Nathaniel Moore (born September 19, 1951) is an American former professional football player who was a wide receiver in the National Football League (NFL) for 13 seasons during the 1970s and 1980s.  Moore played college football for the Florida Gators, and thereafter, he played professionally for the Miami Dolphins of the NFL.  He is best known as a favorite passing target of Dolphins quarterbacks Bob Griese and Dan Marino.         Nat Moore is also credited as football consultant in the 1977 movie Black Sunday.

Early years

Moore was born in Tallahassee, Florida in 1951.  He grew up in Miami, Florida and attended Miami Edison Senior High School and  Miami-Dade Community College.

College career

On the recommendation of his junior college football coach, Moore received an athletic scholarship to transfer from the University of Tennessee at Martin to the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, where he was a star running back for coach Doug Dickey's Gators teams in 1972 and 1973.  As a junior in 1972, Moore led the Gators with 145 rushes for 845 yards and nine rushing touchdowns, 25 receptions for 351 receiving yards and four touchdown catches, and 230 return yards, while earning first-team All-Southeastern Conference (SEC) and honorable mention All-American accolades.

Moore graduated from Florida with a bachelor's degree in exercise and sport science in 1975, and he was inducted into the University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame as a "Gator Great" in 1978.  In a 2006 article series published by The Gainesville Sun, the newspaper's sportswriters ranked him as No. 49 among the 100 all-time greatest Florida Gators of the team's first 100 seasons.

Professional career

Moore was chosen by the Miami Dolphins in the third round (78th pick overall) of the 1974 NFL Draft, and he played for the Dolphins for 13 seasons from  to .  He was elected to the Pro Bowl in , after a season in which he made 52 receptions and led the league with 12 receiving touchdowns (he also had a rushing touchdown that year).  Moore is immortalized in the famous "Helicopter Catch" video clip—while making a reception against the New York Jets at Giants Stadium in , he was hit simultaneously from opposite directions by two Jets tacklers sending his body spinning into the air.  The catch was a crucial third-down conversion, leading to a score and a come-from-behind win in a closely contested divisional game.

By the time Moore retired at the end of , his 13th season with the Dolphins, he had broken almost every receiving record of the Dolphins; his team records, however, were subsequently broken by teammates Mark Clayton and Mark Duper.

His final career receiving statistics were 510 catches for 7,547 yards and 74 touchdowns.  He also rushed for 249 yards and a touchdown, returned 27 punts for 297 yards, and gained 856 yards on 33 kickoff returns.

Career statistics

Regular season

Life after football

Moore is also known for his humanitarian work and philanthropy.  In , the NFL voted Moore as "Man of the Year," an honor given to a player who gives outstanding service to his community.  Moore also received the Byron White Humanitarian Award in 1986.  He created The Nat Moore Foundation, an organization through which he continues to work with disadvantaged youths in the Miami-Dade County area, in 1998.

On December 5, 1999 he was added to the Miami Dolphins Honor Roll.

Moore was a football broadcaster for Florida Gators football games on Sun Sports until 2011.  As an announcer, he was notorious for adding an "s" to the last names of various players (Chris Leak became "Chris Leaks," Percy Harvin became "Harvins," etc.)  In addition, he teams with Bob Griese to provide television analysis of preseason Dolphins games.  He also owns a sports promotions firm, Nat Moore & Associates, Inc.  He is a vice president in the Miami Dolphins organization and oversees the Miami Dolphins Alumni Association, and also serves as the executive director of the NFL Super Bowl Football Clinic.

See also

 Florida Gators football, 1970–79
 List of Florida Gators in the NFL Draft
 List of Miami Dolphins players
 List of University of Florida alumni
 List of University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame members

References

Bibliography

 Carlson, Norm, University of Florida Football Vault: The History of the Florida Gators, Whitman Publishing, LLC, Atlanta, Georgia (2007).  .
 Golenbock, Peter, Go Gators!  An Oral History of Florida's Pursuit of Gridiron Glory, Legends Publishing, LLC, St. Petersburg, Florida (2002).  .
 Hairston, Jack, Tales from the Gator Swamp: A Collection of the Greatest Gator Stories Ever Told, Sports Publishing, LLC, Champaign, Illinois (2002).  .
 McCarthy, Kevin M.,  Fightin' Gators: A History of University of Florida Football, Arcadia Publishing, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina (2000).  .
 McEwen, Tom, The Gators: A Story of Florida Football, The Strode Publishers, Huntsville, Alabama (1974).  .
 Nash, Noel, ed., The Gainesville Sun Presents The Greatest Moments in Florida Gators Football, Sports Publishing, Inc., Champaign, Illinois (1998).  .

1951 births
Living people
American Conference Pro Bowl players
American football wide receivers
College football announcers
Florida Gators football players
Miami Dade College alumni
Miami Dolphins announcers
Miami Dolphins players
Players of American football from Tallahassee, Florida
Miami Edison Senior High School alumni

Nat Moore


Bleu Bénédictin is a Canadian blue cheese made by the monks at the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Benoît-du-Lac, Quebec.

The cheese is a semi-soft, whole milk blue cheese deeply veined with the Roquefort penicillium mold.  A wheel of Bénédictin weighs  and has a whitish-grey coating.

The aroma of the cheese is reminiscent of mushrooms and has a creamy, delicately salted flavour.  The middle of the cheese wheel is especially creamy.

See also
 List of cheeses

References

External links
 Abbaye de Saint-Benoît-du-Lac
 Bleu Bénédictin entry on the Canadian Cheese Encyclopedia.

Canadian cheeses
Blue cheeses
Cow's-milk cheeses

Bleu Bénédictin


Ken Adachi (1929 – February 9, 1989) was a Canadian writer and literary critic, who was associated with the Toronto Star's literary section from 1976 until his death.

Born to Japanese immigrants in Vancouver, British Columbia, Adachi was interned with his family at Slocan during World War II. Following the end of the war, Adachi became editor of the New Canadian, a Japanese Canadian newspaper formerly edited by Tommy Shoyama, and studied English literature at the University of Toronto. He subsequently taught at the University of Toronto from 1958 to 1971, and at the University of Maryland from 1964 to 1968.

He then joined the Toronto Star in 1972 as a copy editor, rising to become editor of the books section in 1976. That same year, he also published the book The Enemy That Never Was, a history of the Japanese Canadian community which was later hailed by Robert Fulford as the definitive book on Japanese history in Canada.

Adachi was fired from his position with the Star in 1981 after a plagiarism accusation, although he was soon rehired as a book reviewer and literary columnist.  He remained associated with the Star until 1989, when he committed suicide after a second accusation that he had plagiarized three paragraphs from a 1982 book review in TIME. His widow Mary Adachi, remains active in Canadian literature as a book editor.

Select works
 Adachi, Ken. (1976).  The Enemy that Never was: A History of the Japanese Canadians. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.

See also
 Japanese in Toronto

References

External links
 Ken Adachi profile at ABCBookWorld

1929 births
1989 suicides
1989 deaths
Canadian male non-fiction writers
Canadian literary critics
Historians of Canada
Japanese-Canadian internees
Writers from Vancouver
Suicides in Ontario
University of Maryland, College Park faculty
University of Toronto alumni
Academic staff of the University of Toronto
20th-century Canadian historians
Canadian writers of Asian descent

Ken Adachi


Mount Garibaldi is an eroded, dacitic strato volcano in southwestern British Columbia. Both Garibaldi and Mount Baker to its south are part of the Cascade volcanic arc.  Mount Garibaldi, 80 km due north of Vancouver, is made up of Mount Garibaldi, Atwell Peak,and Dalton Dome.  This Pleistocene volcanic center is part of a volcanic field that contains some 13 vents in an area 30 km long by 15 km wide, much of which is in Garibaldi Provincial Park.

The eruptive history of Mt Garibaldi involves an initial period of volcanism (200,000-300,000 years ago) followed by a period of quiescence.  Renewed activity in the last 50,000 years has rebuilt the edifice in a series of violent eruptions, like when Mount Pelee erupted in 1902 and destroyed the town of St. Pierre on the island of Martinique.  As successive pyroclastic flows travelled down the mountain's gentle slopes and were deposited, the volcano took on a broad, conical form.  Part of the volcano's southwest flank built out onto thick glacial ice filling the Squamish River valley.  Subsequent rapid melting of the ice at the close of the last ice age removed support from the western part of the cone.  The volcano collapsed,producing much of the existing rugged topography of Mount Garibaldi and Atwell Peak.  This catastrophic failure left a scarp on which is exposed the internal structure of the volcano and a debris fan with an estimated volume of 150,000,000 m at the foot of the mountain north of the town of Squamish.  As valley glaciers retreated, two lava flows erupted Clinker Peak, immediately north of Mt. Garibaldi.  The northernmost Rubble Creek flow was party confined by a wall of ice, resulting in a lava flow over 244 m (800 ft) thick. The steep, northern edge of the Rubble Creek flow party collapsed several times, most recently in 1855-1856; the village of Garibaldi was abandoned because of the danger of future collapses.  The most recent period of activity occurred shortly after the disappearance of the glacial ice filling the valley, 10,700 to 9,300 radiocarbon years ago, and ended with the eruption the Ring Creek lava flow from Opal cone on Garibaldi's southeastern flank.

The Ring Creek flow is very unusual.  It is 15 km long - a length usually only attained by basalt flows,except that the Ring Creek flow is dacite.  Renewed volcanism in the Garibaldi area would pose a serious threat to the local communities of Whistler and Squamish.  Although no
Plinian-style eruptions are known, even Pelean-type eruptions could produce large quantities of ash that could rise to several hundred meters above the volcano. As it is close to Vancouver, this would make it a hazard for air traffic.  The danger from lava flows would be low to moderate because the nature of the lavas would prevent them from travelling far from their source,even though the Ring Creek lava flow ends only 6 km from Squamish.  Melting of remnant glacial ice capping the Mt. Garibaldi area could produce floods, lahars,or debris flows that might endanger small communities including Brackendale.

Highway 99, which links Whistler and Squamish with Vancouver, is already plagued by landslides and dedris flows from the precipitous Coast Mountains.  An eruption producing floods could destroy segments of the highway. Flooding and debris flows could also have serious coneequences for the salmon fishery on the Squamish, Cheakamus, and Mamquam rivers.  In addition,explosive eruptions and the accompanying ash could cause short and long-term water-supply problems for Vancouver and much of the lower mainland.  The catchment area for the Greater Vancouver watershed is downwind from the Garibaldi area. Air-fall material could also have a deleterious effect on the ice fields to the east of Mt. Garibaldi, causing increased melting and spring flooding. This in turn could theaten water supplies from Pitt Lake as well as fisheries on the Pitt River.

