That Championship Season is a 1972 play by Jason Miller. It was the recipient of the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 1973 Tony Award for Best Play.

Plot synopsis

The setting is 1972 at the Coach's home in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

On the 20th anniversary of their victory in the Pennsylvania state championship game, four members of the starting lineup of a Catholic high school basketball team have gathered to celebrate. This reunion may be their last chance to reminisce with each other, due to their Coach's illness. The fifth member of the starting lineup, Martin (who made the game-winning shot), has refused to attend the reunion. He bears a grudge against the Coach for reasons that do not become clear until late in the play.

George Sitkowski has become Scranton's mayor, but he has proven inept and unpopular, and he is likely to lose his re-election bid. The fact that his challenger is Jewish is particularly galling to him.

Phil Romano has become a millionaire in the strip-mining business, using his close ties to Sitkowski to obtain mining permits. Though Romano helps George financially, he is carrying on an affair with George's wife.

James Daley is a local junior high school principal; his brother Tom is an unsuccessful, embittered, cynical alcoholic and ne'er-do-well writer.

None of the men's lives have turned out as any of them had hoped; on some level, all still look to the Coach for guidance. The Coach has always been the embodiment of old-school Catholicism (Senator Joseph McCarthy and Father Charles Coughlin are heroes of his). He was also the one person in their lives who was sure of everything, and his absolute certainty and confidence gave them a sense of security. While the Coach thought he was teaching his players how to be men, they instead became emotional adolescents who still need him to tell them how to live their lives. But the Coach's pep talks, which had always inspired them, are beginning to sound hollow. Only now do they realize that the Coach was a bigot, a bully, and a bit of a fraud.

Productions

Off-Broadway (1972)
The play made its off-Broadway debut at the Estelle Newman Theatre on May 2, 1972, where it ran for 144 performances, closing on September 3, 1972. It was directed by A.J. Antoon, and it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Broadway (1972–1974)
A transfer of the off-Broadway production opened on Broadway at the Booth Theatre, running for 700 performances, opening on September 14, 1972, and closing on April 21, 1974. This production won the 1973 New York Drama Critics' Circle, Drama Desk, and Tony Award for Best Play. The production starred Richard Dysart, Charles Durning, Paul Sorvino and Michael McGuire.

Off-Broadway revival (1999)
A short-lived off-Broadway revival played from April 21 to May 2, 1999, at the Second Stage Theatre. It was directed by Scott Ellis, with lighting by Kenneth Posner, and lasted for 14 performances.

Broadway revival (2011)
Gregory Mosher directed a revival of the play on Broadway at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre. Previews began on February 9, 2011, with a limited engagement from March 6 to May 29, 2011. It starred Brian Cox as Coach, Jim Gaffigan as George Sikowski, Chris Noth as Phil Romano, Jason Patric (Miller's son) as Tom Daley and Kiefer Sutherland as James Daley. Highlights of the production were released on February 25, 2011. The revival met with a lukewarm reception from the critics.

Reception
At the time of its premiere, That Championship Season was a critical success. Those who liked the play complimented its humor, dialogue, and characters. Reviewing the Broadway production, Clive Barnes of the New York Times wrote, "Mr. Miller has a perfect ear and instinct for the rough and tumble profanity of locker-room humor. The coarsely elegant gibes go along with Mr. Miller's indictment of a society, which opens with an ironic playing of the National Anthem and then lacerates the sickness of small-town America full of bigotry, double-dealing, racism and hate."

Film adaptations

Miller wrote and directed the film adaptation of the play that was released in 1982. Robert Mitchum starred as the Coach, replacing William Holden, who had died before filming began. Bruce Dern, Stacy Keach, Martin Sheen, and Paul Sorvino completed the cast.

In 1999, Miller wrote another screenplay for television that was directed by Paul Sorvino, who also played the Coach. This version also starred Vincent D'Onofrio, Terry Kinney, Tony Shalhoub, and Gary Sinise, and the latter was a co-producer.

References

External links

 That Championship Season at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
 Published script from Google Books

1972 plays
Broadway plays
American plays adapted into films
Plays set in Pennsylvania
Pulitzer Prize for Drama-winning works
Tony Award-winning plays

That Championship Season


The 200th Battalion, CEF was a unit in the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the First World War.  Based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the unit began recruiting during the winter of 1915/16 in that city.  After sailing to England in May 1917, the battalion was absorbed into the 11th Reserve Battalion on May 14, 1917.  The 200th Battalion, CEF had one Officer Commanding: Lieut-Col. A. L. Bonnycastle.

References
Meek, John F. Over the Top! The Canadian Infantry in the First World War. Orangeville, Ont.: The Author, 1971.

Battalions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force
Military units and formations of Manitoba

200th (Winnipeg) Battalion, CEF


For the American politician see Benjamin T. Bartlett IV

Benjamin Bartlett (1714–1787), was an English numismatical and topographical writer.

Life
Bartlett was of an old-established quaker family at Bradford, Yorkshire, where his father was an apothecary, having for his apprentice the afterwards celebrated Dr John Fothergill. At an early age Bartlett showed a great aptitude for antiquarian pursuits. He left Bradford for London, where he set up an apothecary's business in Red Lion Street. This, however, he was eventually obliged to relinquish on account of failing health, resigning it to his partner, Mr. French. In his spare time he formed an extensive collection of English coins and seals from the Saxon time downwards, which was sold by auction after his death. His knowledge in the various departments of numismatology was most extensive, and we are told that it would have been difficult to find his equal on this subject. In 1764 he was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and at the time of his death was their treasurer.

His only literary venture was a memoir on the Episcopal Coins of Durham, and the Monastic Coins of Reading, minted during the reigns of Edward I, II, and III, appropriated to their respective owners, this having been the substance of a paper read before the Society of Antiquaries on 5 March 1778. He had, however, prepared for publication Manduessedum Romanorum, or The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Manceter''' afterwards printed in Nichols's Topographical Antiquities. He also received the public thanks of Dr. Nash for the valuable communications he contributed to the History of Worcestershire, and Gough, in his prospectus prefixed to the History of Thetford'', published in 1789, acknowledges himself to have been indebted to "that able master, Mr. Benjamin Bartlett", for the arrangement of the coins.

He died of dropsy on 2 March 1787, at the age of 73, and was interred in the quakers' burying-ground at Hartshill, Warwickshire.

References

1714 births
1787 deaths
Deaths from edema
18th-century English writers
18th-century English male writers
English non-fiction writers
Writers from Bradford
English Quakers
18th-century Quakers
18th-century antiquarians
English antiquarians
English male non-fiction writers

Benjamin Bartlett


Karl Julius Beloch (21 January 1854 in Nieder-Petschkendorf – 1 February 1929 in Rome) was a German classical and economic historian.

Biography
From 1872 to 1875, he studied classical philology and ancient history in Freiburg, Heidelberg and Rome, obtaining his PhD from the University of Rome in 1875 (thesis "Sulla costituzione politica dell'Elide"). In 1879 he became an associate professor at Rome, where, from 1891 to 1912, he served as a full professor of ancient history. In 1912/13, he was a professor of ancient history at the University of Leipzig.

