Kenneth Grant (23 May 1924 – 15 January 2011) was an English ceremonial magician and advocate of the Thelemic religion. A poet, novelist, and writer, he founded his own Thelemic organisation, the Typhonian Ordo Templi Orientis—later renamed the Typhonian Order—with his wife Steffi Grant.

Born in Ilford, Essex, Grant developed an interest in occultism and Asian religion during his teenage years. After service with the British Army during the Second World War, he returned to Britain and became the personal secretary of Aleister Crowley, the ceremonial magician who had founded Thelema in 1904. Crowley instructed Grant in his esoteric practices and initiated him into his own occult order, the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.). When Crowley died in 1947, Grant was seen as his heir apparent in Britain, and was appointed as such by the American head of the O.T.O., Karl Germer. In 1949, Grant befriended the occult artist Austin Osman Spare, and in ensuing years helped to publicise Spare's artwork through a series of publications.

In 1954 Grant founded the London-based New Isis Lodge, through which he added to many of Crowley's Thelemic teachings, bringing in extraterrestrial themes and influences from the work of fantasy writer H. P. Lovecraft. This was anathema to Germer, who expelled Grant from the O.T.O. in 1955, although the latter continued to operate his Lodge regardless until 1962. During the 1950s he also came to be increasingly interested in Hinduism, exploring the teachings of the Hindu guru Ramana Maharshi and publishing a range of articles on the topic. He was particularly interested in the Hindu tantra, incorporating ideas from it into the Thelemic practices of sex magic. On Germer's death in 1969, Grant proclaimed himself Outer Head of the O.T.O. This title was disputed by the American Grady McMurtry, who took control of the O.T.O. Grant's Order became known as the Typhonian Ordo Templi Orientis, operating from his home in Golders Green, north London. In 1959 he began publishing on occultism and wrote the Typhonian Trilogies as well as various novels and books of poetry, much of which propagated the work of Crowley and Spare.

Grant's writings and teachings have proved a significant influence over other currents of occultism, including chaos magic, the Temple of Set and the Dragon Rouge. They also attracted academic interest within the study of Western esotericism, particularly from Henrik Bogdan and Dave Evans.

Biography

Early life and Aleister Crowley: 1924–1947
Grant was born on 23 May 1924 in Ilford, Essex, the son of a Welsh clergyman. By his early teenage years, Grant had read widely on the subject of Western esotericism and Asian religions, including the work of prominent occultist Helena Blavatsky. He had made use of a personal magical symbol ever since being inspired to do so in a visionary dream he experienced in 1939; he spelled its name variously as A'ashik, Oshik, or Aossic. Aged 18, in the midst of the Second World War, Grant volunteered to join the British Army, later commenting that he hoped to be posted to British India, where he could find a spiritual guru to study under. He was never posted abroad, and was ejected from the army aged 20 due to an unspecified medical condition.

Grant was fascinated by the work of the occultist Aleister Crowley, having read a number of his books. Eager to meet Crowley, Grant unsuccessfully wrote to Crowley's publishers, asking them to give him his address; however, the publisher had moved address themselves, meaning that they never received his letter. He also requested that Michael Houghton, proprietor of Central London's esoteric bookstore Atlantis Bookshop, introduce him to Crowley. Houghton refused, privately remarking that Grant was "mentally unstable." Grant later stated his opinion that Houghton had refused because he did not wish to "incur evil karma" from introducing the young man to Crowley, but later suggested that it was because Houghton desired him for his own organisation, The Order of Hidden Masters, and thereby did not want him to become Crowley's disciple. Persisting, Grant wrote letters to the new address of Crowley's publishers, asking that they pass his letters on to Crowley himself. These resulted in the first meeting between the two, in autumn 1944, at the Bell Inn in Buckinghamshire.

After several further meetings and an exchange of letters, Grant agreed to work for Crowley as his secretary and personal assistant. Now living in relative poverty, Crowley was unable to pay Grant for his services in money, instead paying him in magical instruction. In March 1945, Grant moved into a lodge cottage in the grounds of Netherwood, a Sussex boarding house where Crowley was living. He continued living there with Crowley for several months, dealing with the old man's correspondences and needs. In turn, he was allowed to read from Crowley's extensive library on occult subjects, and performed ceremonial magic workings with him, becoming a high initiate of Crowley's magical group, the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.). Crowley saw Grant as a potential leader of O.T.O. in the UK, writing in his diary, "value of Grant. If I die or go to the USA, there must be a trained man to take care of the English O.T.O." However, they also argued, with Grant trying to convince Crowley to relocate to London. On one occasion Crowley shouted at him: "You are the most consummate BORE that the world has yet known. And this at 20!"

Grant's family disliked that he was working for no wage, and pressured him to resign, which he did in June 1945, leaving Netherwood. Crowley wrote to Grant's father, stating that he was "very sorry to part with Kenneth" and that he felt that Grant was "giving up his real future." To David Curwen, an O.T.O. member who was another of his correspondents, Crowley related his opinion that "I may have treated him too severely." Crowley put Curwen in contact with Grant, with Grant later claiming that he learned much from Curwen, particularly regarding the Kaula school of Tantra; in his later writings, he made reference to Curwen using his Order name of Frater Ani Abthilal. Although they continued to correspond with one another, Crowley and Grant never met again, for the former died in December 1947. Grant attended Crowley's funeral at a Brighton crematorium, while accompanied by his new wife, Steffi.

The New Isis Lodge and Austin Osman Spare: 1947–1969

Steffi Grant introduced herself to the occult artist Austin Osman Spare in 1949, having learned about him while she was modelling for Herbert Budd, a tutor at St. Martin's School of Art who had studied alongside Spare. Steffi purchased two of Spare's artworks, which she gave to Kenneth as a present for his twenty-fifth birthday. She subsequently introduced her husband to Spare.
At the time, Spare had fallen into poverty, living in obscurity in a South London flat. Although making some money as an artist and art tutor, he was largely financially supported by his friend Frank Letchford, whom he affectionately referred to as his "son". There was some animosity between Letchford and Grant, although it is apparent that Spare preferred the former, having known him for 12 years longer, and placing him first in his will. Grant desired a closer relationship, and in 1954 began signing his letters to Spare "thy son." Letchford claimed that Spare often told the Grants "white lies ... to boost a flagging ego." Grant's first published work represented a brief "appreciation" of Spare's work that was included in a catalogue for the artist's exhibition held at Temple Bar in London in 1949.

Grant had continued studying Crowley's work, and a year after Crowley's death was acknowledged as a Ninth Degree member of the O.T.O. by Karl Germer, Crowley's successor as Head of the O.T.O. Grant then successfully applied to Germer for a charter to operate the first three O.T.O. degrees and run his own lodge, which was granted in March 1951. As this would mean that his lodge would be the only chartered O.T.O. body in England at the time, Grant believed that it meant that he was now head of the O.T.O. in Britain. Germer put Grant in contact with Wilfred Talbot Smith, an English Thelemite based in California who had founded the Agape Lodge, knowing that Smith was the only man who had practical knowledge of the O.T.O. degree work. Smith was eager to help, and wrote at length on his experiences in founding a lodge, although he was made uneasy by Grant's magical seal of "Aossic" for reasons that have never been ascertained, and their correspondence soon petered out.

Grant began restructuring the system of the O.T.O. by augmenting its grading structure with that of Crowley's other occult order, the A∴A∴. This attempt failed, as Grant's attentions were increasingly drawn into his founding and running of the New Isis Lodge. The lodge became operational in April 1955 when Grant issued a manifesto announcing his discovery of an extraterrestrial "Sirius/Set current" upon which the lodge was to be based. In this manifesto, Grant claimed that a new energy was emanating down from Earth from another planet which he identified with Nuit, a goddess who appears in the first chapter of Crowley's Thelemic holy text, The Book of the Law. Germer however deemed it "blasphemy" that Grant had identified a single planet with Nuit; on 20 July 1955, Germer issued a "Note of Expulsion" expelling Grant from the O.T.O.

Grant however ignored Germer's letter of expulsion, continuing to operate the New Isis Lodge under the claim that he had powers from the "Inner Plane". Upon learning of Grant's expulsion, Smith feared that the O.T.O. would split up into warring factions much as the Theosophical Society had done following the death of Blavatsky. Grant's Lodge continued to operate until 1962. According to Grant, the group consisted of about thirty members and met every seventh Friday at the lodge's premises, which for a while were in the basement of Curwen's furrier's store at Melcombe Street, near to Baker Street in central London. During the period in which he worked with the lodge he claimed to have received two important texts from preternatural sources, the Wisdom of S'lba and OKBISh or The Book of the Spider.

From 1953 to 1961 Grant immersed himself in the study of Hinduism, becoming a follower of the Hindu guru Ramana Maharshi. He was also interested in the work of another Hindu teacher, Lord Kusuma Haranath, and was credited with encouraging and helping to create the three-volume Lord Haranath: A Biography by Akella Ramakrishna Sastri. He also authored articles on Advaita Vedanta and other Hindu topics for Indian journals like the Bombay-based The Call Divine, as well as for Richard Cavendish's Man, Myth & Magic. Many of these articles would be collected into a single anthology and published as At the Feet of the Guru in 2005. Grant believed that the O.T.O.'s sex magic teachings needed to be refashioned along tantric principles from Indian religion, in doing so relying heavily on Curwen's ideas about tantra.

After Spare's death, Grant began to focus more on his own writing career. From 1959 to 1963, Grant privately published the Carfax Monographs, a series of short articles on magic published in ten instalments, each at a limited print run of 100. Nine of these volumes included original artworks produced by Steffi, reflecting the increasing collaboration between husband and wife which would be reflected in many of Grant's subsequent publications. The Carfax Monographs would eventually be assembled together and re-released as Hidden Lore in 1989. In 1966 he also privately published a small book of his poems, Black to Black and Other Poems. During the 1950s and 1960s Grant also authored a number of novellas, although these would only be published by Starfire Publishing between 1997 and 2012.

Typhonian O.T.O. and growing fame: 1970–2011

In 1969, Grant co-edited The Confessions of Aleister Crowley for publication with Crowley's literary executor John Symonds. Over the coming years he edited – often with Symonds – a range of Crowley writings for republication, resulting in the release of The Magical Record of the Beast 666 (1972), Diary of a Drug Fiend (1972), Moonchild (1972), Magick (1973), Magical and Philosophical Commentaries on The Book of the Law (1974) and The Complete Astrological Writings (1974). The release of these publications has been described as being "instrumental in the revival of interest in Crowley".