Volcanoes of British Columbia
Mountains of British Columbia

Mount Garibaldi


In computing, optimization is the process of modifying a system to make some features of it work more efficiently or use fewer resources.  For instance, a computer program may be optimized so that it runs faster, or to run with less memory requirements or other resources (see Space-time tradeoff), or to consume less energy. This is a branch of software engineering.

The optimization can have sense at different levels, from the lowest (development of circuits, writing of machine code designed especially for the architecture) up to the highest levels of making of implementation, use or design of algorithms.

The optimization is generally recommended to leave until the end of the process of development, since the premature optimization can introduce new errors (generally more difficult to detect for being of algorithmic nature).

The optimized system may be a single computer program, a collection of computers or even an entire network such as the Internet.

Other websites
 Programming Optimization
 C,C++ optimization
 C optimization tutorial
 Software Optimization at Link-time And Run-time
 Article "A Plea for Lean Software" by Niklaus Wirth
 Description from the Portland Pattern Repository
 Performance tuning of Computer Networks
 An article describing high-level optimization
 Some examples of optimization problems & algorithms

Computer science

Optimization (computer science)


The Transitional Government of National Unity (Gouvernement d'Union Nationale de Transition or GUNT) was the coalition government of armed groups that nominally ruled Chad from 1979 to 1982, during the most chaotic phase of the long-running civil war that began in 1965. The GUNT replaced the fragile alliance led by Félix Malloum and Hissène Habré, which collapsed in February 1979. GUNT was characterized by intense rivalries that led to armed confrontations and Libyan intervention in 1980. Libya intervened in support of the GUNT's President Goukouni Oueddei, against the former GUNT Defence Minister Hissène Habré.

Because of international pressures and uneasy relations between Goukouni and Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi, Goukouni asked the Libyans to leave Chad in November 1981; they were replaced by an Inter-African Force (IAF). The IAF showed itself unwilling to confront Habré's militia, and on June 7, 1982, the GUNT was ousted by Habré; Goukouni fled into exile.

The GUNT, always under the leadership of Goukouni, became a coalition of the opposition groups aiming to overthrow Habré. Libya played once again a decisive role, providing massive support to Goukouni, and reducing the GUNT to the status of a Libyan proxy. A French intervention blocked GUNT from overthrowing Habré in 1983 and limited Libyan-GUNT control to Northern Chad. Internal dissensions and problems with Libyan patronage, including the arrest of Goukouni by the Libyans, caused the disintegration of the GUNT in 1986.

Civil war and mediation attempts
From 1979 to 1982, Chad experienced unprecedented change and spiraling violence. Southerners finally lost control of what remained of the Chadian government, while civil conflicts became significantly more internationalized.

In early 1979, the fragile Malloum-Habré alliance collapsed after months of aggressive actions by Habré, including demands that more northerners be appointed to high government offices and that Arabic be used in place of French in broadcasting. Appealing for support among the large communities of Muslims and Arabs in N'Djamena, Habré unleashed his Armed Forces of the North (FAN) on February 12. With the French garrison remaining uninvolved, FAN sent Félix Malloum into retirement (under French protection) and drove the remnants of the Chadian Armed Forces (FAT, the regular army) toward the south. On February 22, Goukouni Oueddei and the People's Armed Forces (FAP) entered the capital. By this time, most of the city's Sara population had fled to the south, where attacks against Muslims and nonsoutherners erupted, particularly in Sarh, Moundou, and throughout Moyen-Chari Prefecture. By mid-March more than 10,000 were said to have died as a result of violence throughout the south.

In early 1979, Chad became an open arena of unrestrained factional politics. Opportunistic power seekers sought to gather followers (often using sectarian appeals) and to win support from Chad's African neighbors. Between March 10 and August 21, four separate conferences took place in the Nigerian cities of Kano and Lagos, during which Chad's neighbors attempted to establish a political framework acceptable to the warring factions. Chad's neighbors, however, also used the meetings to pursue interests of their own, resulting in numerous externally generated complications and a growing number of factions brought into the process. For example, at one point, the Libyan leader Gaddafi became so angry with Habré that the Libyan sent arms to Colonel Wadel Abdelkader Kamougué's anti-Habré faction in the south, even though Kamougué was also anti-Libyan. At the second conference in Kano, both Habré and Goukouni were placed under what amounted to house arrest so Nigeria could promote the chances of a Kanembu leader, Lol Mahamat Choua. In fact, Nigerian support made Choua the Chadian titular head of state for a few weeks, even though his Third Liberation Army was only a phantom force, and his domestic political support was insignificant. Within Chad the warring parties used the conferences and their associated truces to recover from one round of fighting and prepare for the next.

Goukouni becomes head of the GUNT
The final conference culminated in the Lagos Accord of August 21, 1979, which representatives of eleven Chadian factions signed and the foreign ministers of nine other African states witnessed. The Lagos Accord established the procedures for setting up the Transitional Government of National Unity, which was sworn into office in November. By mutual agreement, Goukouni was named president, Kamougué was appointed vice-president, and Habré was named minister of national defense, veterans, and war victims. The distribution of cabinet positions was balanced between south (eleven portfolios), north, center, and east (thirteen), and among protégés of neighboring states. A peacekeeping mission of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), to be drawn from troops from Republic of the Congo, Guinea, and Benin, was to replace the French. This force never materialized in any effective sense, but the OAU was committed to GUNT under the presidency of Goukouni.

GUNT, however, failed. Its major participants deeply mistrusted each other, and they never achieved a sense of coherence. As a result, the various factional militias remained armed. By January 1980, a unit of Habré's army was attacking the forces of one of the constituent groups of GUNT in Ouaddaï Prefecture. Shortly thereafter, N'Djamena plunged into another cycle of violence, and by the end of March 1980 Habré was openly defying the government, having taken control of a section of the capital. The 600 Congolese troops of the OAU peacekeeping force remained out of the fray, as did the French, while units of five separate Chadian armies prowled the streets of N'Djamena. The battles continued throughout the summer, punctuated by more OAU mediation efforts and five formal ceasefires.

It became evident that the profound rivalry between Goukouni and Habré was at the core of the conflict. By mid-1980 the south - cut off from communication and trade with N'Djamena and defended by a regrouped, southern army - had become a state within a state. Colonel Kamougué, the strongman of the south, remained a prudent distance away from the capital and waited to negotiate with whichever northerner emerged as the winner.

Libyan intervention

In 1980 the beleaguered Goukouni turned to Libya, much as he had done four years earlier. With the French forces having departed in mid-May 1980, Goukouni signed a military cooperation treaty with Libya in June (without prior approval of the all-but-defunct GUNT). In October he requested direct military assistance from Gaddafi, and by December Libyan forces had firm control of the capital and most other urban centers outside the south. Habré fled to Sudan, vowing to resume the struggle.

Although Libyan intervention enabled Goukouni to win militarily, the association with Qaddafi created diplomatic problems for GUNT. In January 1981, when Goukouni and Gaddafi issued a joint communiqué stating that Chad and Libya had agreed to "work for the realization of complete unity between the two countries", an international uproar ensued. Although both leaders later denied any intention to merge their states politically, the diplomatic damage had been done.

Throughout 1981 most of the members of the OAU, along with France and the United States, encouraged Libyan troops to withdraw from Chad. One week after the "unity communiqué", the OAU's committee on Chad met in Togo to assess the situation. In a surprisingly blunt resolution, the twelve states on the committee denounced the union goal as a violation of the 1979 Lagos Accord, called for Libya to withdraw its troops, and promised to provide a peacekeeping unit, the Inter-African Force (IAF). Goukouni was skeptical of OAU promises, but in September he received a French pledge of support for his government and the IAF.

But as Goukouni's relations with the OAU and France improved, his ties with Libya deteriorated. One reason for this deterioration was that the economic assistance that Libya had promised never materialized. Another, and perhaps more significant, factor was that Gaddafi was strongly suspected of helping Goukouni's rival within GUNT, Acyl Ahmat, leader of the Democratic Revolutionary Council (Conseil Démocratique Révolutionnaire or CDR). Both Habré and Goukouni feared Acyl because he and many of the members of the CDR were Arabs of the Awlad Sulayman tribe. About 150 years earlier, this group had migrated from Libya to Chad and thus represented the historical and cultural basis of Libyan claims in Chad.

Habré overthrows Goukouni
As a consequence of the Libya-Chad rift, Goukouni asked the Libyan forces in late October 1981 to leave, and by mid-November they had complied. Their departure, however, allowed Habré's FAN - reconstituted in eastern Chad with Egyptian, Sudanese, and, reportedly, significant United States assistance - to win key positions along the highway from Abéché to N'Djamena. Habré was restrained only by the arrival and deployment in December 1981 of some 4,800 IAF troops from Nigeria, Senegal, and Zaire.

In February 1982, a special OAU meeting in Nairobi resulted in a plan that called for a ceasefire, negotiations among all parties, elections, and the departure of the IAF; all terms were to be carried out within six months. Habré accepted the plan, but Goukouni rejected it, asserting that Habré had lost any claim to legitimacy when he broke with GUNT. When Habré renewed his military advance toward N'Djamena, the IAF remained essentially neutral, just as the French had done when the FROLINAT marched on Malloum three years earlier. FAN secured control of the capital on June 7. Goukouni and other members of GUNT fled to Cameroon and eventually reappeared in Libya. For the remainder of the year, Habré consolidated his power in much of war-weary Chad and worked to secure international recognition for his government.

References

Chadian–Libyan War
1979 in Chad
1980 in Chad
1981 in Chad
1982 in Chad
Provisional governments

Transitional Government of National Unity (Chad)


Consultation is a special way of discussing problems and making decisions used by Bahá'ís.

The word consult generally means to talk about something, consider all the facts, and make a decision.  To Bahá'ís, consultation also means:
 everyone prays before they discuss
 not preferring one idea over another until all the ideas have been discussed
 not repeating the same things over and over
 making a decision at the end that everyone supports
 if everyone cannot agree, then everyone votes, and the idea that gets the most votes is used
 if someone disagrees with the decision, they act as if they agreed with it until new facts are known (no one undermines the decision of the group)
 if new facts are discovered, or the idea is tried and does not work so well, the group can consult again and consider the new things they know

Consultation is used by Bahá'í elected leaders when they gather in councils to make sure no one person gets to decide everything.  Married people consult with their husband or wife to solve difficulties in the marriage.  Parents and children may consult, teachers and students may consult, and Bahá'ís all consult as a community when they get together every nineteen days.

