Sturla Jónsson, formerly known as the Progress Party (), was an Icelandic political party. The party was known as the Progress Party from its founding on 17 December 2008 to 5 April 2013 when it was renamed after its founder.

The chairman of the party was Sturla Jónsson, teamster and protester, who is today most commonly known for his participation in a documentary movie about the Icelandic financial crisis in 2009. The political ideology of the party is currently unknown. It was officially founded on 17 December 2008, and in early 2009 it managed to collect more than 300 signatures for the purpose of running in the April 2009 parliamentary election. The party was granted the election letter A, but then subsequently failed to recruit enough candidates to actually represent the party and participate in the election. So it was never approved to participate, despite of having applied with sufficient signatures.

In January 2013, it was rumoured by several Icelandic websites that the party was planning to contest the April 2013 parliamentary election. On 23 February, the party announced it had indeed now collected the minimum of 300 signatures, and applied to participate in the election with list letter K. The party received list letter K from the Ministry of Interior on 8 March 2013, and then established its election campaign centre in Sturla's old workshop with the main purpose to start composing a valid candidate list. When the deadline for submitting candidate lists expired on 12 April, the party was approved to participate in one of the six constituencies: Reykjavik Constituency South.

Sturla Jónsson's attempt also to list in other constituencies as a single independent candidate (without a list), was disapproved both by the electoral committees in these constituencies and by the National electoral Commission. This disapproval was expected, as the Icelandic constitution and election law stipulates that independent candidates are not allowed to run in parliamentary elections, unless they manage to join forces with other independent candidates to establish a full complete candidate list for a new group named "independent candidates" in the constituency they intend to run. Another peculiarity for the party's top candidate, was that he resided in the Reykjavik Constituency North, but opted to list his party list in the Reykjavík South constituency, and thus will not be able to vote for himself. Sturla explained he believed the biggest support base for his party was to be found in his neighbour constituency, which was the reason he had preferred to list there, but also used the opportunity to highlight that his party would actively work to reform the election law, so that Iceland in future elections should not be divided into any vote limiting constituencies, but instead only have one list of available parties and candidates for the entire island.

Sturla (the person) became a parliamentary candidate for Dawn in 2016.

Electoral results

Parliament

External links
Official Icelandic website for Framfaraflokkurinn (old defunct website)
Official Icelandic website for the Sturla Jónsson party (new website)

References

2008 establishments in Iceland
Political parties established in 2008
Defunct political parties in Iceland

Sturla Jónsson


The arachnoid trabeculae are delicate strands of connective tissue that loosely connect the two innermost layers of the meninges  –  the arachnoid mater and the pia mater.  They are found within the subarachnoid space where cerebrospinal fluid is also found. Embryologically, the trabeculae are the remnants of the common precursor that forms both the arachnoid and pial layers of the meninges.

See also
Subarachnoid space
Arachnoid mater
Trabeculae

Notes

Meninges

Arachnoid trabeculae


Sir Carol Reed (30 December 1906 – 25 April 1976) was an English film director and producer, best known for Odd Man Out (1947), The Fallen Idol (1948), The Third Man (1949), and Oliver! (1968), for which he was awarded the Academy Award for Best Director.

Odd Man Out was the first recipient of the BAFTA Award for Best British Film. The Fallen Idol won the second BAFTA Award for Best British Film. The British Film Institute voted The Third Man the greatest British film of the 20th century.

Early life and career
Carol Reed was born in Putney, southwest London. He was the son of actor-producer Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and his mistress, Beatrice May Pinney, who later adopted the surname of Reed. He was educated at The King's School, Canterbury.

He embarked on an acting career while still in his late teens. A period in the theatrical company of the thriller writer Edgar Wallace followed, and Reed became his personal assistant in 1927. Apart from acting in a few Wallace derived films himself, Reed became involved in adapting his work for the screen during the day while he was a stage manager in the evenings. This connection ended when Wallace died in February 1932. Taken on by Basil Dean, Reed worked for his Associated Talking Pictures, successively for ATP as a dialogue director, second-unit director and then assistant director. His films in the later role working under Dean were Autumn Crocus, Lorna Doone and Loyalties and (with Thorold Dickinson) Java Head.

Early films
His earliest films as director were "quota quickies". Of his experience making Midshipman Easy (1935) his first solo directorial project he was harsh on himself. "I was indefinite and indecisive", he said later. "I thought I had picked up a lot about cutting and camera angles, but now, when I had to make all the decisions myself and was not just mentally approving or criticising what somebody else decided, I was pretty much lost. Fortunately, I realised that this was the only way to learn – by making mistakes." Graham Greene, then reviewing films for The Spectator, was much more forgiving, commenting that Reed "has more sense of the cinema than most veteran British directors". Of Reed's comedy Laburnum Grove (1936), he wrote: "Here at last is an English film one can unreservedly praise". He was perceptive about Reed's potential, describing the film as "thoroughly workmanlike and unpretentious, with just the hint of a personal manner which makes one believe that Mr. Reed, when he gets the right script, will prove far more than efficient."