At this point, Grant began describing himself as the O.H.O. (Outer Head of the Order) of the O.T.O., claiming that he deserved this title not by direct succession from Crowley but because he displayed the inspiration and innovation that Germer lacked. A document purportedly by Crowley naming Grant as his successor was subsequently exposed as a hoax created by Robert Taylor, a Typhonian O.T.O. member. In the early 1970s he established his own Thelemic organisation, the Typhonian O.T.O., which produced its first official announcement in 1973. Although adopting the O.T.O. degree system used by Crowley, Grant removed the rituals of initiation designed to allow a member to enter a higher degree; instead he personally promoted them through the degrees according to what he believed were their own personal spiritual development.

In 1972, Frederick Muller Limited published the first book in Grant's "Typhonian Trilogies" series, The Magical Revival, in which he discussed various events within the history of Western esotericism while also encouraging future interest in the subject. He followed this with a sequel published in 1973, Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God, in which he examined Crowley's sex magical practices and the Tantra. This was followed in 1975 by Cults of the Shadow, which brought the first Typhonian Trilogy to an end with a discussion of the left-hand path in magic, making reference to both Crowley and Spare's work, as well as to Voodoo and Tantra. That same year, Grant also published Images and Oracles of Austin Osman Spare, a collection of his late friend's images based on 20 years of research. The volume did not sell well, with much of the stock being remaindered, although became a rare collector's item in later years. Grant had begun work on the book many years before and had agreed for 500 copies to be published by Trigram Press Ltd in 1967, although at the last minute the project was cancelled. He had also authored new introductions for re-releases of two of Spare's works, a 1973 publication of The Anathema of Zos and a 1975 release of The Book of Pleasure.

In 1977, Grant began the second Typhonian Trilogy with Nightside of Eden, in which he discussed some of his own personal magical ideas, outlining magical formulae with which to explore a dark, dense realm that he variously called 'Universe B' and 'the Tunnels of Set', conceived as a 'dark side' of the Qabalistic Tree of Life. Grant made connections between this realm and the extramundane deities of H. P. Lovecraft's horror fiction. The book proved controversial among occultists and Thelemites, and starkly divided opinion. The sequel appeared in 1980 as Outside the Circles of Time, and introduced Grant's thoughts on the relevance of Ufology and insectoid symbolism for occultism. This would prove to be the final Grant volume published by Muller, who would merge with Blond and Briggs in 1984, while the publishing rights to his works reverted to him the following year. His next book would not appear for another eleven years after Outside the Circles of Time.

In 1989, Grant began his relationship with Skoob Books Limited, a publisher linked to the Skoob Books bookstore in Bloomsbury, central London which had begun to develop a line of esoteric titles under the leadership of Caroline Wise and Chris Johnson. In 1991, Skoob Books published Grant's Remembering Aleister Crowley, a volume containing his memoirs of Crowley alongside reproductions of diary entries, photographs, and letters. From 1989 to 1994, Skoob reissued a number of Grant's earlier books, and in 1992 published the sixth volume in the Typhonian Trilogies, Hecate's Fountain, in which Grant provided many anecdotes about working in the New Isis Lodge and focused on describing accidents and fatalities that he believed were caused by magic. The seventh volume of the Typhonian Trilogies, Outer Gateways, followed in 1994, discussing Grant's ideas of older Typhonian traditions from across the world, with reference to the work of Crowley, Spare, and Lovecraft. It ends with the text of The Wisdom of S'lba, a work that Grant claimed he had received clairvoyantly from a supernatural source.

After Skoob Books closed its esoteric publishing division, in 1996 Grant transferred the publishing rights of his books to two companies, Starfire Publishing – which decided to bring out his trilogies and novellas – and Fulgur Limited, which published his work on Spare.
In 1997 Starfire published Grant's first novel, Against the Light: A Nightside Narrative, which involved a character also named "Kenneth Grant". He asserted that the work was "quasi-autobiographical", but never specified which parts were based on his life and which were fictional. In 1998, Starfire published a book co-written by Grant and his wife Steffi, titled Zos Speaks! Encounters with Austin Osman Spare, in which they included 7 years' worth of diary entries, letters, and photographs pertaining to their relationship with the artist. The following year, the next volume in the Typhonian Trilogies, Beyond the Mauve Zone was published, explaining Grant's ideas on a realm known as the Mauve Zone that he claimed to have explored. A book containing two novellas, Snakewand and the Darker Strain, was published in 2000, while the final volume of the Typhonian Trilogies, The Ninth Arch, was published in 2003. It offered further Qabalistic interpretations of the work of Crowley, Spare, and Lovecraft, and the text of another work that Grant claimed had been given to him from a supernatural source, Book of the Spider. That same year, Grant also published two further volumes of fictional stories, Gamaliel and Dance, Doll, Dance!, which told the story of a vampire and a Tantric sex group, and The Other Child, and Other Tales, which contained six short stories.

Grant died on 15 January 2011 after a period of illness. He was survived by his wife.

Beliefs and teachings

Grant drew eclectically on a range of sources in devising his teachings. Although based in Thelema, Grant's Typhonian tradition has been described as "a bricolage of occultism, Neo-Vedanta, Hindu tantra, Western sexual magic, Surrealism, ufology and Lovecraftian gnosis". According to Djurdjevic, Grant's writing style is notorious for being opaque with "verbal and conceptual labyrinths". The historian of religion Manon Hedenborg White noted that "Grant's writings to not lend themselves easily to systematization". She added that he "deliberately employs cryptic or circuitous modes of argumentation", and lacks clear boundaries between fact and fiction.

Grant promoted what he termed the Typhonian or Draconian tradition of magic, and claimed that Thelema was only a recent manifestation of this wider tradition. In his books, he portrayed the Typhonian tradition as the world's oldest spiritual tradition, claiming that it had ancient roots in Africa. In Central Africa during prehistory, he believed there had been a religion devoted to the worship of a goddess known as Ta-Urt or Typhon, from which the Typhonian tradition stems. This was an idea he had adopted from Gerald Massey's 1881 publication A Book of Beginnings, a work promoting ideas which had never been accepted among scholars. According to Grant, Typhonianism was typified by its worship of female deities and its use of sex as a method of spiritual achievement. He claimed that this tradition spread throughout the world, forming the basis of forms of ancient Egyptian religion as well as Indian Tantra and forms of Western esotericism. He added that for millennia, the Typhonian tradition has been opposed by the "Osirians" or "Solarites", practitioners of patriarchal and solar religions, who have portrayed the Typhonians as evil, corrupt, and debauched. The religious studies scholar Gordan Djurdjevic noted that Grant's historical claims regarding Typhonian history were "at best highly speculative" and lacked any supporting evidence, however he suggested that Grant may never have intended these claims to be taken literally.

Grant adopted a perennialist interpretation of the history of religion. Grant's claims that Indian spiritual traditions like Tantra and Yoga correlate to Western esoteric traditions, and that both stem from a core, ancient source, has parallels in the perennial philosophy promoted by the Traditionalist School of esotericists. However, Grant differed from Traditionalists like René Guénon and Ananda Coomaraswamy in his positive assessment of Western occultism. Moreover, Grant's appreciation of Asian spiritual traditions has much in common with Theosophy, although Grant differed from the Theosophical movement with his valorisation of the 'left-hand path'.

Influenced by Maharshi, Grant adopted the Advaitan world-view that only "the Self", or atman, really exists, with the wider universe being an illusory projection. He believed that by mastering magic, one masters this illusory universe, gaining personal liberation and recognising that only the Self really exists. Doing so, according to Grant, leads to the discovery of one's True Will, the central focus of Thelema. Grant further claimed that the realm of the Self was known as "the Mauve Zone", and that it could be reached while in a state of deep sleep, where it has the symbolic appearance of a swamp. He also believed that the reality of consciousness, which he deemed the only true reality, was formless and thus presented as a void, although he also taught that it was symbolised by the Hindu goddess Kali and the Thelemic goddess Nuit.

Grant's views on sex magic drew heavily on the importance of sexual dimorphism among humans and the subsequent differentiation of gender roles. Grant taught that the true secret of sex magic were bodily secretions, the most important of which was a woman's menstrual blood. In this he differed from Crowley, who viewed semen as the most important genital secretion. Grant referred to female sexual secretions as kalas, a term adopted from Sanskrit. He thought that because women have kalas, they have oracular and visionary powers. The magical uses of female genital secretions are a recurring theme in Grant's writings.
He believed that the XI° degree O.T.O. ritual, which Crowley argued necessitated anal sex, should instead involve vaginal sex with a menstruating woman. He was critical of Crowley's use of anal sex in rituals, stating his view that the "sodomitical formula" was "a perversion of magical practice". These views have brought accusations of homophobia from later occultists such as Phil Hine.

Personal life

Grant was a reclusive figure. Unlike various contemporaries in the occult scene, he did not lecture publicly. Janine Chapman, an esotericist who met Grant during the 1970s, described him as "an attractive, well-mannered, well-dressed man in his forties, intelligent, cultivated, and friendly."

Legacy

The historian Dave Evans noted that Grant was "certainly unique" in the history of British esotericism because of his "close dealings" with Crowley, Spare, and Gardner, the "three most influential Western occultists of the 20th century." The occultist and comic book author Alan Moore thought it "hard to name" any other living individual who "has done more to shape contemporary western thinking with regard to Magic" than Grant, and characterized the Typhonian OTO as "a schoolboy gone berserk on brimstone aftershave."

In 2003, the historian of Western esotericism Henrik Bogdan expressed the view that Grant was "perhaps (the) most original and prolific English author of the post-modern occultist genre." Djurdjevic stated that Grant's engagement with Indian spiritual traditions was "both substantial and innovative" as well as controversial, while adding that Grant's emphasis on the importance of female sexual fluids helped contribute to the "transformation of the hegemonic masculinity" in Western occultism.
Although membership of Grant's own occult groups remained small, his Typhonian Thelema represented a significant influence over various other occult groups and currents. They included chaos magic, as well as the Temple of Set, the Dragon Rouge, and Andrew D. Chumbley's Cultus Sabbati. The anthropologist Justin Woodman noted that Grant was "one of the key figures" for bringing Lovecraft's work into magical theory and practice, adding that his writings were a "formative influence" on Lovecraftian groups like the Esoteric Order of Dagon, founded in North America during the late 1980s.

The occultist Peter Levenda discussed Grant's work in his 2013 book, The Dark Lord. Here, he asserted that Grant's importance was in attempting to create "a more global character for Thelema" by introducing ideas from Indian Tantra, Yezidism, and Afro-Caribbean syncretic religions.

