The 2011 Goderich, Ontario tornado was an F3 tornado generated by an isolated supercell which unexpectedly tore across Huron County, Ontario, Canada on the afternoon of Sunday, August 21, 2011. Beginning as a tornadic waterspout over Lake Huron, the tornado ripped through the lakeside town of Goderich severely damaging the historic downtown and homes in the surrounding area. One person died and 37 more were injured as a result. This was the strongest tornado to hit Ontario in over fifteen years, since the April 20, 1996, tornado outbreak in Williamsford, Arthur, and Violet Hill.

Antecedent conditions

There was little hint of what was to come that day as far as severe weather was concerned. Both Environment Canada in Toronto and the Storm Prediction Center in Oklahoma outlined the risk for non-severe thunderstorms that day across the lower Great Lakes. Lapse rates yielded limited instability for severe weather, with a secondary cold front acting as a trigger. Given the much colder air aloft (freezing levels near 700 hPa) coupled with surface heating there was the risk for small hail and gusty outflow winds, which was also mentioned. Though some upper-level wind field parameters were sufficient for tornadic activity, they were marginal at best when coupled with the synoptic pattern at hand (a highly atypical pattern compared to previous major tornado events in the lower Great Lakes region). Goderich is also located in the "lake shadow" of Lake Huron, which is much less likely to be hit by tornadoes than other parts of Southwestern Ontario where lake convergence fronts collide.

By 11:00am that morning, showers and thunderstorms began to develop over southwestern Ontario. Initially they were weak, but began to intensify in some localized areas. Hail and heavy rain came down with a line of storms tracking from northwest of Kitchener toward the Brampton area early that afternoon. There were reports of localized flooding and marginally damaging wind gusts associated with these storms. A brief tornado was also reported in Gananoque at 12:45pm. Later confirmed as an F1, this tornado caused minor damage in an area 1.5 kilometres long and 60 metres wide. Environment Canada issued a severe thunderstorm watch for most of southern Ontario as a result. The town of Goderich and surrounding areas of Huron County were included.

At around the same time, an intense thunderstorm had developed over northern Michigan in Alcona County. Hail of up to two inches in diameter was reported to the National Weather Service and a velocity couplet appeared on Doppler weather radar at around 1:30pm. A tornado warning was subsequently issued, but the storm moved out over the relatively warm waters of Lake Huron shortly after. It weakened for a time, but began to intensify once again as it crossed the border into Canada by 3:00pm. Strong rotation began to develop on the southwest side of this thunderstorm as resolved by velocity images on the Exeter, Ontario radar, and a textbook-style hook echo soon appeared on reflectivity images too (see image to left). With the powerful storm closing in on Goderich from the northwest at approximately 75 km/h, Environment Canada issued a tornado warning at 3:48pm. The meteorologists estimated the storm would make landfall there in approximately ten minutes.

Later on that day after this tornado, an EF2 tornado was also confirmed in western New York, near Conquest.

Text of the Goderich tornado warning
664
WFCN11 CWTO 265345
TORNADO WARNING
ISSUED BY ENVIRONMENT OF CANADA
AT 3:48 PM EDT SUNDAY 21 AUGUST 2011.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
TORNADO WARNING FOR:
=NEW= GODERICH - BLUEWATER - SOUTHERN HURON COUNTY
=NEW= STRATFORD - MITCHELL - SOUTHERN PERTH COUNTY.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
==DISCUSSION==
AT 3:30 PM EDT A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM IS OCCURRING OVER SOUTHERN LAKE
HURON. THIS THUNDERSTORM IS MOVING TO THE SOUTHEAST AT 75 KM/H AND
WILL MAKE LANDFALL NEAR GOODRICH ABOUT 4 PM. THIS THUNDERSTORM HAS A
HISTORY OF PRODUCING TORNADOES.

SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS LIKELY PRODUCING TORNADOES ARE IMMINENT OR
OCCURRING IN THE AREA. LARGE HAIL, DAMAGING WINDS AND HEAVY RAINFALL
MAY ALSO ACCOMPANY THESE STORMS.

MONITOR WEATHER CONDITIONS AND TAKE IMMEDIATE SAFETY PRECAUTIONS IF
THREATENING WEATHER APPROACHES.
PLEASE STAY SAFE TAKE COVER IF NEED TOO

END/OSPC

Huron County does not presently have a network of tornado sirens in place, unlike some other Ontario municipalities. As a result, the tornado took most area residents by surprise despite the twelve-minute lead time of the tornado warning. The relatively low casualty rate was attributed to the fact that an earlier thunderstorm had cleared downtown Goderich of hundreds of market-goers attending a weekend festival, most of whom were still outdoors as little as two hours before the tornado struck.

The tornado's track

In the minutes prior, the tornadic supercell was closing in on the Lake Huron shoreline. Photos and video of these initial moments reveal no funnel, merely a thick, rotating wall of rain curtains. Not unlike the Barrie tornado in 1985, this storm was also heavily rain-wrapped. At this point, the only sign of the approaching tornado was a loud roar; some witnesses falsely interpreted it to be the engine from a nearby freighter (Cooper and Cove, 2011).

Moving on to land by 3:55pm, the tornado made its first destructive appearance at the Sifto Salt mine located on Indian Island at the mouth of the Maitland River. It tore large portions of roof from the salt storage domes and brick outbuildings at the facility. Pieces of sheet metal were also ripped from some of the higher-profile structures, such as the salt evaporator. A 61-year-old crane operator was killed when his boom collapsed. After crossing the river, the tornado tore more sheet metal from the upper portion of a nearby grain elevator before plowing up the bluff overlooking Lake Huron, in a swath several hundred metres wide.

The tornado then moved into the neighbourhood immediately northwest of Goderich's downtown core. Hardest hit was the Waterloo Street and St. Georges Crescent area, which was closest to the immediate edge of the bluff. Power poles and trees were snapped or uprooted in addition to many homes either losing their roofs or sustaining further structural damage after initial roof loss. Most buildings in the historic octagonal downtown, housing century-old brick buildings, suffered blown out windows or much worse. This included the sturdy and relatively unscathed Huron County courthouse, which also suffered major interior damage (Cooper and Cove, 2011). Others were not so lucky as roofs were completely torn off, leaving little structural integrity to face the wind. The upper floors of several of these buildings were completely destroyed. The remaining loose brick and mortar fascia collapsed, crushing vehicles and other similarly sized objects. Vehicles parked in more open areas were subsequently overturned or impaled by flying debris, trees were removed of most of their limbs with sheet metal and other foreign objects wrapped around them. Immediately surrounding the downtown, a church built in 1878 (see photograph to left) at the intersection of Kings Highway 21 and St. David Street was severely damaged. A carwash facility adjacent to the church suffered a similar fate. Three people were injured at the carwash when the roof was torn off and the bays underneath became exposed to the wind. A van with two people inside had its windows smashed out when debris wrapped itself around it. Another man on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle had both his legs broken when he became pinned between his bike and a collapsed wall from one of the bays. The three had been seeking shelter from the storm at that time, mainly from the golfball to baseball size hail that preceded the tornado.

Crossing Kings Highway 21, the tornado moved into the easternmost residential areas of Goderich, north of Elgin Street. More homes sustained significant damage here, with most of those affected receiving some form of roof or window damage. Those with clapboard siding had pock marks and some of their paint stripped. Other homes lost vast portions of their roofs and commercial buildings near Oxford Street and Maitland Road had partial roof removal and exterior wall damage. Some of these walls partially collapsed, crushing more vehicles. Timber power poles were snapped, and concrete light posts were partially toppled near this location. Moving to the east-southeast, the tornado left Goderich, on its way toward the hamlet of Benmiller approximately 8 kilometres away. Now emerging from the rain curtains as a menacing, stovepipe-shaped funnel, and roughly following the Maitland River, the tornado's path widened. In this mostly rural area, there was extensive tree damage in a swath about 1 kilometre wide. Passing through Benmiller it caused extensive damage to several more structures, including the Benmiller Inn. Large swaths of trees were downed on both sides of the Maitland River, as well as in town. Witnesses also reported that the tornado briefly reversed the river's flow as it approached (Cooper and Cove, 2011). Structural debris from Benmiller was deposited into the river, and the damage became more erratic as the tornado crossed uneven terrain; structures on higher ground were more severely damaged.

Leaving Benmiller, the tornado entered into a more rural area once again, as it began to enter its final stages. Many tree limbs were removed by the tornado in addition to it toppling the trees themselves. The damage path also became more evident as it passed through open cornfields, downing large swaths of corn in an area about 200 metres wide. Crossing Sharpes Creek Line (Huron Road 31) there was more tree and corn damage by the tornado, though it was becoming increasingly weaker and sporadic in nature. The tornado eventually dissipated in the open fields between Base Line (Huron Road 8) and London Road (Kings Highway 4), southwest of the village of Londesborough, after some 15 to 20 kilometres on the ground.

Aftermath
Following the tornado, one person was dead and 37 more were injured along the tornado's track from Lake Huron to near Londesborough. In the hours after the disaster, the Ontario Provincial Police closed all roads leading into Goderich in order to allow streets to be cleared of debris, and to deal with the numerous gas leaks across the town of 8,000. Town officials quickly declared a state of emergency as urban search and rescue teams combed the town for missing individuals. No one was left unaccounted for in spite of the severe damage. The day after the storm, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty visited Huron County and pledged $5 million in disaster assistance from the province of Ontario, half of which was allotted to the town of Goderich. Local hardware stores also donated many of their products to assist in the recovery effort.

News reports later estimated that in Goderich, one hundred houses, 25 buildings and thousands of 150-plus-year-old trees were seriously damaged or destroyed.

In the days following the storm, as power was restored, roads became passable, and damaged structures shored up, local public works crews established fencing and concrete barriers around the entire perimeter of historic downtown Goderich to prevent looting and trespassing. These measures were also enforced by the Ontario Provincial Police, who barred anyone other than those contracted for cleanup efforts to stay out of the area. By the end of August, the question of restoration of many of the oldest structures in Goderich was one of major debate. The town square was finally reopened on Friday, September 9. However, several of the historic structures (including the opera house on Kingston Street, the church on Victoria Street, and a studio on Montreal Street) were all razed in October. The recovery process is ongoing, and will take many months or potentially years to fully complete, amid significant controversy regarding insurance settlements for private property owners. The Insurance Bureau of Canada estimates the tornado caused $75 million in damage, but the Mayor of Goderich estimates the total bill will top $100 million.

