Language planning is the attempt to influence how a language is used. This is usually done to make it possible to use the language for more subjects. Goals, objectives and strategies are made to change the way a language is used. For many languages there are special organisations, that look after the language. Examples of such organisations are the Academie Française for French or the British Council for English.

In general, there are different forms of language planning:

Corpus planning creates new words, expressions or changes old ones to have a new meaning. Corpus planning is involved with creating standards for a language, such as spelling and grammar, or to create dictionaries. Linguistic purity is about avoiding foreign influences to a language because they are seen as bad. It also belongs to corpus planning.
Status planning wants to change the way a language is used. It is about making some languages (or dialects) official languages for a territory. Very often, part of status planning is creating a writing system for a language that was only spoken before.
Acquisition planning is about teaching the language. It looks at ways to make it easier or more attractive to learn a language. Very often, acquisition planning also involves making the language more attractive to learn for speakers of other languages.

For further readings Nahir's work on language planning can be read.

Related pages
Language reform

Languages

Language planning


Eilenburg is a town in the north of the state of Saxony (eastern Germany). The town lies on the banks of the river Mulde about  northeast of the city of Leipzig. It belongs to the Nordsachsen Rural District. It is subdivided into the urban districts Mitte, Ost and Berg (Stadtteile) and the villages Behlitz, Hainichen, Kospa, Pressen, Wedelwitz and Zschettgau (Ortsteile).

Eilenburg occupies . It has about 17.000 inhabitants as of 31 December 2009.

History
The castle of Eilenburg was first mentioned at 29 July 961 in a document by Otto I. as civitas Ilburg. The name has Slavic origin and means town in clay deposits. Probably in the 11th century there has developed a settlement of purchase people in the advance of the castle, that forms the origin of the today's town of Eilenburg.

In the 16th century Eilenburg was a centre of the reformation events. Even George, Duke of Saxony, called this town a nominated place ("namhaftigen Ort"). Martin Luther was total seven times in Eilenburg and called it a blessed lard pit ("gesegnete Schmalzgrube"). It is passed that he took it into consideration to set here in the old.

The Thirty Years' War left hard mark in Eilenburg. First the town was spared of fighting, but it already suffered from the catastrophic economic effects of the war. From the year 1631 the town was directly involved in the war. In 1632 the body of Gustav II Adolf, King of the Swedish, was laid out in Red Deer Inn ("Gasthof Roter Hirsch") after he had been killed in the Battle of Lützen the 16 November 1632. In 1639 Eilenburg was conquered by the troops of Georg von Derfflinger. In 1646 peace negotiations between Saxony and Sweden began in Eilenburg to extend the expiring Armistice of Kötzschenbroda. The 14 September 1648 the Treaty of Eilenburg was made and meant the end of the Thirty Years' War for total Saxony. Subsequently the town recovered.

The slow onset of economic recovery got a sudden end by the began of the Seven Years' War. Virtually each male in Eilenburg had to serve in the armed forces. The city was occupied alternately by the Austrians and Prussians. In the following Eilenburg turned into an impoverished and squandered town. In the end of the 18th century the economy stagnated and Eilenburg became an insignificant town.

In 1813 during the Napoleonic wars shortly before the Battle of Leipzig Napoleon was in Eilenburg and took the last view on his and the allies Saxon troops eastern Eilenburg. After Napoleon's defeat, Saxony had to cede large territory to Prussia under the provisions of the Congress of Vienna. Eilenburg now belonging to the very modern Prussian state. Thereby the transition of Eilenburg to an industrial city was advanced significantly.

Because of the founding of numerous textile factories Eilenburg next to Berlin became most important centre of Prussian textile production. The ascent to an important industrial city came mainly from the nearby Saxony. Saxon industrialists settled in Eilenburg for having duty-free access to the Prussian market. Onset urbanization caused a rapid rising of the population. The social tensions resulting from the industrialization and the huge growth of population promoted a strong labour movement. In 1849 the health insurance support association ("Krankenkassenunterstützungsverein") was founded. In 1850 the food association of Eilenburg ("Eilenburger Lebensmittelassociation") as first food cooperative of Germany and "Darlehnskassenverein" as first Credit union in Germany were founded. Carl Degenkolb, owner of a factory in Eilenburg and member of Frankfurt Parliament, instituted first German works councils voluntarily at his factory.

In 1872 Eilenburg received its first railway. The 30 June Halle-Eilenburg-Falkenberg route was opened. Two years later transport services started on the new built Eilenburg-Leipzig route. Industrial development continued rapidly by settlement of chemical, wood and metal processing industry. The German Celluliod Factory ("Deutsche Celluliod-Fabrik") that settled in 1887 characterized the city's business for more than a hundred years.

During World War I hundreds of Eilenburg people were called up for military service. The 21 October 1917 Wilhelm Pieck, the later President of GDR escaped from a military transport  at Eilenburg station. Total about 800 people from Eilenburg were killed during the war.

About two weeks before the end of the World War II the city was almost completely destroyed. 17. April 1945 the American troops reached Eilenburg. It was ordered defense to extremes. Three days and three nights the town was under heavy artillery fire, that destroyed most of the buildings of the city. The meaningless defense killed two hundred people, 90 percent of the City Centre (65 percent of the buildings of the whole city) were destroyed while the American associations had nearly no losses. Eilenburg was one of the hardest destroyed cities in Germany.

The city centre was rebuilt in the 1950s. In 1952 the city became the seat of the Eilenburg Rural District newly formed by the administrative reform in the GDR. In the east part of Eilenburg large new housing areas emerged. In autumn 1989 up to seven thousand inhabitants formed peaceful demonstrations reaching a change ("Wende") especially on political level. After the German reunification some long-established companies got out of business. Dismantling of jobs could only be partially offset by new business settlements on newly created industrial areas outside the city. In 1994 Eilenburg Rural District got merged with Delitzsch Rural District in the course of district reform. So the city lost the seat of district.

In 2002 Eilenburg was hit hard by flood of the river Mulde. The thereby caused damages amounted to EUR 135 million. The construction of flood protection facilities was intensified after the flood. In 2008 the construction measures ended after investments amounting to EUR 35 million. Eilenburg was the first city in Saxony that is completely protected against flood. Since 1 August 2008 Eilenburg lies approximately in the middle of the newly formed Nordsachsen Rural District.

References

Other websites

www.eilenburg.de

Nordsachsen

Eilenburg


Yitzhak Rabin (; , ; 1 March 1922 – 4 November 1995) was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–1977, and from 1992 until his assassination in 1995.

Rabin was born in Jerusalem to Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe and was raised in a Labor Zionist household. He learned agriculture in school and excelled as a student. He led a 27-year career as a soldier and ultimately attained the rank of Rav Aluf. As a teenager he joined the Palmach, the commando force of the Yishuv. He eventually rose through its ranks to become its chief of operations during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. He joined the newly formed Israel Defense Forces in late 1948 and continued to rise as a promising officer. He helped shape the training doctrine of the IDF in the early 1950s, and led the IDF's Operations Directorate from 1959 to 1963. He was appointed Chief of the General Staff in 1964 and oversaw Israel's victory in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Rabin served as Israel's ambassador to the United States from 1968 to 1973, during a period of deepening U.S.–Israel ties. He was appointed Prime Minister of Israel in 1974 after the resignation of Golda Meir. In his first term, Rabin signed the Sinai Interim Agreement and ordered the Entebbe raid. He resigned in 1977 in the wake of a financial scandal. Rabin was Israel's minister of defense for much of the 1980s, including during the outbreak of the First Intifada.

In 1992, Rabin was re-elected as prime minister on a platform embracing the Israeli–Palestinian peace process. He signed several historic agreements with the Palestinian leadership as part of the Oslo Accords.  In 1994, Rabin won the Nobel Peace Prize together with long-time political rival Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Rabin also signed a peace treaty with Jordan in 1994. In November 1995, he was assassinated by an extremist named Yigal Amir, who opposed the terms of the Oslo Accords. Amir was convicted of Rabin's murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Rabin was the first native-born prime minister of Israel, the only prime minister to be assassinated, and the second to die in office after Levi Eshkol. Rabin has become a symbol of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process.

Personal life

Family background

Rabin was born at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem on 1 March 1922, Mandatory Palestine, to Nehemiah (1886 – 1 December 1971) and Rosa (née Cohen; 1890 – 12 November 1937)  Rabin, immigrants of the Third Aliyah, the third wave of Jewish immigration to Palestine from Europe. Nehemiah was born Nehemiah Rubitzov in the shtetl Sydorovychi near Ivankiv in the southern Pale of Settlement (present-day Ukraine). His father Menachem died when he was a boy, and Nehemiah worked to support his family from an early age. At the age of 18, he emigrated to the United States, where he joined the Poale Zion party and changed his surname to Rabin. In 1917, Nehemiah Rabin went to Mandatory Palestine with a group of volunteers from the Jewish Legion.

Yitzhak's mother, Rosa Cohen, was born in 1890 in Mogilev in Belarus. Her father, a rabbi, opposed the Zionist movement and sent Rosa to a Christian high school for girls in Gomel, which gave her a broad general education. Early on, Rosa took an interest in political and social causes. In 1919, she traveled to Palestine on the steamship Ruslan. After working on a kibbutz on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, she moved to Jerusalem.

Rabin's parents met in Jerusalem during the 1920 Nebi Musa riots. They moved to Tel Aviv's Chlenov Street near Jaffa in 1923. Nehemiah became a worker for the Palestine Electric Corporation and Rosa was an accountant and local activist. She became a member of the Tel Aviv City Council. The family moved again in 1931 to a two-room apartment on Hamagid Street in Tel Aviv.

Early life and education

Yitzhak (Isaac) Rabin grew up in Tel Aviv, where the family relocated when he was one year old. He enrolled in the Tel Aviv Beit Hinuch Leyaldei Ovdim (בית חינוך לילדי עובדים, "School House for Workers' Children") in 1928 and completed his studies there in 1935. The school taught the children agriculture as well as Zionism. Rabin mostly received good marks in school, but he was so shy that few people knew he was intelligent.