Bibliography
Grant published his work over a period of five decades, providing both a synthesis of Crowley and Spare's work and new, often idiosyncratic interpretations of them. Evans described Grant as having "an often confusing, oblique, and sanity-challenging writing style" that blends fictional stories with accounts of real-life people.

In 2003, Bogdan's first edition of a Grant bibliography was published by Academia Esoterica Press. This was followed by a second, updated edition in 2015, which contained a full biography of Grant's work:

Non-fiction

Fiction

Poetry

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

External links
Fulgur Limited: Bibliography, Biography and Articles

1924 births
2011 deaths
21st-century English novelists
British Army personnel of World War II
British psychedelic drug advocates
Ceremonial magicians
English male novelists
English occult writers
English Thelemites
Members of Ordo Templi Orientis
Neo-Vedanta

Kenneth Grant


Freestyle skiing is an acrobatic form of skiing which is divided into a number of different disciplines. Freestyle skiing first began to be taken seriously in the 1960s and early 1970s. However, some people thought that this style of skiing was too dangerous and did not want it to be an Olympic sport. The free-form sport had few rules and was not without danger; knee injuries became a common case for professional freestylers.

The International Ski Federation (FIS) recognized freestyle as a sport in 1979 and brought in new regulations regarding certification of athletes and jump techniques in an effort to curb the dangerous elements of the competitions.  The first World Cup series was staged in 1980 and the first FIS Freestyle World Ski Championship took place in 1986 in Tignes, France.

Notes

Skiing
Winter Olympic sports

Freestyle skiing


is a Japanese manga and anime series created by CLAMP.

Plot
The story is mostly about the life of Hideki Motosuwa who did not make it into a university, and so is called a 'ronin', a repeat student. Hideki tries to get into a university by moving from his farm and studying at Seki, a cram school in Tokyo. He is not used to women, but likes to imagine that he is. He wants to have a girlfriend and a 'Persocom'. A Persocom is a kind of robot that looks like a person, but can be used like a computer, phone, and a "partner" in some cases.

One evening when Hideki is walking home from the grocery store, he finds a unique Persocom on a curb. It is a beautiful young girl with long blonde hair, wrapped in white cloth, lying against a pile of trash bags. He takes the Persocom home. Hideki looks all over the Persocom's body for a switch to turn her on, and finds it between her legs. He turns her on and asks her questions, but all she can say is "chi", so Hideki names her Chi .

Anime
The anime has 26 episodes and was broadcast across East Asia and Southeast Asia by the anime television network, Animax. Episodes 9, 18, and an extra 27th OVA episode are used as "recap" episodes, looking back on the events that happened previously. The episodes were given different numbers for the DVD release because the original recap episodes were not included as part of the main anime, instead being published together on the final DVD and re-numbered as 8.5, 16.5 and 24.5 making the series only 24 episodes.

There is a 6-minute special episode: "Sumomo and Kotoko on a Quest", or "Chibits", which is about Sumomo and Kotoko.

The series was supervised by Morio Asaka, and Hisashi Abe was the character designer and the animation director. The ending to the anime series is different from the manga. One thing that is different is that there is no allusion to Hideki never having Chi because of where her switch is, and the new part of Freya taking over Chi's body and asking her mother Chitose to shut them down, saying the Chobits series is a failure, and the activation of the program after all, although the effect on Persocons is not the same as in the manga.

References

Manga
Anime

Chobits


In the canon law of the Catholic Church, the loss of clerical state (commonly referred to as laicization, dismissal, defrocking, and degradation) is the removal of a bishop, priest, or deacon from the status of being a member of the clergy.

The term defrocking originated in the ritual removal of vestments as a penalty against clergy that was eventually codified within the Roman Pontifical. Contemporary Latin Catholic canon law does not contain such a ritual, leading some to consider it an inaccurate description of laicization. However, others consider "defrocking" a synonym to laicization that is especially popular in English. While the ritual removal of the vestments no longer exists, canon law still prohibits the wear of a clerical collar by laicized priests.

In the Catholic Church, a bishop, priest, or deacon may be dismissed from the clerical state as a penalty for certain grave offences, or by a papal decree granted for grave reasons. This may be because of a serious criminal conviction, heresy, or similar matter. Removal from the clerical state is sometimes imposed as a punishment (), or it may be granted as a favour () at the cleric's own request. A Catholic cleric may voluntarily request to be removed from the clerical state for a grave, personal reason. Voluntary requests were, as of the 1990s, believed to be by far the most common means of this loss, and most common within this category was the intention to marry, as most Latin Church clergy must as a rule be celibate. Canon law was amended in March 2019 to allow dismissal from their community, though not dismissal from the clerical state, for religious who are members of, and desert, a religious community. This policy has been in force since 10 April 2019.

Consequences
Laicization involves cessation of all the rights of the clerical state. It also terminates all obligations of the clerical state, except for the obligation of celibacy. Dispensation from the obligation of celibacy can only be granted by the pope, except in ordinations that have been declared invalid, in which case no dispensation is necessary. Because the sacramental character of ordination makes it indelible, the cleric maintains the power of orders. He is, however, forbidden to exercise it, except to give sacramental absolution to someone in danger of death. He also automatically loses his offices, roles and delegated powers.

Normally, the same rescript grants both laicization and dispensation from the obligation of celibacy. The person to whom it is granted is not permitted to separate the two, accepting the dispensation while rejecting the laicization, or accepting the laicization while rejecting the dispensation. While married deacons whose wives die are sometimes permitted to marry again, and married ministers of a non-Catholic confession who become Catholics are sometimes permitted to be ordained and minister in the Catholic Church, grants of dispensation from the obligation of celibacy without simultaneous laicization are very rare.

A laicized cleric loses rights to such things as clerical garb and titles (such as "Father"). He is freed from obligations such as recitation of the Liturgy of the Hours, but like any member of the laity is encouraged, though not obliged, to continue to recite it. The rescript of laicization for a deacon normally contains no special limitations, but that for a priest does prohibit him from delivering a homily (the sermon preached at Mass after proclamation of the Gospel reading, not preaching in general), acting as extraordinary minister of Holy Communion, having a directive office in the pastoral field, or having any function in a seminary or similar institution. It imposes restrictions also regarding the holding of teaching or administration posts in schools and universities. Some of these limitations may be relaxed according to the judgment of the local bishop including the teaching of theology in schools or universities (both Catholic and non-Catholic), maintaining contact with the parish where the priest used to serve, and administering the Eucharist.

A cleric dismissed from the clerical state cannot be reinstated in the sacred ministry without the consent of the pope.

New regulations issued in 2009 regarding priests who abandon their ministry for more than five years and whose behavior is a cause of serious scandal have made it easier for bishops to secure this removal of clerical status from such priests even against the priests' wishes. In the two years 2011 and 2012, nearly 400 Catholic priests were removed from the clerical state, with a peak of 260 in 2011, and nearly half of these being imposed as a penalty.

Difference from suspension
The removal from the clerical state differs from suspension. The latter is a censure prohibiting certain acts by a cleric, whether the acts are of a religious character deriving from his ordination ("acts of the power of orders") or are exercises of his power of governance or of rights and functions attached to the office he holds. As a censure, suspension is meant to cease when the censured person shows repentance. Removal from the clerical state, on the contrary, is a permanent measure, whereby for a sufficient reason a cleric is from then on juridically treated as a layman.

Notable historical examples
At Napoléon Bonaparte's insistence, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord requested laicization in 1802, in order to marry his long-time lover Catherine Grand (née Worlée). Talleyrand was already excommunicated for his part in the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Pope Pius VII reluctantly lifted the excommunication and gave him permission to wear secular clothing, which permission the French Conseil d'État interpreted as a laicization. Talleyrand married Worlée, then divorced in 1815, and lived on as a layman, but on his deathbed in 1838 he signed a document of reconciliation with the Church, prepared by future bishop Félix Dupanloup. Dupanloup then administered the last rites of a bishop to Talleyrand.

Bishop of San Pedro Fernando Lugo requested laicization in Paraguay in 2005 to allow him to run for President of Paraguay. The Church at first refused, going so far as to suspend him as bishop when he ran for office anyway, but eventually granted lay status in 2008 after he was elected.

In September 2018, Pope Francis ordered the laicization of a Chilean priest convicted in 2011 of the sexual abuse of minors. He had previously been sentenced to a life of prayer and penance.

Cases of bishops
The laicization of bishops is unusual. In 2009, the church laicized Emmanuel Milingo, a former exorcist, faith healer, and archbishop of Lusaka, Zambia, who had already been excommunicated from the church three years earlier. Milingo had threatened to form a breakaway church without a rule of priestly celibacy, and had himself married. Raymond Lahey, the former bishop of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada, was laicized in 2012, a year after he pleaded guilty in Canadian civil court to importing child pornography. Józef Wesołowski, a Polish archbishop who had been a nuncio (papal ambassador), was dismissed from the clerical state in 2014 on grounds of sexual abuse of minors. The Vatican had made criminal charges against Wesołowski related to his abuse of minors and planned to try him, but Wesołowski died in 2015 before a trial could be held.

Theodore Edgar McCarrick, a former cardinal and the former Archbishop of Washington, D.C., was dismissed from the clerical state in February 2019. McCarrick is the highest-ranked church official to date to be dismissed over the ongoing sexual abuse scandals in the Church.

References

Major orders in the Catholic Church

Catholic penal canon law
Catholic Church legal terminology

Loss of clerical state


A missionary is a person who tries to convert people to his own faith. In Christianity, this is called evangelism. Missionaries are usually sent from churches or worship places of the religion. They can also do other things, such as deliver medicines and cure diseases. Most major religions of the world have missionaries.

Some famous Christian missionaries are:

St. Paul
Thomas the Apostle
Saint Patrick
Saints Cyril and Methodius
Francis Xavier
Johnny Appleseed
George Muller
John Wesley
Charles Wesley, brother of John
George Whitefield
David Livingstone
Hudson Taylor
Florence Nightingale
Sadhu Sundar Singh
Albert Schweitzer
Gladys Aylward
Mother Teresa

Related pages
Evangelism
Religious conversion

Other websites
Missionaries.org

Christian religious occupations

Missionary


Bob Dean (December 17, 1929 – May 10, 2007) was a kicker and two-way lineman with the Edmonton Eskimos of the Western Interprovincial Football Union.

