Thor: God of Thunder is an action hack and slash video game based on the Marvel Studios film Thor. The game was developed by Liquid Entertainment and co-written by Matt Fraction. Thor: God of Thunder marks Thor's first standalone appearance in a video game and features the voices of Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston and Jaimie Alexander, who reprise their roles from the film. The game was released in 2011 for Nintendo DS, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360 and Nintendo 3DS. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game can be played in 3D on 3DTVs and on 2DTVs via TriOviz Inificolor 3D glasses. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were met with unfavorable reviews, while the Wii, DS, and 3DS versions were met with mixed reviews.

Despite the game existing outside of the canonicity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, some characters from the game eventually appeared in the 2017 film Thor: Ragnarok, such as Surtur and Hela (from the Nintendo DS version).

Plot
The game begins in medias res  with Asgard being invaded by the Jötun (frost giants from Jotunheim). Thor, meanwhile, is training with Sif and his brother Loki. Their training is interrupted, however, by the arrival of the Frost Giants. While Loki leaves to inform Odin about the invasion, Thor is left to fight alone after Sif is frozen by one of the arriving jötun. After quickly fending his enemies off and setting Sif free, Thor goes to Odin's castle to defend Asgard. The invasion is stopped, but Sif is fatally wounded in the process. After Thor is denied retribution for the invasion, and Sif's condition, by Odin, Thor disobeys his father's orders and travels to Niflheim aided by one of Loki's projected clones (who is revealed to be the mastermind behind the invasion). While Thor travels to Nilfheim, it is shown that Odin manages to save Sif from the dead and then he proceeds to enter the Odinsleep. As Thor arrives to Nilfheim Loki tells him to find Ymir, Lord of the Jötun and Ruler of Niflheim. Thor finds and, after a long battle, defeats Ymir inside the Cave of Ages. There, Thor finds the source of a power that, as Loki says, can destroy the entire realm of Niflheim. Ignoring Ymir's warnings, Thor activates the source which transforms into a golden, metallic, minotaur-like creature known as Mangog that instantly vaporizes Ymir. Loki then sends an unaware (and guilt-ridden) Thor to Vanaheim rather than Asgard, as Thor wanted. Loki (who wants to prove himself to Odin as a rightful heir to Asgard's throne) had previously struck a deal with Ulik (Lord of the Vanir-trolls-and ruler of Vanaheim) for him to "delay" Thor's return to Asgard, whilst Loki stops Mangog. In exchange, Loki promised to repair Vanaheim's Frostgrinder (the Vanir's faulty replica of the Bifrost) and allow Ulik to leave Vanaheim.

While Thor makes his way through Vanaheim, back in Asgard, Mangog wreaks havoc throughout the city. Loki tries to stop Mangog, using the Casket of Eternal Winter from Niflheim. His plan backfires, as Mangog easily breaks free from the ice due to the fire that it emits. Mangog summons an army of Jötun and Infernir, forcing Loki to change his plans and ask Ulik to allow Thor to use the Frostgrinder but Ulik (having waited to leave Vanaheim for decades) betrays Loki. Thor, meanwhile, reaches the doors of the Frostgrinder. There, he discovers, through a historical record of Vanaheim, that it was Odin who originally created Mangog after the Vanir had declared war against Asgard. The Vanir were unable to control and defeat Mangog, but they found out that Mangog's only weakness is a god-created mineral called Scabrite (which was used by Odin to forge the chains used to restrain Mangog)
Thor eventually confronts and defeats Ulik. As Loki tells Thor about the state of Asgard, Thor reveals Mangog's only possible weakness to Loki.
Loki informs Thor that Scabrite can only be found in one realm: Muspelheim, home of the Infernir.

Thor then travels to Muspelheim, where he faces Surtur, Lord of the Infernir and ruler of Muspelheim. Thor manages to defeat Surtur, and claims the Twilight Sword. Thor then destroys the Twilight, which releases its Scabrite-filled energy which in turn is absorbed by Mjolnir.

Thor then returns to Asgard, where Loki tells him that before he faces Mangog he has to help Heimdall and a fully recovered Sif retake the Bifrost's observatory. After Thor successfully helps Heimdall and Sif, he goes to face Mangog in combat, aided by Loki and a weakened Odin. After a long fight, Thor defeats Mangog. He then apologizes to Odin for releasing Mangog out of anger and pride, but Odin says it is he himself who should apologize as it was he himself who created Mangog in the first place. Odin then releases the souls of the Vanir trapped within Mangog (which also gave Mangog power) to their fate in afterlife as the game ends.

Gameplay
Thor battles through the numerous worlds of Norse mythology to save Asgard. Players wield the iconic Mjölnir, Thor's legendary hammer, to fight enemies of an immense scale while controlling the elemental storm powers of lightning, thunder and wind to vanquish enemies. Thor must overcome monstrous foes lifted from the pages of the comics, including Ulik, Ymir and Surtur as well as other daunting enemies. There are also a variety of collectibles to be found and collected, including Runes, Concept Arts, and alternate Thor costumes.

Development and marketing
News that Sega was developing a Thor video game first leaked to the public in September 2009, which Sega officially announced the game in July 2010. At the 2010 New York Comic Con, Matt Powers the senior producer of the game stated that Thor: God of Thunder would expand on the universe created by the Thor film and include characters such as Surtur and Ulik. Actors Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston who played Thor and Loki respectively in the film lent their voices and likenesses to the game. Gary Knight, Senior Vice President of Marketing at SEGA Europe and SEGA of America described the decision: "Bringing in Chris and Tom to star in Thor: God of Thunder gives us AAA talent that will create a truly cinematic interactive experience... [the] Mighty Thor and the trickster Loki will face off with real emotion while giving fans visual and vocal continuity between the video game and film adaptations of the Marvel franchise". Sega cancelled the PSP edition of the game without any explanation. The first gameplay trailer debuted at the 2010 Spike Video Game Awards.

Red Fly Studios, a developer studio well known for developing quality Wii versions of licensed properties, such as Ghostbusters: The Video Game and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, accepted the role of developing the Wii and 3DS version of God of Thunder, in hopes of utilizing and expanding their experience with developing Wii titles. These versions use the Infernal Engine, specifically the one that was used for Unleashed II. This is highly evident due to the Wii version using a heads-up display and quick-time event prompts that appear similar to the ones used in Unleashed II.

Reception

The Nintendo versions received "mixed" reviews, while the non-Nintendo versions received "negative" reviews, according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.

Brett Day of 411Mania gave the DS version eight out of ten and said it was "quite possibly the best movie game I have ever played. WayForward has managed to create a fantastic, classic 2D, side scrolling game which really shows that the Nintendo DS still has some tricks left up its sleeves. The visuals are excellent, the sound is great, and the gameplay is simply outstanding. You will have hours of fun playing this. Thor is easily one of the best action games on the DS, and is a must have for any fans of action games". However, Jeffrey Harris of the same website gave the PS3 version 3.8 out of 10 and said: "I love Thor, but this is not a videogame worthy of the God of Thunder. I wish the development team that gave us Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 would come back together and make all the Marvel comic movie games. Because this does not cut it. Raven Software did a decent job with the Wolverine game even, so even they could be an option. If this is what we have to wait for with the Avengers movie videogame, I'm not very excited". The Guardian gave the same PS3 version three stars out of five and said that "while it's energetic fun in parts, there's a series of near-vertical blips where the learning curve should be".

David Jenkins of Metro gave the DS version six out of ten and stated, "gorgeous 2D art still can't forgive the needless repetition, but while the novelty lasts this is a great little brain dead brawler". However, Roger Hargreaves of the same newspaper gave the Xbox 360 version three out of ten and called it "an almost blasphemous waste of the thunder god's potential, in this predictably cheap and cheerless movie tie-in". The A.V. Club gave the DS version a C+ and stated: "There are inspired moments here, especially in the game's boss fights—the final two involve multi-jointed sprites spanning both screens—but they're few and far between". The Digital Fix gave the 3DS version five out of ten and said that "the game shows great promise in a number of areas. The problem is many of these areas retain said promise for only a short while (and not just because the game itself is short)". The Escapist gave the Xbox 360 version two stars out of five and said it was "just disappointing".

References

External links

2011 video games
Action games
Cancelled PlayStation Portable games
Fantasy video games
Hack and slash games
Liquid Entertainment games
Marvel Cinematic Universe video games
Nintendo 3DS games
Nintendo DS games
PlayStation 3 games
Sega video games
Single-player video games
Superhero video games
Thor (film series)
Unreal Engine games
Video games about extraterrestrial life
Video games based on adaptations
Video games based on Norse mythology
Video games based on Thor (Marvel Comics)
Video games developed in the United States
Video games scored by Inon Zur
Video games scored by Jake Kaufman
Video games with stereoscopic 3D graphics
WayForward games
Wii games
Xbox 360 games

Thor: God of Thunder


Normal is a town in McLean County, Illinois, in the United States. It is considered a "Twin City" of Bloomington, Illinois. Normal was originally called North Bloomington. Its name was changed to Normal after Illinois State Normal University was built there.

Towns in Illinois

Normal, Illinois


The Alagwa (Swahili: Waasi; Rangi: Vaasi; Iraqw: Alawa) are a Cushitic ethnic group mostly based in the Kondoa District (Alagwa: Ulàa) of the Dodoma Region in central Tanzania, an area well known for rock art. Smaller numbers of Alagwa reside in the Hanang district of the Manyara Region in Tanzania, as well. They speak the Alagwa language as a mother tongue, which belongs to the South Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family. In 2022, the Alagwa population was estimated to number 52,816 individuals, and Mous (2016) estimates the number of speakers to be slightly over 10,000.

Some of the Alagwa have mixed with communities of Gorowa, Sandawe, Datooga, and Rangi. Many Alagwa speak the Rangi language and the two groups have both influenced each other. Many of the Alagwa are Muslims, following from an extended period of interactions with Swahili traders in Kondoa in the 19th century.

Ethnonym
The Alagwa use the endonym Alagwa to describe themselves. The nearby Iraqw people use a variant of Alagwa (Alawa) to refer to the group. This exonym is often used in literature relating to the Alagwa. However, the Alagwa are more commonly known by the Swahili exonym of Wasi or Waasi in Tanzania. This Swahili exonym originates from the Rangi exonym for the Alagwa, Vaasi. In turn, the Rangi name Vaasi is actually derived from a Bantu term approximately meaning "original inhabitants", which is reflective of the existence of the Alagwa in what is now Kondoa District prior to the arrival and migration of the Rangi to the area.