In 1935, Rabin enrolled at an agricultural school on kibbutz Givat Hashlosha that his mother founded. It was here in 1936 at the age of 14 that Rabin joined the Haganah and received his first military training, learning how to use a pistol and stand guard. He joined a socialist-Zionist youth movement, HaNoar HaOved.

In 1937, he enrolled at the two-year Kadoorie Agricultural High School. He excelled in a number of agriculture-related subjects but disliked studying English language—the language of the British "enemy." He originally aspired to be an irrigation engineer, but his interest in military affairs intensified in 1938, when the ongoing Arab revolt worsened. A young Haganah sergeant named Yigal Allon, later a general in the IDF and prominent politician, trained Rabin and others at Kadoorie. Rabin finished at Kadoorie in August 1940. For part of 1939, the British closed Kadoorie, and Rabin joined Allon as a military policeman at Kibbutz Ginosar until the school re-opened. When he finished school, Rabin considered studying irrigation engineering on scholarship at the University of California, Berkeley, although he ultimately decided to stay and fight in Palestine.

Marriage and family

Rabin married Leah Schlossberg during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Leah Rabin was working at the time as a reporter for a Palmach newspaper. They had two children, Dalia (born 19 March 1950) and Yuval (born 18 June 1955). Similar to the entire Israeli elite of the time, Rabin adhered to a secular-national understanding of Jewish identity, and was non-religious. American diplomat Dennis Ross described him as "the most secular Jew he had met in Israel".

Military career

Palmach

In 1941, during his practical training at kibbutz Ramat Yohanan, Rabin joined the newly formed Palmach section of the Haganah, under the influence of Yigal Allon. Rabin could not yet operate a machine gun, drive a car, or ride a motorcycle, but Moshe Dayan accepted the new recruit. The first operation he participated in was assisting the allied invasion of Lebanon, then held by Vichy French forces (the same operation in which Dayan lost his eye) in June–July 1941. Allon continued to train the young Palmach forces.

As a Palmachnik, Rabin and his men had to lie low to avoid arousing inquiry from the British administration. They spent most of their time farming, training secretly part-time. They wore no uniforms and received no public recognition during this time. In 1943, Rabin took command of a platoon at Kfar Giladi. He trained his men in modern tactics and how to conduct lightning attacks.

After the end of the war the relationship between the Palmach and the British authorities became strained, especially with respect to the treatment of Jewish immigration. In October 1945 Rabin planned a Palmach raid on the Atlit detainee camp in which 208 Jewish illegal immigrants who had been interned there were freed. In the Black Shabbat, a massive British operation against the leaders of the Jewish Establishment in the British Mandate of Palestine and the Palmach, Rabin was arrested and detained for five months. After his release he became the commander of the second Palmach battalion and rose to the position of Chief Operations Officer of the Palmach in October 1947.

IDF service

During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War Rabin directed Israeli operations in Jerusalem and fought the Egyptian army in the Negev. During the beginning of the war he was the commander of the Harel Brigade, which fought on the road to Jerusalem from the coastal plain, including the Israeli "Burma Road", as well as many battles in Jerusalem, such as securing the southern side of the city by recapturing kibbutz Ramat Rachel.

During the first truce Rabin commanded IDF forces on the beach of Tel Aviv confronting the Irgun during the Altalena Affair.

In the following period he was the deputy commander of Operation Danny, the largest scale operation to that point, which involved four IDF brigades. The cities of Ramle and Lydda were captured, as well as the major airport in Lydda, as part of the operation. Following the capture of the two towns there was an expulsion of their Arab population. Rabin signed the expulsion order, which included the following:

... 1. The inhabitants of Lydda must be expelled quickly without attention to age. ... 2. Implement immediately.

Later, Rabin was chief of operations for the Southern Front and participated in the major battles ending the fighting there, including Operation Yoav and Operation Horev.

In the beginning of 1949 he was a member of the Israeli delegation to the armistice talks with Egypt that were held on the island of Rhodes. The result of the negotiations were the 1949 Armistice Agreements, which ended the official hostilities of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Following the demobilization at the end of the war he was the most senior (former) member of the Palmach that remained in the IDF.

Like many Palmach leaders, Rabin was politically aligned with the left wing pro-Soviet Ahdut HaAvoda party and later Mapam. These officers were distrusted by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and several resigned from the army in 1953 after a series of confrontations. Those members of Mapam who remained, such as Rabin, Haim Bar-Lev and David Elazar, had to endure several years in staff or training posts before resuming their careers.

Rabin headed Israel's Northern Command from 1956 to 1959. In 1964 he was appointed chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) by Levi Eshkol, who had replaced David Ben-Gurion as Prime Minister and Minister of Defence. Since Eshkol did not have much military experience and trusted Rabin's judgement, he had a very free hand. According to the memoirs of Eshkol's military secretary, Eshkol followed Rabin "with closed eyes".

Under his command, the IDF achieved victory over Egypt, Syria and Jordan in the Six-Day War in 1967. After the Old City of Jerusalem was captured by the IDF, Rabin was among the first to visit the Old City, and delivered a famous speech on Mount Scopus, at the Hebrew University. In the days leading up to the war, it was reported that Rabin suffered a nervous breakdown and was unable to function. After this short hiatus, he resumed full command over the IDF.

Ambassador to the United States (1968–1973)
Following his retirement from the IDF he became ambassador to the United States beginning in 1968, serving for five years. In this period the US became the major weapon supplier of Israel and in particular he managed to get the embargo on the F-4 Phantom fighter jets lifted. During the 1973 Yom Kippur War he served in no official capacity. While serving as ambassador, Rabin met and formed a relationship with Menachem M. Schneerson.

Minister of Labour
In the elections held at the end of 1973, Rabin was elected to the Knesset as a member of the Alignment. He was appointed Israeli Minister of Labour in March 1974 in the short-lived Golda Meir-led 16th government.

First term as Prime Minister (1974–1977)

Following Golda Meir's resignation in April 1974, Rabin was elected party leader, after he defeated Shimon Peres. The rivalry between these two Labour leaders remained fierce and they competed several times in the next two decades for the leadership role, and even for who deserved credit for government achievements. Rabin succeeded Golda Meir as Prime Minister of Israel on 3 June 1974. This was a coalition government, including Ratz, the Independent Liberals, Progress and Development and the Arab List for Bedouins and Villagers. This arrangement, with a bare parliamentary majority, held for a few months and was one of the few periods in Israel's history where the religious parties were not part of the coalition. The National Religious Party joined the coalition on 30 October 1974 and Ratz left on 6 November.

In foreign policy, the major development at the beginning of Rabin's term was the Sinai Interim Agreement between Israel and Egypt, signed on 1 September 1975. Both countries declared that the conflict between them and in the Middle East shall not be resolved by military force but by peaceful means. This agreement followed Henry Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy and a threatened "reassessment" of the United States' regional policy and its relations with Israel. Rabin notes it was "an innocent-sounding term that heralded one of the worst periods in American–Israeli relations." But the agreement was an important step towards the Camp David Accords of 1978 and the peace treaty with Egypt signed in 1979.

Operation Entebbe was perhaps the most dramatic event during Rabin's first term of office. On his orders, the IDF performed a long-range undercover raid to rescue passengers of an airliner hijacked by militants belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine's Wadie Haddad faction and the German Revolutionary Cells (RZ), who had been brought to Idi Amin's Uganda. The operation was generally considered a tremendous success, and its spectacular character has made it the subject of much continued comment and study.

Towards the end of 1976 his coalition government with the religious parties suffered a crisis: A motion of no confidence had been brought by Agudat Yisrael over a breach of the Sabbath on an Israeli Air Force base when four F-15 jets were delivered from the US and the National Religious Party had abstained. Rabin dissolved his government and decided on new elections, which were to be held in May 1977.

Rabin was narrowly reelected as party leader over Shimon Peres in February 1977.

Following the March 1977 meeting between Rabin and U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Rabin publicly announced that the U.S. supported the Israeli idea of defensible borders; Carter then issued a clarification. A "fallout" in U.S./Israeli relations ensued. It is thought that the fallout contributed to the Israeli Labor Party's defeat in the May 1977 elections. On 15 March 1977, Haaretz journalist Dan Margalit revealed that a joint dollar account in the names of Yitzhak and Leah Rabin, opened in a Washington, D.C., bank during Rabin's term of office as Israel ambassador (1968–73), was still open, in breach of Israeli law. According to Israeli currency regulations at the time, it was illegal for citizens to maintain foreign bank accounts without prior authorization. Rabin resigned on 7 April 1977, following the revelation by Maariv journalist S. Isaac Mekel that the Rabins held two accounts in Washington, not one, containing $10,000, and that a Finance Ministry administrative penalty committee fined them IL150,000. Rabin withdrew from the party leadership and candidacy for prime minister.

Opposition Knesset member (1977–1984)
Following Labour Party's defeat in the 1977 election, Likud's Menachem Begin became prime minister, and Labor (which was part of the Alignment alliance) entered the opposition. Until 1984 Rabin, as a member of Knesset, sat on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

Rabin unsuccessfully challenged Shimon Peres for Israeli Labor Party leadership in the 1980 Israeli Labor Party leadership election.

Minister of Defense (1984–1990)
From 1984 until 1990, Labor was in government as part of the coalitions which formed the 21st and 22nd governments during the 11th Knesset and the 23rd government during the first portion of the 10th Knesset.

From 1984 to 1990, Rabin served as Minister of Defense in several national unity governments led by prime ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Shimon Peres. When Rabin came to office, Israeli troops were still deep in Lebanon. Rabin ordered their withdrawal to a "Security Zone" on the Lebanese side of the border. The South Lebanon Army was active in this zone, along with the Israeli Defence Forces.

On 4 August 1985 Minister of Defence Rabin introduced an Iron Fist policy in the West Bank, reviving the use of British Mandate era legislation to detain people without trial, demolish houses, close newspapers and institutions as well as deporting activists. The change in policy came after a sustained public campaign demanding a tougher policy following the May 1985 prisoner exchange in which 1,150 Palestinians had been released.

When the first Intifada broke out, Rabin adopted harsh measures to stop the violent riots, even authorizing the use of "Force, might and beatings," on the rioters. The derogative term the "bone breaker" was used as a critical International slogan. The combination of the failure of the "Iron Fist" policy, Israel's deteriorating international image, and Jordan cutting legal and administrative ties to the West Bank with the U.S.'s recognition of the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people forced Rabin to seek an end to the violence through negotiation and dialogue with the PLO.