Dean played college football at the University of Maryland, where he lettered from 1948 to 1950. He graduated with a BA degree in education. He enjoyed three highly successful years with the Eskimos dynasty. He played in three Grey Cup games, from 1954 to 1956, against the Montreal Alouettes, winning all of them. His convert on Jackie Parker's famous 90-yard fumble return was the winning point in the 42nd Grey Cup classic.

Dean retired from playing after the 1956 season (though he did play one game for the Montreal Alouettes in 1957) but made Edmonton his home and continued to coach. He was a teacher at Victoria Composite High School, where he coached of City Senior Football Champions in 1966 and 1967. At Bonnie Doon Composite, where he was assistant principal, they won two City Senior Football titles (1971 and 1972 City and Provincial Champion) with Dean as Defensive Coordinator of the Lancers. (Ken Brice was Head Coach). Later he was principal at Victoria and at M.E. Lazerte Composite High School, where he coached his teams to four more City Senior Football championships.

He later served on the Edmonton Police Commission and the Edmonton Public School Board.

Further reading
Obituary, CFL.

1929 births
2007 deaths
Edmonton Elks players
Montreal Alouettes players
Maryland Terrapins football players
Players of Canadian football from Pittsburgh

Bob Dean


was a Japanese novelist and essayist. He is well known as the first, and so far the only, post-war Japanese writer to identify himself publicly as a Burakumin, a member of one of Japan's long-suffering outcaste groups. His works depict the intense life-experiences of men and women struggling to survive in a Burakumin community in western Japan. His most celebrated novels include Misaki (The Cape), which won the Akutagawa Prize in 1976, and Karekinada (The Sea of Withered Trees), which won both the Mainichi and Geijutsu Literary Prizes in 1977.

During the 1980s Nakagami was an active and controversial figure in the Japanese literary world, and his work was the subject of much debate among scholars and literary critics. As one reviewer put it, "Nakagami was the first writer from the ghetto to make it into the mainstream and to attempt to tell other Japanese, however fictively or even fantastically, about life at the rough end of the economic miracle."
Nakagami was at the height of his fame when he died, of kidney cancer, at the age of 46.

Major works

"Jukyu sai no chizu" (A Map by a Nineteen-year-old) 1974
Misaki (The Cape) 1976
Jain (Snakelust) 1976
Karekinada (The Sea of Withered Trees) 1977
Hosenka (Forget-me-nots) 1980
Chi no hate shijo no toki (Supreme Time at the End of the Earth)
Sennen no yuraku (A Thousand Years of Pleasure) 1982
Nichirin no tsubasa (Wings of the Sun) 1984
Kiseki (Miracles) 1989
Sanka (Paean) 1990
Keibetsu (Scorn) 1992

Works available in English
Hanzo's Bird (Trans. Ian Hideo Levy) Nihon Honyakuka Yosei Center, 1983.
The Immortal (Trans. Mark Harbison) in The Showa Anthology: Modern Japanese Short Stories, Kodansha International, 1985.
The Cape and other stories from the Japanese Ghetto  (Trans. Eve Zimmerman) Stonebridge Press, 1999.
Snakelust  (Trans. Andrew Rankin) Kodansha International, 1999.

Works available in French
Mille Ans de plaisir (Trans. Véronique Perrin), Fayard, 1988.
La Mer aux arbres morts (Trans. Jacques Lalloz & Kohsuke Ohura), Fayard, 1989.
Sur les ailes du soleil (Trans. Jacques Lalloz), Fayard, 1994.
Hymne (Trans. Jacques Lévy), Fayard, 1995.
Le bout du monde, moment suprême, Fayard, 2000.
Miracle (Trans. Jacques Lévy), Editions Philippe Picquier, 2004.
Le Cap (Trans. Jacques Lévy), Editions Philippe Picquier, 2004

Books about Nakagami
Mats Karlsson, The Kumano Saga of Nakagami Kenji. Stockholm, 2001.
Eve Zimmerman. Out of the Alleyway: Nakagami Kenji and the Poetics of Outcaste Fiction. Harvard, 2008.
Anne Thelle. Negotiating Identity: Nakagami Kenji's Kiseki and the Power of the Tale. Iudicium, 2010.
Anne McKnight. Nakagami: Japan, Buraku and the Writing of Ethnicity. University of Minnesota, 2011.
Machiko Ishikawa. Paradox and Representation: Silenced Voices in the Narratives of Nakagami Kenji. Cornell University Press, 2020.

References

Sources

Short biography
Short biography in French
Kenji Nakagami's grave
Kenji Nakagami at J'Lit Books from Japan
 Synopsis of The Kareki Sea (Karekinada) at JLPP (Japanese Literature Publishing Project)

1946 births
1992 deaths
20th-century Japanese novelists
Japanese critics
Magic realism writers
Akutagawa Prize winners
Writers from Wakayama Prefecture
Deaths from cancer in Japan
Deaths from kidney cancer
20th-century Japanese poets
International Writing Program alumni
Columbia University people
People from Shingū, Wakayama

Kenji Nakagami


A Woman of Distinction is a 1950 American romantic comedy film directed by Edward Buzzell and starring Rosalind Russell, Ray Milland and Edmund Gwenn. It was produced and distributed by Columbia Pictures>

Plot
Susan Manning Middlecott is dean of a New England school called Benton College and it is her whole life, apart from living with dad Mark and raising an adopted daughter, Louisa.

A British astronomy professor she has never met, Alec Stevenson, mentions to a lecture-tour publicist named Teddy Evans that he has a locket belonging to Susan that he wants to deliver to her. For publicity's sake, Teddy invents a story that Alec and Susan are involved in a romance.

Susan is miffed and boards a train to Boston to confront him. She is unaware that Alec has been to her campus and is now on the same train. A photographer snaps their picture getting off the train. Susan, livid, hits Alec with her purse, and Teddy makes sure their spat makes the newspapers.

Susan believes that Alec is a publicity seeker, rejecting his attempts to explain. Susan's dad takes a shine to Alec and wants to encourage her to find time for a love life. To get away, Susan takes her daughter to the family's cabin, but Mark also invites Alec there.

The locket was given to Alec by a concentration camp prisoner named Benoit during the war. Alec tells her how he merely was attempting to bring it to her at the soldier's request. He and Susan attend a college dance, but another misunderstanding prompts her to leave with a student, who promptly gets Susan in trouble by drag racing with another car.

Teddy plants a story that Alec is the real father of Susan's little girl. Susan's job is now in jeopardy from the continuing bad publicity. Alec tries to cover for her, claiming he and Susan are actually married, but a college colleague does likewise, complicating Susan's situation further. She must decide what's important to her in the end, her professional life or her personal one.

Cast
Rosalind Russell as Susan Manning Middlecott
Ray Milland as Prof. Alexander "Alec" Stevenson
Edmund Gwenn as Mark "JM" Middlecott
Janis Carter as Teddy Evans
Mary Jane Saunders as Louisa Middlecott
Lucille Ball as herself

References

External links

1950 films
Films directed by Edward Buzzell
American romantic comedy films
1950 romantic comedy films
Films with screenplays by Frank Tashlin
Columbia Pictures films
1950s English-language films
Films set in Boston
American black-and-white films
1950s American films
English-language romantic comedy films

A Woman of Distinction


Oblast is a type of administrative division in most Slavic countries and some countries of the former Soviet Union. The word "oblast" is used in English as well, but it is often translated as "area", "zone", "province", or "region". The last translation may lead to confusion, because the subdivision of "oblast" is called "raion" which can be translated as "region" or "district" as well.

Oblasts are a type of administrative division of Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Ukraine, it was also used by the Soviet Union which does not exist anymore. Official terms in successor states of the Soviet Union differ, the majority (except Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and the Baltics) still use a cognate of the Russian term, e.g. voblast (voblasts, voblasts' , ) is used for provinces of Belarus, and oblys (plural: oblystar) for provinces of Kazakhstan.

Oblasts of Bulgaria

Since 1997, Bulgaria has been divided into 28 oblasti, usually translated as provinces. Before, the country was divided into nine bigger units, also called oblast.

Oblasts of Ukraine
Ukraine is divided into 24 oblasts.

Oblasts of Byelorussia
Byelorussia is divided into 6 oblasts.

Oblasts of the Russian Empire
In the Russian Empire, oblasts were considered to be administrative units and were included as parts of Governorates General or krais. The majority of then-existing oblasts were on the periphery of the country or covered the areas where Cossacks lived.

Oblasts of the Soviet Union
In the former Soviet Union, oblasts were one of the types of administrative divisions of the union republics. As any administrative units of this level, oblasts were composed of districts (raions) and cities/towns directly under oblasts' jurisdiction.

The names of oblasts did not usually correspond to the names of the historical regions, as they were created as purely administrative units. With a few exceptions, Soviet oblasts were named after their administrative centers.

Terms used to describe oblasts in post-Soviet countries
The oblasts in other post-Soviet countries are officially called:
 Armenia: marz
 Belarus: voblast (vobłaść)
 Georgia: mkhare
 Kazakhstan: oblys
 Kyrgyzstan: oblast
 Tajikistan: viloyat
 Turkmenistan: welayat
 Uzbekistan: viloyat
Viloyat and welayat come from the Arabic language term wilāya (ولاية)

Oblasts of Russia

According to the Constitution of Russia, oblasts are considered to be subjects of the Federation, which is a higher status than that of administrative units they had within the Soviet Union. The federal subject status gives the oblasts some degree of autonomy and gives them representation in the Federation Council.

Oblasts of Yugoslavia
Oblasts were administrative units of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes between 1922 and 1929. During that period, the country was divided into 33 oblasts. In 1929, oblasts were replaced with larger administrative units known as banovinas.

During the Wars] that split Yugoslavia several Serbian Autonomous Oblasts were formed in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. These oblasts were later merged into the Republic of Serbian Krajina and the Republika Srpska.

References

Federal subjects of Russia
Local government

Oblast


Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset (c. 1506 – 22 January, 1552) was an English peer and politician. He was Lord Protector of England during the reign of King Edward VI, because Edward was too young to rule alone. He served as Lord Protector from 1547 to 1552, when he was executed for treason.

1506 births
1552 deaths
English Dukes

Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset


My Family was a British television sitcom. It was shown on BBC One from 19 September 2000 until 11 September 2011. It was created by Fred Barron and is set in Chiswick, west London. It stars Robert Lindsay as dentist Ben Harper and Zoe Wanamaker as Susan Harper. They are a middle-aged, middle-class married couple who have three children. They elder son is Nick (played by Kris Marshall), who is stupid, cheerful and has no direction in life. The daughter is Janey (played by Daniela Denby-Ashe), who is attractive, has many boyfriends and becomes a single mother. The younger son is Michael (played by Gabriel Thomson), who is very intelligent and comes out as gay.

