a "series lowpoint", and "a muddled, terrible message, particularly in an episode that seems to have an uneasy relationship with actual outcasts, transsexuals." Both Reiter and Aly Semigran of MTV questioned the resolution, with Reiter stating that it was unclear what message the creators were attempting to convey, and Semigran finding it disjointed, suggesting "The Rocky Horror Glee Show" to be a "rare Glee misstep".

Music

Performances

Seven Rocky Horror songs were covered in the episode. The opening number of "Science Fiction/Double Feature", performed by Rivera and represented by a disembodied pair of red lips, mirrored the opening to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The song segued into a rehearsal of "Over at the Frankenstein Place", which was followed by a rehearsal of "Dammit Janet"—the former with Michele on lead vocals, and the latter featuring Michele, Monteith, Colfer, Agron and Riley. Stamos' first vocal performance for the series followed, as he gave a rendition of "Hot Patootie". Stamos reportedly feigned illness in order to work with a private vocal coach and dance instructor on the number, and hired his own studio in which to rehearse. The performance entailed a shot-by-shot recreation of the original choreography. "Sweet Transvestite" featured Riley on lead vocals, and "Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me" showcased Mays, in her first lead performance since "I Could Have Danced All Night" in season one. The episode then closed with a group rendition of "Time Warp".

Commentary
Musical performances in the episode attracted mixed commentary, particularly "Time Warp". Stack rated all of the songs a "B" grade or higher, and gave "Time Warp" the highest grade of an "A+". He called it his favorite moment of the episode, and praised its energy; he wrote that Quinn made a "surprisingly good" Magenta. Semigran also praised the number, and commended the performances by Morris, Monteith, Agron and particularly Colfer, who, she wrote, "looked and sounded the part so well, you'd swear you were watching the original Rocky Horror Picture Show". In a generally negative review of the episode, Reiter commented that despite her dissatisfaction, she found herself singing along to "Time Warp" with "disconcerting enthusiasm", and was "nostalgically transported against [her] better judgment". In contrast, VanDerWerff stated that she would have increased her review of the episode from an "F" to a "D" had "Time Warp" been better, as she had "never seen a more lifeless version". Zoller Seitz similarly called it "very possibly the weakest, most uninspired rendition" he had ever seen, and criticized the side-lining of Colfer in favor of Monteith.

Semigran said the song "Dammit Janet" was "spirited and spot-on", and Benigno graded it an "A", though observed that it was "painfully obvious" Michele and Monteith were lip-syncing. Futterman described the performance as "fully engaged, campy to the max and totally on point". "Hot Patootie" resulted in praise for Stamos, with Stack grading it an "A" and comparing it favorably to the actor's singing on Full House, and Semigran recommending that he be cast in a Broadway revival of The Rocky Horror Show. Benigno wrote that his voice lacked Meat Loaf's "rock n' roll howl", but praised his charisma and dancing, and graded the performance an

Critics disagreed over the casting of Mercedes as Frank. Semigran felt that, as sung by a female, "Sweet Transvestite" lost its shock value. Raymund Flandez of The Wall Street Journal would have preferred Salling's Puck in the role, but praised Riley's vocals, writing that her solo "woke us all up from the timid pacing". Benigno also enjoyed the number, and found that while Mercedes lacked the stage presence of Tim Curry, Riley did something "completely remarkable" as Frank, giving a largely flawless performance. He named "Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me" the best song of the episode, and graded it "A+". Despite finding the episode "abrupt, uneven [and] sanitized", Flandez felt that it was saved by this performance. Futterman remarked that having Emma in the role of Janet was "ideal", but preferred the song visually to vocally. Zoller Seitz disliked the change in Emma's characterization which brought about the number, and while he wrote that "Mays was so charming that she almost, almost saved it", he ultimately found the "motivational contortions" insulting to the audience.

Chart history

Glee: The Music, The Rocky Horror Glee Show, an extended play accompanying the episode, was released on October 19, 2010. Its track list includes each of the seven songs covered. The soundtrack debuted at number six on the Billboard 200, with 48,000 copies sold. It marked the lowest debut and sales for the Glee cast in the US, but the highest position ever reached for a Rocky Horror album. The EP attained lower chart positions internationally, peaking at number eight in Australia, ten in Canada, fifteen in Ireland, and twenty-three in the UK. "Time Warp" was the only song from the EP to chart on the Billboard Hot 100, attaining a position of eighty-nine. Internationally, its highest peak was in Ireland, where it reached number forty-two. "Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me" was the only other track from the EP to place on the singles charts, peaking at number seventy-two in the UK.

References

External links
 "The Rocky Horror Glee Show" at Fox.com

2010 American television episodes
Glee (season 2) episodes
Rocky Horror
Halloween television episodes
Body image in popular culture
American LGBT-related television episodes
Transgender-related television episodes
LGBT-related controversies in television

The Rocky Horror Glee Show


In computer networking, a supplicant is an entity at one end of a point-to-point LAN segment that seeks to be authenticated by an authenticator attached to the other end of that link. The IEEE 802.1X standard uses the term "supplicant" to refer either to hardware or to software. In practice, a supplicant is a software application installed on an end-user's computer. The user invokes the supplicant and submits credentials to connect the computer to a secure network. If the authentication succeeds, the authenticator typically allows the computer to connect to the network.

A supplicant, in some contexts, refers to a user or to a client in a network environment seeking to access network resources secured by the IEEE 802.1X authentication mechanism. But saying "user" or "client" over-generalizes; in reality, the interaction takes place through a personal computer, an Internet Protocol (IP) phone, or similar network device. Each of these must run supplicant software that initiates or reacts to IEEE 802.1X authentication requests for association.

Overview
Businesses, campuses, governments and all other social entities across-the-board in need of security may resort to the use of IEEE 802.1X authentication to regulate users access to their corresponding network infrastructure. And to enable this, client devices need to meet supplicant definition in order to gain access. In businesses, for example, it is very common that employees will receive their new computer with all the necessary settings appropriately set for IEEE 802.1X authentication, in particular when connecting wirelessly to the network.

Access
For a supplicant-capable device to gain access to the secured resources on a network, some preconditions should be observed and a context that will make this feasible. The network to which the supplicant needs to interact with must have a RADIUS Server (also known as an Authentication Server or an Authenticator), a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server if automatic IP address assignment is needed, and in certain configurations, an Active Directory domain controller. The domain controller is particularly needed in Microsoft environments when using Microsoft's Internet Authentication Service (IAS) or Network Policy Server (NPS) software to provide RADIUS services from the Authentication Server.

Supplicant list
Supplicants include but are not limited to:
 Windows 2000/XP built in
 Windows 2000 Service Pack 4
 Windows XP Service Pack 2
 Mac OS X built in ("Internet Connect" utility)
 OS 10.3 or higher
 AnyConnect Network Access Manager
 Odyssey
 SecureW2
 wpa_supplicant
 Xsupplicant

Mechanism
One aspect of reality a user needs to understand and, more likely comply with the network administrator is the use of user name and password, or a MAC address as the minimum that will be required for account setup.

On a Windows machine, taking an example of Windows 8, one should make sure to enable one's client to act as a supplicant by going to the Network Properties of the Network Interface Card (NIC), and from the Authentication tab, "Enable IEEE 802.1X authentication" need to be checked. Similar steps need to be taken on other network devices that provide support for IEEE 802.1X authentication. This is the most important single step a user will need to make in order for one's network device to act as a supplicant.

Notes
Note that IAS was being used up to Windows Server 2003; since then, it has been replaced by NPS on all subsequent Windows Server releases (2008, 2012...). IAS and NPS are not the only RADIUS Servers, some other include: FreeRADIUS, Cisco Secure Access Control System (ACS) Server...