Reed's career began to develop with The Stars Look Down (1940), from the A. J. Cronin novel, which features Michael Redgrave in the lead role. Greene wrote that Reed "has at last had his chance and magnificently taken it." He observed that "one forgets the casting altogether: he [Reed] handles his players like a master, so that one remembers them only as people."

War years
The scripts of several of Reed's films in this period were written by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, with the screenwriters and director working for producer Edward Black, who released through the British subsidiary of 20th Century Fox. The best known of these films are probably Night Train to Munich (1940), with Rex Harrison; Kipps (1941), again with Michael Redgrave; and The Young Mr. Pitt (1942), with Robert Donat in the title role, set during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

From 1942, Reed served in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps: he was granted the rank of Captain and placed with the film unit, and then with the Directorate of Army Psychiatry. For the latter body a training film, The New Lot (1943), was made, recounting the experiences of five new recruits. It had a script by Eric Ambler and Peter Ustinov, with contributions from Reed, and was produced by Thorold Dickinson. It was remade as The Way Ahead (1944).

Post-war
Reed made his three most highly regarded films just after the war, beginning with Odd Man Out (1947), with James Mason in the lead. It is the tale of an injured IRA leader's last hours in an unidentified Northern Irish city. In fact, Belfast was used for the location work, but it remains unnamed in the film. Filmmaker Roman Polanski has repeatedly cited it as his favourite film.

It was the producer Alexander Korda, to whom Reed was now signed, who introduced the director to the novelist Graham Greene. The next two films were made from screenplays by Greene: The Fallen Idol (1948) and The Third Man (1949).

The Third Man was co-produced by David O. Selznick and Korda, with the American actors Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten in two of the leading roles. Reed insisted on casting Welles as Harry Lime, although Selznick had wanted Noël Coward for the role. The film required six weeks of location work in Vienna, during which Reed by chance discovered Anton Karas, the zither player who became responsible for the film's music, in a courtyard outside a small Viennese restaurant.

Reed once said: "A picture should end as it has to. I don't think anything in life ends 'right'". While Greene wanted Holly Martins (Cotten) and Anna Schmidt (Alida Valli) to reconcile at the end of the film, after Lime, her lover, is killed by Martins, Reed insisted that Anna should ignore him and walk on. "The whole point of the Valli character in that film is that she'd experienced a fatal love – and then comes along this silly American!"

According to the film critic Derek Malcolm, The Third Man is the "best film noir ever made out of Britain". The film won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, the predecessor of the Palme d'Or.

Later career
Outcast of the Islands (1952), based on a novel by Joseph Conrad, is considered by some to mark the start of his creative decline. The Man Between (1953) is dismissed as a rehash of The Third Man. It "makes no startling impact, such as we have learned to expect from its director, on either the mind or the heart", complained Virginia Graham in The Spectator. While the fable A Kid for Two Farthings (1955), Reed's first colour film, set in the East End of London, has been claimed as one of very few authentic cinematic depictions of an Anglo-Jewish community, it suffers from the stereotyping of Jews and is no more than a "whimsical curiosity" according to Michael Brooke. It was the last film Reed made for Korda's London Films; the producer died at the beginning of 1956.

Trapeze (1956) was Reed's first venture into the then relatively new CinemaScope wide screen process, and, although largely shot in Paris, was made for the US Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Productions company and was a success at the box-office. Our Man in Havana (1959) reunited him with Graham Greene who adapted his own novel.

He was contracted to direct a remake of Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) by MGM, but then Marlon Brando was cast as Fletcher Christian, and problems with the mock Bounty and the weather at the locations caused delays. Brando had insisted on creative control, and the two men argued incessantly. Reed left at a relatively early stage of production and was replaced by Lewis Milestone. The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965), made in the United States, was a box-office failure, and was the last film over which Reed also served as producer. Oliver! (1968), made at Shepperton in Surrey, was financially backed by Columbia, and won the Academy Award for Best Director. "The movie may have been over-produced but it seemed everyone liked it that way", writes Thomas Hischak.

Personal life

From 1943 until 1947, he was married to the British actress Diana Wynyard. After their divorce, he married in 1948 the actress Penelope Dudley-Ward, also known as Pempie, the elder daughter of Freda Dudley Ward, who had been a mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII, then Duke of Windsor). They had one son, Max. His stepdaughter Tracy Reed, Ward's daughter, also had an acting career. Actor Oliver Reed was his nephew.

In 1952, he became only the second British film director to be knighted for his craft. The first was Sir Alexander Korda in 1942, the producer of some of Reed's most admired films.