Other websites

2000 British television series debuts
2011 British television series endings
2000s British sitcoms
2000s LGBT television series
2010s British sitcoms
2010s LGBT television series
BBC television sitcoms
British LGBT television programmes
LGBT comedy television series
Television series about dysfunctional families
Television series about marriage
Television series about siblings
Television series about suburbia
Television series set in London
English-language television programs

My Family


Interac is a Canadian interbank network that links financial institutions and other enterprises for the purpose of exchanging electronic financial transactions. Interac serves as the Canadian debit card system and the predominant funds transfer network via its e-Transfer service. There are over 59,000 automated teller machines that can be accessed through the Interac network in Canada, and over 450,000 merchant locations accepting Interac debit payments.

History

The network was launched in 1984 through the nonprofit Interac Association, a cooperative venture between five financial institutions: RBC, CIBC, Scotiabank, TD, and Desjardins; by 2010, there were over 80 member organizations. The group founded a for-profit counterpart organization, Acxsys, in 1996, which launched additional Interac-branded services including e-transfers. Following several aborted merger attempts which were either blocked by the Competition Bureau or by some of the co-owners between 2008 and 2013, Interac and Acxsys were combined into a single for-profit organization, Interac Corporation, on 1 February 2018. Interac's head office is located at Royal Bank Plaza in Toronto.

In 2019, Interac Corporation acquired 2Keys Corporation, Ottawa-based digital identity and cyber security for governments, financial institutions and commercial clients.

In 2021, Interac Corporation acquired the exclusive rights to the digital ID services for Canada from the digital ID and authentication provider SecureKey Technologies Inc.

On July 8, 2022, all Interac services were disrupted in Canada due to a nationwide Rogers Communications network outage resulting in millions of dollars in lost transactions for businesses. On July 11, 2022, Interac stated they were adding another provider in addition to Rogers to strengthen their network redundancy.

Services

Interac is the organization responsible for the development of a national network of two shared electronic financial services:

Interac Direct Payment (IDP)
Interac Direct Payment (IDP) is Canada's national debit card service for purchasing of goods and services. In 1990 Interac launched a new pilot called Interac Direct Payments. Customers enter their personal identification number (PIN) and the amount paid is deducted from either their chequing or savings accounts.
As of 2001, the number of transactions completed via IDP has surpassed those completed using physical money.
Beginning in 2004, IDP purchases could also be made in the United States at merchants on the NYCE network.
IDP is similar in nature to the EFTPOS systems in use in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.

Interac Direct Payment is a PIN-based system where the information entered on the PIN pad is encrypted and verified at a central server, rather than being stored on the card itself. Because of this, it is significantly more secure than traditional signature or card-based transactions. Despite these security features, there are ongoing fraud concerns, particularly when debit cards are duped or skimmed — a compromised automated teller machine or point-of-sale terminal will record the account information contained in the magnetic strip of the card, allowing for duplicate cards to be created at a later time. The owner of the card is then secretly video taped or observed entering their PIN, allowing a criminal to use duplicate cards to make fraudulent purchases.

Interac chip cards
In 2007, Interac announced it would be moving to EMV chip card technology. The main benefit to this technology over the existing magnetic stripes is that the chips are almost impossible to copy due to high levels of encryption.

Shared Cash Dispensing (SCD)
Shared Cash Dispensing (SCD): cash withdrawals from any ABM not belonging to a cardholder's financial institution. This Canada-specific service is similar to international systems like Plus or Cirrus. Virtually every ABM in Canada is on the Interac system.

Interac e-Transfer Service

The Interac e-Transfer service is offered by CertaPay. It allows online banking customers to send money to anyone with an e-mail address or a cellphone number and a bank account in Canada. Prior to February 2018, this was an Interac-branded service operated by Acxsys Corporation. Interac e-Transfer service is designated as a prominent payment system and is subject to oversight by the Bank of Canada.

Interac Online
The Interac Online service allows customers to pay for goods and services over the Internet using funds directly from their bank accounts. Because no financial information is shared with the online merchant, the Interac Online service is more secure than online credit card payments. This service, operated by Acxsys Corporation from 2005-2018 and by Interac Corporation since then, was available to customers of four of the five largest Canadian banks: RBC, BMO, Scotiabank, and TD Canada Trust by 2007.

By February 2009, Interac Online was supported by roughly 300 merchants including two large universities (for tuition payments), two major wireless carriers, provincial lottery corporations, and a wide variety of retailers. It was later adopted by Paymentwall (for payments to third-party merchants) and the Canada Revenue Agency (for income tax payments).

Interac Online was an Online Banking ePayments service very similar to iDEAL in the Netherlands, Giropay in Germany, and Secure Vault Payments in the United States.

The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation has dropped all support for Interac Online, effective 6 January 2023. According to their site, "Interac Online is being phased out by major financial institutions and will no longer be supported as a payment option for deposits."

As of 2023, the service has been dropped by all major Canadian banks except TD Canada Trust and the First Nations Bank of Canada, with RBC being the latest to abandon the scheme.

A few small credit unions in British Columbia, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland remain.

According to the Royal Bank of Canada, "As of January 6 2023, RBC will no longer support the option to pay for online purchases using the Interac Online Payments service. If you use Interac Online Payment service to make CRA tax payments: You will be able to make tax payments to CRA using Interac Online Payment until May 30, 2023."

See also
ATM usage fees
White-label ABMs

References

Bibliography
 Interac Association (2006). At the Merchant 2006. Retrieved 19 June 2006, from https://web.archive.org/web/20060717152738/http://www.interac.ca/en_n2_11_howitworks.html
 Interac Association (2006). At the Merchant 2006. Retrieved 19 June 2006, from https://web.archive.org/web/20060721144717/http://www.interac.ca/en_n2_12_benefits.html
 Interac Association (2006). At the Merchant 2006. Retrieved 19 June 2006, from https://web.archive.org/web/20060718165146/http://www.interac.ca/en_n2_13_fees.html

External links
Interac website
Interac Online website

Financial services companies established in 1984
Banks established in 1984
1984 establishments in Ontario
Financial services companies of Canada
Interbank networks
Payment systems
Debit cards
Debit card issuer associations
Banking in Canada
Companies based in Toronto

Interac


Khula is the right of a woman to ask her husband for a divorce and to offer him a compensation in case he does so. Following the Sharia the husband has no right to ask for a compensation of a higher value than that what he gave his wife when they married.

After divorce the former husband is responsible for education, food and residence of children. The children live with the mother for 7 years. After 7 years children have the right to live with father or mother, as they decide.

Marriage
Islamic culture

Khula


Monogenea are a type of flatworm. They are parasites which means that they always need another creature to live on. They live on the outside of their host. Some parasites, like tapeworms, live on the inside of a larger creature.

Ecology and life cycle
Monogenea are especially common on the skin, fins and gills of fish. Less commonly, they can be found in the urinary bladder and rectum of cold-blooded vertebrates. No types of Monogenea infect birds, but one (Oculotrema hippopotami) infects mammals. It is a parasite in the eye of a hippopotamus.

Monogenea are usually hermaphrodites. This means that they have both sexes. First they are males, and only later do they become females as well. They have direct life-cycles with no asexual reproduction (unlike the Digenea). In those types of Monogenea that lay eggs, the young ones grow to a larval stage called an oncomiracidium. It is at the larva stage that they are able to travel from one host creature to another. When they are adults, Monogenea eat the blood, mucus, and epithelial cells of their host creature.

Flatworms
Parasites

Monogenea


The Milky Way () is a 1969 comedy-drama film directed by Luis Buñuel. It stars Laurent Terzieff, Paul Frankeur, Delphine Seyrig, Georges Marchal and Michel Piccoli. Buñuel later called The Milky Way the first in a trilogy (along with The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and The Phantom of Liberty) about "the search for truth."

The title of the film is taken from a popular name used for the Way of St. James, a route often traveled by religious pilgrims that stretched from northern Europe to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. This is where the remains of St. James were reputed to be buried.  The film follows the picaresque journey of two vagabond travelers, who seem to be making the pilgrimage as a means of escape. Along the way, they witness a series of bizarre incidents that involve persons named in documented heresies in church history. At key moments they encounter Jesus and the Virgin Mary, as well as modern believers and fanatics.

The plot is non-linear and functions as a highly symbolic travelogue across time and space, set over the last two thousand years. It encompasses much of Christian history. While using satire to critique religion from a skeptical perspective, it also explores the act of spiritual quest and search for meaning.

The highly idiosyncratic film originally met with limited success. In the 21st century, it is very well-regarded amongst film enthusiasts and critics.

Plot
Two French vagrants, Pierre and Jean, decide to take the pilgrimage route from Paris to Santiago de Compostela along the traditional Way of St. James. As they walk along a roadside in France, they encounter a man in a black cape who tells them to sleep with a prostitute and have children with her, an instance of the prophecy in Hosea. Then the pilgrims reach an inn, they find a police sergeant and a priest discussing the nature of the eucharist and transubstantiation. The priest is taken away by staff from a nearby mental hospital. Later, the pilgrims find shelter for the night on a farm, while a secret Priscillian sect is meeting nearby. Their secret service involves ritual repetition, a short statement of faith, followed by sexual encounters between the male and female congregation.

Next, the pilgrims unsuccessfully seek food from an expensive restaurant, whose manager is explaining to his staff the controversy of the divinity of Jesus Christ as debated during the First Council of Nicaea. Later, the pilgrims pass by a boarding school, and watch the children perform for their parents and teachers. As a class of young girls recites heresies and proclaim them "anathema", one of the pilgrims imagines the execution of a pope by a band of revolutionaries. After they curse a passing car, it crashes and the driver is killed. Investigating the wreckage, they encounter a strange man, maybe the Devil, who  gives one of the pilgrims the dead man's shoes. At a chapel along the way, the pilgrims encounter a group of Jansenist nuns, who are nailing one of their group to a wooden cross. Outside, a Jesuit and a Jansenist have a sword duel, while arguing over doctrines of predestination and irresistible grace for sinners.