A city relief fund has also been set up, entitled the Goderich Disaster Relief Fund, in which anyone can make a donation at chartered banks and the Goderich Community Credit Union. Early in 2012, this latter effort is expected to match the assistance issued by the province, owing to contributions from those all over Canada and the United States. In addition, a book immortalizing the disaster, entitled Not Like Any Other Sunday, has been published and is available as of December, 2011. All proceeds go to relief efforts such as the Victim Services of Huron County and the Goderich Trees reforestation project.

In the months following the tornado disaster, Huron County officials began discussing the use of tornado sirens. The community of Clinton in the Central Huron Municipality implemented its volunteer fire department's siren to be used for severe weather, which is now one of the few Ontario communities to do so. Huron County asked for a government grant to purchase 30 tornado sirens for communities across the county, but the grant request was denied. Officials are now working on a plan to use the remaining fire department and Cold War air raid sirens for severe weather.

Rebuilding The Square area
After the tornado, a news report described The Square area as follows: "The roofs of several buildings ringing the square were torn off. The green space around the courthouse at the centre of the square was littered with tree limbs and trees that had been ripped out of the ground."

A year later, 152 of the 170 downtown businesses had reopened but reconstruction of the courthouse, some historic buildings and the trees in the area took much longer.

A visitor to the area nearly four years after the event found that the park had re-opened with a new band shell. New trees, greenery, a statue and a water feature had been installed in front of the court house. Much of the area around the park had been reconstructed including commercial building on Kingston Street and The Square. The last work to be completed was the Kingston block of commercial buildings on Kingston Street and The Square. Although the farmers' market and flea market had closed before the tornado, it re-opened again.

A postgraduate researcher from Wilfrid Laurier University visited the downtown area in May 2016 and described it as absolutely gorgeous. "The only visible signs of the tornado's aftermath were some fallen trees and debris in a cemetery."

References

Further reading
Cooper, E. and Cove, C. (Eds). (2011). Not Like Any Other Sunday. Goderich, ON: Precision Print Inc.

Goderich, Ontario
Tornadoes in Ontario
08-21 Goderich
Goderich, 21
Tornado, 08-21
Tornado, 08-21

2011 Goderich tornado


Mumtaz () is a prominent restaurant group headquartered in the City of Bradford, Yorkshire, England. Established with its flagship restaurant on Great Horton Road in Bradford, the group has since expanded to include two additional locations, with the second restaurant in Bradford opening in 2008, followed by a Leeds location in 2010, and a Manchester branch in 2016.

In addition to its restaurant operations, Mumtaz Group manages a food processing division known as Mumtaz Food Industries. One of its primary facilities, which includes offices and warehouses, is situated in Mytholmroyd, West Yorkshire. The organization also maintains a collaborative relationship with Bradford College.

Notably, Mumtaz Group pioneered the introduction of Halal baby food to the market. Its production facilities in Spain, Switzerland, Pakistan, Malaysia and France enable the group to export its products to over 36 countries worldwide.

From 2010 to 2014, the group ventured into franchising by operating a chain of outlets called "Jaldi Jaldi." The inaugural Jaldi Jaldi store was launched in Leeds by James Caan in April 2010.  However, the majority of these outlets shut in 2013, with the last remaining store, at Leeds University Union, ceasing operations in April 2014.

Mumtaz Khan Akbar
Mumtaz Khan Akbar is the founder and owner of the Mumtaz brand. He was born in Mera Qadir, Azad Kashmir, Pakistan, on 10 February 1959 and joined his family in Britain in 1972. Mumtaz Khan is reported as one of the richest men in Yorkshire and Lancashire, with a personal wealth of £94 million (2016).

He was disqualified from being a company director by the High Court in Leeds on 16 November 2017 following an investigation by the Insolvency Service. The disqualification began on 8 December 2017.

Disqualification of directors
On 9 February 2018, Dr Gul-Nawaz Khan Akbar, Mumtaz Khan Akbar, Rab Nawaz Khan Akbar, Fameeda Akbar and Kauser Akbar were disqualified relating to their directorships of Greentabs Ltd (trading, as Mumtaz Food Industries Ltd).

On 24 May 2013, Greentabs Ltd (Mumtaz Food Industries Ltd) went into voluntary liquidation owing £805,630, and during the proceedings it was discovered Dr Gul-Nawaz Khan Akbar, managing director, had used company funds to buy £976,055 gold bullion for his sole benefit between 30 November 2012 and 11 December 2012, will full knowledge of the board of directors, whilst £447,997 remained unpaid to creditors.

Dr Gul-Nawaz Khan Akbar was banned for six years, his two brothers were banned three years for facilitating the transaction, his wife and the wife of his brother, the founder of the Mumtaz Group (Mumtaz Khan Akbar), were each banned for two years for failing to uphold corporate governance.

2018 tax case
In 2018 HM Revenue and Customs began proceedings against members and former members of the Mumtaz Group, after they consistently failed to pay corporate taxes on time. HMRC required the company to pay an advance bond in order to continue selling taxable goods; members of the group knowingly failed to pay the bond and legal proceedings were undertaken.

Offence taken by White British workers
In January 2021, a former employee won an employment tribunal after a judge found the company had acted unlawfully through racial discrimination and unfair dismissal. A White employee was told by his supervisor that he wouldn't be able to understand how to cook the food as he was white, and that he "should go and work for an English company". When he complained about his supervisor's comments, no disciplinary action was taken against the supervisor, and the employee was dismissed from the company. The restaurant continues to be popular with English customers from throughout the North of England.

See also
 British Asians

References

Pakistani cuisine in the United Kingdom
Companies based in Bradford
Restaurants established in 1979
1979 establishments in England

Mumtaz Group


Molissa Fenley (born 15 November 1954) is an American choreographer, performer and teacher of contemporary dance.

Early life and education
Molissa Fenley (née Avril Molissa Fenley) was born in Las Vegas, Nevada on November 15, 1954. She is the youngest of three children born to Eileen Allison Walker and John Morris Fenley. At the age of six months Fenley and her family moved to Ithaca, NY where her father was a professor of Agricultural Extension at Cornell University. At the age of six, her family moved to Ibadan, Nigeria where her father worked for the US State Department's USAID program. Fenley attended high school in Spain, and at 16 returned to the US where she received her BA in Dance from Mills College in 1975. Immediately after graduating from Mills, Fenley moved to New York City to begin her career as a choreographer and dancer.

Career

Early career
Upon arriving in New York City in 1975, Fenley trained with Merce Cunningham, Viola Farber and studied at the Erick Hawkins School. During her first years in New York Fenley danced for several choreographers including Carol Conway and Andrew deGroat. She began creating her own work and formed Molissa Fenley and Dancers in 1977. After a tour of European festivals in 1980 her work began to receive more critical attention in the United States and abroad.
Her early career (1977–1987) was focused on presenting ensemble work. Fenley and her dancers displayed remarkable stamina through complex patterning and sustained passages of intense speed, exemplified in works such as Energizer (1980). In addition to more traditional dance classes, Fenley and her dancers did workouts that included running, calisthenics and weight training in order to achieve the strength and endurance needed to execute her physically demanding choreography.  Fenley has maintained this aesthetic of athletic virtuosity throughout her career.

Solo Work
In 1987 she disbanded her ensemble and made a shift to performing solo works, often in collaboration with visual artists including Kiki Smith, Richard Long and Tatsuo Miyajima and composers such as Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, Pauline Oliveros. It was during this period that she created her seminal work, State of Darkness (1988), which was commissioned by the American Dance Festival in Durham, N.C. Set to Igor Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps, this 35 minute solo received critical acclaim for both its physical rigor, innovative use of Stravinsky's score and intense sense of ritual drama. Fenley reconstructed State of Darkness in 1999 at the request of New York City Ballet principal dancer Peter Boal, and again in 2007 for Pacific Northwest Ballet. State of Darkness received a Bessie Award for both Fenley's original performance in 1989 and for Boal's reconstruction in 1999.

Current Work
After a decade of solo work, Fenley began creating ensemble pieces performed by herself and her company. She continues to create and perform in the United States and abroad. Fenley has maintained a long-time collaboration with composer Philip Glass and continues to collaborate with visual artists, composers and writers. Recent works include The Vessel Stories (2011), choreographed to music by Glass and featured at the Days and Nights Festival in Carmel, CA, and Credo in Us (2011) set to the John Cage piece of the same name and performed at the Mills College Art Museum and the Judson Memorial Church in New York City.
Over the course of her career Fenley has created over 90 works, which have been presented in the United States, South America, Europe, Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Her work has been commissioned by the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, Seattle Dance Project, Marymount Manhattan College, The American Dance Festival, Deutsche Opera Ballet of Berlin, Robert Moses' Kin, The Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, the William Hale Harkness Foundation, The New National Theater, Tokyo, The Ohio Ballet, Australian Dance Theater, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, Barnard/Columbia, Repertory Dance Theater, Oakland Ballet, and Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival. In 2015 Seagull Press/University of Chicago published Rhythm Field: The Dance of Molissa Fenley about her life and work. She has created over 90 works since founding her company Molissa Fenley and Dancers in 1977. Recent works in include: Archeology in Reverse and Artifact in 2018,  Untitled (Haiku) and Some phrases I'm hoping Andy would like in 2019, and The Cut Outs (Matisse) in 2020 with longtime collaborator and poet Bob Holman on   In 2020, Fenley revisited her 1988 work State of Darkness, setting the solo on Jared Brown, Lloyd Knight, Sara Mearns, Shamel Pitts, Annique Roberts, Cassandra Trenary and Michael Trusnovec.

Recognition and Professional Affiliations
Fenley's contribution to her field has been recognized with awards in the United States and internationally.  She is an eleven-time recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Choreography Fellowship. Fenley received a Bessie Award for Choreography in 1985 for her work Cenotaph and again in 1988 for State of Darkness. Fenley received a 2000 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award. She is a Guggenheim Fellow (2008), a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome (2008) and recipient of the American Masterpieces Initiative from the National Endowment of the Arts (2010).
Fenley is a member of many professional arts organizations such as the Atlantic Center for the Arts, American Dance Guild, Asian Cultural Council, CHIME Mentorship program, Dance USA, International Dance Council and New York Live Arts. She is the Executive Director of the Momenta Foundation which she founded in 1986.
Mills College and Higher Education Teaching
In addition to being one of Mills College's most esteemed alumna, Fenley worked as a professor in Mills College Dance Department faculty from 1999 to 2020. She began as a Distinguished Visiting Professor in 1999 and became an Associate Professor of Dance in 2006. She was made Full Professor in 2013. Fenley taught courses in technique, choreography and oversaw MFA candidates' thesis projects. Additionally, Fenley often set work on Mills College's Repertory Dance Company. She was awarded the Mills College Sarlo Excellence in Teaching Award in 2011. Extensive archives from Fenley's career are held at the F.W. Olin Library's Special Collections on Mills campus.
Fenley has taught as a Visiting Lecturer at New York University's Experimental Theater Wing, University of Georgia at Athens and University of Utah. She worked as a Resident Artist for the Baryshnikov Arts Center, The Atlantic Center for the Arts, The American Academy in Rome, Bard College, The Hotchkiss School, The Asian Cultural Council in Tokyo, Yaddo, the Bogliasco Foundation, Djerassi, and Harvard University. She has taught repertory workshops at Bennington College, Barnard/Columbia and Hunter College.

