Jay Marshall Strabala is an American architect who has participated in the design of skyscrapers and other buildings. In 2010, Strabala founded 2DEFINE Architecture, an architectural firm, with three Chinese partners, though the partnership later soured. Before that, he had been employed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) and Gensler.

Education
Strabala received his Bachelor of Arts in design from the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1988, Strabala graduated with a Master of Architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Career

SOM
After graduating with his master's degree, Strabala worked at SOM in Chicago, Illinois, for 19 years. He ultimately was made an associate partner in charge of design.

While at SOM, Strabala served as the studio head under lead architect Adrian Smith in working on the design of Burj Khalifa (Dubai, 2009), which is the tallest building in the world.  Strabala also worked under Smith as one of the two studio heads over the course of the project in designing the 450 m. tall Nanjing Greenland Financial Center (Nanjing, China, 2010). Also while at SOM, Strabala participated in the design of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (Hong Kong, 1997).

Strabala left SOM in 2006. In a 2007 interview, Adrian Smith said that Strabala was one of several architects up for partner at SOM who did not make it, in what Smith described as "a power move by the New York office."

Gensler

After leaving SOM, Strabala joined the Houston, Texas, office of the architectural firm Gensler in 2006.

While at Gensler, Strabala has been reported to have led the design of the 128-story Shanghai Tower and to have completed the "bulk of the design work". Gensler, however, claims that the tower is not Strabala's design. According to Gensler in a lawsuit it later dropped, "Gensler, not (Strabala), is the source of the architectural and design services rendered in designing the Shanghai Tower." Art Gensler, founder of Gensler, credited Jun Xia as "designer of the building (Shanghai Tower)". Xia was also credited as having "helped the firm score the Shanghai Tower contract and led the team's work on it", and as "the design principal for Gensler on the project."

Strabala also has been credited for leading Gensler's efforts in designing Hess Tower (Houston, 2010) and the Houston Ballet Center for Dance (2011). However, Gensler has claimed that "'Gensler, not (Strabala), is the source of the architectural and design services rendered in designing Hess Tower'", and that Strabala was but "'one of many members of that Gensler team'" that designed the Houston Ballet Center for Dance.

"In March 2010, before the [Shanghai] Tower was completed, Strabala had a falling out with Gensler and his employment with that firm terminated."

2DEFINE Architecture

Founding
Shortly after leaving Gensler, "In June 2010, Strabala and three Chinese partners ([Qiao] Zhang, Zhou [Shimiao], and one other who has since left the partnership) founded 2DEFINE." According to Strabala, as of December 2010, he "continues to be involved in the Shanghai Tower project at the behest of the client".

Breakup and Lawsuits
"For reasons that are very much in dispute, the [2DEFINE Architecture] partnership soured and litigation ensued, first in China where the partnership was centered, and then in Illinois."

In February 2015, Strabala sued Zhang and Zhou in Illinois alleging "Zhang and Zhou were secretly diverting money from 2DEFINE," though Zhang and Zhou denied "any wrongdoing". In November 2016, the Illinois court partially denied and partially granted the defendants' motion to dismiss.

There were also three lawsuits in China. One was "a lawsuit brought by Zhou against Strabala." Another of them was "a lawsuit brought by Strabala against Zhang and Zhou." In 2014, Shanghai Huangpu District Court, in a case (case number:(2014)黄浦民二(商)初字第980号), in which Strabala alleged that Zhang and Zhou were secretly diverting money from 2DEFINE, all of Strabala's charge was turned down, by both the District Court Judge and the Judges from the Court of Appeals(case number(2016)沪02民终2258号). Finally, the third was "a lawsuit brought by Zhou's Chinese architecture firm, Tufan Architects Design Firm, against Strabala." According to Zhou in an affidavit in the Illinois lawsuit, "the first two lawsuits [in China] have been resolved, while the third was still pending at the time the affidavit was filed."

Previous Employers Sue Strabala

Gensler
In June 2011, Gensler, sued Strabala alleging in a complaint that after founding his own firm Strabala publicly misrepresented his role in several projects while "'intentionally minimizing or entirely omitting the nature of Gensler's contribution.'" Gensler claimed that Strabala's actions violated the Lanham Act and various state laws.

In February 2012, Judge Ronald A. Guzman of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois dismissed Gensler's complaint on procedural grounds before trial, ruling that the allegations Gensler made against Strabala do not constitute a violation of the Lanham Act or related state law. Gensler appealed the dismissal.

In August 2014, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit vacated the District Court's dismissal of the lawsuit and remanded the case back to the District Court therefore reviving the lawsuit. In April 2015, Gensler dropped the suit.

SOM
The day after Gensler sued Strabala, SOM sued Strabala in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York alleging that he was "falsely claiming credit for work that originated with the company, including the designs for three of the 10 tallest buildings in the world." Among SOM's allegations was "that most of Strabala's work on Burj Khalifa, for example, "occurred in the construction-document phase" following design completion." The case was transferred to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in June 2012.

In December 2012, SOM and Strabala reached a binding settlement agreement and the case was dismissed under its terms. Neither party may discuss the lawsuit per the agreement.

Local involvement
"[I]n or around 1999, he and his wife purchased a condominium in a well-known high-rise building in Chicago designed by the famed architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe." Also in 1999, Strabala, speaking as a private citizen as part of a community group, testified before the Chicago City Council Zoning Committee against a high-rise development at 840 Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, Illinois. Strabala lived nearby and was concerned that the high-rise would be "out of scale with the neighborhood". Despite opponents' efforts, and that the project would "flout existing law", the Zoning Committee amended the ordinance allowing the project to proceed.

References

External links

20th-century American architects
Harvard Graduate School of Design alumni
Architects from Seattle
UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture alumni
21st-century American architects
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)

Marshall Strabala


The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) is the state health agency of the State of Minnesota in the United States. The department has four offices in Saint Paul and seven outside of the Twin Cities metropolitan area: Bemidji, Duluth, Fergus Falls, Mankato, Marshall, Rochester, and St. Cloud.

The agency was established in 1977 after the abolition of the state board of health, which had existed since 1872.

The agency is responsible for Minnesotans' public health, including disease control and prevention, environmental health, public policy, and regulation of health care providers. Additionally, it runs an immunization program and reports on the quality of clinical care in hospitals and clinics across the state.

On September 15, 2021, Minnesota Department of Health announced the release of Docket, a free mobile application that enables consumer access to the Minnesota Immunization Information Connection (MIIC) system.

References

External links

State agencies of Minnesota
State departments of health of the United States
Medical and health organizations based in Minnesota

Minnesota Department of Health


In algebraic geometry, the function field of an algebraic variety V consists of objects that are interpreted as rational functions on V. In classical algebraic geometry they are ratios of polynomials; in complex algebraic geometry these are meromorphic functions and their higher-dimensional analogues; in modern algebraic geometry they are elements of some quotient ring's field of fractions.

Definition for complex manifolds
In complex algebraic geometry the objects of study are complex analytic varieties, on which we have a local notion of complex analysis, through which we may define meromorphic functions.  The function field of a variety is then the set of all meromorphic functions on the variety. (Like all meromorphic functions, these take their values in .) Together with the operations of addition and multiplication of functions, this is a field in the sense of algebra.

For the Riemann sphere, which is the variety  over the complex numbers, the global meromorphic functions are exactly the rational functions (that is, the ratios of complex polynomial functions).

Construction in algebraic geometry

In classical algebraic geometry, we generalize the second point of view.  For the Riemann sphere, above, the notion of a polynomial is not defined globally, but simply with respect to an affine coordinate chart, namely that consisting of the complex plane (all but the north pole of the sphere).  On a general variety V, we say that a rational function on an open affine subset U is defined as the ratio of two polynomials in the affine coordinate ring of U, and that a rational function on all of V consists of such local data as agree on the intersections of open affines.  We may define the function field of V to be the field of fractions of the affine coordinate ring of any open affine subset, since all such subsets are dense.

Generalization to arbitrary scheme

In the most general setting, that of modern scheme theory, we take the latter point of view above as a point of departure.  Namely, if  is an integral scheme, then for every open affine subset  of  the ring of sections  on  is an integral domain and, hence, has a field of fractions.  Furthermore, it can be verified that these are all the same, and are all equal to the local ring of the generic point of .  Thus the function field of  is just the local ring of its generic point.  This point of view is developed further in function field (scheme theory). See .

Geometry of the function field

If V is a variety defined over a field K, then the function field K(V) is a finitely generated field extension of the ground field K; its transcendence degree is equal to the dimension of the variety. All extensions of K that are finitely-generated as fields over K arise in this way from some algebraic variety. These field extensions are also known as algebraic function fields over K.

Properties of the variety V that depend only on the function field are studied in birational geometry.

Examples

The function field of a point over K is K.

The function field of the affine line over K is isomorphic to the field K(t) of rational functions in one variable. This is also the function field of the projective line.

Consider the affine plane curve defined by the equation .  Its function field is the field K(x,y), generated by elements x and y that are transcendental over K and satisfy the algebraic relation .

See also

 Function field (scheme theory): a generalization
 Algebraic function field
 Cartier divisor

References

 , section II.3 First Properties of Schemes exercise 3.6

Algebraic varieties

Function field of an algebraic variety


João Soares de Paiva (born c. 1140) was a Portuguese poet (trovador) and nobleman; often recognised as the first author in the Galician-Portuguese language. He held lands in northern Portugal near the falls of the river Paiva and also in Aragon, near Monzón, Tudela, and Pamplona, near the border with Navarre, as fiefs of the King of Aragon. While the Aragonese sovereign was in Provence, João's Aragonese territories were invaded by Sancho VII of Navarre. He wrote a cantiga d'escarnho entitled Ora faz ost'o senhor de Navarra attacking the king of Navarre for this.