Beloch is known for his critical examinations of classical Greek and Roman history. He was skeptical of traditional sources, and frequently presented a new and subjective reconstruction of historical events. These historical beliefs placed him out of favor with several influential German scholars, particularly the famed historian Theodor Mommsen (1817-1903). In 1889 Beloch was denied professorship at Breslau, a position that had been vacated by Eduard Meyer (1855-1930), and instead given to Ulrich Wilcken (1862-1944). His daughter Margherita Beloch Piazzolla was a mathematics professor in Ferrara.

Among his numerous publications were a four-volume opus of Greek history titled Griechische Geschichte, and a systematic study involving the demography of the Greco-Roman world called Die Bevölkerung der griechisch-römischen Welt.

Selected works
 Das italische Bund unter Roms Hegemonie; staatsrechtliche und statistische Forschungen (26 editions published between 1880 and 1964 in 3 languages) – The Italic covenant of Rome's hegemony: constitutional and statistical research.
 Die attische Politik seit Perikles (34 editions published between 1884 and 1968 in German and English) – Athenian politics since Pericles.
 Campanien : Geschichte und Topographie des antiken Neapel und seiner Umgebung (25 editions published between 1890 and 1964 in 3 languages) – Campania: History and topography of ancient Naples and surrounding areas.
 Griechische Geschichte (88 editions published between 1893 and 1967 in 5 languages) – Greek history.
 1. Bd. Die Zeit vor den Perserkriegen. -- The period before the Persian wars.
 2. Bd. Bis auf die sophistische Bewegung und den Peloponnesischen Krieg—Up until the Sophistic movement and the Peloponnesian War.
 3. Bd. Bis auf Aristotles und die Eroberung Asiens. -- Prior to Aristotle and the conquest of Asia.
 4. Bd. Die griechische Weltherrschaft—Greek world domination.
 Die Bevölkerung der griechisch-römischen Welt (38 editions published between 1886 and 1979) – Demographics of the Greco-Roman world.
 Römische Geschichte bis zum Beginn der punischen Kriege, 1926 – Roman history up to the beginning of the Punic Wars.
 Bevölkerungsgeschichte Italiens (18 editions published between 1937 and 1961) – Italian demographic history.

See also
Classical demography

References

External links

German classical scholars
Historians of antiquity
Hellenists
1854 births
1929 deaths
Academic staff of the Sapienza University of Rome
Academic staff of Leipzig University
Heidelberg University alumni
University of Freiburg alumni
Scholars of ancient Greek history
19th-century German historians
20th-century German historians
19th-century German writers
19th-century German male writers
Burials in the Protestant Cemetery, Rome
Expatriates in Italy
German male non-fiction writers
Members of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities

Karl Julius Beloch


Pamela Hardy Peters (born 28 March 1942) is an Australian linguist. She is an Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at Macquarie University, Sydney. She is a member of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Standing Committee on Spoken English. She has published several books on Australian and international English usage, including The Cambridge Guide to English Usage (2004) and The Cambridge Guide to Australian English Usage (2007). She was a member of the editorial committee of the Macquarie Dictionary.

References

1942 births
Living people
Academic staff of Macquarie University

Pam Peters


The Reverend Frederik Hermanus Kaan (27 July 1929 — 4 October 2009) was a clergyman of Dutch origin who served in the Congregational Church in Britain (subsequently part of the United Reformed Church) and a prodigious hymnwriter.

Early life
Kaan was born in Haarlem, Netherlands, and his teenage years coincided with the Nazi occupation. His parents were committed anti-Nazis who were active in the Dutch Resistance; guns and fugitives were hidden in the family home. The family were affected by the Nazi induced famine in early 1945, when three of Kaan's grandparents died.

His experiences of wartime Netherlands had a lasting effect upon Kaan. His Christianity had previously been nominal; he had not entered a church until his late teens, despite his baptism in the Grote Kerk, Haarlem. He became a pacifist, attended church and was confirmed in 1947; subsequently, he studied theology and psychology at Utrecht University.

Ministry
Kaan had become a pen-friend of an English Congregationalist and through this contact was attracted to the denomination. In 1952 he commenced studies at Western College, Bristol, and in 1955 he was ordained as a Congregational minister and took up his first pastorate at the Windsor Road Congregational Church in Barry, south Wales. In 1963, he was called to Pilgrim Church in Plymouth, where the congregation were particularly responsive to his writing talents.

In 1968, Kaan was sent to Geneva as minister-secretary of the International Congregational Council, to help unite it with the Presbyterian Alliance to form the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. With the Alliance until 1978, his work centred on issues of human rights, inter-church relations, and communications, editing the Alliance's journal and co-producing the multilingual radio programme Intervox.

During this time, Kaan served as chairman of the Council for World Mission, an offshoot of the overseas missionary work of the British Congregational churches. He claimed to have visited faith communities in 83 countries. He also gained an honorary Th.D. from Debrecen Theological Academy (Hungary) and a Ph.D. from Geneva Theological College.

The nomadic life-style did not suit Kaan, however, and, wanting to be closer to people, he became Moderator of the West Midlands province of the United Reformed Church (URC), a post he held for seven years. This was followed in 1985 by a local Anglican, Baptist, Methodist and URC team ministry in Swindon; his final ministry.

Kaan's formal ministry ended in 1989, but he continued work with a four-year term as honorary secretary of the Churches' Human Rights Forum in Britain and Ireland. His hymnwriting also continued.

Hymn writing
Kaan managed a significant literary productivity despite his pastoral commitments: including six collections of hymns, with translations into over fifteen languages. Kaan said that he wrote his first hymn when aged 34. During his pastorate in Plymouth, the first edition of Pilgrim Praise was published in 1968, going into second and third editions in 1972 and 1975. Paul Oestreicher commissioned a hymn for Remembrance Sunday, sung for the first time in Coventry Cathedral, but (in Oestreicher's opinion), freeing it of its anachronistic nationalist theology; Kaan's "For the Healing of the Nations" inspired the title of his biography by Gillian Warson.

In retirement, Kaan worked with the Norwegian composer Knut Nystedt to create a number of works, and with Canadian Ron Klusmeier, who composed over a hundred tunes for Kaan texts. He was made a Fellow of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada in 2001, and in 2002 was awarded the Chancellor's gold medal by the Potchefstroom University in South Africa.

Private life
In 1954, Kaan married Elisabeth ("Elly") Steller, a daughter of German and Dutch missionary parents in Indonesia, and had three children, Martin, Peter and Alison. They separated in 1989, a painful experience that led him to end his formal pastoral ministry. Elly died in 1993, and Kaan married Anthea Cooke, a doctor in general practice in Birmingham. When Anthea retired, the couple moved to the Lake District, but Kaan continued to work as a speaker, preacher and writer.

Fred Kaan died in Penrith on 4 October 2009, having suffered from Alzheimer's disease and cancer in his last years.

The Rev Roberta Rominger, general secretary of the United Reformed Church, said: "We thank God for the gift to us of Fred Kaan, whose passion for peace and justice, ecumenical drive and ability to enable the Church to sing the faith in plain but moving speech have had a major influence on the Church in the last half of the twentieth century."