Reed died from a heart attack on 25 April 1976, aged 69, at his home at 213 King's Road, Chelsea, where he had lived since 1948. He is buried in Kensington Cemetery, Gunnersbury, West London. A blue plaque has been placed on his former home in his honour.

Filmography

References

External links

1906 births
1976 deaths
Military personnel from London
English film directors
English film producers
Carol
Best Directing Academy Award winners
British Army personnel of World War II
English people of German descent
English people of Lithuanian descent
Knights Bachelor
People educated at The King's School, Canterbury
People from Putney
Directors of Palme d'Or winners
20th-century English businesspeople
Royal Army Ordnance Corps officers
King's Road, Chelsea, London
Film directors from London

Carol Reed


The Gasper River is a  river in southwestern Kentucky, United States. It flows northeasterly into the Barren River. It is a rural river; the only community near it is unincorporated Hadley in Warren County. It begins in northeast Logan County, and the river also flows through Warren and Logan counties. Tributaries include Belcher, Salt Lick, Brush, Clear Fork, Westbrook, and Rock House creeks.

It is about  wide and has a few small rapids. It is considered a mid-difficulty stream for canoeing.

The name, "Gasper River," is a corruption of "Casper's River," as clearly named on John Filson's map of Kentucky (1784), and bears the namesake of Kasper/Casper Mansker, longhunter and pioneer of Kentucky and Tennessee.  Mansker's Station was located due south near present-day Goodlettsville, Tennessee.

At the confluence with the Barren River is Sally's Rock, used as a river pilot's guide. It is named for Sally Beck, a local who delivered news to passing river boats in the 1880s.

The river was part of a land grant given to George Washington Jr., nephew of George Washington, the president. He surveyed the land in 1785. The Gasper River was site of the home church of Reverend James McGready, and religious revivals were held on its banks as early as 1797, constituting the first ever open-air tent revival or camp meeting. In 1800 McGready began a revival at the nearby Red River Meeting House, which sparked the Second Great Awakening, and many of the congregants present were from the Gasper River church.

See also
List of Kentucky rivers

References

Rivers of Kentucky
Rivers of Warren County, Kentucky
Rivers of Logan County, Kentucky

Gasper River


Andrew Ronald Mitchell (22 June 1921 – 22 November 2007) was a British applied mathematician and numerical analyst. He was a professor of mathematics at the University of St Andrews, Dundee, Scotland. He was known for his contributions to the field of numerical analysis of partial differential equations in general and finite difference method and finite element method in particular. Mitchell has authored several influential books on numerical solution of partial differential equations, including "The Finite Element Analysis in Partial Differential Equations" with Richard Wait and "The Finite Difference Method in Partial Differential Equations" with David F. Griffiths.

Early life and education
Mitchell was born in Dundee, Scotland, on 22 June 1921. His father was a blacksmith. Mitchell went to school at Morgan Academy, Dundee. He played football at school and was invited to sign for North End Junior Football Club in Dundee. He left Morgan Academy in 1938 after receiving a scholarships through the school to do a mathematics degree in the University College, Dundee. He graduated with First Class Honours in 1942, and was called up and sent to the wartime Ministry of Aircraft Production in London, where he remained until after the end of the war. While he was in London, he continued to play football during the war, turning out a few times for Chelsea. After the war he played for a number of Scottish clubs including St Johnstone, East Fife, Brechin City  before ending his playing career at Berwick Rangers in 1955.

References

External links

1921 births
2007 deaths
Mitchell, Andrew Ronald
Alumni of the University of Dundee
Footballers from Dundee
Berwick Rangers F.C. players
Brechin City F.C. players
Chelsea F.C. wartime guest players
East Fife F.C. players
St Johnstone F.C. players
Scottish Football League players
Men's association football wing halves
Scottish men's footballers

Andrew Ronald Mitchell


Uncle David is a 2010 British black comedy film directed by David Hoyle, Gary Reich, and Mike Nicholls. It was produced by Reich and stars Hoyle, an English performance artist, in the title role alongside English pornographic actor Ashley Ryder. Developed collectively under the banner of the Avant-Garde Alliance, it was filmed in October 2009. Created without a script, every scene was improvised and filmed in a single take.

Set in a caravan park on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, South East England, a young man with a childlike mind named Ashley (Ryder) arrives to stay with his Uncle David (Hoyle). Escaping from his abusive mother, Ashley enters into a sexual relationship with his uncle who offers his insights into the world and the nature of reality. Eventually Ashley tells David that he wants to die, and David agrees to carry out the killing.

The film premiered on 25 March 2010 at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival held in the BFI Southbank in central London. Reviews were mixed, but the film won several awards at international film festivals. It was released on DVD by Peccadillo Pictures in 2011.