The Alagwa refer to their language with the endonym Alaagwa'isa. In Tanzania, the language is better known by the Swahili exonym of Chasi.

In English, the Alagwa and their language are sometimes referred to as Asi. This English exonym is the result of dropping the Swahili plural prefix of Wa- and the Swahili artifact prefix of Ch- from the Swahili exonyms of Waasi and Chasi, respectively.

History

Origin

According to the oral traditions of the Alagwa, they ultimately originated from Mecca (Alagwa: Maaka) and other areas of perceived prestige, such as South Sudan. They believe their predecessors in the Tanzanian Rift Valley were the legendary 'Ayràa people. In Alagwa folklore, the 'Ayràa were hunters and honey collectors with long hair.

However, the Alagwa, along with other South Cushitic peoples, are presumed to have originated from present-day Southwestern Ethiopia. South Cushitic speakers would then migrate south to Lake Turkana and further south, entering Tanzania in 2000 BC. The presence of South Cushitic peoples in the Tanzanian Rift Valley preceded the arrival of Bantu-speaking peoples like the Rangi and Nyaturu.

Historically, the earliest known people inhabiting the Tanzanian Rift Valley were the Khoisan ancestors of the Sandawe and Hadza. The Sandawe are known for hunting and collecting honey like the legendary 'Ayràa of the Alagwa.

Early history
Research from the 1980s and 1990s suggests the Alagwa, Gorowa, and Iraqw are descended from the Iraqw cluster of South Cushitic peoples. These people likely migrated along the Bubu river (Alagwa: Duuduu) towards Mount Hanang and continued to the Iraqw cradle land. Both Iraqw and Gorowa oral traditions confirm such a migration after a battle, presumably with the Datooga, at Ma'angwatay. The location of Ma'angwatay is said to be the area roughly south of Mount Hanang. Despite this, the Iraqw migration and the battle at Ma'angwatay are completely absent in Alagwa oral tradition. Even the toponym of Ma'angwatay is entirely unknown to the Alagwa.

Alagwa refugees, fleeing attacks from the Datooga, played an important role in Sandawe history. The Sandawe people were traditionally hunter-gatherers, and were first introduced to cattle by Alagwa refugees. Along with cattle, these refugees would introduce rainmaking and the transmission of lineage to the Sandawe. Many Alagwa intermarried with the Sandawe, resulting in them being absorbed into Sandawe society. In Sandawe culture, the descendants of assimilated Alagwa still hold one of the rainmaker clan names.

Alagwa oral traditions make mention of their historical ties with the neighbouring Burunge people, another South Cushitic group. The Alagwa language shares many surface level similarities with the Burunge language, despite being on different branches of the South Cushitic languages. These linguistic similarities are in large part due to the historical interactions between the Alagwa and Burunge. The Alagwa adopted a plethora of Burunge loanwords including the Alagwa place-name for Kondoa, Ulàa. The Alagwa Ulàa comes from Burunge Ula, which was the name of a Burunge individual who lived in the area.

The oral traditions of the Alagwa describe their extensive contacts with the nearby Rangi. These traditions mention the establishment of Haubi, the first Rangi settlement in the region. The Alagwa and Rangi mutually influenced each other's languages and cultures. Many Alagwa assimilated into Rangi culture through intermarriage and adoption of the Rangi language. As a result, most Rangi believe that their ancestors originated from East Africa (like most Cushitic peoples) despite the fact that most Bantu peoples are presumed to have came from Western Africa. In Rangi society, the Alagwa Relatives clan (Rangi: Vaasinduu), in particular, has the most Alagwa ancestry.

See also
 List of ethnic groups in Tanzania

References

Ethnic groups in Tanzania
Indigenous peoples of East Africa
Cushitic-speaking peoples

Alagwa people


Louis Saint-Calibre (July 6, 1912 – February 28, 1970) was a French bobsledder who competed in the late 1940s. At the 1948 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, he finished 12th in the two-man event as well as 13th in the four-man event.

Four years later he finished eleventh in the four-man event at the 1952 Winter Olympics.

Saint-Calibre later was involved in the unsuccessful design for the bobsleigh course to be used for the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, specifically with costs related to the course itself (USD300,000) instead of the course and its supporting area (grandstands, scoreboard, lighting, tramway, etc. which raised the cost to USD700,000). A letter of protest was sent from the 1960 Organizing Committee to the International Bobsleigh and Tobogganing Federation (FIBT) in late 1957 that was published in the February 1958 Olympic Review. This issue would lead to bobsleigh's exclusion from the 1960 program.

References
1948 bobsleigh two-man results
"Reply to FIBT from 1960 Winter Organizing Committee on October 24, 1957." Olympic Review. February 1958. p. 54.
Lous Saint-Calbre's profile at Sports Reference.com
Louis Saint-Calbre's profile at Geneanet

1912 births
1970 deaths
French male bobsledders
Olympic bobsledders for France
Bobsledders at the 1948 Winter Olympics
Bobsledders at the 1952 Winter Olympics

Louis Saint-Calbre


Sir William Sambach (c. l601-1653) was an English-born lawyer and politician of the seventeenth century who spent much of his career in Ireland, but was driven back to England by the political turmoil of the 1640s, and died there.

Background
He was the son of John Sambach of Snowshill, Broadway, Worcestershire and Elizabeth Aston, daughter of Sir Edward Aston of Tixall, Staffordshire and his second wife Anne Lucy, daughter of Sir Thomas Lucy. Elizabeth was thus a sister of Walter Aston, 1st Lord Aston of Forfar. The Astons were one of the most prominent Roman Catholic families in England, but the Sambachs, as far as is known, conformed to the Church of England. His parents' marriage took place in 1600.

His surname is probably a variant of Sandbach. The Sambach family has been settled in Broadway for some generations and were still there in the early  1700s.

Since that family preserved a collection of his papers it is likely that they were related to the Sandbachs of Tarporley, Cheshire, later famous as the owners of Hafodunos Hall.

Career

Little is known of his early career. He arrived in Ireland before 1630, when he was still in his twenties. From the early 1630s onwards he was a key member of the entourage of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, to whom he seems to have been personally close. He became Recorder of Carrickfergus in 1630 (this was a free election by popular vote of the town corporation, not a Crown appointment) and then Second Serjeant in 1637. He was allowed to hold both offices at once, probably because his salary as Serjeant was thought to be inadequate, while the Recordership was notoriously ill-paid (the salary was £20 per annum, later reduced to £10).

In 1640 he was elected to the Irish House of Commons as member for Carrickfergus and in the same year became Solicitor General for Ireland. After the downfall and execution of Strafford for treason in 1641, Sambach continued to defend his policies; during the comprehensive attack by the Irish Parliament on Strafford's rule known as "the Queries", Sambach was one of the few MPs to speak in Strafford's defence, and to denounce the Queries. Precisely when he stepped down as Solicitor General is unclear: in the confusion of the times, the office simply seems to have lapsed, and he was not replaced until 1657. He stepped down as Recorder of Carrickfergus in 1641 in favour of Roger Lyndon.

The  1641 Rebellion  and  after

During the Irish Rebellion of 1641 he remained a committed Royalist, and by his own account suffered much damage to his property as a result. He lived at Balyna, near Moyvalley, County Kildare: in 1642 he petitioned the Crown for redress for the great loss he had suffered through attacks on his lands by the rebels, which he estimated at £33800, an enormous sum at the time.

He had returned to England by 1649, when he purchased an estate at Bretforton in Worcestershire. A much later lawsuit suggests that he also had estates at Evesham, though his main residence was the old family home at Snowshill, Broadway. He is heard of acting as a justice of the peace in Worcestershire in 1651, which suggests that, like many former Royalists, he had made his peace with the Cromwellian regime. He died in 1653.

Family

He was married, but little is known about his wife, except that she outlived him and was buried at the old Sambach family home at Broadway in 1670. As well as (probably) one son, he had at least one daughter, whose first name is unknown: she married John Moore of Croghan, County Offaly, eldest son of Thomas Moore and Margaret Forth, daughter of Sir Ambrose Forth and Anne Cusack, and had five children:

one surviving son Thomas, who was the father of John Moore, 1st Baron Moore, and grandfather of Charles Moore, 1st Earl of Charleville
Margaret, who married Richard Woodfall
Jane, who married Geoffrey Lyons of Killeen, County Laois
two sons who died in infancy

A lawsuit entitled Sambach v Sambach in 1707 concerned the right of a small boy called William Sambach of Snowshill to possession of Broadway and Evesham, which had belonged to his father: he was almost certainly a descendant of Sir William.

References

Solicitors-General for Ireland
Members of the Parliament of Ireland (pre-1801) for County Antrim constituencies
Irish MPs 1639–1649
1653 deaths
People from Evesham
Serjeants-at-law (Ireland)
Politicians from Worcestershire

William Sambach


West Youlstone is a hamlet in north Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It lies seven miles north north west of Bude and north of Kilkhampton along the A39 road. It belongs to the parish of Morwenstow, and lies to the east of it. East Youlstone is immediately to the east but is in Devon.

History
Archaeological discoveries on the site have revealed it was occupied in the Bronze Age. It is mentioned in the memoirs of James Thorne of Shebbear.

References

Hamlets in Cornwall
Morwenstow

West Youlstone


Calliprora pentagramma is a moth of the family Gelechiidae. It is found in Guyana.

The wingspan is 10–12 mm. The forewings are purple-blackish with the basal area crossed by five longitudinal ochreous-whitish streaks becoming longer upwards, the uppermost nearly reaching the middle but obsolete towards the base, with a short ochreous-whitish mark also on the dorsal edge about one-fourth. There is a rather oblique slightly curved ochreous-whitish streak from before the middle of the dorsum, attenuated upwards, reaching two-thirds across the wing. There is a transverse series of six short longitudinal ochreous-whitish lines on the veins about three-fourths, becoming longer downwards, and a seventh on the dorsum. A coppery-metallic transverse line is found from four-fifths of the costa to tornus, obtusely angulated above the middle, the extremities whitish. There is a fulvous streak just beyond this, sending a branch into the apical projection, the lower portion terminal. The hindwings are dark fuscous.