In 1988 Rabin was responsible for the assassination of Abu Jihad in Tunis and two weeks later he personally supervised the destruction of the Hizbullah stronghold in Meidoun during Operation Law and Order, in which the IDF claimed 40-50 Hizbullah fighters were killed. Three Israeli soldiers were killed and seventeen wounded.

Minister of Defence Rabin planned and executed the 27 July 1989 abduction of the Hizbullah leader Sheikh Abdel Karim Obeid and two of his aides from Jibchit in South Lebanon. Hizbullah responded by announcing the execution of Colonel Higgins, a senior American officer working with UNIFIL who had been kidnapped in February 1988.

Opposition Knesset member (1990–1992)
In "the dirty trick", the Labor Party left the coalition of the 23rd government in a failed effort to form a new coalition to be led by Peres. However, the failure of this effort (and Yitzhak Shamir's success in forming the 24th government without Labor) left Labor in the opposition for the remainder of the 10th Knesset.

From 1990 to 1992, Rabin again sat on the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

Following the backfiring of "the dirty trick" on Peres and the Labor Party, Rabin unsuccessfully attempted to persuade the party to schedule a leadership election in 1990. A prospective leadership race in 1990 had looked promising to Rabin. Peres was weakened from the backfiring of "the dirty trick", and polling showed Rabin to be the nation's most popular politician. Additionally, many of Peres' longtime backers in the party had begun shifting their support to Rabin. In July 1990, the Labor Party's 120 member Leadership Bureau voted to recommend that the party hold an immediate leadership election. However, one week later, on 22 July 1990, the 1,400 member Labor Party Central Committee voted 54 to 46% against holding an immediate leadership contest. This set the party up to not hold a leadership election until at least following year, unless the next Knesset election were to have been scheduled earlier than the anticipated 1992. The committee's vote to reject Rabin's push for a 1990 leadership contest was regarded as an upset result.

Return to party leadership
In its 1992 leadership election, Rabin was elected as chairman of the Labor Party, unseating Shimon Peres.

Second term as Prime Minister

In the 1992 Israeli legislative election, the Labor Party, led by Rabin, strongly focused on his popularity. The party managed to win a clear victory over the Likud of incumbent Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. However, the left-wing bloc in the Knesset only won an overall narrow majority, facilitated by the failure of small nationalist parties to pass the electoral threshold. Rabin formed the first Labor-led government in fifteen years, supported by a coalition with Meretz, a left wing party, and Shas, a Mizrahi ultra-orthodox religious party.

On 25 July 1993, after Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel, Rabin authorized a week-long military operation in Lebanon. Rabin played a leading role in the signing of the Oslo Accords, which created the Palestinian National Authority and granted it partial control over parts of the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Prior to the signing of the accords, Rabin received a letter from PLO chairman Yasser Arafat renouncing violence and officially recognizing Israel, and on the same day, 9 September 1993, Rabin sent Arafat a letter officially recognizing the PLO.

After the announcement of the Oslo Accords there were many protest demonstrations in Israel objecting to the Accords. As these protests dragged on, Rabin insisted that as long as he had a majority in the Knesset he would ignore the protests and the protesters. In this context he said, "they (the protesters) can spin around and around like propellers" but he would continue on the path of the Oslo Accords. Rabin's parliamentary majority rested on non-coalition member Arab support. Rabin also denied the right of American Jews to object to his plan for peace, calling any such dissent "chutzpah". The Oslo agreement was also opposed by Hamas and other Palestinian factions, which launched suicide bombings at Israel.

After the historical handshake with Yasser Arafat, Rabin said, on behalf of the Israeli people, "We who have fought against you, the Palestinians, we say to you today, in a loud and a clear voice; Enough of blood and tears. Enough!" During this term of office, Rabin also oversaw the signing of the Israel–Jordan peace treaty in 1994.

Economic and social reforms
Rabin significantly reformed Israel's economy, as well as its education and healthcare systems. His government significantly expanded the privatization of business, moving away from the country's traditionally socialized economy. The scheme was described by Moshe Arens as a "privatization frenzy". In 1993, his government set up the "Yozma" program, under which attractive tax incentives were offered to foreign venture capital funds that invested in Israel and promised to double any investment with government funding. As a result, foreign venture capital funds invested heavily in the growing Israeli high-tech industry, contributing to Israel's economic growth and status as a world leader in high-tech. In 1995, the National Health Insurance Law was passed. The law created Israel's universal health care system, moving away from the traditionally Histadrut-dominated health insurance system. Doctors' wages were also raised by 50%. Education spending was raised by 70%, with new colleges being built in Israel's peripheral areas, and teachers' wages rising by one-fifth. His government also launched new public works projects such as the Cross-Israel Highway and an expansion of Ben Gurion Airport.

Nobel Peace Prize

For his role in the creation of the Oslo Accords, Rabin was awarded the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize, along with Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres. The Accords greatly divided Israeli society, with some seeing Rabin as a hero for advancing the cause of peace and some seeing him as a traitor for giving away land they viewed as rightfully belonging to Israel. Many Israelis on the right wing often blame him for Jewish deaths in terror attacks, attributing them to the Oslo agreements.

Military cemeteries in every corner of the world are silent testimony to the failure of national leaders to sanctify human life.
— Yitzhak Rabin, 1994 Nobel Peace Prize lecture

Assassination and aftermath

On the evening of 4 November 1995 (12th of Heshvan on the Hebrew Calendar), Rabin was assassinated by Yigal Amir, a right-wing extremist who opposed the signing of the Oslo Accords. Rabin had been attending a mass rally at the Kings of Israel Square (now Rabin Square) in Tel Aviv, held in support of the Oslo Accords. When the rally ended, Rabin walked down the city hall steps towards the open door of his car, at which point Amir fired three shots at Rabin with a semi-automatic pistol. Two shots hit Rabin, and the third lightly injured Yoram Rubin, one of Rabin's bodyguards. Rabin was taken to the nearby Ichilov Hospital, where he died on the operating table of blood loss and two punctured lungs. Amir was immediately seized by Rabin's bodyguards and police. He was later tried, found guilty, and sentenced to life imprisonment. After an emergency cabinet meeting, Israel's foreign minister, Shimon Peres, was appointed as acting Israeli prime minister.

Rabin's assassination came as a great shock to the Israeli public and much of the rest of the world. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis thronged the square where Rabin was assassinated to mourn his death. Young people, in particular, turned out in large numbers, lighting memorial candles and singing peace songs. On 6 November 1995, he was buried on Mount Herzl. Rabin's funeral was attended by many world leaders, among them U.S. president Bill Clinton, Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, and King Hussein of Jordan. Clinton delivered a eulogy whose final words were in Hebrew – "Shalom, Haver" (, lit. Goodbye, Friend).

The square where he was assassinated, Kikar Malkhei Yisrael (Kings of Israel Square), was renamed Rabin Square in his honor. Many other streets and public institutions in Israel have also subsequently been named after him. After his assassination, Rabin was hailed as a national symbol and came to embody the ethos of the "Israeli peace camp," despite his military career and hawkish views earlier in life.<ref>Jpost "Third anniversary commemoration, Yitzhak Rabin: The Sabra, the Mensch By Abraham Rabinovich</ref> In November 2000, his wife Leah died and was buried alongside him.

After the murder, it was revealed that Avishai Raviv, a well known right-wing extremist at the time, was in fact a Shin Bet agent-informer code-named Champagne. Raviv was later acquitted in court of charges that he failed to prevent the assassination. The court ruled there was no evidence that Raviv knew assassin Yigal Amir was plotting to kill Rabin. After Rabin's assassination, his daughter Dalia Rabin-Pelossof entered politics and was elected to the Knesset in 1999 as part of the Center Party. In 2001, she served as Israel's deputy minister of defense.

Commemoration
 The Knesset has set the 12th of Cheshvan, the murder date according to the Hebrew calendar, as the official memorial day of Rabin.
 In 1995 the Israeli Postal Authority issued a commemorative Rabin stamp.
 In 1996 Israeli songwriter Naomi Shemer translated Walt Whitman's poem "O Captain! My Captain!" to Hebrew and wrote music for it to mark the anniversary of Rabin's assassination. The song is since commonly performed or played in Yitzhak Rabin memorial day services.
 The Yitzhak Rabin Centre was founded in 1997 by an act of the Knesset, to create "[a] Memorial Centre for Perpetuating the Memory of Yitzhak Rabin." It carries out extensive commemorative and educational activities emphasising the ways and means of democracy and peace.
 Mechinat Rabin, an Israeli pre-army preparatory program for training recent high school graduates in leadership prior to their IDF service, was established in 1998.
 In 2005 Rabin received the Dr. Rainer Hildebrandt Human Rights Award endowed by Alexandra Hildebrandt. The award is given annually in recognition of extraordinary, non-violent commitment to human rights.
 Many cities and towns in Israel have named streets, neighbourhoods, schools, bridges and parks after Rabin. The country's largest power station, Orot Rabin, two government office complexes (at the HaKirya in Tel Aviv and the Sail Tower in Haifa), the Israeli terminal of the Arava/Araba border crossing with Jordan, and two synagogues are also named after him. Outside Israel, there are streets and squares named after him in Bonn, Berlin, Chicago, Madrid, Miami, New York City, and Odesa and parks in Montreal, Paris, Rome and Lima. The community Jewish high school in Ottawa is also named after him.
 The Cambridge University Israel Society hosts its annual academic lecture in honour of Yitzhak Rabin.

Overview of offices held
Rabin twice served as prime minister (Israel's head of government). His first stint spanned from 3 June 1974 through 20 June 1977, leading the 17th government during the 8th Knesset. His second stint lasted from 13 July 1992 until his assassination on 4 November 1995, leading the 25th government during the 13th Knesset. Rabin was a member of the Knesset from 1974 until his assassination. For several months in 1992, Rabin served as the Knesset's opposition leader, at the time an unofficial and honorary role. Rabin also served as ambassador of Israel to the United States from 1968 until 1973.

Labor Party leadership
Peres twice served as leader of the Israeli Labor Party.