References

1929 births
2009 deaths
Clergy from Haarlem
Utrecht University alumni
United Reformed Church ministers
Christian hymnwriters
Dutch Christian pacifists
Calvinist pacifists
Dutch emigrants to England
People with Alzheimer's disease
Dutch emigrants to Wales

Fred Kaan


The Quantel Mirage, or DVM8000/1 "Digital Video Manipulator", was a digital real-time video effects processor introduced by Quantel in 1982. It was capable of warping a live video stream by texture mapping it onto an arbitrary three-dimensional shape, around which the viewer could freely rotate or zoom in real-time. It could also interpolate, or morph, between two different shapes. It was considered the first real-time 3D video effects processor.

The Mirage was programmable - new shapes could be created by writing programs in the Pascal programming language on an attached Hewlett-Packard computer. This made the device extremely flexible, but such programming was difficult and it became a highly specialized skill known by few. The programming of the HP mini computer was so complex that only basic canned effects would be practically used by video editors in productions.

Physically, the Mirage was a large device whose processing equipment filled a full-height 19-inch rack, weighed 400 kilograms and consumed over 4 kilowatts of electrical power.

The Quantel Mirage did never-before seen effects, but required heavy math/geometrical programming via the HP computer to define the basic shapes that real-time video would be mapped onto.  One of the effects shown on the National Association of Broadcasters trade-show floor to introduce the Mirage was a flattened Coke soft-drink can on video.  The Mirage in real-time re-assembled the can on a tube, then allowed you to tumble or travel within it while it rotated with partial transparency - allowing you to see the Coke logo in reverse on the opposite side of the can as it would turn.

One famous Mirage user was Mike Oldfield, who purchased one for his extensive home music studio and video production facility. Signature Mirage effects can be seen in the Wind Chimes video album, in the form of rotating spiky spheres and granulated morphing effects.

A common spinning globe effect can be seen on the opening of USA for Africa's "We Are The World," and the Cyndi Lauper "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" music videos.

External links
 U.S. Patent 5,103,217
 Mirage demonstration, Tomorrow's World, BBC, 30 December 1982. via YouTube.
 Mirage demonstration showreel, The Moving Picture Company for Quantel, circa 1982; via YouTube.
 Feature-Based Image Metamorphosis
 Video Statigraphy

Film and video technology
Quantel

Quantel Mirage


Dynamic device mapping is a technology for USB KVM switches that is sometimes implemented as an alternative to standard USB keyboard and mouse emulation. Reverse DDM (short for Dynamic Device Mapping), on the other hand, is a related technology that allows further flexibility regarding specific USB ports.

Design
With DDM (Dynamic Device Mapping) Technology, the communication between shared peripherals and all connected systems is maintained 100% of the time, even as a user switches between the KVM ports.  This makes generic device emulation unnecessary as the DDM allows each connected computer system to believe all connected I/O devices are remaining connected even as the KVM switch might move to another port.

With Reverse DDM, an administrator can provide port-level management control.  Individual USB ports can be limited, configured, or assigned to specific kinds of devices.  This adds a level of security in certain environments that require no USB thumb drives to be used, printers connected, etc.

See also
Dynamic Device Mapping
KVM switch
Display data channel

Computer peripherals

Reverse DDM


Rommel Roberts was born on December 2, 1949, in Durban, South Africa. He is an expert in the study of religion, human rights activist, Director of the Hilltop Empowerment Centre, consultant, lecturer and author.

Life
Rommel Roberts grew up in Mafeking (today: Mahikeng, North-West Province, South Africa), where he was confronted with the effects of apartheid as a child.

His father was white, and his mother Maureen Roberts, a qualified nurse and the only medical specialist for the surrounding townships, was of Indian descent and thus classified as non-white according to the categories of apartheid, and so the family was exposed to diverse discrimination. Rommel grew up with seven siblings.

Rommel Roberts graduated from High School in Cape Town and then studied theology and philosophy at St. Joseph's Theological Institute near Pietermaritzburg.

After his studies he went back to Cape Town, and in the following years committed himself against apartheid working in various human rights groups and organising non-violent actions. Many years he worked alongside Bishop Tutu.

Rommel Roberts was married to Celeste Santos, also a human rights activist, and they had a son and a daughter. They were divorced later.

In the years after Nelson Mandela's release, Roberts was involved in various projects to build up democratic and economic structures as well as taking care of returning exiles. In 1994 he was called to Mafeking to prepare and monitor the first general free elections, also to resolve conflicts in the then 'Homeland' Bophuthatswana.

Since 1995 Roberts has been director of the Hilltop Empowerment Centre in the Eastern Cape. He lives there with his wife Robin, with whom he has been married since 2002. They organize numerous projects aimed at education issues and improving the living conditions of people in rural areas.

He is involved in consultancy work with South African municipalities and government departments as well as occasionally guest lecturing at universities, his topics being community development including IT literacy, communication and conflict resolution.

Rommel Roberts is still politically active today and criticises corruption and lack of services as well as the unequal living conditions in today's South Africa.

Anti-apartheid and political views

When Rommel Roberts came back to Cape Town after his studies in 1974 he was especially interested in working with children and young people. He came in contact with the Early Learning Centre (today Early Learning Resource Unit, ELRU, in Kewtown that was involved in caring for children and general community work.  Kewtown was a township near Cape Town where mainly coloured people lived. So Rommel Roberts learned about the townships and informal settlements which emerged as a result of the apartheid government's policy to evict and resettle black and coloured people. Roberts got deeply involved in supporting those people who often lived in poor housing conditions, sometimes only in shacks or provisional shelters. And even these dwellings were not secure as the government often destroyed whole townships, e.g. the township Modderdam in 1977. Through his association with the South African Council of Churches, Rommel Roberts worked together with Bishop Desmond Tutu as his national development officer. Rommel Roberts´ tasks also included building up national and international support networks.

Roberts worked  in human rights groups organising campaigns against government oppression and cruel treatment. In the case of Modderdam, after legal interventions had failed, they organised the evacuation of about 10.000 people when their homes were demolished and people were threatened to be deported to the so-called 'homelands'. The Apartheid policy was that Blacks were no real citizens of South Africa and had to live in remote so-called 'homelands' where there were no job opportunities. They could only live in South Africa temporarily, and in order to live in South Africa they had to have a 'Pass'. The protest against these 'Pass Laws' was one of the key issues in the struggle against apartheid and has a long history. Together with others Roberts organised lots of campaigns, boycotts and protest marches. One of the famous actions was the Cathedral fast in the St. George's Cathedral in Cape Town where people fasted for more than 20 days before Easter in 1982 and which resulted in the suspension of the Pass Laws.

Because of his activities against apartheid Roberts was in prison several times.

Roberts has always believed that real changes could only be brought about with non-violent means and so did not agree with the attitudes of ANC (African National Congress) and PAC (Pan Africanist Congress) in this point. During the 1980s, when the country became more and more insecure and violence increased, including the infamous practice of "necklacing" , Roberts organised several peace conferences together with Bishop Tutu where they tried to bring  together the various hostile factions  and find a solution to end the violence.

The Quaker Peace Centre
In 1974 Rommel Roberts joined the Quakers and has worked with Quakers since then. Mainly on his initiative the first Peace Centre in South Africa was founded in Cape Town in 1985, the Quaker Peace Centre in whose administration he is still active today. They then felt that a great deal of work was required in terms of reconciliation and general peacemaking.

Rommel Roberts is now involved in a special Quaker Peace Centre initiative speaking truth to power through the exposure of leadership corruption in the promotion of arms deals.

