The Vision is a fictional character, a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.

The character is played by English actor Paul Bettany in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movies Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), and Avengers: Infinity War (2018), the television miniseries WandaVision (2021), and the animated series What If...? (2021).

Marvel Comics characters
Avengers (comics) characters

Vision (Marvel Comics)


The John P. McGovern Museum of Health and Medical Science, or The Health Museum in short, is a museum in the Museum District of Houston, Texas. The museum is a member institution of the Texas Medical Center. As of 2012 the museum gets over 180,000 annual visitors, including 22,000 schoolchildren who visit the facility during organized field trips.

History
The Museum of Medical Science opened in the Houston Museum of Natural Science opened on November 16, 1969, and it remained there for 21 years. The current museum facility opened on March 16, 1996, as The Museum of Health & Medical Science. The building housing the museum, the John P. McGovern Building, was funded with a $9.5 million capital campaign. Since the opening, the museum has processed over two million visitors. In late 2001 the museum's board of trustees unanimously voted to rename the museum after John P. McGovern. The museum revamped its brand in 2006, as part of the 10th anniversary in the standalone facility. The new branding included a shortened name ("The Health Museum") and a new logo. As of 2006 the museum received 175,000 annual visitors.

A 2011 renovation included the addition of 3,300 SF of exhibition space to the southwest side of the museum with a metal-panel facade and 1,500 SF of additional interior renovations.

Permanent exhibit space for the DeBakey Cell Lab opened in 2015. The DeBakey Cell Lab is a unique science-focused experience and the only bilingual science lab museum exhibit in the country. Honorably named after the respected and accomplished medical pioneer, Michael E. DeBakey, M.D., this 2,000 sq. ft. exhibit features seven authentic biology-based science experiments developed for visitors ages 7 to adult.

References

External links

 The Health Museum

Museums in Houston
Human body
Science museums in Texas
Medical museums in the United States

The Health Museum


Denver Seminary is a private, Evangelical Christian seminary with its main campus in Littleton, Colorado.

It includes a campus in Colorado, an extension campus in Washington, DC, and an online campus. It offers Masters programmes in Arts, Divinity and Theology and a Doctorate in Ministry, as well as counselling courses. In 2021 it enrolled over 1200 students from over 35 denominations.

History
Denver Seminary was founded in 1950 by members of the newly founded Conservative Baptist Association. This is a group of churches that separated from the Northern Baptist Convention over theological differences stemming from the Fundamentalist-modernist controversy conflict earlier in the twentieth century. The school was originally known as the Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary and, in 1982, changed its name to Denver Conservative Baptist Seminary.

The school was originally known as the Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary and was based in Englewood, Colorado. In 1982 it changed its name to Denver Conservative Baptist Seminary. In 1998 it  changed its name again to Denver Seminary; this was a reflection of its growing appeal to a wide-spectrum of evangelical students.

Carey Thomas became the Seminary's first president in 1950. In 1956, Vernon Grounds was appointed as the second president and remained so until 1979. In June 1962, the seminary was granted associate membership in the American Association of Theological Schools (now the Association of Theological Schools). Full ATS accreditation was achieved in 1971.

Full accreditation to the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools was achieved in 1972.

In 1996, Clyde McDowell, the fifth president, introduced a program of training and mentoring for which Denver Seminary has become well known. During his time, the institute became the first seminary ever to receive accreditation by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Education Programs (CACREP) for its counseling degree program. The institute is also accredited by the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education.

In 2002, Bruce Shelly, the Senior Professor of Church History, authored a biography on Grounds titled Transformed by Love:The Vernon Grounds Story. This book gives a comprehensive overview of Denver Seminary's history as it developed from a small denominational school to a major evangelical seminary under Grounds' leadership.

In 2005, under the leadership of President Craig Williford, the institute moved to a new campus in  Littleton, Colorado where the school currently resides. Built from the ground up specifically for the Seminary, the campus includes teaching and leadership facilities and nearly 100 student apartments. The campus is situated next to the South Platte River.

The seminary had a campus in West Texas for a time, but this has now closed.

Presidents
The following men have served in the presidency of Denver Seminary:

1. Carey S. Thomas, 1950-56
2. Vernon C. Grounds, 1956-1979
3. Haddon Robinson, 1979-1991
4. Edward L. Hayes, 1993-1996
5. Clyde McDowell, 1996-1999
6. Leith Anderson (interim president) 1999-2001
7. G. Craig Williford, 2001-2008
8. Mark Young, 2009-present

Accreditation
Denver Seminary is accredited by Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada, Higher Learning Commission, the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, and the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Education Programs (CACREP).

The seminary adheres to the National Association of Evangelicals Statement of Faith; students are required to sign the NAE statement of faith.

Theological stance
The evangelical theological stance of Denver Seminary is demonstrated by the words of the late chancellor Vernon Grounds:

Here is no unanchored liberalism, freedom to think without commitment. Here is no encrusted dogmatism, commitment without freedom to think. Here is a vibrant evangelicalism, commitment with freedom to think within the limits laid down in Scripture.

This statement was first used by Grounds to stake out Denver Seminary's theological position in the midst of conflict between moderately conservative and ultra-conservative factions of the Conservative Baptist Association that eventually led the ultra-conservative faction to withdraw from the CBA and found the Conservative Baptist Fellowship (CBF). Grounds, formerly the academic dean of fundamentalist Baptist seminary in New York state affiliated with the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches, eventually became a key spokesperson for the evangelical movement that attributes its roots to the writings of Carl F. H. Henry. Under his leadership, Denver Seminary became firmly rooted in this theological camp.

Publications
Since 1998, Old Testament professor Richard Hess has edited the Denver Journal: An Online Review of Current Biblical and Theological Studies.  This is primarily an electronic journal that provides Denver Seminary faculty an opportunity to publish book reviews on the latest theological scholarship.

Engage Magazine is published biannually since 2013. The magazine features articles written by faculty addressing current topics in the church and ministry as well as stories of students and alumni. It is distributed to Denver Seminary alumni, students, staff, faculty, donors, and friends.

Library
The Carey S. Thomas library is the largest evangelical Protestant library between Chicago and Los Angeles. It is composed of carefully selected volumes of the best in theological and scholarly literature to support the school's curriculum. The present collection totals approximately 185,000 volumes, both in print and electronic format, and is located in the main library in Littleton, Colorado and in the extension campus libraries in Washington DC.

References

External links
 Official website

Seminaries and theological colleges in Colorado
Evangelical seminaries and theological colleges
Buildings and structures in Arapahoe County, Colorado
Education in Arapahoe County, Colorado
Englewood, Colorado
Littleton, Colorado
Universities and colleges established in 1950
1950 establishments in Colorado

Denver Seminary


Willard Drake Johnson (1860-1917) was an American glaciologist, topographer, cartographer, hydrographer, geologist, geographer, and ethnologist. His career began under the tutelage of Grove Karl Gilbert on the Lake Bonneville survey. In 1882 he joined US Geological Survey under John Wesley Powell. From 1882 until 1896 he was in the topographic portion of the survey. In 1888 he co-founded the National Geographic Society. From 1888 until 1890 he surveyed the Arkansas River in Colorado. In 1891 he became the chief of the California, where he co-founded the Sierra Club and became a good friend of John Muir. In 1895 Johnson went on an expedition to Sonora, where he studied the Seri Indians. In 1897 he joined the Water Resources Branch of the US Geological Survey, where he worked in Oklahoma. From 1904 until 1905 he worked in Utah and the Sierra Nevada, where he studied glacial geology. After that he worked for the US Forest Service in Portland, Oregon until 1916. He worked in the Grand Canyon until his death there on February 13, 1917. Mount Johnson in the Sierra Nevada of California is named in his honor.

References

1860 births
1917 deaths
National Geographic Society founders
American geographers
American geologists

Willard Drake Johnson


Cletus Apul Avoka (born 20 November 1951) is Ghanaian lawyer, politician and member of the Parliament of Ghana representing the Zebilla East constituency in the Upper East region.

He was the majority leader of the parliament during his time in office and also once served as the Minister of Interior and Minister for Lands and Forestry.

Early life and education
Cletus Apul Avoka was born 30 November 1951. He hails from Teshie near Zebilla, Upper East Region. He attended Navrongo Secondary School and the University of Ghana where he obtained his L.L.B in 1976. He also attended Ghana School of Law where he obtained his Bachelor of Law degree in 1978.

Political career
After the 2012 general elections, he was replaced by Benjamin Kunbuor for the 6th Parliament of the 4th Republic as Majority Leader. He was the Minister for Interior in the National Democratic Congress government of John Atta Mills in Ghana until January 2010.

His first ministerial position was as Minister for Lands and Forestry in the government of Jerry Rawlings. He was formerly the Member of Parliament for Bawku West constituency in the Upper East region of Ghana from 1993 to 2005.