Bahá'í Faith

Consultation (Bahá'í practice)


Sir Kingsley William Amis (16 April 1922 – 22 October 1995) was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than twenty novels, three collections of poetry, short stories, radio and television scripts, and books of social and literary criticism. He was the father of the British novelist Martin Amis.

Biography
Kingsley Amis was born in Clapham, South London, England. He went to school at the City of London School and St. John's College, Oxford. At Oxford, he met Philip Larkin and became friends. Amis served in the Royal Corps of Signals in the Second World War.

Amis was a fan of jazz music. He liked the American musicians Sidney Bechet, Henry "Red" Allen and Pee Wee Russell.

His first novel Lucky Jim was very successfull. The novel won the Somerset Maugham Award for fiction. Lucky Jim was the first English novel that focused on an ordinary man as anti-hero. As a poet, Amis was a part of The Movement (anti-romantic poetry).

As a young man, Kingsley Amis was a member of the Communist Party. He left them when the Soviet Union invaded Hungary in 1956. After that, Amis became anti-communist, and conservative. He talks about his political change in the essay "Why Lucky Jim Turned Right" (1967).

Amis was an atheist. Novels such as The Green Man and The Anti-Death League were about the personality of a divine being. They were also about its relationship to death and dying.

Amis's novel The Old Devils won the Booker Prize in 1986. He received a knighthood in 1990.

Amis was married. The first time in 1948 to Hilary Bardwell and then to novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard in 1965. He divorced Howard in 1983. Amis spent his last years living with his first wife and her third husband. He had two sons and a daughter. His younger son was novelist Martin Amis. Martin wrote about his father's life and decline in his memoir Experience.

Science fiction
Amis' interest in science fiction led to New Maps of Hell (1960). It was about how he felt about science fiction in literature. He liked the stories of Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth. With the Sovietologist Robert Conquest, Amis produced the science fiction series Spectrum I–IV. This series got a lot of its ideas from the 1950s magazine Astounding Science Fiction. He wrote three science fiction novels. The Alteration was an alternate history novel set in a twentieth-century Britain. Russian Hide-and-Seek was an alternate history where Russia had conquered Britain after the Second World War. He also wrote the supernatural-horror novel The Green Man which the BBC adapted for television.

James Bond
Amis wrote books about Ian Fleming's James Bond. He wrote the popular James Bond Dossier. Later, he wrote, The Book of Bond, or, Every Man His Own 007. It was a tongue-in-cheek how-to manual about being a spy like Bond. He wrote it under the name "Lt Col. William 'Bill' Tanner". Tanner was M's Chief of Staff in many of the Bond novels.

References

Other websites
Guardian Books "Author Page", with profile and links to further articles.
The Paris Review interview, with downloadable PDF

1922 births
1995 deaths
Booker Prize winners
English novelists
English poets
English writers
James Bond writers
Writers from London

Kingsley Amis


A microscope is a scientific instrument. It makes small objects look larger. This lets people see the small things. People who use microscopes frequently  in their jobs include doctors and scientists. Students in science classes such as biology also use microscopes to study small things.
The earliest microscopes had only one lens and are called simple microscopes. Compound microscopes have at least two lenses. In a compound microscope, the lens closer to the eye is called the eyepiece. The lens at the other end is called the objective. The lenses multiply up, so a 10x eyepiece and a 40x objective together give 400x magnification.

Microscopes make things seem larger than they are, to about 1000 times larger. This is much stronger than a magnifying glass which works as a simple microscope.

Types of microscopes
There are many types of microscopes. The most common kind of microscope is the compound light microscope. In a compound light microscope, the object is illuminated: light is thrown on it. The user looks at the image formed by the object. Light passes through two lenses and makes the image bigger.

The second most common kind are a few kinds of electron microscopes. Transmission electron microscopes (TEMs) fire cathode rays into the object being looked at. This carries information about how the object looks into a magnetic "lens". The image is then magnified onto a television screen. Scanning electron microscopes also fire electrons at the object, but in a single beam. These lose their power when they strike the object, and the loss of power results in something else being generated—usually an X-ray. This is sensed and magnified onto a screen. Scanning tunneling microscopes were invented in 1984.

A fluorescence microscope is a special kind of light microscope. In 2014, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Eric Betzig, William Moerner, and Stefan Hell for "the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy". The citation says it brings "optical microscopy into the nanodimension".

References

Other websites
 Microscopy Information Information relating to optics, techniques and specimen preparation for teachers, students, amateur scientists.
 Scanning electron microscope

Microscope


Mohja Kahf (, born 1967 in  Damascus) is a Syrian-American poet, novelist, and professor. She authored Hagar Poems which won honorable mention in the 2017 Book Awards of the Arab American National Museum. She is the recipient of Pushcart Prize for her creative nonfiction essay, "The Caul of Inshallah" and the Arkansas Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship in 2002 for poetry. Her poetry has been featured in the installments of American neo-conceptual artist Jenny Holzer.

Early life
Kahf was born in Damascus, Syria. In March 1971, at the age of three and a half, she moved to the United States. She grew up in a devout Muslim household. Both of her parents came to the United States as students at the University of Utah. Kahf and her family moved to Indiana after her parents received their university degrees. When she was in the tenth grade, she and her family moved to New Jersey. In 1984, Kahf lived in Iraq for a brief time. During college, she did one semester as a visiting student at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Kahf's maternal grandfather was a member of the Syrian parliament in the 1950s, but was exiled from Syria because of his opposition to the Baathist regime. Her father was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that was banned in Syria, and was exiled from Syria as a result.

Kahf graduated from Douglass College in 1988 and later received her Ph.D. in comparative literature from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey in 1994. In 1995 she became a professor at the University of Arkansas where she serves in the Program for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, and is a faculty member in the King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.

During her work at Rutgers, Kahf taught theories of feminism, Palestinian resistance women, and Black Power movement women. After her move to Arkansas, Kahf served for a time on the board of the Ozark Poets and Writers Collective, participated in local poetry slams and, after winning a spot on "Team Ozarks" with Brenda Moossy, Lisa Martinovic, and Pat Jackson,
represented the region with the all-women team at the 1999 National Poetry Slam in Chicago,

Kahf was a founding member of RAWI, the Radius of Arab American Writers, established in 1993 Kahf is currently a member of the Syrian Nonviolence Movement.
In 2011, Kahf and her daughter visited the Turkish border to Syria in order to work with Syrian escapees. Kahf wrote about the experience in the essay "The Daughter's Road to Syria."

Kahf has attended marches protesting the United States' War on Iraq.

Literary career
Kahf's work explores themes of cultural dissonance and overlap between Muslim American and other communities, both religious and secular.  Syria, Islam, ethics, politics, feminism, human rights, the body, gender, and erotics often feature in her work. In her poetry book Emails From Schherazad, Kahf explores many different Arab and Muslim identities and practices, frequently using humor. She reconfigures many female figures of the Islamic tradition, particularly in  Hagar Poems.

Hagar Poems won honorable mention in the 2017 Book Awards of the Arab American National Museum.  Kahf won a Pushcart Prize for her creative nonfiction essay, "The Caul of Inshallah," about the difficult birth of her son, first published in River Teeth in 2010. Kahf's first book of poetry, E-mails From Scheherazad, was a finalist for the 2004 Paterson Poetry Prize. Her novel The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf was a "One Book" reading at Indiana University East (Richmond, Indiana) in 2017. The novel was chosen as Book Sense Reading Group Favorite for June 2007 and as book of the year for the One Book, One Bloomington Series by the Bloomington Arts Council, Monroe County Public Library, Bloomington, Indiana, 2008.  Kahf won the Arkansas Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship in 2002 for poetry.

In 2004, Kahf had a column exploring sexual topics on the progressive Muslim website MuslimWakeUp!.com. The column was called "Sex and the Umma" and featured short stories by her, who also hosted guest writers on the column, including Randa Jarrar, Michael Muhammad Knight, and Laila Al-Marayati. The original first column published, a short story by Kahf, "Lustrous Companions," was later re-published on the website loveinshallah.com. Kahf's work on "Sex and the Umma"
"earned her a torrent of attacks...the author, though at once playful and mischievous verbally and thematically, seems to be putting across an alternative image of Islam...a more progressive...one" says Layla Maleh.

Kahf's poetry has featured in the installments of American neo-conceptual artist Jenny Holzer. Her poem "Two Friends Like Fireflies" was set to music composed by Joseph Gregorio, commissioned by the Women's Commission Consortium of the American Choral Director's Association, and premiered by the Soli Deo Gloria Women's Chorale. Kahf's work has been translated into Japanese, Italian, and Arabic. Her poetry features in the BBC documentary, Poems from Syria.

Published works

Poetry
Hagar Poems, 2016, University of Arkansas Press
E-mails from Scheherazad 2003, University Press of Florida
 my lover feeds me grapefruit. 2020. press 53.

Poems in journals and anthologies
"Nine November 2016 in the U.S. of A." Poem (Routledge), Issue 2-3, 2017.
"Aleppo the Necklace Broke All the Words Fell Apart" & "Flora Fauna Syria," Sukoon: Arab-Themed Art & Literature
"My People Are Rising" Mizna: Prose, Poetry, and Art Exploring Arab America, Vol. 13, Issue 1, pp. 4–6. April 2012.
"Brenda Unbound", Banipal, Magazine of Modern Arab Literature, #38. London. pp. 50–52.
"Little Mosque Poems." Journal of Pan African Studies, 2010, Vol. 4 Issue 2, p106-113.
"Asiya's Aberrance," I Go to the Ruined Place: Contemporary Poems in Defense of Global Human Rights, ed. Melissa Kwasny & M.L. Smoker. Lost Horse Press, 2009. pp. 55–57.
"Asiya Is Waiting for a Sign" and "Among the Midianites on U.S. 31," Tiferet: A Journal of Spiritual Literature,  Issue 7, Fall 2008, pp. 80–82.
"Lifting the Hajar Heel" p. 84, Language for a New Century: Contemporary Voices from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond, ed. Carolyn Forche, Ravi Shankar, Tina Chang, Nathalie Handal. W.W. Norton, 2008.
"My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears," "Hijab Scene  #1," "Hijab Scene #2," "Postcards from Hajar," Hayan Charara, ed., Inclined to Speak: Contemporary Arab American Poetry, U of Arkansas Press, 2008, pp. 171–176.
"The Mihrab of the Mind," The Atlanta Review, Fall/Winter 2007, p. 37.
"Sarah's Laugh II" & "Hagar's Ram," Tiferet: A Journal of Spiritual Literature, Issue 5,  2007, p. 15-16.
"On Reading Marge Piercy," Natural Bridge, #16, Fall 2006, p. 55.
"The Ladies on the Stoop" & "Balqis Makes Solomon Sign a Pre-Nup" Pakistani Journal of Women's Studies, Winter 2004
"Pears in the Time of Burnished Gold," in Bascove, ed., Sustenance and Desire: A Food Lover's Anthology of Sensuality and Humor, David R. Godine, 2004, pp. 95–96.
"Copulation in English." Paris Review #164 Winter 2002-2003, p. 76.