References

See also
 Supplicant

External links
 ESG Open 802.1x Supplicant initiative
 Understanding 802.1x authentication on Microsoft
 Cisco Secure Access Control System on Cisco
 What is 802.1x Security Authentication for Wireless Networks? on Netgear
 Creating a secure 802.1x wireless infrastructure using Microsoft Windows on Microsoft Technet
  on SecureW2

IEEE 802

Supplicant (computer)


Achille Lucien Mauzan (1883, in Gap, Hautes-Alpes – 1952, in Gap) was born on the French Riviera, but moved to Italy in 1905, known as a decorative illustrator designing during the Art Deco movement, though he also painted and sculpted.

After a period of study in the École des Beaux-Arts at Lyon, France, Mauzan divided his life between Milan, Paris and Buenos Aires. Between the years 1920 and 1940, the period between the wars, he used forms and materials under the influence of the avant-garde cubists. He was also an illustrator of posters and postcards.

During his career as a poster printer and designer, Mauzan designed over 2,000 posters, using a style marked by humor and brilliant colors for advertisement and events and over 1,000 postcard images.  He made several important posters for the Italian film industry in Turin, and then went to work at Ricordi music publishing from 1912 to 1917. Later, from 1919 to 1923 he worked in the Magical press (Giovanni Magagnoli). In 1924 in Milan he established with Morzenti his own publishing house, the Mauzan-Morzenti Agency.  In 1926 he travelled to Argentina and set up the "Affiches Mauzan" (Mauzan Posters) publishing house where many of his greatest works were created and where he worked until 1932. Within those years, Gino Boccasile, one of his students in Milan, travelled to Argentina at his insistence and set up a studio. Mauzan is also noted for designing several war posters including an adaptation of the famous Lord Kitchener poster.

Biography

 1905: Travelled to Italy, where he settled and started working. His productions were essentially illustrations of magazines, postcards, bronze or plaster ceramics. After moving to Turin he turned to production to the newly formed film industry. As an outstanding lithographer, he produced about 1500 posters of films between 1909 and 1913, including posters of silent films.
 1912 to 1917: worked in Milan for Ricordi, a music publishing company.
 1914 to 1918:  (World War I): he designed postcards and posters on loan.
 1919 to 1923: works for Maga printing and publisher (Giovanni Magagnoli).
 1924 to 1927:  founded with Angelo Morzenti his own publishing house for his posters: Agence Mauzan-Morzenti, (Mauzan-Morzenti Agency).
 1927: Departure to Buenos Aires, where he organized an exhibition, promoting its own talent. He founded his own company, Editorial Affiches Mauzan (Editorial Mauzan Posters), and produced numerous posters. It thus reaches the figure of 2,000 posters produced and published.
 1930: through his talent, he joined with Cosmos advertising agency, "the largest advertising agency in South America", and created a new department: Nuevos Affiches Cosmos (New Cosmos Posters).
 1931: he organized the exhibition New Trade Expo of the Food Industry and embarks on a project with the Historical Museum in Buenos Aires.
 1932: he leaves Argentina to join his wife who dies in Italy. During his five years spent in Buenos Aires, he marks deeply in the poster art in Argentina, where his reputation is enormous.
 1933: after a vague period, he moved to Paris, where he remained unknown. Artists like Cappiello, Jean d'Ylen, Cassandre, Loupot, Carlu and Colin where having more media exposure, his production was very sporadic.
 1933 to 1935: Under contract with the Société Générale Publicité, (General Advertising Company) and with Paris-Affiches, (Paris-Posters)
 1939 to 1945 (World War II): after sharing between Paris and Gap, he retired in the latter where he devoted himself entirely to his first love: painting.

See also

 Poster

References

Further reading
The Posters of Achille Mauzan, 1883–1952: Catalogue Raisonne by Mirande Carnevale-Mauzan (Author).

External links
Página/12 Article

1883 births
1952 deaths
People from Gap, Hautes-Alpes
Postcard artists
French poster artists
French illustrators
20th-century French painters
20th-century French male artists
French male painters
École des Beaux-Arts alumni
20th-century French sculptors
French male sculptors

Achille Mauzan


A Tobin tax is a tax on all trade of currency across borders.

The first idea that it could be useful came from the economist James Tobin. The tax is meant to put a penalty on short-term speculation in currencies. The proposed tax rate would be low, between 0.1% to 0.25%.

On August 15, 1971, Richard Nixon told that it would no longer be possible to change the US dollar to gold, so ended the Bretton Woods system. Tobin suggested a new system for international currency stability, and proposed that such a system include a charge on foreign-exchange transactions. Professor Tobin later received a Nobel Prize in Economics in 1981.

The idea was nearly forgotten for more than 20 years.  In 1997 Ignacio Ramonet, editor of Le Monde Diplomatique, started the debate around the Tobin tax again with an editorial titled "Disarming the markets". Ramonet proposed to create an association for the introduction of this tax, which was named ATTAC (Association for the Taxation of financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens). The tax has then become an issue of the antiglobalization movement and a matter of discussion not only behind academic institutions but even in the streets and in parliaments around the world, such as the UK and France.

Tobin tax projects in the world
Since one country acting alone would find it very difficult to introduce this tax, many argue it would be best done by an international institution.  It has been proposed that having the United Nations manage a Tobin tax would solve this problem and would give the U.N. a large source of funding independent from donations by participating states. However, there have been initiatives of national dimension about the tax.

The Tobin tax idea was the subject of much discussion in Europe in the summer of 2001. On June 15, 2004, the Commission of Finance and Budget in the Belgian Federal Parliament approved a bill implementing the Spahn tax (a version of the Tobin tax proposed by Paul-Bernd Spahn). According to the legislation, Belgium will introduce the Tobin tax once all countries of the eurozone introduce a similar law.

Other websites
 ATTAC
 Disarming the markets, editorial by Ignacio Ramonet, Le Monde Diplomatique 1997
 Tobin Tax Initiative
 War on Want
  coverage of the issue in HedgeWorld
  The Guardian editorializes against the Tobin tax
 Currency Transaction Taxes - analysis from Global Policy Forum
 English version of James Tobin interview on Der Spiegel on Jubilee 2000 web site
 ATTAC France's view on Tobin's interview (English version)
 Website offering coverage of Tobin tax initiatives, as well as supportive and critical papers
 JEEA article by Prof. Hau

Taxation

Tobin tax


Edward Canby (November 9, 1817 – April 11, 1873) was a general in the Union army during the American Civil War. He was born in 1817 in Kentucky. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1839. He fought in the Mexican-American War. After moving around to different army posts, he became commander of the U.S. army units in New Mexico in 1860.

Canby was a colonel at the start of the Civil War. He helped defeat a Confederate force during the New Mexico Campaign in early 1862. At the end of March 1862, he was promoted to Brigadier general. He was reassigned to the eastern United States. In 1864, he became commander of the Union forces along the Gulf of Mexico. He captured the Confederate city of Mobile, Alabama in April 1865.

Canby commanded U.S. army units in the South during the Reconstruction of the United States. In 1872, he was sent to the Pacific Northwest to fight the Indian tribes. He was killed in 1873 while trying to make a peace treaty with the Modoc Tribe in northern California.

1817 births
1873 deaths
American Civil War generals
Military people from Kentucky

Edward Canby


They Shoot Horses, Don't They? is a novel written by Horace McCoy and first published in 1935.  The story mainly concerns a dance marathon during the Great Depression. It was adapted into Sydney Pollack's 1969 film of the same name.

Plot
The story follows the narrator, Robert Syverten, a naive young man in Hollywood who dreams of being a film director.

The story begins with Robert's sentencing for murder.  He confesses that he "killed her", and that he does not "have a leg to stand on." He is advised to beg for mercy from the court.  The story of his relationship with the girl he killed, Gloria Beatty, is thereafter intercut after every few chapters with short excerpts from the judge's sentencing. The excerpts of the judge's words are written in larger and larger type until the last page of the book concludes with the words, written in small print: "And may God have mercy on your soul."

Robert meets Gloria on a morning when they have both failed to get parts as extras.  She talks him into participating in a dance marathon contest.  Like Robert, she is struggling to find work in Hollywood and believes the contest may be a way to get noticed by studio producers or movie stars.  Gloria and Robert enter the contest, which is held at a large amusement pier on the beach in Santa Monica.