The dating of this cantiga is problematic because the Aragonese king is not identified by name. If it was Peter II, then the poem was probably written either between 1200 and 1204, during a period of conflict between Navarre and Aragon, or in September 1213, while Peter was in Languedoc, where he died in the Battle of Muret. On the other hand, it may have been written between 1214 and 1216, while the child-king James I was staying at Monzón. However, James' good relations with Sancho make it likely that the incident occurred in the reign of Peter.

References
Tolman, Earl Dennis. "Critical Analysis of a Cantiga d'Escarnho." Luso-Brazilian Review, Vol. 8, No. 2. (Winter, 1971), pp. 54–70.

Notes

1140s births
13th-century Portuguese poets
Portuguese male poets
12th-century Portuguese poets
Year of death unknown

João Soares de Paiva


Stanard "Stan"  Ridgway (born April 5, 1954) is an American singer-songwriter, and film and television composer known for his distinctive voice, dramatic lyrical narratives, and eclectic solo albums. He was the original lead singer and a founding member of the band Wall of Voodoo.

Early life
Stan Ridgway was born in Barstow, California, in the "high desert", and raised in Los Angeles.  He claims to have been a budding ventriloquist who spent his first night in jail at the age of 12 for stealing street signs. Ridgway also had a childhood fascination with folk music, pestering his parents until they bought him a banjo at the age of 14.

Wall of Voodoo
The band was named over-linking by Ridgway before their first show, in reference to a comment made by a friend of Ridgway's, while recording and overdubbing a Kalamazoo Rhythm Ace drum machine, which was a gift from voice actor Daws Butler. While listening to some of the music that created in the studio, Ridgway jokingly compared the multiple-drum-machine- and Farfisa-organ-laden recordings to Phil Spector's Wall of Sound, whereupon the friend commented it sounded more like a "wall of voodoo" and the name stuck.

Wall of Voodoo's music was a mix of New Wave and Ennio Morricone's Spaghetti Western soundtracks of the 1960s. Adding to the music's distinctiveness was percussive and textural experimentation, i.e. mixing drum machines with unconventional instruments such as pots, pans and various kitchen utensils, raw electronics with interlocking melodic figures as well as twangy spaghetti-western guitar. On top of the mix was Ridgway's unusual vocal style and highly stylized, cinematic narratives heavily influenced by science fiction and film noir, sung from the perspective of ordinary people and characters wrestling with ironies inside the American Dream.

Solo career

Ridgway embarked on a solo career in 1983, shortly after Wall of Voodoo's appearance at the US Festival that same year. After collaborating on the song "Don't Box Me In" with Stewart Copeland from the Police for the soundtrack to Francis Ford Coppola's Rumble Fish, starring Mickey Rourke, Matt Dillon and Dennis Hopper, he released his first proper solo album, The Big Heat (1986), which included the top 5 European (including UK) hit "Camouflage". This was followed by numerous other solo recordings: Mosquitos (1989), Partyball (1991), Black Diamond (1995), and Anatomy (1999), The Way I Feel Today (1998), a collection of big band standards, and Holiday in Dirt (2002), a compilation of outtakes and previously unreleased songs. Ridgway's album Snakebite: Blacktop Ballads and Fugitive Songs (2005), features the narrative song, "Talkin' Wall Of Voodoo Blues Pt. 1", a history of his former band in song.

Ridgway's album Holiday in Dirt was a quasi-cinematic project, with the release of the album accompanied by a showing of 14 short films by various independent filmmakers, each film a visual interpretation of one of the songs on the album. A compilation DVD of the films was released in February 2005.

In 1994, Ridgway began work on a new project in the form of a trio called Drywall, the other members of the trio being Ridgway's wife, keyboardist/vocalist Pietra Wexstun of the band Hecate's Angels (who had previously worked with Ridgway on Mosquitos and Partyball), and former Rain Parade drummer Ivan Knight. In 1995, Drywall released its first album (first of a "trilogy of apocalyptic documents"), titled Work the Dumb Oracle. A short film directed by Carlos Grasso, titled The Drywall Incident, was released the same year. An extended, instrumental soundtrack album for The Drywall Incident was released in 1996.

Ridgway and Wexstun also collaborated and forayed into new musical territory, composing a suite of mostly instrumental and orchestral pieces to accompany an exhibition of postmodern surrealist artist Mark Ryden's paintings after being introduced by a mutual friend, Sean P. Riley, who toured with Wall of Voodoo on their 1982 "Call of the West – Tour of Virtue" as the band's merchandiser. The album was released on CD in 2003 as Blood – Miniature Paintings of Sorrow and Fear in a unique 3-panel packaging design by the artist, which quickly sold out of its limited pressing of 7,500. Ridgway plays banjo and harmonica in Wexstun's group Hecate's Angels.

Stan Ridgway and Drywall regrouped in 2006 to release the album Barbeque Babylon, the third "apocalyptic document" with the single "The AARP Is After Me". The new Drywall lineup features Rick King on guitars and bass and Bruce Zelesnik on drums and percussion. In 2008, Ridgway and Wexstun released Silly Songs for Kids Vol. 1, a collection of children's songs that feature the duo and also saxophonist and woodwind player Ralph Carney.

Ridgway has also contributed to albums and projects by producer Hal Willner, Frank Black and the Catholics, the Flesh Eaters, the Divine Horsemen, The Ray Campi Quartet, the Fibonaccis, and Roger McGuinn.

Discography

 The Big Heat (1986)
 Mosquitos (1989)
 Partyball (1991)
 Songs That Made This Country Great (1992)
 Black Diamond (1996)
 The Way I Feel Today (1998)
 Anatomy (1999)
 Holiday in Dirt (2002)
 Snakebite (2004)
 Neon Mirage (2010)
 Mr. Trouble (2012)
 Priestess of the Promised Land (2016)

Film scores
 Rumble Fish (1983), directed by Francis Ford Coppola (end title song "Don't Box Me In" with Stewart Copeland)
 Terminus (1987), directed by Pierre-William Glenn (title song "End Of The Line")
 Slam Dance (1987), directed by Wayne Wang (song "Bing Can't Walk")
 Pump Up the Volume (1990), directed by Allan Moyle (song "Talk Hard")
 Future Kick (1991), directed by Damian Klaus (score)
 Floundering (1994), directed by Peter McCarthy (title song & "My Drug Buddy" (later renamed "Amnesia" when released on Holiday in Dirt))
 September Songs – The Music of Kurt Weill (1994), directed by Larry Weinstein (singer Cannon Song).
 Box of Moonlight (1996), directed by Tom DiCillo (writer: "Mexican Radio" – as Stanard R. Funsten)
 Melting Pot (1997), directed by Tom Musca (score)
 Death Smokes a Big Cigar (1997), directed by Franco Riccardi (score)
 Error In Judgment (1998), directed by Scott Levy (score)
 Desperate But Not Serious (1999), directed by Bill Fishman (score)
 Speedway Junky (1999), directed by Nick Perry (score)
 The Keening (1999), directed by Alex & Andrew Smith (score)
 Simpatico (1999), directed by Matthew Warchus (end title song)
 $pent (2000), directed by Gil Cates Jr. (score)
 Vengeance (2001), directed by Brian Belefant (songs)
 Desert Saints (2002), directed by Richard Greenberg (song)

Related artists
Wall of Voodoo
Pete McRae
Hal Willner
Frank Black and the Catholics
The Flesh Eaters
Divine Horsemen
The Fibonaccis
Roger McGuinn

References

External links

 Stuck In The 80's – Stan Ridgway Interview 2006
 4ZZZfm Brisbane – Stan Ridgway Interviews 1996, 1997 and 2002
 Official Stan Ridgway Site
 Essays and Reviews on Stan Ridgway, by Prof. Sam Umland
 Stan Ridgway Profile
 Complete Discography
 "Beyond Tomorrow" fan site
 Trouser Press entry

1954 births
Living people
People from Barstow, California
American banjoists
American film score composers
American male film score composers
American experimental guitarists
American male guitarists
American male singer-songwriters
American rock guitarists
American rock singers
American rock songwriters
Rock harmonica players
I.R.S. Records artists
20th-century American guitarists
Male new wave singers
Wall of Voodoo members
21st-century American keyboardists
Singer-songwriters from California

Stan Ridgway


638 Ways to Kill Castro is a Channel 4 documentary film, broadcast in the United Kingdom on 28 November 2006, which tells the story of some of the numerous attempts of the Central Intelligence Agency to kill Cuba's leader Fidel Castro. It was directed by Dollan Cannell.

Production
The film reveals multiple methods of assassination, from exploding cigars to femmes fatales; a radio station rigged with gaseous LSD to a poison syringe posing as an innocuous fountain pen. Fabian Escalante, the former head of the Intelligence Directorate and the man who had the job of protecting Castro for many of the 49 years he was in power, said that there were over 600 plots and conspiracies known to Cuban agents, all dreamt up to end Castro's life. Some were perpetrated by the Central Intelligence Agency, especially during the first half of the 1960s.  From the seventies onwards, the attempts were most often made by Cuban exiles who had been trained by the CIA shortly after Castro took power in 1959.

The film also contains extensive material shot with Antonio Veciana, the Cuban exile who came close to killing Castro on three occasions over 17 years. He is found running a marine supplies store in Miami. All these men, the film claims, were supported and funded by the United States government. At one point the CIA even sought the help of the Mafia in the hope they would be able to succeed where so many others had failed.  Other characters are Cuban exile Félix Rodríguez, the CIA operative who trained Cuban exiles for the Bay of Pigs Invasion, and who was present when the Bolivian Army killed Che Guevara in 1967 at the request of the Bolivian President at the time, and Enrique Ovares, possibly the first man to make an attempt on Castro's life after he took power. Robert Maheu is also interviewed, the Hughes associate who served as liaison between the CIA and mobsters "Johnny" Roselli and Sam "Momo" Giancana, in another plot to kill Castro, this time using poison pills.