Plot
Late one night, Ashley (Ashley Ryder) – a young man with a childlike mentality – arrives at the caravan home of his Uncle David (David Hoyle) on the Isle of Sheppey. Ashley confides in his uncle that his mother has been physically abusing him by stubbing cigarettes out on his hand. David lambasts the mother and society in general; the two embrace in a kiss before going to bed together. The next morning, they awake and have breakfast in bed before David bathes Ashley in the bathtub, telling him a story about an unhappy nuclear family. Going to a local café and then a park bench, David continues to explain his anti-establishment opinions about society. Ashley reveals that he wants to die, and the two express their love for one another.

The pair snort cocaine before playing in the local entertainment arcade. Returning to the caravan, they engage in sexual strangulation and anal sex. Putting on make-up, they then drink wine and dance to a remix of the Muse song "Uprising", while same-sex pornography starring Ashley plays on the television set. While Ashley puts on drag, David encourages him to kill himself, telling him that he is "too nice for this Earth" and needs to escape the world's problems.

The next morning, Ashley plays on the beach and builds sand castles. When Ashley's drunken mother phones, demanding to know where her son is, Uncle David feigns ignorance, telling her that he himself is not in Sheppey but in Manchester. Taking Ashley to an abandoned military bunker, he injects an unknown substance into his nephew's vein as they kiss. Ashley enters an altered state of consciousness, and David guides him back to the caravan as they smoke marijuana. Once there, David gives Ashley a second injection, as they sit and look out at the shore. After dark, David places his near-catatonic nephew in a dog bed, showing him a copy of a picture book titled Is Britain Great?. He proceeds to give him a third and final injection, which he remarks will make Ashley lose consciousness and suffer organ failure. As Ashley dies, David professes that he has never loved anyone else as much before. The next morning, he goes onto the beach to place his nephew's body in a shallow grave, tearfully kissing the body goodbye before it is swept away by the sea.

Production

Background

According to The Guardian, Hoyle became "something of a legend" on the British cabaret circuit during the 1990s, initially under the alter-ego of "The Divine David". The Divine David was an "anti-drag queen" who combined "lacerating social commentary" with "breathtaking instances of self-recrimination and even self-harm." Taking this character to television, Hoyle produced two shows for Channel 4, The Divine David Presents (1999) and The Divine David Heals (2000), before killing off the character at a farewell show at Streatham Ice Arena, south London, titled The Divine David on Ice (2000). Independently, Hoyle appeared in the film Velvet Goldmine (1998) and the television series Nathan Barley (2005).

Ryder had hoped to be a fashion designer, undertaking a course at Central Saint Martins which he did not complete; from there he worked in retail, first for Prowler and then for the designer Vivienne Westwood. Subsequently, appearing in gay pornography as a twink bottom for production companies like Eurocreme and UK Naked Men, he starred in such films as Drunk on Spunk and Stretch that Hole, winning numerous awards for his work. By the time he made Uncle David, he was also running his own weekly gay wrestling night in London.

Hoyle and Ryder met at a performance art event, after which the former asked Ryder if he would appear in one of his stage shows. Ryder was busy at the time, but agreed to the request several years later. Staged at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern (RVT), a gay bar in Vauxhall, South London, the duo constructed a piece in which Ryder played the role of Hoyle's nephew in an ad-lib performance. Hoyle played a department store Santa Claus while Ryder portrayed a misbehaving nine-year-old. The performance ended in Hoyle's Santa character pulling Christmas tinsel from the child's anus before strangling him.

Reich – who had known Hoyle since the late 1990s – was in the audience, and enjoyed the chemistry between the two actors, suggesting that they appear in a feature film together. Over the course of a day, he filmed three shorts starring Hoyle and Ryder, in which they explored some of the scenarios and themes that made it into Uncle David. In these shorts Hoyle wore a wig and makeup, which were omitted from the later feature. The two actors continued to develop their characters through a series of text messages and phone conversations.

Development
Uncle David was filmed over five days in October 2009 on the Isle of Sheppey, a location chosen for its proximity to London. Hoyle commented that the profusion of barbed wire fences there made him wonder if they were "keeping people out or keeping people in?". Reich said that he had been "obsessed" with Sheppey, a place he had considered "a truly Godforsaken wasteland" since working on a television show there ten years previously. He remarked that the "trailer trash setting" of the film was influenced by Harmony Korine's Gummo (1997) and John Waters' Female Trouble (1974). He also said that the filming budget of under £1000 was a homage to "the spirit of John Waters." All the extras featured in the film were real inhabitants of Sheppey, and to film a scene in a local cafe, they walked in and asked the proprietors if they could shoot there. Although they had planned to tell any enquirers who approached them that they were shooting a horror film, during the shoot none of the locals expressed any interest in the crew's activities.