Writings

 Roberts, Rommel, Stimmen für die Freiheit. Geschichten von mutigen Menschen für ein neues Südafrika, 2. Aufl., Küsnacht: Digiboo, 2018. ISBN 978-3-9524560-4-0
 Rommel Roberts, Wie wir für die Freiheit kämpften:Von stillen Heldinnen und Helden in Südafrika, Bern: Lokwort Verlag, 2014. ISBN 978-3-906786-52-0

References

Other websites
 The Hilltop Empowerment Centre
 Desmond Tutu
 Ohne Gewalt!: Rommel Roberts über den Anti-Apartheid-Kampf

South African writers
Theologians
South African anti-apartheid activists
1949 births
Living people

Rommel Roberts


All Saints is a parish church in Maidstone, Kent. It is a Grade I listed building, and has been described as the grandest Perpendicular style church in Kent.

Establishment and dissolution
Founded by Archbishop of Canterbury William Courtenay in 1395 as part of a new College of All Saints, the church replaced an earlier one on the site dedicated to St Mary. Courtenay died in 1396 and the church and college were completed by his successor, Thomas Arundel, between 1396 and 1398. Richard II endowed the college with land and income from the Hospital of St Peter and St Paul in Maidstone and from the parishes of Linton, Farleigh, Sutton and Crundale. The college was also granted the advowsons for the parishes. To cover the cost of building the college, Courtenay obtained a bull to levy a charge of fourpence in the pound on all ecclesiastical revenue raised in his archbishopric.

When the college was closed in 1546 following the passing of the Chantries Act, its annual income was valued at £208 6s 2d (). The church and the college were separated. The church became the parish church for the whole of Maidstone and the college's estate was granted to George Brooke, Baron Cobham but was forfeited to the crown in 1603 when his grandson, Henry Brooke, the 11th Baron Cobham, was charged with high treason for his part in the Main Plot against James I. In the reign of Charles I the college became the property of Sir Edward Henden and later passed into the family of the Earls of Romney.

The building

The church sits in a small churchyard with the River Medway to the west, the remnants of the college, including its gateway, to the south, the Archbishop's Palace to the north-west and the palace's tithe barn to the north-east. The medieval wall on the north and west sides of the churchyard and the Monckton War Memorial in the churchyard are both separately listed as Grade II structures.

The church is built of rag-stone in the Perpendicular style with buttressed walls and a crenellated parapet. The tower is on the south-west corner and is  tall. It formerly had a spire, which was destroyed by a lightning strike in 1730. It has a nave six bays long with aisles on the north and south sides with a clerestory running the length of the church. On the south side is a chapel originally for the use of the Fraternity of Corpus Christi, a local lay community. The Credence and four-seated Sedilla incorporate a monument to the first master of the college, John Wotton (died 1417). Further monuments exist to Archbishop Courtenay, Lawrence Washington (died 1619), John Davy (died 1631) and a combined memorial to John Astley (died c. 1595), his son Sir John Astley (died 1639) and their wives. Burials in the church include the Astleys, Washington and the three Barons Astley of Reading. In the churchyard is the tomb of William Shipley, founder of the Royal Society of Arts.

The font is early 17th century and the choir stalls feature medieval misericords. The timber roof was replaced in 1886 to designs by John Loughborough Pearson. Pearson also designed screens and the reredos. The church tower has a ring of bells consisting of ten bells ranging from a treble of  to a tenor of . The bells are regularly rung by the church's bell ringing society. The church clock was manufactured in 1899 by Gillett & Johnston and refurbished in 2007. It strikes the quarters and hours using Westminster chimes.

The building is on the Historic England Heritage at Risk Register.

Choirs

The church has male and female choirs directed by the Director of Liturgical Music.

The organist and Director of Liturgical Music is Philip Horley and the organist is Lionel Marchant.

See also
Grade I listed buildings in Maidstone
List of ecclesiastical restorations and alterations by J. L. Pearson

Notes and references

Notes

References

External links

Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi, Maidstone: All Saints Image of the medieval stained-glass window in Vestry.

14th-century church buildings in England
All Saints Church
Grade I listed churches in Kent
Church of England church buildings in Kent
Diocese of Canterbury
J. L. Pearson buildings
Churches completed in 1398

All Saints Church, Maidstone


The Odessa massacre was the mass murder of the Jewish population of Odessa and surrounding towns in the Transnistria Governorate during the autumn of 1941 and the winter of 1942 while it was under Romanian control. It was one of the worst massacres in Ukrainian territory.

Depending on the accepted terms of reference and scope, the Odessa massacre refers either to the events of October 22–24, 1941 in which some 25,000 to 34,000 Jews were shot or burned, or to the murder of well over 100,000 Ukrainian Jews in the town and the areas between the Dniester and Bug rivers, during the Romanian and German occupation which took place following the massacre. As of 2018, it was estimated that up to 30,000 people, mostly Ukrainian Jews, were murdered in the actual massacre, which occurred October 22–23, 1941. The primary perpetrators were Romanian soldiers, Einsatzgruppe SS and local ethnic Germans.

Background
Before the war, Odessa had a large Jewish population of approximately 200,000, or 30% of the city's total population. By the time the Romanians had taken the city, between 80,000 and 90,000 Jews remained, the rest having fled or been evacuated by the Soviets. As the massacres occurred, Jews from surrounding villages were interned in Odessa and Romanian concentration camps set up in the surrounding areas.

On October 16, following a two-month siege of Odessa, the Germans and Romanians captured the city.

Mass killings of hostages and Jews on October 22–24

Destruction of the Romanian commandant's office

On October 22, 1941, in the building of the NKVD on the Marazlievskaya street where the Romanian military commander's office and the headquarters of the Romanian 10th Infantry Division had settled to occupy the city, a radio-controlled mine exploded. The mine had been planted there by the sappers of the Red Army before the surrender of the city by Soviet troops. The building collapsed, and under its rubble, 67 people were killed, including 16 officers, among whom was the military commander of the city, Romanian General Ioan Glogojeanu. Responsibility for the explosion was placed on the Jews and Communists.

The execution of hostages

In response to the explosion at the commandant's office, General Nicolae Tătăranu received a direct order from Marshal Ion Antonescu, ordering "immediate reprisals" be carried out on the Jewish population. The Romanian troops and the German "Einsatzgruppe" arrived in Odessa on October 23 to kill from 5,000 to 10,000 hostages, many of whom were Jews.

Across the Marazlievskaya street, occupiers broke into the apartments of Odessa citizens and shot or hanged all residents found, without exception. They raided the streets and markets of the city and suburbs, and people who knew nothing of the bombing were shot on sight against fences or the walls of houses. Nearly 100 men were seized and shot at the Big Fountain, about two hundred people were executed in the Slobodka neighborhood near the market, 251 residents were shot in Moldavanka, Near and Far Windmills and in Aleksandrovsky Prospekt about 400 townspeople were executed. The columns of the captured hostages were driven to the area of artillery warehouses on Lustdorf Road, where they were shot or burned alive.

After the war, more than 22,000 corpses were found in mass graves.

The beginning of the Holocaust

On October 23, an order was issued threatening all Jews with death on the spot and ordering them to report to the village of Dalnyk on October 24. In the afternoon of October 24, about 5,000 Jews were gathered near the outpost of Dalnyk. The first 50 people were brought to the anti-tank ditch and shot by the commander of the 10th machine-gun battalion, Lieutenant-Colonel Nicolae Deleanu.