References

Moths described in 1914
Calliprora

Calliprora pentagramma


Reading Wood Black (September 23, 1830 – October 3, 1867), was the father of Uvalde County, Texas and city of Uvalde, Texas, which he founded as the town of  Encina. In 1979, Recorded Texas Historic Landmark 4209 was placed in the Hillcrest Cemetery to honor Reading Wood Black. In 1997, Recorded Texas Historic Landmark 4208 was placed at the intersection of East Street and U.S. 90, to mark the site of the former home and trading post of Reading Wood Black.

Early life
He was born in Springfield Township, Burlington County, New Jersey, into a wealthy Quaker family. By age 17, he was owner and manager of the  Clover Hill Farm in North Hampton Township.

Black's cousin William Reading Montgomery was stationed at Fort Gates in Coryell County and held sway over Black's decision to explore Texas. Black left for Texas in 1852, along with his friend Nathan L. Stratton.

Founding and development of Uvalde
Black and Stratton purchased an undivided league and labor on the Leona River in 1853 at the future site of Uvalde. Black then began raising sheep.  He opened a store, cleared a garden, and operated a limekiln and two rock quarries.

In 1854, he purchased  more for town expansion and stock raising.

On May 2, 1855, Black hired San Antonio lithographer Wilhelm Carl August Thielepape, and laid out Encina, which would later be known as Uvalde. The town was divided into 464 lots, a schoolhouse square, a cemetery, a park, a garden and four town plazas. Black named the plazas the Market, the Post Office Townhall and the Courthouse.

In September 1855 he established the first school in what is now Uvalde County, and in November he successfully lobbied the state legislature to organize Uvalde County.  On April 21, 1856, he was elected county commissioner. On May 12, he and his fellow commissioners completed formal organization. On June 14, Encina was named county seat.

Between January – December 1856, Black was a Captain of the Texas Rangers Minutemen of Uvalde County.
  During this period, his company helped defeat a Comanche war party some thirty miles south of Uvalde.

Black was re-elected county commissioner in 1858, and in that same year built a gristmill.

He was elected county judge in 1860. His wagon train enterprise of 1860 freighted between San Antonio and Piedras Negras, Coahuila.

On January 6, 1859, he married Permilia Jane McKinney.

Mexico, return and death
Opposed to secession from the Union, Black was disgusted by the murder of several prisoners by the Confederate home guards.  Black moved to Coahuila, Mexico until the end of the war, by which time he had amassed property and $50,000.

In 1866, he was elected to the legislature from the Seventy-first District, where he strongly supported ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, designed to protect the citizenship of recently freed slaves. He felt that failure to support the amendment would be interpreted as disloyalty to the Union. Black did not stand for re-election.

Black's attempt to form a strong local Union League has been debated as a factor in his murder by friend George Washington "Tom" Wall on October 3, 1867. Others offer the point of view that the murder was the result of a falling out between the two friends over money from a business deal.

In 1979, Recorded Texas Historic Landmark 4209 was placed in the Hillcrest Cemetery to honor Reading Wood Black.  In 1997, Recorded Texas Historic Landmark 4208 was placed at the intersection of East Street and U.S. 90, to mark the site of the former home and trading post of Reading Wood Black.

References

1830 births
1867 deaths
American Quakers
People from Springfield Township, Burlington County, New Jersey
People from Uvalde, Texas
Recorded Texas Historic Landmarks
Members of the Texas House of Representatives
19th-century American politicians

Reading Wood Black


The Pentastomida are an enigmatic group of parasitic arthropods commonly known as tongue worms due to the resemblance of the species of the genus Linguatula to a vertebrate tongue; molecular studies point to them being degenerate crustaceans.

About 130 species of pentastomids are known; all are obligate parasites with correspondingly degenerate anatomy. Adult tongue worms vary from about  in length, and parasitise the respiratory tracts of vertebrates. They have five anterior appendages. One is the mouth; the others are two pairs of hooks, which they use to attach to the host. This arrangement led to their scientific name, meaning "five openings", but although the appendages are similar in some species, only one is a mouth.

Taxonomy
Historically significant accounts of tongue worm biology and systematics include early work by Josef Aloys Frölich, Alexander von Humboldt, Karl Asmund Rudolphi, Karl Moriz Diesing and Rudolph Leuckart.

Other important summaries have been published by Louis Westenra Sambon, Richard Heymons and John Riley, and a review of their evolutionary relationships with a bibliography up to 1969 was published by J. T. Self.

Affinities
The affinities of tongue worms have long proved controversial. Historically, they were initially compared to various groups of parasitic worms. Once the arthropod-like nature of their cuticle was recognised, similarities were drawn with mites, particularly gall mites (Eriophyidae). Although gall mites are much smaller than tongue worms, they also have a long, segmented body and only two pairs of legs. Later work drew comparisons with millipedes and centipedes (Myriapoda), with velvet worms (Onychophora) and water bears (Tardigrada). Some authors interpreted tongue worms as essentially intermediate between annelids and arthropods, while others suggested that they deserved a phylum of their own. Tongue worms grow by moulting, which suggests they belong to Ecdysozoa, while other work has identified the arthropod-like nature of their larvae. In general, the two current alternative interpretations are: pentastomids are highly modified and parasitic crustaceans, probably related to fish lice, or they are an ancient group of stem-arthropods, close to the origins of Arthropoda.

Crustaceans
The discovery that tongue worms are crustaceans can be traced back to the work of Pierre-Joseph Van Beneden, who compared them to parasitic copepods. The modern form of this hypothesis dates from Karl Georg Wingstrand's study of sperm morphology, which recognised similarities in sperm structure between tongue worms and fish lice (Argulidae) – a group of maxillopod crustaceans which live as parasites on fish and occasionally amphibians. John Riley and colleagues also offered a detailed justification for the inclusion of the tongue worms among the crustaceans. The fish louse model received significant further support from the molecular work of Lawrence G. Abele and colleagues. A number of subsequent molecular phylogenies have corroborated these results, and the name Ichthyostraca has been proposed for a (Pentastomida + Branchiura) clade. Thus a number of important standard works and databases on crustaceans now include the pentastomids as members of this group.

Stem-arthropods
Critics of the Ichthyostraca classification have pointed out that even parasitic crustaceans can still be recognised as crustaceans based on their larvae; but that tongue worms and their larvae do not express typical characters for Crustacea or even Euarthropoda. An alternative model notes the extremely ancient Cambrian origins of these animals and interprets tongue worms as stem-group arthropods. A recent morphological analysis recovered Pentastomida outside the arthropods, as sister group to a clade including nematodes, priapulids and similar ecdysozoan 'worm' groups. Adding fossils, they suggested an extinct animal called Facivermis could be closely related to tongue worms. However it should be stressed that these authors did not explicitly test pentastomid/crustacean relationships.

Fossil record
Exceptionally preserved, three-dimensional and phosphatised fossils from the Upper Cambrian Orsten of Sweden and the Cambrian/Ordovician boundary of Canada have been identified as pentastomids.  Also one from the Wuluian (middle Cambrian) of Greenland. Four fossil genera have been identified from the Cambrian so far: Aengapentastomum, Bockelericambria, Haffnericambria and Heymonsicambria. These fossils suggest that pentastomids evolved very early and raise questions about whether these animals were parasites at this time, and if so, on which hosts. Conodonts (primitive fish) have sometimes been mentioned as possible hosts in this context.  A fifth genus, Invavita, is from Silurian-aged marine strata of England: fossil specimens of Invavita are found firmly attached to their ostracod hosts of the species Nymphatelina gravida. It possessed a head, a worm-like body, and two pairs of limbs.

Classification
There are four extant orders recognised in the subclass Pentastomida:
Cephalobaenida
Porocephalida
Raillietiellida
Reighardiida

Description
Pentastomids are worm-like animals ranging from  in length. The female is larger than the male. The anterior end of the body bears five protuberances, four of which are clawed legs, while the fifth bears the mouth. The body is segmented and covered in a chitinous cuticle. The digestive tract is simple and tubular since the animal feeds entirely on blood, except from genus Linguatula which lives in the nasal cavity of carnivorous mammals where they feed mainly on mucus and dead cells, although the mouth is somewhat modified as a muscular pump.

The nervous system is similar to that of other arthropods, including a ventral nerve cord with ganglia in each segment. Although the body contains a haemocoel, no circulatory, respiratory, or excretory organs are present.

Behaviour and ecology

Pentastomids live in the upper respiratory tract of reptiles, birds, and mammals, where they lay eggs. They are gonochoric (having two sexes), and employ internal fertilisation. The eggs are either coughed out by the host or leave the host body through the digestive system. The eggs are then ingested by an intermediate host, which is commonly either a fish or a small herbivorous mammal.

The larva hatches in the intermediate host and breaks through the wall of the intestine. It then forms a cyst in the intermediate host's body. The larva is initially rounded in form, with four or six short legs, but moults several times to achieve the adult form. At least one species, Subtriquetra subtriquetra, has a free-living larva. There is both indirect development with nymphal stages and direct development. The pentastomid reaches the main host when the intermediate host is eaten by the main host, and crawls into the respiratory tract from the oesophagus.

Human infestation

Tongue worms occasionally parasitise humans. While a report exists of Sebekia inducing dermatitis, the two genera responsible for most internal human infestation are Linguatula and Armillifer. Visceral pentastomiasis can be caused by Linguatula serrata, Armillifer armillatus, Armillifer moniliformis, Armillifer grandis, and Porocephalus crotali.

The terms associated with infections can vary:
 Linguatula disease can be called linguatuliasis or linguatulosis.
 Porocephalus disease can be called porocephaliasis or porocephalosis.
 Armillifer disease can also be called porocephalosis. (An alternate name for Armillifer moniliformis is Porocephalus moniliformis.)
 "Pentastomiasis" can refer to any infection of Pentastomida.

Porocephalus and Armillifer (which are all cylindrical and all inhabit snakes) have much more in common with each other than they do with Linguatula (which is flat and inhabits dogs and wolves).

References

External links

Arthropod subclasses
Parasitic crustaceans
Articles containing video clips
Extant Cambrian first appearances

Pentastomida


Ron Lapointe (November 12, 1949 – March 23, 1992) was a Canadian ice hockey coach.

Lapointe grew up in Verdun, Quebec. He was a product of the junior league QMJHL and served as a head coach of the Shawinigan Cataractes. He later worked as an assistant on the staffs of the New York Islanders and Washington Capitals. Lapointe also led the Fredericton Express of the American Hockey League.