In the 2008 parliamentary election, he re-entered parliament as the second MP for the Zebilla constituency and assumed office in January 2009.

2000 elections
Avoka was also the MP for Garu Tempane from 2000 to 2004. In the year 2000, he won the general elections as the member of parliament for the Garu-Tempane constituency of the Upper East Region of Ghana. He won as an independent candidate in that election for the Upper East Region. Akudibila was elected with 14,282 valid votes cast.

This was equivalent to 45.40% of the total valid votes cast. He was elected over William Azuma Dominic of the National Democratic Congress, William Pullam of the Peoples National Convention Party, Emmanuel S.N.Asigri of the New Patriotic Party, Tindogo D.Ashock of the Convention Peoples Party, Halid M.Yussif of the United Ghana Movement and Hamidu Sahanona of the National Reform Party.

These acquired 12,224, 2,908, 1,360, 293, 246,138 votes out of the total valid votes cast respectively. These were equivalent to 38.90%, 9.20%, 4.30%,0.90%, 0.80%, 0.40% respectively of total valid votes cast.

During the 2008 Ghanaian general elections, he polled 13,074 votes out of the 32,215 valid votes cast representing 40.50% over Appiah Moses who polled 10,470 votes representing 32.50%, John Akparibo who polled 6,701 votes representing 20.80%, Sulley Awanni Agholisi who polled 1,461 votes representing 4.54%, Azumah Yusif Ndago who polled 273 votes representing 0.85% and Atiah Kudugu who polled 236 votes representing 0.73%

He won again in the 2012 Ghanaian general elections with 21,900 votes out of the 41,106 valid votes cast representing 53.28% over Frank Fuseini Adongo who polled 17,082 votes representing 41.56%, Mallam Yusuf Isa who polled 1,739 votes representing 4.23% and Atangnaba Abraham who polled 385 votes representing 0.94%

Personal life
Avoka is a Catholic Christian and is married with four children.

See also
 List of Mills government ministers

References

External links
 Profile on Ghana parliament website

Living people
Ghanaian MPs 1993–1997
Ghanaian MPs 1997–2001
Ghanaian MPs 2001–2005
Ghanaian MPs 2009–2013
Ghanaian MPs 2013–2017
Government ministers of Ghana
Environment ministers of Ghana
Interior ministers of Ghana
National Democratic Congress (Ghana) politicians
Ghana School of Law alumni
1951 births
20th-century Ghanaian lawyers
Ghanaian Roman Catholics
People from Upper East Region
21st-century Ghanaian politicians
Ghanaian MPs 2021–2025

Cletus Avoka


Abe John Jacob (born October 7, 1944) is an American sound designer and audio engineer. Called the "Godfather of Sound", Jacob greatly influenced the design of sound reinforcement in modern musical theatre, and was one of the first persons credited in the role of sound designer on Broadway, with a sound designer credit in Playbill in 1971.

Jacob brought many new techniques to musical theatre, including head-worn wireless microphones, powerful concert loudspeakers with dedicated electronic processing, delayed speaker zones, under-balcony speakers, front-fill speakers, mix position in the audience, FFT analysis, scene recall, digital mixing consoles, and delay used to focus audience attention. Jacob sparked the creation of the Meyer Sound Laboratories UPA loudspeaker, which became their flagship product.

In 1998, Jacob won an Ovation Award for his sound design of Harriet's Return at the Geffen Playhouse. He never received a Tony Award, largely because the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League began giving out Tony Awards for sound design in 2008 after his career highlights. He served on the Tony Award committee from 2011 to 2014, but then the committee halted the sound design category. Lighting designer Jules Fisher, Jacob's colleague on many productions, said that Jacob should have won a Tony Award in 1978 for Dancin'.

In 1999, the United States Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT) bestowed upon Jacob the Distinguished Achievement in Sound Award. The same year, Jacob received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the EDDY Awards sponsored by Entertainment Design magazine. In 2008, the USITT gave Jacob their highest award, the USITT Award, and they commissioned the organization's first audio engineering monograph, titled The Designs of Abe Jacob. In 2016, Jacob was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Live Design Awards ceremony. In 2017, the Theatrical Sound Designers and Composers Association (TSDCA) granted Jacob the Distinguished Sound Designer Award.

Early life
Abe John Jacob was born on October 7, 1944, in Tucson, Arizona. His parents were Abe Taft Jacob and Victoria Jacob (née Shaar), both of Lebanese heritage; his grandparents owned a supermarket in Tucson. After the supermarket closed because of wartime rationing, Jacob's father and his uncle George opened a Mexican restaurant in 1946, named Club 21, which operated for the next 73 years. When he was four years old, Jacob was crossing the street with his aunt, mother and maternal grandmother when a car struck two of them. His mother and grandmother were fatally injured. Abe and his aunt Mabel survived because she ran and pulled him out of the way. After this, he was raised by his aunt until he was 11.

At the urging of his aunt, Jacob acted very briefly in film, with a bit part in the 1951 Ronald Reagan western The Last Outpost at the age of six, and after that he performed as Tad Lincoln in a staging of Abe Lincoln in Illinois at the University of Arizona. Jacob appeared in several children's theatre performances in Tucson, but at age nine he was done with his acting career. Though he wished to be a musician, Jacob did not want to practice the piano, which made him realize he would never be a great pianist. In 1955, Jacob moved with his father and new stepmother to the Haddon Hill neighborhood of Oakland, California, where he attended Catholic school classes and served as an altar boy at Our Lady of Lourdes along with his new best friend, Tom Gericke. In September 1958, Jacob entered Catholic high school at St. Ignatius College Preparatory in San Francisco, while Gericke attended St. Joseph Notre Dame High School in Alameda. Despite this separation, Jacob and Gericke continued their friendship, with Jacob recording Gericke's teenage band around 1960.

Jacob joined the audio-visual department at his school. His first theatrical sound design role came when St. Ignatius was staging performances of High Button Shoes, The Mikado and The Desperate Hours. Without realizing it, Jacob put together a sound system design much like those being used at the time in Broadway plays – a system based on a few Altec 639 ribbon microphones positioned as foot mics along the front edge of the stage, amplified into Altec Voice of the Theatre loudspeakers. Because the school did not have the necessary equipment, Jacob rented a sound system for $150/week from McCune Sound, a regional sound company founded in 1932 by Harry McCune. This early connection to McCune was to prove critically important to Jacob's career.

Early career
Graduating from high school, Jacob worked for McCune during the summer of 1962, then in September he moved to Los Angeles to enroll in college classes at Loyola Marymount University, where he earned a B.A. degree. At Loyola, he designed sound and lights for the college's theatrical productions, and he put together his own radio show on KXLU, the college's radio station; an early evening classical music program titled Eine Kleine Commute Music. Every summer he returned to the San Francisco Bay Area and worked for McCune. In 1964 and 1965, Jacob worked at the Berkeley Community Theatre on Ben Kapen's summer series theatrical program known as Melodyland. The 1965 year was different as Jacob worked the stage manager position for the first and last time, shepherding four productions: Leslie Uggams in The Boy Friend, Godfrey Cambridge in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Pearl Bailey in Call Me Madam and Richard Chamberlain in Private Lives. Bailey was such a difficult client that Jacob determined never again to be stage manager.

Jacob was finished with his college coursework at the end of 1965, but his diploma ceremony was in June 1966. In the interim, Jacob worked at McCune. On August 29, 1966, he was part of the sound crew at the Beatles' final concert appearance, supported by McCune at Candlestick Park. Jacob joined Harry McCune's son, Harry McCune, Jr., in developing the new concept of musicians touring with their own sound system. Jacob's old schoolmate Gericke was now a record producer working with people such as Lou Adler of Dunhill Records, and through this connection Jacob was introduced to Bobby Roberts, Dunhill's touring manager. Roberts asked Jacob to fix the problems which were being experienced on the road by the Mamas and the Papas, who were touring in support of their big radio hits "California Dreamin'" and "Monday, Monday". Jacob designed a sound system for them and mixed their show at the Boston Armory in October 1966. The group gave only about 30 concerts, and Jacob mixed most of them, including ones at Carnegie Hall and the Hollywood Bowl. The touring career of the Mamas and the Papas ended in early 1967.

Monterey Pop
The Mamas and the Papas bandleader John Phillips assembled a board of directors to mount a free festival in Monterey, California. The board included Simon and Garfunkel, Cass Elliot, Lou Adler, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Many major pop artists lobbied to perform, and the festival grew in scope, expanding to fill three days. The resulting Monterey Pop Festival was held during June 16–18, 1967.