Fiction
Novel, The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf 2006, Carroll & Graf
"Manar of Hama,"  "The Spiced Chicken Queen," Pauline Kaldas & Khaled Mattawa, ed., Dinarzad's Children: Arab American Fiction, University of Arkansas Press, 1st Edition, 2005.
"The Girl from Mecca," Feminist Studies, 2012, Issue 38, pp 73–83.

Prose
"Human Rights Is the Hand-Hold, Pass It On," ed. Carolina DeRobertis, Radical Hope: Letters of Love and Dissent in Dangerous Times. Knopf, 2017.
"Human Rights First" Democracy: A Journal of Ideas Fall 2016 #42.
With Maciej Bartkowski, "The Syrian Resistance: a Tale of Two Struggles" OpenDemocracy 23 September 2013.
"Then and Now: The Syrian Revolution to Date," Friends for a Non-Violent World, Saint Paul, Minnesota February 28, 2013.
"Lord, Make Me Not Oblivious," Anne Richards & Iraj Omidvar, Muslims in American Popular Culture, Praeger, Nov. 2013, pp. 425–441.
"Purple Ihram and the Feminine Beatitudes of Hajj," New Geographies, Issue 3, 2011, pp 114–121.
"The Caul of Inshallah," Bill Henderson, ed., 2011 Pushcart Prize XXXV: Best of the Small Presses. Pushcart Prize Fellowships, 2011, pp. 458–461.

Scholarship
Western Representations of the Muslim Woman: From Termagant to Odalisque 1999 U of Texas Press
"Writing on Muslim Gender Issues in the West Today: Slipping Past the Pity Committee," in Rabab Abdal Hadi, et al, ed., Arab and Arab American Feminisms: Gender, Violence, and Belonging, Syracuse University Press, 2011.
"From Her Royal Body the Robe Was Removed: The Blessings of the Veil and the Trauma of Forced Unveiling in the Middle East," Jennifer Heath, ed., The Veil:Its History, Lore, and Politics, Berkeley: U California Press, April 2008.
"The Silences of Contemporary Syrian Literature" World Literature Today, Spring 2001.
"Politics and Erotics in Nizar Kabbani's Poetry: From the Sultan's Wife to the Lady Friend" World Literature Today, Winter 2000.
"Packaging Huda: Sha'rawi's Memoirs in the US Reading Environment" in Amal Amireh & Lisa Suhair Majaj, ed., Going Global: The Transitional Reception of Third World Women Writers, Garland, 2000.
"Braiding the Stories: Women's Eloquence in the Early Islamic Era" in Gisela Webb, ed., Windows of Faith: Muslim Women's Scholarship and Activism, Syracuse University Press, 2000.

Critical studies on Kahf's work

Harb, Sirène. "Arab American Women's Writing and September 11: Contrapuntality and Associative Remembering," MELUS (Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States). Fall 2012, Vol. 37 Issue 3, p13-41.
Harb, Sirène. "Perspectives on Violence and Reconciliation: Arab-American Women's Writing About September 11." Dissidences: Hispanic Journal of Theory and Criticism 4.8 (2012): 1-15.
Fadda-Conrey, Carol. "Arab American Citizenship in Crisis: Destabilizing Representations of Arabs and Muslims in the US after 9/11."  MFS: Modern Fiction Studies, 2011 Fall; 57 (3): 532-555.
Sabiha Sorgun, "'Into the state of pure surrender': Spirituality in Mohja Kahf's The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf," 30th Annual Meeting of Southwest Texas Popular Culture and American Culture Associations, February 25–28, 2009. Albuquerque, NM.
"'Sex and the Umma: Sex and Religion Lived in Mohja Kahf's Columns," Martina Noskova, Theory and Practice in English Studies #4 2005.

See also
 Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore
 Marvin X

References

External links
 MacFarquhar, Neil. "She Carries Weapons, They Are Called Words," The New York Times, May 12, 2007.
 Kahf, Mohja. "Spare Me The Sermon On Muslim Women," The Washington Post, October 5, 2008.
 Mohja Kahf Biography, Living Islam Out Loud.
 "The Vigil" Poem performed by Kahf
 "Fayetteville as Fate" performed by Kahf
 "Rivers of Blood: No Metaphor" (poem)
 "Holding Fatima in the Light" (poem)
 "Song of the Fallen Protester" and "To the Free Syrians Behind Bars"
 "Syrian Americans and the Syrian YouTube Revolution" by Michael May, feature on Mohja Kahf

1967 births
American poets
American women poets
American writers of Syrian descent
Living people
Muslim poets
Writers from Damascus
Rutgers University alumni
Syrian emigrants to the United States
Syrian poets
University of Arkansas faculty
Syrian feminists
American feminists
21st-century American poets
American Arabic-language poets
American women academics
21st-century American women writers
American Islamic studies scholars

Mohja Kahf


Events
January 16 – Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk is tried for treason for his part in the Ridolfi plot to restore Catholicism in England.
April 1 – The Sea Beggars, Netherlandish Calvinist rebels, capture the port city of Brielle. This leads to a wave of uprisings in Holland and Zealand, leaving most of those provinces (with the exception of Amsterdam), under rebel control.
June 25 – The Sea Beggars capture the city Gorkum. Several Roman Catholic priests are put into a prison.
July 9 – The Sea Beggars hang 19 previously imprisoned Roman Catholic priests at Brielle.
August 18 – Wedding in Paris of the Huguenot King Henry III of Navarre with Marguerite de France, sister of King Charles, in a supposed attempt to reconcile Protestants and Catholics.
August 24 – St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in Paris. Catholics in Paris murder thousands of Protestants, including Gaspard de Coligny, at the order of King Charles IX. Henry of Navarre and the Prince of Condé barely escape the same fate. This brings about the Fourth War of Religion in France.
November 9 – Siege of Sancerre Catholic forces of the king lay siege to Sancerre, a Huguenot stronghold in central France. The fortified city held out for nearly eight months without bombard artillery. It was one of the last time slings were used in European history.
 December – The Duke of Alva, Spanish commander in the Netherlands, lays siege to Haarlem.
 Ending of the Muromachi period in Japan
 Tycho Brahe observes the supernova SN 1572 in Cassiopeia
 Vilcabamba, last independent part of the Inca Empire, conquered by Spanish

1572


The National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) is a drag racing governing body, which sets rules in drag racing and holds events all over the United States and Canada. With over 80,000 drivers, the NHRA is considered one of the largest motorsports organizations in the world.

History

The association was started by Wally Parks in 1951 in the State of California to provide a governing body to organize and further the sport of drag racing. The first national NHRA event was held in 1955, in Great Bend, Kansas.  (The races were run on a training air field built during World War II.)  The "Nationals", which now number 22 events every year, are the major events in drag racing that bring together the best cars and drivers from across North America. The Mac Tools U.S. Nationals are now held at Indianapolis Raceway Park in Clermont, Indiana.

Safety
The NHRA forces racers to use various things in the cars run in its racing events to keep drivers safe. First is the five point safety harness (belt) that all cars must have. This holds the driver secure in the seat and has with a quick-release lock, which can be opened in less than a second if the driver needs to leave the car due to fire or explosion.

Second are the fire suits that all drivers must wear. These suits are full body cover-alls and made with seven layers of Nomex fire-resistant fabric.

Third is the use of the Head and Neck Support (HANS) device. This device limits the moving of the head and neck in the event of a collision and has been required within the NHRA since 2004.

Fourth is the high-strength metal shield that must be placed behind the head of all Top Fuel drivers. This is to prevent any material from entering the cockpit and striking the driver. This is needed because the engine is behind the driver in Top Fuel cars.

Fifth is the on board fire control system that all cars must have. These systems are directed onto the engine itself and start when the engine catches fire, reducing the chance for the car to completely catch fire. This has been in place on all cars beginning in 1983, when an engine explosion and fire came very close to killing then-Funny Car driver Mike Dunn.

Sixth is the roof escape opening that is in place on all Funny Cars since the division was made in the early 1970s. This opening allows Funny Car drivers a safe means of escape during an engine fire rather than falling out of the car between the frame and body.

Seventh are the long bars at the end of all cars, also known as "wheelie bars". These prevent the car from turning over during the rapid start of the race.

The drive tires of the cars, which are called slicks because there is no tread on them, are made from a much harder compound so that the tires are resistant to failure. The tires are not allowed to be inflated under  for any race at any time.

Cars in the Funny Car class must have fire-proof engine blankets around the engine block to contain material in case of an engine explosion.

Before the late 1980s, people could station themselves up to the guardrails so they could be closer to the action. After several rather accidents on track, where people have been hurt or killed, people are no longer allowed within  of the guardrail.

Other websites
 Official website
 Drag Race Central The Latest NHRA News and Analysis

Auto racing
Sports organizations of the United States
1951 establishments in North America

National Hot Rod Association


In mathematics, racks and quandles are sets with binary operations satisfying axioms analogous to the Reidemeister moves used to manipulate knot diagrams.

While mainly used to obtain invariants of knots, they can be viewed as algebraic constructions in their own right.  In particular, the definition of a quandle axiomatizes the properties of conjugation in a group.

History
In 1943, Mituhisa Takasaki (高崎光久) introduced an algebraic structure which he called a Kei (圭), which would later come to be known as an involutive quandle. His motivation was to find a nonassociative algebraic structure to capture the notion of a reflection in the context of finite geometry. The idea was rediscovered and generalized in (unpublished) 1959 correspondence between John Conway and Gavin Wraith, who at the time were undergraduate students at the University of Cambridge. It is here that the modern definitions of quandles and of racks first appear. Wraith had become interested in these structures (which he initially dubbed sequentials) while at school.  Conway renamed them wracks, partly as a pun on his colleague's name, and partly because they arise as the remnants (or 'wrack and ruin') of a group when one discards the multiplicative structure and considers only the conjugation structure.  The spelling 'rack' has now become prevalent.

These constructs surfaced again in the 1980s:  in a 1982 paper by David Joyce (where the term quandle, an arbitrary nonsense word, was coined), in a 1982 paper by Sergei Matveev (under the name distributive groupoids) and in a 1986 conference paper by Egbert Brieskorn (where they were called automorphic sets).  A detailed overview of racks and their applications in knot theory may be found in the paper by Colin Rourke and Roger Fenn.