The sub-text of the film is a comment on the contemporary "War on Terror". The film's executive producer was Peter Moore. It was directed by Dollan Cannell and the commissioning editor was Meredith Chambers.

Controversy
In 2006, the documentary was the centre of a controversy surrounding US Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. In it the Miami Republican, who had been recently tapped to become the top Republican on the House International Relations Committee, stated "I welcome the opportunity of having anyone assassinate Fidel Castro and any leader who is oppressing the people." A clip of her statement made its way to YouTube where the news media quickly picked up the story. There was a subsequent public questioning of Ros-Lehtinen's morals and suitability for her job. She responded by asserting that the clip was spliced together and that it was taken out of context; but after her account was contested by the film's director, she eventually released a statement, on Christmas Eve, accepting that she had made the remark. She soon apologised and was later elected.

See also

 Assassination attempts on Fidel Castro
 Fidel Castro

References

External links
638 ways to kill Castro, The Guardian, 3 August 2006

 The Last Revolutionary by Simon Reid-Henry
 Killing Castro: Plots That Failed  - slideshow by Life magazine
 Fidel Castro TV Series Charts 638 Assassination Attempts by The Guardian
 TV series documents 638 attempts on Fidel Castro's life - audio reports by BBC News

2006 television films
2006 films
Documentary films about Fidel Castro
British documentary films
2006 documentary films
Documentary films about United States history
Cuba–United States relations
2000s English-language films
2000s British films

638 Ways to Kill Castro


Lynmouth Lifeboat Station was the base for Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) search and rescue operations at Lynmouth, Devon in England from 1869 until 1944. Its best known action was in 1899 when the lifeboat was taken  across Exmoor before being launched to assist a ship in trouble.

History

Lynmouth is on the north coast of Devon facing the Bristol Channel. In the nineteenth century this was a busy waterway carrying ships to ports such as Cardiff and Bristol. A lifeboat station was established in the town on 20 January 1869, five months after the nearby wreck of the sailing vessel Home. The lifeboat was kept in a shed on the beach until a purpose-built boat house was built at the harbour. This was rebuilt in 1898 and enlarged in 1906–07.

The RNLI introduced motor lifeboats to the area in the 1930s. , the station to the west, received theirs in 1936 and , to the east, in 1939. These boats were able to serve the whole of the Exmoor coast and so Lynmouth Lifeboat Station was closed at the end of 1944. The boat house was then used as a club but was washed away in the Lynmouth flood of 15 August 1952. It has since been rebuilt and includes a public shelter.

Launch from Porlock Weir
The Forrest Hall, a 1,900 ton three-masted ship with thirteen crew and five apprentices sailing down the channel from Bristol, got into trouble several miles east of Lynmouth on the evening of 12 January 1899. A severe gale had been blowing all day. She was being towed but lost her rudder and the rope broke; it looked as though she might be blown onto the shore. At 19:52 a telegram reporting the problem was received at Lynmouth. The storm prevented a launch from the harbour so the Coxswain, Jack Crowcombe, proposed that the lifeboat be taken over land to Porlock Weir so that it could be launched there instead. This would entail a journey of  and a climb of .

Louisa was  long and weighed 10 tons on its carriage. Six men were sent ahead to widen some parts of the road that were too narrow while about 100 people, helped by 18 horses from Lynton, hauled the boat up the 1 in 4 (25%) Countisbury Hill. The carriage had to be repaired at one point when a wheel came off. At the top of the hill they took refreshments at the Blue Ball Inn then most of the people including the women and children turned back, leaving just 20 men to control the boat as it descended another 1 in 4 hill down into Porlock. More horses were obtained to bring the team up to about 20 (although four died during the journey). At Porlock the road was too narrow because of a wall but the owner let the men take down the corner of the house so that they could pass. Lower down a road had been washed away by the sea so a detour was necessary. The lifeboat finally reached the sea at 06:30 on 13 January.

The crew launched straight away. After their 11-hour journey across Exmoor, they now had to row for an hour into the storm to reach the Forrest Hall which was anchored close to Hurlstone Point. The lifeboat stood by – the crew rowing continuously to hold a safe position – until daylight when two tugs arrived and managed to get a new rope across. Some of the lifeboatmen went on board to help raise the anchors as the crew were too tired to do it themselves. The tugs took it across the channel to Barry, accompanied by the Louisa and the Lynmouth lifeboat volunteers in case there were further problems. They finally arrived in port at about 05:00 on 14 January. The lifeboat crew were towed back to Lynmouth by a steam ship.

The journey was re-enacted in daylight on 12 January 1999. The roads had been improved in the intervening hundred years, but the weather was similarly poor.

Lifeboats

'ON' is the RNLI's sequential Official Number. All boats were of the self-righting type.

References

Lifeboat stations in Devon
Lifeboat station
1869 establishments in England

Lynmouth Lifeboat Station


Ron Bloom (born 1955) is an American economic advisor who served as a senior official in the Obama Administration from February 2009 to August 2011. This included working as the Assistant to the President for Manufacturing Policy between February 2011 and August 2011, in the Department of the Treasury as a senior advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury, as a member of the President's Task Force on the Automotive Industry, and as senior counselor to the president for manufacturing policy. From 1996 to 2008, Bloom served as special assistant to the president of the United Steelworkers. Bloom also worked for the investment banking firm Lazard on two occasions, the second as Vice Chairman, U.S Investment Banking. Bloom is the vice chair and a managing partner of Brookfield Asset Management and served as chairman of the Board of Governors of the United States Postal Service.

Early life and education
Ron Bloom was born to a Jewish family in New York City and raised in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. His mother, Paula Yackira, was an educator, and his father, Joel Bloom, served 21 years as President of the Franklin Institute Science Museum. The elder Bloom was a prime mover in the conception and development of the Mandell Futures Center, a  wing that transformed the institute "from a dusty bin of outmoded exhibits into what is probably the most advanced science museum in the world." A co-author of the influential ''Museums for a New Century: A Report of the Commission on Museums for a New Century'', he was a president of the American Alliance of Museums (the first science museum president to serve in that capacity), chairman of the U.S. National Committee of the International Council of Museums, and founding president of the Association of Science-Technology Centers. In 1993, the American Alliance of Museums presented him with its Award for Distinguished Service to Museums; and in 2002, the Franklin dedicated its renovated observatory as the Joel N. Bloom Observatory.

After graduating from Wesleyan University in 1977, the younger Bloom went to work first for the Jewish Labor Committee and a year later for the Service Employees International Union. After a time, however, he realized that labor unions suffered from a lack of business knowledge, so he enrolled at Harvard Business School, earning an MBA with Distinction in 1985.

Career

Lazard
Upon graduation from HBS, Bloom joined the investment banking firm of Lazard Frères & Co. At Lazard, he divided his time between mergers and acquisition, the firm's principal business, and working with unions whose members were involved in corporate bankruptcies and restructuring transactions, a practice originated by Lazard partner Eugene Keilin. Many of the employee-related transactions involved the steel industry—whose hourly employees were represented by the United Steelworkers (USW)—and the airline industry, where Lazard represented pilots who were members of the Airline Pilots Association (ALPA).

Keilin and Bloom
In 1990, Bloom joined Keilin to create their own investment banking firm, Keilin and Bloom, which specialized in representing unions and other employee groups in turnaround and restructuring situations. Representing the USW in the Canadian bankruptcy of Algoma Steel, Bloom avoided a liquidation of the company and succeeded in obtaining majority ownership for the employees in the reorganized company.

Continuing a project they began together at Lazard, Keilin and Bloom also represented the ALPA pilots at United Airlines in their attempts to acquire ownership of the company through an employee stock ownership plan. In 1994, they succeeded in obtaining a majority stake in United for the ESOP, creating one of the largest employee-owned companies in the United States.

Steelworkers
In 1996, Bloom left the firm to become Special Assistant to George Becker, the President of the USW. His duties included helping the union affect corporate business restructuring, investments, bankruptcies and mergers. In his time with the Steelworkers, he reinforced his reputation as both a fierce negotiator and a creative problem solver, helping shepherd the steel industry through a painful transition period.

Bloom's work on behalf of the Steelworkers has been documented by major news publications, including the Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek. Three examples of transactions in which he played a major role are described briefly below.

LTV, Bethlehem, and ISG
In April 2002 and February 2003 respectively, Bloom facilitated the sale of the assets of LTV Steel and Bethlehem Steel to the International Steel Group (ISG). Led by the financier Wilbur L. Ross Jr., ISG sought to acquire the assets of LTV and Bethlehem out of bankruptcies without having to assume expensive obligations to former workers. Bloom negotiated a Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association (VEBA) that would finance health care for retirees using a portion of ISG's profits. Describing his dealings with Bloom, Ross said, "I found him first of all very, very pragmatic, not overly ideological," and "a very, very good negotiator."

Goodyear
In September 2003, Bloom led contract negotiations with Goodyear Tire, where the USW represented 19,000 active employees and more than 40,000 retirees. The company's management believed rising costs required that they replace several U.S. factories with new facilities in Asia, but the USW proposed an alternative that entailed major changes to Goodyear's long-term business plan. Ultimately, Bloom negotiated an agreement that included concessions in exchange for limits on executive salaries, agreements to restructure the company's debt and invest in U.S. factories, and the right of the union to nominate someone to sit on the company's Board of Directors. The USW avoided significant layoffs, and Jonathan Rich, a senior Goodyear executive, said, "We got what we needed" to become competitive again.