Personal life
Fenley resides in New York, NY and Ventura County, CA. She is married to painter Roy Fowler.

Major works

The Cut-Outs (Matisse) (2020), Created in collaboration with poet Bob Holman and composer Keith Patchell

Some phrases I'm hoping Andy would like (2019), Choreographed as a tribute to the late choreographer Andrew de Groat

 Untitled (Haiku) (2019), Created in collaboration with poet Joy Harjo and composer Larry Mitchell

 Artifact (2018), Created for dancer Peiling Kao. This work premiered as part of Kao's solo works concert Honolulu, HI.

Archeology in Reverse (2018), Created in collaboration with artist Catherine Wagner. Video and sound by Michael Mersereau.

Circadian Rhythm (2016), created in collaboration with visual artist Robert Gaylor with music by Peter Garland

Rue Surf (2016), collaboration with poet Bob Holman and artist Roy Fowler

Water Table (2016), a work in 8 parts:
Parts 1 and 2 – The Third Coast, music by Ryuichi Sakamoto
Part 3 – Baffin Island, music by Ryuichi Sakamoto
Part 4 – Sargasso Sea
Part 5 – The Pattern of the Surface, music by Philip Glass
Part 6 – On the Other Ocean, music by David Behrman
Part 7 – Amdo, music by Ulfur Hansson
Part 8 – Mali, music by Laetitia Sonami

Seven (2015), commissioned by Dana and Shinichi Iova-Koga as part of 95 Rituals for Anna Halprin

Dance an Impossible Space (2014), music composed and performed by Erin Gee

Redwood Park, Part 1 (2014), commissioned by the Oakland Ballet, music composed by Joan Jeanrenaud

Redwood Park, part 2 (2014)

Esperanto (2014), reconstructed by Christiana Axelsen and Molissa Fenley, music by Ryuichi Sakamoto

Entrance (2014), duet for Christiana Axelsen and Molissa Fenley, music by David Behrman

BEAMS (2014), music by Alvin Curran

Horizon, (2013), music by Pauline Oliveros

Found Object (2012), collaboration with Peiling Kao

Cross Bridge, (2012), collaboration with Holley Farmer, John Jesurun, David Moodey and Rosemary Quinn

Credo In Us, (2011), music by John Cage. Commissioned by the Mills College Art Museum

The Vessel Stories (2011), music by Philip Glass

The Prop Dances (2010)
Pieces of Land, props by Jene Highstein, music by Jason Hoopes
94 Feathers, props by Merrill Wagner, music by Cenk Ergün
Mass Balance, prop by Todd Richmond, music by Cenk Ergün
Planes in Air, props by Roy Fowler, music by Joan Jeanrenaud
Prop Dance #5, props by Keith Sonnier, music by Lainie Fefferman

Regions (Revival), (2010), set by Roy Fowler, with music by Maggi Payne

Double Beginning (2009), with spoken word by Bob Holman

Ice, Dew, Food, Crew, Ape (2009), with music by Alvin Curran

Cosmati Variations (2008), with music by John Cage

Calculus and Politics (2007), with music by Harry Partch. Commissioned by The Joyce Theater

Four Lines, (2006), with music by Jon Gibson

Dreaming Awake, (2006), with music by Philip Glass. Commissioned by the Rovereto Music Festival, Rovereto, Italy

Patterns and Expectations, (2006), with music by Fred Frith

Desert Sea, (2005), with music by Lou Harrison.  Commissioned by Repertory Dance Theatre, Salt Lake City, Utah

Lava Field, (2004), with music by John Bischoff

Kuro Shio, (2003), with music by Bun Ching Lam. Commissioned by Women in Dance/Seoul, Korea and Tokyo, Japan

Water Courses (2003), with music by Joy Harjo

Waiting For Rain (2003), with music by Robert Ashley, set by Roy Fowler.  Commissioned by Peter Boal

331 Steps (2002), with music by Laetitia Sonami, set by Merrill Wagner

Short Stories (2002), with music by Anthony Davis and in silence, costumes by Chado

Signs/Landmark (2001), with music by Somei Satoh. Commissioned by the New National Theater, Tokyo

Folds (2001), with music by Fred Frith, choreographed in collaboration with Bebe Miller. Commissioned by Virginia Commonwealth University

Ceremony(2000), text by Joy Harjo

Spring Waterfall (2000), music by Philip Glass and Foday Musa Suso

Island (2000), with music by Harold Meltzer, artwork by Carol Hepper

I and You Resemble Each Other, Now (2000), with music by Somei Satoh

Delta (2000), music by John Cage

Weathering  (2000), with set by Merrill Wagner

Voices (1999), music by Kevin Volans, with cellist Joan Jeanrenaud

Timbral Inventions (1999), music by John Cage

Tala (1999), with music by John Cage. La Muse Menagére (1998) with music by Darius Milhaud

Icho (1997) music by Leroy Jenkins, commissioned by Felicia Norton

On the Other Ocean (1997) with music by David Behrman

Trace (1997) with composer Jonathan Hart Makwaia, painter Roy Fowler and writer John Jesurun. Commissioned by The Joyce Theater

Latitudes(1996), a work created for the internet, commissioned by the Dia Art Foundation

Pola'a (1996) with music by Lou Harrison. Commissioned by Jacob's Pillow

Regions (1995) with music by Maggi Payne. Commissioned by the 92nd Street Y

Savanna (1995) with music by Peter Garland. Commissioned by Peggy Baker Dance Projects

Sita (1995) with composer Philip Glass and photographer Sandi Fellman. Commissioned by The Joyce Theater

Jalan Jalan (1994), music by Lou Harrison

Bridge of Dreams (1994) with composer Laurie Anderson and visual artist Kiki Smith. Commissioned by the Deutsche Oper Berlin

Witches' Float (1993) with composer Alvin Lucier and visual artist Kiki Smith. Commissioned by the Krannert Art Center

Sightings (1993) with composer Pauline Oliveros and sculptor Tatsuo Miyajima

Nullarbor (1993) with composer Robert Lloyd and sculptor Richard Long

Channel (1993) with composer Somei Satoh and visual artist Richard Serra

Tilliboyo/Escalay (1993) with composers Foday Musa Suso and Hamza El Din

Place (1992) with music by Arvo Pärt. Commissioned by the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts

Threshold (1992), with music by Somei Satoh. Commissioned by The Joyce Theater

Inner Enchantments (1991), with music by Philip Glass

Bardo (1990), with music by Somei Satoh. Commissioned by Jacob's Pillow

Augury (1989) with music by Christopher Hyams-Hart, choreographed in collaboration with Doug Varone, commissioned by The American Dance Festival

The Floor Dances (1989) with composer Henryk Gorecki and sculptor Richard Long. Commissioned by the Dia Art Foundation

Provenance Unknown (1989), with composer Philip Glass. Commissioned by Dance Chance and The Kitchen for Video, Music and Dance

State of Darkness (1988), music by Igor Stravinsky. Commissioned by the American Dance Festival. Subsequently, reconstructed for Peter Boal (1999), commissioned by Lincoln Center and for the Pacific Northwest Ballet, (2007) danced in alternation by Rachel Foster, James Moore and Jonathan Porretta

In Recognition (1988), music by Philip Glass. Commissioned by Serious Fun Festival, Lincoln Center

Separate Voices (1987), a group work performed in silence. Commissioned by The Joyce Theater

A Descent into the Maelstrom (1986) music by Philip Glass, set design by Eamon D"Arcy, direction by Matthew McGuire, commissioned by the Adelaide Festival and performed by the Australian Dance Theatre

Geologic Moments (1986), with composers Philip Glass and Julius Eastman. Commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Next Wave Festival

Feral (1986), music by Robert Lloyd, commissioned by the Ohio Ballet

Cenotaph (1985), with composer Jamaaladeen Tacuma and text by Eric Bogosian. Commissioned by Jacob's Pillow

Esperanto (1985), with composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. Commissioned by Tsurumoto Room, Tokyo

Hemispheres (1983), with composer Anthony Davis and visual artist Francesco Clemente. Commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Next Wave Festival

Eureka (1982), with music by Peter Gordon. Commissioned by Dance Theater Workshop

Gentle Desire (1981), with music by Mark Freedman. Commissioned by the American Dance Festival

Peripheral Vision (1981), with music by Mark Freedman

Energizer (1980), with music by Mark Freedman. Commissioned by Dance Theater Workshop

Boca Raton (1980), extended dance mix by Paul Alexander of Talking Heads. Decor by Steven Keister

Mix (1979), Commissioned by The Kitchen for Video, Music and Dance

Video Clones (1979), video and performance work with Keith Haring

References

External links
 Molissa Fenley

American choreographers
Living people
Mills College faculty
People from Las Vegas
Mills College alumni
Bessie Award winners
1954 births
American expatriates in Nigeria
American expatriates in Spain

Molissa Fenley


Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave in the central business district (CBD) of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Centred at the eastern end of Little Bourke Street, it extends between the corners of Swanston and Spring streets, and consists of numerous laneways, alleys and arcades. Established in the 1850s during the Victorian gold rush, it is notable for being the longest continuous ethnic Chinese settlement in the Western World and the oldest Chinatown in the Southern Hemisphere.

Melbourne's Chinatown has played an important role in establishing the culture of Chinese immigrants in Australia, and is still home to many Chinese restaurants, cultural venues, businesses and places of worship. Today, Melbourne's Chinatown is a major tourist attraction, known for its architectural heritage, annual festivals and cuisines of Asian origins, as well as its karaoke venues, bars and fashion boutiques.

Beyond Chinatown and the CBD, Melbourne's Chinese community is well-represented in other areas of the city, most notably Box Hill, where a $450 million development named "New Chinatown" is currently being constructed.

Chinatown is home to the Chinese Museum.

History

Gold rush beginnings and colonial era (1850s–1890s)

The advent of the Victorian gold rush in 1851 attracted immigrants from around the world, including tens of thousands of Chinese prospectors. The majority were Cantonese-speaking male villagers from Hong Kong and nearby areas, including the southwestern districts of Guangdong (See Yup), and its capital city Guangzhou (Sam Yap). The eastern half of Little Bourke Street was considered convenient for these immigrants, as both a staging post and a place to pick up supplies en route to the goldfields in central Victoria. The earliest lodging houses were established in Celestial Avenue, off Little Bourke Street, and by 1855, Chinese houses and businesses lined the majority of Little Bourke Street from Elizabeth to Russell streets.