The contests are long and grueling affairs, taking place over several weeks.  Contestants dance for an hour and fifty minutes, then receive a ten-minute break.  One hundred and forty-four couples start the contest.  Robert and Gloria, like most of the contestants, are young, jobless, and drawn as much by the free food as by the $1,000 prize money.

From the start, Gloria tells Robert that she wishes she were dead, a point she repeats in most of their conversations.  Her parents are dead.  She ran away to Dallas from a farm in West Texas where her uncle always made passes at her. In Dallas, she tried to commit suicide, then ran away to Hollywood with dreams of being in movies, but is finding only rejection.  Robert considers her plain-looking and unlikely to find work as an actress.  She tells Robert frequently that she does not have the courage to kill herself.

The promoters of the contest try various schemes to increase attendance.  They publicize the arrest of a contestant for murder.  Every evening, they stage an elimination derby, in which the couples speed-walk around a track, the last-place couple being disqualified.  The promoters stage a marriage of two contestants, who then lose a derby and should be eliminated.  Instead, the promoters disqualify another couple.

As the dance goes on, into the second and third week, the crowds grow larger. Newspapers cover the contest.  Some couples receive sponsorships from local businesses, usually in the form of clothes.  Hollywood personalities arrive to watch and are announced by the promoters.  Gloria goads Robert into speaking with a famous director, Frank Borzage.  A woman named Mrs. Layden attends the contest regularly and tells Robert that he and Gloria are her favorite couple.  She later gets them a sponsorship.

As the contest grinds on, couples break down physically and drop out.  Robert is consumed with claustrophobia and a desire to get outside into the sun.  Gloria is tiring and having difficulty walking for the derby without his help.

Gloria curses another male contestant because he will not allow his pregnant partner to get an abortion.  Robert learns indirectly that Gloria is having sex with one of the promoters.  When Robert tells her of his suspicions, Gloria tells him she does not feel she is worthy of doing anything else.  Two elderly women from the local morals society threaten the promoters with shutting down the dance, and Gloria is asked to witness the meeting. Left in the room with Mrs. Higby and Mrs. Witcher, Gloria curses the women as spoiled, interfering hypocrites.

After 879 hours of dancing and with 20 couples remaining, the contest is shut down when there is a murder at the dance hall's bar.  A stray bullet kills Mrs. Layden. The promoters decide to give the remaining dancers $50 each for their efforts.  Robert and Gloria go outside for the first time in five weeks and sit on the pier looking at the ocean.  Gloria takes a pistol out of her bag and asks Robert to shoot her, which he does.  He remembers when he was young, and his grandfather shot the beloved family horse, which had broken its leg.  The police ask Robert why he shot Gloria, and he answers, "Because she asked me to."  The policeman persists.  Robert answers, "They shoot horses, don't they?"

Critical reception
McCoy's novel was more popular abroad than in America when it was published at the height of the Depression.  The book was read in the existentialist circles of France.  Although the novel had been distributed by underground literary groups during World War II, its first French edition did not appear until 1946.

Lee J. Richmond argues: "With the exception of Nathaniel West's Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust, McCoy's novel is indisputably the best example of absurdist existentialism in American fiction."  In 2011 Anita Sethi for The Guardian wrote: "The brutality of the story is offset by the poetic beauty and precision of McCoy's narrative as it hones in on the thoughts and aspirations of its outsider characters, their troubled voices lingering in the mind.  In our world of fleeting reality TV stardom, this stark, urgent novel feels more timely than ever.  The novel has remained continuously in print since 1935.

Adaptations and influence
They Shoot Horses, Don't They? was adapted for a film of the same title in 1969, with a screenplay by Robert E. Thompson and James Poe. The film, directed by Sydney Pollack, stars Michael Sarrazin as Robert, Jane Fonda as Gloria, and Gig Young as the dance marathon emcee. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards.

In 1983 the novel was adapted by Ray Herman for a stage play that premiered at the Grant Street Theatre in South Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The play had several revivals in the UK in the 1990s and 2000s (Northern Stage, Newcastle upon Tyne in 1995). In 2001 the novel was again adapted for the stage by Rick Sparks and Gary Carter. Its premiere production for Greenway Arts Alliance in Los Angeles won 17 theatre awards. In 2016 Harvard University performed the Sparks–Carter adaptation.

The fashion designer Alexander McQueen re-created the grueling dance marathon for his ready-to-wear fashion show for his spring 2004 Collection.

Welsh band Racing Cars had an international chart success in 1977 (reaching number 14 in the UK) with "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?", a song with lyrics inspired by the film.

Joe Jackson wrote the line "Enjoy the dance, they don't shoot horses" in his song Cha Cha loco (from the 1984 album Body and Soul).

Linda McQuaig's 1995 book Shooting the Hippo, about the supposed and actual causes of the large government budget deficit at the time, opens with a chapter entitled "They shoot hippos, don't they?" This was in reference to an influential media piece on Canada's deficit which attempted to draw parallels between the Canadian situation and New Zealand's budget crisis a decade earlier, during which the New Zealand national zoo lost its government subsidy and shot its hippos.

See also

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye

References

1935 American novels
American novels adapted into films
American novels adapted into plays
Cultural depictions of actors
Cultural depictions of film directors
Hollywood novels
Novels about death
Novels about suicide
Novels set in Santa Monica, California
Simon & Schuster books
1935 debut novels

They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (novel)


Mount Cook also known in the local Maori language as Aoraki or Aorangi is the highest mountain in New Zealand with a height of .

Geology
It is part of the Southern Alps Mountain Range and is flanked by the Hooker Glacier to the southwest and the Tasman Glacier to the east. The mountain has three peaks: The south peak being the lowest at 3,593m/11,788 ft., The middle peak at 3,717m/12,195 ft. and the North peak being the highest at 3,724m/12,218 ft. This is the height of the north peak after the landslide of December 1991 which took 30 meters off the top and also turned the summit into a knife-edge ridge.

History
The mountain was named by Captain John Lort Stokes in honour of Captain James Cook who travelled around the islands of New Zealand in 1770 however the first Europeans to see Mount Cook were probably members of Abel Tasman's crew.

Climbing
It was first climbed by Tom Fyre, George Graham and Jack Clarke. Mount Cook is a favourite destination for climbers and was used by Sir Edmund Hillary as training for his historic climb of Mount Everest.

Cook
Geography of New Zealand
Mountain climbing
Mackenzie District

Mount Cook


Sophie of Mecklenburg-Güstrow (4 September 1557, Wismar – 14 October 1631, Nykoping) was a German queen of Denmark and Norway. She was the mother of King Christian IV of Denmark and Anne of Denmark.

Family

She was the daughter of Duke Ulrich III of Mecklenburg-Güstrow and Princess Elizabeth of Denmark (a daughter of Frederick I and Sophie of Pomerania). Sophie married her cousin, Frederick II of Denmark, when she was 14. He was 37. The marriage was arranged by the Danish Council, who wished the King to marry. Though their ages were very different, their marriage was usually quiet and even happy. Queen Sophie was a loving mother, nursing her children herself when they were ill. Because her husband drank lots of wine and led an unfaithful life, she sent her three oldest children to live with her parents in Güstrow when they were young. She showed a great interest in science and visited the astronomer Tycho Brahe. She was also interested in the old songs of folklore. Her daughter, Anne of Denmark, would marry James VI of Scotland and become Queen Consort in 1589. She arranged the marriage against the will of the Council.

She died on 4 October 1631 at Nykøbing, Jylland, Denmark.

References

1557 births
1631 deaths
Kings and Queens of Denmark
Kings and Queens consort

Sophie of Mecklenburg-Güstrow


Biłgoraj is a town in south-eastern Poland. Since 1999, it has been a part of the Lublin Voivodeship; it was previously a part of the Zamość Voivodeship (1975–1998). It is located 90 km south of Lublin and it is also the capital of Biłgoraj County.