The caravan park was largely empty at the time, and closed for winter several days after filming ended. Both actors and crew slept in the same caravan in which the film was set. Ryder later commented on the extreme cold and the crowded nature of the caravan, which had eight people inside it during filming; he felt that it was "quite hectic but [had] a great atmosphere". Throughout filming, Hoyle and Ryder remained in character, improvising their scenes around a basic narrative structure rather than using a script. Hoyle told a reporter that they "wanted everything to feel like real time... As soon as you woke up, the cameras would be on you. I look knackered." During filming, he contracted swine flu, but insisted that all he needed was a 30-minute break before filming, attributing his ability to continue acting to adrenaline. He noted that "I just said, 'No, no, no. We'll carry on. I'll just stop eating.' I was completely purged during the making of that film. Afterwards, during the edit, I started to feel a lot calmer." Hoyle felt that the process of making the film had been cathartic, noting that "When I was 14, I had – let's call it an existential crisis. I wondered if [Uncle David] was a case of me destroying that part of me. If you do have a breakdown that young, for the rest of your life you're very aware of it. It can make you feel your foundations are a little bit shaky. It's a devastating experience but we revisited it. I just went with my instincts and intuition."

The footage was captured on two Sony HVR-Z1 camcorders. Costumes had been purchased at an Oxfam charity shop in Dalston, East London, while a wig worn by Ashley in one scene was purchased from a Dalston wig store. Knowing that he would appear nude in several scenes, Ryder went to the gym regularly in the weeks proceeding filming to gain greater muscle tone. He decided to include footage from one of his pornographic videos in Uncle David, inspired to do so after learning that serial killers Fred and Rosemary West screened pornography throughout the day in their home.

The composer Richard Thomas, co-creator of the controversial Jerry Springer: The Opera, agreed to produce a musical score for the film, having long been a fan of Hoyle's work. After the cast and crew listened to a Muse album while driving between locations, they decided to include the band's work as they felt it was "empowering". They had also planned to include a song by Antony and the Johnsons in the film, but this was scrapped, to be replaced by a track by Boy George. After the film was screened for Boy George, the first person outside the Avant-Garde Alliance to see it, he commented "well it ain't The Sound of Music".

Release

Uncle David premiered on 25 March 2010 at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival held in the BFI Southbank in central London. Attending the screening was Steve Marmion, the boss of Soho Theatre, who suggested to Reich and Hoyle that they produce a theatrical adaptation of the film. They initially showed an interest in the project; Reich commented that "It was a very mischievous concept, doing an upbeat, life-affirming song-and-dance musical with that storyline and subject matter." However, the theatrical adaptation never surfaced, something Thomas attributed to the difficulty in obtaining funding for a musical on such a "dark subject." Instead, Hoyle and Thomas teamed up to produce Merrie Hell, an "alternative Christmas celebration" that appeared at the Soho Theatre in December 2012. A two-man cabaret that differed every night, it featured Thomas on a piano, accompanying Hoyle's rendition of various songs about Christmas and Britain's societal problems; Thomas described it as "David Hoyle at Christmas – the Musical". One of the songs featured in Merrie Hell, "It's Alright to Want to Die", carried a pro-suicide theme influenced by Uncle David.

Home media
In December 2011, Uncle David was released as a Region Free DVD by the company Peccadillo Pictures, a UK based film distributor of art house, gay and lesbian, independent and world cinema. The release contained several extras, including the three preparatory shorts detailing the relationship between the characters of Ashley and Uncle David and a cast commentary track voiced by Hoyle, Ryder, Reich and Nicholls. Reviewing the DVD release for the Sex Gore Mutants website, Stuart Willis noted that the disc contained periods of "murkiness or softness in the picture" and a few "(infrequent) instances of muffling", all of which he put down to the original production values of the film. British gay magazine Attitude celebrated the DVD's release with a competition to win one of three copies; they described the film as "a bit surreal, but totally amazing."

Reception

Awards
The film received a number of awards at international film festivals.  At the 2010 Paris International LGBT Film Festival it won the best film award and Hoyle and Ryder shared the best actor award. It also won best film at the 2011 Berlin Porn Film Festival, and best film at the 2011 Erotic Awards. Reich expressed surprise at the Erotic Award, because he did not consider the film to be a work of erotica, but discovered that they'd won because they had explored "an extreme fetish that to be honest we'd not actually heard of nor knew we were exploring."

Reviews

Reviews of Uncle David were mixed. Writing in The Guardian, Ben Walters noted that "suspense and dread accumulate as the low-key naturalism and the characters' obvious affection for one another play off against the enormity of what looms ahead." Comparing Uncle David to Hoyle's earlier stage work, he felt that the two were "consistent", but that in the film Hoyle abandoned the "fireworks of his performance persona", opting for a "controlled, beguiling style". He believed that Ryder's familiarity with being filmed meant that he carried a "disarmingly ingenuous presence, by turns determined and naive." Walters opined that the film's "menacing" use of British seaside locations was similar to that in Brighton Rock and London to Brighton, while he also drew comparisons to Badlands, Bonnie and Clyde and The Talented Mr. Ripley, in that in all of them, the viewers' sympathy for the characters eclipses moral judgement of their actions. Walters would follow this with another review published in Time Out, in which he awarded the film five stars out of five.