It is notable for being the oldest Chinatown in the Southern Hemisphere, and the longest continuous Chinese settlement outside Asia, owing to San Francisco's Chinatown's relocation following the 1906 earthquake. The Victorian gold rush eventually waned, causing a shift from rural living and an influx of people migrating into metropolitan Melbourne, particularly Little Bourke Street, which already had a predominantly Chinese population.

The residents of Chinatown established themselves as storekeepers, importers, furniture-makers, herbalists and in the wholesale fruit and vegetable industries, with a strong presence at the nearby Eastern Market on Bourke Street. Christian churches were built and Chinese political groups and newspapers were subsequently formed. Other members of the Chinese community who lived and worked elsewhere used Chinatown to congregate with friends. The area also provided further support to new Chinese immigrants.

Early in its history, Chinatown developed a reputation for "salubrious" enterprises including opium dens, gambling houses and brothels, but maintained a distinctly "entrepreneurial air". By 1859, Victoria's Chinese population reached approximately 45,000, representing nearly 8.5% of the colony's total population.

Australian colonial author Marcus Clarke wrote in 1868:

Despite the cultural divide, several community leaders with strong Chinatown connections became influential and well-regarded among Melburnians more broadly, including businessman Lowe Kong Meng, police detective Fook Shing and missionary Cheok Hong Cheong. Also during the colonial period, a number of businesses run by Australians of European descent were based in Chinatown, including the offices of Table Talk, one of Melbourne's most popular magazines in the 1880s.

Federation, population decline and revival (1901–present day)

Chinatown peaked in the early 20th century in terms of population and size with businesses having expanded into the nearby Little Lon red-light district, transforming it into a predominantly Chinese-owned area. This growth was hampered by the Immigration Restriction Act, implemented after the federation of Australia in 1901. Chinatown's subsequent decline was further exacerbated by a broader shift of businesses and residents from Melbourne's central business district (CBD) to the surrounding suburbs.

In the 1920s, more Australians of European descent began frequenting Chinatown eateries, one being Chung Wah on Heffernan Lane, a haven for members of the University of Melbourne ALP Club. This growing patronage helped pave the way for a distinctly Australian Chinese cuisine, which achieved mainstream popularity by the mid-20th century. The dim sim, a staple of Australian Chinese cuisine, was invented in Chinatown by William Wing Young, in 1945, at his restaurant Wing Lee, and has become a major snack food in takeaway outlets and supermarkets throughout the country. Young's daughter, Elizabeth Chong, became a television celebrity chef and Chinatown tour guide. Chinatown's potential as a tourist site was recognised in the 1960s by local entrepreneur and politician David Wang, whose push for the redevelopment of Little Bourke Street led to the archways of today.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the White Australia policy was dismantled, resulting in a substantial increase in immigration from Indochina, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China. The demographics of Chinatown, as well as its culinary scene, greatly diversified as a result.

In 2010, the ground floor of the Chinese Museum was remodelled as a visitor centre for Melbourne's Chinatown. The following year, a memorial statue of Dr Sun Yat-sen was unveiled outside the museum's entrance, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of China. The traditional Chinese New Year Lion Dance has always ended at this spot, but will now end with a blessing of the statue.

Culture

Chinese New Year
The Chinese New Year is primarily celebrated in Chinatown on the first Sunday of the new Lunar year. It is the original and primary location of Melbourne's CNY festival, although the festival has expanded to multiple CBD sites in recent years, including Crown Casino. The celebrations feature traditional and contemporary Chinese cultural activities and festivities, dances, Chinese opera and singing, karaoke competition, numerous stalls of culinary delights, arts and crafts, Chinese chess competitions, calligraphy and children's events.

The Dai Loong Dragon Parade, as well as the main Lion Dances (performed by the Chinese Youth Society of Melbourne, Chinese Masonic Society and Hung Gar Martial Arts School) begin at roughly 10am on the Sunday following New Year, and run till roughly 4pm. The Dragon parade begins and ends at Melbourne's Chinese Museum.

Asian Food Festival

The Asian food festival is typically held in Spring and celebrates Asian cuisine with food tasting, stalls, cooking demonstrations, among others.

Other Chinese communities
Beyond the original Chinatown in the CBD, several newer Chinese communities have developed in Melbourne's eastern suburbs, such as Box Hill, Glen Waverley and Springvale.

An older community, with links back to the 1850s gold rush, is to be found in the regional city of Bendigo, 150 km north-west of Melbourne.

Cultural depictions
Tom Roberts, one of the leading figures of Australian Impressionism, created sketches of life in Little Bourke Street in the 1880s. During the Second World War, modernist Eric Thake created a series of works depicting Chinatown shopfronts, which now belong in the State Library of Victoria's painting collection.

Fergus Hume's The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (1886), one of the most famous mystery crime novels of the Victorian era, is based largely on the author's observations of life in Little Bourke Street, including the "dark recesses" of the Chinese Quarter, where Detective Kilsip, the novel's protagonist, pursues his suspect. Alfred Dampier's Marvellous Melbourne play of the same year features a scene in a Chinatown opium den.

Between 1909 and 1910, Melbourne's first Chinese-language newspaper, the Chinese Times, serialised Wong Shee Ping's novel The Poison of Polygamy, the first novel written in Literary Chinese to be published in Australia and possibly the West. Set in Victoria during the 1850s gold rush, the novel describes life in Chinatown.

Set in Little Bourke Street, Elinor Mordaunt's 1919 novel The Ginger Jar is about a love affair between a Chinese Australian hawker and a European woman.

A pivotal scene of the 1911 silent film The Double Event, directed by W. J. Lincoln, takes place in Melbourne's Chinatown.

The 1997 Hong Kong action film Mr. Nice Guy, starring Jackie Chan, is set in Melbourne, with several scenes shot in Chinatown.

Chinatown appears in episodes of the period detective drama series Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (2012–2015), including "Ruddy Gore" (episode 6, season 1), which focuses largely on Chinatown and its connection to the East End Theatre District.

Gallery

Archways

Buildings

Other sites

See also
 Heavenly Queen Temple (Melbourne)
 Chinese Museum, Melbourne

References

Bibliography
Books

Journals

Theses

Webpages

External links

 Chinese Museum Museum of Chinese Australian History.
 Chinatown Precinct Association website

Melbourne City Centre

Melbourne
Culture of Melbourne
Landmarks in Melbourne
1851 establishments in Australia
Tourist attractions in Melbourne

Chinatown, Melbourne


The Tegra Note 7 is a mini tablet computer and the second Tegra 4 based mobile device designed by Nvidia that runs the Android operating system.

Release
Revealed on September 18, 2013, EVGA was the first to partner with Nvidia for release on November 19, 2013. Other manufacturers Nvidia has partnered with include Advent, ZOTAC, PNY, Gigabyte, Xolo HP and Cherry Mobile.

The device is known as EVGA Tegra Note 7 in the US, Advent Vega Tegra Note 7 in the United Kingdom, Gradiente Tegra Note 7 in Brazil, Gazer Tegra Note 7 in Ukraine and Russia, Gigabyte Tegra Note 7 in Australia and New Zealand, Cherry Mobile Tegra Note 7 in the Philippines and XOLO PLAY Tegra Note 7 in India. HP has rebranded the Tegra Note 7 as the HP Slate 7 Extreme.

Features
The Note 7 uses a 1.8 GHz quad-core Tegra 4 chipset with 1 GB of RAM; Nvidia claims that the chipset and other improvements make it the fastest 7-inch tablet on the market offering 50% faster browsing experience than tablets twice the price. Notable features of the device include enhanced capacitive "DirectStylus" technology that is three times more responsive, premium Tegra 4 audio processing with PureAudio, and world's first HDR camera in a tablet with Nvidia Chimera computational photography. The 1280×800 display use Nvidia PRISM 2 display processing, which modulates the display backlight and per-pixel color values to extend battery life 40% for up to 10 hours of HD video playback.

Software updates
Nvidia released Tegra Note 7 System Update 3.0 (Android 5.1) on July 23, 2015.

See also
 Comparison of tablet computers
 Nvidia Shield
 Nexus 7 (2012 version)

References

Tablet computers
Nvidia products

Tegra Note 7


The Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) is the largest of the ten faculties that constitute Harvard University.

Headquartered principally in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and centered in the historic Harvard Yard, FAS is the only faculty responsible for both undergraduate and graduate education. FAS administers the courses offered at Harvard College, the Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), and the Harvard Division of Continuing Education. It is headed by interim Dean Emma Dench until August 1st when Hopi Hoekstra will become Dean of FAS.

As of Fall 2019, FAS comprised 1221 total faculty, including 719 tenured and tenure-track professors as well as 502 other professors, lecturers, preceptors, and visiting faculty in some 30 academic departments in the arts and humanities, the social sciences, the natural sciences, and the engineering and applied sciences. There are approximately 6,800  undergraduates (Harvard College) and 4,500 graduate students (Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Science). The Harvard Division of Continuing Education has 795 admitted undergraduate students and 3,100 admitted graduate students. Furthermore the Harvard Division of Continuing Education welcomes more than 30,000 students annually in its open enrollment courses. In 2019, FAS had a budget of $1.6 billion and a revenue of $1.6 billion.

As of 2019, the FAS endowment had a market value of $17.5 billion. Harvard's total endowment stands at $40.9 billion.

Organization
FAS consists of the following divisions:

 Harvard College (established 1636)
 Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Science (GSAS) (established 1872)
 The John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) (established 1847)
 The Division of Continuing Education (DCE) (established 1871)

In addition, FAS includes 35 research centers, institutes, and interdisciplinary programs, eleven museums, and numerous libraries.

The dean of FAS serves as the chief administrative and academic officer, responsible to the president and provost of Harvard University for all aspects of the division's operations, including budgets, planning, support services, faculty appointments, curricula, student affairs, and fundraising. The dean is appointed by the president with the approval of the university's two governing boards, the Harvard Corporation and the Harvard Board of Overseers, and serves at the pleasure of the president. The dean of FAS is invariably drawn from the ranks of the tenured faculty in the division.

The deans of Harvard College, GSAS, SEAS, and DCE report to the dean of FAS, as do various academic deans, administrative deans (including those responsible for finance, development, faculty personnel policy, undergraduate admissions and financial aid), and the directors of various research centers and institutes.