Racks
A rack may be defined as a set  with a binary operation  such that for every  the self-distributive law holds:

and for every  there exists a unique  such that

This definition, while terse and commonly used, is suboptimal for certain purposes because it contains an existential quantifier which is not really necessary. To avoid this, we may write the unique  such that  as   We then have

and thus

and

Using this idea, a rack may be equivalently defined as a set  with two binary operations  and  such that for all
 (left self-distributive law)
 (right self-distributive law)

It is convenient to say that the element  is acting from the left in the expression  and acting from the right in the expression   The third and fourth rack axioms then say that these left and right actions are inverses of each other.  Using this, we can eliminate either one of these actions from the definition of rack.  If we eliminate the right action and keep the left one, we obtain the terse definition given initially.

Many different conventions are used in the literature on racks and quandles.  For example, many authors prefer to work with just the right action.  Furthermore, the use of the symbols  and  is by no means universal: many authors use exponential notation

and

while many others write

Yet another equivalent definition of a rack is that it is a set where each element acts on the left and right as automorphisms of the rack, with the left action being the inverse of the right one.  In this definition, the fact that each element acts as automorphisms encodes the left and right self-distributivity laws, and also these laws:

which are consequences of the definition(s) given earlier.

Quandles
A quandle is defined as a rack,  such that for all

or equivalently

Examples and applications
Every group gives a quandle where the operations come from conjugation:

In fact, every equational law satisfied by conjugation in a group follows from the quandle axioms.  So, one can think of a quandle as what is left of a group when we forget multiplication, the identity, and inverses, and only remember the operation of conjugation.

Every tame knot in three-dimensional Euclidean space has a 'fundamental quandle'.  To define this, one can note that the fundamental group of the knot complement, or knot group, has a presentation (the Wirtinger presentation) in which the relations only involve conjugation.  So, this presentation can also be used as a presentation of a quandle.  The fundamental quandle is a very powerful invariant of knots.  In particular, if two knots have isomorphic fundamental quandles then there is a homeomorphism of three-dimensional Euclidean space, which may be orientation reversing, taking one knot to the other.

Less powerful but more easily computable invariants of knots may be obtained by counting the homomorphisms from the knot quandle to a fixed quandle   Since the Wirtinger presentation has one generator for each strand in a knot diagram, these invariants can be computed by counting ways of labelling each strand by an element of  subject to certain constraints.  More sophisticated invariants of this sort can be constructed with the help of quandle cohomology.

The  are also important, since they can be used to compute the Alexander polynomial of a knot. Let  be a module over the ring  of Laurent polynomials in one variable. Then the Alexander quandle is  made into a quandle with the left action given by

Racks are a useful generalization of quandles in topology, since while quandles can represent knots on a round linear object (such as rope or a thread), racks can represent ribbons, which may be twisted as well as knotted.

A quandle  is said to be involutory if for all

or equivalently,

Any symmetric space gives an involutory quandle, where  is the result of 'reflecting  through '.

See also
Biracks and biquandles
Laver table

References

External links
  Knot Quandaries Quelled by Quandles - An undergraduate introduction to quandles and another knot invariants
 A Survey of Quandle Ideas by Scott Carter
 Knot Invariants Derived from Quandles and Racks by Seiichi Kamada
 Shelves, Racks, Spindles and Quandles, p. 56 of Lie 2-Algebras by Alissa Crans
 https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/quandle

Knot theory
Non-associative algebra

Racks and quandles


Daniel Sedgley Mitchell is a photographer best known for his series of stereoscopic views of the Black Hills in 1876, his Indian portraits from the Red Cloud Agency in 1877, and his photographs of the Oklahoma Land Rush in 1889.

Early life
Born in 1838 in York County, Maine, Mitchell began his photographic career as an errand boy in a daguerreotype gallery in Maine at the age of nine. During his early years he worked in a number of photographic galleries, ranging from New York City to Boston to Canada.

In the West
About 1874, Mitchell departed Boston, leaving behind his wife and children. He apparently first stopped briefly in Kansas. In late 1875, he had opened a studio on Eddy Street in Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory. In the spring of 1876, he headed north to the Black Hills with his camera, spending the summer making images among the mines. After returning to Cheyenne, he sold his Black Hills stereoviews and continued to produce portraits for the public. In January 1877, he produced portraits of Brigadier General George Crook and of the court-martial board for Colonel Joseph J. Reynolds. In the spring of 1877, he joined partnership with Joseph H. McGowan and traveled along the Union Pacific Railroad, taking portraits and selling his Black Hills views. In the fall of 1877, he apparently visited the Red Cloud Agency where he took portraits of a majority of the Oglala and Arapaho headmen.

In the spring of 1878, Mitchell and McGowan settled in Omaha where they established the Great Western Photographic Company. Their focus was to mass-produce and market Mitchell's two series of photographs as well as a third series, taken by Charles Howard. The partnership dissolved in the fall of 1878. Mitchell then opened a portrait studio in Omaha, in partnership with May J. Cannell, whom he later married.

Final years
Mitchell next moved to Norfolk, Nebraska; then to Galesburg, Illinois, and finally in 1889, moved to Guthrie, Oklahoma Territory, where he produced an important photographic series of the land rush. Mitchell died in Guthrie in 1929.

Examples of photographs

Indian portraits
The largest surviving collection of Mitchell's Indian portraits from the Red Cloud Agency were preserved by Captain John G. Bourke, former aide-de-camp to Brigadier General George Crook. Some of the images are pasted within his diaries, preserved at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Another large number of images were donated to the National Anthropological Archives at the Smithsonian Institution. The Nebraska State Historical Society also preserves a number from Bourke's collection.

Bibliography

Ephriam D. Dickson III, "Capturing the Lakota Spirit, Photographers at the Red Cloud & Spotted Tail Agencies," Nebraska History, Spring/Summer 2007.

American photographers
1838 births
1929 deaths
People from York County, Maine
People from Guthrie, Oklahoma

Daniel S. Mitchell


The Blot is a 1921 American silent drama film directed by Lois Weber, who also co-wrote (with Marion Orth) and produced the film (with her then-husband, Phillips Smalley). The film tackles the social problem of genteel poverty, focusing on a struggling family. It stars Philip Hubbard, Margaret McWade, Claire Windsor, and Louis Calhern.

Weber filmed in real locations, using as much natural lighting as possible. Scenes were filmed on location around Los Angeles, particularly at the old University of Los Angeles campus, now Los Angeles City College. Many supporting roles were given to non-professionals.

The Blot was restored by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill for British television. Brownlow singles out the film for praise in his book Behind the Mask of Innocence (1990). The Blot screened at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival in 2002. It was released on DVD in 2006 with expert audio commentary by film historian Shelley Stamp.

Plot
At the end of class, poorly paid college professor Andrew Griggs begs his unruly students to show more appreciation for his efforts to teach them. Among the most disrespectful are a spoiled trio led by Phil West (Louis Calhern), whose father is the school's wealthiest trustee; Bert Gareth, a congressman's son; and Walt Lucas, a 23-year-old who must graduate to receive his inheritance.

Unbeknownst to his friends, Phil's interest has been piqued by the professor's daughter, Amelia (Claire Windsor). He frequently drops by the public library where she works, just to be able to speak to her. She, however, is unimpressed by him and his wealth.

The Griggs' poverty is contrasted with the prosperity of their next-door neighbors. "Foreign-born" shoemaker Hans Olsen is sympathetic to their plight, as is his eldest son Peter (Amelia's secret admirer), but his wife strongly dislikes what she considers Mrs. Griggs' superior airs.

One day, Phil finally manages to persuade Amelia to let him drive her home after work, as it is raining (and her shoe has a hole in it). He is invited inside. Mrs. Griggs, knowing who he is, decides to spend what little she has on some fancy sandwiches, cakes and tea in an attempt to put up a brave front. She is heartbroken to find when she brings them in that Phil has departed and poor Reverend Gates (another of Amelia's admirers) is to be the recipient of her expensive bounty. As a result, Mrs. Griggs is unable to make the mortgage payment on the house.

Juanita Claredon (Marie Walcamp), another of the country club set, considers herself Phil's girl. Noting a change in the now more thoughtful and considerate man, she follows him one day to the library and sees her rival. Eventually, she realizes that his love for Amelia has matured him, and wishes him well.

When Amelia becomes sick, the doctor recommends she get some nourishing food, such as chicken. Mrs. Griggs tries unsuccessfully to buy one on credit (a scene observed by Phil). In desperation, she steals an uncooked chicken from Mrs. Olsen's open window; this is witnessed by the horrified Amelia. While Amelia does not see her mother change her mind and put it back, Mrs. Olsen and Peter do. When Mrs. Olsen threatens to make this theft known, Peter insists he will leave home if she does. Meanwhile, Phil sends anonymously a basket of food (including a chicken) to the Griggs. However, Amelia refuses to eat it, as she believes it was stolen.

The next day, though she is still ill, she goes to work, as it is payday. Afterward, she goes to apologize to Mrs. Olsen and to pay for the theft. Her teary attempt to make amends moves her neighbor, who denies she lost a chicken. The strain is too much for Amelia; she faints. Phil and Mrs. Griggs rush over and take her home. There, Phil confesses it was he who sent the chicken. Amelia is finally won over.

Phil writes his father about the inadequate salaries paid to the teachers, calling it a "blot on the present day civilization"; impressed, Philip West Sr. comes to see his altered son and agrees that something must be done. In the meantime, Phil dragoons his friends into paying the professor for extra tutoring in the evenings. During that night's session, both Peter and Gates see that Amelia has given her heart to Phil. In the final scene, the saddened reverend congratulates them and makes his way home.

Cast
 Philip Hubbard as  The Professor, Andrew Theodore Griggs
 Margaret McWade as  His Wife, Mrs. Griggs
 Claire Windsor as  His Daughter, Amelia Griggs
 Louis Calhern as  His Pupil, Phil West
 Marie Walcamp as  The Other Girl, Juanita Claredon
 William H. O'Brien as One of the Professor's Students (uncredited)
 Gertrude Short as Neighbor Olsen's Daughter (uncredited)
 Larry Steers as Dinner Guest (uncredited)

References

Further reading

External links

American romantic drama films
American silent feature films
American black-and-white films
1921 romantic drama films
Films directed by Lois Weber
1921 films
1920s American films
Silent romantic drama films
Silent American drama films

The Blot


The Ramsar Convention (The Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, especially as Waterfowl Habitat) is an international treaty to protect wetlands. It is meant to stop the loss of wetland areas now and in the future. It recognizes that wetlands are an important ecosystem. It also recognizes that wetlands have economic, cultural, scientific, and recreational value. It is named after the town of Ramsar in Iran.