Finally, the two pilgrims reach Spain, where they agree to take care of a donkey for two other men. These new men leave the pilgrims and travel to a nearby abbey where they watch the official desecration of a priest's grave because of the discovery of heretical posthumous writings regarding the nature of the Trinity. The two men proclaim loudly that the Godhead is not trinitarian and escape. In the forest, they switch clothes with some hunters swimming in a lake, and destroy by gunfire a rosary discovered in one of their pockets. Later that night, a vision of the Virgin Mary appears to them and returns the rosary. The two men and the original pilgrims meet again at an inn, where they tell a local priest about their recent miraculous vision. The priest recounts another miracle, in which the Virgin Mary takes the form and duties of an errant nun for several years until the nun returns to the convent as if she had never left. Later that night, the priest further explains how her virginity must have remained intact during both the spiritual conception and the physical birth of Jesus, like "sunshine penetrating a window".

On the outskirts of Santiago de Compostela, the two pilgrims meet a prostitute who wants to become pregnant and gives the same names for the children as those predicted by the man in the cape at the beginning of the film. In the last episode of the film, two blind men encounter Jesus and his disciples. Their blindness is healed but they cannot understand what they are seeing or walk unaided.

Cast
 Paul Frankeur – Pierre
 Laurent Terzieff – Jean
 Alain Cuny – L'homme à la cape / Man with cape
 Édith Scob – Virgin Mary
 Bernard Verley – Jesus
 François Maistre – French Priest
 Claude Cerval – Brigadier
 Pierre Clémenti – The Devil
 Julien Bertheau – Maitre d'Hotel
 Michel Piccoli – Marquis de Sade
 Georges Marchal – The Jesuit
 Jean Piat – The Jansenist
 Daniel Pilon – François
 Claudio Brook – The Bishop
 Julien Guiomar – Spanish priest
 Marcel Pérès – The Posadero
 Delphine Seyrig – The Prostitute
 Jean-Claude Carrière – Priscillian
 Michel Etcheverry – The Inquisitor

Analysis
In the film, two men travel the ancient pilgrimage road to Santiago de Compostela and meet embodiments of various Catholic heresies along the way. These religious events are based on actual historical documents. For instance, the archbishop whose corpse is exhumed and publicly burned is based on Archbishop Carranza of Toledo. The film ends with the following text:

The Milky Way plays with time. The two main characters often encounter individuals in the dress of various time periods throughout history, or historical events take place in the modern setting of the film, including scenes from the life of Jesus Christ. In his autobiography, Buñuel explains that he wanted to put Jesus Christ in the film because he "wanted to show him as an ordinary man, laughing, running, mistaking his way, preparing to shave — to show, in other words, all those aspects completely alien to our traditional iconography."

Often, these encounters involve conversations or arguments regarding a specific Catholic doctrine or heresy, and are intended to show the absurdity of making absolute statements about such topics as a "matter of fact". Two heresies prominent in the film are Priscillianism and Jansenism.

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes reports 93% approval for The Milky Way, with an average rating of 7.7/10 based on reviews from 14 critics.

References

External links

 The Milky Way: The Heretic's Progress an essay by Carlos Fuentes at the Criterion Collection
 The Milky Way: Easy Striders an essay by Mark Polizzotti at the Criterion Collection

1969 films
West German films
Films directed by Luis Buñuel
Italian road movies
Films about Catholicism
Heresy in Christianity
Films critical of the Catholic Church
1969 comedy-drama films
Films about religion
French satirical films
1960s French-language films
Camino de Santiago in popular culture
Films produced by Serge Silberman
Films with screenplays by Jean-Claude Carrière
Portrayals of Jesus in film
Portrayals of the Virgin Mary in film
1960s satirical films
1960s Italian films
1960s French films

The Milky Way (1969 film)


The Book of Habakkuk is the eighth book of the 12 minor prophets of the Hebrew Bible. It is thought to be written by the prophet Habakkuk, in the late 7th century BC. In the first part of the book Habakkuk is talking with God about why people are allowed to do evil things. God tells him that He is going to allow the army from Babylon to come and defeat the people of Israel.  This is to punish them for their sins of turning from God and treating people badly. Habakkuk then asks God why he would use the evil nation of Babylon to punish His own people. God replies that the people of Babylon will also later be punished.  In the end Habakkuk accepts God's actions as good and responds with faith.

Several verses in the book are well known. Chapter 2, verse 4 says "the just shall live by faith".  This verse was used by  Saint Paul in two of his letters and also by the writer of the letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament to show that we are accepted by God when we have faith in Him and this leads to right living.  At the end of Chapter 3, Habakkuk states that even if all his crops and animals die and he is left poor, he will be glad in God who saves him.  This is similar to what Job said when bad things happened to him.

Books of the Hebrew Bible
Old Testament books
7th-century BC books

Book of Habakkuk


The Karl Benz Patent-Motorwagen (or motorcaur), biggit in 1885, is widely regarded as the first automobile, that is, a vehicle designed tae be propelled bi a motor.

The vehicle wis awairdit the German patent, nummer 37435, which Benz applee'd for on Januar 29, 1886. Follaein offeecial procedures, the date o the application became the patent date for the invention ance the patent wis granted, which occurred in November o that year.

Benz offeecially unveiled his invention tae the public on Julie 3, 1886 on the Ringstrasse (Ringstraße) in Mannheim, Germany.

Specifications

Efter developin a successfu petrol-pouered twa-stroke piston engine in 1873, Benz focused on developin a motorized vehicle while maintaining a career as a designer an manufacturer o stationary engines an thair associated pairts.

The Benz Patent-Motorwagen wis a three-wheeled automobile wi a rear-mounted engine. The vehicle contained mony new inventions. It wis biggit o steel tubing wi woodwork panels. The steel-spoked wheels an solit rubber tires wur Benz's awn design. Steerin wis bi wey o a toothed rack that pivoted the unsprung front wheel. Fully elliptic springs wur uised at the back alang wi a live axle an chain drive on baith sides. A semple belt seestem served as a single-speed transmission, varyin torque atween an open disc an drive disc.

The first Motorwagen uised the Benz 954 cc single-cylinder four-stroke engine. This new engine produced ⅔ hp (½ kW) at 250 rpm in the Patent-Motorwagen, awtho later tests bi the University o Mannheim showed it tae be capable o .9 hp (0.7 kW) at 400 rpm. It wis an extremely licht engine for the time, weighin aboot 100 kg (220 lb). Awtho its open crankcase an drip oiling seestem wad be alien tae a modren mechanic, its uise o a pushrod-operated poppet valve for exhaust wad be quite familiar. A lairge horizontal flywheel stabilized the single-cylinder engine's pouer ootput. An evaporative carburettor wis controlled bi a sleeve valve tae regulate pouer an engine speed.

Benz later biggit mair models o the Motorwagen, model nummer 2 boasting 1.5 hp (1.1 kW), an model nummer 3 wi 2 hp (1.5 kW), allouin the vehicle tae reach a maximum speed o approximately . The chassis wis improved in 1887 wi the introduction o widden-spoke wheels, a fuel tank, an a manual leather shae brake on the rear wheels.

Patent-Motorwagen

Benz Patent-Motorwagen


Alan Miller is an American video game designer who was the co-founder of the video game company Activision.

Career
Miller studied electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, graduating in 1973.

Miller joined Atari, Inc. in February 1977 and was one of the first four Atari 2600 game designers. His 2600 titles include Surround, Hangman and Basketball. With others, he co-authored the operating system for the Atari 400/800 computers in late 1978 and early 1979. His last game for Atari, Basketball, was one of the first ROM games for the Atari computers. Miller did not work on any Atari 2600 cartridges during his last year with Atari.

In late 1979, Miller left Atari with three other programmers, David Crane, Larry Kaplan and Bob Whitehead. They were disillusioned and disappointed with Atari's refusal to give them screen credit for any of the games they worked on. With music industry executive, Jim Levy, they formed Activision, the first independent video game developer and publisher. Activision rapidly grew to US$159 million in revenue in 1983, its third year of sales. Miller acted as Vice President of Product Development and designed several of the company's first games. Among his games designed while with Activision are Checkers, Tennis, Ice Hockey, Starmaster and Robot Tank.  Miller experimented with implementing a 3D display for the game Checkers but due to technical limitations of both the Atari 2600 and television sets of the era, the idea was dropped.

Miller and Whitehead thought that diversification to other platforms, such as the home computers like the Commodore 64, was essential for success. Activision was resistant to this idea, so he and Whitehead left Activision in 1984 and together formed the game publisher Accolade. While with his new company, he designed only one game, Law of the West for the Commodore 64. Miller started as Vice President of Product Development but in a few years rose to chairman and CEO.

After ten years at Accolade, Miller left in 1994. Accolade hit hard times and in 1999 was purchased by Infogrames, which later changed its subsidiaries' names to Atari, Atari Europe, Atari Australia, and Atari Japan respectively.

In September 2001, Miller rejoined David Crane at Crane's company, Skyworks Technologies, a leading developer of custom branded online games (advergames) for Fortune 100 companies, where he served as Vice President of Business Development for four years.

Click Health
In 1997, Miller co-founded Click Health, a pioneering publisher of health education games for children with asthma and diabetes. The games were made available for Nintendo consoles and IBM PCs. Miller served as chairman and CEO. Clinical trials of the company's games demonstrated significant effectiveness. In a clinical trial with pediatric diabetes patients at Stanford University Medical Center and Kaiser Permanente, children who played the company's diabetes game, Packy and Marlon, experienced a 77% reduction in urgent care visits over six months, compared to children in the control group who were given a standard video game to play. The company's anti-smoking game, Rex Ronan: Experimental Surgeon, is an interactive exhibit in the Health Odyssey Museum at the Centers for Disease Control headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, played by thousands of children each year as they tour the museum.

Unable to find significant interest in distribution of the effective games through health care providers, insurers, and government agencies, Click Health closed its doors in September 2001.

References

External links
 Photo of Alan Miller accepting an award for developing the first third-party video game development company at the 2003 GDC (second photo)
  Miller's library of work for the Atari 2600

Activision employees
American video game designers
Video game programmers
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
UC Berkeley College of Engineering alumni
Place of birth missing (living people)
Atari people
Game Developers Conference Pioneer Award recipients

Alan Miller (game designer)


Parsley is a fresh flavored bright green herb. It used on food as a garnish and as a seasoning in soups,sauces and salads. Some people eat parsley to get their breath to smell better. Parsley can be easily grown in gardens, as well as inside the home, wherever there is plenty of indirect sunlight. Parsley needs good, light soil, good drainage and frequent watering to thrive indoors. To harvest parsely, cut the most mature stalks near the base that are still bright green. New shoots will grow for some time from the base of an established plant. Parsley is extraordinarily rich in vitamins C and A,  minerals (especially potassium),beta-carotene, folate and dietary fiber.