From 2018 to 2023, the FAS was headed by Claudine Gay. Following Gay's ascension to president of the university, Hopi Hoekstra was announced to become the new dean of FAS beginning August 1st, 2023.

History
While Harvard College traces its origins to 1636, the body called the Faculty of Arts and Sciences only came into existence in the late nineteenth century. From 1820 until 1872, Harvard University consisted of the college and three professional schools (in law, medicine, and divinity). The governing boards established a Graduate Department in 1872 to administer and recommend candidates for the degrees of Master of Arts, Master of Science, Doctor of Philosophy, and Doctor of Science. In 1890, the governing boards merged separate faculties of the Lawrence Scientific School and the College into a single Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The Graduate Department later became the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

The Lawrence Scientific School opened in 1847 and marked Harvard's first major effort to offer a formal program in science and engineering. In 1948, the School merged with the Department of Engineering Sciences and Applied Physics in FAS to form the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences. In 2007, the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences formally became the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. On June 3, 2015, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences was renamed the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, following a $400 million gift by Harvard Business School alumnus John A. Paulson.

In 2023, following a $300 million unrestricted donation by hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences was renamed Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Science (GSAS).

References

External links

Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences faculty

Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences


The State Herbarium of South Australia, sometimes called the South Australian Herbarium, and having the herbarium code, AD,  is located in Adelaide, South Australia. It is one of several State and Commonwealth herbaria in Australia. The Department for Environment and Water is the state agency which is responsible for the Herbarium, but the Board of the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium (established by an Act of Parliament, most recently the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium Act 1978) is charged with its establishment and maintenance.

The herbarium is responsible for Electronic Flora of South Australia. It also produces the journal, Swainsona (formerly Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens).

History
In 1954 the State Herbarium of South Australia was founded as part of the Adelaide Botanic Garden. The first flora collection of the state was produced by Richard Schomburgk (1811–1891) in 1875.

The State Herbarium's collections include collections of Ralph Tate, John McConnell Black (via the South Australian Museum), the moss herbarium of Professor David Guthrie Catcheside (1907–1994), and the collections of the Field Naturalists Society of South Australia.

Since 2000 the Herbarium has been located in the historic Tram Barn A building adjacent to the Adelaide Botanic Garden's Bicentennial Conservatory on Hackney Road, Adelaide.

In late 2011 the Herbarium was due to list its one millionth specimen, possibly a new species.

Also in 2011, the Herbarium produced an online version of the Flora of South Australia, 5th edition.

References

External links

eFloraSA Electronic flora of South Australia Retrieved 18 May 2018.

Botany in South Australia
Herbaria in Australia
Buildings and structures in Adelaide

State Herbarium of South Australia


Peggy Duff (8 February 1910 – 16 April 1981) was a British political activist who started off her career with a protest against the treatment of German prisoners of war in Britain after the Second World War. She was principally known for her contribution to the peace movement as the organiser of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Duff was described by Noam Chomsky, a friend of hers, as "one of the people who really changed modern history".

Background
Duff was born as Margaret Doreen Eames in Chiswick, Middlesex. She was the elder daughter and middle child of Frank Eames, a stockbroker's clerk, and Evelyn Rose Eames ( Pitman. From 1921, she attended Hastings Secondary School for Girls; in a 1929 reference by the school's headmistress described her as being "very public-spirited". She then went to Bedford College, University of London, where she read English. After university she worked as a journalist and in 1933 married Bill Duff, a fellow journalist. He was killed during the Second World War while covering an American air raid on the Burma railway for an armed forces' newspaper. The couple had two daughters and a son (photo-journalist Euan Duff).

Political activism
Duff began her involvement in peace campaigning in the late 1930s. During the Second World War, she joined Common Wealth, an idealistic socialist party to the left of Labour, which had been set up by Sir Richard Acland. After the 1945 election, in which Common Wealth ceded its vote to the Labour Party, Duff was employed by Victor Gollancz's organization Save Europe Now, which sent food and clothing to occupied Germany and Austria from rationed Britain, and campaigned for the repatriation of prisoners of war. From 1949 to 1955 she was business manager of Tribune newspaper, then identified with the supporters of Labour MP Aneurin Bevan.

Briefly working with Gollancz again, Duff became the secretary of the National Campaign for the Abolition of Capital Punishment, set up in August 1955, in part as a response to a number of controversial executions (including that of Ruth Ellis). In 1956, she was elected as a Labour member of St Pancras Borough Council, on which she became Chief Whip for the Labour group. Duff was a councillor on Camden London Borough Council, for the Camden ward, from 1964 until 1968. She also supported the rights of tenants of council housing, but in doing so gave the green light to controversial architectural redevelopments and slum clearance programmes that are often considered to have blighted the ward she served.

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
At the Labour Party Conference in 1957, Aneurin Bevan, then Shadow Foreign Secretary, astonished his supporters by denouncing demands for unilateral nuclear disarmament. In November that year, Duff responded by joining with others to establish the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), which aimed to persuade Britain to "renounce unconditionally the use or production of nuclear weapons and refuse to allow their use by others in her defence". Duff became the Organising Secretary for the campaign, and her energy and resilience became well known to its supporters. Canon John Collins, Chair of CND, noted that she never gave the impression of efficiency "and seemed thoroughly slapdash", but that her work had impressive results. She organised the second and subsequent Aldermaston Marches from 1959 to 1963.

Later life and death
In 1965, Duff commenced work for the International Confederation for Disarmament and Peace, resigning as General Secretary of CND in 1967. She resigned from the Labour Party on 10 May that year over Prime Minister Harold Wilson's diplomatic support for the United States in the Vietnam war and refusal to condemn the Greek dictatorship of "the Colonels". She subsequently wrote her memoirs, Left, Left, Left (Allison & Busby, 1971). Duff also edited and wrote part of War or Peace in the Middle East? (1978), in which she argued for "no more blank cheques for Israel". She died of breast cancer in University College Hospital, aged 71, and was buried at Hampstead Cemetery.

Legacy
Noam Chomsky called Duff "one of those heroes who is completely unknown, because she did too much," and stated that "she should have won the Nobel Peace Prize about twenty times." He described her as a "leading figure", in both the CND and the anti-Vietnam War movement.

Camden London Borough Council erected a blue plaque at 11 Albert Street, Camden Town, London, in tribute to her, reading: "Peggy Duff, 1910 – 1981, first General Secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and local councillor, lived here."

See also
 List of peace activists

References

1910 births
1981 deaths
Alumni of Bedford College, London
British anti–nuclear weapons activists
British anti-war activists
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament activists
Common Wealth Party politicians
Councillors in the London Borough of Camden
Deaths from breast cancer
Deaths from cancer in England
Labour Party (UK) councillors
Members of St Pancras Metropolitan Borough Council
Place of birth missing
Women councillors in England
Common Wealth Party

Peggy Duff


Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture is a 2005 book edited by musician Thurston Moore on Universe Publishing.

Info

The book is a collection of stories, essays, art, and other contributions by various artists, musicians, and writers. It centers around the role of the mixtape and cassette culture in the lives of the contributors, which stands as a testimony to the importance of the medium starting in the late 1970s to its relevance today. Here tapes are used mostly to confess love or admiration, or to expose an acquaintance to new and underground music.

Quotes

"The mix tape is a form of American folk art: predigested cultural artifacts combined with homespun technology and magic marker turn the mix tape into a message in a bottle. I am no mere consumer of pop culture, it says, but also a producer of it. Mix tapes mark the moment of consumer culture in which listeners attained control over what they heard, in what order and at what cost." Matias Viegener

"I have so many Mix Tape stories it's hard to know where to begin."  Allison Anders

"The mix tape is a list a quotations, a poetic form in fact: the cento is a poem made up of lines pulled from other poems.  The new poet collects and remixes.  Similarly an operation of taste, it is also cousin to the curious passion of the obsessive collector.  Unable to express himself in 'pure' art, the collector finds himself in obsessive acquisition. Collecting is strangely hot and cold, passionate and calculating."  Matias Viegener

Contributors

Lasse Marhaug,
Pat Griffin,
Ahmet Zappa,
Karen Constance aka Karen Lollypop,
Mike Watt,
Glen E. Friedman,
Cynthia Connolly,
Galaxie 500,
Tom Greenwood of Jackie-O Motherfucker,
David Choe,
Matias Viegener,
Lili Dwight,
Mac McCaughan,
Dodie Bellamy,
Dan Graham,
William Winant,
Jim O'Rourke,
Leah Singer,
Ryan McGinness,
Jutta Koether,
Richard Kern,
Rita Ackermann,
Robert Bellinger,
John Miller,
Trisha Donnelly,
Georganne Deen,
Sue de Beer,
Sharon Cheslow,
Slim Moon,
Allison Anders,
Mary Gaitskill,
Spencer Sweeney,
Elizabeth Peyton,
Genevieve Dellinger,
Loren Mazzacane Connors,
Camden Joy,
Bret McCabe,
Christian Schumann,
DJ Spooky,
Jade Gordon,
Daniella Meeker,
John Sinclair,
Kate Spade,
Andy Spade,
Tony Conrad,
Christopher Knowles,
Christian Marclay,
Tom Sachs

2005 non-fiction books
Music books
Cassette culture 1970s–1990s

Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture


Manuchihr ibn Shavur was a Shaddadid emir of Ani from  1072 to 1118, the first of the dynasty to rule this key city, formerly an Armenian royal capital.

Manuchihr b. Shavur began his rule under the suzerainty of the Seljuk sultan Melikşah. During his reign, Ani suffered a famine and military pressure from the Seljuks. Manuchihr sponsored several building projects, including a mosque, fortifications, a large bath, and a caravansarai. He also patronized the poet Asadi Tusi. He was succeeded by his son, Abu'l-Aswar Shavur ibn Manuchihr.

References

Shaddadid emirs of Ani
11th-century monarchs in the Middle East
12th-century monarchs in the Middle East
11th-century Kurdish people
12th-century Kurdish people

Manuchihr ibn Shavur


Rasammah Bhupalan (born 1 May 1927), also known as Rasammah Naomi Navarednam or Mrs F.R. Bhupalan, is a Malaysian freedom fighter and social activist.

She has championed causes such as the anti-drug abuse movement, women's rights, education and social justice causes.

Pre-Independence
Rasammah was one of the earliest women involved in the fight for Malaysian (then Malaya) independence. She joined the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, the women's wing of the Indian National Army, to fight the British. She served in Burma during World War II.

Women's Rights
As founder president of the Women Teacher's Union, she fought for equal pay for women teachers and tried to bring disparate teachers' unions under an umbrella.

The former school principal was the first Asian representative of the World Confederation of Organisations of the Teaching Profession for two successive terms. She was also very active in the National Council of Women's Organisation (NCWO) and Pemadam.