Ministerial posts

Electoral history
Party leadership elections

Awards and decorations

 Published works

See also

List of Israeli Nobel laureates
List of Jewish Nobel laureates
Kempler video, assassination of Yitzhak Rabin video
Shir LaShalom, the "Peace Song" sung by Rabin at the peace rally shortly before his assassination

 Bibliography

References

Further reading
 Crichlow, Scott. "Idealism or Pragmatism? An Operational Code Analysis of Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres." Political Psychology 19.4 (1998): 683–706.
 Medzini, Meron. "Rabin and Hussein: From Enemies at War to Partners in Peace." in The Palgrave Handbook of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) pp. 435–446.
  excerpt
 Sharon, Assaf, "The Long Paralysis of the Israeli Left" (review of Dan Ephron, Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel, Norton, 290 pp.; and Itamar Rabinovich, Yitzhak Rabin: Soldier, Leader, Statesman, Yale University Press, 272 pp.), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXVI, no. 17 (7 November 2019), pp. 32–34.

External links

 One of the last recorded interviews with Yitzhak Rabin  – a six-minute interview with David Esing, recorded one month before his assassination.
 Eulogies at the Funeral of Prime Minister Rabin Jewish Virtual Library
 Yitzhak Rabin Information Page
 Dromi, Uri (5 November 2005). "Still craving peace 10 years after Rabin". New Straits Times, p. 20.
 "Israel marks Rabin assassination". (5 November 2005). BBC''.

  by Leon Charney on The Leon Charney Report
  by Leon Charney on The Leon Charney Report

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In baseball, a number of coaches help make a team work properly. They are assistants to the manager, who determines the lineup and decides how to substitute players during the game. More than a half dozen coaches may assist the manager in running the team. Some common coaching positions include the following: first base coach, third base coach, hitting coach, pitching coach, bench coach, and bullpen coach.

Baseball
Baseball coaches

Coach (baseball)


Bebop or bop is a kind of jazz that became popular near the beginning of the Second World War, in the mid-1940s. Bebop is often fast.  The musicians improvise using a small group of chords which are repeated again and again. Charlie Parker (1920-1955), who was  famous for his saxophone playing, was a bebop artist. The famous trumpet player Dizzy Gillespie (1917-1993) was also a renowned artist of this genre.

The term "bebop" originates from a group of syllables used in scat singing, where random strings of sound were used in place of words.

African-American history
Jazz music

Bebop


A fork is a tool for eating.  It has points called tines.  Most forks have three or four tines.  Some cooking-forks have two tines.  The tines help you pick up your food.  Forks are useful only for eating solid food.  For example, a fork would be useless for eating soup because all the soup would fall through the tines and into your lap.  Most forks are made of metal.  Some are made of plastic or wood.

The word "fork" is also used to describe a two choices of course. A fork in the road would be a split in the road leading in two (or more) directions. A forked tongue would have two parts or tips.

Forks are very common in Western culture. Many countries do not use forks, but instead have their own ways to eat food, such as chopsticks.

Related pages
 Garden fork

Basic English 850 words
Food utensils

Fork


Paquita is a romantic ballet in two acts and three scenes. Its story was written by Joseph Mazilier and Paul Foucher. The music was composed by Edouard Deldevez. It was originally choreographed by Joseph Mazilier.  Paquita was first performed in the Salle Le Peletier by the Paris Opera Ballet on 1 April 1846. It starred Carlotta Grisi and Lucien Petipa. Paquita remained in the repertory of the Opéra until 1851.

The story takes place in Spain during the occupation of Napoleon's army. The heroine is the young Gypsy girl, Paquita. She is really of noble birth. She was abducted by Gypsies when she was an infant. She saves the life of a young French officer, Lucien d'Hervilly. He is the target of a Spanish governor who desires to have him killed by Iñigo, a Gypsy chief. Paquita discovers that she is of noble birth. She is in fact the cousin of Lucien. She and Lucien marry.

In 1847, Paquita was staged for the first time in Russia for the Imperial Ballet of St. Petersburg by Marius Petipa and Pierre-Frédéric Malevergne. It was Petipa's first ballet staged in Russia. In 1881, Petipa produced a revival of the ballet. He added new pieces specially composed by Ludwig Minkus. This included the Pas de trois (aka the Minkus Pas de trois or Paquita Pas de trois) for the first act, and the Paquita Grand pas classique and the Mazurka des enfants (Children's mazurka) for the last act. Petipa's version of Paquita remained in the repertory of the Mariinsky Theatre until 1926.

Marius Petipa's 1881 additions for Paquita survived long after the full-length ballet left the stage. Today these pieces, particularly the Grand pas classique, are major cornerstones of the traditional classical ballet repertory. They have been staged by ballet companies throughout the world.

In 2001, the Ballet Master Pierre Lacotte produced a revival of the full-length, two act Paquita for the Paris Opera Ballet. Although Lacotte re-choreographed most of the ballet himself, he restored Joseph Mazilier's original mime sequences and mise-en-scène, as well as Marius Petipa's 1881 additions.

Ballets by Marius Petipa
Ballets

Paquita


Pierre Boulez (pronounced "Boo-LEZ") (26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was one of the most important French composers of modern classical music. He was also a conductor. He was born in Montbrison, Loire. He died in Baden-Baden.

As a composer
Boulez started his university studies by studying mathematics. He then gave that up and went to the Paris Conservatoire to study music. One of his teachers was Olivier Messiaen. He wrote music in an atonal style, similar to the serial music of Anton Webern. Gradually his music became completely serial, so that everything about the music: the pitches of the notes, the length of the notes, the louds and softs, the accents were all organized in a mathematical way. This is called "total serialism" or "integral serialism". This kind of music is very strange to listen to.

Boulez belonged to a group of composers who met in the summer at Darmstadt in Germany. This group is often called the "Darmstadt School". He wrote music which was extremely hard to play e.g. Structures book 1 for two pianos.

Perhaps his most famous piece is Le marteau sans maître (The hammer without a master). This piece, finished in 1957, is for a small group of instruments: flute, guitar, vibraphone, xylorimba (a cross between a xylophone and a marimba), percussion and viola and a singer (alto). It has very complicated rhythms and is influenced by jazz, gamelan music, African and Japanese music.

Boulez then tried out new ideas. He wrote works which would sound different at each performance because the players could improvise some ideas. Pli selon pli (Fold upon fold) was a work for orchestra and soprano. It was based on a poem by Stéphane Mallarmé about a swan that could not fly away because it was stuck on the frozen lake. His piece Eclat (1965) also uses improvisation. The conductor is free to decide on how certain bits could be played and makes signs to the players to improvise in certain ways that the composers has written down. This kind of composition is sometimes called "Chance music" because it is different each time it is played. The American composer John Cage also experimented with Chance music.

In the 1970s he became interested in electronic music. The French president Georges Pompidou supported the building of a big Arts Centre in Paris. This centre included a large underground set of studios for music. It became known as IRCAM (translated from the French: Institute for Acoustical/Musical Research and Coordination). A lot of composers worked in IRCAM. They used computers, tape recorders etc., to compose music.

As a conductor

Boulez was a world-famous conductor. He conducted many of the world's greatest orchestras. He was the chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra from 1971-1975, the New York Philharmonic from 1971 to 1977 and was Conductor Emeritus of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. His concerts usually consisted of music by the great 20th century composers such as Alban Berg, Claude Debussy, Gustav Mahler, Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók, Anton Webern and Edgard Varèse—as well as lots of new music which he conducted when it had just been written.

Boulez wrote several books and articles on music.

1925 births
2016 deaths
21st-century French composers
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Pierre Boulez


Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Mastersingers of Nuremberg) is an opera by Richard Wagner. It is the only comic opera that Wagner wrote. Wagner wrote the words (the libretto) in 1862 and composed the music in 1867. It was first performed in Munich in 1868.

The story is set in the town of Nuremberg (German: Nürnberg) in 16th century Germany. It is about a group of Mastersingers. The Mastersingers (German: Meistersinger) were a guild of singers in Germany many centuries ago. The most famous of them was a man called Hans Sachs, who lived in the 16th century. Although Hans Sachs was a real person, the story of the opera was made up by Wagner. It is a story about a song contest.

The story of the opera

The prelude (orchestral introduction) to the opera is very famous and is often played by itself at concerts.  It has several tunes which are sometimes cleverly played at the same time (counterpoint).  These tunes are used during the opera and are associated with particular people or ideas (such tunes are called leitmotifs).

Act One

The young knight Walther is in church and sees a beautiful young girl, Eva.  He wants to know whether she is married.  She tells him that she will be married to the person who wins the singing contest the next day.  Walther tries to learn the art of the Mastersingers from David, who works for Hans Sachs, the cobbler.  David himself is in love with Magdalene.  The apprentices start to prepare the stage for the contest.

If Walther is to win the contest he will have to compose his own mastersong and sing it.  He will have to compose it according to a lot of strict rules (the number of lines, the rhyming patterns etc.).  When he meets the other Mastersingers he introduces himself, saying that he learned the art of singing from the ancient poet Walther von der Vogelweide and from nature itself.  He sings this in a song which is very beautiful, but it does not obey the rules of the Mastersingers.  The Mastersingers are not able to understand the beauty of his song.

One of the Mastersingers is the town clerk.  His name is Beckmesser.  He is a comic figure and Wagner makes him look very silly.  Beckmesser is the "marker".  This means something like: an "adjudicator".  When a singer makes a "mistake" (disobeys the rules) the marker puts a chalkmark on the board.  When Walther sings his song Beckmesser makes lots of chalkmarks.  Hans Sachs is the only person who realizes the beauty of his song.  There is a lot of shouting and Walther has to stand on a chair to finish his song.