Jacob designed the sound system for the whole festival, and he incorporated the stage requirements of the various bands on the bill, after which he determined that he would need a total of 24 microphone inputs on his mixer, which was unheard of at the time. He augmented the proprietary 16-channel stereo sound console designed by McCune head engineer Bob Cavin with two 4-channel mono Altec 1567 tube mixers to get 24 inputs. The mix position was at the side of the stage, a less-than-optimal but common configuration at the time because of cabling limitations. Meagher Electronics, known for supporting the Monterey Jazz Festival in the 1960s, supplied additional audio equipment and personnel including electronics technician Charlie Richmond, who observed that the rock festival pushed the sound gear much harder than the jazz festival. Both McCune and Meagher were Altec dealers, so Jacob combined their inventory to create a loudspeaker array appropriate for the Monterey County Fairgrounds main stage. Centered on the roof of the stage was a pair of Altec 612 cabinets topped with a pair of 203B horns. Four Altec 612 cabinets were in pairs at the left and right edges of the stage, surmounted on each side with a 1003B multicellular horn, an Altec A7 "Voice of the Theatre" cabinet, another 203B horn, and an Altec 9844 studio monitor for front fill. A pair of Altec 214 loudspeakers served the musicians as sidefill left and right, which in 1967 was an advancement in stage monitoring. All of this was powered by Altec amplifiers totaling about 1,000 watts. During soundcheck, guitarist/vocalist David Crosby of the Byrds exclaimed, "Oh groovy! A nice sound system at last," a moment which was caught on film and featured in the documentary Monterey Pop. McCune veteran Mort Feld mixed most of the acts while Jacob worked the stage. Jacob mixed two performances: Ravi Shankar's four hour set, and the Mamas and the Papas who closed the festival.

To get good sound for the film, recording engineer Wally Heider worked closely with Jacob to ensure a high quality signal from the same microphones used for the live sound system; this professional connection was called upon again in 1968 when Heider asked Jacob to assist in recording Cream at Winterland Ballroom. Similarly, other contacts made by Jacob at Monterey Pop served to advance his career. Lighting designer Chip Monck first met Jacob in Monterey, and later formed CMI Consultants in partnership with Jacob. Janis Joplin's road manager Albert Grossman was introduced to Jacob in Monterey, and he tapped Jacob in later years for touring support. A number of people involved with Jimi Hendrix were impressed with Jacob at Monterey, including managers Chas Chandler and Michael Jeffery, producer Jerry Goldstein and concert promoter Tom Hulett. Another connection Jacob made was with John Meyer, a young sound engineer who was supporting the Steve Miller Band. Meyer later said that Jacob and his McCune crew stood out because they were unusually dedicated to consistent audio quality.

The Monterey Pop experience transformed Jacob from a regional to a national figure in the field of concert sound.

Hendrix and more
After Monterey, Hendrix's road manager, Gerry Stickels, called McCune to request Jacob as sound designer and mixer on tour. Jacob specified a sound system much like the one at Monterey, and first deployed it for Hendrix at the Ambassador Theater in Washington, D.C., during August 9–12, 1967, where he mixed the Jimi Hendrix Experience. After this, while Hendrix took a break to record Axis: Bold as Love, Jacob mixed sound for Simon and Garfunkel for three dates in Oregon in October 1967. The next month, Monck flew Jacob to New York City to meet Peter, Paul and Mary, who did not need a new sound system, as they owned one already, but needed someone with good ears to mix their shows. Jacob accepted the assignment and mixed their concerts from 1968 to 1970. In Manhattan, Jacob was supplied his own office space on 55th Street by Albert Grossman, who had seen Jacob's work at Monterey.

Jacob toured with the Jimi Hendrix Experience for most of 1968. The year started with a rush of travel through Sweden, Denmark and France in January, followed by a Hendrix concert in San Francisco at The Fillmore on February 1, 1968. San Francisco had been Jacob's new hometown since early June 1967 when he moved into an old Victorian flat with housemates Doug Leighton (future co-founder of RTS Systems intercom products), Ben Fong-Torres (editor at Rolling Stone) and his old friend Tom Gericke. Jacob's time in San Francisco was short as he soon left to mix sound for Hendrix in 49 cities across the U.S. The sound gear for this tour fit into a single 19-foot box truck along with some lighting gear, all the band's musical instruments, the band's concert posters, and assorted merchandise. To mix the show, Jacob used two Altec 1567A four-channel rotary knob mixers linked together, one for the four drum microphones (kick, snare, overhead left and overhead right), and one for the vocal microphones, which consisted of Hendrix on lead vocals, bassist Noel Redding on backing vocals, and one channel for Jacob to announce the band at the start of the show. No microphones were needed for lead guitar or bass guitar, which had their own amplifiers. The stage monitor system was simply two Altec 604E sidefills which took their signal from a custom McCune-designed combiner fed with inputs from the two Altec mixers' auxiliary outputs. This was not enough for drummer Mitch Mitchell to hear the vocals and his own drums, so in the second half of 1968, when Hendrix started another tour, Jacob augmented the sound system with four self-powered speakers behind the drummer: four Altec 1604B cabinets. This helped Mitchell hear himself over the loud guitar amplifiers.

During a break in which Hendrix stopped touring to record Electric Ladyland, Jacob mixed sound for some Peter, Paul and Mary dates, notably their March 15, 1968, performance at Carnegie Hall, and he worked for McCune on various assignments such as the Sky River Rock Festival in August–September in Washington state. He helped Heider record the Firesign Theatre comedy troupe, and in October he supported Cass Elliot in concert at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

Hendrix took Jacob to Europe in early 1969 to mix his concert dates there. Among other appearances that year by Hendrix was the Northern California Folk-Rock Festival in May 1969, where the sound system stopped working for a few minutes during his set. Carlos Santana commented about the technical glitch that Hendrix's guitar by itself made him sound distant, "like he was inside a little nucleus", but when the full sound system was restored "we were like catapulted into the Milky Way." The rest of 1969 was busy for Jacob mixing more than 160 dates for Peter, Paul and Mary. Bandleader Peter Yarrow was a stern taskmaster with regard to sound quality, and Jacob credits Yarrow with helping him develop more of a critical ear, to listen for problem areas and to work diligently to correct them.

Also in 1969, Jacob and Gericke tried to produce a psychedelic music video, with three bands participating including Blue Cheer and the Steve Miller Band, but the results were low quality and the project never took off.

Back at McCune, John Meyer had been hired at the request of Harry Jr to create a 3-way loudspeaker for concerts. By early 1972 the revolutionary JM3 system was ready, named for Meyer but with electronic processing by both Meyer and Cavin. Jacob auditioned the JM3 at the shop, with Meyer playing a Nagra tape of the Ringo Starr drum solo on the song "The End" to help Jacob determine that the new loudspeaker was clean and powerful, reproducing crisp transients. Jacob immediately agreed to use the system. Meyer said about Jacob, "There wasn't a lot of discussion... you didn't have to talk him into it." Jacob used JM3s at Four for McGovern, a benefit concert for presidential candidate George McGovern, on April 15, 1972, inside The Forum (Inglewood, California). Barbra Streisand's album Live Concert at the Forum documents her performance that day.

Jacob began in 1970 to wean himself from Hendrix tours, as he had more concert dates with Peter, Paul and Mary. McCune soundman Mike Neal took over sound for Hendrix, mixing a sold-out show at the Berkeley Community Theatre in May while Jacob recorded the event from inside the Wally Heider mobile recording truck. To satisfy the large, angry crowd turned away at the doors, Jacob pointed the truck's loudspeakers at them to appease them, perhaps preventing a riot. Neal yielded to Jacob on the more important dates such as the Isle of Wight Festival in August 1970, and a series of shows in Sweden, Denmark and Germany. Jacob was working another show on September 18 when he learned that Hendrix had died. Jacob traveled to Seattle to attend Hendrix's private funeral on October 1, with only family and musical associates invited. Shortly thereafter, Peter, Paul and Mary announced their breakup, and Jacob was suddenly without two of his most important clients. He remarked later about this turning point that he felt exhausted from too much touring, and not just rock and pop music, but also corporate events for Holiday Magic, a multi-level marketing firm that organized meetings across North and South America, supported by sound systems from McCune. Jacob said all of that touring "was enough to drive you crazy."

Broadway

Hair
During his time touring with Peter, Paul and Mary, Jacob was introduced by Yarrow to producer Michael Butler. Butler requested Jacob help with poor sound in the Boston staging of Hair, so Jacob flew to Boston in February 1970 to see what he could do. Jacob brought a rock music esthetic to the theatre for the first time, adding more loudspeakers for more volume, and he used more microphones in fixed locations, more band and singing microphones, and one of the early VHF wireless microphones by Edcor used on a few songs. Lighting designer Jules Fisher said the improvement to the sound quality was immediately apparent. With this success in Boston, Fisher and Jacob were sent to other cities to assist in the mounting of new productions of Hair, including overseas travel to Europe where they helped local lighting and sound crews attain similar results, modernizing musical theatre in the process. Fisher said that insular theatre crews in England and France in 1970 were locked into their traditional methods, and that Jacob's sound and Fisher's lighting designs were much more dynamic and unusual, difficult to convey to the locals, and difficult to implement: "we were teaching everybody; plus we had the language barrier." In January 1971, Jacob redesigned the original Hair production on Broadway. Butler said "Abe made a big difference" in the sound of Hair. Theatre sound historian David Collison noticed that Jacob called himself a sound designer, which was not common at the time.