Recognition
Bhupalan was a teacher in the Methodist Boys School Kuala Lumpur (MBSSKL) from 1959 to 1964 and was the principal of Methodist Girls School Kuala Lumpur (MGSKL) for 14 years from 1969 until she retired in 1982. On 11 November 2007, Mrs. Bhupalan was among the few veteran teachers who were honored at MBSSKL's 110th Anniversary Celebration Dinner. The dinner was specially organized to honour all the former and current teachers of the school.

On 21 November 2006, a book entitled Footprints on The Sands of Time, Rasammah Bhupalan: A Life of Purpose authored by Associate Professor Dr Aruna Gopinath was launched by Culture, Arts and Tourism Minister Datuk Dr Rais Yatim.

The biography, published with the support of the National Archives, the ministry and NCWO, is about the life of Rasammah seen in a historical context.

See also
 Janaky Athi Nahappan
 Lakshmi Sahgal

References

 Ministry in search of remarkable Malaysians, The Star, 22 November 2006
 Mothers of substance, The Star, 20 August 2007.
 They dared to take up public office, The Star, 20 August 2007.

1927 births
Living people
Education activists

Indian National Army personnel
Indian revolutionaries
Indian women of World War II
Indian women's rights activists
Malaysian activists
Malayan collaborators with Imperial Japan

Malaysian people of Indian descent
Tamil activists
Tamil military personnel

Rasammah Bhupalan


Dale Cairns Thomson  (17 June 1923 – 27 April 1999) was a professor and departmental director at the Université de Montréal, professor and Vice-Principal of McGill University and a professor of international relations and Director of the Center of Canadian Studies at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. and the author of several important historical works.

Born on a Westlock, Alberta farm, Dale Thomson served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. At the end of the war, he attended the University of Alberta, graduating with a B.A. degree in 1948. Fluent in the French language, he then obtained a diploma in international relations from the University of Paris in 1950 and his doctorate from the university's Faculty of Letters in 1951. To do his thesis entitled "General Haushofer and his Ideas on Geopolitics," Thomson spent time in Germany, becoming fluent in the German language.

Returning to Canada, Thomson worked for a short time at the National Film Board of Canada before being invited to serve as Associate Private Secretary to Canadian Prime Minister, Louis St. Laurent where he remained until 1958. Involved with both the Liberal Party of Quebec and the Liberal Party of Canada, in the 1958 Canadian federal election Thomson was the unsuccessful Liberal candidate in the Jasper—Edson riding.

Following his brief foray into politics, Thomson returned to academia where he forged an outstanding career that included authoring a number of important books. In addition, he wrote articles in the Canadian press and was a frequent television and radio guest commentator concerning Canadian politics.

Dale Thomson died in 1999 after a lengthy illness. His archive is held at the McGill University Archives.

Academic positions
 Université de Montréal - professor (1960–1969), departmental director (1963–1967)
 Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies - professor of international relations and founding director of the Director of the Center of Canadian Studies (1969–1973)
 McGill University - Vice-Principal (1973–1976) and Professor of Political Science (1973–1994)

Affiliations
 Association for Canadian Studies in the United States
 Canadian Political Science Association/Société Canadienne de Science Politique
 International Society for Political Psychology
 International Association for Mass Communication Research
 Member of the Board of Directors of the International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Sri Lanka

Books
Alexander Mackenzie : Clear Grit (1960)
Louis St. Laurent, Canadian (1967)
Canadian Foreign Policy : Options And Perspectives  (with Roger F. Swanson, 1971)
Quebec Society And Politics: Views From The Inside (1973)
Mémoire à la Commission parlementaire de l'Assemblée nationale du Québec à propos du projet de loi no 1, Charte de la langue française au Québec (1977)
Jean Lesage & The Quiet Revolution (1984)
Vive le Québec Libre (1988)

External links
 Dale Cairns Thomson Fonds. McGill University Library & Archives
Empire Club Addresses, Dale C. Thomson, March 12, 1970

References

Canadian military personnel of World War II
Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United Kingdom)
University of Alberta alumni
University of Paris alumni
Canadian political scientists
Academic staff of McGill University
Members of the United Church of Canada
Academic staff of the Université de Montréal
Johns Hopkins University faculty
Canadian non-fiction writers
People from Westlock County
1923 births
1999 deaths
Candidates in the 1958 Canadian federal election
Liberal Party of Canada candidates for the Canadian House of Commons
20th-century non-fiction writers
Canadian expatriates in the United States
Canadian expatriates in France
Canadian expatriates in Germany
20th-century political scientists

Dale C. Thomson


The General Electric Company (GEC) was a major British industrial conglomerate involved in consumer and defence electronics, communications, and engineering.

It was originally founded in 1886 as G. Binswanger and Company as an  electrical goods wholesaler based in London. It quickly adopted a then-unorthodox business model of supplying electrical components over the counter. In 1889, the business was incorporated as the General Electric Company Ltd, and became a public limited company 11 years later. During the 1890s and 1900s, the company heavily invested into electric lighting, a sector that would prove to be immensely profitable in the long term. The GEC was heavily impacted by the outbreak of the First World War, supplying various goods to the military, and thus becoming a major player in the electrical industry. In 1921, a new purpose-built company headquarters (Magnet House) was opened in Kingsway, London; two years later, GEC's industrial research laboratories at Wembley (later named the Hirst Research Centre) also opened. In the 1920s, the company was heavily involved in the creation and roll-out of Britain's National Grid.

During the Second World War, GEC made several significant contributions to the Allied war effort, such as the development of the cavity magnetron for radar, various advances in communications technology, and the mass production of valves, lamps, and lighting equipment. In 1961, GEC merged with Radio & Allied Industries. Throughout the mid-to-late 1960s, GEC's new managing director, Arnold Weinstock, sought to rationalise the British electrical industry and boost efficiency via a series of cut-backs and mergers that returned the company to profit. GEC acquired Associated Electrical Industries (AEI) in 1967, and merged with English Electric one years later. The company continued to expand via acquisitions; between 1979 and 1981, GEC acquired W & T Avery, Cincinnati Electronics, and Picker Corporation.

During the 1980s, the company was Britain's largest private employer with over 250,000 employees; becoming one of the first companies in the new FTSE 100 Index in 1984. It made profits in excess of £1 billion per year at its peak in the 1990s. In June 1998, GEC sold its share of the joint venture GEC-Alsthom on the Paris stock exchange. During December 1999, GEC's defence arm, Marconi Electronic Systems (MES), was sold to British Aerospace, forming BAE Systems. The rest of GEC, mainly telecommunications equipment manufacturing, continued as Marconi Communications. After buying several US telecoms manufacturers at the top of the market, losses following the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2001 led to the restructuring in 2003 of Marconi plc into Marconi Corporation plc. During 2005, the company failed to secure any part of BT's 21st Century Network (21CN) programme; that same year, Ericsson acquired the bulk of the company; what was left of the business was renamed Telent.

History

Early years (1886–88)

GEC had its origins in the G. Binswanger and Company, an electrical goods wholesaler established in London in the 1880s by a German-Jewish immigrant, Gustav Binswanger (later Gustav Byng). Regarded as the year GEC was founded, 1886 saw a fellow immigrant, Hugo Hirst, join Byng, and the company changed its name to The General Electric Apparatus Company (G. Binswanger).

Their small business found early success with its unorthodox method of supplying electrical components over the counter. Hugo Hirst was an entrepreneurial salesman who saw the potential of electricity and was able to direct the standardisation of an industry in its infancy. He travelled across Europe with an eye for the latest products, and in 1887 the company published the first electrical catalogue of its kind. The following year, the company acquired its first factory in Salford, where electric bells, telephones, ceiling roses and switches were manufactured.

Incorporation and expansion (1889–1913)
In 1889, the business was incorporated as a private company known as the General Electric Company Ltd. The company was expanding rapidly, opening new branches and factories and trading in 'everything electrical', a phrase that was to become synonymous with GEC.

In 1893, it decided to invest in the manufacture of lamps. The resulting company, (to become Osram in 1909), was to lead the way in lamp design, and the burgeoning demand for electric lighting was to make GEC's fortune.

In 1900, GEC was incorporated as a public limited company, The General Electric Company (1900) Ltd (the '1900' was dropped three years later).

In 1902, its first purpose-built factory, the Witton Engineering Works, was opened near Birmingham.

In 1907, GEC set up the Peel-Connor Telephone Works to manufacture telephone exchanges and telephones for the GPO; GEC supplied a large CB manual exchange for Glasgow in 1910. The British telephone system had been taken over and was operated by the General Post Office (GPO or BPO, a government department). The telephone manufacturing section moved from Manchester to Coventry in 1919, and GEC was one of the "ring" of four (later five) companies supplying the GPO with Strowger automatic telephone exchanges (called "Step-by-Step" or SXS) in use from the 1920s to the 1960s.

With the death of Gustav Byng in 1910, Hugo Hirst became the chairman as well as managing director, a position he had assumed in 1906. Hirst's shrewd investment in lamp manufacture was proving extremely profitable. In 1909, Osram began production of the most successful tungsten filament lamps in the industry. Rapidly growing private and commercial use of electricity created huge demand. The company expanded both at home and overseas, with the establishment of agencies in Europe, Japan, Australia, South Africa, and India. It also did substantial trade with South America.

World Wars and post-WWII (1914–60)
The outbreak of the First World War transformed GEC into a major player in the electrical industry. The company was heavily involved in the war effort, supplying products such as radios, signal lamps, and the arc-lamp carbons used in searchlights.

In 1917, GEC created the Express Lift Company in Northampton, England.

During the interwar period, GEC expanded to become a global corporation and national institution. The takeover of Fraser and Chalmers in 1918 took GEC into heavy engineering and bolstered their claim to supply 'everything electrical'. In the same year, the maker of electricity meters, Chamberlain and Hookham, was also acquired by GEC.

In 1919, GEC merged its radio valve manufacturing interests with those of the Marconi Company to form the Marconi-Osram Valve Company.

In the 1920s, the company was heavily involved in the creation of the UK-wide National Grid. The opening of a new purpose-built company headquarters (Magnet House) in Kingsway, London in 1921, and the pioneering industrial research laboratories at Wembley in 1923 (later named the Hirst Research Centre), were symbolic of the continuing expansion of both GEC and the electrical industry.

During the Second World War, GEC was a major manufacturer of electrical and engineering products for the British armed forces. Significant contributions to the war effort included the development in 1940 of the cavity magnetron for radar, by the scientists John Randall and Harry Boot at the University of Birmingham, as well as advances in communications technology and the ongoing mass production of valves, lamps and lighting equipment.