In 2006, 27,225 people lived in Biłgoraj.

Towns in Lublin Voivodeship

Biłgoraj


Essingen is a municipality in the Ostalbkreis in the State of Baden-Württemberg in Germany.  It lies about 73 km east of Stuttgart, just outside the city of Aalen.  The Rems river begins just outside Essingen, on its way down the Remstal (Rems Valley) to merge with the Neckar near Stuttgart.

Essingen currently has about 6000 residents, and is located on the northern end of the Swabian Alb.  It is mainly a dormitory community, but does have industry along the B29 federal road and Stuttgart-Aalen railway.

Recreational activities include biking, hiking, and rambling.  In the winter, there are opportunities for skiing.

In the middle of the village lies the Schloss (castle) and Schloss Park. The castle was built circa 1550 by the Woellwarth Family. It has remained in the family until recently when it was sold at auction causing much controversy in the village. Some villagers wanted to save the castle to be used for various activities and events but the consensus was that the castle would be too expensive to maintain and run.

Essingen is a larger municipality, and the nearby villages of Lauterburg, Forst, Dauerwang, Hermannsfeld, Birkenteich and Hohenroden belong to Essingen.

Mayor
Wolfgang Hofer (* 1963) was elected mayor in 1997, he was reelected in 2005, 2013 and 2021.

Local council

Elections in May 2014:
Free voters: 8 seats
CDU/Free citizens Essingen: 6 seats
SPD: 4 seats

References

Ostalbkreis
Württemberg

Essingen (Württemberg)


Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (29 September 106 BC – 28 September 48 BC), otherwise known as Pompey () or Pompey the Great, was an important military and political leader of the late Roman Republic.

Coming from an Italian provincial background, he secured a place for himself in the ranks of Roman nobility, and was given the nickname Magnus  ("the Great") by Lucius Cornelius Sulla.

Pompey was a rival of Marcus Licinius Crassus and an ally to Gaius Julius Caesar. Together, the three politicians would dominate the Late Roman republic through a political alliance called the First Triumvirate. After the deaths of Julia and Crassus (54 BC), disputes between Pompey and Caesar over the leadership of the Roman Republic lead to civil war. Pompey was decisively beaten by Caesar at the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC, whereupon he fled to Egypt, where he was assassinated.

Civil war and murder

In the beginning, Pompey said he could defeat Caesar and raise armies merely by stamping his foot on the soil of Italy, but in the spring of 49 BC, Caesar crossed the Rubicon and his legions swept down the peninsula. Pompey abandoned Rome, and took his legions south towards Brundisium. Pompey intended build up his army, and wage war against Caesar in the east. Neither Pompey nor the Senate thought of taking the vast treasury with them, probably thinking Caesar would not dare take it for himself. It was left in the Temple of Saturn when Caesar and his forces entered Rome.

Barely escaping Caesar in Brundisium, Pompey crossed over into Epirus. There, during Caesar's Spanish campaign, Pompey had gathered a large force in Macedonia, with nine legions plus contingents from the Roman allies in the east. His fleet controlled the Adriatic. Nevertheless, Caesar managed to cross over into Epirus in November 49 BC, and captured Apollonia.

Pompey fought Caesar at the Battle of Dyrrhachium (48 BC), in which Caesar lost 1000 men and Pompey lost 2000. Because he failed to pursue at the moment of Caesar's defeat, Pompey threw away the chance to destroy Caesar's much smaller army. As Caesar himself said, "Today the enemy would have won, if they had a commander who was a winner" (Plutarch, 65).

According to Suetonius, it was at this point that Caesar said that "That man (Pompey) does not know how to win a war". With Caesar on their backs, the conservatives led by Pompey fled to Greece. Caesar and Pompey had their final showdown at the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC. The fighting was bitter for both sides, and although Pompey was expected to win, due to advantage in numbers, the brilliant tactics and the superior fighting abilities of Caesar's veterans led to a victory for Caesar. Pompey met his wife Cornelia and his son Sextus Pompeius on the island of Mytilene. He then wondered where to go next. He ran to Egypt.

After he got to Egypt, Pompey's fate was decided by the advisors of the young king Ptolemy XIII. While Pompey waited offshore, they argued the cost of offering him refuge with Caesar already en route to Egypt; the king's eunuch Pothinus won out. According to  Plutarch, Cornelia watched anxiously from the trireme as Pompey left in a small boat with a few comrades, and headed for a welcoming party on the Egyptian shore. As Pompey got off the boat, he was stabbed to death by men following the orders of Pothinus.

Pompey died one day after his 59th birthday. His body remained on the shoreline, to be cremated by his loyal freeman Philip on the rotten planks of a fishing boat. His head and seal were presented to Caesar, who, according to Plutarch, mourned this insult to the greatness of his former ally. Caesar punished his assassins and their Egyptian co-conspirators, putting both Achillas and Pothinus to death. Pompey's ashes were eventually returned to Cornelia, who carried them to his country house near Alba.

Cassius Dio describes Caesar's reactions with scepticism. He thinks Pompey's own political misjudgements, rather than treachery, was the cause of his downfall. In Appian's account of the civil war, Caesar has Pompey's severed head buried in Alexandria, in ground reserved for a new temple to the goddess Nemesis. The divine functions of Nemesis (~fate) included the punishment of hubris (pride). For Pliny, the humiliation of Pompey's end is contrasted to his oversized portrait-head, studded with pearls, and carried in procession during his greatest Triumph.

References

Roman generals
106 BC births
48 BC deaths

Pompey


Saint John the Baptist is a High Renaissance oil painting on walnut wood by Leonardo da Vinci. Likely to have been completed between 1513 and 1516, it is believed to be his final painting. Its original size was .

The painting is in the collection of the Louvre. In November 2022, it was loaned to Louvre Abu Dhabi for two years as part of the museum's fifth anniversary.

Subject matter

The work depicts the figure of John the Baptist in isolation through the use of chiaroscuro, with the figure appearing to emerge from the shadowy background. The saint is dressed in furs, has long curly hair and is smiling in an enigmatic manner reminiscent of Leonardo's famous Mona Lisa. He holds a reed cross in his left hand, while his right hand points up toward heaven, similar to the figure of Saint Anne in Leonardo's Burlington House Cartoon. According to Frank Zöllner, Leonardo's use of sfumato "conveys the religious content of the picture", with the "gentle shadows [imbuing] the subject's skin tones with a very soft, delicate appearance, almost androgynous in its effect".

Kenneth Clark claimed that for Leonardo, Saint John represented "the eternal question mark, the enigma of creation", and noted the sense of "uneasiness" that the painting imbues. Barolsky adds that: "Describing Saint John emerging from the darkness in almost shockingly immediate relation to the beholder, Leonardo magnifies the very ambiguity between spirit and flesh. The grace of Leonardo's figure, which has a disturbingly erotic charge, nonetheless conveys a spiritual meaning to which Saint John refers when he speaks of the fullness of grace from God."

The model for the John the Baptist / Bacchus / Angelo incarnato series was Salaì.

Dating

The dating of Saint John the Baptist is disputed. It was seen by Antonio de Beatis in Leonardo's workshop at Clos Lucé; his diary entry giving a terminus ante quem of 17 October 1517.

Traditionally, the painting has been considered the artist's last, and has been dated to 1513–1516; Leonardo's sfumato technique here being considered to have reached its apogee. Some experts, however, have compared the hand of Saint John to a similar work by a pupil in the Codex Atlanticus, dating the commencement of the picture to around 1509. The pose is also similar to that of a sculpture of the same subject completed after 1510 for the Florence Baptistery by Giovanni Francesco Rustici. Leonardo is thought to have given Rustici technical advice for his commission; it is possible that one artist could have influenced the other with the idea for the pose.