"Not to everyone's taste, granted, [Uncle David] is nevertheless an original and disturbing take on modern love stories" was the view of Stuart Willis writing for the Sex-Gore-Mutants website. Believing that the film was a "pleasant surprise", he praised the improvised nature of the work, believing that it created believable scenes and allowed the viewer to get to know the characters "almost without realising." He considered the acting to be very good, and particularly praised Hoyle's ability to portray a paedophile grooming a young man in a way that was both "pathetic and truly sinister all at once". Rather than falling into "tasteless exploitation", Willis thought that the film was saved by a lack of sensationalism. Praising the exterior scenes as "beautifully atmospheric" and the music as "fitting the laconic mood and sense of ill-foreboding well", he considered the film to be a good example of low-key filmmaking, akin to that produced in Britain during the early 1980s.

Other reviewers were far more critical. Writing for the So So Gay website, Damien Ryan gave Uncle David a rating of 0.5 out of 5, describing it as "terrible". Believing that the film simply intended to shock viewers with its taboo subject matter, he felt offended by the story's "sheer inelegance". Opining that it reminded him of "the very worst attempt of a first-year film student", he questioned the description of Uncle David as a "black comedy", arguing that it wasn't at all funny, instead labelling it "the most vapid, transparent attempt at shock this side of a Lady Gaga performance." Criticising the acting, he said that Ryder "shouldn't quit his porn day job any time soon" and that Hoyle's character was simply a "marriage of wannabe Holden Caulfield-style outsider and mincing paedophile."

Cleaver Patterson was similarly critical in his review on the Cine-Vue website, awarding the film one out of five stars. He questioned the purpose of the film, arguing that it will only serve to alienate the gay population by portraying them as "sad, perverted and ultimately lonely individuals." More positively, he praised the appearance of the film with its "muted colours of the shingle beaches and piercing blue skies".

References

Footnotes

Works cited

External links

2010 films
2010 comedy-drama films
British avant-garde and experimental films
British comedy-drama films
British independent films
British LGBT-related films
Films set in Kent
Incest in film
Isle of Sheppey
LGBT-related comedy-drama films
Films about suicide
2010s avant-garde and experimental films
2010s British films

Uncle David


The Neon Ceiling is a 1971 American television film starring Gig Young and Lee Grant that aired on NBC Monday Night at the Movies. It was written by Carol Sobieski and directed by Frank Pierson. The film score was composed by Billy Goldenberg.

Plot
An unhappy housewife takes her precocious teenage daughter and leaves their suburban home in the middle of the night, stopping at a lonely diner in the California desert when her 1960 Ford Galaxie runs into car trouble. She runs up against, and eventually befriends, the diner's owner, a gruff, beer-drinking mechanic and artist whose life's work are the neon sculptures he creates and attaches to the ceiling.

Cast
Gig Young as the diner owner
Lee Grant as the housewife
Denise Nickerson as the daughter
William Smithers as the husband

Production
Lee Grant was set to appear in a TV film of The Price with George C. Scott when Universal sent her the script. "The moment I read that script I was hooked and couldn't let it go", she said. "It's a real departure from what is normally seen on TV."

Reception
The Los Angeles Times called it "an extraordinary experience... a work of art."

For her performance, Lee Grant won the 1971 Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (she was also nominated in the same category for an episode of Columbo.)

References

External links

1971 television films
1971 films
American television films
Films directed by Frank Pierson
Films scored by Billy Goldenberg

The Neon Ceiling


Tushar Arun Gandhi (born 17  January 1960) is an Indian author and son of Arun Manilal Gandhi, thus great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi.  In March 2005, he led the 75th anniversary re-enactment of the Dandi March. From 2007 to 2012, he was the Goodwill Ambassador of the CISRI-ISP Intergovernmental Institution for the use of Micro-algae Spirulina Against Malnutrition.

Early life
Tushar Arun Gandhi was born on 17 January 1960, in Shegaon, Maharashtra, to Arun and . His father was an actor and his mother was a researcher. Tushar was raised in the Mumbai suburb of Santacruz. He studied at Adarsh Vinay Mandir, a local Gujarati-medium school. He holds a diploma in printing from the Government Institute of Printing Technology, Mumbai.

Personal life
Gandhi resides in Mumbai. In 1985, he married Sonal Desai.  Together, they have 2 children, son Vivan Gandhi and daughter Kasturi Gandhi. Kasturi was so named after Kasturba Gandhi.

Career
Tushar Gandhi is best known for having established in 1998 in Vadodara, Gujarat, the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation. It is now located in Mumbai (and he is still its President).