The post-war years saw a decline in GEC's expansion. After the death of Hugo Hirst in 1943, his son-in-law Leslie Gamage (elder son of the founder of Gamages), along with Harry Railing, took over as joint managing directors. Despite the huge demand for electrical consumer goods, and large investments in heavy engineering and nuclear power, profits began to fall in the face of competition and internal disorganisation.

Further expansion (1961–83)
In 1961, GEC merged with Sir Michael Sobell's Radio & Allied Industries, and with it emerged the new power behind GEC, Sobell's son-in-law Arnold Weinstock, who became the managing director of GEC in 1963, and moved its headquarters from Kingsway to a new building at 1 Stanhope Gate in Mayfair.

Weinstock embarked on a programme to rationalise the entire British electrical industry, beginning with the internal rejuvenation of GEC. In a drive for efficiency, Weinstock made cut-backs and instigated mergers, resulting in new growth for the company. GEC returned to profit and the financial markets' confidence was restored.

During the late 1960s, the electrical industry was revolutionised as GEC acquired Associated Electrical Industries (AEI) in 1967, which encompassed Metropolitan-Vickers, British Thomson-Houston, Edison Swan, Siemens Brothers & Co, Hotpoint, William Thomas Henley and Birlec.

In 1968, GEC merged with English Electric, incorporating Elliott Brothers, the Marconi Company, Ruston & Hornsby, Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns, the Vulcan Foundry, Willans & Robinson and Dick, Kerr & Co. The Elliot computer company became GEC Computers, whose products were successful in academic computing and real-time process control in the 1970s and 1980s.

The Witton works remained one of the company's biggest sites, producing high-voltage switchgear and transformers, small motors, mercury arc rectifiers and traction components, until the plant was gradually sold off by Weinstock in 1969.

In 1969, a new subsidiary company was born, English Electric-AEI Traction Ltd. This new organisation slowly integrated together the traction divisions of both AEI and EE, culminating in 1972 when the company was renamed GEC Traction Ltd. Also added to the company was the industrial locomotive division of the former English Electric which was based at Vulcan Works, Newton-le-Willows (this later became a separate company, GEC Industrial Locomotives Ltd). The company had manufacturing sites at Manchester, Preston and Sheffield.

The company continued to expand with the acquisition in 1979 of weighing machine maker W & T Avery, renamed GEC Avery.

In April 1981, GEC acquired Cincinnati Electronics (CE), in Cincinnati, Ohio, at the time owned by George J Mealey. CE was a leader in military radios and infrared technology, space electronics, and other high-security products, doing business throughout the world. (Now owned by L-3 Cincinnati Electronics.)

In 1981, GEC acquired Picker Corporation, an American manufacturer of medical imaging equipment. GEC merged Picker with Cambridge Instruments, GEC Medical, and American Optical to form Picker International (PI). GEC Medical was itself an amalgamation of Watson & Sons Ltd, formed in the early 20th century in London and long a part of GEC, and A E Dean & Co of Croydon. In 1982, PI introduced the first 1.0T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) unit. In 1998, it acquired the CT division of Elscint In 1999, the company changed its name to Marconi Medical Systems. In 2001, Philips bought Marconi Medical Systems for $1.1 billion.

Acquisitions and mergers (1984–97)
GEC had become the UK's largest and most successful company and private employer, with about 250,000 employees. In 1984, it became one of the first companies in the new FTSE 100 Index, ranking third in value behind British Petroleum and Shell Transport and Trading.

In 1985, GEC acquired Yarrow Shipbuilders from British Shipbuilders. In 1988, GEC Plessey Telecommunications (GPT) was created when GEC bought Plessey. The following year, GEC and Siemens formed a joint company, GEC Siemens plc, to take over Plessey. As part of the deal, GEC took control of Plessey's avionics and naval systems businesses.

In early 1989, GEC and French company Alsthom merged their power generation and transport businesses in a new joint venture, GEC-Alsthom. In May 1989, GEC-Alsthom bought British rail vehicle manufacturer Metro-Cammell.

In early 1996, the Otis Elevator Company acquired The Express Lift Company from GEC.

By the mid-1990s, GEC was making profits of £1 billion, had cash reserves of £3 billion, and was valued at £10 billion.

The move towards electronics and modern technology, particularly in the defence sector, was a departure from the domestic electrical goods market. GEC acquired the Edinburgh based Ferranti Defence Systems Group in 1990 as well as part of Ferranti International's assets in Italy. It also bought Vickers Shipbuilding & Engineering (VSE) in 1995. VSE was willing to participate in a merger with a larger company to reduce its exposure to cycles in warship production, particularly in light of the post-Cold War "Options for Change" defence review. Following GEC's purchase, VSE became Marconi Marine.

During 1996, Lord Weinstock retired as GEC's managing director and was replaced by George Simpson. In July 1997, the company announced the outcomes of a major review: it would move away from its joint ventures and focus on moving toward "global leadership" in defence and aerospace (Marconi Electronic Systems), industrial electronics (GEC Industrial Electronics), and communications (GEC Communications). Simpson, along with finance director John Mayo, decided to pursue a risky strategy of pursuing fast growth via rapid acquisition of numerous other companies, particularly within the United States.

In February 1998, Marconi Instruments, the test equipment arm of GEC, was sold to IFR Systems.

In March 1998, GEC announced the merger of its radar and avionics business with Alenia Difesa to form Alenia Marconi Systems.

In June 1998, it completed the $1.4bn acquisition of major American defence contractor Tracor, which became part of MES. The sane month, GEC sold its share of the joint venture GEC-Alsthom on the Paris stock exchange.

After most of its US acquisitions failed, GEC began to make a loss. The cash reserves that Lord Weinstock had built up during the 1980s and early 1990s had been all but depleted, and the company was heavily in debt.

Marconi Electronic Systems sale (1998–99)
In July 1998, reports began linking British Aerospace (BAe) with the German aerospace group DASA to create a new European Aerospace and Defence Company. GEC was also seen as a potential partner in a three-way merger with BAe and DASA.

In December 1998, reports emerged that GEC was seeking a partner for MES, the value of which was greatly increased by the Tracor acquisition. Prospective partners included Thomson-CSF (by 1998 on the path to privatisation) and various American defence contractors (e.g. Lockheed Martin and TRW). GEC had already been active in pursuing consolidation in the defence business. In 1997, it made an ultimately unsuccessful bid to the French government to privatise Thomson-CSF and merge it with MES.

A merger of UK companies soon became the most likely development. In mid-January 1999, GEC and British Aerospace confirmed they were holding talks. On 19 January, it was announced British Aerospace was to acquire Marconi Electronic Systems for £7.7bn ($12.75bn).

Marconi plc (1999–2002)
While the deal was yet to be completed, GEC used much of the anticipated proceeds of the MES sale to buy companies in 1999. This move was part of a major realignment of the firm to focus on the burgeoning telecoms sector, and it became a radio, telecommunications and internet equipment manufacturer. At the time, financial markets approved of the strategy; GEC's share value set new all-time highs during early 1999.

In 1999, Marconi plc purchased two American equipment-makers: RELTEC Corporation in March for £1.3bn, and FORE Systems in April for £2.8bn, to complement the telecommunication business of its subsidiary Marconi Communications. Later that year, GEC acquired Kvaerner's Govan shipyard. In April 2000, it acquired Mobile Systems International in exchange for £391m. Consolidating and monitoring the finances of these acquisitions soon added to the future difficulties encountered by Marconi.

These acquisitions were made at the height of the dot-com bubble, and the bursting of the bubble in 2001 took a heavy toll on Marconi. While the company initially chose to deny any impact to sales, the delayed issue of a profit warning spooked investors. In July 2001, Marconi plc suffered a 54% drop in its share price following the suspension of trading of its shares, profit warning, and redundancies. Having accumulated a sizable debt pile that was continuing to mount due to heavy losses, Marconi was facing bankruptcy.

In September 2011, Simpson was forced to resign from Marconi and a new management team was brought in under Mike Parton, the new chief executive. Shares that had been worth £12.50 at GEC's peak had fallen to £0.04. Lord Weinstock's own stake, once worth £480 million, was reduced to £2 million.

Marconi Corporation plc and break-up (2002–05)
On 19 May 2003, Marconi plc underwent a restructuring and became Marconi Corporation plc, advised by Lazard and Morgan Stanley. Marconi shareholders received one Marconi Corporation share for every 559 Marconi shares. In a debt-for-equity swap, the firm's creditors received 99.5% of the new company's shares. In October 2003, the company announced that it intended to pursue listing on the Nasdaq.

In 2005, the company failed to secure any part of BT's 21st Century Network (21CN) programme, surprising commentators and sending the company's shares tumbling. Before the announcement, the investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort had said, "[Marconi is] so advanced with its products and so entrenched with BT Group plc that its selection looks certain." Various bids were received for the business, including one from Huawei Technologies, with whom Marconi already had a joint venture.

Prior to the collapse of the Marconi group in 2005 and 2006, the company was a major supplier of Asynchronous Transfer Mode, Gigabit Ethernet, and Internet Protocol products. The majority of Marconi Corporation's businesses (including Marconi Communications and the rights to the Marconi name) were sold to Ericsson in 2005, and the remainder was renamed Telent plc.

On 27 October 2006, the company folded voluntarily.

See also
 Aerospace industry in the United Kingdom
 GEC-Marconi scientist deaths conspiracy theory
 National Lift Tower – a lift test tower built by The Express Lift Company

References

Further reading

External links
 The History of the General Electric Company up to 1900 – Part 1 – GEC Review, Volume 14, No. 1, 1999
 The History of the General Electric Company up to 1900 – Part 2 – GEC Review, Volume 14, No. 2, 1999
 The Roots of GEC 1670 – 1999
 The former GEC Archives Collection – archived website
 Listen to the 1904 "GEC March"

Defunct companies of the United Kingdom
Manufacturing companies established in 1886
Manufacturing companies disestablished in 1999
Companies formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange
1886 establishments in England
1999 disestablishments in England
British companies established in 1886
British companies disestablished in 1999
Radio manufacturers

General Electric Company


Michael Weber (born December 16, 1987) is an American former professional ice hockey defenseman. He previously played with the Buffalo Sabres and Washington Capitals of the National Hockey League (NHL) and Frölunda HC of the Swedish Hockey League (SHL). He is currently an assistant coach for the St. Louis Blues in the National Hockey League (NHL).

Playing career

Early
Weber played hockey for the Pittsburgh Junior B Penguins as a youth. He began his major junior career with the Windsor Spitfires of the Ontario Hockey League during the 2003-04 season. Following his third season with the club, Weber was drafted in the second round, 57th overall, by the Buffalo Sabres during the 2006 NHL Entry Draft. In his final major junior season, Weber was traded to the Barrie Colts.