Jesus Christ Superstar

In 1970, the concept album Jesus Christ Superstar was released, peaking in the U.S. Billboard Top 200 in February and May 1971. A corresponding musical theatre version was planned for the Mark Hellinger Theatre on Broadway, to open in October 1971. The musical's director was Tom O'Horgan, the lighting design was by Jules Fisher, and the scenic design was by Robin Wagner, all three having worked with Jacob on Hair, but Jonathan Taplin was asked to design sound. Jacob was covering assignments for McCune, working for Three Dog Night. Presented with a week off between concerts, he traveled to New York to see his colleagues and their new show which was in preview mode. On September 28, he found that the expected preview performance of Jesus Christ Superstar was cancelled, but he went to the Hellinger anyway to talk to his friends. Upon arrival, O'Horgan told Jacob that the show was having serious sound problems, and implored Jacob to fix them. Producer Robert Stigwood arranged for Jacob to take over the next day as sound designer. At rehearsal, Jacob found a critical issue: the show relied on multiple wireless microphones from England which were not working well together, taking hits from radio frequency interference caused by intermodulation, a kind of spurious radio signal formed in the presence of two or more transmission frequencies acting upon each other. From his experience at Hair, Jacob recognized that the technology for wireless microphones was not yet advanced enough for multiple units working at the same time. Because of this, Jacob instituted a radical change, putting aside the multiple wireless system and instead specifying a variety of wired microphones in the style of Hair. The Jesus Christ Superstar troupe was forced to reorganize their choreography to adjust to the new microphone positions, and Wagner had to rework some scenic elements to hide the  microphones, but this was quickly accomplished. Three nights of preview performances had been cancelled, losing $36,000 in ticket sales, but two days' worth of Jacob's fixes allowed the show to open on the fourth preview night. Jacob stayed with the production, arguing for further improvements to the sound such as uncovering the orchestra pit which had been sealed by Taplin for isolation reasons but had been stifling the musicians with heat, and was giving a muffled sound to the instruments. He also replaced the insufficient JBL Paragon home hifi loudspeakers with the McCune JM3, rigging two over the proscenium, and flanking the stage with two more to bring the spatial imaging down to the level of the performers. During this time, Jacob developed a lasting relationship with Masque Sound's John "Jack" Shearing, a New York sound company owner who was friendly with the Broadway union stagehands of IATSE Local 1. Shearing helped smooth the way for Jacob's concepts to be introduced to the stagehands who were habitually suspicious of new ideas, and who had contributed to previous failures. Jacob trained union sound operator Michael "Mike" O'Keefe to run the mixer for Jesus Christ Superstar; O'Keefe and Jacob continued to work together off and on for decades. Union sound operators in New York were called assistant electricians at the time – there was no separate sound department. Having started his career as an electrician, O'Keefe later said of Jesus Christ Superstar, "It was my first experience with a sound console; it had sixteen faders. I couldn't believe they miked the whole orchestra and could accentuate each instrument. It was amazing."

For his work on Jesus Christ Superstar, Jacob was credited as sound designer in Playbill, the leading Broadway theatre industry magazine. Jacob's was the second such credit, following Jack Mann's sound designer credit for the 1961 staging of Show Girl, a short-lived musical revue starring Carol Channing. Jesus Christ Superstar was nominated for five Tony Awards, including Best Lighting and Best Scenic Design, but there was no Tony Award at the time for sound design.

Bicoastal
As Jacob was working on Jesus Christ Superstar, Hendrix's former manager Michael Jeffery asked him to serve as president of Electric Lady Studios. While keeping his San Francisco address, Jacob rented an apartment in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan starting in June 1972, and in July he took over as president, to organize the Hendrix tapes and to keep the studio in operation. But when Jeffery died in March 1973, a legal battle arose between the estates of Jeffery and Hendrix. Declining to take sides, Jacob ended his contract with the studio, and shifted instead to a new venture with Chip Monck: CMI Consultants, a company for producing conventions and large events. Jacob also continued his freelance musical sound design work, covering several short-lived musicals during 1972–1974. One notable effort in 1973 was the National Lampoon comedy Lemmings, which ran for a year, and launched the careers of John Belushi, Christopher Guest, and Chevy Chase. Jacob said of their rock festival parody that it was both funny and personally meaningful. Jacob also designed the sound for the touring rock opera The Who's Tommy which was successful on the road.

In 1974, Lou Adler asked Jacob to lead the sound design for a new production of The Rocky Horror Show at the Roxy Theatre in West Hollywood. Jacob's rock and roll style of presentation was well received. Author and composer Richard O'Brien, who had performed in Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar, said that Jacob's sound was "delicious", and that Jacob "was one of the greatest sound people in the world." In 1975, Adler tapped Jacob to design the New York staging of the musical.

Pippin
Choreographer Bob Fosse was impressed with Jacob's work on Jesus Christ Superstar, and asked producer Stuart Ostrow to hire him for Pippin. Jacob participated in the earliest discussions about staging and choreography; the first time sound design was integrated from the beginning. For Pippin, Jacob used shotgun microphones as foot mics, overhead area mics and scenery spot mics. In many cases Fosse directed the performers in front of particular shotguns to bring their voices to the fore. Sound designer Otts Munderloh was working nearby on Sugar but he would sneak into Pippin to hear the difference. Munderloh found that Pippin sound "was much better" than Sugars, "much crisper, cleaner and louder, because of the shotguns..." As well, orchestrator Ralph Burns spent time with Jacob and sound console operator Larry Spurgeon to point out important instrumental cues. Pippin ran from 1972 to 1977 to become one of the longest-running Broadway musicals.

Beatles music
Jacob was called by O'Horgan, Stigwood and Wagner to design sound in late 1974 for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band on the Road, a Beatles tribute mounted off Broadway because of a rising backlash against rock musicals. Scenery was by Wagner and lighting was by Fisher. Jacob assembled a quadraphonic sound system based on a four-bus mixer from England of the sort used by Pink Floyd in 1973 for their touring production of Dark Side of the Moon. The console contained a quad panning system controlled by joysticks, to send selected sounds around the venue. In 1976, Jacob designed a complex and inventive sound system for Rockabye Hamlet, but the show lasted only a week.

Beatlemania, another Beatles musical, was conceived in 1976 by Fisher, by now a frequent collaborator and friend of Jacob. It was to be an evolving concert experience with very little dialogue. All of the songs would be presented as faithfully as possible to the Beatles' original versions, which posed a challenge. Jacob designed the sound to include unseen, offstage performers for some parts, and he specified a Mellotron keyboard sampler fitted with tape loops of pre-recorded arrangements such as cello and brass parts, the backwards tape sounds emulating "I Am the Walrus", and musique concrète elements to mimic the Beatles' sound collage "Revolution 9". Jacob specified that the piccolo trumpet part in "Penny Lane" would be panned around the room to four speaker locations, an enhancement to the Beatles' stereo recording. To produce the uniquely repetitive "Shuk-k-ka" sound at the beginning of "Come Together", Jacob and New York sound mixer Larry Spurgeon used an Eventide Harmonizer set to delay mode to work out a method which must be repeated by hand at every performance. Another sound board operator was required to mix monitors for the band, and to operate various tape machines including a recording of Jacob himself asking the audience to "refrain from smoking... anthing!" Jacob consulted with ex-McCune loudspeaker designer John Meyer to arrive at an appropriate loudspeaker arrangement of four JM3 mains per side plus additional McCune SM3 surround speakers, and he pushed hard to get the mixing console placed in the center of the main audience seating area, just like a modern rock concert. Producers were loath to lose these premium seats which would otherwise hold paying customers, but it gave the sound board operator much finer control over the sound balance, and Fisher backed Jacob in this successful demand. Jacob had previously argued for better mix positions, but with smaller victories such as moving the sound operator from the stage wings to the rear of the balcony seating. Beatlemania was an enormous hit, running for more than a thousand performances on Broadway, and expanding simultaneously into multiple cities. Sound designer Steve Canyon Kennedy said "Beatlemania was the best sounding show I ever heard in my life – to this day! There was nothing like it..."