Wheeling-Pitt
In 2006, the Brazilian steel company Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN) tried to merge with Wheeling-Pittsburgh Corporation (Wheeling-Pitt), a transaction that would have cost a significant number of U.S. jobs. The Steelworkers were opposed to the deal, so Bloom orchestrated a hostile takeover by Esmark, a Chicago-based steel-distribution company, to keep Wheeling-Pitt out of CSN's hands and avoid layoffs.

Obama administration

Auto industry
In February 2009, Bloom was named Senior Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury on the President's Task Force on the Automotive Industry. As the deputy to Steve Rattner (who led the Auto Team at Treasury), he helped manage the process that led to the reorganization of General Motors and Chrysler. An experienced dealmaker, he played a key role in extracting concessions from the companies, their lenders and other creditors, and the United Auto Workers (UAW).

Bloom was particularly central to the Chrysler negotiations, where his strategy emphasized shared sacrifice to maximize value for all parties. He convinced the UAW, whose principal interest was preserving jobs, to accept painful wage-and-benefit concessions. In return, a VEBA for UAW members would receive a significant equity stake in the reorganized company. The announcement of that agreement put pressure on Chrysler's creditors to forgive a significant portion of their loans. With those commitments sealed, the Treasury agreed to provide the necessary financing to set the company back on its feet.

When Rattner left the government, shortly after GM emerged from bankruptcy in August 2009, Bloom took over the responsibility of "monitoring [the auto] industry and protecting the substantial investment the American taxpayers have made" in GM and Chrysler.

On April 21, 2010, GM paid back its outstanding loan from the U.S. government. The remaining Treasury stake in GM consists of $2.1 billion in preferred stock and 60.8 percent of the common equity. Bloom has said that this remaining taxpayer interest in the company will be disposed of "as soon as practicable."

Manufacturing policy
On Labor Day, 2009 (September 7), President Obama formally introduced Bloom as the Administration's Senior Counselor for Manufacturing Policy. He was charged with "working closely with the National Economic Council [to] provide leadership on policy development and strategic planning for the President's agenda to revitalize the manufacturing sector."

In this capacity, he was instrumental in the formulation of the Administration's Framework for Revitalizing Manufacturing (released on December 16, 2009). The Framework underlines the critical role manufacturing plays in the U.S. economy and in the fabric of American life; it outlines the major factors that have contributed to the significant difficulties facing American manufacturers; and it describes the Administration's efforts to address each of these factors and revitalize the manufacturing sector.

From February to August 2011, Ron Bloom served as the Assistant to the President for Manufacturing Policy at the White House. During this time, Bloom played a key role in the agreement between the federal government and leading automakers to raise light-duty vehicle fuel economy standards to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. The White House has estimated that these standards will save consumers $1.7 trillion and reduce oil consumption by an estimated 12 billion barrels. Bloom also oversaw the launch of the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, an initiative between industry, universities, and the federal government designed to invest in the emerging technologies that will make U.S. manufacturers more economically competitive.

The New York Times reported that Chrysler paid back its rescue loans on May 24, 2011, a comeback which Bloom described as "more quickly than we had hoped."

Bloom also led the U.S. Treasury Department's team that oversaw the Initial Public Offering of GM, which was the largest initial stock offering in U.S. history at the time.

Later career

Return to Lazard
In February 2012, Ron Bloom rejoined Lazard, first as a senior advisor and then as Vice Chairman, U.S. Investment Banking. Upon the announcement of his return, The New York Times reported that Bloom "said his primary focus remained working with industrial companies as they seek to expand in the United States."

National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC)
On October 16, 2011, The New York Times reported, "the National Association of Letter Carriers announced that it had hired Mr. Bloom and Lazard, the financial advisory and asset management firm, to develop a strategy to revitalize the deficit-laden [U.S.] postal service", currently facing a deficit of nearly $10 billion. The union hired Mr. Bloom to help expand and explore possible solutions needed to address the service's immediate fiscal crisis as well as a range of long-term business strategies. The national president of the union, Fredric V. Rolando, commented about Bloom and Lazard: "They have experience in analyzing large, financially complex institutions and crafting creative solutions."

A January 22, 2013 article in Esquire noted that Bloom recommended against weakening the network by slowing down the mail and cutting Saturday service. During Bloom's representation of the NALC at Lazard, the firm published a white paper recommending ways the USPS could grow its parcel services and stimulate new business by increasing delivery of packages ordered online. The white paper also noted, "a successful restructuring of the Postal Service must start with a plan to better leverage its unrivaled last-mile delivery network — a retail network that touches every city, town and neighborhood in America. Instead of focusing on shrinking its network and capabilities, thereby yielding its competitive advantage, the Postal Service needs an ambitious rethinking of its business model."

Detroit Public Sector Retirees
On September 19, 2013, Bloom and Lazard were hired to advise a committee representing Detroit's 23,500 public sector retirees during Detroit's Chapter 9 Bankruptcy restructuring. Retirees faced cuts to their healthcare and pension benefits during the restructuring, but Bloom assisted in negotiating a deal that Detroit retirees eventually supported. In December 2014, the city emerged from what The Detroit News called "an unprecedented restructuring" while the former Michigan Governor called it a "historic" and "outstanding outcome, far better than people's expectations."

Chrysler-Fiat Sale
Bloomberg reported on September 20, 2013 that Fiat SpA Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne hired Bloom to advise on the acquisition of Chrysler Group LLC and negotiate a deal with the United Auto Workers' retiree health-care trust. Fiat assumed full ownership of Chrysler after a deal was finalized in January 2014.

Brookfield Asset Management
In 2016, Bloom joined Brookfield Asset Management as a vice chairman and a managing partner to help manage the firm's private equity operations. In a March 27, 2019 Bloomberg article, Bloom characterized the firm's nontraditional culture of collaboration, saying "It's the opposite of an eat-what-you-kill mentality [ . . . ] Collaboration is the norm. People who aren't willing to work collaboratively just don't like it."

In 2020, Brookfield announced that Bloom would be leading the firm's $5 billion Retail Revitalization Program, a fund devoted to helping retailers recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

USPS Board of Governors
On August 1, 2019, the U.S. Senate approved President Donald Trump's nomination of Mr. Bloom to the USPS Board of Governors. Bloom began his service on August 20, 2019 and was chair of the Board's Strategy and Innovation Committee. Bloom also sat on an Election Mail Committee to oversee the mail-in voting process during the 2020 U.S. General Elections.

On February 9, 2021, Ron Bloom was unanimously elected by fellow Governors to serve as the 24th Chairman of the Board of Governors.

On November 19, 2021, it was announced that President Joe Biden intended to replace Ron Bloom along with fellow Governor John Barger, nominating Daniel Tangherlini and Derek Kan to fill their seats.

Public image
Bloom has been praised for his role in the Auto Industry restructurings and for his work as Senior Counselor for Manufacturing Policy. On April 29, 2010, he was named as one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World (in the category of World Leaders). In the Time 100 issue, Bill Saporito wrote that "his role in brokering the rescue of General Motors and Chrysler while preserving more than 100,000 jobs demanded a synergist who could work both sides of the equation with authority and respect."

In March 2009, when Bloom was one of the leaders of the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry, Mike Psaros (managing partner of KPS Capital Partners) said: "[Bloom] always tells the truth … He tells people objective facts they don't want to hear." Psaros added: "He will tell the management of these companies, he will tell the (union), and he will tell the debt holders and stockholders that there won't be any quick fixes, that this is a one-time and unique opportunity with the government's help to fix these companies." Brookings Institution analyst Darrell West said: "[Bloom] is a team player who will help build consensus." Then-president of the United Steelworkers, Leo Gerard, said "[Bloom] is very direct and can dismantle a lousy business plan in minutes. … He can explain that to a CEO as well as a brand new (union) member." Wilbur Ross of International Auto Components Group said: "[Bloom] has an extremely good understanding of the economics of business."

When Bloom left the Obama White House in August 2011, he was praised for his work at the time. Bob Ferguson, head of Global Policy at General Motors, said: "Bloom's leadership within the President's Auto Task Force helped America's auto industry steer toward the road to recovery. As a result, the prospects look bright for auto manufacturing to contribute towards jobs and a stronger economy for years to come."

The Detroit News and a book by Bloom's boss Steven Rattner claimed that at the Auto Task Force's farewell dinner in July 2009, Bloom said of his government service: "I did this all for the unions." In testimony under oath before Congress, Bloom denied making the statement at all, even in jest.

In October 2009, political commentators focused on comments made by Bloom in 2008, namely: "We know that the free market is nonsense. ...We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun." While conservatives Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and others juxtaposed Bloom's comments with details of Mao's violent dictatorship, progressive groups such as MediaMatters cited instances where conservatives had quoted Mao and where Republican campaign operative Stephen Shadegg claimed to have "followed the advice of Mao" in the 1960s.

Bloom's efforts toward automobile dealership closures was criticized for including "completely arbitrary factors";

 The New Republic Magazine: "Bloom…managed the negotiation that plucked Chrysler from its deathbed and married it off to Fiat, making him perhaps the most successful yenta in corporate history."
 President Obama: "Distinguished by his extraordinary service on the Auto Task Force and his extensive experience with both business and labor, Ron has the knowledge and experience necessary to lead the way in creating the good-paying manufacturing jobs of the future."
 An anonymous Obama Administration official, describing Bloom's role in the Chrysler restructuring: "Ron has been the quiet force that relentlessly and aggressively knocked people's heads together."
 Matthew Feldman, lead bankruptcy attorney for the Treasury Auto Team: "In the course of the Chrysler negotiations, Ron maneuvered so that he was the fulcrum of it all. There were a lot of counterparties—United Auto Workers, Chrysler, the Canadians, GMAC—and they all sort of felt like when they hit a wall in bilaterial relations, they could go to Ron and he would find a workaround. Without him, I don't think the Chrysler negotiations would have happened. People naturally looked to him as the person who can solve problems."