Convention
The convention was developed and agreed to by 18 nations at a meeting in Ramsar on February 2, 1971. It came into force on December 21, 1975.

The Ramsar List of Wetlands of International Importance now includes 2,429 sites, which are called Ramsar Sites, covering around 254,611,076 hectares. This has increased from 1,021 sites in 2000. The nation with the most sites is the United Kingdom at 168. The nation with the greatest area of listed wetlands is Canada, with over 130,000 km², including the Queen Maud Gulf Migratory Bird Sanctuary at 62,800 km².

There are now 159 nations that have agreed to the convention. The nations meet every three years as the Conference of the Contracting Parties (COP). The first meeting was held in Cagliari, Italy, in 1980. Changes to the original convention have been agreed to in Paris (1982) and Regina (1987).

There is a standing committee, a scientific review panel, and a secretariat. The headquarters is in Gland, Switzerland, shared with the IUCN.

List of contracting parties
Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, The Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bermuda, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Canada, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Comoros, Republic of the Congo, Costa Rica, Côte d'Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Estonia, Finland, France, Gabon, The Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Honduras, Hungary, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Moldova, Monaco, Mongolia, Morocco, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, North Macedonia, Romania, Russia, Saint Lucia, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam, Zambia, former USSR.

New contracting parties:
Antigua and Barbuda (02.10.05), Cape Verde (18.11.05), Central African Republic (05.04.06), Iraq (17.02.08), Kazakhstan (15.01.07), Lesotho (01.11.04), Marshall Islands (13.11.04), Montenegro (succ. 03.06.06), Mozambique (03.12.04), Myanmar (17.03.05), Rwanda (01.04.06), Samoa (06.02.05), Seychelles (22.03.05), Sudan (07.05.05), Turkmenistan (03.07.09), United Arab Emirates (29.12.07), Yemen (08.02.08).

References

Other websites
 The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands
 Ramsar Sites Information Service , web service by a non-profit organisation Wetlands International, providing access to Ramsar database
 United States National Ramsar Committee
 Peace Palace Library, bibliography on Water resources and International law.
 Ramsar Standing Committee Addresses Climate Change and Biofuels
 Threats to Ramsar Wetlands in Coastal New South Wales, Australia

Treaties and Conventions

Ramsar Convention


The Ring is a 1927 British silent romance film written and directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Carl Brisson, Lillian Hall-Davis and Ian Hunter.

Plot
A previously undefeated fairground boxer named "One Round" Jack Sander (Carl Brisson) is beaten in the ring by a mysterious challenger, who later is revealed to be Australian Heavyweight champion Bob Corby (Ian Hunter). Bob's manager is impressed with Jack's performance and offers him the chance to become Bob's full-time sparring partner, on the condition that he win a trial fight to be arranged at a later date.

Bob begins spending more time with Jack's girlfriend Mabel (Lillian Hall-Davis) and buys a bracelet for her to express his feelings. The two kiss but Mabel reluctantly puts a stop to it. The next day when Jack inquires about the bracelet, Mabel lies to Jack, telling him that Bob bought it for her because he didn't want to take the money.

Jack wins his trial fight and is made Bob's official sparring partner. Keeping his earlier promise to Mabel, he agrees to marry her the next day. Mabel goes through with the wedding, although somewhat reluctantly due to her new-found feelings for Bob. At the wedding reception Bob jokingly states that he wishes Mabel had been the prize at his and Jack's original fight. Jack boldly states that he would defend his wife in a fight against any man. A friendly exhibition match is arranged between the two fighters which Bob wins. After the fight Jack sees his bride flirting with Bob and suspects that they are having an affair. Jack declares his intent to fight Bob for the heavyweight championship, but is told he is not yet ranked high enough in the league to challenge Bob. Training intensively, Jack works his way up the rankings and eventually becomes the number one contender.

Jack arranges a party with his friends in his apartment as a way to surprise Mabel and let her know that he has won his latest fight and will now be fighting for Bob's title. Jack and his friends wait long into the night but Mabel does not show up. After Jack's friends leave, Jack stays up and waits for Mabel and eventually he sees her getting out of Bob's car. Jack angrily confronts Mabel about her liaisons with Bob and smashes a framed picture of him. Jack then goes to the club where Bob is and confronts him. Bob throws a punch but Jack knocks him out before he connects. Jack informs Bob that he is officially the number one contender and they will settle their differences in the ring.

On the day of the fight, the two fighters seem evenly matched until the final rounds where Bob starts to dominate Jack. Jack considers giving up until Mabel, seeing him in pain, runs over to his corner and declares that she wants to be with him, not Bob. Jack musters up his remaining energy and unleashes a flurry of punches in the final round, eventually knocking Bob out and winning the fight. Jack and Mabel embrace as Bob accepts defeat.

Cast
 Carl Brisson as 'One-Round' Jack Sander
 Lillian Hall-Davis as Mabel (as Lilian Hall Davis)
 Ian Hunter as Bob Corby
 Forrester Harvey as James Ware
 Harry Terry as Showman
 Gordon Harker as Jack's Trainer
 Charles Farrell as Second
 Clare Greet as Fortune Teller
 Tom Helmore
 Minnie Rayner as Boxing Contestant's Wife
 Brandy Walker as Spectator
 Billy Wells as Boxer

Production
The film was made at Elstree Studios by the newly established British International Pictures, which emerged as one of the two British major studios during the late 1920s and began hiring leading directors from Britain and abroad. It was Hitchcock's first film for the company after joining from Gainsborough Pictures. It was also the first film to be released by the company.

Inception
Hitchcock was 28 years old when he directed The Ring, and this was the young filmmaker's fourth film. Hitchcock regularly attended boxing matches in London where he lived, and he was struck by the fact that a good number of the spectators appeared to be from good backgrounds and dressed in white. He also noticed that fighters were sprinkled with champagne at the end of each round. These details persuaded Hitchcock to start work on The Ring.

Screenplay
After directing Downhill and Easy Virtue, two stage adaptations for the Gainsborough company, Hitchcock was frustrated and jumped at the chance to develop an idea of his own. The Ring is commonly described as Hitchcock's only original screenplay although it actually had input from at least Eliot Stannard, who wrote all of Hitchcock's other silent films. Colleagues at the studio were impressed by the neatness of Hitchcock's script and his grasp of structure. What's more, writing for silent films came naturally to a director who already thought in visual terms. He was much less comfortable with dialogue, which goes some way to explain why he took no sole writing credit in any later films and worked extensively alongside other writers throughout his career.

Directing
The film was considered a major technical work by François Truffaut in the 1966 book Hitchcock/Truffaut, and by Thomas Chabrol and Eric Rohmer in their book about Hitchcock. It features use of the Schüfftan process to simulate a large audience in climactic scenes set in the Royal Albert Hall. Hitchcock returned to this technique years later in films like The Man Who Knew Too Much in its Royal Albert Hall sequence.

Reception
The film was a major success with critics; however, when it went on general release it was considered a box-office failure.

Preservation and home video status
A restoration of The Ring was completed in 2012 as part of the BFI's £2 million "Save the Hitchcock 9" project to restore all of the director's surviving silent films.

Like Hitchcock's other British films, all of which are copyrighted worldwide, The Ring has been heavily bootlegged on home video. Despite this, various licensed, restored releases have appeared on DVD, Blu-ray, and video-on-demand services from Optimum in the UK as well as Lionsgate and Kino Lorber in the US, and many others.

At the end of 2022, The Ring entered the public domain in the United States but only in its non-restored, scoreless form. It will remain copyrighted in the rest of the world until the end of 2050.

See also
 List of boxing films

References

External links

 The Ring at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
 Alfred Hitchcock Collectors' Guide: The Ring at Brenton Film

1927 films
1920s sports drama films
British boxing films
Films shot at British International Pictures Studios
Films directed by Alfred Hitchcock
British black-and-white films
British silent feature films
British sports drama films
Films set in England
1927 drama films
1920s English-language films
1920s British films
Silent sports drama films

The Ring (1927 film)


Dorion Sagan (Madison, Wisconsin, 1959) és un autor, assagista, escriptor de ficció i filòsof nord-americà. Ha escrit i és coautor de llibres sobre cultura, evolució i història i filosofia de la ciència, incloent-hi  Aprenent còsmic, Trencant el codi genètic del envelliment i  Lynn Margulis: Vida i legat d'una científica rebel. El seu llibre  En el fred, coautor d'Eric D.Schneider, tracta sobre la relació entre termodinàmica no equilibrada i la seva vida.

Sagan és fill de l'astrònom Carl Sagan i la biòloga Lynn Margulis. Té quatre germans. El seu germà Nick Sagan és un escriptor de ciència-ficció.

Bibliografia
 Llibres

 Cosmic Apprentice: Dispatches from the Edges of Science (2013)
 Lynn Margulis: The Life and Legacy of a Scientific Rebel (2012, Sciencewriters Books)
 Death and Sex (two-in-one book with Tyler Volk, 2009)
 Biospheres: Metamorphosis of Planet Earth (1990)
 Notes from the Holocene: A Brief History of the Future (2007)
 Cooking with Jesus: From the Primal Brew to the Last Brunch (2001)
 The Sciences of Avatar (2010)

Co-autor amb Lynn Margulis
 Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Evolution from Our Microbial Ancestors (1986)
 Origins of Sex : Three Billion Years of Genetic Recombination (1986)
 Garden of Microbial Delights: A Practical Guide to the Subvisible World (1988)
 Biospheres from Earth to Space  (1989)
 Mystery Dance: On the Evolution of Human Sexuality  (1991)
 What Is Sex?  (1995)
 What Is Life? (1995)
 Slanted Truths: Essays on Gaia, Symbiosis, and Evolution (1997)
 Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origins of Species (2002)
 Dazzle Gradually: Reflections on the Nature of Nature (2007)

Co-autor amb Eric D. Schneider
 Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life (2005)

Col·laboracions amb altres autors

 Cracking the Aging Code: The New Science of Growing Old - And What It Means for Staying Young (2016 - with Josh Mitteldorf)
 Up From Dragons: The Evolution of Human Intelligence (2002 - with John Skoyles)
 Within the Stone: Nature's Abstract Rock Art (2004 - partial text to book of photographs by Bill Atkinson)
 Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person's Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (2006 - foreword to book by David Mills)
 Darwin's Unfinished Business: The Self-Organizing Intelligence of Nature (2011 - with Simon G Powell)