Jacob designed sound for his third and final Beatles tribute production in 2010, which was also his last Broadway credit in Playbill. The show was Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles, brought to the Neil Simon Theatre after years of touring. For the audience mix, Jacob specified a DiGiCo SD8 digital mixing console, and he spread the sound field wider with surround effects. The sound system was a combination of vertical line array, horizontal arrays, and individual loudspeakers, all from Meyer Sound. The digital monitor mixer was a Yamaha PM5D sending the performers their own mixes via wireless in-ear monitors.

A Chorus Line
Jacob found himself working for two famous choreographers in 1975, starting with Fosse calling him to fix some audio problems Chicago was having during tryouts in Philadelphia, then with Michael Bennett who needed advice about how the offstage band would work in A Chorus Line. Jacob bounced between Philadelphia and New York for six weeks. To help Chicago he placed a wireless lavalier microphone in the wig of Gwen Verdon, as she was dancing in a tight-fitting bustier, and the wireless bodypack was too visible anywhere else. This was the first time that a wireless microphone was hidden at the hairline – a now-common technique popularized in 1985 when Andrew Bruce pioneered a large-scale implementation for all of the principal performers in the original London cast of Les Misérables.

Jacob was asked to bring a more subdued, naturalistic tone to A Chorus Line which was supposed to look like an audition-in-progress for most of the show. Jacob put a row of shotgun mics at the front edge of the stage, and Bennett devised a choreography to fit the very visible microphone positions. The show opened at The Public Theater off Broadway, where there was no orchestra pit, and the offstage band was squeezed into the loading dock to which Jacob had applied soundproofing. With success off Broadway, the show was moved to the Shubert Theatre to open in July 1975. Jacob augmented the setup with more shotgun microphones to pick up sounds from mid-stage and upstage (the rear of the stage). An offstage vocal booth was added for two singers whose voices were subtly mixed into chorus numbers. As well, Jacob used a large EMT plate reverb unit to fill out the singing voices. The Shubert's orchestra pit was covered in acoustically transparent black gauze to help the audience forget the presence of the band. Jacob wanted to use four McCune JM3 loudspeakers but the rental cost was nixed by the producer, and Altec 9846 self-powered cabinets were used instead, powered in this case by distant amplifiers so that the sound crew could more easily correct a potential amplifier problem. Two 16-channel stereo mixers were specified by Jacob, custom made by Louis Stevenson of Houston. The orchestra was mixed on one of them, with the results patched into the second Stevenson as a stereo stem, for blending with the vocal and area mics. Main loudspeakers were positioned at two levels, mezzanine and orchestra, augmented by stereo pairs of under-balcony and upper balcony speakers. Unusually, the mix position out in the audience was joined by a cast member: Zach (Robert LuPone), the show's authoritarian director, ostensibly conducted the auditions from a desk next to Otts Munderloh, the sound operator. During the performance, Jacob's sound design required a building engineer in the basement to switch off the air conditioning system for a few minutes while the dancer named Paul (Sammy Williams) gave a personally revealing speech. This temporary lowering of the venue's noise floor provided extra psychological tension.

A Chorus Line was such a success that two more companies were assembled, one traveling to San Francisco and then settling in Los Angeles, the other traveling to Toronto and then settling in London. Jacob supervised sound design for both, and accompanied the California troupe. Munderloh headed the sound department of the Toronto staging, then Jacob flew to London where he visited the play City Sugar and heard excellent sound by freelance sound mixer Jonathan Deans working for Autograph Sound. Jacob specified Autograph and Deans to install and operate sound for A Chorus Line at the Drury Lane in London – the start of a long relationship between Jacob and Autograph. Deans said that "A Chorus Line was a huge change for the audio industry..."

Concerts

References

Bibliography

1944 births
American audio engineers
American sound designers
Broadway sound designers
Living people
People from Tucson, Arizona
People from Oakland, California
Engineers from San Francisco
Engineers from Los Angeles
American people of Lebanese descent
Loyola Marymount University alumni
Engineers from Arizona
Engineers from New York City
St. Ignatius College Preparatory alumni

Abe Jacob


Alaska Airlines Flight 261 was an international passenger flight from Puerto Vallarta to a stopover in San Francisco International Airport, to its destination in Seattle–Tacoma International Airport which suffered a serious mechanical failure on January 31, 2000, while flying over the Pacific Ocean, 4.3 km north of Anacapa Island in California. The two pilots, three flight attendants and the eighty-three passengers on board were killed.
Flight 261 left Puerto Vallarta at 14:30 PST. While en-route to San Francisco, the crew became aware of a horizontal stabilizer jam and kept Alaska Airlines maintenance informed of the issue while airborne at FL310. Captain Tansky tried a solution to unjam the stabilizer. The stabilizer unjammed and the aircraft assumed an extreme nose down attitude. Both pilots applied back pressure to their controls and recovered from the dive at FL260. The flight crew contact Los Angeles ARTCC to tell them that they are descending through FL260.

At 16:11, ARTCC asked Flight 261 about their condition, and the flight crew notified them that they were trying to troubleshoot a jammed horizontal stabilizer. The crew then requested, and were granted an altitude block between 20,000 and 25,000 feet. They were then handed off to Los Angeles Center 5 minutes later, who they notified of their intentions to divert to Los Angeles International Airport and their troubles in maintaining their altitude. Flight 261 was then cleared to FL170 and the crew then requested another block of altitude. This was the last transmission from the plane.

Captain Tansky then commented on the plane's tendency to want to pitch down. There were metallic thumping sounds and finally, the stabilizer gave way and the MD-83 pitched over violently, to which Captain Tansky replied, "this is a b*tch". The aircraft rapidly begins to descend, and the MD-83 was seen 'tumbling, spinning, nose down, continuous roll, corkscrewing and inverted'.

A pilot commented that "that plane has just started to do a big huge plunge". While inverted, the engines experience multiple compressor stalls and likely failed, causing the aircraft's rapid final descent. Just before 16:22 PST, Alaska Airlines Flight 261 crashed inverted into the Pacific Ocean. All 88 passengers and crew members were lost in the accident.

The aircraft, manufactured in 1992, had more than 26,000 flight hours at the time of the accident.

Among the 88 passengers were 12 employees of Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air, which led to a mourning on the part of the airline for those killed in this accident.  Alaska Airlines stated that it was common for employees to occupy places that would otherwise go empty.  Bouquets of flowers arrived at the airline's headquarters in Seattle - Tacoma, Washington the next day. Due to the extreme efforts of the pilots to regain control of the aircraft, their quick reaction to the emergency and the decision to avoid flying over populated areas, the international association of airline pilots awarded both the gold medal posthumously.

Identification of the bodies

The following indicators were used to identify the bodies of the victims of Alaska Airlines Flight 261:

 Fingerprints.
 Dental records
 Tattoos
 Personal items.
 Anthropological examinations.

Maps

Other websites

 NTSB Final Report
Alaska Airlines news reports about 261 (Archive)
 Cockpit voice recorder transcript and accident summary
 Families of Alaska Airlines Flight 261
"Navy expands search for debris at Alaska Airlines Flight 261 crash scene", United States Navy (Archive)
Applying Lessons Learned from Accidents, Alaska Airlines Flight 261 – Informative analysis at faa.gov, with technical diagrams and photos (Archive)
 Federal Aviation Administration – Lessons Learned Home: Alaska Airlines Flight 261
Seattle Post-Intelligencer special report (Archive)
Short Bios of Flight 261 Passengers

2000 in the United States
Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States
2000s in California
January 2000 events

Alaska Airlines Flight 261


Lake Okabena is a small lake located in Nobles County in southwestern Minnesota.  It was first noted on a map made by French explorer Joseph Nicollet in 1841, based upon his explorations of the 1830s.  The name okabena means "home of the heron" in the Sioux language.  Lake Okabena is located entirely within the present-day city limits of Worthington, Minnesota.

History
Though Nicollet's map shows only one Lake Okabena, the earliest survey map of the area made in 1868 shows two lakes - East Okabena (no longer in existence) and West Okabena.

Effect of the railways
When the St Paul & Sioux City Railroad (now the Union Pacific) was built through the region in 1871, tracks were laid between the two lakes.  A station house was built along the southeastern shore of West Lake Okabena and was named the Okabena Railroad Station.  Steam engines of the day consumed enormous quantities of water, and water stops were required every 8 to 12 miles along any route.  The Okabena Railway Station was one of these, drawing water directly out of West Okabena.

In 1872, a large influx of settlers arrived in the region and a town was built.  The town and the railroad station were christened Worthington, after the mother-in-law of A. P. Miller, one of the town's founding fathers, and it was located between West Okabena and East Okabena.