Act 2

A street in Nuremberg at night.  Eva's grand house is opposite Hans Sachs' simple house.  Eva's father realizes she is in love with Walther.  Hans is thinking about the young knight and how well he sings.  Eva asks Hans who he thinks will be likely to win the song contest.  Then she is called back by her father.  Beckmesser has come and would like to serenade her (sing her a love song).  Walther meets up with Eva and they wonder whether they should elope (run away together).  Eva changes clothes with her maid.  Hans Sachs stops them as they are about to elope.  Beckmesser is tuning his lute ready to sing.  Walther would like to argue with him but Eva gets him to sit quietly while Beckmesser sings.  Hans Sachs, who is mending Beckmesser's shoe, has other ideas: he sings a song himself, and this annoys Beckmesser who is trying to sing to the girl he thinks is Eva (but it is Eva's maid in disguise).  He tells Hans to stop singing.  Hans says that he will stop, but he will hammer on his shoe every time he hears Beckmesser make a mistake.  Beckmesser starts singing again, and Hans hammers lots of times.  All the neighbours wake up and come into the street and argue and fight.  In the end the night watchman comes and everybody goes back into their houses.

Act 3

David is preparing a song for the midsummer festival.  Then Walther arrives and tells Hans that a song came to him in a dream.  Hans helps him to prepare the song for the contest.  When they have left the workshop Beckmesser comes in and sees the piece of paper with the song.  He picks it up when Hans returns and says that it is obvious that he, Hans, wants to enter the contest.  Hans tells Beckmesser that he can have the song.  Beckmesser is delighted and thinks he can now win Eva in marriage.

At the song contest Beckmesser tries to sing the song, but he sings it to his own tune which does not fit the words, and he gets the words all muddled up.  Everyone laughs and he leaves the stage angrily, saying that Sachs wrote the song.  Walther now sings his prize song.  This time people realize how beautiful it is although it does not obey the usual rules.  Walther can marry Eva.

The music of the opera

Wagner's operas have continuous music which develops is very logical ways using leitmotifs.  In the prelude we hear several tunes which are leitmotifs that are to be important during the opera: a theme that represents the dignity of the mastersingers, a theme for passion which later becomes Walther's prize song, the chattering of the apprentices etc.  The music at the beginning of Act Three is also often played separately in the concert hall.

There are many beautiful moments in the opera.  Wagner cleverly changes the style to suit the action, for example when Eva's father is talking about the Mastersingers' reputation in Germany we hear an old-fashioned recitative.  Beckmesser is made to look stupid through his music which contrasts with Walther's romantic music.

Interpretations of the opera

People have explained the meanings behind this opera in several ways.  The basic story is
about the wonderful German art of singing.  It is also about the fact that composers should be able to write music which is beautiful without having to obey rules that were made up long ago and have become old-fashioned.  Wagner was trying to bring lots of changes to opera, making the drama the most important thing.  Some people found his new ideas quite difficult to follow, and this may be why he chose, for once, to write a comic opera instead of a serious one based on mythology.   The character of Beckmesser is a caricature of Eduard Hanslick, a famous music critic who did not like the music of Wagner and Bruckner but preferred the more traditional music of Brahms and Antonín Dvořák.

The opera has been criticized because Wagner may have meant the story to have an anti-Semitic (anti-Jewish) meaning.  This is certainly the way that Hitler understood it. It was his favourite opera, and the idea of praising German art and song fitted in nicely with his racist views.  The character of Beckmesser is also a caricature of a stereotype Jew.

Operas by Richard Wagner
1860s operas

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg


A colony is a piece of land controlled by another country. The metropolitan state is the country that owns the colony. The phrase dependent territory is now used instead of colony. Colony can also refer to a commune or a currently hypothetical human settlement in the sea (ocean colony) or outer space (space colony).

A country that has many colonies is often called an empire. A colonist is a person from the metropolitan state who lives in a colony.

Colonial means having to do with a colony. Colonial land is land that belongs to the colony. A colonist is sometimes called a colonial. The philosophy of having colonies is called colonialism. There must be many people to start a colony. There are many colonies, or countries that were once colonies, in the world. Most countries that were once colonies of Britain are part of the British Commonwealth.

Related pages
Dependent territory

Other websites
 http://www.un.org/Depts/dpi/decolonization/trust3.htm - Non-self governing territories as listed by the United Nations General Assembly in 2002
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Colony


The Members Church of God International is a group of members of a Christian denomination with headquarters in the Philippines. Commonly known by their TV show Ang Dating Daan (The Old Path), they have million members and has thousands of locales worldwide. Currently, their presiding minister is Eliseo Soriano ang their vice presiding Minister is Daniel S. Razón. Eliseo Soriano is currently preaching in other countries. They reject the Roman Catholic belief about Trinity.

Christian denominations
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Members Church of God International


A superstar is someone who has great popular appeal and is widely known, prominent, or successful in their field. Celebrities referred to as "superstars" may include individuals who work as actors, musicians, athletes, and other media-based professions.

History

The origin of the term in the context of celebrity is uncertain, but a similar expression is attested in John Nyren's 1832 cricket book The Cricketers of My Time. Nyren described the 18th-century cricketer John Small as "a star of the first magnitude". The earliest use of the term "superstar" has been credited to Frank Patrick in reference to the ice hockey players on his Vancouver Millionaires teams of the 1910s and 1920s, specifically Cyclone Taylor. In the June 1977 edition of Interview magazine, pop artist Andy Warhol was asked by editor Glenn O'Brien who invented the word "superstar". Warhol, known for popularizing the term, responded, "I think it was Jack Smith." O'Brien then asked, "And who were the first superstars?" Warhol responded, "They were all Jack Smith's stars." The term received widespread and commonplace use from the title of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar, in particular the 1970 concept album of the musical and the eponymous hit song. "Super Star" is also the name of a hugely successful rose which Harry Wheatcroft introduced and named in 1960.

By 1909, silent film companies began promoting "picture personalities" by releasing stories about actors to fan magazines and newspapers, as part of a strategy to build "brand loyalty" for their company's actors and films. By the 1920s, Hollywood film company promoters had developed a "massive industrial enterprise" that "peddled a new intangible—fame". Hollywood "image makers" and promotional agents planted rumours, selectively released real or fictitious information to the press, and used other "gimmicks" to create public personas for actors. They then "worked [to] reinforce that persona [and] manage the publicity". Publicists thus "created" the "enduring images" and public perceptions of screen legends such as Rock Hudson, Marilyn Monroe, and Grace Kelly. The development of this "star system" made fame "something that could be fabricated purposely, by the masters of the new 'machinery of glory'".

In 1976, Mattel produced a "Superstar" variation of its Barbie doll. According to Sofia Johansson, the "canonical texts on stardom" include articles by Boorstin (1971), Alberoni (1972), and Dyer (1979) that examined the "representations of stars and on aspects of the Hollywood star system". Johansson notes that "more recent analyses within media and cultural studies (e.g. Gamson 1994; Marshall 1997; Giles 2000; Turner, Marshall and Bonner 2000; Rojek 2001; Turner 2004) have instead dealt with the idea of a pervasive, contemporary, 'celebrity culture'". In an analysis of "celebrity culture", Johansson states that "fame and its constituencies are conceived of as a broader social process, connected to widespread economic, political, technological, and cultural developments".

In the 1980s and 1990s, entertainment publicity tactics became "more subtle and sophisticated", such as using press releases, movie junkets, and community activities. These promotional efforts are targeted and designed using market research "to increase the predictability of success of their media ventures". In some cases, publicity agents may create "provocative advertisements" or make an outrageous public statement to "trigger public controversy and thereby generate 'free' news coverage".

Socio-psychological theories

According to Roger Caillois, superstars are created by the interplay between "mass media, free enterprise, and competition". Superstars are produced by a mixture of effort on the part of the superstar and mere chance (due to the many arbitrary factors influencing sports, film releases, etc.) and the superstar usually has "extraordinary natural talent augmented by an even more extraordinary perseverance and drive". However, small and relative differences are of decisive importance for "winning or losing by a hair's breadth". It is here that chance plays a role, with Caillois noting that "a sudden gust of wind at the end of a yachting race can mean the difference between stardom and defeat". He states that the role of chance in superstardom is paradoxical because the west is such a "predominantly meritocratic society" which champions the importance of hard work, competition, activity, and determination.

Caillois states that "[since] only one may be first, [a person may] choose to win indirectly through identification with someone else" and that the triumph of the superstar as the most popular actor or musician is in part due to the actions of "those who worship the hero". He says the public believes that the concept of "the manicurist elected beauty queen, the sales girl entrusted with the heroine's role in a super production, the shopkeeper's daughter winning the Tour de France, and the gas station attendant who basks in the limelight as a champion toreador" represents the possibility from the public's perspective that they too may become wealthy and successful. For example, Levine points out that Lars Ulrich, the drummer for Metallica, was a service station attendant before becoming a wealthy rock star and that Harrison Ford was a cabinet maker before becoming a rich and famous actor.

Caillois calls superstars' huge incomes and accolades "disguised lotteries" and a "special kind of game of chance". For example, the grand prizes for literary competitions "bring fortune and glory to a writer for several years". Caillois notes that a superstar cannot merely be successful at some activitythey must also be richly rewarded. He says that the "material reward of the superstar is a necessary ingredient (for the glory of the star) for the identification of the public with the star, or whether it is the excellence or the private life of the star which is of more importance". He states that superstars' extravagant incomes play an important psychological "compensating mechanism" role for the public. According to Madow, "Fame is a 'relational' phenomenon, something that is conferred by others. A person can, within the limits of his natural talents, make himself strong or swift or learned. But he cannot, in this same sense, make himself famous, any more than he can make himself loved. [...] Fame is often conferred or withheld, just as love is, for reasons and on grounds other than 'merit'. This means that regardless of how strenuously the star may try to 'monitor' and 'shape' it, the media and the public always play a substantial part in the image-making process."

Economics of "superstars"

In 1981, Sherwin Rosen examined the economics of superstars to determine why "relatively small numbers of people earn enormous amounts of money and seem to dominate the fields in which they engage" Rosen argues that, in superstar markets, "small differences in talent at the top of the distribution will translate into large differences in revenue". Rosen points out that "sellers of higher talent charge only slightly higher prices than those of lower talent, but sell much larger quantities; their greater earnings come overwhelmingly from selling larger quantities than from charging higher prices".