He was named interim head coach of the Quebec Nordiques halfway through the 1987–88 NHL season. After an 11–20–2 start in the 1988–89 season, Lapointe was forced to resign because of a kidney tumor. Lapointe then spent two seasons as the coach of the minor league Milwaukee Admirals before health problems forced him to resign. He later took a job as a scout with the Vancouver Canucks.

His total NHL coaching record was 33–50–6.  He died at age 42 on March 23, 1992, after a three-year battle with kidney cancer. The Ron Lapointe Trophy is named in his honour, and awarded to the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League's Coach of the Year.

Coaching record

External links

1949 births
1992 deaths
Canadian ice hockey coaches
Deaths from kidney cancer
Ice hockey people from Montreal
Montreal Juniors coaches
People from Verdun, Quebec
Quebec Nordiques coaches
Quebec Remparts coaches
Shawinigan Cataractes coaches
Washington Capitals coaches

Ron Lapointe


Harmonie universelle ("Universal Harmony"; complete title: Harmonie universelle, contenant la théorie et la pratique de la musique) is a work by Marin Mersenne, published in Paris in 1636. It represented the sum of musical knowledge during his lifetime.

This was a major work since it represented the most complete description of music theory near the middle of the 17th century in France. It covers all aspects including theoretical, practical, stylistic, organological, mathematical, acoustical, and theological.

Content
The title page specifies the scope of the topics covered by the book including the nature of sounds, movements, consonance, dissonance, genres, modes of composition, voice, singing, and all kinds of harmonic instruments. This monumental treatise is abundant in illustrations (including musical engravings), and in systematic tables. It also remains the only source of certain musical works from Jacques Mauduit, Eustache Du Caurroy, Antoine de Sewn, or Pierre de La Barre in particular.

Editions
 Mersenne, Marin (1636). Harmonie universelle.

See also
 Mersenne's laws

Music books
French-language books
1636 books

Harmonie universelle


The Piano Sonata in A major D. 664, Op. posth. 120 is a sonata for solo piano composed by Franz Schubert in the summer of 1819.

Movements

Well regarded among pianists, the "Little" A major sonata is so called to distinguish it from the hefty 1828 sonata in the same key. It is the shortest among Schubert's complete sonatas. The manuscript, completed in July 1819, was dedicated to Josephine von Koller of Steyr in Upper Austria, whom he considered to be "very pretty" and "a good pianist".  The lyrical, buoyant, in spots typically poignant nature of this sonata fits the image of a young Schubert in love, living in a summery Austrian countryside, which he also considered to be "unimaginably lovely".

The A major sonata is straightforward, with a dulcet melodic opening. It was the first of Schubert's piano sonatas where the sonata form as perfected by his idol, Beethoven, does not seem wrestled with; rather, it is a "joyous breakthrough", a carefree triumph over strict rules of construction.

The original manuscript to this "little" sonata has been lost.

Further reading
James Webster noted the particular A B A form of the first movement's first thematic group. Daniel Coren summarised the nature of the recapitulations in the first and third movements. Leo Black noted Schubert's reworking of the opening theme from the sonata's slow movement into his song "Der Unglückliche".

References

External links

Piano sonatas by Franz Schubert
1819 compositions
Compositions in A major
Music with dedications

Piano Sonata in A major, D 664 (Schubert)


The Caspar C 32 was an aircraft developed in Germany for aerial spraying in the late 1920s. It was a single-bay biplane with staggered, equal-span wings that accommodated the pilot and a single passenger or observer in tandem open cockpits. A small, additional horizontal stabiliser was fitted near the top of the tall single tail fin above the main horizontal stabiliser.

Design and development
The first example was used by the Biologische Reichsanstalt für Land- und Forstwirtschaft in Berlin until the early 1930s, before being acquired by DVS in 1933. DVS also purchased two examples directly from Caspar.

Operational history
The fourth and last C 32 built was bought by the Graf Solms-Laubach and named Germania. Otto Könnecke was to have made a transatlantic crossing with it, but ongoing bad weather led to the continuous postponing of the event. Eventually, the plan was changed to making an eastward flight to the United States, via India and Japan. Könnecke departed Cologne on 27 September 1927, but by early 1928 was forced to turn back having only reached India.

Specifications (C 32)

References

Further reading

External links
 German Aircraft Between 1919-1945

1920s German agricultural aircraft
C032
Biplanes
Single-engined tractor aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1928

Caspar C 32


Univisium (macaronic Latin for "unity of images") is a proposed universal film format created by cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC and his son, Fabrizio, to unify all future theatrical and television films into one respective aspect ratio of 2:1.

Predecessors
The 2:1 aspect ratio was first used in the 1950s (April 1, 1953) for one of the two flat formats that Universal Pictures developed (alongside 1.85:1), the RKO Superscope format, and as an option in several other cinematographic formats.
Another predecessor is Toho's Toho Pan Scope, used in the 1958 kaiju film Varan the Unbelievable and the 1957 Japanese re-release of Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (which in turn was the American localization of 1954's Godzilla), using an anamorphic process similar to Superscope with film shot on monochrome flat 1.37:1 before being cropped to 2:1 during editing,

The main proposal
In 1998, cinematographer Vittorio Storaro announced his plans for a new film format, originally to be called Univision, in an interview with International Photographer magazine. As Storaro stated in his written proposal, "Recently, any movie – no matter how big or small, successful or not – will, after a very short life on the big screen, have a much longer life on an electronic screen. Today the answer print is made for both of these two different media. ...Having these two different media, with essentially two different aspect ratios, each of us (directors, production designers, cinematographers, camera Operators, etc.) shares the nightmare of compromising the composition of the Image. Looking through a viewfinder, a camera, or a monitor, we are always faced with at least two images of the same subject."

Storaro feels in the future of cinema, films will be photographed in either high-definition video for small, intimate digital projection theaters, or in 65 mm for "big audience... large screen" films. In the cinematographer's opinion, as all films will be one of the two formats, he suggests that a common aspect ratio compromise of 2.00:1 (mathematical average of 65 mm 2.20:1 and HD 1.78:1) be adopted for all films, 65 mm theatrical, HD theatrical and television.

As he told American Cinematographer writer Bob Fisher, "I believe it is very important for audiences to see films exactly the way they were composed by the director and cinematographer. This is a solution."

35 mm Univisium camera proposal

Storaro recognized that ubiquitous HD origination was not yet viable and therefore proposed an alteration to standard 35 mm photography to create a 2.00:1 aspect ratio and economize on film.

By using a negative area similar to that of the Super 35 frame (which utilizes the full width of a 35 mm film frame "perf-to-perf" as opposed to traditional 35 mm which utilizes a smaller area of the 35 mm frame offset to the right to accommodate space for an optical soundtrack) combined with 3-perf frame size (as opposed to standard 35 mm photography which uses four perforations per frame). The Univisium camera would use an aperture opening of 24mm × 12mm (.945" × .472") and three perforations per frame, which would eliminate the waste associated with 2.40:1 Super 35 mm photography (wherein nearly 50% of the frame is discarded) by creating a natural 2.00:1 aspect ratio utilizing the whole film area.

In addition to using the full film area, using three perforations per frame as opposed to four equates to using 25% less film for the same shooting time.  With the traditional four perforations per frame, 35 mm film (at 24 frames per second) runs at 90 feet per minute (4 minutes 26 seconds per 400 feet of film), three perforations per frame runs at 67.5 feet per minute (5 minutes 56 seconds per 400 feet of film). This would mean each magazine of film would have 33% more shooting time and a production that shot the same overall length of time as a four-perforation film would use 25% less film.

The proposal also points out that the 2.00:1 aspect ratio can be achieved using standard spherical lenses, which, compared to their anamorphic counterparts, are cheaper, faster (require less light), and have more photographic depth of field and less visual imperfections.  There are also a greater selection of spherical prime and zoom lenses than there are anamorphic lenses.

3-perf also results in a quieter camera than 4-perf as there is less intermittent movement per frame.

The format also calls for shooting 25 frames per second, which eliminates problems associated with transferring film to video in the PAL and SECAM system and is still fairly simple to transfer to the NTSC video format.

35 mm Univisium projection proposal
Storaro suggests a renovation to standard film projectors to present a 3-perf frame and eliminate the need for an anamorphic print to be made (to optically squeeze the 2:1 3-perf aspect ratio into a 1.33:1 4-perf frame).  As the image will fill the full film area (perf-to-perf) there is no room for a traditional optical soundtrack and Univisium requires two digital soundtracks, one for backup (which reside outside of the perforations on the edge of the film; DTS, Sony Dynamic Digital Sound, Dolby Digital).  The projectors would run at 25 frames per second, just as the cameras do.

As a compromise to standard technology (for the time being), Storaro says an anamorphic print can be made and presented in 24 frames per second with a digital and/or optical soundtrack.

However, with the rise of the DCP (Digital Cinema Package), the 2:1 image can be projected from a flat (1.85:1) container in either 2K (1998 × 999) or 4K (3996 × 1998), with mild letterboxing.

Univisium in use
Although no film has utilized the full aspects of the proposal, particularly with regard to the projection standards, Storaro has since used Univisium for nearly all of his films.

Technovision and Clairmont Cameras have altered Arriflex 435 and 535B cameras for use on Storaro films that use Univisium and 3-perf pull-down. Technicolor laboratories in Rome, London and Los Angeles also have the means to support the Univisium format.