 Assajos

 "Möbius Trip: The Technosphere and Our Science Fiction Reality"  Technosphere Magazine (2017)
 "Metametazoa: Biology and Multiplicity" (1992 - In Incorporations: Fragments for a History of the Human Body, Jonathan Crary and Sanford Kwinter, editors, Zone, pp. 362–385)
 "Partial closure: Dorion Sagan reflects on Carl" (1997 - Whole Earth, summer, pp. 34–37)
 "Gender Specifics: Why Women Aren't Men" (1998 - The New York Times )
 "The Beast with Five Genomes" (2001 - with Lynn Margulis - Natural History June, pp. 38–41)
 "The Postman Already Always Rings Twice: Fragments for an Understanding of the Future" (2004 Cabinet: A Quarterly of Art and Culture, pp. 23–27)
 "Gradient-Reduction Theory: Thermodynamics and the Purpose of Life" (2004 - with Jessica H. Whiteside. In Scientists Debate Gaia: The Next Century MIT Press)
 "A Brief History of Sex" (2007 - Cosmos [Australia], June/July, pp. 50–55)
 "Evolution, Complexity, and Energy Flow" (2008 - Back to Darwin: A Richer Account of Evolution John B. Cobb Jr., Editor, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, pp. 145–156)
 "What is the Cultural Relevance of Bacteria?" (2009 - Sputnik Observatory)

 Històries curtes

 "The Tchaikovsky Dream Continuum" Cabinet, Issue 54 The Accident (Summer 2014)
 "The New Age Witch" (1993) - After Hours, #19, summer, pp. 36–45
 "Love's Strangers" (2006) Meat for Tea: The Northampton Review, summer, Vol. 1, Issue 3, "Flesh," pp. 3–10
 "Semi-Naked" (2006) Meat for Tea: The Northampton Review, winter, Vol. 1, Issue 1, "Gristle," pp. 5–24

Premis i honors
 First place, Silent Mora Ring 122 International Brotherhood of Magicians - 1974
 EdPress Excellence in Educational Journalism Award, Nonprofit National - 1986
 Humana Scholarship - Centre College Danville, Kentucky (2003)
 Lindisfarne Fellowship - Lindisfarne (2008 –)
 Advisory Board - Sputnik Inc (2009 –)

Referències

Enllaços externs
 Cabinet Magazine essays
 Into the Cool website (as archived in 2014)
 Sputnik Observatory Interviews
 Biography page , The Edge Foundation
 Online audio interview with Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan
 "Second Nature" (article)

Escriptors de Wisconsin

Dorion Sagan


Father's Little Dividend is a 1951 American comedy film directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Spencer Tracy, Joan Bennett, and Elizabeth Taylor. The movie is the sequel to Father of the Bride (1950).

Plot

In this sequel to Father of the Bride, newly married Kay Dunstan (Elizabeth Taylor) announces that she and her husband are going to have a baby, leaving her father, Stanley Banks (Spencer Tracy), having to come to grips with becoming a grandfather.

Middle-class family man Stanley Banks reminisces on events of the past year: One afternoon, returning from the office feeling happy and energetic, Stanley's routine is interrupted when his wife Ellie (Joan Bennett) tells him that they are having dinner with their daughter Kay and her husband, Buckley Dunstan (Don Taylor), to hear some important news. Although Stanley is certain that it concerns Buckley's business, the newlyweds reveal that Kay is expecting a baby. Buckley's parents, Doris (Billie Burke) and Herbert (Moroni Olsen), are delighted, as is Ellie, but Stanley broods that he is too young and vibrant to be a grandfather. Soon Ellie, flush with excitement, throws Kay a baby shower, something Stanley thinks is highway robbery not punishable by law. Later, Ellie suggests that they remodel their house to enable Kay, Buckley, and the baby to move in with them, but Stanley puts his foot down. Ellie is near tears when the wealthy Dunstans announce that they are planning to add a wing to their home for the couple, but is overjoyed when Kay and Buckley reveal that they have just bought their own little house, enabling Ellie to have free rein helping Kay decorate.

After settling into their new home, Kay, who is very close to her father, expresses her concern that the baby will make a difference in her relationship with Buckley. Stanley comforts her by telling her how much he loved her as a baby. Soon the Bankses and the Dunstans are trying to outdo one another buying gifts and making plans for the baby, up to his enrollment in college. One night, while listening to Ellie, Doris, and Herbert bicker over what the baby should be named, Kay breaks down and runs to her room. Only Stanley, who Kay feels is the sole parent who understands her, is able to comfort her. The day after pledging to Kay that he will make certain that none of the in-laws will interfere again, Stanley drags Ellie to Kay's physician, Dr. Andrew Nordell, anxious over the "modern" ideas Nordell has about a more natural method of childbirth and infant care.

For the next month or so, things remain calm, until Stanley is awakened by a late night call from Buckley, who says that Kay has left him "for good." After sneaking over to Buckley and Kay's place, Stanley learns from a cab driver that Kay took a taxi to his house. The two men then return to the Banks house, where the couple make up after Kay's jealousy is revealed to be a misunderstanding stemming from Buckley's late nights working at the office. Kay, as well as Stanley, realize Buckley's devotion to his family.

As the baby's birth approaches, nerves among the parents and grandparents become frayed. The eventual birth of a baby boy delights everyone, except Stanley, a distant and wary observer of the as-yet-unnamed baby, who starts to cry whenever Stanley comes near him.

When the baby is six months old, Kay joins Buckley on a brief business trip and leaves the baby with her parents, hoping to give Stanley time to grow closer to his grandson. One afternoon, while Kay is still away, Stanley takes the baby for a walk in the park. When the baby finally falls asleep in his carriage, Stanley joins some friendly neighborhood boys in a game of soccer and loses track of time. After the game, when Stanley cannot find the carriage, he frantically retraces his steps back to the house. Seeing through the window that Kay has returned early, he panics and takes a taxi to the local police station. There a befuddled Stanley confesses to the grim-faced police sergeant that he has lost the baby. Fearing the wrath of the police squad, who found the sweet-natured baby and have fallen in love with him, Stanley secretly prays that his grandson will not start to scream when he picks him up. To Stanley's relief, the baby is delighted to see him, and from that moment on, the two are devoted to each other. Some time later, at the baby's christening, Stanley beams with pride as his grandson is finally named "Stanley Banks Dunstan."

Cast

Production

Father of The Bride was such a hit at the box office and with critics, MGM rushed a sequel, Father's Little Dividend into production the following year.  The film was remade in 1995 as Father of the Bride Part II, with Steve Martin and Diane Keaton again in Tracy and Bennett's roles.

Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett had made films together at Fox two decades earlier, including Me and My Gal (1932), in which their characters marry, and She Wanted a Millionaire (1932).

According to film critic Leonard Maltin, this film was one of the first examples of a proper modern movie studio sequel.

Reception
The sequel was well received by both audiences and critics and was nearly as financially successful as the first film. According to MGM records, the film earned $3,122,000 in the U.S. and Canada and $1.5 million elsewhere, resulting in a profit of $2,025,000.

Copyright status
Originally released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the film entered the public domain in the United States in 1979 because MGM failed to renew the copyright registration. Despite the fact that Warner Bros. Entertainment (via ownership of Turner Entertainment) owns the distribution rights to the original, they have not yet released an authorized DVD release of the sequel, which is available on DVD through several other DVD distributors.

References

External links

 Father's Little Dividend at the British Film Institute

Father of the Bride (franchise)
1951 films
1951 romantic comedy films
American black-and-white films
American romantic comedy films
American sequel films
1950s English-language films
Films about families
Films directed by Vincente Minnelli
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films
American pregnancy films
Articles containing video clips
1950s pregnancy films
1950s American films

Father's Little Dividend


Gotra is a clan in Hindu society. It means the people who are descended in an unbroken male line from a common male ancestor. In the 4th century, Pāṇini wrote that gotra are the descendants of a sage, "beginning with the son's son."(IV. 1. 162). A person who says "I am Kashyapa-gotra," can trace his family from the ancient sage Kashyapa through an unbroken male line.

According to the Brihadaranyaka Upanisad 2.2.6, Gautama and Bharadvāja, Viśvāmitra and Jamadagni, Vashishtha and Kaśhyapa, and Atri are seven sages (also known as Saptarishi). The descendants of these eight sages are said to be gotras. This explanation  of the eight primary gotras seems to have been known to Pāṇini. Descendants of others are called gotrâvayava.

References

Hinduism

Gotra


"Do I Make You Proud" is a soul-pop song written for American Idol season five winner Taylor Hicks by Tracy Ackerman, Andy Watkins and Paul Wilson of the Absolute production team, and co-produced by Dave Way. The song was released as a single on June 13, 2006 from the Arista record label.

Background
Hicks first performed the song on the finale of American Idol's fifth season, to which he received outstanding comments from all three judges. Simon Cowell correctly predicted that Hicks would win that year's American Idol with the performance.

Along with "Do I Make You Proud", it includes, as a B-side track, his cover of The Doobie Brothers's "Takin' It to the Streets". The American Idol judges loved his rendition of "Takin' It to the Streets" – Randy Jackson said it was not his favorite song from Hicks, but he was trying to comprehend his dance moves onstage. Paula Abdul said that the song was great and loved the energy and dancing. Simon Cowell "loved the song" and said that "that's what it's all about — having fun and being memorable." Cowell also said it was the best performance of the night.

Hicks' rendition of "Takin' It to the Streets" would become his first song to chart, peaking at number 69 on the Billboard Hot 100, due to moderate sales of digital downloads only. The song was not released as Hicks's single, since "Do I Make You Proud" was to become his first single after he won the American Idol competition.

"Weird Al" Yankovic's 2006 album Straight Outta Lynwood included a parody of "Do I Make You Proud", called "Do I Creep You Out". It is Yankovic's first parody of a singer from the Idol television series.

Content
The lyrics communicate a feeling of pride for one's accomplishments after struggling with and then finally achieving a long-term goal, all while retaining one's humility. This reflects Hicks' sudden career transformation from an independent musical artist to a celebrity.

Track listing
 "Do I Make You Proud" – 4:10
 "Takin' It to the Streets" – 3:37

Chart performance
Billboard confirmed that "Do I Make You Proud" sold 190,000 physical singles and 38,000 digital downloads during its first week, prompting a number-one debut on the Hot 100 for the issue dated July 1, 2006. It was only the 14th song out of over 1000 number ones to debut at number one on the Hot 100 chart. Hicks also became the fourth American Idol contestant to have a single debut at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 behind Clay Aiken, Fantasia Barrino, and Carrie Underwood. As of September 2009, "Do I Make You Proud" has sold 672,000 singles.