See also
 Effects of the 2008-2009 automotive industry crisis on the United States

References

External links

1955 births
Wesleyan University alumni
Harvard Business School alumni
United States Department of the Treasury officials
Jewish American government officials
People from Delaware County, Pennsylvania
Living people
21st-century American Jews

Ron Bloom


The 1990 Associate Members' Cup Final, known as the Leyland DAF Cup for sponsorship reasons, was the 7th final of the domestic football cup competition for teams from the Third Division and Fourth Division. The final was played at Wembley Stadium, London on 20 May 1990, and was contested by Tranmere Rovers and Bristol Rovers. Tranmere won the match 2–1, with Ian Muir and Jim Steel scoring the goals for the winning team.

Match details

External links
Official website

Associate Members' Cup Final 1990
EFL Trophy finals
Associate Members' Cup Final 1990
Associate Members' Cup Final 1990

1990 Associate Members' Cup final


Saracen ( ) was a term used both in Greek and Latin writings between the 5th and 15th centuries, to refer to the people who lived in and near what was designated by the Romans as Arabia Petraea and Arabia Deserta. The term's meaning evolved during its history of usage. During the Early Middle Ages, the term came to be associated with the tribes of Arabia.

The oldest known source mentioning "Saracens" in relation to Islam dates back to the 7th century, in the Greek-language Christian tract Doctrina Jacobi. Among other major events, the tract discusses the Muslim conquest of the Levant, which occurred after the rise of the Rashidun Caliphate following the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The Roman Catholic Church and European Christian leaders used the term during the Middle Ages to refer to Muslims.

By the 12th century, "Saracen" had become synonymous with "Muslim" in Medieval Latin literature. Such an expansion in the meaning of the term had begun centuries earlier among the Byzantine Greeks, as evidenced in documents from the 8th century. Before the 16th century, "Saracen" was commonly used in Western languages to refer to Muslims, and the terms "Muslim" and "Islam" were generally not used, with a few isolated exceptions. The term gradually became obsolete following the Age of Discovery.

Early usage and origins
The Latin term Saraceni is of unknown original meaning. There are claims of it being derived from the Semitic triliteral root šrq "east" and šrkt "tribe, confederation". Another possible Semitic root is srq "to steal, rob, thief", more specifically from the noun sāriq (), pl. sāriqīn (), which means "thief, marauder". In his Levantine Diary, covering the years 1699–1740, the Damascene writer Hamad bin Kanan al-Salhi () used the term sarkan to mean "travel on a military mission" from the Near East to parts of Southern Europe which were under Ottoman Empire rule, particularly Cyprus and Rhodes.

Ptolemy's 2nd-century work, Geography, describes Sarakēnḗ () as a region in the northern Sinai Peninsula. Ptolemy also mentions a people called the Sarakēnoí () living in the northwestern Arabian Peninsula (near neighbor to the Sinai). Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical history narrates an account wherein Pope Dionysius of Alexandria mentions Saracens in a letter while describing the  persecution of Christians by the Roman emperor Decius: "Many were, in the Arabian mountain, enslaved by the barbarous 'sarkenoi'." The Augustan History also refers to an attack by Saraceni on Pescennius Niger's army in Egypt in 193, but provides little information as to identifying them.

Both Hippolytus of Rome and Uranius mention three distinct peoples in Arabia during the first half of the third century: the Taeni, the Saraceni, and the Arabes. The Taeni, later identified with the Arab people called Tayy, were located around Khaybar (an oasis north of Medina) and also in an area stretching up to the Euphrates. The Saraceni were placed north of them. These Saracens, located in the northern Hejaz, were described as people with a certain military ability who were opponents of the Roman Empire and who were classified by the Romans as barbarians.

The Saracens are described as forming the equites from Phoenicia and Thamud. In one document, the defeated enemies of Diocletian's campaign in the Syrian Desert are described as Saracens. Other 4th-century military reports make no mention of Arabs, but refer to Saracen groups ranging as far east as Mesopotamia who were involved in battles on both the Sasanian and Roman sides. The Saracens were named in the Roman administrative document Notitia Dignitatum, dating from the time of Theodosius I in the 4th century, as comprising distinctive units in the Roman army. They were distinguished in the document from Arabs.

Medieval usage of the term

No later than the early fifth century, Jewish and Christian writers began to equate Saracens with Arabs. Saracens were associated with Ishmaelites (descendants of Abraham's older son Ishmael) in some strands of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic genealogical thinking. The writings of Jerome (d. 420) are the earliest known version of the claim that Ishmaelites chose to be called Saracens in order to identify with Abraham's "free" wife Sarah, rather than as Hagarenes, which would have highlighted their association with Abraham's "slave woman" Hagar. This claim was popular during the Middle Ages, but derives more from Paul's allegory in the New Testament letter to the Galatians than from historical data. The name Saracen was not indigenous among the populations so described but was applied to them by Greco-Roman historians based on Greek place names.

As the Middle Ages progressed, usage of the term in the Latin West changed, but its connotation remained associated with opponents of Christianity, and its exact definition is unclear. In an 8th-century polemical work, John of Damascus criticized the Saracens as followers of a false prophet and "forerunner[s] to the Antichrist," and further connected their name to Ishmael and his expulsion.

By the 12th century, Medieval Europeans used the term Saracen as both an ethnic and religious marker. In some Medieval literature, Saracens were equated with Muslims in general and described as dark-skinned, while Christians lighter-skinned. An example is in The King of Tars, a medieval romance. The Song of Roland, an Old French 11th-century heroic poem, refers to the black skin of Saracens as their only exotic feature.

The term Saracen remained in use in the West as a synonym for "Muslim" until the 18th century. When the Age of Discovery commenced, it gradually lost popularity to the newer term Mohammedan, which came into usage from at least the 16th century. After this point, Saracen enjoyed only sporadic usage (for example, in the phrase "Indo-Saracenic architecture") before being outmoded entirely.

In the Wiltshire dialect, the meaning of "Sarsen" (Saracen) was eventually extended to refer to anything regarded as non-Christian, whether Muslim or pagan. From that derived the still current term "Sarsen" (a shortening of "Saracen stone"), denoting the kind of stone used by the builders of Stonehenge, long predating Islam.

Use in medieval entertainment: Crusade cycle

The rhyming stories of the Old French Crusade cycle were popular with medieval audiences in Northern France, Occitania and Iberia. Beginning in the late 12th century, stories about the sieges of Antioch and Jerusalem gave accounts of battle scenes and suffering, and of Saracen plunder, their silks and gold, and masterfully embroidered and woven tents. From the story of the Frankish knights at the tent of Saracen leader Corbaran:

The tent was very rich, draped with brilliant silk,
and patterned green silk was thrown over the grass,
with lengths of cut fabric worked with birds and beasts.
The cords with which it was tied are of silk,
and the quilt was sewn with a shining, delicate samit.

History

The Maghreb
The Islamic conquest of countries such as Egypt and Syria had allowed the Muslims to create a fleet capable of undermining Byzantine supremacy in the Mediterranean in a relatively short time.

Especially on the Maghreb and Spanish coasts, various emirates had been established where the local component soon merged with the Arab and Berber ones. Each emirate was headed by an emir who, apart from formal subjection to one of the three caliphs who divided the Islamic Empire between themselves between the 8th and 9th centuries (Córdoba, Cairo and Baghdad), were substantially independent.

Crete and the return to the western Mediterranean
The repression of the Umayyad insurrection in al-Andalus was bloody and it is in this period (818) that the mass emigration of Andalusians (so indicated, regardless of ethnic origin and religion) took place along two lines, partly to Morocco and others to Egypt. From here they supported their co-religionists for the 827 Muslim conquest of Sicily. Also in this year, an autonomous Andalusian kingdom was founded in Alexandria, Egypt, which the Abbasid Caliphate put an end to in 825. Then the Andalusians left for the Aegean, where they established the Emirate of Crete, independent and flourishing from a commercial and cultural point of view, as well as powerful from a military point of view, until the Byzantine reconquest in 961.

Crete became the center of numerous military expeditions in the Aegean, in southern Italy, where Traetto was also founded, and Rome was raided in 846, 849 and 876. In the western Mediterranean, due to the weakening of the Carolingian Empire and its fleet, Marseille was raided in 838 and 846, Arles in 842 and 850 and Fréjus in 869. The Muslims established a refuge in the Camargue in these years, as chronicled in the Annales Bertiniani, and from there they raged in the Rhône valley.

The Balearic Islands were finally conquered by the Andalusian Umayyad cause in 902.

The conquest of Sicily and the incursions into southern Italy

From 827 the Aghlabid emirs of Kairouan, in today's Tunisia, began the conquest of Sicily, which took a long time but which marked the apogee of Saracen rule in the Mediterranean for at least two centuries.
The conquest was completed in 902, thanks to the offensive against the Byzantines, who had cut off supplies by conquering Crete (827) and Malta (870).

The settlement of the Saracens was sometimes also encouraged and supported by local lords, as help in disputes, as in the case of Andrea, consul of Naples, who was harassed by the Lombard prince of Benevento Sico and after turning in vain to Louis the Pious he asked for help to the Saracens. The intervention was also requested again by his successor Sicard, with the cities of Amalfi, Sorrento and Gaeta joining the Neapolitans: the Saracens behaved correctly towards the cities of Campania, helping them to defeat the Beneventans and signing peace and trade agreements. In exchange the Neapolitans helped the Saracens during the siege of Messina in 843 and maintained a complicit neutrality when Punta Licosa and the islands of Ischia and Ponza fell under Islamic rule.