The following chart provides information on the nutritional values and caloric composition of parsley:
Water content (grams per 100g) 87.71
Calorie content of Food (kcals per 100g/3.5oz) 36
Protein content (grams per 100g) 3.7
Fat content (lipids) (grams per 100g) 1.2
Ash content (grams per 100g) 2.1
Moisture (grams per 100g) 85.2
Carbohydrate content (grams per 100g) 8.0
Dietary Fiber content (grams per 100g) 4.1

References

Herbs
Spices
Apiaceae
Gardening

Parsley


Electrical energy can refer to several closely related things. It can mean:

 The energy stored in an electric field
 The potential energy of a charged particle in an electric field.
 The energy provided by electricity

In any of these cases, the SI unit of electrical energy is the joule; which is the amount of energy used by a one-watt load, such as a tiny light bulb, drawing power for one second. The unit used by many electrical utility companies is the watt-hour (Wh); which is the amount of energy used by the same one-watt load drawing power for one hour. The kilowatt-hour (kWh), which is 1,000 times larger than a watt-hour, is a useful size for measuring the energy use of households and small businesses. A typical household uses several hundred kilowatt-hours per month. The megawatt-hour (MWh), which is 1,000 times larger than the kilowatt-hour, is used for measuring the energy output of large power plants.

The terms "electrical energy" and "electric power" are frequently used interchangeably. However, in physics, and electrical engineering, "energy" and "power" have different meanings. Power is energy per unit time. The SI unit of power and electricity is the watt. One watt is a joule per second. In other words, the phrases "flow of power," and "consume a quantity of electric power" are both incorrect and should be changed to "flow of energy" and "consume a quantity of electrical energy."

Related pages
 Energy
 Electricity

Electricity

Electrical energy


Aerides, known commonly as cat's-tail orchids and fox brush orchids,  is a genus belonging to the orchid family (Orchidaceae, subfamily Epidendroideae, tribe Vandeae, subtribe Aeridinae). It is a group of tropical epiphyte orchids that grow mainly in the warm lowlands of tropical Asia from India to southern China to New Guinea. They are valued in horticulture for their racemes of showy, fragrant, colorful flowers.

The name of the genus refers to the epiphytic growth habit of the species, and literally means "air-plant". The type species, Aerides odorata, was described by João de Loureiro in 1790. This genus is abbreviated Aer in the horticultural trade.

Description
The species in this genus range from small to large monopodial epiphytes, except for Aerides krabiensis, which is a lithophyte. They form pendulous racemes with many long-lasting, fragrant, waxy flowers, which are often white with purple or pink edges. Some species have purple or pink flowers, and a few have yellow. Each flower has a forward-facing spur and grows on a sharp, stout, leafy stem. The leaves are distichous, growing in two vertical rows. The leaf margins are bilobed, and the apex is emarginate. There are ligules. Morphologically, they are very similar to species in the genus Vanda.

Habitat
The genus grows in the tropics of Asia, in India, Nepal, southern China, Southeast Asia, the Philippines, and New Guinea. They flower from June to July. Temperature requirements vary from cool to warm growing depending on the species.

Cultivation
Most Aerides species are considered easy to grow. Their flowers are fragrant and long-lived, which make them popular in horticulture as cut flowers and potted plants. Aerides can be kept in hanging baskets, teak containers or net pots, which allow the roots to extend into the air. They grow best in well-drained media, such as tree fern fibers, fir bark, and sphagnum moss. They require full sunlight, warm temperatures, and water applied to the roots. The plants do not tolerate disturbance or damage of their root systems in cultivation.

The plants do not have pseudobulbs. The leaves are leathery and drought-resistant. Many of these species have a monopodial vine-like growth habit, and the plants can quickly grow large.

Species
The following species are recognized as of June 2014, all monopodial epiphytic plants except the lithophyte A. krabiense.

 Aerides augustiana Rolfe -  Philippines
 Aerides crassifolia C.S.P.Parish ex Burb. - Assam, Indochina
 Aerides crispa Lindl. - western India
 Aerides emericii  Rchb.f. - Andaman and Nicobar Islands
 Aerides falcata Lindl. & Paxton - Yunnan, Indochina
 Aerides houlletiana Rchb.f. - Indochina
 Aerides huttonii (Hook.f.) J.H.Veitch - Sulawesi
 Aerides inflexa Teijsm. & Binn. - Borneo, Sulawesi
 Aerides × jansonii Rolfe - Myanmar    (A. falcata × A. odorata)
 Aerides krabiense Seidenf. - Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia
 Aerides lawrenceae Rchb.f. - Philippines
 Aerides leeana Rchb.f. - Philippines
 Aerides macmorlandii  B.S.Williams - India
 Aerides maculosa Lindl. - India
 Aerides multiflora Roxb. - India, Himalayas, Nepal, Bhutan, Assam, Andaman Islands, Indochina
 Aerides odorata Lour. - Yunnan, Guangdong, India, Himalayas, Bangladesh, Nepal, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Indochina, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia
 Aerides orthocentra Hand.-Mazz. - Yunnan
 Aerides quinquevulnera Lindl. - Philippines, New Guinea
 Aerides ringens  (Lindl.) C.E.C.Fisch. in J.S.Gamble - India, Sri Lanka, Andaman Islands
 Aerides roebelenii  Rchb.f. - Philippines
 Aerides rosea Lodd. ex Lindl. & Paxton - Guangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan, Bhutan, Assam, India, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam
 Aerides rubescens  (Rolfe) Schltr. - Vietnam
 Aerides savageana A.H.Kent in H.J.Veitch - Philippines
 Aerides shibatiana Boxall ex Náves in F.M.Blanco - Philippines
 Aerides sukauensis Shim - Sabah
 Aerides thibautiana Rchb.f. - Sulawesi
 Aerides timorana Miq. - Timor† (apparently extinct; not collected since 1849)

Hybrids
Natural hybrids include Aerides × jansonii, a cross between Aerides falcata and Aerides odorata.

Many hybrids have been made between Aerides and other orchids. The horticultural specimen × Christieara is a three-way hybrid between Aerides, Vanda, and Ascocentrum. Hybrids come in a wide range of colors due to the high degree of genetic diversity.

References

External links

Vandeae genera
Epiphytes
Orchids of Asia

Aerides


Henri Rol-Tanguy (12 June 1908 – 8 September 2002) was a French communist and a leader in the Resistance during World War II.  At his death The New York Times called him "one of France's most decorated Resistance heroes".

Biography
Henri Tanguy was born on 12 June 1908 in Morlaix, Brittany to a family of a sailor. Aged 14, he moved to Paris to work as a foundryman. In 1925, he joined the Young Communists and ended up as a secretary. He did his military service in 1929 with the 8th Régiment de Zouaves in Oran, Algeria; on his return, he became an activist with the local metal workers union.

At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1937, Tanguy joined the International Brigades to fight for Spanish Republic. He was political commissar of the André Marty Battalion (made up of French and Belgian volunteers) which was part of the XIV International Brigade. He was wounded in the Battle of the Ebro in 1938. After the war, he returned to France.

At the outbreak of World War II, Tanguy was conscripted into the French Army. After the surrender, he went underground with his wife Cécile Le Bihan. He became one of the leaders of communist resistance in Paris and organized a group that became Francs-Tireurs et Partisans (FTP). Tanguy used a nom de guerre of "Colonel Rol", after a close friend who had died in Spain.

In June 1944, Tanguy took command of the French Forces of the Interior in the Île-de-France. When Allied armies approached Paris, these forces took part in the liberation of Paris. Tanguy said, "Paris is worth 200,000 dead, so long as the city frees itself before the Free French armies arrive"

After five days of fighting, German General Dietrich von Choltitz notified Colonel Rol that he was ready to negotiate. Alongside Free French general Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, Tanguy accepted and signed the act of surrender on 25 August 1944. Like many resistance members, Tanguy later added his wartime pseudonym to his official name and became Rol-Tanguy.

Rol-Tanguy joined the French 1st Army of General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny and served during the battles in Germany. After the war, he received the Croix de Guerre, the Médaille de la Résistance and the Ordre de la Libération. He remained in the French army with a permanent commission until 1962.

After his army career, Rol-Tanguy joined the central committee of the French Communist Party where he remained until 1987. He lived in the department of Loir-et-Cher.  In 1994, he received the Grand Croix de la Légion d'honneur and, in 1996, received an honorary citizenship from Spain for his part in the International Brigades.

Henri Rol-Tanguy died on 8 September 2002, and received a salutation in the Invalides from Jacques Chirac, the recently re-elected President of France.

In 2004 he was commemorated at Place Denfert-Rochereau, in Paris, with a plaque, and the metro station there was sub-titled Colonel Rol-Tanguy.

References

Further reading
Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, Is Paris Burning?, New York:  Pocket Books, 1965.
 Order of the Liberation: citation and biography

External links

1908 births
2002 deaths
People from Morlaix
French military personnel of World War II
French people of the Spanish Civil War
Members of the Francs-tireurs et partisans
Foundrymen
Youth activists
Communist members of the French Resistance
Recipients of the Croix de Guerre 1939–1945 (France)
Recipients of the Resistance Medal
Companions of the Liberation
Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour
International Brigades personnel
French Anti-Francoists

Henri Rol-Tanguy


Mandurah is a city south of Perth, Western Australia. It has a population of 65,000. It is the fastest-growing regional city in Australia. Mandurah connected with the new Mandurah railway line late in 2007 strengthening the transport connection with Perth. The foreshore of the city is home to many marine animals.

Cities in Western Australia

Mandurah, Western Australia


WYNN-FM is a radio station broadcasting a Mainstream Urban format. Licensed to Florence, South Carolina. The station is licensed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to broadcast at 106.3 with an effective radiated power (ERP) of 6 kW.

History
WSTN-FM played beautiful music in the early 1980s. The station was acquired by WJMX AM 970 and switched to CHR in January, 1985 as "106X". In 1988, format rival WPDZ 103.3 was acquired and the station transferred the format and call letters to the newly acquired frequency. In November 1988, the station was sold to WYNN AM 540, which migrated its Urban format to FM. The station is owned by Cumulus Media.

WYNN once aired Doug Banks in the morning and now broadcasts DeDe McGuire.

External links
WYNN-FM's Official Website

WYNN-FM's FCC entry

YNN-FM
Mainstream urban radio stations in the United States
Cumulus Media radio stations

WYNN-FM


The Sonian Forest (, ) is a large forest in the south-eastern part of Brussels, Belgium.