Provenance

Saint John the Baptist was apparently part of the French king Francis I's collection at Fontainebleau in 1542. In 1625, King Charles I of England received the painting from Louis XIII of France in return for a Titian – the Holy Family – and Hans Holbein's Portrait of Erasmus. In 1649, Charles's collection was sold, whereupon the painting entered into the hands of the banker Eberhard Jabach. After a spell in the possession of Cardinal Mazarin, in 1661 the work once again returned to the King of France – Louis XIV. Following the French Revolution, the painting entered the collection at the Louvre, where it remains to this day.

Influence
Prior to this work, Saint John had traditionally been portrayed as a gaunt ascetic. Leonardo's innovative depiction proved influential upon Raphael's workshop; several portraits of Saint John painted around 1517–1518 attributed to Raphael and Giulio Romano show a similarly youthful saint in isolation, with a strong contrast between the dark background and the illumination of the figure.

Also numerous copies and variations of Saint John the Baptist made by Leonardeschi exist.

See also
 List of works by Leonardo da Vinci

References

External links
 Interactive online application by the C2RMF for the exhibition "Leonardo da Vinci's Saint John the Baptist in Milan", organized by the Louvre Museum, Milan City Council and sponsored by Eni, featuring zoomable high resolution scientific imagery (color, IR, X-ray, UV etc.) and commentary on the painting. The viewer is based on IIPImage.
Leonardo da Vinci: anatomical drawings from the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, exhibition catalog fully online as PDF from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on Saint John the Baptist (see index)
 Lairweb.org.nz John the Baptist

Paintings by Leonardo da Vinci
Paintings in the Louvre by Italian artists
1516 paintings
Paintings depicting John the Baptist

Saint John the Baptist (Leonardo)


Angst was an American band from San Francisco, California.

History
In mid-1978, brothers Joseph Pope and Jon E. Risk formed their first punk rock group, the Instants, in Boulder, Colorado. The band gigged in the Denver/Boulder area before moving to England in late 1979 where they lasted only a few months.  In 1980 Joseph and Jon then settled in San Francisco and formed Angst along with drummer Michael Hursey (later replaced by Andy Kaps).

Angst played their first show in mid-1981, and by the end of 1982 had contributed songs to Sub Pop (when it was still a cassette magazine) and the Alternative Tentacles/Maximum RocknRoll compilation, Not So Quiet on the Western Front.  From the outset the band gigged regularly in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and sometime in 1982 they played a show with the Middle Class and 100 Flowers in San Francisco.  John Talley-Jones (Urinals/100 Flowers) was impressed enough with the group that he offered to release a record for them on his label, Happy Squid Records.  Angst traveled to Los Angeles shortly thereafter and recorded seven songs at Radio Tokyo studios (engineered by Ethan James) that would become their debut, eponymous 12", released in 1983. This EP included songs lampooning Neil Armstrong and Nancy Reagan.

Though Angst played many venues with a wide variety of bands, the majority of their shows locally were within the punk/hardcore scene.  Their eclectic mix of punk, country, pop, 1960s garage, etc. was not particularly well received by the strict hardcore audiences of early 1980s San Francisco.  Angst actively sought out and played with many of Los Angeles-based SST Records' bands (Minutemen, Saccharine Trust, Meat Puppets, Black Flag, et al.), and in 1984 was signed to the label by Joe Carducci, who subsequently produced the first two (of four) LPs that Angst recorded for the label (the latter LPs were produced by Vitus Matare of the Last).

The group's debut full-length, Lite Life, was issued in 1985, which Trouser Press praised as "prov[ing] Angst's prowess for turning politically informed ideas into mature and witty tunes." After releasing Lite Life, Angst began to play outside of California, and embarked on their first national tour.  Over the next four years they toured America and Europe several times, as well as continuing to play regularly in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, though they were never able to gain any kind of following in their own home town. The group's final album, Cry for Happy, appeared in 1988. By early 1989 the band had run its course, and broke up after their final European tour.

In later years, Angst would be cited by Black Francis/Frank Black of Pixies fame as a major influence upon his work.  He covered "Some Things (I Can't Get Used To)" on his Snake Oil LP, and wrote a tribute song to the band entitled simply "Angst" that appears on the UK-only CD release of "Robert Onion" as well as on the One More Road For The Hit collection of B-sides and rarities.  When asked by Rolling Stone magazine what band he would like to see reunite, he stated:  "Angst. I'm sure there are other bands called Angst, but this is an obscure one from SST in the mid-Eighties. They used to play at the Rathskeller in Boston -- that's where I first heard them. Then I bought all their records. They were a San Francisco trio -- high energy but not punk -- and they were very influential on the Pixies and on me. Lite Life is their best album -- good luck finding it".

Members
Joseph Pope - vocals, bass
Jon E. Risk - vocals, guitar
Michael Hursey - drums
Andy Kaps - drums (on Cry for Happy only)

Discography
Albums
Angst 7-song 12" (Happy Squid Records 1983, reissued on SST Records, 1986)
Lite Life LP (SST, 1985)
Mending Wall LP (SST, 1986)
Mystery Spot LP (SST, 1987)
Cry for Happy LP (SST, 1988)

Compilation Appearances
"Give All The Power To The U.S." (song on Sub Pop No. 7 cassette magazine, 1982)
"Worker Bee" (song on Not So Quiet on the Western Front compilation LP, Alternative Tentacles/Maximum RocknRoll Records 1982)
"Judge And Jury" (song on Onslaught No. 6 cassette magazine, 1985)
"Just Me" (song on 'The Blasting Concept Vol. 2' LP, SST 1985)
"Colors" (song on SST Acoustic LP, SST 1991)

Footnotes

Punk rock groups from California
Musical groups from San Francisco
SST Records artists

Angst (band)


In Japan, Juroujin (寿老人), also known as Gama, is one of the Seven Lucky Gods, according to Taoist beliefs. He is the God of long life.

He has a staff and a fan. He is shown as an old man with a long beard, and a scroll is tied to the staff, which has the lifespan of all living things written on it. The deer, the crane and the tortoise, symbols of long life, sometimes follow him.

Gods and goddesses of Japan

Juroujin


The Red Rock Lakes Wilderness is within the Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in southwest Montana, United States. The wilderness occupies more than three fourths of the refuge and was set aside to enhance species preservation, especially for such waterfowl as the trumpeter swan. By the mid-1930s, there were an estimated 69 trumpeter swans remaining in the lower 48 states and more than half of them were found in the region that is now the wilderness. The creation of the Wildlife Refuge marks one of the earliest attempts to ensure protection for a fast disappearing species and the wilderness designation enhances this habitat's protection status.

U.S. Wilderness Areas do not allow motorized or mechanized vehicles, including bicycles. No roads or buildings are constructed and there is also no logging or mining, in compliance with the 1964 Wilderness Act. Wilderness areas within National Forests and Bureau of Land Management areas also typically allow hunting in season.

Consisting of numerous lakes, marshes and other wetlands, a visitor is more likely to see sandhill cranes, great blue herons and ducks than the elusive trumpeter swan, even though their numbers have increased substantially. Moose, fox, porcupine and skunk are found year-round while elk, mule deer and pronghorn also frequent the wilderness. Though less common, black bears are sometimes seen here.

On the western boundary of what is collectively known as the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, camping is not permitted  but there are two nearby campgrounds available in the refuge. Hiking is permitted except in some areas during specific times of the year to protect wildlife.

References

External links

Protected areas of Beaverhead County, Montana
Wilderness areas of Montana
Protected areas established in 1976
1976 establishments in Montana

Red Rock Lakes Wilderness


The Gargoyle Humor Magazine or The Gargoyle is the official student-run humor magazine for the University of Michigan. It has been satirizing both local and national events for more than one hundred years. The magazine is part of the university's Student Publications, which also includes the campus newspaper, The Michigan Daily, as well as the yearbook, the Michiganensian.

To current and former editors and staff, the magazine is often known simply as The Garg.

Location
The Gargoyle'''s office is located on the second floor of the Student Publications Building at 420 Maynard Street in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The office serves as the staff's production area; it is also home to a number of relics, including two bombshells obtained from the local army surplus and a poster from popular film Whore 2.