To speed up the process of destruction, the Jews were driven into four barracks, in which holes were made for machine guns, and the floor was pre-filled with gasoline. People in two barracks were shot with machine guns on the same day. At 17:00 the barracks were set on fire. The next day, the prisoners were shot, placed in the remaining two barracks, and in one of the barracks grenades were thrown.

Meanwhile, the Jews who were not selected for the first group, and who had already arrived in Dalnyk, were told that they were "forgiven". They were sent to various military headquarters and Gendarmerie stations for "registration", where they were detained for different lengths of time. When they were released, they discovered that their houses had been occupied and their property plundered.

During the first week of Romanian occupation of Odessa, the city lost about 10% of its inhabitants.

Subsequent events

The registration carried out by the Romanian administration in late 1941 counted about 60,000 Jews in Odesa. This number included persons having only one Jewish ancestor. Jews were required to wear a special distinctive badge, a yellow hexagram (Magen David, the Star of David, a symbol of Judaism) on a black background.

On November 7, 1941, an order was issued, making it mandatory for all male Jews from 18 to 50 years old to report to the city prison.

From that day on, the entire Jewish population of the city was sent to concentration camps, organized by Romanians in the countryside, primarily to the village of  (now in the Mykolaiv Oblast). Later, a ghetto was arranged in Odessa itself.

The Romanian administration took measures to seize the property of future victims. In mid-November, a new order was issued clarifying the authorities' demands for Jews. It said:

By the middle of December, about 55,000 Jews were gathered in Bogdanovka, though some of them were not from Odessa. From December 20, 1941, until January 15, 1942, each of them was shot by a team of the Einsatzgruppe SS, Romanian soldiers, Ukrainian police and local German colonists.

A month later, a death march of 10,000 Jews was organized in three concentration camps in Golta.

In January 1942, about 35,000-40,000 of the Jews left in Odessa were evicted and sent to the ghetto that had been created on January 10, 1942, in the poor area of Slobodka. The evicted endured terrible conditions; with inadequate housing for all and severe crowding, many were forced out into the open winter air, which led to mass mortality from hypothermia.

From January 12 to February 20, 1942, the remaining 19,582 Jews were deported to Berezivka Raion of Odessa Oblast. They were transported in unheated echelons, and many died on the road. In Berezivka, groups were forced to walk to Domanevka, Bogdanovka, Golta and other concentration camps. Many died of hunger and cold along the way. The guards, consisting of Romanian and German soldiers, organized mass executions of Jews during the journeys. In 18 months, almost all the prisoners of Golta died.

The survivors of the Holocaust

Some Jews were sent to work in the villages, and about half of them survived the occupation. The situation in the ghetto of Domanevka and other ghettos in Transnistria improved in 1943 after the Jews began to receive assistance from Jewish organizations in Romania. About 600 Odessa residents in these ghettos lived to be released. Several hundred Jews who were hiding in Odessa itself also survived. Jews participated in the struggle of the Odessa underground and constituted a significant part of the guerrilla units, based in the Odessa catacombs.

Trials and punishment of the main perpetrators

At the Bucharest People's Tribunal, set up in 1946 by the new Romanian government in conjunction with the Allied Control Council, one of the charges brought against Marshal Ion Antonescu, the Governor of Transnistria, Gheorghe Alexianu, and the commander of the Odessa garrison, General Nicolae Macici, was "the organization of repressions against the civilian population of Odessa autumn of 1941". For these crimes, they were sentenced to death. The first two were shot on July 1, 1946. Later, King Michael commuted Macici's death sentence to life imprisonment. Macici died in prison in 1950.

In response to the appeal of the verdict filed by the son of Alexianu, on November 5, 2006, Bucharest Court of Appeal confirmed the verdict of war criminals to death, dated May 17, 1946. In response to the appeal filed by the Prosecutor General, on May 6, 2008, the case was re-examined and the judges of the High Court of Cassation and Justice finally rejected the application for revision of the 1946 sentence.

Commemoration

Memorial in Prokhorovsky Square

In the early 1990s in Odessa's Prokhorovsky Square, where the "road of death" to the extermination camps for Odessa's Jews and Gypsies had begun on the outskirts of the city in 1941, a memorial commemorating the victims of the Holocaust was created. A memorial sign was installed, along with the "Alley of the Righteous Among the World", featuring trees planted in honor of each Odessa citizen who had harbored and saved the Jews. The complex was completed in 2004 with the erection of a monument to the victims of the Holocaust in Odessa by sculptor Zurab Tsereteli.

The Holocaust Museum in Odessa

The Museum of the Holocaust in Odessa was created in accordance with the decision of the Council of the Odessa Regional Association of Jews, former prisoners of the ghetto and Nazi concentration camps. The chairman of the association is Shvartsman Roman. The opening of the museum took place on June 22, 2009.

Other

In January 2015, the authorities of the Italian town of Ceriano Laghetto, in the province of Monza-e-Brianza in the Lombardy region, named a city square "Martyrs Square of Odesa" in memory of the victims of the occupation regimes in Odesa: Jews killed October 22–24, 1941, as well as anti-Maidan activists, rescuers and accidental victims who died on May 2, 2014, in the Odesa Trade Union House.

On May 2, 2015, the first anniversary of the events in the House of Trade Unions, a commemorative monument dedicated to the "Martyrs of Odesa" was opened at this square. The monument is a tongue of flame with a silhouette of a dove, a symbol of the world, inside.

The 2018 tragicomic Romanian film I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians deals with the massacre and historical memory among modern Romanians.

See also
 List of massacres in the Soviet Union
 List of massacres in Ukraine
 History of the Jews in Odessa
 Hostages Trial
 Romania in World War II
 The Holocaust in Romania

Literature

References

Further reading
 Bibliography of the Soviet Union during World War II

External links

 (PDF)

 E. Bloshtein. Features of the Holocaust in Odessa
 Official site of the Museum of the Holocaust in Odessa

 Book-trailer literary and documentary novel The Ways of Death. Notes ghetovtsa »IA Alexandrovich about the Holocaust in Odessa

Odessa massacre
October 1941 events
Massacres in 1941
Odessa
Odessa
Jews and Judaism in Odesa
Odessa
Holocaust massacres and pogroms in Ukraine
History of Odesa
World War II massacres
Nazi war crimes in Ukraine
Romania–Soviet Union relations
Massacres in the Soviet Union
Crimes against humanity

1941 Odessa massacre


Hindlip Hall is a stately home in Hindlip, Worcestershire, England. The first major hall was built before 1575, and it played a significant role in both the Babington and the Gunpowder plots, where it hid four people in priest holes. It was Humphrey Littleton who told the authorities that Edward Oldcorne was hiding here after he had been heard saying Mass at Hindlip Hall. Four people were executed and the owner at that time barely escaped execution himself due to the intercession of Lord Monteagle.

It was later owned by a poet and was for a while a girls' school before being  rebuilt by Lord Southwell in 1820. The Hall was designated as a potential home for the war cabinet in 1940. It is now home to the West Mercia Police and Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service headquarters.