The forest is in the Flemish parts of Sint-Genesius-Rode, Hoeilaart, Overijse and Tervuren, Uccle , Watermael-Boitsfort, Auderghem and Woluwe-Saint-Pierre in the Brussels-Capitale Region and in the Walloon towns of La Hulpe and Waterloo. Thus it stretches out over the three Belgian Regions. It used to be connected with Bois de la Cambre and Hallerbos (Blue Forest in Belgium) but they split up in 1900.

It is maintained by Flanders (56%), the Brussels-Capitale Region (38%) and Wallonia (6%). There are some parts of the forest privately held forest and the Kapucijnenbos, the "Capuchin Wood", which belongs to the Royal Trust.

Arts
Auguste Rodin went to the forest while living in Brussels in the 1870s. He made several paintings of the forest during this time.

Other websites

Forests of Belgium
Brussels
Flanders
Wallonia
Flemish Brabant
Walloon Brabant

Sonian Forest


The Mercedes-Benz E-Class is a range o executive-size caurs manufactured bi Mercedes-Benz in various ingine an body configurations. The E initially stood for Einspritzmotor, (German for fuel injection); a new featur in volume production vehicles at the time that the E-Cless first appeared, wi the E as a suffix tae the ingine nomenclature (e.g. 230E) in the 1950s. It wisna until the launch o the facelifted W124 that the E wis uised as a prefix (i.e. E220) an the model referred tae offeecially as the E-Class (or E-Klasse). At this time aw Mercedes caurs uised fuel injection an the company felt it wisna necessar tae add this as a distinguishing featur. Due tae the E-Class's size an durability, the caurs an aa frequently serve as taxis in European kintras. Aulder models lik the W123 an W124 ar uised in Malaysie as inter-state taxis, an the W211 is uised in Singapore as a taxi. Mercedes-Benz an aa offers special-purpose vehicles (e.g. police or ambulance modifications) frae the factory.

E-Class

Mercedes-Benz E-Class


The governor of Montreal was the highest position in Montreal in the 17th century and the 18th century. Prior to the establishment of the 1663 Sovereign Council, the governor of Montreal was appointed by the Société Notre-Dame de Montréal. The governor had responsibilities over both military and civil affairs in Montreal.

List of governors of Montreal
This is a list of governors of Montreal.

See also

 Governor General of New France
 Governor of Acadia
 Governor of Plaisance
 Governor of Louisiana
 Timeline of Montreal history
 History of Montreal
 List of mayors of Montreal

References

  Chronologie des gouverneurs de Montréal, 1641-1724, in Groupe de recherche sur Montréal, Centre Canadien d'Architecture 1996-2000
  Les Gouverneurs de Montréal, 1641 à 1724, in GenWeb Montréal, Ancêtre francophone

History of Montreal
Governors of New France

Governor of Montreal


Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.S. 12 (1956), was a case in which United States Supreme Court held that a criminal defendant may not be denied the right to appeal by inability to pay for a trial transcript.

Background

Facts

The petitioners, Griffin and Crenshaw, were tried together and convicted of armed robbery in the Criminal Court of Cook County, Illinois.

Illinois law

Illinois law gave every person convicted in a criminal trial a right of review by writ of error, but it was necessary for the defendant to furnish the appellate court with a bill of exceptions or report of proceedings at the trial certified by the trial judge, and it was sometimes impossible to prepare such documents without a stenographic transcript of the trial proceedings, which are furnished free only to indigent defendants sentenced to death.

Illinois law provided that "Writs of error in all criminal cases are writs of right and shall be issued of course." (Ill. Rev. Stat., 1955, c. 38, § 769.)
Under a separate Illinois law, indigent defendants could obtain a free transcript to obtain appellate review of constitutional questions, but, except for capital cases, not of other alleged trial errors such as admissibility and sufficiency of evidence. (Ill. Rev. Stat., 1953, c. 110, § 259.70A (Supreme Court Rule 70A), now Ill. Rev. Stat., 1955, c. 110, § 101.65 (Supreme Court Rule 65).)

Trial court: motion

Petitioners filed a motion in the trial court asking that in view of their inability to pay, a certified copy of the record, necessary for a complete bill of exceptions as required by Illinois law for a full appellate review, was to be furnished them without cost. Immediately after their conviction, they filed a motion in the trial court, asking that a certified copy of the entire record, including a stenographic transcript of the proceedings, be furnished them without cost. They alleged that they were "poor persons with no means of paying the necessary fees to acquire the Transcript and Court Records needed to prosecute an appeal...." They alleged that they were without funds to pay for such documents and that failure of the court to provide them would violate the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The factual allegations were not denied; nevertheless, the trial court denied the motion without a hearing.

Trial court: petition
The defendants then filed a petition under the Illinois Post-Conviction Hearing Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. ch. 38 §§ 826–832), under which only questions arising under the State or Federal Constitution could be raised, to obtain a certified copy of the entire record for their appeal, alleging that there were manifest nonconstitutional errors in the trial that entitled them to have their convictions set aside on appeal, the only impediment to full appellate review was their lack of funds to buy a transcript, and refusal to afford full appellate review solely because of their poverty was a denial of due process and equal protection. The trial court dismissed their petition.

Supreme Court of Illinois

The Supreme Court of Illinois affirmed, solely on the ground that the petition raised no substantial state or federal constitutional question.

Certiorari and arguments

On certiorari, the prisoners contended that the failure to provide them with the needed transcript violated the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution.

The question presented was whether Illinois may, consistently with the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, administer the statute so as to deny adequate appellate review to the poor while granting such review to all others.

Opinion of the court

Majority decision
The judgment was vacated and the cause remanded. Justice Hugo Black was joined by Justices Earl Warren, William O. Douglas and Thomas Clark.

Black held that while the state court was not required by the federal constitution to provide appellate courts or a right to appellate review, because the state did grant appellate review at all stages of the proceedings, the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses protected the prisoners from invidious discriminations. The court held that destitute defendants must be afforded as adequate appellate review as defendants who had enough money to buy the transcripts. It was held that the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment were violated by the state's denial of appellate review solely on account of a defendant's inability to pay for a transcript.

The court vacated and remanded the order from the state supreme court. The court held that petitioner prisoners had to be afforded as adequate appellate review as defendants with money to buy transcripts.

Concurrence
Justice Felix Frankfurter, while concurring in the judgment and apparently also agreeing with the substantive holding, expressed the view that the court should not indulge in the fiction that the new rule announced by it has always been the law, and therefore those who did not avail themselves of it in the past waived their rights.

Dissenting opinions

Burton
Burton, with Minton, Reed, and Harlan, dissented, holding that the Federal Constitution does not invalidate state appellate proceedings merely because a required transcript has not been provided without cost to an indigent litigant upon his request.

Harlan
Harlan, in a separate dissenting opinion, also expressed the view that the constitutional question tendered by the defendants should not have been decided, because the record did not present it in that clean-cut, concrete, and unclouded form usually demanded for a decision of constitutional issues.

See also
List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 351

References
 Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.S. 12 (U.S. 1956)

External links

United States Supreme Court cases
United States equal protection case law
United States criminal due process case law
1956 in United States case law
United States Supreme Court cases of the Warren Court

Griffin v. Illinois


Spira Footwear Inc., best known as simply Spira, is an American footwear manufacturer based in the El Paso, Texas, United States of America.  It was founded in 2001 and is best known for their running, walking, and casual shoes with springs embedded under the heel and toe.

Spira Footwear closed in early 2016 with an undisclosed company purchasing Spira's assets, including patents, trademarks, and inventory of unsold running shoes.

Marketing

A&E Networks relationship

In the spring of 2013, Spira was selected to be featured as part of the A&E Networks Project Startup, and initiative with the crowdfunding site RocketHub to raise capital for a new lightweight running shoe. This initiative is part of A&E's "Real Life, Real Change" social campaign that showcases innovative companies through TV vignettes on the network as well as a web presence for Spira on A&E's website and social media extensions.

Spira raised more than $42,000 by pre-selling more than 800 pairs of the Stinger 2 shoes to supporter and enthusiasts through the RocketHub platform. The money was used to fund the purchase the initial run of inventory for the new shoe.

In August 2013, Spira announced a line of officially licensed limited edition Duck Dynasty camouflage shoes. The company will introduce a running shoe that will feature the signature duck camouflage pattern sported by the Robertson family, who are the stars of the reality television series.

The relationship between A&E, RocketHub, and Spira Footwear started in the summer of 2012 when Spira used Rockethub's service to crowdfund its line of Stinger2 shoes. With a crowdfunding project under their belt, Spira was chosen by A&E to align with after the network brainstormed the idea to launch a shoe line for Duck Dynasty. Using the crowdfunding site gives Spira the opportunity to pre-sell the shoe allowing the company to anticipate demand and to determine proper inventory levels. This gives Spira increased visibility into the demand for the shoe so this smaller company can anticipate manufacturing needs with greater accuracy.

HealthWagers contest
In May 2013, Spira and HealthWagers announced a contest where a runner, who is wearing Spira shoes, completes a sanctioned chip-timed race, and the runner does not run faster than their personal record, Spira will pay them back for the price of their shoes. According to the rules of the contest, the race must be longer than  and must completed in the foreseeable future.

Research
In 2014, the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology conducted a research study on the impact of the Spira shoes and technology on running efficiency. The study used 17 runners to compare treadmill performance of two Spira models, one for training and the other for racing, to their own shoes. The study measured oxygen consumption and heart rate at a pace of  per hour to determine the energy output of each runner.

The study concluded the average person running a marathon could cut four minutes from their run time over the  distance.

Controversy
Spira claimed that their shoes were banned from races because they purportedly did not conform to International Association of Athletics Federations and USA Track and Field standards. The company has offered a million US dollar bounty to two Kenyans if they win the 2006 Boston marathon wearing Spira's product. In spite of this, USATF confirmed in 2007 that the shoes aren't banned: "Because of pending litigation, USATF cannot comment on Spira shoes beyond confirming that USATF has not examined or 'banned' the shoe, as we have publicly stated multiple times over the last year-plus."

At 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, at least three athletes used Spira shoes in competition. Axel Zeebroek used racing flats in the running portion of the triathlon and Franklin Tenorio of Ecuador and Joao N'Tyamba of Angola both ran the marathon using Spira shoes.

See also

 List of Texas companies

References

External links
 Official website

 Sportswear brands
Athletic shoe brands
Companies based in Texas
Companies based in El Paso, Texas
Shoe companies of the United States
Sporting goods manufacturers of the United States
Clothing companies established in 2002
2002 establishments in Texas

Spira (footwear company)