Again the Neapolitans, to weaken Benevento, had invited the Saracens to attack Brindisi in 838, from which they extended to Taranto and Bari, which became the seat of the eponymous emirate from 840 to 871.

Having defeated a Venetian fleet in the Kvarner Gulf, the Saracens now took advantage of the rivalries between the local powers, acting as masters and now also putting themselves at the service of the unscrupulous Beneventans themselves.

In the year 840 Siconulf, lord of Salerno, fighting with Radelchis and Landulf, lords of Benevento and Capua, called to his aid the Saracens settled in the colony under the Traetto hill, at the mouth of the Garigliano, often and willingly hired by the Duke of Naples, Andrew II. After bloody incursions into some parts of southern Italy, the Saracens found a way to prosper thanks to their raids and their offering themselves as mercenaries to the most diverse Christian lords of the time.

In 843 the Saracens went so far as to destroy Fondi and Monte Cassino, arriving in Ostia and going up the Tiber to reach Rome where they sacked St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican and Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome.

The gesture prompted a swift reaction against the Saracens. A first attempt to expel the Saracens from southern Italy was made in 866-871 by the emperor and king Louis II, who, having descended into Italy with an army of Franks, Burgundians and Provencals, in addition to the allied troops of Pope Sergius II, of the Doge of Venice, the Duke of Spoleto and that of Naples, he took back Benevento, Capua, Salerno, Bari, destroying Matera and Venosa.

Now uncontrollable Saracen troops had been hired by Adelchis, Duke of Benevento: he forced the people of Bari to accept the protection of the Berber Khalfun, who as payment was promised nothing less than permission to sack and burn some sacred buildings in the area, but he went so far as to raze the city of Capua to the ground. Ludovico, then in Italy, managed to free Benevento from the mercenaries and pacify the Lombard princes, acting as guarantor for the division of the duchy into the two principalities of Salerno and Benevento and the county of Capua.

The compromise solution did not please Pope Leo IV, who in those years was having Rome surrounded with the "Leonine belt" of walls, as proof of the fear that was still alive, so the pontiff sponsored the formation of a Campanian fleet which in 849 defeated the Saracens off the coast of Ostia. Ludovico, nominated emperor in the meantime, moved towards Bari, also begged by the abbots of Monte Cassino and San Vincenzo al Volturno. In the meantime, an emir reigned in Bari who juggled between the various local powers, without denying the granting, upon payment, of safe conducts for pilgrims who wanted to embark for the Holy Land. He also protected the learned Jewish community of Oria. Expelled for the first time from Bari, a nucleus of them entrenched themselves near Monte Matino (Horace's Mons matinus) on a hill which therefore took the name of Mount Saraceno on the Gargano. From there they often came down to plunder and burn towns, villages and cities, to desecrate temples and commit all sorts of cruelties and atrocities. Defeated numerous times by different peoples, the Saracens, who fled from the Gargano in 967, fortified themselves in Bari. The campaign against Bari was long and between various negotiations, alliances and treaties it took place from 855 to 871, with the active combat phase in the four years between 867 and 871. The emir Sawdan, who had also sacked the Sanctuary of Monte Sant'Angelo on the Gargano, was allowed to spend his life in golden captivity by his friend Adelchis, prince of Benevento. But this move turned out to be wrong for the German emperor due to the entry into the scene of the Byzantine emperor Basil I, who frowned upon the intervention in Southern Italy, a territory of Byzantine prerogative for centuries: Basil allied himself with Sawdan and he fomented a revolt of the Lombards of Benevento, who took the emperor prisoner for about two months, while a new Saracen army of twenty thousand men, sent by Kairouan, devastated Calabria and Campania. In 873 Ludovico returned to Campania and defeated the Saracens, but died two years later.

Therefore, the Saracen port of Taranto remained, from which a very rich slave trade took place. It was the Byzantines who recovered Taranto in 876. However, the Saracen raids in the Adriatic did not end with the reconquest of Taranto, indeed in those years the Muslims completed the conquest of Sicily (Syracuse in 878, Taormina in 902). In 882, once again allied with the Campanians, they destroyed the abbeys of San Vincenzo and Montecassino, establishing a nest at the mouth of the Garigliano (Traetto), from which they also held Rome at gunpoint: they were finally expelled only in 915, when the Byzantine empress Zoe Porphyrogenita managed to get the Italian lords to agree on the need to expel the Saracens from the Italian peninsula and began a campaign against them which - thanks to the commitment of Berengar I of Italy, of Pope John X, and of the Dukes of Spoleto and Camerino - reaped the promised fruit. In reality the raids continued, in fact one of the most serious episodes seems to be the new sack of Oria and Taranto which occurred in 925/926, on which occasion the family of the well-known Oritan Jewish scholar Shabbethai Donnolo was captured.

In 970 they returned again to the Gargano, devastating places (the two Roman cities of Siponto and Matinum were razed to the ground), terrifying the inhabitants in massacres and robberies, who were forced to ask Otto the Great for help. It is on Mount Saraceno, where they were strongly entrenched for years, that the Saracens were defeated and driven from the place by Otto the Great.

In 1002/03 Doge Pietro II Orseolo successfully led a fleet of 100 ships against the Saracens who had been besieging Bari for months. As thanks, the Church of San Marco dei Veneziani was built in old Bari.

From Sicily in the 9th century the Arabs continued to plunder the coasts of southern Italy, also establishing new, occasional bridgeheads, such as at Agropoli or Santa Severina, which, despite the unsuccessful intervention of Otto II (in 982), they lasted for a long time, falling away only after 1036, when the death of the Sicilian emir of al-Akhal led to an irreversible fragmentation of power on the island. They were expelled from Sicily in 1071, after ten years of war, by the Normans.

The chain of coastal towers along the Tyrrhenian coast, connected to each other within sight to exchange signals, had the purpose of spotting pirate ships from afar in order to give the alarm to the defenseless populations in time, but they were only built in the 16th century to protect themselves by the Ottoman fleet. The commonly used name "Saracen Tower" is incorrect.

See also

 Hagarenes
 Ishmaelites
 Magarites
 Muhajirun
 Arab–Byzantine wars
 Early Muslim conquests
 Serkland
 Böszörmény
 Moors
 Farang

Notes

Bibliography

 Timani, Hussam, Saracens, in Muhammad in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia of the Prophet of God (2 vols.), Edited by C. Fitzpatrick and A. Walker, Santa Barbara, ABC-CLIO, 2014, Vol. II, pp. 538–542.
Tolan, John; Veinstein, Gilles and Henry Laurens. 2013. Europe and the Islamic World: A History. Princeton University Press. .
Tolan, John Victor. 2002. Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination. Columbia University Press.

Ancient peoples
Arab people
Christianity and Islam
Ethnonyms
Exonyms
Ethno-cultural designations

Saracen


Jinsop Ho Odirling, known as "Jinsop" (Seoul, South Korea, 1959 – Santa Elena, Ecuador, June 24, 2012) was an Ecuadorian singer of Korean and American heritage who sang Spanish ballads, pop, and rock music. He reached fame in the 1970s and 1980s in Latin America. The name "Jinsop" means "Fire Star" in Korean.

Personal life

Jinsop was born in Seoul, South Korea. His father was an American diplomat named Fred Odirling, and his mother was a Korean woman named Myonghui. When he was a child in South Korea he was discriminated against for having a non-Korean father. He then moved to the United States because his father got work as an electrical engineer at NASA. When he was 15 years old he moved to Quito, Ecuador where his father began work as a diplomat at the research station. His parents returned to the United States, but he remained in Ecuador because he liked the country. At sixteen he studied at the Academia Cotopaxi and Anderson College where he met his wife Silvia Jarrin, who taught him Spanish with beginning language books, and with whom he had three children; Jinsop Junior, a business manager in South Carolina, Alexander, who studied systems engineering in Quito, and David, who earned a doctorate in economics.

Beginning of singing career

Jinsop, who spoke English and Korean, learned to sing in Spanish before learning how to speak it, since he had no knowledge of the language before arriving to Ecuador. Soon after, in 1972, Jinsop and his mother organized a music festival where they sang for a rock band called "Las Hormigas" (The Ants). At the conclusion of the festival, they won first prize, but people were angry because another band called The Apostles (who received greater applause) did not win, and so the crowd lit the dais on fire in protest. The prize was then taken from Jinsop and awarded to The Apostles. Jinsop fled the festival, but was arrested a few days later. Soon after he became a member of The Apostles, and one of the judges of the aforementioned festival, Héctor Napolitano, who was a famed singer at the time, invited him to the recording studio of the label Ifesa to interpret the songs of Paul Anka and other artists, and that is how he released his first album called Puppy Love, which reached major airplay throughout Ecuador, and which marked the beginning of his career as a solo artist.

Years of popularity

Jinsop's height of popularity was in the years 1973–1978, which is referred to as the epoch of "modern music" in Ecuador. At this time he sang songs written by Luis Padilla, Gustavo Pacheco, and covered the songs of James Brown, Simon and Garfunkel, Paul Anka, etc.