Professional

Buffalo Sabres
Weber joined the Sabres' American Hockey League affiliate, the Rochester Americans, for the 2007–08 AHL season. He was called up by the Sabres on two occasions early in the same season. He was recalled for a third time in March 2008 and scored his first NHL point on March 12 with an assist in his hometown against the Pittsburgh Penguins. His first NHL goal was scored on December 28, 2010 against Nikolai Khabibulin of the Edmonton Oilers.

On July 4, 2011, the Sabres signed Weber to a two-year, $1.9 million contract extension. Weber struggled during the 2011–12 season as he finished it with a minus-19 with the Sabres failing to make the playoffs. His play improved a lot for the shortened 2012–13 season after the acquisition of his longtime best friend Steve Ott. Weber established himself as a leader to the Sabres young defensive core. However, the Sabres once again failed to make the playoffs for the second season in a row. Due to his improvement the Sabres re-signed Weber to a 3-year, $5 million contract extension.

On February 20, 2015, after being on the receiving end of a borderline hit by Tanner Glass of the New York Rangers, Weber lifted Glass by the scruff of the neck and over the ice to be delivered to the game's linesmen to serve his penalty. Weber left the game early, provoking a fight between Glass and Weber's teammate Tyson Strachan.

Washington Capitals
During the 2015–16 season, having spent all nine of his professional years with the Sabres, Weber was traded to the Washington Capitals for a third round pick in the 2017 NHL Entry Draft on February 23, 2016. Used sparingly as a depth defenseman, Weber was unable to help the Capitals progress deep into the playoffs, and became a free agent over the summer.

Later career
On August 25, 2016, unable to secure an NHL contract, Weber agreed to a  professional try out contract with the St. Louis Blues. He was released from his PTO on October 7. He went on to sign a two-way professional try-out contract with the Iowa Wild on October 20, 2016. In adding veteran leadership, Weber quickly established himself as team captain and on February 28, 2017, he was signed to a two-way contract with NHL affiliate, the Minnesota Wild, for the remainder of the season.

Weber signed with Frölunda HC of the Swedish Hockey League on November 9, 2017. However, after just 10 games with the club, Weber announced his retirement from professional hockey on December 27 due to a lingering knee injury.

Coaching career
Following his retirement from professional hockey Mike Weber joined the Windsor Spitfires, his former OHL team, as an assistant coach in January 2018.

On September 17, 2020, Weber was hired as an assistant coach by his former team, the Rochester Americans, of the American Hockey League.

Personal
Weber was raised in suburban Pittsburgh and attended Seneca Valley High School in Harmony, Pennsylvania
, and later attended St. Anne's High School in Tecumseh, Ontario while playing in the OHL.

Career statistics

References

External links

1987 births
Living people
American men's ice hockey defensemen
Barrie Colts players
Buffalo Sabres draft picks
Buffalo Sabres players
Frölunda HC players
Sportspeople from Pittsburgh
Ice hockey coaches from Pennsylvania
Iowa Wild players
Lørenskog IK players
Portland Pirates players
Rochester Americans players
Washington Capitals players
Windsor Spitfires players
Ice hockey people from Pittsburgh

Mike Weber


Memento is a 2000 American mystery-thriller movie written and directed by Christopher Nolan, and produced by Suzanne and Jennifer Todd. The movie's script was based on a pitch by Jonathan Nolan, who wrote the 2001 story "Memento Mori" from the concept. Guy Pearce stars as a man who, as a result of an injury, has anterograde amnesia (the inability to form new memories) and has short-term memory loss approximately every fifteen minutes. He is searching for the people who attacked him and killed his wife, using an intricate system of Polaroid photographs and tattoos to track information he cannot remember.

The movie is presented as two different sequences of scenes interspersed during the movie: a series in black-and-white that is shown chronologically, and a series of color sequences shown in reverse order (simulating for the audience the mental state of the protagonist). The two sequences meet at the end of the movie, producing one complete and cohesive narrative.

Memento premiered at the 57th Venice International Film Festival on September 5, 2000, and was released in the United States on March 16, 2001. It was acclaimed by critics, who praised its nonlinear narrative structure and motifs of memory, perception, grief, and self-deception, and earned $39.9 million over a $4.5 million budget. Memento received numerous accolades, including Oscar nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing. The movie is now widely regarded as one of Nolan's finest works and one of the best movies of the 2000s. In 2017, the United States Library of Congress deemed the movie and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Release dates

2000 movies
2000s mystery movies
2000 thriller movies
American mystery movies
American thriller movies
English-language movies
Film noir
Movies about murderers
Movies about amnesia
Movies about revenge
Movies directed by Christopher Nolan
Mystery thriller movies
Nonlinear narrative movies
American independent movies
Movies set in Los Angeles

Memento (movie)


Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation, originally the Microelectronics and Computer Consortium and widely seen by the acronym MCC, was the first, and at one time one of the largest, computer industry research and development consortia in the United States. MCC ceased operations in 2000 and was formally dissolved in 2004.

Divisions
MCC did research and development in the following areas:

 System Architecture and Design (optimise hardware and software design, provide for scalability and interoperability, allow rapid prototyping for improved time-to-market, and support the re-engineering of existing systems for open systems).
 Advanced Microelectronics Packaging and Interconnection (smaller, faster, more powerful, and cost-competitive).
 Hardware Systems Engineering (tools and methodologies for cost-efficient, up-front design of advanced electronic systems, including modelling and design-for-test techniques to improve cost, yield, quality, and time-to-market).
 Environmentally Conscious Technologies (process control and optimisation tools, information management and analysis capabilities, and non-hazardous material alternatives supporting cost-efficient production, waste minimisation, and reduced environmental impact).
 Distributed Information Technology (managing and maintaining physically distributed corporate information resources on different platforms, building blocks for the national information infrastructure, networking tools and services for integration within and between companies, and electronic commerce).
 Intelligent Systems (systems that "intelligently" support business processes and enhance performance, including decision support, data management, forecasting and prediction).

History
The MCC was a response to the announcement of Japan's Fifth Generation Project, a large Japanese research project launched in 1982 aimed at producing a new kind of computer by 1991. The Japanese had formed similar industrial research consortia as early as 1956. Many European and American computer companies saw this new Japanese initiative as an attempt to take full control of the world's high-end computer market, and MCC was created, in part, as a defensive move against that threat.

In late 1982, several major computer and semiconductor manufacturers in the United States banded together and founded MCC under the leadership of Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, whose previous positions had been Director of the National Security Agency and Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Such formations were illegal in the United States until the 1984 Congressional passage of the "National Cooperative Research Act".

Several sites with relevant universities were considered, including Atlanta, Georgia (Georgia Tech), the Research Triangle, N.C. (UNC), the Washington, D.C. area (George Mason), Stanford University and Austin, Texas (UT) which was the final selection. The University of Texas offered land upon which they would construct a new building specifically designed for the MCC within their Austin campus. Ross Perot also offered the use of his private plane for 2 years for staff recruitment. Austin was selected as the site for MCC in 1983.

Despite this purpose and the background of Inman and his senior staff, MCC accepted no government funding for many years and was a refuge for some avoiding work on Strategic Defense Initiative projects. MCC was part of the Artificial Intelligence boom of the 1980s, reportedly the single largest customer of both Symbolics and Lisp Machines, Inc. (and like Symbolics, was one of the first companies to register a .com domain). In the 1980s its major programs were packaging, software engineering, CAD, and advanced computer architectures. The latter comprised artificial intelligence, human interface, database, and parallel processing, the latter two merging in the late 1980s.

Many of the early shareholder companies were mainframe computer companies under stress in the 1980s. Over the years, MCC's membership diversified to include a broad range of high-profile corporations involved in information technology products, as well as government research and development agencies and leading universities.

In June, 2000 the MCC Board of Directors voted to dissolve the consortium, and the few remaining employees held a wake at Scholz's Beer Garden in Austin on October 25. Formal dissolution papers were reportedly not filed until 2004.

Spinoffs
While multiple technologies were transferred to member companies and government agencies in the final years, fourteen companies were spun out of MCC.  Those spinoffs include:

 TeraVicta Technologies, Austin's first MEMS company; its focus was to develop microscopic switch technology for fiber optic switching and radiofrequency switching in mobile phones specifically to dynamically switch between the future 3G-4GLTE-future5G wireless communication frequencies and ensure mobile phones were communicating over the strongest wireless signal to reduce dropped calls. Robert Miracky was the founding CEO who spun out the first commercial metal micromachining technology developed by MCC researchers Brent Lunceford, Jason Reed, Richard Nelson, K.Hu, and C. Hilbert in a collaborative development program with IBM in a novel implementation and operational paradigm for solid-state integrated circuit coolers integrated with conductive MEMS switches.  TeraVicta was liquidated under Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceedings in 2015.  The Austin region subsequently built up a MEMS & Sensors value chain in the billions of dollars comprising companies such as 3M, Cypress Semiconductor, NXP Semiconductor, Cirrus Logic, Silicon Labs, and the Austin division of the now-defunct Silicon Valley Technology Center.
 Portelligent, a company that provides reverse engineering teardown services.  At the time, Portelligent was the first company to commercialize such services; they had been provided by MCC to its member companies.  Today, there are at least twelve companies worldwide that sell reports known as "reverse engineering teardown reports."  Modern day teardown reports provide detailed information about technology products such as the bill of materials, microchip, and printed circuit board design specifics, manufacturing details including manufacturing location details for the entire value chain responsible for making electronics, including the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy smartphones. Portelligent was acquired by CMP Technology in 2007.
 Evolutionary Technologies International, a company focused on developing database tools and data warehousing. It was spun off from MCC in 1990.

See also
 Cyc
 Sematech, a semiconductor-industry focused consortium, previously in Austin; moved to Albany, NY in 2010

Notes
  Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation, entry from The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing.
  David V. Gibson and Everett M. Rogers, R&D Collaborations On Trial, Harvard Business School Press, 1994, , Introduction, p. 15.
  David V. Gibson and Everett M. Rogers (1994), Chapter 7.

References

External links
 Oral history interview with Laszlo A. Belady, Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota.  Discusses his tenure as vice president and program director of the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC); as chairman, CTO, and CEO of the Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc. (MERL); and as executive director of the Austin Software Council.
 Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation. FOLDOC. Retrieved Nov. 17, 2005.
 Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation, from The Free Online Dictionary of Computing.

History of artificial intelligence
Technology companies established in 1982
Companies based in Austin, Texas
Technology companies disestablished in 2000
Research organizations in the United States
1982 establishments in Texas
2000 disestablishments in Texas