When the Burlington Railroad (later the Rock Island Railroad) built a line connecting Round Lake, Worthington, and Wilmont in 1889-1890, it was built across the dried lake bed of East Okabena.  It is thought that the lake had been drained to make way for this railroad.  The lake was thoroughly described in an 1882 geology report on the state of Minnesota  and is clearly visible on an 1884 county map, yet by the time the Burlington Railroad was built, the lake was gone.  A 1914 plat map of Worthington refers to an area as "formerly East Okabena lake", "Now dry, having been drained".  An 1899 Worthington Advance newspaper article details who was given the job of draining the lake (see photo), but no one knows who ordered the deed to be done. One photograph exists of men digging the trench which drained the waters of East Okabena away forever.

A second ditch with the curious name of Whiskey Ditch drains water into Lake Okabena. During the late 1800s there was a drought, and the level of Lake Okabena was very low. People saw spring runoff and precious summer rain running north to Heron Lake through Okabena Creek, and they wanted this runoff to instead flow into Lake Okabena.
The project consisted of many men digging through a large hill where present County Hwy 35 crosses the present ditch. The odd name for this ditch was given because of the way it was financed. The funding for project was provided by a "whiskey tax" charged within the town of Worthington.

The Burlington/Rock Island Railroad greatly changed the complexion and character of the eastern shore of the remaining Lake Okabena.  Once a gently sloping shoreline with beach, boathouses, and picnic pavilions, the region came to resemble an industrial area.  A large coal powered electrical generation plant was built. This plant hummed night and day, vibrating the ground of the surrounding neighborhood as it generated electrical power and steam heat for the city of Worthington.

Modern times
The Rock Island Railroad ceased operating in the region in the 1980s and its rail lines were torn up.  The power plant also ceased operating and was demolished in the 1990s.  The region has since been reclaimed as a city park named Sailboard Beach.  It is presently the site of a yearly sailboard racing competition and music festival.

References

External links

Lakes of Nobles County, Minnesota
Lakes of Minnesota

Lake Okabena


Jacques or Jácome Ratton (7 July 1736 in Monestier de Briançon, Hautes-Alpes – 3 July 1820 in Paris) was a Franco-Portuguese businessman, who was a leading figure in the mainly foreign group of industrialists in 18th-century Portugal.  He published his Memoirs (Recordações) in 1813 in exile in London, which remain a significant source on Portuguese economic life in the period.

Early life

His father was Jacques (in Portugal called Jácome) Ratton (died Mâcon, France in 1779), the son of a Conseil du Roi (in effect a public prosecutor) in Mâcon of the same name, and his wife Jeanne Orsel.  Soon after the birth of his eldest son by his marriage to Françoise Bellon (died Mâcon, 1794), daughter of Jacques Bellon and a mother of the Berard family, Jacques emigrated to Portugal, where his brother-in-law Jacques Bellon was already established in Porto, married to Marie Purat.

Jacques Ratton emigrated to Portugal soon after the birth of his son Jácome, who was brought up by his grandparents and educated in France, before joining his parents at the age of fourteen in Portugal – a pattern typical of the French mercantile community, which Jácome was to repeat with his own children. His Memoirs stress the importance of this – he is highly critical of the backwardness of the Portuguese mercantile classes, who he said hardly used double-entry bookkeeping and were generally unbusiness-like in their ways. In 1758, Jácome Ratton married Ana Isabel Clamous, daughter of the French Consul in Porto (again, a son would marry the daughter of another Consul), and in 1762, when France and Portugal were on opposite sides in the Seven Years' War, he was naturalised as Portuguese. However, the Introduction to the 1920 Coimbra edition of his memoirs mentions that, nearly fifty years later, his Portuguese has "irregularidades gramaticais". His father had moved to Lisbon and was in business, including a partnership with his brother-in-law in Oporto; after Jacome was established in business he retired to France. The 1755 Lisbon earthquake, vividly described in the Memoirs, caused great losses for the business: 300,000 cruzados, according to the Memoirs.

Industrialist
Jacome was an inventive and successful businessman, whose enterprises included a dye-works, a textile mill in Tomar, a paper mill in Elvas, and factories making felt hats in Elvas and Lisbon, the building for which still exists. The Tomar textile mill was the first in Portugal to use modern machinery, and created what was until recently the main industry of the town. The hats were made under a monopoly, though he criticises these in his Memoirs, saying that businessmen should be rewarded with titles instead. He traded in cloth, cognac, Bohemian window-glass, and other products. He invested in sea-salt making at Alcochete, near his country estate, and was also responsible for introducing the eucalyptus to Portugal (a rather mixed blessing), as well as the Araucaria ("monkey-puzzle tree"). His memoirs recount how he made designs for a type of water-pump new to Portugal from a Dutch print.

Protege of Pombal
The Marquis of Pombal, the Portuguese prime minister, was keen to encourage industry in Portugal, and consulted with Ratton, although it was not until after Pombal's death that he was made a member of the Real Junta de Commercio, Agricultura, e Navegação, which played an important part in Pombal's efforts to stimulate, and regulate, Portuguese commerce. Ratton was made a Knight of the Order of Christ (who had opposed his mill at their headquarters in Tomar) and ennobled as a nobleman of the royal household. He lived in Lisbon in the neo-classical Ratton Palace, near his hattery, which (partly remodelled by his son Diogo) is now the home of the Portuguese Constitutional Court, with a large country estate at Barroca d'Alva on the Tagus estuary as well, where he reclaimed land.

War and exile

The French invasion of 1807 not only destroyed commerce but put the Franco-Portuguese community, of which Jacombe was the most prominent member, in a difficult position.  It did not help that General Paul Thiébault, the chief-of-staff to Junot, the French commander, had billeted himself at Jacome's house, and they became friends.  After they lost the Battle of Vimeiro in 1808, the French negotiated a withdrawal from Portugal with the British (to the fury of British public opinion).  In June 1810 the Regency government in Lisbon persuaded the Prince-Regent in Rio de Janeiro to dismiss Jacome from the Junta after twenty-two years, and in September the same year he was arrested along with many "radicals" and exiled to the small island of Terceira in the Azores. He managed, perhaps through his Freemason connections, to convert this into exile in England, where he remained until ca. 1816, before moving to Paris, where he died. The King had invited him to return to Portugal, but though several of his children were there, he declined.

He married Ana Isabel Clamouse, daughter of Bernard Clamouse, from Languedoc, and Geneviève Hartsoeker (she was probably the granddaughter of the scientist Nicolaas Hartsoeker), and they had four sons and four daughters. His son Diogo Ratton was appointed to a commission to improve Portuguese commerce; when no report was published he began to publish his own views in 1821 in a series of short works: Reflexões sobre o Commercio, sobre as Alfandegas, sobre os Depositos, e sobre as Pautas with his proposal for a "Tribunal do Commercio" and other reforms.  Diogo's letters to António Araujo de Azevedo, Comte da Barca (1812–1817) were published in 1973 (Paris, Fondation C. Gulbenkian, 1973).

His memoirs, whose short title was Recordaçoens de Jacome Ratton sobre ocurrencias do seu tempo em Portugal de Maio de 1747 Setembro de 1810, were published in Portuguese in London by H. Bryer in 1813. They were probably first written in French and a manuscript fair copy in French, with an inscription recording its  presentation by Ratton to General Paul Thiébault, was on the English book market in the 2010s. There have been two 20th century Portuguese editions, Coimbra University Press, 1920 and Lisbon: Fenda, 1992.

A school and a sports centre in Tomar are named after him.

Sources

Memoirs
The Memoirs are the principal source for all details of Ratton's life up to 1810:
Recordaçoens de Jacome Ratton sobre ocurrencias do seu tempo em Portugal de Maio de 1747 Setembro de 1810, London: H. Bryer, 1813.
 Modern editions: Coimbra: University Press, 1920, Online PDF, 394 pages; Lisbon: Fenda, 1992
 A manuscript translation into French by the author also exists (see link below).

Bibliography

-Michèle Janin-Thivos, Marchands migrants du Briançonnais, Monestier de Briançon au XVIIIe siècle, 2018 Editions du Fournel.

Notes

External links, and sources
XIV International Economic History Congress, Helsinki 2006, Merchant networks and the Brazilian gold: reappraising national abilities.Leonor Freire Costa & Maria Manuela Rocha, pp 8, 9 & passim
Description of MS translation into French of the Memoirs
Genealogy, partly in Portuguese
Photo of Palacio Ratton in Lisbon
extracts from the Memoirs in Portuguese
Jacome Ratton from "Portugal – Dicionário Histórico, Corográfico, Heráldico, Biográfico, Bibliográfico, Numismático e Artístico, Volume VI" 1904–15

1736 births
1820 deaths
18th-century Portuguese businesspeople
18th-century French businesspeople
Portuguese nobility
Knights of the Order of Christ (Portugal)
19th-century Portuguese businesspeople
Portuguese people of French descent

Jácome Ratton


The Tunjur kingdom was a Sahelian precolonial kingdom in Africa between the 15th and early 17th centuries.