Since 1996 he has served as President of the Lok Seva Trust, an NGO which a nephew of Mahatma Gandhi had establish in central Bombay in the mid-1950s for the welfare to textile-mill labourers.

In 2000, Tushar portrayed himself in a fictional Tamil - Hindi movie directed by Kamal Hassan, "Hey Ram".

In 2001, Tushar Gandhi negotiated with American marketing firm CMG Worldwide the use of the Mahatma's image in an advertisement (aimed at university students) for a credit card company.  This perceived betrayal of Gandhian ideals was followed by a public outcry causing him to cancel the deal.

In 2009, he did likewise in a semi-fictional movie, "Road to Sangam," based on an episode in his own life.

A nonfiction book by him, Let's Kill Gandhi, was published in 2007 and became for a few weeks a best seller in India.  Tushar in his book Let's Kill Gandhi, blamed Brahmins in general for assassinating Mahatma Gandhi. Some critics claimed that the book defamed all Brahmins. Tushar has said he was misquoted and his claims relate only to "a certain group of Brahmins from Pune [who] were continuously attempting on the life of my great grandfather", rather than to Brahmins in general.

In 2008 he was appointed Chairman of the Australian Indian Rural Development Foundation (AIRDF).

He is trustee at Maharashtra Gandhi Smarak Nidhi since 2014.

In 2018 he played a significant role in petitioning successfully the Supreme Court of India to direct the states and Union Territories to comply with its orders to curb cow-vigilante lynch mobs.

In 2019 he became a Director of the Gandhi Research Foundation in Jalgaon, Maharashtra.

In 2023, Tushar Gandhi was appointed as the Ambassador for "Return to Palestine".

References

External links

 Official website of Tushar Gandhi
 Tushar Gandhi takes the plunge into politics
 Tushar Gandhi prays at Mahatma Gandhi's birthplace
 Being Mahatma's descendants brings bouquets and brickbats
 Tushar Gandhi on Twitter

1960 births
Living people
Tushar
Gandhians
Mithibai College alumni
Indian National Congress politicians

Tushar Gandhi


Jane Perlov is an American law enforcement official who served as Chief of the Raleigh, North Carolina Police Department from 2001 to 2007 and Massachusetts Secretary of Public Safety from 1998 to 2001.

From 1981 to 1998 Perlov was a member of the New York City Police Department. In 1994 she was promoted to captain and put in charge of the NYPD's 20th Precinct. A year she was promoted to Inspector and moved to the 30th Precinct, located in Harlem. In 1997 she was promoted to Chief of Detectives in Queens, becoming the first woman to command an entire borough of detectives.

References

Massachusetts Secretaries of Public Safety
American municipal police chiefs
New York City Police Department officers
Living people
People from Raleigh, North Carolina
People from Bayside, Queens
1956 births

Jane Perlov


The Fiat Panda is a small car made by Fiat from 1980 to the present day. The first generation launched in 1980 and launched in the UK a year later. A 4x4 model appeared in 1983. A major facelift arrived in 1986 and another one took place in 1991. In 1995, the Panda was axed from the UK with other European markets following shortly after, remaining on sale in Italy right up to 2003. Normally it is bought by small families or young adults because the car is quite cheap and also the tax is not very high. The second generation of 2003 was made in Poland and was the European Car Of The Year in 2004. It received some small updates during it run and was produced until the end of 2012. It entered its third and current generation in 2011 with production moving back to Italy.

Panda
Front wheel drive vehicles
1980s automobiles
1990s automobiles
2000s automobiles
2010s automobiles

Fiat Panda


The Pont Marengo (Marengo bridge) crosses the Canal du Midi and links Carcassonne to the local railway station.

The busy canal lock at Port Marengo is a tourist attraction as the canal boats work their way along the canal. The bridge is named after the Battle of Marengo at which Napoleon defeated the Austrians in 1800, and a plaque on the bridge dates the construction to that year (or year 8, as it is given in the French Republican calendar).

A little way down from the bridge the railway line crosses the canal and here there is a small plaque and garden commemorating the maquisards who were executed here by the Nazis.

See also
 Locks on the Canal du Midi

Marengo
Marengo
Buildings and structures in Aude
Transport in Occitania (administrative region)

Pont Marengo


Transgender disenfranchisement is the prevention by bureaucratic, institutional and social barriers, of transgender individuals from voting or participating in other aspects of civic life. Transgender people may be disenfranchised if the sex indicated on their identification documents (which some states require voters to provide) does not match their gender presentation, and they may be unable to update necessary identity documents because some governments require individuals to undergo sex reassignment surgery first, which many cannot afford, are not medical candidates for, or do not want.

Transgender individuals identifying outside the gender binary of male and female (non-binary) are even more frequently disenfranchised. This may be due to a lack of legal recognition for other genders, high fees, complex legal processes, and requirements for medical transition steps that many non-binary individuals cannot have or do not want especially since many such medical procedures are specifically for binary transgender individuals (such as sex reassignment surgery).