Microeconomist Alfred Marshall explains that technology has greatly extended the power and reach of the planet's most gifted performers. He referenced  classical opera singer Elizabeth Billington, a well-acclaimed soprano with a strong voice who could only reach a small audience and naturally did not have access to a microphone or amplifier in 1798, let alone "MTV, CDs, iTunes, and Pandora". This limited her ability to dominate the market in the way that artists to do today. Marshall wrote, "So long as the number of persons who can be reached by a human voice is strictly limited, it is not very likely that any singer will make an advance on the £10,000 said to have been earned in a season by Mrs. Billington at the beginning of the last century, nearly as great [an increase] as that which the business leaders of the present generation have made on those of the last." Furthermore, the trends in popular music indicate that the price of the average concert ticket increased by nearly 400% from 1981 to 2012, much faster than the 150% rise in overall consumer price inflation.

Some scholars argue that superstardom plays a useful role in society. Caillois cites Rawls, who states that the "premiums earned by scarce natural talents serve to cover the costs of training and to encourage the efforts of learning, as well as to direct ability to where it best furthers the common interest". Cowen cites Rosen to argue that "the superstar effect is welfare-improving (consumers get better performances) even if it leads to raising income inequality" and adds that the "superstar phenomenon should not be overstressed [...] indeed, fame is a positive-sum game, not a negative nor a zero-sum one". Cowen states that "countervailing forces operate, such as a convergence of quality that limits the ability of the very best stars to dominate the market for long, or more radically the elastic supply of fame". This means that "when demand for fame increases, the numbers of prizes, rewards and whatever fame generating distinctions is rising too".

On the other hand, it has been argued that "compensation systems that resemble prizes [lotteries] can also create perverse incentives by discouraging cooperative behaviour and may encourage some contestants to disrupt the performance of competitors". As well, Frank and Cook (1995) called into question "the way the winner-take-all markets operate, with their damaging features". They argue that the "winner-take-all payoff structure [of competition for superstardom] generates a spiral of individual and social occupational waste, since it leads both to increasing (monetary and non-monetary) reward inequalities and to overcrowding in the markets and occupations prone to an overestimation of one's chance to succeed". As a result, they argue that "when excess numbers of contestants are induced to invest in performance enhancement in order to raise their individual odds of winning, these investments will be mutually offsetting and socially inefficient; end consumers may get more valuable products but the social costs are excessive".

Other meanings

"Superstar" art museums
A small number of major art museums, including Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum, the Centre Pompidou, and Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum, have become household names and major tourist destinations. With their striking, architecturally designed buildings and well-known masterpieces, they have been termed "superstar" art museums. With their huge visitor traffic, superstar museums are often able to derive a significant income from museum bookshops and restaurants and have a "major impact on the local economy". Superstar museums are able to use the popular appeal of their location and art holdings to produce their own books, videos, and television specials, which adds an additional revenue stream and further reinforces the public's awareness of the museum. Some superstar museums have also begun establishing museum networks. For example, London's Tate Gallery launched the additional art museums Tate Liverpool and Tate St. Ives.

Cultural institutions such as art museums play a "gatekeeping" role for consumers, helping to screen and grade cultural artefacts and artworks, thus "reducing information and search costs" for consumers. Moreover, by channelling resources to a limited group of visual artists, cultural institutions also "enhance superstar phenomena within the visual arts".

Superstar CEOs
McGraw-Hill's economic website argues that the multimillion-dollar salaries of superstar CEOs in the corporate world can be viewed as a type of tournament prize. The huge salaries of these executives "often seem to resemble prizes for the winners of contests rather than compensation in return for the value of the marginal product of labour". As an example, a company may "have many vice-presidents of roughly comparable ability and the vice-president (who may only be slightly more talented than the others) that is promoted to president receives a huge salary increase, which resembles a prize for winning the contest as best VP". The article goes on to argue, "Such a compensation system may be efficient if the organization is only able to rank its executives according to the relative value of their contribution to the organization (the organization cannot measure the productivity of each executive, only the productivity of the group of executives). [...] Even if executives are paid a wage equal to the average productivity of the group, there will still be an incentive to perform in order be promoted and win the prize."

See also
Supercouple

References

Further reading
 Hamlen, William A. "Superstardom in Popular Music: Empirical Evidence." Review of Economics and Statistics 73 (1991): 729–33.
 Koutsobinas, Theodore. The Political Economy of Status: Superstars, Markets, and Culture Change (Edward Elgar Publishing; 2015) 264 pages; on the societal impact of luxury consumption and status markets, and the media's fascination with superstars.
 MacDonald, Glenn M. "The Economics of Rising Stars." American Economic Review 78 (1988): 155–67.
 Rosen, Sherwin. The superstar effect –  "The Economics of Superstars", American Economic Review, 71 (1981).
 Salganik, Matthew J., Peter Sheridan Dodds, and Duncan J. Watts. "Experimental Study of Inequality and Unpredictability in an Artificial Cultural Market." Science 311 (2006): 854–56.
 Pattni, Anandi. 'Superstars: People who are good to me' Vanity Fair 157 (2007): 185–89.
 Grinin L.,  "People of Celebrity" as a New Social Stratum and Elite. In Hierarchy and Power in the History of Civilizations: Cultural Dimensions (pp. 183–206). / Ed. by Leonid E. Grinin and Andrey V. Korotayev. Moscow: KRASAND, 2009

1910s neologisms
Acting
Celebrity
Film and video terminology

Superstar


Hedda Berntsen (born 24 April 1976) is a Norwegian sportsperson who has competed internationally in telemark skiing, alpine skiing, freestyle skiing and skicross. She is world champion in Telemark classic from 1997. She later concentrated on the alpine slalom, her career peaking in the 2000–01 season with consistent performances in the World Cup as well as a bronze medal at the 2001 World Championships. She later switched to skicross, receiving a silver medal at the 2008 Winter X Games.  In the Vancouver Winter Olympics on 23 February 2010 she won the silver medal in the women's skicross competition.

Background
Hedda Berntsen hails from Filtvet, and is the older sister of freestyle skier Ingrid Berntsen. She studied at Middlebury College from 1995 to 1999. Her first international sporting triumph was the gold medal in the classic telemark event at the 1997 World Championships.

Career

Alpine skiing
In alpine skiing she had made her international debut in December 1995, when competing in a FIS Race in Bjorli. Her World Cup debut came many years later, in February 2000, when she finished 23rd in slalom in Santa Caterina. She followed up with an eleventh place in Åre a week later. She then opened the 2000–01 season with another 11th place, from Park City in November. In December and January she finished among the top 10 in all her World Cup slalom races, the best result being a fifth place from Flachau. Then, at the 2001 World Championships staged in St. Anton, she won a surprising bronze medal. She rounded off the season with two World Cup fifth places.

Berntsen opened the 2001–02 season with a fifth place at Copper Mountain. However, this remained her season's best result as she did not finish half her races, and recorded only an 11th place in Åre in February. Two weeks later she competed in slalom at the 2002 Winter Olympics, but again did not finish the race. However, with both Hedda and Ingrid competing at the same Olympic Games, but in different sports, the sisters were historic in a Norwegian context. Hedda Berntsen then competed in a lot more races the 2002–03 season, but not only in the World Cup circuit. Her season's best was a 12th place in January in Maribor. Then, she achieved mediocre results at the 2003 World Championships staged in St. Moritz, an 18th place in combined being the best placement.

In November 2003, she was dropped from the national alpine skiing team in favor of Lene Løseth. This prompted Berntsen to announce her retirement the next month. She competed sporadically in the World Cup between December 2003 and January 2007, but only actually managed to finish one of 13 races, with a 37th place in January 2006 in St. Moritz.

Freestyle skiing
Berntsen eventually took up freestyle skiing, specializing in the skicross. She made her World Cup debut in February 2007, finishing ninth in Les Contamines. The next month she finished 10th at the World Championships in Madonna di Campiglio. In the 2007–08 season she opened with a second place in Les Contamines in January. She recorded two additional second places before the end of the season. She also won the silver medal at the Winter X Games XII. In the 2008–09 season she opened with a fifth place in St. Johann in January, and followed up with her first World Cup victory in Les Contamines.

References

External links

1976 births
Living people
Norwegian telemark skiers
Norwegian female alpine skiers
Olympic alpine skiers for Norway
Alpine skiers at the 2002 Winter Olympics
Olympic freestyle skiers for Norway
Norwegian female freestyle skiers
Freestyle skiers at the 2010 Winter Olympics
X Games athletes
People from Buskerud
Olympic silver medalists for Norway
Olympic medalists in freestyle skiing
Medalists at the 2010 Winter Olympics
Middlebury College alumni
Sportspeople from Viken (county)
21st-century Norwegian women
21st-century Norwegian people

Hedda Berntsen


The Ziwiye hoard is a treasure hoard containing gold, silver, and ivory objects, also including a few  gold pieces with the shape of human face , that was uncovered on in Ziwiyeh plat near Saqqez city in Kurdistan Province, Iran, in 1947.

Provenance
Objects from the hoard provide a link between the cultures of the Iranian plateau and the nomadic or Scythian art forms known as the "animal style". "The Scythian motifs adopted by Urartu account for the decoration of the great Treasure of Saqqez brought to light on the south shore of Lake Urmia," was Leonard Woolley's assessment (Woolley 1961 p 176).

Style
The hoard contains objects in four styles: Assyrian, Scythian, proto-Achaemenid, and the provincial native pieces. Dated ca. 700 BC, this collection of objects illustrates the situation of the Iranian plateau as a crossroads of cultural highways—not least of them the Silk Road—which fused disparate cultures to inform early Iranian art. The objects have also been related to finds at Teppe Hasanlu and Marlyk.

Current location
Examples of the Ziwiye Treasure are scattered among public and private collections. A 'Ziwiye' provenance may have been applied to comparable objects that have passed through the trade since the 1960s. Items attributed to the hoard are currently in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Louvre in Paris and the British Museum in London.

Controversy
The archaeologist Oscar White Muscarella has questioned the whole account of the finding of the hoard (as he has done with the older Oxus Treasure), pointing out that none of the items were excavated under archaeological conditions, but passed through the hands of dealers. He concludes that "there are no objective sources of information that any of the attributed objects actually were found at Ziwiye, although it is probable that some were", and that the objects have no historical and archaeological value as a group", although many are genuine and "exquisite works of art".  In a later work Muscarella denounced several "Ziwiye" objects as modern forgeries.