Early history
The house was originally built before 1575 to replace an earlier timber framed manor house in a brick construction with towers and large windows, by John Habington, an official in the court of Elizabeth I. John, his wife Catherine, and his three children Edward, Thomas and Dorothy were all Catholic Recusants. After their father's death in 1582, Sir Edward and Sir Thomas were involved in the Babington plot which hoped to put a Catholic queen on the throne. Edward was beheaded but Thomas was shown mercy due to being godson to Queen Elizabeth I.

During her visit to Worcester, Queen Elizabeth dined at Hindlip Hall on 16 August 1575.

Priest holes
After imprisonment, Thomas Habington and his wife, Mary, retired to Hindlip Hall, which they had adapted as a refuge with priest holes constructed for Catholic priests including some built by Nicholas Owen. Mary was the sister-in-law of Lord Monteagle.

When the Gunpowder plot was discovered, as a result of Lord Monteagle's letter, the Jesuit priest Edward Oldcorne was at Hindlip. Oldcome recounted, under interrogation, that on the 8 November 1605 there arrived Oswald Tesimond from Robert Wintour's who told Mr (H)Abington and himself that "he brought them the worst news that they had ever heard, and they were all undone." Tesimond said that certain people had intended to blow up the parliament house but they had been discovered a few days before.

In December, Oldcorne was joined by Nicholas Owen, Henry Garnet and Ralph Ashley who were hiding because they were also under suspicion of involvement. The hall was searched on 20 January 1606 but no one was discovered and Abington denied that there was anyone hiding. The four were not discovered even though Garnet and Oldcorne were in one hiding place whilst the two lay brothers were in another. However the house continued to be searched for the next twelve days. A document written at the time records they "found two cunning and very artificial conveyances in the main brick-wall, so ingeniously framed, and with such art, as it cost much labour ere they could be found. Three other secret places, contrived with no less skill and industry, were found in and about the chimneys, in one whereof two of the traitors were close concealed. These chimney-conveyances being so strangely formed, having the entrances into them so curiously covered over with brick, mortared and made fast to planks of wood, and coloured black, like the other parts of the chimney, that very diligent inquisition might well have passed by, without throwing the least suspicion upon such unsuspicious places."

There were in fact eleven hiding places discovered. Two of the Jesuits came out after a few days but Oldcorne and Garnet survived for eight days before they surrendered.

Oldcorne and Garnet were arrested by Sir Henry Bromley and held briefly at the castle at Holt before being taken to the Tower of London en route to execution in Worcester.

Thomas Habington was again arrested, and sentenced, but spared. He spent the rest of his life writing. It is said in several sources that he was not allowed outside the county, but there is evidence that this is unlikely.

After the plot
Thomas's son, William Habington, was a minor poet and his son, Thomas, died without a natural heir and left the hall to Sir William Compton.

Later history
The old hall was destroyed by fire and was demolished in 1820.

The new hall was built by Lord Southwell in a Greek Revival style. After his death in 1860 the hall was bought by the Burton-on-Trent brewer Henry Allsopp, who became the first Baron Hindlip in 1886. The house and gardens continued to be improved. In 1887 Lord Hindlip had a new  lake created and the old one was filled in and 4,000 fish were taken out.
The Allsopp family moved to Wiltshire early in the 20th century. The Hall went through a number of uses including about twenty five years as a girls' school.

1940
During the Second World War it was taken over by the Ministry of Works. There were emergency plans drawn up to move Cabinet-level  Ministers of the Crown to Hindlip Hall if required, with the Prime Minister's office also based nearby at Spetchley Court. In 1947 after the war it came into the ownership of Worcestershire County Council and the land was set aside for future use as a college, with the main house turned into the headquarters of the County Police.

Today
Since 1967 the Hall has been the West Mercia Police police headquarters. It is close to junction six of the M5 motorway. The church of St. James is no longer supported by the Church of England (since 1997), but is now the church for the constabulary. In 2018, Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service relocated its headquarters to Hindlip Park, co-locating with West Mercia Police.

In 1985 the Hall was designated a Grade II* listed building. Whilst the building is not open to the general public and surveillance is heavily monitored, access to the grounds can be gained via public footpaths from Hindlip Lane to the south and Pershore Lane to the northeast.

References

Houses completed in 1575
Houses completed in 1820
Police headquarters
Country houses in Worcestershire
Grade II* listed buildings in Worcestershire
Grade II* listed houses
History of Catholicism in England
Wychavon

Hindlip Hall


Charlie Says is a 2018 American biographical drama film directed by Mary Harron and starring Hannah Murray as Leslie Van Houten and Matt Smith as infamous cult leader Charles Manson.

It had its world premiere at the 75th Venice International Film Festival on September 2, 2018, and was released on May 10, 2019, by IFC Films.

Plot
The film tells the story of Leslie "Lulu" Van Houten's life in the Manson Family cult and Karlene Faith's work to deprogram her, Patricia "Katie" Krenwinkel, and Susan "Sadie" Atkins after they were imprisoned for their involvement in the Tate and LaBianca murders. It interweaves scenes from various time periods.

In the opening scene, Lulu slowly showers blood off her face after the LaBianca murders. Three years later, Lulu, Katie, and Sadie are in the Special Security Unit at the California Institution for Women. Karlene Faith, a University of California, Santa Cruz graduate student, is assigned to teach them college classes. Lulu, Katie, and Sadie are unusually gentle, polite, and welcoming, in contrast to what she expects of convicted murderers.   As Karlene gets acquainted with them, she sees that their belief systems were set for them by Charles "Charlie" Manson, whom they adore: she wants to change that.

The film flashes back to Lulu's introduction to the Family and Charlie at Spahn Ranch. Fulfilling Charlie's requests for new recruits, Catherine "Gypsy" Share brings Lulu to the ranch. Katie becomes Lulu's mentor. Katie explains Charlie's and the Family's beliefs. The group follows Charlie's preaching, instructing them to let go of their egos, live in the now, and
be free about sex. Drugs are handed out to everyone. The members of the Family are happy and loving to each other. That evening, Lulu witnesses a deeply emotional scene involving another Family member, Sandy. In front of the group, Charlie tears down Sandy's personality and relationship with her parents, then constructs her a new interpretation of herself and seals the deal with group affirmation. Returning from the flashback, Lulu tells Karlene that every girl should have a daddy like Charlie. Incredulous, Karlene thinks that Lulu, Katie, and Sadie have been brainwashed and offers them copies of Our Bodies, Ourselves and Sisterhood is Powerful.

Some days, Charlie sends the women out to panhandle and hunt through dumpsters for food. Some nights, he oversees Family orgies. He makes the rules for the group: women cannot hold money, and aren't allowed to serve themselves food until the men at the table have served themselves. After Lulu sees Charlie callously disregard the pain of a crying Family member, he explains his philosophy that the members of his group are trying to let go of their materialistic culture, to submit, and to get rid of their egos and hang ups. He says that there has to be some death of self. He then has sex with Lulu, and tells her to think of it "like making love to her daddy", which he believes "is what all the girls want but can never have".

In various scenes, Lulu is chastised for questioning the inconsistencies in Charlie's mandates. In one scene, he takes her to a cliff and tells her that if she wants to leave the ranch, then she must jump. Charlie believes that some passages in the Book of Revelation refer to him and that he will lead mankind after a revolution caused by a race war. Lulu, Katie, and Sadie tell Karlene about Charlie's belief that they will wait out the revolution in a bottomless pit and that when it is over, some of them will become winged elves who fly to the surface. Karlene tries to get them to think rationally instead of believing what Charlie taught them, but they still are not able to do so.