Obtaining and updating documents
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's 2011 National Transgender Discrimination Survey finds that only 21% of people who identify as transgender have been able to update all of their IDs and records to reflect their gender; 33% have not updated any IDs. A 2018 study found that 78,300 transgender people in just eight U.S. states might be disenfranchised because of photo ID laws.

There are bureaucratic as well as social obstacles to updating identification documents. Many policies were enacted at a time when it was assumed that in order for transition from one gender to another to be complete, a person had to undergo sex reassignment surgery. However, modern health experts' current understanding is that transitions are an individualized process that can involve a variety of steps, sometimes involving surgery, but often not.

As of 2019, GLAD is running the "Pop-Up ID Project," which provides free legal representation to transgender residents of the six New England states for the purpose of updating their documents.

Utility bill
In accordance with the Help America Vote Act, some states allow voters to use two forms of identification that only list name and address, such as a utility bill, which alleviates the issue of having to change one's gender on a document.

Birth certificate

While birth certificates can be used as voter identification in non-photo identification states, birth certificate laws are established at the state level and commonly require that the individual undergo surgery in order for the gender on the document to be updated. Some states even make it mandatory that transgender people acquire a court order in order to change the gender on their birth certificate, which presents even more financial obstacles.

The first case to deal with legal recognition of transgender identity in the United States was In re Anonymous v. Weiner in 1966. A post-operative male-to-female trans woman applied for a change of sex on her birth certificate through the Bureau of Vital Statistics in the New York City Health Department. The Bureau turned to the Board of Health who then called on a committee on public health of the New York Academy of Medicine to make a recommendation. The application was ultimately denied and the Board of Health stated that "an individual born one sex cannot be changed for the reasons proposed by the request which was made to us. Sex can be changed where there is an error, of course, but not when there is a later attempt to change psychological orientation of the patient and including such surgery as goes with it."

As of March 2018, surgery is a prerequisite for changing one's gender marker on birth certificates issued by 25 states. Those states are: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Virginia and West Virginia. The remaining states either may change the birth certificate without proof of surgery or will not change the birth certificate at all.

Ban on Gender Affirming Care for Youth
As of August 2023, 21 states have banned gender affirming care for minors and 7 states are considering implementing such a ban. Transgender voters who must wait until the age of 18 to receive gender affirming care face barriers in changing their gender on birth certificates and driver's licenses in time for an upcoming election. The process of changing one's name and gender on government issued IDs varies by state, but can take up to 2 months in California. Election officials may invalidate these forms of IDs if they do not reflect an individual's current gender, creating further obstacles. Therefore, transgender voters who live in states that ban gender affirming care for youth, require sexual reassignment surgery or a court order to update government issued IDs, and require a government issued ID in the voting process impose a clear burden and lengthy process on their ability to vote.

Presenting identity documents
The Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy estimated that by requiring voters to present a government-issued photo ID at the polls, nine states may have disenfranchised over 25,000 transgender people in the November 2012 presidential election, because poll workers are unlikely to have training on how to handle transgender people, and may erroneously suspect voter fraud.

Transgender individuals may also be discouraged from voting under these circumstances because of prior experiences with presenting identification that does not accurately reflect their gender: 40% percent of transgender people reported being harassed in situations where they presented gender incongruent identification, while 15% reported being asked to leave the venue where the identification had been presented, and 3% reported being assaulted or attacked as a result of presenting their ID. Additionally, 22% percent reported being denied equal treatment or being verbally harassed by government officials.

Felon disenfranchisement and transgender incarceration

A 2011 survey found that 16% of transgender people have reported being incarcerated at some point in their lives, compared to 2.7% of the general American population. while 38% reported harassment during police interactions.

Homelessness and Poverty
People who are transgender are disproportionately affected by homelessness and poverty. A 2015 survey estimated that 30% of transgender individuals have or are currently experiencing homelessness. People experiencing homelessness may face difficulties in voting, such as the ability to show proof of residency for an extended duration during the voter registration process. The 2015 U.S. transgender survey also found that 1 in 3 transgender individuals live in poverty, compared to 11.6% of the total population. Individuals living in poverty report higher rates of inadequate access to transportation, which may make it more difficult for these individuals to reach polling stations. Higher rates of homelessness and poverty categorize transgender individuals into groups already experiencing greater difficulties in the voting process.

See also
 Disenfranchisement
 Felony disenfranchisement in the United States
 History of violence against LGBT people in the United States
 LGBT people in prison
 Transgender inequality
 Transgender rights in the United States
 Transphobia
 Transphobia in the United States
 Voter ID laws in the United States
 Voter suppression in the United States

References

External links

History of voting rights in the United States
Transgender rights in the United States
Legal discrimination against transgender people in the United States
Electoral restrictions
Voter suppression

Transgender disenfranchisement in the United States