Gallery

See also
Ziwiyeh Castle
Ziviyeh District

References

Sources
Muscarella, Oscar White (1977), Archaeology, Artifacts and Antiquities of the Ancient Near East: Sites, Cultures, and Proveniences, 2013, BRILL, , 9789004236691, google books, reprinted article from Journal of Field Archaeology, 1977, 4, nr. 2, "Ziwiye and Ziwiye': The Forgery of a Provenience"; google books
 Muscarella, Oscar White (2000), The Lie Became Great. The Forgery of Ancient Near Eastern Cultures. Groningen, Styx 2000, 539 p., , google books
 Talbot Rice, Tamara, Ancient Arts of Central Asia, 1965, Thames & Hudson (Praeger in USA)
Woolley, Leonard, 1961.The Art of The Middle East, including Persia, Mesopotamia and Palestine. (New York: Crown Publishers)
Porada, Edith et al., 1962. The Art of Ancient Iran : Pre-Islamic Cultures (New York: Crown) On-line excerpt
 Report of an exploratory dig at Ziwiye by the American archaeologist Robert Dyson in 1963, Penn Museum

Scythians
Archaeological discoveries in Iran
Treasure troves of Asia
Kurdistan Province
Iranian archaeological artifacts
Middle Eastern objects in the British Museum
Archaeology of the Achaemenid Empire
Gold objects
Metalwork in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Near Eastern and Middle Eastern antiquities in the Louvre
Persian art
1947 in Iran
1947 archaeological discoveries
Saqqez County
Iran–United Kingdom relations
France–Iran relations
Ancient art in metal

Ziwiye hoard


Nicolas Desmarest (16 September 1725 – 20 September 1815) was a French geologist.

Desmarest was born at Soulaines in the department of Aube in France. He was educated at the college of the Oratorians of Troyes and Paris. While doing this, he earned money by teaching, to pay for his education.

Buffon's Theory of the Earth interested him, and in 1753 he won a prize by writing an essay on the ancient connection between England and France. A lot of people were interested in this. He was given job studying and reporting on manufacturing in different countries. In 1788 he became inspector-general of the industries of France.

Demarest travelled around on foot to learn more about the Earth's structure. In 1763 he noticed that the basalt rocks in Auvergne were old lava streams. He noticed that they were similar to the columns of the Giant's Causeway in Ireland. He knew that they were evidence of the operations of old volcanoes which were no longer active.

In 1774 he published an essay on the subject (with a geological map) after visiting the area a few times. He then discussed the changes that the rocks had gone through because of weathering and erosion. This was the first time that anyone had talked about valleys being made because streams which flowed through them eroding the rocks.

He died in Paris in 1815. In 1823 his son Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest published a new and better edition of his map.

References

French geologists
People from Aube
1725 births
1815 deaths

Nicolas Desmarest


The weekend is a time when fewer people go to work or school. Traditional Christians believe that Sunday is a day of rest or Sabbath, and Jews believe the day of rest is the seventh day, Saturday, and start the week with Sunday. Friday is also considered the beginning of the weekend, and it is a day of rest for Muslims.

Days

Weekend


Quattrocento is the Italian term that means "four hundred" for the years belonging to the fifteenth century. It was one of the most important periods of European art and culture. It started in Italy and it is the first phase of the movement known as Renaissance.

Characteristics

The Quattrocento (1401-1500) began in Florence, promoted by the Medici family.  At this time the figure of the artist and creator was imposed at the expense of anonymity. Man was considered the most perfect work of God, in the early renaissance artists.

In this century art painting techniques evolve, getting the "perspective", and in sculpture comes an improvement based on the imitation of classical Greek and Roman art.  Even in architecture there was a return to the lines of Roman monuments.

Lorenzo de' Medici encouraged a lot of his countrymen to commission works from Florence's leading artists, including Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, and Michelangelo Buonarroti.

The best artists (after the genius of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti, who worked mainly during the Cinquecento) of this period are:
[[File:Sandro Botticelli - La nascita di Venere - Google Art Project - edited.jpg|thumb|The Birth of Venus''' by Sandro Botticelli]]
Sculpture: the sculptors were interested in representing the human body, such as Donatello and Ghiberti.
Painting: paintings applied in perspective, representing the depth, as Masaccio, Fra Angelico, Sandro Botticelli, Piero della Francesca, Paolo Uccello, Filippo Lippi and Andrea Mantegna. In 1470, Botticelli paints the famous Birth of Venus, in Florence.
Architecture: architects sought introducing space domain and provided simple elements such as Filippo Brunelleschi and Leon Battista Alberti.

In Literature the Quattrocento is famous mainly because of Niccolò Machiavelli and Ludovico Ariosto. Indeed, the fundamental characteristic of this literary epoch is that it perfected itself in every kind of art, in particular uniting the essentially Italian character of its language with classicism of style. This period lasted until about a few years after 1494 when Charles VIII of France descended into Italy, marking the beginning of Italy's foreign domination and political decadence.

The famous literary men of the Quattrocento had been educated in the culture created in the preceding century.  Niccolò Machiavelli was born in 1469, Michelangelo Buonarroti and Ludovico Ariosto in 1474, Jacopo Nardi in 1476, Gian Giorgio Trissino in 1478, Francesco Guicciardini in 1482, Pietro Pomponazzi in 1462, Marcello Adriani Virgilio in 1464 and Baldassare Castiglione in 1468.

The Renaissance music of Quattrocento was centered around Bartolomeo da Bologna. Indeed, after the "Burgundian School" came to an end, Italy became the leading exponent of Renaissance music and continued its innovation with the Venetian and (somewhat more conservative) Roman Schools of composition.

Notes

Bibliography
 Pullan, Brian S. History of Early Renaissance Italy. London: Lane, 1973.
 Zuffi, Stefano. Il Quattrocento''. Electa editrice. Milano, 2004.

Related pages
 Duecento
 Trecento
 Cinquecento

Renaissance
15th century in Italy

Quattrocento


The Dunajec River Gorge (; ; ) runs through the Pieniny Mountains in the south of Poland and the north of Slovakia (as Dunajec is the border river between the two countries in the area). The gorge is characterized by some of the most interesting geological and geomorphological structures and area-specific natural ecosystems with little anthropogenic influence. It is featured on UNESCO's Tentative List of World Heritage Sites in Poland.

Dunajec Gorge is also one of the best-known tourist attractions in the Pieniny Mountains. Wooden raft trips have been organized daily by Pieniny Gorals since the early 19th century — when their customers consisted mostly of guests of nearby Niedzica and Czorsztyn castles. The trip begins in the village of Sromowce Wyżne-Kąty, and ends in the resort town of Szczawnica, 18 km downstream. It takes about 2–3 hours. The second leg of the tour is only 5 km long. It begins in Szczawnica and ends in the town of Krościenko nad Dunajcem. The Gorge makes 7 loops in its length. The surrounding rock reaches 300 m in height almost all the way through.

Geography
The gorge is part of a valley located within the Pieniny National Park. The landscape distinguishes it from surrounding mountains due to interaction of natural factors such as geological ground, relief, water, soil, climate, flora and fauna, and their evolutionary relationships. All these elements contribute to the complexity of the natural beauty of the whole area.

The conditions for the development of unique flora and fauna are closely related to the limestone and dolomite strata. Literally, the rock is the foundation for this one-of-a-kind environment. There is the occurrence of the Carpathians' plant and animal species, in many cases endemic. Their varied morphologic segmentation is responsible for the area's original and highly valuable aesthetic character.

From a botanical standpoint the Dunajec River Gorge serves as an example of area-specific vegetation dating back to the glacial age, even though the Pieniny Mountains were not glaciated. From a geographical standpoint it exists apart from the West Carpathians flora (Carpaticum occidentale) with their endemics and subendemics. From a zoological standpoint the valleys cut in Mesozoic rocks have an extraordinary importance for preservation of many species and fauna of the Carpathians. Enormous segmentation of the terrain results in high concentration of biodiversity in a relatively small area.

The Dunajec River Gorge represents the main stages of geological and geomorphological evolution of mountain terrain from the early Cenozoic era to the Quaternary period including tectonic movement, geological structure, petrographic composition and proportion of rocks.

See also
 Dunajec River
 Trzy Korony (Three Crowns) massif
 Pieniny National Park (Poland)
 Niedzica Castle overlooking Czorsztyn Lake
 World Heritage Sites of Poland
 Tourism in Poland
 Dunajec river castles

Notes

References
 Official site of Polskie Stowarzyszenie Flisaków Pienińskich na Dunajcu - information about rafting
The Dunajec River Gorge in the Pieniny Mountains. UNESCO
 Pieniny Mountains and Dunajec River Rafting  at www.pieniny.us
 Pieniny Mountains and the Dunajec Gorge at info-poland.buffalo.edu
River Dunajec at PieninyPortal.com
  Pieniny National Park, Poland, at Google Maps
Rafting on the Dunajec river

Mountain ranges of Poland
Western Carpathians
Geography of Lesser Poland Voivodeship
Canyons and gorges of Europe

Dunajec River Gorge


A büchner funnel is a piece of laboratory equipment which is used to filter or separate a liquid from a solid. It is named after an industrial chemist called Ernst Büchner.

Structure

A Büchner funnel can be made out of porcelain, glass or plastic. On the top there is a container with a hole in the bottom. This container is put on top of a Büchner flask with a hole in the top and a hole in the side. In between the container and the Büchner flask there is a piece of filter paper which lets through liquids but not any solids. Attached to the hole in the side there is a vacuum which sucks the air out of the Büchner flask. This means that when any mixture is poured into the top, the liquid is sucked through the filter paper and the solid is left stuck in the filter paper.

Uses
A Büchner flask is used in chemistry to take unwanted solids out of any liquids. The advantages of using a Büchner flask over just a piece of filter paper held over a beaker is that the solid is dried as more and more liquid is sucked off of it by the vacuum. Most of the time it needs to be dried again in an oven, but sometimes no further drying is needed.

Related pages
Büchner flask

Other websites
A Büchner funnel manufacturer
Experiment using Büchner funnels
More examples of Büchner funnels

Laboratory equipment

Büchner funnel


The erhu (二胡; pinyin: èrhú) is a two-stringed bowed musical instrument which may also be called a "southern fiddle", and sometimes known in the Western world as the "Chinese violin" or a "Chinese two-stringed fiddle". It is used as a solo instrument as well as in small ensembles and big orchestras. It is the most popular of the huqin family of bowed string instruments used by various ethnic groups of China. The erhu is used in both traditional and contemporary music arrangements, such as in pop, rock, jazz, etc.