In another flashback, Dennis Wilson tells Charlie that the Beach Boys will record one of Charlie's songs, "Cease to Exist". Elated, Charlie thinks that he is going to be a rock star. When record producer Terry Melcher sees Charlie and his back-up singers perform "Look at Your Game, Girl", he is not impressed. This makes Charlie furious and, later that evening, he beats Sadie.

His focus shifts from music to violence. He decides to kick-start the race war by killing some white people and blaming the killings on African Americans. He calls this "Helter Skelter".
He orders Sadie and Tex to go to Terry Melcher's old house, now occupied by Sharon Tate, to kill the residents. They are accompanied by Katie and Linda Kasabian.

After the Tate murders, Charlie orders Katie, Tex, and Lulu to commit the LaBianca murders. Following Charlie's teaching, Tex believes that they can become invisible at will.

Karlene wants to give Lulu, Katie, and Sadie back their own selves from the time before they met Charlie. However, as time goes by, she realizes that when Lulu, Katie, and Sadie are able to think for themselves again, they will realize how wrong the murders were. The murders were irrevocable and they will torment Lulu, Katie, and Sadie for the rest of their lives. The final scenes show Lulu realizing that the murders would not bring about a revolution, but, instead were for nothing.

Cast

Inspiration
The film is based on the books The Family, by Ed Sanders, and The Long Prison Journey of Leslie Van Houten, by Karlene Faith.

The film documents the work of Faith with the Manson women, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten, at the California Institution for Women, in the mid-1970s.

It shows how Faith, as a graduate student, helped the Manson women come to understand the magnitude of their crimes, and eventually renounce Charles Manson.

Production
In January 2016, Mary Harron and Guinevere Turner were announced to be directing and writing a film based on the life and crimes of Charles Manson and his followers.

In February 2018, the casting began, with Matt Smith cast to play Manson, and Hannah Murray, Odessa Young, Marianne Rendón, Merritt Wever, Carla Gugino, Kayli Carter and Suki Waterhouse among the supporting cast. Chace Crawford and Sosie Bacon were cast in March 2018, with Gugino no longer set to star in the film. Annabeth Gish joined the film in April.

Release
It had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 2, 2018. Shortly after, IFC Films acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film, beating out A24, Momentum Pictures and RLJE Films in a bidding war. It was released on May 10, 2019.

Reception
On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of , based on  reviews, with an average rating of . The site's consensus states: "Charlie Says approaches its infamous subject from a welcome new angle, but suffers from a disappointing lack of depth in its treatment of the story." On Metacritic, the film holds a rating of 57 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

References

External links

2018 films
2018 biographical drama films
American biographical drama films
Cultural depictions of Charles Manson
Drama films based on actual events
Films based on biographies
Films based on multiple works
Films directed by Mary Harron
Films set in 1969
Films set in 1972
Films set in Los Angeles County, California
Films set in California
Films set in prison
Films shot in Los Angeles
IFC Films films
Films about cults
2018 drama films
Biographical films about criminals
2010s English-language films
2010s American films

Charlie Says (2018 film)


Duropolis is the name of an archaeological site at Winterborne Kingston in the English county of Dorset, believed to be the remains of the first planned town in Britain. The site's first discoveries were made in 2008 led by co-directors Miles Russell and Paul Cheetham. The  Iron Age settlement is believed to date to around 100 BCE, making it 70 years older than the Roman town of Silchester.

Overview
The site has been named by archaeologists after the Iron Age Durotriges tribe. Its settlement may have been associated with the abandonment of nearby Maiden Castle in the 1st century BCE.

Discovery
Found in July 2015 by students from Bournemouth University as part of the Durotriges Big Dig project, the remains of 16 Iron Age roundhouses have been excavated while geophysical survey shows a total of at least 150 roundhouses and other features in the area.

Excavations continued in 2016 and 2017. In the course of the 2016 excavation, discoveries were made that suggested "the elements of an urban system" existing before the Roman invasion, according to Russell. The 2017 dig targeted a putative Iron Age farmstead.

Nine crouched burials, thought to date from the Iron Age, that were discovered during the excavation were sent to Bournemouth University for analysis.

Animal burials
A number of animal skeletons discovered at the site suggest that the Iron Age Celtic population may have believed in hybrid-animal monster myths akin to those of the Mesopotamians, Ancient Greeks and Egyptians. The bone finds, which appear to have been deliberately arranged, include a two-headed hybrid with a sheep's skull at the front and a bull's at the rear along with a horse with a cow's horn sticking into its forehead.

References

External links
Video of Durotriges Big Dig

Iron Age sites in England
Archaeological sites in Dorset
Former populated places in Dorset

Duropolis


Myitkyina (, ; (Eng; mitchinar) Jinghpaw: Myitkyina, ) is the capital city of Kachin State in Myanmar (Burma), located  from Yangon, and  from Mandalay. In Burmese it means "near the big river", and Myitkyina is on the west bank of the Ayeyarwady River, just below  from Myit-son (Burmese for confluence) of its two headstreams (the Mali and N'mai rivers). It is the northernmost river port and railway terminus in Myanmar. The city is served by Myitkyina Airport.

History
Myitkyina has been an important trading town between China and Myanmar since ancient times.

American Baptist missionary George J. Geis and his wife arrived in Myitkyina in the late 1890s and in 1900 they requested permission to build a mansion in the town. The building was named Geis Memorial Church. It is one of the Kachin Baptist Convention (KBC) churches in Myitkyina.

Japanese forces captured the town and nearby airbase during World War II in 1942. In August 1944, Myitkyina was recaptured by the Allied forces under General Joseph Stilwell after a prolonged siege and heavy fighting between Nationalist Chinese divisions, the Chindits, and Merrill's Marauders of the Northern Combat Area Command and the besieged elements of the 33rd Imperial Japanese Army under General Masaki Honda. The town was strategically important not only because of its rail and water links to the rest of Burma, but also because it was on the planned route of the Ledo Road.

Climate
Myitkyina has a borderline tropical monsoon climate (Köppen Am) bordering upon both a tropical savanna climate (Aw) and a humid subtropical climate (Cwa). Temperatures are very warm throughout the year, although the winter months from December to February are milder. There is a winter dry season from November to April and a summer wet season from May to October.

Air quality
The city residents dispose of the majority of their waste by burning it in small piles by the roadside. Most waste is disposed in this way, including plastics. Almost every block in the city has one small fire every evening. Burning usually starts late-afternoon, and by 6.00pm the city air is often quite smoky. Burning can start earlier at the weekend. The air quality in Myitkyina in the evenings can be poor, which can make being outside unpleasant. Sometimes, due to atmospheric pressure, the air will still be smoky in the morning. The only time of year that this does not happen is during the monsoon season, when it is reported that the air is fresh.

Population

As the capital of the state, it has government offices, and a greater population than other cities in the state. The city has a population of approximately 150,000, with a mix of Kachin, Shan, Bamar, Burmese Gorkha and some Chinese and Indians.