Establishment
Local chronicles claim that the founder of the Tunjur dynasty became a "king in the island of Sennar". Origins of the Tunjur state are not well known. It is known that the Tunjur kingdom replaced an earlier Daju kingdom, after the Tunjur people migrated from north to the Darfur region in the fifteenth century. Their migration represents a second known Berber migration to the region. The states possibly coexisted for some time, with Tunjur rule in the north and Daju rule in the south, before the Tunjur people managed to replace the earlier dynasty completely. The lands ruled by the Tunjur people are within contemporary Sudan, and their influence extended into Chad.

Culture
The Tunjur were probably Arabized Berbers, and spoke the Arabic language. They claimed heritage from the tribe of Banu Hilal. However, they were initially entirely pagan after the migration had finished. No trace of their own language exists. All of the Tunjur oral tradition is attributed in an unusual manner to a single person called Shau Dorsid.

Society in Darfur changed drastically due to the influence of the Tunjur dynasty. Corvée labor was organized for the newly-organized state, long-range trade began, and Islam was partially adopted as a religion.

Tunjur architecture drew influence from Berber and Tora styles. There is a stone mosque, the first Muslim building in Darfur, possibly built around the year 1200, at the city of Uri which was the first capital of the kingdom. This may indicate that Islam was adopted as a court religion. The king however, probably, held a divine status. The city was built in Fur architecture.

The role of Islam in the region ruled over by the Tunjur kingdom, and earlier the Daju dynasty, remained insignificant until the late 16th century. No material remains for Islamization are known from the preceding Daju dynasty's period.

Tunjur dynasty
By the early 16th century the Tunjur kingdom ruled Darfur and Wadai. Capitals of the kingdom were in northern Darfur. The cities of Uri and Ain Farah are associated with the kingdom. Uri, the early capital, was at the meeting point of two major trade routes. It is certain that Egyptian merchants traded with the Tunjur people. Caravan routes and earlier river based routes through Nubia allowed long-distance trade. The kingdom exported slaves, gold, camels, rhinoceros horn, ivory, ostrich feathers, tamarind, gum arabic and natron. Trade was, according to Egyptian sources, under close royal control. Unlike in the newly-islamized and briefly dynastically related Wadai Empire, it is unclear if the Tunjur kingdom was a Muslim state. Slavery was common in the region, and the Tunjur also engaged in enslavement of other peoples.

End of the dynasty

The Tunjur kingdom was succeeded by the Sultanate of Darfur (Keira Sultanate). The Fur people and their Keira dynasty superseded the Tunjur around the 1650s. A story about a dynastic link between Keira and Tunjur dynasties involving Ahmad al-Maqur is known. Tunjur rule in Wadai ended when a local dynasty of Maba people revolted, expelled and replaced them. The Tunjur kingdom may have ceased to exist as early as in 1611 or 1635.

A branch of the Tunjur dynasty in Wadai was also overthrown by an alliance of the Arabs and the Maba.

Eventually, the Tunjur people assimilated to a large decree into other peoples of the region.

See also

Alodia
History of Chad
History of Sudan
Tora (Darfur)

References

Further reading

Darfur
Sahelian kingdoms

Tunjur kingdom


Barb Wire is a 1996 American superhero film based on the Dark Horse Comics character of the same name. It was directed by David Hogan, produced by Brad Wyman, and written by Chuck Pfarrer and Ilene Chaiken. The film stars Pamela Anderson in the title role, alongside Temuera Morrison, Victoria Rowell, Xander Berkeley, Udo Kier, and Steve Railsback. Although Barb Wire was panned by critics, it has attracted a cult following.

Plot
In 2017, during the Second American Civil War, Barb Wire owns the Hammerhead, a nightclub in Steel Harbor, "the last free city" in a United States ravaged by the war. She earns cash as a mercenary and bounty hunter. Chief of Police Willis raids her club. Willis's target is fugitive Dr. Corrina 'Cora D' Devonshire, a former government scientist with information about a new bioweapon called Red Ribbon being developed by her former superiors in the Congressional Directorate. The Congressional Council has tasked Colonel Victor Pryzer with finding Dr. Devonshire so they can end the Second Civil War by releasing the virus on the United Front territories. Dr. Devonshire hopes to escape to Canada to make this information public.

Devonshire turns up at the Hammerhead. She is accompanied by Axel Hood, a "freedom fighter" Barb had loved at the outbreak of the war. The two were separated during the conflict. Axel tries to help Cora get to Canada. They try to find a contraband pair of contact lenses that would allow Cora to evade the retinal scan identification at the Steel Harbor airport. The lenses pass through the hands of several lowlifes before also ending up at Barb's nightclub.

Rather than give the lenses to Cora and Axel, Barb makes a deal with 'Big Fatso', the leader of a junkyard gang: Fatso wants the lenses, which are worth a fortune on the black market, and Barb wants a million dollars and an armed escort to the airport, where she plans to get on the plane to Canada. But Fatso double-crosses Barb; when Barb, Axel and Cora show up at the junkyard to make the swap, Colonel Pryzer and his storm troopers are also there, along with Chief of Police Willis. Willis makes a show of arresting Barb and Cora, but instead of putting handcuffs on Barb, he slips her a hand grenade. Barb uses the grenade to kill Fatso and cause enough confusion to allow Barb, Axel, Cora and Willis to pile into Barb's armored van and lead the Congressionals on a car chase, culminating in a hand-to-hand fight between Barb and Colonel Pryzer on a forklift suspended by crane above the harbor. Pryzer falls to his death while Barb escapes.

The party makes it to the airport, where Barb reveals she still has the contact lenses. She gives them to Cora, and Cora and Axel get on the plane to Canada while Willis and Barb remain on the rainswept tarmac.

Cast

 Pamela Anderson Lee as Barbara "Barb Wire" Kopetski
 Temuera Morrison as Axel Hood
 Victoria Rowell as Dr. Corrina "Cora D" Devonshire
 Jack Noseworthy as Charlie Kopetski
 Xander Berkeley as Chief Alexander Willis
 Udo Kier as "Curly"

 Andre Rosey Brown as "Big Fatso"
 Nicholas Worth as Ruben Tannenbaum
 Clint Howard as Schmitz
 Jennifer Banko as "Spike"

 Steve Railsback as Colonel Victor Pryzer

Production
Barb Wire was directed by David Hogan, the second-unit director on Alien 3 and Batman Forever. The film had a production budget of $9 million. Anderson did some of her own stunts, despite her fear of heights. The fact that she had to wear high heels and a corset that made her waist 17 inches made fight scenes challenging.

Music

A soundtrack album, also titled Barb Wire, was released on April 23, 1996.

Reception

Box office
Barb Wire was a box-office bomb, grossing less than $3.8 million in the United States.

Critical response
Barb Wire was panned by critics. Roger Ebert pointed out that the film's plot was identical to that of Casablanca and derided the low-brow attempts at sensuality, but praised the cast and crew's approach to the material: "The filmmakers must have known they were not making a good movie, but they didn't use that as an excuse to be boring and lazy. Barb Wire has a high energy level, and a sense of deranged fun". He gave it two and a half stars. Similarly to Ebert, Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly commented on the film's aping of the Casablanca plot and its "teasing, hollow 'naughtiness'", but further said that the film is lacking in energy. He gave it a C. Janet Maslin of The New York Times criticized Anderson's performance, comparing her to Barbie and Barbarella.

Barb Wire holds a 28% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 36 reviews (10 positive, 27 negative), with the consensus stating that "Barb Wire could've been fun camp, but Pamela Anderson can't deliver her lines with any dramatic or comedic impact". The film was ranked in the bottom 20 of the Stinkers' "100 Years, 100 Stinkers" list, which noted the 100 worst movies of the 20th century, at #19. Since its release, Barb Wire has attracted a cult following.

Awards and nominations

Adaptations
GT Interactive announced that they would be publishing a video game based on the film for the PlayStation, Saturn, PC, and Macintosh in January 1997. The developer was Cryo Interactive. The gameplay was said to be similar to Resident Evil, with a single-player campaign and a two-player deathmatch mode. It was never released.

A 48-page comic book adaptation was published by Dark Horse Comics on May 1, 1996.

References

External links

 Sci-Fi Universe article from May 1996 at PamWatch.com

1996 films
1996 directorial debut films
1990s English-language films
1990s science fiction action films
1990s superhero films
American science fiction action films
American dystopian films
1990s feminist films
Films set in 2017
Films set in the future
Girls with guns films
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment films
Dark Horse Entertainment films
Gramercy Pictures films
Golden Raspberry Award winning films
Live-action films based on comics
Films based on Dark Horse Comics
Films scored by Michel Colombier
Superheroine films
Second American Civil War speculative fiction
1990s American films

Barb Wire (1996 film)


The Cordulegastridae are a family of Odonata (dragonflies) from the suborder Anisoptera. They are commonly known as spiketails. Some vernacular names for the species of this family are biddie and flying adder. They have large, brown or black bodies with yellow markings, and narrow unpatterned wings. Their bright eyes touch at a single point, and they can be found along small, clear, woodland streams, flying slowly 30 to 70 cm above the water. When disturbed, however, they can fly very rapidly. They usually hunt high in forest vegetation, and prefer to capture prey resting on leaves or branches (known as gleaning).