References

String instruments
Chinese culture

Erhu


In cryptography, linear cryptanalysis is a general form of cryptanalysis based on finding affine approximations to the action of a cipher. Attacks have been developed for block ciphers and stream ciphers. Linear cryptanalysis is one of the two most widely used attacks on block ciphers; the other being differential cryptanalysis.

A variety of refinements to the attack have been suggested, including using multiple linear approximations or including non-linear expressions.

Evidence of security against linear cryptanalysis is usually expected of new cipher designs.

Related pages
 Differential cryptanalysis

Cryptography

Linear cryptanalysis


A show house, also called a model home or display home, is a term for a "display" version of manufactured homes, or houses in a subdivision. They are used on newly built developments to show the living space and features of homes available. Show homes are often built in such a way that they can be sold like any other house, and as such are connected to electrical and telephone cables and have functioning water systems.

They almost always are equipped with full furnishings, including appliances and interior decoration ("staging") to allow prospective buyers to more easily visualize what the house would look like when lived in. Once the home is ultimately put up for sale, many builders will give buyers the option to buy the home in its fully furnished state.

In model homes that have attached garages (which is common among homes in subdivisions), the garage is usually completely finished to look like another room of the house, making it viable office space for the salespeople working at the model. This is often the first thing that prospective buyers see when entering the home, making it a "lobby" of sorts. The eventual homeowner can choose to keep it as a home office or utilize it as a garage.

See also

Architectural model

References

House types
Selling techniques
Residential real estate

Show house


Freeman Thomas (born August 20, 1957) is an American automobile and industrial designer who has worked for Porsche, Volkswagen Group, DaimlerChrysler and Ford.

Background
Thomas, the son of an American military air traffic controller and a German mother, traveled frequently around Europe during his childhood.  This led to an early awareness of cars - in his own words, "a certain sense of automotive space."

Early career
After graduating from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, Freeman worked as a senior designer at Porsche from 1983 to 1987.

After leaving Porsche, he worked in consultancy, journalism and teaching, before joining Volkswagen of America in 1991.

Volkswagen Group
While at the Volkswagen Design Center in Simi Valley, California, he collaborated with fellow Art Center graduate J Mays on the design of the Volkswagen Concept 1 concept car, a modern re-interpretation of the original Volkswagen Beetle.  This was first shown at the 1994 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS), and the positive response led to the car entering production as the Volkswagen New Beetle.  In 1994, he began the design of the acclaimed Audi TT concept car, which also led to a production model.

From 1996 to 1999, Thomas was a member of J Mays' SHR Perceptual Management industrial design consultancy, before returning to Volkswagen of America as head of design.

DaimlerChrysler
In 1999, Thomas was appointed vice president of DaimlerChrysler Advanced Product Design Strategy, later becoming head of their Pacifica Advanced Design Center in 2002.  At DaimlerChrysler he oversaw the design of several Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep concept cars and production models.

Ford
Thomas moved to the Ford Motor Company, taking up the role of Director, Strategic Design for North America on 1 June 2005.  He is responsible for developing product design strategies and concept vehicles for the Ford (inclusive of the current Mustang design), Lincoln and Mercury marques.

R Gruppe
Cris Huergas and Freeman Thomas of California founded R Gruppe, an early 911 Porsche sports club on May 15, 1999. They did so with the intention of bringing like-minded individual together to share technical and historical information related to their cars, as well as sharing views and ideas concerning the ownership, preparation, maintenance and operation of their cars.

Designs
Thomas is credited with the following designs:
Volkswagen New Beetle
Audi TT
Audi A4
Audi A6

 Panoz Roadster
Chrysler Pacifica
Dodge Super 8 Hemi concept
Jeep Willys concept
Jeep Treo concept
Dodge Sling Shot concept
Jeep Rescue concept
Dodge Tomahawk concept motorcycle
With Ralph Gilles
Chrysler 300
Dodge Magnum
Dodge Charger

References

American automobile designers
Chrysler designers
Volkswagen Group designers
Audi people
Living people
1957 births

Freeman Thomas


The Independent State of Rainbow Creek was an Australian secessionist micronation active during the 1970s and 80s, located in Cowwarr, a town on the Thomson River in the Victorian Alps. It was founded on 23 July 1979 by Thomas Barnes in protest of alleged incompetence by the Government of Victoria and others in regards to the flooding of his and others' properties.

Background
It was founded as a result of a long-running compensation dispute between a group of Victorian farmers in the town of Cowwarr, and an agency of the Victorian state government, the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission (SRWSC), .

A road bridge built over the Thomson River at Cowwarr in the late 1930s proved to be sited too close to the annual flood high-water mark, so when that structure proved an impediment to the flow of debris during a particularly violent flood in 1952, the river simply carved a new course for itself around the edge of the bridge. This "breakaway" - later named Rainbow Creek - passed through a number of privately owned farming properties. Remedial action proved ineffective, and the creek was enlarged by subsequent flooding to the size of several football fields - at the expense of the affected farmers' lands.

The farmers began using water from the creek to irrigate their properties, however, local and state authorities responded by serving them with levies for water use. Those affected had to pay one set of levies to the local council for land which was now underwater because their title deeds did not show the existence of the creek, a second levy to the SRWSC for using creek waters for irrigation purposes, and a third levy to the Thomson River Improvement Trust which was supposed to prevent further erosion by the creek - which nonetheless continued to grow with each new flood. The SRWSC then constructed a weir across the river downstream of the bridge in 1954, which had the effect of funneling even higher volumes of floodwater directly into Rainbow Creek.

By the late 1970s, the creek was 8 metres (26 feet) deep and over 50 metres (164 feet) wide, and farmers had to privately fund the construction of bridges to cross from one part of their properties to the other. These were all washed away, along with crops, stock, and equipment by particularly severe flooding in 1978. The farmers of Cowwarr had long blamed government incompetence over nearly three decades for their woes, but when they were denied the right to claim compensation for loss of land, productivity, and private infrastructure in 1978 they decided to take further action.

One of the worst affected properties was Yammacoona, located directly below the weir, and owned by Thomas Barnes since 1970. Barnes was a retired UK and Victorian police officer who had settled in the town some time before. He was known as a man of feisty temperament with little patience for the slow-turning wheels of government bureaucracy, and a flair for publicity.

Secession
In an attempt to gain public sympathy Barnes and around thirty other farmers decided to declare war on the state of Victoria. Signed on 19 December 1978, the Declaration was served with due pomp to a bemused governor in Melbourne on 16 January 1979, before banks of television cameras. Some legal scuffling between Barnes and the SRWSC followed in the Victorian court system, during which minor points were won and lost on both sides, after which a government offer of loans - but not the desired compensation - was rejected by the farmer group.

Barnes meanwhile had become aware of the Hutt River Province and seeking to emulate "Prince Leonard" took legal advice and then declared the unilateral secession of his property from the State of Victoria on 23 July 1979. He appointed himself "Governor" of the newly created Independent State of Rainbow Creek, and together with "Minister for Information" George Downing, swore allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom as his Head of State. His secession document was lodged with the Victorian Governor, the Governor-General of Australia, Buckingham Palace and the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Public attention was again focused on Cowwarr, and the existence of the State of Rainbow Creek ensured that Barnes remained a thorn in the side of the SRWSC and the Victorian Government for a number of years, as he issued passports, stamps, banknotes and other printed material to promote the cause of his farming community.

Ill health eventually forced Barnes to retire to Queensland in the mid-1980s, from where he has since published several books of local history and poetry, whilst the issues that led to the Rainbow Creek secession remained unresolved.

References
 "If at first you don't secede...", by Mark Dapin, The Sydney Morning Herald - Good Weekend, 12 February 2005, pp 47–50
Local Stamps of Australia by Bill Hornadge, pub Review Publications, Dubbo, NSW, 1st ed. 1982

External links
Stamps and banknotes of the Independent State of Rainbow Creek

History of Victoria (state)
Rainbow Creek
States and territories established in 1979
Former unrecognized countries
Micronations

Independent State of Rainbow Creek


Sainte Germaine lived from 1579 to 1601. She was born in a village in France called Pibrac, which is about ten miles from Toulouse, France.

Life
She was born with a disfigured hand and a disease called scrofula. When she was a baby, her mother died. Germaine's father married again, but her new stepmother was cruel to Germaine. Germaine's stepmother did not want the other children to contract scrofula, so she talked her husband into keeping Germaine away from the house. When she was very young she started to be a shepherdess. At night she slept in the stable or on vine branches in a roof space. In early ages she learned to practice humility and patience. She was not lonely because she had a gift with a sense of presence of God and other spiritual things. Her daily food was bread and water. She loved Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary. She went to church every day. When she heard the church bell ring, she fixed her staff on the ground and left the sheep in the care of Jesus while she was in mass. Even though the flock was near a forest filled with wolves, the sheep were never harmed. After heavy rains or the snow melted, it was hard to cross to go to church. Her only book was the Rosary, and she had great devotion to the Angelus. Several times people saw the water make a passageway for Germaine to cross without wetting her cloths. She helped the poor by sharing her bread with them. One day Germaine's father forbade her wife to treat Germaine cruelly, and gave Germaine a place in the house. Germaine begged to be allowed to keep her humbler way of life. Now, when everyone began to realize Germaine's holiness, she died. She had not awoken at her usual hour one early summer morning of 1601, so her father went to look for her. He found her dead on the vine branches. She was 22 years old. She was buried in front of the stand in the Church of Pibrac.

People from Haute-Garonne
Christian saints
1579 births
1601 deaths
16th-century French people

Saint Germaine


Pragmatic ethics is a kind of ethics that focuses  on  the development in society: People such as John Dewey believe that the moral progress a society makes is related to the progress and level in science of that society. Scientists look at hypotheses and examine them; they can then act in such a way that they believe these hypotheses to be true. When science advances, future scientists can replace a hypothesis with a better one.

Ethics

Pragmatic ethics