At eighteen he moved to Guayaquil at the home of the composer and musician Gustavo Pacheco, a member of the group Boddega, who composed the following songs for Jinsop: "Ven chiquilla ven" (Come see, girl), "Rosas y claveles" (Roses and carnations), "Volvamos a empezar" (Let's start over), "Extraño" (Strange), "Hay un motivo por vivir" (There's a reason for living), and "Silvy" which was dedicated to his wife. The songwriter Luis Padilla wrote the song "Estrellita solitaria" (Lonely star) for Jinsop. Although Jinsop had some doubt because he sang Spanish-language songs with an accent, the producer Efrén Avilés explained to him that people liked his sound, and so they recorded these songs at the Ifesa studio, and Jinsop was widely accepted and praised.

In 1973 he recorded his first album "Mi Oraciòn" (My Prayer) in the Ifesa and Orion studios (with music by the orchestra of Hector "Manito" Bonilla), which included hits such as: "Los campos verdes" (Green Fields), "Ven chiquilla ven" (Come see, girl), "Mi bella niña" (My beautiful girl), "Yo pienso que tu eres la mujer" (I think you're the woman), "Silvy", and "Atar un lazo arriba de un rosal" (cover version of "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Ole Oak Tree").

In his second album appeared the songs: "Estrellita solitaria" (Lonely star), "Caballo de acero" (cover version of "Iron horse", original by Christie), "Rosas y Claveles" (Roses and carnations), "Volvamos a empezar" (Let's start over) among others.

In the 1980s he gave up music for several years. In 1986 he became an Ecuadorian citizen under the government of President León Febres Cordero. He moved to the United States to work for some years, but returned to Ecuador where he said he wanted to spend the last years of his life. He divorced his wife who stayed in the U.S. with two of his sons.

He continued to make music, and in 2011, suffering from lung problems, and on the advice of his doctors, he moved to a neighborhood named María Auxiliadorato in Ayangue, Santa Elena, Ecuador which is known for its hot springs. He moved to a beach-side inn with his youngest son Alexander, in hopes that the salty air of the beach would help him breathe better. He also suffered from a heart condition.

His last performances were in Guayaquil on March 8, 2012, at the Simon Bolivar Convention Center alongside the Spanish singer Jeanette and the Argentine singer Elio Roca. He also performed on June 9, 2012, for Father's Day at the Hotel Oro Verde in Machala with the Uruguayan band Los Iracundos, Los Golpes, and the Argentine singer Leonardo Favio.

Death

His friend Arturo Cisneros said he missed a call from Jinsop June 24, 2012 at 3:50 am. He said he would forever wonder what Jinsop wanted to talk to him about at that hour. Later that morning, Jinsop was found in his home dead from cardiac arrest by his son Alexander. Three weeks before his death, Jinsop's former wife Sylvia died of pancreatic cancer.

The Guayaquilean songwriter and musician Gustavo Pacheco said that only three days before Jinsop's death, they had spoken about organizing a tour in August in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, and Chicago. Due to Jinsop's untimely death that tour would never happen.

Jinsop's body was buried on June 26, 2012, at 5:00 pm, at the General Cemetery of Guayaquil.

List of popular songs
 La casa del sol naciente
 Silvy
 Yo Pienso Que Tu Eres La Mujer
 Mi Bella Niña
 Rosas y Claveles
 Papá
 Dulzura Mia
 Mi Oración
 Tu Huella
 Tú me provocas
 Atar un Lazo Arriba de un Rosal
 Dulzura Mía
 Ven Chiquilla Ven
 Puppy Love Son Tus Besos La Razón
 Atar Lazos Arriba De Un Rosal
 Un León Se Escapo De Su Jaula
 Pasaje de Ida
 Caballo de Acero
 Cuando Estas Conmigo
 Reflexiones
 Las Doncellas
 Volvamos a Empezar
 Estrellita Solitaria
 Campos Verdes

References

External links
Jinsop, el coreano que se sintió ecuatoriano
Jinsop-mantuvo-balada-setentera-escenario
jinsop-el-coreano-que-sedujo-a-ecuador
fallecio-el-cantante-jinsop
Se fue la "Estrella de fuego"
el-cantante-coreano-jinsop-fallece-en-santa-elena-ecuador
Jinsop Ho: Hasta siempre
Se extinguió la voz de Jinsop
esta-manana-el-cuerpo-del-cantante-jipson-fue-trasladado-a-guayaquil
jinsop-estrella-fuego-sigue-cantando-baladas
La voz del romance de silencio
Jinsop – Los Campos Verdes (a Branko Film)
el-cantante-jinsop-fallecio-mientras-residia-junto-al-mar
un-paro-cardiaco-acallo-a-jinsop
El cantante coreano Jinsop fallece en Ecuador
el-cantante-coreano-jinsop-fallece-en-ecuador
muere-cantante-jinsop-en-ayangue
fallecio-el-cantante-coreano-jinsop-ho-por-una-aparente-falla-del-corazon
Jinsop - COREA
los-campos-verdes-de-jinsop
Los restos de Jinsop serán enterrados en Guayaquil
El cantante Jinsop falleció mientras residía junto al mar
Falleció Jinsop
murio-jinsop-el-de-los-campos-verdes
Guayaquil, la última morada de Jinsop
Sepelio se realiza hoy
Un paro cardiaco acalló a Jinsop

1959 births
2012 deaths
20th-century Ecuadorian male singers
Singers from Seoul
Ecuadorian people of American descent
South Korean people of American descent
South Korean emigrants to Ecuador
21st-century Ecuadorian male singers
Ecuadorian expatriates in the United States
20th-century South Korean male singers

Jinsop


The Scattered Nation is a philosemitic and racist speech by the U.S. Senator, Confederate officer, and slaveowner Zebulon Baird Vance, written sometime between 1868 and 1870. The speech praises the accomplishments of Jewish people, crediting Jews for much of what Vance considered great in Western civilization. Particular praise in reserved for white Jews of Central and Western European descent, while Black people and Jews of color are disparaged as culturally and racially inferior. Vance was a prominent defender of Jews during a time when antisemitism was common in the American South. While positively remembered for decades by the North Carolina Jewish community, Vance's reputation has declined in recent years due to his racism, support for slavery and the Confederacy, and promotion of Jewish stereotypes.

About
"The Scattered Nation" was first written between 1868 and 1870. The text of the speech was printed in 1904 and later reprinted in 1916. During his 20 years as a Senator, Vance delivered the speech hundreds of times across the United States, often in sold-out lyceums and lecture halls.

In the speech, Vance credits "the race of Shem" for originating much of what he considered the greatest accomplishments in Western civilization, including monotheism. Advancing a supersessionist view, Vance states that the "Christian is simply the successor of the Jew--the glory of the one is likewise the glory of the other." The speech claims that "no people can claim such an unmixed purity of blood" as Jewish people and that "certainly none can establish such antiquity of origin, such unbroken generations of descent." Proto-Zionist in outlook, the speech asserts that Palestine was the "central chamber of God's administration." Vance disparages African, Asian, and MENA Jews living in "Africa, Arabia, India, China, Turkestan and Bokhara" as the "lowest of the Jewish people in wealth, intelligence and religion", but insisted that non-European Jews are still "superior to their Gentile neighbors in each." Orthodox Jews and other religious Jews in Eastern Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, including Hasidic Jews and Karaites, are characterized as "ignorant", zealous, and underdeveloped. Vance praises Jews of Central and Western European descent as "by far the most intelligent and civilized of their race." Reform Judaism is praised for eliminating "Oriental mysticism" from the practice of Judaism, but criticized for dispensing with "much of the Old Testament itself". In Vance's view, Reform Jews have thus become "simply Unitarians or Deists." The text of the speech frequently characterizes Jews as wealthy due to involvement in commerce, claiming that Jews are "the leading merchants, bankers, and financiers of the world." Vance claims that the Rothschild family wielded disproportionate political and economic power in Europe, arguing that this is a form of Jewish "genius which showed itself capable of controlling the financial affairs of the world." Taking a jab at Northerners, Vance states that "if a Yankee and a Jew were to 'lock horns' in a regular encounter of commercial wits", the Yankee would "in two hours time whittle the smartest Jew in New York out of his homestead in the Abrahamic covenant."

In contrast to his praise of Jewish people, Vance disparages Black Africans. He claims that "wars have been waged and constitutions violated for the benefit of the African negro, the descendants of barbarian tribes who for four thousand years have contributed nothing to, though in close contact with, the civilization of mankind..." One passage compares the torso size of Jews and Africans, but does not explain the significance of these supposed racial differences. Poor and working-class Jews are not described favorably by the speech, which lavishes praise on wealthy Jews. Derogatory references are made against "low-bred" Jews. North Carolina Historic Sites notes that the speech is "an argument against antisemitism toward middle-class Jews."

Legacy
Due to Vance's condemnation of antisemitism in the American South, he was largely remembered positively for many years by North Carolina Jews and by the Asheville Jewish community in particular. A Confederate monument honoring Vance was erected by the City of Asheville in 1897. Following Vance's death, the local chapter of B'nai B'rith and the United Daughters of the Confederacy held an annual ceremony at the Vance Monument. The ceremony was held every year for decades, continuing until the early 2000s. The Jewish-American philanthropist and pro-Confederate activist Nathan Straus, co-owner of the Macy's department store chain, funded the construction of a wrought iron fence around the monument as well as an annual wreath-laying to honor Vance. The speech was often republished by Jewish publishing houses. Maurice A. Weinstein's 1995 book Zebulon B. Vance and "The Scattered Nation" (Wildacres Press, Charlotte) helped to keep Vance's memory alive within North Carolina's Jewish community. The Vance Monument was removed by the City of Asheville in May 2021, with the support of the local Jewish community.