The Cordulegastridae usually lay their eggs in the sand in shallow water, the female hovering just above the water with her body in a vertical position, and making repeated dips into the water with her abdomen.

The family is distributed worldwide; all eight species in North America belong to the genus Cordulegaster.

The name Cordulegastridae comes from the Greek kordylinus, 'club-shaped' and gaster, belly. The common name spiketails refers to the females' prominent ovipositors.

References

Cordulegastroidea
Odonata families

Cordulegastridae


Surrogate alcohol is a term for any substance containing ethanol that is intentionally consumed by humans but is not meant for human consumption. Some definitions of the term also extend to illegally produced alcoholic beverages.

Consumption of such substances carries extreme health risks, both from the ethanol content and other more toxic substances that may be present. Users risk both acute poisoning from substances such as methanol, and chronic poisoning from substances such as lead.

Most people turn to these as a last resort either out of desperation, being underaged or being unable to afford consumable alcoholic beverages (with homeless alcoholics) or due to lack of access to drinking ethanol (for example with prison inmates and individuals in psychiatric wards).

Common surrogate alcohols

Many alcoholic liquids contain alcohol but are not meant to be ingested in the same way as alcoholic beverages. Typical surrogate alcohols include:
Hand sanitizer
Mouthwash
Aftershave or cologne
Cooking wine
Cleaning fluids such as Windex
Extracts
Charcoal lighter fluid
Rubbing alcohol
Windshield washer fluid
Antifreeze
Denatured alcohol – ethanol rendered unfit to drink by mixing with methanol or bittering agents
Sterno
Moonshine and other homemade alcohols, including two or more of the above mixed together
Disinfectants
Liquid soap
Paint
Ethanol fuel

Dangers to health
Most surrogate alcohols have very high alcoholic levels, some as high as 95%, and thus can lead to alcohol poisoning, along with other symptoms of alcohol intoxication such as vertigo, impaired coordination, balance and judgment, nausea, vomiting, blurred vision, and even long-term effects such as heart failure, stroke, and death.

Besides alcohol, there are many other toxic substances in surrogate alcohol such as hydrogen peroxide, antiseptics, ketones, as well as alcohols other than ethanol (drinking alcohol) such as isopropanol and methanol. Methanol, and to a far lesser extent isopropanol, is poisonous. The effect of other chemicals on health has not been adequately studied, and so the health risks are unclear. However, observations in countries with high consumption of surrogate alcohols, such as Russia, indicate that the impurities in the consumed drink lead to high mortality rates.

In December 2016, 78 people died from drinking surrogate alcohol in the Russian city of Irkutsk.

See also
Harm reduction#Alcohol
Inhalant (marginalized individuals may also inhale gasoline or glue fumes)
List of methanol poisoning incidents

References

External links
Bio-medicine.org
Boozenews.ca

Alcohol and health
Imitation foods

Surrogate alcohol


The Middle Passage  the part of the Atlantic slave trade where African slaves were brought to the Americas on slave ships.  Millions of African people were shipped to the Americas over the Middle Passage.

Enslaved people were treated so badly on the slave ships that about 15% of them died during the Middle Passage.  Even more were killed before they left Africa, when slave traders were trying to kidnap them and force them onto the slave ships.  Historians think that up to two million African people died during the Middle Passage. However, somewhere between 9.4 million and 12 million African people survived the Middle Passage, and arrived in the Americas as slaves.

The triangular trade
The transatlantic trade of African people had three different parts.  Because of this, it was called "the triangular trade."  The Middle Passage got its name because it was the middle part of the triangular trade.  The three parts of the Atlantic slave trade were:

(1) Europe to Africa
Ships brought weapons, gunpowder, cloth, rum, and manufactured goods from Europe to Africa.  In Africa, these things were traded for African people who had been bought as slaves or kidnapped.
(2) Africa to the Americas (the Middle Passage)
 Enslaved African people were brought to the Americas on slave ships.  There they were sold as slaves, or traded for raw materials like sugar, tobacco, and cotton, which other enslaved people had made.
(3) The Americas to Europe
These raw materials would be sent to Europe, where they were used to make things.  Then the triangular trade would start all over again.  For example, cotton would be used to make cloth.  That cloth could then be sent to Africa to trade for more enslaved people.

The enslaved peoples' journey

After being kidnapped, enslaved African people were usually forcibly marched to forts along the coast of western Africa.  There they were sold to European and American human traffickers.  They might have to wait in these forts, which were like prisons, for months before slave ships arrived.

Enslaved people were then packed onto the slave ships.  Often, they were packed together as closely as possible.  (The famous drawing on the right shows how closely enslaved people were packed together on some slave ships.) Enslaved men were often chained together at the ankles.  Sometimes, slaves were allowed to move around during the day, but many ships kept enslaved people chained up for the entire trip.

Sailing through the Middle Passage could take anywhere from one to six months, depending on the weather.  Over time, human trafficking ships got better at making the trip more quickly.  In the early 16th century, the average trip took a few months.  However, by the 19th century, many slave ships crossed the Middle Passage in fewer than six weeks.

Living conditions
Enslaved people were treated barbarically and wickedly during the Middle Passage.  Slaves were not seen as human.  They were thought of as "cargo" or "goods" - commodities rather than innocent people - to be bought and sold, and not respected and cared about.

Enslaved people were starved during the Middle Passage.  At "best", the enslavers fed enslaved people beans, corn, yams, rice, and palm oil.  However, enslaved African people were not always fed every day.  If there was not enough food for the sailors (human traffickers) and the slaves, the enslavers would eat first, and the enslaved might not get any food.  On some slave ships, slaves who looked sick were not given any food.  Many enslaved people died from starvation and dehydration (not having enough water) during the Middle Passage.

The enslaved peoples' living conditions on the slave ships were horrific.  Diseases spread very quickly because the enslaved people were so crowded together, and because there was no sanitation.  The most common diseases were dysentery, scurvy, smallpox, syphilis, and measles.  Many enslaved African people were killed by disease during the Middle Passage.  On longer trips, even more enslaved people died, because there was less food and water (this made dysentery and scurvy more common).  Also, many slaves became too depressed to eat.

Slaves were often tortured as punishment if they did not follow the human traffickers' orders or if they seemed disobedient in any way.  For example, enslaved people who were too depressed or sick to eat might be beaten or whipped.  The worst forms of torture were for enslaved people who tried to rebel (fight back).  For example, one slave ship captain punished an enslaved person who tried to rebel, by murdering him; then he forced two other slaves to eat his heart and liver.

Enslaved women and enslaved children were often raped or sexually abused by the sailors.

Participants
Many different people participated in the Middle Passage and the triangular trade.

World powers
The countries that controlled most of the slave trade were European and Asian countries that were very powerful at the time.  These countries included:

 Spain
 France
 The Netherlands
 Denmark
 Sweden
 Brandenburg (now a state of Germany)

Slave traders in North America, Brazil, and the Caribbean also took part in the slave trade.

Different countries were more powerful in the slave trade at different times.  For example, for two hundred years, from 1440–1640, Portugal controlled most of the slave trade.  However, over time, the balance of power in Europe changed.  By the 18th century, the British Empire was much more powerful.  During the 18th century, when 6 million Africans were brought over the Middle Passage, British slavers carried almost 2.5 million of them.

Africans
Most of the African slaves came from eight different areas:
 Senegambia (now Senegal and Gambia);
 Upper Guinea;
 Windward Coast (now the Ivory Coast);
 Gold Coast (now Ghana);
 Bight of Benin;
 Bight of Biafra, off the western coast of Africa;
 West Central Africa and;
 Southeastern Africa

Slave traders
The slave trade was very profitable for slave traders.  By the late 18th century, a strong male slave could be sold for about $600 to $1500 (which is about $9,000 to $15,000 in United States dollars today).  Because of this, kidnapping people in Africa and selling them into slavery became more and more popular.  Historians think that African warlords, kings, and private kidnappers - Europeans, Americans, and Africans alike - all participated in kidnapping people into slavery.

Photo gallery

Related pages
 Atlantic slave trade

Other websites
 The Middle Passage  from DiscoveringBristol.org.uk (simple English)
 Journals from people on slave ships  from DiscoveringBristol.org.uk (may not be simple English)
 Pictures of slave ships and the slave trade from History.com

References

Historic slave trade

Middle Passage