 Tango (1998)
 Décadence (1998)
 Goya in Bordeaux (1999)
 Picking Up the Pieces (2000)
 Frank Herbert's Dune (2000)
 Exorcist: The Beginning (2004)
 The Polar Express (2004; IMAX Version)
 Zapata: El sueño del héroe (2004)
 Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005)
 Fair Trade (2006) First Univisium film not shot by Vittorio Storaro
 Caravaggio (2007)
 Something Evil, Something Dangerous: New Moon Rising (2011)
 The Hobbit Trilogy (2012–2014; IMAX 3D Versions IMAX 3D 70mm only for The Desolation of Smaug)
 House of Cards (2013)
 Transparent (2014)
 Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014; IMAX 3D Version; some shots)
 Jurassic World (2015)
 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny (2016; Netflix)
 Transit Havana (2016)
 Café Society (2016)
 The Girl with All the Gifts (2016)
 The Crown (2016)
 Travelers (2016)
 Stranger Things (2016)
 20th Century Women (2016)
 A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017)
 The Book of Henry (2017)
 Dark (2017)
 Transformers: The Last Knight (2017; most shots)
 Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House (2017)
 Wonder Wheel (2017)
 Star Trek: Discovery (2017)
Doctor Who (2018 season onwards)
 Altered Carbon (2018)
 José José, el príncipe de la canción (2018)
 Trust (2018)
 Yellowstone (2018)
Hereditary (2018)
13 Reasons Why (2018 season)
Bloodline (2018)
A Simple Favor (2018)
Green Book (2018; first winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture to use the aspect ratio)
Watership Down (2018)
If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)
Hanna (2019)
Backdraft 2 (2019)
Brigada Costa del Sol (2019)
Chernobyl (2019)
Murder Mystery (2019)
Men in Black: International (2019)
Midsommar (2019)
Nancy Drew (2019)
Battle at Big Rock (2019; short film)
A Rainy Day in New York (2019)
Jack Ryan (2019; season 2)
The Morning Show (2019)
Last Christmas (2019)
Lady and the Tramp (2019)
The Knight Before Christmas (2019)
Servant (2019)
Crash Landing on You (2019)
Peaky Blinders (2019–2022; Seasons 5 and 6)
Togo (2019)
Dolemite Is My Name (2019)
 Alice in Borderland (2020)
Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears (2020)
Spenser Confidential (2020)
Stargirl (2020)
I Know This Much Is True (2020)
Love, Victor (2020)
Work It (2020)
Project Power (2020)
The Broken Hearts Gallery (2020)
Rifkin's Festival (2020)
Secret Society of Second-Born Royals (2020)
Trying (2020)
Hubie Halloween (2020)
The Flight Attendant (2020)
Another Round (2020)
Rifkin's Festival (2020)
The Great (2020)
Godmothered (2020)
Selena: The Series (2020)
Casualty (2020) (starting from series 34 episode 43)
Finding Alice (2021)
Vincenzo (2021)
Coming 2 America (2021)
All Is Vanity (2021)
Mare of Easttown (2021)
Yes Day (2021)
Vacation Friends (2021)
Oslo (2021)
Awake (2021)
Jurassic World Dominion prologue (2021; short film)
Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha (2021)
Squid Game (2021)
Muppets Haunted Mansion (2021)
Clifford the Big Red Dog (2021)
American Horror Story: Double Feature (2021)
Impeachment: American Crime Story (2021)
And Just Like That… - A New Chapter of Sex and the City (2021)
A Castle for Christmas (2021)
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022; some scenes)
Better Nate Than Ever (2022)
The Northman (2022)
House of the Dragon (2022)
Jurassic World Dominion (2022)
Smile (2022)
 The School for Good and Evil (2022)
Blockbuster (2022)
Fantasy Football (2022)
Barbie (2023)
Coup de chance (2023)
El Conde (2023)
Five Nights at Freddy's (2023)
The Flash (2023, ninth season)
One Piece (2023)

Additionally, Storaro has reframed many of his earlier widescreen releases for the 2.00:1 ratio upon DVD release, including Apocalypse Now, Reds, and The Last Emperor. This has proved controversial with many film enthusiasts, who believe that regardless of Storaro's attempt to unify all aspect ratios, films should be viewed in the ratio they were filmed in, without any cropping. Due to this backlash, Apocalypse Now and Reds use their original aspect ratios for Blu-ray release.

Other films that were reframed in open matte to the Univisium aspect ratio on DVD include the 1998 DVD release of Top Gun (1986), the 1999 & 2004 DVDs of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), and the original DVD release of Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997).

The HDTV version of Halloween (1978) is cropped to the Univisium aspect ratio.

The VHS version of Kung Pow! Enter the Fist (2002) is cropped to the Univisium aspect ratio.

Many trailers of upcoming films from 20th Century Studios that are shot in the 2.39:1 aspect ratio are cropped to this format when they play ahead of any movies that were shot in 1.85:1.

According to IMDB technical specification statistics, there are over 700 titles with 2:1 aspect ratios, and the number has been growing in recent years. Most films and TV shows that originate on streaming platforms are shot this way, although a small number of theatrical feature films use it.

Netflix production and post-production requirements state that they prefer content up to 2:1 aspect ratio; anything wider must be evaluated and discussed.

Aspect ratio used in music videos
Fergie: "Big Girls Don't Cry" (2007)
Ludacris feat. Justin Bieber: "Baby" (2010)
Miranda Cosgrove: "Kissin U" (2010)
Girls' Generation: "Hoot" (2010)
Pitbull featuring Flo Rida and LunchMoney Lewis: "Greenlight" (2016)
: "Melancholy" (2017)
Massari featuring Maya Diab and French Montana: "Ya Nour El Ein" (2018)
Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello: "Señorita" (2019)
The Weeknd: "Heartless" (2019)
Megan Thee Stallion feat. Nicki Minaj & Ty Dolla Sign: "Hot Girl Summer" (2019)
Mariah Carey: "All I Want for Christmas Is You" (Make My Wish Come True Edition) (2019)
Grace VanderWaal: "Today and Tomorrow (From Disney's Stargirl)" (2020)
Fromis 9: "Feel Good (SECRET CODE)" (2020)
Lauv and Conan Gray: "Fake" (2020)
Dua Lipa featuring DaBaby, Madonna and Missy Elliott: "Levitating (The Blessed Madonna Remix)" (2020)
Ariana Grande: "Positions" (2020)
Hot Issue: "Gratata" (2021)
Rich Brian: "Sydney" (2021)
Hiba Tawaji: "Habibi Khalas" (2023)

Aspect ratio used in devices
Some mobile devices, such as the Huawei Mate 10 Pro, LG G6, LG V30, Google Pixel 2 XL, OnePlus 5T, Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact and Xiaomi Mi Max 3, use the 2:1 format (marketed as 18:9), although the aspect ratio had been used previously in 2000s devices such as the Nokia 7710.

Aspect ratio used in video games
The 1998 game Metal Gear Solid used the Univisium aspect ratio for its cutscenes, while the game itself is in a 1.43:1 aspect ratio slightly letterboxed in a 4:3 screen. The 2017 game Sonic Forces used the Univisium aspect ratio for its cutscenes, both in-game and pre-rendered while the game itself is in 16:9. The 2013 game Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch also used the Univisium aspect ratio for select in-game cutscenes, though most of the in-game cutscenes were in 16:9, while the full motion video traditional animation cutscenes were in 1.85:1; the gameplay is in 16:9.

See also
3-perf
List of film formats
Super 35
LG G6, the first Android smartphone to use this aspect ratio for its display

References

 Calhoun, John. Live Design Online "Two to Tango" Retrieved June 27, 2006.

External links
Vittorio Storaro's PDF presentation of the format

Motion picture film formats
Film and video technology

Univisium


The attention schema theory (AST) of consciousness (or subjective awareness) is a neuroscientific and evolutionary theory of consciousness which was developed by neuroscientist Michael Graziano at Princeton University. It proposes that brains construct subjective awareness as a schematic model of the process of attention. The theory is a materialist theory of consciousness. It shares similarities with the illusionist ideas of philosophers like Daniel Dennett, Patricia Churchland, and Keith Frankish.

Graziano proposed that an attention schema is like the body schema. Just like the brain constructs a simplified model of the body to help monitor and control movements of the body, so the brain constructs a simplified model of attention to help monitor and control attention. The information in that model, portraying an imperfect and simplified version of attention, leads the brain to conclude that it has a non-physical essence of awareness. The construct of subjective awareness is the brain's efficient but imperfect model of its own attention. This approach is intended to explain how awareness and attention are similar in many respects, yet are sometimes dissociated, how the brain can be aware of both internal and external events, and also provides testable predictions.

Summary of the theory
The AST describes how an information-processing machine can make the claim that it has a conscious, subjective experience of something. In the theory, the brain is an information processor that is captive to the information constructed within it. The machine has no means to discern the difference between its claim and reality. In this approach, the challenge of explaining consciousness is not, "How does the brain produce an ineffable internal experience," but rather, "How does the brain construct a quirky self description, and what is the useful cognitive role of that self model?" A crucial aspect of the theory is model-based knowledge. The brain constructs rich internal models that lie beneath the level of higher cognition or of language. Cognition has partial access to those internal models, and we report the content of those models as though we are reporting literal reality.

The AST can be summarized in three broad points. First, the brain is an information-processing device. Second, it has a capacity to focus its processing resources more on some signals than on others. That focus may be on select, incoming sensory signals, or it may be on internal information such as specific, recalled memories. That ability to process select information in a focused manner is sometimes called attention. Third, the brain not only uses the process of attention, but it also builds a set of information, or a representation, descriptive of attention. That representation, or internal model, is the attention schema.

In the theory, the attention schema provides the requisite information that allows the machine to make claims about consciousness. When the machine claims to be conscious of thing X – when it claims that it has a subjective awareness, or a mental possession, of thing X – the machine is using higher cognition to access an attention schema, and reporting the information therein.

For example, suppose a person looks at an apple. When the person reports, "I have a subjective experience of that shiny red apple," three items are linked together in that claim: the self, the apple, and a subjective experience. The claim about the presence of a self depends on cognitive access to a self model. Without a self model, without the requisite information, the system would be unable to make claims referencing the self. The claim about the presence of, and properties of, an apple depends on cognitive access to a model of the apple, presumably constructed in the visual system. Again, without the requisite information, the system would obviously be unable to make any claims about the apple or its visual properties. In the theory, the claim about the presence of subjective experience depends on cognitive access to an internal model of attention. That internal model does not provide a scientifically precise description of attention, complete with the details of neurons, lateral inhibitory synapses, and competitive signals. The model is silent on the physical mechanisms of attention. Instead, like all internal models in the brain, it is simplified and schematic for the sake of efficiency.

Accessing the information within these three, linked internal models, cognitive machinery claims that there is a self, there is an apple, and the self has a mental possession of the apple; the mental possession, in and of itself, is invisible and has no physically describable properties, but has a general location somewhere inside the body and a specific anchor to the apple; and that mental essence empowers the self to understand, react to, and remember the apple. The machine, in relying on that incomplete and inaccurate model of attention, claims to have a metaphysical consciousness of the apple.