In the 21st century, Vance is no longer held in esteem by the North Carolina Jewish community. According to a 2021 statement released by two Jewish organizations in Asheville, the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Greater Asheville Area and Carolina Jews for Justice/West, Vance "classifies Jews in a hierarchy of worthiness according to their geographic origins. Not surprisingly, white, Ashkenazi Jews from Western and Central Europe rank highest." Andrea Cooper, writing for The Forward, notes that the speech contains "hoary stereotypes" about Jews and finance. Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer, a Jewish woman, has stated that Vance's views no longer represent the views of the Asheville community in general or the views of the white population of Asheville specifically.

North Carolina historian Kevan Frazier notes that at the time the speech was written, only about 500 Jewish people lived in North Carolina, so the speech was not motivated by political gain. Frazier credits Vance for his strong opposition to antisemitism, but criticizes the speech's anti-Black foundational arguments. Vance's biographer Selig Adler also noted that "there were somewhat less than five hundred Jews in North Carolina at the time Vance wrote the speech, a fact that discounts all political motives."

See also
Model minority
Philosemitism
Stereotypes of Jews

References

External links
Full text of speech, Archive.org

African-American history of North Carolina
African American–Jewish relations
Anti-Arabism in the United States
Anti-Asian sentiment in the United States
Anti-black racism in North Carolina
Anti-Mizrahi sentiment
Anti-Orthodox Judaism sentiment
Antisemitism in the United States
Christian Zionism in the United States
Class discrimination
History of racism in North Carolina
Jewish Confederates
Jews and Judaism in North Carolina
Opposition to antisemitism in the United States
Orientalism
Philosemitism
Scientific racism
Southern United States literature
Supersessionism
Zionism in the United States
Western North Carolina
White American culture in North Carolina
White supremacy in the United States

The Scattered Nation


The Vines is on Pullens Lane, Headington, a suburb in east Oxford, England. It was the first house to be built on the west side of the lane, on land that was originally owned by the Morrell family, local brewers. The house is built of red brick with stone dressings.

The house was built in 1889–90 for Professor Sydney Howard Vines (1849–1934). It was designed by the Victorian architect Harry Wilkinson Moore (1850–1915).
In 1923, it became known as The Vineyard, after the first owner, Professor Vines.

In 1948, the Vineyard was purchased by the United Oxford Hospitals, who renamed it to be Pollock House after its last owner. From 1948 to 1956, it was used as the Nurses Training School of the then Wingfield-Morris Orthopaedic Hospital, now the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre. From 1958 till around 1976, it was used as the hospital's Night Nurses' Home. Subsequently, it was part of Oxford Brookes University until 2004.

The house was renamed to The Vines, is now occupied by Scholarship & Christianity in Oxford (SCIO), the United Kingdom centre of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU).

Close by, also in Pullens Lane, is Cotuit Hall, part of EF International Academy and previously one of the halls of residence at Oxford Brookes University. This was designed by the same architect, H. W. Moore, and built in 1892. In the past, it was known as Napier House.

References

Houses completed in 1890
1890 establishments in England
Buildings and structures in Oxford
Houses in Oxfordshire
Nursing schools in the United Kingdom
Oxford Brookes University

The Vines, Oxford


Capoeira is a combination of martial arts, sport and popular culture that developed in Brazil, by African slaves and Brazilian natives, starting in the 16th century. It was made to give slaves a chance to escape and to survive. Capoeira was illegal in Brazil until the 1930s.

Capoeira uses strong and fast kicks, dodges and fast counter-attacks. It also uses acrobatics and simple take-downs.

History

As a form of martial arts for slaves
Capoeira's history probably begins with the beginning of African slavery in Brazil. When Portuguese colonists began exporting West African slaves, Brazil, with its vast territory, received most of the slaves; almost 40% of all slaves sent across the Atlantic Ocean.

Although rebellions were rare, capoeira was invented as a hope of survival for slaves. If they managed to escape, as after an escape attempt, colonial agents were sent after the escapees. The martial arts were incorporated into a dance, to escape detection–with music and rhythmic moves, no suspicion could be raised regarding potential martial art training. Due to city growth, more slaves were brought to cities and so made capoeira more prominent and allowed it to be taught and practiced among more people. In Rio, the colonial government tried to suppress it and established severe physical punishments for its practice.

Post-slavery

After slavery was abolished in 1888, free former slaves had nowhere to live and no jobs. They were thought of by the public as lazy workers. Capoeira then found a new role—as a dance of criminals.

They used capoeiristas (capoeira dancers) as bodyguards and hitmen. In 1890, the Brazilian government prohibited capoeira when police identified it as an advantage in fighting and they didn't want criminals to have this advantage. After the ban, anybody caught practising capoeira for any reason would be arrested and tortured by the police. Some practises still occurred in remote places with guards to warn of police.

By the 1920s, repression of capoeira had declined. Mestre Bimba from Salvador, a strong fighter in both legal and illegal fights, thought capoeira was losing its martial roots due to the use of its playful side to entertain tourists. Bimba began developing the first systematic training method for capoeira, and in 1932 founded the first capoeira school. He called it Luta Regional Baiana because it was illegal to use capoeira in the name. By 1940, capoeira was legalized.

Today

Today, capoeira is viewed as one of the symbols of Brazilian culture all around the world and in 1970 it was taught outside of Brazil for the first time. Capoeira presentations, normally theatrical and with little martiality, are common sights around the world.
The martial arts part, however, is still present and still disguised, just as it was in the time of slavery, and trickery is still present and expert dancers used. An attack can be disguised even as a friendly gesture, such is the expertise gone into the research of new moves. Capoeira is now a symbol of Brazilian culture, its ethnic amalgam, and of resistance to oppression.

References

Sport in Brazil
Martial arts
Dances

Capoeira


Erwin Marquit (August 21, 1926 – February 19, 2015) was an American physicist and Marxist philosopher. He was the principal founder of the Marxist Education Press and was editor of the Marxist studies journal Nature, Society, and Thought (1987–2007), making available works of Marxist scholarship, including contributions from European, African, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Cuban scholars.

Career
Erwin Marquit was born in 1926 in New York City.  In 1931, his family moved to the United Workers Cooperative Colony in the East Bronx.

Marquit studied electrical engineering at the College of the City of New York (1942-48—interrupted by 22 months in the United States Navy (1944–46). He was blacklisted as an engineer and barred from completing a master's degree dissertation in physics at New York University in 1950 due to his Communist Party affiliation and he emigrated to Poland. He returned to the United States in 1963 upon completing the degree of Doctor of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of Warsaw. After a research appointment at the University of Michigan (1963–65) in particle physics and an assistant professorship at the University of Colorado (1965–66), he was appointed Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Minnesota in 1966.

In 1974, he was the Communist Party candidate for Governor of Minnesota, coming in sixth with 3,570 votes. That same year, he changed his research interests from experimental particle physics to application of dialectical materialism to the study of the conceptual foundations of physics. Also that year, he initiated a course entitled Introduction to Marxism, while continuing to teach courses in physics.

The combination of a nationwide campaign against a Communist Party member teaching a course on Marxism and the change in the direction of his research from government- funded research to unfunded research with a Marxist orientation, led to an eight-year effort by the University of Minnesota administration to force his removal from the university despite his having tenure. With support from colleagues in the United States and abroad, he was able to defend his position and win promotion in 1983, but with the unusual title Professor without Disciplinary Designation. In 1994, Marquit was finally awarded the title Professor of Physics after the Encyclopedia of Applied Physics commissioned him to write a 13-page entry on Philosophy of Technology. He was awarded the title Professor Emeritus of Physics in 1999.

In the Communist Party, Marquit strongly opposed what he saw as undemocratic and Stalinist tendencies by its leader Gus Hall. In 1992, Marquit briefly led the Minnesota chapter of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. The chapter dissolved after a few months because of conflict caused by the chapter's Marxist orientation. Marquit later reconciled with the party and as a member of its Economics Commission, initiated discussions on the socialist market economies in China and Vietnam. He died at the age of 88 in 2015.

Writings
Marquit continued his association with the Marxist Educational Press until its dissolution in 2011, and contributed articles to Political Affairs and People's World on past and present problems of socialist political and economic development in light of economic globalization. A selection of his papers on dialectical materialism and philosophy of the natural sciences can be found on his website.

References

External links
MEP Publications (Marxist Educational Press)
www.iol.ie/~rjtechne/century130703/addons/marquit2.htm
The Socialist Countries: General Features of Political, Economic, and Cultural Life, book by Marquit in PDF format

1926 births
2015 deaths
American atheists
American Marxists
21st-century American philosophers
20th-century American philosophers
American physicists
Marxist theorists
Minnesota socialists
University of Minnesota faculty
Military personnel from New York City
Minnesota politicians
University of Michigan faculty
American expatriates in Poland
University of Warsaw alumni
United States Navy personnel of World War II
Communist Party USA politicians
Writers from New York City

Erwin Marquit


The Scottsville Squirrel Barkers were a San Diego-based bluegrass group best known as the band that launched the careers of founding Byrds' member, Chris Hillman and founding Eagles' guitarist-songwriter, Bernie Leadon. The lineup included Hillman on mandolin, future Hearts & Flowers member Larry Murray on Dobro, Ed Douglas on stand-up bass, Gary Carr on guitar, and future Flying Burrito Brothers and Country Gazette member, Kenny Wertz on banjo. Leadon would replace Wertz on banjo when he left the group to join the Air Force in 1963 (Wertz would return the favor by replacing Leadon in the Flying Burrito Brothers when he left that group to start the Eagles in 1971).

The group recorded only one album, Blue Grass Favorites in 1963, and disbanded later that year. They have all remained in contact over the years, reuniting sporadically since 2003 and most recently in 2009 at the Adams Avenue Roots Festival in San Diego.

References

American bluegrass music groups
Musical groups from San Diego

The Scottsville Squirrel Barkers