"Do I Make You Proud" remained number-one on the Billboard Hot 100 for one week, gradually declining until it left the chart after eight weeks, making it the first number one single in the history of the US charts to fall off the charts in less than ten weeks.

The song was Taylor Hicks' only number-one hit, as well as his only top-40 hit to date, making him a one-hit wonder on the chart.

In Canada, the single reached number one on the SoundScan singles chart and remained there for 15 consecutive weeks from June 10 to September 16, 2006.

In 2009 Billboard issued its Decade End Charts compiling the top artists and releases for the years 2000–2009. "Do I Make You Proud" charted at number 39 on the Decade End Singles Sales chart.

Charts

Year-end charts

See also
List of Canadian number-one singles of 2001–07
List of Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles of 2006

References

2006 debut singles
Taylor Hicks songs
American Idol songs
Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles
Canadian Singles Chart number-one singles
Songs written by Tracy Ackerman
Song recordings produced by Absolute (production team)
Songs written by Andy Watkins
Songs written by Paul Wilson (songwriter)
2006 songs
Arista Records singles
Soul ballads
2000s ballads

Do I Make You Proud


Haga Palace (), formerly known as the Queen's Pavilion (), is located in the Haga Park, Solna Municipality in Metropolitan Stockholm, Sweden. The palace, built between 18021805, was modelled after ballet-master Gallodiers Italian villa in Drottningholm by architect Carl Christoffer Gjörwell on appointment by King Gustaf IV Adolf for the royal children. It has been the home or summerhouse for several members of the Swedish royal family – most notably it was the birthplace of the present King – until 1966 when King Gustaf VI Adolf transferred its disposal to the government and it was turned into a guesthouse for distinguished foreign official visitors. In 2009, it was announced by Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt that the rights of disposal to the palace would be transferred back to the royal court to be used by Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden and her husband, Prince Daniel, Duke of Västergötland, as a wedding gift in 2010. They moved into Haga Palace after their wedding on 19 June that year.

History
When King Gustaf III was killed in 1792 the work on his grandiose castle at Brunnsviken was cancelled and his son and successor King Gustav IV Adolf instead started building a more modest palace. The King turned to relatively young architect Carl Christoffer Gjörwell with the aim to build a modern house in Italian villa style. Gjörwell had been employed at Haga since 1788 and had studied for Louis Jean Desprez both at the erection of the royal pavilion and with the incomplete castle in Brunnsviken. He was also the architect behind the Echo Temple. He modelled it after ballet-master Gallidiers Italian villa at Drottningholm which Gjörwell had design himself. The foundation was laid-out in May 1802 and already before the end of the year the building was under roof. Building contractor was Herman Edberg who, aside from having skilled craftsmen as bricklayers and carpenters also had a group of infantrymen from Södermanlands regemente at his disposal. In December 1803 The King was informed that the stands were removed and the marble columns were raised. The columns were originally from Finland and had been brought to Poland during the reign of King Sigismund. They were taken back to Sweden by King Gustaf II Adolf and used by Nicodemus Tessin the Younger in the building of the German Church in Karlskrona. When the Church was rebuilt after a massive fire in 1790 14 columns were left available for future use. The floor was made out of oak from Fredrikshov Palace and the stone was originally intended for King Gustav III:s never completed castle at Brunnsviken. The whole interior was finished at the end of 1805.

From the 1820s the palace was used as a summer house for Crown Prince Oscar and his consort Josephine. In the 1860 the palace was renovated for King Oscar I's youngest son Prince August and his wife Princess Therese. The Princess lived at Haga Palace until her demise in 1914 and she put her touch to the Palace during her 54-year-long dwelling.

After the death of Therese the palace was put into disuse by the members of the Royal Family until the newly wedded couple Hereditary Prince Gustaf Adolf and Princess Sibylla relocated there in 1932 after some thorough renovation had been conducted. The Princesses Margaretha, Birgitta, Desiree and Christina and Prince Carl Gustaf, Sweden's present King, were all born there. In the wake of the sudden death of  the Hereditary Prince in an KLM DC-3 airplane crash at Copenhagen Airport on January 26, 1947, the widowed mother and her children ended their full-time residency at the palace.

King Gustaf VI Adolf relinquished the royal disposal rights to the Palace and released it to be used by the Government in 1966 as an official residence for distinguished foreign guests of the Government to Sweden, although it would turn out to be rather sparsely used for that purpose.

On April 23, 2009, Prime Minister Reinfeldt announced that the disposal rights to Haga Palace will be transferred back to the Royal Court as a wedding gift from the government in light of Crown Princess Victoria's approved marriage to Daniel Westling in June 2010. The couple moved in on November 15, 2010.

See also
Gustav III's Pavilion

References

Haga Palace at Swedish Royal Court website

External links

Palaces in Stockholm
Official residences in Sweden
Royal residences in Sweden
Houses completed in 1805
Castles in Stockholm County
1805 establishments in Sweden

de:Hagapark#Schloss Haga

Haga Palace


The Spanish Republican government in exile was a group of politicians who went into exile in France when the dictator Francisco Franco took power in Spain after the Spanish Civil War. They wanted to continue the government of the Second Spanish Republic. They hoped that democracy would come back to Spain after World War II, but Franco continued to rule for another 30 years.

After Franco's death in 1975, King Juan Carlos restored democratic government. In 1977 the exiled Republicans decided to accept Juan Carlos as king. The king let the exiled politicians come back to Spain.

Governments in exile

Spanish Republican government in exile


A CD-RW (which stands for Compact Disc ReWritable) is a Compact disc that can be recorded and erased multiple times. It can hold data or music. Most of the time it will hold data, since many CD players can not play CD-RWs. During its development, the format was known as CD-E, which stands for Compact Disc Erasable. The standard was introduced in 1997. It replaced the less successful CD-MO.

The disk used for this is an optical disc. Phase change technology is used to write to the disk. A laser beam is used to heat a certain point of the disk. Once this point is hot, the information stored there can be changed.

According to what the manufacturers of these disks say, it is possible to record and erase such a disk up to 1000 times. They behave very much like CD-Rs, otherwise. Entire sessions can be written. As long as there is space on the disc, new sessions can be appended. To be readable in an ordinary CD drive, all sessions must be closed though.

CD-RWs never gained the popularity of CD-Rs. This is because they are more expensive to make and to buy. Also, not all CD drives can read them. Reading and writing speeds are also lower than those of pre-made CDs and CD-Rs.

Also, like with the CD-R, it is impractical (and slow) to use these disks to quickly add or remove small files. Other formats, like Zip disk, Jaz disk, Magneto-optical disks, and USB flash drives are More used for quickly reading, writing, or erasing small (sets of) files. When a deletion needs to be made, the whole CD needs to be erased.

CD-RWs (like CD-Rs) are more used for backups.  They are usually cheaper than tape-based solutions.

Depending on the method used to write, and the type of disk used, usable capacities range from about 500 to 700 megabytes.

Pretty much the same concepts are used for DVD-RWs, which have a much higher capacity.

Compact Disc

CD-RW


Chancellor is an ecclesiastical title used by several quite distinct officials of some Christian churches.
In some churches, the Chancellor of a diocese is a lawyer who represents the church in legal matters.
In the Catholic Church a chancellor is the chief record-keeper of a diocese or eparchy or their equivalent. Normally a priest, sometimes a deacon or layperson, the chancellor keeps the official archives of the diocese, as a notary certifies documents, and generally manages the administrative offices (and sometimes finances and personnel) of a diocese. They may be assisted by vice-chancellors. Though they manage the paperwork and office (called the "chancery"), they have no actual jurisdictional authority: the bishop of the diocese exercises decision-making authority through his judicial vicar, in judicial matters, and the vicar general for administrative matters.
In the Church of England, the Chancellor is the judge of the consistory court of the diocese.  The office of diocesan chancellor technically combines that of Official Principal (who presides over, and represents the bishop in, the consistory court) with that of Vicar General (who acts as the bishop's deputy in non-judicial legal and administrative affairs). The office was also known historically in some dioceses as Commissary or Commissary General, and Commissary General remains the usual title in the Diocese of Canterbury.
In Church of England cathedrals, the Canon Chancellor (more usually known simply as the Chancellor) is one of the canons of the cathedral who has a particular responsibility for matters of education and scholarship, often acting as the cathedral librarian and archivist. The Chancellor is generally one of four chief dignitaries in the cathedral chapter, the others being the Dean, the Precentor and the Treasurer.
In the United Methodist Church, each Annual Conference has a Conference Chancellor, who is either an active or retired lawyer or judge who serves as the Annual Conference's legal adviser and representative. While the Annual Conference will usually hire outside professional counsel in legal matters requiring legal representation, that hiring and representation is done under the supervision, and with the consent, of the Conference Chancellor.

See also

Chancellor#Ecclesiastical
Catholic Church hierarchy#Positions within a diocese at diocesan level

References

Christian religious occupations
Christian terminology
Ecclesiastical titles
Catholic ecclesiastical titles
Legal professions

Chancellor (ecclesiastical)


SangSom (แสงโสม) is a rum from Thailand, distilled from sugarcane. It was introduced in November 1977 and has since become a dominant brand in the Thai spirits market. Over 70 million litres are sold in Thailand each year, achieving a market share of more than 70 percent in its category.

"SangSom Special Rum", as it is called on its website, is distilled from molasses. Its alcohol content is 40 percent by volume. It is aged in charred oak barrels for five years before bottling.

The drink won gold medals in liquor competitions in Madrid, Spain in 1982 and 1983, and again in Barcelona in 2006. The medals are featured prominently on the product's packaging and have led to it being referred to locally as "SangSom Rianthong" (SangSom Gold Medallion).

The beverage is virtually unheard of outside Thailand. The manufacturers, SangSom Company, export to around 20 countries, but export sales account for barely one percent of total sales. SangSom Company is a member of Thai Beverage Public Company, which itself is a group company of International Beverage Holdings Limited.

See also
 Mekhong

References

Rums
Thai distilled drinks
Thai drink brands
Products introduced in 1977

SangSom


Transition Minimized Differential Signaling (or TMDS) is a standard that is used to transport uncompressed data to a digital device. The data transmitted is digital. By using a digital signal instead of an analogue signal, the impact of Electromagnetic interference on the signal is reduced. This mode of transmission is mainly used for audio and visual data.

TMDS uses 8b/10b encoding. The code set is different from the original, developed by IBM. Encoding is a two-stage process that uses XOR and XNOR gates.  Whether to use XOR or XNOR operation is selected, so that the number ofsignal transitions is minimal; this is where the name is from.

S/PDIF is a similar standard, used in consumer audio equipment.

Signalling

Transition-minimized differential signaling