The Kachin language is the common language among the Kachin. Some people can speak English and Nepali while the town's people mostly speak in Burmese which is the national language of Myanmar.

Foreigners are now free to visit Myitkyina without prior government permission.

Religion
Major religions are Theravada Buddhism, Christianity (Roman Catholic and Baptist are major denominations), and other religions such as animism and Islam.

Economy

Myitkyina is the business center of Kachin State, with many natural resources like jade, gold, amber and teak, as well as wood and agricultural products. As per government data, almost US$2 billion in jade were exported yearly in 2010 and 2011  Now, due to fighting between Kachin Independence Army rebels and the government, most businesses in the region have gone down.

Transportation

Myitkyina Airport is the main airport serving the city. It connects the cities of Putao, Mandalay and also Lashio on Mondays.

It takes almost 24 hours to go from Mandalay to Myitkyina by train. The railway has been used for 100 years. This railway is a major method of transportation for both farmers and traders to deliver goods. It also connects Laiza, Bhamo, China, and Sumprabum by car.

The Myitkyina-Tanai-India road, also known as the Ledo Road, was constructed by the British.

Education
The city is home to Myitkyina University, a Christian theological seminary, a college for teachers, a training school for nurses, a college for the study of computers and other rare type of colleges affiliated with several seminaries in the United States and Asia, notably Kachin Theological College and Seminary(KTCS)-Nawng Nang. It is also home to the branch I.L.B.C. (International Language Business Center) a chain of private schools for English learners in the Myanmar. It has also many non-government institutions such as Naushawng development institute, Pinnya Tagar, Ningshawng and Kachinland School of Arts & Sciences, which has a University vision in 2024.

Computer University, Myitkyina
Myitkyina University
Myitkyina Education College
Technological University, Myitkyina

Healthcare

Public hospitals
 Myitkyina General Hospital
 Myitkyina Narcotic Hospital

Military
Northern SOC (HQ at Myitkyina)
Nanpong / Nanpong Air Base headquarters (formerly 503 Air Base)

See also

Notes

External links

Satellite Map of Myitkyina from Google Map
Kachin State map Asterism
http://www.kachinstate.com
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/world/A0834638.html

World War II sites in Burma
Township capitals of Myanmar
Populated places in Kachin State
Irrawaddy River

Myitkyina


Philip Polly Okin Ojara (born 26 May 1971) is a Ugandan social worker and politician. He is the elected member of parliament for Chua West County, Kitgum District, and is an Independent politician who closely associates with FDC, the main opposition party in Uganda. He is a member the Caucus of Independent MPs and the Opposition Caucus and also serves as the vice chairperson of the Committee on Local Government Accounts and as a member of the Appointments Committee and the Committee on Agriculture in the 10th Parliament of Uganda.

Ojara is the chairperson of the select committee to investigate alleged mismanagement in Uganda Telecom (UTL) and a founder member of the Parliament Public Finance Management Forum. Also he is a member of both the Parliamentary Forum on Climate Change and the Uganda Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast Fellowship.

Early life and education
Ojara was born in Kitgum, Acholi sub-region, on 26 May 1971 in an Anglican family of the Acholi. He had his primary education in his home town of Kitgum and attained his PLE certification in 1987.

He then attended Lango College for his O-Level education and Sir Samuel Baker Secondary School for his A-Level education, attaining a UCE certification in 1991 and a UACE certification in 1994.

Ojara further advanced to Makerere University, where he attained a bachelor's degree in social work and social administration in 1997. He then went to Trinity College, Dublin, graduating in 2006 with a Master of Philosophy in international peace studies.

Career and politics
Ojara started his professional career in 1998 after attaining his bachelor's degree and worked as a program officer for the International Rescue Committee (IRC) up until 1999 when he secured employment as a project officer for Save the Children. In 2002, he left the children's rights organization for Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARLPI), an interfaith peace building and conflict transformation organization, where he worked as a program coordinator for three years. In 2005, he joined UNDP Uganda for a one year spell as a District Disaster Preparedness Coordinator in the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM).

In 2007, Ojara secured employment at the Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE International, Uganda) where he worked as a team leader up until 2009 when he was recruited as a senior technical advisor by UNDP South Sudan. In 2013, he worked as a distributor for Total Uganda before serving as the Prime Minister Acholi Kingdom in 2014 up until 2015 when he resigned to join active politics.

In 2015, Ojara joined elective politics as an independent politician and strategized for the 2016 polls, a move that heavily contributed to his victory in the 2016 general elections thereby becoming a member of the 10th Parliament for the Pearl of Africa representing Chua West County in Kitgum District. In the 10th Parliament, Ojara serves as the vice chairperson of the Committee on Local Government Accounts and as a member of the Appointments Committee and the Committee on Agriculture. In December 2016, Ojara was appointed by the speaker of parliament as the chairperson of the select committee to investigate alleged mismanagement in Uganda Telecom.

In the eleventh parliament he serves on the Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Private details
Ojara is a married man with a number of children. He is passionate about civil rights and social action, economic empowerment, education, health, human-rights, politics and poverty alleviation issues.

See also
Kitgum District
Parliament of Uganda

References

External links
 Website of the Parliament of Uganda
 Link to Uganda Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast Fellowship

Living people
1971 births
Members of the Parliament of Uganda
Politicians from Northern Region, Uganda
Active politicians
Makerere University alumni
Alumni of Trinity College Dublin
Acholi people
Forum for Democratic Change politicians
21st-century Ugandan politicians

Okin Ojara


Switch adapted toys are toys which have been adapted so that their original switches are redirected to a larger switch that is easier for the child to interact with. Many children with limited fine and gross motor skills cannot play with regular battery-operated toys.

For children or young people who have profound and extremely limiting physical and intellectual disabilities, operating a switch adapted toy may be the first independent thing they can do, which builds confidence and enjoyment as well as intellectual stimulation and potential learning.

Depending on the user's abilities, different switches are available for different purposes, including: finger switches, foot switches and button switches of many different sizes and varieties. Some switches have special textural coverings - soft fabric, "squishy" latex, pom pom, or "bump" patterned for the visually impaired. Use of switches depends on the user's muscle tone, spasticity, visual ability, cognitive function and interests. Switch adapted toys can generate blinking or changing lights and music, speaking, vibration, noises, fans, aromatherapy, massage, songs with number, alphabet or nursery rhyme content and even voice recording and playback.

A number of suppliers exist in Australia but they use imported switch adapted toys which means the toys are expensive to buy. Toy libraries like Noah's Ark in Perth, Western Australia stock a good range of switch adapted toys so that families can borrow to explore the best type of switch and the most interesting toys for their child.

Toy libraries import switch adapted toys or have volunteer helpers who are able to take an existing battery operated toy and convert it to switch adapted. Toys which have only one function are perfect for adaptation but more complex, multi-function toys may not be so easy. Adapting a battery toy at home can be achieved with the use of a small number of tools.

A crowd funding page Toys for Tots through The Cerebral Palsy Alliance exists to generate funds needed to create a supply of switch adapted toys for use in a number of designated local libraries in Perth, starting a programme offering the toys to eligible children in locations closer to their homes.

There are many online guides that demonstrate how to adapt toys for switch activation, such as TheLaserguy2's "Santa's Switch Adapted Toys" series.

References

Electronic toys
Assistive technology

Switch adapted toys