History

The Gargoyle was founded in 1909.  Its first editor in chief, Lee A. White, eventually became editor of the Detroit News and helped found  La Choy Foods. Gargoyle was initially a literary magazine featuring stories, articles and pictures with a back section devoted to comedy.

In the 1920s and 1930s, a period during which it was selected as America's Outstanding College Comic Magazine, Gargoyle was published monthly during the school year.  The decrease in male students brought about by World War II resulted in the first woman, Olga Gruhzit, becoming editor of Gargoyle in 1942. In 1944, at the height of the war, Gargoyle briefly ceased publication, only to return in the fall of 1945.Gargoyle was declared dead in 1950 when the Board in Control of Student Publications took offense to the issue "The Smooth Gargoyle".  Publication continued off campus for a year, and when Gargoyle returned the next year, literary pieces were discontinued and the focus became solely humor. During the 1950s the magazine acquired a counterculture reputation, promoting everything from co-ed housing in the 1950s to Vietnam War protests in the 1960s. In response to the advent of Playboy in the 1950s and the sexual revolution of the 1960s, Gargoyle became progressively more risque. While sex, illegal drugs, and otherwise raunchy jokes have been common fare in issues of the Gargoyle since the 1970s, the magazine has generally tried to maintain a level of intelligence and artistry in its humor.

Art editor Phil Zaret's satirical cartoon, "Kill a Commie for Christ", originally published in the Gargoyle in 1967, became extremely popular during the Vietnam War and was re-published by college publications throughout the United States.

Though the Gargoyle was very successful in the '60's, it struggled to publish in the early 1970s, returned for a few issues in 1974–75, and returned to consistent publication in 1979. The magazine has been forced off-campus (in 1950) and shut down completely (1960–61, 1997) as the result of editorial and financial conflicts with the Board for Student Publications (previously the Board in Control of Student Publications). At one time the magazine was sold for prices varying from fifty cents to two dollars, but for the last five years, it has been free, all revenue being generated by advertisements.

In 1962, cartoonist Charles M. Schulz responded to a request for a Peanuts cartoon by drawing Snoopy with his nose perched over the end of his dog house in the manner of a gargoyle—this became a standard Snoopy pose.

Mascots
Over the decades it has been a Gargoyle tradition for the mascot to periodically change at the whims of the current editor and artists on staff.

Notable alumni
In the 1999 book, Gargoyle Laughs at the 20th Century, editor John Dobbertin compiled all Gargoyle'' staff members credited in the masthead to date.  This list includes several University of Michigan alumni before they became famous, including the following:

Lee Blaser, cartoonist.
Lloyd Dangle, cartoonist (Troubletown).
Jerry Ellison, cartoonist.
Larry Brilliant, philanthropist
Max Hodge, television writer/director/producer
Lawrence Kasdan, screenwriter/director.
Terry LaBan, cartoonist (Edge City).
George Lichty (under the name Maurice Lichtenstein), cartoonist (Grin and Bear It).
Janet Malcolm, essayist, journalist, and critic.
Allen Milgrom, cartoonist/editor (Marvel Comics).
Arthur Miller, playwright.
David Newman, screenwriter.
Robert Shaye, producer (New Line Cinemas).

See also
Bentley Historical Library

References

External links

Satirical magazines published in the United States
College humor magazines
Magazines established in 1909
University of Michigan mass media
1909 establishments in Michigan
Student magazines published in the United States
Magazines published in Michigan
Mass media in Ann Arbor, Michigan

Gargoyle Humor Magazine


Animal Farm is a short novel by George Orwell. It was written during World War II and published in 1945. It is about a group of farm animals who rebel against their farmer. They hope to create a place where the animals can be equal, free, and happy. In the end, however, they are betrayed and the farm ends up as bad it was before.

The story is an allegory, meaning that the author wanted it to represent real life events. It is one of the most famous allegories about political events. It is based on Joseph Stalin's betrayal of the Russian Revolution. Orwell, a conservative and social democrat, used it as an anti-communist work.

Although rejected by several publishers, when published it became a best-seller. Animal Farm is one of Orwell's two best-known books (the other is Nineteen Eighty-Four) and is widely viewed as a classic. Time magazine chose the book as one of the 100 best English-language novels (1923 to 2005). it also featured at number 31 on the Modern Library List of Best 20th-Century Novels. It won a Retrospective Hugo Award in 1996, and is included in the Great Books of the Western World selection.

Summary
Manor Farm is run by Mr Jones, a cruel and drunken farmer. One day, the animals gather at a meeting to listen to Old Major, a wise old pig. Old Major makes a speech, calling for animals to rise up against their farmers. The animals are very keen about the idea. Old Major dies a few days later. The pigs, who are the most intelligent animals, begin planning a rebellion. They are led by Snowball and Napoleon.

About three months later, the animals revolt against Mr Jones and take over the farm. They change its name to "Animal Farm". They decide the farm will now be ruled only by animals, calling the system "animalism". They write seven commandments, with the most important being "All animals are equal". "Four legs good, two legs bad" becomes a popular chant for the sheep. Mr Jones and his friends attack the farm to try to take it back, but in the "Battle of the Cowshed" the animals drive them away. Mr Jones flees and never returns.

Snowball and Napoleon fall out with each other, as they have different ideas for how Animal Farm should be led. Snowball announces plans to build a windmill, but Napoleon disagrees. Napoleon trains nine puppies, who grow into vicious dogs who will serve him. When the dogs are fully grown, he uses them to chase Snowball off the farm. He takes control and rules the farm by himself (as a dictator). Napoleon uses the dogs to kill any animal that does not agree with him, while a pig called Squealer keeps telling the animals that everything is fine and they should support Napoleon.

Napoleon changes his mind and decides to build a windmill, pretending that it was his idea all along. The first windmill they build collapses. Napoleon blames this (and other problems) on Snowball. He claims that Snowball is sneaking around Animal Farm ruining everything. Many animals are killed for "being in contact with Snowball". Napoleon starts working with human beings outside, even though this used to be forbidden. One of them is their neighbour, a farmer called Mr Frederick. He brings in a group of men who invade the farm and destroy the second windmill. The animals fight them off in the "Battle of the Windmill", at great cost.

As the animals build a third windmill, Boxer, their strongest horse, loses his strength because of old age and collapses. Napoleon sends him to be slaughtered, even though Boxer was loyal to him. The pigs continue to work with humans and start to behave like them, such as living in the farmhouse and walking on two legs. They teach the sheep a new chant: "Four legs good, two legs better". The commandments are replaced by the words "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."  In the end, other animals watch the pigs talking with a group of humans and decide they cannot tell which is which.

Background
George Orwell who was a socialist and was opposed to dictatorship (rule by one person). In particular, he did not like the communist government of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union. In 1936 and 1937, Orwell fought in the Spanish Civil War. He had watched as democratic left-wing rebels were pushed out by pro-Soviet communist rebels. In the introduction to the 1947 Ukrainian translation of Animal Farm, Orwell said he wrote it because he wished to destroy what he called the "Soviet myth".

Orwell said he got the idea from seeing a young boy whipping a large cart horse. He explained, "It struck me that if only such animals became aware of (knew) their strength we should have no power over them, and that men exploit (badly use) animals in much the same way as the rich exploit the proletariat (the poor, the lower class)".

Characters in the book
There are many characters in the book who are based on real people. They are grouped into pigs, horses, humans and other animals.
It also features Bobbin the 3 legged spider who appears before the revolution occurs.

Pigs
 Old Major – An old prize-winning pig. He is the one who inspires all the animals to rebel against the humans. The character is based on Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin, the communist leader of the Russian Revolution.
 Napoleon – A large boar (male pig) who at first leads the revolution with Snowball, then grabs power for himself. He is the main villain of the story. The character is based on Joseph Stalin. He is named after Napoleon, who overthrew the government of the French Revolution.
 Snowball – He is the pig who is one of the early leaders of the revolution. He is popular among the other animals and wants to make Animal Farm a fair place for them to live. He is mainly based on Leon Trotsky, although Orwell said he was not a supporter of Trotsky. He also has some characteristics taken from Lenin. Napoleon later blames anything that goes wrong on Snowball.
 Squealer – He serves as Napoleon's public speaker. He persuades the other animals to support Napoleon, no matter how bad his rule is. He lies, twists the truth and takes advantage of the animals' bad memories. He represents "propaganda", which is news reports and art that is meant to get people supporting something.
 Minimus – A poet, who writes the second and third national anthems of Animal Farm, after "Beasts of England" is banned. He creates poems and songs praising Napoleon.