In the AST, subjective experience, or consciousness, or the ineffable mental possession of something, is a simplified construct that is a fairly good, if detail poor, description of the act of attending to something. The internal model of attention is not constructed at a higher cognitive level. It is not a cognitive self theory. It is not learned. Instead, it is constructed beneath the level of cognition and is automatic, much like the internal model of the apple and the internal model of the self. You cannot help constructing those models in those particular ways. In that sense, one could call the attention schema a perception-like model of attention, to distinguish it from a higher-order cognitive model such as a belief or an intellectually reasoned theory.

The AST explains how a machine with an attention schema contains the requisite information to claim to have a consciousness of something, whether consciousness of an apple, consciousness of a thought, or consciousness of the self; how the machine talks about consciousness in the same ways that we do; and how the machine, on accessing its internal information, does not find explanatory meta information, such as that it is a machine computing a conclusion, or that it is accessing an internal model, but instead learns only the narrow contents of the internal models. In AST, we are machines of that sort.

AST is consistent with the perspective called illusionism. The term "illusion," however, may have connotations that are not quite apt for this theory. Three issues with that label arise. First, many people equate an illusion with something dismissable or harmful. If we can see through the illusion, we are better off. Yet in the AST, the attention schema is a well-functioning internal model. It is not normally dysregulated or in error. Second, most people tend to equate an illusion with a mirage. A mirage falsely indicates the presence of something that actually does not exist. If consciousness is an illusion, then by implication nothing real is present behind the illusion. There is no "there" there. But in the AST, that is not so. Consciousness is a good, if detail-poor, account of something real: attention. We do have attention, a physical and mechanistic process that emerges from the interactions of neurons. When we claim to be subjectively conscious of something, we are providing a slightly schematized version of the literal truth. There is, indeed, a "there" there. Third, an illusion is experienced by something. Those who call consciousness an illusion are extremely careful to define what they mean by "experience" so as to avoid circularity. But the AST is not a theory of how the brain has experiences. It is a theory of how a machine makes claims – how it claims to have experiences – and being stuck in a logic loop, or captive to its own internal information, it cannot escape making those claims.

In the theory, an attention schema did not evolve so that we could walk around claiming to have consciousness. Instead it evolved because it has fundamental adaptive uses in perception, cognition, and social interaction.

Two main types of functions have been proposed for the attention schema. One is to help control attention. A fundamental principle of control theory is that a good controller should incorporate an internal model. Thus the brain's controller of attention should incorporate an internal model of attention – a set of information that is continuously updated and that reflects the dynamics and the changing state of attention. Since attention is one of the most pervasive and important processes in the brain, the proposed attention schema, helping to control attention, would be of fundamental importance to the system. A growing set of behavioral evidence supports this hypothesis. When subjective awareness of a visual stimulus is absent, people can still direct attention to that stimulus, but that attention loses some aspects of control. It is less stable over time, and is less adaptable given training on perturbations. These findings support the proposal that awareness acts like the internal model for the control of attention.

A second proposed function of an attention schema is for social cognition – using the attention schema to model the attentional states of others as well as of ourselves. A main advantage of this public, social use of an attention schema lies in behavioral prediction. As social animals, we survive in the world partly by predicting the behavior of other people. We also plan our futures partly by predicting our own actions. But attention is one of the dominant influences on behavior. What you are attending to, you are likely to behave toward. What you are not attending to, you are much less likely to behave toward. A good model of attention, of its dynamics and consequences, would be useful for predicting behavior.

Analogy to the body schema
AST was developed in analogy to the psychological and neuroscientific work on the body schema, an area of research to which Graziano contributed heavily in his previous publications. In this section, the central ideas of AST are explained by use of the analogy to the body schema.

Suppose a person, Kevin, has reached out and grasped an apple. You ask Kevin what he is holding. He can tell you that the object is an apple, and he can describe the properties of the apple. The reason is that Kevin's brain has constructed a schematic description of the apple, also sometimes called an internal model. The internal model is a set of information, such as about size, color, shape, and location, that is constantly updated as new signals are processed. The model allows Kevin's brain to react to the apple and even predict how the apple may behave in different circumstances. Kevin's brain has constructed an apple schema. His cognitive and linguistic processors have some access to that internal model of an apple, and thus Kevin can verbally answer questions about the apple.

Now you ask Kevin, "How are you holding the apple? What is your physical relationship to the apple?" Once again Kevin can answer. The reason is that, in addition to an internal model of the apple, Kevin's brain also constructs an internal model of his body, including of his arm and hand. That internal model, also sometimes called the body schema, is a set of information, constantly updated as new signals are processed, that specifies the size and shape of Kevin's limbs, how they are hinged, how they tend to move, the state they are in at each moment, and what state they are likely to be in over the next few moments. The primary purpose of this body schema is to allow Kevin's brain to control movement. Because he knows the state that his arm is in, he can better guide its movement. A side-effect of his body schema is that he can explicitly talk about his body. His cognitive and linguistic processors have some access to the body schema, and therefore Kevin can answer, "I am grasping the apple with my hand, while my arm is outstretched."

The body schema is limited. If you ask Kevin, "How many muscles are in your arm? Where do they attach to the bones?" he cannot answer based on his body schema. He may have intellectual knowledge gleaned from a book, but he has no immediate insight into the muscles of his particular arm. The body schema lacks that level of mechanistic detail.

AST takes this analysis one step further. Kevin is doing more than physically grasping the apple. He is also paying attention to the apple.

To understand AST, it is necessary to specify the correct definition of attention. The word is used colloquially in many ways, leading to some possible confusion. Here it is used to mean that Kevin's brain has focused some resources on the processing of the apple. The internal model of the apple has been boosted in signal strength, and as a result Kevin's brain processes the apple deeply, is more likely to store information about it in memory, and is more likely to trigger a behavioral response to the apple. In this definition of the word, attention is a mechanistic, data-handling process. It involves a relative deployment of processing resources to a specific signal.

Now you ask Kevin, "What is your mental relationship to the apple?" Kevin can answer this question too. The reason, according to AST, is that Kevin's brain constructs not only an internal model of the apple, and an internal model of his body, but also an internal model of his attention. That attention schema is a set of information that describes what attention is, what its most basic properties are, what its dynamics and consequences are, and what state it is in at any particular moment. Kevin's cognitive and linguistic machinery has some access to that internal model, and therefore Kevin can describe his mental relationship to the apple. However, just as in the case of the body schema, the attention schema lacks information about the mechanistic details. It does not contain information about the neurons, synapses, or electrochemical signals that make attention possible. As a result, Kevin reports having a property that lacks any clear physical attributes. He says, "I have a mental grasp of the apple. That mental possession, in and of itself, has no physical properties. It just is. It's vaguely located inside me. It is what allows me to know about that apple. It allows me to remember the apple. It allows me to choose to react to the apple. It's my mental self taking hold of the apple – my experience of the apple." Here Kevin is describing a subjective, experiential consciousness of the apple. Consciousness, as he describes it, seems to transcend physical mechanism, only because it is an incomplete description of a physical mechanism. Kevin's account of his consciousness is a partial, schematic description of his state of attention.

The example given here relates to a consciousness of an apple. However, the same logic could apply to anything – consciousness of a sound, a memory, or oneself as a whole.

In AST, because we claim to be conscious, something in the brain must therefore have computed the requisite information about consciousness to enable the system to output that claim. AST proposes an adaptive function to that information: it serves as an internal model of one of the brain's most important features, attention.

Control of attention
The central hypothesis in AST is that the brain constructs an internal model of attention, the attention schema. The primary adaptive function of that attention schema is to enable a better, more flexible control of attention. In the theory of dynamical systems control, a control system works better and more flexibly if it constructs an internal model of the item it controls. An automatic airplane-piloting system will work better if it incorporates a model of the dynamics of the airplane. An air and temperature controller for a building works better if it incorporates a rich, predictive model of the building's airflow and temperature dynamics. The brain's controller of attention works better by constructing a rich, internal model of what attention is, how it changes over time, what its consequences are, and what state it is in at any moment.

Most of the experimental research on AST is therefore focused on the control of attention. In specific, when people are relatively less aware of a visual stimulus, and yet still directing attention to that stimulus, does attention behave as though its controller has a weakened or absent internal model? Initial experiments suggest that this may be true, though many more experiments would be needed to make the case.

Social cognition
According to one proposal in AST, not only does the brain construct an attention schema to model its own state of attention, but it also uses the same mechanism to model other people's states of attention. In effect, just as we attribute awareness to ourselves, we also attribute it to others. In this proposal, one of the main adaptive functions of an attention schema is for use in social cognition. Some of the research into AST therefore focuses on the overlap between one's own claims of awareness and one's attributions of awareness to others. Initial research using brain scanning in humans suggests that both processes recruit cortical networks that converge on the temporoparietal junction.

References

Further reading

External links
 How Consciousness Works. And Why We Believe in Ghosts (21 August 2013) – Michael Graziano – Aeon
 Consciousness and the Unashamed Rationalist (30 August 2013) – Michael Graziano – HuffPost
 Are We Really Conscious? (10 October 2014) – Michael Graziano – The New York Times
 Can We Make Consciousness into an Engineering Problem? (10 July 2015) – Michael Graziano – Aeon
 Rethinking Consciousness: A Q&A with Michael Graziano (29 July 2015) – Evan Nesterak & Michael Graziano – The Psych Report
 What is Consciousness? Dr. Michael Graziano on Attention Schema Theory (4 February 2018) – Isabel Pastor Guzman & Michael Graziano – Brain World

Attention
Consciousness
Psychological theories

Attention schema theory


The Midwest Buddhist Temple Taiko group is a self-taught taiko group based in Chicago, Illinois, at the Midwest Buddhist Temple (Buddhist Churches of America). The group started in 1977 based upon Buddhistic principals after the model of Kinnara Taiko in Los Angeles. The Midwest Buddhist Temple Taiko group performs for the temple, the Buddhist community, the Japanese American community, other communities, commercial gigs, business conferences, and different ethnic fairs. They do not consider themselves to be primarily a performing group, and they do service projects with the temple such as performing at the Midwest Buddhist Temple Ginza Holiday Festival.

History

The Midwest Buddhist Temple Taiko group started in 1977 with the help of the Kinnara Taiko based out of the Senshin Buddhist Temple in Los Angeles, California. The Midwest Buddhist Temple Taiko group inherited the Kinnara Taiko Group  philosophy for Japanese American Buddhist Taiko. In the 1970s, Reverend Masao Kodani of Kinnara Taiko helped groups such as San Jose Taiko, Ogden (Utah) Taiko, Denver Taiko, Midwest Buddhist Temple Taiko, Orange County Taiko, and several other groups throughout the United States in their early stages of development. Midwest Buddhist Temple Taiko was the first group east of Denver.

Midwest Buddhist Temple
At the end of World War II, Chicago attracted Japanese American workers with job opportunities. In 1944, Reverend Gyodo Kono started the Midwest Buddhist Temple as Japanese Americans were released from the World War II relocation camps. The Midwest had much less discrimination than areas in the West Coast, and jobs were available. Of about 120,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans that were interned, about 20,000 were present in Chicago at the end of the war. Japanese immigrants introduced Buddhism to the United States between the late 1890s and 1924. The Midwest Buddhist Temple was originally an ethnic temple, but in the 1970s, it started to expand beyond just the Japanese American community. The temple tried to go beyond being an ethnic temple and increased efforts to spread Buddhism to surrounding communities. Eventually, many immigrants began to move back to the West Coast and to the suburbs as seen in temple demographics, for there was no Japantown or Little Tokyo in Chicago.

Music and rhythms
In the mid-1970s, Johnny Mori and George Abe of Kinnara Taiko taught members of Midwest Buddhist Temple how to make drums with barrels and car jacks. For performances today, they use any combination of four odaiko (thirty-gallon), six jozuke (fifteen-gallon), four shime-daiko (from Japan, tightened with bolts, not ropes), and a mixture of kane, chappa, binzasara and two conch shells (a Pacific Triton and an East Coast shell), as well as a mixture of old drums used for practice and workshops. Costumes include happi coats with black pants, black t-shirt, hachimaki and tabi.

The group's form and musicality depend on the piece, but they typically use the Kinnara stance: a forty-five degree body and legs equidistant outside of the shoulders with the left knee paramount to the stance and the back leg more straight. They also use the thrust stance that most taiko players use today.

There is no master teacher, and the group describes itself as self-governed. There is usually an elected practice leader, a business manager, a treasurer, and a historian. All members have the opportunity to teach a piece if they have expertise in it, and arrangements are considered a democratic group effort.

Practices include a little opening, exercises, stretching, drilling, and one or two pieces. The group usually practices for two hours each week and holds more practices closer to the Ginza Holiday Festival. Although the group once practiced all year-round, the group usually takes a break from Thanksgiving to early January to feel refreshed for the new year.

The Midwest Buddhist Temple taiko group performs at commercial events, business conferences, bars, nightclubs, and different ethnic fairs. The group has traveled as far as Philadelphia to the east and Minneapolis and St. Louis to the west. The Chicago-based taiko group has its own venue to use as practice space and equipment storage, and the temple has contributed greatly to the group's longevity.

Affiliations
In 1979, an event called Horaku  invited all taiko players in the United States and brought together all of the Buddhist Taiko Groups during that time. This event was considered to be the first taiko conference, and both Bugaku and Gagaku performances were involved.

In the early 1980s, the Midwest Buddhist Temple Taiko group helped start the Ho Daiko Group  group at the Seabrook Buddhist Temple, the Soh Daiko Group  at the New York Buddhist Church, and the Twin-Cities Taiko Group which changed their name to the Kogen Taiko Group, a part of the Twin-Cities Buddhist Association in Minnesota.

Ginza Holiday Festival
The Midwest Buddhist Temple Ginza Holiday Festival is a summertime festival that features classical dance, martial arts, folk dance, and taiko. Three taiko groups are the main attraction at the Ginza Festival, and the Festival is considered the primary cultural event for Midwest Buddhist Temple. The Midwest Buddhist Temple taiko group has been performing in the Ginza festival since the mid-1980s with one exception when Kinnara performed in place of Midwest. The Midwest Buddhist Temple taiko group is self-sustaining and uses admission revenue from the festival to support the organization

Membership
The Midwest Buddhist Temple Taiko group do not consider themselves to be a professional or semi-professional group. The group currently consists of fourteen adults between the ages of twenty and sixty. For the most part, only temple members are members of the taiko group; however, non-temple members and non-Japanese people may also play in the group. There is no audition process, and current members usually refer potential new members to the organization. New members attend practices during a one-year probation period. The group has also taken in members as young as the ages of thirteen and fourteen if they were siblings of existing players.

Musical works
The Midwest Buddhist Temple Taiko group composes their own original music as well as plays pieces from the taiko community. They have close relationships with other groups and willingly share pieces. No published compacts discs or digital video discs exist to date.

References

External links

Buddhist music
Musical groups from Chicago
Taiko groups

Midwest Buddhist Temple Taiko


Goffals or Coloured Zimbabweans are persons of mixed race, predominately those claiming both European and African descent, in Malawi, Zambia, and, particularly Zimbabwe. They are generally known as Coloureds, though the term Goffal is used by some in the Coloured community to refer to themselves, though this does not refer to the mixed-race community in nearby South Africa. The community includes many diverse constituents of Shona, Northern Ndebele, Bemba, Fengu, British, Afrikaner, Cape Coloured, Cape Malay and less commonly Portuguese, Greek, Goan, and Indian descent. Similar mixed-race communities exist throughout Southern Africa, notably the Cape Coloureds of South Africa.

It is not clear when the term Goffal first entered common usage, but among Coloureds themselves it had surfaced by the mid- to late 1970s. Their precise numbers are difficult to ascertain, due to the fact that some identify exclusively as members of other ethnic groups.

History

Zimbabwe

The earliest Coloured communities in central Africa were formed in Southern Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe), mainly by those who had emigrated as servants of Afrikaners and other white South African settlers from the Cape of Good Hope. Coloured immigration from
South Africa spiked following a depression after the Second Boer War and continuing throughout much of the early twentieth century. By the 1930s most local Coloureds had been born in Southern Rhodesia as offspring of British administrators and colonists and local women. The Coloured populace increased to about 24,000 through intermarriage, and by 1969 about 91% were considered Rhodesian citizens, a smaller number being Zambians, Malawians, and South Africans. During World War II, Coloureds served with distinction alongside Southern Rhodesian units during the East African Campaign.

Southern Rhodesia, which had unilaterally declared independence as Rhodesia in 1965, classified Coloureds as persons of mixed ancestry who did not follow a traditional African way of life and whose culture was European in origin and form. Coloureds who lived with black African families were notably excluded, as were those who physically passed for Europeans and Asians, respectively. Coloured Rhodesians were heavily urbanised, and the colonial government permitted them to live in segregated neighbourhoods reserved for Europeans. In 1969 the largest proportion of working Coloureds—about 30%— were employed by the Rhodesian manufacturing sector, the remainder being tradesmen or engaged in service delivery.

At the outbreak of the Rhodesian Bush War, conscription was enforced for all male Coloureds of military age, who were expected to contribute four to five months of service to the Rhodesian Security Forces. In 1966, the Ministry of Defence gave notice that it would henceforth extend conscription to all foreigners with residency status, making Coloureds of South African or other nationalities in Rhodesia also liable for military service. Most Coloured recruits were assigned to the Reinforcement Holding Unit (RHU), which was primarily concerned with transport and logistics. They were also tasked with providing convoy security and guarding installations targeted for sabotage by insurgents. In 1978 the RHU was reorganised into the Rhodesian Defence Regiment. As the war intensified, Coloured personnel deployed to operational areas successfully petitioned to receive the same pay as white soldiers.

When Rhodesia was reconstituted as the new Republic of Zimbabwe in 1980, accompanied by the electoral triumph of leading black nationalist Robert Mugabe and his Zimbabwe African National Union, Coloureds numbered about 20,000. Mugabe won the country's first general elections held under a universal franchise, despite facing militant opposition from Joshua Nkomo's Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) and a number of minority parties. All Coloureds registered in the Rhodesian electoral system prior to December 31, 1979 were permitted to vote, and those that did so overwhelmingly endorsed the Rhodesian Front. As a conciliatory gesture Mugabe later nominated a leading member of the Coloured community, Joseph Culverwell, to the Senate, the upper house of the Parliament of Zimbabwe. Nevertheless, ZANU's ascension was greeted with caution. During the bush war, black nationalists frequently decried Coloureds as having benefited unjustly from the colonial racial hierarchy, and those who attempted to join ZANU and ZAPU's guerrilla armies were often detained or executed as spies. Less educated, blue collar Coloured workers were also concerned they would face job displacement from an advancing black workforce once they lost the advantage of preferential employment by white supervisors. Others seemed convinced only blacks would benefit economically under Mugabe's rule, at the expense of themselves and other ethnic minorities. For their part, community activists were disappointed they weren't invited to participate at the Lancaster House talks on behalf of their people, and felt this demonstrated both white and black Zimbabweans were uninterested in Coloureds' future political and social welfare.

Since the 1980s, Coloured Zimbabweans have complained of being increasingly disenfranchised, and being projected as foreigners with limited rights. A Coloured lobby group, the National Association for the Advancement of Mixed Race Coloureds (NAAC), was formed in 2001 to protest against what they perceived as severe discrimination against their community by the state. The NAAC has issued a statement claiming that "Coloured people are visibly and verbally treated with disdain contemptuously dismissed with xenophobic comments" urging them to "go back to Britain". NAAC activists have also highlighted the removal of Coloureds from important positions in the public service, usually following complaints by ruling party officials, and the government's steadfast refusal to grant loans to Coloured entrepreneurs. At the height of President Mugabe's land reform programme, Zimbabwean Minister of Education, Sports, and Culture Aeneas Chigwedere demanded that Coloureds be excluded from the redistribution process on racial grounds, insisting that "if we give them land it will be giving it back to the white man".

Zambia

Unlike Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia (present-day Zambia), a British possession which remained governed directly by the Colonial Office, considered "Coloured" to be a strictly South African racial distinction, and evoked the term only when referring to immigrants of mixed race from South Africa accordingly. This resulted in considerable ambivalence towards local Coloureds born in Northern Rhodesia, whom colonial officials described with a menagerie of labels as varied as "half-castes", "Anglo-Africans", "Indo-Africans", and "Eurafricans". Northern Rhodesian Coloureds often bore distinguished British surnames, having descended from some of the colony's earliest pioneers, administrators, and officials. Nevertheless, beginning in the 1920s such individuals posed a particular classification problem for the Colonial Office, which remained frustrated by the fact it could classify Coloureds neither as European nor African. The British paternity of mixed children was an especially contentious issue, allowing Coloureds to petition for recognition as British subjects, entitled to British passports. Their requests were ignored by the Colonial Office, which regarded them only as protected subjects, a status otherwise reserved for black Africans.