Horses
 Boxer – A loyal and dedicated cart-horse. He is the strongest worker among the animals. He is loyal to Napoleon, who later betrays him. He and his companion Clover represent the working class during the Russian Revolution.
 Clover – A motherly mare approaching middle age. She is Boxer's companion, and she takes care of him. Like Boxer, she works as a cart-horse on Manor Farm. During the book she has doubts about the pigs' behavior, but she instead assumes she is not remembering things properly. She realises later the situation but is not smart enough to express herself. She represents the educated working class.
 Mollie – A foolish, pretty and vain young white mare. She likes sugar so much that when eating of sugar is banned, she smuggles some into the farm. When it is discovered, she leaves for another farm. The character represents the Bourgeoisie (upper class) of the Russian Revolution, who were happy with their life under rule of Tsar Nicholas II and mostly fled the country after the revolution.

Humans
 Mr. Jones – The farmer of Manor Farm. The animals revolt against him because he does not feed them or take care of them, and he whips them. He is based on Tsar Nicholas II.
 Mrs. Jones -
 Mr. Pilkington – The farmer of Foxwood, a large neighbouring farm. He and his farm represent the United States. He and Napoleon are seen arguing at the end of the story, which represents the start of the Cold War.
 Mr. Frederick – The owner of Pinchfield, a small but well-kept neighbouring farm. He briefly enters into an alliance with Napoleon, but cheats the animals and later invades them. He is a reference to Adolf Hitler.

Other animals
 Benjamin – An old donkey. He is bad-tempered but very smart and a friend of the horses. He is thought to represent the older generation - wise enough to see through the pigs' lies, but not willing to stand up to them.
 Moses – An old raven who occasionally visits the farm. He tells the animals stories about a heavenly place above the clouds called Sugarcandy Mountain, where he says that all animals go when they die—but only if they work hard. Moses is thought to represent the Church (or religious community) in Russia at the time.
 Muriel – A wise old goat who is friends with all of the animals on the farm.
 Bluebell and Jessie – A mated pair of dogs. Their puppies are taken away from them by Napoleon at birth.
 The Sheep – The sheep are said to be the stupidest of the animals. They blindly follow Napoleon and chant slogans like "Four legs good, two legs bad." Sometimes, Napoleon gets the sheep chanting to stop people talking, a trick that Stalin sometimes used.
 The Hens – The hens are among the first to rebel against Napoleon.
 The Dogs – Napoleon raises nine puppies to be his bodyguards and secret police. They serve only Napoleon, and kill anyone who is against him.
 The Cows – Their milk is stolen by the pigs, who learn to milk them. It is stirred into the pigs' food every day while the other animals are not allowed to have any.
 The Cat – The cat never does any work, but she is forgiven because her excuses are so convincing. She has no interest in the politics of the farm.

Animalism

Animal-ism is a system of beliefs shared by the farm animals of Manor Farm. The purpose is to ensure the farm animals behave like actual animals and not follow the footsteps of human beings. Therefore, any human behavior is considered contrary to the spirit of Animalism.

Beasts of England
"Beasts of England" is a song that is featured in the story. The tune as said to be "a cross between La Cucaracha and Oh, My Darling Clementine". Old Major teaches the song to the animals in an early scene, and it becomes very popular. It becomes the first national anthem of Animal Farm. Later on, Napoleon orders a new anthem to be written, with words that praise him.

Commandments
These are the original commandments laid down by the pigs.
 Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
 Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
 No animal shall wear clothes.
 No animal shall sleep in a bed.
 No animal shall drink alcohol.
 No animal shall kill any other animal.
 All animals are equal.
For the sheep, who are said to be stupid, they are instead taught the chant "Four legs good, two legs bad." Napoleon sometimes gets the sheep to chant this when he wants the animals to stop talking.

As the story goes on, the pigs start changing the commandments. For example, "No animal shall drink alcohol" becomes "No animal shall drink alcohol to excess". By the end of the story, all the commandments have been erased apart from "All animals are equal", which has been changed to "All Animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others." Meanwhile, the sheep chant has been changed to "Four legs good, two legs better."

References

Other websites

1945 books

Books by George Orwell

Animal Farm


Sperm are the male reproductive cells. Most animals and plants use sperm to reproduce. They have different ways of making and releasing the sperm. In all cases the sperm meets with the egg of the female and grow into a new organism.

The name sperm is taken from the Greek word sperma meaning seed.

An animal sperm cell is capable of movement, as it has to get to the uterus to meet with the ovum. Animal sperm cells (including humans) have small 'head' and a long tail called a flagellum. The flagellum acts like a motor to propel the sperm cell through the female reproductive system.

In humans
Human sperm is made in the testicles of a man. Human sperm contains 23 chromosomes. A human needs 46 chromosomes, so a sperm cell is called a haploid as it only has half. The other half is contained within the ovum or egg of a female. During sex, semen is shot out of the man's penis during ejaculation.
Semen carries the sperm into the woman's vagina and down to the ovum in the uterus. During ejaculation millions of sperm cells are released, but only one hundred or so reach the egg.
The egg can merge with one sperm cell that reaches it.  Because it now has 46 chromosomes, it is called a diploid, like ordinary cells of the body. This diploid is called a zygote, and it can grow into a fetus and eventually a baby.

In plants

Some plants such as ferns and mosses have sperm that move. Flowering plant sperm cells cannot move by themselves. The flowering plant sperm cells are contained within pollen grains.
Thus, they rely on transportation to take their sperm cells to other plants. For example, a bee lands on a plant to collect the nectar. Some pollen will get stuck to the bee. The bee moves on to another plant and the pollen falls onto that plant. The sperm is moved down a pollen tube until it reaches the ovule at the bottom of the flower.

References

Biological reproduction
Sexuality

Sperm


A psychiatric hospital is a place where mentally ill people are kept so they can be treated.

Doctors who work at psychiatric hospitals are called psychiatrists. On some occasions people choose to be in a psychiatric hospital due to their emotional or physical health, though sometimes psychiatrists can put people in hospitals who do not want to be there, because they think the people are dangerous to themselves or other people. A halfway house or group home is a place for patients who have left the psychiatric hospital and are slowly being released into society.

History
Psychiatric hospitals used to be called lunatic asylums. Earlier asylums like the old Bethlem Royal Hospital in London (nicknamed "Bedlam") were like prisons. Patients received no treatment and were often imprisoned and chained. In the 19th century, new asylums were built. These were designed to be pleasant places with gardens and airy rooms, and later became known as psychiatric hospitals. Although they no longer looked like prisons, patients still had little freedom or hope of leaving. The term institutionalisation means when someone has lived in a hospital (or some other place like a prison) for so long that they cannot cope with living outside of it.

In the middle of the 20th century, new drugs were invented that made it easier to treat mental illness. Governments began to look for ways to care for patients outside of hospitals. They believed it would lead to better care for patients and save money. This is known as deinstitutionalisation. Since the 1970s, many countries have closed large numbers of psychiatric hospitals. Mentally ill patients are now also cared for in local hospitals, small clinics and in their own homes.

Psychiatry
Hospitals

Psychiatric hospital


LADSPA is an acronym for Linux Audio Developer's Simple Plugin API. It is an application programming interface (API) standard for handling audio filters and audio signal processing effects, licensed under LGPL-2.1-or-later. It was originally designed for Linux through consensus on the Linux Audio Developers Mailing List, but works on a variety of other platforms. It is used in many free audio software projects and there is a wide range of LADSPA plug-ins available.