The question of Coloureds' legitimacy and status hinged on the legality of marriage between their European and African parents. Under the Northern Rhodesian Immorality Suppression Ordinance, it was a criminal offence for a white woman to marry or cohabit with a black man. Marriages between white men and black women, although not expressly forbidden, were likewise unrecognised by the state. As marriages of this nature were not recognised as marriage under law, the Welfare Department was empowered to seize any first-generation mixed race children resulting from such unions as "orphans".

Since Coloureds lacked segregated schools of their own, and Northern Rhodesian authorities forbade children of other races from attending the same educational institutions as Europeans, most Coloureds studied at Roman Catholic missions in Southern Rhodesia. Their exclusion from schools severely limited Coloured economic and social prospects. In 1927, the missions criticised Northern Rhodesia's practice of building schools specifically for white and black pupils while failing to provide similar facilities for Coloureds. It was proposed that the administration erect Coloured schools or at least furbish the funds for their independent construction. This scheme was approved by the Northern Rhodesian Native Education Advisory Board but rejected by Governor James Crawford Maxwell. Maxwell regarded the label "Coloured" as a purely artificial distinction, and did not believe they constituted a separate race from Europeans or Africans. He insisted that the construction of Coloured schools equated to official recognition of an ethnic group that did not exist. Maxwell's habit of arguing that Coloureds should identify either as Europeans or Africans, rather than a distinct mixed race population, became policy in Northern Rhodesia for the next three decades. Coloureds who physically resembled Europeans and lived like Europeans were treated as such, while those who lived as Africans or with black families were classified as native. In this regard Northern Rhodesia represented a marked departure from South Africa, where racial legislation strictly defined the rights and status of individuals from birth. Some Coloureds became integrated with African society; others joined white social clubs, received managerial jobs reserved for whites, and lived in affluent white neighbourhoods.

In 1952, the Coloured community petitioned Henry Hopkinson, the United Kingdom's newly appointed Minister of State for the Colonies, for recognition as British subjects. The Coloureds argued that the British Nationality Act 1948 had reaffirmed their status as protected subjects instead, and expressed disappointment that unlike white Rhodesians they could only obtain British subject status through naturalisation. Their grievances were discussed in the Colonial Office, which responded that if a marriage between a male British subject and an African woman was properly documented, any children should be allowed to take up their father's nationality. The Colonial Office also observed through its inquiries that Coloured housing in Northern Rhodesia was almost nonexistent and ordered the administration to see the issue resolved. Their request resulted in the establishment of "Coloured Quarters",  residential areas in all major towns built specifically for Coloured people, often situated near the railway lines. The Coloured Quarters included segregated schools and social clubs. Most of their residents were employed by the Public Works Department and Rhodesia Railways, which also offered economic housing.

When Northern Rhodesia became a constituent territory of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, most Coloureds failed to qualify for citizenship under federal law, which stipulated all citizens must also be British subjects. The new electoral roll established that voters had to possess a secondary education and earn an income of at least £720 a year. While a percentage of Southern Rhodesian Coloureds could meet these standards, owing to their longstanding educational disadvantages and the lack of schools few Coloureds in Northern Rhodesia had received anything more than the most basic primary education. This, in turn, restricted their avenues of employment: the average monthly income for Coloured men in Lusaka was between £15 and £25 a month.

Following the dissolution of the federation and Zambian independence in 1964, many Coloured parents began sending their children abroad to avoid military conscription into the Zambian Defence Force. The British Nationality Act 1981 aroused considerable interest among Zambia's Coloured population, since it revoked a legitimacy clause from the 1948 legislation wherein only children born to legitimate marriages of their British fathers were considered British subjects. As mixed race marriages were not recognised as legitimate under Northern Rhodesian law, this excluded Coloureds. Under the statutes of the new British Nationality Act, any Zambians able to prove beyond reasonable doubt they were consanguineous descendants of a specific British citizen could apply for right of abode in the United Kingdom, irrespective of their ancestor's marital status. During the 1980s and 1990s, roughly half of Zambia's Coloured population immigrated to the United Kingdom.

In 1980 there were 6,000 Coloureds remaining in Zambia, nearly all of them concentrated in major urban districts.

Malawi

From its inception the British protectorate of Nyasaland (present-day Malawi) included a burgeoning mixed race population of Asian, rather than European, and African descent. An exodus of migrant workers from the Indian subcontinent to various British dependencies across sub-Saharan Africa formed an integral part of colonial migration patterns during the early twentieth century; the Indians came to earn modest incomes which in turn supported their extended families back home. Most Indian business owners were bachelors or married men who immigrated without their wives; a number cohabited with African women accordingly. Children from these relationships were usually raised by the mother, and embraced African culture and lifestyles as their own. They were regarded with disdain by the comparatively few individuals of mixed European and African ancestry, who came to reject use of the general label "Coloured" to avoid association with the descendants of Asians. Calling themselves "Anglo-Africans", they formed the Nyasland Anglo-African Association to lobby for formal recognition. This situation gave rise to a crisis and conflict of identity over the legal definition of Coloured, a matter affecting even the Nyasaland courts.

From 1907 to 1929, Coloureds of both Indian and European parentage were accorded the same status as black Africans under the Nyasaland Interpretation Ordinance, which classified them as "natives". Educated Coloureds protested this policy, and successfully lobbied to have it challenged before the colonial judiciary. A Nyasaland judge determined that "half-castes" did not meet the legal definition of "native", although he refrained from ruling on whether their newly altered status made them British subjects. The ruling incited considerable debate about the social, legal, and political standing of mixed-descent Africans in other British colonies. The Anglo-African Association seized this opportunity to demand they be taxed as Europeans, and exempted from what they perceived as a degrading "hut tax" levied on black residents of indigenous settlements. As a result of their lobbying, Coloureds were exempted from the hut tax; ironically, however, the government failed to clarify whether this entailed also subjecting Coloureds to the same taxes as the white population—a bureaucratic oversight that resulted in the entire community paying no tax by the early 1930s.

In 1931, a Coloured man provoked a storm of controversy when he attempted to lease 200 acres in a Native Trust Area, the communal lands reserved for African farming and use. Since the courts had previously ruled Coloureds were not natives, this accelerated local discussion over the legal definition of Coloured. Deferring to the precedent set by Northern Rhodesia, the Nyasaland Attorney-General designated a Coloured person as "any person of mixed European or Asiatic and native descent, who does not live after the manner of members of the aboriginal tribes or races of Africa".

The initial success of the Anglo-African Association encouraged the formation of the mutually exclusive Nyasaland Indo-African Association, and further deepened rivalries between the two components of the Coloured population. The Indo-African Association was largely succeeded by the theoretically integrated Nyasaland Coloured Community Welfare Association, established in 1954 to present a united front for coordinated Coloured education demands. Nevertheless, the Anglo-African Association's influence remained strong, and during the inception of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland they persuaded the Federal Ministry of Education to differentiate between separate "Coloured" and "Eurafrican" agendas.

As the dissolution of the federation became apparent and independence approached for Malawi, Coloureds began to face severe job discrimination in the public sector due to an unwritten British policy which reserved civil service jobs solely for whites on short-term contracts until such a date that black Malawians could succeed them.

The Malawian government eliminated all recognition of "Coloured" as a separate ethnicity following independence.

Demographics
In 1973, 83.2% of all Coloureds in Rhodesia lived in a major urban population centres, the largest number being concentrated in Bulawayo (6,630 Coloured residents) and Salisbury (6,030 Coloured residents). Only about 2,290 resided in rural areas, mostly on farms. The Rhodesian government reported that the Coloured population had an extremely high rate of natural increase of 4.9% per year. The corresponding infant mortality rate was 38 infant deaths per 1,000 live births.

According to the Zimbabwean census of 2012, the largest proportion of Coloured Zimbabweans (8,745 people) fell into the 18 to 49 age bracket. There were 5,375 individuals under 14, 2,469 aged 50 to 64, and 1,300 over 64. Slightly over 88% of Coloureds lived in a major urban population centre, although the size of the rural Coloured community remained identical to that in 1973, about 2,261 persons. Coloureds made up 0.4% of Zimbabwe's urban population and 0.1% of its total population.

The Zambian census of 1980 found that the 6,000 Coloureds were mostly located in urban areas, at which time they constituted 0.1% of Zambia's total population. Malawi has not published demographic information on Coloureds since independence.

Society

Coloured societies in Zambia, Zimbabwe and the African diaspora abroad are rather close-knit, linked by intermarriage and a large web of familial connections dating back to their earliest European and Asian ancestors. Many Coloureds remaining in Zambia have documented their bloodline well and can recall the original progenitors of their family and name.

The internal ranking stratum among Coloureds is complex. During the colonial era, they identified first and foremost with the non-African component in their ancestry, and within equal socio-economic circles social prestige was dependent upon one's progenitors. For instance, Afrikaans-speaking Coloureds descended from South African immigrants typically formed the Coloured elite in Zimbabwe; they were followed in descending order on the social scale by Coloureds with one white and one Coloured parent, those with two Coloured parents, those with one white and one black parent, and the so-called "Indo-African" Coloureds with an Asian ancestor or parent. Marriages between Coloureds and black Africans were generally stigmatised, before independence in 1980, as the former preferred to select partners with visible white characteristics, though this is no longer the case today.

Coloureds of British descent from Zambia and Malawi retain strong emotional ties to the United Kingdom. When India's independence movement began gaining momentum in the late 1940s, Coloured schools in central Africa rejected Indian instructors, emphasising that "love and patriotism to the British nation" were an integral part of their curricula. Since the decolonisation of the African continent, it has been a longstanding tradition for Coloured parents to send their children to the United Kingdom for schooling. Others are sent to work there after completing their schooling locally.

Zimbabwean Coloureds have traditionally been Roman Catholic, although a sizeable minority also belongs to the Anglican Church. Some descendants of Cape Malays were still practising Islam in 1975.

Goffal Slang
Goffal Dictionary

References

External links
The Goffal Speaks

British diaspora in Africa
Ethnic groups in Zimbabwe
Ethnic groups in Zambia
South African English
Multiracial affairs in Africa
Coloured African people

Goffal