LADSPA exists primarily as a header file written in the programming language C.

There are many audio plugin standards and most major modern software synthesizers and sound editors support a variety. The best known standard is probably Steinberg's Virtual Studio Technology. LADSPA is unusual in that it attempts to provide only the "Greatest Common Divisor" of other standards. This means that its scope is limited, but it is simple and plugins written using it are easy to embed in many other programs. The standard has changed little with time, so compatibility problems are rare.

DSSI extends LADSPA to cover instrument plugins.

LV2 is a successor, based on LADSPA and DSSI, but permitting easy extensibility, allowing custom user interfaces, MIDI messages, and custom extensions.

Competing technologies
Apple Inc.'s Audio Units
Digidesign's Real Time AudioSuite
Avid Technology's Avid Audio eXtension
Microsoft's DirectX plugin
Steinberg's Virtual Studio Technology
CLever Audio Plug-in (Open Source)

References

External links

 ladspa.org

Application programming interfaces
Free audio software
Free software programmed in C
Music software plugin architectures
Linux APIs
Audio libraries

LADSPA


Michael Douglas Griffin (d. 1 Kasım 1949 Aberdeen, Maryland) Amerikalı fizikçi, uzay mühendisi ve 13 Nisan 2005 ile 20 Ocak 2009 tarihleri arasında NASA'nın bir önceki baş yöneticisi olarak görev yapmıştır. NASA'nın başı olarak Dr. Griffin insanlı uzay uçuşlarını, Hubble Uzay Teleskopunun kaderini ve iklim değişikliğini anlamada NASA'nın rolünü uzay ile ilgili çalışmaların geleceği olarak görmekteydi.

Dış bağlantılar
 Dr. Michael Griffin's Official NASA Biography
 "Extending Human Presence into the Solar System: An Independent Study for The Planetary Society on Strategy for the Proposed U.S. Space Exploration Policy"(PDF), by Michael Griffin as one of two co-Team Leaders with seven other co-authors, July 2004, anticipating NASA's Exploration Architecture of 2005 ("We propose here a staged approach to human exploration beyond low Earth orbit... Stage 1 features the development of a new crew exploration vehicle (CEV)... Stages 2 and 3 of the proposed Exploration Architecture will require heavy-lift launch capability... We believe these requirements can best be met, at least initially, by means of designs that utilize existing Space Shuttle components...)
 Testimony by Michael Griffin October 16 2004 (The Future of Human Spaceflight)
 Testimony by Michael Griffin March 10 2004 (Vision for Space Exploration)
 Testimony by Michael Griffin April 7 2004 (Near Earth Objects)
 Testimony by Michael Griffin May 12 2005 (NASA's plans for the future)
 Remarks for American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Space 2005 Conference & Exhibition, by Michael Griffin, August 31, 2005 ("The human imperative to explore and settle new lands will be satisfied, by others if not by us. Humans will explore the Moon, Mars, and beyond. It's simply a matter of which humans, when, what values they will hold, and what languages they will speak, what cultures they will spread. What the United States gains from a robust program of human space exploration is the opportunity to carry the principles and values of western philosophy and culture along on the absolutely inevitable outward migration of humanity into the solar system and, eventually, beyond.")
 "NASA's Griffin: 'Humans Will Colonize the Solar System'", Interview, Washington Post, September 25, 2005 ("I don't know when that day is, but there will be more human beings who live off the Earth than on it. We may well have people living on the moon. We may have people living on the moons of Jupiter and other planets. We may have people making habitats on asteroids. ...I don't know the date -- but I know that humans will colonize the solar system and one day go beyond.")
 Is NASA in Outer Space? Not After a Surprise Round of Budget Cuts, Michael Benson, op-ed, The Washington Post, April 2, 2006
 Inner Compass - "Space Exploration: What's it Worth?" TV Interview
 Inner Compass - "Space Exploration: What's it Worth?" audio mp3

1949 doğumlular
Ulusal Mühendislik Akademisi üyeleri
Amerikalı havacılık ve uzay mühendisleri

NASA yöneticileri
Yaşayan insanlar

Michael Griffin


Peyrepertuse Castle is a castle in France. It is one of the Cathar castles. It was built before the 11th century. It is Aude, in Occitanie. It is built in a strategic position, on a cliff, about 30-40m high. The castle is first mentioned in the year 806, but the site seems to have been occupied since Roman times. At that time, it belonged to a Catalan count. It later changed hands, first to the Count of Barcelona, then to that of Narbonne.

When the Treaty of Corbeil is signed in 1258, the border between France and Spain is right to the south of the castle. In the year 1240, after the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars, the castle becomes French. It is extended, and there is a garrison placed there; it protects against invasions until the 16th century when Roussillon becomes a French territory.

Today, the ruins of the castle attract about 100.000 visitors a year. There is a vineyard nearby.

Images

Other websites
Official website of the castle (French)
Peyrepertuse on cathares.org (French)
Images of climbers (French)
Article with photos on Peyrepertuse (French)

Castles in France
Aude
9th-century buildings and structures

Peyrepertuse Castle


A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian is a humorous novel by Marina Lewycka, first published in 2005 by Viking (Penguin Books).

The novel won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize at the Hay literary festival, the Waverton Good Read Award 2005/6, and was short-listed for the 2005 Orange Prize for Fiction, losing to Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk About Kevin. Over a million copies have been sold in the UK.

The book was originally published in English, and has been translated into Russian and Ukrainian. In a BBC Bookclub interview, the author mentioned that some reviewers of the Ukrainian translation were hostile, seeing it as an attack on their country.

Plot
The novel describes the reactions of two daughters when their widowed, 84-year-old father Nikolai marries a highly sexual and much younger Ukrainian immigrant, Valentina. Concerned about Valentina's motives, Nadezhda and Vera are drawn back into contact with each other after a long period of estrangement. They find themselves united against a common enemy in Valentina, whose grasping, manipulative behavior escalates until the daughters finally succeed in obtaining a divorce for their father.

Nikolai, a former engineer who emigrated to Britain in the aftermath of the Second World War, is writing a history of tractors in Ukrainian, translated extracts from which appear throughout the novel. In the process of sorting out Nikolai's marital entanglements, Nadezhda also uncovers secrets from her family's history and learns about their experiences during the Ukrainian famine and Stalin's purges.

The action takes place in Peterborough, England, and is narrated by the youngest daughter, Nadezhda, a university lecturer in Sociology.

Reception
The Ukrainian novelist Andrey Kurkov, reviewing the book in The Guardian, calls the book a "banal tale" that will not teach the reader anything about "the Ukrainian community in Britain". He states that the "rhythm and dynamics of this debut novel are well managed", and that Lewycka is successful in setting up "many comic situations", but finds the characters, such as Valentina with her "enormous breasts" and liking for green satin underwear, "caricatures" and the novel "constructed".

The Polish translator and travel writer Magda Healey, reviewing the book for Bookbag, thought it "eminently readable, well flowing and colourful", though it showed a common fault of autobiographical debut novels, with too much content crammed in, the stories often not thoroughly explored. All the same, it had moving moments, some poetically beautiful passages, and "wonderfully absurd" scenes of farce. She found the sections of the engineer Nikolai's monumental history of tractors "a nice device". It was undemanding "but not totally shallow".

References

2005 British novels
British comedy novels
Viking Press books
2005 debut novels


A floor is a horizontal surface inside a building. People walk on a floor. A floor can be made of many different materials, including concrete, tiling, or wooden floorboards. People often put carpets on a floor.

The word "floor" can also mean the level in a building. Another word for this is "storey".

The way these levels are numbered may be different in different countries. In Britain and most of Europe, the ground level floors are called the "ground floor", the next level is called the "first floor". In most of the United States, Russia and China, the floor at ground level is called the "first floor", the next level is called the "second floor". This can be confusing for people visiting other countries.

Gymnasts also perform an event on floor. The women perform a routine to music, and the men perform a routine without music.

References

Basic English 850 words
Architectural elements

Floor